Fans who have been eagerly awaiting the DVD release of the original Banana Splits Adventure Hour series are about to get a surprise. Beginning Sept 2, 2008, Cartoon Network and Boomerang will debut all-new shorts with Fleagle, Bingo, Drooper, and Snorky. This is phase one of a multi-platform release, meaning that the much anticipated DVD will soon follow. We’ll have exclusive sneak peeks at the shorts later this week. In the meantime, check out their new site BananaSplits.com

Just watched the USA - China basketball game this morning; made an omelet to go with it. More than half a billion people were watching in China, but given the 12-hour time difference, they probably weren’t eating omelets. If you’re curious about what they might have been eating, check this link.

Naturally, NBC did a slice of life on how Yao Ming’s success has made basketball and the NBA wildly popular in China. They showed Chinese basketball fans talking about their favorite player, who frequently was… Kobe Bryant. Turns out Yao Ming’s not on top in jersey sales, either. Good for the NBA, which should have a market in China long after the 7-foot-5 star retires.

It would be nice if, say, fencing found that kind of groundswell of interest in the USA after our women’s team swept everything. I’m not expecting to see many international fencing matches on TV for another four years, though.

While NBC was rolling its tape of the Opening Ceremonies from Beijing, the Czech Republic took home a gold medal in women’s air rifle.

One of the trivia items the announcers threw out drove me up the wall. I heard in passing one flag bearer pointed out as literally one against the world, his country’s lone athlete, but it took me a while to check which country online. Turns out the one-man Olympic team is weightlifter Itte Detenamo from Nauru, the AP says at the NBC Olympics site. Even if he doesn’t take home any medal, someone oughtta sign Detenamo up for an ad campaign.

BTW, I found several answers to the question above, but Detenamo’s the only one that checks out with the Olympic athletes by country list at Yahoo!

Just one night and I’m already suffering from Olympic trivia overload …

One of the allures of Comic Con is the opportunity to speak with some illuminaries in the science-fiction world, along with the many fans that flock to San Diego to attend. In the case of Edgar Wright, Jessica Hynes, and Simon Pegg, the director and creators of the BBC comedy Spaced, you get both. You might know Pegg from his work in the hilarious films Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Before that, he was working in small roles on London comedies when a little project with Hynes and Wright struck gold back in 1999. The series Spaced was a comic success in England, a bit of an underground gem in the US, and has finally made its way onto DVD. We had the chance to sit down and talk with the trio about the short-lived, but much beloved show.

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Well, there you go, teenage girls. You voted for your favorite dancer, and so ends another season of So You Think You Can Dance. If you don’t want any spoilers as to who it is, you should probably stop reading this article now. Like, immediately.

Well played, Mr. Nigel. You’ve turned something pedantic (a dancing talent show) into one of the most engaging, emotional and entertaining hours in television. No wonder you quit American Idol. It might have the ratings, but compared to this last season of SYTYCD, Idol has the emotional impact of an eggplant.

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Much to my embarrassment, chagrin and ever-increasing shame (which runs inversely to my wife’s cackling glee) I seem to enjoy the dancing. To be specific, So You Think You Can Dance, which airs its finale tonight (August 7, 8/7c).

While I could give a rat’s ass about dancing as a subject in any other form or function, there is an undeniable attraction to this competition. It lacks the tackiness of other reality shows, and has none of the spite, competition or burning resentment that sours other competitions.

Now that the show is in the final episodes and gotten past the American Idol-style embarrassing audition phase, exploiting the poor underclass of American idiots who want to be on television, the actual talent and devotion to the craft emerges. Whether you “like” dance or not, one cannot deny the sheer talent these kids have, dancing their freakin’ pants off, and having a ball. The more you watch, the more compelling it becomes. Also, for the first time, we have two breakers in the finale; in of itself quite the victory.

After thousands of contestants were vetted down to a mere twenty, it all comes down to the last four: Courtney G., Katee, Joshua and Twitch. Last night was the voting show, tonight is the result show, and one of them walks away very happy.


So who will win? In terms of pure dancing talent, Katee could probably mop the floor with her competition, but the smart money is on Twitch in my book. This is nothing but a popularity contest, after all… and the dude be stylin’.

Of course, if Joshua wins, my wife has promised to hurl her bra at the television and scream uncontrollably… so, either way, I win there.

