Results tagged “mtv”

The rumors floating around the interent this morning were sadly true. Former host of MTV's Remote Control died suddenly over the weekend. The cause of the 52-year-old Santa Monica resident's death is still unknown, but on Saturday evening he "complained of a headache and flu-like symptoms" to a friend, saying "he was going to take something and would see a doctor as soon as possible," according to the New York Times. The next day he was found dead.

If only there could be more pop stars like LIGHTS. The Toronto-based 22-year-old is a refreshing change in an industry where young singers are often better known for their exploits than for their talents. Not only does she make synth-driven "intergalactic music," but she has also created an alter ego called "Captain LIGHTS." The character first appeared in a comic book series on LIGHTS' website, and she has recently taken it to the next level with a short animated series on MTV called "Audio Quest: A Captain LIGHTS Adventure."

Stephanie Pratt can add one more dubious claim to fame to her resume after an early Sunday morning arrest that took place outside a Hollywood nightclub, according to On The Red Carpet. Pratt, 23, the blonde fashion-student and sibling of the notoriously unlikeable Spencer Pratt (one half of the "Speidi" duo comprised of him and his starlet wife Heidi; LAist Interview) was "booked at the Van Nuys jail" and "released a few hours later after posting $5,000 bail."

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Last Friday we talked about the teenagification of the vampire genre and whaddaya know, The CW's "Vampire Diaries" opened to record viewership. Despite the success, four of the series' actresses and a CW cameraman were cited after allegedly flashing drivers on a major freeway in Atlanta. Kayla Ewell, who plays Vicki, said that the incident has been blown out of proportion, and that, "In all honesty, the size of my breasts aren’t necessarily something people would be interested in." Publicity stunt or is it just the joy of being 27(?!) and under?

We were in New York City last night to cover the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. Check out our brief notes earlier today on the success of the broadcast. Streets around Radio City Music Hall were shut down for the celebs to be dropped off and for several thousand fans to chant and shout from. Crammed in a veritable no-man's land between Seventeen Magazine and BET Online, it was all we could do to grab a few words with Anjulie, Buzz Aldrin, Sean Paul, All Time Low, and the Pussycat Dolls' Melody Thornton. We got some footage of Pink, Lady Gaga, Ne-Yo, Puff Daddy, Tracy Morgan, Jack Black, and others.

The Emmys are on Sunday and we'll be reporting to you live from there. In the meantime, you can check out countless hours of interviews with Emmy winners and other TV legends at EmmyTVLegends.org, we particularly liked the Sid Caesar and Fred Rogers interviews and will watch plenty more.

Weekend Edition

Hollywood lost a couple legends this last week: casting director Caro Jones who shaped who we saw on TV and film (from "Green Acres" to Rocky) for over four decades died on September 3rd at age 86; and yesterday Army Archerd died at 87, a longtime columnist for Variety where he wrote a column for 52 years (52 years!!), as well as being a pioneer in reporting on (most importantly) television and every aspect of producing entertainment in Hollywood. We will miss them both.

We've got a few new show episodes tonight, but nothing spectacular - Wednesdays always seem to be cooking night what with "Top Chef" and "Gordon Ramsay's F Word". What we are excited about is going to New York City and covering the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday, September 13th. We'll be on site and posting video throughout the evening.

       

Last week LAist took MTV up an opportunity to hang out at Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory, a 25,000 square foot complex which is home to Rob's business empire Dyrdek Enterprises and the setting for his reality show, which enters its second season tonight at 9pm. To celebrate the new season, Rob along with the cast of "Nitro Circus" and "Bully Beatdown" (season two of both premiere tonight as well) got together for a Tuesday afternoon of Velcro suit dirt bike jumping and other various shenanigans that most human beings wouldn't dare to try.

Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter, the comedy tandem we were first introduced to in the early 90s as members of "The State," a highly influential comedy troupe that has given us some of the funniest and most successful people in comedy writing, acting and directing, are back with their new series, "Michael and Michael Have Issues," which premiers tonight on Comedy Central at 10:30.

In general, a web series can be a hard thing to get into, even though its short, any time / anywhere format would seem conducive to today’s youth-driven media market. Maybe there’s something inherently sketchy about the sustainability of online sketch comedy, like the media moguls who control television are just finding new, more subversive ways to lure us in. Or, maybe a lot of it is just bad, because the internet is boundless and video upload sites are plentiful. That’s why it’s so refreshing to see groups like Derrick Comedy make it out of the online jungle alive, because they have a knack for comedy and a belief in total quality that is so often lacking elsewhere on the interwebs.

