Kathy Griffin is no Dick in a Box, but she did win an Emmy this weekend for outstanding reality program. Her acceptance speech left some tact to be desired:
A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus. So, all I can say is, 'Suck it, Jesus.' This award is my God now.
E! will censor the speech when they broadcast the awards on Saturday. The Catholic League is outraged that Jesus wasn’t given credit for the success of My Life on the D-List.
Just as an aside, how exactly did Kathy Griffin turn a supporting role on Suddenly Susan into an entire career?
Another night, another party and another chance to remind ourselves that we're not nearly as fashionable and glamorous as we like to think we are. Yes, Fashion Week is upon us, which means shapeless pillowcase dresses are the new black and naturally slender is once again the new morbidly obese.
And yesterday, we spent the better part of our evening ogling the reality stars of yesteryear at the Bravo/Entertainment Weekly party for Tim Gunn at the Soho Grand and marveling at the fact that somebody had the lack of foresight to serve miniature Reuben sandwiches at a snotty skinny-person party.
As always the event was, well, eventful.
• Twelve weeks and counting for Us Weekly EIC Janice Min and boss Jann Wenner to reach a new deal before her contract runs out.
• Bravo buys TelevisionWithoutPity, tries to keep on screwing the freelancers.
• Meanwhile, Bravo's Project Runway re-ups with Tim Gunn as host. Nice negotiating with those rumors of begin too busy, Gunn!"
• That Page Six plugs corporate cousin HarperCollins is news now relegated to a footnote.
• Fox TV and Hearst team up for web videos you won't watch, be able to find.
• Salon gossip aggregator Scott Lamb tires of checking RSS feeds. So does that mean the celebrity category is or isn't saturated?
• Mr. Magazine names Relish the "Launch of the Year." We name Mr. Magazine the "Needs to Give Up That Hack Name" of the decade.
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If you were worried how TBS was going to make Sex and the City blowjob-talk-less enough for TBS or how The Sopranos would get beat-the-skulls-in-less enough for A&E, prepare yourself for the existential debate on how Bravo will take Taxicab Confessions' talk of threeways with tranny hookers and turn it into cable-friendly programming. 'Cause it's gonna happen.
Yesterday, the NBC Universal cable network – home to Kathy Griffin's gay jokes and Heidi Klum's tired diatribes – announced it was picking up nine episodes of the Emmy-winning lipstick camera program for a Friday night debut. And with Bravo already set to debut season three of Six Feet Under on the New Year, we're in for several weeks of turning necrophiliac sexual fantasies into Tim Gunn impersonations.
• VanityFair.com quietly relaunches. Crickets heard. [WWD]
• Diane Von Furstenberg husband and InterActiveCorp chief Barry Diller reaped some $469.7 million in salary, bonuses, and stock options. Who knew there was so much money to be made investing in CollegeHumor.com? [NYT, DHD]
• Tom Freston .. funny? [P6]
• NBC cuts 700 jobs, which means it shouldn't be hard to find a couple people upset about it. [PI]
• Star publisher American Media Inc. misses, for the third time in a row, its deadline to report earnings. That's "earnings" on top of its $1 billion in debt. [NYP]
• Bravo greenlights Project Runway for your weave: Top Hair, where at least one episode will certainly consist of remaking Kirsten Dunst's Marie Antoinette do. [Variety]
• Members to MySpace: Revolucion! [WSJ]
• Dan Rather's new HDNet show isn't about gimmicks. Unless you count the three that he lists. [NYDN]
• News Corp. and Nielsen make nice. [NYP]
Musings on the coming media culture phenom Tabloid Wars:
• Three months of shooting and only six one-hour episodes? Kathy Griffin can take a shit and fill 45 minutes of programming.
• When Daily News deputy metro editor Gregory Gittrich says things like, "None of us have aspirations of being on TV or celebrities or anything like that," clearly he hasn't considered the career ambitions of Hud Morgan. Or Chris Rovzar.
• Naming the show Tabloid Whores would've attracted double the viewership. And been more factually accurate.
• That the New York Post turned down the series is .. news? Not that we're one to flaunt a scoop (especially after the fact), but we heard that at least six months ago and thought it common knowledge.
• The series might as well be called Lloyd Grove's Video Yearbook, since his contract will expire and he'll be ousted just after the season finale airs.
• We much would've preferred Page Six's Paula Froelich working the phones than, say, a beat reporter.
Earlier: Tabloid Wars might have some drama after all
Earlier: Tabloid Wars: Bravo brings it for NYDN v. NYP
OMG, July 24th is going to be the best day ever. Bravo will premeiring their new show Tabloid Wars which follows the gossip gang around at the Daily News. Of course, the show was filmed last summer, before the entire News staff picked up and left.
