If you know me, you know that Despicable Me is one of my new favorite movies. The minions are these adorable alienish characters that help the main character, Gru. In this fun video the minions run all over Universal Studios and take over various parts of the park in celebration of Universal Orlando Resort’s brand new ride, Despicable Me Minion Mayhem which opens July 2nd.
Category: News
Pixar Forever Stamps Now Available
If you love Pixar as much as I do, you’ll want to check out these new forever stamps from the postal service. Check your local post office to get your own sheet with five different designs including:
- Flik and Dot from “A Bug’s Life” (1998);
- Bob Parr (Mr. Incredible) and Dashiell “Dash” Parr from “The Incredibles” (2004), with “Dash” also shown running in the background;
- Nemo and Squirt from “Finding Nemo” (2003);
- Woody, Bullseye, and Jessie from “Toy Story 2” (1999); and
- Boo, Mike Wazowski, and James P. “Sulley” Sullivan from “Monsters, Inc.” (2001).
The back of the stamp sheet shows blue-pencil sketches of characters from these movies interspersed among text that exhorts readers to mail a smile to a loved one. Postal Service art director William Gicker of Washington, DC, worked with Disney•Pixar to design the stamp art.
Customers may view the Disney•Pixar characters Forever stamps, as well as many of this year’s other stamps, and vote for their favorite stamps on Facebook at facebook.com/USPSStamps, through Twitter@USPSstamps or on the website Beyond the Perf at beyondtheperf.com/2012-preview
Women’s Day Features Dr. Oz on Cover, First Man on Cover in 30+ Years
Dr. Oz, whose daytime TV show inspires millions of viewers, is on a mission to help get Americans healthier. His show attracts a largely female audience so it’s no wonder Women’s Day breaks it’s tradition of having women on the cover and has Dr. Oz for this issue instead.
There’s a lot of great information about Dr. Oz’ life, childhood, and his marriage including interview answers like these:
On being an outsider:
Every day in elementary school, I would get off the bus and kids would pick on me. I was in so many fights, I thought the principal’s office was a classroom…I thought I had to prove something because I came into an environment as an outsider…When you’ve been an outsider, you never forget what it feels like. It’s an instant and lifelong way to connect with people, especially when they’re feeling different.
Connecting with his audience:
When I started doing TV, I was a terrible communicator. I’d talk to women who had bad things happen in their lives, and I’d just jump in with answers instead of fully listening to them first…In many ways, it was about working through a lesson my wife, Lisa, has been trying to teach me throughout our marriage: You don’t fix a feeling, you hear a feeling.
Keeping his marriage strong after 27 years:
I sometimes say that in 27 years of marriage, I’ve been married to three different women, and Lisa’s been married to three different men: the student, the surgeon and the talk show host. People do change during a lifetime, and we should view this as a positive instead of panicking and backing away. We don’t want to stay static, because it’s dynamism and newness that keep attraction and a marriage strong.
For more with Dr. Oz, go to http://www.womansday.com/droz and pick up the May issue of Woman’s Day, on newsstands April 10th.
Foyle’s War Returns for a Season 8
If you haven’t watched Foyle’s War, you should. It’s a British show set in World War II with a charming detective. One of my family’s favorites to watch. When the show was set to finish back in 2010 we were disappointed. Apparently in November of 2010 Acorn Media (which had the DVD rights since 2003) acquired all the other rights for the show as well (including: underlying intellectual property rights, Internet streaming, download-to-own, and broadcast television).
Since Season 7 was set a the end of the war, Season 8 will deal with post-WWII spying and espionage (and, of course, more murder). According to the press release, “Three two-hour films have been ordered from Eleventh Hour Films, the production company founded by producer Jill Green. Eleventh Hour Films takes pride in the research work undertaken for each story as all three episodes are firmly based on true stories from 1946 onwards.”
Michael Kitchen is back as Foyle and Honeysuckle Weeks will be returning as Samantha Stewart. Jill Green will produce Foyle’s War and further casting details will be announced later this year. A director is yet to be appointed
Production will start in London in September 2012 and will likely air in 2013.
You can catch up on Foyle’s War in the meantime on DVD.
Drive with Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch
Anyone with a GPS can tell you that the voice is one of the most important things about setting up your GPS. Customizing that perfect person to tell you where to go is about as important as choosing your ringtone for your cellphone. Now you can have a couple monsters tell you where that next right turn is before you get horribly lost.
