Do Rock the 'mote

Let's look into the snowy TV screen and take a peek at the future of TV remote controls. Wait. The picture's clearing up. I can see it. It's a combo phone/remote with a flip-mouse and pull-out keyboard.

The US Patent & Trademark Office just published an app (20060080710) today that describes this future.

First, it's a universal remote control. But that's not all. It's also a cordless phone — you just have to keep your remote in a cradle so that it's always charged. Want to surf the web on your TV? Just use the pull-out keyboard to type away. Too good to be true? It only gets better. The top of the remote flips up and over so that you can use it like a mouse, as shown below. The keyboard slides out on the far right.

Jack's Mother of All Trades

Maybe you'll tune in the for the season — and probably series — finale of ''Freddie'' tonight. If you do, you'll watch an ep called ''Mother of All Grandfathers.''

Turns out that Mom is pretty busy. She's the mother of a lot of things. Just take a look at these ep titles:

• The Mother of All Battles (''The Fresh Prince of Bel Air,'' 9/16/1991)
  
• The Mother of All Fishing Trips (''Doogie Howser, M.D.,'' 12/16/1992)
  
• The Mother of All Adventures (''Mighty Max,'' 10/20/1993)
  
• The Mother of All In-Laws (''The Mommies,'' 1/7/1995)
  
• The Mother of All Monsters (''Hercules: The Legendary Journeys,'' 10/16/1995)
  
• The Mother of All Hoods (''The Mask: The Animated Series,'' 9/26/1996)
  
• The Mother of All Gwens (''Fired Up,'' 9/22/1997)
  
• The Mother of All Visits (''For Your Love,'' 3/31/1998)
  
• Mother of All Battles (''Jackie Chan Adventures,'' 9/24/2001)
  
• The Mother of All Robattles (''Medabots,'' 4/27/2002)
  
• The Mother of All Episodes (''Girlfriends,'' 11/8/2004)
  
• Mother of All Grandfathers (''Freddie,'' 4/12/2006)

Breadth Is the Brand Leveler

Theme. Tagline. Slogan. Brand.

Four words that must drive cable net execs simply nuts.

How do you use a simple phrase, graphics, bumpers and ad campaign to convince an audience that your channel is worth watching? You have to identify a niche and choose a theme that sets you apart from other channels, but, at the same time, you have to appeal to a wide audience. A tough problem. And that's why channels change taglines so often. They're looking for just the right message that balances its content niche with audience breadth.

Which cable nets recently refreshed their brands? Last week Court TV unveiled The Whole Truth as its new slogan. A week earlier, TLC unveiled its new brand, Live and Learn, including collectible figurines.

Can you match each tagline with its cable network?

Slogan		Network
1.	Be more	a.	Bravo
2.	find your own story	b.	IFC
3.	It's Your Life...Spend It Well	c.	Lifetime
4.	Real. Life. Now.	d.	Logo
5.	tv. uncut.	e.	The N
6.	very funny	f.	PBS
7.	watch pretty.	g.	style
8.	Watch What Happens	h.	tbs
9.	WE have more fun	i.	WealthTV
10.	Your Network. Your Stories.	j.	Women's Entertainment

(+/-)answers

1-f, 2-c, 3-i, 4-e, 5-b, 6-h, 7-g, 8-a, 9-j, 10-d

Monthly Schedule Update

I've added another four weeks — most of March 2006 — to the searchable schedules at the top of the page.

But there's bigger news today. Remember. Everytime I update the searchable TV schedules, I also update Total Tube Time in the near right column. If you take a peek today, you'll see that "Law & Order" sits proudly at the top of the list of dramas. "L&O" finally passed "Murder, She Wrote."

From June 6, 1983 to March 26, 2006 "L&O" logged 8.09 billion household hours on US primetime network TV. That's more household hours than any other drama during that same period.

Just think about that number. If you watched "L&O" on a Wednesday night in February, that means your TV contributed ONE household hour to that number. If 1,000 households watch "L&O" 24/7/365, viewers would endure more than 90 years of "L&O" to reach 8.09 billion household hours.

BETer Be Envied Than Pitied

Rumor has it that BET will soon announce four new series:

• "American Gangster" will point the finger at notorious crime figures.
• "Black Carpet" will highlight events, celebrities and trendsetters that shape, entertain and inform African American culture.
• "Iron Ring" will sport mixed martial arts competitors managed by celebrities.
• "Star Time" will put the spotlight on an up-and-coming artist.

Brainchildren Should Be Seen and Not Heard

The furor over ABC's "American Inventor" is dying down. According to the weekly Nielsen Ratings, the skein attracted audiences of 14.15, 13.04 and 9.29 million viewers for the first three weeks, respectively. I don't have numbers for last night's show, but I'm guessing fewer than 9 million people watched since "AI" aired opposite a new ep of "CSI," just like last week — its third week. "AI" avoided new eps of "CSI" for the first two weeks and took advantage.

This trend doesn't bode well for Halo Productions. On March 17 — the day after "AI" preemed — Halo filed for trademark protection for "International Inventor." A natural next step.

I don't expect to ever see Halo's international version hit the airwaves though.

Way back in the Fall of 2004, Anson Williams (Potsy on "Happy Days") joined Halo Studios to produce a 10-episode series called "The Entrepreneur." I haven't been able to find the show anywhere. We've seen USA's "Made in the USA" from Realand Productions, LLC and 10X10 Entertainment in association with NBC Universal Television Distribution. And we've seen ABC's "American Inventor" from Simon Cowell's Syco Television LLC and FremantleMedia North America, Inc in association with Peter Jones TV. But nothing called "The Entrepreneur."

Combine waning interest in "American Inventor" with Halo's recent track record in this area and "International Inventor" becomes a non-story.

