My list of summer TV's worst shows . . . so far

A couple of weeks back, I filled The Feed with a list of the shows I most liked this summer. Now it’s time for the other shoe to land.

For every ambitious drama like Nurse Jackie or True Blood, there’s a boorish I Survived a Japanese Game show lurking around the corner. And heartwarming as some of the performers’ stories are on America’s Got Talent, most of the bunch are musty enough that I’ve considered adding a question mark to the end of the show’s title.

In that spirit of crabby grousing that the sweltering heat of late July can produce, here’s my list of stinkers for the summer – titled, you’d be well-advised to avoid by any means necessary.

Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, 12:35 p.m. weeknights, WFLA-Ch. 8: The rush from his triumphant debut has faded, and a few months into his job as NBC’s New Conan, it’s obvious former Saturday Night Live star Fallon is floundering like a 16-year-old driving his dad’s Maserati. Mentor Lorne Michaels has built an amazing vehicle for his young talent – complete with the second-best band in late-night, The Roots – but Fallon can’t do much with it besides make funny faces and look adorable.

I’m  a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here, aired in June on WFLA: Unfolding like a bizarre ripoff/blend of Celebrity Apprentice and Survivor, this show mostly had the distinction of publicizing reality TV brats Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt so much, you actually felt sorry for Sanjaya Malakar and the governor’s wife whose husband got caught trying to sell Barack Obama’s old Senate seat.

 Big Brother 11, airing at 8 p.m. Sundays and Thursdays, 9 p.m. Tuesdays on WTSP-Ch. 10: In case there was a viewer left who missed the sophomoric stuff that went down when a dozen vapid reality TV wanna-bes got stuck in a makeshift house over three months, this year producers made it official by separating contestants into the kind of cliques you remember from high school. The problem: This makes the show unwatchable for everyone except that small percentage who still fondly remember high school.

Wipeout, airing at 8 p.m. Wednesdays on WFTS-Ch. 28: Watching over-excited, under-coordinated knuckleheads doink their heads of the show’s outlandish obstacle courses feels entertaining the first dozen times you watch. But every telecast feels like it saps your brain power a little more, until you’re babbling at the screen like somebody stuck in the audience of that Schwarzenegger film, The Running Man.

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Discovery Channel catches up to executive producer, says Pitchmen will present a second season after death of star Billy Mays

(UPDATE: After I posted this item on the certainty of producers' Anthony Sullivan and Thom Beers that Pitchmen would continue after the unexpected death of Billy Mays, Discovery Channel -- which had originally declined to comment on my item -- issued a press release admitting a second season was going to happen.

The channel is also repeating its hourlong tribute to Mays on July 24; it originally aired July 9. The channel's release says Sullivan, Beers and Discovery Channel are developing the next season with Mays' son Billy Mays III.)

To clear his head after the death of his friend and partner, legendary pitchman Billy Mays, infomercial producer/talent Anthony Sullivan decided to hike a distant mountain in Colorado, far away from their Tampa homebase.

But when a group of girls stopped to pet his dog, Sullivan soon found out he hadn’t traveled far enough to outdistance fans of the Discovery Channel show he starred in with Mays.

Which helps explain why Sullivan and executive producer Thom Beers say they are going to try reinventing the show for another season after Mays’ death — if they can work out a new format that honors their departed co-star’s memory.

“Everyone has said to me ‘Are you going to find a new Billy Mays?’ and that’s not possible,” said Sullivan, noting only his 20-something son, Billy Mays III, might come close. “We have to reinvent the show, but I really want to be careful. I just want to make sure we do what Billy would want — I think he’d roll over in his grave if we just stopped it.”

Executive producer Beers, whose credits include the Discovery hit Deadliest Catch, was more definitive, saying “I know (Pitchmen) will continue on. Absolutely, without a doubt.”

Mays, 50, was found dead in his Tampa home the morning of  June 28; the Hillsborough County medical examiner said preliminary autopsy results indicate he may have died of heart disease. Sullivan and Mays had already filmed the 12-episode first season of Pitchmen, which concluded July 1. Discovey aired a special tribute episode July 9.

Beers suggested the show could continue because so much drama came from the stories of inventors pitching their products to Sullivan and Mays, who would decide which deserved a showcase in a major direct-marketing campaign. But fans may wonder if the chemistry between Mays and Sullivan, who sparred with each other playfully like an old married couple, might be difficult to replace.

