TVSquad

I feel sorry for the poor intern who had to put this thing together. I understand that Lifetime is a cable network and all, but they've become pretty high-profile lately. I would think that if they were going to send out press kits, then maybe they could spring for more than some confetti and crappy stickers printed out on the office ink jet.

Even Sit Down, Shut Up, which is last press kit I did, at least had a t-shirt. It was actually a super-comfy American Apparel shirt, and I still wear it around the house. The Rita Rocks/Sherri press kit, on the other hand, is a do-it-yourself lunchbox-type thing, filled with confetti, containing the DVDs, a bunch of crappy candy, and some un-inflated balloons. It's kind of the saddest thing I've ever seen.

It took me a while to figure out why the kit was filled with the candy that kids usually reject on Halloween, and this is what I came up with: There are Chuckles and Laffy Taffy because the shows are comedies, and there's a bag of Pop Rocks because of Rita Rocks. However, the question of why there is a set of wax lips and a ring pop remains unanswered, as does the question of the depressing un-inflated balloons.


Maybe the blue balloon is used to represent that one time on The View when Sherri said that the world was flat? That would be kind of funny, but somehow, I don't think Lifetime is promoting that particular TV moment. Perhaps there is a storyline in one of these shows that involves a sad party, big lips, and an engagement, that would explain all of these items.

So the funniest thing though, is the stickers on the lunchbox. Like I said before, they're printed on non-glossy sticker paper that some intern ordered from Office Depot and sadly stuck all around the box. They're not even put on well-- the Sherri one is all bubbled in the middle, and others are peeling at the corners.


Lifetime's biggest struggle when it comes to their original shows is the production value. Where AMC, Bravo, TNT, and others produce shows that could easily be seen on the major networks, Lifetime's shows have a tendency to look like cable shows. Sending out press kits that look completely slapped together and careless make me wonder how much effort is going into their programming.