TVSquad

"Deedee Chappel. Get ready to unzip your pants!" - Lowell

That's one of my favorite lines in TV history, and I'm happy to say it was uttered in a show I had the pleasure of being an extra in many years ago, NBC's Wings. A great friend of mine, Suzanne, worked on the show and, since I was going out to Los Angeles for a vacation, she got me on the set as an extra. The episode was titled "If It's Not One Thing, It's Your Mother" and guest-starred Debbie Reynolds. It was filmed in October of 1994 and aired on November 22.

By now, TV fans are getting used to some of their favorite shows being edited when they are released on DVD. Sometimes this is because syndicated versions of the shows are used (why I have no idea) and sometimes it's because they couldn't get the rights to use certain music/songs on the DVD so they have to take them out and/or replace them with different music. It's this latter point that has fans of The Fugitive up in arms.

For the release of The Fugitive: Season Two, Volume One (oh, I hate these volume releases, but that's for another post), CBS Home Entertainment not only replaced music in certain scenes and certain episodes, they completely stripped all of the music (except the title theme) from certain episodes and did it over with soundalike versions. They also replaced the music that plays over the closing credits.

It's the end of an era today. One of the longest running syndicated talk shows is airing its last show. The Montel Williams Show wraps today after 17 years of discussion, controversy, interviews and inspiration. But just because the show is ending, that doesn't mean Montel is going away. At the final New York City taping in March, he explained to the adoring throng, "I'm not retiring. I am stopping The Montel Williams Show, but I am not, in any way, shape or form, stopping anything else that I'm doing."

Williams' show has actually been one of the more dignified syndicated daytime talk shows, a step above Jerry Springer and Maury Povich, but not quite The View or Ellen DeGeneres. His style could be compared to Phil Donahue, especially in his desire to be a change agent. He really cared about the people who appeared on his program; it wasn't about being a ring leader to a freak show, as Jerry is, or confronting people with DNA tests like Maury does. Montel was not into that stuff.

Get your paper clips and elastic bands out because there is a MacGyver movie in the works! According to the Dark Horizons website, MacGyver creator Lee David Zlotoff announced over the weekend at Maker Faire 2008 that a big budget movie based on the series was in the planning stages.

Sadly, he revealed no specifics about the movie other than he got the movie rights a few years ago and has total control over the movie.

When I was younger, people I knew had various ways of smoking weed. One guy even made a bong out of an apple once. I didn't know it at the time, but now I look back and he seems like the MacGyver of pot smokers. Though he's not the only one who did such a thing, of course.

Case in point: the cover of the new Comedy Central Home Grown DVD. It's a DVD that showcases various episodes of Comedy Central shows, including Chappelle's Show, Reno 911, TV Funhouse, The Sarah Silverman Program, Lewis Black's Root of All Evil, and Strangers with Candy. This is the cover that Paramount released to media outlets back in March. Now they've changed the cover to this, a closeup of a giant mushroom. Looks like they had second thoughts about having a bong on the cover of a DVD and decided to change it. Of course, I'm not sure if a mushroom connection is something they thought about all the way (and also having some people think of a penis when they see the cover, ahem).

The DVD comes out on June 10.

Paramount, Lionsgate and MGM are launching a new premium cable channel next year that will likely strip Showtime of much of its theatrical movie content. Showtime was originally a sister company to Paramount until 2006 when Viacom president and CEO Les Moonves split the two companies into separate entities.

One of the reasons cited for this move was by the Showtime's vice president of corporate public relations Stu Zakim. He stated that the network no longer wanted to pay "outrageous license fees" for theatrical content.

This is actually a natural progression for the bigger name cable channels. As they develop more original content, they no longer need to rely on the movie studios to provide content for them. This is a far cry from the early days of cable television when HBO and Showtime were known as the channels from which you could watch R-rated movies in the comfort of your own home.

Don't you just love the web? News traveling so fast, ideas extrapolated and speculated upon based on the simplest of facts. That said, here's a sweet little tidbit that I found amusing. Tom Cruise was spotted on the Los Angeles set of the new Star Trek feature film. He reportedly was visiting writer/director JJ Abrams. The two men, you'll recall, collaborated on Mission Impossible 3.

This exclusive, courtesy of JFXOnline, revealed that Tom stuck around the set for a couple of hours. Prior to this sighting, there had also been talk last fall that Abrams had wanted to enlist the superstar to make a brief cameo appearance in the revamped Star Trek opus, telling the story of how creator Gene Roddenberry's original characters came to be. How Captain Kirk made it out of the Star Fleet Academy (in The Wrath of Khan he said he cheated on his Kobyashi Maru simulation test), as well as the first time Kirk met the half-Vulcan, half-human Mr. Spock.