The true story of seven eight strangers picked to live in a spacious Ikea furnished home for the price of free in exchange for having their every move, mistake and makeout session taped returns tonight at 10 pm. For its 22nd installment, MTV's Real World decided to bring its confessional, cameras and cast of beautiful young people to the booze drenched beaches of Cancun.

Anson is a veteran of the entertainment industry who was previously a development executive at Paramount and is currently a producer at a production company under Dreamworks. The Hollywood resident recently linked up with Jay Louis aka Douchebag1 (read LAist's interview with Jay) to bring the online phenomenon that is HotChicksWithDouchebags.com to your TVs with the hilarious new MTV show "Is She Really Going Out with Him?" which premieres today at 5:30 p.m. In the words of Jay, "HCwDB goes televisual, bitches."

LA has a diverse cast of characters. Whether it's the characters with stirring stories or interesting occupations or the people who are just simply characters, this town has them all. In an effort to get to know some of those characters a little better, we've created "Seven Questions with..." If you have a suggestion for a future Seven Questions subject send us an email.

LA has a diverse cast of characters. Whether it's the characters with stirring stories or interesting occupations or the people who are just simply characters, this town has them all. In an effort to get to know some of those characters a little better, we've created "Seven Questions with..." If you have a suggestion for a future Seven Questions subject send us an email.

The TV Junkie Plan: "Deadliest Catch", "Out of the Wild", "Modern Toss", Letterman, Fallon.

In case you didn't hear about it yet, but internist Dr. Kutner on FOX's "House" committed suicide in Monday's episode. This was hastily written into the script as the real-life Kal Penn is leaving acting for a while to go work for the Obama administration in the Office of Public Liaison. This also means no more Harold & Kumar movies for a while, so we're all sacrificing here - but seriously, congrats Kal and godspeed.

Perhaps it's because of the NCAA final, but it seems like there isn't a heck of a lot of TV news to report, all of late night TV tonight is repeats and no one has given us any cool leaks lately. Do you have the inside scoop on some TV tidbits? Other than former "Charlie's Angels" angel Farrah Fawcette's cancer spreading, of course.

You will be doing yourself a very large disservice if you don't get your ass over to Largo tonight to check out the Reno 911! Benefit Show, to raise money for Planting Peace, a charity that works to help children in impoverished nations. Every member of the show, including Tom Lennon, Joe Lo Truglio and Ian Roberts, will be sharing stage time with a roll call list of the greatest class clowns you'd kill to have in homeroom. Rob Heubel and Paul Scheer from MTV's Human Giant, Andy Daly (the principal on Eastbound and Down), Nick Kroll, Matt Besser and Matt Walsh (founders of Upright Citizens Brigade theatre) Nick Swardson, and even Rainn Wilson, to NAME JUST A FEW.

If you thought that the local news was boring claptrap that only idiots watch, then you are outside of the ever-increasing popularity of the local newscast - Nielsen is reporting a 20% year-over-year increase in viewership. For TV, a fractional percentage change is big news but 20% is incredible.

Tonight marks a big debut in late night TV with the start of "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon". While we were concerned with the departure of Conan O'Brien from "Late Night", we think he can be very successful in the earlier slot. Jimmy Fallon, at 34 years-old, will be bringing some youth to the time slot, although both Carson Daly and Conan O'Brien were younger when they started their stints on late night television.

Jerry Seinfeld will be returning to TV as the producer and creator of "The Marriage Ref", a new series for NBC. No premiere date or time slot has been selected.

The spectacle that is the Academy Awards was wonderfully covered by LAist last night but the outcomes of the spectacle were very predictable. LAist was at the SAG awards last month and most of the big winners there, who were also nominated for Oscars, were winners last night.

LA has a diverse cast of characters. Whether it's the characters with stirring stories or interesting occupations or the people who are just simply characters, this town has them all. In an effort to get to know some of those characters a little better, we've created "Seven Questions with..."

One wonders why they would punish themselves by watching "Lost" and "Damages" back-to-back on Wednesday nights as the experience is thoroughly disorienting but that's probably the idea.

Already anointed by many as a star in the making, even though the release of her self-titled debut album is still months away, Toronto born singer/songwriter Anjulie proved worthy of the early accolades with a first-rate 40 minute performance Wednesday night.

Did anyone have a chance to watch the "We Are One" inaugural gala on HBO yesterday? Some of it interesting, some of it schmaltzy, not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

The Sundance Film Festival starts today which not only means cool movies being screened and attended by celebrities in their hippest Dumb & Dumber apres-skiwear but it means a lot more content for the Sundance Channel for the year. There will be live blogging of the festival's events at the Sundance Channel's (really cool!) website and head on over to iTunes to pick up a free short film from Sundance every day from now to January 25th.