Locutio has partnered with Sesame Workshop to bring Cookie Monster to Garmin GPS systems worldwide. You can see the voice in action in the video below:
Here’s just some of the phrases from Cookie Monster:
- “There’s traffic ahead, recalculating. Oh boy, me wish me hadn’t eaten calculator.”
- “Yeah, yeah, in one quarter of mile, turn left, dumb di dumb dumb dumb…”
- “You have reached destination. And now…COOOOOOKIES!, nom nom nom. ::BURP:: Excuse me, that me.”
Cookie Monster is now available for $12.99 at Garmin.com and SpotItOut.com.
Not bad for having a muppet take a drive with you. We’re pretty sure it’ll keep your kids entertained at least.
If Cookie Monster isn’t your thing (who are you?) then you can wait a bit until the release of Oscar the Grouch who’ll charmingly say things like:
- “Unless you WANT to get lost, in one mile, turn left. Not that I care what you do.”
- “Traffic ahead, recalculating. Even though I love traffic, it makes everyone so grouchy.”
- “You have reached your destination. No need to thank me, I can’t stand good manners.”
Or buy them both and switch them depending your mood!
Forks over Knives Presents a Live Cooking Demonstration for a Plant-Based Thanksgiving Meal
Being Healthier for the Holidays just got a bit easier (and tastier). Check this out from the folks behind “Forks Over Knives,” the recent hit documentary.
From FOK:
Join us Thursday November 17th at 9:00 PM EST / 6:00 PM PST on our Facebook or Livestream page for a live cooking demonstration with Julieanna Hever, R.D. Julieanna will demonstrate a plant-based Thanksgiving meal that will be delicious and healthy. While making the meal, Julieanna will answer questions from the audience. Questions can be sent in advance to Info@ForksOverKnives.com and also be asked live during the broadcast.
Julieanna is author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition and producer/host of the video “To Your Health,” both available on the FOK website. Click here to watch her recent appearance on The Dr. Oz Show.
ION Television Picks up Flashpoint
[Press Release] ION Television premieres its newly acquired hit police drama “Flashpoint” on Tuesday, October 18 at 10pm ET/PT with new original episodes. ION Television, the new home for the award-winning series, will schedule “Flashpoint” in a two-hour block on Tuesdays from 10pm-12am ET/PT and again on Saturdays from 9-11pm ET/PT.
To support the series launch, ION Television will unveil an integrated marketing campaign, including television, print, out-of-home & digital advertising. As part of the campaign for the first-time ever, ION will feature a Quick Response code on all printed marketing elements, which will provide fans access to exclusive cast interviews, a never-before-seen sneak peek from the premiere episode and entry into the ‘Flashpoint Alert’ contest, starting September 26th. The online contest provides fans a chance to win weekly cash prizes by scheduling the premiere episode onto their digital calendars and their social media platforms.
ION Television, a top-10 network, acquired the rights to all existing episodes and future production of “Flashpoint” from CBS Television Distribution earlier this year. The production of the season’s upcoming episodes marked ION Television’s first venture into originals planned by the network in the coming year.
“Flashpoint” joins ION Television’s primetime line-up of hit off-network series such as “Psych,” Monk,” “Criminal Minds,” and “Without a Trace,” and its blockbuster theatricals, which have driven record ratings for the network. The new series joins the schedule on the heels of ION’s recent acquisition of the hit series “Leverage” and “House,” both set to launch on ION in 2012.
Starring Hugh Dillon (Durham County), Enrico Colantoni (Veronica Mars), Amy Jo Johnson (Felicity) and David Paetkau (Whistler), “Flashpoint” is the nail-biting cop drama and an emotional journey into the tough, risk-filled lives of a group of police in the Strategic Response Unit (inspired by Toronto’s Emergency Task Force). Members of a highly-skilled tactical team, they are trained in negotiating, profiling and getting inside the subject’s head to understand the emotional breaking point (the “flashpoint”) that triggered the crisis.
“Flashpoint” is produced by Pink Sky Entertainment and Avamar Entertainment in association with CTV and CBS. Executive producers are Anne Marie La Traverse and Bill Mustos. Creators are Mark Ellis and Stephanie Morgenstern. David Frazee is Series Consultant.