“(Mays) was thrilled with his ability to help all these people reach their dreams,” Beers said. “Why would we give that up?”

And though Sullivan had some ideas for revamping the show, he wants to make sure Mays’ wife, Deborah, and son are on board, as well.

“The main thing, is we want to be sensitive to his fans and his family,” Sullivan said. “And we’ve gotten an overwhelming amount of mail saying ‘You’ve got to carry the torch.’ Turns out, hit shows aren’t that easy to come by . . . and I get the feeling how we do it will be part of the appeal of season two.”

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For this wise African-American, Sotomayor hearings unveil the heart of race conflict in America

Never have I wanted more to throw a brick through the screen of my television.

Watching Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor sit stoically through a succession of white men, perched at the head of the whitest, malest, most powerful political institution in the country -- the U.S. Senate -- telling a Latina from a New York housing project that her Hispanic heritage should mean nothing in her work as a judge, was heartbreaking.

“Our legal system is at a dangerous crossroads. Down one path is the traditional American system, so admired around the world, where judges impartially apply the law to the facts without regard to personal views,” said Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions during the  first day of Sotomayor's hearings Monday. “Down the other path lies a brave new world, where words have no true meaning, and judges are free to decide what facts they choose to see. ... I reject that view, and Americans reject that view.”

Or Sen. Charles Grassley from Iowa: “Judge Sotomayor, you are nominated to the highest court of the land, which has the final say on the law. As such, it’s even more important for the Senate to ascertain whether you can resist the temptations to mold the Constitution to your own personal beliefs and preferences. It’s even more important for the Senate to ascertain whether you can dispense justice without bias or prejudice.”

For anyone who knows how the pointedly conservative views of justices such as Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas have shaped their decisions, this posturing was worse than disingenuous. It was a neon sign that said: judges get to use their personal backgrounds to decide cases when they're conservative.

GOP legislators have worked themselves into a lather over Sotomayor’s comment about a “wise Latina” making better decisions than a white male. However true that might be regarding discrimination cases, it’s the kind of in-your-face racial absolutism that was a perfect softball for conservatives bent on twisting her original meaning.

On Tuesday, Sotomayor didn't debate the issue, dismissing the line as a clumsy mistake and insisting she would “state up front, unequivocally and without doubt, I do not believe that any ethnic, racial or gender group has an advantage in sound judging.”

Still, consider what then-nominee Samuel Alito told the Senate during his confirmation hearings in 2006: "But when I look at those cases, I have to say to myself, and I do say to myself, "You know, this could be your grandfather, this could be your grandmother. They were not citizens at one time, and they were people who came to this country" . . .  When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account."

Anyone who is paying the barest attention knows that this is when Supreme Court rulings count most; when issues of law are debatable and all that's left is what each justice believes in their heart is right.

But yesterday's cavalcade of conservative GOP senators decrying Sotomayor's statements about her heritage and the role of judges in making law -- boldly honest statements she had to know would come back to bite her someday -- also reinforced that age-old Republican canard: conservative white people don't make decisions based on their culture.

It's what I have often called the privilege of being generic. When Chief Justice John Roberts reaches back to his heritage and personal values to make decisions, he's simply allowing timeless principles to guide his thinking. But Sotomayor using the experience of being the first and the only in so many places of power is shrugged off as bias -- an unforgiveable unfairness for GOP senators, mostly because it doesn't benefit their causes.

(Indeed, as blogger Glenn Greenwald points out, nobody asked Alito whether his Italian-American heritage influenced his vote upholding claims by Italian-American firefighters in overturning a Sotomayor-decided affirmative action case.) 

Still, this is the beating heart of most conflicts over race in America. People of color fear decisions made by institutions still largely controlled by white culture and white people, while those white people in power often insist they are just doing "what is right" or "what is just" -- unable or unwilling to admit the role their culture plays in their own decisionmaking.

What we're really seeing, of course, is an elaborate Kabuki theater, in which Republicans complain loudly about a jurist everyone knows is really a centrist -- though you never can tell, once they get that lifetime appointment -- so that when Obama advances a real liberal justice in his next appointment, that person will look even more radical by comparison.

Sototmayor proved Monday she's going to play along, offering a short statement that focused mostly on the facts of her biography and promising "fidelity to the law." It's the Obama strategy -- don't engage these sticky race issues if you don't have to, dodge them.

And so we're treated to another high-profile instance where some people get to pretend they don't have an agenda while others are accused of nothing but.

