The Prevue Channel should have stayed a little longer

Let’s be honest: 1999 was wasted on people eager to launch shiny change ahead of or along with Y2K.

One of the dying decade’s definitive entities, the Prevue Channel, was among the first casualties of that impatience.

It happened literally overnight when January gave way to February. At that point, the long-hyped TV Guide Channel took hold with new music, radiant graphics and unmistakable magazine ties.

Last year, Derek Johnson, associate professor of media and cultural studies at the University of Wisconsin, described the motive best. In his introduction to an essay collection, From Networks to Netflix: A Guide to Changing Channels, he wrote, “Prevue would be renamed…to exploit the print publication’s legacy brand.”

Even in the young stages of the old millenium’s penultimate (not final) year, the future could not wait. A deal was done, and TV Guide’s constant bumper clips of excited viewers leaping offscreen served to symbolize its hurry.

But those visuals also inadvertently represented the uncertainty as to what was ahead. Much later, we found there were only so many ways to change Prevue to preserve its long-term viability.

In mid-January 2015, the repeatedly redressed network scrapped the unique format it had utilized for more than a quarter-century. The space lives on as Pop, yet another full-fledged programming platform.

Which begs the question: Was the TV Guide Channel’s (later TV Guide Network, later TVGN) 16-year run worth it? At the very least, did it need to hog 1999’s last 11 months, denying Prevue a more dignified exit?

Ask any ’90s nostalgia aficionado, and they would likely say no. And that demographic rather unabashedly exists. Handfuls of YouTube uploads capturing snippets of Prevue draw their share of thoughtful, wistful comments.

The remarks convey a yearning for slower, simpler entertainment consumption. Prevue was plenty conducive to that all around. It dressed the part with its Maine Black Bear-like combination of two shades of blue.

Where other channels might offer healthfully momentary escapism from the real world, Prevue provided a getaway from the rest of TV’s occasional comparative commotion. It also commanded a measure of attention viewers could not afford to withhold, lest they defeat the purpose. With that formula, it was firm but fair.

“When Prevue became TV Guide it lost its charm.” – YouTube user Tyler Knox in a nostalgia-heavy comment thread

As such, Prevue is a prime candidate to catalyze the American millennial and Generation X “In my day…” speeches. Such reminiscence is already cropping up in YouTube comment threads.

In one discussion, under a replay of the brand’s final moments and switch, user Victor Mariscal offers the following:

“It’s strange, but I miss Prevue Channel. Sure you had to wait for the programming info, but there was something reassuring about it.

“Sometimes I wish technology hadn’t advanced like it did. These days you can just get on your smartphone and look up what’s on TV. People have no idea how easy they have it.”

To that, a concurring viewer by the username lolhahah21 replied, “You are so right. I truly wish technology didn’t advance like it did.”

But alas, it did. Even so, although Prevue was bound to go obsolete, there was not much point in hastening its demise.

From its advent, the concept it embodied was destined to be a stand-in. Its practical services would hold consumers up before online, on-demand listings became commonplace.

The channel’s first incarnation, a slow-rolling listings message board, permeated the better part of the 1980s. Near the turn of the decade, a split screen gave more life to the guide (or Prevue Guide).

Before the jumbotron boom among sporting-venue scoreboards and the news crawls on cable networks, Prevue (rather aptly named in this regard) started offering video and text in a single space.

A 50-50 divide put the existing listings on the bottom half. Above it, you got a rotation of text-only classifieds or promos and TV commercials. Over time, the channel phased in and refined original clockwork segments on hot programming.

For the better part of the format’s run under its original banner, the Internet was barely out of gestation. (This author’s household would not go online until the autumn of 2000.) In addition, there were only so many digital-cable or satellite subscribers.

As such, other than opening a physical TV Guide, Prevue was the mainstream way of knowing what was on.

With its top-half content, though, watching the channel became less tedious. Even if a full bottom-half rotation yielded nothing of interest, you could stick around for a while. You did not even need to pay attention to derive any pleasure.

“This was such perfect background noise when nothing was on back in the day,” wrote YouTube commenter Pennsylvania History Buff.
 

For those who kept their eye on the screen, Prevue Tonight was a convenient coming-attractions service. By early 1998, that program was gone, but had a web of enjoyable round-the-clock offerings in its stead.

For the channel’s final year, there was a copious rotating variety of supermarket-free-sample-sized programming. Twice apiece each hour, Prevue News and Weather, Revue, Family, Sports, TV and This offered more substance.

These segments expanded upon the likes of Prevue Tonight, Family Vue and other precursors. The latter four would hype shows and telecasts beyond anything in the bottom half’s immediate 90-minute listing.

They also packed more detail to entice prospective viewers to the whole serving. In between, some of the advertisements pointed to programs that would air at a later hour or date.

In terms of finding something to watch, this beat sending your thumb snipe hunting atop the remote’s channel-changing button. Even if nothing appealed, this network’s varied offerings could offset ennui and service those who like a little repetition. It was pleasant company on an empty, bad-weather day.

Of course, after a while, the segments were also liable to distract from the listings. Those were why the Prevue powers that be built it, and why viewers came, to begin with.

Today, with more prevalent digital cable, dishes and Internet, a programming search requires less labor and less patience. With the web, content providers can digitally tease their output on a host of platforms.

The top half was a nice treat, but the ostensibly new-and-improved TV Guide brand overdid that part. Deeper into the new century, it could not help continuing in that direction, as the bottom half lost its utility.

By 2007, Johnson wrote, it began “deemphasizing navigation of other channels’ offerings in favor of its own original programs.”

When Pop came into being, network president Brad Schwartz essentially told the Washington Post’s Emily Yahr that TV Guide had become a victim of what did in its predecessor.

“To an older generation, there’s that nostalgia for that magazine on your coffee table every week,” Schwartz told Yahr. “But it’s like being nostalgic for anything you grew up with.”

Yes, including the Prevue Channel. Bless the Internet for letting us have back whatever we can of what it took away.
 

