Just watched a KOJAK that aired 50 years ago tonight w/ Sylvester Stallone (pre-ROCKY) as a cop who shoots a kid, then lies to protect himself. Telly Savalas' contempt for him was very cathartic. #TVSky #ClassicTV

No way I was wasting a second of my time on today’s rally/canonization/memorial. Sadly/thankfully, @goodyk.bsky.social had to do so for work. His story captures all the insane lowlights. When Trump speaks, “It's going to become all about him at some point.” www.azcentral.com/story/entert...

Pretty sure tomorrow is gonna be a high blood pressure day for people who actually work with autistic kids and care about actual science (as opposed to rushed studies done to meet a campaign promise).

Gotta get David Letterman to help this woman hire a really good attorney so she can sue the heck out of Ball State.

I am not bothering with the Kirk thing because the majority of people don’t care, and the ones at least open to it will be confused, sickened, or both.

As the mighty @mousterpiece.bsky.social surmised, Don and Melanie were at the opening of EuroDisney in 1992, hosting a CBS special on the event. These two were there as well:

They don’t call Josh @mousterpiece.bsky.social for nothing.

When (and where) in the world are these two crazy kids?

📺 Notable cast additions on several NBC series on this date (September 21): George Clooney on "The Facts of Life" in 1985; Sandy Duncan on "Valerie's Family" (formerly called "Valerie" and later "The Hogan Family") in 1987; Sam Waterston on "Law & Order" in 1994.

Trump at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service: “He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I HATE my opponent, and I don’t want the best for them. I’m sorry.” Again, this is a memorial service.

You deserve a break today.

Also an update on the suspect in the shooting, whose motives the Trump Justice Dept. has said are “unclear” and whom Utah Sen. Mike Lee said was a Marxist. This matters, because JD Vance this week said the most disgusting thing one can do is give misleading info about the politics of an assassin

As CNN offers daylong saturation coverage of the podcaster’s funeral, I went back and checked to see how CNN covered Melissa Hortman’s memorial on 6/28, where Walz spoke and Biden/Harris attended. It got about four minutes during the hours it was happening—less than Jeff Bezos’s wedding that day.

In case you missed it: I’m launching a Substack on Sept. 30. I’m still at TVLine and not going anywhere. This will be something different — essays, reflections, and the TV that made me. Would mean a lot if you subscribed: ryanschwartz.substack.com

I’m sure someone could provide a worse three paragraphs of “analysis” in this moment, but Peter Baker really sets the bar low here — with what he opined, who he decided to rely on as a source, and why he included those absurd claims without refutation.

There's huge news today-- Trump demanding his AG prosecute his enemies in public, Holman's possible bribe, allies recognizing Palestinian state-- and the WaPo and WSJ are currently leading with the memorial service for someone the WH is deliberately and carefully making into a martyr.

THE WAY HOME headed to Netflix? Honestly, not at all mad at it. Think the series will likely do well on the streamer. www.whats-on-netflix.com/news/netflix...

Correction: this song was made by NBC 2000, the network’s legendary in-house branding team that handled all the stuff between shows. Thanks to @tvbrain.bsky.social for the clarification.

In 1997, NBC’s promo department wrote a whole parody of the MTM theme song just to promote a single episode of The Naked Truth. Those really were the days. youtu.be/CSvw8GZFHPs?...

Watched SUPERMAN (2025) for the first time, and wow: It lives up to the hype, and then some. Just one of the most entertaining movies I’ve seen in years. Can’t wait for more adventures with this crew. Also, the final Justice Gang joke at the end of the movie had me HOWLING. Peak Fillion

What are the chances all the Sunday shows cover this for the horrible scandal it is? You know, open the show with it, make the Rs that were already booked answer for it, have your round table talk about it. The sad thing is I can see all of them ignoring it. That’s what they’ve taught me to expect.

Stunning, though not surprising, that The Washington Post-- the paper whose columnist David Broder coined the phrase "Saturday Night Massacre"-- still has nothing on its homepage about Trump's Bondi comments as of 10:15 p.m. ET.

Then came…a new RAT! Wherever you stream your podcasts.

