Twich
02-07-2004, 09:11 AM
The Philadelphia Inquirer Television Critic has a FABULOUS article in tomorrow's Sunday Paper. I was SO fascinated, I wanted to put part of it here. If you don't read anything else, at least try the guessing game. He puts together a list of shows and asks people to figure out which ones are real and which ones are fake. It's GOOD. (All mistakes are mine...cause I'm hand typing it in. So bear with me.)
Who knows what makes a TV Show? Try these.
by Jonathan Storm
A gullible woman tries to convince her parents that she wants to marry a rotund slob. Marginal pop stars grab fame by inviting America to share their domestic bickering. Dick and Jane eat ewe eyeballs and goats gonads.
TV lusts for viewers at any cost, whipping the audience into a voyeuristic frenzy. Enough people-just plain folks-clamor to do whatever's necessary, including undergoing mutilation, and humiliation, to make it to the tube.
Who knows what makes a TV show anymore? Programmers earn more money than most of us can imagine, and even they have trouble figuring it out.
Maybe you can do better and take one of their jobs. Folowing is a list of 17 shows that, int he current crazy TV landscape, could be on the horizon at major broadcast or cable channels. Or some could be just a glimmer in the fevered brain of an overstimulated television critic.
Separate fantasy from reality, send your score to FOX and maybe you'll get hired to start the next big, fat ridiculous TV craze.
Aghast that TV is destroying the culture? You, too, should pay attention to which shows soon will be further infecting it. It's good to know the enemy.
Don't be fooled by fake sounding titles. Some of the real shows are in early development and don't have actual titles yet. Answers are at the end. No peeking.
Dr. Vegas
Set in Sin City, CSI is TV's most popular scripted show. NBC's Vegas catches the young crowd. ER still draws throngs. Focus a drama on a hotel doctors at a big casino, andyou could break the ratings bank.
J.Lo don't know
America's favorite part-time lover produces a variety show with a different celebrity guest host each week. The catch? The host has no idea which other performers are appearing or what their talents, if any, are.
Straight Dates by Gay Mates
Gaily goes the TV world these days, so this one sounds like a sure thing: Two gay guys help a befuddled female choose her dating prey and then make her up to knock him dead.
Straight Plan for the Gay Man
If a homosexual fivesome can land a big audience giving clueless fellows some style, maybe straight men can return the favor. This bunch helps a fashion salesman get a job at the meat-packing plant, and a darling yoga trainer grab a spot in a manly street basketball game.
Playing it Straight
You can't have enough of this stuff. A gal tries to choose a suitor from a group of guys, but some of them have the hots for their fellow contestants, not her. If the one she chooses is gay, he wins $1 million. Otherwise, she and her man split the dough.
Anonymous Rex
In his fashionable duds, Vince looks like any other cool urban dude. But he's not gay - he's a dinosaur! By some magical quirk, his species didn't go extinct 65 million years ago, but has lived to savor the wonder of 21st Century America.
Nursing Mother
Katie Holmes stars as a struggling single mom who works as a nurse's aid. Rhea Perlman is her troubled mother, and Jimmy Smits plays a hard nosed doctor with a secret, in this drama from NYPD Blue's Steven Bochco.
Pat Croce: Moving In
is your wife a nag? Your husband a bum? Your kids rotten? Millions of nosy neighbors will watch as Philadelphia's favorite high-energy basketball fan and motivational guru comes to your house to straighten things out.
The Great American Spelling Bee
It's an incoculation of antidisestablishmentariansim, as celebrity geniuses such as Corbin Bernsen, Alice Cooper and Meshach Taylor square off. Or maybe they'll just try to find out who can p-a-t the c-a-t.
Dark Shadows: Shadows
Stakes, silver bullets, head lopping scimitars - nothing can kill Barnabas Collins and those other soap opera vamps. So why not put them back on the tube?
Doing It
Follow the sexcapades of randy teenage boys. One of their girlfriends is Kelly Osbourne. Ewwww.
The Littlest Groom
Twelve little women compete for the affections of handsome Glen, who's just their size - 4-foot-5. Then they get a gigantic surprise when some full-size sexpots are brought in to sweep him off his feet.
Reefer Madness
Then grim, now goofy, the classic 1936 don't-do-drugs flick is brought up to date as a musical. With just one toke on the evil ganja stick, little Jimmy turns his drab existence into a ballroom blitz.
The Will
Uncle Norbert hasn't kicked the big-bucks bucket yet. Watch, as all the family tries to sweet-talk him into ignoring Aunt Nelly and leaving the dough to them.
Your Face or Mine
From the folks who bring you American Idol, this show asks contestants to appraise how attractive they are. Then some shrill would-be Simon Cowell rips them to shreds for their bodacious nastiness, while other, inarticulate judges try to soothe their shattered egos.
The Swan
Ugly ducklings, er, women, get together, undergo drastic remakes that include plastic surgery, then compete in a beauty pageant. Do you think the judges should yell at them? Do you think the surgeons should be gay?