In the last two decades, the nostalgic appeal of Prevue’s distinctly ’90s vibe has strengthened. TV Guide proved louder and more chaotic, like the talking-head news channels it listed in its bottom-half rotation.

Perhaps no one is more grateful for that than YouTube user Alicia Jones, who shows up below several Prevue uploads. On one 10-minute, 40-second upload, taken from April 2, 1998, Jones simply states, “Thank you for this! #throwback #90s #memories.”

Meanwhile, two other users posted similar critiques of the successor in contrast with the predecessor. “When Prevue became TV Guide it lost its charm,” wrote Tyler Knox.

Added GDelva2003, “I love this Prevue Channel so much! I wish they never changed it back in the late ’90s.”

So then, what purpose did TV Guide really serve in its life after pushing Prevue out? Very little, it turned out.

To accentuate the print media-TV blend, the new network infused goggle-box versions of the magazine’s staples. As its icebreaker, the TV Guide Channel spotlighted John Lithgow on its first “Insider” segment.

But the more telling indicator of the format’s sustainability was the way TV Guide retained all of Prevue’s features. In short, they were essentially the same, but with “TV Guide” replacing “Prevue” and unremarkable words added to the name.

That is, Prevue Sports gave way to TV Guide Sportsview. Prevue Family’s old twice-hourly time slot would go to TV Guide Family Finds. The former Prevue News slot became home to TV Guide Newsbrief. Prevue Revue, which made the most of that oh-so-’90s penchant for intentional misspellings, became TV Guide’s Movie Profile.

For the viewer, Prevue’s unique offerings were good in moderation. Yet you are only going to live so long on a diet heavy on empty calories. Likewise, a novel persona is only novel for a limited time.

Naturally, 20/20 hindsight confirmed as much. But for the powers that be, the new idea seemed good at the time.

Two months ahead of the midwinter 1999 switch, Prevue executive vice president and general manager Pam Missick spoke with Kent Gibbons of Multichannel News. Of the new colors and graphics under the new name, she assessed, “It’ll be a new platform. It’s going to have a sexy new look.”

To be fair, TV Guide phased in its take on the bottom-half, initially leaving Prevue’s old dark blue alone. Its eventual yellow-gold in the bottom half and the red of the network’s emblem glowed more than Prevue’s dark blue. The same went for when it flashed combinations of white, green, blue or purple in its bumpers and bite-size programs.
 

But in the last two decades, the nostalgic appeal of Prevue’s distinctly ’90s vibe has strengthened. TV Guide proved louder and more chaotic, like the talking-head news channels it listed in its bottom-half rotation.

“There was something sort of relaxing about the Prevue Channel,” YouTube commenter SuperTugz opines beneath the transition video. “TV Guide ruined that when they replaced the beautiful jazz music and hilariously bad 900-number ads with celebrity gossip crap.”

Those whirlwinds got worse after the 21st century began in earnest, but these channels had started beforehand. In so doing, they encroached on the 1990s’ rightful territory.

At no point was that encroachment more egregious than when Feb. 1, 1999, stood at the Eastern Time Zone’s threshold. At T-minus nine minutes before midnight, TV Guide’s logo, music and colors were already hogging the northeast quarter of the screen.

The new music furthered the juxtaposition with the Prevue emblem on the upper left side. For short spurts, Prevue broke back in with its more diverse scores, still shots and messages. (Male voice): Check this out! (Female voice, singing): Oooh, yeah!...

Upon reliving those let-me-have-my-last-bow cuts, the aforementioned Jones commented on YouTube, “WOW the Song at 1:09! I have been waiting to hear that forever!” She then complimented uploader HulkieD, “You are one cool dude for this Thank you!”

Jones was referring to one of the short selected scores that filled time between commercials and segments. Ordinarily, Prevue would run three scores in a pattern, switching to a new hat trick every month.

But just like Y2K, TV Guide lacked patience in the late hours of Jan. 31, 1999. That first Prevue soundtrack snippet had barely given way to the second before the new network’s theme returned.

Commercials issuing the umpteenth reminder of the new amenities continued before a regularly scheduled Prevue News and Weather and Revue. For its final five minutes, the lame duck acted like no upheaval was imminent.

Except the promise of Prevue This at midnight and Prevue Family two minutes thereafter was never fulfilled. Instead, the Lithgow-centered premiere of TV Guide’s Insider filled that slot.

“And with that a chapter of my childhood ended without ceremony,” Jonathan Price commented on YouTube.

Wallaby Wednesday: The “Cabin Fever” diagnosis for all four lodgers

In the “Cabin Fever” episode of Rocko’s Modern Life, no one can duck the title condition. But why is Ed’s case the worst, and how do the others’ measure up?

After Ed Bighead disappears late in “Cabin Fever,” his wife’s concern is as conspicuous by its absence as he is.

The reporter covering the avalanche that buried the Bigheads, Rocko and Heffer starts his interview by inquiring on Ed’s whereabouts. But he only gets to pose the question after Bev greets her girlfriends.

Given how her husband has blasted himself out of their cabin and gone missing, Bev may be a little too happy to escape herself. Then again, with her nonchalance, she reverts to her trust in Ed’s self-reliance.

Recall an earlier sequence, when she cannot convince him to refrain from trying to dig out. She simply tells her co-renters, “Ed is a big boy. He can take care of himself.”

While Ed’s case of the episode’s title condition has lapped everyone else’s, the others are noticeably affected at times. Bev’s enjoyment of their eventual relief punctuates the effects on her.

For their part, Rocko and Heffer field Bev’s curious calmness while she outclasses them in strip poker. Their heads may not be in the contest, as they are proverbial placid ducks kicking their feet below the water.

The results on the poker table may also speak to Bev’s cunning and experience with the game. Still, she and the two young men plainly misplace some marbles during stretches of their cabin confinement.

