TV Nation

TV Nation
Title design by Chris Harvey
Starring	Michael Moore Rusty Cundieff Karen Duffy Janeane Garofalo Louis Theroux
Theme music composer	tomandandy
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	17 (list of episodes)
Production
Producer(s)	Kathleen Glynn Jerry Kupfer
Running time	45 minutes
Release
Original network	NBC Fox BBC2
Picture format	480i (SDTV)
Audio format	Stereo
Original release	July 19, 1994 – September 8, 1995
Chronology
Followed by	The Awful Truth
External links
Website

TV Nation is a satirical newsmagazine television series written, directed and hosted by Michael Moore that was co-funded and originally broadcast by NBC in the United States and BBC2 in the United Kingdom. The show blended humor and journalism into provocative reports about various issues. After moving to Fox for its second (and final) season, the show won an Emmy Award in 1995 for Outstanding Informational Series.

TV Nation was created in the wake of the success Moore had with the documentary Roger & Me, prompting Warner Bros. television to ask Moore for television series ideas. In January 1993 NBC green-lit a pilot episode which took three months to complete. Interest from the BBC prompted NBC to insert the show into its summer 1994 lineup.

After the success of the 1989 documentary Roger & Me, Michael Moore and producer Kathleen Glynn, then a married couple, were approached by Warner Bros. television about creating ideas for a television series. However, Moore was intent on making the full-length film Canadian Bacon after writing the script in the summer of 1991. After having his script passed on many times, it was on a visit to Hollywood in November 1992 about the movie that Moore received a phone call in his hotel room from NBC. Without a single TV show idea in mind, Moore agreed to meet with NBC executives about TV show ideas that afternoon. Frantic for ideas, Moore brainstormed over a carphone with producer Glynn on his half-hour drive to Burbank, out of which TV Nation spawned. As Moore and Glynn would later describe it, TV Nation "would be a humorous magazine show but with one distinct difference — it would have a point of view." Expecting the concept to be quickly dismissed by NBC executives during the meeting, Moore proceeded to describe the show in the most ludicrous ways possible, saying, "it would be a cross between 60 Minutes and Fidel Castro on laughing gas." Instead of quickly dismissing Moore's pitch, the NBC executives (including Warren Littlefield) were laughing. When Moore returned to his hotel, a message had already been left for him saying that production of a pilot episode had the go-ahead.