Dial M for Madonna

E! Online's Marc Malkin enthuses over the upcoming "Dial M for Madonna" art show at the World of Wonder Storefront Gallery. (Click on Madge's nose to launch vid)

¡Viva Hollywood!

Jezebel.com calls World of Wonder's Vh1 series ¡Viva Hollywood! muy gay, campy, and funny. "If you need a reason to tune in, that reason should be aspiring actor Vinci. He's so, so, so, so hot. (Or should I say "caliente"?)"

¡Viva Hollywood!

Television Without Pity hails ¡Viva Hollywood! as the best show of the week, which it was. And will be again when episode 2 airs on Sunday at 10PM on Vh1.

¡Viva Hollywood!

“I don’t go for looks. I don’t go for craziness and scandal. Of course, being not bad-looking helps a lot,” says ¡Viva Hollywood!' host and judge Maria Conchita Alonso in the NY Daily News today.

Tequila Sunrise

OMG, the first sentence of this ¡Viva Hollywood! review on BuddyTV this morning gave us goosebumps because it's even more hyperbolic than what we've written about the show, but it's from someone outside the walls of World of Wonder:

"Without sounding too dramatic, the greatest reality show in the history of television premiered tonight as VH1 launched Viva Hollywood, the search for the next great telenovela star. On a camp level, the Latino culture is miles ahead of America in terms of soaps. Spanish-language soap operas, or telenovelas, are cattier, more over-the-top, and just plain more fun than their American counterparts. In that tradition, Viva Hollywood succeeds as pure entertainment. Twelve aspiring actors are placed in a house, called the Casa de Locos, and forced to compete in a series of challenges designed to test their ability to thrive in the passionate, sinful world of telenovelas." (More)

¡Viva Hollywood!

The Boston Herald's The Edge calls ¡Viva Hollywood! "every bit as nutty as any good telenovela." The series, which premieres Sunday at 10:30PM on Vh1, "revels in the over-the-top histrionics of the genre. It features a dozen hard bodies with IQs that match their waists. In the 90-minute premiere, contestant Geovannie introduces himself by saying, “I’m a trained actor, just like Shakespeare.”

Pam Anderson Back on the Boob Tube

The Hollywood Reporter has announced the return of Pamela Anderson to television. And it just so happens that the show she'll be returning in, tentatively called Pamela, is an eight-part series of observational half-hours produced by World of Wonder's Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato, and Tom Campbell, along with Anderson herself and Jeff Pollack of Handprint Entertainment. The series, due to launch this summer on E!, will be co-executive-produced by video and commercial director Nigel Dick, who directed the Britney Spears "Baby One More Time" video.

Shameless Pug

Salon's "I Like to Watch" columnist Heather Havrilesky says of the Sleeping Dogs Channel on WOW TV:

"an online video site by the geniuses at World of Wonder productions. The site shows nothing but dogs sleeping, which makes it a little less interesting than, say, Dancing With the Stars and a little more interesting than CSI: Miami. What is it about watching dogs sleep that's so relaxing? Whether it's the heavy-lidded blinking of Chloe or the worried brow and paw licking of Stella, the Sleeping Dog Channel offers so many hours of commercial-free enjoyment that it's sure to make its creators rich, I tell you, rich as kings!"

(via MeeVee, which also has this today)

¡Viva Hollywood!

World of Wonder's ¡Viva Hollywood! begins airing Sunday, April 13, on VH1.

Washington vs Hollywood

As a consultant for Svedka vodka, World of Wonder's head of development Tom Campbell was responsible for that poll mentioned in the USA Today story above. After the jump, see side-by-sides of America's choices for actors to play the three main presidential candidates in the unlikelihood there's a movie.

The Morning After

Says GayWired of Transamerican Love Story, which premiered last night on Logo:

Premiering this week on Logo, a different kind of dating show—TransAmerican Love Story starring Calpernia Addams. Unlike the atrocious BBC debacle There’s Something About Miriam, the guys vying for Calpernia’s affections know she’s a transgender female, so the big hook isn’t in waiting for the guys to figure out some colossal secret.