The preceding night, moments before Ed triggers the avalanche, all three stumble egregiously over his shadow puppets. One would think an international culture enthusiast like Rocko would know the Eiffel Tower when he sees it. And even Heffer ought to know a prancing deer from a hose or a radiator. But perhaps the cabin is too cozy and dark for them to get on their A-game.

In between, at mid-afternoon, Rocko is still in character when he suggests everyone “relax and wait for (the search team) to rescue us.” The wallaby whose creator, Joe Murray, and voice artist, Carlos Alazraqui, have both considered “the eye of the hurricane” transcends all natural disasters with his levelheadedness.

 

Heffer, however, raises eyebrows with his non-reaction as the quartet listens to the news of their own predicament. If the newsman’s prediction that “they’ll probably starve” fazes the insatiable steer, he does not show it.

Granted, he and Rocko have stocked up on the items he rattles off during their drive up the mountains. But he starts his dreamy speech by announcing the timeline of “an entire weekend.” It is implicitly Friday afternoon at that point, with a return to O-Town slated for Sunday.

With the snowy disruption, he might wonder if he has enough to last longer than he and Rocko had planned. Speaking of plans, neither party knows there will be twice as many occupants until Heffer finishes his list.

Come what may, Heffer, Rocko and Bev resist all open panic until Ed has been gone for unspecified hours. They only snap on Saturday night, after a full day and sunset have elapsed post-avalanche.

Heffer sets it up with an ill-timed horror tale before Ed sets it off upon returning from his fools’ errand. The cryptozoological “adominal snow monkey” is fresh on the others’ minds, and they unleash their self-defensive reflexes without mercy.

For the second night in a row, Ed’s three cabin co-tenants lose their rationality at his expense. On Friday, they cannot decipher Ed’s perfect manual renderings of splendid art, architecture and fauna. The next night, they let the fresh fright from Heffer’s story and a block of ice cloud their otherwise effortless recognition of Mr. Bighead himself.

The key word in that paragraph is “night,” for their wits only scramble when the sky is dark. Conversely, Ed is out of sorts from the start, dating back to before “Cabin Fever” commences.

As his first mishap, Ed realizes his reservation mix-up when Rocko reminds him it is January. He is half an almanac off, having booked the cabin for Independence Day weekend.

When the error sinks in, Ed’s stupor underscores the mistake’s honesty. His workload at Conglom-O has clearly done more than leave him desperate for a getaway with his wife. It has also led him to reserve the cabin with clashing dates on his tongue and mind.

Naturally, Bev also misses the vast discrepancy, implying that Ed has surprised her at the last minute. When the error dawns on her, she is momentarily crushed before Rocko offers to share the cabin.

 

But her husband had spent one of the last portions of their drive expressly anticipating “no idiot neighbors.” Despite the stress he incurs at work, he singles out Rocko as the aspect of O-Town he will not miss.

And yet, of all people to cross paths with him at the cabin, it is Rocko and Heffer. Denied a key measure of relief he had itched for, Ed cannot help spiraling into cabin fever. As he himself rants, “How can I rest when I have to spend my weekend with those two pinheads?!”

By triggering the avalanche, that loss of volume control exacerbates his unrest. And it is all self-imposed, especially given his previous backfired attempts to sabotage Heffer and Rocko’s fun. With that said, he channels his desperation into active determination the next afternoon.

Meanwhile, when Bev shrugs off the perils of a civilian trying to dig out of multiple stories of snow, Rocko and Heffer both glance at the camera. Their expressions exude skepticism against Bev’s faith. Their silent, comparative concern is proven right when Ed returns.

The next day, Ed’s choice of escape cements his over-the-top worry amidst the lodgers’ ordeal. Bev is at the other extreme with her lack of worry when he is gone. While their effects of cabin fever are distinct, Bev’s case is the second-worst.

Perhaps it is a toad thing, or an age factor. By comparison, the two twentysomething campers stave it off, and show as much in their faces.

They might be less well-versed in disasters than their elders, especially in environments nothing like the city or the Outback. But they know enough, and retain the presence of mind, not to try digging themselves out. And while they are more mindful of Ed’s first ill-advised solution than Bev, they avoid panicking, which would be unproductive.

Unfortunately, if they are to keep overcoming all symptoms of cabin fever, their search team needs to beat the sunset. In unfamiliar settings, darkness will always exacerbate anxiety, or unleash it if it is fettered at first. That is human and, apparently, amphibian, bovine and wallaby nature.

But at least Rocko and Heffer had more light and clean air before they came than the corporate office-bound Ed. That holds them up until late in the second night, when their confinement becomes consequential.

Wallaby Wednesday: How did Conglom-O leadership change over time?

For one and only one episode, Ed Bighead runs Conglom-O while Mr. Dupette (or his prototype) manages Super Lot-O Comics. Then Dupette assumes Bighead’s role at O-Town’s omnipotent corporation while Ed takes a less powerful position.

Such is the pattern in the Rocko’s Modern Life canon, from Season 1’s “Canned” to Season 2’s “She’s the Toad.” And on the surface, there is no explanation for the personnel shuffle.

Is that a continuity error? Not really.

Then it must be a willful disregard for avoiding the appearance of excessive experimentation, right?

Not unless you connect the past and present dots the series presents after Dupette’s debuts in body and in name. They point to a pattern similar to Saturday Night Live’s switch from Lorne Michaels to Dick Ebersol to Michaels again. (Michaels left SNL in 1980, and Ebersol served as executive producer for five seasons before Michaels returned.)

While the yellow “gold-digging” lizard is the established Conglom-O boss, he easily could have spent an interlude elsewhere. The likes of Bighead filling his big shoes, and doing so in ultimate failure, befits Rocko’s perpetually frustrated neighbor.

Two episodes glimpsing Ed’s history at the company provide the pieces. Season 3’s “Old Fogey Froggy” begins with a flashback to 1961 (34 years before the episode premiered). Mr. Bighead is a rising star, going above and beyond in his time and productivity. As such, Dupette elevates his confidence by promising that, should he stay the course, “someday you’ll be the boss around here.”

