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Signs of the Apocalypse Roundup – January 2010 – Week 2

Holly Madison gets her own E! series
Docusoap will follow ‘Girls Next Door’ star in Las Vegas
Another “Girls Next Door” star is getting her own series. E! Entertainment Television is set to announce a docusoap following former “Girls” star Holly Madison as she works and plays in Las Vegas. “Holly’s World” follows Madison on- and offstage as she stars in the Vegas production “Peepshow.”

ABC orders ‘Bachelor’ all-stars spin-off
ABC has ordered a spinoff of its hit “Bachelor” franchise in which former contestants will live together in a “Big Brother”-style house. Titled “Bachelor Pad,” the series produced by Mike Fleiss’ Next Entertainment in association with Warner Horizon will bring back 20 memorable contestants from the previous 13 cycles of “The Bachelor” and five editions of “The Bachelorette.” The program will represent the first “all-stars” reunion series for the franchise.

E! gets ‘Pretty Wild’
Reality show will follow Neiers sisters
E! is set to co-habitate with three teen sisters on “Pretty Wild,” a reality show based on siblings Tess Taylor, Alexis Neiers and Gabriele Neiers. Cabler, which has gained ratings strength with “Keeping up With the Kardashians,” will check in with the sisters, who are Hollywood partyers and, in the case of Alexis Neiers, in trouble with the law.

Dance fever hits U.K.
Webs suit up in spandex to cheer chilly auds
The day after “So You Think You Can Dance” bowed on the BBC, pay channel Sky One, which increasingly is attempting to take on terrestrial rivals, launched “Got to Dance.” Like “So You Think You Can Dance,” the series is aimed at a younger demographic and offers wannabe hoofers the chance to win a £100,000 ($162,000) cash prize. Commercial broadcaster ITV1 isn’t missing out on the trend. Its “Dancing on Ice” debuted on Jan. 10 with 9 million viewers and a 30% share. This outbreak of smallscreen dance fever is a response to renewed interest in amateur dancing throughout the U.K.

IFC spices up its Tuesday nights
Cabler creates cuisine-oriented programming block
After a successful six-episode run of “Dinner With the Band” that began in November, Rainbow cabler is ramping up its episode order to 10 and teaming it with “Food Party” as an hourlong block. “Band” teams chef Sam Mason and an indie band, which performs on the show, at a Brooklyn loft. Conversation ensues about life on the road and the food the musicians eat while touring. Among the musical guests next season are Rufus Wainwright, Murder City Devils and My Brightest Diamond. “Food Party” stars fringe artist Thu Tran and her team of puppets that act as her culinary crew.

More Horsemen

Business of the Business

Fox News wants to ax iPhone app
Complains to Apple about unauthorized headline aggregator
An independent company called RIV Creations has created a string of media applications for Apple’s iPhone, including one called “Mobile News Pro: Fair & Balanced,” which aggregates headlines from FoxNews.com’s mobile site — and uses the network’s logo and trademark. The problem is that RIV doesn’t have Fox News’ permission to do any of this, which has raised the attention of officials at the network. Fox filed a formal complaint with Apple late last month to have the 99-cent application removed from the iTunes Store, which officials at the network have confirmed.

Netflix extends Watch Instantly to Wii
Adds to deals with Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft XBox 360
Netflix is extending its Watch Instantly online streaming video service to Nintendo’s Wii gaming console starting in the spring. It has similar deals with Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Microsoft’s XBox 360. The companies on Wednesday announced a deal for the streaming service that lets subscribers choose from a catalog of movies and TV shows. It comes at no additional cost to U.S. Netflix members who subscribe to the $8.99 a month plan or higher.

Europe’s Internet kids like to keep it real
Disney conducts survey of ‘Generation XD’
A new survey of eight to 14-year-old Europeans by U.S. entertainment, film and theme park company Walt Disney Co showed that the children of Generation X are web-savvy, videogame-playing environmentalists who love their parents. “Generation XD kids have a heightened understanding of socio-economic issues, deep family values and are already demonstrating behavioral patterns that will have a deep impact on the future,” Executive director of EMEA Research for Disney Channels Victoria Hardy said in an emailed statement containing the survey’s results.

