0

Hosts announced for The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game

Posted by Vogt
at June 25, 2008

Kim ColesAs previously announced on TV, both The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game are coming back to TV. Now, they have hosts. GSN has announced that actress Kim Coles will be performing hosting duties for the pilot of The Dating Game while comedian Judy Gold will be hosting The Newlywed Game.

This marks the first time The Newlywed Game will have a female host. Hosts of previous incarnations have included Bob Eubanks (who hosted most of the show’s incarnations), Jim Lange, Paul Rodriguez and Gary Kroeger. The Dating Game has had a previous female host in Elaine Joyce. Other hosts for that show have included Jim Lange, Jeff MacGregor, Brad Sherwood and Chuck Woolery.

GSN Senior VP Programming Jamie Roberts said the network was looking for “unusual candidates to take these shows and reinvent them.”

The original versions of these game shows were known for their sexually suggestive humor. The new versions will incorporate modern concepts such as online dating sites. Having both of these relationship-based game shows hosted by comedic women will create an interesting spin that might be fun to watch.

Celebrity TV
0

Newlywed Game and Dating Game coming back to TV

Posted by Vogt
at June 5, 2008

Newlywed GameI used to watch both The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game when I was a kid, and it wasn’t until years later that I realized how filthy both of them were. Both would have all of these double entendres and suggestive questions, and the answers from the contestants were often something you wouldn’t even say to a friend in private. Example from The Newlywed Game:

Bob Eubanks: “Where’s the weirdest place that you and your husband have made whoopee?”
Woman: “In the a**?”

Now, this wasn’t shown on TV until Eubanks showed the clip on an episode of NBC’s Most Outrageous Moments a few years ago (the original answer was never shown on TV and the woman was given a chance to give another answer, and another contestant gave a similar answer years earlier), but many of the questions and answers were suggestive in that way.

I wonder if they’ll have those type of questions in the new GSN remakes? The cable network is bringing back both shows. Of course, they’ll both be updated in this age of computers and microwave ovens. The Dating Game will team up with Match.com to find single people to go on the show, and The Newlywed Game will feature a bonus round where the winning couple goes up against a couple who won on the older version of the show.

This will be the sixth version of The Newlywed Game. Eubanks hosted the original (he also hosted a later revival of the show), and then other versions were hosted by Jim Lange, Paul Rodriguez, and Gary Kroeger. The Newlywed Game was produced by Chuck Barris, and Barris created/produced The Dating Game.

Celebrity TV
0

Julia Louis-Dreyfus Biography

Posted by Vogt
at May 9, 2008

Julia Louis-Dreyfus Biography.jpg

Though she may be forever remembered as Elaine Benes – she of the “big wall of hair,” nipple slip, and uncomfortable dancing – on the NBC sitcom, Seinfeld (1990-98), actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus allowed her comedic talents to shine in a variety of film and television projects ranging from “Saturday Night Live” (NBC, 1975- ) to the animated hit, “A Bug’s Life” (1998). And her return to network television with “The New Adventures of Old Christine” (2005-) appeared to have (for once) broken the “’Seinfeld’ curse” that plagued her co-stars’ subsequent projects.

Born Jan. 13, 1961 in Manhattan, NY, Louis-Dreyfus was one of two daughters born to businessman and lawyer William Louis-Dreyfus (the Louis-Dreyfus family included her grandfather, Leopold Louis-Dreyfus, who founded an international firm of the same name, and cousin Robert Louis-Dreyfus, former owner of Adidas) and Phyllis Louis-Dreyfus. Her parents separated when she was a year old, and Louis-Dreyfus relocated with her mother and sister to Washington, D.C., when she was eight (her mother eventually remarried to the dean of George Washington Medical School). Louis-Dreyfus studied theater at Northwest University, where she met her future husband, comedian Brad Hall.

