Lately, Detroit Tiger all-star outfielder Curtis Granderson has been in the news because he might be joining the New York Yankees. However, if Major League Baseball free agency doesn't make him a household name, television might. Granderson has an idea for a reality series that's being shopped around now and it's not like anything else other athletes have pitched.
Granderson's series is called Stadium Secrets and it will be like History Channel's Cities of the Underworld. In fact, it might be suited to the History Channel. Granderson would host the show and lead viewers into the inner recesses and hidden passages of famous stadia around the world -- although it'll probably start with American locations.
As December rolls around, your kids will want to watch the usual line-up of holiday specials. But, I'm guessing they wouldn't mind watching a T-Rex hunt down and tuck into a Triceratops, whatever the time of year.
Discovery Channel will put cutting-edge imaging technology to bring giant lizards to life inside and out with Clash of the Dinosaurs. Premiering December 6 at 8 p.m. (ET/PT), the four-part series looks inside the body of a dinosaur to with cinematic photo-real 3D graphics.
According to Discovery's announcement, consulting anatomy and paleontology experts help to peel back the skin, muscles and bones of the creatures to show how they thrived. So, on second thought, maybe the kids should stick with A Year without a Santa Claus.
As I scoured Google Images for a picture to accompany my Lego reality show post, pictures of James May's mop-topped mug kept popping up in my browser. What possibly could the Top Gear presenter have in common with the classic kids' toy that has caused a million foot fatalities? If you've ever stepped on one barefoot, especially the one peg bricks, you know how close to death it actually feels.
It turns out he lived in a whole house made out of them for our amusement. The Lego house was one of many projects for James May's Toy Stories, a series of projects designed to show kids that the classic toys of yesteryear can be just as cool as their newfangled video games and iPods.
This particular story does have an unhappy ending. The producers tried to sell the house to the Lego company for one of their theme parks, but the cost of transporting the house was too much. So they had to tear it down.
It tells the story of Lakshmi Tatma, a girl born with four arms and four legs, who also carries a rare parasitic conjoined twin that could kill her. The episode delves into the fact that the people in Lakshmi's village actually revere her, because they see her as the Hindu Goddess of Wealth and Fortune in human form.
Dr. Drew is taking on a sexier addiction, literally.
His new VH1 show, the unfortunately titled Sex Rehab With Dr. Drew (Is the title theme Motley Crue's' "Dr. Feel Good?") will take on celebrity sex addiction.
Addiction to alcohol and drugs, or eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, are already familiar topics on reality TV. But the VH1 release announcing the new show reports that sex addiction is equally common -- yet harder to identify and more difficult for some to accept.
Think about it. How many comedians would make some crack along the lines of, "Where do I sign up? For the disease, not the cure."
You wouldn't think a guy nicknamed Captain Slow by his co-hosts on Top Gear would have a deep-seeded fascination with journeying to the Moon.
But super car presenter James May (right) has held a childhood dream to experience how it feels to fly to the edge of space in the upcoming BBC America special, James May on the Moon.
According to a Beeb press release, the special follows May as he connects with the astronauts who ventured into space, as well as the engineers and mechanics who built the vehicles that took them there.
And, in keeping with that Top Gear spirit, May takes a virtual test drive in those vintage space vehicles -- recreating the tests and journeys of the original space pioneers.
That's a Kakapo over there. It's an endangered species of flightless parrot. We'll get to him in a second. But I wanted to point out that this is, in fact, the first time a Kakapo has appeared at TV Squad.
This year is the 30th anniversary of Douglas Adams' classic TV, radio and book series, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. As part of the celebration, BBC2 TV sent Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine off to visit the endangered species Adams searched for in another of his books, Last Chance to See.
Adams documented his growing passion for preserving fading species in the book. And BBC2 sent Fry and Carwardine out into the world to document how those species (like the Kakapo) were fairing.
You'll be able to discover the results when the show crosses the Atlantic in the coming weeks after its U.K. run. But, for now, the TV series spawned one of the web's hottest viral videos.
If you haven't checked out Ken Burns' documentary The National Parks: America's Best Idea on PBS yet, now you can actually buy it. The 12-hour series hit DVD and Blu-ray on Oct. 6, and offers a stunning look at our national parks, including Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, the Everglades, and the Gates of Arctic in Alaska.
When you think about it, it's truly amazing how these natural wonders have become part of our lives, even if we've never been to them. Burns covers 150 years of the parks, starting with the concept in the mid-1800s and featuring the voices of Tom Hanks, Andy Garcia, Sam Waterston and others.
The cool thing about the DVD / Blu-ray sets is that you get three hours of bonus material, including a making-of featurette, Musical Journeys Through the National Parks, Contemporary Stories and Outtakes.
The Mythbusters crew aren't scientists, but they sort of play them on TV -- submitting everything from movie stunts to common household sayings to proven analytic methods.
