TV Recaps Reviews

Conan O’Brien is heading out on tour, aptly called Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television, named after legal negotiations from his Tonight contract prohibited him from appearing on television until after September 1 of this year.

O’Brien heads out on a 2-month, 30-city tour that kicks off April 12, visiting theaters in at least 20 states as well as 2 Canadian provinces. O’Brien’s sidekick from The Tonight Show, Andy Richter and his former Tonight Show band are touring with him. In his typical comic fashion, O’Brien will launch the tour in Eugene, Oregon instead of the usual venues in Los Angeles or New York.

“It was either a massive 30-city tour or start helping out around the house” said O’Brien, whose recent hilarious Tweets on Twitter say to pass the time he interviewed a squirrel in his backyard and spent time connecting the freckles on his arm with a sharpie. Check out teamcoco.com/ to find out more about cities on O’Brien’s tour.

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Betty White’s facebook fan club just got their wish. Six-time Emmy winner Betty White will be hosting Saturday Night Live on Mother’s Day weekend, May 8. The SNL episode will also feature former SNL actors Ana Gasteyer, Maya Rudolph, Rachel Dratch, Molly Shannon, Amy Poehler and Tina Fey.

According to the official SNL press release, Creator and Executive Producer of SNL Lorne Michaels said “I can’t think of a better way to spend Mother’s Day weekend than with Betty White”.

The announcement of White’s hosting duties followed a Facebook campaign urging SNL to have White host the show, attracting nearly half-a-million campaign members.

Betty White has been in show business over 70 years and is best known for her roles in The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Golden Girls. White recently received the 2010 SAG Lifetime Achievement Award. She was seen in the romantic-comedy feature film The Proposal starring Oscar winner Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds, and will appear this fall in the film You Again, starring Kristin Bell.

The combination of the legendary Betty White with SNL alumni should make it a show you won’t want to miss. Catch Betty White hosting SNL Saturday, May 8 at 11:30 p.m. ET/PT, check your local listings.

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This episode focuses on Tony’s interest in chefs and bloggers food obsessions. In the opening sequence we see Tony butchering a whole pig while talking of his obsession with pork. Sequences between conversations with bloggers and chefs continue with Tony’s colorful remarks and the butchering of the whole hog.

Tony visits author Josh Ozersky (aka Mr. Cutlets) whose food obsession is meat. Josh has been recently diagnosed with gout resulting from his meat-laden diet. Josh meets Tony at Minetta Tavern in New York where Josh says the best burger in the country is made. Josh insists that the flat top grill is the secret to keeping the fatty juices in the hamburger (sorry grill champs) and states you cannot desecrate the $26 burger with ketchup as Tony reaches for the ketchup. Tony and Josh bite into the juicy burger and Josh is mesmerized.

Tony visits with Dave Blackhorn, another meat obsessed guy who takes Tony on a tour of his cattle farm in the Yarra Valley outside of Melbourne. Wagyu beef, also known as Kobe beef, is the most expensive cut of beef in the world. His chef cooks up the tender, melt in your mouth Kobe beef for their meal. The camera shifts back to Tony in the studio where he is butchering the pig. As Tony strokes the beheaded pig’s face, he proclaims as good as Kobe beef is, he still loves pork more than beef.

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Food Network’s popular Ultimate Recipe Showdown premieres on March 14 at 10:00 p.m. Hosted by Guy Fieri, Ultimate Recipe Showdown is a home cooking competition featuring Food Network viewers who want to take on the challenge. Out of 12,000 recipes submitted only 24 recipes of viewer participants were chosen to compete for the $25,000 prize. The home cooks who entered the competition get to feature their favorite recipes, from an inspired original recipe, a recipe passed down from generation to generation, or a family favorite.

Over the coming six weeks the food competition will showcase home cook recipes in the following categories: Hot and Spicy, Hometown Favorites, Burgers, Comfort Food, Cakes and Desserts. The top recipes from each episode category compete for top honors with a prize of $25,000 and the winning recipe featured nationwide on T.G.I. Friday’s® menu.

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This two-part episode begins with Pam experiencing contractions throughout the day at the office as she nears her due date. Pam and Jim are hoping the baby waits until after midnight so their insurance can cover an extra day for Pam to rest in the hospital. Pam is determined to hold off until after midnight to go to the hospital.

Everyone starts having baby fever in the office. Dwight decides he and Angela should have a baby together, drawing up a contract agreement about their potential parenthood, making Angela smile at the thought of them together again. Andy and Erin keep trying to connect as Andy waits for the perfect moment to ask her out. Pam’s contractions start hitting the seven minute mark but she insists on waiting to go to the hospital. Michael decides to distract Pam by having the employees perform a talent show for Pam. Andy does an expressive dance for his talent portion of the show.

Michael decides to match make in the office, setting up Kevin and Erin, to Erin’s surprise. Erin only has eyes for Andy, but goes along with Michael’s suggestion so she doesn’t hurt Kevin’s feelings. Andy spies on Kevin and Erin having lunch together and is jealous. Erin tries to let Kevin down easy only to have Michael interrupt and tell Kevin Erin’s too hot for him to date, upsetting Erin. Andy gets the courage to ask Erin out by fax. Andy asks Erin to fax his date invitation knowing she will see the invitation when it is faxed to the office. When the fax machine has problems Andy jokes that Erin will be fired if the fax doesn’t go through, sending Erin into hysterics after a bad day. Andy comforts Erin and reveals his fax is meant to ask her out on a date. Erin says yes and is thrilled she finally gets to go out with Andy.

