The TV Zone

You want a handmade holiday present? Here's a biggie – hundreds of Christmas episodes, cartoon specials, music, comedy, cooking shows, seasonal cinema, holiday history.

You name it – for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa – and it's likely listed chronologically here at The TV Zone by date and time within handy genres, collected under the Christmas Tube category on the right side of this page (scroll down below Recent Posts). Some of the season's most popular highlights got the spotlight in Newsday's Monday print edition (like "A Charlie Brown Christmas," pictured above and airing Nov. 27 on ABC), but this online repository is where the real riches reside.

This annual list gets put together the old-fashioned way – literally by hand, typing everything in after scouring TV channel press releases and advance schedules, not to mention personally pestering all my tube info contacts. (Thanks, guys and gals, for putting up with my incessant nudging.)

It's a humongous effort, getting more intense every year. But it's worth it, both for my own Christmas viewing/recording and for the hundreds of readers who annually tell me how much they love being able to find their faves.

Enjoy the listings already posted, and don't forget – this list is updated continually through the end of December, so check back frequently for added shows.

And click the "Comments" link right below this paragraph to let us know what you think. Happy holidays!

Listen to tube faves talk away at the Just My Show site, where the podcast menu includes such names as Tom Wopat of “The Dukes of Hazzard,” Ted Lange from “The Love Boat,” Marion Ross of “Happy Days,” and even memorable recurring players like Len Lesser, “Seinfeld’s” Uncle Leo.

Behind-the-scenes folks can be found, too -- “Sledge Hammer” creator Alan Spencer, “Seinfeld” inspiration Kenny Kramer, “Charlie Brown” animator Bill Melendez, and many more. Just My Show also puts together cool panel chats, like this three-hander dissecting TV Land’s “100 Greatest TV Quotes and Catchphrases.”

The site’s appreciation of retro pop culture (it also covers movies, music, even fashion fads and competitive eating) is put together in slick fashion as a labor of love by an NYC guy who likes to remain anonymous. He isn’t some nostalgic boomer, either -- he’s just 31, so many interviews reflect his own frame of reference (“The Great Space Coaster,” “The Baseball Bunch”).

Just My Show's current top attraction: over an hour of 35th anniversary “M*A*S*H” memories with Mike Farrell, William Christopher and Jamie Farr [photo at left].

Like Television offers dozens of free streams of old TV series and commercials, hoping to entice you to subscribe to its download service ($15/month, $125/year).

The big treat here may be Woody Allen's 1969 NBC comedy special (with Candice Bergen and Billy Graham -- yes, that Billy Graham).

LikeTelevision Embed Movies and TV Shows

Among the other (mostly public domain) goodies:
• Betty White’s 1953 sitcom “Life With Elizabeth.”
• Mary Tyler Moore’s first TV show, “Richard Diamond, Private Detective” (only MTM’s legs were seen).
• Early “reality” show “Night Court USA,” reenactments from the 1950s.
• 1950s ad with dancing Lucky Strike cigarettes.
• 1960 Corvair auto promo film (in color!).
• 1970s Malibu Barbie spot.
• 1990s Apple computer ads.
• Sally Field's 1971 TV movie “Maybe I’ll Come Home in the Spring.”
• Johnny Carson “Tonight Show” highlights.
• Groucho Marx’ “You Bet Your Life” quiz show.
• Episodes of “Ozzie & Harriet,” “Burns & Allen,” “Beverly Hillbillies,” “Bonanza,” “One Step Beyond,” and lots more.

Without the CD, there would be no (same size, looks alike) DVD. And without that, the average house wouldn’t have such a wealth of vintage tube on tap to watch whenever we want.

This BBC news story celebrates the compact disc’s 25th birthday by providing such wonderful facts as the very first commercial music CD. (Do you know what it was? Answer below.)

Also in the story is the interesting observation that the audio CD thrived thanks to its single, open standard -- none of that destructive VHS/Beta rivalry or NTSC/PAL incompatibility. Any CD you buy anywhere in the world should play anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of video DVDs, with the world’s different TV engineering standards and the distributors’ control-freak region coding. Now the Blu-ray/HD-DVD battle is slowing the purchase of high-def video players, scaring consumers wary of betting on the wrong horse, Beta-style.

