January’s return of American Gladiators on NBC was supposed a signal a sea change of American television viewer interest: Sitcoms out, reality competitions in! Actually, Gladiators‘ arrival wasn’t so much a sea change as a recognition, or a last ditch effort to turn the tide, that very little is pulling in the mega ratings these days. The show had the bonus effect, though, of employing former porn stars (semi-NSFW), and if there’s one cause we can get behind … well. But you know what Gladiators, a supposedly steroid-free show, also did? It made outlandish, possibly illegal claims about its stars! At least one inquiring (blog) mind wants to know how NBC gets away with naming Gladiators things like “Venom,” for whom “there is no known antidote for Venom” and is “lethal in any dose.” Did the suits test this girl in a lab? CONTINUED »
If you’ve watched just one episode of Fox’s dancing competition So You Think You Can Dance — as every member of Jossip HQ has — then you already know the best part of the show is not Cat Deeley’s legs, the male dancers’ lean and solid torsos, or the female dancers’ crotch flashing. It is Mary Murphy, the choreographer and ballroom dancing champion who sits in the judge’s chair next to producer Nigel Lithgow. After each performance wraps, Murphy tells the dancers one or more things, which range from, “It just wasn’t doing it for me,” to, “You’ve got a ticket on the HOT TAMALE TRAIN!” The number of her shrieks are matched only by the number of times she flashes that toothy smile. Today, she is profiled by the Los Angeles Times, which, according to this graph that charts the paper’s coverage of her, is making it her month.
While the hot tamale train used to be Murphy’s most esteemed honor bestowed on contestants, her newest top award is “Tra La La,” as in, “the Tra La La phase of my heart.”
Every notable reality show judge has their “thing.” For Donald Trump, it’s, “You’re fired.” For Heidi Klum, it’s, “Auf wiedersehen.” But those are concocted by producers; they’re supposed to stick. Murphy’s “hot tamale train” catchphrase, however, seems to have been born organically. It doesn’t seem to be an executive producer-coined (in this case, it would’ve been Lithgow, who created the show) gimmick to deliver each episode. Rather, if our memory serves, she began saying it during Dance’s first season, realized how much of a trademark it was, and kept on using it.
What, then, of other reality show judges who have tried to follow her lead? One horrific example sticks in our memory, and MTV’s to blame. CONTINUED »
Yes, the woman at right is missing a limb, as are the ladies below. Because of this, each and every day they are faced with unique obstacles most of the rest of the world will never understand, and they’re certainly all the stronger because of it. Good for them. But we’ve got one question: How pretty are they compared to one another?
A new show on the BBC seeks to get to the bottom of that query, so that the world may finally know who is the most beautiful, English, female amputee around.
The Atlanta installment of Bravo’s incredibly-addictive guilty pleasure, the Real Housewives series, is coming soon. And, in a distinct departure from RH norm, the majority of the snobby, materialistic, delightfully-entertaining, cat-fighting cast this time around will be representing Atlanta’s “black elite.” Yes, some, but thankfully not all, are married to professional athletes.
“People like Zach and Cody, That’s So Raven, and then Miley, so it was like my daughter just turned six, she just finished kindergarten and she knows all about High School Musical, which is really a tween Grease, if you think about it.
“Then what happens for these girls, their next installation is, guess what, The Hills. And they’re just old enough to start watching MTV, they’re hormonally in place, and they see these four young, beautiful girls who really in my mind are a continuation of a Disney princess, because they live in a world that most people will never live in. And, on top of that, you pick up the extra market of people who do live in that world who want to see themselves reflected back, like the fashion and entertainment people who kind of watch it like it’s something like they can’t really believe that they’re watching, but they are watching and they’re enthralled because they can’t believe they’re watching what they’re watching but they’re also narcissistic because they see their own world reflected back to them.
“And then there’s a sub-group of people that are drawn in by their wives. And I know this because when I go out of town or something, people come up to me, like a 40-year-old guy who’s an engineer who is like, “Oh, are you on The Hills? I told my wife that was you, I knew that was you.” And I say, “Well why do you watch The Hills?” And he says, “I don’t know, I like to watch TV with my wife and she started having me watch it.”" [MB]
That producers on Paris Hilton: My New BFF had to tell the starlet what to do in front of the cameras shouldn’t exactly be news; wasn’t this Nicole Richie’s role on Simple Life? [P6]
In May, Times television fabricator Alessanda Stanley referred to The Hills star Heidi Montag as a “feminist hero.” Now, Lauren Conrad gets her own (incredibly accurate) misnomer: “an avatar of synergy.” That’s how academic Mark Andrejevic, who wrote something called Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched, describes Conrad, for her fusing entertainment and advertising together into one easily consumed product. Andrejevic is talking to Forbes about how MTV’s most successful television show has produced a troop of ladies who are brands unto themselves, launching fashion lines and scoring endorsement deals while cameras chronicle their normal lives. But soon, with Hills creator Adam Divello spinning off the show, it won’t just be the ladies who are earmarked for synergy. CONTINUED »
This latest, three-frickin’-minute-long promo for Elle’s reality show Stylista is the most comprehensive overview of what this show is going to be about. Despite the insider gossipmongering, which labeled the show a “trainwreck”, you have no choice but to be excited about this television program. CONTINUED »
Because everything Paris can do, Nicole can do better, the new mama is peddling her own reality show to find … the next Nicole Richie! Sound familiar to Hilton’s own show, to find her new BFF? Yes, a bit. But Richie’s smart: Seeing her friend secure her own deal is ample evidence networks are eager for this type of fare. In Richie’s version, contestants would battle it out to prove they can match Richie’s most prolific talent: the ability to become famous for being famous. (Though it helps to have an equally ambitious best friend.) The winner would receive a prize appropriate of her talents: her very own reality show. Reports EW: “Word is at least three cable networks are interested in the pitch.” And not to crap on Richie’s idea – because, who are we kidding, this show will totally get picked up – but that’s sort of like saying, “Yeah, at least three execs have time for a lunch at Spago.”
