TVSquad

It's that time of year when we get all the deliciously creepy shows and movies haunting our TV sets as we head into Halloween. Turner Classic Movies is airing some great ones this weekend, including Poltergeist, Dr. X, and The Blob. Check out their schedule to see when they're airing.

I have to agree with John that sometimes the ghost hunter shows don't always deliver. Then again, sometimes just the idea of where they're going is frightening. Last night, I watched an episode of Ghost Adventures on the Travel Channel, and the guys took their gear into the bowels of an abandoned insane asylum. I happened to grow up in a town with an abandoned insane asylum (converted to very nice retail/business now), and I know firsthand that these places are pretty creepy.

It's not enough that Andrew Zimmern goes around the world eating bizarre things, now he has to go around the world to introduce us to bizarre people doing bizarre things (bizarrely). It's Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre World. He's trying to create a media empire based on the word "bizarre." Here's a sneak peek of tonight's debuts (more here).

I could probably write something about politics, sex, healthcare, education, or religion and it wouldn't be as controversial as what I'm about to say: Anthony Bourdain is wrong and Sandra Lee is right.

If you haven't been keeping track of the things Bourdain has been saying about the Food Network host, here's a quick summary. Bourdain wrote some unkind things about Lee and her Semi-Homemade Show (and some other Food Network hosts) a couple of years ago. Among other things he called her "pure evil," a "hell spawn," and said "she must be stopped." Ouch. There's also this video of Bourdain at a food festival dumping on Lee, and now Bourdain has written on his blog about his recent brief encounter with Lee. at the premiere of Julie & Julia.

The idea of a guy traveling around America and making a glutton of himself in a different city every week doesn't sound, at first blush, very appealing to me. No one needs another over-eating American stereotype gorging themselves for our amusement every week. Did we learn nothing from Morgan Spurlock?

That said, I love Man v. Food, which begins its second season tonight at 10PM on the Travel Channel. I love the show mainly because I like the host, Adam Richman. Richman is amiable and a bit shlubby, and I identify with that. And as unpleasant as that stereotype of the gluttonous American might be, I love comfort food, and that's what Man v. Food is all about.

The new season of Man vs. Food starts tomorrow on Travel Channel. If you've never seen it, host Adam Richman goes around to various eating establishments across the country and eats stuff. Not just anything on a menu, we're talking about giant hamburgers, a 13-pound pizza, 12 egg omelets, stuff like that. In tomorrow's episode he eats a burger so hot he has to wear gloves.

Howdy from Pasadena! Anyone who's been following either TV Squad's or my personal Twitter feed has noticed that I've been busy at the first day of the TCA press tour. Cable is up first; today was a relatively light day, with the Travel Channel, Fox Reality, and Turner making presentations. AMC will have a cocktail party later today, where I'm sure Matthew Weiner is going to be bombarded by reporters with Mad Men questions before he even reaches the shrimp spread.

The first panel was for the Travel Channel's ode to regional food and gluttony, Man v. Food. Host Adam Richman and executive producer Charlie Parsons took questions from the critics about their upcoming second season and about why they pick the cities they pick. I love the show, but I always wondered how Richman was able to withstand the quantity challenges he puts himself through in many of the episodes. Richman's answer? A workout regimen that makes him sound more like a GNC employee than a guy scarfing seven pound cheeseburgers.

There's one thing weirder than a Japanese game show, and that's a reality show that goes behind the scenes of a Japanese game show. That's what Are You Game? is. It stars veteran game show host/entertainment reporter Todd Newton, who decides to go to Japan and be a contestant on a series of crazy game shows to see what happens (and maybe win a car). It's I Survived A Japanese Game Show: The Todd Newton Story.

It's really a no-brainer. What's a better second home for CBS's perennial Emmy-winning reality show The Amazing Race than the Travel Channel? What doesn't make sense to me is that the Travel Channel picked up seasons 12-14 of The Amazing Race. Season 13 premieres September 28 on CBS, with Travel debuting last year's Season 12 a few weeks earlier on September 3. But why didn't the Travel Channel just pick up the whole catalogue?

One of the things that makes The Amazing Race such a fantastic show is it gives us the opportunity to travel the world and see such wonderful and exotic places. Coupling those excursions with the Travel Channel's own wonderful documentaries about those same places would make for a great night of entertainment and information. Because of the travel aspect of it, it's one of the few reality competition shows that can be rerun without losing 90% of its appeal. It could be a preemptive move to establish a home on a cable network in case CBS ever pulls the plug; the show is only picked up one season at a time and always seems to be on the bubble.

