Amazon orders Alpha House, Betas, Tumbleaf, more

The Garry Trudeau-created Alpha House, the Silicon Valley-set Betas, call-and-response kiddie show Creative Galaxy, science-centric Annebots, and Tumbleaf.

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Google Announces New Music Streaming Service

Google announced its subscription streaming service, Google Play Music All Access (wow that’s a mouthful), at Google I/O Wednesday. It’s all about harnessing the power of Google to provide you with stellar music recommendations, on your phone, tablet, or on the web.

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The surprisingly subversive album that changed stand-up comedy forever

The 1950s were the last gasp of old-school stand-up comedy, “a time in which comedians, clad like band leaders in spats and tuxes, sporting cap-and-bells names like Joey, Jackie, or Jerry, announced themselves by their brash, anything-for-a-laugh, charred-earth policy and by-the-jokebook gags,” writes Gerald Nachman in Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians Of The 1950s And 1960s. The performance was quasi-vaudevillian with a barrage of one-liners—think Milton Berle, Joey Bishop, Henny Youngman, or even Abbott And Costello.

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Star Trek’s History of Progressive Values — And Why It Faltered on LGBT Crew Members

The equality on the U.S.S. Enterprise’s bridge was a watershed moment, both in television history and in Americans’ understanding of social equality.

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Kickstarter Founders Address Critics of Zach Braff, 'Veronica Mars' Projects

In a post on the crowdfunding site, co-founders Yancey Strickler, Perry Chen and Charles Adler explain how projects like Braff's $2 million Wish I Was Here film and Rob Thomas' $5.7 million Veronica Mars movie can be good for everyone else. Their reasoning: celebrity projects drive more people to contribute to other Kickstarter dreams.

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McCain Announces Bill to Address Pay-TV Channel Bundling, Aereo

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Thursday announced proposed legislation titled The Television Consumer Freedom Act that would pave the way towards an à la carte system of pay television as well as penalize broadcasters who abandon public airwaves in the wake of digital TV upstart Aereo.

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YouTube Adds Paid Channel Subscriptions

YouTube will let you pay to subscribe to channels with a new pilot program that includes a limited number of channel partners for now. The company listed Jim Henson Family TV and Ultimate Fighting Championship as initial members.

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