What’s On Tonight….Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Argh, I know GMMR updates have been few and far between the past few days, and for that I’m so sorry. It’s hard to find the time when traveling, but I’m going to try to be better today. For now, check out a few programs that could be interesting to check out tonight.

American Inventor
Simon Cowell is one of the people behind this show which combines science and ingenuity with the talent-contest format. Judges include George Foreman, because of the grill, not his pugilistic talents.

Barbaro
Documentary looks at the triumph and tragedy of the horse whose Kentucky Derby triumph and terrible Preakness injury held many Americans in thrall until he was finally put down in January.

Tyler Perry’s House of Payne
The man behind “Diary of A Mad Black Woman” created this sitcom about a grumpy Atlanta firefighter and his large family. Perry also makes an appearance in drag.

2007 TCA Nominees Announced

The 23rd annual TCA Awards honor the finest work of the 2006-07 season as selected by the association’s 200-plus member critics and journalists. The winners will be announced on July 21st ceremony.

Past winners up for honors this year include Jon Stewart (“The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”), Hugh Laurie (“House”), NBC’s “The Office,” Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” HBO’s “The Sopranos,” ABC’s “Lost” and Nickelodeon’s “Nick News.”

Give Me My Remote’s favorites in each category are bolded for your reading enjoyment. Let us know your favorites.

PROGRAM OF THE YEAR
“American Idol” (Fox)
“Friday Night Lights” (NBC)
“Heroes” (NBC)
“Planet Earth” (Discovery)
“The Wire” (HBO)
“When the Levees Broke” (HBO)

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN COMEDY
“30 Rock” (NBC)
“The Daily Show” (Comedy Central)
“Entourage” (HBO)
“The Office” (NBC)
“Ugly Betty” (ABC)

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA
“Friday Night Lights” (NBC)
“Heroes” (NBC)
“Lost” (ABC)
“The Sopranos” (HBO)
“The Wire” (HBO)

MORE TCA NOMINEES AFTER THE JUMP

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Favorite Shows of Our Favorite Show Creators

VARIETY has a great segment which asks some of the top TV show creators to talk about the TV that has inspired them throughout the years. Check out which shows have impacted Josh Schwartz (The O.C.), Shonda Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy), Tim Kring (Heroes), and Seth McFarlane (The Family Guy).

Josh Schwartz
Resume: Creator/exec producer of “The O.C.”, “Chuck” (NBC), and “Gossip Girl” (CW) — both premiere this fall

What shows have influenced your career: ” ‘Family Ties,’ ‘Quantum Leap,’ ‘Moonlighting’ (as a kid), ‘Seinfeld,’ ‘The Sopranos,’ anything by J.J. Abrams or Judd Apatow.”

Favorite shows besides your own: “The Sopranos,” “Heroes,” “Friday Night Lights,” “The Office,” “30 Rock,” “How I Met Your Mother,” “Real Time With Bill Maher.”
(more from Josh Schwartz)

Shonda Rhimes
Resume: Creator/exec producer of “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Private Practice”

What shows have influenced your career: “I’ve watched a lot of television, but I’d have to say that the shows that have influenced me the most are ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show,’ ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and ‘Good Times.’ A varied mix, but all three shows had great character development and all three took chances. I’m still not over the cancellation of ‘Buffy.’ ”

Favorite shows besides your own: “I’m a big fan of ‘Weeds,’ ‘Lost,’ ‘The Closer’ and ‘Project Runway.’ ”
(more from Shonda Rhimes)

Tim Kring
Resume: “Heroes” (creator, executive producer); “Crossing Jordan” (creator, executive producer) “Providence,” co-executive producer; “L.A. Doctors,” co-executive producer; “Strange World,” co-creator; “Chicago Hope,” supervising producer

What shows have influenced your career? “The idea of these big twists and turns that ‘Heroes’ has very much came from wanting to duplicate the experience that I had watching the Rod Serling shows ‘Twilight Zone’ and ‘Night Gallery’ — those kinds of shows where there was always some very big twist at the end that made you rethink everything that you had just seen.”

