July 26, 2024 • 9 mins
Dr. Bob Thompson has the latest entertainment news including all the different options to watch the Olympics
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Right. I'm a Legacy Retirement Groupdot com phone line. Every Friday at
this time. I always love checkingin with doctor Bob Thompson, Professor of
Pop Culture from Sarah Hughes University.Doctor Bob, I'd see it's a maybe
a case of life imitating art.I remember the show Veep was on HBO
I think twenty twelve with Julia.Louis Dreyfus was the vice president who decides
(00:24):
to run for president after the incumbentdecides not to run. It kind of
sounds familiar, doesn't it It does, and streaming in the last couple of
days since the big announcement in Bidenstepping down and all of that had been
up three hundred and fifty percent.Wow, which is I think this show
was ripe to be rediscovered. Rememberwhen Suits Scott rediscovered and all of a
(00:47):
sudden it shot to the top ofeverything had been on forever. Veep is
one of those shows someone sees ameme or they see a TikTok comparing Kamala
Harrison, Beep and all this,and then it's them over to Max or
wherever to watch Beep. But thenthey've got to like it enough to keep
watching and Veep and you don't wantto watch with the kids. It was
(01:08):
vulgar, it was over the top. But it was really a brilliant and
a hilariously funny show. And Ithink a lot of people are now rediscovering
it and they're sticking around for thewhole sixty five episodes. I think some
people started watching Veep the day thatKamala Harris became the presumptive nominee and they
(01:29):
haven't stopped since. And I thinkthere are some people that aren't exactly happy
with it because, if you remember, in the show, Julia Louis Dreyfus
kind of played an inept of fictionalvice president and horrible person on top of
that. Yeah, and there's somepeople that are comparing her to Kamala Harris.
(01:49):
And there's folks going, this wasfiction. Let's not make too much
of a comparison here. Yeah.No, that is funny because we had
two big, kind of masterpiece politicalshows over those last years. The West
Wing, of course, was thisfantasy of a president who truly had ethics
and morals and a calling, andVeep was kind of like the exact opposite
(02:10):
of that. You know, Interestingly, though you would pointed out that started
in two twelve, it went tilltwenty nineteen for COVID, which means of
its seven seasons, I think fiveof those seven seasons, if I'm not
mistaken, were during the Obama administration. Yeah, very interesting. And also
we'll point out too that JD.Vance's memoir Hillbilly Elegy is also starting to
(02:32):
kind of trend. That was Ithink twenty sixteen, and that is now
number five on Netflix, right,and the book is flying off the shelves
as well. And you know thatmakes some degree of sense. A lot
of people had done a lot ofpeople who'd never even heard of him.
He gets announced as vice president,and the idea that one would then want
(02:53):
to go find out, Okay,what has this guy done? What is
he thought? In the fact thatthere is a book that he wrote movie
based upon that seems that seems alittle more of a direct comparison than than
deep. Yes, yes, AndI actually I went back and watched it
(03:13):
because I had not, and it'sincredibly depressing and sad when you see what
he went through as a child andthen was able to pull himself up.
And actually, you know, graduateSuma cum laude from Yale from law school
there. So that's an interesting again, life imitating art there. We have
a really big movie opening this weekend, Doctor Bob, Deadpool and Wolverine.
(03:35):
Yeah, and kind of historic ina number of ways. First of all,
the Marvel universe is called has beensuffering. They've you know, once
upon a time everything they released wasa hit. Now there's been a number
that haven't been. So many crigsare saying, yeah, just what the
MCU needs. But it's also historicalin that while the other Deadpools were also
(03:58):
are rated, this is the firstDeadpool that's under the Marvel ownership. The
first ones were done when it wasstill twentieth Century Fox, which Disney then
bought. So this would be Marvel'sfirst R rated film. And we've heard
descriptions vulgar, violent, gory,all that kind of thing. On the
other hand, the critics have beennot totally universally praising pretty close to it
(04:23):
at this point. And you know, we've we had a slow start to
the movie season, you know,going back to May when the summer movie
season kind of gets underway, nota lot of action and activity as far
as good movies, and then itcomes along inside Out two, which is
now I think the most the highestgrossing animated movie of all time. And
(04:45):
then you had Despicable Meat four,so a lot of family kids movies.
