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Red Hot Chili Peppers Sue Over Rubbish TV Show

by Stuart Heritage

Since the Red Hot Chili Peppers are probably the world’s most overrated band, and Showtime’s Californication is probably the world’s most overrated TV show, you’d think the two would be happy bedfellows.

But that’s not the case, no siree. The Red Hot Chili Peppers hate the David Duchovny show Californication because it shares its name with one of their singles and albums, although we forget which one. And so furious are the Red Hot Chili Peppers over the apparent theft of the Californication title that they’re suing Showtime for it. That’s bad news for Showtime, but we can understand why the Red Hot Chili Peppers did it – after all, if TV shows start stealing their names then it ultimately weakens their brand of drearily insipid identikit bass-solo loving white rich-boy MOR funk-rock that only people’s dads really like if they’re honest.

Since the Red Hot Chili Peppers are probably the world's most overrated band, and Showtime's Californication is probably the world's most overrated TV show, you'd think the two would be happy bedfellows. But that's not the case, no siree. The Red Hot Chili Peppers hate the David Duchovny show Californication because it shares its name with one of their singles and albums, although we forget which one. And so furious are the Red Hot Chili Peppers over the apparent theft of the Californication title that they're suing Showtime for it. That's bad news for Showtime, but we can understand why the Red Hot Chili Peppers did it - after all, if TV shows start stealing their names then it ultimately weakens their brand of drearily insipid identikit bass-solo loving white rich-boy MOR funk-rock that only people's dads really like if they're honest.
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Celebrity Apprentice Missing Quite A Few Actual Celebrities

by Stuart Heritage

With the writers’ strike still wiping out shows on a daily basis, television will soon rely completely on reality shows – and what’s more realistic than a giant crazy-haired windbag jabbing his finger at people who are, at best, only semi-famous?

Basically, what we’re saying is thank heavens for Celebrity Apprentice – the all-star version of the Donald Trump bellowing vehicle that’s going to single-handedly save all of American television from imploding in on itself. Or at least that’s what Celebrity Apprentice would do if, you know, it actually had any celebrities in it. The line-up for Celebrity Apprentice has been announced, and the two biggest names involved are Gene Simmons from obsolete rock band Kiss and Lennox Lewis from the RAC direct insurance adverts, with 12 other nonentities added to make up the numbers.

We hear the Celebrity Apprentice producers wanted to up the show’s mean level of celebrity, but the old man who was in one episode of Casualty for three seconds with a broken finger in 1989 was too busy to take part.

With the writers' strike still wiping out shows on a daily basis, television will soon rely completely on reality shows - and what's more realistic than a giant crazy-haired windbag jabbing his finger at people who are, at best, only semi-famous? Basically, what we're saying is thank heavens for Celebrity Apprentice - the all-star version of the Donald Trump bellowing vehicle that's going to single-handedly save all of American television from imploding in on itself. Or at least that's what Celebrity Apprentice would do if, you know, it actually had any celebrities in it. The line-up for Celebrity Apprentice has been announced, and the two biggest names involved are Gene Simmons from obsolete rock band Kiss and Lennox Lewis from the RAC direct insurance adverts, with 12 other nonentities added to make up the numbers. We hear the Celebrity Apprentice producers wanted to up the show's mean level of celebrity, but the old man who was in one episode of Casualty for three seconds with a broken finger in 1989 was too busy to take part.
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The Next Big TV Thing? Choirs, Apparently

by Stuart Heritage

If you thought that spending your Saturday evenings staying in watching retired rugby players and semi-forgotten former soapstars stomp around a stage in sequinny leotards was as low as you could get, think again.

Because we’ll say one thing in Strictly Come Dancing’s defence – it isn’t about choirs. It doesn’t take a genius to see that a primetime BBC One reality talent show based around choirs would probably be the worst televisual idea since Minipops or Vernon Kay or something, but tell that to BBC One. That’s because BBC One has just commissioned Choir Wars, a sort of X Factor but for choirs. We know, we know, the last thing we want to watch is a competitive Songs Of Praise too, but at least it’ll keep Graham Norton off the streets for a few months next year.

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Malcolm McLaren Out Of I’m A Celebrity Already

by Stuart Heritage

The new series of I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here starts tonight, but it’ll have to do so with one less deeply irritating attention-whore than it thought – Malcolm McLaren has pulled out.

