Blink

Tinseltown became a little more country Tuesday morning as some of the stars from The CW’s upcoming reality series “Farmer Wants a Wife” took a tractor-and-wagon ride down Hollywood Boulevard. As you can see from the following photo essay, this groundbreaking series—premiering Wednesday at 9 p.m.—will tear down the walls that keep country men and city women from finding love with each other. And it’ll do it the only way Hollywood can—through glamorous media blitzing.

If the worst part about the apocalypse for you is the not knowing, then today is your day.

G4 has announced the premiere of competition show, “Hurl!” It’s a bold step toward cementing “body fluids” as a stand-alone genre and surely, with it, the imminent destruction of the human race.

“Hurl!” asks contestants to consume massive amounts of “popular All-American favorite foods,” such as hot dogs, fish sticks or blueberry pie, and then participate in physical challenges (“carnival rides,” “belly flops” and “mechanical bull-riding” among others) designed to induce reverse peristalsis. The last player to hold on to his bolus gets the “Iron Stomach Award” and the honor of having helped replicate Monty Python’s Mr. Creosote sketch without English accents or ironic distance.

“The aim of ‘Hurl!’ is to hold up a mirror to the wan face of a society driven by economic and sociopolitical woes into base aesthetic escapism and induce a kind of cultural nausea,” said G4 President Neal Tiles.

Just kidding—he didn’t say that.

But he did say, in a statement painstakingly crafted to include every possible marketing buzzword of 2007, “G4's mission is to be a multimedia destination that's relevant and authentic to the interests of today’s young male demo. ‘Hurl!’ is really an idea that is inspired by the world of viral video, which has proven to be massively popular with young guys today.”

Barring a second press release from Ashton Kutcher, look for “Hurl!,” and for the sun to turn black as sackcloth, this summer.

—Julieanne Smolinski

Earlier this month on CNN.com, amid the stories on the presidential election and credit card reform, you would have found these quirkier headlines: “Mama duck saves stuck ducks,” “26-toilet mansion plan irks neighbors” and “Lover asks ‘bus girl’ to be his bus wife.”

They’d have taken you to video reports on a mother duck who quacked her ducklings from a drainpipe to safety; a blueprint for a Greenwich, Conn., home to be built with 26 bathrooms; and a bus driver who proposed to his girlfriend on the bus.

Now, if you’ve got a hankering to hang onto a headline, CNN.com will provide: The news site is adding to most of its breaking-news video headlines a T-shirt icon on which visitors can click to order a $15 shirt brandishing that headline and the words “I just saw it on CNN.com.” The goal is to get the word out that CNN.com isn’t just home to serious news—it tells water-cooler stories, too, said Andy Mitchell, VP of interactive marketing for CNN. The Web site draws about 35 million unique visitors each month.

— Daisy Whitney

So you know social networking is really big.

You know all the cool kids are not just on Facebook and MySpace, but Twitter and Pownce and Jaiku.
But how the heck do you use all these sites? How do you not get social overload? And how do you avoid the dreaded TMI? (That’s “too much information,” folks, and it’s a bad thing when it comes to netiquette.)

Enter “Social Brew,” an Internet show that premieres this week. It’s the latest from San Francisco-based Revision3, the online TV network that appears to be on a relentless quest to launch as many new Web shows as possible this year. Blink had the chance to sneak a peek at “Social Brew,” hosted by the lively Irene McGee. And Blink thinks the show can help all you folks who want to be Web social but have been afraid to take the leap. So just jump in.

— Daisy Whitney

The A-team of “The Early Show” will spend this week in Greensburg, Kan., pitching in on a volunteer effort to build an eco-friendly playground for the town that was all but wiped out a year ago by a tornado.

Maggie Rodriguez, the newest member of the CBS morning show’s anchor team, said she’s “not handy at all.” She laughed as she confessed that it’s easy to tell whether she or her husband, Telemundo ad sales executive Michael Rodriguez, hung the pictures on the walls at home: If she did it, it was “trial and error” and there are several holes in the wall behind the art. Her husband can do it perfectly with one hole.

