TVSquad

(S06E12) As a result of adopting (and by adopting, I mean bird-napping) a parrot from the veterinarian's office, Peter becomes a pirate. The sad part was that it wasn't even International Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day.

Actually, that's not really what the episode is about. It's more about Chris' pursuit of a vet intern named Anna. While Chris' pursues Anna, he gets advice from Peter and the gang (which, as the history of the show has proven, is never a good idea).

The pirate segment of the episode wasn't very good and seemed out of place. Fortunately, it was very short. Despite its use in the promos, it was kind of forgettable. I did enjoy the car chase bit involving "sugar cane, tobacco and spices". The car chase itself seemed like something of a cross between a pirate movie and a video-game.

(S06E11) Brian learns that he had an illegitimate 13-year-old child from a previous relationship (voiced by Harvey Fierstein). The child is dropped off at the Griffin household and Brian now has to raise him.

It should be noted that this season has been shortened to 12 episodes, most likely due to the writer's strike. The season finale will be shown next week. The remaining unfinished episodes will be part of next season's broadcast.

From March 14th to March 27th, The Paley Center for Media is presenting the twentieth-fifth annual William S. Paley Television Festival. The Paley Center, formerly the Museum of Television and Radio, says that the festival celebrates "television's rich and diverse programming and the creative process behind the medium." This year the festival includes Chuck, Friday Night Lights, Pushing Daisies, and Gossip Girl among others.

Last night, I attended the Buffy the Vampire Slayer reunion. For what happened during the panel discussion and some pictures, read on past the jump...

(S06E01) A long time ago, but somehow in the future . . .

Who would've thunk it? When Family Guy premiered back in 1999(!) many people tossed it away as a pale imitation of The Simpsons and kind of ignored it. Who knew that eight years later, at the start of the show's 6th season, Seth MacFarlane and his crew would be able to get the approval of George Lucas himself to air a spoof of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. It shows how far Family Guy has come since it returned to the prime-time airwaves.

By now, you've probably heard about Britney Spears superfan Chris Crocker and his tearful pleas to leave poor Britney alone after her not so auspicious return to MTV's Video Music Awards. You haven't seen it yet? Well, click right here to view the video before you continue. Done? Feel scared? Wondering if that's a boy or a girl (it's a boy)? Even more scared? Now you're ready to continue.

As we live in a world of instantaneous ridicule, plenty of videos have gone up on YouTube and other video sties mocking Crocker. One of these comes from Seth Green, he of Robot Chicken and Family Guy fame (oh, and that show that featured a girl vampire killer. Her name was Barbara, Belinda, Beefy . . . I can't remember).

Out of the dozens and dozens of shows that go to pilot every season, we only see a handful. Some of them vanish forever and some might end up online in one way or another.

Below is a list of ten shows that didn't make the fall schedule on the networks this year. Some of them might show up midseason, but most won't. And just for a little added fun, I've included three shows that are completely made up. Can you tell which ones they are? I'll answer in the comments later tonight (and don't go looking online for the answer; that's no fun). The shows are listed after the jump. Some of them sound crazy, but hey, if you told me two years ago that those Geico cavemen commercials would be a series...

The stage version of Family Guy will be in Chicago next month. That's right, there's a stage version of the Fox show. Family Guy Live started in 2004 at a Montreal comedy festival and then had a couple of shows in LA and New York in 2005. It appeared again in Montreal this summer and now is headed for a two-night gig in Chicago.

The live show features all the actors who do voices for the show, including creator Seth MacFarlane, Mila Kunis, Seth Green, Mike Henry and Alex Borstein. The performance is a compilation of musical numbers from the actual series. And, because it's live, I can only imagine that it hasn't been nearly as censored as it would be on Fox.

There will be just two shows in September 15th at the Chicago Theater. The production coincides with Family Guy's syndication on Tribune stations, which have headquarters in Chicago.

And now we return to E! True Hollywood Story -- Optimus Prime.

The early 21st century wasn't kind to the Autobot leader. With revenues from his successful 80's cartoon drying up, the accumulated losses he took from his investments in WorldCom and Enron, and the disaster that was the short-lived game show Autobot or Decepticon, Optimus Prime could barley put a cube of Energon on the table. He tried to get back in television with small bit parts on According to Jim and Still Standing but no one was really watching.