What Can't Be Secured Must Be Endured

I was reading an article about Cablevision's remote storage DVR over the weekend, and the note reminded me how cable companies have centralized other aspects of their business.

Remember the old days when a technician had to come to your house and fiddle with your set-top box so you could get that new movie channel? Well, it turned out that anybody could do that upgrade — without the cable company's approval or knowledge. And that led to theft.

The cable companies tried scrambling signals, but that didn't deter too many thieves. I'm sure cable companies had to rely on local anti-theft measures, but I really don't remember hearing much about them. So I did some research, and I came across one technique that I never heard of. Here's a snippet from Robin Foster's October 14, 1985 article in The Orlando Sentinel entitled, Wired for Security: Inventor Put Lid on Cable Television with Rigged Box.

[Robert H.] Schaer is service manager at Sonitrol Security Systems Inc. in St. Petersburg, and after creating a security device for alarm boxes, his boss told him that the same invention might sell better in the cable television market. All Schaer did was wire together five screws for the back of a cable box. If the screws are not removed in the pre-determined order, the box will disconnect all the television channels.

''This protects against getting cable channels the customer is not paying for,'' Schaer said, explaining that many cable customers are able to take the back off their cable box and access extra channels. The only way the box could then be reconnected is with a visit from the cable service repairman, he said.

Simple and ingeneous. I wonder if it actually worked?

Today Is the First OK of the Rest of Your Life

If you watched "Gilmore Girls" last night, you watched a fresh ep entitled, I'm OK, You're OK.

Yes, that is the same title as the 1969 Thomas Harris book that slowly climbed the best seller lists. It was the #4 best-selling non-fiction book of 1971, according to this Cader Books resource.

Here's a short list of shows that paid homage to Harris' self-helper:

• Laura Fay, You're Okay! (''Room 222,'' 3/31/1971)
  
• I'm Okay, You're Okay, So What's Wrong? (''The Bob Newhart Show,'' 11/17/1973)
  
• I'm Okay, But You're Not (''Welcome Back, Kotter,'' 6/1/1979)
  
• I'm OK, You're Catatonic (''Night Court,'' 1/21/1988)
  
• I'm OK, You Need Work (''21 Jump Street,'' 2/21/1988)
  
• I'm Okay, You're All Crazy (''She's the Sheriff,'' 1989)
  
• Slime OK, You're OK (''Darkwing Duck,'' 11/26/1991)
  
• I'm Okay, You're Defective (''Cheers,'' 12/5/1991)
  
• I'm O-tay, You're O-tay (''The Parent 'Hood,'' 2/21/1996)
  
• I'm OK, You're Hilton (''Cosby,'' 3/10/1997)
  
• Y2K, You're Okay (''The Drew Carey Show,'' 9/22/1999)
  
• I'm Okay, You're Crazy (''Fighting Fitzgeralds,'' 4/3/2001)
  
• I'm OK, You're Not OK (''Gastineau Girls,'' 12/6/2005)

Of course, ''The Bob Newhart Show'' was perfectly positioned to riff on the title of this self-help book. Right time. Right character.

At first I was surprised by the cluster of shows from 1988-1991 that referenced the book, but then I remembered that the self-help craze really started in the late '80s. I confirmed my suspicion about this late '80s trend when I found Wendy Kaminer's 1992 book, I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional: The Recovery Movement and Other Self-Help Fashions.

Old Series Never Die, They Just Fade Into Schedule Filler

Tonight you can watch the first ep of ''City of Men'' on the Sundance Channel. This Brazilian import is a strong indicator of things to come.

The number of channels continues to increase fast. Faster than the talent pool for professionally-produced US TV series. The result? Cable channels have to fill programming gaps, and their best bet is to purchase the rights to foreign-produced series that already aired. That's the reason why you can watch imported anime on Cartoon Network and ABC Family. That's the reason why you can watch imported Aussie shows, like "Kath & Kim" and "McLeod's Daughters." That's the reason why you'll see be able to watch the imported Finnish series, "The Dudesons," on Spike TV this summer.

This practice of repurposing TV series is not new. Since Fox hit the primetime airwaves almost 20 years ago (April 5, 1987), the following series aired on US primetime network TV after airing elsewhere (cable, foreign nets):

• 104 airings on Fox in 1988-90: "It's Garry Shandling's Show" (Showtime, 1986)
  
• 46 airings on Fox in 1994-96: "Tales from the Crypt" (HBO, 1989)
  
• 19 airings on Fox in 1995: "Dream On" (HBO, 1990)
  
• 18 airings on ABC in 2002, 2004: "Monk" (USA, 2002)
  
• 11 airings on UPN in 2001: "Celebrity Deathmatch" (MTV, 1998)
  
• 10 airings on NBC in 2003-04: "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" (Bravo, 2003)
  
• 8 airings on NBC in 2002: "Forensic Files" (Court TV, 2000)
  
• 3 airings on NBC in 1998: "Stressed Eric" (BBC2 - UK, 1998)
  
• 2 airings on UPN in 1999: "Power Play" (CTV - Canada, 1988)

"Stressed Eric" was a little ahead of its time. Despite being removed from the airwaves after three eps, it averaged 4.5 million households per show. An awful audience for a network at the time, but a pretty good audience for a cable channel today.

Beauty Is in the Eyes of the IMDBeholder

If you look at historical TV schedules using the trivialTV database at the top of any page on this blog, you'll see that I added links to the front pages of TV shows on imdb.com.

Most program boxes now contain links to tv.com, TV Guide and imdb.com. I'll be adding links to offical homepages, if they exist, and wikipedia show pages in the future.

I just started working on a new GUI for the TV schedules so that you'll be able to access and view information faster and easier. I plan to unveil the new interface on the one-year anniversary of trivialTV.

For now, enjoy!