Year: 2010

The three judges on “America’s Got Talent” are two Brits and a Canadian.  So perhaps America has talent, but apparently we’re not capable of judging it.

PAD

People are shooting at Israelis from the Gaza strip.

Israel creates a floating blockade to make it harder to shoot at them.

People try to bring supplies in the name of humanitarian aid.

The Israelis say, Take your stuff to this port over here instead.  Don’t try to break the blockade because if you do, bad things will happen.

They try to break the blockade anyway, making it seem less about providing aid and more about, well, breaking the blockade.

Bad things happen.

It’s all Israel’s fault.

Got it.

PAD

There was some discussion among the creators of “Avenue Q” as to whether to make a change in their show since the superintendent of the apartment house is purported to be Gary Coleman.  Would such a portrayal, which at most could be considered bad taste (as one would expect from a show that proclaims the joys of Internet pørņ), now become something uncomfortable and even distressing?

It turns out…not so much.  Although they excised about twenty words of dialogue (for instance, instead of Gary–who, like Peter Pan, another individual who didn’t quite leave childhood behind, is played by a woman–saying that he’s a “former child star,” he now simply says “child star”) his character remains intact and undaunted by mortality.  Gary Coleman the man may be gone, but “Gary Coleman,” the unstoppable symbol of soldiering on no matter what life hands you, lives on off-Broadway.

PAD

I only had the opportunity to meet Linda a few times, but she was always very sweet and ebullient.  My deepest sympathies go to Mike and his family as they deal with this tragic loss.

PAD

My favorite moment in the original “Avengers” TV series involved a climactic battle wherein Steed and Peel are faced with about nine karate guys who are prepared to beat the crap out of them.  And Steed and Peel get separated by a big sliding iron door, leaving Steed trapped with eight of the guys and Peel gets one.  And it takes Emma, who normally can dispatch this kind of bad guy with alacrity, about five bruising minutes to take the guy out.  It was probably the longest sustained battle against one opponent she ever had, which gives you an idea of just how formidable he was.  And finally, exhausted, she runs to the closed door, punches a button, the door slides open…and Steed (whom we haven’t seen since the door closed) is standing there, leaning on his brolly, his hat firmly in place, calm as anything, and all eight guys are unconscious on the floor.  And her jaw just drops as she realizes that Steed took out, with no effort, eight guys in the time it required her to take down one.  It was one of THE great Steed moments, and I’d love to know which episode it was.

PAD