Category: Wednesday Whine
WEDNESDAY WHINE: ‘Coming Up’ TV Previews Revealing Too Much
It doesn’t matter whether they’re at the beginning, before a commercial break, or at the end of a show, it always annoys me when TV shows feel it necessary to include…
‘Coming Up’ Previews that Reveal Too Much
Attention television producers: Believe it or not, there are people who are faithful to your show. There are viewers who follow your story lines (as unbelievable as most of them are) and enjoy watching them unfold each week. Why do you find it necessary to spoil many of the key moments in each episode with teasers, aimed at hooking casual viewers? Do you think that’s the only way you can keep people tuned in?
This practice seems to span all networks and genres. It’s like the producers (or perhaps marketing people) believe that every pivotal plot point needs to be revealed before an episode actually airs to make sure viewers are interested enough to tune in next week.
Recent (and recurring) examples include previews shown for NBC’s Heroes, FX’s Nip/Tuck, and ABC’s The Bachelor.
Lately, so little has been going on in each episode of Heroes that revealing anything in the “Coming up…” previews is revealing too much. The show has been light on content and heavy on repetitive dialogue so hearing the most important lines delivered in preview-form often ruins the surprise of what’s going to happen.
The folks at Nip/Tuck appear to think that their viewing audience doesn’t remember anything about any episode from the past. The “Previously on Nip/Tuck…” sequences that are shown at the beginning of each episode essentially reveal what the entire upcoming episode is about by including select sound bites, scenes, and characters from prior episodes. If you see a character that hasn’t been in the show for several episodes during this “Previously on…” segment, it makes it pretty darn clear that they’re making a return. Likewise if a specific plot point is mentioned in this segment, that’s what the upcoming episode will be about. This is on top of the “Next time on Nip/Tuck…” preview from the end of the prior week’s show revealing just about everything else about the episode. It’s like watching the whole episode before actually watching it.
And while I don’t actually watch The Bachelor, my wife does every week, so I see bits and pieces here and there, including what appeared to me to be a 5-minute “This week on The Bachelor…”, showing clips of everything that was going to happen over the course of the following two hours of television. For that show, I suppose it’s convenient because then viewers can just fast-forward to the end and see who gets the boot.
Another equally-annoying practice is editing these “Next week on…” previews in a completely misleading way, making you think something is going to happen when it never actually does. Editors will mix dialogue from multiple scenes, forming a preview for a story line that doesn’t actually exist. In a way, this is even worse than spoiling what is really going to happen as it just confuses the viewing audience once the actual story is revealed.
I believe that “Coming up”-style previews should be assembled with care, showing only enough to keep the viewer interested but without actually revealing any plot points, surprising character appearances, or anything else that would have come as a shock when watching the episode. But the world of television revolves around ratings, not viewer satisfaction, and if previews that show an entire episode-worth of information condensed into 30-seconds are what keep viewers around, it must make good business sense to keep them going. For me, it just annoys me and makes me not want to watch the shows anymore.
TweetWEDNESDAY WHINE: Lazy Parents Who Unnecessarily Make Their Kids Take the Bus
Each and every school day that I leave or enter my housing community around 3 p.m., I spot a crowd just off of the main road that baffles me. That crowd appears to consist of nothing but…
Lazy Parents Who Make Their Kids Take the School Bus
The scene that occurs school day after school day just outside my housing community always annoys me. The generally empty streets become lined with parked SUVs, flanked by a multitude of chatting moms (and occasionally one or two dads), waiting for their kid(s) to arrive via school bus. What about this drives me nuts? Two things:
The Bus Isn’t Necessary for These Kids
With parents who are obviously home around the time that school lets out, why are these kids being forced to take the bus? Schools are not that far away from here. If the parents can pry themselves away from the television long enough to stand on the street corner for 10-20 minutes waiting for a school bus to show up, why can’t they just drive and pick up their kid(s) from school? Making 20 stops in a school bus while trying to get home after a long day at school is not enjoyable. Quickly and comfortably zipping home in an air-conditioned vehicle driven by a mom or dad is. If these parents have nothing else to do besides gossip with each other, why can’t they just go pick up their kid(s) from school?
