THIS WEEK IN XENER NEWS... TWXN 97 08/08/97 Friday The advance sheet of XENA MEDIA REVIEW (XMR): http://xenafan.com/xmr Excerpts from the following cites will appear in future issues of XMR. From the editor: 1. XMR #24, due to be released on Monday Aug. 11, 1997, will be a day or so late. I have to be in San Jose on that Monday. It will get out as soon after that day as possible. 2. It has come to my attention that some people have been quoting me without my knowledge or permission. Although some parts of the information I have been forwarded may have some validity, the information somehow got garbled and is being presented in a way which does not represent my original meaning when and if I said it. My only advice at this point is to not believe anything attributed to me unless you were actually hearing it from ME in an on-line chat room, a real-life fest, or reading it from an e-mail or on WHOOSH or XMR. Please be aware that I cannot be responsible for anything said by someone else purporting to be speaking on my behalf. If you have any questions, please feel free to write me at ktaborn@lightspeed.net 3. It's Friday so we are going to have a commentary- lite issue! Here's the stuff: [ ] 03-24-97 THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS. Monday. Page 1C. 937 words. "Regis and Kathie Lee have no secrets from us" By Ed Bark EXCERPT: ...Ex-cellent! The new TV Guide, which focuses on religion in prime time, includes a telephone survey in which readers were asked which TV character is "most destined for hell." Topping the list, with 20 percent of the vote, is bossman Montgomery Burns of The Simpsons. He's trailed by Dr. Michael Mancini of Melrose Place (15 percent); "Cigarette Man" of The X-Files (10 percent); Newman of Seinfeld (3 percent); Mimi Bobock of The Drew Carey Show (2 percent); Bill McNeal of NewsRadio (1 percent) and Callisto of Xena: Warrior Princess (1 percent). One problem with this survey: 40 percent of respondents answered "Not sure."... [ ] 03-24-97 BRANDWEEK [formerly Adweek Marketing Week]. 529 words. "Ehrlich Plugs Kids into Turner Pitch" By Becky Ebenkamp EXCERPT: ...Berlin Ties Universal Farm to Promos Talking pigs, hungry dinosaurs and flying squirrels. All are under the domain of Lisa Berlin, appointed in January as vp-promotions for Universal Studios Consumer Products Group in Universal City, Calif. The post involves devising "original, creative promos that make a difference in our partners' businesses," tying into Universal's theatrical releases, home videos and TV programs. Her first assignments have been licensing products for May's Lost World: Jurassic Park release, and ties with TV characters Hercules and Xena, which link to Carl's Jr. in July. Berlin eyes serving as a "marriage broker between packaged goods and our entertainment properties." The plan, she said, is to "make a difference in their sales and exposures, and use our property in its integrity." Next year's projects will involve "classic characters" Babe, Woody Woodpecker and Rocky and Bullwinkle. Previously, Berlin was vp-promotions at Hamilton Projects, a unit of Spelling Entertainment, where she worked with Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place. [ ] 03-25-97 ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE. Tuesday. Page 1e. 1775 words. 'Teach your children well" by Michael Storey (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette) EXCERPT: ...The Critical Viewing Project has produced a tape. Taking Charge of Your TV is a free four-minute instructional video narrated by talk-show host, concerned parent and admitted TV junkie Rosie O'Donnell (see box).... ...four steps to better tv But it all starts with awareness. Taking Charge of Your TV is a good place to start. The video gives parents a quick four-step program that will help them help their children be wiser viewers. 1. Television programs and their messages are created to achieve specific results.... ...2. Each person interprets what he sees on TV differently. Depending on age, sex and life experiences, children will get a variety of messages from a television program. In other words, the adventure show a 10-year-old thinks is a hoot may scare the pants off a 5-year-old. The monsters in Xena: Warrior Princess may be great fun for an older child, but can give a younger one nightmares. The nature show where the lion eats the zebra may be educational to some and terrifying to others. The video suggests parents watch TV with their children and actively discuss what's being shown. 3. Television violence takes many forms.... 4. TV programs are used to sell something.... [ ] 03-26-97 THE TIMES-PICAYUNE. Wednesday. Page E1. 1192 words. 