As DMZ mentioned here earlier this week, the News & Review published Robert Berry’s Top 10 list of annoying things about Sacramento. Topping the list was Mark S. Allen. Now who doesn’t love them some MSA bashing? Count me in, that’s for sure, but my frame of reference for my insults are still based on the Scratch days. So to get up to speed I checked in on the Good Morning Sacramento Today show on UPN 31 for the first time in months and, man alive, what has happened to that guy?
So they toss it to MSA and Nick chimes in with a great flat ironing joke which MSA uncomfortably accepts (see photo, come on, man, take your age like a man). He proceeds to interview each of the hourly producers on the show who were discussing what each segment was going to be about. He then makes a crack about his run in with Peter Jackson oh so long ago and how one of them made the right career choice, or something. If you check out his bio you’ll notice he loves the self deprecation. But he does it in that way that makes you a little uneasy, you know? He does hold the record for the most jalapenos eaten in one minute, however. So he’s got that going for him. And, to his credit, he has a listing on IMDB, which I clearly do not have.
Bottom line is (for when I undoubtedly run into him at Trader Joe’s…people in San Francisco don’t have to worry about this stuff, huh?) that he has made a living in this business we call show for a long time now so, unless he’s holding pictures of high powered people in uncompromising positions, he must be doing something right.
The Sac Rag 
I’m not one to name drop, but I was talking with Frank Coppola and Bobby DeNiro about our friend Mark S. Allen yesterday.
We all know the guy, and can vouch that he’s a great guy. Yes he’s not embracing his 40+ year old age, yes he still bounds about the River City with the exhuberance of a college intern, and yes his ham-fisted reviews sometimes feel as if he’s paying it forward for another invite to a press junket.
Nevertheless, the guy knows what he’s doing. All of his antics are deliberate and he knows the flak he’s going to get for it, because he also knows that he gets a heap-load of fan mail from 40+ year old moms and grandmas who watch “GDS” every morning who love his boyish charm.
You can’t fool all of the people all of the time, but at least he fools his demographic consistently.
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I like his hair because it sort of reminds me of the one guy on Simon & Simon in its featheriness. I loved that show so much maybe because they were brother detectives and my sister and I could totally have done that. Sadly I am totally incompetent on the internet and can’t post a picture or a hyperlink, but if you’re wondering you can look at
http://www.tv.com/simon-and-simon/show/580/summary.html&full_summary=1
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Oh. How ’bout that? It did make a fancy hyperlink. I’m having a conversation with myself now.
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Just for you, Meg, the comments area won’t accept HTML so you are good to go with a simple cutting and pasting of a link in your message.
I don’t think they had flat irons in Jameson Parker’s day. That was straight up Aqua Net, baby.
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The Sac Rag loves to give credit when credit is due and today MSA made a joke which was very similar to the joke I was thinking in my head at the time and therefore deserves mentioning here.
He was talking about the break up of Hilary Swank and Chad Lowe and how it was unexpected and sort of a shock. The next story was about the unveiling of Nathan Lane’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. And just when I was thinking that you never see Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick apart these days he makes a crack about “in similar news Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick have ended there 5 year affair…”
Hey, it made ME laugh.
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gds is the best morning show in the tri county area. You guys are all just haters i love mark s allen
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