Recognizing that the artifacts left behind from growing up offer fertile ground for mining comedic gold, David Nadelberg has parlayed his concept of a teen angst-exposing stage show from an event called Mortified with 10 chapters around the world into a new 10-part interview series for American television. The Mortified Sessions premieres at 8 p.m. tonight (Monday, Dec. 5) on the Sundance Channel with Ed Helms (The Office) and Mo'Nique in the hot seat; future guests include Rick Schroeder, Alanis Morrissette, Anthony Michael Hall, Cheryl Hines, and San Francisco's own Margaret Cho.
Amy Sedaris
December 4, 2011
Roxie Theater
Better than: Watching 60 Minutes
Author, actress, playwright, and satirist Amy Sedaris flew in from New York to host an evening to benefit the now 3-year-old nonprofit status of San Francisco's Roxie Theater, which was bedecked in Christmas stockings, lights, and oversized peppermint swirls.
When approached with the idea, Sedaris told the crowd, "The first thing I asked was how much does it pay and when can I leave?"
Each Friday, your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from Golden State basements, thrift stores, estate sales, and flea markets.
A heap of old Guideposts
Date: 70s through the 90s
Publisher: Ruth Stafford Peale and Norman Vincent Peale
This Cover Says: "Amy Grant: The First Story in Our Series on Loneliness"
Actual Guideposts Article Titles: "The April Fool Chickens" (April, 1985); "My Back Seat Victory" (June 1973); "What Happens When Love Fails" and "Attacked By Killer Bees!" (July, 1995); "How to Say Nay to Nagging" (April, 1986); "Bob Hope: Ambassador of Love and Laughter" (January, 1980); "The Secret of Mama's Mattress" (February, 1973); "I Always Wanted Curly Hair" (February, 1985)
Commentary / Controversy / TV MTV Gains Weight -- and Some Insight
Posted By Sylvie Kim on Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 9:30 AM
As a child of the 1980s and '90s, I routinely saw a handful of plus-sized bodies on my MTV interspersed between taut video vixens and studs. The Fat Boys. Heavy D (rest in peace). Missy Elliott. Biggie Smalls, Fat Joe, and Big Pun. Since then, MTV has ceased playing videos and has cornered the young, thin, and vapid reality television market with The Hills, The City, and The Real World/Road Rules series and spin-offs. For a while it seemed like its broadcast schedule would be filled only with budget Abercrombie & Fitch body types.
While the cable channel's bread and butter still very much revolves around this conventional sense of "hotness" and generally poor programming choices (see: the dramatic rendering of the Teen Wolf franchise -- yes, Teen Wolf), it has also become a surprising go-to platform for weight-related series and specials that don't involve cash prizes and egregious product placement. MTV still makes some missteps -- like featuring most of its plus-sized bodies as subjects of weight loss who are disappointed with their appearance and quite less often as folks who are happy and healthy -- but for a channel that pays uneducated teen moms to be dysfunctional in front of a camera, it has some fairly insightful body-related moments.
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Tags: Chelsea Settles, commentary, fat pride, I Used to Be Fat, MTV, True Life, TV, weight, weight loss, Image
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