'Meter Made. New Nielsen Rating 'Meters' Offer New Insight into What We're Watching" By Mark Lorando EXCERPT: They have spent millions of dollars installing the most sophisticated audience-measuring equipment money can buy in TV homes throughout the New Orleans area. And here is what the Nielsen Ratings Company has concluded: WWL is the most popular TV station in the city. To which the residents of the area's 620,000 TV homes may wish to respond: Well, duh.... ...Keeping in mind that a rating point is the percentage of the area's roughly 620,000 TV homes, and a share the percentage of homes watching TV at the time, here's what nearly two months of Nielsen overnights have told us.... ...With a mere 7 percent share of the audience, "Ellen" barely beat out "Xena" on WNOL, and had about 1,000 fewer viewers than an Urkel rerun at 3:30 that afternoon.... [ ] 03-28-97 ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY. Page 6. 460 words. "Mail" EXCERPT: ...ROAD WARRIOR Xena is an icon for the '90s on and off the screen. When some jerk cuts me off on the freeway, I don't get angry. I envision Xena, somersaulting and war-whooping down from an overpass. Landing on the hood of his car, she raises her chakram, looks him square in the eye, and says with smirking disgust, "Hey pal, where's the fire?" VICKI NADSADY Santa Monica, Calif.... [ ] 03-29-97 THE GUARDIAN (London). Page 4. 667 words. "New Station, New Faces" EXCERPT: ...XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS Lucy Lawless plays television's "feistiest female" in this adventure series set in mythical ancient Greece. In abbreviated body armour, and pursued by an evil warlord, Xena roams between the innocent and the forces of darkness. Lawless gives the lie, according to Channel 5, to the idea that you cannot combine combat -readiness with an alluring decolletage.... [ ] 03-30-97 THE TORONTO SUN. Sunday. Page S6. 494 words. "Tanks for the Memories, Thomas" By Jim Slotek EXCERPT: I once shared a flight to L.A. with Michael Hirsch, of the busy Toronto animation house Nelvana. And the subject of conversation turned to planes, trains and automobiles. Although not in that order. Hirsch -- a fellow parent-of-males -- shared his professional observation that, from toddlerhood, a boy's fascination goes from toy trains to toy cars to toy planes (and thereafter, I'm guessing, to Xena: Warrior Princess).... [ h] 03-30-97 THE TIMES-PICAYUNE. Sunday. Page T7. 698 words. "Cherchez Peta Wilson" By Shalmali Pal (Staff Writer) EXCERPT: There probably are ventures "La Femme Nikita," the humane hitwoman with her own USA series, can do better than Peta Wilson, the Australian actress who portrays her. Like blow up a van full of thugs or download military secrets in seconds, for example.... ...Such tough talk has landed "La Femme Nikita" in the same boat as "Xena: Warrior Princess," as a tribute to the pugnacious female. But Wilson is not convinced that les hommes are actually seeing the real beauty of strong-willed women.... [ ] 03-30-97 THE INDEPENDENT (Manchester?). Sunday. Page 22. 1179 words. "Where my pitches had to pop; With 'Men Behaving Badly' Simon Nye made his name as one of the funniest writers in British television. But did that mean our man could cut it in the gag factory of Los Angeles?" By Simon Nye EXCERPT: ...American culture rubs a lot of people up the wrong way, especially if you won't take the rough with the smooth. In TV terms this means taking the hugely successful Xena: Warrior Princess with ER, the infomercials with Larry Sanders and The Simpsons. Jingoism on both sides of the Atlantic blurs the rather dull truth: that the ratio of good to bad shows is probably the same in both countries.... Notices: All back issues of XMR and TWXN are available at (http://xenafan.com/xmr). We herein give praise and thanks to Tom Simpson for the space he has graciously donated from his spectacular, TOM'S XENA PAGE (http://xenafan.com). If you have never been there, you are **not** a xenafan! TWXN is the advance sheet for XMR, an annotated world press review of reports regarding the internationally syndicated television show XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS (1995 - 2000+?) and the castmembers, Lucy Lawless and Renee O'Connor. TWXN is not available for subscription, however it is posted Monday, Wednesday, and Friday on the XenaVerse, Hercules-Xena, and Chakram Mailing Lists (thank you Lucia! I am greatly indebt to you), the MCA NetForum, the Xenite Message Center, and alt.tv.xena. I also would like to thank sirvin@law.wfu.edu for assitance in collecting the newstories. For a free e-mail subscription to XMR subscribe by e-mail to ktaborn@lightspeed.net by stating somewhere in the subject or text "sub xmr".