One of my favorite all-time TV shows was "TV Nation," an unsuccessful effort by Michael Moore in the mid-1990s to bring edgy, topical news-themed stunts to network TV -- and make Crackers, the Corporate Crime Fighting Chicken (above), into a household name. I'm not sure network TV knew what to think; the show spent one summer on NBC and then another on Fox and then disappeared. It created a helluva buzz in certain circles, however, and made possible all that followed in the Moore oeuvre (he wrote a book Adventures in a TV Nation, which led to another book, which led to a movie and another book and another movie ...), so maybe it wasn't unsuccessful after all.
A disc arrived recently with the screeners for a new series called the "IFC Media Project," from the channel that brought you "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" and that Jon Favreau eat-drink-swear show. The "Project," which premieres at 8 p.m. ET on IFC, is the brainchild of a "Daily Show"-"30 Days" writer-producer Nick McKinney, former MTV News guy Gideon Yago and Meghan O'Hara, a producer on "Sicko" and "Fahrenheit" with Mr. Moore.
The purpose of the "IFC Media Project" (website) is to take "an in-depth look at the influences shaping today's media coverage including journalistic integrity, biases, corporate influence, profits, ratings, propaganda, agendas, obsessions and more," according to its PR.
Hmmmmm.....sounds like something Mike would do.
Now, watch the opening for the "IFC Media Project" and then watch the opening for "TV Nation" and tell me if the two seem a little, shall we say, sim-u-lar.
That is one of the great all-time show opens.
Anyway, the obvious difference between the two shows is that Michael's has a less overtly agenda-y look and feel to it. It's got the kind of comedy that "The Daily Show" wouldn't tackle for years, until it had changed hosts.
I like IFC's show -- but I didn't learn anything new from it. I'm super-well-informed, at least on the topics covered by the show, which have to do mostly with media bias. So maybe I'm not the target audience.
Still, I have to say I look back fondly at "TV Nation," which I recently watched all over again while dubbing my old VCR tapes to DVD. (That includes the presenters, who make up a Who's Who of Whatever Happened To's.) Looking back, I'm struck by something I didn't realize when I reviewed "TV Nation" for my Internet audience back then ... namely, Michael Moore was way ahead of his time.
P.S. Actually, I just re-read my review and I guess I did say in 1994 that Moore's TV show "will be influential because it is a network newsmagazine that makes no effort to embody 60 Minutes earnestness." I got everything right except the "network" part.
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