Zach Braff and Sarah Chalke, Scrubs
Question: I want to know your thoughts on NBC's mid-season moves. While Fox seemed to play into NBC's hand by not moving American Idol (and moving less-than-stellar comedies to the Thursday 9 pm/ET slot), NBC seems to have given us a mixed result. While I like that they're trying to rebuild the Thursday-night comedy block, it is obvious that they still don't respect what they have with Scrubs, particularly because they will probably be pairing it with Joey. While there aren't any real strengths in the NBC schedule, is this really a make-or-break time for both Joey and, as a result, Scrubs? Along the same vein, does this move really serve as a vote of confidence for The Office and Four Kings?
Answer: For a night-by-night breakdown of the mid-season shuffle, check out my recent Dispatch analyzing the various network moves in one of the most chaotic Januarys I can remember. This question presumes that NBC will pair Scrubs with Joey after the Olympics, but that hasn't been determined, and
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Zach Braff and Sarah Chalke in Scrubs
NBC has announced its mid-season game plan, and it goes a little something like this: Effective Jan. 2, My Name Is Earl and The Office, as speculated, move from Tuesday to Thursdays-at-9, where they will follow a pairing of Will & Grace and the new sitcom Four Kings (starring Seth Green, Shane McRae, Josh Cooke and Todd Grinnell). Filling the Tuesday void are back-to-back airings of new Scrubs episodes, which will have Fear Factor as its lead-in. Succeeding The Apprentice: Martha Stewart on Wednesdays at 9 is The Biggest Loser: Special Edition, a series of standalone and themed spec
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NBC's Fear Factor will return for a sixth season on Dec. 6, replacing The Biggest Loser with, um, Joe Rogan. This go-round, the grossfest will feature a "Home Invasion" segment, in which Rogan springs surprises on unsuspecting homeowners; a heist-themed episode where players try to unlock a sunken armored car; family and reality-star-studded contests; and an episode staged entirely at Psycho's Bates Motel on the Universal Studios Hollywood backlot.
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Bang a Gong: master of ceremonies Barris
Question: Who was the woman on The Gong Show panel? I think she was a singer at one time. Thank you.
Answer: I'll take a wild guess here, assume you don't have Phyllis Diller or Dr. Joyce Brothers in mind and answer with jazz singer Jaye P. Morgan, often introduced by cocreator and host Chuck Barris as "juicy." And I'm sure the lady would object to your "singer at one time" classification, since she told the Los Angeles Times in 1997 that despite her various entertainment credits (movies, TV, stage, comedy), "[W]hen I get up in the morning, I get up as a singer."
Morgan, born Mary Margaret but dubbed J.P. when she took the job of class treasurer in high school, started her entertainment education at the age of 3 or 4 in a family act and eventually worked her way up to hit records ("The Longest Walk" and "That's All I Want from You" in the mid-'50s), work in stage musicals, numer
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This boy's Life: the cast of Life Goes On
Question: What was the name of the TV show with Becca and Corky?
Answer: That would be the groundbreaking ABC drama Life Goes On, which ran from September 1989 to August 1993. The first network show built around a character with Down syndrome (and one that featured an actor who had the condition to boot), it focused on the Thatcher family and borrowed its title from the classic Beatles song "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da," a version of which served as the theme song.
In the series' early days, Life Goes On revolved chiefly around the challenges facing 18-year-old son Charles (Christopher Burke), better known as Corky. Corky "mainstreamed" over from special education to high school when the show kicked off and, in doing so, added a new wrinkle to the daily life of younger sister Becca (ER's Ke
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Reality-TV fans, do you watch Fear Factor and daydream about degrading yourself by free-falling from high places, swimming in crawly critters and eating mushy atrocities just like the contestants on the television series? Well, you needn't relegate those lofty goals to your fantasies any longer. All you have to do is go down to Universal Studios theme parks in Hollywood, Calif. and Orlando, Fla., and participate in Fear Factor Live.
"We're 125 episodes into [the series], going into our sixth season. We're the first reality show to be syndicated. But for me, this is the icing on the cake, to become a theme park attraction," Fear Factor creator Matt Kunitz tells TVGuide.com. "It's a little boy's dream to come and see my baby there!
"This attraction reflects what the TV show is, from wild stunts to eating gross things," he adds. "But unlike our show, where you're competing to win $50,000, you do Fear Factor Live just for prid
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Hard as it may be to believe, something actually left a worse taste in Nikki McKibbin's mouth than the worms she drank on Reality Stars Fear Factor: the tumultuous time she spent in the company of The Apprentice's preening prima donna, Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth.
"She's pathetic, really," the feisty, redheaded
American Idol 1 finalist tells TVGuide.com. "She's this beauty-pageant princess who's got no actual talent, so the only way she can extend her 15 minutes of fame is by being as thoughtless and spiteful a human being as she possibly can.
"Frankly," she adds, "I'd sooner hang out with the snakes that kept biting me in the second challenge than with that [viper]!"
At least McKibbin gives The Donald's flunky wannabe props for honing her bitchcraft to a fine art. "The high-maintenance aspect of her personality comes very naturally," the fired-up redhead suggests, "but the villainy is something I think she's had to
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Joe Rogan is not Howard Stern... yet. But give him time. In any given week, you can catch the future king of all media on two of the tube's most polarizing programs, NBC's Fear Factor (Mondays at 8 pm/ET) and Comedy Central's The Man Show (Sundays at 10 pm/ET). Today, he's even taking over the Internet, visiting TV Guide Online to answer seven of our silliest questions ever. Can the former stand-up's conquest of Paris Hilton, UPN and the world be far behind?
TV Guide Online: Since men are such notorious channel surfers, is The Man Show doomed simply because its title aims to attract this fickle demographic?Joe Rogan: We counter that problem by featuring many young girls with bags of saline stuffed into the skin beneath their nipples. I know it sounds weird, but it actually works.
TVGO: Care to address the rumor that you only allow Doug Stanhope to continue on as your co-host because you think he's less handsome than
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