How? Why, by giving John Mayer his own TV show, of course. No, bear with us. You see, if there’s an hour a week where John Mayer is on TV, it’s bound to scare the public into rushing from their homes screaming – straight to the high street. Thanks to CBS and John Mayer, we’re sure the tinned food, DIY bunker and shotgun industries will all easily avoid collapse!

Seriously, John Mayer’s got a TV show. We’re terrified.

If you’re like us, then you think that there aren’t enough girl-haired, smug-as-shit millionaire fops larking around on our TV like they own the bloody thing, regaling us with a mixture of stories about all the supermodels they’ve felt up and performances of godawful self-written weedy piano ballads.

Yes, not content with being everywhere all the time always even though nobody asked or wanted him to, it looks like John Mayer’s getting his own television show. Provisionally titled either Ooh Look At Me I’m John Mayer And I’m So Great or Ooh Look At Me I’m John Mayer And I Know What Jennifer Aniston’s Bumhole Looks Like, the TV show will be a mixture of singing, comedy and variety performances sure to leave every member of the family weeping and begging for the mercy of a swift death in stitches. AP reports:

CBS is close to a deal with pop star John Mayer for a music and variety TV show. CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler told a meeting of the Television Critics Association that the project is under development and an agreement is near. She didn’t provide details.

Oh, so it’s not a done deal yet? Good, that’s smart thinking on the part of CBS. It’s obvious that the network only wants to give John Mayer a show in the blind hope that he’ll get his girlfriend Jennifer Aniston to be a guest every single week. Imagine if CBS gave John Mayer a contract and he went and split up with Jennifer Aniston and got back together with Jessica Simpson. That’d be a disaster! Nobody would ever watch CBS again!

Then again, CBS and John Mayer do go way back – in 2006 he was a guest star on an episode of CSI, in an episode involving detectives trying to get to the bottom of a crime scene at one of John Mayer’s concerts, where 4,000 innocent people all died clutching their ears at the same time. We forget what the cause of the crime was now.

Still, don’t hold your breath for this John Mayer variety show to hit the airwaves any time soon. It sounds awfully similar to the recent Rosie O’Donnell variety show, and that died without a trace. And if America won’t accept a show about a deliberately abrasive overweight lesbian, then what hope does a rich white man who couldn’t be more soggy if he wet himself in a puddle have?

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

After spending 17 months in the television wilderness, where she’s filled her time with nothing but failed comeback attempts and screwy pronouncements about other gay celebrities, it’s been announced that Rosie O’Donnell will host a live one-hour primetime show on NBC the day before Thanksgiving.

The show is to be entitled Rosie’s Variety Hour. It’s an accurate name, since the entire show is going to be an hour of Rosie O’Donnell destroying a variety of things that make her angry with a cricket bat – like a bible, the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, the headquarters of an anti-abortion lobby group and, as a finale, a 30-storey slime-filled papier mache sculpture of Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Donald Trump holding hands.

It’s so strange to think that Rosie O’Donnell hasn’t been on TV for a year and a half, because she’s actually an incredibly versatile performer.

Just look at the things that Rosie O’Donnell has done in the past – she’s been a stand-up comedian, she’s hosted her own daytime TV show, she’s starred in sitcom and she’s destroyed the notion of Betty Rubble being sexy for about five separate generations. Oh, and she’s the queen of bellowing furious abuse at shrill conservatives, too.

However, it might have been this last one that’s kept Rosie O’Donnell off TV. After her final berserk days on The View, nobody wanted to touch her. The producers of The Price Is Right shied away from Rosie because she’d probably want to change the name to The Price Is RAAAAARGH! and would only ever ask questions about the price of the illegal war that America is waging in the Middle East in both financial and human terms.

But at least Rosie O’Donnell can put all her failure behind her now, because she’s just landed what might be the biggest job of her career – her very own primetime NBC show. EW reports:

Appropriately titled Rosie’s Variety Hour, the special will kick off with a topical monologue and feature celebrity guests, musical acts, comedy skits, and a “giant” giveaway for both the in-studio and home audiences. “This is a dream come true for any performer,” O’Donnell said in a statement. “Old time variety, live from New York with a nod to Ed Sullivan, Carol Burnett and memories of Sonny and Cher.”

