From the Yipes Department

I heard the strangest radio ad this morning.  I was listening to one of the classical music stations, KMZT, and this ad came on that was one of those high-energy commercials we hear all the time when a TV network is promoting their line-up for that night.

The overly enthusiastic announcer was telling us that there were 10 great reasons to watch CBS tonight,  And those 10 great reasons included included brand news episodes of a bunch of shows, including Two-and-Half Men, which struck me as very odd, because the program had its series finale two months ago.  But even odder, was that one of the other shows on tonight was The Crazy Ones.  And I thought, wait, what's The Crazy Ones, ohhh, it that the show with Robin Williams??  No, it couldn't be because -- mind you, this was all rushing through my mind in about a second, because -- then the announcer went on with even more enthusiasm than before, "...And that stars Robin Williams!  Did I mention that it stars...Robin Willams?!!  Yes, Robin Williams!"  And then the announcer zipped along with equal enthusiasm for the rest of tonight's schedule.

And by "tonight," I mean April 20, 2015.  Eight months after Robin Williams committed suicide. (And two months after Two-and-a-Half Men went off the air, as well.).

So, when I said, "the strangest radio ad," I really meant it.  The only thing I could think of at the time was that sometimes shows have some un-aired episodes, and since we're in re-run period they figure it might be a good time to either just dump them and give them higher visibility amid the competing re-runs.

But even that didn't make sense, because if you're going to air an episode of the late Robin Williams' cancelled series, you're probably going to do it in a way to make it seem special with a tenderness.  Not oblivious to reality and just send it out as one more "wacky thing" from the wacky guy.  Even TV networks never strike me as that clueless.  In fact, they're actually pretty smart about promoting the bejeepers out of something that has the slightest promotional value, if they have their mind set to it.  It's the sort of thing that if CBS oddly decided to put on an un-aired episode of the show, they'd make sure the announcer slowed down, and lowered his voice to be as emotional and oh-so-deeply sincere as possible to tell us about tonight they'll be a very special episode of Robin Williams in his final, never-been-seen performance.  Not a wacky, "And starring Robin Williams.  Did I mention that it stars...Robin Williams?  Yes, Robin Williams!!"

As I said, very, very strange.

And it got even stranger because I decided to check the CBS schedule tonight -- and none of those shows are airing tonight.  Not Two-and-a-Half Men.  Not The Crazy Ones with Robin Williams.  A totally different schedule.

The best I can figure is that somehow KMZT had a CBS ad to air, and somehow they either were sent or had in their archive an old ad from nine months ago, and it didn't get checked, or just automatically got played as scheduled.  But even that's odd because I listen to the station a lot and don't particularly remember them airing an ad for the CBS primetime schedule before.  (It's possible, and I don't listen to the station all day, and enough time has passed that I could have forgotten it.  Though an enthusiastic ad like this really stood out.)

Anyway, it doesn't appear that CBS will be airing these 10 great reasons to watch tonight.  Or even 11, since they excitedly gave us a bonus reason...

What's going on with KMZT is another matter entirely.