Word: foxes
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...Fox held the final presentation, on the flight deck of the USS Intrepid aircraft carrier, docked on Manhattan's west side, under a tent big enough to house several fields for a sport that requires a lot of space. Maybe there was a "Boot Camp" connection, but I was just creeped out, not least by the black-shirted Fox staff poised military-style around the perimeter of the room, trying to artificially induce whooping throughout the presentation...
...Fox too had taken to pilferage for much of its lineup... from itself! The network (#1 in adults 18 to 34!) began by priding itself on the number of comedies on its fall schedule - 14, the most of any network. And what were some of the new ones? For starters, "Family Guy." That's right, "Family Guy," a comedy that debuted two and a half years ago. A comedy so funny and so beloved that the network left it off its schedule all last year. Commonly thought to be canceled - though it's been on hiatus before - it keeps coming...
...better. Fox also announced it would be leading off its Wednesdays with a "classic sitcom wheel." The French have another word for that: "le reruns." Sure, they'll be reruns of great Fox sitcoms like "The Simpsons" and "Malcolm in the Middle," but you try telling a roomful of ad execs you're going to start off a big night of programming with leftovers and see what a reception you get. No wonder Fox wanted to be surrounded by armament. To be fair, Fox has used this scheduling ploy before, with some success - after another sitcom had bombed and left...
...hell of it is, Fox ended with the funniest damn sitcom trailer I have seen all upfronts. "Greg the Bunny," a "Larry Sanders"-like show about the goings-on backstage at a children's puppet show (with humans and puppets as characters), gave me the only belly laughs I have had at any comedy (that I hadn't already seen) this upfront. Of course, if I were Robert Smigel, whose "TV Funhouse" on Comedy Central is an R-rated, and hilarious, version of the same concept, I'd get me a gun and look to make me some bunny lint...
...always, it's dangerous to predict on the basis of two-minute trailers, but Fox's two drama entries were also among the few drama previews that worked for me this year, meaning that they made me want to see the pilots they advertised even if my job didn't require me to. "24" is nothing if not audacious. First for casting Kiefer Sutherland. Second, for aiming to tell a single 24-hour story, in real time, over the course of a season. Government agent Sutherland discovers a plot to assassinate a presidential candidate (who may be on the verge...