The CD will always be historic for starting us down the digital entertainment path, offering a clarity, ease of use and storehouse of info that DVDs (and now high-def discs) have only expanded upon. Learn more about the original development of the compact disc here.

Sure, the CD may go the way of vinyl records and VHS tapes someday -- perhaps someday soon. MP3s and other hard-drive/flash-stored entertainment are already challenging the disc’s preeminence. With video on demand becoming familiar in digital cable, users don’t have to store anything, just electronically click to see/hear a title or a genre/format transmitted from the system's head-end whenever they want.

Oh, that initial CD? “The Visitors” by ABBA.

Can an LI guy ride a bucking bull? Can a white rapper? A black NFLer? We can all find out in CMT’s just-debuted reality roundup “Ty Murray’s Celebrity Bull Riding Challenge” (new episodes Fridays at 9 p.m. on CMT).

Stephen Baldwin of the Massapequa acting brothers [at right in CMT photo] is among the nine who started the live-in gig last week, though by the end of that hour, wimpy ’70s teenybopper Leif Garrett had already pulled the covers over his head and refused to get out of bed. In the premiere’s final moments, Baldwin went down for the count himself -- but in action -- being thrown from a bull’s back with devastating results.

That episode repeats today at 2, 6 and 10 p.m., prepping us for the series’ second hour at 9 and 11 p.m. (Catch a repeat double-feature on CMT Saturday 3-5 p.m., 8-10 p.m., midnight-2 a.m.; also Sunday 8-10 p.m. and 11 p.m.-1 a.m.)

Vanilla Ice and Raghib “Rocket” Ismail are among the other celebs learning the ropes, literally, from seven-time all-around bullriding champ Ty Murray (you know, Jewel’s boyfriend), Professional Bull Riders hotshot Justin McBride, and former rider turned PBR judge Cody Lambert. Also aiming for eight seconds: reality dude Jonny Fairplay, actor Francesco Quinn, gladiator “Nitro” Dan Clark, motocrosser Kenny Bartram, and UFC fighter Josh Haynes.

Tough guys all. But the bulls look tougher. We’re betting Baldwin sees the hospital this week.

Intrusive government investigation for political reasons? It’s nothing new. “The U.S. vs. John Lennon” frames that tale in ’60s and ’70s terms as the latest of VH1’s “Rock Docs,” airing commercial-free this Saturday at 9 p.m. on VH1 and VH1 Classic. (Encores air Saturday night at 1 a.m. on VH1, Sunday at 3 p.m. on VH1 Classic, and Tuesday at 9 p.m. and midnight on VH1 Classic.)

The film festival sensation (seen at Toronto, Venice and Telluride), from moviemakers David Leaf and John Scheinfeld, traces Lennon’s evolution from unaware young pop star to committed peace activist over the Vietnam-shadowed decade 1966-76. As the world-famous rocker became more involved in current events, the American government became more concerned with keeping his activities under scrutiny and even control.

Recounting that tumultuous era: activists Angela Davis, Bobby Seale and Ron Kovic; observers Walter Cronkite and Gore Vidal; politicians Mario Cuomo and George McGovern; Nixon administration officials John Dean and G. Gordon Liddy, and many others -- including, of course, Lennon widow Yoko Ono, who provided the filmmakers access to rare and unseen archival material.

We’ve got a month to go till Sept. 13’s third-season return of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” but FX is revving up the promo machine for its cockeyed barroom comedy.

Already online is the very funny third-season episode “Mac Is a Serial Killer,” streaming on the series’ MySpace page through Thursday, Aug. 23. Meanwhile, a DVD set pairing Seasons 1-2 hits shelves Sept. 4 from Fox Home Entertainment.

“Sunny in Philly” has 15 new episodes due this season, with two episodes premiering each Thursday at 10 and 10:30 p.m. for the season’s first five weeks (and one weekly thereafter). Misbehaving dad Danny DeVito is back on board, too.

