Friday, March 02, 2007

Grown-ups who need to grow up

This morning's column includes a review of Fox's Rob Corddry man-child sitcom "The Winner," which I like, even though it's doomed, plus a post-elimination interview with Kevin from "Amazing Race."

Meanwhile, in an excuse to not have to write directly about the CW's Pussycat Dolls show, I'm thinking of using that show's Jersey contestant (who distinguishes herself through belching) and Antonella as an excuse to wander down memory lane of all the unfortunate Jersey girls and guys to appear on reality shows. Kevin is an obvious exception to that rule, as is Anwar from "Idol" season four, but for the Jersey readers among you, what other fellow Garden Staters have made you cringe when they turned up on reality shows?

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

How about Justin Sebik from the 2nd season of Big Brother who had a record and got kicked out of the house after holding a knife to Krista's throat? That was an embarrasment for the garden state.

On the non-embarrassing side, both (ill-fated) groups formed by the WB's Popstars included Jersey girls--Ivette Sosa the first season and Laurie Gidosh the second.

Alan Sepinwall said...

Yeah, Justin's the obvious worst-case scenario. Gervase from the first "Survivor" is another one, as at the time it was considered controversial that his strategy was centered on being lazy.

Isaac Spaceman said...

Alan -- I'm not a Jersey guy, but Stephanie LaGrossa has to get some recognition for being totally hot on the island but really weird looking when she got all Jerseyed-up for the finales.

Alan Sepinwall said...

And Stephenie in turn reminds me of her Guatemalan partner in crime, Judd the doorman, who departed with "Scumbags!"

Adam said...

Joe Millionaire's Zora Andrich

Top Chef's Tom Colicchio is a Jersey native, as was Cliff this season.

Alan Sepinwall said...

Adam, what would you say was bad about Zora? They sold her as the good girl, and the fetish model from NY as the bad girl, as I vaguely recall.

Anonymous said...

HEY! We still have Amazing Race on TiVo! Tracey and I haven't watched it yet, but now I know! And can mock her with the info!

-Tasia's Daddy.

Alan Sepinwall said...

Sorry, Joe. Five days out, I tend to drop the spoiler protection.

Adam said...

She wasn't bad; she was just stupid. Remember the Disney montage?

Anonymous said...

I'm surprised there's no mention of the fact that this is actually Fox's second attempt with The Winner. They did a pilot about 4 or 5 years ago with Johnny Galecki, Samantha Mathis, Gerald McRaney, and Sally Struthers. I think it's kind of funny that the version they're airing has a LESS famous cast. When's the last time that happened?

Unknown said...

The ever-astute Anonymous said...

"I'm surprised there's no mention of the fact that this is actually Fox's second attempt with The Winner. They did a pilot about 4 or 5 years ago with Johnny Galecki, Samantha Mathis, Gerald McRaney, and Sally Struthers."

It's actually the third time. First time around it was championed at Fox by the Ferrelly ("Kingpin", "There's Something About Mary") brothers, with whom Fox TV wanted to be in business and who produced "Winner" creator Ricky Blit's Special Olympics movie "The Ringer."

The next version dumped the expensive cast, and was to star writer Blitt in the title role himself, with Cameron Diaz, who never does TV, guesting in the pilot. It didn't get picked up either, the Ferrellys left the building and that was that.

Until Seth McFarlane, newly powerful again thanks to the renewed and resurgent Family Guy, took "The Winner" back to Fox on behalf of Blitt, who had also been a Family Guy staff writer, and this time Fox put it on the air.

But...

Fox only ordered six episodes and held the premiere till March, a huge no-confidence vote. True, they did the same thing to "Malcolm in the Middle," another show they didn't understand, and it ran for seven successful seasons. Malcolm didn't get it's entire order burned off on three successive Sundays, though. And have you seen the clips they're choosing to "promo" it?

Fox is trying to bury this show once and for all.

Anonymous said...

Fourth time. The original version starred Chris Elliot and his dad.

Anonymous said...

Everything. I've just about given up looking at TV...I grew up.