Poor Richard's Scorecard

Season 3 of 'Mad Men': Initial Stumbles, Followed By a Stunning Recovery

INDUSTRY CONSOLIDATION, career uncertainty, fractious home lives: Season three of Mad Men showed us that even in the putatively placid early 1960s, the American middle class faced many of the same tumultuousness that it does today. Thankfully, the season's uneven first half gave way to a stunning, swiftly paced second half that left the Draper family reeling professionally and personally. Season four will begin this summer with many unanswered questions.

Murrow and Cronkite, Move Over: Mendte and Bonaduce Have Their TelePrompters Ready

AS IF local punditry hadn't already welcomed enough buffoons and clowns and charlatans to its carnival, through the open flap steps one Larry Mendte, late of CBS's Philadelphia affiliate, who:

• Was involved in a personal relationship with a coworker, which would be fine if he weren't already, y'know, married. To someone else.
• Was fired after hacking into that coworker's personal e-mail account.
• Leaked private info about her to local gossip columnists, essentially keeping the Daily News solvent for a few more years.
• Pleaded guilty to a federal charge to make it all go away.

So of course he would be a perfect candidate to deliver televised commentaries on current affairs. Mendte, it was reported last week, has been taping pieces for New York's WPIX-TV, which will syndicate them throughout the country and which anticipates hiring him full-time soon.

And Has Anyone Seen Dwight Schultz Lately?

Yikes--I came back Saturday from a week's vacation and discovered that Remote Control helmsman Ken Ober and Equalizer Edward Woodward had passed on. If one believes that these things tend to happen in threes, then we need to look after our '80s icons lest something else happen. Somebody keep Mr. T away from sharp objects, okay? | PRS

Phodder: It's Not Bats and Balls and Gloves That Are the Phillies' Biggest Worry; It's Their Heads, Man

Charlie Manuel's strength is supposed to be between his players' ears, right? So please explain to me how the Phillies are screwing up the mental portion of their game so badly. ... The Sixers' drafting of point-guard project Jrue Holiday surely ups Andre Miller's free-agent asking price. ... Is it dorky or cool to say I'm kind of happy about the release of Parker Lewis Can't Lose's first season on DVD? ... Anybody legitimately surprised that Lenny Dykstra is not the financial wizard some would had us believe, raise your hand. Good. Please don't pass on your stupid genes to a new generation. ... Kudos to Rowan University, which adds credibility to its claim of being an institution on the move by partnering with Cooper University Hospital in opening a medical school in Camden. ... Bob Ford can grump and grouch all he wants about gimmicks, but I think the NHL's Winter Classic is nifty, and I love that the Flyers will play the Bruins in Fenway Park next New Year's Day. | PRS

Phodder, a collection of brief thoughts regarding some of the week's happenings in and around Philadelphia, appears Saturdays in Poor Richard's Scorecard.

Phodder: Buzz Blasts, Raul Rants, and Schools Slide

H.G. "Buzz" Lightyear Bissinger raised some valid points in the critical assessment of Mayor Nutter he published in last Sunday's Inquirer. But after his mouth-foaming anti-blogging rants, it's difficult to accept him as a credible commentator. ... And speaking of misconceptions about the role of blogging, the Raul Ibanez steroid rumor, which would have remained a little-read post until the Inquirer threw gasoline on the barely smoldering ember, did nothing more than dig up and open a coffin long since buried. Uh, guys? Two thousand six called; it wants its MSM/blogging "debate" back. ... Maybe it didn't come from superintendent Arlene Ackerman, but someone leaned on Philadelphia public school teachers to pass students with failing grades. And you have to wonder why, since the practice has absolutely zero positive outcomes for anyone--students, teachers, administrators, parents. ... So suburban Reading's not-so-favorite daughter and son are set for a "major announcement" Monday night. Kate and Jon Gosselin's decision to expose their life and their children to the prurient eyes of America's reality-television watchers was made, I believe, in their family's best interests--two years ago. The family's best interests today involve getting as far away from cameras and boom microphones as possible. ... The Inquirer this week front-paged the ass-kicking even tony Chestnut Hill has taken during the economic downturn. Yet the storefront that has sat empty at the corner of Germantown and Willow Grove avenues for every day of the decade we've lived in the area was a prescient sign that the Hill had some troubles even before things tanked. ... Any night at the ballpark offers its share of unusual sights, but last night at Citizens Bank Park I spied someone wearing--no, really--an Eric Bruntlett t-shirt in Section 104. | PRS

Phodder, a collection of brief thoughts regarding some of the week's happenings in and around Philadelphia, appears Saturdays in Poor Richard's Scorecard.

