Jerry Springer-related stories
Posted Sep 29th 2009 4:31PM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: OpEd, Pickups and Renewals, America's Got Talent
Before you continue reading this post, it's important that you know that I enjoy
America's Got Talent and have been entertained by it since the first season. However, I, and I know a lot of fans too based on comments left here on the site, am not that happy with how the current season turned out.
Dear
America's Got Talent producers, here are a few suggestions from myself and TV Squad readers on how you can improve next season.
Continue reading Open letter to America's Got Talent producers
Posted Sep 17th 2009 1:00AM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: OpEd, Watercooler Talk, Episode Reviews, America's Got Talent
(S04E26) This is it, people. The time has come to name the winner of
America's Got Talent, the world's biggest talent search. The two-hour (!) final results bash included performances from
Britain's Got Talent sensation Susan Boyle,
The X Factor's Leona Lewis, Thelma Houston, Cirque du Soleil, Rascal Flatts, and Shakira. Sadly, none of the previous
AGT winners performed.
Based on the
TV Squad poll I've included in
my review of the Top 10 performance show, 35.1% of the voters, including myself, said Barbara Padilla would win. Kevin Skinner received 22.2% of your votes, while Recycled Percussion placed third in our poll with 19.4%. The other contestants all got under 7% of your votes. (Note that these results were accurate at the beginning of the results show.)
Did the TV Squad poll results match reality? Official results coming up!
If you haven't watched the finale yet and do not want to be spoiled as to who won the competition, it's time to click elsewhere now!Continue reading America's Got Talent: And the winner is... (season finale)
Posted Sep 3rd 2009 12:30AM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, America's Got Talent
(S04E22) It's time to narrow down the talent field to the Top 8 acts who will perform in the final round of this season's
America's Got Talent. They'll get the chance to win a million, as well as perform on the Vegas Strip in
a special show hosted by ex-AGT host Jerry Springer.
This week's results show featured a special performance from The Hoff himself. Did he give a performance worthy to be Xed, or did he deliver the goods? My two cents, as well as which first four acts are moving to the final round coming up!
Continue reading America's Got Talent: Top 20 results show one
Posted Sep 2nd 2009 3:02PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: OpEd, Casting, America's Got Talent
Don't worry. Nick Cannon won't necessarily be packing his bags any time soon, but former host
Jerry Springer is coming back to America's Got Talent. He's slated to host that Planet Hollywood live show in Las Vegas Cannon has been pimping every week.
Springer originally left
America's Got Talent to appear on Broadway in
Chicago, but that gig has since wrapped. I'm not sure what that means for next season of the talent show. After a shaky start, I think Nick Cannon has emerged as a capable and fun host for the wackiness of
AGT. He's got a natural sense of humor about everything, which is essential when talking to "The Hoff."
Continue reading Jerry Springer comes home to America's Got Talent, sort of
Posted Jul 15th 2009 12:15AM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: OpEd, Alumni, Episode Reviews, America's Got Talent
(S04E07) "You didn't even give me a chance!" - Contestant David Glass after being Xed three times and booed by the crowdThe judges may not have given David Glass a chance -- they were right not to do so -- but they did give a free pass to another contestant who didn't have the goods to go on to Las Vegas. Even if the producers will never admit to it, you must agree that it looks like producers have the judges vote through a certain number of bad and wacky acts so that viewers tune in for Vegas Week to see if the judges will be crazy enough to vote those to the Top 20.
Tonight's episode gave us another reason why
America's Got Talent should not let individual singers audition since a lot go move on to the later rounds, making it look like another version of
American Idol. This week, they not only let through a few singers, they also let through
Idol's season one contestant Kelli Glover.
