Remember what I said about not digging TV Land as much since they started losing some of their classic TV line-up and instead making with the reality shows? You should’ve heard me ranting about MTV and VH-1 abandoning their music-related programming in favor of reality shows. But I don’t do that anymore. Well, not much, anyway. I mean, what’s the point, y’know? That ship sailed years ago, and my disgust about networks whose acronyms stand for Music Television and Video-Hits 1 showing way less music-related programming than they ought to be isn’t going to change a damned thing.
Ahem. Sorry about that.
Okay, here’s a compliment to take a little of that sting away. Jeff Olde, head of programming for VH-1, made me laugh out loud with his opening line: “I just have to say that, as a teenage boy growing up in Edgewater, Colorado, I could only have dreamt that one day Sheila E’s ‘The Glamorous Life’ would be my walk up music.” Nice. From there, Olde revealed that the network would be premiering no fewer than 12 original series throughout the rest of 2008, featuring folks such as Sharon Osbourne, P. Diddy, Eddie Griffin, Dr. Drew Pinsky, Luther Campbell of 2 Live Crew fame, and music mogul Irv Gotti…and, okay, from a statistical standpoint, they’re music-oriented than not, so that seems at least vaguely promising.
Today, however, the focus was only on two of those shows, the first being “Glam God,” featuring Vivica A. Fox and her stylist, Phillip Bloch, in a competition which is described by Olde as “a fierce red carpet competition to crown the next break-out celebrity stylist, a true triple threat, a master of hair, makeup and wardrobe. Our winner will receive a $100,000 prize, and they’ll have their career launched in a major A-list celebrity weekly. And hopefully land themselves on speed dial of the Hollywood elite.”
Meh. Don’t care. But for the sake of propriety, I’ll still tell you a little bit about it…or, more specifically, I’ll let Fox and Bloch tell you about it.
Vivica A. Fox: We really, really tried to teach the kids more than anything else to be professional. You know, so many times it wasn’t about them becoming a star. It was like do you have what it takes to style an A-list celebrity? Can you take yourself out of the equation and do the job? We kept on making sure that we made sure they did the work. We had a lot of characters on the show with very vibrant personalities that you guys will all come to like and love and enjoy watching them turn into professionals. But I’m going to tell you the one thing that Phillip made sure that he stressed every week was…professionability?
Phillip Bloch: Professionalism.
Vivica A. Fox: Professionalism…thank you…and integrity.
Oh, I just can’t even do this anymore. If you like “Project Runway” and “America’s Top Model” and all that stuff, I’m sure you’ll like “Glam God,” but I’m already tired of talking about it. Before I depart from Ms. Fox altogether, however, I’ll offer up her comments about whether or not she can do anything about her former “Curb Your Enthusiasm” co-star Larry David’s style.
“No, he ain’t changing,” she replied, with a laugh. “Larry’s going to wear his Converse. He’s going to drive his hybrid, and he is going to be LD. But the only time he talked to me about fashion is when he wanted to make sure that Vivica Fox didn’t show up in my character, Loretta Black. He was very conscious about my hair and my makeup and he wanted to see the character blossom into a beautiful swan. But I sure was rough around the edges when I showed up in Beverly Hills, wasn’t I?”
As long as we’re talking about funny people, I should admit that I’ll probably put at least a temporary moratorium on my annoyance with VH-1’s non-music-related reality series to watch “The Cho Show,” which gives the hilarious Margaret Cho the opportunity to strut her stuff on television once again. She hasn’t had a regular TV series since her unfortunate stint on ABC with 1994’s “All American Girl,” but not much progress has been made since then in giving Asian-Americans the spotlight.
“We brought the first Asian-American family on television,” recalled Cho. “It was a really very ground-breaking thing, a very difficult thing, and, you know, I’m very proud now to bring the second Asian-American family to television. I’m actually #1 and #2. So that’s an achievement.”
Olde described “The Cho Show” as “the series that lets Margaret be fully Margaret, and with her real friends, including her assistant, Selene, and her real parents, (and) in the show, Margaret will explore questions that she has about being Korean, a woman, a comic and a daughter.”