And then you had, you know, last weekend to moderate success, Twisters
came out, which was PG thirteen. And then now you've got this heavy,
you know, kind of raunchy ratedR movie. We'll see what it
does with the thing this weekend.Yeah, that Inside Out to News.
That was that past Frozen two.That was pretty big, pretty big news.
So yeah, you're right, thereis there are some bright spots in
(05:08):
the always cloudy horizon of theatrical releases. Speaking of Dead Pull and Wolverine,
Taylor Swift has been posting about itlike crazy, so that's got to help.
That will help, no doubt.Speaking when talking about Thompson pop culture
at Syracuse University and the Olympics starttoday, We've got the Olympic opening ceremonies.
With the time change, you canwatch them live here on Eastern Time
(05:30):
at one thirty. I think they'regoing to rebroadcast the opening ceremonies in primetime
tonight at seven o'clock, so you'vegot that tape delay thing going on.
How have Olympics historically done, especiallythe opening ceremonies in ratings. Well,
once upon a time, of course, Olympics were, you know, every
four years, every two years beforethey synchronize the winter and summer, we're
(05:53):
among the biggest television events and thebiggest television audiences of the entire year.
The Summer Olympics were the ways inwhich networks would launch their entire fall seasons.
They'd fill the Olympics with promos forthe new fall shows that are coming
out. That's of course changed backin the day. I remember the first
Olympics I really got into. Iwas twelve years old. It was nineteen
(06:15):
seventy two Munich, which turned outto be a very news event Olympics,
and I stumbled into that. Notbecause I was interested in the Olympics at
the time, but there were onlythree networks, and especially during the day
when there was nothing else on,you watched the Olympics by default. You
of course don't have to do thattoday, so a lot of people who
(06:40):
are not interested in it, they'vegot all kinds of other choices to make.
At the same time, NBC verymuch depends upon they paid when they
extended their contract with the Olympic Committeeto have rights to broadcast these. They
extended it back in twenty twenty togo till twenty thirty two, so they've
got it until twenty three to two. They paid seven point seventy five billion
(07:02):
dollars for that. It's a lotof programming, but seven point seventy five
billion is a lot of money.Yeah, I think I remember my first
Olympics was nineteen eighty four. Iknow, the nineteen eighty Summer Games was
in Moscow and it was a lotof politics happening there and Boycott's and so
(07:25):
eighty four in La which was Ithink my first Olympics. I really kind
of paid attention to you. Butyou're right. I mean, now it's
like, you don't have to watchthe Olympics. You can get little eclips
and bits and bytes on YouTube lateror the rebroadcast of everything. You don't
necessarily need to watch in real time. That's true. And yet you don't
have to watch it all if youdon't want to, because there's all kinds
(07:46):
of other choices. But it's goingto be all over the place. NBC,
USA Network, E Telemundo, CNBCGolf Channel. Not to mention Peacock,
So there are. But if youdon't have if you don't have a
Peacock subscription or a or a cablepackage, it's you know, then you
(08:07):
have to depend exclusively on what NBCdoes. I do like I like watching
the events. I like track andfield and the swimming and some of the
other basketball, of course, butI also do like the opening ceremonies when
you see the parade of nations comingin and you see these I mean,
of course, you know USA withthese massive delegation, hundreds of athletes,
(08:28):
and then you'll see like a tinycountry like Lichtenstein of like two people,
you know, they're they're they're carryingtheir flag, and you've got this,
you know, this world class shotputter. That's all they've got out of
these small countries. Apparently they're comingdown the river to that today, which
we're going to know in a fewhours if you watch it live, and
I think an hour of it's goingto be commercial free. Six companies have
(08:50):
agreed to have each one their logoup in the upper right hand thing for
ten minutes apiece, so that nocommercials interrupt the I don't know if it's
the first hour or whatever, butgot all kinds of gimmicks to get people
to Yeah, the barges, thesebig flatbed barges on the Sene River.
You see some of the promos onNBC and how they're going to do it.
It looks it's gonna look spectacular.I'm already kind of looking forward to
(09:13):
seeing how you pointed out the sixhour delay, though that's never good because
that means all their primetime programming andthe big stuff tends to be on time
delay. And in the old daysthat may not as matter as much,
but it's impossible not to hear thisnews ahead of time now that it's being
fed into our pockets every five seconds.