Geeks get treated pretty badly in the media. Thanks to the fact that most people who get above-the-line credit in Hollywood are anything but geeky, when a script calls for a socially maladjusted character, it's almost always a terrible caricature of true geek culture. For years little geeklings only had the likes of Steve Urkel to look up to and that's not right (believe me, Jaleel White, when the geek revolution comes, you'll be the first one guillotined).

The fact that I'm about to become the father of my own little geek-spawn has led me to start looking around the current TV landscape, looking for appropriate geek role models. I was surprised to find so many...

Before action figures became collectibles that should never, ever be removed from their little plastic bubble packaging boys and girls actually played with them. Sometimes, the adventures that these little characters had were not what they were intended for. In fact, I'm sure that some of these action figures did things that would make a grown man blush.

Boy, howdy! If you don't have the TiVo or DVR (or, for the non-believers, VCR) cleared out by Sunday night you are going to miss a ton of Robot Chicken. In addition to the show's tribute to everything Star Wars premiering on Father's Day evening, the entire Adult Swim schedule will be dedicated to everything Robot Chicken from the beginning of their broadcast schedule till the break of dawn.

It will begin with the 30-minute Star Wars special at 10 pm. The special will then air at the top of each hour until Adult Swim's broadcast day ends at 6 a.m. Monday morning to make room for parent Cartoon Network. At the bottom of each hour Robot Chicken creators Seth Green and Matt Senreich will air their favorite episodes.

USA Today has a nice article about Green, Senreich, and the special they created. In it they talk about what they had to go through to get Star Wars creator George Lucas' blessing to create such a special, and to get Lucas to provide his voice in one of the scenes. I wonder if that blessing also extended to another show that Seth is involved with -- Family Guy. I'm sure it's no coincidence that the FOX animated comedy is doing it's own spoof of Star Wars for next season.

Long before he was turning into a werewolf on Buffy or creating puppets on Robot Chicken, Seth Green had a really bad haircut.

After the jump is a video of a 1992 commercial for a Nerf slingshot. It features Green and Cracked.com editor Jack O'Brien as two kids going to the mall, trying to pick up chicks. They decide to use their Nerf slingshots to shoot the girls in the face, which I guess was the most effective flirting technique back in the day. In the process, they also kill a mime.

Judging from the hair and the clothing, the video looks like it's from the 80s, but it's not. The youngest I've ever seen Green was in a mid-80s episode of Spenser: For Hire. He had normal hair then.

[via Cracked.com]

(S01E03) Oz (Seth Green) about Angel: He's very pale. Paler than most people.

If there was any doubt that Angel was still part of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer universe it was smothered quickly with this episode as not one, but two members of the Buffy cast appeared. Actually, when the show first aired back in October of 1999, it was the second part of a story that began on Buffy, which appeared on the same network as Angel back in the olden days.

In the Buffy episode vampire Spike (James Masters) searches for the Gem of Ammara:  a ring that makes vampires impervious to death and allows them to go out into the sunlight without bursting into flame. Buffy manages to find the ring and asks Oz (Seth Green) to deliver it to Angel (David Borenanz) in Los Angeles. Spike also travels to L.A. to meet up with his old blood-sucking friend and torture him to death. Ah, friendship.

 

NBC must think we're desperate for television during the summer (OK, that might be true). The network is going to air all the remaining episodes of Four Kings as soon as May ratings are over. You may remember that NBC swiftly canceled Four Kings way back in March when everybody realized that it sucked (Sorry, Seth Green. I still heart you! Robot Chicken rocks!).

The remaining six episodes begin airing on Thursday, May 25 at 8:30 pm. It looks as though they'll continue each Thursday night until the new America's Got Talent results show takes over the timeslot on July 13.

Now that 2005 is behind us, we can look forward to new and returning favorite shows all this month on television. What will you be watching?

South Beach (Wednesdays, UPN) Two hot, New York City working-class bachelors leave the big city behind to follow one of their girlfriends to South Beach, FL, only to discover that she has a new boyfriend. They get mixed up with the rich and famous in the club scene. After viewing a sneak preview on UPN's website, it looks like a guilty pleasure like The O.C., except with more sex and no high school. Jennifer Lopez is the executive producer and it co-stars Vanessa Williams as a club owner and mother to one of the main characters. South Beach premieres on Wednesday, Jan. 11 at 8 pm.