Talk about dullsville, so goes 'The Savage Nation'

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer ^ | 3/11/03 | Melanie McFarland

[ppaul]

Talk-show terror Michael Savage's sign-off is, "Be here, or else you'll be nowhere!" So that's what Ikea translates to. Nowhere. I always wondered.

Anyway, it was a preferable place to be on Saturday afternoon at 2, battling slow-moving herds of fellow short-tempered shoppers while debating the spouse about shelving units. All in all, a pulse-quickening experience brimming with value.

The same cannot be said of the lackluster kickoff of "The Savage Nation" on MSNBC, which, for purposes of practicality, I recorded for later viewing.

What a waste of electricity. And a cassette. I don't say this because of the views Savage represents so gleefully on his right-wing radio program, syndicated to more than 300 stations across the country. Or in his book, also named "The Savage Nation," which recently dropped to the No. 2 position on the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list. (Behind Michael Moore's "Stupid White Men." Make what you will of that.) How I feel about his political and sociological opinions doesn't matter. How I found his live television show does. Liberal, conservative -- no matter your paradigm, I think we can agree on one thing:

Dullsville is dullsville.

Cloaked in a cheap-looking leather jacket one caller rightly said looked like vinyl -- we'll talk about him more later -- Savage's central purpose in his debut was to sell more tacky tomes.

He came off as loud and attention hungry.

The show's intro should have given a clue as to what was to come. In those first moments, a female cop pulls him over for an autograph and exclaims, "I'm kind of one of those cropped-haired women" -- his euphemism for lesbians (What in the world were gay and lesbian activists so angry about, anyway?) -- "but I still love you!"

Let the Savage love rain down, America.

From there he launched several lame talking points, none of which mattered. The blab of the hour mainly had to do with invading Iraq, bolstered by the obligatory "shocking" footage.

To make the point for warring with Iraq where President Bush could not, Savage rolled a 1988 clip of dead people, presumably Iraqi: Who they were or any context about them was absent. Nevermind! Look at the bodies! Roll that clip again! And again, and again.

"Savage Nation's" audible splat is a good example of what's wrong with MSNBC, the cable news channel that remakes itself every 10 minutes. It doesn't register that a name itself isn't enough to bring in viewers, it's what's behind the name.

Case in point -- MSNBC makes a big old fuss about hiring Phil Donahue. Then Donahue is unceremoniously fired because, according to an NBC report leaked to AllYourTV.com, he was "a tired, left-wing liberal out of touch with the current marketplace." Emphasize not "liberal," but "tired." Phil, too, was boring.

What MSNBC needs is sharp, dynamic personalities, be they in the arenas of debate or news. Say it with me, Erik Sorenson, "charisma." If the MSNBC president and general manager wants to outfox Fox News Channel, he needs to learn what brings viewers to the competition: There, news is sport. A few minutes of Bill O'Reilly sparring with Janeane Garofalo in a segment that aired Friday evening was more provocative than a full hour of a man who doesn't want to face real confrontation. Especially from those who face him with his own version of the truth.

This came when "Steven from New York" (who later was identified on Salon.com as media activist Scott Pellegrino) slipped past the phone monitors. "OK, OK, I want to ask you, my girlfriend is from Mexico, one of the places you call a 'turd world nation.' Who . . ." Click.

"Thanks for the call. I appreciate it very much. Have a nice day." Nervous chuckle. "We had a nice setup call there."

Save your ire for a worthwhile cause, folks, because "The Savage Nation" is anything but. If its host's ignorance and idiocy don't send the show to nowhere, its time slot on a faltering cable news network surely will.

Dullsville, part 2:

Instead of wowing with stimulating insights about tax cuts, what struck me most about Sunday night's slickly edited "Clinton & Dole, Dole & Clinton" on "60 Minutes" was the stiffness. (Toss in a Viagra joke here.) What's wrong with a little face-to-face scuffle in the same room?

Anyone wondering what that would have been like needed only to turn on "Saturday Night Live" the previous night. The highlight? Dan Aykroyd's Dole responding to the blather of Darrell Hammond's Clinton: "Bill, you ignorant slut. Saddam Hussein is a boil that needs to be lanced and we're going to lance it." That's what I call "Point/Counterpoint."

P-I TV critic Melanie McFarland can be reached at 206-448-8015 or tvgal@seattlepi.com.

