The Hollywood Assistant Olympic Games revisited

UPDATE: Much to my own surprise/disappointment, I've been writing this blog since the last Olympics.  And what's sadder, this is as true now as it was then (except for the Ben Silverman part.  NBC finally had the good sense to chuck him in the "Executive Throw" which also featured former Disney head Rich Ross.)


Starting on 8-8-08 (Ben Silverman can only remember one number at a time) NBC will broadcast the world's greatest collection of walking drug experiments amateur athletes as they invade China for the Olympics. But unlike Itoh Sukeyuki in the Sino-Japanese War, these invaders would rather be somewhere else. Of course all this Olympic spirit got me thinking -- perhaps Hollywood assistants need their own competition. So in a drunken haze, I came up with the following -- The Hollywood Assistant Olympic Games.

Here are some of the events.

Stapler Dodge -- It's like skeet shooting in reverse. The assistant (playing the role of the clay pigeon) must dodge Swinglines thrown by an agent who can't believe he couldn't get dinner ressies at Koi on five minutes notice. [Note: Team ICM was banned from this competition for failing to fail the drug test.]


Starbucks Relay -- When the office coffee isn't good enough for the staff meeting, teams of assistants compete to see who can deliver the most Grande Skim Lattes in ten minutes to a staff of power-mad agents. A three cup penalty is assessed for every steam burn. [Note: Team Paradigm has physical and emotional scars that prevent them from feeling pain. They are the odds-on favorite.]


Moshitta -- Named after legendary fast talker and FedEx pitchman John Moshitta, this competition puts the least intelligible and quickest gabbing Hollywood assistants up against each other to see who can roll the most calls in a minute. [Note: Legend has it CAA requires assistants be able to roll 25 calls in 60 seconds as a condition of employment.]


iPhone Purchase -- In a true survival of the fittest, 30 assistants are let loose in the Apple Store and must fight to secure the last iPhone 3G for their boss. Participants are allowed to use office supplies and a USB cable to defend themselves. [Note: CBS/Paramount has an assistant who tried out for UFC.]


And the grand finale...

Weekend Read Delivery -- Similar to Pheidippides announcing the defeat of the Persians, this race requires participants to hand-deliver a stack of scripts to an agent's house during Friday rush hour. [Note: In a bit of irony, the distance from the starting line at CAA to (agent's name redacted) home in Western Malibu is 26 miles 385 yards.]

Now get to stretching. The games start in 2 days.

Men are from Mars, ABC is from stupid

I'll admit I've never watched Bachelor Pad.  It looks dumb and I don't care what those idiots do.  But that won't stop me from making fun of it.

Now I haven't taken a science class since high school.  And even then, I went to a public school, so I didn't learn much.  But one thing I'm sure of is the symbols that represent each gender.  I don't know why, I just am.  Probably because they're pretty simple.  A male is a circle with an arrow pointing to up and to the right - representing Mars.  Female is a circle with a plus sign below it - representing Venus.  The only problem is ABC's graphics department doesn't see it this way.

Back and to the left

As you can see from the logo for Bachelor Pad (premiering July 23 at 8 p.m. ET), the arrow on the "O" in "Bachelor" points the wrong way.  So either the bachelors on this show are some sort of new, yet unidentified gender, or ABC's graphics department fucked up.  And furthermore, no one at that network is smart enough to catch such an obvious gaffe.

Of course when you consider that the network had a whopping total of ZERO SHOWS in the Top 20 for the 2011-12 season that didn't involve dancing with some sort of "stars," this error should come as no real surprise.

The question is whether or not they'll bother fixing it.

Ahh.  That's right.

Nikki Finke: Still crazy after all these years

Nikki Finke is at it again.  It's been a while since the dingbat did something incredibly stupid, but she's returned in full force.

Following the tragedy in Aurora, Darling Nikki opted to ask her ever-depleting fan base a couple of horribly insensitive questions regarding the box office success of The Dark Knight Rises.

She doubled down on her wacky by telling Fishbowl LA, "Of course it was important for Deadline to look at the box office ramifications of this tragedy. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t."

But the truth is, we should have seen this coming.  Finke has a pretty good track record of writing wrong, and often downright creepy, questions for her site.  The folks at the Hollywood Temp Diaries tracked down some of them as a reminder of her questionable past. 

 

If there's one redeeming thing about Finke, she does have a pretty good theme song.