Instead, Logo has smartly positioned the show as a chance to see how a transgender woman and her suitors will navigate the often murky waters of dating.

On her official Web site, Calpernia (who we’ve previously interviewed for projects including Soldier’s Girl and Transamerica) says that in being interviewed for the show, she’s still bothered with the cringe inducing “she used to be a man” hook, but if people can tune into the show, they’ll walk away with a deeper understanding of the trans community.

And—truth be told—the show offers some bonafide laughs. As far as I’m concerned, this is a big step forward for Logo.

The Addams Family

TV Week's Tom Gilbert describes Calpernia Addams, the prize in World of Wonder's elimination dating game, Transamerican Love Story, as "a transgender Marcia Cross lookalike with some serious lips." (More) Also, read what Frontiers magazine has to say about the groundbreaking reality show in which viewers help decide which bachelor will win Addams. The eight hourlong episodes begin airing on Logo on Monday, February 11. (Pictured: Addams and show host, comedian Alec Mapa)

Transamerican Love Story

In a new profile of Calpernia Addams, in Frontiers magazine, Michael Kearns notes that the lovely transgendered star of World of Wonder's elimination dating game, Transamerican Love Story (premiering February 11 on Logo), wants to be taken, not seriously, but comically – a lightheartedness that springs from a past riddled with heartache. "No one knows how hard it is for us to date," says Addams. (Read on)

Press

After Elton posted a dispatch today from the yellow snow of Sundance that includes Jessica Alba shopping at Albertson's, Fenton Bailey taxiing with a drug-dealing driver, the When I Knew panel at Queer Lounge, and Rex Lee's facial pleasures. (Photos: Fenton Bailey and Frameline's Michael Lumpkin; Entourage star Rex Lee)

Morehol

22 shots taken by Lina Lecaro at World of Wonder's "Warhol Dead at 21" group art show opening at the Storefront Gallery Friday and featured in the LA Weekly today. Above, actor Daniel Franzese tending bar.

Shameless Plug/Press

Want to know more about World of Wonder's Storefront Gallery? Curious about World of Wonder in general? Want to know who the hell we are and where we came from? The LA Weekly's Lina Lecaro pays a visit in her "La Vida" column. Click here.

Ink or Swim

A 45-foot-long polystyrene sculpture called The Swimmer ended a weeklong stay in London's St Mary's Gate, Greenwich Park last week, and was shipped off to Chiswick. The piece had been exhibited in Greenwich Park to draw attention to, or promote if you like, the WOW reality series London Ink, which follows the adventures in the skin trade of Louis Malloy, the inker who put "the world's most famous tattoo" on David Beckham's back, and his team of artists. London Ink airs Sundays at 10PM on Discovery Real Time in the UK.(Source)

Keeps to Himself

We've already said a lot on the Report about the traveling art show that is David Keeps and his Art & the City series for Ovation TV, and we think it's time Keeps himself said a few words (and he's not a man of a few words) about the show, so we've cribbed a graphful of quote from a recent story on the man and the show that ran in The Advocate. To wit:

"I'm not Sister Wendy, I'm not PBS," he says. "I like to think I have a sort of Huell Howser-Jack Benny kind of thing happening. The audience isn't interested in art-talk bullshit. Instead, we're looking at the cities we visit through the eyes of the cultural institutions and the galleries and the artists who live there and, to some extent, the places they stay and eat."

Advocate writer Jessica Hundley says, "Keeps leads these TV tours with a self-deferential, slightly bemused charm – Oscar Wilde without the snobbery." Of course, like Oscar Wilde, it isn't all art with Keeps; he has carnal interests as well, as you'll see from this outtake from the Paris episode. No sir, he's no Sister Wendy. (Previously)

(Oh, and be sure to come to the 6-to-8PM party in our storefront gallery this evening to meet David Keeps and get a preview of the series, which premieres Sunday, October 7, at 8PM on Ovation TV.)

Snip!

