Word: studioful
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Usually half an hour in length, they are produced entirely by an advertiser whose goal is to get viewers to reach for the phone and dial that ever present 800 number. In order to make these pitches seem like actual shows worth watching, they feature bright-eyed hosts, enthusiastic studio audiences and bogus names like Incredible Breakthroughs and Amazing Discoveries. They are increasingly populated with celebrities. Victoria Principal, Ali MacGraw, John Ritter, Art Linkletter, Fran Tarkenton, Meredith Baxter and Cathy Lee Crosby are among the stars who moonlight as salespeople in the wee hours...
...social agenda. When Johnny made jokes about Vietnam, Watergate, errant Senators or TV evangelists, he enabled the audience to laugh the problem away. "Nobody can figure out Johnny's politics," Leno says. "The joke comes first." The trouble is that Carson's monologues have stayed hip, while his studio audiences have grown duller, less attuned to the issues he makes fun of. The star now gets his biggest cheers when he walks onstage; the crowd has come not for comedy but for celebrity spectacle. Carson makes a state visit, and the audience responds like tourists at Buckingham Palace...
...monologue about the topics of the day," the hydrofoil-jawed host-in-waiting says. "I enjoy doing the political stuff" -- though his old stance of ironically outraged liberalism has been tempered as he segued from guest to host. Leno will also retain that charming anachronism, the studio orchestra. Bandleader Doc Severinsen will retire, though, as will Carson's faithful retainer, Ed McMahon...
...DISNEY kingdom has lost some of its luster lately, with theme-park attendance down and movies like The Marrying Man striking out at the box office. But the Mickey Mouse organization aims to help restore the magic by reviving an old formula: the movie musical. The studio is now filming Newsies, a song-and-dance act based on a 1899 New York City newsboys' strike. The film ! is being directed by choreographer Kenny Ortega, a music-video veteran. Disney moguls believe the MTV generation will readily take to long-form musicals, which don't require Schwarzenegger-size budgets. The studio...
When it comes to trademarks, a Hollywood studio is fending off lawyers with one hand and dialing them with the other. It seems the forthcoming MGM-Pathe buddy flick, Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, starring Don Johnson and Mickey Rourke, has the folks at Harley-Davidson and Philip Morris USA fretting about a dubious portrayal of two famous brand names. MGM-Pathe demurs, citing such precedents as Cadillac Man and The Coca-Cola Kid. But in New York City the studio is taking what appears to be the opposite side of the issue. MGM- Pathe is suing...