TVSquad

Attention fans of Swingtown: your ratings-challenged show might actually have a chance to see a second season.

Even though the 70s-set drama isn't getting a ton of viewers (in its current time slot Friday at 10 or in its old Thursday at 10 time slot), there are execs behind the scenes at the network who like the show and would like to see it continue. The network is shopping the show around to cable networks to see if one of them will pick it up.

I would actually like to see this happen. As I've mentioned on these pages before, I have trouble with some of Swingtown, but at the same time I really want to see what happens to these characters, and there are a lot of other shows where I can't say that. I wonder if they'll pull an NBC and put it on DirecTV like we're seeing with Friday Night Lights, or maybe put it on Showtime. CBS has shown Dexter on the network so maybe Showtime can take Swingtown. That would certainly open up more plot possibilities for the show. And by possibilities I mean nudity and swearing.

Things don't look good for our favorite wife-swapping, bad clothes-wearing, Tab-drinking characters: CBS is moving Swingtown to Friday nights at 10pm.

Why, you ask? Well, the ratings have been going downhill, and I think this is the first indication that the show won't see a second season (Friday nights are where network shows go to die). But CBS seems to think more of Flashpoint, the action/cop show that currently airs on Friday nights (in short, it gets better ratings than Swingtown). Flashpoint is going to replace Swingtown in the Thursday at 10pm slot.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. I haven't seen Flashpoint. As for Swingtown, although I have a lot of problems with it, I do know that it has had me tuning in every Thursday night (well, OK, on DVR - I have to watch Burn Notice live!). I want to see what happens to these characters.

[via TV Tattle]

Eddie Murphy will star in the big screen remake of the popular series Fantasy Island.

I'll let that first sentence soak in. Ready? Okay, let's continue:

Murphy, much like in the Nutty Professor and Norbit, will play multiple roles in the adaptation of the series which starred Ricardo Montalban and Hervé Villechaize, ran from 1978 to 1984, and always creeped me the heck out when I was a kid. I'm not sure why it creeped me out, but it did. Hey, I was young and my parents watched it, plus I was kind of a wuss anyway. Maybe it was Montalban's accent.

In the original series, Montalban played Mr. Roarke, the caretaker of a mystical island where visitors could have any fantasy fulfilled, but there was always a catch.

Norbit screenwriters Jay Scherick and David Ronn are re-writing the script, and no director is attached to the project at this time.

[via Moviehole]

(S01E01) Well, I figured since I gave my opinion on Adult Swim's other new live-action series I should probably do the same for Saul of the Molemen, lest all of you suffer through life not knowing how I feel about it. Like I said in my review of Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job!, don't expect me to review this one every week. Well, maybe I will.

Saul takes its look from Sid and Marty Krofft's series, especially Land of the Lost. The mixture of horrible but self-aware visual effects and props also reminds me of the inspired Mystery Science Theater 3000. When Saul spies on two Molepeople making love (which involves tentacles coming out of their torsos and a floating pineapple), he pushes the spongy red foliage out of the way using a squeegee, which I guess we're to assume is some kind of space age device.

If you're a fan of Sherwood Schwartz's classic sitcom The Brady Bunch, you'll be pleased to know that the complete series will be available on DVD on March 27, according to TVShowsOnDVD. There's no details on the set just yet, though apparently the DVDs come wrapped in a brick of pot. Okay, maybe it's not pot, but whatever it is, you'll probably get really messed up if you smoke it.

The Brady Bunch, which aired from 1969 to 1974, was the story of an aesthetically-pleasing woman who raised a trio of three girls who were also pretty. Their hair was gold, not unlike that of their mother. The youngest daughter's hair, in contrast to those of her siblings, was in curls.

Meanwhile, there was a man named Brady, the patriarch of a family consisting of himself and three boys. Together they equaled four men who lived in a house together. Despite this, they were all very much alone.

One day, however, the aforementioned man and woman met each other. Knowing almost preternaturally that it was more than a hunch, they decided to combine the two families into one. That's how they became the Brady Bunch.

And Ann B. Davis as Alice.

Keeping with its promise of shying away from procedurals, CBS has ordered pilots for two seemingly unusual series. The first is centered around an ex-priest who travels around performing exorcisms. It's called Demons. It's being created by Barbara Hall, who also created Joan of Arcadia, and executive produced by movie man Joe Roth.

The second series is called Swingtown and it sounds like it's bound for a 10 pm time slot. The series is set in the 1970s and is about a bunch of married couples who swap spouses. It's being created by Mike Kelley, writer and executive producer of The O.C.

Pilot season, by the way, is soon upon us. January is traditionally the time of year when the networks request pilots from all the television veterans and wanna-bes who have been pitching them this fall.

Well, heck, I guess you can learn something new every day. In 1975, Filmation produced a live-action series titled Ghostbusters. The series ran on CBS for two official seasons and eventually the name "Ghostbusters" was forgotten until the box office smash with the same title hit screens in 1984.

Folks around my age probably remember The Real Ghostbusters, a cartoon spun off from the movie with the clever hook that they were the actual Ghostbusters, and the guys in the movie were just actors. At the same time, however, after having settled out of court with Columbia Pictures for using the name, Filmation decided to try and cash in on the name by making a cartoon titled The Original Ghostbusters, which featured the sons of the original CBS series taking up the business once again.

While poking around YouTube for something completely different, I serendipitously stumbled upon a bunch of Roosevelt Franklin clips from Sesame Street. Some of you youngsters out there may be asking who the heck Roosevelt Franklin is, so let me inform you: he was a hip, rhyming, purple Muppet who appeared on the show in the 1970s, voiced by Matt Robinson, the original Gordon on the series.

In the 1970s, Sesame Street was not the perfectly sterilized children's show it is today. The show never advocated bad behavior, but it understood that sometimes kids can be rowdy and disruptive. Even in those more carefree days, however, some felt Roosevelt Franklin was a bad influence on kids, not to mention a negative cultural stereotype, so he was booted from the show. I personally don't see anything negative about the character. If anything, I think he taught kids that it's okay to be proud of who you are, to stand up and let the world know you're special, too.

Out of the all the newer shows on Adult Swim, you don't hear too much about Stroker and Hoop. I chose to ignore it myself until a friend of mine mentioned it was one of his favorites, so I've been setting the ol' Tivo and playing catch up. Think of the show as an homage to CHiPs, Starsky and Hutch, and other 70s crime TV, but with the added bonus that this is a cartoon, for adults, that can get away with things a live-action show could never dream of. Stroker and Hoop are private investigators with a talking car (C.A.R.R.) who may or may not solve your case and also may or may not leave a trail of blood and carnage when they do. In the episode titled "Ninja Worrier aka Chopping Spree" Hoop, once afraid to even shoot a suspect, goes on a rampage killing ninjas. As it turns out, none of the people he kills are actually ninjas, they're just regular people. If raunchy humor and people burning alive inside conventional ovens is your cup of tea, by all means check it out.