TVSquad

There's something to be said about a jingle that gets in your head and you can't forget it. "I am stuck on Band-Aids, so Band-Aid's stuck on me..." remains imprinted on my brain to this day (and did you know that Barry Manilow wrote that?). Well, there's a current commercial that has a song that's wormed it's way into my noggin, only I can't stand it.

Before I tell you more and present the video, I want to go on record saying that I like the idea of the ad. It's a collaboration between Dove and Wal-Mart, presenting real women. The thought is that there is Real Beauty in real women, not models or celebrities, but just everyday people.

Just in time to tax refund season -- because you can't use the money for things like gas, food and basic survival -- comes the newest Barbie releases from toy giant Mattel. They're the Star Trek Barbie dolls -- three dolls that represent Kirk, Spock and Uhura. Okay, that's neat. But, there's just one issue...

See, these dolls are not designed after the original Star Trek cast from the 1960s. These dolls are modeled after the stars that will play those iconic characters in the new and highly anticipated Star Trek prequel coming out in May. Each doll comes dressed in the Starfleet outfits that are familiar to fans of the original series and carries a phaser (Type II model) and a communicator.

The cost for the dolls...forty-four friggin bucks a piece! Don't worry, because you have until the end of April to save up before they are released to Wal-mart, walmart.com, and Barbiecollector.com. Get them while they last before someone sells them on eBay for triple the price.

I guess that question is for all of the 9 year old girls reading this (believe it or not, girls 12 and under are our biggest demo) and not any of the 40 year old men who are reading this. Though after the various things that dads (and moms) have done recently to get tickets for their daughters, maybe it's a question for them too.

Disney is teaming up with Wal-Mart to unleash 140 different Hannah Montana items that they will sell in specially-designed "mini-stores" at 750 Wal-Mart locations. The items include wigs, clothing, glasses, and even cupcakes. Yes, cupcakes.

The Wal-Mart video download store died in its sleep last week after a Hewlett-Packard pulled the plug on the technology that powered the store. The video download service was just a year old. RIP.

But seriously, I'd kind of forgotten that Wal-Mart was even in the video download business. The company entered the market with a big splash last year, and then kind of didn't draw much attention to itself. When I think of video download services these days, I tend to think of Amazon, CinemaNow, MovieLink, Vongo, or even Vudu, but not Wal-Mart.

This isn't to say that Wal-Mart wasn't making some serious money off of video download sales. But the company is the number one DVD retailer in the US, so any money they were getting from downloads was probably small potatoes in comparison.

Wal-Mart is reportedly not looking for a new technology partner at the moment. If you've already purchased movies from the Wal-Mart video download store, you can continue to watch them as much as you like on your current computer. But thanks to DRM, you cannot transfer those recordings to a new computer.

[via paidContent]

Wal-Mart is launching a beta version of its new video download store today. While there's no shortage of sites offering up movie and TV downloads these days, Wal-Mart could be the one to give Apple's iTunes store a run for its money. That formula? They're Wal-Mart, the company that sells 40 percent of all US DVDs.

Wal-Mart will have about three thousand films and television episodes available for download, with movies going for $12.88 to $19.88 and TV shows for $1.96 per episode -- a whopping 4 cents cheaper than Apple's price. New releases will be available the same day they come out on DVD. Older movies will sell for $7.50, compared with Apple's $9.99.

(S05E03) This is more like it. After two below average episodes to start the season, I thought this third installment of Family Guy was much better. The overall story of the mega-corp superstore coming to town and killing all the other businesses wasn't particularly novel. South Park did that a couple years ago in "Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes". It did serve as a good backdrop for some funny stuff though. And really, any time someone wants to put the boots to Wal-Mart, I'm ok with it.

Things started out on a good note with Red Dawn the musical and the who's that kind of drunk bit. I thought the roller skating montage was well done too. And they just kept coming. Pepperidge Farms remembers, the Ice Man's trail to the gay club, and Hummer guy were all good. "Yeah, Rumsfeld!"

(S05E12) Well, The Apprentice has hit an all-time low. In tonight's episode, the Gold Rush and Synergy teams work on a task to promote the Xbox 360. I mean, working in the porno industry, and with 360 other people! I can't believe what they are going to... oh, excuse me I have a phone call.

Hello? Oh, hi Anna (Anna Johns, vivacious head blogger at TV Squad). Yes, I am talking about this week's Apprentice and their entry into the world of pornography! What? Xbox360 is a video game console made by Microsoft? Really? Gee, I didn't know. I mean, with the 'X' at the beginning I only assumed that . . .Hmm? Have I played any video games at home lately? Well, I did have an Atari 2600 in my youth; gosh, how I loved playing Combat! Yes, yes, I need to get out more. I'm sorry. It won't happen again. Sorry.

Ahem.

And now, onto the bangers and mash we affectionately call The Apprentice.

Hey students, see if you can figure out what's wrong with this scenario:

 

You click over to Wal-Mart's site to purchase a copy of the Planet of the Apes TV series on DVD. You click on the DVD and are given a list of similar movies as recommendations. Oddly enough, all the movies feature African-Americans. It seems this bit of covert online racism set off some backlash recently, which isn't difficult for Wal-Mart to conjure up since most people don't need much recourse to hate the mega-chain. The company itself issued an apology, but it still remains unclear as to just why it happened in the first place. The company says it was promoting films with African-Americans in honor of the upcoming Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, but that doesn't quite explain this incident.