« November 19 - November 25 December 3 - December 9 »

Danny Devito Drunk on Telly

December 01, 2006

The ladies of ''The View'' are laughing off Danny DeVito's loopy behavior during his appearance on the daytime talk show. Apparantly, he stayed out late drinking with George Clooney the night before, and came in to the morning talk-show (according to Joy Behar) “drunk as a skunk.”

''I knew it was the last seven limoncellos that was going to get me.'' slurred Devito, just before launching into a long, rambling, wild story about sleeping in the Lincoln bedroom at the White House during the Clinton years. In talking about his stay there, with his wife, Rhea Perlman, Devito said, “We went in and made it our business to really wreck the joint.”

And then things got downright weird.

READ MORE > >

Leno Not Laughing

''Tonight Show'' host Jay Leno and NBC Studios have sued humor editor Judy Brown and her publishers in U.S. District Court, claiming that her collection of joke books has profited from material filched from his standup routines.

Leno and other comics, including Rita Rudner, are seeking unspecified damages and a permanent injunction against Brown's 19 books, which are mainly compilations of jokes by comedians including Ellen DeGeneres, Joan Rivers, and Jerry Seinfeld, according to the lawsuit.

"Her books credit the comedians who wrote the jokes, which only serves to make the copyright violations more egregious: The books sell precisely because they include jokes by famous comedians,'' the lawsuit claims. ''Ms. Brown has even sent representatives to comedy clubs to record comedians' routines, so she can then copy the jokes into her books and profit from the original comedic works of others.”

READ MORE > >

November Sweeps Ends

November 30, 2006

This year’s November sweeps came to an end last night. And it’s hard to say who’s coming out ahead. One thing’s for sure – it was a lot of fun.

This year’s sweeps had every imaginable form of entertainment, including what was arguably the best "Saturday Night Live" in ten years (Alec Baldwin and Christina Aguilera), the death of Mr. Eko on “Lost,” as well as plenty of exciting schedule shuffles. And who could forget the near miss of OJ Simpson talking about how he would have killed his former wife?

There are winners to be announced.

READ MORE > >

Everybody Loves Chris

Last night in Beverly Hills, the Association of National Advertisers handed out their eighth annual awards for family-friendly programming. We’re not totally sure what “family friendly” means anymore, but the honors went to shows that we’re all pretty fond of.

The CBS crime drama ''Numb3rs'' and CW network comedy ''EverybodyHatesChris'' took top honors, while ABC’s ''Dancing with the Stars'' took reality show honors and ''Ugly Betty'' won the new series award.

The Family Friendly Programming Forum, which includes advertisers representing 43 companies, created the awards to promote the development and airing of family-oriented television programs during prime-time viewing hours.

READ MORE > >

Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister

Oh Canada.

In a fascinating twist of Canadian pop culture magic, four Canadian ex-prime ministers are set to appear as judges on a new reality show from the CBC entitled: ''The Next Great PrimeMinister.''

Comedian Rick Mercer will host the one-hour special in which the former prime ministers will grill five finalists before a live audience March 18. The ex-leaders and members of the audience will then have an equal vote to pick the winner.

The CBC has set a Dec. 15 deadline for Canadians aged 18 to 25 to submit short videotaped speeches about why they should become primeminister and what they would do once in office.

READ MORE > >

Where Are My Shows?

November 29, 2006

You may have noticed that a few of your favorite shows have been airing what is being called a “Fall Finale.” We’ve had a lot of questions about it on the Community Board, so we looked into it for you.

Here’s the deal: : November sweeps is over and viewing traffic plummets. (People are shopping and going to holiday parties... so they aren't watching a lot of TV.)

So the networks put their best episodes forward at the beginning of December and then everyone goes on vacation. This generally happens every year, a week or two before the holidays get under way, for several reasons.

1.) The networks have holiday programming they play to adjust to the shifting holiday schedules of it’s viewers.

READ MORE > >

The Sopranos on Wednesdays

You may have heard that A&E recently purchased the re-run rights to "The Sopranos" for a cool 2.5 million dollars PER EPISODE!

It sort of escaped our radar for a little while until they released the dates that they'll begin showing the episodes. May we suggest you mark your calendar because this is your chance to watch the show that everyone talked around you about. (That is, if you don't have HBO, or didn't have it...)