Favorite shows besides your own: “It’s funny, when I started working in television was when I stopped watching TV. By the time you get home and spend any kind of time with your kids, TV is not really an option. (But) the one real addiction for my family is ‘Project Runway,’ which is, I would say, also the biggest and most popular show in the writers’ room at ‘Heroes.’ ”
(more from Tim Kring)

Seth MacFarlane
Resume: Creator/exec producer of “The Family Guy”, “American Dad”

What shows have influenced your career: “Certainly for what I do on a practical basis, ‘The Simpsons’ has been an influence. As far as comedy, I was always big Woody Allen fan growing up, I was a big Jackie Gleason fan and certainly you see a great deal of that in Peter. And I thought ‘The Larry Sanders Show’ was just about one of the greatest comedy shows ever produced, in addition to ‘All in the Family.’ ”

Favorite shows besides your own: “I’m very sad that ‘The Sopranos’ is ending. I love that show. Probably my favorite show on the air right now is ‘Real Time With Bill Maher.’ I almost wish it was on a network and more people could see it because it’s sort of an oasis of logic and reason.”
(more from Seth MacFarlane)

What’s On Tonight…

It’s only 5am here on the West Coast, and I’m more than a little groggy, but if I were more awake I’d be jumping up and down with excitement over the return of MY LIFE ON THE D LIST tonight.  Kathy Griffin cracks me up.  Yes, she can be a little much at times, but no one does celebrity satire like Kathy. Will anyone else be watching with me tonight?

Kathy Griffin: Everybody Can Suck It
Stand-up special from the take-no-prisoners comedian is followed by the season premiere of her Hollywood reality show, “My Life On The D List.”

2007 Alma Awards
“Desperate Housewives” star Eva Longoria hosts festivities honoring Latino artists in American TV, movies and music. Los Lobos and George Lopez are honored, and Beyonce performs.

The Shield
Sixth-season finale finds Vic forming an unexpected alliance as he awaits his review board hearing, and Billings dropping a bombshell on the department.

Podcast Errors

Ducky and I received some emails from people saying that our latest podcast was cut off during our “Brothers & Sisters” discussion.  But others have said that they had no issues at all.  If you were kind enough to listen to our podcast can you let me know if it worked for you?  Would you also mind letting me know whether you were on a Mac or PC?

If you haven’t yet listened to Podcast #8, check it out and let us know what you think?

Give Me My Remote in TIME MAGAZINE

Excuse me while I dork out for a minute, but it’s not everyday Give Me My Remote gets a shout out in TIME Magazine!!! Absolutely crazy. The site is only mentioned in passing, but hey I’ll take it. So weird to think that anyone that works for TIME would be spending any amount on my little TV blog.

Thanks to Steven for being the first to let me know about it. I got so many emails for people who saw it. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know so many GMMR readers were also reading TIME. Just goes to show we’ve got interests outside of our TiVos (well at least you all do).

MTV Awards and What’s On Tonight…

Although my plane landed a little bit later than it was scheduled to, I made it to Cali safe and sound. Despite not being able to keep my eyes open this morning, it should be a good two weeks.

MTV Movie Awards…
The beauty of flying Jet Blue was that I could flip back and forth between the Sox/Yanks game (which my boys sadly lost) and the MTV Movie Awards. Now, I’m definitely a few years removed from knowing what’s happening in the world of MTV but I love Sarah Silverman and wanted to check her out. I gotta say, here Paris Hilton jail jokes were just phenomenal, especially since the now imprisoned Paris was sitting right up front. No apologies from Sarah…it was great.

