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NBC's New 'Celebrity Circus' Can't Compete With Much More Fun 'Circus Of The Stars'

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By WALT BELCHER

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 18, 2008

Determined to dredge up concepts from the 1970s and '80s and redo them badly, NBC proceeds with "Celebrity Circus" at 9:30 tonight.

The network that gave us a half-baked update of "Bionic Woman" last season apparently wants to tap into nostalgia for "Circus of the Stars," those annual specials that ran from 1977 to 1994.

But this remake is more like "Circus of People We May Vaguely Recall."

Hosted by former 'N Sync member Joey Fatone, the show features "celebrity" performers with names you have to look up to remember why they qualify as celebrities.

They are: soap actor Antonio Sabato Jr., rapper Blu Cantrell, former "Brady Bunch" kid Christopher Knight, Olympic swimmer Janet Evans, former "Jackass" cast member Jason "Wee Man" Acuna, former supermodel Rachel Hunter and "Clueless" co-star Stacey Dash.

The original series had some amazing celebrities over its long run, including film stars such as Burt Lancaster, Lauren Bacall. James Earl Jones, Carol Channing, Tony Curtis, Rock Hudson and Glenn Ford, as well as television stars such as Lucille Ball, Lynda Carter, Ed Asner, Bob Newhart, Angela Lansbury and dozens more.

These stars tried their best to perform traditional circus acts. It wasn't great television but it was fun.

"Celebrity Circus," however, is not fun. It's just another tedious and all-too-familiar reality competition where cameras follow the celebs as they train for a different trick each week.

They perform the stunt before the obligatory three-member panel of judges and then viewers vote for their favorites. The celebrity getting the least number of votes goes home.

BLACK GOLD: Add oil rigging to the growing list of the world's most dangerous jobs that can be turned into TV series.

"Black Gold," debuting at 10 tonight on truTV, is from the same production company that struck ratings gold with series about crab catchers on "Deadliest Catch" and 18-wheeler jockeys on "Ice Road Truckers."

The new eight-episode series follows three rival oil-drilling teams in west Texas that risk life and limb in a race to tap into an oil reserve. Among the real-life roughnecks is Michael "Rooster" McConaughey, brother of hunky actor Matthew McConaughey.

Rooster runs Chapter 11 Pipe, a company that supplies the pipes for oil drills, and he's a real charmer. He named one of his sons Miller Lyte after his favorite beer.

"Black Gold" may make us appreciate the effort that goes into finding that stuff that keeps our cars running, but it's not likely to make it any easier to accept the $4-plus per gallon price tag or the oil companies' record profits.

STUDIO 10: New hosts have taken over the locally produced "Studio 10" morning show on WTSP, Channel 10.

Hosts Michelle Phillips and Tim Wilkins have been quietly replaced by Holly Sinn and Jerome Ritchey.

Wilkins, a professional stand-up comic, and Phillips, a former makeup artist, had been with the show since it started in September 2006. WTSP officials could not be reached for comment Tuesday, but usually changes like this are a reaction to ratings.

Ritchey, an Illinois native, is a former Chicago radio personality and former television meteorologist (at KDAF-TV). Since relocating to the Tampa Bay area, he has held a series of freelance jobs, including at Home Shopping Network.

Sinn had been with "Studio 10" as a local pop culture and entertainment reporter and movie reviewer. She also did a stint at Home Shopping Network and is a former sports anchor for the Village News Network in The Villages in Sumter County.

TUNE IN TONIGHT

So You Think You Can Dance, 8 p.m., Fox

There are still 18 hoofers left, so that means this thing will go on all summer.

Hairspray, 8 p.m., HBO

John Travolta dressed in drag for this lively 2007 musical based on John Waters' film about a chunky, plucky Baltimore teen (Nikki Blonsky) who shakes things up in 1962.

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