Need a fix of fine TV? The Brilliant But Cancelled web site currently has some real treats unreeling. (Well, streaming anyway.)

Darren McGavin’s 1970s “Kolchak: The Night Stalker” goes after vampires and zombies. Gary Cole creeps us out in Shaun Cassidy’s mesmerizing “American Gothic.” Heath Ledger heats up ancient Ireland in ABC’s 1997 costume drama “Roar.” And there’s the two-part pilot of Fox’ parallel-universe trip “Sliders.”

Also at this BBC: pop culture news, bloggery, critics tips, “Make It Stop” rants, “Pop Autopsy” of dead shows, opinionated comment boards.

Too bad the rest of the site (which originated on-air as part of the late, lamented cable/satellite channel TRIO) is devoted to shilling for site owner Bravo’s less-than-brilliant reality slate. (“Shear Genius”? Pleeeeze.) Instead, why not bring back vintage TRIO faves like John Cassavetes’ 1950s jazz sleuth “Johnny Staccato” or the sly ’90s single-camera copcom “Bakersfield, P.D.” with Ron Eldard and Giancarlo Esposito? [Photo below.]

Another caveat: The video’s standard viewing window is tiny, though there’s also a full-screen mode (which tends to look crummy).

Got a hankering to see Johnny Carson? Sing the “Mister Ed” theme song? Or savor the 1960s toy Swing Wing commercial?

Then visit the Classic Television Blog, celebrating “Television the Way You Remember It.” There you’ll find a look back at the week in TV history. (This week: Lucille Ball and Garrison Keillor are born, Richard Burton dies, and filming begins on “West Side Story.”) Also, clips and recollections of classic TV moments. And some random riffs on the tube (whatever happened to slapstick?).

The blog is sponsored by R2 Entertainment, the folks behind DVD sets of Johnny Carson, Sonny & Cher, and many other vintage treats. But selling seldom gets in the way of the nostalgic fun.

And with a scientific sheen. Who could resist? This isn’t gawking. It’s educational.

“Science of Dwarfism” and “Science of Gigantism” air back-to-back Monday on National Geographic Channel, which is hot on the heels of its Discovery Channel predecessor, taking the real world much more seriously these days than Discovery’s one-time documentary showcase seems to. (“Survivorman”? “Dirty Jobs”? “Cash Cab”? Come on.)

“Science of Dwarfism” (Monday at 9 p.m.) looks at both common and uncommon types of extremely short stature by profiling “extraordinary humans.” But the show also explains the genetic mutations and medical reasons why dwarfism occurs and how it physically affects their lives.

“Science of Gigantism” (Monday at 10 p.m.) explores the physiology and health problems of people with an extremely tall and large “superstructure.” Shaquille O’Neal would be a shrimp next to one 7-feet-8 man profiled here, alongside other “giants.”

This is such a hot/cool subject that ABC is airing its own related report on “20/20” tonight (Friday at 10 p.m., ABC/7).

Watch fascinating video previews online.

NatGeo photo: The Campbell family's mother, father and daughter all have different kinds of dwarfism.

Wish you could be on the scene at San Diego’s big Comic-Con fantasyfest this weekend? Wish no more. Taking you there is scifi.com, helping fans “virtually attend” in the 100,000-plus crowd with online video coverage, blogging and news summaries, provided by six reporters and five camera crews.

Also in the thick of the con’s TV, movie and comics action: G4tv.com, with video, blogs, polls, chat and more, plus the on-air cable update show “Comic-Con 2007” at these scheduled times: Friday at 7 and 11 p.m. and 3 a.m.; Saturday at 11 a.m., 3 p.m. and midnight; Sunday at noon, 6:30 p.m. and 1 a.m.

More here.

First, hot dog eating. Now, this.

ESPN airs the 2007 “USA Rock Paper Scissors League National Championship” this Saturday at 9 p.m.

We kid you not.

Need a little Monday morning pick-me-up? Try The Minisode Network, an online bonanza of (extremely) condensed outings from 15 vintage series including “T.J. Hooker,” “Starsky & Hutch,” “Fantasy Island,” “The Partridge Family” and “The Facts of Life.”

