Crash and Learn

David Weigel | August 28, 2006

Forgive me, but I just can't muster up the mandatory outrage over NBC running its filmed intro for the Emmys. In Kentucky, hours before the broadcast, a passenger plane crashed right after leaving the runway. In the Emmy intro, host Conan O'Brien is flying in a luxury jet that starts going down and strands him on the "Lost" island. HotAir, which has a clip of the O'Brien sketch (notice we never see the plane crash - did NBC actually snip part of the segment?), sees blue state bigotry at work.

This looks like a case of awful timing more than awful taste (and yes, we're aware it's a Lost parody); nevertheless, it's going to be a night to remember for NBC, the Emmys and Conan O'Brien. On the other hand, if the Comair crash had happened on the Left Coast, would NBC have gone through with the skit?

Oh, come on. They awarded the big statues to "24," didn't they? Not the actions of people who stay up late thinking of ways to torment red-staters. (They stay up late, but for better reasons.)

I completely understand how Kentucky viewers were shocked by this, as the Emmys began right after a local update on the crash. But hectoring NBC for insufficient pandering to tragedy seems a mighty lame tribute to 49 people.

Comments

|8.28.06 @ 9:17AM|#

"I completely understand how Kentucky viewers were shocked by this, as the Emmys began right after a local update on the crash."

"Kentucky" viewers? "Local" update? What, there's only one NBC affiliate in the entire state? Or all the NBC affiliates in Kentucky ran the update?

|8.28.06 @ 9:23AM|#

Actually, in Kentucky the "NBC affiliate" consists of a team of men in overalls climbing up to their tin roofs and shouting headlines to the neighbors. I should have made that clear.

thoreau|8.28.06 @ 9:39AM|#

I don't know that giving Emmys to 24 really counts as a conservative gesture or red state gesture or whatever. The most recent season of 24 was about a doofus president being manipulated by evil advisors to perpetrate a WMD hoax to create a pretext for military action in a region with lots of oil.

Whatever one might think about that narrative and how realistic or unrealistic it might be, it's clearly not a terribly conservative narrative.

As to the plane crash? I can't work up any outrage either. I mean, people die in horrible crimes every day but nobody gets upset that CSI and Law and Order are on the air.

|8.28.06 @ 9:56AM|#

"As to the plane crash? I can't work up any outrage either. I mean, people die in horrible crimes every day but nobody gets upset that CSI and Law and Order are on the air."

I agree. If network TV has to change programing because of sensitivity to current events, we've become a nation of wimps. We don't live in a glass world.

|8.28.06 @ 10:05AM|#

Why does NBC hate the audience of Lexington, Kentucky?

|8.28.06 @ 10:17AM|#

If network TV has to change programing because of sensitivity to current events, we've become a nation of wimps.

It's not so much that we're a nation of wimps as that we cater to our wimps and present their sniveling sensitivities as representative of a much larger group.

Kentucky viewers were outraged? I'd bet that it's not more than 50-100 of them but they'll make like it's the whole state. Then you can mix in those who didn't see the broadcast but get into a berserker rage about the attack on their state.

Actually, I've never understood this special bonus empathy that we're supposed to feel for dead strangers because they're from the same state.

|8.28.06 @ 11:32AM|#

Like most of his screaming headlines, I thought this "outrage!" was one dreamt up mostly by Matt Drudge. What a drama queen she is.

The Wine Commonsewer|8.28.06 @ 12:06PM|#

Maybe they were Macacas in overalls shouting the news from tin roofs. Is the plural of roof
rooves?

|8.28.06 @ 12:32PM|#

You'd almost think that making up bogus stories of Red Staters being persecuted by the media was part of some major political party's campaign effort.

|8.28.06 @ 12:43PM|#

You people should actually watch the clip before you come to your knee-jerk reaction.

In the clip, Conan gets on a plane in Kentucky filled with hillbillies and a couple men dressed like Colonel Sanders. The plane goes down after using the wrong runway. Out of the 50 occupants of the plane, only Conan survives. Then Conan meets with the families of the victims and tells them how glad he is that these poor souls have passed. This goes on for about 40 minutes, as O'Brien insults each victim one by one.

So this strikes me as being a bit insensitive. NBC and their local affiliates should've exercised a little more discretion.

|8.28.06 @ 12:51PM|#

NBC and their local affiliates should've exercised a little more discretion.

Fuckin' northeast and/or west coast liberals.

|8.28.06 @ 1:09PM|#

Mr. Nice Guy-

You forgot to mention that Conan was also reading a NYT article with pictures of President Logan's vacation house. Now Vladimir Bierko knows where Logan lives!

|8.28.06 @ 4:03PM|#

Thoreau: That made me laugh.