A&E will be showing two episodes back to back on Wednesday nights, starting at 9pm, on January 10th. They're starting with season one, and they're just going to plow through to the end. (or until they run out of money, whichever comes first).

READ MORE > >

Hugh Jackman: TV Producer

Here's an odd little piece we saw over at Variety.com. Apparantly, Hugh Jackman is going to produce a show for CBS that is a "dark" version of "The Love Boat."

Wha? Huh?

What CBS means by "dark," is pretty unclear. They are saying that the show will have a "Rashomon"-style format. Yeah, we didn't know what that meant either, so we looked into it. Turns out -- this is a reference to Kurosawa movie from 1950 where the same events were shown from different perspectives.

Wikipedia has this to say: (Rashomon) has an unusual narrative structure that reflects the impossibility of obtaining the truth about an event when there are conflicting witness accounts. In English and other languages, Rashomon has become a byword for any situation in which the truth of an event is difficult to verify due to the conflicting accounts of different witnesses.

READ MORE > >

"Arrested Development" Stars Online

November 28, 2006

Michael Cera, who played George Michael Bluth on the brilliant but cancelled “Arrested Development” has struck a ground breaking deal with CBS. Cera will lead an online series on Innertube called “The Good Life,” about a pair of TV producers who think they’ve hit on the biggest hit of the century.

The deal is significant because it is the first time a network has inked a deal for a scripted online series with a talent agreement attached to it. The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Cera will write, produce and star in the shortform series.

READ MORE > >

Civil War?

NBC News announced on Monday that it would begin referring to the Iraq conflict as a civil war, adopting a phrase that President Bush and many other news organizations have avoided.

Matt Lauer said on the ''Today'' show that ''after careful consideration, NBC News has decided that a change in terminology is warranted, that the situation in Iraq with armed militarized factions fighting for their own political agendas can now be characterized as civil war.''

This, of course, opened up plenty of debate on just what a “civil war” actually is. Webster's New World College Dictionary defines it simply as ''war between geographical sections or political factions of the same nation.'' Some political scientists use a threshold of 1,000 dead, which the current conflict has long since passed.

READ MORE > >

Trans Chase on All My Children

November 27, 2006

We jest, but seriously. Because it’s cooler than hell that once again, ABC's ''All My Children'' is breaking ground. This week the soap will introduce a transgender character who is beginning to make the transition from a man into a woman.

The character, a flamboyant rock star known as Zarf, kisses the lesbian character Bianca and much drama ensues. The storyline begins with Thursday's episode of the daytime drama.

There have been a handful of post-surgical transgender characters in television shows, including a college professor in the 2001 prime-time CBS series ''The Education of Max Bickford'' and a model in the short-lived ABC soap opera ''The City'' in 1996, according to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. Showtime's ''The L Word'' currently features a character changing from a woman into a man.

''All My Children'' was looking for something new, and knows its audience is always interested in anything to do with sexuality, said Julie Hanan Carruthers, the show's executive producer.

READ MORE > >

Ken Burns Loves Statistics

The director of all things documentary is pushing his own limit – and the limit of TV watcher’s patience. His new doc is 14 hours long!

Ken Burns thought he was done with war movies after his series ''The Civil War.'' But he says two troubling statistics fueled the creation of ''The War,'' a 14-hour documentary about World War II.

''It was really a couple of statistics that got me,'' Burns said. ''One was that we're losing a thousand (World War II) veterans a day, and the other is that our children just don't know what's going on.''

Burns said he was astonished at the number of high school graduates who believe the United States fought with the Germans in World War II.

READ MORE > >

Six Feet Under Hollywood Stardom

Freddy Rodriguez has gone from undertaker to A-lister. The 31-year-old actor, who played embalmer Frederico ''Rico'' Diaz on the “Six Feet Under” (now replaying on our mamma’s site Bravo) has two movies opening this month.

Rodriguez plays the best pal of a former Army ranger gone wrong in the gritty crime drama Harsh Times. In Bobby, about the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, Rodriguez plays Jose, a compassionate busboy who came to the aid of the fallen senator. Both films are in theaters now.

READ MORE > >