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Peter Funt

Stories by Peter

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After years of trying to develop what he called a “premium” hamburger, McDonald’s CFO Ian Borden surprised no one the other day by announcing that the company’s new focus is not making burgers better, just a lot bigger.

By Peter Funt March 22, 2024
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The earworm “1-8-7-7 Kars 4 Kids” always struck me as a stellar example of how insufferable advertising can be when its creators really put their minds to it.

By Peter Funt February 28, 2024
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A friend who reviews music and interviews top performers for a newspaper in New England, was up early Feb. 1 to sample the release from pop legend Billy Joel — his first new song in 17 years, “Turn the Lights Back On.”

By Peter Funt February 9, 2024
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At a time when the presence of celebrities seems to overwhelm professional sports (Taylor Swift, I’m looking at you in your sparkly Travis Kelce jersey), it’s noteworthy that this year’s AT&T Pro-Am golf tournament will be, for the first time since Bing Crosby brought his “Clambake” to Pebble Beach, essentially celebrity-free.

By Peter Funt January 26, 2024
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Tom Smothers wasn’t the first performer to weaponize comedy for political purposes, but he was perfectly suited for it.

By Peter Funt December 29, 2023
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Apple TV’s “The Morning Show,” which recently ended its third season, offers a melodramatic mishmash of media and current events, yet manages to get one thing right: It depicts women as the new faces of television news.

By Peter Funt December 8, 2023
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My nephews and I were holed up at the TWA Hotel in New York on a rainy Sunday a few weeks ago, waiting to attend an evening wedding.

By Peter Funt October 27, 2023
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NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” hasn’t cracked a Joe Biden joke since April 15, when cast member Michael Che quipped, “President Biden has tried to downplay the recent leak of classified U.S. documents that were posted on social media, because when you’re over 80 a couple of leaks are nothing to be embarrassed about.”

By Peter Funt September 17, 2023
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NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” hasn’t cracked a Joe Biden joke since April 15, when cast member Michael Che quipped, “President Biden has tried to downplay the recent leak of classified U.S. documents that were posted on social media, because when you’re over 80 a couple of leaks are nothing to be embarrassed about.”

By Peter Funt September 12, 2023
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No matter how you look at it, Babe Ruth swung a big stick.

By Peter Funt August 25, 2023
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If TV writers had been on strike during the run up to the 1976 election, it’s possible that Gerald Ford wouldn’t have lost to Jimmy Carter.

By Peter Funt June 30, 2023
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Give Donald Trump credit for one thing: The man knows how to make lemonade.

By Peter Funt June 16, 2023
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At the Homewood Suites by Hilton in Carlsbad, California, guests were piling trash and dirty towels in the hallway, and by the looks of things you’d think the staff had gone on strike.

By Peter Funt June 6, 2023
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In a much anticipated chess match in February, 1996, the world champion Garry Kasparov faced IBM’s Deep Blue, the most advanced chess-playing machine.

By Peter Funt June 2, 2023
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I spend the first half hour of my day reading — or, to be more accurate, deleting — emails.

By Peter Funt May 19, 2023
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Newton Minow will always be remembered for a 1961 speech in which he described television as a “vast wasteland.” However, late in life he became less concerned about TV’s wastefulness and more troubled by its very vastness.

By Peter Funt May 12, 2023
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When Stew Leonard opened what he dubbed a “dairy store” in Norwalk, Conn., in 1969, it was a wonder of marketing, with a petting zoo, animated Disney-style characters and an on-site bottling plant.

By Peter Funt May 5, 2023
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Even baseball purists like myself, who still aren’t comfortable with designated hitters and restrictions on where fielders may be positioned, find themselves overwhelmingly in favor of the new pitch clock.

By Peter Funt April 12, 2023
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In the delightful 1986 film “The Money Pit,” a novice homeowner, played by Tom Hanks, carves a heart in a tree as a gesture to his girlfriend (Shelley Long), only to watch in horror as it falls over. He informs her sadly, “We have weak trees.”

By Peter Funt March 31, 2023
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It’s hard to tell what’s changing faster, the weather or words used to describe it.

By Peter Funt January 13, 2023
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Barbara Walters might never have become a powerful force in broadcast journalism had she lacked the chutzpah to extract a promise from her bosses at NBC News in 1973.

By Peter Funt January 6, 2023
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I grew up believing that you judge a man by the size of his Christmas tree.

By Peter Funt December 9, 2022
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When it comes to sappy holiday movies, you either scorn them as you would another pair of reindeer-themed socks, or you eagerly binge on offerings such as “My Southern Family Christmas,” produced by Hallmark.

