“An Historical Moment”

Posted on April 29, 2007 by Amanda Rogers

Don’t blame me for the bad grammar in the title of this post. I didn’t make it up. I just borrowed it from the title of Mike McCafferty and Jason Makiaris’ latest Acceptable TV entry called, you guessed it, An Historical Moment.

Once again the guys need our help to get their show on the air. I’ll let Jason tell you what you need to do in his email below.

Hey Y’all,

For those keeping score at home, we’ve now had three episodes of L33t Haxxors air on Vh1. Thanks to everyone who has supported us and voted over the past few weeks. If you missed an episode and want to see it, click on one of the links below

L33t Haxxors Episode 1
L33t Haxxors Episode 2
L33t Haxxors Episode 3

This week we are debuting a new series on Acceptable TV entitled An Historical Moment which is hosted by yours truly, and is sure to delight as well as confuse many of you. We love this silly little show, and hope you’ll vote for it. Click the link below to go to the voting page and if you are so inclined, click the “Vote For This Video” link (with the heart next to it) above our video. For some reason, you no longer need to register to vote, so just click away and vote as many times as you like. There aren’t any limits as to how many times you can vote.

Watch “An Historical Moment”

Don’t forget to tune in and see if we air again this Friday night at 10!

Thanks again!

– Jason

So watch and vote for An Historical Moment. If you think their grammar is wrong, wait until you see what they did with history.

In Memory of Michael Smuin

Posted on April 28, 2007 by Amanda Rogers

I beg your patience as I indulge a bit into something that has personal meaning for me. I usually don’t post off topic subjects, but I wanted to take a moment to mention the recent passing of a great artist. This week the dance world lost Michael Smuin. Probably best known for his roles as choreographer and co-director of San Francisco Ballet, Smuin had a long and distinguished career, which you can read about on the Smuin Ballet home page if you wish.

This news touched me more than usual because I had the priviledge of taking a ballet master class from him many years ago. It’s an experience I will never forget. What a surprise is was for me to go into class expecting strict classical training only to be told how to “cheat” on our arabesques. I quickly learned that he likes to “break the rules.”

Smuin passed during a rehearsal of his upcoming season. He died doing what he loved to do.

Channel 7 News has an article and a great video about this dance legend.

Mike is a Cartoon Character!

Posted on April 27, 2007 by Amanda Rogers

I just got home from work and to my delight found the following email from Mike McCafferty in my inbox. I’m passing it on to all of you. Hope you can watch!

Hello all.

So tonight at 10pm on VH1, catch “Acceptable TV”. It’s a sketch show meets “American Idol” series where the top two sketches each week return for a new episode the following week.

I’ll be voicing the character of Agent Pedone in this week’s animated “Mr. Sprinkles” sketch. Already on it’s 6th episode, Mr. Sprinkles is a deranged “Cat in the Hat” character who ends up accidentally killing those he tries to entertain during rainy days. Sentenced to prison, Mr.
Sprinkles learns the harsh truths of an adult world.

Sounds hilarious, huh?!!

If you miss it for any reason, it’ll be available starting tonight on http://acceptable.tv/. This character will be around probably until the end of the season, but this is my first animated work so I’m a little excited (I’ll spare you the obvious pun).

As a bonus, you may also see “l33t Haxxors: Episode 3” on the show. This is a show I co-wrote and directed and if it got enough votes last week, we’ll see it tonight. The series already has over 200,000 online views, which is a good thing. Check out the series at www.l33thaxxors.com.

Many thanks,

Mike

“Drive” Cancelled

Posted on April 26, 2007 by Amanda Rogers

After only four episodes Drive has been officially cancelled. I’ve got to admit that this caught me by surprise. I knew the show wasn’t getting great ratings, but I wasn’t expecting Fox to cut their losses so quickly. It would have been nice if they gave it a chance to build an audience.

Here’s what Kristen at E! has to say about the cancellation:

Update on Drive: I just got an email from a very highly placed source inside the show, who sadly tells me about the reports of Drive’s cancellation:

“Confirmed. Gone. No word on DVDs, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up. You’re sweet for supporting the show” it’s greatly appreciated, for what it’s worth.”

Studio sources tell me, “I’m hearing it is being pulled from Mondays” we have two remaining episodes that have been produced”waiting to hear if they will air (and where).” Four hours of the show had aired; six were in the can. No word yet on DVDs, but if you live in some far off place where Drive had yet to tour, you can read episode scripts over at http://www.timminear.net/archives/drive/000146.html.

Thanks to Lee Ann for the info.

