'Bachelor’s’ a Herzog, but No Relation
We couldn’t help but notice a familiar last name among the roster of performers of this season’s edition of Joe Schmo 2 on Spike TV.
This time around, there will be a Joe and Jane Schmo — two naïfs that think they are competing for $100,000 in a reality show called Last Chance for Love. The other contestants are actually actors playing archetypes, including the bachelor; the bachelorette; the “gotta-be-gay” guy; the “playah” (“he’s got the three C’s: cheese, Camaro and chest medallion”); the heir; and the moron (“Dumber than a shoe! Think Jessica Simpson without a music career!”).
What caught us up short was the name of the bachelor: Tim Herzog. Could there be a little cable nepotism going on here? Did this guy get the gig because he’s somehow related to Doug Herzog, now the president of Comedy Central?
Well, we had to ask. But, sadly, no conspiracy here. A Spike TV spokeswoman said it’s just a coincidence they have the same last name.
But the Schmo Herzog does have a cable pedigree, it turns out. He started his career in marketing at MTV Networks before trading that career for one in front of the camera. Since then he’s appeared in the Rob Schneider film The Animal, as well as episodes of Charmed and Will & Grace, before he jumped into the reality-TV pool.
Armed and Ready To Install Cable
There’s a new tool in town, and it’s here to help cable installers with the installations of lightweight communications cable through hard-to-reach places such as suspended ceilings, rafters and subfloors.
The marketer says CableCaster “is even fun to use — just shoot the glow-in-the-dark dart up to 50 feet, attach the cable in pull it back using the take-up reel.”
Shooting darts? Aren’t they a little concerned about the creative applications a bored employee could find for such a tool? The Wire ruefully recalls welts suffered from creative co-workers armed only with rubber bands and paper clips.
“We have no concerns about that,” said Jamie Schaff, a spokeswoman for the company. “There are lots of more dangerous things in the hands of workers than a plastic dart. It’s a cool little tool.”
It’s being offered at CableOrganizer.com, which also sells those conduits to tidy the cables under your desk.
Building Place In His-Tor-Ee
If Cartoon Network ever decides to retire such characters as Yogi Bear, Scooby-Doo or Fred Flintstone, they can always return to their birthplace right across the freeway from Universal Studios.
After months of lobbying, the Los Angeles Conservancy has convinced the city to protect at least part of the complex from being razed by a developer in favor of luxury condominiums. It was a partial victory for the Conservancy, which tried and failed in 1997 to have the entire four-acre former animation studio declared a city landmark.
Fans argued convincingly that the city should preserve at least part of the studio credited for resurrecting animation art in the 1950s, after the major studios shut down their feature film cartoon departments.
The developer, who bought the property in 2002, will save the futuristic 1963 main building, designed by the same architect who created the look of the Belmont Park and Hollywood Park racetracks. It will become office-rental space. The same can’t be said for other buildings in the complex. The north building in the complex will be used for an expansion of a 24-Hour Fitness club.
Fem Film Bombs Are Trio Treasure
Finally, someone has found a decent use for the black hole that is Madonna’s film career.
Trio is using the soporific theatricals in Manhattan to promote its skein of TV Flops! which on the network includes reprises of the failed cop show/musical Cop Rock.
The pop culture network is sponsoring free screenings of her not-so-greatest hits at a Cineplex in the Big Apple to draw attention to the programming stunt. First up was Shanghai Surprise on June 2, with showings later this month of Who’s That Girl, Body of Evidence and Swept Away.
The network had the Madonna look-alikes doing double duty, as they helped present a fundraising check to Cable Positive from a previous event.