The Ridiculous Line of Parked SUVs
Worse yet, these parents actually DRIVE down the street to wait at the corner. It’s not like they’re having to commute 30 minutes just to get to the bus stop. We don’t live on a farm. We’re in the suburbs. The bus stop can be reached from any house in the community by walking no more than one minute. Would it really exhaust these parents to get just a tiny bit of exercise and walk instead of driving their gas-guzzling SUVs 10 seconds down the street, only to clutter the entrance and exit of the community? And if they absolutely refuse to walk further than the distance from the couch to the pantry and back, once they’re in their cars, why don’t they just keep driving and pick up their kid(s) from school, instead of parking within view of their houses?
Now, I’m not a parent, so perhaps I don’t get it, but it seems to me that if you have enough time to get out of your pajamas, get in your car, drive down the street, and spend 10-20 minutes chit-chatting with your fellow lazy parents, you have plenty of time to pick up your kid(s) from school and make the end of their day a little brighter.
Those of you who do have kids, comment and let me know if I’m totally out of line in thinking that these parents are just plain lazy.
TweetWEDNESDAY WHINE: Prerecorded Fast Food Drive-Through Greetings
I drove up to the McDonald’s drive-through speaker box the other day with the intentions of quickly ordering lunch. Instead of a conversation with the employee inside, what I got was a…
Prerecorded Fast Food Drive Through Greeting
A friendly and chipper female voice coming from the drive-through speaker said, “Good evening, would you like to try one of our extra value meals?” (or something similar). At first, I was shocked that a McDonald’s employee could sound that happy and enthusiastic after taking fast food orders all day. But then it dawned on me that it was around 2 p.m. and made me wonder why I was greeted with “good evening.”
I shrugged it off and started to place my order. After ordering my first item, I paused to wait for some kind of confirmation that the employee was listening. Nothing. I waited another couple of minutes. Still nothing. Finally, a few minutes later, an unenthusiastic male voice came on the speaker and swiftly said, “Go ahead wit’ yo’ order.”
It was then that I realized that I had been duped by an automated greeting as I pulled up to the drive-through speaker. Now, I had encountered in the past what I was pretty sure was a McDonald’s call-center-equipped drive-through. The live person on the other end of the speaker was clearly not inside the restaurant but rather sitting comfortably in a cubicle somewhere, gladly taking my order. It was obvious that this was the case as when I drove up to the window to pay for my food, the employee standing there was not quite as friendly and barely spoke English.
I’m all for the idea of using call centers to ensure that the non-English-speaker standing in the window doesn’t incorrectly punch in my order. But is the automatic greeting really needed? If the real employee isn’t ready to take an order, what good is it to be greeted immediately upon pulling up to the speaker? It’s just going to make the customer repeat his/her order when the employee is finally ready to take it. Moreover, the split between the friendly prerecorded female voice and the not-so-friendly McDonald’s employee is rather jarring. Without the friendly voice, one might not notice that the employee in the restaurant isn’t happy working there, but when the two are juxtaposed, it becomes quite obvious.
I’m not at all complaining about those unfriendliness of McDonald’s employees. Some are friendly, many are not. I certainly wouldn’t be in a good mood after absorbing grease fumes all day. While I do encourage McDonald’s to use any technology available to help ensure my order is given to me correctly, I don’t think a prerecorded greeting helps in any way. Instead, it has the potential to confuse customers and even cause them to give up and drive away without ordering anything after no one responds beyond the initial fake message.
Have you encountered one of these prerecorded messages at a fast food restaurant? How about a call-center equipped drive-through? Comment on your experiences.
TweetWEDNESDAY WHINE: Enormous Flash Advertisements
In “researching” last week’s whine about Kidz Bop, I was reminded of one of the most obnoxious trends ever to hit web sites…
Enormous Flash Advertisements
As if cluttering a web page with too many Flash-based ads isn’t bad enough, many sites have begun to resort to a content-covering blockade of advertisements that prevent you from even looking at the site without waiting for the obnoxiously-long load time to finally give you a “close” option. Here’s the example I saw on the Kidz Bop web site:
Without Ad
With Ad
Be sure to click the images to see the obnoxiously large size of this advertisement for Inkheart.
Yes, that is the same web page in both pictures. Once this ad started loading, it took 30-45 seconds for it to finally finish its initial animation, another 15-30 seconds for the embedded movie trailer to start playing, and then the option to close it finally was clickable.