We’re really looking forward to Rosie’s Variety Hour, you know – we hear that the giant giveaway at the end comes in the form of knowledge, as a giant flashing sign that reads YOUR GOD IS DEAD AND ALL LIFE IS A MEANINGLESS STRING OF EVENTS WITH NO UNIVERSAL CONSEQUENCE.

But, regardless, we’d like to extend our sincere congratulations to Rosie O’Donnell. This is her dream job and, if the special is a success, it’s bound to run forever.

Or until Rosie decides to blurt out some sort of massively controversial rant about something sensitive enough to alienate her advertisers and put an end to the show, at least.

So about three weeks, then.

Take the Sex and the City movie, for example. Rehashing a series that had finished on TV less than five years previously seemed to hecklerspray as something of a cynical cash-in. And it worked. Did it ever work . So who can blame the struggling execs in tinseltown for turning to another much-loved TV property with a push at converting it for the big screen, even though the topsoil on its grave is still fresh?

Yes, friends, there are rumours they're re-doing Friends. But for now, even though everyone in the world seems to be harping on about it, these rumours are nothing but that. There may be hope yet.

When it comes to barely-even-dead TV shows heading to the big screen there are few occasions when it's a genuinely good idea. The Sex and the City film proved it was a lucrative idea, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a good one. It does if you're a money-hoarding twit, mind, but if you have any integrity whatsoever it's probably better to leave these projects alone. Let them die, especially when they went on for ten years and tied up every loose end imaginable over the course.

Don't re-open the wounds, don't rehash the same storylines, don't break up the established relationships and don't create new problems from lives that fans of the show have accepted as being 'on course'. Oh, and retroactively: don't give Joey a spin-off. It won't work. hecklerspray feared the worst when rumours popped up earlier this week that all of those sins were about to be committed in one glorious two-hour epic of utterly unbelievable lives, 'being there for yoooou' and Phoebe being a shit character.

But thank crikey if there haven't been two massive wedges of sense in the space of a day – first the tabloid 'zines turn down messr Lohan's approaches to sell the story of the child that may not even be his, and now it would seem that the raping of an only very recently dead TV corpse is to be left alone. For the time being, at least. Matthew Perry – or Chandler, or that one off that cancelled TV show that was quite good, for those who don't know him outside of Friends (i.e. most people, thanks to his stellar movie career) – has a publicist, Lisa Kasteler, and she said these words using her mouth:

"Nothing is happening in this regard, so the rumour is false."

She couldn't have put it better if she tried. Well, she could – she could have swore or something, as we all know swearing is fucking cool. But for 'getting straight to the point' points, she scores high.

But this leaves something of a void in the minds of the Hollywood decision-makers. Well, we should say 'more of a void than the normal vacuous space that should resemble the creative part of a human brain in the minds of the Hollywood decision-makers'. Without a tried-and-tested formula, what can they do? Come up with something new? Do a sequel? Release the same rom-com again with a different title?

hecklerspray has a suggestion, one that we're willing to give up for free, just this once. It covers the TV-remake base and has genuine potential, as well as being a worthy transition from small to big screen, not just a bloated cash-in.

Arrested Development: The Movie.

Make that and most of your sins for being rubbish bastards will be forgiven.

We’d do anything to help you out. Say you thought some Russian military types had tampered with your food; we’d be there to help you. Sure, we’d be putting our own life at risk as we gingerly slurped your tomato soup, but we love you and would never turn down your request.

However, there are some factors that we can’t control: famine, Bono, global warming and hay fever (oh dear God the hay fever). At first the problem is confined to one area, but it then slowly spreads around the world. Look at Bono – Ireland suffered for so long until he was unleashed to the world.

Now it’s England’s turn to unleash one of their ropiest creations, this time on an unsuspecting America. Lily Allen has been granted a visa. Batten down the hatches, quick!