Silver Lake
A record store owner can speak to the dead. He chastises them for buying all those Milli Vanilli records. Not really. He helps resolve the unfinished business they left behind. Or does he?
Okay guys. Now you figure out which ones are real and which ones are fake...and I'll type the answer in a little while. :D
Who knows what makes a TV Show? Try these.
by Jonathan Storm
A gullible woman tries to convince her parents that she wants to marry a rotund slob. Marginal pop stars grab fame by inviting America to share their domestic bickering. Dick and Jane eat ewe eyeballs and goats gonads.
TV lusts for viewers at any cost, whipping the audience into a voyeuristic frenzy. Enough people-just plain folks-clamor to do whatever's necessary, including undergoing mutilation, and humiliation, to make it to the tube.
Who knows what makes a TV show anymore? Programmers earn more money than most of us can imagine, and even they have trouble figuring it out.
Maybe you can do better and take one of their jobs. Folowing is a list of 17 shows that, int he current crazy TV landscape, could be on the horizon at major broadcast or cable channels. Or some could be just a glimmer in the fevered brain of an overstimulated television critic.
Separate fantasy from reality, send your score to FOX and maybe you'll get hired to start the next big, fat ridiculous TV craze.
Aghast that TV is destroying the culture? You, too, should pay attention to which shows soon will be further infecting it. It's good to know the enemy.
Don't be fooled by fake sounding titles. Some of the real shows are in early development and don't have actual titles yet. Answers are at the end. No peeking.
Dr. Vegas
Set in Sin City, CSI is TV's most popular scripted show. NBC's Vegas catches the young crowd. ER still draws throngs. Focus a drama on a hotel doctors at a big casino, andyou could break the ratings bank.
J.Lo don't know
America's favorite part-time lover produces a variety show with a different celebrity guest host each week. The catch? The host has no idea which other performers are appearing or what their talents, if any, are.
Straight Dates by Gay Mates
Gaily goes the TV world these days, so this one sounds like a sure thing: Two gay guys help a befuddled female choose her dating prey and then make her up to knock him dead.
Straight Plan for the Gay Man
If a homosexual fivesome can land a big audience giving clueless fellows some style, maybe straight men can return the favor. This bunch helps a fashion salesman get a job at the meat-packing plant, and a darling yoga trainer grab a spot in a manly street basketball game.
Playing it Straight
You can't have enough of this stuff. A gal tries to choose a suitor from a group of guys, but some of them have the hots for their fellow contestants, not her. If the one she chooses is gay, he wins $1 million. Otherwise, she and her man split the dough.
Anonymous Rex
In his fashionable duds, Vince looks like any other cool urban dude. But he's not gay - he's a dinosaur! By some magical quirk, his species didn't go extinct 65 million years ago, but has lived to savor the wonder of 21st Century America.
Nursing Mother
Katie Holmes stars as a struggling single mom who works as a nurse's aid. Rhea Perlman is her troubled mother, and Jimmy Smits plays a hard nosed doctor with a secret, in this drama from NYPD Blue's Steven Bochco.
Pat Croce: Moving In
is your wife a nag? Your husband a bum? Your kids rotten? Millions of nosy neighbors will watch as Philadelphia's favorite high-energy basketball fan and motivational guru comes to your house to straighten things out.
The Great American Spelling Bee
It's an incoculation of antidisestablishmentariansim, as celebrity geniuses such as Corbin Bernsen, Alice Cooper and Meshach Taylor square off. Or maybe they'll just try to find out who can p-a-t the c-a-t.
Dark Shadows: Shadows
Stakes, silver bullets, head lopping scimitars - nothing can kill Barnabas Collins and those other soap opera vamps. So why not put them back on the tube?
Doing It
Follow the sexcapades of randy teenage boys. One of their girlfriends is Kelly Osbourne. Ewwww.
The Littlest Groom
Twelve little women compete for the affections of handsome Glen, who's just their size - 4-foot-5. Then they get a gigantic surprise when some full-size sexpots are brought in to sweep him off his feet.
Reefer Madness
Then grim, now goofy, the classic 1936 don't-do-drugs flick is brought up to date as a musical. With just one toke on the evil ganja stick, little Jimmy turns his drab existence into a ballroom blitz.
The Will
Uncle Norbert hasn't kicked the big-bucks bucket yet. Watch, as all the family tries to sweet-talk him into ignoring Aunt Nelly and leaving the dough to them.
Your Face or Mine
From the folks who bring you American Idol, this show asks contestants to appraise how attractive they are. Then some shrill would-be Simon Cowell rips them to shreds for their bodacious nastiness, while other, inarticulate judges try to soothe their shattered egos.
The Swan
Ugly ducklings, er, women, get together, undergo drastic remakes that include plastic surgery, then compete in a beauty pageant. Do you think the judges should yell at them? Do you think the surgeons should be gay?
Silver Lake
A record store owner can speak to the dead. He chastises them for buying all those Milli Vanilli records. Not really. He helps resolve the unfinished business they left behind. Or does he?
Okay guys. Now you figure out which ones are real and which ones are fake...and I'll type the answer in a little while. :D