Author: Tabloid Baby

No humiliation. No meanness. No losers. What kind of reality series is that? An Oprah-fied reality series, that’s what. ABC is doing backflips because the daytime cash cow has deigned to enter the primetime reality game. The net is working with Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions on two projects that could be expanded segments from her [...]

Six kids compete for a job on a hip magazine that was irrelevant before their parents conceived them. Sounds like the MTV reality competition, “I’m from Rolling Stone”, which begins a Sunday-nights-at-10 run on January 7th. It’s different from the rest because it features a reality show cast who can write, which may be why [...]

They’ve followed the celebutards. They’ve taken us into the Playboy mansion. They’ve given us plastic surgeons and their clients. Now E! is continuing its “90210″ roll with a show about the ones who are usually seen scuttling around the corners of the frame or being treated like dirt: The Help! High Maintenance 90210 is being [...]

No one is better or more in-your-face at one-upping and lampooning network reality shows than Mike Darnell, the twisted master of reality at Fox. Who Wants To Be A Millionaire became Who Wants To Marry A Multi-Millionaire, Dancing with The Stars became Skating with Celebrities (there are lots more, but you get the picture). And [...]

That mysterious handful who make up the Hollywood Foreign Press Association sure know how to throw a wingding, and they also know how how to read the public pulse a lot better than the Oscar or Emmy voters. With nominations for Leo, Johnny, Will, Borat and Mel on the movie side, they also know how [...]

What man in America would allow himself to be seen on television competing for a date with New York, the recently-enhanced monster who was twice rejected by Flavor Flav on Flavor of Love? What professionals who work for the most notoriously downmarket tabloid talk show would allow themselves to be videotaped for a “docu soap” [...]

A whole bunch of new shows have been announced by various networks in the last 12 hours. And for some reason, they all seem a little… familiar? See if you agree. ABC is developing a pilot called Pushing Daisies, about a guy who can touch dead bodies and bring them back to life. TNT has [...]

Now this is the kind of “educational/informative” programming we’ve been looking for! The FCC mandates that every broadcast station must supply three hours a week of this nourishment for kids, so what better than a series that covers teen sex, pregnancy, rape, suicide, eating disorders, lesbian kisses, school shootings, cutting, gay boys, relationships, and more [...]

Here’s Teri Hatcher at the LA premiere of Dreamgirls. And while we’re at it…

Fergie may be competing on the next season of Dancing with The Stars! Wow! She’s hot! And she’s really a star! Oh… wait… it’s not that Fergie, not Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas, but Sarah Ferguson, Britain’s Duchess of York– and the tabloid’s favorite “Duchess of Pork,” who’s been casting around the States for [...]

There will be surprise twists in the season finale of Survivor: Cook Islands. No contestant or finalist spoilers, but some spoiler finale details… and producer Mark Burnett handicaps the remaining players… after the jump:

ABC brought back the L.A. police drama Dragnet a few years ago, with Ed O’Neill as Joe Friday (and Ethan Embry, star of the classic flick, Vegas Vacation as his partner), and that didn’t work. So in their effort to prove there are no new ideas in Hollywood, they’re digging even farther back into the [...]

And you thought Hollywood legends, superstars and sitcom celebrities had rotten lives. Now E!, which has shown us the potholes on the road to fame with The E! True Hollywood Stories, has come up with a sister show for the landmark documentary series. And this one is about the losers! Boulevard of Broken Dreams will [...]

All of 85 pounds, whacked out on Vicodin and pot, Nicole Richie cheated death and vehicular homicide– while besting fellow celebutard Paris Hilton’s measly “erratic driving” DUI charge back in September– with her arrest for driving the wrong way down Highway 134 in Burbank in the middle of the night. Though the California Highway Patrol [...]

When he’s not showing up in movies as a sometimes leading man, Ed Burns is best known as ” the Irish Woody Allen,” a writer-director auteur whose intimate movies have dealt with young working class guys who don’t understand women. When he’s worked behind the scenes in television, he’s stuck to what he knows best, [...]

No, it’s not a picture of David Hasselhoff copping a feel off the Bush twins. It’s a proud (if hypnotized) dad with his two teenage daughters. And after a very bizarre year that was topped by his winning for “biggest comeback” at the VH1 Big in ’06 Awards, the Hoff has big plans for the [...]

Earlier this week,

It’s that time of year. It seems like a month since ABC ran A Charlie Brown Christmas and tonight we’ll be around the Tabloid Baby flatscreen watching Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, but not everything can be as timeless and high quality as those two, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and A Very Brady Christmas10 Best and [...]

Hey, isn’t that new NBC game show Identity just What’s My Line on steroids, pumped up with that new Apocalypto game show set design? Anyway, while Penn Gillette’s network gig promises to last an episode or two, the prime time game show fun continues. Hot on the heels of William Shatner’s career-capping performance in Show [...]

NBC’s website for The Apprentice 6 shows Donald Trump sharing the spotlight with his daughter Ivanka as the show leaves Manhattan for the first time and lands in Southern California with a few twists–including the promise that each week, the winning team will live in a mansion while the losers sleep in tents and use [...]

Rebecca Romijn starts work Monday on Ugly Betty. The former model has signed for a regular role on the ABC series as the mystery woman who’s conspiring with Venessa Williams’ character to take over the publishing house. Rebecca’s character has already been seen this season. Conveniently, her face has always been covered in gauze– although [...]