You wanna be Paris Hilton’s BFF? What about a seat in Brody Jenner’s entourage? The The Hills professional hanger-on has scored his own Ryan Seacrest-produced reality show, Bromance, which will spit out six episodes on MTV where other fame seekers compete to hang out at Hyde with Jenner. This is, of course, Jenner’s third bout with reality TV; before forcing himself on The Hills, he had the short-lived show Princes of Malibu, which apparently wasn’t enough evidence that America was tired of this guy.
To make this an even more homoerotic experience – you know, besides naming the show Bromance – contestants voted off the show will be ousted in a Hot Tub Elimination Ceremony, where losers will be sent home dripping wet in their swimsuit. And that’s after the guys go on “group dates” and try to score “alone time” with Jenner.
On last night’s Living Lohan, 14-year-old Ali was “tormented” by some classmates who said she needs to stop trying to be like big sister Lindsay. (Well, they have a point.) Naturally, mother bear Dina was appalled, because apparently she forgot about what’s said in all those tabloids she reads every morning over coffee.
Click through for video of the worst bullying in history (except not).
Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag ruined one of the most beloved children’s characters at an AIDS benefit yesterday in LA. Barney would have been infinitely cooler had he eaten the reality show losers, so now he’s kind of dead to me.
Josh Waring, son of gold-digging robot Lauri from The Real Housewives of Orange County, was arrested in Laguna Beach this weekend for possession of heroin and ecstasy and intent to sell.
Our favorite character from The Paper (and personal hero), Amanda Lorber, is awesome for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is her ability to handle herself in a classy way despite stupid high school drama. Unfortunately for Amanda, drama has also followed her in the form of a Columbia University reporter who called her “overbearing and annoying,” among other insults. Amanda fired back with the most eloquent e-mail ever written by a 17-year-old.
On last night’s episode, an electrical fire leads Dina Lohan to mapping out an emergency escape route. Perhaps Ali will use it to escape her mother. [earlier]
Though we only trust Nielsen’s ratings numbers about as much as Lindsay Lohan’s denials about enjoying a smooch with Samantha Ronson now and then, the ratings company is the bearer of bad news for the starlet and her fam.
Lohan’s guest appearance on Ugly Betty’s season finale only bumped audience numbers up by 300k from the previous week’s episode; and that number was down 16.2 percent from last season’s finale. [E!]
Not only that, but Lohan fatigue is on its way to officially becoming a trend: E!’s Living Lohan, which only mama Dina, sister Ali, and that little boy appear in, couldn’t even beat Denise Richards’ own reality show It’s Complicated, which premiered back-to-back. Living nabbed 1.45m viewers to Richards‘ 1.5m. [Us]
At least there’s a break between now and Lindsay’s Carlos Gardel biopic Dare to Love Me, which might mean box office receipts will be down a mere 85 percent from I Know Who Killed Me.
Not surprisingly, Janice Min has decided to toss Heidi Montag on the cover again (not that anyone is spreading rumors they have some sort of arrangement for things like this), but this time there’s real news: She wants to get married! “I’m ready to marry Spencer. He’s my soulmate,” she tells the magazine.
And not that we’re asking you to guess which celeb weekly will score the EXCLUSIVE pics of the nuptials, but let’s not play pretend: Heidi and Spencer aren’t getting married … yet. They’re laying the groundwork for their own reality TV show.
Industry gossip that’s been brewing for the past few weeks has the two trying to score their own MTV show, a la Newlyweds, though the network is said to be fearful of saturating its The Hills brand. The peg for the show? The lead up to Heidi and Spencer getting married.
But with this Us cover, they’re clearly pushing the agenda, proving there’s measurable interest in their fairytale wedding. So move those newsstand sales, people, and help Hollywood’s most opportunistic couple score another payday.
Sad, confused MySpace cewebrity and reality star Tila Tequila blames her unsuccessful quest to find true love on the media. Despite picking Bobby Banhart as the winner of A Shot At Love, the two quickly fell out of, ahem, love when, as this sort of things tends to happen with C-list celebrities, the media started attacking them.
“The media says something about him, and he retaliates, and I’m like ‘That’s not how it was.’ And it ends up being, like, unfortunate,” she told the Associated Press.
And also: There’s the little part about Banhart being an egregious self-promoter. Totally in a not-like-Tila way. CONTINUED »
Watching last night’s So You Think You Can Dance premiere left us with two questions: 1) Why did producers so devilishly try ripping our hearts out with auditions from dancers who were either near-blind or so overweight they couldn’t catch their breath, but wanted so badly to impress others?; and 2) Why the hell does such a popular show, now in its fourth season, lack the type of American Idol-style sponsorships that make this franchises so hugely profitable?
Those unbranded green cups on the judges’ table are getting tired; Simon, Paula, and Randy have been drinking (water) out of Coke cups for years.
Doesn’t PepsiCo want in on the action? Doesn’t Coke have a few more bucks to promote its Dasani water? Surely Starbucks is exploring new opportunities?
Then came news that Dance has, actually, scored two huge sponsors.
Neither of which fit particularly well into the show’s format. CONTINUED »
A completely NSFW guide to reality TV fellas who’ve appeared in one state of undress or another, from Survivor’s Jeff Probst and Ozzie to Big Brother boys from around the world. [Ashton Cruz Zoo]
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