Lily’s cheeky chirpy cockney songs have never been off radio and TV stations in England. Most of the time it’s a lucky dip to see if Smile or LDN is going to be played next. It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t every ten minutes or so.

But then, would the public like to hear a makeshift hecklerspray band doing a freestyle jam on a few metal cans and coat hangers? No, probably not.

In-between writing and recording her second album, Lily has been doing other stuff as well. You see, she’s not like the other one dimensional singers without a soul or conscience. She can do more than pout and attempt to look sexy – Lily can present too! Well, that’s what BBC 3 believes anyway.

Some genius came up with the Lily Allen and Friends show. A programme where a few celebrity people come on to plug a TV show or product they’re involved with.

In-between all of the ker-azy chat comes the part of the show that makes up about 89% of the content, the always reliable feature: “clips from the internet showcasing wacky people which means I can sit on my arse and do fuck all for a bit,” used every week. Honestly, we’d never seen the Chocolate Rain man before. We are so thankful. The show really is worth the license fee alone to watch TV content which comes from YouTube.

For some time now, Lily’s wild child antics have seen her banned from America. Having the odd drink doesn’t seem to be a popular thing with Uncle Sam and her persistent drunken nights out haven’t helped. For a long time she’s been banned from the land of obesity and Maury. Now Magazine reports:

“Lily had to have her pee regularly checked and then blood tests on top to prove she wasn’t on drugs before the US government would give her a working visa.”

We just feel sorry for the poor sod that had to check her piss. How this was done we aren’t sure, but we’re willing to bet it was all down to the texture and aroma of the urine. But that doesn’t matter now; she’s got the visa, and she was reported as feeling:

“Chuffed.”

Though we would like to remind US visa officials of her odd antics at last week’s Glamour awards. She clearly wasn’t sticking to tap water or lemonade during the ceremony and looked slightly worse for wear. This will probably scare the shit out of the people who gave her legal permission to visit America.

Have fun with her in the USA. And don’t feel inclined to send her back anytime soon.

Chris, currently touring his ‘No Apologies’ show around South Africa, was the butt of a US reality TV show prank.

You ask: what was said prank? Well, he he, get this! God, we’re laughing just typing it down! Right, this TV show (which no one seems to know the name of) made accusations that Chris Rock has, wait for it… had sex with an underage British girl – when he hasn’t! Ahahahahahaha!

Genius! And yet, for some reason, Chris Rock didn’t find being accused of statuatory rape funny in the slightest. The bloody square.

Back in his 2005 HBO special, ‘Never Scared’, Chris said of R Kelly (in reference to the video at the centre of R Kelly’s current underage watersport trial):

R Kelly’s lost his mind. He gotta lotta balls saying ‘it aint me’. Motherfucker, we know what you look like!…At one point on the tape R Kelly is eating this girls ass out like it’s puppy chow. He’s in her ass like he’s got diabetes and her ass’ got insulin in it.

Oh, he can dish it out, for sure, but can he take it? The answer seems to be ‘no’. Not so funny when the jokes on you, eh, Christopher?

Chris, to be fair, has a strong defence, in as far as the whole thing is fictional, which will no doubt be R Kelly’s next attempt to clear his name:

A cast member of the anonymous show appeared in court on Monday demanding Rock be taken into custody, but the judge refused on the grounds that Rock could not be arrested or detained without a proper warrant.

Honestly, a TV show can’t even accuse an innocent black man of rape anymore!

After hearing the rumours, Chris immediately sought clarification on the charges he so foolishly believed had actually been brought against him.

Tlali Tlali, a National Prosecuting Authority spokesman, told AFP:

It was a hoax, it was for one of the US reality television programmes. They pulled one on him, information got to him that the South African Police Service was going to arrest him. Acting on that information, he quickly approached lawyers who brought an urgent application at the Johannesburg High Court ,where judgement was in his favour. This one went too far, it must have been organised quite carefully.

The Egyptian Sun God Horus; who was naturally begat by Jesus Christ; who was echoed by Nostradamus, and then, most poignantly of all, by Travis Bickle; all spake of a day when the worth of the people of the world would reach such a trough that our almighty lord God would be left with no alternative but to unleash a mighty rain to wash the scum off the streets.

