Richard Roeper Blog

To the surprise of no one who’s been paying attention to Howard Stern’s career over the years, Stern hit a home run in his debut as a judge on NBC’s “America’s Got Talent,” delivering the best commentary of the night without coming close to giving the FCC an opportunity to throw a penalty flag.

From the opening montage in which Stern was clearly the star, with “Sympathy for the Devil” as his intro music, it was clear NBC had made a great move in bringing him aboard. Stern’s zingers still had sting, but he was Mister Nice Guy as often as he was Doctor Evil.

As I said when the (who-are-they-again?) Parents Television Council voiced its opposition to Stern, the guy’s a pro who knows the difference between what he can get away with on satellite radio and what he can say on prime-time network TV. Not to mention the Stern of today is a markedly different broadcaster than the Stern of 20 years ago. (For example, there’s no doubt Stern must cringe when he hears archival tapes of his 35-year-old self engaging in cheap homophoboic humor, given his exemplary stance on gay rights in 2012.)

In a glowing New York Times profile last Sunday, Stern said, “I’ve actually apologized to some people I was a real jerk to, because I feel ashamed.” And just the other day we learned Stern recently had a pleasant face-to-face encounter with Kathie Lee Gifford, who was mercilessly mocked by Team Howard back in the day.

As for Stern’s qualifications to judge talent, this is a guy who has presided over more contests than probably any host in the history of radio. Granted, many of the categories over the years can’t be mentioned here, let alone described in much detail. (Suffice to say when the competition is titled, “It’s Just Wrong!” they were not engaging in false advertising.) But he knows what works and what doesn’t.

It was a brilliant stroke by NBC to replace the very British Piers Morgan and his soccer-obsessed tweets with the uber-American Stern, who has devoted hours of his radio show to discussing the behind-the-scenes details of his treks across the country to tape episodes of what is essentially a good old-fashioned talent show, not so different from the original amateur hours on TV in the 1950s.

Stern’s media blitz also included appearances on “Today,” “The View,” Ryan Seacrest’s show, Jimmy Fallon’s show, etc. They couldn’t have gotten more publicity if they’d replaced Sharon Osbourne with Sarah Palin and Howie Mandel with a drunken, random, Philadelphia sports fan.

Judging the judge

On TV and in print, on the blogs and the traditional media sites, there was near universal praise of Stern’s debut.

“On ‘America’s Got Talent’ Howard Stern becomes a beloved uncle,” was the headline in the Washington Post.

“Stern delivered apple-pie pro-nouncements more typical of presidential candidates,” wrote the Post’s Hank Stuever, who noted that Stern hugged contestants and his fellow judges, and said to a dance troupe, “This is going to sound sappy. We are the greatest country in the world. You are everything that makes America great.”

They couldn’t have had less controversy if the King of All Bland, Seacrest himself, had been tapped as judge.

Cover ‘wars’

With all the talk about the “cover wars” between Time and Newsweek, you’d think it was 1982, with the news-consuming public gathered ’round newsstands and clogging up the magazine aisles at Kroch’s & Brentano’s to peruse the latest periodicals.

First we had Time’s “Are You Mom Enough?” cover, with a young mother and her nearly 4-year-old son posing for the camera while he’s attached to her breast. Newsweek tried to trump that and succeeded only in embarrassing itself by trying way too hard and calling Barack Obama “America’s First Gay President.”

A bit of perspective here.  Time has a weekly circulation of some 3.3 million while Newsweek has 1.5 million — but the overwhelming majority of Time and Newsweek customers are subscribers. But when it comes to single-issue, newsstand sales, Time averages about 76,000 copies per week, while Newsweek averages only about 40,000 per issue.

Even the most provocative covers rarely generate even double those figures.

Time or Newsweek could run a photo of a “gay” President Obama standing next to a breastfeeding Jessica Simpson, and it would still affect only about 3 percent of its sales base.

Few Americans have enjoyed the fruits of freedom more than Ted Nugent.

