Thursday, September 18, 2008

What Happens to All the Tivo Scraps?


Definition of Tivo Scraps: Commercials left behind when sped through during next-day viewings of favorite T.V. Shows, including Grey's Anatomy, Entourage and special Oprah episodes(who doesn't record Oprah's Favorite Things?!)

As the elections nears, the political commercials are increasing day by day. The Today Show slot is saturated with them, by 8:55 a.m. I've already seen John's and Barack's about 28 times. With all the bashing, the tears, the victories displayed on these commercials, I can barely keep my head straight. But John and Obama are smart to use commercials, between SNL (two words: Tina Fey) and the media, T.V. Commercials are a sure route to promote a truthful image of themselves.

The other day in a museum web-site Google session, I happily stumbled upon the Museum of the Moving Image, located in Astoria, a lovely and un-scary section of the Bronx, NY. The Museum of the Moving Image participates in what they call Web Projects, also known as On-line Exhibitions. These are very similar to the on-line Toaster Museum I wrote about a few weeks ago. Their most recently opened exhibition is The Living Room Candidate: Presidential Campaign Commercials. This exhibition is a catalog of presidential candidate political commercials from as early as the 1952 election. Seeing this is just as exciting as the split chance I'm channel surfing and the Annual Commercial Awards are on!

If you haven't already gone ahead and clicked to this exhibition, I suggest you do. The commercials are categorized by Election Year, Commercial Type (Back-fire, Fear, Children), and by Issue. There are more than 200 commercials catalogued, so consider it a prime opportunity to log some hours here instead of You-Tube for a change. Depending on your favorite, whether it's Reagan, Nixon, or Abe(wait, no TV yet), enjoy.

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