And that day is nigh, our brothers, for 85,000 people have volunteered to become Paris Hilton’s new best friend.

You can waste your time watching as many Al Gore documentaries as you like, but believe hecklerspray when we tell you that global warming is nothing but a 5* hotel-funded conspiracy.

The reason that that tidal wave hit Phuket; the reason that Mardi Gras is now held in a swamp; the reason that the cuckoo now prefers to spend its holidays somewhere other than Kent; is solely down to the existence of Paris Hilton, her mind-numbing minions, MTV and the soon-to-be aired TV show I wanna be Paris’ New Best Friend.

According to People magazine, 85,000 people are seeking a chance to become Paris Hilton’s BFF.

That is far more than enough to fill Wembley stadium. In fact, hecklerspray would like to suggest to MTV that they try to cram all those people into Wembley Stadium.

The ensuing Hillsborough-esque disaster would hopefully go someway to appeasing our understandably furious Lord.

We’d also like to take a moment to apologise to the Lord for our recent reports suggesting the show was in danger of being axed, due to a lack of applicants.

Very embarrassing indeed. It seems no one’s subconscious – not even that of hecklerspray’s – is safe from the retard-tainting of Ms Hilton. On behalf of all humanity, we’d like to apologise for how greatly we’ve let you down.

And so, Lord, from the bottom of our hearts, we thank you for the rain which you are about to unleash.

However, if, by any chance, you could find it in your heart to be more specific with your punishment, then hecklerspray would like to point out that on May 1 Good Charlotte will be performing at Sunfest, in West Palm Beach, Florida, along with Natasha Bedingfield and John Legend.

There is surely no more apt a place for Armageddon to commence.

Read More – Pick me, Paris! 85, 000 vie to be Hilton’s new BFF – AFP

Firstly, let's be clear – nobody told me that I was going going for a job on a reality TV show or that Peaches Geldof was going to be the editor. Both these factors would have put me off straight away.

So here is my story of how I almost worked with the stupidly-named celebrity wannabe Peaches Geldof.

After being rejected time and time again off various publications and other high profile media outlets, it was getting to be a bit of an annoyance. However, a very kind friend pointed me in the direction of an advert to write for a new magazine.

It would be aimed at youngsters aged between 18-24. Being a hip and young person, I thought I could do this perfectly well. After all, I fit in that age demographic and hecklerspray seems to have gotten on some radars. So I scribbled out the application form and answered some basic questions about myself and whatnot. Nothing too challenging.

After waiting a while, someone told me I ticked the right boxes and passed that stage of the 'application'. Another form was e-mailed over and I filled that in too. A few days later I was told I was to be summoned for an interview down in the big city.

As I got on the train down to London, something occurred to me. I was applying to be a writer for a magazine, but I didn't even know what I'd be writing for. For example, my knowledge of chemical engineering isn’t so hot, so I was hoping it wasn’t a magazine about that.

Another thing that bothered me was the fact I was told not to bring any examples of work down with me. Don’t get me wrong, this would probably take up a lot of time as everyone showed off their pieces, but the only thing that the publishers knew about me is that I can cleverly answer some questions on an application form. Still, I took down a couple of nicely printed-off hecklerspray articles and that magazine that painted me orange.

Finally it was time to go and face the strange interview process. Upon arrival, yet more forms were filled in and strange questions were asked. Worryingly, nothing to do with writing was asked. I kind of half-expected some vague question of whether I had any qualifications, who I currently writing for and what journalistic experience I’ve had. After all, this was going to be a 'proper' magazine wasn’t it? It just had MTV attached to it.  

Then the significance of MTV seemingly dawned on me. What kind of input would they have on this project? Would they literally film snapshots of it and broadcast one-minute updates during advert breaks during repeats of My Super Sweet 16? Or would they do something else?