Born and raised in Detroit, Nugent moved to Palatine as a teenager. He’s a graduate of St. Viator High. (Go Lions!)

Nugent used student deferments to avoid the Vietnam draft. (He has recanted old interviews in which he claimed to have showed up for his draft board in pants caked with his own urine and feces.)

As a solo rocker and with bands such as Damn Yankees, Nugent has sold more than 30 million albums and has made a fortune touring. He’s done a little acting, he’s been in reality shows, he’s hosted radio shows.

Nugent has two wives and has eight children. In 1978, when Nugent was 30, he became the legal guardian of 17-year-old Pele Massa so he could marry her.

He loves to hunt, he loves his guns, he loves to shoot off his mouth. Nugent has called Hillary Clinton “a worthless bitch” and Dianne Feinstein a “worthless whore.” He called Barack Obama “a piece of s—” and told Obama to suck on one of his machine guns.

Talk about a guy who does what he wants and says what he wants, each and every day, enjoying the freedom to be a pompous, narcissistic, self-aggrandizing blowhard.

Got you in a stranglehold, baby

Yet Nugent’s so filled with hatred for the Obama administration he told the National Rifle Association’s convention, “If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.”

And: “We need to ride into that battlefield and chop off their heads in November. Any questions?”

And: “[If Americans don’t] get everybody in your lives to clean house in this vile, evil, America-hating administration, I don’t even know what you’re made out of.”

Now the Secret Service wants to have a little talk with Nugent about the intent behind the “dead or in jail” comment.

Here’s a prediction: if Obama is re-elected, Nugent won’t be “dead or in jail” by this time next year. He’ll still be enjoying the perks of living in the freest country in the world. (Outside of maybe Switzerland and possibly the Netherlands. Also Iceland. And Estonia. But I’m staying here.)

Nugent isn’t going to jail or find himself in harm’s way for his political beliefs any more than Alec Baldwin was going to leave the country if his candidate didn’t win. It’s all showbiz rhetoric.

But I do have this question for my right-wing friends: if you were outraged by what the Dixie Chicks said about President Bush, are you equally outraged by what Nugent said about the current president? Or is it OK because Nugent spewed this garbage on American soil and it was about Obama?

He was Ryan Seacrest before Ryan Seacrest’s parents met.

In recent years when Dick Clark would appear on his “Rockin’ New Years Eve” on ABC-TV to count down to midnight with his protege Ryan Seacrest, there were some who felt Mr. Clark shouldn’t be on television any more, even for a brief moment. Slowed by a stroke he had suffered in 2004, Clark had great difficulty speaking and was sometimes almost unintelligible. “America’s Oldest Living Teenager” was now a frail old man, and some viewers felt uncomfortable with the juxtaposition of Mr. Clark’s appearance and the giddy, youthful, here’s-to-the-future vibe of Times Square on New Year’s Eve.

To which I would always say: Get over it.

If anyone had earned the right to appear on TV once a year to lead us into the next year, it was Dick Clark. He was a true pioneer of both radio and television, best known for hosting the long-lasting “America’s Bandstand,” which for generations was THE arbiter of the most popular songs in America.

“Bandstand” wasn’t a concert show, nor was it intended for the hardcore pop fans or the musical purists. With few exceptions — such as the time Jim Croce insisted on playing and singing “Operator” live — whether it was Jerry Lee Lewis or Stevie Wonder or Run DMC, the acts featured on the show lip-synched their hits. The music would fade out, and the band would stop pretending to play their instruments, and the crowd would applaud. It was all about the dancing couples, the suspense of the countdown, the moment when we learned the No. 1 song in America. Mr. Clark sitting in the stands with the teenagers. Wearing his coat and tie, looking like the cool teacher who “gets” the kids but isn’t trying to be one of them.

In the movie “Grease,” a big dance show comes to town. They called it “National Bandstand.” We all knew what they were referencing.

