C'mon man. Seinfeld show couldn't have been that bad!

It wasn't that pleasant for me to read in TV Guide that the NBC viewer survey of a Seinfeld pilot a quarter century ago scorned the show in its infancy.  What's that?  By whom?

Well, for starters, the network's stop banana in the entertainment  division, Brandon Tartikoff.  "Too New York, too Jewish,'  complained Tartikoff, himself a Jew. And the awful results of  telephone survey of 400 households were described as a "dagger to the heart" to what would become one of the most successful sitcoms in TV history. Hooray for that,  even if some later critics snipped that the so-called "show about nothing" featured a  bunch of socially worthless  people totally unaware of a world beyond.

The network's  research department,TV Guide reported, quoted an NBC  executive  who described the pilot as "weak weak".

"None of the supports were particularly liked,  and viewers felt that Jerry needed a better backup ensemble," the Guide noted.   George (Jason Alexander) was dismissed as a loser and whining "wimp". (That he was for 25 years.  So?  It's a sitcom!)   Kessler (Michael Richards) later renamed Kramer, had "low scores".  And Jerry, known by some of the viewers as a standup comedian who opened the pilot, drew complaints that his routine was interrupted by the show. Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Elaine) didn't show up until the second episode.

Well, how horribly inattentive can  viewers be when they rain on a series pilot? Besides, it would be put up against CBS' Jake and the Fatman,  a cop show.   Remember?

Whatever happened to Jake anyway?  On the other hand, my friend Howard and I often drift off in conversation to reciting lines from the show that, by the way, you can still see regularly as a popular rerun.

Post- election stuff from the other side of the universe

 POST-ELECTION DEBRIS:

In an interview with WKSU's M.L. Schultze,  Republican Don Robart, who was defeated as Cuyahoga Falls mayor in  Tuesday's election,  seemed quite puzzled why some of us placed him in  the Tea Party's grasp, saying:

"I think they're (sic)  calling me the darling of the Tea Party was quite an exaggeration.  For the most part I don't even hardly know those people..."

For someone who doesn't hardly know ''those people", it does seem fair to ask how he could have excitedly praised the Tea Party throng  at their rally in his city as  the "moral, fiscal and social conscience of America?"  Who knew?

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Are we witnessing the end of days?  I sensed that the human race may be preparing to cash it all in after reading Chairman Alex Arshinkoff's learned explanation in the Beacon Journal of why voters were in a mood to throw out a lot of incumbents.  "I think they're (voters) fed up with politicians," the combative Republican county boss opined. "They don't see an end to the bickering and the fighting."  Based on local experiences, I think I might know how we can begin to turn that around,  Alex.  But why bicker?

* * * * *

Throughout election night, NBC's Chuck Todd continued to remind the viewers that President Obama's approval ratings had fallen to a new low without once noting that  Obama is barred by law from seeking a third term.  So for any  non-candidate, such ratings are little more than table talk.  Iconic Ronald Reagan's disapproval rating (Gallup)  rose to 56 pct.  in January 1983 - one point higher than Obama's 55 pct. in August 2011.   We won't even mention that George W.Bush's highest  disapproval rating led all other presidents with 71 pct. in October, 2008. So to Chuck Todd, I ask:  What's the point?

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Finally, the Ohio Republican Party was out the morning-after with stunningly breaking (and overcooked) news.  Blared State GOP chairman Matt Borges:  Obamacare was a disaster and Democrats "will be held accountable in 2014."  Ummmmm....Careful, Matt,  that you don't peak too soon under that barn-and-silo logo  on your party's official media releases.

NBC: The price of dumb decisions?

AM I THE ONLY person in the world who isn't seriously caught up in the celebrity shuffle at NBC featuring Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien? I mean, here are two well-paid, well-fed comedians (I'm told) whose bosses have tried to turn them on a splashy new axis to gain viewers. And the national media haven't got enough of it. Apparently, the front office at NBC should have left well-enough alone, which is often the case these days as dumb decisions are passed down from the top by folks who ought to know better - but don't. Leno will be back to his old spot; and O'Brien will end up somewhere else. Blah. Blah. Blah.

However, the vein that is being tapped, whether on Wall Street, sports and television is generating great wealth for the losers. Bonuses at the big banks, payoffs for departing coaches and, in this instance, O'Brien. When Charlie Weis was fired at Notre Dame, he is said to have received upward of $30 million for coaching another mediocre performance by the Fighting Irish. O'Brien will match that out the door. Obviously, recessions aren't for everybody.

A president talking to himself

I'LL GIVE the Bushies this much credit:  They sure know how to orchestrate a 13-minute Farewell  Address.  Unrepentant for the havoc that his administration created around the world and at home,  George Walker Bush merely told the nation that if folks are patient, even those whose belongings are out on the lawn of their foreclosed homes,  America will do fine.  And that's because, except for a few blips here and there, he did fine during his 8 years in office  (it seemed twice as long).  This was not the old soldier Gen. MacArthur who said he would just fade away.  This was a president with ground-level ratings  who was blind to his many shortcomings and will leave office unapologetically believing that he was right - courageously right, at that  - on all counts.  I  thought it was clever, too,  how the  people he praised in the audience were all African-Americans.  So there.  Obama didn't  capture all blacks on Election Day, I guess.  It was another conceit on his part that will be forgotten tomorrow.  It was not one of Bush's better days - and nights.  A plane crash into a river dominated the network news before and after the speech, and - signs of the times - NBC's Brian Williams,  late into his news program,  said, "By the way" NBC would be carrying Bush's speech at 8.  By the way?  That's no way to dismiss  a presidential epilogue. Unless, of course, it's George Bush's.