{"id":2973,"date":"2004-08-19T14:54:00","date_gmt":"2004-08-19T18:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/?p=2973"},"modified":"2021-06-04T15:01:46","modified_gmt":"2021-06-04T19:01:46","slug":"the-best-tv-proofreader-that-never-was","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/2004\/08\/19\/the-best-tv-proofreader-that-never-was\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best TV Proofreader That Never Was"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/images\/videobug.gif?resize=65%2C20&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"65\" height=\"20\">&nbsp; <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/images\/tvbug.gif?resize=65%2C20&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"65\" height=\"20\">&nbsp; &nbsp; Last Monday, at 8PM EDT, ABC aired a special about unsold TV pilots called <i>The Best TV Shows That Never Were<\/i>. It was a fun show, providing glimpses at sometimes bizarre or laughably bad ideas that in many cases are justifiably forgotten. The smug superiority of the narration grew tiresome however, especially when it was so wrong &#8212; as this video clip shows.  [QuickTime.  22 seconds.  1&frac12; MB.]<br>&nbsp; &nbsp; The object of their derision in this case is a 1999 pilot called <i>Just Deserts<\/i> [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0226028\/\">IMDB link<\/a>], starring Joel Grey.<br><center><video width=\"320\" height=\"240\" controls><source src=\"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/video\/justdeserts.mp4\" type=\"video\/mp4\"><source src=\"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/video\/justdeserts.ogv\" type=\"video\/ogg\">Your browser does not support the video tag.<\/video><\/center><br>&nbsp; &nbsp; Notice how the producers made a big deal about how the title was misspelled. I guess they were thinking &#8220;just desserts&#8221;, kind of like a dessert would be a sweet reward I guess. Funny thing is a quick glance at a dictionary &#8212; and they&#8217;re even conveniently online now too &#8212; shows that the phrase <i>is<\/i> properly used and spelled: &#8220;just deserts&#8221; as in something <i>justly deserved<\/i>.  [Read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.webster.com\/cgi-bin\/dictionary?va=deserts\">Webster&#8217;s definition<\/a> (you&#8217;ll need to click &#8220;[3,noun]&#8221;) or see what <a href=\"http:\/\/www.snopes.com\/language\/notthink\/deserts.htm\">Snopes has to say<\/a>.]<br>&nbsp; &nbsp; Good going guys. You went out of your way to point out an error when it was not an error. Now that speaks well of the brain power behind network TV, even more so than these passed-over shows. (At least they didn&#8217;t misspell &#8221;misspelled&#8220;.)\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Last Monday, at 8PM EDT, ABC aired a special about unsold TV pilots called The Best TV Shows That Never Were. It was a fun show, providing glimpses at sometimes bizarre or laughably bad ideas that in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/2004\/08\/19\/the-best-tv-proofreader-that-never-was\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tv","category-video","category-wtf"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2973"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2975,"href":"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2973\/revisions\/2975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}