Naturally, ABC was running through all of the usual Celebrity suspects: there was Jack, flanked as always by Lou Adler and a young chick; Dustin Hoffman; Spike Lee, etc. Suddenly, out of the blue, there was an interview or something with Wall-E, the robot subject of the latest movie by Pixar.

And all I could think was “Gee, thanks for spoiling the movie for me!”

I don’t exactly remember when I first started noticing the annoying Celebrity shots while watching sporting events, but my guess is that like so many annoying sports broadcasting trends, it started with the FOX World Series broadcasts. You know, the ones where they treat the actual Baseball part of the broadcast with the same grudging respect teenagers give their grandparents.

Because the World Series happens during the beginning of the Fall TV season, FOX always uses it as a method for hyping upcoming shows, and so not only are we treated to thousands of promos for those shows during every commercial break (just as ABC is currently doing for their doomed Life on Mars remake), we are also treated to live shots of the actual actors of those shows at the games — always treated as if they just happened to be lifelong fans of the teams in the Series, and taking seats from actual fans of those teams in order to whore out their latest project.

It’s actually a pretty good indicator of which shows FOX thinks will break out to their audience, so the Save Dollhouse! people better cross their fingers for loads of shots of Eliza Dushku and Tahmoh Penikett, the way we’ve been previously subjected to Hugh Laurie — no doubt a lifelong Colorado Rockies fan — and the guys in Fastlane, whose names I can no longer remember or even bother to IMDB.

Naturally, as awful the marketing department of FOX is, they don’t even come close to the evil geniuses who market for Disney, for whom I have such a life-long antipathy that when I brought the subject up last night during the actual telecast, Rox went “Disney marketing department blah blah blah,” before I could even get a full sentence out. Luckily, you fine people haven’t been around me for the past two decades, so I’ll just complain this way.

The reasons for that antipathy go back to how they marketed their videos back when I managed the Video Zone in Clovis in the late 1980s. It’s a policy of creating demand by artificially reducing the supply, which meant that they released their classic movies on VHS (and Beta!) for approximately 15 minutes, after which they seemingly made every single copy on Earth self-destruct.

The upshot of Disney’s policy was that in the late 80s and early 90s, any retailer that either sold or rented Disney Videos (because even the rental copies tended to be disappear) to the general public spent all their time explaining why the 1001 copies of 101 Dalmatians that were for sale last month when the are now gone, and why the customer is shit out of luck because it won’t be released again in any format until 2008.

It’s a neat marketing trick, but that the customers didn’t really understand all that much, and, naturally always blamed the retailers (“surely, you have one more copy in the back”) for the artificial shortage created by Disney. Which was why I took special pleasure when one of their disgruntled artists snuck a huge penis onto the VHS box cover of the Little Mermaid, still one of the all-time greatest acts of entertainment industry rebellion.

Unless, of course, it was accidental, as Snopes claims. Either way, it was funny, and there was definitely enough egg (as the kids called it back then) on Disney’s face for the box cover to be castrated for future pressings.

Right. Where was I, again? Oh right, the ritual Running of the Celebrities, because of which, I just realized that perhaps the NBA Finals Conspiracy people have it totally wrong. I mean, if you’re ABC, and you’re working with the National Basketball Association hand-in-hand to choreograph every single shot so as to get maximum viewerage for your network, why wouldn’t you want the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals so that you can show Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria Parker every 35 seconds?

Oh look, there’s Eva Longoria Parker happy! Oh look, there’s Eva Longoria Parker angry! Oh look, there’s Eva Longoria Parker worried! Oh look, there’s Eva Longoria Parker talking on her cell phone! Wait! Where’s Eva Longoria Parker! She must be in the restroom, don’t worry, our cameras will follow her! Sure, Lakers-Celtics has the historical value, but there just aren’t any Laker fans with that perfect combination of high-profile and high-rated ABC series. Unless, of course, ABC isn’t part of the Conspiracy.

They are, however, part of Disney, as is Pixar, which is why Wall-E gets highlighted in the same break as Jack Nicholson and Dustin Hoffman.

I haven’t really been paying that much attention to the promotion for Wall-E, just assuming that if it was from Pixar, it would be worth my while. Oh, and thinking that Wall-E himself kinda looked like a squat Number 5 from Short Circuit.

But here’s the thing: showing Wall-E at the NBA Finals is 100% a spoiler for the movie Wall-E. Why? Because it occurs after the events of the movie on Wall-E’s personal timeline.

No matter what emotional trials Wall-E faces; no matter how much mental anguish Wall-E goes through; no matter what physical dangers Wall-E faces, we now know that he’s going to be OK.

In fact, better than OK, because Wall-E is getting to hang out as a Celebrity at the 2008 NBA Finals. Is your life going so well that you get to hang out as a Celebrity at the 2008 NBA Finals? So now that we know that Wall-E ends up with a better life than all of the rest of us, why go see the movie? In fact, it might even be depressing to see all of that other stuff that happens in the movie, now that we know that Wall-E is kicking so much ass in his personal life.