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Jeff struts into the Spanish Club meeting wearing black leather and black jeans. He’s dressed cool for his new billiards class at college. Britta knocks over a bag of bagels Shirley brought. Britta can’t pronounce bagels (she calls them bag-uls) and everyone laughs at her.

Troy finds a heart filled picture drawn of Abed in his Spanish text book. The gang asks Senor Chang whose book it is. Senor Chang tells them they are dummies, the name Jenny Adams is in the front of the book. Everyone wants to introduce Abed to Jenny and help Abed act cooler instead of his geeky self, but Jeff tells them to mind their own business.

Jeff is a shark when it comes to playing pool and is looking cool in his class. Billiards Coach Bogner hands out Greendale PE outfits consisting of very short, unflattering shorts for everyone in the class. Jeff keeps his cool leather jacket on and wears the short shorts to play pool, almost exposing himself as he leans in for a shot. Jeff hates the idea of wearing the shorts and changes back into his regular clothes. When Coach tells Jeff everyone must wear the regulation shorts when participating in billiards class, Jeff tells Coach Bogner he could beat him at pool and that the shorts are too uncool to wear. Coach Bogner says he’ll challenge Jeff to a game of pool, but only if he wears regulation shorts, causing Jeff to leave class in a huff.

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I watched the premiere of Parenthood Tuesday night, having high hopes for this series and I wasn’t disappointed. The show follows the lives of the Braverman family, three generations who struggle with their relationships but stand by each other in tough times. It should come as no surprise the subject of parenting is the foundation of the show.

The stories center around the adult Braverman siblings. Adam Braverman (Peter Krause, Six Feet Under, Dirty Sexy Money) is the oldest son who is trying to raise his children differently than his over-bearing father. When he and his wife discover their son has Asperger’s Syndrome their family dynamics change. Sarah Braverman (Lauren Graham, Gilmore Girls) is a single mother with two teen-age kids and an ex who is a drug addict. Sarah is financially strapped after the divorce and heads home with her kids to live with mom and dad until she can get back on her feet. Commitment-phobe Crosby Braverman (Dax Shepard, Baby Mama) is trying to convince himself to settle down with his long-time girlfriend until he finds out he has a son from a previous relationship. Sarah’s sister Julia Braverman-Graham (Erika Christensen, Traffic) a successful lawyer, is the complete opposite of her sister Sarah but can’t seem to bond with her young daughter. Throw their loud, controlling father (Craig T. Nelson Coach) and their stoic mother (Bonnie Bedelia Heart Like a Wheel) who deal with their own marital issues into the mix and you have a story of family dynamics ripe for telling.

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After seeing a heavy volume of commercials for The Marriage Ref during the Olympic coverage I wasn’t totally sold on watching it. Ok, the celebrity judges might be interesting, possibly entertaining and there was a good list of celebrities for the series. The advice from celebrities about marriage problems is definitely a different angle for a comedy/reality TV series. With Jerry Seinfeld as producer behind the show no doubt the show will gain viewers who were fans of the Seinfeld series.

Since there was a half hour episode after the end of the Olympics I went ahead and watched it. The premise of the show is a panel of three celebrities. The host shows the celebrities taped interviews with married couples who have a problem they need solved. After the celebrities watch the videos the host hears the celebrities comments, then asks them to vote for the husband’s or wife’s side of the problem. The host then makes a final decision and then, showing the couple live on screen, tells them the final vote. The couples receive a prize for appearing on the show.

There were two couples featured on this pilot episode. The first couple had a long standing argument about the husband stuffing his dead dog, then displaying it in a shrine in the home. The second couple disagreed about installing a stripper pole in their home, with the husband for it and the wife against it.

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Tony Bourdain lands in Ecuador and the first thing he’s interested in is eating, of course. His local guide Santiago takes him to La Esquina for a breakfast of calf fetus soup and bull penis stew. Ecuador has lots of stew type meals and Tony is a big fan of stews. Tony tries a local tripe soup and swears he is in heaven, he says it looks ugly but tastes great.

Tony watches as guinea pig is roasted over a grill in an outdoor market. Tony eats a roasted guinea pig and really enjoys it. Tony quips of the guinea pig meat “if everybody knew how good they were, classrooms around the country would be in danger”.

The next meal Tony tries are local favorites la calderada and colonche. La calderada is a seafood chowder with crayfish, prawns, crabs, and mussels. Colonche is a seafood dish filled with crayfish and plantain and covered in peanut curry sauce.

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You’ve heard of antique hunters? American Pickers, a new show on the History Channel, features what we might call junk hunters, but its not junk to them. Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz of Antique Archaeology are pickers who recycle American antiques. Antique pickers are antique dealers with a set method for finding collectible memorabilia. A picker looks for collectibles others may think of as junk, yet when cleaned up collectors will buy those collectibles for a lot of money.

Driving the backroads coast to coast, Mike and Frank transform old items considered junk into collectibles. The pickers search properties and have leads on old collectibles that collectors are looking for. Pickers find everyday items in people’s garages, junkyards, attics, basements and barns. The pickers meet everyday people who are eager to sell them their junk and not so interested customers who won’t sell their possessions for anything. There is a lot of chat, bargaining and pricing before the pickers get their prize

The pickers meet collectors and regular folk along the way who share with the pickers their unique stories and historic information about the found items. If you like history and antiques it can be fun to see rooms full of possible treasures each outing produces. The pickers generally use leads to prime pickers locations from their assistant Danielle, while at other times they see found items piled up around someone’s barn and knock on the door to see if they can strike a deal.

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