In Greensburg, she said, it won’t matter that she’s not a natural-born carpenter, because “this is all about going and doing whatever you can, even if it’s learning how to do something. I’m sure there’s something I can do. I want to roll up my sleeves and learn to do something.” When she worked in Los Angeles, she said, she spent a day in Mexico on a group project to build a house: “I held my own there and it really was the most gratifying thing.”

The “Early Show” anchors and staffers will work with a team from Planet Green, Discovery Communications’ eco-focused network, which debuts its 13-part series “Greensburg” on June 15; the series documents the rebuilding of the town with ecological and economical sustainability in mind.

— Michele Greppi

Welcome back, Jack.

Russian Web site filmz.ru has obtained one of the first stills from the upcoming season of “24.”
Fox confirmed that this shot is the real deal, but hasn’t posted it on its press site, meaning filmz.ru might have used Jack Bauer-esque tricks to obtain it.

“Battlestar Galactica’s” Tricia Helfer will be joining the cast of USA Network’s “Burn Notice.” She’ll be playing the role of Carla, who until now has been known to fans only as a voice who left Michael Westen, played by Jeffrey Donovan, mysteriously vague, threatening phone messages.

Ms. Helfer's addition to the cast comes a few weeks after she signed a one-year talent holding deal with Fox Television. Fox Television Studios produces "Burn Notice."

Ms. Helfer is also one of FHM Magazine’s Sexiest Women this year, according to NBC Universal’s press release announcing her addition to the cast.

With such a claim, curiosity led the Daily Blink to a Google Image search. This is one of the many red-hot photos that came up.

The Writers Guild of America, West, handed out its 2008 honorary awards Wednesday at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles.

According to WGA West president Patric Verrone, the guild was celebrating the occasion differently than it has in past years. Instead of a black-tie dinner in Beverly Hills, the presentation was a business-attire lunch in downtown L.A. A little more relaxed, it seemed, as the guild is still tingly from the strike that ended two months ago.

The ceremony, hosted by Mr. Verrone, recognized Budd Schulberg (“On the Waterfront”) with the Screen Laurel Award, David Chase (“The Sopranos”) with the Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television, Robert Eisele and Jeffrey Porro (“The Great Debaters”) with the Paul Selvin Award, Tom Schulman (“Dead Poets Society," J.J. Abrams' series "Anatomy of Hope”) with the Valentine Davies Award, Don M. Mankiewicz (“Ironside”) with the Morgan Cox Award and Brad Bird (“Ratatouille”) with the Writers Guild Animation Writing Award.

The honorary awards recipients were announced weeks in advance, but this is the first time the WGA has been able to get together since the strike ended. At the luncheon, the guild seized the opportunity to hand out its award statues, which had yet to be distributed because of the strike.

The real winner for the day, though, was the decision to serve parmesan-crusted chicken with mashed potatoes instead of the traditional salmon with wild rice.

Why? It takes a little bit of comfort food to assure you that things are getting back to normal.

—Sergio Ibarra

Heads will roll. Bosoms will heave. Liberties will be taken with chambermaids and, um, history.

Showtime has renewed its codpiece-ripper “The Tudors” for a third season/second marriage. Next year’s episodes, according to the pay network, follow the exploits of the sexy, hard-bodied King Henry VIII (Showtime’s words, not ours) and two more of his six wives.

Political discourse has jumped to the wrestling ring as the WWE has finagled Sens. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain to tape segments for tonight’s “Monday Night Raw” on USA.

The video includes McCainaics, smelling what Barack is cooking and something called HillRod. Full video and grades on the candidates’ promos after the jump.

With an impish grin and laid-back aplomb, “The Soup’s” Joel McHale slices and dices through the world of reality TV week after week on E! Entertainment Television.