I love the Joan Jett cover SO much! RiP Sonny Curtis

The YouTube algorithm, still undefeated

A photo of something once well-known and now wholly irrelevant. Also pictured: A 1-800-COLLECT sweatshirt.

Farewell and love all around to Sonny Curtis, who wrote and performed the theme song for THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW. He passed away yesterday at the age of 88. Here he is in 2022 telling Mo Rocca the song’s origin story. #MTMSaturday youtu.be/aWOB9GBqJAA?...

Follow and engage with David, excellent journalist from the Free North!!

While I don’t post or visit regularly, I never deactivated my account on Occupied Twitter; as a journalist, I need to be able to wade into the sewer from time to time. But I get far more engagement and traffic from links here than there, and when I have posted there? Relative crickets, esp for links

This is a great local news story by @aprilcore.bsky.social about a company run by a billionaire businessman (who, in my opinion, is essentially a slumlord) taking public money from a small town & then willfully ignoring its aesthetic an suing dissenters. nevadacurrent.com/2025/09/19/b...

Disney's strategy with Kimmel has been to try to cool things down and figure out how to get its affiliates on board with his show's return to air. There's logic in that. But soon, Bob Iger may have to decide what's more important: Money or liberty. My latest: www.vulture.com/article/bob-...

TCA condemns ABC and Disney’s capitulation to the government’s demands of censorship.

#NotAOneHitWonder #OTD in 1984, singer/songwriter Steve Goodman died young, age 36, from leukemia… He didn’t earn US #OneHitWonder honors, but he got to witness his song, “City of New Orleans,” earn the honors for Arlo Guthrie. #SteveGoodman #CityOfNewOrleans #OneHitWondered

It’s been going around for a day or so, but you really need to watch this Dutch late-night show’s parody of MAGA Disney. It’s brutal and honestly better than anything our comedy shows have done this week (though Colbert had a cute riff on Be Our Guest) youtu.be/7vRX-BQAjeE?...

20 years ago on Fox youtu.be/GyzkOORa1vA?...

I was just about to give up and reveal the answer when @jayfaerber.bsky.social chimed in with his excellent knowledge of procedurals. The Buzzi appearance aired in 1991 on…

Some of you have said CHiPs, but nope, that’s not it. Keep that in mind after seeing this other screenshot from the show:

Time to start the weekend off right. (Any guess what I’m watching?)

Another attack on the press, and an absolutely absurd one at that.

“Carr, fully aware of Trump’s stated desire that Kimmel should be the ‘next’ network late-night host to lose his show, grabbed on to the tiniest thread of grievance and spun it into a direct assault on Kimmel, ABC and the First Amendment.” Yes. Thank you for saying this. Yes.

If the ratings or circulation collapse because we screw up, that’s on us. If advertisers boycott, that’s on us. The government, by law, has no role in content beyond the safe harbor rules for a reason. Using license transfers as a pretext to regulate speech is illegal and antithetical to US values.

Democracy cannot work without a readily available flow of well-sourced information and it cannot work without vigorous debate. This is why the FCC has absolutely no business being in a writer’s room at ABC or in an edit bay at 60 Minutes. None. Zip. Zilch. Zero.

Stories get corrected. Jokes fall flat. Sentences don’t work in print like we wanted them too. The First Amendment exists to protect speech, even when it misfires. People smarter than us knew that only getting stories or jokes with a White House (or City Hall) approval would be a disaster.

Very good reporting/analysis from @tvmojoe.bsky.social on KImmel/Disney/ABC that provides real answers to many of the "Why don't they just..." questions. www.vulture.com/article/bob-...

My colleague @bethysquires.bsky.social talked to people on the late-night front lines about how they're processing the Kimmel situation. Good stuff, up now at @vulture.com www.vulture.com/article/jimm...

Disney's strategy with Kimmel has been to try to cool things down and figure out how to get its affiliates on board with his show's return to air. There's logic in that. But soon, Bob Iger may have to decide what's more important: Money or liberty. My latest: www.vulture.com/article/bob-...

Michael Eisner, welcome to the Resistance.