Friday, March 04, 2005

Breaking News Sally Struthers to co-host Unfiltered (This is PARODY, PEOPLE)

Breaking News!
Sally Struthers will be the new co-host of Unifltered!

Just as Sally was brought on to deal with the understated, droll delivery of another short person prior, she will be on hand to do the same for Rachel Maddow!
Air America is very thrilled with the new direction of the show!
They feel like ABC in the seventies, they have made a smart decision!
Look for the revamped Unfiltered to be as successful as The Sonny Comedy Revue!
Sonny Bono's Cher-less show aired on ABC from September 22, 1974 to December 29th of the same year!
Air America hopes to match that record!
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The above is parody. Sally Struthers is not (at present) joining Unfiltered. (And she wasn't a regular on The Sonny Comedy Revue. She was, however, the female guest on the first episode.
Howard Cosell and The Jackson Five were the other guests on that first episode.)

However, there is something truly sad about Air America's refusal to address the reality of what has gone down.

I'm looking at eighty e-mails, angry ones, about Lizz Winstead being "disappered" from the show with no explanation and being "scrubbed" from the official web site.

Some people say they like Rachel, but all eighty say they are done with the show.

If anyone wants to be quoted, note it and we'll mention it.

Grant noted he wanted to be quoted.

Grant: Rachel Maddow threw in the towel during the election night coverage and cut off Randi [Rhodes] who was trying to talk (on election night before the returns were streaming in) about the problems she was seeing. Rachel just cut her off. Rachel's boring and she thinks she's smart but for someone so supposedly smart, she makes mistakes repeatedly on everything from when an article appeared in print, to knowing what a writer wrote. I won't be staying with the show without Lizz Winstead. Lizz was the reason to listen. Rachel needs to go back to her progressive music radio roots and quit droning on and on about nothing. She has no grasp on what people think or do. And always preaches when she should talk. There was a hilarious thing right after the new year that they played constantly as a commercial, Rachel going on and on about how the mainstream news doesn't tell you what happened, something that came out over Christmas, but she does tell you. It was funny because the week after Christmas, Unfiltered was repeats. I don't remember The Evening News [CBS] airing a week of repeats, do you? Rachel's a pompous bore. Lizz humanized her and made her bearable.

You can share any opinion you have (e-mail address is common_ills@yahoo.com). I don't dislike Rachel but you can't have The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour without Cher. Rachel can be insightful but Lizz was integral to the show. And what appears to have bothered so many is the fact that there has been no explanation offered by Unfiltered or Air America for why Lizz is gone.

If any member would like to highlight future episodes of Unfiltered, please feel free to do so. However, I won't be highlighting the show until they go public with an explanation. Marcia e-mailed, "This is so insulting to the listener. Even NPR gave an explanation for Bob Edwards' departure."

I understand that people feel insulted and I'm not going to try for an Oprah moment here (Gina's no doubt filled with joy). They've made their mess. They can address it on their own.
Unless they do, there's really no reason for me to insult the feelings of members by plugging the show. (Again, if a member ever wants the show highlighted, we will do so. But I don't intend to bring it up when they have so angered listeners and have not addressed this.)

[Note: "On hand." Not "on had." Thanks to Martha for catching that.]