VarietyShow-related stories
Posted Oct 13th 2009 1:05PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Programming, American Idol, Music and Variety, Contestants, Alumni, News and Gossip, Casting, Reality-Free
Oh man, that variety show format worked so well for Nick & Jessica! Remember what a smash sensation the Osbournes variety show was? Boy, Rosie O'Donnell sure rewrote the book on how to do a great variety special! The networks remember how great these attempts to revive the long dead TV format went, because they're at it again.
This time, FOX is dipping back into the
American Idol well and plucking out plucky season four winner Carrie Underwood. They've scheduled
Carrie Underwood: An All-Star Holiday Special for a December 7 air-time. Luckily, since Underwood is doing just fine in her recording career, this isn't likely to be an attempt at a weekly series.
If the networks really do believe they can revive the variety format, this is a good way to do it. The holiday season seems to be the best time to lure American audiences into one-off specials and different kinds of programming. If the special does well, they can look for another one next year maybe. Or perhaps they'll have found something to do with all those former
Idol contestants.
Posted Jun 17th 2009 2:32PM by Nick Zaino
Filed under: Interviews, Celebrities, Talk Show, Reality-Free
There are some big names on the bill for
Ellen DeGeneres's variety show,
Ellen's Bigger, Longer & Wider Show, which airs June 27 on TBS. Kanye West will be a big part of it, and magician David Blaine and comedian Nick Cannon will also appear.
Even the Chicago Cubs will make an appearance, as DeGeneres tapes a segment at Wrigley Field, singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the seventh-inning stretch June 16 (the rest of the show will be taped June 17 at the Chicago Theatre).
But the thing DeGeneres seems most excited about is comedian Joe Wong, whom we first wrote about in April when he made his
network television debut on
The Late Show with David Letterman. She'd love to see more comedians like Wong on television.
Continue reading Ellen's Bigger, Longer & Wider Show features acts big and small
Posted Apr 15th 2009 6:07PM by Eliot Glazer
Filed under: OpEd, Video, Music and Variety, Short-Lived Shows, Children, Reality-Free
As a kid, my parents were totally cool with my television viewing habits, as long as it never became excessive or kept my face from being kissed by the light of day every once in a while. Not that they had anything to be worried about, of course, considering that all I was watching was
Nickelodeon.
While my fellow prepubescents were slowly but surely migrating to more grown-up programming on MTV (and Playboy, if you had a cable box), I spent the bulk of my time between 1992 and 1996 fully devoted to
Roundhouse, a 30-minute sketch show sandwiched between the more popular
Clarissa Explains It All and
Are You Afraid Of The Dark? on SNICK, Nickelodeon's Saturday night programming block.
Continue reading Reprise the theme song, roll the credits, and for the love of God, revive Roundhouse! - VIDEO
Posted Mar 28th 2009 1:02PM by Nick Zaino
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Programming, Music and Variety, Interviews, Celebrities, Reality-Free
For those who might think the new
Osbournes: Reloaded variety show is a quick-fix, six-episode ratings boost, think again.
Reloaded, which premieres Tuesday at 9PM on Fox, was two years in the making. According to Sharon Osbourne, who spoke with reporters via a conference call Thursday, the family was given a somewhat open-ended invitation to return to television, and they wanted to make sure they picked the right project.
They cycled through a few options, rejecting most of them, including one idea that will be a smaller part of the finished product. "It was going around the country just looking for other Osbournes, and I was like, I don't think so," Sharon told the group. "But we did keep that as a segment on the show."
Continue reading Sharon Osbourne talks Osbournes: Reloaded
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 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 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
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