Project Runway without Tim Gunn? That would be like The Apprentice without Carolyn– The View without Star Jones. No, it wouldn’t. On Runway, Tim is the man! As mentor to the designing contestants, he’s the father figure, mother hen, big brother and sob sister all rolled into one, and now there’s a lot of scrambling [...]

Watch the above (NSFW) video and envision the kinky, sexy fifth season of Nip/Tuck. Rosie O’Donnell, seen in her infamous Nip/Tuck episode from September, revealed on The View that she’s been offered the female lead role on the racy FX series– replacing Joely Richardson, who’s gone on an extended leave because of her real-life child’s [...]

Where are their priorities? The military coup that’s overthrown the democratic government of the South Pacific nation of Fiji has not only caused the US government to suspend aid to the country– what’s worse, it’s screwing with our reality shows! While the thus-far bloodless takeover might not be a big deal to Fijians– it’s the [...]

ABC will be protecting Lost when it returns from its long and chancy hiatus on February 7th. The net is giving the mysterious series a new time slot–its third– so it won’t have to compete with American Idol. Scaredy cats! And is it a coincidence that the decision is announced days after Lost star Matthew [...]

Hey, we always thought celebhead was something Paris Hilton offers on video, and it turns out we’re sort of right. VH1 Mobile is taking us inside the head of Paris and other presumed empty-headed celebutards, politicians and public figures in a new series called Celebhead. The dramatized short-form parodies allow us to see, if only [...]

Mario Lopez may have gotten robbed on Dancing with The Stars, but at least he walked away with his dance partner, and now he’s gotten a TV deal for his trouble. The contract’s with the CW, but remember, Mario started out on Saved By The Bell.

Salma Hayek has made her mark as an actress, but it’s as a behind-the-scenes television producer that she’s really baring her originality. Ugly Betty has done wonders for ABC, especially among young women, and it’s really one-of-a-kind– even though it’s an Americanized copy of a Colombian soap opera called Yo Soy Betty La Fea. But [...]

Day Six is going to be very crowded for Jack Bauer, as yet another familiar performer has signed on to run around and very likely get blown up, gassed or nuked– or replace someone else who is when 24 returns on January 14. The latest potential short-timer to join the cast is poor Ricky Schroder, [...]

You either loved them for their cuddly, fun spirit of good will and fair play, or they made you barf with their cuddly, fun spirit of good will and fair play– and their dunderheaded idea of forming a “Six Pack” alliance with the underdog Kentucky Coalminers and ‘Bama Single Moms, who screwed them over the [...]

There’s a new Hollywood success story that’s giving new life to an old Hollywood myth– that with enough spunk and talent, anyone can break into the TV business– and you don’t even need the Internet to get there (though it helps). This one comes from the CW, which is developing a new show to fill [...]

Those former Seinfeld guys really know how to make hay out of uncomfortable situations, don’t they? First, Jerry found a way to wedge Michael Richards’ racist onstage rant into publicity for the Seinfeld Season Seven DVD collection (proving there’s no such thing as bad publicity– sales are up 75 percent over season six and 90 [...]

First Britney Spears gets all hissy over a Fed-Ex gag at the American Music Awards, and now the woman who taught her the secrets of stepping out of a limousine is following Britney’s lead when comes to taking a joke! Paris Hilton has cancelled out of tomorrow night’s Billboard Music Awards show because the jokes [...]

Though Candice Woodcock was a mutineer and spent four days and five nights on Exile Island, the latest Survivor castoff will be remembered in the short term at least for her sloppy tongue action with goofy tribemate Adam Gentry– overt canoodling that was only complicated and kinkified when lady boxer Parvati Shallow made it a [...]

Scrubs began its sixth season last night with a brief teaser of an all-musical episode set for January. Now iTunes is offering free downloads of a preview that promises a classic half-hour of television comedy that might even have the censors hopping. The two-and-a-half minute clip is a video montage to “Guy Love,” a Broadway-style [...]

Somebody throw Tracy Morgan under a cold shower! And don’t let Alec Baldwin commit to another colorful supporting role in a motion picture just yet! Last night’s ratings for the struggling Saturday Night Live-inspired sitcom 30 Rock were so encouraging that NBC has given the show a full season pickup. For the past two months, [...]

With its city hosting the latest season of MTV’s The Real World, the Denver Post is playing tabloid with a Real World: Denver blog, offering gossip, pointing readers to Real World hangouts, sponsoring trivia contests (“Here’s an easy one: Which Real World: Denver cast member came out of the closet in sixth grade?”), and– perhaps [...]

CBS is wrapping up the work week with some welcome news for women on television, and not the purty women who’ll be strutting around in the softcore underwear-and-skin-fest Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show (that’s next week, Tuesday at 10). No, they’re making room for the plainer, funnier Janes– even the fugly ones. The only catch is [...]

We’d assumed Survivor would have been pre-empted Thanksgiving night for a Katie Couric tribute to Bob Scheiffer or something similar, so we feel lucky we recorded it. Last week’s episode was a great one, with real intrigue leading up to the Tribal Council and the ouster of Nate Gonzalez, who in his exit interview was [...]