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As SpongeBob turns 10, voiceman Tom Kenny explains why leading a hit show can be like surviving a terminal disease

Speaking over the phone, Tom Kenny sounds lot more like an overworked middle-aged dad than the hyperkinetic voice behind one of TV's biggest cartoon hits ever, Nickelodeon's Spongebob SquarePants -- now marking its 10th anniversary on air.

 But Kenny -- who also voices the controversial Skids robot in the Transformers movie sequel and a talking toy chain saw under development by Fisher Price -- is always a can of Red Bull and an enthusiastic request away from sliding into the relentlessly upbeat undersea sponge at the center of nickelodeon's gargantuan hit SpongeBob SquarePants, even as he compares starring in a hit TV show to surviving a terminal disease.

“Spongebob has hung on for so long it’s almost like you beat this terminal disease – marketplace malaise," he says, laughing." And every day’s a bonus round.”

Beating the odds, SpongeBob has racked up $2-billion in annual merchandising sales and a regular berth among the most-watched cable shows each week without compromising its eccentric, creative vision.
Nickelodeon  celebrates with 50 hours of programming this  weekend, including 11 new episodes, celebrities’ favorite moments and a documentary Square Roots, airing at 9 p.m. Tuesday on VH1.

Before the madness starts, I spent 90 minutes dissecting SpongeBob SquarePants with the guy -- outside of creator Stephen Hillenburg -- who knows him best:

Can you believe the show has been on for 10 years?

“It’s not like I would have been disappointed that it went away after three or four years – that’s usually the lifespan in the marketplace. You do 52 episodes, which gives them enough to rerun it forever. I always loved the character and loved the show right from the very beginning. I really liked him and his world and the supporting cast of characters – even when they were just drawings on a piece of paper. It’s been nice to watch it flourish. It’s been an interesting sociological experiment.”

What have you learned from the show's success?

“You can’t try to sit down with test tubes and beakers and try to create a gigantically worldwide popular show. You never know what’s going to resonate. SpongeBob was created in a resolutely unscientific way – without regard to demographics of flow charts or marketshare. It was an artistic, funny guy with an interest in oceanography and comedy, trying to make a funny seven-minute short. It’s inspiring for younger people and kids out there – be passionate about what you’re passionate about, because you never know about how it call can come together to enrich your life.

I love the way the show recalls earlier landmark cartoons like Ren and Stimpy.

"When Ren and Stimpy came along, all the funny cartoons that were on were old. Looney Tunes is funny, but it’s old, Bullwinkle is funny, but its old,. And then you turns on new cartoons and its Care Bears and stuff. Ren and Stimpy made it okay to be funny again. It was an animators show...(it) had the fingerprints of its creator all over it. It was funny like those old cartoons, and it was new. It really intensified my desire to work in animation.

You once said you get paid for doing stuff that used to get you kicked out of class.

“It’s that weird job that as fun as you think it would be when you were a kid. When you grow up, you might realize that actually being a fireman or being an astronaut is nothing like the reality of it. But I can't think of anything I’d rather do. I don’t need to date any more, I’ve find my soulmate. I'm able to make a living doing what I always want to do – being creative and funny and artistic. For me, as a voice over person it’s like being a session musician. Today I’m playing on a soul record, yesterday, I played on a country record – you’ve got to make your instrument play the right stuff for that gig. You’re just always out there trying to keep all the plates spinning as much as you can.”

Gay activist group plans protest Wednesday against WFLA-Ch. 8 at its front door

More than two weeks have passed since WFLA-Ch. 8 aired as paid programing a controversial documentary titled Speechless: Silencing the Christians, which maintains that a "radical homosexual agenda" has led to unfairly persecuting religious people who find homosexuality morally wrong.

But the statewide gay rights advocacy group Equality Florida isn't willing to let the matter slide. The group has announced a press conference and demonstration at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, in front of WFLA's headquarters at 202 S. Parker St. in Tampa.

Equality Florida spokeswoman Nadine Smith said the group was disappointed that WFLA and executives at the TV station's owner Media General have not apologized for airing the documentary or offered free airtime for a presentation which might offer an opposing view.

Smith said their protest coincides with a local visit by Media General president and CEO Marshall Morton; online materials circulated by the group claim that more than 1,800 people have contacted the station to protest the show's airing in the first place.

The controversy is similar to criticism the St. Petersburg Times faced when it included copies of the controversial documentary Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West with editions of its newspaper.