Hey ABC and Disney! Did you think we wouldn’t notice this fatal flaw in your relentless pursuit of synergistic perfection? So arrogant.

Because it’s not just me who got spoiled, but the entire world-wide audience for the NBA Finals. An audience which might have wanted to go see Wall-E, but might just not bother now that they know that he’s going to turn out OK. And since Wall-E — who was probably railroaded into making the appearance in the first place — no doubt gets some of the back end, that’s going to affect his cut.

Just wait until the rest of the Robots — who I’m sure were anxiously waiting for the Opening Week numbers to prove that one of their kind could carry a movie — hear about this. They’re going to be so pissed that they’ll move the Revolution up a couple of decades.

So on behalf of not just myself, but the entire world I just want to say this to the marketing people at Disney: “Thanks a lot. Not just for spoiling Wall-E, but putting the entire fate of humanity at risk!”

Luckily, there’s a special circle in Hell reserved just for them.

I’ve read that catnip use can lead to excessive shedding. If that’s true then it means our cats were nipped-out the whole time we were in Texas.

And of course, it’s finally spring. So all of this cat fur is coinciding with a pollen level that will soon have me sneezing my brains out.

Worst of all, I’m due to write this week’s “That’s What I Like” column. Oh, and now that I look at the kitchen floor I can see that Washu is adapting to her new cat food by dumping it on the floor and batting it around before eating it. It’s some sort of strange calico food-bonding ritual that I was apparently unaware of.

It goes without saying the litter box needs scooping. I know, that was more than you needed to know, but that’s the risk you take when you read Medialoper on a Friday.

Have I mentioned that I’ve been through three time changes in the past week?

In the past I might have just given up and taken a nap (a coping mechanism I’ve learned from the cats – it works surprisingly well). Fortunately, I’ve assembled a small army of robots to deal with all of my problems.

My Roomba is busily scooting around the living room, sucking up cat hair like it’s some kind of robot delicacy. I’ll be setting the Scooba loose on the kitchen shortly. And the LitterMaid self-scooping litter box is just moments away from restoring the box to a perfectly raked bed of clean sand. The fact that Washu has declared war on the robotic rake is another issue entirely.

It’s great to be a technologically empowered man of the oughts. I can clean the house AND blog, and still have time to prepare for my upcoming fantasy baseball draft.

I realize that the field of household robotics is still in its infancy, but I’m already benefiting from the admittedly somewhat primitive technology that’s already available today. Sure, the iRobot products aren’t up to the standard of the Jetson’s Rosie — yet. It’s just a matter of time before we’ll all have robots that unload the dishwasher and clean the bathroom. A self-cleaning refrigerator can’t be that far away. Can it?

Now if only I had a robot that could write this week’s “That’s What I Like”…

• Robot Nurses Close to Being a Reality – Because going to the hosiptal isn’t dehumanizing enough, your nurse is soon going to be a robot. Your nursebot will be able to take your temperature remotely as well as give you your medicine. They will also frighten small children who didn’t want to visit you in the first place. Ironically, the one thing that you’d really want a robot to do — changing your bedpan — doesn’t seem to be among the list of functions.
• Japanese toy firms look to adults, dancing robots – This isn’t demeaning at all: a 6.5″ dancing robot called the “i-SOBOT.” Billed as the world’s smallest robot — totally offending gazillions of nanobots — it’s small enough to fit in a lunchbox, from where the manufacturer assumes that the young men who are the target audience will produce it to amaze and amuse their friends. In other words, this is supposed to be something that Hiro would have annoyed Ando with prior to discovering his power. Given the size and purported dancing ability, it’s entirely possible that they are targeting the wrong gender.
• Killer robots move from sci-fi to DMV – I was all set to make a joke about the fact that killer robots at the DMV would be an upgrade — especially here in California — but it turns out that the headline is a typo, and those killer robots are actually being deployed in the DMZ between South and North Korea. Which is totally different, and sets up a conflict between Azimov’s Laws and the fact that it would be pretty cook for killer robots to stalk Kim Jong Il.
• Kamikaze Space Robots Save the Earth – Now this is a movie that I’d go see: Kamikaze Robots vs. Killer Asteroids. Of course, what would happen if the robots became self-aware halfway through and started debating the nature of their free will and whether or not they should sacrifice themselves for the good of the humans who built them for this mission in the first place?

• Robot parking garage to open in New York – And finally this month, New Yorkers, who don’t really drive anyway, are getting their own robotic valets. However, there have been problems with other robotic garages: they’ve been rebelling, damaging and dropping cars. Oops. However, notice that the car in the promo picture is a BMV SUV, as if to say “Hey, if the people who own BMW SUVs trust robots to part their car, then you should have no problems with it.” Of course, the only people rich enough to own BMW SUV’s are the people who own parking garages, so that just rings a bit false.

