RosieOdonnell-related stories
Posted Jun 20th 2009 5:48PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Celebrities, Reality-Free
For some strange reason, I was initially compelled to start this installment of
Sketch Comedy Saturday with "Never fear,
Little Britain is here!" I suppose there was a need for a campy intro. Then, I realized that there are actually
plenty of things to fear in
Little Britain: Matt Lucas wearing really tight shorts, old women violently projectile vomiting on everything in sight, more Matt Lucas wearing really, really tight shorts ... Really, the horrifying list goes on.
Continue reading Sketch Comedy Saturday: Little Britain
Posted May 19th 2009 2:25PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Pickups and Renewals, Upfronts, Reality-Free
It was inevitable. Ever since Rosie O'Donnell grew a second head and spit venom at Elisabeth Hasselbeck,
The View has been on the radar. Even without current host Rosie O'Donnell, there's been buzz with new co-host Whoopi Goldberg. Hasselbeck keeps causing trouble on the set with her lone conservative voice, Whoopi is outspoken in her own right, Joy Behar is a lunatic and even Barbara Walters has been known to snag a headline or two. Of course Lifetime wants a piece of that buzz. And to get it they're grabbing ... uh ... Sherri Shepherd?
Doesn't Sherri Shepherd think she'll fall off the edge of the earth if she goes too far? I thought she was still there because they didn't want to have to rebuild the table with one fewer chair. Huh, I guess I was wrong.
Lifetime picked up Sherri Shepherd's sitcom Sherri for 12-episodes.
Continue reading The View's Sherri Shepherd is getting a Lifetime show
Posted May 15th 2009 7:06PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: American Idol, Watercooler Talk, Contestants, Alumni
Attention, Rosie O'Donnell: Simon Cowell promised that next week's
American Idol will be a ding-dong finale. Break out the Drake's Cakes! Actually, Simon wasn't referring to Rosie's favorite chocolate cake treat, he was using perhaps the strangest euphemism he could come up with to hype the finale which he anticipates -- and rightfully so -- a great showdown between two singers who could both be deservedly crowned the winner of
American Idol.
Adam Lambert vs. Kris Allen might seem like a heavyweight versus a bantam weight, one guy who's already been splashed on magazine covers -- last week's Entertainment Weekly -- as the presumptive champ, while the other was nearly knocked on his butt by the judge's song choice that was so bad that Simon faulted Kara and Randy for setting him up to fail.
Continue reading Anticipating a ding dong American Idol finale
Posted Jan 27th 2009 9:02AM by Eliot Glazer
Filed under: American Idol, Daytime, Video, Music and Variety, Watercooler Talk, Talk Show
Well, we're not through to Hollywood just yet, as the
American Idol auditions keep on keepin' on. Indeed, as promised by the show's producers, we're not seeing as many crazies as we have in years past. However, it's safe to say that the pool of eccentric
Idol wannabes has been anything but left on the cutting room floor. That's not going to happen anytime soon.
In terms of memorable performances thus far, Von Smith has arguably been "the big breakout," at least among the contestants on
American Idol's Kansas City stop (he sang "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" and wore a white fedora ... which, when you think about it, doesn't necessarily differentiate him from every other contestant).
Continue reading Before Idol, Von Smith was a YouTube sensation - VIDEO
Posted Jan 12th 2009 9:03AM by Eliot Glazer
Filed under: Programming, OpEd, Video, Game Show, Host
As far as we can tell, here are the responsibilities for hosting
Deal Or No Deal:
1. Repeat the painfully obvious rules of the game over and over and over.
2. Loudly announce the names of pretty ladies holding suitcases.
3. Pretend that a game requiring absolutely no skills whatsoever requires skills when choosing numbers in a logically devoid random order.
4. Convince fully-grown adults that you're not pretend-talking on the phone to a villainous, money-hungry banker.
5. Never
ever touch the palm of another human being.
Continue reading Howie does what exactly? - VIDEO
Posted Dec 5th 2008 12:06PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Industry, Music and Variety, Reality-Free
Memo to TBS: vaudeville is dead. Apparently, the folks at Turner never got that news flash.