One other gritty detail suddenly hit me whilst I waited for my interview. The whole process was to be filmed – the making of the magazine and the interview itself. This made me worry that MTV had intentions of getting a cheap show out of me potentially trying to cobble a few stories together. Now, I’ve had interviews for jobs before and they can be uncomfortable. But to be filmed as well, that’s just really annoying. 

As I waited for my turn, the room was full of other people waiting to be interviewed, or who had been interviewed. From small talk, it didn’t seem like it was a very formal affair. Somewhat of a relief, but still I wasn’t happy knowing that other people applying for the same job as me didn’t know anything about the style, tone or content of this magazine.

Eventually it was my turn and I walked the short distance for my interview. As I entered the battered-looking room, I was faced with two women, a bloke and a camera. I sat down, got told to adjust the mic and not to worry about being filmed. Of course, this made me worry more.  

So off we went, from the vague memories I have, I was never really asked much about why I wanted this job, what writing experience I had or what qualifications I’d gained. In a nutshell, the conversation ranged from how I’d cope with office gossip about myself to if I could handle criticism if my work was shit.

Then the conversation switched to something to do with professions. I said I respected doctors quite highly because they make a difference to people’s lives and that celebrities did bugger all, got more media attention then they deserve and get away with everything. Then this happened: 

Interviewer: "This magazine may have a celebrity editor. How would you cope with working with a celebrity?"

Me: "Umm.. I’d try my best to get on with then. After all, I’d be working with a team, so I wouldn’t want to cause a dodgy atmosphere and ruin the magazine's progress."

I don’t think my response worked. After all, Peaches Geldof was going to be editing the thing. Some have said that she's a celebrity. They're wrong, but they said it anyway.

After the solo failure that was my interview, I then had to do a group interview. How this would show me as a better person then anyone else, I don’t know. But after a quick sit-down, I was summoned back to the same room with two other people. Here we were given a scenario to act out. Each person had a number on their head, ranging from 1-10.

The higher then number, the bigger twat they are. You had to act out the situation whilst addressing the person according to whether they were God, or a pikey who wants to bum 20p of you. 

And that was it. That was my interview to work on a magazine project with MTV. As you can probably guess, I got a lovely rejection e-mail a few weeks later. Was I disappointed? A little bit, yes, but then it was a bit annoying too. Part of the blurb in the message was that I was not picked due to the high calibre of journalistic talent.

Hmm, not sure how they worked that out, since no-one was told to bring any of their work down with them.

However, what pissed me off the most was that I actually wasted money coming to London to apply for a job that was never fully explained to me. Not even what I was writing about or the fact it was going to be flogged as a TV show. If I had made it, I probably would have rejected the job opportunity once the details emerged. Especially thanks to Peaches Geldof’s involvement.

I’m not one to make a twat of myself on a tacky TV show. I’ll leave that to her. Though if I had been working with Peaches I would have been able to ask some questions directly to her, such as. “Why do you have such a stupid name?” “What do you actually do?”

I was told on the day of my interview that none of the filming of me would be aired. However, something tells me I’ll probably end up seeing myself broadcast to the world looking like a gimp. And this article doesn’t help me much ether.  

There we have it. A hecklerspray expose. I’m going back to make the tea.

Because Paris Hilton wants you to be her friend. Well, not you obviously. Someone who's a little less likely to stab her in the eye in a fit of rage within 20 seconds of meeting her. You know, someone who – shudder – actually likes Paris Hilton.

Yesterday Paris Hilton launched her new reality TV show, entitled Paris Hilton's My New BFF – short for 'best friend forever'. The show was going to be called Paris Hilton's My New BFFTPOASLRTSAICINS – short for 'best friend for the purposes of a short-lived reality TV show and I'm certain it's not sincere', but BFF's just that little bit snappier.

You! Yes you! Do you judge friendship on the amount of invisible bruises you receive? Maybe on the ease in which your telephone can be hacked? Perhaps you like nothing more than feeling a growing sense of inadequacy as you're constantly mocked and judged by a group of sneering, vaguely parasitic brats with moderately famous parents? What? You fit into all three of these categories? Well then, Paris Hilton has got an offer for you!