The reason I like Anthony Bourdain are many. For one, he knows a lot about food but he's not pretentious about it. Two, he isn't afraid to try bizarre foreign foods. And three, he's really blunt and honest about the state of the food industry and the whole celebrity chef culture. He also happens to be a good writer (check out his mystery stories too).

Our friends over at Gadling.com have an interview with Bourdain. Justin asks him about his early experiences traveling overseas, the one time he ate street food that forced him to go to the doctor, and where the show will take him this season (and how he chooses where to go).

The new season of No Reservations starts at 10pm tonight on The Travel Channel.

Friday's TCA, which continued cable TV presentations, felt like three days rolled into one.

Just how jam-packed and eclectic are the programs and announcements that were made?

Here's a sample: Dynasty diva Joan Collins is checking into BBC America's Hotel Babylon, Richard Dreyfus (Jaws) is not afraid to get back into the water as host of The Discovery Channel's Ocean of Fear: The Worst Shark Attack Ever and Jonny Fairplay (Survivor) of CMT's Ty Murray's Celebrity Bull-Riding Challenge sadly announced that his beloved grandmother passed away two weeks ago.

Welcome to TV Squad Lists (formerly 'The Five'), a feature where each blogger has a chance to list his or her own rundown of things in television that stand out from the rest, both good and bad.

Just to clear up any potential confusion, this post is not about traveling television sets, nor is it about fictional TV characters who happen to travel. This is a list dedicated to real travelers who have taken us on fantastic journeys in the form of their own television shows.

I was always a bit uncertain as to just how it was World Poker Tour fit in with the Travel Channel. I understand that the games took place in different places across the globe, but that always seemed like the equivalent of making a show about janitors who work in a hospital and calling it a medical drama.

Okay, maybe that wasn't the best analogy, but the point is that World Poker Tour, after almost five years on the Travel Channel, is heading over to GSN, which seems like a much better fit. World Poker Tour, one of the first popular "poker" shows and the one that made people like me who said "who the hell wants to watch people play poker?" choke on our words, will become part of the network's Friday night "Casino Night" lineup.

The fifth season of World Poker Tour is currently airing on the Travel Channel. It will hit GSN early next year.

Nice guys will always finish last while Anthony Bourdain is on the scene. If you don't the know the chef turned best-selling author and Travel Channel host, than you've been missing out. Bourdain brought gonzo to the kitchen, or out of the kitchen as the case may be. His first tome Kitchen Confidential was a Hunter S. Thompson-inspired machismo trip through the world of haute cuisine. Chefs are bad asses in Bourdain's world of sex, drugs and rock and roll. They are the magic men (and the occasional woman) who conjure the sacred from the profane. The journey between the raw and the cooked is not for the feint of heart.

Now that Bourdain's got a few seasons at the Travel Channel under his belt, it's no surprise that he should feel compelled to hold forth on the relative merits of food on television.

A slate of shows that all have one thing in common - a testosterone-laiden center - have been renewed for your viewing pleasure. Here's what's on the menu for those of you who shun the metrosexual kind:

The Henry Rollins Show
Ex-Black Flag frontman Henry Rollins will be back for a second season on IFC. Premiering on April 13th, the late-night talk show is adding an editorial element with guest-star commentator Janeane Garofalo making the occasional appearance. Twenty episodes have been ordered up.

Well, thank goodness! I was watching TiVo'd episodes of Samantha Brown's Passport to Europe when I saw a short promotion for the return of GlobeTrekker with Ian Wright. The guy is a total nutcase and it makes for brilliant television! While Samantha Brown attempts to take a more aristocratic view of travel, Ian Wright gets down to the nitty gritty. He has one of those personalities that everyone likes so he can easily chum around with the locals, even though he doesn't speak their language. Plus, he's always willing to eat, drink, or try anything (i.e. run toward hot lava, get bucked off a bull). And he travels to locations that aren't on most tourists' radar, such as Cambodia, Vietnam, the Arctic Circle, and Mongolia. (Read a great interview with Ian here)

New episodes of GlobeTrekker begin on Monday, Sept. 4th at 8 pm.