Current
Events - January 16
Its been on the news. It’s been parodied as a wrestling
match with lookalikes on the WWE. Rumors are swirling
that due to the corporate synergy of NBC/Universal and
the USA Network, Donald Trump may appear on WWE
programming.
It’s the Trump/O’Donnell war. Let me set this up from as
an unbiased perspective as possible. On December 19,
after rumors were swirling about Miss USA Tara Conner’s
underage drinking problems, Trump (who owns both the
Miss USA and Miss Universe Pageants) announced she would
be going into rehab and getting a second chance at
representing the crown. On a personal note, I think she
should have been removed from being Miss USA. A week
later, when explicit pictures came out of Miss Nevada
USA doing things a pageant winner shouldn’t, her crown
was taken away. That looked hypocritical to me.
O’Donnell did fire the first shot and called Trump “a
snake-oil salesman" on The View. "(He) left the first
wife, had an affair. (He) had kids both times, but he's
the moral compass," O'Donnell said. And the war has been
going on for almost a month now. I am not going to
dignify this page with every statement from both sides.
What I am going to do is call what both people
are–hypocrite blowhards. Full disclosure–I was on the
Rosie O’Donnell talk show in 2000–before Rosie came out
of the closet. Yes, it was an open secret, but she never
disclosed it in public and on air. She was appealing to
the middle American housewife and taking millions of
dollars from Warner Brothers and Telepictures, Inc.
claiming to be something she wasn’t. And when she did
come out, the last season tanked ratings wise. As
another example, Ellen DeGeneres, who came out before
her talk show came out has been a ratings success,
because she is not letting herself and her lifestyle be
the focus of the show. Ellen isn’t a successful gay talk
show host, she is a successful talk show host who
happens to be gay.
Now Trump has done this before. When the last season of
the Apprentice came on the air, he basically started a
war with Martha Stewart. And the ratings for Martha
Stewart suffered, and both blamed each other for the
failure of “Apprentice: Martha Stewart”. This year, I
believe he used Rosie’s personal attack (which it was)
to use it to try and goose the ratings of “Apprentice:
LA”. It didn’t work. The premiere ratings weren’t that
great and it doesn’t look good for the Donald.
So what do we have here? We have two people with
incredible successes and incredible egos lobbing feces
like two monkeys in a zoo. And you know what, the only
people who care are gossip hounds and people like us.
And you know what might happen? We will have one of
those massive three handed press conference handshake
and we will go on to the next gossip story.
And we will never get back weeks of our lives spent on a
lot more important things than this.
On the bright side...
my crystal ball
has been on fire lately. With the renewal of Family Feud
through next year, Millionaire through 2010-2011, and
Wheel and Jeopardy through 2012, the syndication game
show stalwarts and starting solidify their status for a
long time to come.
But what comes of the new kids on the block? This past
week, the game show world was stunned to see the first
new show to be pitched into the syndication markets in 5
years. That would be “Temptation”or “Temptations”,
depending on which press clip you read. This show, the
favorite of Game Show Man Joe Van Ginkel and game show
tape traders worldwide, is based on the classic “Sale of
the Century. It has been the show most people wanted to
see come to the States. The upside, it’s being produced
by Fremantle Media. The downside...it’s being put on
MyNetwork. I am hoping and praying that what we saw in
Australia comes to the United States mostly intact.
And with NATPE (The National Association of Television
Programmers and Executives) convention just starting as
this column is being written, a lot of potential shows
have been announced or maybe coming down the pike. The
bad news is that syndicated Deal or No Deal will be
pushed to the 2008-2009 season, and Combination
Lock/Joker’s Wild has been put on hold. But even Merv
Griffin has got a show being pitched called “Crosswords”
and we have a comedy strip show called “Laugh-Off”.
And with GSN actually going back to more original GAME
programming with the renewals of “Lingo”and “Chain
Reaction”, the expansion of Playmania (shudder) and at
least 5 shows in development (“Grand Slam”, “Carry Your
Weight”, “Indecision”, “Camouflage” and “War of the
Words”)... something has got to be a hit somewhere. And
I believe GSN is slowly going to back to it’s “Game Show
Network” roots, which can be only good news for classic
game show fans like myself.
I am going to stick my neck out on a limb here. We are
in the beginnings of the 2nd game show revolution of
this decade. We rode the first wave from 1999 into the
early 2000's with “Millionaire”, “Greed”, “Twenty-One”,
“Winning Lines” and others. I see the crest forming and
I have my Body Glove wet suit on.
Surf’s up. Enjoy the ride. This one’s going to be a big
one.
You can join the Block Party
at jb.regis@verizon.net. |
