Articles by Barb Oates

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Interview

World’s smallest siblings, Brad and Bridgette Jordan, in TLC series “Big Tiny”

August 13, 2012 Barb Oates

At just 28 inches and 18 pounds, Bridgette Jordan held the Guinness Book of World Records for being the “world’s shortest living woman.” Known to friends and family as Bri, the 22-year-old and her younger brother, Brad, who is 38 inches and 35 pounds, are the focus of TLC’s new reality series Big Tiny, premiering Mondays at 10pm ET/9pm CT beginning Aug. 13. Despite the fact that cameras have been following the Jordans for weeks while they go to school, shop around town and play their favorite sports, the world’s smallest living siblings are exceedingly shy when doing this media […]

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Documentary

Can men live without women? Lifetime shows us in “The Week the Women Went”

July 27, 2012 Barb Oates

Seriously, a week without women? No big deal, right? Not the case, as Lifetime documents in The Week the Women Went — a four-episode series the network is hyping as “a social experiment of biblical proportions,” slated to premiere on Tuesday, Aug. 14 at 9pm ET/PT [although the network has changed this premiere date twice already]. Based on a similar British series that aired on the BBC, the project takes place in the small town of Yemassee, South Carolina, located about 250 miles southeast of Atlanta. Of a town of roughly 1,000, about 150 women agreed to participate, packing up […]

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Commentary

Vote for your cable favorites in Channel Guide Magazine Viewers Voice Awards

July 27, 2012 Barb Oates

What’s the best laugh-out-loud comedy on cable TV? What’s scarier, The Walking Dead or American Horror Story? Is Urine Drinker the most outrageous program title of the year? Who is the biggest bitch on cable TV? Fans across the country can cast their votes for the best and worst in cable TV in a variety of unusual categories in the 2012 Channel Guide Magazine Viewers Voice Awards. Nominees have been selected and the official ballot posted for the cable entertainment magazine’s first annual Viewers Voice Awards. Readers are encouraged to vote as often as they want up until Friday, August […]

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Reality TV

Priceline taps Long Island Medium Theresa Caputo for ads

July 25, 2012 Barb Oates

Looks like priceline.com has really buried William Shatner, as their most recent Priceline Theresa Caputo commercial features Long Island Medium Theresa Caputo contacting the famed Negotiator’s spirit. Although Shatner’s supposedly still under contract with Priceline, his commercial character the Negotiator met his demise earlier this year in the commercial “Last Deal,” when the tour bus he was riding on fell off a bridge, crashing and burning. The most recent Priceline ads feature psychic medium Caputo doing a reading for the Priceline couple (the hilarious and long-running husband and wife characters) who survived the bus tragedy, where she connects with the […]

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Interview

TLC’s new “Cheer Perfection” could be the next “Dance Moms”

July 10, 2012 Barb Oates

While Dance Moms has Abby Lee Miller and a veteran team of uber competitive moms, TLC’s new Cheer Perfection  (Wednesday, July 11 at 10pm ET) has an equally intense coach/co-owner in Alisha Dunlap of Arkansas’ Cheer Time Revolution, and a somewhat less-fashionable foursome of “Cheer” moms who are determined to see their kids win. Cheer Perfection debuts as a one-hour special with an opportunity to go to a series pending viewer interest. From the sizzle reel it looks promising, as Dunlap shares that Abby Lee ferociousness, belting out orders and expectations and not backing down to crying youngsters unsure of […]

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News & Current Events

Ann Curry tearful annoucement of leaving “Today”

June 28, 2012 Barb Oates

The rumors were confirmed this morning when Ann Curry announced she was leaving the Today show. “This is not easy to say but today is going to be my last morning as a regular role of Today,” Curry tearfully announced. “This is not how I expected to ever leave this couch after 15 years. But I am so grateful especially to all of you who watch, we often call ourselves a family, but you are the real Today show family. You are why I’ve ventured into dangerous places and interviewed dictators and jumped out of planes and climbed mountains. I […]

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Lifestyle

The Weather Channel looks at the art of fireworks in “Pyros” docuseries

June 19, 2012 Barb Oates

The Weather Channel turns its cameras on a team of pyro-technicians — a.k.a. pyros —  who endure exhausting schedules and harsh weather conditions to set off large-scale firework displays around the world. The new eight-episode series Pyros debuts tonight (Tuesday, June 19 at 9pm ET). An elite team of pyros from Montreal’s Groupe Fiatlux-Ampleman (GFA) are profiled in the series as they travel to exotic locations and are challenged with solving complex technical glitches on the fly with tens of thousands of dollars on the line and thousands of people awaiting. The pilot episode introduces us to GFA’s Maude Furtado, […]

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Lifestyle

TLC showcases America’s Worst Tattoos

June 19, 2012 Barb Oates

“I’m covered in stupid,” admits one tattooed twenty-something blonde, as she gives a self-confessional on the lack of logic that went into the tattoos that cover her arm, back, hip and rib cage. Clearly an understatement, but that’s the draw to TLC’s latest special America’s Worst Tattoos, premiering in two back-to-back episodes on Thursday, June 21 at 10pm ET/PT. Ask just about any tattoo artist about their billion-dollar industry and they will admit that getting a girlfriend’s, boyfriend’s, even your wife or husband’s name, tattooed on your body isn’t a smart move because breakups and divorces do happen, but this […]

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News & Current Events

Free weekend of Showtime for Time Warner Cable and DirecTV subscribers

June 15, 2012 Barb Oates

Hold off from getting too excited here because this most likely won’t apply to you. The Free preview weekend is only being offered to 20 million people, more specifically — Time Warner Cable subscribers in New York and Los Angeles and nationwide to DirecTV customers. It’s the first of its kind in free previews. The aptly-titled free preview promo — “Best in SHO” — is targeted to voting members of the Television Academy, these are the people who determine what TV series and shows will win the Emmys. It’s all a part of the networks’s “For Your Consideration Emmy Awards […]