argh!!!!!

Football's evil control over the airing of Futurama must end!!!! Let King of the Hill take the fall if something gets dropped because football has to run so long. This frustrates me so much it's numbing eyes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I agree! I didn't even watch King of the Hill because it was 'joined in progress' after that stupid 'Post-game Update"!

I believe this newsgroup is right. Maybe FOX really is trying to kill Futurama to make more time for football to make all the beer-guzzling rednecks happy!

They didn't show Futurama here in Atlanta, either. So nobody here is alone.

On Sun, 7 Jan 2001 18:32:13 -0600, "Karl" wrote:

This Simpsons scene reminds of how Fox favors it sports over its scheduled prime time programs. ----------------------------- Lisa is despondent at home.

 Lisa: [sobs] Mom, this is really scary.  I'm going to get my first F
       ever.
Marge: Cheer up!  So you're not good at sports: it's a very small part
       of life.
Homer: [walking in, humming] Sports, sports, sports, sports, sports,
       sports, sports, sports...Marge, Bart rides up in the front seat
       today because he's a good guy at sports.
Marge: [whispering] I think Lisa needs to feel a little special
        tonight. How about letting her ride up front too?
        [Homer looks at Bart, who shakes his head]
Homer: Ehh, I tried.
-- Not very hard, as usual, "Lisa on Ice"

On Sun, 7 Jan 2001, Karl stated this considered view. Waking from my doze, I hastily scrawled -

Why don't the TV companies just allocate longer slots for football? Since it seems to over-run *every* time, it makes more sense to do that than continual pre-empting.

In article ,

Or they can record them and then time compress them like they do with reruns. Plus they can edit out the boring bits, where everyone is standing around doing nothing. Then the game would be only a few minutes long.

Paul

Kinda tough to air the games live that way.

But they already do that. It's called SportsCenter on ESPN. They pare each game down to about 90 seconds of highlights and stats. It's fabulous.

"Dave" wrote in message news:[email]...

"Do you know how much action you can miss in half an hour of football?"

"About 18 seconds..."

My attitude is now that they just start the damn Futurama season in Feb. I'm not that concerned with catching reruns anyway. But the "War is the H-word" situation, particularly here, REALLY FUCKING PISSED ME OFF. But I've already screamed about that in another thread...

You're not that far off. If you use a stopwatch and only count the actual on-field action, there's really only about 20 minutes of actual game play over a three+ hour football game. But for real fans of the sport, the between plays suspense increases the excitement. Also, ballplayers would probably drop dead from exhaustion if they had to keep up the intense level of action found within a single play for the entire three hours.

I'm disappointed about the situation too, don't get me wrong. As an East Coster, I've missed more than my fair share of episodes. But I figure I'll get to see them eventually. It's not worth getting bent out of shape over.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
                         [email]
          (Hammer nail here--> <-- for a new monitor.)
Seinfeld FAQ http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/7217/faq.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------
*NOTE*  I am not responsible for equipment damage due to reeeeally
dumb children with no parental supervision, and access to a hammer.

On or about Wed, 10 Jan 2001 07:42:13 -0500, Dave proceeded to say:

If it was a rerun, I'd agree. If Fox would aknowledge the situation and admit that whatever was in that time slot had little or no chance of being seen by certain portions of the country, and either started the season early/late so that what *was* on during football was reruns, or provided for an alternate time for the *new* show to be seen...I'd agree. But the "War is the H-word" situation was unforgivable. And then to go and show MitM on another night, in *addition* to its normal time...Which they're doing with That 70's Show this week btw, which does not need this kind of life support...not to say MitM does, but let's face it...MitM is *the* what doesn't fit here? situation if there ever was one. And *not* to say, gee...we got this extra time, why not put Futurama there, since the east coasters never get to see it at its regular time? It just *screams* "FUCK YOU!!!" to Futurama's fans. We could give a rat's red ass, you'll watch it whenever we put it on anyhow, and if it gets pre-empted by football, well...we just got a whole 'nother buncha suckers in prime time. Bleh. Fox sucks.

They're all reruns. It's just that some haven't been aired the first time yet.

I think the problem is the 'vocal minority' is too minor and not vocal enough. FOX knows that for *every* single move they make, every show they air, ever show they cancel, there will be a number of people who hate them for it, so they can either take steps to insure that for a given decision the smaller number of people hates them, or then can just say, "Screw them, there's enough TV viewers out there that we can safely piss off a chunk of them and our shows will still be watched by enough of the rest to make us money."

That's why I chuckle at the letter writing campaigns and on-line petitions (and so forth) that will surely "bring FOX to their senses" as though these appeals aren't really falling on the deafest of ears.

That's not surprising. They have a very popular show in MitM, they want other shows on other nights to be as popular, they add an extra MitM episode in between two of these shows (notice they didn't move the show ala NBC and Frasier, they added an extra night) and hope the Malcolm fans they draw show up early enough to watch what's on before and stick around long enough to watch what's on after.

