Product Description

Hailed as 'brilliant', 'subversive' and 'the best show in the past 30 years' by critics from both sides of the Atlantic, Michael Moore's revolutionary series 'TV Nation' programme championed the issues which concern us all - from the heavyweight to just plain irksome. Only on 'TV Nation' could you witness the unthinkable - Mexican and African Americans gatecrashing a Klu Klux Klan rally to regale them with love songs and install a kissing booth - as well as the simply wish-fulfilling - the home of the director of the largest car alarm company in America being woken to the tuneful chorus of of a dozen car alarms at 6.00am.

'Adventures in a TV Nation recounts the intriguing behind-the-scenes stories of filming 'TV Nation' and reveals how Moore and his associates got it past the censors and on the air. It also relates those stories which were too controversial to show - including the voice-activated lie detector scan which which tested the daily news and recorded a lie in just about every report. If you have ever felt powerless or at the mercy of 'the system', 'Adventures in a TV Nation' is guaranteed to lift your spirits.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #258053 in Books
• Published on: 2002-11-29
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Wall Street Journal
'TV Nation' may be that rarest of species, a television programme both funny and important

New York Times
Mr Moore's breezy, irreverent, blithely biased excursions are generally refreshing and frequently hilarious

Synopsis
"TV Nation" champions issues from the heavyweight to the irksome. Michael Moore has many hysterical things to say about deserving targets of all political persuasions from the anaemic left to the giddy right.

Customer Reviews

Not a work of genius, but easy to read
Michael Moore: you've got to respect his intentions and values, but too often his methods are ineffectual or, frankly pointless. Some people don't see this. For example, in Fahrenheit 911 he attempted to make a point about the enlisting of the country's youth to fight in Iraq by trying to get congressmen to enlist their children. Well of course they won't do it... it's for the kids to enlist themselves.

The examples in this book are much the same. There are some nice ideas, and inventive ways of illustrating them, but little is ever achieved beyond pointing out the absurdities in American culture and government. Even long term - given that this is a new pressing of the book - it is obvious that little or nothing has been altered.

That is however, a small gripe. Moore should be applauded for the attempt, and for his accessible and fun methods. His intention seems to be more one of showing how easy it is to get involved, and of encouraging ordinary people to at least try to do something.

I am not going to score it too highly, as it is not a 'must-read'. It is an easy time-filler however, and it is fun.

Not Moore at his best...
This book reports on how the TV Nation series came into being, developed and finished. For those of you who were in Mars in the mid-nineties I explain: TV Nation was a satire of USA's social and political environment, a take on large corporations but above all a call to arms (figuratively speaking) against the many wrongs of today's society, be it american or otherwise.

I must say I identify with many of Moore's rants. He's got it quite right in many aspects; fortunately for everybody, he's got the means to get his own back at owners of car alarm makers (whose products drive us mad at night for no reason at all), KKK boneheads, Newt Gringrich, etc. He's had wonderful ideas and he has succeeded at implementing them in the funniest and unpredictable ways, such as employing Crackers, the Corporate Crime Fighting Super Chicken. No wise crack humour, this is much more serious than you and I could imagine.

One of the highlights of the book is the various attempts by NBC, then Fox, to censor many pieces. Some went to air without any compromise, some went to air with serious compromise (such as when Moore was made to put Cuba in second place after Canada in a "health systems" Olympiad, the US coming third; although it is widely known that Cuba has probably the best healthcare system in the world, Americans don't seem able to take on such "horrible" truth and would rather bury their heads in the sand than admit it. And if that's despite the 30 year long stupid embargo imposed by the Evil Empire, imagine what'd happen if Cuba had all the medical goods they need), and some didn't go to air at all, such as the story on the scandalous Savings and Loans fraudsters... For a nation that prides itself on political openness and freedom, I must say I don't see openness nor freedom, only stalinist-style repression of ideas. As always, opposites attract.

Another highlight is how TV Nation contributed with $5000 for a lobbyist... well, to lobby, for a TV Nation national day, approved by Congress. My golly, it worked! It's August 16th if you want to know. You'd never think how far $5000 would take you in the Congress, now you do. Why does no one question this in the US? If if is absolutely scandalous that anyone with $5000 can do this, immagine what they can do with a few million dollars and then you can see how defence contracts get approved, environment protection and health and safety laws forgotten to favour big corporations, or even how the United States of Amnesia can go to war with a largely defenceless country like Iraq. Surely they've never heard the maxim: "pick someone of your own size to fight".

Since this series, Michael Moore has gone on to write other books in the same vein, namely "Downsize this" and "Stupid White Men (and other sorry excuses for the state of the nation)". He recently directed a wonderful documentary, "Bowling Columbine", which went on to receive the Palme D'Or at Cannes (unheard of for a documentary) and even the Oscar for Best Documentary. Amazing, that to happen in the US, but then people are a bit more liberal in California, so we like to think.

This book comes as a bit of a disappointment though. Because it wasn't written by Moore himself, his bile, witnessable by his uppercase statements followed by many exclamation marks, isn't anywhere but in the introduction. Still, Kathleen Glynn's style, his co-producer of TV Nation, though not as exhuberant, is perfectly at ease with the subject and delivered a hugely entertaining book that acts not only as a denouncement of many of USA's facets of life but also as a TV series tie-in, with information on each of the episodes and such. A must for everyone who watched this and want to revive their memories...

Moore at his best
Having never seen the TV show myself, I was unsure as to how much I could I would gain from this book, but was pleasantly surprised. The programme humourously attacked parts of American life from a KKK love-night" to the Johns of Justice. While uproariously funny, the programme/ book also has a serious undercurrent, and makes you think on a number of issues. While in later life (Stupid White Men, Bowling for Columbine) Moore's humour and politics have become perhaps too intertwined, here the roving nature of the episodes ensures that regardless of your political beliefs you shoud read this book.