‘Worst’ TV producer: Joel Surnow of ‘24’

Keith Olbermann Anchor, 'Countdown' • Profile

Every night at 8 p.m. on MSNBC, Keith Olbermann awards his daily pick for "Worst Person in the World." Some contenders are lucky — or unlucky —enough to be nominated more than once.

The bronze goes to former California Congressman Duke Cunningham. There are indictments today alleging that defense contractors bribed him with yachts, SeeDo boats, a Rolls Royce, a Glock handgun, Super Bowl ticket, fishing, diving and machine gun shooting outings, a graduation party for his daughter, and hookers in Hawaii. Duke, you mean you didn’t get a pony? 

Our runner up is Angela Platt, former accountant for J and J Materials in Rehoboth, Massachusetts.  She’s pleaded guilty to doing a little embezzling at the firm. Six years and $7 million.  Forget Duke Cunningham, she used the money to buy herself a 20-foot tall smoke breathing dragon, a private concert from Burt Bacharach, a life-sized statue of Al Capone, 35 vehicles, a replica of a Model T made up to look like a goblin, a four-bedroom house in Rhode Island, and six mechanical talking trees like the ones in “The Wizard of Oz.” Wait, you wasted the money on a four bedroom house in Rhode Island?

But our winner, Joel Surnow, the producer of the Fox series “24” and an evidently oxymoronic Fox noise comedy news series.  The dean of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, went to Hollywood to meet with the creative team behind “24,” to ask them to stop writing scenes suggesting that cutting corners on the law and torturing terror suspects was a good idea. 

“I would like them to stop,” General Finnegan told the “New Yorker Magazine.” “They should do a show where torture backfires. The kids see it and say if torture is wrong, what about “24?”  This was the guy in charge of West Point, having a meeting with the producers of “24” to ask them to cool it. Where was producer Surnow?  He said he couldn’t attend the meeting because he can’t sit still that long, and he had a conference call with Roger Ailes at the same time. 

You bet he did. 

Joel Surnow of Fox and Fox noise, Tuesday's Worst Person in the World. 

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