YouTube says goodbye to ‘Some Good News.’
Let’s hear it for John Krasinski, an entertainment first responder who understood a pandemic-isolated world’s need for connection and celebrity pixie dust and conjured the program to meet it. He had the connections and the direct-to-camera experience to make a show celebrating “good news” that was punchy and polished.
On eight consecutive Sundays, Krasinski — who gave us “The Office’s” Jim Halpert, the most recent iteration of Jack Ryan and a surprisingly good movie about a world destroyed by monsters with excellent hearing — doled out the YouTube show “Some Good News” from his home. Krasinski got good news of his own this week. Following a bidding war, his web series has been bought by ViacomCBS. Though Krasinski will be an executive producer, he will not host the new episodes; a new host will be named at a later date.
What began as a salute to the triumphs, joys and innovations of regular folks, gleaned mostly from social and legacy media, grew to include celebrity dropins, big-swing fundraising and some pretty phenomenal stunts. The cast of “Hamilton” sang for a girl who had tickets to a canceled show; a medical team was sent to an empty Fenway Park; and graduating high school seniors were given the chance to chat with their idols including Oprah Winfrey, Malala and Steven Spielberg. In one episode, Krasinski hosted a virtual prom; for another, he became a minister so he could marry a couple on Zoom.
Where do you go from becoming a minister to marry a couple on Zoom? No place but down. Which may be why, on Sunday, “Some Good News” came to an end. A visibly emotional Krasinski thanked everyone for creating the news that allowed him to make the show and, in a final fundraising coup, announced a line of “SGN” fan-art merch — proceeds from which will go to the purchaser’s charity of choice, with a million-dollar pledge from Starbucks to match those donations.
If his final episode was slightly eclipsed by LeBron James’ “Graduate Together,” a starstudded salute to high school seniors that was broadcast Saturday night on multiple networks and platforms and featured a commencement address by former President Barack Obama, well, that’s showbiz.
A biz that didn’t need “The Tiger King” to remind everyone of its essential role during a crisis. There’s a reason that entertainers from Bob Hope to Kathy Griffin have been dispatched to entertain the troops; that benefit concerts have raised billions for causes as diverse as the AIDS crisis, Free Tibet and fighting gun violence; that David Letterman, the cast of “Saturday Night Live” and Emmys host Ellen DeGeneres all stepped forward amid the psychological-cultural wreckage of the 9/11 attacks.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the entertainment industry, though hamstrung by the mandate for physical isolation, has done its level best to boost morale and provide moments that millions can share, separate but together, in real time. The results have been impressive —“live from our homes” episodes of “Saturday Night Live” and late-night shows, countless fundraising and spirit-lifting moments on social media, cast reunions for shows including “Parks and Recreation” and “Melrose Place” and, of course, the unprecedented eight-hour, across-three-networks fundraiser “One World: Together at Home.”
Not surprisingly, all this spirit-lifting has become a little competitive. “Graduate Together: America Honors the High School Class of 2020” was not the only special aimed at the millions deprived of their mortarboard moment; CNN also presented a star-studded special, “Class of 2020: In This Together,” during which former President Bill Clinton offered words of inspiration and advice, and Winfrey hosted “#Graduation2020: Facebook and Instagram Celebrate the Class of 2020.”
The proliferation of ritual replacements, along with the gradual lifting of stay-at-home restrictions, makes it a natural time for Krasinski to bow out. Once Obama’s gotten into the game, well, the mic has dropped.
Also, as the crisis continues, people are becoming less enchanted with virtual anything.
When you spend the day in Zoom meetings, the prospect of seeing even the most beloved cast also in what is essentially a Zoom meeting seems less than thrilling.
And if we are honest, the “good news” we’re longing for at this point is reports of dropping death and infection rates. All the rest of it is beginning to seem a bit, well, distracting.
Watching a group of wellmeaning A-listers addressing recent graduates has begun to pale, especially if you had planned to attend an actual graduation this year. As innovative and effective as these together-while-apart events have been, they are no substitute for the rituals they seek to replace. Because ritual is not about passive observation. It’s active participation.
Even if that participation consists mainly of sitting on an uncomfortable folding chair under a broiling sun watching hundreds of kids graduate when you really care about only one. Or wedging yourself into a seriously uncomfortable dress to witness a marriage you are fairly certain is not going to last. Or spending an hour in traffic in order to wait in endless concession lines so your kids can watch a ballgame and spill cherry slushie on your shoes.
Ritual is loud and sweaty and filled with mishaps, it’s tedious and heartbreaking and glorious. It never goes as planned and almost always involves someone showing up late and having to slide their infuriating way to a middle seat that an exasperated friend has saved. Occasionally that someone is you.
Ritual is traveling across the country to see something happen and then missing it because your kid had to go to the bathroom “really, really bad” at the moment it was occurring.
All of this is neatly avoided by the televised events that seek to connect us during this time of isolation — we can sit where we want, wear what we want, eat what we want, and if we miss an important moment in real time, we can catch it on YouTube. Which is nice, but mostly as a reminder of how important all the irritating and wonderful realities of actual ritual are. The best milestone memories are the ones with all the mess and mistakes thrown in.