The Awful Truth nominated for an Emmy

Mike's Letter

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August 11th, 1999 12:00 AM

The Awful Truth nominated for an Emmy

I'm happy to report to you that our television show, "The Awful Truth," has just been nominated for a Prime Time Emmy Award as "Outstanding Non Fiction Series." This is our 3rd Emmy nomination in as many seasons as we've been allowed on TV. The first two were for "TV Nation" (and one of those years we actually won).

The credit for this honor goes to our great staff and crew who often put themselves at great risk to bring you these stories. Thanks to all of them and to Bravo for their support.

The awards will be announced in Pasadena on August 28th. The other nominees include two PBS series (American Experience" and "American Masters"), "Biography" on A & E, and our lead-in show on Bravo, "Inside the Actors Studio." Louie Bruno and Sal have already been dispatched.

"The Awful Truth" is now past the half-way mark in its "encore run" on Bravo on Sundays at 9pmET/10pmPT. The ratings are up 50%.

******************************THIS JUST IN*********************************

As I was writing this letter, I looked on the TV screen and saw the photo of the man who shot the people at the Jewish Community Center in L.A. He is the same man we filmed in our "Love Night" segment on TV Nation in 1995. His name is Buford Furrow.

In this segment, we went to a Nazi/Klan/Skinhead "convention" in Idaho. We took a group of young dancers to dance to Motown songs outside their compound. It was perhaps the scariest segment we ever filmed for the show. At one point, the Nazis, including Furrow, came down the road toward the young girls with "sieg heil!" salutes and headbutted our camera.

Buford Furrow, the man who has admitted to the L.A. shootings, was the first Nazi we encountered at the entrance to the gathering. He refused to let our reporter into the compound because he "didn't look white." Oddly, he was one of the more "mild-mannered" Nazis we shot that weekend.

It was shocking to see him on the screen just seconds ago. I will put that segment on our web site later today so you can log on to see and hear Mr. Furrow. http://www.michaelmoore.com

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I have spent the first half of the summer doing an experimental show on Channel 4 in the UK. It's live from New York at 11:30pm British time. Channel 4 gave me this time these past six weeks because I wanted to try something new. Part "TV Nation," part send-up of the traditional late night show, we did timely pieces on the news of the week. My sidekicks included my buddy, Ben Hamper ("Rivethead"), and "Nigel," and illegal alien from England who wore a Queen Ellizabeth mask to conceal his idenity form the INS.

Well, at the risk of getting lots of letters wanting to know how you can see this thing (you can't, it's only on in the British Isles), I promise you that, like "The Awful Truth," these shows will soon find their way to home video.
Here are some of the things we did on the show:

1) We made a random call to a real estate agent in Belgrade and, for $3,300, I became a Serbian land owner (property values had plummeted for some reason) and tried to put a Starbucks on it;

2) We sent a group of Afican Americans to a New York Police station to clean the windshields of the patrol cars the day a judge found a police officer innocent after he shot a man who was using a squeegee on his window;

3) Staged a concert in front of Wal Mart featuring the music form albums banned by Wal Mart (Sheryl Crow, Beck, John Mellencamp) because Wal Mart, the largest seller of CD's in the country, disapproves of certain lyrics, cover art or political points of view expressed on the albums;

4) We took the "Poorest Man in the World" (there was actually a one-billion way tie) to congratulate the "Richest Man in the World," Bill Gates, the week his net worth topped $100 billion;

5) We conducted a telethon for General Augusto Pinochet, who is being held by the British awaiting extradition to Spain to be tried as a mass murderer. We raised a total of 224 pounds for the former dictator which will get him a change of underwear and upgrade him from cargo to first-class on his trip to Madrid. There's lots more, and the good news is we can't wait to get started on a new season of "The Awful Truth."

Yours,
Michael Moore
http://www.michaelmoore.com

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