TBS has greenlighted a vaudeville pilot to be hosted by Harland Williams. The half-hour installments -- should it get picked up -- would be a late-night entry.
That means you'd have to be up late and probably pretty bored with infomercials to not surf away from the jugglers, puppets, plate spinners, gymnasts and other novelty acts likely on the program.
TBS is serious about this concept, tentatively called
The TBS Comedy Roadshow, and if they emphasize the comedy aspect, maybe it'll find a niche. But the term vaudeville makes me very wary.
Continue reading TBS to try vaudeville...no kidding
Posted Nov 30th 2008 12:05PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Programming, Music and Variety, Celebrities, Cancellations, Ratings, Reality-Free
It seems that the show
NBC hoped would revive the variety show format was getting an autopsy before it even had a chance to get off of the operating table.
E! Online reports that Rosie O'Donnell said her live variety show, the cleverly named
Rosie Live, won't make it past the first episode, or as she so cutely wrote on her
web site, "there will b no more."
The one and only episode of Rosie's return from TV purgatory was dismal, to say the least.
Friday's Wednesday's episode only drew 5 million viewers, despite the appearance of high profile celebrities like
Alec Baldwin,
Alanis Morissette and
Ne-Yo to help them forget the fact that they were watching a show where Rosie O'Donnell is the star.
Continue reading Rosie Live now among the living dead
Posted Nov 28th 2008 10:33AM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Video, Ratings, Reality-Free
It looks like
Rosie Live has been declared dead. Her attempt at reviving the variety show format
tied for the lowest-rated program of the evening.
Frankly, I don't think it's necessarily a death-knell for the format so much as the host. Rosie's
highly-
publicized feuds have certainly soured me on watching any sort of television program hosted by her.
In comparison, Stephen Colbert's
A Colbert Christmas pretty much embraced the variety show format (with enough changes to keep it modern and interesting) and it was great entertainment. Granted, cable stations don't have the ratings requirements of network and the entire special was pretty much an attempt to sell the DVD (in a humorous, non-annoying fashion). If some other Broadway-style celebrity hosted the same show, I'm willing to bet ratings would have been higher.
I've embedded a video from
Rosie Live after the jump, guest-starring Alec Baldwin. I'll let you folks judge for yourselves whether or not Rosie's variety show is cringe-worthy or simply unappreciated.
Continue reading Rosie does not equal ratings - VIDEO
Posted Nov 26th 2008 10:04PM by Debra McDuffee
Filed under: Music and Variety, Episode Reviews
I grew up on
The Lawrence Welk Show (during visits to my grandmother) and
Donny and Marie, so my affinity for the variety show started young. I was always a little bit rock-and-roll, which is why I couldn't help but like the
Nick and Jessica Variety Hour specials when they aired several years back; it was in my blood.
So I was curious to check out
Rosie Live! tonight. I expected some goofy skits, like from
Laugh In (or
Nick and Jessica), but instead we got some authentic conversation with the guests, some horribly executed guest visits, some unknown talent that was almost painful to watch and ... show tunes.
I liken
Rosie Live! to a parade. You wait through the whole broadcast for those special floats that don't come until the end, and of course for the bigger-than-life balloons. The balloons never came, folks.
Continue reading Rosie Live! - the parade with no balloons
Posted Nov 25th 2008 12:06PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: News, Celebrities, Reality-Free
You know that Barbara Walters-Rosie O'Donnell dust up this week with the two former
View co-stars trading comments/insults about the sins of the past? Well, it smelled to me of a publicity stunt and now I'm convinced of it.
Turns out both divas will be having TV specials on Wednesday night, November 26. That's tomorrow night.
Rosie Live will air at 8 o'clock on NBC.
Meanwhile, Barbara Walters
has snagged Barack and Michelle Obama for a one-hour news special to air at 10 o'clock on ABC on November 26. What a coincidence!