Will Ferrell and Sacha Baron Cohen making out on stage was definitely something to behold. Jack Nicholson was so s$%tfaced I was surprised he made it to the stage without falling on his ass. And of course my cardigan-loving John Krasinski presented along with his License to Wed co-stars Mandy Moore and Robin Williams (lord beer me strength to get through Robin Williams’ scenes in this movie). I can’t say that I caught the whole awards show, but what I saw was decent enough.

I missed ENTOURAGE last night so I’m trying to avoid spoilers this morning. So if you saw it…don’t tell me.

What’s on tonight…
Creature Comforts
The team behind “Wallace & Grommit” brings you a stop-motion animation series in which the animals gives their opinions in the voice – and words – or real-life Americans.

Hell’s Kitchen
This time the up-and-coming chef/contestants are trying to convince the fiery Gordon Ramsay that they deserve to run their own Las Vegas restaurant.

The Riches
A while season worth of scams is in danger of tumbling down on the conning family in this year-ending episode.

Out and About…

Sorry things have been a little quiet on GMMR this weekend.  I had a busy weekend.  First a big Give Me My Remote CONGRATS to my friends Adam and Heather who got married last night.  It was a good time all around and great to see some friends that I hadn’t seen in WAY too long. A special thanks for Dunnie, D Smalls and Jimmy for doing the 2am Mickey D’s run…it was the best ever!

I’m headed off to Cali tonight.  I’ll find sometime to blog on Monday but I’m not sure when.  Meanwhile, it’s your turn to keep ME up to date with the latest TV news.  If you’ve got something important to share make sure you drop me a line. 

Make sure you check out the latest GMMR|DuckyxDale podcast.  It’s all about the season finales…we had so much to discuss.  Now it’s your turn.  Pick ONE and only one season finale as your favorite and let us know why.

Oh and before I forget, Give Me My Remote got a little tiny shout in…get this…TIME MAGAZINE!  Crazy, right? If you happen to have this week’s TIME and a scanner would you mind scanning in the GMMR mention and sending it my way?  Thanks!!

GMMR|DuckyxDale TV Podcast No. 8

I know its been an insanely long hiatus from the TV Podcast between duckyxdale.com and givememyremote.com but I’m happy to report that we are back and in full force with Podcast #8.

Here we dish about the best and worst of the 2006-2007 Season Finales! Join us, we’ll make you laugh… well we’ll at least make ourselves laugh! Sorry we don’t do a weekly podcast, our schedules tend to be out of sync but we try to do our best! Thanks for sticking with us.

Subscribe via iTunes

Listen Online: Podcast #8

Interested in catching up on our past podcasts? Head on over to the podcast page where you can listen to all of our previous episodes.

iTunes Comments
This is a great way to spread the word about our podcast and it really helps new listeners determine if they want to subscribe to us or not based on YOUR COMMENTS. Subscribing to the joint podcast between duckyxdale.com and givememyremote.com is the best way to listen to us. Please comment on duckyxdale and givememyremote’s TV Podcast at iTunes.

BJ Novak – The Original Prankster

We all know that at Dunder Mifflin it’s Jim Halpert that is the prankster extraordinaire, but is Ryan Howard, or at least his alter ego, the one we should be watching out for?   During his last appearance on The Tonight Show with Jeno Leno, OFFICE writer/producer/star BJ Novak told the story of a genius prank he pulled in high school which involved the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, a Chinese art exhibit and some tape recorders…all the essentials for a good prank no?Here’s the rest straight from BJ himself:

Basically, we took tour of this exhibit of Chinese art. They had one of those audio tours where you put on headphones and get a guided tour of the art (“turn to your left… you will see….” etc.).

We decided it would be funny to replace the tapes of the tour with our own recording. We stole a cassette tape from the tour, took it back home, and transcribed where everything was in the exhibit. Then we wrote our own tour and recorded that. My brother Jesse Novak matched it up with appropriate ancient-Chinese-sounding music in the background.

We made fifteen copies of the tapes and got fifteen friends to take the tour with a new tape in their pocket. On the tour, everyone quietly replaced the original tape with the new tape at some point before returning the headset at the end of the tour. This left the next batch of museumgoers with the new tour we recorded.