Celebrating Supernatural S2 on Blu-ray: Monster Hunting
I’m super excited that Supernatural Season 2 is coming out on Blu-ray. It’s actually the first season of the show I watched and so it holds a special place in my heart. The special features look great (like the Devil’s Roadmap that Eric talks about in the YouTube clip above). Having just completed a rewatch through all the seasons of Supernatural (in a week I think), I jumped at the chance to write about the new Blu-ray release.
The nostalgic thing for Supernatural fans going back and rewatching Season 2 is that the episodes are more monster hunt focused rather than the big huge season arcs that, while fun, can be a bit draining. One of my favorite parts of Season 2 is the variety of monsters the boys must hunt. From vampires to killer clowns (okay, it really was a rakshasa), the season has some traditional baddies and some interesting second-stringers.
One of my favorite monsters that the brothers hunted was “The Trickster” (aka Loki), who appears in the episode “Tall Tales.” Subsequent episodes with the Trickster are always funny, kind of heart-breaking and just plain great television. Other than killing his victims, it seems appropriate that he makes jerks pay for their behavior.
Of course, watching the Winchesters fight monsters every day makes you wonder how you’d handle a situation with a monster yourself. Would you take up arms, illegally dig up graves, salt and torch bones? I don’t think I could. Mostly my strategy would be run away and find someone who could. Of course, running straight for the Winchester boys wouldn’t be a bad thing.. would it? I’ll leave the slaying to the professionals.
Order your copy of Supernatural: The Complete Second Season on Blu-ray here today: http://bit.ly/k3Lbpz!
I have been hired by Warner Bros. WBWord division to promote Supernatural: The Complete Second Season on Blu-ray.
Maroon 5 Does it in 24 Hours…
Last week music history was made as fans from 139 countries across the world tuned in to watch and inspire Maroon 5 as they wrote and recorded a brand new track in just 24hrs at the Coca-Cola Music 24hr Session.
Today, “Is Anybody Out There”, the up-tempo track created at the session, is released for free download at www.cocacola.com/music. For the first 100,000 downloads, Coca-Cola will make a donation to support Replenish Africa Initiative (RAIN) in their work to provide access to safe drinking water to communities in Africa.The band entered Metropolis studios in London at 5pm GMT on March 22 and worked around the clock to create the track using inspiration sent in by fans via the @Coca-Cola Twitter stream.
Over 350,000 views were logged on the live stream throughout the duration of the session as fans tuned in to watch the creative process unfold. Providing inspiration for the song, over 25,000 fans tweeted their thoughts and messages of support via @cocacola using #withMaroon5 to the band in the studio.
Commenting at the end of the 24hrs, Adam Levine of Maroon 5 said; “This has been an amazing and entirely unique experience. It was 24hrs of creativity, brought to you by Coca-Cola. We’d like to thank all our fans for their Tweets of support, ideas and inspiration throughout a really productive and intense 24hrs.”
SyFy and Hollywood Treasure Offer Auction for a Trip for 2 to ComicCon
Iconic pieces and once-in-a-lifetime experiences representing several of Syfy’s hit original series are available for bid in an online auction accompanying Syfy’s new reality series, Hollywood Treasure, which continues with all new back-to-back episodes Wednesdays at 10 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. ET/PT. Net auction proceeds will go towards national non-profit KaBOOM!, which is dedicated to saving play.
This week Syfy fans can go to www.syfy.com/hollywoodtreasure and bid to win a trip for two to the world famous Comic Con event in San Diego, including tickets to Syfy’s annual party, the hottest ticket in town. The package is available for bid through Tuesday, November 9.
Hollywood Treasure is a weekly reality series that delves into the intricate world of showbiz and pop culture memorabilia collecting, including science fiction and fantasy props and costumes. The series follows Joe Maddalena, owner of Profiles in History and the world’s largest auctioneer of original movie, television and pop culture collectibles.
In an all-new episode of Hollywood Treasure airing Wednesday, November 10 at 10 p.m. ET/PT, Joe Maddalena travels to England to meet with Harvey Stephens, the child actor who played Damien in one of the most iconic horror movies of all time, The Omen. Harvey shows Joe his original costume and famed prop used during prominent scenes from the film. Joe wants the items for auction but is Harvey willing to let go of these pieces from his childhood? In another all-new episode airing at 10:30 p.m. ET/PT, Joe is back in Los Angeles and sets his sight on finding the famed yellow brick road from The Wizard of Oz. One of the last surviving principle cast members from the show, an original lollipop kid, Jerry Martin, makes a surprise visit.