Golf-related stories
Posted Feb 16th 2010 12:25AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free

(S01E09) There's nothing particularly unique or extraordinary about the lives of Joe and Terry and Owen, the guys of
'Men of a Certain Age.' But the very fact that the situations and circumstances are normal makes how their characters react all the more interesting.
A lot happened in this episode, even though it wasn't big, dramatic stuff like you might expect. No, it was small moments, little things that didn't seem like much, but oh, what a blast in the storytelling. With the last episode of the season airing next week, this was one hell of a lead up to the big finish.
Continue reading 'Men of a Certain Age' - 'How To Be An All-Star' Recap
Posted Dec 17th 2009 10:30AM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Programming, OpEd, Celebrities, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free

Not only does the man keep getting rehired, he's now got yet another job. Donald Trump will be hosting
Donald J. Trump's Fabulous World of Golf on April 26 on the Golf Channel. The premise of the program is that golf stars and celebrities will play Trump one-on-one in a golf game for charity (presumably if Trump loses, the show donates to the charity of the celebrity's choice).
Will anybody attack Trump with a golf club? I would tune in for that. Wouldn't it be great if he had the rematch with Vince McMahon in a game of golf? Perhaps, much like his WWE appearance, the loser can also have their head shaven.
I'll wait to hear who Trump is actually playing before I consider tuning in. Of course, I hear Tiger Woods suddenly has a lot of free time available and could use the positive publicity. That would be an interesting episode.
Posted Oct 26th 2009 3:03PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Celebrities, Casting, Reality-Free, Modern Family

One of my favorite character actors will be
guesting on an upcoming episode of Modern Family, Chazz Palminteri. And for a change of pace, Chazz will not be toting a gun. Instead he'll be swinging a golf club, and unless the sitcom takes a radically wicked turn, I don't think Chazz will be taking swings at
Ed O'Neill's head.
On the other hand, things can get pretty intense on the links. In the episode, Chazz is golfing with Ed's character, Jay, and somehow the relationship between Cameron and Mitchell comes into play and there's a big gay understanding... or is that a misunderstanding?
Continue reading Chazz Palminteri to play golf... on Modern Family
Posted Sep 4th 2009 6:10PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Programming, Reality-Free

Ah, Labor Day. Isn't it great to have the summer over (yes, I consider Labor Day as the end of summer) and the new TV season about to begin?
Here's a list of the various marathons, specials, and sports that you can see on Sunday and Monday. Let us know if we've missed anything.
Sunday
- At 8 AM, Hallmark has a Golden Girls marathon.
- At 9, USA has a Law and Order: SVU marathon.
- At 10, WE has a marathon of Girlfriends episodes.
- At 10:30, TV Land has a Beverly Hillbillies marathon.
- At 11, CBS has U.S. Open coverage.
- At 1 PM, Discovery has a Planet Earth marathon.
- Bravo has a Top Chef: Las Vegas marathon at 1.
- At 3, Spike has a Band of Brothers marathon.
- NBC has the Deutsche Bank Golf Championship at 3.
- At 5, TV Land has an Andy Griffith Show marathon.
- At 9, it's the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon (check local listings).
Continue reading A guide to Labor Day marathons and specials
Posted Feb 27th 2009 2:03PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Sports, OpEd, Celebrities, Reality-Free

