Back in our Sept./Oct. 1994 issue, I wrote that I was "five episodes into a new series, Michael Moore's TV Nation...[a] show basically made up of field reports by Moore and his roving band of wacky journalists on a wide array of topics--many of which have a distinct social bite. So far, TV Nation has traveled to Kuwait to see exactly what we ‘liberated,' paid a lobbyist $5,000 to get a bill introduced into Congress...visited people whose pets are on Prozac, [and] ran a test to see whether New York Taxi drivers would pick up noted black actor Yaphet Kotto or a white man convicted of murder (the murderer got more rides)... With this much variety it's probably a good bet that TV Nation will be canceled before year's end." And eventually canceled it was. But through the magic of video, TV Nation not only lives again, this double-episode tape includes a bonus segment on a new "extra large" condom on the market which was deemed too controversial for American television. I watched the opening episode on TV Nation, Vol. 1, which included the infamous visit to a maquiladora in Mexico, a pair of reporters trying to buy a home at Love Canal, Moore's trip to Russia to try to find and dismantle the missile that's pointed at his hometown of Flint, Michigan, and the Yaphet Kotto taxi segment. A second volume, similarly priced, is also available. Hopefully, more Moore will be forthcoming. (And you owe it to yourself to read his Downsize This! Random Threats from an Unarmed American). Highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)
TV Nation, Vol. 1
(Columbia TriStar, 92 min., $14.95) Vol. 12, Issue 6
TV Nation, Vol. 1
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