At that point, the recollection gives way to the present day. The Bigheads have accrued ample pounds and wrinkles. And as is established in the second-season premiere, their son was born and raised before moving out during the interlude.

Yet through all of that, the 1961 and 1995 portrayals suggest, Ed has stagnated at Conglom-O. Except that he clearly went somewhere, only to revert. The “present-day” events from the first 61 Rocko half-episodes before “Old Fogey Froggy” combine to confirm that.

Rocko first speaks the name Conglom-O in “Canned,” which also yields the first season’s only depiction of the company’s headquarters. After Dupette gives Rocko the literal pink slip, the desperate wallaby finds his irascible neighbor running his last potential rebound.

Ed agrees to try him out, albeit with an ulterior motive. As a tester of assorted Conglom-O products, Rocko’s job is to get injured, if not killed. After too many experiments backfire, with only Ed sustaining any suffering, Rocko is fired once more.

That is the last confirmed depiction of Ed’s reign at the top of the company. However, another flashback scene in the two-part second-season premiere may further explain his loss of power.

Dupette and the dozen-plus identical lizards are conspicuously absent when Ed tries to initiate his son as their newest employee. As Bev had previously explained to Rocko, her husband offered Ralph no other acceptable career option.

Being the money-grubbing control glutton that he is, Ed had unquestionably banked on Ralph securing a long-term Bighead Conglom-O dynasty. That plan collapses as quickly as it goes into action, prompting Ed to shout the episode’s title, “I Have No Son!”

While no one specifies the elapsed time between that episode’s flashback and present day, it must be multiple years. Even if Ralph becomes an overnight success with The Fatheads, his relocation, conception of the show and rise to Rocko and Filburt’s favorite must have combined for at least two years.

That period clearly coincides with the events of “Canned.” And before any of that, Ed must have ranked high enough at Conglom-O to build his expectations for Ralph without any colleagues raising concerns over nepotism.

Likewise, Dupette would have needed his share of time to raise his comic-book industrial complex. And given the fun-loving side he unveils in Season 4’s “Closet Clown,” dabbling in comics is hardly unbecoming Dupette.

If anything, from what the show depicts of their respective personalities, he is more credible than Mr. Smitty. Whereas the Kind of a Lot O Comics manager is a strict penny-pinching hothead, Dupette is more dimensional. He clearly craved a change in his career and, likely sometime in the 1980s, gave Bighead the keys to Conglom-O.

But for Dupette to return to his 1961 position, each buildup must have given way to a letdown. Regardless of how long Bighead filled Dupette’s spot, his tenure took a turn for the worse after Ralph’s defection to Hollowood.

Ed’s long-prepared long-term plan means enough to him to disown his offspring for derailing it. Moreover, Ralph’s refusal prompts a diverse group of Conglom-O employees to flee.

Some time later, Rocko moves nextdoor to the Bigheads, unaware of Ralph’s existence. He arrives at Conglom-O and bears witness to a slew of failures on Ed’s watch. But because he is the fall guy, he has a chance to happen upon Smitty’s new mom-and-pop store.

By the end of “Canned,” he is selling a bulk supply to the man who made him a budget-cut casualty. The gargantuan establishment’s reliance on the modest upstart for acquisitions all but further presages its demise.

Despite its support for big brands, O-Town confirms its collective preference for smaller comic shops. As a result, Super Lot-O Comics never resurfaces in the Rocko canon.

Meanwhile, Dupette is depicted as the present-day CEO of Conglom-O as early as the sixth quarter-hour segment of Season 2. Even with his soft spot for more fun-oriented endeavors, Conglom-O is his primary place.

The all-green-lizard board has clearly asserted that, at best, Bighead gave a good effort running the company. But when the stars align to bump him back down and bring Dupette back in, they do not hesitate.

The cost of dignity falls squarely on the tab of the same man who wins a dog-catcher election while a simultaneous ballot proposal dismantles the job description. It makes for a maddening motif from Ed’s perspective, and leaves little wonder as to why he hates his life.

Mason Bergh small on talk, big on action to aid local youth

(Photo by Casey B. Gibson)



If anything points to glaring generational disparities between Mason Bergh and post-millennials, it may be taste in literature.

The second-year Colorado College men’s hockey captain cites the Harry Potter series as his favorite book. He was 12 years old when the final installment of J.K. Rowling’s groundbreaking seven-part saga hit stores in 2007.

Nearly twice that age today, he admits that for all of his volunteerism with children, he has yet to meet anyone sharing that interest.

So much for theory-based conversations on how wizards might translate their quidditch skills to hockey, or at least broomball. But that will not threaten Bergh’s devotion to Colorado Springs-area youth, even as his window of time there diminishes.

This much is all but certain for the coming spring: Bergh will graduate, and something he played a small role in building will become reality.

May 19 is the big day for Bergh, whose off-ice legacy includes fundraising for a new Colorado Springs children’s hospital. Although no concrete date has been announced, the hospital’s opening remains on track for late spring. That time has been set since the building’s groundbreaking early in Bergh’s sophomore year.

Where he will physically be by that point is tougher to prognosticate. Bergh is blinking on the NCAA class of 2019’s free-agent radar. A repeat Hobey Baker candidate and 2019 Lowe’s Senior CLASS nominee, he has a professional pact within hooking distance.

Any of the NHL’s 31 organizations could sign him. Or he could easily latch on with a talent-starved lower-level or overseas squad. Of those scenarios, only a one- or two-way pact with Denver’s Colorado Avalanche or their AHL affiliate further north, the Colorado Eagles, could keep him remotely close to his alma mater.

Nonetheless, the Minnesota transplant pledges to keep Southern Colorado close to his heart. In an email to Pucks and Recreation, he offered, “In the future, even if it is not directly related to my professional life, I will always try to help children and continue to be involved in the Colorado Springs area.”

Bergh’s stinginess on substance when reached by this outlet may merely underscore his time’s premium status. As his Senior CLASS resume highlights, he has already secured three slots on the NCHC and national all-scholar teams.