I think I saw the perfect commercial today. I mean it. It was quite simply the perfect marriage of product, production, message and entertainment. It was better than anything I saw during the Oscars or the Super Bowl, and that's saying something. So, have I whetted your appetite?
The commercial was for Nike and it celebrated Tiger Woods return to active competition (he's been off for over a year rehabbing from knee surgery, in case you're not a casual golf/sports fan).
Continue reading Tiger and the perfect commercial - VIDEO
Posted Dec 24th 2008 7:01PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Programming, Festivus, Reality-Free
Here's a quick guide to what's on Christmas Day, stuff to watch while you're opening presents, making snowmen, and eating way too much pumpkin pie.
- HGTV and Food Network have holiday programming all day.
- TNT is showing Law and Order all day.
- TBS is showing the movie A Christmas Story all day.
- Nickelodeon and TV Land have Christmas episodes of various sitcoms and dramas all day.
- BBC America also has Christmas episodes all day long.
- At 7am, all of the morning shows (Today, Good Morning, America, and The Early Show) will have Christmas features, music, and recipes.
- At 8, Lifetime has a Golden Girls marathon.
- Sci-Fi has a Star Trek: TNG marathon at 8.
- Bravo has a Christmas episode of The West Wing at 8, then a Top Chef marathon.
Continue reading What's On Christmas Day: Marathons, Movies, and Specials
Posted Jul 3rd 2008 12:19PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Programming, Reality-Free
It's another holiday, and that means more TV marathons and specials! Here's a handy guide to the 4th (and the 5th and 6th).
July 4
- AMC has Planet of the Apes movies all morning, then the Jaws movies starting at 10:30am.
- At 6am, USA has a Walker, Texas Ranger marathon.
- TMC has episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (80s version) at 6, then Hitchcock movies all day.
- At 7, ESPN2 has coverage of Wimbledon Tennis.
- At 8, A&E has a marathon of Paranormal State.
- Biography has a City Confidential marathon starting at 8.
- There's a Twilight Zone marathon starting at 8 on Sci-Fi.
- At 9, TruTV has a Beach Patrol marathon.
- FX has a King of the Hill marathon at 9.
- At noon, NBC has more Wimbledon.
- At 2pm, TV Land has an I Love Lucy marathon.
- At 3, HGTV has a Design Star marathon.
- At 8, PBS has A Capitol Fourth.
- At 9, NBC has the Macy's 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular.
- At 10, CBS has the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular.
Continue reading Celebrate the 4th by watching television!
Posted Apr 28th 2008 5:21PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Sports, OpEd, Reality-Free