By Peter November 18, 2022
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A sheriff’s deputy roared into our driveway the other morning, rang the bell, and asked my wife if she knew my whereabouts.

By Peter Funt November 11, 2022
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An unsolicited solicitation package from Boys Town arrived by mail the other day, earlier and bulkier than usual.

By Peter Funt September 23, 2022
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For just one day this summer — and if you’re planning a vacation, it’s Thursday, August 4 — entrance fees are waived at the 110 national parks that normally charge admission.

By Peter Funt July 29, 2022
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I knew I was in trouble when the dollars needed to water my grass each month exceeded the square footage of my lawn. For me, in Central California, that number is 1,400.

By Peter Funt July 1, 2022
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We’re living in gray times, bobbing in a sea of information where there is no longer much black or white.

By Peter Funt May 20, 2022
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Dear President Biden: Many of us feel helpless — overwhelmed, actually — about the catastrophe in Ukraine, wishing we could do more ...

By Peter Funt March 7, 2022
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Five years ago a sports injury forced me to wear a light brace on my knee.

By Peter Funt March 4, 2022
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Nine years ago this month Netflix changed how we watch television.

By Peter Funt February 11, 2022
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“How cute. What’s his name?” I get that several times a day while walking our female Shih Tzu, Abigail.

By Peter Funt January 21, 2022
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The pastiche of new state laws taking effect as the New Year begins underscores how different we are — at least in the eyes of legislators — on matters small and large.

By Peter Funt January 7, 2022
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In an interview promoting his new movie “Being the Ricardos,” about the beloved sitcom “I Love Lucy,” writer-director Aaron Sorkin referred to Lucy’s “Friday audience taping.” I suppose even a media maven like Sorkin should be forgiven for bollixing terminology about motion pictures. We all do it.

By Peter Funt December 28, 2021
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In the national obsession known as fantasy football, the most valuable position this season is not the quarterback or wide receiver, it’s the handcuff.

By Peter Funt October 15, 2021
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Whatever problems the real Joe Biden faces with polls and policies, they pale in comparison to what fake Joe Biden characters are suffering on “Saturday Night Live.”

By Peter Funt October 10, 2021
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Dear Jeff Bezos: Here’s what Amazon emailed me after a relatively small matter developed into a giant headache: “Your feedback is helping us build Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company.”

By Peter Funt September 24, 2021
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When society seeks to influence behavior, is it better to pay people to act a certain way, or to penalize them if they don’t?

By Peter Funt September 10, 2021
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The thwack of a baseball colliding with a bat and the thump of a folded newspaper landing on a porch are sounds I cherish. They’re rewinding for me this month while watching the Little League World Series.

By Peter Funt August 20, 2021
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It was 73 years ago this month that my dad, Allen Funt, brought “Candid Camera” to television.

By Peter Funt August 15, 2021
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We’ve often heard that time is money, but in these stressed-out days it’s more than that. Time is increasingly a key to well-being, creatively and emotionally.

By Peter Funt August 2, 2021
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Now that Joe Biden doesn’t have to wear a mask in public, I’m back to staring at his teeth.

By Peter Funt July 16, 2021
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With Joe Biden’s presidency nearing the six-month mark, the Republican National Committee sent out a “Biden Report Card”—a poll in which Biden’s performance is graded from A to F.

By Peter Funt June 29, 2021
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Lost in the press of recent world events was news from Washington state about a dramatic jury trial resulting in the conviction of a 77-year-old Ilwaco woman, who now faces a maximum penalty of 90 days in jail and/or a fine of up to $1,000.

By Peter Funt June 8, 2021
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Irwin Fox died the other day. If you missed it because you were engrossed in obits about Hank Aaron, Larry King and Cloris Leachman, that’s understandable. Besides, at 95, Mr. Fox had outlived many of his fans.

By Peter Funt January 29, 2021
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To paraphrase Rudyard Kipling: A good cigar is a smoke, but a cigar box filled with trading cards is a treasure.

By Peter Funt January 22, 2021
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Donald Trump is trying to win the election with every court challenge and tweet he can muster, but he doesn’t really care how many votes he and Joe Biden wind up getting.

By Peter Funt November 17, 2020
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Hollywood must deal with the burden of producing TV programs during a pandemic and at a time of social and political upheaval in our country.

By Peter Funt October 30, 2020
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Ever since FCC chief Newton Minow famously branded it a “vast wasteland” six decades ago, television has tried to polish its image.

By Peter Funt October 9, 2020
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“How was your vacation?” used to be the standard query at Labor Day. Not this year.

By Peter Funt September 9, 2020

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