It looks like Star Trek fans are going to have to wait until May 2009 to see their franchise reboot. According to Variety, Paramount Pictures has pushed back the release date because they feel it would make more money as a summer tentpole.

The reboot is being masterminded by J.J. Abrams, who is behind such television shows as Alias and Lost. It stars Chris Pine as Captain Kirk and Zachary Quinto as Mr. Spock. Leonard Nimoy, who originated the role of Spock in the 1960's, will be returning as well in the movie as an older Spock.

Frankly, I think this is a bad idea. While the movie-going public increases during the summer, Star Trek has the benefit of family appeal that would make it perfect as a Christmas Day release once the gifts are open and the family starts realizing that it can't stand each other.

Did you know that there is a total of 397 "judge" shows on TV right now? Just turn on your TV at any point during the morning or afternoon and you're bound to catch one. And now one of them, Judge Judy, is being sued by a former producer on the show.

Jonathan Sebastien, who was a producer on Judge Judy for seven years, says he was fired from the show not because ratings were down (the official reason) but because he opposed the racial screening that occurs on the show. Sebastien says that the show's supervisor, Randy Douthit, told him that he didn't want to do "anymore black shows" or have "black people arguing" or hear "black language on TV." Sebastien says that he got cases that involved black people and they were turned down.

Parties being sued are Douthit, Paramount, CBS, and Big Ticket Television.

[via TV Tattle]

The giveaways continue today! Not only are we giving away five copies of Jericho season one, we've also got five copies of Charmed season eight on DVD for five lucky, random commenters. The set is already available in stores. Remember, we've also got Nip/Tuck DVDs we've giving away.

To enter, simply leave a comment below before 5:00PM Eastern, Friday, October 12, simply telling us your favorite episode from the series (this being the final season DVD and all). As always, we'll randomly choose five winners amongst the eligible entries. Some other details:
Click here for complete Official Rules.

If you're a TV fan and have been around for a while, the TV logos/credit montage in the video after the jump is going to be like a trip back in time, a history of television in 5 minutes and 33 seconds.

Some of them are national logos (Paramount, Sid and Marty Krofft, Viacom, Desilu), and some of them will probably only be known to people in certain markets (Lexington Broadcast Services?). Some of the companies are repeated, but you get to see different logos they used.

It's becoming clear that if you plan on buying every season of a TV show, at least the more popular ones, you might want to wait a couple of years (if you can wait, that is). They're coming out with more and more "complete sets" and if you buy the sets individually you're probably paying more (and missing out on some extras, though that's not always the case).

Here's another one. CBS/Paramount will release a complete set for Star Trek: The Next Generation on October 2, to celebrate the show's 20th anniversary.

No, not the TV Funhouse from Saturday Night Live (that's already on DVD, a best of). I'm talking about the short-lived Comedy Central series that that Robert Smigel did in 2000-2001. Paramount has announced that the DVD is coming in December.

If you've never seen the show, it was truly one of the more bizarre TV shows we've ever seen on television. It took the form of a kids shows hosted by Doug Dale and his "Anipals," really crass, creepy puppets. Each show had a "theme," such as "Western Day" or "Christmas Day" or "Astronaut Day."

If you've been wondering where Pat O'Brien was the first few days of this month on The Insider (luckily I don't have to worry about such things anymore as I've stopped watching the show), the host fell and hit his head. He had to get stitches and was out for three episodes of the show. He hasn't said much about the accident, except that he fell and got hurt, and no one at Paramount is saying anything either.

This is the part of the post where I would normally talk about his past drug use and bizarre voicemails and drinking, but all that probably had nothing to do with this accident so I won't even mention it.

O'Brien is back on the show, reporting on Anna Nicole Smith's death.

[via TV Tattle]

OK, so you're one of the people who is waiting for the first season sets of The Streets of San Francisco and/or The Untouchables to be released. But now comes word that both Paramount sets have been delayed a week.

The Untouchables set will now be released on April 10, a week later than originally announced, while the Streets of San Francisco set will also be released on April 10.

But there's one piece of good news, for fans of Twin Peaks: the second season will actually be released a week earlier than previously announced, on April 3. That's a Paramount title too. Maybe they wanted to get this one out a week earlier than the other two releases for some reason.