“He was more fascinating than most people realize,” said Bob Sirott, who joined us on WLS-AM 890 on Wednesday to talk about Clark. Sirott, who interviewed Mr. Clark a number of times over the years on radio and on TV, said, “He was all about what type of candy was selling. When he was doing ‘Bandstand,’ he wasn’t really a fan of that music, he was too old for that. He was actually a fan of the Big Band music. But he was mostly a fan of what was selling. … He was a ruthless businessman, but was able to turn the switch and become the affable TV host and salesman.”

Dick Clark introduces Michael Jackson during the taping of the "American Bandstand 50th"

Smooth, cool and competitive

Mr. Clark was a smooth and cool TV presence — but his real passion was producing, creating, acquiring and/or selling TV shows, from “Bandstand” to “The $10,000 Pyramid” to “Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve.” He created the American Music Awards to take advantage of the fact that the Grammys had been notoriously slow to embrace hipper pop and rock acts.

In the early 2000s, Clark was a regular on a show called “The Other Half,” along with Mario Lopez and Danny Bonaduce. The idea was to create a male version of “The View,” with Mr. Clark in the Barbara Walters role. I participated on the panel on a couple of occasions. This was before Mr. Clark’s health problems. He was about 70, and he looked to be about 50. I’d be in the middle of pitching a book or talking about a movie, and I’d look over and think, “That’s DICK CLARK.” It was like being in the room with a childhood memory.

Behind the affable TV presence, Mr. Clark was a hungry competitor who was still producing shows, still pitching projects, long after he made more money than he could spend in a dozen lifetimes. As the saying goes, for him the money was just a way of keeping score.

And Dick Clark was determined to finish first.

We toss around the term far too much these days, but in his chosen field, Mr. Clark was a true icon.

I’m not so sure Kanye West believes he’s funny, but I think the guy’s hilarious.

Whether he’s grabbing a trophy from Taylor Swift or ranting about how he should have won a video award because “I was jumping across canyons and s—,” whining on Twitter about Matt Lauer picking on him or launching into “Gold Digger” on a Delta flight, Kanye can be always be counted on to bring the crazy.

He always seems so angry. Why is he mad? He’s Kanye West! That’s a pretty good deal. A Forbes-estimated net worth of $70 million, all the sweater vests and sunglasses in the world, an enormously prolific career…

And yet Kanye always seems mad or insulted–and then he fights back with a song or a Tweet or a post, often arousing the ire of his targets. That’s the deal with his most recent song, which is named after a popular cold-and-flu medicine.
I’m not kidding.

What next, an ode to Alka-Seltzer?

Note to the makers of Theraflu: even as you’re publicly distancing yourselves from Kanye, you might want to think about hitting up 1-800-Flowers and sending him a ginormous bouquet of thanks.

It’s not that you can’t buy this kind of publicity. It would just cost you a lot.

Kanye has released a single titled, “Theraflu,” and unless I missed a Bon Iver B-side called “Vicks DayQuil,” I’m thinking this might be the first pop song named after an over-the-counter cold-and-flu remedy.

Novartis, the makers of Theraflu, told E! News, “[We] are aware of a song recently released by rapper Kanye West, which contain references to Theraflu in its title, lyrics and artwork. Novartis…Health in no way endorses or approves of the references and likeness of Theraflu in this manner.” OK, but on some level you guys have to be digging it.

Like much of Kanye’s work, “Theraflu” is all about how splendiferously amazing Kanye is, and how you’ll never be even half as splendiferously amazing, so don’t even try. West boasts about having “dinner with Anna Wintour” and spending $6,000 on a pair of shoes (somewhere Elton John is seething with envy), and he raps that whether you’re talking about “clothes” or “hoes,” he’ll bleeping embarrass you and you’ll be so cold you’ll need some Theraflu.
That’s pretty funny.

