A trio of celebrity deaths shocked and startled
It’s been a rough couple of days with celebrity deaths. Many of us were surprised to hear that actor Julian McMahon had passed away at the very young age of 56.
As an Australian actor, the news hit hard down under. But he had an extensive, successful career in the US starring in shows like Nip/Tuck, Another World, Charmed, FBI: Most Wanted, and more. Amusingly, he was very recently seen in Netflix comedy The Residence playing the Prime Minister - amusing only because his late dad was Prime Minister William McMahon, who served a short sting between 1971-72.
McMahon died of cancer, reportedly.
Also sad was the passing of Australian TV chef Peter Russell-Clarke at the less young age of 89. He fronted cooking show Come and Get It through the 80s and is forever linked in my mind to shows like The Goodies, Press Gang, and Doctor Who, which I watched as a kid scheduled against Come and Get It.
But, the passing that I really wanted to focus on was the death of The X-Files composer Mark Snow.
In addition to composing the iconic The X-Files theme and scoring the TV show:
A 15-time Emmy-nominated composer, Snow lent his talents to a slew of shows, including Blue Bloods, Smallville, One Tree Hill, Children of the Dust and Ghost Whisperer, among others. His work has also appeared across film, including features in The New Mutants, Ernest Saves Christmas and Crazy in Alabama.
I’d suggest that there are very few TV music composers that have become household names in the way Mark Snow was for a while. I’d also suggest that there are very few TV show theme songs that broke out into the publis consciousness in the way The X-Files theme did.
Sure, his album Truth and The Light: Music From The X-Files charted. But, the big cultural contribution was the chart-busting X-Files remixes that were really prominent for a couple of months during peak-X-Files. Here’s the biggest of those that I remember, which was from Triple-X:
Something I only just learned today. The X-Files theme song has a title: Materia Primoris. Whether it was always titled that or not is a mystery to me. I’ll forever just be fine calling it “The X-Files theme.”
“Fun” Venu Sports trivia
A fun confirmation for you all today.
There was a rumour floating around early this year when in the US, Fox, Warner Bros, and Disney were set to partner on a streaming sports service that would bundle all of their linear sports channels into one app. It was going to be branded as Venu Sports, but it all fell apart before the joint venture could be realised.
The was rumour was that Venu Sports was going to be built using the Australian sports streaming app Kayo. It made sense - the app has a strong mix of linear and on-demand and is built for sports. It would be easy enough to just rebadge it. Plus, at the time, Kayo was owned by Foxtel, which was 50% owned by NewsCorp. So, there are tendrils.
Late last week I found myself interviewing Tom Blaxland - a really lovely guy who is heading up the development of the Kayo Sports app.
You can read my full article about the redesigned Kayo Sports app over at the Mediaweek site. But, while chatting, I couldn’t help but ask about whether it was true that Venu Sports could have been built using the Kayo Sports app.
But really, the idea was: Kayo is so good, can we just take that idea and reproduce it in America? There were a few people who worked on both, yeah.
Kayo’s a really great tentpole, a really great basis for a sports app, and that’s why people want to copy it. But they just don’t have the rights that translate to other countries around the world.
What anyone can do with this information now beats me. But, it does resolve some fairly arcane trivia discussed by only the dorkiest of dorks (my people).
News Desk
The former star of The Streets of San Francisco and, eh, I’m sure he’s done other work too, Michael Douglas, has announced that he is done working. Read: THR
Also quitting is The Office and Killing It star Craig Robinson. Read: Variety
There’s apparently some sort of online debate about Billie Eilish being deemed a nepo baby because her parents are two jobbing actors. I think people need to better understand who exactly has power in Hollywood to achieve anything. Read: Bored Panda
Production has wrapped for good on Australian soap Neighbours. Read: TV Tonight
TikTok is building a new version of its app for users in the United States ahead of a planned sale of the app to a group of investors. Is it TikTok without the famed algorithm? Read: Reuters
Former Doctor Who Magazine editor Tom Spilsbury reckons it’ll be about five years before the show is able to come back on air. A shame as most of its target audience will be busy with final year high school exams by then. Read: Dark Horizons
Trailer Park
This is technically less a trailer and more an 11-minute pilot episode for the new YouTube version of Splitting Image.
Tyler Perry’s Miss Governor debuts on Netflix returns with new episodes August 14.
That’s the newsletter for today.
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