You say you want an Evolution?

It’s almost exactly 150 years since On the Origin of Species was published, so for this week’s show we decided to put evolution to the test.  We learned a lot of cool facts in producing this hour: did you know the human species was nearly extinct — dwindling to just 2,000 people — 70,000 years [...]

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Happy Birthday Muppets!

Hard to believe, but the Muppets turned 40 this month! And my favorite segments from “The Muppet Show” are still “Pigs in Space.”
In honor of Carrie Fisher’s appearance on our show last week, we bring you a clip from 1980. It’s the Muppets do “Star Wars” – and even though Fisher didn’t make [...]

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Doo-Doo Doo-Doo

Errant kid-carrying balloons, planes that overshoot the runway by 150 miles — these days, preternatural occurrences are the stuff of cable news. But 50 years ago, viewers tuned in to “The Twilight Zone” to get their weekly eeriness fix. Before the “The Twilight Saga,” and before “Paris Hilton’s My New BFF” became the creepiest [...]

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Johannes Brahms v. Tony the Tiger

I know I’m well past the age of someone who should be doing this, but every once in a while I like to watch Saturday morning cartoons. Last weekend while watching “Jane and the Dragon” (great show, by the way), I saw a commercial for a new cereal called Raisin Brahms.
As in the 19th century [...]

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This Week in Swag

Earlier this summer, we lamented the decreased flow of swag into our office in the wake of the recession. While many promotion companies continue to tighten their belts, some recent arrivals may forecast a recovery. Below are some of our own uncommon economic indicators:
From the folks at Sesame Street, we got [...]

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What a Ham(lisch)

This week in Studio 360, we heard from Marvin Hamlisch, the award-winning and always ebullient composer. Hamlisch has won nearly every major music award, including four Grammys, four Emmys, three Golden globes, a Tony, and a Pulitzer. Most recently, he composed the music for the new movie, The Informant!
But [...]

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A Day in Swag

Oh, recession. What was once a swag deluge is now a trickle. Gone are the fat and happy days of bands promoting albums with faux airplane barf bags.
But there was a hopeful glimmer the swag economy was picking up when this gem arrived last week. A sturdy cotton tote featuring SNL vet Chris Kattan seductively [...]

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Kurt on the Red Carpet

Attending the Oscar ceremony last night, I realized why the pre-show red-carpet rigmarole has become more and more a focus of the television coverage over the last decade or so: that’s the juiciest part of the quasi-official event, a reality-show The Day of the Locust without the apocalyptic ending.
First there’s the arrival by car through [...]

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