Imagine, all your William Shatner, Adrian Zmed and Heather Locklear -- and a mad bomber! -- in just six minutes. Car chases, ’copters flying, mano-a-mono, gunshots, and whoa, that hair. Not Heather’s. Zmed's and Shatner’s -- big-hair ’80s fare. You even get the credits.

The episodes, which come from the Columbia/Sony studio library, change every week. Current faves include Zsa Zsa Gabor on “Facts of Life,” The Skipper castaway-ing on “Fantasy Island,” and -- hubba hubba -- Farrah Fawcett going roller derby on “Charlie’s Angels.” They’ve even got abridged sleaze-talk from “Ricki Lake.”

You get commercials, too, but that’s part of the freebie deal. Way to waste a work break.

They’re calling it “something approximating election news with something approximating honesty.” What else can it be but those “Daily Show”/“Colbert Report” folks? They’re taking their shows’ campaign cynicism to the internet.

Comedy Central’s Indecision 2008 site has launched, complete with video segments, news stories, number-crunching, and daily disclosure of the current “liberal agenda” (“See if Al Qaeda is free for lunch”) and “conservative talking point” (“If people are born gay, how come you never see babies with nipple rings?”).

Check Jon Stewart’s “Daily” rant on Barack Obama’s ringtones.

Stranger things have happened -- especially since the event being covered by the public-service cable channel is a University of Chicago town hall meeting called "Does Hip-Hop Hate Women?" (Saturday at 7 p.m. on C-SPAN). The moderator is Bakari Kitwana, author of “Why White Kids Love Hip Hop: Wankstas, Wiggers, Wannabes, and the New Reality of Race in America.”

Among the panelists for this “Book TV” program: Tracy Sharpley Whiting, author of “Pimps Up, Ho's Down: Hip Hop's Hold on Young Black Women”; Mark Anthony Neal, author of “New Black Man”; Joan Morgan, author of “When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: A Hip-Hop Feminist Breaks It Down”; David Ikard, author of “Breaking the Silence: Toward a Black Male Feminist Criticism”; T.J. Crawford, chairman of the National Hip-Hop Political Convention, and Amina Norman-Hawkins, executive director of the Chicago Hip-Hop Initiative.

Here’s a YouTube flashback for you -- the original plane crash from ABC’s “Lost,” re-edited into chronological order from various points of view: Jack and Kate on the plane, Desmond in the hatch, The Others in their compound.

The five-minute compilation doesn’t cover everything. (YouTube commenters seem most unhappy that Charlie’s plane-lavatory fix was left out.) And it was put together last October, before all the revelations of the third season unfolded.

A later editor/poster compiled this eight-minute alternative, with more on-plane details (including Charlie) and fewer elsewhere. Its pace doesn’t feel as tight or compelling.

Some other crash montages can be seen here and here.

There’s also this flash-fast "Lost" music video revealing all the characters’ “dirty little secrets” (fun but also dated, posted last fall).

These fan montages make interesting re-introductions to the universe that’s kept so many viewers guessing for so long. And we do need something to tide us over till ABC's fourth season starts in 2008.

Or Chiklis or Stamos. The awards web site The Envelope, run by our sister paper the Los Angeles Times, is hosting a full slate of online chats with likely/possible contenders for this year’s prime time Emmy awards. (Nominations to be announced July 19, ceremony held Sept. 16.)

Here’s the imminent lineup (all times Eastern):

William Shatner, "Boston Legal," Friday, June 15 at 7 p.m.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers, "The Tudors," Monday, June 18 at 3 p.m.

John Stamos, "ER," Monday, June 18 at 7 p.m.

Courteney Cox, "Dirt," Monday, June 18 at 8 p.m.

Jon Cryer, "Two and a Half Men," Tuesday, June 19 at 6 p.m.

Jason Lee, "My Name Is Earl," Tuesday, June 19 at 7 p.m.

Michael Chiklis, "The Shield," Tuesday, June 19 at 10 p.m.