I pretty much loathe reality television, but I admit: I like the dancing. We’ll be back tonight with the results.

Discovery Channel’s hit series Man v. Wild returns for a third season starting tonight (Aug 6) at 10p ET / 9p CT, its new day and time. Those of you with weak stomachs or card carrying PETA members be forewarned. Host Bear Grylls is an absolute nut who’s not above going to great lengths in order to live life to its survivalist fullest. There’s a video clip of his second season Zambia adventure for you, after the jump.

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While Comic Con tends to be kamikaze journalism for those of us foolish enough to throw ourselves into it, some of the hidden gems are the small interview opportunities that pop up throughout the weekend, and this is a perfect example. Best known for his work on Battlestar Galactica, a relaxed Jamie Bamber was tucked away in the Genius Products booth at the back of a manic Saturday morning convention floor doing small press for Pulse: Afterlife, a film he shot during hiatus last season, and arrives on DVD September 30. But as these interviews often go, the conversation strayed into some fascinating areas.

TV Verdict: Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse (Kairo)…

Jamie Bamber: Thank you for mentioning it.

TVV: Of course. The film was a fascinating J-Horror metaphor for our increasing anxiety over technology dependence…

JB: You know, I loved it. I just loved it, from the very first shot of these people in this sort of plant nurturing place which is on a building… like a nursery within an office building… it’s just a patio… and they’re so distant from each other… and it’s just about how disconnected we actually are. We think we’re connected by this technology, and that’s an illusion. And then people get haunted by the illusion, and ghosts come through and it takes over their lives… I thought it was mesmerizing, really mesmerizing. I have to say that’s why… Pulse 2, a sequel to a film I really liked… that’s why I decided to do it. To see if we could do something a bit more faithful to Kurosawa’s piece. I have no idea whether it is or not. It probably wasn’t one of the aims of the producers to be honest… to be faithful… because foreign films that leave the camera rolling on wide shots and don’t cut into it every two seconds are just not particularly en vogue in America right now. But I think we’ll learn and we’ll wake up that that’s actually more dramatic than being slapped around the head with a bat and told you don’t expect this, but you do and here it is.

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Chief Justice Michael Stailey had the pleasure of sitting down with producer/director John Badham to discuss the relevance of Wargames in today’s technologically advanced world, the joys and pains of working on two current hit television series — Psych and Heroes, and how television directing has evolved from the late ’60s when he first got into the business.

TV Verdict: Two of your films have recently been given the Special Edition DVD treatment — Wargames to coincide with the release of the follow-up WarGames: Dead Code and Short Circuit to capitalize on WALL-E…

John Badham: We think WALL-E is capitalizing on Short Circuit. (He laughs)

TVV: Do you look at these films differently now, twenty years later, than you did when you were making them?

JB: Gosh, no. I love both of these movies and you hope that every movie you work on you’re going to be that excited about; that thrill, because you know it’s such a great script. In the course of your life, you’re gonna have to work on some stuff that maybe is not the greatest — for one reason or another — and reading both of these scripts, I’ll always remember my reaction to them, which was so positive and strong. “Whoa man, this is great!” Feeling that they both turned out really well even early on, that’s the strength of the script being decently done by the actors and the director. But if you don’t have a good script, you’re never gonna have something you’re happy with. All you can do with a bad script is dress it up and try and dance around it; do what Bob Fosse called “all that jazz,” to try and conceal the weaknesses of it. But when you get down to the heart of it, it’s still a piece of crap. But that’s not the case with these movies. You know, these movies stand because the characters are strong. Number 5 is a strong character. David Lightman is a character you just go “Aw man, I care about this kid. He’s in a lot of trouble. How’s he gonna get out of this shit?”

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Watched what’s going to be the last Doctor Who for a while tonight. In a word: weird. It looks like the end for the Daleks–again (until the writers really, really need a Dalek fix). The episode played up some of the show’s plot quirks: the mortals around him sacrifice their lives and happiness, while the immortal Doctor “never looks back,” and the irony that he’s a loner with so many friends. The latter became my favorite TV irony when it reached its illogical extreme in Burn Notice: If you were dumped in sunny Miami with as many friends as Michael Westen has there (not just Sam, Fiona, and his mom, but a contact for every occasion), wouldn’t you just hit the beach and chill?