The press kit give a really special look inside last summer's staff. From the Media Mob:
Here's Michael Cooke, Editor-in-Chief–"Currently, Cooke is back in the windy city where he is vice president of editorial operations for the Chicago group of papers at Sun-Times parent company, Hollinger Inc." There's Hudson "Hud" Morgan, Junior Gossip Columnist To Lloyd Grove–"Morgan is currently an associate editor at Men's Vogue.
Yeah, maybe Bravo should have picked a staff of young sassy gossips at a publication nobody ever leaves. Hmm, we wonder where we could find a publication like that?
Daily News Soon to Be as Famous as Whitney and Bobby's Bathroom [Media Mob, New York Observer]
FreshDirect isn't just teaming up with the New York Post to deliver you a free tabloid newspaper. The food delivery outfit is also teaming up with Bravo's Top Chef for a promotional extravaganza. Okay, not really an extravaganza, but apparently it was big enough to email us about.
Each time you order a FreshDirect Fresh Dining meal between March 13 and March 31, 2006, you will automatically be entered to win one of three prizes:
Grand Prize
One lucky person will win a dinner party for ten prepared (in a home within FreshDirect's delivery area) by the winner of Bravo's new original series, "Top Chef."First Prize
Five customers will win dinner for two at Craft restaurant and a signed copy of Tom Colicchio's book, "Think Like a Chef."Second Prize
Fifty customers will win a "Top Chef" whisk.
Just imagine: If you live within one of FreshDirect's delivery zones, you could have a real, live reality TV "star" feeding you his 15 minutes!
Nope, this isn't Jim McGreevey's new Sunday brunch spot. It's where Bravo is taking its new reality show Top Chef for episode two, which airs Wednesday. Let the Crisco flow freely.
Now that Michael Cooke has flown the coup at the Daily News – literally, he's not even in the office anymore – we must turn our attention to the most important issue at hand: What's to come of Bravo's Tabloid Wars, the Daily News vs. New York Post reality show?
Personally, we're not sure what the problem is. The film crew stopped tailing Hud Morgan & Co. months ago and the footage is being parsed in an editing bay somewhere, readying itself for broadcast. And while Bravo has yet to set an air date, that's just fine too: It wasn't expected to be seen till spring '06, anyhow.
But Post-it Keith Kelly is worried Bravo doesn't want to miss out on the obvious closed-door tension between editorial director Martin Dunn (who will now fill Cooke's role) and Cooke, the "mistake" hiree. Capturing it on film is surely an honest pursuit, but this is, after all, Tabloid Wars.
Shouldn't Morgan's pouncing on junior publicists be enough?
Cooke Beats Fast Retreat [Keith Kelly, NYP]
Related: Tabloid Wars: Bravo brings it for NYDN v. NYP
Because we have better things to do with our Wednesday nights (like watch Ryan Cabrera run around Liberty Island looking for friends) we didn't exactly plan time for the premiere of Bravo's ASSSSCAT: Improv.
Thankfully, we have interns whose duties extend beyond ensuring the proper espresso-to-milk ratio in our americanos. So we sicked Intern Molly on last night's Tina Fey-Amy Poehler collaboration, where she found the only thing worth laughing about was rape.
And rape's not funny. Unless it's Tina Fey making rape sound funny. And then it's funny. Says Molly:
About halfway through last night's premiere of Upright Citizen Brigade’s ASSSSCAT: Improv on Bravo, Horatio Sanz stars in a sketch as a man who has written a self-help book on breaking out of your "Shmold" (Shit Mold). Unfortunately, ASSSSCAT could use some Shmold-breaking of its own.
The full review after the jump.
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The same network that brings you such gems as Kathy Griffin is putting the icing on Tabloid Wars, the New York Daily News v. New York Post "docusoap" we've been wishin' and a hopin' for.
Bravo is wrapping up filming its six one-hour episodes for next spring's debut and it's no surprise its footage sports plenty of the camera-friendly (but not New York's hottest gossipist) Hudson Morgan, otherwise known as Lloyd Grove's biatch.
You could see young Hud – described by producers as a "young, hip kind of guy" – running around the summer's slow season with camera crew in tow, though we're guessing we won't see any clips of his "real" partying.
At long last, we've got somewhere to turn to see who's running the celebrity stock exchange. Until now it was just sites like us, Gawker, Mediabistro and Dominick Dunne. Oh, and the gossip columns themselves.
It pains us to see David E. Kelley's reluctant reality television inroads so brashly shunned by NBC. Just two episodes into Kelley's The Law Firm, which pits real attorneys against each other arguing "real cases," execs couldn't stomach the dismal ratings. Even for a summer program.
So what to do with an already paid-for series that missed its mark? Move it to Bravo, with all the other red-headed step-children. There are six episodes of the show remaining, which Bravo's programmers will somehow be forced to squeeze in among endless Being Bobby Brown repeats and the ubiquitous Kathy Griffin.