Phodder: 'Who's the Teacher?,' Coming Soon to a Philadelphia Classroom

Pardon me for not getting overly excited about the Phillies' new draftees; the window on these guys is so long and the requisite breaks so numerous that it's simply easier to wait and see. ... Oh, goody: Philadelphia will host six of the next nine Army-Navy games, ensuring that even if the Eagles are lousy, crappy football will continue to be played at Lincoln Financial Field in December for years to come. ... Pity Pennsylvania's poor, poor Democratic establishment, scared shitless that Congressman Joe Sestak might actually wage a senatorial primary campaign against new D Arlen Specter. It's called democracy, guys: We don't anoint our leaders, we elect them. ... Because, y'know, Philadelphia doesn't have its share of meatheads roaming the streets, Tony Danza is said to be interested in teaching school here as part of a reality television show. No, really. ... The Eagles now have 5.3 million more reasons not to bench Donovan McMabb over the next two seasons. Hope Kevin Kolb doesn't get too many calluses holding that clipboard. | PRS

Phodder, a collection of brief thoughts regarding some of the week's happenings in and around Philadelphia, appears Saturdays in Poor Richard's Scorecard.

But Does 'The Real Housewives' Keep Tourists Away from North Jersey?

If all of Philadelphia's municipal government agencies worked as ruthlessly efficiently as the Parking Authority--if the Parking Authority's performance were the rule rather than the exception--perhaps the nationwide angst fostered by the A&E series Parking Wars would be easier to swallow. Instead, as the Inquirer reports today, the reality show, which "traces the not-so-glamorous workday lives of Philadelphia Parking Authority employees as they boot, tow, and ticket their way through the day," is turning off potential tourists from coming to the city. Sigh. Imagine how much the city could lure--tourists, start-ups, corporate headquarters, college graduates--if the School District, Sanitation Department, Streets Department, Police Department, etc., etc., etc.,--worked as well as the goddamned Parking Authority. | PRS

For AMC's 'Mad Men,' the Truth Is Darker and Far More Entertaining Than Their Fictions

Let's get the obvious point out of the way first: Yes, the half-truths and exaggerations and obfuscations engaged in by the ad-agency folks in AMC's Mad Men are indeed stand-ins for the broken realities of their lives. It is the central conceit of the show. From marital affairs and stolen identities to closeted homosexuality and depression, these amoral characters trade in deception as much personally as they do professionally. How these struggles are rendered makes the show a stunner.

Maybe Larry Kane Is Available

How thin must the ranks of statewide Democrats be that the party was intensely wooing Chris Matthews to make a run against Arlen Specter in 2010? I realize that as a middle-aged white guy who makes his living talking out of his ass, Matthews would bring certain prized qualifications to a Senate campaign, but still. One wonders whether the Hardball host kept his bosses at NBC and Pennsylvania Democrats hanging for so long in order to get the best deal one way or the other. In the end, Matthews told the Inquirer the other day, "there's a wonderful power in being able to get up in the morning and do and say what you believe. As long as I'm decent and don't use bad words, I can do pretty much anything I want."

In NBC10 We Trust?

'CAU's attempts to play the integrity card come off as clumsy pandering

Nobody ever accused TV news of being subtle, but the laughable ads being run by NBC10 during the Olympics raise heavy-handedness to a new level. In the ads, a disturbingly tanned though still quite attractive Tracy Davidson is "interviewing" rumpled weatherdork Glenn Schwartz about the station's weather coverage. They use the word "trust" about six times per sentence, presumably to remind viewers that those lying fakers at, say, CBS3, where, y'know, they had to fire not one but two anchors due to untrustworthiness, can't offer an accurate forecast to save their lives. The spots are contrived beyond belief, and given WCAU-TV's own trust issues -- anchor Vince DeMentri was suspended in the wake of his colleague Lori Delgado's car getting keyed in the station's parking lot -- its hamhanded spots are either really ballsy or really stupid. Me, I go with really stupid. | PRS