During a recent on-set visit, Blink talked with Mr. McHale, who said that of all the reality shows on television currently, the one that ruffles his faux-hawk is CBS mainstay “Big Brother.”

“I have a problem with ‘Big Brother,’ but I’ve always had a problem with ‘Big Brother’ since the moment it went on the air,” Mr. McHale said. “It is the epitome of conspiratorial whispering. It’s just people lying on beds or couches quietly plotting against each other. And it drives me up the wall. I’m like, ‘People are watching this.’ They are just watching people sit around, hating each other.”

Daytime’s “Rachael Ray” is cooking up quite a treat for a hand-picked group of aspiring young chefs from around the country.

The CBS Domestic Television-distributed syndicated strip is flying the wannabe cooks to New York City to mount an April 28 dinner; they’ll create the menu and prepare full dinners for 70 guests paying $2,500 a head. Proceeds from the event will go to Rachael Ray’s Yum-o! organization.

Chris Ender, CBS’ West Coast-based senior VP of communications, is now a political spouse.

His wife, Laurie, who will be remembered fondly by many in the business from her days as a supervising producer at “Entertainment Tonight” and a producer who helped develop “Access Hollywood,” was elected to the Santa Clarita (Calif.) City Council April 8 after a yearlong door-to-door campaign.

The Gospel Music Channel is relying on more than prayer to deliver viewers as it telecasts the Gospel Music Association’s Dove Awards for the first time Wednesday. The network has formed partnerships with the association, record companies and other groups to promote the telecast.

In case you didn’t know, The CW’s “Gossip Girl” comes back from its writers strike-induced break on Monday at 8 p.m.

On Thursday the network announced it would not stream the upcoming final five episodes of the season on CWTV.com, in an effort to get viewers to watch the TV broadcast.

The CW has been blitzing many media outlet and blogs, hoping the promotions will translate to higher TV ratings.

Among the ways the network has been trying to help build the show’s already strong buzz is a racy ad campaign that takes a nod from IM-speak to tantalize viewers into watching, like the newest commercial below.

In honor of the Los Angeles Cartoon Network upfront, the Daily Blink has this report from the well-funded but criminally underused “Cartoon Watching Habits of Foreign Leaders” department.

British newspaper The Sun reports that a radio station asked Prime Minister Gordon Brown what is on his iPod. Mr. Brown responded that the theme song to Cartoon Network series “Ben 10” is on it and he can’t get the song out of his head.

Mr. Brown’s son, John, reportedly is a big fan of the show.

However, for our money, the catchiest title of the current Cartoon Network lineup is “Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends.” Just try to watch this and not hum the theme throughout the day.

— Andrew Krukowski

Based on second-by-second audience measurement, TiVo is predicting that Syesha Mercado is getting the boot tonight on “American Idol.”

TiVo said according to its numbers, Ms. Mercado had the fewest number of people sticking around to watch her Tuesday-evening performance. The company added that for the past four weeks, the contestant whose performance was viewed by the lowest number of subscribers has been sent packing.

“Viewers tend to rewind and watch their favorite performances multiple times, while fast-fowarding through ones they don’t like. These viewing preferences correlate with voting patterns,” the company said in a statement.

For what its worth, David Archuleta was on the high end of audience viewership this week.

TiVo is doing this sort of prediction for one week only—meaning that either the company really hates Ms. Mercado to the point that even a machine decided that she sucks, or that bookies were threatening to do bad things to their logo’s antenna.

—Andrew Krukowski

In keeping with the spirit of upfront season, Tuesday’s Discovery Communications slate announcement at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills included lions, bicycle-powered blenders and Bill Nye, the Science Guy.

Discovery’s new slate, covered here, included standouts like a singing competition show called “The Singing Office” on TLC, “Dave Salmoni: A Year With Lions” on Animal Planet and “Stuff Happens” on Discovery’s newest channel, Planet Green, set to launch June 4.