For those of you who aren't watching the minutiae in the news today, you may have missed this item. Disney/ABC traded Al Michaels, the sportscaster, to NBC (which owns Universal) in exchange for the rights to Oswald the Rabbit.
Yes indeed. A guy was traded for a cartoon character. For those of you who don't follow the Disney "world," Oswald was an early creation of Walt Disney and a precursor to Mickey Mouse. Disney created him while working for Universal and they've retained the rights all these years, media corporate mergers notwithstanding.
Michaels was planning to do Monday Night Football for ESPN, but for lots of complicated (and boring) reasons, he wants out of his contract with ABC, thus the trade.
Here's how it went down:
NBC guy: We want Al.
ABC guy: You can't have him.
NBC: What do you want for him?
ABC: Um, one of Leno's cars.
NBC: No can do. How about a gross of peacock cups?
ABC: (sigh) Ok, let's see, how about a successful sitcom. Maybe My Name is Earl?
NBC: Are you kidding? You can have the rights to the unaired episodes of Book of Daniel. Watch out though, the scary Christians will hate you.
ABC: Nah. OK, let's see how about we give you Chris Berman, the most annoying sportscaster ever?
NBC: You want to give us Berman so that we take Michaels. No way. See we got Keith Olberman already and he's pretty funny even if he is difficult. Plus he keeps punking O'Reilly, which is pretty nice. Berman would just pun his name. Plus he never shuts up and every senesible person in the world hates him.
ABC: Are you mareketing to sensible people now? No wonder you're third. Anyway, how about you give us one of your lamer cable channels? USA?
NBC: It is lame, but no. You want the footage of Costas trying to explain the symbolism of the Opening Ceremonies of the Torino Olympics? By the way isn't "Torino" a cool way to refer to it? 'Turin" is so pedestrian. That footage is so "right now."*
ABC: Ok, let's cut to it. We want the rabbit.
NBC: Rabbit?
ABC: Yeah, the Disney rabbit. All those jokes about how often rabbits procreate--they're hilarious. Plus which, the Disney people WILL NOT shut up about the rabbit.
NBC: You want to swap the rabbit for Michaels?
ABC: Yep.
NBC: Well, ok. It's sort of weird.
ABC: OK, throw in some peacock cups too, then if anybody asks it'll seem less random.
NBC: You got it.
*I know the swap happened before the opening ceremonies, give me a little latitude.
There you have it, the sporkseye view of Hollywood. Come back soon when we will explore other important Hollywood topics like whether Ryan Phillippe is most jealous of wife Reese Witherspoon's money or talent. And we'll reveal, through the magic of Scout's life experience, which "characters" at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood are the skankiest. My money is on Elmo. We'll see.
4 comments:
The Daily Show had a great interview with the Chinese Theater "Superman" and his special brand of crazy:
Click on "Man of Steel Resolve"
I saw Elmo without his head yesterday, and my money is on him as well.
I guess if a guy looks to get out of his contract, he can't choose the terms, but it does seem a bit embarrassing to be traded for a cartoon character. On the other hand, humans die, animation is forever.
Animation is forever until the old film it's on combusts. Sort of like the whatevers.
Peacock cups? I want one! Especially if it's one of those old ones with more feathers than they use now. Remember that peacock--with the tear-shaped color dots on the ends? I loved that one.
Oh, you're blog entry was about Al Michaels? Sorry. Um, the obvious retort to a story like this about Michaels, of course, is: "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!! I was traded for a rabbit!!"
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