TVSquad

At least CBS is having a little fun with their new summer reality competition.

The network sent out a press release saying that the premiere of Greatest American Dog got the highest prime-time audience among dogs since an episode of Lassie in 1974. They also say that the show won its time slot against Ugly Betty "in dog-patrolled households, canine viewers, upscale purebreds, Heinz 57 (mutt) adults, and the advertiser-coveted 1.79-7 year-olds."

The press release goes on to say that the show did better than the network thought, especially since the test audience of dogs in Las Vegas didn't show numbers this high. The number should go higher later today when "factoring in dogs who know how to use their paws to program their DVRs."

So, let's pretend that you've been given the hosting job on The View (yeah, a longshot, but the way they go through hosts over there you never know). What would you talk about on your very first day?

Whoopi Goldberg decided to defend Michael Vick for his dogfighting. And what logic did she use to defend him? "There are certain things that are indicative to certain parts of our country [the South]...this is part of his cultural upbringing." (I wonder what other activities were part of the South, Whoopi?)

As mentioned before, National Geographic Channel's Explorer kicks off its new season on August 8. I saw a preview of the August 15 episode, "Science of Dogs," and it's quite interesting.

We all know that dogs are a result of selective breeding, but I had never given thought much about what that means exactly. These are animals we have selectively bred over centuries to suit our needs: for hunting, companionship, protection, and myriad other possibilities. This type of breeding can be good, but it also has consequences, with one in four dogs stricken with some kind of genetic problem or defect. Since dogs often have the same diseases as humans, doctors can study the dog's genetic makeup in order to better understand and cure the same diseases in humans.

DockDogs is not a sequel to Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, but rather a new seven-part series on the Outdoor Channel focusing on a competition in which dogs jump off of docks. There's dock-diving, which is scored based on distance, and the extreme vertical, which is scored based on how high the dogs jump.

I've seen plenty of dogs take to water willingly, but have never heard of it as an actual competition. I decided to search for footage on YouTube and came across a short clip from the Ducks Unlimited Great Outdoors Festival in Oshkosh, WI. What I've gathered is that there's this dock . . . and dogs jump off it. Seems pretty straight forward.

The creation of Foofur, a Saturday morning cartoon that ran on NBC for two seasons starting in 1986, is typically credited to Freddy Monnickendam, the man who helped bring The Smurfs to American television and who later created The Snorks. However, Don Markstein of Toonopedia writes that the cartoon is more precisely attributed to Phil Mendez, who created Kissyfur one year earlier. Whoever created it, Foofur was a staple of my Saturday mornings, and I was glad to find a few episodes on YouTube.

Nicollete might be desperate, but she's not that desperate.*

The ABC star was at a dog event the other day called "Dine With Your Dog Day," was supposed to eat dog food at the event, because Eight Is Enough's Dick Van Patten (his company sponsors the event) wanted to show people that "how delicious pet chow can be." Actress Linda Blair was there too and she didn't want to eat it either. Melissa Gilbert and Ross The Intern from Leno's show were there and actually sampled the doggie dinner. James Farentino was there too; no word on whether he ate any dog food or not.

(*And, yes, I know that technically Sheridan isn't one of the housewives, but I can't let a joke go by like that, can I?)

(S06E20) This episode opens with Santa's Little Helper destroying the house. Everyone naturally assumes it's Bart, but as Bart points out, none of the destruction has his usual social commentary. They finally figure out it's the dog, but they can't figure out why it's behaving so crazy, so they take it to a pet store where the clerk performs a canine/human mind meld, a power only he and three other clerks possess. Really, he's just using this as a way to get the family to buy a lot of unnecessary doo-dads for Santa's Little Helper. On the drive home, the dog escapes out the car window and heads for the racetrack where Bart and Homer first found him. It's there that he finds love.

Santa's Little Helper's girlfriend moves into the house, and there's a funny montage in which the two animals go out for a romantic day in Springfield. The butcher shop gives them a steak, and for some reason the video store happens to have steak, too, as does an old woman who carries the meat in her purse. There's the obligatory Lady and the Tramp spaghetti scene, but the two dogs actually fight over the spaghetti, just like real dogs. One of my favorite things about the pets on The Simpsons is how much they behave like real animals.

Is it possible to be paralyzed by cuteness? Because I think that's what happened while I watched these highlights from Puppy Bowl II on Animal Planet. Puppy Bowl was aired during the Super Bowl and consisted of three hours of different breeds of puppies frolicking on a tiny football field. The show was then repeated for a total of twelve hours. How could even the most jaded person not find this adorable? I think they should run this all the time. It would be the perfect respite from the nightly news.

Oh yeah, and halftime featured kittens, of course.

[via Onion AV Club blog]