TVSquad

...the Bio channel hopes that you do. Bio is looking to expand its programming schedule for the new TV season with a number of new shows and pilots, including Celebrity Ghost Stories.

The show will offer eight hour-long episodes featuring celebs like Carrie Fisher, Joan Rivers and Scott Baio talking about their real-life run-ins with ghosts.

OK, this show sounds crazy, but I'm gonna watch it anyway. I'll skip the Joan Rivers ep (she's nuts, so I buy that she sees ghosts, giant purple elephants and God knows what else all day), but I'm curious to hear what Carrie Fisher has to say.

All this month, AOL TV is publishing their list of TV's hottest hunks of all time. That's a lot of hunks, but probably they won't all be memorable to you -- or to me.

Because when were you swooning over TV hunks? When you were a teenager, of course. Unless you are really, really immature. But seriously, I am guessing that beyond the age of 16 or so, you probably didn't plaster any Teen Magazine pin-ups on your bedroom walls.

As a teenager of the '80s, I surely had my favorite TV hunks. Yep, they were plastered on my bedroom walls, too: imagine hunk wallpaper and you've got the idea. So who on TV mingled amongst the movie actors of the Brat Pack?

Here are the new TV DVDs, in stores tomorrow.

Lots of complete series sets this week, including two you probably thought you'd never see, Quark and Ultraman. I have no nostalgic memories of Ultraman, but Quark was a show I enjoyed. It's also neat to see shows like The Shari Lewis Show or DVD.

I wonder why the Back To You set isn't a complete series set instead of just Season 1? Maybe it was already in production before the show was canceled.

• Back To You - Season 1
• CSI - Season 8
• Charlie and Lola - Vol. 1-8
• The Deputy - Best Of
• Life with Derek - Season 1
• Lil' Bush - Season 2
• Lovejoy - Christmas Specials
• Nash Bridges - Season 1
• The Partridge Family - Season 3
• Quark - Complete Series
• Rules of Engagement - Season 2
• The Sarah Silverman Program - Season 2, Vol. 1
• Scott Baio is 45... - Seasons 1 and 2
• The Shari Lewis Show - A Shari Lewis Christmas
• SpongeBob SquarePants - Who Bob What Pants
• Survivorman - Season 2
• That 70s Show - Complete Series
• Ultraman - Complete Series
• The Unit - Season 3
• The Universe - Complete Series

Americans are utterly obsessed with celebrities ... particularly their lives away from the limelight. Numerous television "news" programs and magazines highlight stars doing normal things that many of us would do on a daily basis. So, it was only logical that reality series have been built around some of these personalities to highlight their time away from the camera.

Yet it didn't work out as was intended. Rather than showing that these personalities were normal people, they showed the viewers how messed up they, and their families, really were. In some of the earlier Celebreality programs, they even showed unknown weaknesses that fans never knew existed. Despite all of this, viewers have been tuning into these shows each and every week to watch ... just like they would if video of different train wrecks were aired each week.

This fan base has given many of these stars a second, third, or fourth chance at success -- even if their boat sailed a long time ago. Such is the case during the Reality Revolution, where even the most famous can receive fifteen more minutes of fame.

A high profile family like the Bluth clan requires a large staff to meet its needs. They need to keep up the image (make that illusion) of their lifestyle, after all. Yacht crews, maids, and Segway repairmen are basic necessities. The skilled professionals were the ones that kept the Bluths going. Here are a few of my favorites:

Gene Parmesan (Martin Mull) - As private eyes go, Gene was not a top-notch detective. If he spent more time investigating and less time on his disguises, he might have discovered George Sr.'s infidelity back in the day. I can't decide which is funnier: Gene's satisfied smirk whenever he took off his disguise, or Lucille's screams when he tricked her. It's a shame that Martin Mull only stuck around for a single episode. Perhaps the writers wanted to let Gene leave on high note after locating George Sr. and hanging out with G.O.B.

The list of qualities that made Arrested Development such a great show is quite long, but somewhere near the top, right after the cast, is the list of recurring characters who were so hilarious. Here my ten favorite acquaintances of the Bluth family.

1. Barry Zuckercorn (Henry Winkler)
It is a credit to the brilliance of Arrested Development that an actor like Henry Winkler, who will forever be identified with the role of Fonzie, can be identified with a character who could not be more different. The hilarity that comes from Barry's sexual deviancy and complete legal ineptitude is reason enough to watch.

Like a lot of my TV Squad assignments, I went into this one under the belief that it would be a hoot. I figured that unreal reality shows would have a high camp value and I could enjoy them the same way that I enjoy The Last Dragon.

Here's what I learned: Gene Simmons... Bruce Leroy you are not. The next time I refer to something as a potential "hoot", I've given my wife permission to beat me unconscious with a shovel. A severe beating would be less painful than watching another minute of our nominee shows.

That said, I did enjoy the process of figuring out which show would "win" this award. After careful consideration of the words of my wizened TV Squad colleagues and the input of our enlightened readership, we have finally found our winner.