You’ll notice that in the top image, a standard-sized banner ad for the same film is also present on the page, so even after you make the excessively large ad disappear, you’re still reminded of it. And don’t even think about navigating to further pages and then coming back to this one… you’ll just be stuck watching the ad load all over again.
At what point does advertising become so important that it completely overtakes your content? Is an ad this humongous really necessary?
TweetWEDNESDAY WHINE: Those Annoying ‘Kidz Bop’ Albums & Videos
I’ll admit I’m a bit of a music snob. Nearly all popular music does not appeal to my ears. However, I can still understand why pop music is loved by many. But when children are grouped together to cover contemporary music for the sake of relating it to a younger generation (and supposedly cleaning it up), that’s when I cringe. Unfortunately, that act has happened 15 times in the form of…
Kiz Bop Music
Before I get into it, here’s a sample:
Would you believe that’s only the latest installment of 15 Kiz Bop albums (in addition to several other themed collections)?
You might be asking: ”What’s so bad about children singing popular songs?” Plenty.
This week, I’ll go for a three-pronged attack:
1. What’s wrong with the original songs?
Covers of songs are fine, and sometimes better than the originals, when actual musicians are performing them. Do we need to “dumb” these songs down for children by having kids sing them instead of real artists?
There is already enough wrong with the over-commercialized world of music today. Vocals from artists who have little talent are digitally enhanced so they are at least in tune. Real instruments are replaced by samples and loops. Now we expect children to properly appreciate music by listening to other kids sing?
Now, I realize that many would say that much of today’s popular music contains lyrics that are not appropriate for children to hear. I don’t necessarily see that as true, as I was listening to Dr. Dre’s The Chronic when I was only 11 years old. I knew enough not to repeat its many swear words in public. Why are today’s children being babied so much?
But despite the fact that Kidz Bop changes some of the lyrics to its songs to make them more wholesome, they are still fooling parents with these supposedly child-friendly albums. Which brings me to…
2. Inappropriate Lyrics
Again, I’m not fond of the act of censoring any songs for childrens’ sake. But, if it’s going to happen, at least do it right. Don’t trick parents into thinking that the song selection is carefully chosen and lyrics are carefully altered (as they’ve stated here) to make the songs appropriate for kids. Kidz Bop certainly claims to be doing this.
An example: “Disturbia” by Rihanna
This song was featured in the above commercial as a selling point for the album. The song, among other things, describes a mental place in which one is confused about life. I could see that relating to children. But, the song does contain this lyric:
Faded pictures on the wall, it’s like they talking to me
Disconnecting on calls, the phone don’t even ring
I gotta get out or figure this sh** out
It’s too close for comfort, oh
I’m not a parent, but I’ll guess that most parents who are concerned enough about music content to buy their kids a Kidz Bop album wouldn’t want this lyric sounding out in their house. Of course, Kidz Bop censors the lyric… but does anyone really think kids aren’t going to want to seek out the original after hearing the butchered version on the Kidz Bop CD? And won’t they hear the original lyric then? And potentially want to sing along with it?
If you don’t think this would happen, check this out. Kidz Bop encourages children to upload videos of themselves singing to their Web site, like a mini-YouTube. In this case, young Paige decided to sing along with the original Rihanna version of the song. It turns out it was the radio edit, where the swear word is muted, but you certainly still get the idea.
This is just one of many, many, many examples of songs that make their way onto Kidz Bop that will likely be seen as inappropriate for children by the very parents that hope to buy a CD that contains nothing but appropriate material. Nice work, Kidz Bop!
For some real humor on this subject, don’t miss this Kidz Bop parody video.
3. Annoyance Factor
This is the most petty of my three complaints, but I’m sticking to it. These songs sung by children are simply annoying. Couldn’t Kidz Bop have gotten some individual, talented kids to sing them rather than just lumping a bunch of kids together and having them all sing simultaneously?
Despite the fact that I think most of the songs featured on Kidz Bop are not good in their original form, they’re a thousand times worse when the backing tracks are re-synthesized and the vocals replaced with sub-par singing from children. It all just seems like an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of ‘tweens’ uploading videos to YouTube of themselves dancing around to various songs. Oh wait, that’s exactly what it is.
A Closing Message to Parents
Don’t buy this garbage. Subjecting your kids to listening to poorly-covered pop songs sung by children is not the way to get them to appreciate music. There is absolutely nothing artistic about Kidz Bop.
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