TV Land is having a marathon this weekend to celebrate Lassie's 50th anniversary on television (seven months late, but better late than never) and Lassie has been on a couple of shows this weekend to publicize it. Friday night's appearance was on CNN Headline's Showbiz Tonight.

I hadn't watched ST for years, ever since CNNH did that weird thing that made it look like a web page with too many frames: there was a stock ticker running at the bottom, other crap at one side, something else on the top, and the actual picture off in the corner somewhere. They've correct that, thank God. On the other hand, Showbiz Tonight is dreadful now. It's full of singing-dancing graphics, too many previews and not enough show, and commercials, commercials, commercials. Lassie was on for about five minutes, and during half the interview, they were using the "shakycam" to tilt the picture from one side to the other. Look, it worked on NYPD Blue, but is not suitable for an interview show.

The TV Land rep made a big show of saying how they went through all the episodes picking out appropriate ones that represented the series. I nearly fell down laughing. All the episodes being shown are either on the 50th Anniversary DVD set or on one of the other five DVD sets Sony Wonder released. Also, everyone seemed to dance around the fact that Lassie is actually a male dog. Guys, people have known this since the first movie in 1942. What is the problem?

Lassie was also on NBC's Sunday edition of Today. I missed it. I made the mistake of going to NBC's website to see when it was on and scheduled my VCR according to that. I hadn't reckoned with the good ol' Atlanta scheduling, which frequently pushes network programming to a different time. What I got was an hour of Atlanta weather and news. The NBC offering was on an hour later. Thanks, idiots. What I wouldn't give for a dedicated network feed instead of these frappin' local stations. If I never saw another of WSB's "Famiy 2 Family Specials" it would be too soon. I can't count how many times we missed Whose Line is It Anyway for this twaddle.

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 12:49:00 PM

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