danny.spiegel

Did Beauty Find Love with Her Geek?

Who would have thought that a show called Beauty and the Geek could be one of the nicest reality shows on television? This season began with seven guys and girls paired up with the goal of pushing everyone out of their comfort zones, all while shooting for a $250,000 payday. The winners of executive producer Ashton Kutcher's "social experiment" this time were Josh Herman, 27, and Cheryl Tenbush, 24 — a surprise in only that this nondating show resulted in a romance for Cher and fellow contestant Wes Wilson. Since Beauty and the Geek wrapped, Josh has sold a comedy screenplay to Fox and Cher has moved out to L.A. (But as our phone call will reveal, it seems she's not out there by her lonesome....)

Wed, Mar 15, 2006

Lucy Lawless: From Xena to Katrina

Lucy Lawless really should go on Fear Factor. The former Xena: Warrior Princess star had to fight off a swarm of gonzo grasshoppers earlier this year in the CBS TV-movie Locusts, and now in the sequel, the imaginatively titled Vampire Bats (Sunday at 9 pm/ET), she's battling a horde of... well, you get the idea. But she also weathered far more real storms this year, as you'll see in TVGuide.com's interview with the Kiwi. TVGuide.com: Vampire bats, locusts — if you had to be attacked by either, which would you prefer?Lucy Lawless: Ooh, I'm going to have to go with the locusts, I'm afraid. Hang on... I'm trying to think which is a quicker death. There

Fri, Oct 28, 2005

Has "Peter Brady" Found True Love?

It was a match made in reality heaven. On last season's The Surreal Life, Christopher Knight (aka The Brady Bunch's Peter) and Adrianne Curry, the first winner of America's Next Top Model, unexpectedly fell for each other amid the typical chaos of the VH1 show. And despite a significant age difference — he's 47, she's 23 — Adrianne soon moved into Christopher's Los Angeles home. It was all supposed to be "temporary," until she found her own place, but when their follow-up VH1 series, My Fair Brady (Sundays at 9:30 pm/ET), went into production months later, she was still there. From the first few episodes, it's cl

Fri, Oct 14, 2005

Kitchen Hayseed Plays Waiting Game

John Francis Daley has a lot on his plate. TV-wise, he's currently costarring as Jim, the easily mocked restaurant worker on Fox's Kitchen Confidential (which returns Nov. 7, after the baseball playoffs). And right now, he's also cooking up a storm as Mitch, the shy, easily abused trainee in the film Waiting..., which follows the generally unsanitary antics found at ShenaniganZ, a restaurant chain that happens to rhyme with Bennigan's. Ironically, the 20-year-old actor can't cook anything beyond basic pasta, but he served up some tasty answers to our questions. TVGuide.com: There are similarities between your characters in Waiting... and Kitchen Confidential. Are you now

Mon, Oct 10, 2005

TV Guide Takes Conan Back in Time

It's uncanny, isn't it? It's hard to say who better captured the spirit of this 1954 cover. Was it the exuberant and bright-eyed Conan O'Brien, or was it the exact replica of the original Howdy Doody puppet? It's a close call, but we think they both did a great job of helping us commemorate TV Guide's final digest-size issue before we relaunch as a full-size magazine next week. (Click here to check out the other eight recreated covers.) We spoke to the Late Night host about this unique photo shoot, his first experience with the iconic red-haired marionette and his thoughts about taking over The Tonight Show in 2009. TVGuide.com: How was it impersonating Buffalo Bob?Conan O'Brien: They made my hair

Fri, Oct 7, 2005

Holly Robinson Peete Does Love Football

Do not call Holly Robinson Peete on a Sunday during football season. She will hang up on you. The actress and wife of former NFL quarterback Rodney Peete is passionate about the sport. To share the love, she's written a new book, Get Your Own Damn Beer, I'm Watching the Game! A Woman's Guide to Loving Pro Football. And in her "spare time," Robinson Peete, best known from her stints on 21 Jump Street and Hangin' with Mr. Cooper, is costarring in Love, Inc., a new UPN sitcom (premiering Sept. 22) in which she plays the founder of a romance-consulting firm. It seems like whether she's on screen or on the page, Robinson Peete has all the answers. But we wanted a few more. TV Guide: Per your book title, what