Right. I'm a Legacy Retirement Groupdot com phone line. Every Friday at
this time. I always love checkingin with doctor Bob Thompson, Professor of
Pop Culture from Sarah Hughes University.Doctor Bob, I'd see it's a maybe
a case of life imitating art.I remember the show Veep was on HBO
I think twenty twelve with Julia.Louis Dreyfus was the vice president who decides
(00:24):
to run for president after the incumbentdecides not to run. It kind of
sounds familiar, doesn't it It does, and streaming in the last couple of
days since the big announcement in Bidenstepping down and all of that had been
up three hundred and fifty percent.Wow, which is I think this show
was ripe to be rediscovered. Rememberwhen Suits Scott rediscovered and all of a
(00:47):
sudden it shot to the top ofeverything had been on forever. Veep is
one of those shows someone sees ameme or they see a TikTok comparing Kamala
Harrison, Beep and all this,and then it's them over to Max or
wherever to watch Beep. But thenthey've got to like it enough to keep
watching and Veep and you don't wantto watch with the kids. It was
(01:08):
vulgar, it was over the top. But it was really a brilliant and
a hilariously funny show. And Ithink a lot of people are now rediscovering
it and they're sticking around for thewhole sixty five episodes. I think some
people started watching Veep the day thatKamala Harris became the presumptive nominee and they
(01:29):
haven't stopped since. And I thinkthere are some people that aren't exactly happy
with it because, if you remember, in the show, Julia Louis Dreyfus
kind of played an inept of fictionalvice president and horrible person on top of
that. Yeah, and there's somepeople that are comparing her to Kamala Harris.
(01:49):
And there's folks going, this wasfiction. Let's not make too much
of a comparison here. Yeah.No, that is funny because we had
two big, kind of masterpiece politicalshows over those last years. The West
Wing, of course, was thisfantasy of a president who truly had ethics
and morals and a calling, andVeep was kind of like the exact opposite
(02:10):
of that. You know, Interestingly, though you would pointed out that started
in two twelve, it went tilltwenty nineteen for COVID, which means of
its seven seasons, I think fiveof those seven seasons, if I'm not
mistaken, were during the Obama administration. Yeah, very interesting. And also
we'll point out too that JD.Vance's memoir Hillbilly Elegy is also starting to
(02:32):
kind of trend. That was Ithink twenty sixteen, and that is now
number five on Netflix, right,and the book is flying off the shelves
as well. And you know thatmakes some degree of sense. A lot
of people had done a lot ofpeople who'd never even heard of him.
He gets announced as vice president,and the idea that one would then want
(02:53):
to go find out, Okay,what has this guy done? What is
he thought? In the fact thatthere is a book that he wrote movie
based upon that seems that seems alittle more of a direct comparison than than
deep. Yes, yes, AndI actually I went back and watched it
(03:13):
because I had not, and it'sincredibly depressing and sad when you see what
he went through as a child andthen was able to pull himself up.
And actually, you know, graduateSuma cum laude from Yale from law school
there. So that's an interesting again, life imitating art there. We have
a really big movie opening this weekend, Doctor Bob, Deadpool and Wolverine.
(03:35):
Yeah, and kind of historic ina number of ways. First of all,
the Marvel universe is called has beensuffering. They've you know, once
upon a time everything they released wasa hit. Now there's been a number
that haven't been. So many crigsare saying, yeah, just what the
MCU needs. But it's also historicalin that while the other Deadpools were also
(03:58):
are rated, this is the firstDeadpool that's under the Marvel ownership. The
first ones were done when it wasstill twentieth Century Fox, which Disney then
bought. So this would be Marvel'sfirst R rated film. And we've heard
descriptions vulgar, violent, gory,all that kind of thing. On the
other hand, the critics have beennot totally universally praising pretty close to it
(04:23):
at this point. And you know, we've we had a slow start to
the movie season, you know,going back to May when the summer movie
season kind of gets underway, nota lot of action and activity as far
as good movies, and then itcomes along inside Out two, which is
now I think the most the highestgrossing animated movie of all time. And
(04:45):
then you had Despicable Meat four,so a lot of family kids movies.