(Photo by Casey B. Gibson)

He has never missed CC’s dean’s list, and is currently defending the Paul Markovich Award as his squad’s top student. He attained the latter while swelling his point tally from 24 in 2016-17 to 40 in 2017-18.

And then, over the offseason, he lent his presence to Colorado Springs for the up-and-coming hospital’s most touted fundraiser. Joining teammate Ben Israel and women’s soccer Tigers Rachael Martino and Jade Odom, he volunteered at the Climb for Courage. The annual race, which will return this June, entails trekking the staircases of the Air Force Academy’s Falcon Stadium.

Bergh was there for the climb’s fourth edition last June 23, the month’s penultimate Saturday. He spent the next week in metro New York as an-large invitee to the Rangers’ development camp.

Back to finish what he started with his studies, Bergh has yet to see the site of the new facility. But the testaments to his and hundreds of others’ involvement continue to glacially emerge.

This past Thursday, Children’s Hospital Colorado’s Twitter account announced more than 80 job vacancies for its Colorado Springs chapter. When it opens, the new base will be “The lone pediatric-only hospital in Southern Colorado.”

In the meantime, Bergh leads his fellow CC pucksters in visits to facilities serving the same purpose. Two days prior to Thanksgiving, the captain and four other Tigers toured the children’s ward of Penrose Hospital (whose namesake is the same as NCAA hockey’s coach-of-the-year award).

“The most rewarding part of participating in these events is the smile you can put on a kid’s face by just hanging out with them,” Bergh offered.

The same goes for when he can fill a shift for CC’s recurring Parents’ Night Out promotions. Through the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, Tigers of each sport will entertain local children on campus on up to a quarterly basis for up to five hours at a time.

To date, Bergh says he has partaken in every Parents’ Night Out not overlapping with a team road trip. As with the hospital-oriented outings, “it is a way to reach out and be active with the children in the Colorado Springs region.”

“Understanding the position I am in and the impact I can make on a kid’s life is why I have a passion for working with children,” he added.

Wallaby Wednesday: Lessons from Rocko’s Heap-O-Food checkout tirade

Three years before The Simpsons gave us Ned Flanders after his house collapses (twice), Rocko’s Modern Life gave us the title character not letting the Heap-O-Food cheat him.

Both harangues are humorous for coming from fictional, ordinarily coolheaded characters. Each blowup follows a buildup sequence work sympathizing with. But in “Rocko’s Happy Sack,” the final slight is less forgiveable than the “good intentions” of the Springfieldians.

Shopping on a mere three-dollar budget, Rocko races through the final 15 minutes of the store’s generous 99-percent off sale. But his path to restocking his empty pantry packs peril and pain.

By the time he checks out, he lets the clerk know what he has gone through. Everything from a car striking him in the parking lot to two encounters with the Hippo Lady to misplacing Spunky.

The clerk, who is basically Filburt, but not firmly established as such in this first-season episode, hears this after making his contribution to the aggravation. He finishes ringing Rocko up seconds before the sale’s noon ending, only to swell the $1.50 total to $150.

For that, Filburt pays the steepest price of the day. He brooks the brunt of Rocko’s family-friendly answer to Neal Page’s car-rental rant in Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

Granted, Filburt alone does not deserve that much heat, although someone should call him out on his blatant dishonesty. Regardless, you can only push a cucumber of a wallaby so far before striking an imperfect nerve. Everyone has their frustrations, and those who suppress them pull a Vesuvius when they can no longer hold back.

In this episode, Rocko experiences Murphy’s Law on the same par as when Neal does. His quintessentially hangry display is the sum of desperate hunger, undue obstacles, down-to-the-wire nervewrack and pathetic disrespect.

From start to finish, his ensuing tirade offers no shortage of spontaneity. For a split-second, he is rightly convinced he qualifies for the sale under the buzzer. He knows he has earned his reprieve, only to have the mercy denied.

Rocko punctuates his explosion with his first of only two in-character head-inflating screams in the series. While under the influence of the green button, he erupts on Filburt in “Power Trip.” He is himself when he calls out an obnoxious bird for disturbing his sleep in “Day of the Flecko.”

In this case, his choice of words underscores the uniqueness of the situation and emboldens the forgiveability of his tone. Unless Filburt retracts the dodgy price-gouge, Rocko pledges to “do something NOT NIIIICE!”

The presence of “nice” alone leaks his inexperience making threats. He could have at least offered more intimidating diction, such as “something unpleasant.”

 

 

But even then, the lack of concrete detail renders his message verbally lacking, leaving the decibels to make the difference. Given the company that puts him in among fellow ’90s Nicktoons, it is a tribute to his remarkable morality.

The year of “Rocko’s Happy Sack” also witnessed the premiere of the Rugrats segments “Runaway Angelica” and “When Wishes Come True.” In those storylines, Angelica and Tommy threaten “something so bad” that they “don’t even know what it is yet” and “can’t even think of it,” respectively.

That dearth of detail is less surprising for a couple of toddlers. But for a humanoid wallaby implicitly in his twenties or thirties, a substantively weak threat in his most frustrating moment is spoken like a true dove.

Rocko himself later admits to Bev Bighead that he is “not good at confrontation” in Season 4’s “Wimp on the Barby.” That is because he prefers to let peace prevail whenever possible.

He generally lets his temper go when he is sleep-deprived, overworked or both. Or when one of his acquaintances fails to heed their share of calmer admonitions.

Look no further than when he is on the verge of going “crazy” over the sleepwalking Ed Bighead. Or when long hours and his colleagues’ petty feuding slows down their production of Wacky Delly. Those moments pale in comparison to the unfortunate bird, and even more so to the Heap-O-Food errand.

Compared to everything else, the stressful shopping sprint and unjust denial of a reward is worth the thoroughgoing fury. After all, besides all of the speed bumps he hit during his race, Rocko “nearly starved to death.” At the episode’s outset, he warns Spunky that their success determines whether they “eat for a week.”

