Quit Yer Kitschin' -- now served daily-ish

Allow me to kitsch for a minute.

Launching the Retroality.TV webzine and Quit Yer Kitschin' blog simultaneously has been no easy feat -- especially when you're already working full-time in not-yet-totally-obsolete print media, you still think "Java script" is what the Folgers Crystals hidden camera-actors had to memorize, and you can't tell your RSS from your ASS. But overextending yourself in the name of Keeping Retro Relevant and Reality Irreverent (media branding is way more fun than HTML coding) is just one of those causes worth fighting for. Even if your arm gets all heart-attack tingly while trying to convince the blog-loving masses that Octomom was secretly inseminated by Dick Van Patten in an evil plot to revive an octoho-hate-filled celebreality version of "Eight is Enough."

Rant over. Feeling slowly returning to arm.

But can I really complain? I mean, at least I'm not Sharon Osbourne, who just got sued for rightfully putting some white trash Bret Michaels-flanking also-ran on in her place during a recent "Rock of Love" reunion show. And at least I'm not French-Italian "Sex and the City" manicotti-wielder Gilles Marini, who just told E! Online that he pulled a groin (!) during his marathon "Dancing with the Stars" rehearsals. Not that I wouldn't want to be Gilles Marini (a very nice guy, by the way), what with his perfect looks, suave disposition, cool accent and all. But really, who wants a pulled groin? In this day and age, can that lead to anything besides 14 babies and "Entertainment Tonight" buying what's left of your soul?

Okay, so maybe I can complain. And I will here a little. That's what "Kitschin'" is all about. That, and sharing retro and reality news, sightings and musings here and there.

On that note, I'm excited to share that Retroality.TV has all sorts o' fun stuff coming this spring. For starters, in observance of John Ritter's star-making sitcom's 32nd anniversary, March is "Three's Company" month here. We'll have exclusive interviews with series star Joyce "Janet" DeWitt and Jack's Bistro web guru-turned-Sitcomsonline.com news blogger-to-the-stars Pavan Patel. And we'll feature a Q&A with "Three's Company" expert and WGN radio producer Andy Hermann (whose TC "Throwdowns" rock the retro trivia world semi-regularly) and pop culture radio celeb Nick Digilio, who hosts his eponymous, Andy Hermann-produced hit WGN radio show.

And we've got some great game show exclusives coming this spring to Retroality (more on this in coming weeks), along with pop culture news, tongue-in-cheek reviews, "As Zine On" Q&As with some of celebreality's vintage all-stars, and other assorted multimedia retrojoy.

So link us, ping us, bookmark us, blogroll us, e-mail us -- we appreciate every keystroke you take to share Retroality with the rest of the e-world. Just don't pull a groin or punch out some Bret Michaels floozie. Leave the heavy lifting to the celebs and join us as we sit on our RSS and kitsch over a nice cup of Java script.

USA Today covers Retroality.TV's Dawn Wells Story: "Gilligan's 'Mary Ann' Backs Phelps"

Check out USA Today's "Game On" blog entry about Retroality's exclusive February cover-story interview with Dawn Wells:

http://blogs.usatoday.com/gameon/2009/02/gilligans-mary.html?csp=34

Sports news blogger Tom Weir, who (along with co-blogger Reid Cherner) keeps America abreast of the latest sports-related buzz, acknowledged Retroality's unique coverage of the Michael Phelps bong photo fallout.

Writes Weir: "In the surest sign yet that the Michael Phelps smoking-bong saga has reached a hyperventilating phase of media overload, the real-life version of Mary Ann from Gilligan's Island has stepped up on behalf of the Olympic champ." See the link above for the rest of his take on the "Gilligan's Island" star's provocative comments.

Check back here at Retroality.TV's Quit Yer Kitschin' blog soon for Retroality's latest twist on America's often-retro-spun obsession with celebreality.

Gilligan's Mary Ann Sounds off on her Mary Jane arrest, Michael Phelps' bong photo fallout, and Tina "Ginger" Louise's 40-year "Island" exile

Check out my new exclusive interview with Dawn at www.Retroality.TV -- she talks about the whole Ginger v. Mary Ann thing, being caught with Mary Jane, Michael Phelps' bong photo scandal, etc.

www.Retroality.TV

Excerpts:

ON HER ARREST
"I had that horrible experience with that fake arrest. It wasn’t fake—I was arrested but it wasn’t legitimate. He’s in jail now, as a matter of fact, the guy who arrested me. And the sheriff has also been under investigation for false arrest. It was a very unfortunate situation. And I was very, very aware of what the press can do. ... It was very, very difficult. And I finally said to somebody, “I’m not sure if Britney Spears has two boys.” I don’t believe anything I read anymore.

ON THE "VERY CRUEL" MEDIA STORM:
"It’s a big deal to catch Mary Ann, too. It’s a very big difference than it would be if it were a rock-and-roll singer or something. Because it was Mary Ann there was a big to-do and everybody had to jump on it. And they were very cruel. Some of them were very funny, too—Jay Leno was very funny. Bill O’Reilly was awful and TMZ was awful. I did three shows: The View, Entertainment Tonight and CBS Early Morning news. However, not everybody sees that. For a long time, I’d walk into a cleaners and think, “I know they think I went to jail.” (Laughs.) ... And I don’t walk around with a sign on my back saying, “It wasn’t true! It wasn’t true!”
However, as odd as it was, I do have people who say, “Cast her in Weeds. Or put her in Lost.” It kind of revived my career a little bit, as strange as that sounds. All of a sudden they realized that I was alive. (Laughs.)
But it was awful. It was terrible. And that’s kind of the price you have to pay. And all you can do is try to be as honest as you can be. You’re not gonna fool anybody anymore.