Though supporters said the film focused on the excesses of extremists, other Muslim advocacy groups said the documentary was an attempt to turn Americans against all Muslims, distributed to newspapers across the country in swing states during an important election year.

Equality Florida has organized around outrage over the documentary, holding a statewide online town hall last week and asking members for $25 donations to help fight future airings of the program. A Facebook page advocating boycott of WFLA has drawn about 500 members.

Turns out, broadcast of the documentary may have helped organize gay people in Florida more than ever -- a rather ironic result.

Check out a sample of the documentary below:

  

Producers for Jerry Seinfeld's Marriage Ref come to the Tampa Bay area this weekend

If you haven't already tried out for Who Wants to be a Millionaire, or Biggest Loser or America's Next Top Model or American Idol -- all top reality TV shows who have auditioned folks in or near the Tampa Bay area in recent weeks -- then you've got one more shot at unscripted television glory.

Producers for Jerry Seinfeld's new show The Marriage Ref are expected to fly into the Tampa Bay area this weekend, scheduling interviews with couples who have a longstanding disagreement over something ("no problem is too small," the casting notice insists).

Instead of arranging a cattle call audition somewhere public, however, the producers are asking prospective couples to call their hotline at 1-877-304-4040 or email marriagerefcasting@shedmediaus.com to schedule an interview this weekend. Seinfeld is the creator and executive producer; in other words, he isn't going to be there.

The Marriage Ref is a show dreamed up by Seinfeld which allows celebrities, comics and sports stars to act as referees for typical and not-so-typical marital spats.

So imagine turning to Chris Rock for advice on how to keep your wife from complaining about your boys nights out, or asking Kathy Griffin for tips on how to spice up your love life (maybe you want to ask Pamela Anderson, instead)

If you do call and get an audition, feel free to post here on how it went.

This may be some couple's last chance to earn the kind of fame which has made household names of Jon and Kate Gosselin -- though that may not be the best motivation.

Tampa Bay Idol winner and runner-up move up

Samantha Leigh's shot at American Idol fame came down to about 15 seconds; the amount of time she got to blast through Aretha Franklin's Rock Steady during her audition today before American Idol producers in Orlando.

Leigh was the singer I helped choose for a special audition slot handed out through WTVT-Ch. 13's Tampa Bay Idol contest, working with four other judges to sort through 80 applicants and watching 10 finalists sing at a Brandon mall.

Turns out, she and second-place finisher Brad Iturriaga did well, moving to the next stage in Idol's audition process.

Leigh's win guaranteed an audition before the show's producers ahead of the 10,000 people who crowded around Amway Arena today, joining about 50 people who had won similar contests around the region or done well at Disney World's Idol Experience.

 According to Leigh, singers were split into groups and asked to sing when pointed at, standing before four casting producers. Generally, singers got through about 15 seconds of a tune before they were stopped -- nothing like the longer auditions with feedback they show during the Idol broadcasts.

(Here's Leigh with WTVT's Charley Belcher, me, WFLZ's Meredith and singer Belinda Womack last week in Brandon.)

"They tell you ahead of time not to introduce yourself, not to ask for feedback, they just point to you and you sing," said Leigh, 22, who works as a hairstylist and performs at Busch Gardens  in Tampa. "It was crazy, nerve-racking . . . almost surreal."

Leigh and Iturriaga will perform for the show's executive producers later this month -- Fox doesn't publicize those auditions the way they hype the big stadium cattle calls -- and won't face on-camera judges such as Simon Cowell, if they're lucky, until next month.

Leigh didn't even get to meet Idol host Ryan Seacrest, who was there to film some of the opening sequences for the audition shows. "I did get to stand 20 feet away from him," she said, laughing. "Maybe I'll meet him next time."

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Is there a difference between the stereotypes in Bruno and Transformers 2?

It's easy to look like a poor sport when you're talking about negative stereotypes in film and TV.

The latest flap along those lines involve two of summer's most anticipated movies: Sacha Baron Cohen's Bruno and the whiz-band action film Transformers 2.

Some critics have already taken aim at Bruno, denouncing Cohen's in-your-face mockumentary centered on a cartoonishly effeminate and hyper-sexual fashionista as a gay minstrel show.

Writing in Salon, David Rakoff provides a typically caustic review, calling the Bruno character "an open hydrant of empty, venal ignorance" and denouncing the film as "bad for gays" over its too-broad attempts to provoke homophobic reactions from unsuspecting people.

