The Hugh Thompson Show: AT&T's Gawky Online TV
"The Hugh Thompson Show" is a strange duck. It appears to be an entirely irony-free web show of the late night television mold, completely with a band, pre-guest monologue, and live audience. It plays on the AT&T Tech Channel, a video portal with several shows that appears to be some sort of attempt to recreate TechTV online.
The host, Dr. Herbert Thompson, is "Chief Security Strategist" at People Security, an enterprise security firm. He is also a squawking, obnoxious snot, whose catchphase—yes, he has a catchphrase—is a toothy "Dude!" At first I thought Thompson was attempting a parody of a typical awkward tech-industry businessman, but after watching a couple of episodes, it appears he is actually just that kooky. Watching the show is like attending an uncomfortable party at the home of your boss, trapped in the corner as he crams crab puffs into his mouth and tells you a story about this one time where he did something "really awesome." (That's Thompson's other catchphrase.)
The last guest was Dan "Fake Steve Jobs" Lyons, who gamely chatted with Thompson about his blog and just-released book while the crowd of bored New York tourists pretended to understand a joke about Larry Ellison—specifically, a joke about readers of Fake Steve Jobs not getting jokes about Larry Ellison. Other Hugh Thompson Show guests were an Australian woman who provides a voice for Garmin GPS units and Chad Vader, who I believe has a YouTube show.
The Fake Steve Jobs clip on YouTube [embedded above] has been viewed 29 times since it was posted about a day ago. (In fairness, the AT&T Tech Channel also displays its videos on its own page, not just YouTube, although they don't put the play count numbers on their videos.)
I'm not at all opposed to AT&T doing its own online video programs. (Chase the big money that TechTV made, AT&T! Before it was bought for pocket change and dismantled, I mean!) It's quite strange, however, that they're spending thousands of dollars per episode (at least!) to develop online programs that don't seem like they'd appeal to anyone. Maybe I'm wrong. Any Hugh Thompson Show fans out there?
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I was a little skeptical when I first came across this "show" a few weeks ago. In some ways it's a little rough (intro too long, some of the endings are weird) but I'm ready to call myself a fan. I think the guy is hysterical and you can tell he's a real geek, not some loser actor. I'm 12 episodes in and I plan to watch the rest this weekend. As a negative side-effect though, I called my boss "dude" this week.
The host is funny as hell. I've seen him speak at a conference too - he had people in stitches.
That was so uncomfortable to watch. Mark me down as "not a fan" and "slightly scared of the host".
I just met Hugh Thompson at a Security Conference last week. He was a very engaging speaker, which was a nice change from some of the typical dry Powerpoint heavy presenters usually found at these events.
I bookmarked the ATT Tech show site after his session last week, so I can check out some more Hugh.
Well I didn't think AT&T could get any worse. Another example of a company trying to do entertainment that knows nothing about entertainment. That show was just painful. A poorly executed copy of a Leno or Letterman talk show but with no excitement whatsoever. I went to the Tech Channel website and it was God awful. The Hugh Thompson show was painful to watch after 2 minutes. There was some Shakespear thing that was a complete ripoff of "The Office", but not even close to being remotely as good. And some other show with some girl that was similar to the office again but executed poorly. I couldn't find much on the site that was worthy of a second look. Needless to say, I, and I'm sure many others, will not be tuning in to AT&T Tech Channel. I'll be surprised if it's even around a year from now. There are so many sites out there trying to be internet channels that are failing and dropping off the face of the earth and they were actually doing some cool things. The Tech Channel doesn't stand a chance. Sorry AT&T..... Next.....
AT&T has screwed over so many talented people. They're dead in the water. Read all about it here:
www.atttechchannelsucks.com