Long live the corporate gadfly. “TV Nation,” Michael Moore’s irreverent, Emmy-winning magazine series, has one more life left on video. Four episodes from the 1994-95 series, which aired first on NBC and then on Fox, are now available (Columbia TriStar, $14.95 for two episodes).
For some (especially some corporate executives), Moore’s insistent truth-seeking is hard to take. He doesn’t just listen politely to doublespeak and avoid pointing out the obvious lies. His way of dealing with our economic and political leaders is to take them face-to-face with their own words. He’s an essential aid to democracy. And he’s funny too.
This approach was brilliant in the Oscar-nominated feature “Roger and Me,” in which Moore went after then-General Motors Chairman Roger Smith. And it’s brilliant again in Moore’s upcoming feature “The Big One,” a documentary of his own book tour for “Downsize This!”
“TV Nation” doesn’t hit home runs all the time. The hourlong episodes are brimming with pointed humor, though. And Moore tempers his self-obsession with the help of talented comic correspondents including Merrill Markoe, Steven Wright and Janeane Garofalo.
They take to the streets and poke holes through assumptions in our culture about wealth and greed. This is the kind of show that dares to ask: “Will cabbies pass by an Emmy-nominated black man to pick up a white murderer?” And goes further by standing Homicide’s Yaphet Kotto on a street corner a few feet from a white felon to see who gets picked up first.
Moore also takes the show to Bosnia, eats pizza with a group of Serbian officials and tries to make them peaceful by getting them to sing the Barney theme song.
Each compilation comes with bonus footage of material that was deemed too controversial at the time to air, but the infamous abortion segment that Moore claimed caused the network switch is not in these initial installments.