The cashier has no way of knowing those details of Rocko’s desperation. With that said, his lack of knowledge is all the more reason why he is in the wrong. He does not have to draw the last straw by testing Rocko’s patience and attention to detail. When he does so anyway, he laces the insult with lukewarm, phony too-bad-so-sorry-for-the-inconvenience compassion.

Whether you are perfect strangers or encountering someone for the first time all day, you cannot know where they are coming from or what they are dealing with. It is best to avoid crossing them, even if they happen to be the least irascible personalities around.

If nothing else, honesty is the best policy, especially in customer service.

Rhode Island has never had a year like 1999 for scripted or spontaneous stories

No one said a plastic surgeon servicing Southern California celebrities could not go home to Rhode Island. The respectable run that premise spawned proved the idea anything but far-fetched.

But the truth was, when NBC picked up Providence and premiered it Jan. 8, 1999, glamour was already returning to the show’s real-life counterpart. A cultural renaissance defined the decade for a long-downtrodden state capital.

It would have been trickier to try to script the winter and spring the locale savored in that culminating year. In January alone, primetime network TV premiered two series set in the 401 area code. While that signified the place’s renewed photogenic appeal, real-life Rhode Island had its share of riveting storylines in the works.

Over the ensuing months, one Providence sports team went on an unprecedented thrill ride and record-book rewrite. Another traveled a rockier emotional road with a halfway Hollywood ending that would have been cheesy were it not the naked truth.

The two shows and two teams would all succeed despite low-to-middling expectations, unfavorable preseason assignments or both.

Yes, some harsher political realities concurrently fizzed in the area. In that regard, some of the unpleasantness was not vanishing. But in a timely coincidence, one of the new works of fiction was offering Rhode Island some laugh-at-itself satire for the other 49 to see.

Under the growing shadow of a new century, these developments gave the Ocean State a perfect storm of attention grabbers. This place was ahead of most others in experiencing much-anticipated change, largely for the better.

News, sports and entertainment media never combined for this much gratifying concentration here at once. Some of the first-time visitors instantly noticed what they had been missing.

In a Jan. 6, 1999 Deseret News article, Providence creator John Masius admitted to never having previously seen the city. He told reporter Scott D. Pierce that he took his first impression of the location after the NBC greenlit the series.

That first-time firsthand experience only emboldened his intrigue, and brought everyone back for several on-site shots afterward.

“I was incredibly impressed with the diversity of the town and also the sort of renaissance of the city,” Masius told Pierce. “It’s good timing all around.”

Oh boy, he really did not know the half of it. Then again, even the locals who live to “Catch the Wave” could not be sure of the delectable deluge ahead.

Look what we’ve got now

An all-encompassing Rhode Island history and culture website, quahog.org, ponders the reason for the uptick in depictions of the state.

“Up until the last few years, television has had very little use for Rhode Island,” begins the site’s facts and folklore page. “Now, every other show seems to be set in the Ocean State. Is it because of the Providence Renaissance? The natural beauty of our coastline? Our lovable accents?”

Masius’ word was one endorsement of the first theory. After all, the other (or “othah”) two qualities are essentially immutable. But more a positive perception of the state and its capital can equal more attention for the rest.

That effectively began with the personal redemption of Providence mayor Buddy Cianci and his second stretch in office. He redressed his image and was reelected in 1990 after assault charges and near-imprisonment forced him out six years prior.

Upon returning in 1991, Cianci pushed for a host of new attractions to the town’s Downcity district. His first major head-turner was enticing the Boston Bruins’ AHL affiliate from Portland, Maine. With that, the newfangled Providence Bruins took root at the Providence Civic Center for the 1992-93 season, replacing the long-bygone Rhode Island Reds.

Two years later, the Rhode Island Convention Center opened next door to the Civic Center. In warmer months, locals and tourists got their first look at the original WaterFire display in the city’s rivers. The new Waterplace Park served to amplify the show’s aesthetics.

The park was a product of scrapping an eyesore of a bridge, replacing it with walkways and accentuating the majestic modern and Venetian-inspired architecture around the water. WaterFire would be the site’s first of many recurring festivals.

New or revamped restaurants and hotels only capitalized on and furthered the cycling downtown (or Downcity) economic boom. For those seeking a glitzy vibe away from L.A., Providence was a ringing new option.

Two decades prior, the area’s residents were reportedly deriding it as the “armpit of New England.” Escaped zoo animals embodied the disarray before and during Cianci’s first reign (1974-84). The city was teetering on bankruptcy in 1981.

By 1997, it was ranked among the 10 most livable American cities by a variety of general and niche magazines. And that was the year before the two scripted series began production in earnest ahead of their midseason premieres. By then, those who had not traveled could have a weekly look from their living room.

In the meantime, other communities were getting in-person looks at what made the Divine City the Renaissance City. In 1998, WaterFire creator Barnaby Evans, a Brown University alum, spread his gift to Houston. A who’s who of more cities, stateside and abroad, have demanded a version of his magnum opus as well.

Back in Providence, a downtown state-of-the-art shopping center was in the works. In addition, residents could not help taking notice of Masius’ cast and crew taking shots for the show.

Both the mall and the program would come in 1999. Ditto a less-publicized Rhode Island-set animated series being produced back in a SoCal studio. While they waited, the citizens renewed Cianci’s tenure once more, this time in a one-candidate election.

But not all of the big news was rosy for Rhody culture that autumn. In October 1998, citing Title IX, Providence College announced it would fold its 76-year-old baseball program. The next spring was designated the swan song for a program that produced, among others, then-Red Sox infielder Lou Merloni.

Concomitant with that prickly pill, the P-Bruins were starting their seventh season desperate to kick ice chips on its predecessor. They had won 19 games out of 80 in 1997-98, finishing 18th out of 18 in the AHL’s collective standings.

