ABC's Extreme Exploitation / SARS THE MUSICAL

ABC's Extreme Exploitation

from the smoking gun.com This makes me Sick

MARCH 27--Not content with humdrum stories of poverty, heartache, and distress, the producers of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" have compiled a creepy wish list of woe for the next season of the hit ABC television series, The Smoking Gun has learned.
in an e-mail forwarded earlier this month by an ABC executive to network affiliates, the program's casting agent details the exact kind of tragedies and rare illnesses being sought by the Top 20 show. Families featured on the program have their often ramshackle homes renovated for free by a platoon headed by handyman/heartthrob Ty Pennington. The show is maudlin, tug-on-your-heartstrings television, "Queen for a Day" with finish carpentry.

Based on the ABC e-mail, it appears that victims of hate crimes and violent home invasions and families coping with the loss of a child killed by a drunk driver make for good television. And the show would also absolutely love to feature those battling skin cancer, Lou Gehrig's disease, and muscular dystrophy.

Oh, and families with multiple children with Down Syndrome would be ideal, whether the kids are "either adopted or biological," the e-mail notes. And, shooting the moon, the program's "family casting director," Charisse Simonian, would love to locate a kid suffering from Progeria, the rare condition that causes rapid aging in a child (for those unaware of Progeria, the ABC e-mail helpfully describes it as "aka 'little old man disease.'")

As if that terrible affliction weren't enough, Simonian is also on the hunt for a child with congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis. "This is where kids cannot feel any physical pain," she notes. But the hunt for a young victim--who will likely die before 30--will not be easy. "There are 17 known cases in US," she writes, before chirpily adding, "let me know if one is in your town!" Such spirit in the face of tragedy.

The March 10 correspondence was written by Phinel Petit-Frere, a network executive based in New York, who passed along the makeover show's wish list to network affiliates in the Southeast. The affiliates were requested to help in locating prospective families for the series, which finished eighth in last week's Nielsen ratings. When contacted by TSG, Petit-Frere said he only forwarded the memo on Simonian's behalf and directed other questions her way. (1 page)

SARS: The Musical

Lord of the rings Musical sounds so fucking Retarded to me, and toronto spending so much money $25 million to recover 2003 SARS Scare, is kind of funny, I would never go see a musical version of the lord of the rings, thats just crazy to me. I think Canada should be a little more bolder about this and go one step further. instead of lord of the Rings, or even god forbid. a musical version of the matrix, why create a musical about your worst problem. SARS. Could you imagine SARS the Musical? thousand of chinese girls in balet slippers and leotards daning balet while wearing surgical masks. Now that would be Awesome.

SARS: The Musical
Billed as the most expensive musical ever at $25 million, Toronto is pinning its hopes on the show revitalizing the city's beleaguered theater industry, which has never fully recovered from the SARS outbreak in the spring of 2003. The city lost an estimated $1 billion in tourism dollars, after 44 people died of the respiratory syndrome.

"It's a Mirvish & Co. production - you're going to get the best there is," former Toronto Mayor David Crombie said just before the curtains went up. "Before SARS, we were on an upward trajectory, and I think this is a terrific reminder that we're back."

David Mirvish is a Toronto-based theatrical producer who owns the Princess of Wales Theatre and has produced numerous shows in Canada and abroad.
"I feel relief that we've come to the end of the first phase of our journey," Mirvish said after the performance. "One never knows in theater - it's a tough audience. But if tonight is repeated every night, we're in good shape."

The show did get a standing ovation, but not a wild encore callback to the actors.
"I thought the special effects were awesome, I loved the Finnish music and I thought it followed the Tolkien story," said Scott Ward of Kansas City, a lifelong "Lord of the Rings" fan of who has visited Tolkien's grave in Oxford, England.

The music was an amalgam of sounds by Bollywood master A.R. Rahman and Varttina, a Finnish folk group, combined by musical supervisor Christopher Nightingale.
Another true Hobbit-head - and there weren't many at the invitation-only, black-tie affair - said he appreciated the attempt, but that in the end, something was missing.
"The synergy didn't quite work," said Jonathan St. Rose, who joked that one of the only A-pluses he got at university was in Middle-earth studies. "I don't sense the angst, the soul, the kick that drives the heart of `The Lord of the Rings."'

03/24/06 13:52 EST

posted Saturday, 25 March 2006