To join the chat(s), click here.

Recent chats have featured Lauren Graham, Denis Leary and “Heroes” star Jack Coleman. (Click on names to read transcripts.)

And it's a wild one. All the coolest, strangest, most absurd shows and peculiar tube trends ever -- they're all part of the wallow that is TVparty!

Wanna see TV's first Jewish mom? (Way back in 1949.) How about Dean Martin's leggy Golddiggers? (The Pussycat Dolls of another era!) Relive New York children's TV of the 1960s (“Birthday House”), with vintage video, backstage secrets and info galore.

"Your pal, Billy Ingram" covers commercials, cartoons, game shows, superflops, weird celeb deaths, old-time wrestling and year-by-year tube memories. Smart text histories are supplemented with video excerpts it's hard to find anywhere else. There's plenty of free fun, but you can access another 500 hours of cool clips for two months with just a $5 one-time donation.

We’ve got videotape in our homes today -- heck, we’ve got DVD recorders -- but this first high-resolution TV recording technology was once a very big deal. Its development in the late 1950s changed television from a largely live medium to a largely recorded one, enabling ever slicker production techniques, not to mention the eternal running of “Three’s Company” episodes.

The Color Television Revolution is a site that details not just the development of that other current taken-for-granted technology but also VTR’s, in both cases using text, photos and wonderful video clips to illustrate these advances.

Before tape, shows could only be preserved on poor quality kinescopes, from film cameras pointed at even poorer quality TV monitors of the ’50s. But when you see (and hear!) footage from such pioneering broadcasts as 1957’s “Edsel Show” special (CBS’ first black-and-white taped entertainment) and 1958’s “An Evening With Fred Astaire” (NBC’s first color tape entertainment), they look just as crisp and “live” today as they did back then.

This site is a real labor of love by longtime TV editor (and tube lover) Kris Trexler. It’s crammed with pictures of old cameras, studios and programs, and fond montages of early ’50s color TV demonstrations and network announcements that “the following program comes to you in living color.”

Now you know where that ubiquitous NBC peacock comes from.

If evening newscasts are dinosaurs, they’ve already got a museum to preserve their ancient history.

The industry’s Tyndall Report, which has monitored the network news since 1987, now has an online compilation of searchable links to newscast clips going back to last November. More than 2,500 stories can be accessed.

Proprietor Andrew Tyndall still keeps ongoing track of how the network evening newscasts cover current events. His nightly grid of stories, angles and reporters is illustrated with playable clips. And his accompanying blog puts the coverage in context.

You hear about them? But what the heck are they? Every day, The Futon Critic lists the overnight Nielsens for the previous night's prime-time network programs. So you can compare, they also list ratings for the comparable night a year earlier. And the page has a handy key explaining what the numbers mean.

It's another cool feature from The Futon Critic, a 10-year-old site that calls itself "the web's best television resource." It also covers breaking news (in the form of network press releases), A-Z show info about series currently running and canceled, comprehensive listings (including episode cast/production info), and "rants and reviews."

While you're admiring your new flat-screen LCD HDTV, take a moment to remember and revere the old-time tubes that brought us here.

Television History: The First 75 Years memorializes the cathode-ray receiver since before it was a cathode-ray receiver, going all the way back to 1920s transmitters of primitive video discs. But the most interesting info and photos cover the sets we might remember seeing in grandma and grandpa's basement -- boxy old wood pieces of humongous '40s furniture with teeny-weeny screens; later '50s "portable" sets the size of mini-fridges; space-age transistorized sets of the '60s; then color TVs and finally even Sony's pocket-size Watchman.

The site has photos galore, old magazine articles and ads, technical data like owners manuals, and timelines to show how television sets evolved. Plus links to many other sources of ancient TV info. It's a wallow in eras when TV sets had style to burn -- just not the greatest picture or sound. I'll take my high-tech LCD screen any day. But looking back is a cool treat, too.

Don’t go searching for the latest news in the TV world. It’s all in one place.