Further struggles on the ice would potentially test the loyalty of the fans, who now had more on-the-town entertainment options than in 1992-93. Fortunately for the Bruins brass, the team at least regained a competitive persona to start Season 7.

With one-time captain Peter Laviolette as their new head coach, they climbed above the .500 mark by Game 12. By the time 1998 gave way to 1999, they were 21-10-3 on the season.

Although, with many of its home games occurring on Friday nights, AHL Providence would soon go head-to-head with NBC Providence.

 

 

From a TV town to a title town

With a self-explanatory title, Providence had protagonist Dr. Sydney Hansen (Melina Kanakaredes) moving back cross-country to the Rhode Island capital. While no locals permeated the cast or brass, the show had reason for lofty expectations. It was the creation of an award-winning Touched by an Angel veteran in Masius.

The program took its share of fact-and-flaw liberties in portraying the town. Beyond the on-location outdoor scenes, it relied on its Los Angeles hub to look the part. But there was enough to flatter Ocean State viewers. As the network’s local affiliate, NBC 10, noted ahead of the pilot’s premiere, SoCal spots did their best impression of the Foxy Lady strip club and Roger Williams Park.

Meanwhile, up-and-coming actor and animator Seth MacFarlane was putting his Rhode Island School of Design education to use. MacFarlane had graduated in 1995, when the Providence renaissance was in full swing. The P-Bruins completed their third season of existence, and their third of four straight as the AHL’s runaway attendance leaders. Meanwhile, the Rhode Island Convention Center and WaterFire were each in their first full calendar year at the time.

As part of his senior thesis, MacFarlane produced an animated short, The Life of Larry. He himself gave title character and his dog, Steve, the same basic voices as Peter and Brian Griffin later on. The familiar cutaway gags were an immediate habit as well.

Upon moving to L.A., amidst other work, MacFarlane produced a sequel, Larry & Steve. That played no small role in convincing Fox to give him a tryout at a full-fledged series. He triumphed, and set Family Guy in fictional Quahog, an obvious Providence suburb based on the remarkably accurate backdrop drawings.

The series premiered it on the final night of January as a Super Bowl lead-out. Going in, there was some critical skepticism, as many adult animated series were susceptible to unfavorable comparisons to The Simpsons.

Three weeks ahead of the premiere, Chicago Tribune pundit Steven Johnson questioned MacFarlane’s experience. “A 25-year-old is behind it, so expect something more like “South Park” than “The Flintstones,’” he wrote.

After the first episode aired, some critics cringed over its crassness and supposed shortage of originality. But others envisioned a solid foundation for the series ahead.

Regardless, six more installments constituted the short inaugural season, all airing in the spring. This introduction coincided with Fox’s last ride as the NHL’s U.S. network abode, allowing for a cross-promotional teaser.

The only question is why did a family of Ocean Staters cheer for a Rangers goal against the Bruins? Did the Connecticut-born MacFarlane lean New York?

That aside, Rhode Island’s real-life Bruins affiliate was generating unprecedented fervor among its fans. While NBC viewers were checking out Masius’ new creation, the P-Bruins were on the road, edging the Rochester Americans, 4-3.

That Jan. 8 win was their eighth in an eventual streak of 11. They would keep going unbeaten until the eve of the Family Guy premiere, when they lost a 6-1 laugher in Hershey.

Despite that uncharacteristic stinker, the Baby Bruins still went 10-1-1 on the month. In between, four of their players participated in the AHL all-star game. Three forwards (Randy Robitaille, Andre Savage and Landon Wilson) each scored an assist. Goaltender Jim Carey played one period, stopping all seven shots faced.

(That’s Carey with one R, not the Jim Carrey from the first Farrelly brothers movie — 1994’s Dumb and Dumber.)

With their streak carrying over from December, the Bruins had gone unbeaten for 16 straight outings before the January finale. They would drop seven more regular-season games after that, never by more than two goals.

By mid-April, the P-Bruins were the AHL’s regular-season champions with 120 points and a league-record 56 victories. Robitaille was the regular-season MVP, Laviolette the coach of the year.

The run signified a resurgence for the entity credited with spearheading Providence’s modern renaissance when it came to town in 1992. The Bruins’ historic turnaround put any specter of a Reds-like demise to rapid rest. As the modern representative of one of the league’s charter cities, they looked like they were there to stay.

But the same could not be said about another sports team across town. By January, PC baseball was in the homestretch of a bittersweet offseason ahead of February’s opener. The team entered the season ranked seventh in the Big East poll, which only turned up the fire below.

While a Major League-like surge would not reverse the school’s decision, the Friars channeled the Rachel Phelps-owned Cleveland Indians’ mentality. In so doing, they also matched the contemporary P-Bruins’ otherworldly output, winning a program-high 45 games leading up to the conference tournament final.

The week after Rhode Island’s historic TV season ended (Family Guy’s Season 1 finale aired May 16, Providence’s May 21), the Friars delivered on their defiance. They won their second and final Big East pennant and an automatic bid to the NCAA regionals.

In a subsequent in-depth wrap-up, Hartford Courant columnist Jeff Jacobs called the Friars’ mid-May home finale “a scene both sad and wonderful.” Outfielder Michael O’Keefe told Jacobs that, despite the decision’s obvious downside, “it did turn a lot of college kids into young adults.”

Two nights after Jacobs’ report was published, the P-Bruins throttled the Fredericton Canadiens, 6-1. That home triumph at the Civic Center in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Final gave them a slot in their first Calder Cup Final. To sweeten the moment further, it happened on May 29, Rhode Island Statehood Day.

But even with everything else quieting on the entertainment front, hockey was not the only local newsmaker. While Fredericton, the affiliate of the Boston Bruins’ dreaded Montreal nemesis, was briefly staving off elimination in Game 5, an indictment was made in connection with a Providence mayoral scandal.

The FBI had made its first Operation Plunder Dome arrests the preceding month. Ultimately, the investigation made its way to the top of Cianci’s office. The late Prince of Providence was no Adam West of Quahog. But he was one of the reasons for Rhode Island’s reputation for political corruption.