I was reading Brad's post about bad superhero shows, and the site he linked to picked the Cathy Lee Crosby version of Wonder Woman, which I think is silly. It was much better than the Lynda Carter version and was smart enough to use an instrumental theme song, not one with lyrics. When you try to put lyrics to a superhero show theme song, the results are usually very bad.

Here are my choices for five horrible lyrics from TV theme songs. I'm not saying these are the worst. Maybe this could be a regular feature. There are so many to choose from, but these really stand out. (I did a similar post a couple of years ago, but it was strictly bizarre lyrics, not necessarily "bad" ones. The list needs to be updated, especially since I didn't include the number one choice.)

There's a bit by Patton Oswalt on his brain-meltingly good comedy album Feeling Kind of Patton regarding reality television. The short version: if we keep making reality shows, we will eventually run out of reality to film. (Believe me, the short version isn't even in the ballpark of how funny the bit is; go buy this album immediately).

Like Arthur C. Clarke's predictions of geostationary satellites and floating man-god fetuses, Oswalt's vision of a reality-free future is eerily accurate. While our physical space hasn't quite been eaten by a giant white wave yet, the signs of reality's destruction are as obvious as the motivations behind Tila Tequila's bisexuality. Most glaring? The very words "reality television" connote an unreal experience.

After careful consideration, we at TV Squad, along with your input, have winnowed down the hundreds of possible candidates for "most unreal reality show" to these five...

Let's face it, we get old. Some of us live a long and glorious life, dying happily in our sleep next to the 26-year-old Penthouse Pet of the Month who is just with our wrinkled old selves because we have money. Others live to the ripe old age of 30 and have a wonderful Lastday ceremony. It really doesn't matter...we get old one way or another.

Most of us try not to admit we are getting old. We use dyes, we have surgeries to move things around, and we pump ourselves with poison so our faces to retain that wonder wax museum sheen. Yet, there are those occasions where you hear about something that triggers that little part of your brain that makes you want to whip out the Bran Flakes and prunes. Here are just a few television-related events that may just have you looking for retirement communities in Florida.

In this business we call show, there are those people who never let us forget that they are involved to make money. Luckily, those people often occupy the off camera part of the business and let the performers worry about making art. Meanwhile, the business types sit back and try to think up ways they can make more money off of the performers. One of the most insidious ways is to appeal to the star's ego and convince them to make a recording. What follows are some of the best -- and by "best," I mean "WTF?"

Phyllis Diller
"You're Different"
Most people today recognize he name Phyllis Diller but have no idea why she was famous, however if they watch this clip, they can be sure that it isn't for singing.

This weekend Scott Baio tied the knot with his longtime girlfriend Renee Sloan. Many guests were in attendance; the most recognizable, however, would have to have been the cameras and crew for his show on VH-1.

Last year, Baio starred in his own reality show called Scott Baio is 45 and Single. Personally, when I heard about this show, I was worried. If Scott Baio is actually 45 then I must be much older than I thought.

I'm getting a strong vibe that when Scott Baio is 45...and Single returns to VH1 it's not going to be named Scott Baio is 45...and Single. If the title remains the same then new viewers are going to be awfully confused when they see the former Happy Days star in a committed relationship raising his brand new daughter.

A daughter that arrived a bit early. Instead of entering the world in December, Baio's daughter arrived on November 2nd, a good five weeks early according to reports. Despite the early arrival Baio's daughter weighed 5lbs. 10oz. at birth. Both the daughter and mother, Baio's long-time girlfriend (now fiance) Renee Sloan are doing fine.

The name of Baio's daughter has yet to be released. Therefore, we get to speculate. Erin? Joanie? Pam? Chachiella?

This week I got a great letter that brought back some fond memories.

Curtis Smith writes:
"I'm sure you hear this all the time, but for the last couple of years i have been trying to remember a short lived TV show that I saw in the mid to late 80's. It was about a kid who's dad was a secret agent and the kid some how got involved with the government. the only episode i can sort of remember is him trying to hide an attractive spy from his mom. Any help you have would be great. "

Remember when VH1 was home to videos that MTV would no longer play as well as shows like Behind the Music? Not anymore, it isn't. Today, VH1 is home to reality shows featuring many of your favorite (or not so favorite) 70's and 80's personalities. Recent shows have starred such icons as Christopher Knight, Danny Bonaduce and Dustin Diamond, who is sooo not Screech.

The most recent addition to this 'blast from the past' line-up was Scott Baio is 45 . . . and Single, which starred former Charles in Charge and Happy Days heartthrob Scott Baio. The show focused on Baio's issues with commitment and the lengths he went through to get past them all. Well, the show garnered enough attention (1 million adult viewers each week) that VH1 has decided to renew the show for a second 9-episode season. Production of this new season, which will comprise 6 half-hour and three hour-long episodes, will begin in the fall.

Slight spoilers after the jump. Don't blame me if you read them.