Continue reading America's Got Talent: Audition show 7
Posted Jul 1st 2009 11:03AM by Eliot Glazer
Filed under: OpEd, Video, Web, Talk Show
The late eighties and early-to-mid nineties brought out some of the filthiest, bottom-feeding talk shows our country has ever seen. From Morton Downey Jr. and Sally Jesse Raphael to
Jerry Springer and
Maury Povich, it was the era when "trash TV" became a symbol of a country's swift spiral down one giant cultural toilet in opposition to people like
Larry King and
Oprah Winfrey, who effortlessly made interviews with, like,
Fran Drescher come off looking like
Masterpiece Theater.
Around the latter half of the "boom" came
Ricki Lake, the formerly obese star of
Hairspray (no, seriously, that was basically her résumé), with a show that combined the usual elements of trashy talk (read: "freaks") with something impossibly dumber yet: catchphrases. Unlike today, when it takes weeks to months for squawk-boxes to latch onto cultural buzzwords like "metrosexual" and "baby daddy," Ricki Lake was trotting out episode "subjects" like "You're not all that!" and "Dump that zero and get yourself a hero!"
Naturally, she was a smash.
Continue reading Ricki Lake Minisodes might be high art, right?
Posted Jun 22nd 2009 2:27PM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: Programming, OpEd, America's Got Talent
"The biggest talent search in the history," as former
America's Got Talent host Jerry Springer used to say over and over again, is beginning
its fourth season on Tuesday.
Judges David Hasselhoff, Sharon Osbourne and Piers Morgan will return to give their two cents about the acts performed on stage in front of them. One cast change is the arrival of
Nick Cannon as host. Let's hope that Nick won't read the teleprompter too much and will have better interactions with the contestants than Springer did.
Want to know more about this season's
AGT? Details coming up!
Continue reading Are you ready for America's Got Talent to take over your summer?
Posted Apr 30th 2009 8:02PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Game Show, Pickups and Renewals
Maybe my home town should offer tax incentives to the networks. It's working for Connecticut. Not only did NBC announce that the half-hour
syndicated version of Deal or No Deal is returning for a second season with host Howie Mandel, but it will be relocating and filming in Connecticut.
I guess with a game show it doesn't matter where you film since it's the same set all the time, but are there as many incredibly gorgeous chicks in Connecticut as there are in California? Isn't Cali where they all go to see their dreams of being an actress reduced to standing on a stage next to a briefcase?
Continue reading Syndicated Deal or No Deal renewed and relocated
Posted Feb 25th 2009 2:04PM by Richard Keller
Filed under: Industry, Programming, OpEd, Reality-Free, TV Squad Ten
Television as an industry is in need of a major overhaul. It's old, dusty, soiling itself, and not keeping up with the technology that changes from day to day. If it were an old, sick animal, or Larry King, it would probably be put to sleep. Alas, so many of us rely on the old biddy that it would be hard for us to say good-bye.
Luckily, I am a resourceful, intelligent and, dare I say it, gorgeous human being who has some ideas in mind to freshen up the television landscape. Yes, it may mean sacrifice from some of us (mainly network executives) and we may lose something in the process. But, in the end, the industry that we love to quietly despise while watching Cheaters will thrive once again.
Continue reading TV Squad Ten: What I would get rid of in television
Posted Feb 12th 2009 4:27PM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: Casting, Reality-Free, America's Got Talent
Last week, we learned that
Jerry Springer would not return as host of NBC's
America's Got Talent due to other commitments. TV Squad readers and I made a few suggestions to the network as to who could take on the role: David Hasselhoff, Brian Dunkleman, Neal Patrick Harris, and George Hamilton. The network went with option 5:
Nick Cannon.
As you can see, the audition and elimination process to find a new host was quite fast when compared to the months it takes to discover the next greatest sensation in America on the show! For sure, Cannon didn't have to perform in front of a live audience and the show's three judges -- Piers Morgan, David Hasselhoff and Sharon Osbourne -- to get the job.
Continue reading America's Got Talent discovers a new host
Posted Feb 12th 2009 11:04AM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: OpEd, Video, Talk Show, TV Squad Lists, Reality-Free
It's amazing how many bad talk shows there are on the air. I'm not talking about
The Late Show with David Letterman or
Late Night with Conan O'Brien or
Jimmy Kimmel Live. Those are good shows, and if you clicked on this list expecting to find any of them, you're going to be disappointed. The shows I picked are the talk shows that deal in exploitation, human degradation, and feature terrible, terrible people. In short, daytime talk shows!
