Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

If you know the answer to that theme-song question, you’ve probably seen, or at least heard of, the popular cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants. It is one of the highest-rated and most-watched animated series to air on television. Many of us, myself included, grew up watching it on Nickelodeon

In case you missed yesterday’s post, my colleague Derek Allen and I finally answered the age-old question: What’s better than a post by a DuetsBlog writer? Obviously, a DuetsBlog post by 2 DuetsBlog writers, especially these guys (you can’t tell but we’re pointing our thumbs at ourselves).

We’re sure you’d love to hear us both eloquently debate and disparage each other’s opinions on just about any topic, but we decided to start with our top 10 fictional lawyers from television and film.  Yesterday was 6-10 and today, we make the big reveal: numbers 1-5. Who will be out on the town celebrating tonight? Who will be considered the biggest snub? Dear readers, you won’t know unless you join us below the jump . . .Continue Reading The Top 10 Lawyers of TV and Film: Numbers 1-5

– Derek Allen, Attorney –

In what we believe is a Duetsblog first, two of us — Tim Sitzmann and I — are teaming up to write a post.  (Even if this isn’t the first time a post has had two authors, much like European explorers who claimed to “discover” land that people were already living on, we are going to pretend that it is.)  And we have tackled a topic that a momentous event like this demands: the top 10 lawyers in the history of TV and Film.  We’re doing 6-10 today and 1-5 tomorrow.  So without further ado, and without any explanation whatsoever of our criteria, please join us below the jump . . .Continue Reading The Top 10 Lawyers of TV and Film: Numbers 6-10

Learning at least a few new things each day is a good thing. One of the many things the special women in my life (wife and daughter) taught me today is the meaning of the apparently ubiquitous acronym BFFL: “Best Friends for Life.” So, the special men in my life learned something along with me today. I’m not sure what that says about me and my boys?

Anyway, this acronym got me thinking about all the billboard advertising promoting Friends reruns I have encountered over the last several months. It’s everywhere. What has struck me about this advertising (besides the sheer volume) is how different it is from the advertising that used to run while the television series was still being filmed and before the syndication of Friends, at least, as I recall. The website for KSTC-TV Channel 45 (based in the Twin Cities) depicts the kind of promotional photograph I recall seeing reguarly while the series was running and pre-syndication:

All six Friends cast members were promoted together as a united group or ensemble of, well, friends, apparently subscribing to the belief that the whole (the program) was greater than the sum of its parts (the cast members). This marketing approach (apparently required by Warner Brothers in the early days of the program) also was consistent with and reminiscent of the solidarity the Friends cast demonstrated during their multiple contract re-negotiations with NBC and Warner Brothers over the years. It is reported that each of the six received $1 Million per episode during the last two seasons, despite the likelihood that each of their relative values most likely was not commercially equivalent.Continue Reading The Syndication of Friends: Jennifer Aniston Playing BFFL Role?