Tue, Aug 30, 2005

D.L. Hughley Talks and Talks and Talks

When last we spoke to D.L. Hughley, one of the Original Kings of Comedy, he was a "finalist" for the host's chair on The Late Late Show. He told TVGuide.com then that if the CBS gig didn't work out, he planned to somehow be in late night. Turns out, his plans came through: Tonight his new talk show, Weekends at the D.L., premieres on Comedy Central (airing Friday through Sunday at 11 pm/ET). The comedian, whose sitcom The Hughleys aired from 1999-2002, is now an unscripted man. Weekends features comedy sketches, musical acts and guests, and, in a format somewhat akin to Politically Incorrect, the celebs du jour will engage in roundtable discussions. When we called Hughley at his Los Angeles production offices, his usual easygoin

Fri, Jul 29, 2005

Comedy Central Yells "Stella!?!"

Trying to explain Stella, Comedy Central's new show (Tuesdays at 10:30pm/ET), to someone who has never seen it isn't easy. The simple answer would be that it's a half-hour comedy starring three former members of MTV's The State, Michael Ian Black, David Wain and Michael Showalter. But that's probably not enough. "It's sort of Marx Brothers mixed with Three Stooges," offers Black, best known for his role on NBC's Ed and his wry commentary on VH1's I Love the... specials. "It's not really sketches. It's self-contained stories featuring the three of us playing ourselves getting into various mishaps and scrapes."In one rec

Tue, Jul 19, 2005

Peter Brady's Perfect New Gig

Christopher Knight was hoping this would happen. Though best known as Peter from The Brady Bunch, he is actually landing legitimate acting gigs that have nothing to do with the classic 1969-74 sitcom. Case in point: Tonight, he guest-stars on the season finale of Less Than Perfect (9:30 pm/ET on ABC). And, believe it or not, there's no wink or sly reference to his Brady past (not even a mention of pork chops and applesauce). So how did this all happen? A little show called The Surreal Life. Thanks to VH1's reality celebrity mixer, the former child star finally had an opportunity to remind Hollywood he wasn't 14 anymore. "I have this age-disparity thing," the 47-year-old Knight tells TVGuide.com. "I'm constantly confronting a teenage version of myself." Luckily,

Sun, Apr 17, 2005

Peter Brady's Perfect New Gig

Fri, Apr 15, 2005

William Shatner's American Invasion

Just try keeping up with William Shatner. In the past year, the 74-year-old actor has won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Denny Crane on The Practice and its spin-off, Boston Legal. He's also reprised his Miss Congeniality role for the sequel, released a CD and — yes, there's more — played a little practical joke. OK, it wasn't so little. Along with his merry band of producers, Shatner punked the town of Riverside, Iowa, into believing he was shooting a sci-fi film there. In fact, it was all a pretense to capture the candid reactions of its starstruck residents for Invasion Iowa, a reality miniseries that's airing tonight through Friday (9 pm/ET on Spike TV). Here, TVGuide.com debriefs the erstwhile Captain Kirk on his most recent mission.TVGuide.com: In the first episode, you're chatting with locals at a diner and you take a bite out of one guy's

Tue, Mar 29, 2005

Boston Legal Star's Expecting

When you're on a David E. Kelley show, you get used to facing unexpected twists. But Boston Legal's Monica Potter wasn't ready for this one: Just a few months into her deft portrayal of quick-thinking attorney Lori Colson on ABC's Practice spin-off (Sundays, 10 pm/ET), she got a big surprise — she's pregnant."There's no hiding it [now]," Potter, 33, tells TVGuide.com. "My gut's getting big... I could pass it off as beer and say that I've been out late [a lot], but I can't blame it on that." Well, actually, the credit really belongs to her fianc&eacute;, Chris, an orthopedic surgeon she met after friends of hers encountered the M.D. in a Los Angeles hospital and decided he was too good not to fix up. "They invited him to a party," explains the Ohio native, "and when he walked in, I liked him right away. He sat down and we were talking, and a few minutes later we wer