Of course, it's more fun to determine whether you can cut a tree in half with a machine gun than it is to test the effectiveness of a new polymer, so Mythbusters gets a TV show -- and your average scientists don't.
To celebrate Mythbusters' completion of its seventh series of episodes on Discovery Channel, series stars Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage hosted a set visit of their testing and production facilities in an industrial park just outside San Francisco's Mission District.
Hyneman led the tour himself through M5 Industries -- a former visual effects house turned production shop for the popular debunking series.
It's not enough that Andrew Zimmern goes around the world eating bizarre things, now he has to go around the world to introduce us to bizarre people doing bizarre things (bizarrely). It's Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre World. He's trying to create a media empire based on the word "bizarre." Here's a sneak peek of tonight's debuts (more here).
Rather than dramatize the kinds of conspiracy theories that led to his film JFK being one of the most controversial releases of its time, Oliver Stone's latest project is a documentary series. The ten-part Secret History of America will cover the last 60 years of America, and is said to cover the dramatically "under-reported" events of that era that shaped this country.
It also promises to include "newly discovered facts" from the Kennedy administration, the Vietnam War and how America achieved its current global role post-Cold War. In other words, it'll be full of controversial ideas that will upset a lot of people. Sounds like Oliver Stone alright. I'm sure Michael Moore will be paying attention to see how successful this is.
Penn & Teller: Bullshit covers a lot of varied topics, and most of them are controversial. So when I saw that tonight's episode was about lawns I thought to myself, how controversial can lawns be? Well, this clip from the episode features a man called the "Lawn Nazi," so it looks like a good one.
Call me naive, but I honestly thought that we had seen the last of Octomom and her family, at least until that reality show debuted. But no!
FOX is going to air a two-hour special on August 19 titled Everybody Loves Octomom. Well, no. It's actually called Octomom: The Incredible Unseen Footage. I don't know what could be "incredible" about the footage, unless it's footage of the actual birth of her kids, but I do know it's a show I have no intention of watching (not even in an "ironic" way).
We're in the middle of the Discovery Channel's annual Shark Week celebration, a whole of programming involving sharks, sharks, sharks, sharks, and the people who love/fear them. But David Zurawik over at The Baltimore Sun doesn't understand why some people get excited about it. He wants someone to explain its appeal.
One of the things that never gets old about the press tour is that at any moment, you could be in the middle of a blow-your-mind, surreal pop culture moment. That's exactly what happened to me yesterday evening, as the PBS sessions were wrapping up.
Patti Smith had the last session, to promote her biographical movie on POV called Patti Smith: Dream of Life. It was fascinating, as she was pretty open with the reporters about why she let filmmaker Steven Sebring into her life for eleven years, what she likes to watch on YouTube (Maria Callas for one) and all sorts of fun stuff. But I had to leave to interview another legend, Norman Lear, who was there with producer Mark Johnson to promote the documentary Playing For Change: Peace Through Music.
When we were done with the interview, Lear, Johnson, the publicists and I were about to walk our separate ways when we heard music coming from the ballroom. When we open it, we see Patti Smith playing her guitar for the critics, in the middle of her second song. So imagine me and Norman Lear, standing there, listening to Patti Smith.
Lately, Detroit Tiger all-star outfielder Curtis Granderson has been in the news because he might be joining the New York Yankees. However, if Major League Baseball free agency doesn't make him a household name, television might. Granderson has an idea for a reality series that's being shopped around now and it's not like anything else other athletes have pitched. 
As December rolls around, your kids will want to watch the usual line-up of holiday specials. But, I'm guessing they wouldn't mind watching a T-Rex hunt down and tuck into a Triceratops, whatever the time of year.
Dr. Drew is taking on a sexier addiction, literally.
You wouldn't think a guy nicknamed Captain Slow by his co-hosts on Top Gear would have a deep-seeded fascination with journeying to the Moon.
That's a Kakapo over there. It's an endangered species of flightless parrot. We'll get to him in a second. But I wanted to point out that this is, in fact, the first time a Kakapo has appeared at TV Squad.
If you haven't checked out Ken Burns' documentary 
The Mythbusters crew aren't scientists, but they sort of play them on TV -- submitting everything from movie stunts to common household sayings to proven analytic methods.
Rather than dramatize the kinds of conspiracy theories that led to his film JFK being one of the most controversial releases of its time, 
Call me naive, but I honestly thought that we had seen the last of Octomom and her family, at least until 
Sorry for the lame headline.
One of the things that never gets old about the press tour is that at any moment, you could be in the middle of a blow-your-mind, surreal pop culture moment. That's exactly what happened to me yesterday evening, as the PBS sessions were wrapping up.
The TV Squad Podcast: Vik Sahay of Chuck, Oprah talk, brutal timeslots, and more!
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Andy Richter: The TV Squad Interview