Actually, it will be interesting to see what happens to That 70's Show's ratings now that it's up against The Mole. The thing about reality TV (as Survivor showed last year) is that it doesn't play well in reruns. People are far more likely to watch The Mole live and catch the That 70's Show episodes they missed during the summer months. Maybe That 70's Show *will* need life support, and they're just getting a jump?

Not quite. Screaming an obscenity to Futurama's fans would indicate they've given these fans and their situation some thought and came to the conclusion that they don't care about their wishes. Rather, I don't think they gave any thought at all to Futurama fans. Not having any attention payed to you at all is worse than receiving a snubbing AFAIC.

In some respects, yes, I agree.

But on the whole, I think I'm better off in a universe where FOX exists than in one where it doesn't.

On or about Thu, 11 Jan 2001 13:16:59 -0500, Dave proceeded to say:

Umm, just what do you call the ones that have never been shown then? It's an important distinction.

I agree with you there. But their sense of touch would detect even the slighest change in the heft of their wallets...

I'm so sick of reality shows it's disgusting. But The Mole is the only one that looks even vaguegly interesting. If it's an hour I might watch the second half after That 70's Show.

Yes, yes, of course...never blame on malice that which can be explained by stupidity or incompetence. Forgot aboot that.

I remain blissfully unaware of such episodes. :-)

There was a catchy network slogan a few years ago, I can't recall which network or even the exact wording, but the idea was that if you haven't seen a show yet, then it's not a rerun, it's really brand new.

Yup. Problem is not enough people will care enough to alter their purchasing habits enough to make the people who make the decision aware of the attempt. But yeah, a boycott can be extremely effective if enough people buy into it.

I watched it this week. I don't know, it's interesting enough. Tons better than Tittilation Island. Up until now, there have only been two prime time network reality shows, Survivor was very good, Big Brother was very bad. I expect the ones to come have studied the tapes and learned from the mistakes, and the shows themselves should benefit from the newfound knowledge. And I can't wait for Survivor II. I've already scheduled a day off on the Monday after the Super Bowl and Survivor II. Go Raiders.

Aboot? Was that a typo or are you from Canada?

On or about Thu, 11 Jan 2001 20:01:42 -0500, Dave proceeded to say:

Yeah, but when an episode gets shown that's never been shown before...what do you call that?

I remember that. My point is if it's not a rerun, it's brand new. Whereas you said they're all reruns, even the first run shows.

Oh, Temptation Island is just sick. Survivor was a dumb enough show as well. And Big Brother is what webcams are for. When I'm watching TV, as entertainment rather than informative(yeah yeah, but there *is* CNN), I don't wanna see regular schmoes like me huffing it up a hill. I wanna see fancy spaceships, and lots of fighting, and playboy centerfolds. In short, shit that don't happen in r/l.

It's a South Park thing.

very much of topic, I'm sorry

"Dave" wrote in message news:[email]... [... about "The Mole" ...]

Actually "The Mole" might be older then you think. It's a belgian product. IIRC the first series (here in Belgium) was shown in 1997 (maybe 1998). I think this was before Survivor (not really a success in Belgium, but not too bad IMHO) and Big Brother (extremely succesfull in Belgium, but also extremely bad IMHO). So I don't think that The Mole (in it's original form) has learned a lot from the other reality shows. Of course the american version of The Mole is a lot bigger then here. The winner had about 1 million Belgian francs (about 25000 dollar) and they only visited one tiny region of France (I think the american version is visiting 4 countries). Too bad I can't watch it in Belgium, the only bits I've seen of the american Mole was on CNN :-)

-- Peter

On Wed, 10 Jan 2001, Dave stated this considered view. Waking from my doze, I hastily scrawled -

That's why I always tend to tape live American Football (on the occasions it's shown in the UK). You can then skip US commercial space the UK stations don't use, gaps between plays, half-time shows. etc.

True, but don't forget soccer runs for 1.5 hours (or 2 hours) at pretty much the same intensity. Also, teams can switch players every down, so spread amongst nearly 50 per team, it shouldn't be too stressful.

They don't need to air them live. I'd think that football fans wouldn't mind finding out the outcome of a football game a few hours late in exchange for not having to watch everybody standing around the field 90% of the time. I never could understand how anyone could actually watch a whole football game which contains maybe 1 hour of action and 3 hours of commercials and standing around time. The only game I ever watch is the superbowl, and that is only if I have a superbowl party. Most of the time we are just eating and ignoring the game. The best part is the commercials. I remember when some friends from Church came over for a superbowl party. We were about to pray for the food and someone said "Wait! Not during the commercials. Wait for the game to come back on."

Paul

I may be in the minority here (I'm sure I am, so don't bother telling me I'm right), but I love football. I can sit and watch all day long and never get bored. Perhaps it caters to my instinctual need for violence.

I'm sorry for you East Coasters who get Futurama half way through an episode, but if it's really that important to you, why not move? Life is better on the west coast anyway.

Sure they do. In fact, the one thing they *have* to do, above all else, is air the games live. Sports are not like any other televised entertainment in that respect. The fact that sporting events are occurring live *while* people are watching is the largest part of what makes them compelling. Consider why the 2000 Olympics was such a collosal ratings failure and you'll understand.