Fri, Mar 18, 2005

NYPD Blue Hunk's Farewell

When NBC's tween-comedy Saved by the Bell was expelled in 1994, Mark-Paul Gosselaar (then best known as Zack) thought it'd be a snap finding his next big role. Unfortunately, lean times and less-than-stellar projects followed. That is, until producer Steven Bochco rejuvenated Gosselaar's career by annointing him as Dennis Franz's final partner on NYPD Blue. Four years later, the groundbreaking police drama is closing up shop. (ABC airs a one-hour retrospective tonight at 9 pm/ET, followed by the actual finale at 10.) At least this time, the actor's future is less uncertain — he has already been cast in a Fox pilot about a brother and sister who run a Las Vegas wedding chapel. With steady employment on the horizon, Gosselaar's able to relax and fondly reflect on his well-received stint at the 15th Precinct.TVGuide.com: You wrapped shooting on Blue jus

Tue, Mar 1, 2005

Pat O'Brien's Greatest Super Bowl

Pat O'Brien can't make up his mind. Is he a sports broadcaster who does entertainment news or is he a celebrity interviewer who dabbles in sports? After nine years at CBS Sports, he left in 1990 to do stints at ET and Access Hollywood before debuting as The Insider. In the midst of all that, O'Brien also covered the 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games. Next up, he hosts tonight's CBS special, The Greatest Commercials: Super Bowl vs. the World, at 8 pm/ET. It features classic American ads from the big game competing against foreign spots. As O'Brien himself would say, let's get inside...TV Guide Online: How will this TV commercial showdown impact our standing in the international community?Pat O'Brien: I feel that this is one time [Americans have] really got to get behind their country. There are no blue states, there are no red states here. There are only Americans. [But] it's funny, people do like to see what the world puts out —

Fri, Feb 4, 2005

Brady Bro's Surreal Comeback

It's been 20 years since Chris Knight — aka The Brady Bunch's Peter — has been active in showbiz (not including various Brady-related projects). But after a successful career in the computer industry, the man who made "pork chops and applesauce" part of the pop-culture lexicon is putting himself out there again. First, he got in shape on Discovery Health Channel's Body Challenge: Hollywood. Later, VH1's The Surreal Life (Sundays at 9 pm/ET) kindly provided him with a new — and much younger — girlfriend. (For more on his unexpected coupling with America's Next Top Model's Adrianne Curry, click here.) Here, the Brady boy dishes the Surreal dirt...TV Guide Online: You're "the stable one" this Surreal season, much like Erik Estrada was last year. Coincidentally, you did Body Challenge together before this.Chris Knight: When we were doi

Tue, Jan 18, 2005

Surreal Life's Very Brady Romance

Imagine for a moment that you're a producer on the latest season of VH1's The Surreal Life (Sundays at 9 pm). On the weirdest day ever, you'd still never say, "OK, first, let's hope Verne Troyer (aka Austin Powers' Mini-Me) gets drunk, strips his clothes off and urinates in a hallway. And then — this is the best part — before the season ends, let's hook up Adrianne Curry, the first winner of America's Next Top Model, with Chris Knight, that guy who played Peter on The Brady Bunch. That'll be awesome!" Sounds crazy, but that's exactly what happened. Two months after filming wrapped, Knight, 47, told TV Guide Online all about it. Considering that our phone call includes a surprise guest appearance by his new girlfriend, Ms. Curry, it's safe to say life is sweet for the former Brady Buncher. TV Guide Online: What was the highlight of the Surreal experience?Knight: The highlight of it f

Fri, Jan 14, 2005

SNL Star's "Girlie" Story

You know you've made your mark on pop culture when a politician uses a catchphrase you helped create to gain political leverage. That was comedian Kevin Nealon's surreal experience earlier this year when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger referred to several members of the California legislature as "girlie men." Here, we ask the Saturday Night Live alum about that controversy, as well as his new GSN show, Poker Royale: The WPPA Championship (Tuesdays at 9 pm/ET). The limited series will reward its winner with a $125,000 grand prize, a chance to split $10 million with a sweepstakes winner and — are you ready? — a GSN bracelet (seriously).TV Guide Online: Isn't it odd that Schwarzenegger — someone you and Dana Carvey used to parody in your "Hans and Franz" sketches — is now California's governor?Kevin Nealon: Well, here's a guy who was a musclehead, a gym rat, who spent all his time in the gym doing whatever those