If you’re a fan of Cho’s stand-up, you’re probably already tickled by the thought of being able to meet her mom, who’s been imitated by Margaret for years upon years in her routines (surprisingly, her mom actually likes the impression her daughter does of her), but it’s her dad who turned out to be the most interesting member of the panel. Oh, Margaret still takes the prize for the funniest, but Papa Cho’s got heart.
“I’m different from the other Americans because we selected to live in this country rather than the old country,” said Mr. Cho. “So in this sense, we are a little different. And my desire was to have all children to prosper and thrive in this country. In other words, doing their own thing their own way, and (Margaret) did that exactly. She’s doing her own thing. And we wanted to show all the other not-native Americans to show there is a way of succeeding in this society, doing their own thing their own way. In that sense, we are really happy to have her showing how she did her own thing in this country.”
What a guy, huh? I might be looking forward to his appearances on the show as much as his daughter’s.
One person who I won’t necessarily be psyched about, though, is Margaret’s assistant, Selene, who’s a dwarf. It’s not her being a dwarf that bothers me, though. It’s more that she just seems to be there to add a certain amount of quirkiness to the show, which I find distracting. Maybe they’ll succeed in integrating her into the series more than they do in the pilot, though, if only to make Margaret’s description of the show – “it’s kind of like a cross between Madonna’s ‘Truth or Dare’ and ‘Joy Luck Club’ and ‘Little People, Big World'” – become more accurate.
Lastly, let’s take a gander at MTV’s newest reality series: “From G’s to Gents,” executive-produced by Jamie Foxx and hosted by Fonzworth Bentley.
I gotta admit, I’d never heard the name “Fonzworth Bentley” until it was mentioned in connection with this panel, which only goes to show what an incredibly out-of-touch white man I am. If you, too, are ignorant of Mr. Bentley, however, allow me to introduce you: he’s a childhood friend of Andre 3000, from Outkast, and he was a personal assistant to Sean “Puffy” Combs, but now he’s apparently known as “the gentleman’s gentleman.” As such, he seems the perfect fellow to help aid fourteen guys in making the transition from gangsta to gentleman.
Bentley seems extremely excited about this series, particularly its potential to inspire viewers to look beyond appearances and consider the person within. “A lot of you all read Emily Post, a lot of you know the fine things as far as etiquette and gallantry and chivalry, but I think that, even for some the other viewers, I think that it’s going to really open your eyes in a way,” he said. “When you see that young man that’s on the train, and when you see that young man that’s walking down the street and he has his pants below his behind and he’s using a lot of profanity and he’s vulgar, you know what? You’re going to look at him differently because of this show because you’re going to say, ‘There’s a young man who has goals. There’s a young man who has dreams, but he probably doesn’t have anybody around him to give him those tools.’ In that moment, instead of judging that young man or that young lady, you may drop a gem onto them, you know, because that’s a future painter, a future producer, or future journalist. And I think that, even for you all, and especially in America, I think they’re going to look at some of those people a little bit differently and not with a judgmental eye.”
To my surprise, the pre-panel clips showed a rather sentimental series, showing the mothers of some of these guys bursting into tears when they see their sons putting on suits and ties. Suddenly, what started out looking like just another wack-ass reality show competition was turning into something with a little bit of substance and – potentially – fourteen relatively happy endings.
“I got phone calls and e-mails and people hitting me on MySpace wanting to be on the show,” said Foxx, “just to have the experience but really wanting to change their lives. And then when you see these guys going through this transformation, it makes you feel good. You think about it, like, ‘Okay, we’re trying to do a show, we’re trying to make money, we’re trying to do whatever.’ Then all of sudden, all these beautiful stories and the parents and the moms…you can’t help but be affected by it. Then to see these guys on the other end of how they started out, you know, it’s just amazing.”
(Foxx will, by the way, be making an appearance on the show…eventually. He wouldn’t say when; he just confirmed that he’ll show his face at some point.)