Cianci, who guest starred on the March 12, 1999 Providence episode “Taste of Providence,” lasted another three years. But racketeering would catch up to him, ending his political power in September 2002. He would serve a five-year prison sentence and then spend the rest of his life as a radio talk-show host.

 

But that was not before the man who campaigned to bring the P-Bruins down from Maine joined in their party. Providence met the aforementioned Americans, the regular-season and playoff champions of the Western Conference, in what paper proclaimed a titanic final card.

At home, though, the Bruins were multiple cuts above. East Greenwich native and Brown University graduate Steve King spelled the difference with two goals in Game 1 on June 5. The next night, Providence posted a 6-0 runaway.

A week later, after splitting two tilts in Rochester, the Bruins sold out the Civic Center and paced themselves to a 5-1 Cup clincher. It was Providence’s first AHL playoff title since the bygone Reds raised the trophy in 1956.

A midweek parade followed in Downcity, ringing in the summer solstice in style. Two months later, the newly opened Providence Place Mall offered a little dog-day relief. Now, instead of going out to Warwick, Lincoln or out of state to Massachusetts, local shoppers could flock across the street from one of WaterFire’s best viewing spots above the river.

And not to be forgotten, the Farrellys released their third locally shot-and-based film in six years prior to Labor Day. Adapted from Peter Farrelly’s 1988 novel, Outside Providence fetched a decent 65 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie variously utilized and depicted the city proper plus Cranston, Kingston, Pawtucket and Woonsocket.

Still no encores

Two nights after the anniversary of the fateful Friars baseball announcement, the P-Bruins raised their Calder Cup banner. A more tumultuous 1999-2000 regular season did not indicate their playoff preparation, as they came within an overtime goal of another Eastern Conference crown. That was enough for Laviolette to move up the coaching ranks to the NHL afterward.

It was also enough for the Bruins to remain the royals of Rhode Island’s sports scene for a while longer. And still no other team has ravaged the AHL record book quite like the bar-setting 1998-99 Providence squad.

 

Meanwhile, the state’s two fictional sagas caught on, with one enlisting the aforementioned West for an April 25, 2000 episode.

With Providence and Family Guy, January 1999 proved the beginning of a still-uncontested one-two punch. In the annals of Ocean State teleplays, no other era comes close in collective prominence and staying power.

Previously, CBS had 40 episodes of Doctor Doctor from 1989 to 1991. In 1992, the same network contemplated the Providence-based Better Days but never aired its pilot.

No other Rhody-set network program mustered a full season between then and the Providence premiere. Ocean Staters’ best bets for entertaining local depictions in that interlude were the Farrellys’ Dumb and Dumber and There’s Something About Mary.

Since the pair that premiered in January 1999, none of the state’s scripted small-screen sagas have matched their legs.

In the spring of 2008, Julianna Margulies played the title role in all six episodes of Fox’s Canterbury Law. Margulies would soon have more success in another legal drama, CBS’ The Good Wife, set in Chicago. Meanwhile, back in “Rhody,” ABC carried all 13 episodes of Eastwick in the fall of 2009.

CBS could have fictionalized the state and capital city government’s infamous side, but decided against it. Five episodes of Waterfront, featuring Billy Baldwin as the state attorney general, were produced but never aired.

Outside of the four main networks, only two Rhode Island series have sustained a multi-year run. Last year, historic Newport got the last of its love from Comedy Central, which cancelled Another Period after three seasons and 32 installments.

Beyond basic cable, Showtime shot Brotherhood on location, giving Providence an authentic depiction from July 2006 to December 2008. But that only amounted to 55 episodes in three seasons.

Conversely, despite occupying the inauspicious Friday-night slot for its whole ride, Providence mustered five healthy seasons and 96 episodes.

Family Guy was cancelled in 2002, the same year Cianci was jailed, but returned in 2005. It is now in its 17th overall season, a Sunday-night staple opposite The Simpsons and Bob’s Burgers. As of this week, it has churned out 320 episodes.

Besides MacFarlane’s breakout brainchild, the P-Bruins are only other holdover from that momentous winter and spring. They still draw exemplary fanfare in the AHL, but have yet to win another championship. Four return trips to the penultimate round of the playoffs have not yielded a second Calder Cup Final ticket.

And PC baseball has had no renaissance. In fact, America’s pastime is preparing to peel more of itself away from the Ocean State. The Pawtucket Red Sox will conduct their 48th and final campaign next year before moving to Worcester, Mass., in 2021. Providence could have kept that club in its eponymous county, but no deal for a venue nailed down the pegs.

Both Providence and Quahog’s most famous mayors have passed away within the last three years. Cianci was still hosting a local talk show when he died unexpectedly at age 74 on Jan. 28, 2016. In June 2017, West’s 88-year-old homonymous voice artist of Batman fame succumbed to leukemia.

But even with the former’s sketchy side, each are remembered for their shots in Rhode Island’s cultural arm. West was the first established A-list ringer with a recurring role on Family Guy, appearing 117 times. His 17 years in office (also nonconsecutive, as Lois Griffin briefly replaced him) fell only four short of Cianci’s.

Amid West’s reign, his constituents were seen advertising Del’s Frozen Lemonade, buying groceries from Stop & Shop and driving by the Big Blue Bug. More out-of-staters undoubtedly saw those entities because the guest star’s veteran presence drew them to the series. He gave it some Y2K compliance after its 1999 grace period.

“Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all you have given us, Mr. Mayor,” MacFarlane stated on Twitter after West’s passing. “You’re irreplaceable.”

Quahog’s school system even acknowledged West’s Providence counterpart with Buddy Cianci Junior High.

“I wish I had gone there myself,” the namesake joked to Bloomberg TV in a June 2015 interview.

Well, you can’t have it all, as Cianci learned the hard way when his misdeeds caught up with him. But he and others also warrant credit for the way substantial scripted and sports narratives went through his city and state two decades ago this year.