The iRobot Create comes with the basic functionality of the other members of the iRobot family, but with a twist: this one lets you decide what it’s going to do. It’s not just for cleaning floors any more.

Check out their press release:

An affordable, programmable robot designed for aspiring roboticists, advanced high-school and college students, and serious robot developers. Create comes pre-assembled, so developers can design new robots without having to build a mobile robot from scratch.

Hee! “Serious robot developers.” Half of the guys I hung around with in high school (and probably most of the ‘Lopers) would give their right arms to be called a “Serious Robot Developer.” And they could give up those arms, because one of the things that you can do to the Create is add an arm, so it’s a wash! You can also make it into a pet, have it carry your luggage, pretty much anything your imagination comes up with. (Except, ew.)

Of course, you need to know a bit about programming and building robots. There’s always a catch. I can come up with several things I’d like a robot to do. Most of those things involve picking up the random bits of laundry that Jim leaves around the house. It would nearly be a full-time job for a robot just to extricate the socks from the couch. Even better, it can follow him around our place and close all of the drawers and doors and cupboards that he leaves open. Or better yet, tell him that he left something open:

“ATTENTION, JIM, PLEASE GO BACK INTO THE KITCHEN AND SHUT THE SILVERWARE DRAWER!! THIS MESSAGE WILL BE REPEATED AT INCREASING VOLUME UNTIL I SENSE THAT IT IS CLOSED. THANK YOU FOR YOUR CO-OPERATION! AND HAVE A NICE DAY. ATTENTION, JIM –”

That will totally work for the toilet seat.

• iRobot.com

• Season Three of Battlestar Galactica — Some people thought that the New Caprica storyline was too dark; other people have thought that they’ve lost the plot since they’ve gone back into space. Sure, the “hey, we could kill all of the Cylons” and “old friend returns” plots were resolved too easily; and sure Lee, Kara and Saul may again seem like the people we remember from the last seasons. But my guess that they aren’t. They’ve all changed, they’re just clinging to their old (new) normal. I think that the Moore & Eick needed to get them back to face whatever mind-blowing showdown they’ve got planned for the end of the season. Meanwhile, the Cylons continue to be awesome, and I keep going back to a seemingly throwaway line of Bro. Cavil’s where he said that downloading was more difficult every time. Is it possible that, even for immortal killer robots, some things are worse than death? Or is it probable?
• Kevin and Bean — I’ve always had a weakness for morning radio. I love the epic silliness of KROQ’s Kevin and Bean. Making fun of all, with malice towards none. Except for Joan Rivers. And Kevin Federline.
• Alan Sepinwall’s “What’s Alan Watching” and Tim Goodman’s “The Bastard Machine” — My two favorite TV writers, blogging away. Sepinwall does a lot of smart recaps, and Goodman brings the pitch-perfect attitude.
• The Squeezebox – Slim Devices’ digital media player has been a nice addition to my household.
• King Kaufmannin Salon and Bruce Jenkins at SF Gate — My two favorite sportswriters. Kaufmann always has a left-field perspective that I love. Jenkins is more old school, but noone has captured the love/hate relationship that Giants fans have for Barry Bonds better than he has. You can tell that despises the man, but loves what he’s done on the field.
• The Onion’s A.V. Club — Area man is shocked that he now prefers better-than-ever pop culture commentary to not-as-good-as-it-once-was satire.
• The Hold Steady’s Boys and Girls in America — Hands down, album of the year. Maybe even the decade.
• Yo La Tengo’s – “Pass The Hatchet, I’m Goodkind” — Especially that part near the end when that last riff comes in out of nowhere. After two decades, they’ve finally gotten Sister Ray to love them back.
• South Park – Ten years down the line and Matt and Trey are still beholden to absolutely nobody.
• My iRiver mp3 player — Not as cool as my iPods, but my jogging workhorse. Because it has the FM.
• Season Three of The Office – Pam/Jim ’shippers probably aren’t happy with the way that this season is going, but this show just keeps getting better.
• Rickey Gervais’ laugh in the podcasts — A while back, we asked if it was worth paying for the Rickey Gervais Show podcasts. I can unequivocally answer “yes.” Just for the way that Rickey Gervais laughs from deep inside of his gut at the things that Karl Pilkington says. Oh, and it looks like they are back with some more free holiday podcasts, so good on them.
• Slate’s Blogging the Bible series — The Lazy Guy’s Guide to the Old Testament.
• The Absolute Sandman, Volume 1 — The first twenty issues of Neil Gaiman’s seminal mythological comic in a beautiful — but huge! — bound volume.
• Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball — Specifically, the Superman-Tim League, which has been active for six years now, and includes all of your ‘Lopers, plus friends. And even more specificially, the fact that I’ve won it for three years running, now. Kirk, our commissioner, is actually talking about somehow changing the rules. That’s some mad respect.
• Comedy Central’s News Hour – Stewart/Colbert ‘08!!

I’m sure that there are more, but these are the ones that came to mind. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!!