Well, OK, I did include one late night talk show, but you'll have to click after the jump to see which one it is.
1. Maury (syndicated). Really, was there any question that this would be number one? It shouldn't even be called Maury anymore, they should just go ahead and call it Paternity Tests!, since that is what it's most known for. Doesn't Povich have enough money? Can't he do something else in his life besides this show? What does Connie think of this? Who knows, considering she co-hosted
one of the worst shows from a few years ago. If aliens watch our TV broadcasts and happen upon this show every single morning, we're all doomed.
Continue reading The six worst talk shows on TV right now - VIDEOS
Posted Feb 6th 2009 2:01PM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: Watercooler Talk, Celebrities, Casting, America's Got Talent
Back at the very end of August, it was announced that NBC's
America's Got Talent was renewed for a fourth season. When I wrote about this renewal, I included a few ideas to revamp the series because even if
AGT is one of the most popular summer shows, it doesn't mean we like everything about it!
Let's go down memory lane and remind ourselves of the first suggestion I wrote in that post:
- Change the host. Jerry Springer reads the teleprompter way too much. Also, his interactions with the contestants are sometimes painful to watch because Springer doesn't know what to tell them or how to act around them.
Could it be that the show's Powers That Be read my post? (Please don't burst my bubble here and let me think for a few seconds that I actually played a part in making my suggestion come true.) AOL announces today that
Jerry Springer is leaving AGT!
Continue reading America's Got Talent seeking new host
Posted Dec 4th 2008 9:00PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: OpEd, Video, TV Squad Lists, Reality-Free
OK, so yesterday I listed
six bad things about four good shows, so I thought today I'd flip it around. Even bad shows have good aspects.
1. Jerry Springer. I could probably plug a dozen other shows into the number one slot, including
Dr. Phil,
Tyra Banks,
Maury and others, but let's go with the classic. There's one good thing about this show:
it makes you feel infinitely better about your own life. If you're feeling bad about something that's going wrong in your life, maybe you've had a fight with your significant other or you've lost your job or you've lost your wallet, just turn on this show. Within five minutes you'll be saying, "wow, I'm glad I'm not any of these people." (
Cops gives me this feeling too, but I actually like that show.) And that includes the people in the audience.
Continue reading Four good things about three bad shows - VIDEO
Posted Oct 4th 2008 3:03PM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: OpEd, Watercooler Talk, America's Got Talent
If you've been reading my
America's Got Talent reviews over the summer, you know I was not happy with
last week's results. But since I'm a passive viewer (aka I do not vote), I had to accept America's choice as best new act in America. Since the finale aired, I've been reading comments TV Squad readers left on our site and what the
Entertainment Weekly AGT reviewer and readers had to say about the winner. Reading those comments left me with one question: who voted for the winner anyway?
Continue reading America's Got Talent aftermath: fan reactions against the winner
Posted Oct 1st 2008 10:29PM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: OpEd, Reality-Free, America's Got Talent
(S03E17) "The best new act in America." - The NarratorNot to worry, I won't spoil who won the
America's Got Talent before the jump. So since I have space to kill before I chit chat about the result show, let's use it for stats, shall we?
The first episode of the season aired on June 17, meaning that we spent 3 months and a half watching the competition unfold. In total, we've spend 31 hours and 13 minutes (including commercials) watching acts ranging from the awful to amazing as well as listen to the judges comments and Jerry reminding us that it's "One winner, one nation." Why 13 minutes? Well, the president's address last week cut the Top 5 episode short to 43 minutes according to NBC.
Now that I've used a few lines with stats that make us sound like people who didn't have much to do over the summer, let's get down to business....
Continue reading America's Got Talent: Episode 317 (season finale)
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