STUFF WE LIKE: PETER MEHLMAN's NARROW WORLD OF SPORTS (FEATURED ONLINE SHOW OF THE WEEK)

by Don Rose

This YouTube show impressed me with its humor, down to earthness, and the fact that Peter Mehlman (who I always considered a very funny writer but not really an on-air kinda guy) may have a bright future as a talkshow host if this web program catches on (and let's hope it does).

Everyone complains about ads these days and uses all manner of gizmos and gadgets to avoid them (TiVo, anyone?), but twas an ad that revealed this comedic gem to me. Two words in that ad attracted me enough to click over and watch: "narrow" and "Mehlman". "Narrow" made me laugh inside due to the inside joke (narrow as opposed to ABC's famed Wide World of Sports). And Mehlman will be a familiar name to those who fanatically love "Seinfeld" (and who doesn't); he became well known as one of that sitcom's top writers.

Now, with "Peter Mehlman's Narrow World of Sports", it appears that Peter may be set to follow in the TV footsteps of that other aging, bald(ing), Jewish (I assume) comic genius from "Seinfeld" -- Larry David.

Mehlman's show is sponsored by the Palm Pre. They do work it into the show, but it is mostly subtle and brief in the episodes I've seen. I have only used Palm's ubercool smartphone a few times, but I love its look and feel (yes, it fits well in your Palm - and it's easy to operate with one hand), plus the Pre features a super sharp screen, a mini QWERTY keyboard (big plus over the keyboard-less iPhone) and crystal clear call quality. Palm threw a fabulous party a few weeks ago at Raleigh Studios to launch the Pre, featuring Seinfeld's Jason Alexander as MC, with a standup headliner named... Jerry Seinfeld! So, it appears Palm enjoys utilizing the talents of the folks behind the most successful sitcom of all time. Time will tell if the Pre does as well in the cell world. It faces stiff competition, but so did "Seinfeld" when that show debuted. It started its NBC run well behind its competitors and took several years to find its audience - and high ratings. I hope Palm has similar success, because we need strong competition in the technoverse in order to spur innovation. An Apple-only phone/pod world would be like, well, 1984... right? Or did I mis-doublespeak?

Okay, enough tangents. Check out Mehlman's marvelous mirthmaking interviews for yourself... here is his YouTube channel with archived episodes (new ones arrive each week):

http://www.youtube.com/narrowworld#play/uploads/0/0qKSi4pqD9o

I especially enjoyed Peter's fun dialogue with Danika Patrick... often hilarious:



Peter also induced oodles of humor while talking with Olympic champion Shawn Johnson:

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