“Theraflu” also contains the now-famous lyrical reference to Kim Kardashian: And I’ll admit I fell in love with Kim, ‘Round the same time she fell in love with him. Well that’s cool, baby girl do your thing, lucky I ain’t have Jay drop him from the team.

Right. Because that’s how it works. You call New Jersey Nets co-owner Jay-Z and tell him to cut Kris Humphries because you’ve got a thing for Humphries’ soon-to-be-ex-wife.

Hilarious. This is like fourth grade with lots more money.

A master storyteller
The legendary Mike Wallace, who died Saturday at the age of 93, was best known for all those hard-hitting exposes during a nearly four decade run on “60 Minutes.” Wallace was a master storyteller.

But long before his hard news days, Wallace was following a career path that sounds like what Ryan Seacrest might have been doing had Seacrest been born in 1918. Wallace was a wrestling announcer in Chicago, a staff announcer for radio shows such as “The Green Hornet,” an actor in a TV police drama, a game show host–and a pitchman for products such as Fluffo brand shortening and Parliament cigarettes.

How long was Wallace’s career? Think of it this way: when “60 Minutes” debuted in 1968, Wallace was 50 years old.

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said there are no second acts in American life. Fact of it is, just about everyone gets a second act. Even acknowledging his occasional and very public missteps, what Mike Wallace did after he turned 50 will forever rank him as a first-ballot Hall of Fame journalist.

Warning: we’re going to get into some graphic and rather gruesome details here.

In the most recent “Twilight” movie, the human teenage girl Bella and the ageless vampire Edward have a lovely, storybook wedding — followed by a rather tumultuous honeymoon experience.

What with Edward being a vampire unable to totally control his violent lust, sex with Bella leaves her deeply bruised, much to Edward’s horror.

Then things get really scary. Bella’s pregnant, the fetus is growing at an accelerated rate and literally feeding off Bella from within. On the brink of death, Bella starts guzzling blood to satisfy the fetus’ hunger.

After an excruciating labor, Bella gives birth to a baby girl but seemingly dies in the process. But after Edward injects her heart with his own venom, a red-eyed Bella jumps to life. She’s a vampire!

Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1" (AP Photo/Summit Entertainment)

The Motion Picture Association of America’s ratings board gave “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1” a PG-13 rating, despite all the violence and weirdness and blood guzzling. Now if the vampires had started dropping f-bombs or if we’d seen Bella’s boobs — well, that would have been a different story. That would have led to an instant “R” rating.

Inconsistency. Hypocrisy. More leniency for violence than sex. These are the hallmarks of the MPAA ratings process.

“The Hunger Games,” a fictional story of teenagers forced to kill one another, gets a rating of PG-13.

“Bully,” a documentary about real kids who are tormented at school with sometimes tragic results? That’s an R movie right there.

The following commentary is unrated

Of all the narrow-minded, out-of-touch, obstinate ratings decisions made by the MPAA over the years, giving “Bully” an R might just be the dopiest. Lee Hirsch’s documentary that focuses on a handful of bullied teens was rated R because some of the subjects of the movie use profanities.

In other words, the very kids who are featured in “Bully” wouldn’t be able to see “Bully” without an adult guardian because of words they already know and use. This is a film that should be seen by every junior high school student in America, yet the MPAA is saying those kids should be shielded from a couple of f-bombs.

Alex Libby is shown in the documentary film, "Bully." (AP Photo/The Weinstein Company)

Rather than subject the film to such stupidity, the Weinstein Company is releasing “Bully” without a rating. (It opens in Chicago on April 13. My full review of the film will be on the Sun-Times website soon.) This means it’s up to the theater chains to set the rules. They can decide not to show it out of respect to the ratings system, treat it like an R-rated film, or use common sense and enlightened thinking and treat it like the PG-13 film it should be.

The MPAA says it doesn’t want to start making exceptions for films based on things like social value. They want to adhere to a uniform method for rating films.

