THIS WEEK IN THE XENA NEWS.... TWXN #27 09/10/96 Brought to you by Xena: Media Review (XMR): http://www.teleport.com/~gater/IAXS.html XMR is a periodic annotated world press review of reports regarding the internationally syndicated television show XENA: Warrior Princess (1995 - ) and the castmembers, Lucy Lawless and Renee O'Connor. For a free e-mail subscription send "subscribe XMR" to ktaborn@lightspeed.net. Excerpts from the following cites will appear in future issues of XMR. [ ] 08-01-96 COLLECTING FIGURES. No. 20. August. Page --. --- words. "The Year's Hottest Female Figures" Contributed and reviewed by Reader Stephanie TNT COMMENTARY: The top female toy figures were Xena, Wonder Woman, Lt. Uhura, Shi, Angela from Spawn, Statue of Liberty Barbie, She Hulk, Florence Griffith-Joyner, Princess Leia, and Kara from Dragonheart. The picture was of the 10-inch (I know this from the curved sword), but it seemed as though the writer meant the 5-incher, since the 10-incher only just came out (and likely wasn't out before his deadline). Xena was No. 4 on the Action Figure Hot List, with the note: "These have all but disappeared.") The price list in the back of the mag, which had prices on everything from Barbies to James Bond to Laverne and Shirley action figures, put the 5-inch Xena at $20+. The 10-incher was not listed. The L&S set, meanwhile, goes for $110, while Lenny and Squiggy are $135. Whew. The magazine had three different covers each month. Xena and the other 10 top female figures were on the comic version. The general circulation version had Barbies on the cover, highlighting an article on men collecting Barbie. There was also a sports version with a close-up of a Mike Tyson figurine. In the article, their was a graphic of the 10-inch Xena action figure, as well as Wonder Woman. [ ] 08-10-96 AUSTIN-AMERICAN STATESMAN. Saturday. Sports. Page -- . 213 words. "Want to Meet Gabrielle, Star of Xena Warrior Princess?" Contributed by HJ Hewitt (HJJH@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu) COMMENTARY: A contest was sponsored by the Austin American- Statesman educational services department and the producers of XWP whereby 24 boys and girls would win an invitation to an ice cream party hosted by Renee O'Connor who would talk to the kids about the show. A follow-up article after the ice cream party appeared in the Austin-American on 09/05/96 (XMR---). The article gave details as to the contest, enticing the winning entrants with "you will not only get an ice cream treat, but Gabrielle (Renee) will personally autograph a photo for you. You'll also get to spend an hour hearing about how the show is made. She may even tell you some Xena stories you haven't seen on TV." [ ] 09-07-96 TV GUIDE. Saturday. Page 10. --- words. "Cheers & Jeers" COMMENTARY: Pondering whether there was a correlation between action stars and singing, the TV Guide Cheers & Jeers section cheered both Lucy Lawless' and Jackie Chan's singing on two different talk shows the same week. Ms. Lawless' sang ""I'm an Old Cowhand (from the Rio Grande)" on the 08-16-96 Rosie O'Donnell Show, a syndicated TV daily talk show. [x052] 09-07-96 THE TAMPA TRIBUNE. Saturday. Page 7. 1765 words. "Columbia Brandon Regional Medical Center" COMMENTARY: Not a Xena XWP reference, but on August 5th in Tampa, Florida, a new Xena entered into the world, Alexis Xena Marie Lanier. [ ] 09-08-96 SACRAMENTO BEE. Page EN12. 2200 words. "Mad about Syndication" By Dan Vierria COMMENTARY: In a review of the new season's freshman syndicated offerings, Mr. Vierra blamed the "huge success" of XWP and HTLJ for the appearance of "Tarzan: The Epic Adventures" and "The Adventures of Sinbad." [ ] 10-01-96 THE WEB MAGAZINE. October/November. Page 110. --- words. "WebReviews" by Derk Richardson COMMENTARY: XMR (the newsletter you are reading now!) is archived on the IAXS (International Association of Xena Studies) webpage, which was designed and maintained by Tricia Murphy (webpage princess) and subtly manipulated by me, Kym Taborn (webpage pest). This very same web page was reviewed in the premiere issue of The Web Magazine, yet another consumer oriented web guide entering an already glutted market. Released September 17th, the review got carried away in it's description of a research project. Of the 36 different projects listed, Mr. Richardson fixated on one alone and embellished upon it. The actual research project was titled, "018. Ambiguities in the Relationships Among the Women of XWP" [it was registered to Heparin]. Mr. Richardson called it "sexual preference ambiguities". Is that Freudian? You betcha! Although he called the page thin, Mr. Richardson deemed the site "promising". He also added that the page "emulates both the cult series' medieval-meets-modernist atmosphere (graphically) and its ironic attitude (in wry approach to content)..." On a scale of 1 (avoid it at all costs) to 5 (marry it), Mr. Richardson rated the page "2" for content, "4" for design, "3" for links, and "3" overall. The overall score was weighted towards the links score, since the reviewer placed a very high value to the number of links on a given site. This is surreal. I am reviewing a review of my webpage without using any mirrors!