“2007 World Series of Pop Culture”
Tuesday-Thursday 9pm, VH1
A must-see for anybody who thinks they know movies, music and TV. Entertainment Weekly and VH1 have brought together teams of geeks from across our great nation (including last year’s defending champs, El Chupacabra) to grill them for answers about who Joanie loved, the name of the band that brought us “Funkytown” and other entirely useless bits of information. The last team standing wins a quarter of a million bucks. The first episode aired Monday, but you can catch up quickly due to VH1’s unrelenting repeat schedule. Best team name this year is a tie between They’re Real & They’re Spectacular and The Truffle Shuffles. If you get those references, maybe you should try out for next year’s edition.
“The Singing Bee”
Tuesday 9:30pm, NBC
If the “World Series of Pop Culture” is perhaps too broad a challenge, consider this more focused, somewhat cheesier affair hosted by ex-boy band member/dancing monkey Joey Fatone. A childhood full of “Name That Tune” repeats has left me longing for a show to reward my deep, enduring affection for the catalogues of Captain & Tennille and Christopher Cross. Between this series and the almost identical “Don’t Forget the Lyrics” that also premieres this week on Fox, I think I’ve finally gotten my wish. The concept is pretty basic: Contestants are plucked from a crowd singalong and tested to see if they can remember the words to karaoke staples. Woe be to the man who gets “One Week” by the Barenaked Ladies.
“Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List”
Tuesday 10pm, Bravo
Last year Griffin opened her reality series with an episode featuring her tour stop in Charlottesville. Some people took offense to some of the things I wrote about the comedienne, but they kind of missed the point—I think she does what she does very well. Specifically, that’s taking shots at herself and the celebrity culture she’s somehow managed to infiltrate. It’s been a little more difficult to laugh at Griffin’s life this season, given her messy divorce and the death of her father. But she’s still milked some laughs out of the various embarrassing situations she gets herself into, i.e., bombing at a fashion designer conference. On that note, in tonight’s episode she hosts a gay porn awards show, and that should provide plenty of titters.