E! Online's Marc Malkin's short video report on our Friday night "Just Britney" art show caught our own Tom Campbell under the Britney mistletoe. We never knew Marc was such a cutie.

Britney Big in Bahrain

WOW's "Just Britney" art show made the front page of Bahrain's Gulf Daily News. Was there any question it wouldn't? (Good reading inside)

Press Here

Steven Corfe, co-curator of our "Just Britney" group art show, got quoted in a Yahoo! story today about the show. We tried to get a quote from him just now about being quoted but he couldn't be reached for comment.

Press

Excerpt from Lina Lecaro's 9/19/07 "Nightranger" column in the LA Weekly:

Before we start thinking about next year, though, there are the holidays to contend with. Our calendar is definitely marked for World of Wonder’s “Hollyween” exhibits curated by actor Daniel Franzese (the gay guy in Mean Girls) in October, and “Tit-mas” shows (curated by Lenora Claire of Golden Gals Gone Wild fame) in December. If last Friday night’s “Celebritism” opening, featuring works from fearless photog Austin Young, was any indication, these fetes are gonna be anything but “another night in Hollywood.” Tweaking icon worship with his vintage framed shots of Marilyn Monroe–esque creatures and nude poster-size images of local luminaries like Mario Diaz and female-to-male (partial) tranny Buck Angel — not to mention an interactive window display with assorted freaks in blond wigs and white Marilyn dresses — this show brought out a host of fabulous guests including America’s Next Top Model makeup artist Sutan, Angus Oblong (creator of The Oblongs cartoon), operatic drag queen Squeaky Blonde and self-proclaimed “21st-Century Renaissance Man” Kim Fowley. He not only gave us the scoop on the upcoming Runaways movie, Neon Angels — to be directed by video princess Floria Sigismondi — but gave us a glimpse of his androgynous character/alter ego the “Satan of Silver Lake” from his “mascara and madness epic” Dollboy. He even took off his pants at one point to reveal a dress underneath! Yikes. As for the Joan Jett/Cherie Curie–backed biopic, we wondered how the not-exactly-beloved Fowley might be portrayed. His answer? “An American Malcolm McLaren version of General George S. Patton.” Not that he cares. As writer and producer of many of the girl band’s tunes, he stands to make bank on the soundtrack.

From the crowd to the art to the mortified Walk of Fame tourists who peeked into the party throughout the night, the Warholian gathering was as warped and wonderful as WOW’s TV productions. But the best (or worst?) is yet to come even before their holiday happenings, when the gallery presents “Just Britney” next Friday, September 28. The night of Spears-inspired art will include a sculpture of her likeness made out of bubblegum and artist Jamie Boling’s much-buzzed-about “Snake Charmer,” a 6-foot-by-10-foot painting of the poptart’s pantyless car-exit crotch shot (which apparently had to be covered when Barack Obama visited the Virginia gallery where it used to hang). Ya gotta see this one, y’all.

Shameless Plug

That's Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey holding Matt Scott's XXL Golden Gals heads at World of Wonder's extraordinary "Golden Gals Gone Wild" show in August at the storefront gallery. The Luke Gilford photo accompanies a Paper magazine piece on what's currently cooking with the two, er, heads of WOW.

Late Night with Jackie Woodman

We sure hope you're watching The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman on IFC every Sunday night at 11:30, the series with comedy drier than chronic dry eye and just as incurable. We're mentioning it now because it's being praised by others and we don't have to tout our own horn. Last week, Michael Slezak at EW.com, imploring people to watch, said:

Series stars Laura Kightlinger, the show's creator, and Nicholle Tom do boozy, bawdy comedy with a zest not seen on the small screen since AbFab's Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley. And unlike their Sex and the City predecessors, Kightlinger's Jackie and Tom's Tara have moments of tragic un-hipness: They're mid-level Los Angeles wannabes, and their clothes, their apartments, and their cars (or lack thereof) reflect their lot in life with painfully delectable accuracy.

