An Artificial Sheen

Anna Holmes takes CNN's Piers Morgan and many others to task in the New York Times for less than critical coverage of Charlie Sheen and his so-called antics. Well worth a read.

Fire Breathing Fists

TMZ.com has run an open letter from Charlie Sheen to his fans, in response to CBS and Warner Brothers Television canceling his show for the year, which was in response to his vitriolic and somewhat incoherent radio outburst at the show's creator, Chuck Lorre.

Fire breathing fists? This, I have to see. Which way to the octagon?

Lost Footage

The Wall Street Journal reports that a tape of the television coverage of Super Bowl I has finally surfaced, after 44 years. It's missing half time and a chunk of the third quarter, and there are other, minor cuts, but this is a true piece of media history. Let's face it, the Super Bowl changed television forever. This tape, recorded at a local affiliate in Scranton, PA, has preserved, in wonderful color, something that national broadcasters CBS and NBC shamefully failed to.

Which is my main point, I guess - ABC dumped Dumont's tapes into New York Harbor, the BBC wiped out early Doctor Who episodes, if not for Bing Crosby's nerves we'd not have tape of one of the greatest World Series games ever played, even footage of the Moon landing was lost until it turned up by fluke in Australia. So much equipment designed to capture the moment, and so little thought given to keeping the results. It's a tragedy.