And then you had, you know, last weekend to moderate success, Twisters
came out, which was PG thirteen. And then now you've got this heavy,
you know, kind of raunchy ratedR movie. We'll see what it
does with the thing this weekend.Yeah, that Inside Out to News.
That was that past Frozen two.That was pretty big, pretty big news.
So yeah, you're right, thereis there are some bright spots in
(05:08):
the always cloudy horizon of theatrical releases. Speaking of Dead Pull and Wolverine,
Taylor Swift has been posting about itlike crazy, so that's got to help.
That will help, no doubt.Speaking when talking about Thompson pop culture
at Syracuse University and the Olympics starttoday, We've got the Olympic opening ceremonies.
With the time change, you canwatch them live here on Eastern Time
(05:30):
at one thirty. I think they'regoing to rebroadcast the opening ceremonies in primetime
tonight at seven o'clock, so you'vegot that tape delay thing going on.
How have Olympics historically done, especiallythe opening ceremonies in ratings. Well,
once upon a time, of course, Olympics were, you know, every
four years, every two years beforethey synchronize the winter and summer, we're
(05:53):
among the biggest television events and thebiggest television audiences of the entire year.
The Summer Olympics were the ways inwhich networks would launch their entire fall seasons.
They'd fill the Olympics with promos forthe new fall shows that are coming
out. That's of course changed backin the day. I remember the first
Olympics I really got into. Iwas twelve years old. It was nineteen
(06:15):
seventy two Munich, which turned outto be a very news event Olympics,
and I stumbled into that. Notbecause I was interested in the Olympics at
the time, but there were onlythree networks, and especially during the day
when there was nothing else on,you watched the Olympics by default. You
of course don't have to do thattoday, so a lot of people who
(06:40):
are not interested in it, they'vegot all kinds of other choices to make.
At the same time, NBC verymuch depends upon they paid when they
extended their contract with the Olympic Committeeto have rights to broadcast these. They
extended it back in twenty twenty togo till twenty thirty two, so they've
got it until twenty three to two. They paid seven point seventy five billion
(07:02):
dollars for that. It's a lotof programming, but seven point seventy five
billion is a lot of money.Yeah, I think I remember my first
Olympics was nineteen eighty four. Iknow, the nineteen eighty Summer Games was
in Moscow and it was a lotof politics happening there and Boycott's and so
(07:25):
eighty four in La which was Ithink my first Olympics. I really kind
of paid attention to you. Butyou're right. I mean, now it's
like, you don't have to watchthe Olympics. You can get little eclips
and bits and bytes on YouTube lateror the rebroadcast of everything. You don't
necessarily need to watch in real time. That's true. And yet you don't
have to watch it all if youdon't want to, because there's all kinds
(07:46):
of other choices. But it's goingto be all over the place. NBC,
USA Network, E Telemundo, CNBCGolf Channel. Not to mention Peacock,
So there are. But if youdon't have if you don't have a
Peacock subscription or a or a cablepackage, it's you know, then you
(08:07):
have to depend exclusively on what NBCdoes. I do like I like watching
the events. I like track andfield and the swimming and some of the
other basketball, of course, butI also do like the opening ceremonies when
you see the parade of nations comingin and you see these I mean,
of course, you know USA withthese massive delegation, hundreds of athletes,
(08:28):
and then you'll see like a tinycountry like Lichtenstein of like two people,
you know, they're they're they're carryingtheir flag, and you've got this,
you know, this world class shotputter. That's all they've got out of
these small countries. Apparently they're comingdown the river to that today, which
we're going to know in a fewhours if you watch it live, and
I think an hour of it's goingto be commercial free. Six companies have
(08:50):
agreed to have each one their logoup in the upper right hand thing for
ten minutes apiece, so that nocommercials interrupt the I don't know if it's
the first hour or whatever, butgot all kinds of gimmicks to get people
to Yeah, the barges, thesebig flatbed barges on the Sene River.
You see some of the promos onNBC and how they're going to do it.
It looks it's gonna look spectacular.I'm already kind of looking forward to
(09:13):
seeing how you pointed out the sixhour delay, though that's never good because
that means all their primetime programming andthe big stuff tends to be on time
delay. And in the old daysthat may not as matter as much,
but it's impossible not to hear thisnews ahead of time now that it's being
fed into our pockets every five seconds.
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