Tyler Perry Takes All

Tyler Perry is expanding his role as King of All Media with TBS’ announcement late last week that specially produced mobisodes of House of Payne are now downloadable on TBS’ Very Funny Channel on the Verizon V Cast Video Service.

I was on the road when I received this news and I would like to officially designate the Charlotte airport as the Best Airport Ever! It has free wireless Internet and a comfortable business lounge where you can plug in and work during a three-hour layover. Why isn’t every airport like this?

I would have happily killed some time watching these mobisodes while hanging out in that wonderful airport, except that I have Sprint and thus no access. I would really like to know when these cell providers are going to get it together and offer open access, which makes far more sense for consumers than these very limited, closed systems. I was heartened to hear that Apple is actually going to open up the iPhone to some third-party software vendors. Perhaps everyone else will take note or Google will actually launch its open-source phone.

The House of Payne episodes – and there are ten so far — will run approximately one to three minutes each. They join TBS’ All-Star comedy line-up, including Sony’s Seinfeld and King of Queens, CBS’ Everybody Loves Raymond and Twentieth’s Family Guy. In a separate part of the deal, Verizon VCast also will offer sneak peeks of upcoming TBS programming, such as the channel’s new late-night series Frank TV.

The announcement is just one more reason why Tyler Perry is taking over the world. His movie, Why Did I Get Married, opened at number one at the box office and more importantly, pulled in far more money than anyone expected. Perry’s films never win critics’ plaudits, but that doesn’t matter because his public can’t get enough of him. And his sitcom, House of Payne, is doubling the ratings of the network’s other sitcoms, the syndicated Seinfeld and Everybody Loves Raymond, among others.

Perry often complains in the press about how Hollywood doesn’t respect him, but why does he care? His fans love his stuff and he’s getting richer than Midas. That’s the kind of respect with which he should concern himself. And maybe he could talk to Sprint so I can watch his stuff on my phone too.