Strange Bedfellows

If you want to make any money in television, you have to become a producer. For all the money you hear about the stars of shows making, the production companies which actually bring the shows to life are raking in even more cash. That is why in the last few years everyone who is anyone has started their own production companies and is the reason credits at the end of movies take 45 minutes to run. When it comes to television they are usually given credit at the end of the show, after the normal credits have rolled, when random graphics with words that make no sense appear for a half-second. Most of these production companies are named after inside jokes that only the actor gets. (For example, Will Ferrell's production company is named Gary Sanchez, apparently for no other reason than Ferrell really likes that name.) Some show have four or five of these mini-production companies involved, which is what happens when the stars of the show each start their own company to get producing credits. Where it gets really interesting is when people and their production companies get attached to projects and create connections you don't anticipate.

Last night I was flipping around, desperately hoping that something from the nearly 1000 channels I have at my fingertips would catch my eye and provide some entertainment. Lacking any other options I eventually paused on SpikeTV, which was showing the last couple minutes of a new show called "Big Easy Justice". The show is centered around a Eugene "Tat-2" Thacker, a professional bounty hunter determined to clean up his hometown of New Orleans. I only caught the last few minutes, but as near as I can tell the premise of each episode is that Tat and his team (The rest of his team includes guys named Viper, Arsenio and Wally. Someone got the short straw in the nickname department.) track down a fugitive and takes them to jail. Basically, if you have ever seen an episode of "Cops" or "Dog the Bounty Hunter" you have seen this show before. However, that wasn't what was particularly interesting. As the episode ended and the credits rolled, the list of production companies involved scrolled by and one in particular caught my eye - Al Roker Entertainment. That couldn't be the same Al Roker from the "Today" show, could it? That had to just be someone who named their production company ironically, right? A few seconds of Googling revealed that it was the Al Roker I thought it was.

You expect certain connections in the world of TV. For example, it is completely normal that Oprah has her hands all over everything on the OWN channel. But I have to admit, I did not see this connection coming. Roker isn't from New Orleans and doesn't even have a police background. Heck, when I think of Al Roker the gritty world of bounty hunting doesn't come close to being the first thing that springs to mind. But, it turns out this isn't his first foray into the these kinds of shows, as his company has also done two season of the show "DEA" for Spike TV. If you go to the Al Roker Entertainment website you discover that Al has his hands all over television. You probably aren't shocked to learn his production company has made several programs for NBC concerning weather disasters. Heck, you can even understand when Al dives into the drug trade, breaking out his serious journalistic chops to produce an investigatory series for MSNBC. And, given that he publicly lost a lot of weight but makes no secret of his love for barbecue it makes sense that Roker's company produced many programs for the Food Network. But Al's company has also looked into the gritty world of pageants with "Hidden Lives of Miss USA" for the E! Network and "A Perfect Party" for something called Fine Living. He's also produced shows for History, PBS, Court TV and Lifetime. Face it, dude is a Renaissance man.

Now I just want to know who else has helped produce shows with connections you never would have imagined. Like I said, you can get a lot of return on your investment into these shows and money has a way of making people willing to overlook previous moral objections about working with a particular subject. Fox is a big company with lots of channels. Does someone like Chris Wallace on Fox News have a hand in "American Dad"? Comedy Central, MTV and NBC are all owned by Viacom, so is Brian Williams helping to make "Workaholics" and "Teen Mom" part of our lives? (Actually, that has nice symmetry - produce a show glorifying teen pregnancy then do a serious news report about the reasons teen pregnancy might be on the rise.) Really, considering how large some of these communication companies are, the possibilities are endless. If nothing else, I plan to start paying closer attention to the closing credits of shows, even though I'm not sure if finding out who has brought certain programs to my TV is going to help or hurt in the long run. For example, would I enjoy "Sons of Anarchy" as much if I knew it was being backed by Glenn Beck? Still, I figure it would be better to know either way. The point is, until I hear otherwise, I'm just going to assume every show on television has been backed by Al Roker. Seriously, that guy is everywhere.