3D TVs one-up theaters
Director Cameron says movies better raise their game
Though it will be years before today’s high-end sets are widely adopted by viewers, the HDTVs on display at CES were loaded with technology to improve moving images that, in some ways, aren’t as good as the flatscreens we watch them on. Some companies showed “4K2K” TVs, with far more pixels than a 2K digital cinema projector throws on the screen. Panasonic’s mammoth 152-inch 4K2K plasma would be an upgrade over many screening rooms. Some makers, including LG and Toshiba, have put graphics processors into flatscreens, in part to correct motion blur. LG’s Trumotion attacks motion blur by running at 480 fps, even when the source is 24 or 30 fps. Where do the extra frames come from? Partly from the built-in GPU, which interpolates new three frames to smooth out the difference between two frames of normal video. In other words, movies and HD video don’t have enough frames to stop the strobing, so three out of every four frames on Toshiba’s HDTV screens have to be made up by the TV set itself.

Digital Domain sets Vancouver team
Branch booked with two Disney projects
Visual effects studio Digital Domain has filled out the management team at its just-opened Vancouver branch, which is already booked with two major projects for Disney. DD Vancouver officially opened last week and is already working on Disney’s “Tron Legacy” and will soon start on Disney/Marvel’s “Thor.” Both pics are already in production at DD’s Venice, Calif. HQ.

Minutae

Planet of the Odd

‘Dexter’ Star Michael C. Hall Being Treated For Cancer
Michael C. Hall says he was diagnosed with cancer and is on the road to the successful completion of treatment. In a statement Wednesday, Hall said he was fortunate to be diagnosed with a “treatable and curable condition,” Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and thanked his doctors and nurses for their expertise. Craig Bankey, a spokesman for the actor, said the disease is in complete remission and Hall’s treatment will continue as planned.

‘One Tree Hill’ actor gets prison
Antwon Tanner dealt in stolen Social Security numbers
An actor from the popular TV drama “One Tree Hill” will spend three months in prison for dealing in stolen Social Security numbers. A Brooklyn judge ordered Antwon Tanner on Wednesday to report to prison on April 30. He’ll serve five months in home detention after he’s released. Tanner is known for his TV role as a high school basketball star-turned-coach. He also appeared with Samuel L. Jackson in the 2005 movie “Coach Carter.” He admitted selling more than a dozen Social Security numbers for $10,000 to an undercover agent.

Channing Tatum’s Penis Injury: A Scalding Water Burn To His Crotch
“The only way to keep warm was by pouring a mix of boiling water and river water down your suit. We were finally done shooting for the day, and one of the crew guys asks if I want to warm up before I go. I’m like, Nah, I’m good. And then I thought, Why not? Thing is, he’d forgotten to dilute the kettle water. So he poured scalding water down my suit. And I was trying to pull the suit away from my body to somehow get away from the boiling water, and the more I pulled the suit away, the lower the water went. It just went straight down and pretty much burned the skin off the head of my dick.”

Oscar dissects ‘Frog’
Newman’s score ruled ineligible by the Academy
Randy Newman’s score for “The Princess and the Frog” has, as expected, been ruled ineligible by the Academy music-branch executive committee. Newman’s score, which appeared on the 81-film “reminder list” sent to all branch members for possible nomination, was disqualified as violating the Acad rule prohibiting “scores… diminished in impact by the predominant use of songs.” Sources suggested that “Princess” score having remained on the list was probably an oversight, since the rule itself was created in the 1990s as a result of a series of Disney animated musicals (among them “The Little Mermaid” and “Beauty and the Beast”) winning in the score category traditionally occupied by dramatic scores, not musicals.

CBS uncovers rare Jack Benny treasures, puts them back and tosses out the key
Late last week the International Jack Benny Fan Club got some very bad news: rather than allow the club with the Benny family’s enthusiastic blessing to digitally preserve some unreleased public domain Benny show masters that CBS has in its possession, the network is giving a thumbs down to the idea — thus sealing these shows’ fate so they will never be seen again. In effect, it’s a bullet through the head of this body of Benny work. And here is the most frustrating tidbit for comedy fans and those who study comedy: the Fan Club offered to do the preservation at no cost to CBS.

The Fine Print

This is by no means meant to be a comprehensive roundup of the entire weeks’ news. All stories are chosen by me for no other reason than that they got my attention and might capture yours. If something you think is more important chime in on the feedback; we’d love to hear comments and have a conversation about it.

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About The Author

Scott From LA

Scott is an art director, writer and comics creator living in Los Angeles. He has been a pop culture maven from a very young age. His very first job was as a manager of a comic book store. He spent several years working in a video store, and yes, we are talking VHS tapes. A student of literature and Writing, he brings his obsessive love of comic book trivia, movie history and science fiction/fantasy writing to bear on the work he does for CoolShite.

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