MY JOURNAL


Tintin, SCTV back on TV

Written: 26 January, 2001

I noticed recently two series that are on TV that I figured I'd point out, in case anyone was interested in them.

The other night, I noticed that NBC was airing an episode of SCTV in the "Later" slot, at 2:35am Eastern time in my area. ("Later" used to be the "Later with Bob Costas" interview talk show. I think Costas left some time ago and it became "Later" with somebody else -- most recently a black female host, I think.) It had been a long time since I'd seen an episode of SCTV on the air. CBC (Canadian) TV used to play reruns of it around 7 to 10 years ago at around midnight Monday thru Friday and I'd gotten into the habit of watching it back then.

Anyway, so now NBC is airing reruns of SCTV at 2:35am on Tuesdays thru Fridays. The one they played the other night had a funny fake trailer for "Scenes from an Idiot's Marriage," which purported to be an Ingmar Bergman movie starring Jerry Lewis (played by Martin Short). The "arty" sophisticated European film style mixing with dopey slapstick at just the right moment made for some laugh-out-loud comedy.

The other show I wanted to plug is "The Adventures of Tintin" cartoon which has been airing at 5pm Eastern time Monday through Friday (and at 8:30am on Saturday mornings) on CBC TV. I don't know how long they've been playing "Tintin" (which is a mega-popular Eurpoean comic that I was first exposed to as a child via the reprints that were serialized in "Children's Digest" magazine), but I just noticed it a couple days ago. In the two episodes I've seen so far, it's interesting to see that the criminals will frequently pull out a gun and shoot at Tintin. In fact, the episode that aired seven hours ago started out with Tintin getting shot by a suspicious person. Tintin collapses to the ground and then wakes up in a hospital bed, and is told by the nurse that the bullet just grazed him. It's a little more realistic than I'm used to seeing in cartoons (despite the fact that Tintin's face is drawn in a very cartoony Billy Batson style). If you know little kids who are bored with watching the same old "Scooby Doo" episodes over and over and over again (on the Cartoon Network), "The Adventures of Tintin" may be a welcome, more-challenging alternative for them. And it's enjoyable for adults, too.


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