Anyway, my friend just put the tour up on iTunes. This link should work, or you can just search the iTunes store for “B.J. Novak” or “Prank Audio Tour.”

This is good stuff people…you should definitely listen.

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=256548204

SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE – Brian Gaynor is the Man

UPDATE: Bryan appeared on SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE again on June 3, 2010. Check out his appearance here: Bryan Gaynor – SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE.

The SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE auditions came to and end last night in Atlanta, and if nothing else it was memorable. There were a surprisingly number of good dancers and of course some that should never, ever dance again – not even drunk at a bar…not even in the privacy of their own living room.

DuckyxDale and I are going to be doing some tag teaming on this season of SYTYCD, so I’m going to let him fill you in on all the dancers, but I had to share the highlight of the night for me.

We’ve seen some interesting dancers with some interesting stories over the past few seasons, but none like Bryan Gaynor. Bryan is a 20 year old college student living with scoliosis, a debilitating curvature of the spine that has affected his movement and height. But none of that stopped Bryan from having one of the sickest robot auditions we have ever seen. It was funny and awesome. Check it out:

Bryan didn’t make it through to Vegas, but Shane Sparks was so smitten that he offered Bryan a part in the new movie he is choreography. That ain’t a bad day.

Check out Ducky’s full recap of last night’s So You Think You Can Dance

STUDIO 60 Uneven Ep Ends in Brilliance

Partly out of allegiance to Aaron Sorkin and partly because there wasn’t much else on, I tuned in last night to STUDIO 60. I watched most of the episode without much enthusiasm. The lawyer lady throwing herself at Matt while trying to conduct important legal matters close to midnight on a Friday was as ridiculous as it was annoying. Jordan and Danny struggling to find balance between their personal and working relationships felt very ‘been there, done that’. I was secretly wishing I was watching the show on TiVo so I could fast forward through them. I would have turned off the ep about half way in but I knew Jenna Fischer (The Office) was going to have a small cameo and I wanted to wait and see her before I tuned out. But then, just as the show was wrapping up, there was a shift to brilliance.

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What to Watch: Friday, June 1, 2007

Here’s a sampling of what’s on the ‘ol TV tonight. Some I watch, some I don’t but during the summer I’m going to try to mix it up a bit to give you a bit of the flava 🙂

TV’s Funniest Moments
Brad Garrett, who’s funny just standing still, hosts a Museum of Radio and Television clipstravaganza featuring the best from sitcoms, late-night and sketch-comedy shows.

National Bingo Night
Contestants draw bingo balls in hopes of winning a luxury cruise, a $10,000 shopping spree and a trip to the Belmont Stakes. Viewers have a chance at $50,000 and a trip to the set of “Ugly Betty.”

Edge of Existence
Discovery Channel examines how primitive societies manage to survive in the modern world, beginning with the desert nomads known as Bedouins. Donal MacIntyre hosts.

Stargate SG1
Fred Willard guests as Vala’s father, whose potential as an intelligence source may be compromised by the fact that he’s a con artist.

Battlestar Galactica to End After Season 4

The news has just come in that BATTLESTAR GALACTICA will indeed end after this upcoming season. Rumors have been swirling ever since BSG  star Edward James Olmos told a reporter that this would be the final season, but producers and others associated with the show were quick to say that wasn’t the case.  But it now has been confirmed.

Executive producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eick issued a joint statement saying it was their decision to end the series.

“This show was always meant to have a beginning, a middle and, finally, an end,” producers said. “Over the course of the last year, the story and the characters have been moving strongly toward that end, and we’ve decided to listen to those internal voices and conclude the show on our own terms.”

Producers promised to end the show “with a bang.”

It’s going to be sad to see Battlestar Galactica end, but I’m glad the show will be concluded in the way the producers envisioned.

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