ON MICHAEL PHELPS'S BONG PHOTO FALLOUT:
"You’ve got the athletes—look at poor Michael Phelps, for God’s sake. I mean, is that important to his gold medals? Not at all. It’s not steroids. He wasn’t cheating through his competition at all. ... Nowadays, you can make pictures say anything ... I don’t know the circumstance, whether (Phelps is) denying it. He could’ve been making fun of it! He could’ve been leaning over and saying, 'How do you use this damn thing?' How do you know what he was doing?"

ON CO-STAR TINA "THE MOVIE STAR" LOUISE:
"(The 2004 TV Land Awards) was very awkward, though. I’d heard there was a rumor that she wouldn’t sit with us, or she wanted to get paid to sit with us ... So she didn’t sit with us. But afterward, we all took a picture with Sherwood Schwartz. And then after that somebody wanted to interview us, and Tina and I sat down together for the first time ever. And she was very complimentary about the show. I almost fell off the chair. (She said,) 'The little kids really like it, and I’m reading to kids and kids appreciate it.' And I thought, 'Well, maybe it’s taken this much time to realize how grateful we all should be for that show.' I haven’t run into her (since), but we’re always very civil."

'90s soap hunk and "Celebrity Circus" champ Antonio Sabato Jr. on his reality TV love search

Exclusive extras from my January 2009 Muscle & Body cover story interview with Antonio Sabato Jr., whose matchmaking VH1 reality show is set to premiere in late spring or early summer:


What can you tell us about your upcoming VH1 reality show?
It’s an opportunity for me to go out there and hopefully find the right person and really see what people are all about. You never know who you’re gonna meet in Hollywood. Sometimes you meet the wrong people who seem to change overnight and become someone completely different. I know it’s a TV show and a lot of people just want to be on camera, but I’m gonna use this (show) to be real on a real show, and make it something that might work for me rather than against me. It’s gonna test me and test these girls to see who they are. I’m gonna say,

“Look, I’m a real dude who wants an opportunity to find someone to be with and be in love with and be a better person with.”

I want to test the waters and find out if that can happen. Obviously, the possibilities are probably slim, but I’m gonna go along with it and have great fun. The scenery will be beautiful to look at—we’re going to Hawaii or Miami.

Does true love exist?
In my opinion, I think love does exist. I want to really psychologically get into the heads of these girls in the show. That will be a challenge.


When can we expect to see your reality show?
Filming was pushed to January. We’ll do 10 episodes and go from there. We’re looking to release it before the summer.


You said doing Celebrity Circus was a challenge both physically and mentally—and was like “holding up a mirror” to yourself.
It was a challenge. And the show was different. There was nothing like that on TV. It was a contest of endurance, physically and mentally. I thought it was cool the NBC was backing it up and putting a lot of money into it to make it classy and not trashy. It didn’t exploit any of the celebrities. They’d done something like that (Circus of the Stars) back in the Eighties, but it wasn’t a contest; it was more of a showcase. But this was a showcase on a weekly basis. I was attracted to it from the beginning.

TV's Nanny on surviving cancer, lobbying D.C. and her tabled plans for a sitcom wih Rosie

Previews of my exclusive extras from my Great Health magazine interview with Fran "The Nanny" Drescher:

What’s up with your plans to do a sitcom with Rosie?
We have to find the right project. We were thinking of doing a sitcom together. But it hasn’t found a home yet, so we may have to go back to the drawing board. I’m very fatalistic. I’ve had so many irons in the fire. Maybe it’s not the right time for me, either (to return in a series). Maybe life is gonna take me in a whole other direction, and I’ll be glad I didn’t make a long-term (series) commitment. I like climbing new mountains. I don’t like to feel like I’m standing still. It was almost a nuance of relief when it didn’t come together the way I anticipated. And I kind of stepped back a bit and said, “Let’s see what’s happening.”

You’ve kept busy lately as a stage performer, writer. and sociopolitcal activist.
I was in Camelot in the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center, and that also aired as a Live at Lincoln Center PBS special. I’m also deep in the throes of rewriting a screenplay. And I’ve just turned in my latest draft to a publisher for a children’s book. And of course the work I do as a women’s health advocate is probably the most significant and time-consuming, but it’s very worthwhile.
So then I started to remember all of the things that, you know, we’re human, that I write about in the book—things that transpired through this whole, tremendous, life-changing, growing experience. I always say I’m not glad I had cancer and I don’t wish it on anyone, but I am better for it. Sometimes the best gifts come in the ugliest packages.

Many people let fear of the unknown even prevent them from seeking a diagnosis.
The day when you can be in denial no more, and at that point it may be too late. Don’t be afraid to say, “This doesn’t feel right, something’s wrong with me and I’ve gotta figure it out right now.” Because God forbid, if it’s something serious, I want to be able to be cured of it. This kind of thinking goes against the way insurance companies want us to think. We’re done being drones and passive with our own health. That was back in the twentieth century. Now it’s a new dawn.
Because of the big business of insurance, who do not want to include the transvaginal ultrasound as basic healthcare, women are going for far too long without the information they need. And that has to stop. This is a kind of trickle-down effect of a society that really didn’t want to talk about gynecology at all. And for many years, until very recently, even the National Institute of Health didn’t have a gynecologic department. They had an obstetrics department. Nobody wanted to talk about a woman’s gynecology unless she was pregnant. And that’s why we’re in the mess we’re in right now with gynecology. This isn’t our only concern with the Cancer Schmancer movement, but it’s certainly become our first frontier. Because it’s absolutely the most neglected and the most in-the-dark issue.

For all of her "extras," visit www.Retroality.TV