TV Tattle combs the web daily to find the most interesting reviews, interviews, features and critics columns, providing a varied menu that always includes a couple of surprises.

For instance, Tuesday’s lineup (May 8) had links to 50 stories from around the country. They pondered the possible move of “Law & Order” from NBC to TNT. They reported Ty Pennington’s mea culpa for his drunk driving arrest. They “Idol”-ized the show’s song-choosing process and the further adventures of Sanjaya. They covered ads (Diet Pepsi poking fun at “90210”), YouTube (pulling the big HBO boxing match), lawsuits (a Wisconsin sheriff’s candidate who changed his name to Andy Griffith), and even a defense of The Others on “Lost.”

It’s a great way to keep up with what’s being said about what’s on.

Loathed, avoided, all-around unloved -- pity the poor laugh track.

But the history of manufactured mirth makes an interesting tale, as told in the TVparty! page headlined “A Short History of the Laugh Track.”

Find out where and when the use of laugh tracks started, how they were recorded, which shows under- and over-used the technique, how specific laughs were chosen to be used repeatedly, where whistling and applause fit in, and how the “laugh machine” is operated like a keyboard with foot pedals “to select the type, sex and age of the laugh” along with its length.

Fascinating stuff.

Ha-ha-ho-hee-hee-hah-hah-hoo!

The Webby Awards are letting viewers vote this week for the People’s Voice awards in online film and video, interactive advertising, website and mobile links. Those divisions include dozens of detailed award categories, such as comedy, drama, animation, viral, podcasts, celebrity/fan, news/documentary, sports, and more.

TV-related nominees include “The Office” webisodes, “The Easter Bunny Hates You,” Discovery Atlas, PBS’ “P.O.V.” and “Saturday Night Live.”

Users wanting to vote must register (to prevent repeated voting). Mobile votes must be cast through a link sent to a cell phone, or through a .mobi capable device.

Voting closes Friday, April 27. Winners are announced May 1.

Well, aren’t we all?

If we didn’t have to report and write for that other, you know, print publication, we might have the time the blogger at I Am A TV Junkie has to keep track of seemingly every show in the universe and link to online video evidence of all kinds.

From Quentin Tarantino on Comedy Central’s “The Showbiz Show” to Tucker Carlson’s downward spiraling tube gigs (yes, there IS something below “Dancing With the Stars”) to the birth of 27 baby pandas, our scruffy host Joe B. covers the waterfront and the landscape daily. (If his dog isn’t sick.)

And he’s a Mets fan.

UPDATE: Turns out Newsday is our TV junkie's hometown paper. We just heard from the junkie himself, Joe Bua, who "was born in Brooklyn, grew up in Valley Stream, and did some years in TV at CBS and advertising as a copywriter for Macy's. Now, I do this and write other, really boring, tech stuff that no one ever sees. Living in The O.C. but not the one that you've seen on Fox for the past four years. That place doesn't really exist." Joe loves us as much as we love him: "I really miss reading a tabloid-sized daily. I miss the ease of page turning." We try, Joe. We try.

Spend a couple quality hours with Ted Turner. Or William Shatner. How about Bob Newhart? Sid Caesar? Or even such departed giants as Ed Bradley, Julia Child, Ossie Davis and Aaron Spelling.

Smart, wide-ranging, extended conversations with TV greats are now streaming online courtesy of the Archive of American Television. They’re brought to you by the same folks who throw the Emmys, the Hollywood-based Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

Settle back and savor hours-long one-on-one interviews covering the length and breadth of each subject’s entire career, in sometimes excruciating detail, with often hilarious and eye-opening anecdotes. I conducted the Archive’s interview a few years back with Mary Tyler Moore (which regrettably isn’t online yet), and we spent an afternoon in her Manhattan penthouse discussing everything from Moore’s Brooklyn childhood to her TV sitcoms to later dramatic roles in movies.

More than 160 interviews from the Archive’s expansive collection are online.
Among them:

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• Actors Dick Van Dyke [above left], Andy Griffith, James Arness, James Garner, Betty White [above center], Diahann Carroll, Ricardo Montalban, Florence Henderson. (Did you know the “Brady Bunch” mom had been an early “hostess” on NBC’s “Today” show?)

