Synopses & Reviews
Chapter One
Who Let This Show on the Air?It is true that the best things that happen to you happen when you least expect them. Or, in our case, when we actively try to avoid them.
In 1989, a low-budget documentary we made, Roger & Me, a film about what General Motors did to our hometown of Flint, Michigan, became a huge success. It was a complete surprise. The film was shot over a three-year period in whatever spare time we had with what little money we had. Our intent was to finish it, hop in a van, and drive around the country showing it in union halls, community centers, and church groups. We silk-screened some T-shirts and took them to sell at our first film festival so we could afford the trip back home. Instead, our film was bought by Warner Bros., and eventually shown in nearly two thousand theaters.
After Roger & Me, the head of Warner Bros. television asked to meet with us about ideas for creating a television series. We thought, "TV? Who wants to do TV?" We wanted to make movies! The meeting never took place.
Our next feature-length film was a long time coming. Michael had written Canadian Bacon in the summer of 1991, but Warner Bros. passed on it. So did every other studio. The screenplay for Canadian Bacon was a farcical takeoff on the Gulf War. It was deemed "too political" by most of the executives who read it. Michael made numerous trips to L.A. to pitch the movie in one unsuccessful meeting after another.
It was on one of those visits to Hollywood, in November of 1992, when one morning Michael found himself in his hotel room raiding the minibar and watching The Price Is Right. The phone rang with a call from a network executive at NBC.
"We justwanted to say we really liked Roger & Me and we were wondering if you had any ideas for a television show."
"Uh, sure!" Michael replied, not having a single TV idea in his head.
"Great! We'd like to set up a meeting with you and our president of entertainment, Warren Littlefield. How does this afternoon look?"
"Uh, let me check." Mike fumbled around, trying to find the remote control to turn down the volume on the television set. "Yeah, this afternoon looks open."
"Good, we'll see you at four."
Panic set in. We had no ideas for a TV show and even if we did, we didn't want to do one. We wanted to make Canadian Bacon.
On the half-hour drive to Burbank that afternoon, Michael cranked up the heavy metal and we talked on the car phone trying to think up something for the meeting. It was then, with the car radio blasting out Metallica, that we came up with the idea of TV Nation. It would be a humorous magazine show but with one distinct difference--it would have a point of view. It would stand for something, instead of pretending to play it down the middle of the road, as most other newsmagazine shows do. It would side with working people against corporations.
Who would advertise on such a show? No one, we thought! We figured that the meeting should be over in a matter of minutes. Mike seemed relieved knowing that no network, let alone NBC, would ever pick up TV Nation.
Upon arriving at NBC, Mike was told that the meeting was in the commissary. A good sign, Mike thought. Very low-key. He was greeted by his agent as well as an executive from TriStar Television, Eric Tannenbaum. Eric offered to join Mike upstairs and present TriStar as the studio for the potential TVshow. After all the formalities, Eric asked, "By the way, what is your idea for a TV show?" Mike pitched the idea for TV Nation.
"I thought you were going to come up with a blue-collar Northern Exposure," Mike's agent lamented. "They are not going to like this idea."
"I like it," Tannenbaum countered. "It's funny and it's different."
Mike was concerned that Tannenbaum approved of the concept. But he reassured himself with, "What does Tannenbaum know? He doesn't run a network! He's just a nice guy with a good sense of humor from a studio. Not to worry."
The three of them went upstairs to see the NBC president. In the room with Warren Littlefield were various vice-presidents of development and programming. After polite introductions they sat down and Mike began to describe the show.
"It would be a cross between 60 Minutes and Fidel Castro on laughing gas."
The suits sat up in their chairs, interested.
"The show would be the most liberal thing ever seen on TV. In fact, it would go beyond 'liberals' because liberals are a bunch of wimps and haven't gotten us anything. This show would go boldly where no one has gone before."
All smiles in the room. "Tell us more!"
"The correspondents would look like shit. I mean, they'd look as if they were either on their way to Betty Ford or had just spent a year working at Taco Bell--or both."
"In other words," one of the junior executives chimed in, "a real show, by real people, for real people."
Excited executive smiles all around again. What was happening here? Didn't they realize that we didn't want to be on television, that these ideas would all spell suicide for the network?
Obviously not.
Mike had no choicebut to go for the kill.
"Each week we'll pick one of our advertisers and go after them like a barracuda. They won't know what hit them. Then we'll go after organized religion, starting with our fellow Catholics. I've got one idea where I'll go to confession in twenty different churches and confess the same exact sin to see who gives out the harshest penances. We'll run the results and call it 'A Consumers Guide to the Confessional.'"
Synopsis
Based on an American television show, of the same name, it brims with Michael Moore's special brand of subversive humour that melds outright silliness with poignant realisation.
From the oh–so–obvious Serial Killer Next Door who's ignored by his neighbours: to Mike enjoying some quality time with Dr. Kevorkian : to raising money for Charles Keating, this is a compilation of classic TV Nation that'll make you laugh and think at the same time.
This book is a must read for anyone and everyone.
Synopsis
Imagine. . . waking up the CEO of a car alarm company with the sound of a dozen car alarms going off outside his home. . . sending someone in a chicken suit to volunteer his crime-fighting abilities to local authorities. . .hiring a chorus line to sing songs of tolerance to the KKK. . .
Michael Moore, creator and host of the Emmy Award-winning TV Nation series, did all that - and a lot more.Daring to turn this country on its ear with outrageous, irreverent stunts, Moore went in search of his own brand of gentle justice.
In Adventures in a TV Nation, he recounts some of the show's most memorable episodes, including the CEO Challenge - sure they can run huge corporations, but can the CEO of Phillip Morris roll a cigarette; has Baron Hilton ever made a bed; can the Chairman of Citibank use an ATM?Moore and Company set out to see if your average CEO really knows his product.
Also included on this audio are some of the ones that kissed the cutting room floor.Though TV Nation got a lot of leeway, there were some subjects the networks felt were too racy to air, like the man in search of small sized condoms, a re-enactment of the LA Riots (if Civil War fanatics do it, why can't we?), and a where are they now? segment on the key players in the Savings and Loan Scandal.
Always willing to question authority, confront ignorance, and lampoon societal mores, Michael Moore, Kathleen Glynn, and the TV Nation team will have you in stitches as they careen down the highways of America trying to make it a better'and a funnier'place to live.
Synopsis
Based on an American television show, of the same name, it brims with Michael Moore's special brand of subversive humour that melds outright silliness with poignant realisation.
From the oh-so-obvious Serial Killer Next Door who's ignored by his neighbours to Mike enjoying some quality time with Dr. Kevorkian to raising money for Charles Keating, this is a compilation of classic TV Nation that'll make you laugh and think at the same time.
This book is a must read for anyone and everyone.
About the Author
Michael Moore's first book,
Downsize This!, was a
New York Times bestseller in both hardcover and paperback. The award-winning director of the groundbreaking documentary
Roger & Me, which became the largest grossing nonfiction film of all time, Moore is the creator and host of the Emmy-winning series
TV Nation and
The Awful Truth. Also the coauthor (with Kathleen Glynn) of
Adventures In A TV Nation, he lives in New York City.
Kathleen Glynn is the Emmy Award-wining producer of TV Nation, co-producer of Canadian Bacon, and producer of The Big One.