Week In Review: Television Will Never Be The Same Again

As a child I was taught never to laugh at anyone’s misfortunes, but then 20 years later YouTube came along blew that whole idea to smithereens. With the ability to record so many moments with nothing but our keen observations and cell phones, nobody is safe from a world of public scrutiny and, even worse, the Internet’s vast army of trolls and haters. While I rarely feel sorry for celebrities for little things, it’s hard not to at least consider their feelings with paparazzi constantly hounding them and recording their every movement for the World Wide Web.
Then again, when you become a celebrity, you sign that invisible contract that states: “You’re making more money than the average schmuck, so you’re going to catch hell when you screw up.” Factor in the grandfather clause about embarrassing situations on celebrity reality shows and you have a guaranteed 5-star recipe for disaster. Case in point: This week’s Dancing With the Stars, which headlines this Week in Review.


Maksim Chmerkovskiy is undoubtedly one of the world’s best male dancers, and he’s not perfect either, so he’s allowed to make a mistake here or there. But his recent injury on Dancing With the Stars was sure to draw the scorn of the Internet based solely on his dancing partner – Kirstie Alley. You may or may not have noticed that Kirstie has battled some weight issues over the years, so of course when her dancing partner hurt his leg and fell during their rumba routine this week, the Internet sprang to action with a barrage of jokes. In fairness, they performed just fine during their earlier routine, and this little setback was simply a random occurrence. Probably.

This actually took place two weeks ago, but the world wasn’t exposed to video footage until this week, so you can just park your P’s and Q’s at the door. As Vince from FilmDrunk pointed out, students in the Cabaret Theatre at Emerson College in Boston played two shows of an incredibly funny musical version of the horror film, The Human Centipede. According to the first video in the series of seven, they’re “just some nerds who wanted to make a musical.” No, friends. The guys who wrote a musical about cats are the nerds. The people who brought Human Centipede to life are eating at the cool kid table now.

After comedian and Aflac spokesman* Gilbert Gottfried was fired for Tweeting a series of jokes about the earthquake and tsunami that ravaged Japan, the insurance company decided to hold open auditions to find his replacement. Because, you know, it’s incredibly difficult to find someone who can say the company’s name in a voice that sort of sounds like a duck. Seriously, the ad team could have walked outside, taken two steps and asked any random person to say, “AFLAC!” and their day was done. But I guess we can’t complain too much because if not for the auditions we wouldn’t have video of people embarrassing their children.
*He voiced a duck in commercials. Please stop calling him a spokesman.
Archaeologists unearthed the remains of a man, of which they claim are approximately 5,000 years old. According to their fancy tests and experiments, they suggest that this man lived anywhere between 2,900 and 2,500 B.C., or as most historians refer to it – the Party Era. The gravediggers claim, though, that this ancient fella is quite unique, in that he is gay. In this dude’s time, men were buried surrounded by their weapons and with their heads pointing to the west. Women were buried with jewelry and jugs with their heads pointed toward the east. This gentleman was buried in the same manner as a woman, which could mean he was indeed homosexual, or the person who buried him had a really good laugh.
(Via The Daily Mail)

Conscious Men is a group of men, clearly, and their ultimate goal in this world is to return women to a status of equality by trying to make up for all of the hardships that the fair gender has faced throughout time. For starters, they created this video, entitled “Dear Woman”, in which various men of all ages apologize to the opposite sex for things like the Salem Witch Trials, lesser rights and pay, domestic violence, and other such crimes that they claim were perpetrated by men who were intimidated by the true power that women have in this world. It is certainly a beautiful statement, but perhaps next time they should just try Match.com.
(Via The Daily What)

File this one under “Please Lord, let this be real”. The above ad for Bacon Cologne by Farginnay hit the Internet this week and of course people are passing it off as a joke, because let’s be real – who the hell wants to smell like bacon all day?
*raises hand high*
Why wouldn’t everyone want to smell like bacon? I can only name two smells that are better than bacon, and one is puppy breath and the other is more bacon. The cologne has a web site, complete with a back story, and there’s even an ordering page. If this turns out to be legit, the fellas at Uproxx can count on this as their Christmas presents. Except Chodin, because he gets nude pics.
(Via Best Week Ever)

LeBron James is a man of many hats – basketball player, product endorser, party host, city betrayer, and now he can add cartoon voice to his ever-expanding portfolio. James announced last year that he was working on his own cartoon, and “The LeBrons” made its official debut this week with the first episode, “Lion”. LeBron voices four characters that are based on different parts of his own personality. Funny, he gets rewarded for being schizophrenic and I get restraining orders. Life is so unfair sometimes.
While both Fox News and Glenn Beck have released statements regarding their mutual agreement to stop airing Beck’s cable news show, the numbers don’t lie. Once the most watched show on cable, Glenn Beck watched his numbers drop significantly over the past year, with half of his audience disappearing (see Know Your Stats for a breakdown) and not even the greatest of conspiracy theorists could come up with a reason better than… they just stopped watching. Despite the ratings, the people who really matter also left Beck’s show, as more than 400 companies told Fox News that they would no longer advertise during his time slot. Hell hath no fury like a Totino’s Pizza Roll spot scorned.
(Via Warming Glow)

April 5 marked the 17-year anniversary of the day that former Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain took his life, and to honor the music icon, actor and 30 Seconds to Mars singer Jared Leto released this never-before-seen video of him as Cobain, singing “Pennyroyal Tea”. Leto claims that he made the video to explore a character and never actually sent it to a studio while a film was being made to celebrate Cobain’s life. At its core, it’s an eerie reminder… mainly that MTV used to produce cool shows like Unplugged and now airs Teen Mom.
(Via CBS News)
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  • While Glenn Beck wasn’t necessarily fired from Fox News, the proof is in the fear pudding. Beck’s ratings plummeted 50% over the past year, with nightly viewers dropping from over 3 million to roughly 1.5 million at times. In his first 15 shows of 2011, Beck’s viewership hit the 2 million mark just 3 times. (Media Matters)
  • Beck’s numbers took their biggest hit in the 25-54 demographic, as he fell behind other cable news talking heads like Sean Hannity, Rachel Maddow, and Brett Baier. Beck only averaged 413,000 viewers in this prized demographic while Hannity, Maddow and Baier scored 561, 452 and 466, respectively. But none of them touch Bill O’Reilly, who still commands 899,000 viewers. (Mediaite)

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