Fully Articulated Productions

"I'll give you the P&L statement!"

Beautiful.

Local "news" - more depressing than ever

Local news stations should NOT allow their "investigative reporters" to write blogs. It's just too depressing to realize the near-illiteracy of these guys.

MERCURE UNCUT: John Mercure's uncensored blog on Big Investigations and life inside the TMJ4 newsroom.

Another BIG Investigation has been launched.
This time we went after unscruplous Locksmiths...ripping off Milwaukee area consumers.

Many people have written me asking about the story involving 'Angie the Wedding Videographer' If you haven't seen this story, you have got to check it out here.
Click on the Watch Video tab at the top of the page. THIS STUFF IS CRAZY!

Angie is now telling people she is going to sue me. 
"OK, ANGRY ANGIE.. BRING IT!!
MAKE SURE WHEN YOU FILE YOUR PAPERS YOU ALSO FILE A COPY OF THE TAPE THAT SHOWS YOU ACTING ALL LOUD AND PUSHING US AROUND!
GOOD LUCK, ANGIE!

There will be an update on Angie and all the people she tried to cheat next week.

This is the wave of the future, unfortunately...

Link: Welcome to TODAY'S TMJ4 - The NBC Affiliate in Milwaukee, WI - News, Weather, Sports.

SNL, Disney & Robert Smigel: On the nature of satire

I'm an occasional viewer of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE (does anyone make a point of watching every episode anymore?). Last week's episode featured a Disney-lampooning cartoon by Robert Smigel that's getting lots of attention.

Smigel is funny. Some of his best cartoons are so effective because they dare to speak the truth in the guise of retro-animation - - the "Fun with Real Audio" segments are best, in my opinion.

So this week he sets loose a couple cute cartoon kids - - along with Mickey Mouse - - in "The Disney Vault," where they learn all sorts of disturbing things about the Disney corporate culture and lovable old Walt. You know the stuff - - might have informed on animators to HUAC; could have been anti-semetic; is perhaps cryogenically frozen; etc.

While Walt certainly may have had his faults, a lot of this stuff is simply urban legend. So, what are we to think when a social satirist lays them out as flat statements of "fact" in his work, which has on occasion professed to shine a light on hard truths? I imagine quite a few fans of  "Fun with Real Audio"  - - which uses real sound bytes to skewer public figures - - swallowed this as just another instance of Smigel uncovering the hard truth.

But Smigel has this to say about the material:

"I know that some of these things that I talk about in that cartoon aren't true. I don't really know that anything in there is true."

That seems a bit... ambiguous. Or irresponsible?

Link: Orlando Sentinel -  Inside that Disney vault by Hal Boedeker.