Craig Writing “Drive”

Posted on April 24, 2007 by Amanda Rogers

I did a double take yesterday when I saw Craig Silverstein’s name appear as the writer for last night’s episode of Drive. Nice surprise. I guess Craig is making good use of the time Standoff is on hiatus and Fox is making good use of this very talented writer that they have under contract.

Speaking of Standoff, it’s scheduled to come back on Friday, June 8, 2007 at 9/8 central. I’ve got to say that I’m a bit nervous for Craig, because Standoff getting moved to Fridays is not a good sign.

If you want to catch up on any episodes you missed, go to the Standoff MySpace page.

Videos by Danielle

Posted on April 21, 2007 by Amanda Rogers

A few years back there existed a really great website dedicated to Vincent Ventresca called vincentventresca.net. The site was attractive, well organized, and a fan could find virtually everything about Vince’s roles and career there. Danielle, a very talented fan, created and ran the site.

Well, life got busy for Danielle and the website is no more, but a whole slew of her videos she either saved or created are residing on YouTube for our enjoyment. Danielle was kind enough to let me post links to her videos so that you can easily find and enjoy them too. She’s got a great assortment of videos.

To start things off, here’s the actual trailer used to advertise the pilot of The Invisible Man.

Invisible Man Trailer

Here’s a great interview with Vince where he answers questions from the old Invisible Man bboard. The audio seems to be a bit out of sync and it abruptly stops after seven minutes, but it’s still worth watching.

The Invisible Man Bboard Interviews Vincent Ventresca

Danielle created a whole slew of I-Man music videos that are a lot of fun to watch.

Danielle created this Prey music video.

Hungry

Here’s a old commercial from 1995 that Vince was in.

Vincent Ventresca Pepsi Commercial

Finally, here’s a music video dedicated to Vince’s various roles.

The Many Faces of Ventresca

Enjoy!

Follow Up to “Drive”

Posted on April 16, 2007 by Amanda Rogers

So Paul Ben-Victor’s performance last night in Drive reminded me a lot of Bobby Hobbes…a lot of the same mannerisms. Anybody else see that?

I love that Greg Yaitanes twittered a shout out to The Invisible Man when he wrote, “the truck driver is played by Paul Ben Victor who played VINTAGE Bobby Hobbes on the Invisible Man. Which I directed.” He could have just as easily named another role that Paul is known for, but he chose I-Man. Yes!

If you missed Paul’s performance last night, no problem, you can watch it right now on Drive’s MySpace page! The name of the episode is “Partners.” I just love that networks are starting to stream TV shows on the Web.

Greg Yaitanes in the Driver’s Seat AND Paul Ben-Victor Plays a Truck Driver

Posted on April 15, 2007 by Amanda Rogers

One of the I-Man directors that I like to keep track of is Greg Yaitanes. Back in 2003, Greg did a SciFi.com chat with fans for his movie Children of Dune. During the chat he graciously acknowledged The Invisible Man and all the dedicated and hopeful I-Man fans (myself included) who came to the chat with “Save I-Man” in front of their handles. Some of you old timers might remember that.

In addition, Greg has hired Paul Ben-Victor for an episode of Alias and Fastlane, Vincent Ventresca for an episode of Cold Case and, of course, who could forget when he put Vince and Paul together for an episode of Las Vegas.

But it doesn’t end there. Tonight is the premiere of Greg’s new show Drive and Paul has a guest role as a truck driver. The show has a (very unusual) two-night three-hour premiere, with the first two hours airing tonight at 8:00 p.m./7:00 p.m. central and the third hour airing tomorrow at 8:00 p.m./7:00 p.m. central on FOX (check your local listings).

Greg not only directs the pilot in this series, but he also steps out of his usual director role to become one of the executive producers of the show. During tonight’s premiere, Greg will be twittering live a director’s commentary while the show is airing. I can’t say I’m familiar with how twittering works, but it appears that you can access Greg’s comments via text messaging on your phone, instant messaging, or the twitter foxdrive web page. If you’re interested in participating and new to twittering, it would be a good idea to get signed up early and explore the website to get familiar with the service and how it works.

One of the things I find fascinating about this new series is that most of the action is done via visual effects. Greg, along with the Visual Effects Supervisor, Loni Peristere, takes us behind the scenes in this interesting video interview at ifilm that explains how the visuals effects are done.

Articles, Reviews and Interviews

Zap2it From Inside the Box – “Review: Fox’s Drive”

The Chronicle Herald – “Computers driving force behind series”

Movieweb – Drive Races Into High Gear on Fox!

Drive Fans – EXCLUSIVE: An Interview with Greg Yaitanes

The Hollywood Reporter – Yaitanes steering Fox’s ‘Drive’