You are so wrong, I don't even know where to begin. I won't hold it against you, though, as you were only speculating on what football fans would find acceptable.

For starters, people rarely stare at the screen for three hours straight. Frequent commercial breaks allow for plenty of rest room and kitchen trips, as well as for plenty of game inspired conversation. I watch football with a group. If the action was non-stop, there'd be no time to talk about the game with those I watch with:

"Did you see that? I can't believe he missed that catch, it was right in the numbers. Yeah, that receiver sucks. But he caught 8 for 120 yards last week. But that was against a much weaker defense. Wait, here's the next play. Wow! Great run! Sure, I remember this kid last year in college, ran for over 20 touchdowns. Yeah? What round was he drafted in? Well they traded their 1st round pick for two 2nd rounders and... wait, another play. He fumbled! Ohmygod, did you see that?!? I'm watching football 20 years and I've *never* seen anything like that!" and so on. See, it's really not hard to fill in the empty spaces.

Unless I find the matchup interesting, I agree. The Super Bowl is no longer about football as much as it is about hoopla and intensive advertising. But I still get about 22 weeks of good football leading up to that mess, so I can't complain. And of course collevge football is easily as entertaining as the pros. More so, as these are hungry kids trying to make it to the top, not bloated millionaires who already have. While the overall skill level is lower, the 'hunger' factor is off the charts.

You throw Superbowl parties where the game is ignored and the commercials are revered? That's just plain wierd.

In message , Dave wrote:

Well, I don't enjoy football, but I agree with that sentiment. I'm a baseball fan -- and watching AAA ball is as good or better than the Major Leagues most of the time. And for the same reason, less skill but more verve. And as a special added bonus, it's about a tenth as expensive to go to an AAA game instead of a Major League game.

Cheers, Will

By my count, in my region (Oklahoma) they've shown 2 (yes, TWO) episodes of
futurama this season. Not only does the football game consistently run over,
but invariably the two teams are from the East Coast, which holds absolutely
no interest for me here in the Midwest. In addition, one of the teams is
always so woefully behind that it is ridiculous that they even run over.
when there's 3 minutes left on the clock and the score is 32-3, what do you
do? call 2 timeouts in a row, naturally.
    FOX has shown repeated disregard for the loyal fans of it's Sunday night
shows. They didn't even start this season until 4 weeks after the other
shows started, then when there isn't a football game on, they play something
stupid like the San Antonio Christmas parade or the 1994 version of miracle
on 34th St.
    It would be one thing if the simpons were good this season, but they
aren't. Not really.
    I want to know what we can do about this situation. Seemingly they don't
plan on canceling it, because they just ordered next season's episodes.
After that, we are only one more season away from being able to watch
syndicated Futurama. I hope it makes it to that point.

Football season's over. After next week the NFL will never pre-empt a Futurama episode again until next September.

Who do you like, the *guh* Cowboys?

Each team gets three per half, and if they don't use them they lose them. Rules of the game. Blame Pete Rozelle.

Nope, they do their damnedest to insure that King of the Hill, the Simpsons, Malcolm in the Middle and X-Files all air at their scheduled times. It's only Futurama's loyal fans they've shown complete disregard for.

The original was much better.

I don't know, I still laugh like hell when I watch it.

Other than venting on Usenet, not a whole lot.

That's a good sign. Not ordering episodes would have been something to distress about. As it is, you know that at some point there will be another 20+ Futurama episodes to be viewed. That's a good thing.

I'm sure it will. Even if the requisite number of episodes aren't made, there will still be a home for the show on one of hundreds of cable channels. Probably either the Sci-Fi or Cartoon Channels will be more than happy to pick it up and run with it.

You do realize these disclaimers are absolutely unenforceable, right?

Coming up next: Baseball! (Sorry, couldn't resist!)

Actually, basketball, hockey and now the XFL.

In article , petben wrote:

Except those aren't shown nationally on the FOX network.

Yet.

(Your local affiliate may differ, of course...)

"Janet F Caires-Lesgold" wrote in message news:93flk1$579$[email]...

episodes of

run over,

I'm sure they will find a way.

Watch NBC? No football there.

You should not Complain....

At least you can see Futurama...

They dont broadcast Futurama here in Denmark in Europe :-(

BTB. (a Futarama missing citizen from Denmark)

Karl wrote in message news:93b1u7$md9a$[email]...

King

to

eyes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On or about Thu, 11 Jan 2001 07:59:36 +0100, BTB proceeded to say:

Bleh, I hate that argument. "Gee, someone else has it worse, so you have no right to complain. Blech, I say, BLECH.

Youre right...

if they broadcastet the show here and it was cancelled due to a football match, then I would probably be the first to complain.... point taken...

BTB

SpareChanj wrote in message news:[email]...

no

Especially American Football, I should imagine.

Paul

I used to pity myself because I had no shoes, then I met a man who had no feet.

So I stole his shoes.

On or about Thu, 11 Jan 2001 13:17:41 -0500, Dave proceeded to say:

I used to pity myself because I had no woman, then I met a man who had no hands.

BWAAAAHAHAHAHAA!!

Touche.

buh du bum

RIGHT ON