Malcolm McLaren – former Sex Pistols manager, composer of songs about skipping and the bloke from a recent advert for mayonnaise – has suddenly decided that he doesn’t want to be a contestant on this year’s I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here mere hours before the show is set to begin. Nobody is sure what prompted Malcolm McLaren to pull out of I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here – the show where borderline famous people go to Australia, become the host body for all kinds of exotic skin-burrowing insects and survive exclusively on a diet of nothing but testicles and anuses – but it was probably because he couldn’t stand spending a fortnight in the same campsite as that awful Changing Rooms woman.

The new series of I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here starts tonight, but it'll have to do so with one less deeply irritating attention-whore than it thought - Malcolm McLaren has pulled out. Malcolm McLaren - former Sex Pistols manager, composer of songs about skipping and the bloke from a recent advert for mayonnaise - has suddenly decided that he doesn't want to be a contestant on this year's I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here mere hours before the show is set to begin. Nobody is sure what prompted Malcolm McLaren to pull out of I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here - the show where borderline famous people go to Australia, become the host body for all kinds of exotic skin-burrowing insects and survive exclusively on a diet of nothing but testicles and anuses - but it was probably because he couldn't stand spending a fortnight in the same campsite as that awful Changing Rooms woman.
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Reason #352 To Not Pay License Fee: Lily Allen Gets BBC Show

by Matthew Laidlow

Social networking is something that means totally different things to people of different ages. For example, the average adult Daily Mail reader knows that it’s just a tool to help children get stalked and molested by dangerous paedophile beasts.

For the average 14-year-old girl, it’s just a chance to post bulletins telling your friends what dead animal your cat dragged through the kitchen door. Of course, websites like Facebook and MySpace are usually used in other ways, like to add us to their profiles as friends even though we’ve never met them. And, yes sexibexi4369 if you’re reading, we do know you’re a bloke anyway. However, musicians favour social networking for gaining publicity and it’s a well-known fact that pikey pied-faced Lily Allen has been doing this for ages. But now it seems like she’s stepping out the virtual world and onto television. God help us all.

Social networking is something that means totally different things to people of different ages. For example, the average adult Daily Mail reader knows that it's just a tool to help children get stalked and molested by dangerous paedophile beasts. For the average 14-year-old girl, it’s just a chance to post bulletins telling your friends what dead animal your cat dragged through the kitchen door. Of course, websites like Facebook and MySpace are usually used in other ways, like to add us to their profiles as friends even though we've never met them. And, yes sexibexi4369 if you're reading, we do know you're a bloke anyway. However, musicians favour social networking for gaining publicity and it’s a well-known fact that pikey pied-faced Lily Allen has been doing this for ages. But now it seems like she's stepping out the virtual world and onto television. God help us all.
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Rosie O’Donnell Not Getting That MSNBC Show After All

by Stuart Heritage

And so Larry King lives to barely breathe another day – negotiations over the proposed daily hour-long Rosie O’Donnell prime-time MSNBC show have broken down, Rosie O’Donnell has revealed.

According to a post on her blog, Rosie O’Donnell’s hopes of scoring a daily serious-minded TV show on MSNBC were over the moment she started yammering on about it to a crowd of people in Miami, and now MSNBC has pulled out of talks. While Rosie O’Donnell can cheerily put the failed MSNBC deal on the ever-growing pile of TV work she didn’t manage to get, it still leaves MSNBC with a gaping hole at 9pm that it desperately needs to fill. Maybe producers were looking for a host who was a little less polarising than Rosie O’Donnell – like Joe Pasquale, maybe, or Dog The Bounty Hunter.

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Rosie O’Donnell Back On TV! Possibly!

by Stuart Heritage

Like us, you’ve probably turned on the TV over the last few months and been frustrated at the lack of hulking angry red-faced lesbians spluttering and gasping any time anyone says something they even slightly disagree with.

If that’s the case, well, we don’t want you to get too excited here, but it looks like Rosie O’Donnell is going to be given her own show on MSNBC. It’s early days yet, but rumour has it that Rosie O’Donnell is in negotiations to bounce back after her high-profile resignation from The View with a daily prime-time TV show where she’ll be in direct competition with Larry King. Nothing’s been confirmed yet, but it’s thought that Rosie O’Donnell has already drawn up a shortlist of potential titles for her show, including I Hate Everything, Outta My Way Assholes and Has Anyone Else Noticed That Elisabeth Hasselbeck Doesn’t Have Her Own Show? She Doesn’t, I Checked.

