The Weekly's ruthless cephalopod takes a beady-eyed look at local nightly newscasts.

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6pm>>KION

Squid could watch local TV just for the physics-defying hairstyles. But Squid loves the unforeseen adventures that await on each live broadcast even more than that coifs-that-won’t-quit. And Squid’s not simply talking about those hairpin-turn segues.

One minute, without warning—boom!—it’s a Consumer Alert, one of three Alerts (including two Health Alerts) that descend into the broadcast, with a sweeping, shiny CONSUMER ALERT graphic and stylized dollar bills raining from above. Squid is ready to leak ink in anticipation.

“Retail giant Wal-Mart has pulled T-shirts off of their store shelves, after one Maryland customer said that the image of skull-and-crossbones looked just like a Nazi emblem,” Olga Ospina reads. “Wal-Mart officials said they weren’t aware of the image until a customer complained. Now the retail store is giving the product a review process in order to make sure something like this doesn’t ever happen again.”

Consider this consumer alerted.

The next minute Norm Hoffman’s mic fails during his second weather segment. The raw drama is unedited, the discomfort palpable, as Norm gamely pantomimes in front of high-pressure fronts. Seconds pass like centuries. A producer apparently squawks in his ear to duck out of there. Squid is glued to the screen.

The draining melodrama means Squid can’t even gather enough energy to answer KION’s “Talk Back” question of the day online—“Do you thing there is a solution to the Peninsula’s water problem?” This is a first for Squid.

6pm>>KSBW

Squid doesn’t fly much, nor does this mollusk like visiting the clogged freeways of Los Angeles. But after tonight’s newscast, Squid is more fearful of both.

Anchor Erin Clark describes a plane crash in Big Bear Lake showing footage from the burnt wreckage. This leads to a segue into a national news story about hundreds of near-disasters on runways each year. Squid is rethinking plans to fly out to next year’s Cephalopod International Advisory Council Symposium. (Hopefully it’s not in Tasmania, again).

Then it’s off to Los Angeles. Now, Squid understands the use of force, but Squid tries to use Squid’s ink when threatened. Unlike the LAPD. Footage shows a former officer blasting a guy with pepper spray while he is handcuffed in the backseat of a squad car. That incident allows the KSBW news team to jump to the replay of a tape from a separate incident, in which LAPD officers beat a dude while holding his arms down. Ha, try that one on Squid. It will take at least four officers to hold down Squid’s tentacles, and human knuckles are no match for Squid’s horny beak.

But wait! Schools aren’t safe either. An “outbreak” of whooping cough has sickened seven students at Palo Alto High School. And that is important to Central Coast viewers because…?

Squid sees why the surreal weather reports of Jim Vanderzwaan are dispersed throughout the newscast. The promise of sunny skies tomorrow is about the only thing that makes Squid want to slither out of bed.

10pm>>KCBA

Squid guesses that Nov. 14, 2006 will always be remembered as a slow news day. After grabbing a beer, microwaving a bag of popcorn, and preparing a crème brulee, Squid sits on the couch with tentacles immersed in all sorts of goodies for the 10pm newscast.

A few minutes into the broadcast, Squid finds Squidself furiously scratching Squid’s dome with a salty tentacle. A bit about Monterey’s General Plan? A “Special Report” about Monterey County’s water problem? A segment on the Great American Toy Test?

Didn’t Squid see all of this last night? Yes, Squid did.

But Nov. 14’s show has some new information: Squid learns that one of the most popular board games for kids right now is Twister Dance, which allows youngsters to learn dance moves from a video while testing them out in Twister’s trademark plastic mat. That’s good to know.

11pm>>KION

Squid turns on Squid’s Eye on the Central Coast and finds Squidself wanting to barf. It’s an episode from Year Four of the Monterey County General Plan Update. Squid is sick to death of the ordeal.

Reporter Joel Moreno is live in Salinas at the Supervisor’s Chambers to report on the Supes’ latest round of hearings on the growth plan for the unincorporated county. The past three GPUs having been chucked in the trash, and this new document promises much more sprawling development than the other three versions. That pretty much guarantees a speedy approval from county officials.

The camera catches LandWatch’s Chris Fitz’s scuffle with Supervisor Jerry Smith. Fitz asks: “Are you going to shut me down, Chairman Smith?” Most likely. Smith hates slow-growthers.

Poor Moreno is the one who wins Squid’s sympathy in all of this. He’s the one who had to sit through the long, boring General Plan hearing all for a few two-minute news segments. Squid’s sure there were other ways that Moreno would have rather spent his Tuesday, like surfing or diving the local beaches. According to this online bio, he likes to do these things. Covering the General Plan isn’t on his list of favorite hobbies.

So, all that time and work, and it’s anchor Brian Speciale who gets all the glory. “It was supposed to be a blueprint for growth,” intones a serious voiceover during a commercial break. “Monterey County’s General Plan was due six years and $6 million ago…What are our public servants doing to solve this problem?

“Tune in Thursday at 6pm for a Speciale Report: General Pain.”

11pm>>KSBW

Dang, Squid thinks, KSBW’s 11pm half-hour news segment covers a lot of ground. Somehow, between commercial interludes, the program has pieces on a Massachusetts school bus accident, a Connecticut heroin bust, a giant Christmas tree in Kentucky that was moved by a Chinook helicopter, the plane crash at Big Bear Lake (again) and an announcement that the Boreal Ski Resort is opening its first lift of the winter. That’s in addition to one local news story about the county’s General Plan and Soledad’s rapid development.

While those stories mildly informed and entertained Squid, the coup de grace was a bit about a UC Davis crime lab that works with animal DNA. The segment started with information about a heinous crime: Cody the Cat was found dead at his home. Foul play was suspected. Neighboring dog Lucky was pegged as a prime suspect.

Veterinary forensic technicians read the animal DNA and found a startling new twist: Jerry the Gerbil had planned and carried out the barbaric murder of Cody the Cat.

Squid’s just pulling your tentacles. The DNA confirmed that Lucky killed Cody. Squid knows that Squid shouldn’t joke about such serious matters. This is news, dammit.