Tue, Dec 14, 2004

Late Late Show Swaps Craigs

Craig Ferguson is in the driver's seat. The Scotland native — best known as Mr. Wick on The Drew Carey Show — has just been named the new host of CBS's Late Late Show, but when we caught up with him via cell phone, he had literally been driving for the last 10 hours. "I have to be honest. My ass is a little sore," says the 42-year-old actor, who beat out comedian D.L. Hughley, former Ed costar Michael Ian Black and TRL's Damien Fahey for Craig Kilborn's old job. His aching backside aside, Ferguson was elated as he talked about his new gig (which starts Jan. 3) while making his way back from Vancouver, where he had just filmed a role for ABC's life as we know it.TV Guide Online: Did you see your victory coming?Craig Ferguson: I gotta say, if I was a betting man, I wouldn't have put the money on me. I'd never thought about doing a talk show in my life, and then about 30 seconds into g

Fri, Dec 10, 2004

Will Hughley Get Kilborn's Late Job?

D.L. Hughley, one of the Original Kings of Comedy, is looking for a new type of throne. Craig Kilborn's old desk chair at CBS's The Late Late Show is still up for grabs. This week, Hughley has returned for his national callback, following his well-received guest-hosting stint in September. But the comic — who's best known for his ABC-turned-UPN sitcom The Hughleys — isn't sticking to just lighthearted material these days. Hughley recently shot his first dramatic role in an intense, as-yet-untitled prison drama to be released next year. It appears that any way you look at it, it's good to be a king. TV Guide Online: How badly would you like to make this guest-host gig a permanent position?D.L. Hughley: Well, I've always wanted to do late-night, and I'm confident I'll do late-night whether this is the gig or not. No matter what happens, the powers that be are going to decide what they decide for any number of reasons, but

Tue, Nov 16, 2004

SNL's Election Fever Heats Up

Backstage at Saturday Night Live, Will Forte is washing some makeup off his face in his dressing room. He apologizes profusely as fellow cast member Seth Meyers extends his comparatively dry hand to say hello, giving Forte a moment to finish cleaning up. You'd never see that kind of teamwork between the respective candidates they've so deftly portrayed during this political season. (That's Forte as President Bush and Meyers as Senator Kerry). With Election Day nearly upon us — and Forte's face now clean — the duo tell TV Guide Online about the nifty impressions you'll get to enjoy all over again on Saturday Night Live's Presidential Bash 2004: The Great Debates. The NBC special, which skewers everyone from Gerald Ford to the present-day nominees, airs tonight at 10 pm/ET. TV Guide Online: What personality traits have became shorthand for impersonating Bush and Kerry?Seth Meyers: I found a couple things about Kerry:

Mon, Nov 1, 2004

Happy Ending for Tears for Fears?

Backstage at Last Call with Carson Daly, Tears for Fears duo Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal are waiting to go on. They've been doing a lot of that lately. That's what happens when you're one of the biggest bands of the '80s (with hits like "Shout" and "Sowing the Seeds of Love") and you're promoting your first joint album together, Everybody Loves a Happy Ending, in more than 15 years. You do a lot of TV appearances (including, so far, The Tonight Show, Conan, Today and The Late Late Show), which means a lot of rehearsals and then a lot of waiting. "This is our third TV show in as many days," says Orzabal. "Basically, we're taking over American TV for every week up until the election." It was back in 1990 when Orzabal and Smith elected to go their separate musical ways after 14 years together, a partnership that began when they were teenagers in Bath, England. After the split, Orzabal, who retained the band's

Fri, Oct 1, 2004

Late Late Show Hires Temp

The years have been good to Michael Ian Black. By just happily existing during the '70s, '80s and '90s, the actor/comedian did enough research to provide VH1's popular I Love The... specials with some of its funniest observations and spot-on comments. But since VH1 has momentarily run out of decades, the former bowling-alley manager on NBC's Ed is keeping busy with a pilot for Comedy Central (with two of his comic cohorts from The State). Tonight and tomorrow night, he'll also be sitting in The Late Late Show's guest-host chair. TV Guide Online: Have you ever done any interviewing or guest-hosting stuff?Michael Ian Black: I did. When Stuck on You came out, I interviewed Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear, Cher and the Farrelly brothers for a special on Comedy Central. And I learned that, in person, Matt Damon is actually gorgeous. Incidentally, so is Cher. The woman is stunning, to the point where, I

Mon, Sep 27, 2004