When it was previously reported that Paris Hilton was looking for a friend through a reality TV show, we thought it was an evil Illuminati trick to weed out the world's most clueless percentile and enslave it for menial labour on its seven-foot lizardman farm. But we were mistaken. This Paris Hilton reality TV friend search really exists and, as Reuters reports, yesterday Paris Hilton's My New BFF got its official launch:

Hilton, 27, unveiled the series, with the working title "Paris Hilton's My New BFF," during a news conference at a luxury home high in the Hollywood Hills on Thursday. Production on the 10-episode series is slated to begin in Los Angeles at the end of May, with an air date scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2008… The 20 finalists will move into a house with Hilton, and will learn from the master about "normal girl stuff," like fashion, parties and shopping… "[I want] someone that I can just trust, someone who's not gonna stab me in the back like has happened a lot in this town, someone I can have fun with."

But how will the number of aspiring Paris Hilton friends be whittled down to 20? Simple! Through www.parisbff.com – a website where Paris Hilton's wannabe friends can upload pictures and videos of themselves and get rated by the public.

However, only some of Paris Hilton finalist BFFs will be found on the website. Frankly if any get let through we'd be surprised, since at the moment the entrants seem to have misheard the title of the show as Paris Hilton's The New Target Of My Berserk Campaign Of Disturbing Obsession or Dude, I Bet I Can Totally Fuck Paris Hilton.

However, if you're thinking about signing up for Paris Hilton's My New BFF, you should probably do it. After all, you'll probably win – Paris' last BFF was Nicole Richie, so the bar hasn't exactly been set very high.

Read more:

Who wants to be Paris Hilton's new best friend? - Reuters 

But not any more, because Marie Osmond has just announced her own daytime TV show. And, from what we can gather, this is just because Marie Osmond fell over on that TV show about dancing.

Don't worry, though, Marie Osmond's TV show won't start until late next year, so you've got plenty of time to go and find ways to avoid it. Maybe, say, by blowing your head up with dynamite or trying to chew through an electrical power line.

You'd have to be a brave soul to try and take on the daytime TV old-guard, you know. With Oprah discussing 'the gift of fear', Martha Stewart teaching Eva Longoria how to make Spicy Citrus Chicken Wings, the ladies on The View talking about the best way to kill a dog and Ellen DeGeneres crying like a baby for a solid hour, the schedules are pretty rammed and newcomers aren't welcome.

Unless you're Marie Osmond, of course, because if there's one thing American daytime TV certainly doesn't have enough of, it's giant-haired middle-aged women wearing too much make-up and yammering vast inanities at everything that gets waggled under their noses.

Which is good, because Marie Osmond has got her own TV show now. E! Online:

Marie is slated for a fall 2009 launch, according to independent syndicator Program Partners, which announced the news Tuesday during the National Association of Television Program Executives expo in Las Vegas. [Marie said] "I've always wanted to do a show for women that would offer them a safe place to have some fun and get vital information. Marie will truly reflect my personality—funny, sometimes serious and never predictable." "Marie is a true original," Program Partners exec Rich Colbert said. "And Marie, the series, will be every bit as much a winner as she is. This is the kind of project for which stations have been waiting for a very long time."

We'll give them that – Marie Osmond is definitely never predictable! One minute she's divorcing her long-term husband, then the next her daughters are calling themselves 'bisexual nymphomaniacs' on MySpace, then her son gets admitted to rehab, then she keels over on live TV and then she's possibly trying to kill herself. That Marie Osmond, seriously, she's zany all the way.

However, we'll admit to being just a little bit worried about the autumn 2009 start date for Marie, because Marie Osmond needs to ride this celebrity train while it's hot. After all, she might be on top of the world now that her fainting episode on Dancing With The Stars has brought her back to public attention – but who knows what'll happen between now and the start of her show? All it'll take is for someone like Geena Davis to go on a reality TV show and faint, vomit and poo down herself on air and – bam – that daytime TV show will be snatched away from Marie faster than you can say Paper Roses.

Read more:

Marie Osmond Waltzes into Daytime – E! Online