Continue reading Barbara Walters snags the Obamas for a sit down
Posted Nov 13th 2008 1:00AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Programming, Music and Variety, Reality-Free
Once upon a time the airwaves were filled with TV variety shows. There were stars like Sonny and Cher and Donny and Marie, and further back,
The Ed Sullivan Show and
The Carol Burnett Show.
Well, Rosie O'Donnell remembers that kind of TV entertainment, and she thinks it's what America wants now.
As Bob reported not long ago, NBC is giving her an hour to see if anyone agrees, the night before Thanksgiving,
November 26, from 9-10 p.m. ET, Rosie Live will air live from the Shubert Theater in New York.
The news today is that Rosie has booked
Ne-Yo and
Alanis Morissette to provide the musical portion of the program. The plans for the rest of the hour include a topical monologue, which Rosie should have no problem pulling off because she did one every day on her daytime talk show.
Continue reading Rosie Live...or how NBC is trying to revive TV variety shows
Posted Jul 4th 2008 9:20AM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Celebrities, Reality-Free
In what has got to be the funniest news article I've read today, Rosie O'Donnell compares her time
as one of the hostesses of The View to prison rape. The comment was made while O'Donnell appeared at Cyndi Lauper's True Colors tour in Vancouver (Yes,
Cyndi Lauper still tours).
She uses the specific example of the movie
Born Innocent starring Linda Blair. There's a scene involving a broom that doesn't need to be described any further. Needless to say, it was very graphic and quite controversial at the time. Out of curiosity, does this comparison make Barbara Walters the evil warden character?
Continue reading Rosie O'Donnell raped by The View
Posted Jun 10th 2008 7:41AM by Kristin Sample
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, TV Royalty, Industry, Celebrities, Reality-Free
The former
Friends cast member will be heading up the
Los Angeles-set parts of the new HBO s comedy show Little Britain.The show is the U.S. counterpart to the
BBC sketch show of the same name. The series will focus on the hijinx of British comedians Matt Lucas and David Walliams (stars from the BBC show) here stateside. They are currently filming in North Carolina. Schwimmer will be directing the studio segments of the six-part HBO series here in California. Guests for his segments include Rosie O'Donnell and Sting.
This isn't the first time Schwimmer will be directing or showing his love of all things British. He directed a few episodes of
Friends. And this past year, made his feature directorial debut with
Run Fat Boy Run The film starred Simon Pegg as a non-committal cad who has a change of heart toward the mother of his child and enters a marathon to prove his love.
Posted May 30th 2008 3:22PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, Game Show, Early Looks, Reality-Free
Here's the thing about game show revivals: you have to satisfy people on two levels. For fans of the old show, you have to make the gameplay of the new show familiar enough to keep them happy and coming back. And, in order to attract new fans, you have to modernize and add touches that will suck in viewers and help build drama. That's one of the reasons why most new game shows have
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire-style darkened sets with swirling lights, and depend on ominous music and tight camera angles to create drama.
Million Dollar Password, premiering Sunday at 8 PM ET, has all of that. They even nabbed
Millionaire's original American host, Regis Philbin, to give it that extra bit of primetime oomph. But does it work? Well... sorta. Fans of the Allen Ludden / Tom Kennedy / Bert Convy incarnations might be dissatisfied with what they've done to their old favorite, but even an objective observer can see that the gameplay has some flaws that are going to need to be worked out for the show to succeed.
Continue reading Million Dollar Password -- An early look
Posted May 17th 2008 12:03PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Programming, Daytime, Talk Show
ABC in turning things around on
The View -- at least for one day. In what a cynic might call a stunt,
The View is going to broadcast one show from the next two weeks from backstage. Essentially, what they're doing, is a rerun, but in a way you never saw the show.
On Friday, May 30, the experimental episode will show how
The View is made, by lifting the curtain so you can see how the magic happens. They've chosen to show the upside down, backstage
View on that Friday - and don't worry about marking it in your calendar. You can expect plenty of reminders from Barbara Walters (if she's there), Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Sherri Shepherd. With all that behind the scenes footage, only half of the show as seen originally -- from the camera's point of view -- will be seen.
Continue reading The View to try a new point of view
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