Other critics have lodged similar complaints against Transformers 2, noting that two new robot characters, Skids and Mudflap, talk in a patios normally associated with young black people and are mostly ineffective, foul-mouthed characters used almost entirely for comedic effect.

Director Michael Bay shrugged off the criticism, saying ""We're just putting more personality in. I don't know if it's stereotypes — they are robots, by the way. These are the voice actors. This is kind of the direction they were taking the characters and we went with it."

Which raises an interesting question: When is such stuff considered stereotypical?

When Tracy Morgan voices a jive-talking hamster in the new animated movie G-force, is that a stereotype, or Morgan just doing what he does? Does that verdict change when you watch the commercials, where his character struts in front of the camera like he's doing a modern-day pimp walk?

 I'll be discussing these ideas at about 9:30 a.m. this morning, appearing on National Public Radio's Tell Me More. My verdict, as someone who has seen Transformers but not Bruno: It seems tough to lay the stereotype label on Bruno, which is specifically crafted to pile on all those gay stereotypes in one character to satirize how we all react to them.

That's a lot different than creating two stereotypical fictional characters -- like Star Wars' Jar-Jar Binks -- purely for comic relief in a movie focused on a totally different subject.

In this game, I think, you get points for intent. Tune in at 9:30 and see if anybody else agrees with me.

As Discovery Channel airs tribute to pitchman Billy Mays tonight, his family OKs continued airing of his commercials

As I originally reported last week, the family of legendary pitchman Billy Mays has given their permission for marketers to continue airing commercials featuring the popular infomercial/spot selling king, who died suddenly in his Tampa home on June 28.

Mays' family issued a statement Wednesday announcing the decision, reached after a conference call held last week with more than a dozen marketers who had built advertising campaigns around Mays. Though Mays' son, Billy Mays III, has made reference to a foundation to be established in his father's name, the Wednesday statement makes no reference to it.

Roger Pliakas, a California attorney representing Mays' family, said in the statement, "Out of respect for Billy's family, most commercials were temporarily pulled off the air as his loss was mourned.  While the mourning and healing process will continue for the family, they have graciously given permission for all the people, inventors, companies and corporations to continue using his likeness on television and packaging pursuant to and honoring all existing agreements that he had in place.  The family hopes this will be done respectfully and at an appropriate time because they strongly believe this is what Billy would have wanted."

The company behind the Mighty Putty and Mighty Mendit products announced Wednesday they will air the last long-form infomercial Mays recorded before his death, a pitch for the Mighty Tape adhesive strips that featured the salesman repairing a leaky air line while scuba diving -- in his trademark blue shirt and khaki pants. 

 "It is important to understand that Billy believed in every product he sold, and he loved nothing more than bringing helpful products to people at a great savings," said his wife Deborah, in the statement.  "He always enjoyed meeting his loyal fans and taking time to really talk to everyday people."

Discovery Channel will air an hourlong tribute to Mays at 9 tonight called Pitchman: A Tribute to Billy Mays, featuring interviews with family members, his co-workers in the infomercial industry and his co-star on the series Pitchmen, Anthony Sullivan. A spokeswoman for the channel said Discovery had not made any decision on the future of Pitchmen, which aired the last episode of its first season July 1.

Pallbearers copied Mays look for his July 3 funeral, carrying the pitchman's coffin clad in his trademark blue shirt and khaki pants.

Discovery has also created a space on YouTube where fans can upload video tributes to Mays. Click here to travel to the site. Look below to see some of the videos already uploaded there.

TNT screens season opener of Leverage in Tampa tonight

There must be a lot of Leverage fans hiding in the Tampa Bay area.

In a move normally reserved for high-profile films, TNT has chosen to screen next Wednesday's second season debut of its popular heist drams Leverage at several cities across the U.S., including Tampa. They're coming to the area thanks to an online vote, which helped the channel choose five cities for screenings among 40 potentials.

Fans can get a early peek at the new Leverage episode at 7:30 p.m. tonight in the Good Luck Cafe, 1910 E. 7th Ave., in Ybor City. Each screening also features a Q&A with series executive producers Chris Downey and John Rogers, conducted through the Skype online communication service.

Organizers were originally planning to do this event on Thursday, but then they learned American Idol was holding auditions in Tampa that day.

Luckily, tryouts for Tyra Banks' CW series America's Next Top Model, also taking place in Ybor, right down the street from the Leverage screening at The Ritz today, will be over by 7:30 p.m.

When did Florida become the center of the TV universe?