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Posts: 5567
Oct 12 05 4:33 PM
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Quote:Mike Bullard shook things up on a dull day of mind-numbing American piffle culture. Typical.On Wednesday, things were proceeding as expected: Television was filled with nonsensical, gee-whiz coverage of allegedly important people in the United States.All I was seeing on Wednesday was Kobe Bryant in court, Arnold Schwarzenegger teasing about his announcement on Leno's show, and Jerry Springer saying he was not going into politics because of the importance of his so-called TV show. Then the crackpot, self-adoring, sometimes TV pundit Arianna Huffington was saying she was definitely entering politics, and the diminutive, has-been TV actor Gary Coleman was saying he too was going into politics. What a gaggle of goombahs.Then Bullard waded in and announced he was going Global. This was local news of some importance. The Canadian television world is considered tiny by most people but it's a world of big egos, big money and major attitude. It's not the talented who get big money. The executives do, and they wield the real power. The Bullard story is really about battling execs who get their kicks from feuds, not putting great shows on the air.I'm not sure that Global knows what it has on its hands with Mike Bullard. Acerbic and cutting, he doesn't conform. Even as Global gleefully unveiled him on its news programs on Wednesday, Bullard's wisecracks left the Global anchors a little stunned. He's not careful with his words. On one Global news program he gleefully pointed out that although he was appearing in an apparent split-screen hookup with the anchor, he was, in fact, sitting across the room. He found this darned hilarious, and the Global anchor didn't.As Bullard rightly pointed out to me in an interview, he knows his following is among Tim Hortons habitus. He's never been liked very much by people who want a polite Canadian popular culture. At a press conference to announce the nominees for the Juno Awards last year, Bullard made a wisecrack about the number of hip-hop artists at the event and noted that this meant some car radios would be safe. There was a lot of huffing about the politically incorrect joke, but Bullard didn't apologize. It was, he pointed out, a joke.But the joke was uttered at an event where everybody gets very pompous. Now he's going to Global, where there's an awful lot of pomposity.When he was host of the Gemini Awards in 2001, his endless ribbing of TV executives and stars caused a kind of fury that spoke volumes about the smug, self-satisfied egos in the audience. Most of them ended up loathing him.We have a curious notion of show biz in this country. Sometimes the television racket is entirely lacking in humour. More power to Mike Bullard if he gets more money, airtime and exposure with a talk show on Global. It's going to an interesting ride for all of us, one that will probably end in tears and fury for somebody.
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