"The Other Guys" and Public Television

Even if you don't like "The Other Guys" -- the new Will Ferrell cop comedy -- stay through the end credits. Not for the hilarious outtakes, but for an expertly rendered animated lesson in contemporary economics. The Portland Mercury review commented: "something weird happens during The Other Guys' end credits: It turns into PBS."

PBS is also referenced more directly earlier in the movie. The plot involves a complicated economic scheme that may be a swindle and to help explain it the cop played by Will Ferrell creates an explanatory video. Public television fans will recognize the distinctive voice of Will Lyman, a frequent narrator for Frontline.

I got the sense that Ferrell and the film's director, Adam McKay, may have been inspired by the numerous Frontline investigations into the recent financial collapse and set out to build a comedy around it. Perhaps failing to find much humor in the details of deficits, bailouts and CEO salaries they abandoned that plan and stuffed that info in at the end. But even if it's an afterthought, it's a very well done one.

The "other guys" of the title refer to Ferrell and his partner played by Mark Wahlberg. As opposed to a couple of superhero cops Samuel L. Jackson and Duane Johnson who get all the media attention, these other guys toil in the background doing the extensive paperwork. That is until the untangling financial plots thrusts them center stage.

We in public television, I suppose, can relate to being the "other guys" in the world of broadcast media. So I enjoyed seeing public TV getting some attention in mainstream entertainment.