Let me start this rant by saying that I like sports. No, I love sports. I'm a fan. I get the DirecTV NBA package and the major league baseball games. I can talk to you for hours about stats and players and great games. That said, I hate the way Sunday sports programming drifts over into primetime. This happens primarily on CBS and Fox with the NFL games in the fall and winter, but the other networks have been guilty of staying with the game and then still insisting on showing the primetime schedule after the game is over -- even if that means that an 8 o'clock show begins at 8:45 and your DVR gets all screwed up and you wind up with only 15 minutes of a show you wanted to see!
Continue reading Things I Hate About TV: Sunday sports running over into primetime
Posted May 31st 2007 2:03PM by Adam Finley
Filed under: Industry, Web
We've been telling you about NBC Universal and News Corp's new YouTube-esque video service for awhile now, and today The Hollywood Reporter has news that the service has added the following channels to its lineup:
- Fuel TV
- Sundance Channel
- Oxygen
- Speed
Continue reading NBC and News Corp add more channels to new online video service
Posted Apr 5th 2007 5:03PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Programming, What To Watch Tonight
At 8, NBC has new, supersized episodes of The Office and 30 Rock, then new episodes of Scrubs and Andy Barker, P.I.
- CBS has a new Survivor at 8, then new episodes of CSI and Shark.
- FOX has a new Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? at 8.
- TBS has four good Friends repeats starting at 8.
- USA has the first round of the Masters golf tournament at 8.
- At 9, TLC has a new American Chopper.
- HGTV has a new Divine Design at 9.
- At 10, ABC has a new October Road.
- Food Network has a new Throwdown with Bobby Flay at 10.
- Also at 10: Bravo has the special The World According To Whoopi.
- At 10:30, Comedy Central has a new Showbiz Show with David Spade.
Check your local TV listings for more.
Posted Aug 2nd 2006 9:05PM by Adam Finley
Filed under: OpEd, Celebrities, Horror, TNT
(S01E07) Everyone has a list of fears, and being buried alive and waking up during surgery are both very high on my list. People have awoke during surgery before -- it's rare, but it does happen. Stephen King based his short story "Autopsy Room Four" on an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in which a man is paralyzed in a car accident and pronounced dead, despite being very much alive. To his horror, he's taken to the autopsy room to be hacked into, but he manages to save himself by crying a single tear to show he's still alive.
As King writes in a note after the story, a tear is nice and all, but he wanted his protagonist, Howard Cottrell (Richard Thomas) -- who gets paralyzed by a snake bite while golfing -- to demonstrate a different way of showing he was still alive. So King has him get a huge boner while the older sexier doctor is handling his junk. That's very King-like, and it works on paper, but I knew it was going to be difficult to portray that on television and not have it seem trite or silly. In King's story, Howard is single, but in the televised version he's married and suffering from occasional impotence due to an old war wound. The backstory makes Howard's eventual "rise from death" seem a little less gauche, but it's still kind of goofy.
Continue reading Nightmares and Dreamscapes: Autopsy Room Four
Posted Jul 28th 2006 9:10AM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Sports, Programming, OpEd, The Five
Yesterday I listed the best sports to watch on television. Here's my list for the worst.
1. Fishing: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
Continue reading The Five: Worst sports to watch on TV
Posted Jul 21st 2006 5:26PM by Adam Finley
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Sports, OpEd, Short-Lived Shows, Celebrities, Comedy Central
Can golf be funny? Well, Caddyshack proved that it could. At least, it proved you could use a golf course as a kind of stage for great comedic performances. In The Sweet Spot, Bill Murray returned to the game that birthed his famous Caddyshack character, this time taking three of his brothers (Brian Doyle-Murray, Joel Murray, and John Murray) along for a faux-reality series in which the siblings compete on different golf courses for bragging rights.
The show could be best be described as really bad, but charming. Bill is clearly the most recognizable of the siblings, but Joel and Brian have had plenty of great roles in both television and movies. John, also a producer for the show, has been in front of the lens before, but not to any significant degree. It's fun to see them all together, but even with the gags, skits, and fantasy segments, it still felt like watching home movies that were more entertaining to the people making them than the people watching. Somewhere in Hollywood someone must have an idea for a really great show that could bring these brothers together, but The Sweet Spot just wasn't it.
Posted Jun 17th 2006 5:40PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Programming
At 7:30, Cartoon Network has Superman: Brainiac Attacks, followed by new eps of Naruto, One Piece, Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, and IGPX.
- At 8, ABC has the movie Lady and the Tramp, followed by a new episode of The Evidence.
- CBS has repeats of CSI: NY and 48 Hours Mystery.
- NBC has Hurricanes/Oilers Stanley Cup action at 8.
- Over on FOX at 8, a new ep of Cops, followed by a repeat ep, then a new America's Most Wanted.
- TBS has the Cheaper By The Dozen remake at 8.
- FX has the Busch Series Meijer 300 NASCAR race at 8.
- Emeril has a "Summertime Party" at 8 on Food Network.
- Also at 8: AMC has Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai.
- At 9, TBS has Signs.
- At 10, the Golf Channel has U.S. Open highlights.
- Just after 11:30, Encore has The Bourne Supremecy.
Posted Jun 4th 2006 2:20PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Talent, Commercials, Celebrities

I saw this ad a few times last year, and they're starting to show it again, during tennis and golf matches (is that the right term for what golfers play? Matches?), and I think the lead actor in the commercial looks really familiar.
I'm talking about the ads for the Royal Bank of Scotland. The ones where the scout leader is talking about money and the other guy is sinking into quicksand. The scout leader looks a lot like Brian Patrick Clarke, who played baseball player Merle "The Pearl" on
Eight Is Enough ("There's a plate of homemade wishes, on the kitchen window sill ..."). Of course, it's been over 20 years since I've seen an episode of the show, but I think this actor and Clarke would be the right age. And, by the way, I'm both proud and disturbed that I actually remembered the actor's full name without even doing a search.
I just checked
Clarke's IMDB listing, and he has been in a few TV shows lately (
CSI: Miami,
Judging Amy), and the pic sorta looks like the guy in the RBS ads (and a little like Ed Begley, Jr.), but I don't know if it's him or not. Readers?
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