• Producers Dick Clark, Norman Lear, Steven Bochco, Joe Barbera, Sherwood Schwartz, Grant Tinker, David Wolper.

• News people Mike Wallace, Don Hewitt, Jim Lehrer, Phil Donahue.

• Children's TV pioneers Fred Rogers, Bob Keeshan [above right], Joan Ganz Cooney (“Sesame Street”).

• Writers, directors, costumers, composers and other creative talent, including Carl Reiner, Bob Carroll and Madelyn Davis (“I Love Lucy”), John Frankenheimer, Bob Mackie, Quincy Jones, right down to the cue card guys and casting executives.

These aren’t tightly edited TV “chats.” They’re in-depth discussions sheddling light on the emergence of a medium. And preserving some wonderfully fun stories.

It's like warp drive. You can get the gist of “The Sopranos” in less than 10 minutes of your time before the show returns for its final eight episodes (Sunday at 9 on HBO).

Choose from two options:

OPTION 1 –
The series’ entire storyline gets boiled down to 7 minutes in the YouTube race-through below.

OPTION 2 –
Every single “Sopranos” whacking here, in storyline order -- 9:41 of pure death. (Adult viewers only.)

UPDATE -- Read Verne Gay's review of Sunday's "Sopranos" return here.

While “Ugly Betty” is in network repeats -- it’s Christmas this week (Thursday at 8 on ABC/7) -- you can tune to webisodes of Betty’s fave novelas at abc.com.

“Muchas Muchachas,” translated as “Dancing Queens,” is a 4-minute serial at a pole-dancing club where a klutzy waitress shares space with two catfighting stage babes and plenty o’ hunks. Even with dialogue in Spanish, the sexual scheming and lurid overacting are universal. (Once each episode goes into the online archive, it’s beautifully-badly dubbed into English.)

Also online -- the show’s original novela, “Vidas de Fuego” (Lives of Fire), involving a cattle ranch, a hunky priest, a pregnant nun, and more outlandish fun. [ABC promotional graphic above.]

"Betty's" telenovelas also go mobile via Verizon V Cast cell phone video.

A little mind-blowing viewing to kick-start the new week . . .

Just in case you haven’t seen the controversial Karl Rove “rap” from last week’s Radio and Television Correspondents' Association dinner, here’s MC Rove in action. Aiding and abetting this “satire” with President Bush's key political adviser are three other unhip white guys -- “Whose Line’s” Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood and NBC News’ David Gregory -- plus black NBC News White House producer Ken Strickland.

Longer versions add context here and here.

Who needs a blog or journal to chronicle your life when you’ve got phone messages? That’s the new online comedy series “Voicemail,” ABC’s quick-hit snapshot of odd moments in the life of 28-year-old slacker Mike.

As Mike’s messages play back, he lives the fallout of their apologies, pranks and official sanctions. He’s in the shower when we hear about unpaid gas and water bills; in bed zonked out as dad and grandma wonder where he’s meeting them at the airport; frantically searching under sofa cushions when a video store calls about that overdue rental of “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” (video below).

Simple, sweet, strangely addictive, the minute-long webisodes continue posting at abc.com each Wednesday through June. (Six are already streaming.) Way to create a character: Fans can read more at “Mike’s” MySpace blog or leave their own notes in his inbox.

Spoilers below! --

Mike is actually actor Ezra Godden. The concept was created by Michael Wilde (TV interview above), based on 10 years of saved messages.

You don’t need TV anymore to become a video superstar -- but it sure helps cement your legacy.

Faces who’ve found fame on the internet get a VH1 salute in “Web Junk Presents: 40 Greatest Internet Superstars,” a two-hour roundup of cyber-celebs, airing Friday 8-10 p.m. (and Saturday 4-6 p.m., and Monday 6-8 p.m.).

Among the stars are Lonelygirl15, Perez Hilton, and the Chinese Backstreet Boys, plus interviews and whatever-happened-to’s.

Watch web junk here and here.