[Mr. Mojo]

Savage's TV show was just like his radio show, only with a camera in his face. (A face, incidentally, that was made for radio). If he's going to make this thing work he has to come up with a new format.

[goldstategop]

Only a liberal would dump on Michael Savage for being No. 2 on the New York Times best seller list. She finds Mike boring huh? Apparently a lot of book readers have come to the opposite conclusion since if he were from "dullsville" he wouldn't be a best-selling author. As for new TV show, it remains to be seen how it fares in the ratings but it can't do worse than Goneahue. Poor liberals, they just aren't getting the kind of star attention they used to and so its par for the course the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's reviewer had to spite Mike in revenge. Heck ho, the Savage Nation lives!!!

[goldstategop]

Let's face it, whatever else you can say about the guy, he sure has a genius for self-promotion and it helps that the Lefties puke every time they see him on the air.

[Mr. Mojo]

True enough, and there's a lot to be said for that.

I find him entertaining, funny, and occasionally insightful. ...And I hope he can make his show work.

[185JHP]

If you watched the TV debut, did you see him hold up a Bible with sticky notes in it? I read on a previous thread that someone saw him do that. That alone will stoke the balefires of a thousand pagan leftists. They hate the Book and its Author to the depths of their slimy hearts.

[ppaul]

A Saturday show is a loser slot.
Even if the show was fantastic, visually, etc., a Saturday time slot is pretty much the fast road to oblivion - especially once the summer months arrive.
I love Savage.
I hate to say it, but I think he made a big mistake going on TV.
As did Rush Limbaugh.
As did Mario Cuomo (whose show, incidentally, also tubed in a Saturday timeslot).

[Las Vegas Dave]

SAVAGE TALKS GRIND TO HALT (Michael Savage)
A militant gay-rights group that failed to stop Michael Savage's TV debut last weekend angrily stepped up its attack yesterday...< snip>

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/862747/posts

[JoJo Gunn]

Tom Shales she ain't, which isn't saying much since they're both in the negative range. But I just might have to check Dullsville out since it offends her PC sensibilities. It's for the children, understand....

[ppaul]

Clicked on your commentary RE: peaceniks and their signs.....
ROFLMAO!!!

[irish_links]

"....Tom Shales she ain't, which isn't saying much since they're both in the negative range....."

Trying to read that prose made my eyes bleed. Apparently, the competition for semi-literates in the Seattle job market is intense. There can be no other explanation for this dimwit's presence on the payroll of a major newspaper. By comparison, Molly Ivins is a veritable Hemingway.

[jocon307]

"Savage's TV show was just like his radio show, only with a camera in his face...he has to come up with a new format."

You are 100% correct. The whole format was so awful he wouldn't have time to please or offend anyone. The only reason I watched as much of it as I did was I was folding laundry and too lazy to change the channel. Rush had a great TV show, with great visuals, why can't Savage? First off, he stood through the whole thing, looking like a really bad version of the old radio guy from Laugh-in, who used to hold the headphone to his ear. The jacket WAS awful, it made him look fat and like he must be sweating to death under the lights. Call-in shows DO NOT work on TV the way they do in radio. The disembodied voice of the caller is very weird on TV, as is watching the host just sit (or in this case stand) and listen to the call. This was just awful, and I don't even blame Savage for it, it could have been Johnny Carson and it would have been just as bad. It looked like they put about 5 minutes into planning it, and about 15 minutes total into production. I hope they improve.

[gcruse]

But I just might have to check Dullsville out since it offends her PC sensibilities

Dullsville is a good characterization.  Even offensive stuff needs ratings to survive,
and b-o-r-i-n-g is bad for ratings.

[uncitizen]

Savage has been talking about doing a TV show for about a year. He did not seem to feel confident about the idea. It seemed he knew he would fail at it. So maybe MSNBC made him a deal he couldn't refuse. And maybe he gets all the money even if his show tanks.

[Dr Warmoose]

For all of the reason people have posted, watching Savage on a weekend day is a sign of zero life. Answer? Tivo and play the audio back and treat the whole thing like a Saturday (or whenever one plays back the recording) version of the radio program while doing chores. Good time to clean guns, shine shoes, or fold laundry.

For those who say that Savage has a flair for self marketing. Uh uh. The cheap vinyl jacket has to go.

Remember when Rush used the video to sell ties?