TV Nation

Moore is an ugly human - in his soul. Spewing lies and distortions while making himself rich criticizing others and pushing his sick agenda. His holier than thou attitude and perverted beliefs make a strong case for the sensorship he wishes on others. Being in the entertainment industry doesn't make you an expert on society and politics. In fact, judging by this ass, many are opinionated blow hards completely out of touch with most americans. Time to send Hollywood a message, let's change channels or turn it off and spend time with our families.

I remember this show coming to a city near my home town for TV Nation Day. Moore had lobbied to get a certain day declared TV Nation Day in the US to show how easy it is to buy congressmen. The bill WAS introduced, but not voted on in time. The small city of Fishkill, NY decided to declare that day TV Nation Day on their own and to celebrate the city and show held a parade down it's small main street followed by a celebration at a small mall with a showing of Roger & Me. I was at the parade and can vouch that the footage shown that night on TV was NOT indicative of the parade or the city of Fishkill at the time. The city HAD fallen on hard times with the bad economy, mostly IBM closing a local plant in a city that relied on IBM. However, it was NOT as bad as the show would have viewers believe. Michael Moore's contention was that the economy was horrible. So to back it up, they used creative camera angles to give the impression that Main Street was almost totally vacant. It was not. But by shooting several different angles of the same vacant stores, TV Nation made it look like almost every building was vacant. After seeing this first hand, I never took this show, or anything Michael Moore did seriously ever again. Who knows what other lies he has told.

Even though he is now much more renowned for his movie docs("Roger and Me","Bowling for Columbine" and the incendiary "Fahrenheit 9/11"),to me,Michael Moore was probably at his best at the helm of this sharp,dryly(perhaps bitterly)funny and relentless hour show which lasted all of two years on NBC(1st season)and FOX(2nd season).

I say he was at the best on this show because it allowed him and a veritable crew of confederates(Janeane GArofolo,Jeff Stilson,Louis Theroux,Rusty Cundieff among others)to pierce through the veil of respectability that large corporations and conservative media barons and talking pieces(at the time,that would've been primarily the likes of Rush Limabugh,with probably Bob Grant,PAt Buchanan,Ken Hamblen and Oliver North somewhere behind him in terms of popularity)would happily put on and much of the popular,everyday so-called liberal media would gladly accept without hardly more than a low yelp of criticism(I mean,if Larry King is your best voice for opposition of conservative talk radio or TV,that's not saying much). The segments had more humor in them,a real sense of daring and a much more matter-of-fact sense of contrarism that seems to be missing in his now much more confrontational,direct polemics that he's known for now. Some more notable segments were profiling a gun club for Congressional wives,an attempt to try to sell off the infamous barge of garbage that circled the western hemisphere for much of the early nineties,an in-depth interview(And tour of his farm and shooting range)of Conservative rocker Ted Nugent and a mascot chicken that went to various corporations and awarded them for their cowardice in dealing with various malfeasance(naturally,there are several confrontations with first floor security that are priceless).

I suppose that a show like "TV NAtion" was probably WAY too subversive to be a network stalwart,hence its short lifespan. I only wish Mr. Moore had pressed this show onto cable,and didn't instead try to re-con-fig this into an even shorter-lived series called "The Awful Truth"(which I haven't seen,will need to out of curiosity,even though I've read at least one review say it wasn't as good as "Nation").Nevertheless,I truly appreciated this series,and when I ran across this again on a video tape I had made of it from years before(of course),it didn't take me long to realize how much I liked this show and its spirit. While I think as a political firebrand and troublemaker Moore had probably "jumped the shark",I still think he should keep on keeping' on,and another show like "TV Nation" would be just the thing to do it with.in my humble opinion.

This is a news/magazine shoe- there is no doubt of that. But instead of other shows like Dateline and 20/20, this show focuses on finding people and trying to find out why they did this or that. And who better to lead the pack than the king of the downsized worker and down on there luck person- Michael Moore. He brings to the small screen a lot of funny and smart stuff that was also seen on the big one in Roger and me. The only difference being that this time It's on weekly (not anymore actually, It's been replaced by The Awful Truth, which isn't the worst). Very smart and funny, and of course the show draws sympathy. A+

That's about all one can say for this twice-failed TV series which had talent behind it but unfortunately most of the talent had nothing to do with the creator, Michael Moore. He is notorious for his hypocrisy on the "working man" (few if any walked away from this show saying that it was a good "working experience") and all in all, a one-trick pony who has since fallen deeply, deeply in love with himself and made some of the most insensitive remarks about 9/11 on record. An entertaining show, yes, but only because of the real talent involved (I'm thinking Janeane Garofalo and a few others). C