Michael Schneider of TV Guide Magazine spotted these Mitt Romney masks at a Los Angeles-area Target store. They are labeled, “Mr. President,” which strikes us as a bit premature, as the presidential election hasn’t happened yet.

As Schneider points out, “Regardless of who wins the upcoming election, as of October 31, 2012, Barack Obama is Mr. President. And he does not look like this.”

Further research reveals that Target is also selling “Mr. President” masks that look like Obama, for a politically balanced, if not factually accurate, Halloween section. Neither makes for a particularly creative costume, though. We suggest “binders full of women” or “Obamacare death panels.”

We had to read a portion of this week’s TV Guide magazine interview with Jimmy Kimmel twice. Just to make sure it wasn’t some sort of gag.

In tangential response to the question, ‘As the ratings climb, has that given you more leverage?’, Kimmel replied:

“… Once in a while, we’ll have a fight over whether something is too obscene. One of the dumbest things ever happened about six months ago. There was a stick figure drawing of a naked woman, and there was a dot where each nipple would be, and they made us blur the dots out, which I figured was a little bit much for midnight.”

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In this week’s edition of TV Guide magazine, LA bureau chief Michael Schneider has the lowdown on how actor Michael J. Fox’s return to NBC series work came to pass earlier this month. It all happened incredibly quickly.

The prime time sitcom will be loosely based on Fox’s family life and dealings with Parkinson’s disease. Schneider writes that instead of the usual two-week pitch process, it took just two days for Fox and his project partners – Sony Pictures Television, producers Will Gluck and Sam Laybourne – to consummate a deal:

That’s partly because NBC’s whopping [guaranteed] 22-episode order was too big to ignore — and too much for the other networks to match. Major episodic commitments were a bit more common in the 1990s, but the networks long ago stopped making such risky, pricy bets. But a show starring an icon like Fox doesn’t come along every day. Gluck calls it “The Michael J. Fox Exception.”

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The bookstore chain may have collapsed, but Borders bookcases are still getting work, at least here in Los Angeles. TV Guide‘s Michael Schneider has spotted several while book shopping, as he notes on his blog Franklin Avenue:

Look carefully at used bookstores around town, and the Borders shelving is popping up all over the place. We mentioned back in June that downtown’s The Last Bookstore uses the old Borders fixtures (nicely refinished) — and now, as seen above, the new discount Crown Books store in Burbank also relies on those Borders bookcases.

At least someone in this troubled economy can find work. Even if they are inanimate objects.

Picture via Franklin Avenue.

Another good interview get today for TV Guide LA bureau chief Michael Schneider.

With Regis Philbin having made it official now that November 18 will be his last day on Live with Regis and Kelly, the journalist caught up with show producer Michael Gelman to get a sense of how the transition will be handled. So far, coverage of potential Regis replacements has apparently been about as prescient as the manner in which the media handled the end of the Kathie Lee Gifford era:

Despite earlier reports of frontrunners such as Ryan Seacrest, Bravo’s Andy Cohen and Kelly Ripa‘s husband, Mark Consuelos, Gelman says there’s no short list yet. “So much has already been printed, and a lot of it is laughable,” he says. “Just as when we were looking to replace Kathie Lee, everyone was throwing names out there, but no one even had Kelly’s name.”

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Another big loss for Variety. TV editor Michael Schneider is heading to TV Guide to become its new LA bureau chief. Schneider will oversee all news and features for the west coast. Over on his personal blog Franklin Avenue, Schneider writes, “I’ll still be here at Variety through press tour and the Golden Globes. And I’m going to miss this place incredibly. It’s an amazing group.”

Yet another tough loss for the struggling trade.

TV Guide‘s press release on the hire is after the jump:

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Two Southern California cable providers, Cox Cable and Charter Communications, have downgraded KCET after the station finally completed its separation from PBS yesterday. Both providers booted KCET from coveted VHF channel positions in order to ensure the region’s new PBS affiliate PBS Socal could maintain a space in the upper tier. KCET is now on channel 309 on Charter and on channel 129 on Cox.

Variety’s Michael Schneider has more:

KCET prexy/CEO Al Jerome said the station accepted the move in order to continue to clear its multicast channels — which now include KCET Kids and Family and MHz Worldview — on those two cable operators.

“In an effort to improve public media service for our viewers, KCET made a strategic decision to retain its digital multicast channels, which will be KCET Kids and Family, Vme and MHz Worldview,” Jerome said. “This has impacted our channel positions with some cable services. Our new digital channel strategy empowers us to pursue our mission to offer a wide range of programs that feature diverse perspectives.”

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Even though there’s a bit of silliness involved with Variety TV editor Michael Schneider‘s sideline blog Franklin Avenue, still named in honor of a neighborhood he and his wife left long ago, it’s nothing compared to the level of ridiculousness to be found in a Sunday, October 17th article in the San Francisco Chronicle, which the journalist rightly deems to be “the silliest piece I’ve ever seen about L.A.”

Entitled L.A.: Walking Where Few Have Walked Before, the travelogue takes the form of a first-person pedestrian panorama of downtown Los Angeles as recently undertaken by the very cranky Steve Rubenstein. If he hates our fair city this much, why did he choose to accept the assignment in the first place?

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Michael Schneider at Franklin Avenue explains:

It all started when Mark Kriski mentioned on “KTLA Morning News” that Howard Stern‘s pop culture influence began to wane after he moved to satellite radio.

It was a brief remark, but Stern caught wind of it — and soon went on a diatribe against the KTLA weatherman. Stern targeted everything — Kriski’s credentials, his hair and the idea of weather forecasters in general.

America’s largest radio network Westwood One began national syndication of The Kevin & Bean Show this morning. From Michael Schneider at Franklin Avenue:

“Kevin & Bean” celebrates its 20th anniversary on KROQ next year, but up until now has only been syndicated to a few markets on the west coast, including Fresno and (just recently) Reno. The show’s hyper focus on Los Angeles (they make fun of local institutions like KNBC’s Paul Moyer and Doug Kriegel, for example, and even other KROQ personalities like Rodney Bingenheimer and Jed the Fish) and its reliance on in-jokes that reward loyal listeners might make the show an unusual candidate for nation-wide syndication.

But “Kevin & Bean” has been a dominant ratings success in L.A. for several years now, and its ability to attract big-name stars — remember, when audio of Christian Bale chewing out a crewmember hit the Internet, he called in to K&B to do damage control — could make it a national draw as well. The move also comes as radio groups trim even more talent across the country and continue to turn to more out-of-market syndicated fare to fill the airwaves.