Louis-Dreyfus honed her comedic craft at two of Chicago’s best-known improvisational theater groups – the Practical Theater Group (co-founded by Hall and future “SNL” alum Gary Kroeger) and later, with the renowned Second City, which trained talents ranging from John Belushi to Ed Asner. She continued performing at the Practical Theater while at Second City, and it was one of her performances at the former’s “Golden 50th Anniversary Jubilee” that led to her being asked to join the cast of “Saturday Night Live” (along with Hall and Kroeger) in 1982. Louis-Dreyfus’ three-year tenure on the show (which was undergoing a difficult transitional phase from its early heyday) included memorable imitations of Marie Osmond, Joan Mondale, and Nastassia Kinski, as well as several original characters, before she left the cast in 1985 (Hall departed the year prior).

Louis-Dreyfus’ landed her first screen role in a low-budget comedy/horror feature, “Troll” (1986), co-starring Michael Moriarty and Sonny Bono, in which she played an apartment dweller who is transformed into a scantily-clad woodland nymph. She followed this inauspicious debut with small roles in Woody Allen’s “Hannah and Her Sisters” (1986) and the C. Thomas Howell comedy, “Soul Man” (1986) before returning to television in the short-lived “Family Ties” (NBC, 1982-89) spin-off, “The Art of Being Nick” (1986) and “Day By Day” (NBC, 1988-89) from “Family Ties” creator Gary David Goldberg. She made one more big screen appearance in the 1989 comedy “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” before joining the cast of comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s sitcom, which had been created by former “SNL” writer Larry David.

For her work as Elaine Benes, the soul female in television’s most famous comedy quartet, Louis-Dreyfus was honored with a Golden Globe in 1994, an Emmy in 1996, and three Screen Actors’ Guild Awards in 1994, 1996 and 1997. A phenomenally popular series with both fans and critics, “Seinfeld” ran for eight seasons before coming to a highly publicized end in 1998. Louis-Dreyfus also gave birth to both of her children during its network run (in 1992 and 1997), lending herself to wearing baggier-than-usual Elaine dresses and sending her on unexplained trips to Europe.

While on “Seinfeld,” Louis-Dreyfus appeared sporadically in feature films, most of which were far beneath her talents; these included the dire family film “Jack the Bear” (1993) and the comedies “North” (1994) and “Fathers’ Day” (1997). The two non-“Seinfeld” high points during this time were the Neil Simon-penned TV movie “London Suite” (1996), with “Seinfeld” co-star Michael Richards, and a reunion with Woody Allen in “Deconstructing Harry” (1997).

Following the conclusion of “Seinfeld,” Louis-Dreyfus stepped away from onscreen appearances (though she did continue as the commercial spokesperson for Clairol) to spend time with her family, and relegated her acting roles to a pair of vocal turns in “A Bug’s Life” (1998) and the 1999 TV adaptation of “Animal Farm.”

Louis-Dreyfus returned to on-screen appearances the following year as the Blue Fairy in Drew Carey’s charming “Pinocchio” musical, “Gepetto.” In 2002, she returned to series work in the highly publicized “Watching Ellie” (NBC, 2002), a somewhat novel take on sitcoms (the original premise had episodes unfolding in real time, with a stop clock ticking in the corner of the screen) created and co-produced by Hall and Louis-Dreyfus. But despite an excellent supporting cast – including Steve Carell and Peter Stormare – the show was pulled after limping into its second season. The failure of the program, along with the similar demise of series starring Jason Alexander and Michael Richards, gave rise to the notion of a “curse” visited upon the “Seinfeld” supporting cast – how that iconic show was so good, nothing they did alone could ever compare.

Louis-Dreyfus enjoyed a less stressful recurring role on “Arrested Development” (Fox, 2003-06) as a pathological liar who romanced Jason Bateman, before she took a deep breath and dove back into the supposedly cursed sitcom world with “The New Adventures of Old Christine” (CBS, 2006). Based on the life of creator Kari Lizer (an actress and writer on “Will and Grace” (NBC, 1998-2006)), Louis-Dreyfus played a divorced mother who, because of the son, must contend with her ex-husband and his younger girlfriend who just happens to share her first name.

In addition to her television work, Louis-Dreyfus and Hall occasionally contributed to political commentator Ariana Huffington’s blog, huffingtonpost.com.

Family
Education
Milestones
Celebrity Biography