Like us, you've probably turned on the TV over the last few months and been frustrated at the lack of hulking angry red-faced lesbians spluttering and gasping any time anyone says something they even slightly disagree with. If that's the case, well, we don't want you to get too excited here, but it looks like Rosie O'Donnell is going to be given her own show on MSNBC. It's early days yet, but rumour has it that Rosie O'Donnell is in negotiations to bounce back after her high-profile resignation from The View with a daily prime-time TV show where she'll be in direct competition with Larry King. Nothing's been confirmed yet, but it's thought that Rosie O'Donnell has already drawn up a shortlist of potential titles for her show, including I Hate Everything, Outta My Way Assholes and Has Anyone Else Noticed That Elisabeth Hasselbeck Doesn't Have Her Own Show? She Doesn't, I Checked.
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BBC Sorry For Inexplicable Racism

by C J Davies

It’s been a scandalous old year for broadcast media, hasn’t it?

There was the huge phone-in competition furore, which suggested to shocking effect that – gasp – people in television may not tell the truth on a regular basis, and that the rigid integrity of naming a Blue Peter cat or trying to win a pikey holiday on GMTV may be called into question.

Bigger than that, though, was the Celebrity Big Brother racism row, during which Volkswagen-with-lipstick Jade Goody got into all sorts of trouble because of her constant hassling of fellow contestant Shilpa Shetty. Mind you, it’s not as if such ignorant views seemed particularly surprising when they spewed out of Jade’s mouth – she is, after all, a cretin of almost biblical proportions whose sole brain cell is mostly occupied by deciding which brand of lard to inject next.

It’s not as if some nice, middle-class, well-educated BBC presenter was spouting such drivel.

Until now.

It's been a scandalous old year for broadcast media, hasn't it? There was the huge phone-in competition furore, which suggested to shocking effect that - gasp - people in television may not tell the truth on a regular basis, and that the rigid integrity of naming a Blue Peter cat or trying to win a pikey holiday on GMTV may be called into question. Bigger than that, though, was the Celebrity Big Brother racism row, during which Volkswagen-with-lipstick Jade Goody got into all sorts of trouble because of her constant hassling of fellow contestant Shilpa Shetty. Mind you, it's not as if such ignorant views seemed particularly surprising when they spewed out of Jade's mouth - she is, after all, a cretin of almost biblical proportions whose sole brain cell is mostly occupied by deciding which brand of lard to inject next. It's not as if some nice, middle-class, well-educated BBC presenter was spouting such drivel. Until now.
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Heather Mills Just Like Diana, Shrieks Heather Mills On GMTV

by Stuart Heritage

Thanks to Ellen DeGeneres, full-scale wild-eyed boogaloo angry sobbing televised breakdowns are all the go, and that’s why nobody really doubted that Heather Mills would try her hand at one before long.

But nobody could have expected that Heather Mills’ red-faced tantrum would have been so berserk. However, on GMTV this morning Heather Mills had one of the most spectacular televised breakdowns in all of history than included Heather Mills screaming comparisons between herself, Princess Diana and Kate McCann, conducting direct-to-camera threats to all journalists everywhere, claiming that people are trying to kill her, claiming that she wants to kill herself and demanding that the European courts immediately change the laws so that newspapers are only allowed to say what a wonderful person Heather Mills is.

It’s a cracker, promise.

Thanks to Ellen DeGeneres, full-scale wild-eyed boogaloo angry sobbing televised breakdowns are all the go, and that's why nobody really doubted that Heather Mills would try her hand at one before long. But nobody could have expected that Heather Mills' red-faced tantrum would have been so berserk. However, on GMTV this morning Heather Mills had one of the most spectacular televised breakdowns in all of history than included Heather Mills screaming comparisons between herself, Princess Diana and Kate McCann, conducting direct-to-camera threats to all journalists everywhere, claiming that people are trying to kill her, claiming that she wants to kill herself and demanding that the European courts immediately change the laws so that newspapers are only allowed to say what a wonderful person Heather Mills is. It's a cracker, promise.
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EastEnders Gets Byankker Back

by Stuart Heritage

Since leaving EastEnders in 1999, Patsy Palmer has become one of the most famous human beings on Earth thanks to her red-raw, groundbreaking performances in Patsy Palmer’s Ibiza Workout and that reality TV show about sad dogs.

But even though Patsy Palmer’s workout DVD/ dog show-based career has seen her get deified by all of the world’s religious leaders and effectively bring an end to the Middle East crisis by herself with an innovative mixture of three-legged dogs and full-arm squat-thrusts to copyright-free dance music, Patsy Palmer has decided to return to her roots with an announcement that she’ll become an EastEnders cast-member again early next year.

Oh, you know, Patsy Palmer. The ginger one. Played Bianca. Shouted a lot. Google her or something.

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