But subjectivity already abounds. As a Huffington Post article points out, the comedy “This Means War” was originally rated R but was given a PG-13 upon appeal, despite language that includes “f—,” as well as “s—,” “bitch,” “ass,” d—,” and the like. There’s a love scene and several references to sex. Yes, and there’s also a plot featuring two leading men who stalk and electronically spy on the object of their affection. Yet any 12-year-old in America can waltz in to see this crass and amoral “action-comedy” — but he’d have to wait five years to be old enough to see “Bully” on his own.

The relentlessly violent (and relentlessly brainless) “Transformers 3” was rated PG-13, even with a couple of f-bombs and a few more profanities. But “The King’s Speech” was given an R because Colin Firth says the f-word repeatedly in one comedic scene.

Raise your hand if any of that makes sense to you.

Sarah Palin didn’t really “co-host” the “Today” show on Tuesday, but she acquitted herself quite well in her extended, semi-co-hosting gig.

Looking every bit as attractive as, say Tina Fey or Julianne Moore, Palin gamely poked fun at herself, pretending to be overwhelmed by a stack of newspapers as Matt Lauer crowed, “Oh man, she’s doing her homework!”

In a segment about Ashton Kutcher playing Steve Jobs, Palin keenly noted, “Do any of you have any experience with people being paid a lot of money to pretend like they’re you?”

Whether she was voicing support for any GOP candidate over President Barack Obama, commenting on the media’s portrayal of Jessica Simpson’s pregnancy weight-gain or marveling over Tori Spelling’s Wheel of Brie, Palin came across as more relaxed and somewhat less shrill than when she’s on some satellite feed, regurgitating generalizations about evil liberals. But she still has this disconcerting way of sounding like she’s shouting even when she’s not shouting.

The most telling moment came when Palin offered this insight about politics:

“I would warn voters to never put their faith wholly in an individual, in a politician–because a politician will disappoint you.”

I just wish Palin had downed a half-dozen Mimosas and with Kathie Lee & Hoda. Then we’d be talking real Must-See TV.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Doing the Wrong Thing

Of all the dumb things said and done since the tragic shooting death of Trayvon Martin on Feb. 26, one of the dumbest acts came from filmmaker Spike Lee, who retweeted to more than 250,000 people what he thought was the home address of George Zimmerman.

The 28-year-old George Zimmerman who shot Martin is no relation to the 26-year-old William George Zimmerman, son of Elaine and David McClain. Lee Tweeted the address of the McClains, even though their son doesn’t even live with them and he’s not the “right” guy anyway. They’re just an elderly couple who had to leave their house after Lee tweeted their address.

For days upon days, Lee was silent about his egregious mistake. Finally, after the McClains had filed a lawsuit, a settlement was reached and Lee apologized.

“I deeply apologize to the McClain family for retweeting their address,” said Lee on Twitter. “It was a mistake. Please leave the McCains in peace.”

Lee also called the McClains to personally (or at least telephonically) apologize.

“He was really kind,” Elaine McClain told the AP. “[Y]ou could tell he really felt bad about it. And it was just a slip, and I just know that he really, really has been concerned.”

OK, end of story, right?

Just one thing. From the moment Lee shared that address with more than a quarter-million people, virtually all of the criticism received has been focused on Lee essentially broadcasting the wrong address.

How about the fact he wanted everyone to know George Zimmerman’s address in the first place? What purpose was that supposed to serve? We’ve yet to hear Lee acknowledge it’s irresponsible to basically say to the world, “Here’s the home address of the guy accused of shooting a teenager in one of the most incendiary controversies of our time.”

Yes, I know we live in an age where you can get just anybody’s home address if you do a little digging around. And if someone had gone to Zimmerman’s home and committed any sort of crime, it’s that person who’s responsible for his actions — not the individual who gives out the address.

But still. It was a terrible thing to blast out the address of a couple in their 70s who had nothing to do with the Trayvon Martin case — but it would have been just as terrible, and could have resulted in even more grief, had Lee given out the correct address.

Absolutely nothing good could have come from that.