And this week, Slezak wrote, "I think I love Jackie because she's like my secret, hostile inner voice, only with the volume turned up. Thankfully, Tara is always there to cut the acidity with her sweet cluelessness."

Notes on Sex Change

Excerpt from a review of WOW's Sex Change Hospital docuseries in the UK, from I'm the Other Dave:

"Everyone has a right to be an individual and comfortable in their own body. Some folk, however, like those on 'Sex Change Hospital', just abuse the bloody privilege. If I were to say that two grown men, last eve, removed their dinkles, became women, and then started a lesbian affair, would you believe me? Well, hopefully, yes. This is the 21st century, after all, you blasted prudes! If I were to tell you that the very same two lesbian trans-genders teamed up as a 'Cagney and Lacey' style duo in the weekend to fight crime, would you still have faith in my musings? In all honesty, I don't even believe myself. Unfortunately, 'Sex Change' hospital is a reality. It is a serious show what deals with the cold, hard facts of this world in which we live. There are two dyke, balless muscle Marys molesting innocent criminals in the U.S. as we speak. The mind certainly boggles."

Shameless Plug

"It's the funny little non sequiturs that are this show's best minor accomplishment," says the Boston Globe's Matthew Gilbert in reviewing the second-season premiere of The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman. Citing similarities to Sarah Silverman, Kathy Griffin, and Sandra Bernhard, he says the IFC show "should inspire a small grin from those of us with a taste for Hollywood's twisted ladies of irony... women who relish revealing La-La Land in all its naked absurdity." That would be the series' stars, the absurdly droll comic team of Laura Kightlinger and Nicholle Tom, whom he likens to both Lucy and Ethel and the girls of Absolutely Fabulous. (Full review)

What a Sham!

While art lovers and others on Friday night were inside enjoying wine and cheese and parting with money for the paintings at the first in a series of August art shows at WOW's storefront gallery, the artist himself, Sham Ibrahim, was standing outside on Hollywood Boulevard unconvincingly trying to discourage an altercation between alleged sworn enemies Bobby Trendy and Daniel DiCriscio, which got videotaped by and posted on TMZ. After the fluffy altercation ended anticlimactically, DiCriscio gave one of those WWF "bring it on" tirades directly into the camera. Says Sham Ibrahim of today's web coverage: "It sucks they didn't show the artwork on the video but thank God for staged celebrity fights!!"

Tammy Forever

World of Wonder got some righteous props in the Tammy Faye post yesterday on GetReligion.org:

No obituary does her as much justice as the films The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2000) and Tammy Faye: Death Defying (2005) and the Sundance Channel series One Punk Under God (2006). In One Punk Under God, Tammy Faye’s ex-husband speaks of her with quiet wonder and compares her to the Unsinkable Molly Brown.

When a 'Ranger Calls

It seems everyone who was awake – not only in LA but everywhere – watched, called, or dropped in to WOW's makeshift storefront studio for the James St James-hosted lively Ring My Bell 24-hour marathon last weekend. One of those was Lina Lecaro, LA Weekly's "Nightranger" columnist, who not only dropped in but also manned the phone for a bit while James used the little boys' room.

Nightranger even got five minutes of fame, taking calls from kids all across the country. We chatted up a gal from Idaho who told us about her town’s Drag Queen Bingo nights (awesome!) and shared observations on the comical contrasts of the scene around us. (Tourists, bridge ’n’ tunnel clubbers and random riff-raff from the boulevard continually peeked in the storefront windows throughout the show, obviously wondering what the hell was goin’ on.) (More; photo by Lina Lecaro)

Shameless Plug

The WOW Report: "Crazy entertainment moments where you have to wonder who on earth thought that was a good idea." – The Metro, UK.

A Program Note

Our WOW Report disseminator Kiana Moore reminds us that she's not shirking her responsibilities and is in fact a hard-working and delightful WOW ambassador. She sends us this blogspot site, which is one of the fruits of her labors. (And, btw, Kiana's the melodious "World of Wonder, how may I help you?" voice you hear when you dial up our offices.)