Word: made-for-tv
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Roll out the red carpet and get ready for the made-for-TV movie: Science magazine has created a new celebrity by naming nitric oxide its Molecule of the Year for 1992. The citation notes that only a decade ago NO was considered "just another toxic molecule." But how far it's come! Scientists now know that in small amounts NO is crucial to human physiology. It plays a key role in digestion, blood-pressure regulation, the immune system, the nervous system and a long list of organs. It's even essential for men's erections. Maybe that TV movie...
There was much grumbling -- especially among the 15,000 journalists covering the event -- that this display of harmony was a boring contrast to the intrafamily feuds of conventions past. But for all its made-for-TV slickness and We Are the World-type finale, the effort to show that Democrats believe in the American Dream had its moments of authenticity: Senator Al Gore's father scooping up his blond-haired grandson Albert III, 9, whose horrible brush with death was evoked in the Tennessean's eloquent and moving acceptance speech; 12-year-old Chelsea Clinton breaking into a smile...
...congressional candidates are now political entrepreneurs beholden to no one. The party convention has become positively quaint. Traditionally it was here that the elders gathered to pick their presidential candidates. That role having long since been forfeited to the primaries, the parties have turned the convention into a made-for-TV show. Perot understands that this new contraption -- parties manipulating media to send out the parties' message under cover of "news" -- is Rube Goldberg inefficiency. Why not let one man go on Larry King and send the message out himself, directly...
...most other categories, however, American shows look like slick assembly- line goods compared with the richness and handcrafted diversity of the best international fare. Made-for-TV movies from Europe, for example, are far more adventurous in style and subject matter than their true-crime-of-the-week U.S. counterparts. Actors are less glamorous, directors more imaginative, characters and themes more subtly explored...
...side arm, Gates personally collared one of the suspects, Damian Williams, whose nickname is "Football," and escorted him into a squad car. "Chief Gates, you're going!" Williams told the retiring police chief, according to what Gates recounted later. The chief must have thought he was in a made-for-TV movie. "Yes, Football," he snarled back, "but you're going first...