Yesterday the Associated Press reportedWilliam “Billy” Bretherton from the A&E reality series Billy the Exterminator, which is set in Benton, La., was arrested for doing the silliest thing ever — being in possession of fake weed, aka Mojo (the proto-bath salts, which you may have seen in the news lately). It seems personalities from Louisiana-based reality TV shows have a knack for getting into trouble. Here's others who have encountered some non-televised legal drama.
Posted
by Lauren LaBorde
on Fri, May 18, 2012 at 4:08 PM
After making it to the top three in the singing competition, Westlake, La. native Joshua Ledet was eliminated from last night's American Idol. The 20-year-old throwback crooner must have been a popular contestant, because now teenagers on the Internet are yelling about how the elimination process is clearlyrigged (controversy among viewers about the show's viewer controlled voting process has existed since the beginning).
Let us pay tribute to Ledet with the scholarly journal Us Weekly, who earlier this week sent over a press release including 25 facts about the remaining Idol contestants. Here are three important things to know about Ledet:
“I’m terrified of feathers.”
“I just recently found out that unicorns weren’t real.”
“I once fell asleep on a roller coaster.”
Good thing he chose singing, and not unicorn biology or pillow-making, as a vocation.
Posted
by Lauren LaBorde
on Tue, May 15, 2012 at 4:37 PM
History
Fans of the History reality series Swamp People were sad to hear about the death of one of its stars, Mitchell Guist, who died while aboard his boat Monday (the cause of his death is still unclear). The show that follows the alligator hunters of Louisiana's Atchafalaya River Basin swamp has been wildly popular for the network, mostly because of the charm of its stars like Guist. I talked to Troy Landry (known for his battle cry "shoot 'em!"), who appears on the show with his son Jacob, for my Gambit cover on Louisiana reality TV (read it here, or pick up a copy). Read the result of me successfully deciphering Landry's thick accent below.
How has life been since Swamp People started airing?
It’s been very different.
How so?
It’s hard to get work done. There’s always visitors looking, tourists coming through the town looking for us from all over the country, and now all over the world. We got people from other countries now showing up looking for us. It’s hard to get work done now.
Posted
by Lauren LaBorde
on Fri, May 11, 2012 at 4:53 PM
A&E
For this week's Gambit, I wrote a cover story about how Louisiana became the setting for a bunch of reality TV shows the last few years. One popular genre of Louisiana reality TV is shows about the backwood folks of the state's swamps and bayous — a trend set by History's Swamp People. The latest in that category is A&E's Duck Dynasty, which follows the family behind the West Monroe duck-call retailer Duck Commander. I talked to Willie Robertson, the CEO of the store, about life and business since the show premiered, being on TV, and the guys from Swamp People. You can catch Duck Dynasty at 9 p.m. Wednesdays on A&E.
How has life changed since the show?
I’m a lot more recognized in West Monroe, Louisiana, I can tell you that for sure.
Sunday night's television schedule had plenty to offer in terms of challenging entertainment, notably with Mad Men and the premiere of Lena Dunham's excellent, probably revolutionary, HBO series Girls (you can watch the pilot on YouTube). But over on VH1, there was the opposite end of the spectrum: the latest season of Tough Love — a mix of Millionaire Matchmaker, Bad Girls Club and the sales rack of a Rainbow store — which is set in New Orleans.
Posted
by Kevin Allman
on Mon, Apr 9, 2012 at 3:44 PM
Mayor Mitch Landrieu and NORD Director Vic Richard at the reopening of Comiskey Park.
Comiskey Park and Playground — once a neighborhood landmark, but a blight on a tough corner of Mid-City since Hurricane Katrina and the federal floods — was reopened today by Mayor Mitch Landrieu. The park had received national attention in 2007 when a production company planned to remake the park and document the effort in a reality TV/documentary show titled ReNewOrleans. Plans foundered, and the park space — one block off a gritty stretch of Tulane Avenue — sat for years in worse shape than before.
"They left a lot of things behind," Landrieu said. "Cost everybody a bucketful of money."
In December they came to New Orleans in search of romantically challenged women in tight cocktail dresses, now the VH1 dating series Tough Love has announced the cast and premiere date for its upcoming season set in the city.
Tough Love: New Orleans will follow the show's usual format, in which "love gurus" Steve Ward and his mother JoAnn dispense brutally honest advice to women with a variety of dating dysfunctions, but this time in New Orleans*, a city the show's website says is "famous for its handsome Southern gentlemen and wild nights out on the town."
Do you sift through ashtrays to salvage partially smoked cigarettes? Do you have track marks from selling your plasma? Have you wiped with pages torn from a Victoria's Secret catalog to cut toilet paper expenses? If so, you might be exactly what Extreme Cheapskates is looking for. Coming on the heels of Extreme Couponing's success, this new TLC reality show showcases "thrifty geniuses" with "extraordinary money-saving methods." To be considered for the show, email casting director Michael Petrella (casting@michaelpetrella.com) with the following information:
Please send us an e-mail detailing your most extraordinary money-saving methods and how much it saves you every day, month, or year. Please also include:
FULL NAMES (you, your spouse, your children, etc) AGES (of everyone involved) CITY AND STATE PHONE NUMBER(S) E-MAIL ADDRESS(ES) SKYPE HANDLE (if you have one — we will likely conduct Skype interviews during the process) PHOTOS
Finding cheapskates in New Orleans ought to be about as hard as finding a needle at Jo-Ann Fabrics, since we're the 22nd most frugal city in the country, according to a ranking issued this morning by coupons.com. So I'm really hoping to see a family of penny-pinching Yats on TLC - I have a feeling our most mundane cost-cutting recipes could give the guy who cooked a goat's head a run for his money.
Screengrab from 'Duck Dynasty' preview video, courtesy of A&E
The pop culture scientists over at New York Magazine's Vulture blog recently created a Venn diagram mapping the overlapping relationships among current reality TV shows, and it turns out shows about Louisiana — in particular, our state's backwood bayou folks — account for much of what's on the air. They can soon add another show to the "Louisiana" circle: A&E, the network behind such trainwreck-y television as Intervention and Hoarders, is introducing Duck Dynasty, a series that follows the family behind the Louisiana-based Duck Commander sporting goods retailer. The press release refers the show as a "rags-to-riches story" about the company, which specializes in fancy duck calls and decoys. It seems like the Robertson family has already dabbled in reality TV before with the Outdoor Channel series Duck Commander, but an A&E slot will likely pull a bigger audience. The show premieres March 21 at 9 p.m.
I was intrigued when a large brown envelope bearing a giant red heart arrived at Gambit HQ. Inside the envelop was, besides a box of Conversation Hearts (which I instantly devoured), a press release promoting a gala at Hotel Monteleone promising a slew of high-profile single attendees. The bachelors and bachelorettes included in the press release are mostly local celebrities and B-list reality TV personalities, including WDSU meteorologist Jay Galle, woman-about-town Margarita Bergen, prominent business owners, contestants from Lifetime's The Love Cruise and ABC's The Bachelorette, and many others.
Hosting tomorrow's gala is Mary West who is, among other roles, the host and producer of the WLAE program Real New Orleans, and the event is the debut for her local matchmaking business. She calls herself a "headhunter for the heart" and says she's filling a void in a city where many say it's hard to date.
"There are a lot of lonely people out there who are totally burned out with online dating ... I offer a personal alternative," she says. "It's a big complaint from single people (that it's hard to date in New Orleans). Everyone has that Mardi Gras, le se les bon temps roule mentality. But New Orleans, according to Travel + Leisure, is the number one city for singles. I'm here to show that Cupid lives in New Orleans."