View From the Phlipside Radio - Shark Week

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

I’m gonna fess up right up front.  I don’t get the whole Shark Week thing, I’ve never gotten the whole Shark Week thing and I’m not sure I’m ever going to get the whole Shark Week thing.  In case you don’t know what I’m talking about Shark Week is a week long series of specials on Discovery Channel about, you guessed it, sharks.  The underlying rationale is that the specials help the regular person have more respect for sharks.  Sharks.  Big teeth, think of me as lunch.  What more do I need to know?

Now that attitude kind of leaves me out of the “cool kids” group, again, because Shark Week has become a blockbuster TV event.  Last year’s audience set a record with over 30 million unique viewers.  On the air since 1987 it’s now the longest running cable TV event of all time.  And it’s seen in 72 countries.

Color me - puzzled.

But the folks who bring the world Shark Week are not puzzled in any way shape or form.  They know a winner when they see it and in true TV fashion they are leaping on the bandwagon.  Even if it’s their own bandwagon.  Discovery Channel’s sister network Animal Planet has announced that this spring they will be offering... MONSTER WEEK!  And even better than that it will actually run for more than a week!

This show will stay true to the basic concepts of Shark Week.  The monsters are water born and most of them would view their fans as tasty morsels.  Jeremy Wade will host the week.  He should feel right at home since his regular gig on Animal Planet is a show called River Monsters.

I really do begin to wonder about the TV viewing public after a while.  I mean look at what some of our favorite TV viewing is.  There’s all the CSI and police procedurals that feature our fellow man dieing in as many hideous ways as possible.  On top of that we have things like Criminal Minds and Dexter which features human beings at their most twisted and depraved.  Now we want more, more, more of scary beasts that want to eat us.  

Now THAT’S entertainment.

But a woman’s nipple exposed for less than a second during the Super Bowl is the end of the world as we know it.

Nope I just don’t get it at all.

Call that the View From the Phlipside.