Posts

Recent Post

Finally A New Post...And Finally, Nielsen Speaks!

First of all, I'M SORRY for not being on for 9 months. I was fertilizing this post.  Second, this post isn't mostly mine. It's mostly Nielsen's. Nielsen, as you know, keeps the viewership ratings for TV and has since the 1950s. They have disclosed the Top 10 most-watched telecasts of the 2018-2019 season (which they are defining as July 1, 2018 through June 30, 2019.) Nielsen emphasizes that the following statistics have not been finalized, and there may be errors, but there is only a 5% margin of error with the following tallies. So, here is my analysis of what was most watched over the previous season. 1. SUPER BOWL LIII Date and Time: Sunday, February 3, 2019, 6:30 to 10:30 pm Eastern Network: CBS Viewers: 103 million Did I watch it? Yes.  2. LAST EPISODE OF "THE BIG BANG THEORY" Date and Time: Thursday, May 23, 2019, 8:00 to 9:00 pm Eastern Network: CBS Viewers: 50 million Did I watch it? Yes. 3. GAME 7 OF THE 2019 STANLEY CUP

Oh No, No Posts This Year So Far!

Look, if you quit my blog when I went five months without any new stuff, come back. Because I've assembled an evaluative list of something I started thinking about roughly a month ago: Major Causes of a Work of Media Being Better Remembered for Something Else Besides its Actual Content. Meaning, when people remember a work of media, or they hear its name, they remember it solely, or at least primarily, for something other than what was genuinely written into it as its content. When this happens, it is usually one of eight things that are remembered over the content. 1. Controversial casting choices. This usually comes in one of two forms: casting a white actor as a non-white character, and casting a non-LGBTQ actor as an LGBTQ character. Ghost in the Shell , the 2016 movie, is a recent example of this, when a white actor, who I will protect the privacy of by referring to as Garnett Johnston, played an explicitly Japanese character. Sometimes it happens the other way around, an

Scientifically Proven to Make Your Mind Jingle

On their November 4, 2018 episode, Wait Wait...Don't T ell Me! , the NPR news quiz, reported on a study that proved Christmas music makes you crazy. But what is crazy? And for that matter, what is Christmas music and what's not? This got me thinking about songs that qualify as Christmas songs by the slimmest of margins, but that I have heard the local Christmas radio stations play. I've compiled a full list (not a Top 10, this one's in no particular order) of songs that qualify as Christmas songs by very small margins. Here they are: "Jingle Bells", "Jingle Bell Rock", "Winter Wonderland", "Let it Snow", "Sleigh Ride", and "Baby, It's Cold Outside" all contain zero mention of Christmas or imagery exclusively connected to Christmas. They are all winter-themed songs that due to a phenomenon called "pop-cultural osmosis" have become heavily associated with Christmas despite never mentioning it

Nobody: The LeoFinelli.com Person of the Year 2018

Yes, nobody. This is not a symbolism of any cultural movement or phenomenon. I'm just not naming a Person of the Year this year. And it's not because I feel the need to do other things; it's just that naming a Person of the Year last year had a purpose. This year, it doesn't. Last year, Time named "The Silence Breakers" (aka all the women who spoke out against sexual harassment and assault) the Person of the Year. I was genuinely angry. Feminism had dominated the year's news even before the fall of #MeToo. Wonder Woman was the #1 movie. The Handmaid's Tale was the #1 TV show. (It wasn't a "real" TV show, but that's another post.) Fearless Girl was the #1 work of public art (?) The Women's March in January (which is misnamed; an essay about its misnaming will be posted in due time) attracted millions around the world. In my opinion, Time should have named "The Woman" or "The Feminist" as their Person of t

A Helpful Glossary

The following is a glossary of terms I will occasionally use in my posts, but don't want to have to explain the meaning of every time. That's why I'm writing a glossary. Poke in the coconut: To affectionately touch another person's head with something in between a tap and a poke. Can also mean to bother. Family programming sweet spot: Wednesday night before Thanksgiving to the night of Christmas Day, when TV sets special time aside to cater to the family. Supplements: Gross pills I pop every day before I eat. And You Were There: When a story that's set mainly in two general locations (usually, but not always, reality and fantasy) has the same actors who play characters in one location also play characters in the other. Named after a line at the end of The Wizard of Oz, in which Dorothy acknowledges that all the people she met in Oz looked and acted exactly like people she knew back home in Kansas (and were played by the same actors). Christmas

It's The Day Before Thanksgiving, So Here's the Schedule for the 2018 You-Know-What

Holiday TV Schedule 2018, Compiled by Leo Finelli

Top 10 Debates That Will Endlessly Divide Star Wars Fans

(First, a correction. A post on November 1, 2017 said that Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory had only ever been shown on CBS. It has been shown on other networks, precisely NBC from 1975-1985, ABC from 1985-1993, CBS from 1993-1995, back to ABC from 1995-2007, and NBC currently holds airing rights to the film. LeoFinelli.com apologizes for the error.) Star Wars fans have arguments with fans of Star Trek, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings all the time. But the most heated arguments are the ones Star Wars fans have with themselves. These arguments have been known for creating rifts between Star Wars fans and putting the franchise into its own "What color is this dress?" or "Yanny or Laurel?" moments. I've ranked the top 10 here so you can see what I'm talking about. #10. The Porgs A neighbor of mine jokingly said, "Bob Iger (Disney-ABC CEO) invented porgs." He meant that the porgs in The Last Jedi were just in there to sell toys, with no