Papi Chulo's BLOG

"Aquaman" Pilot Available at Best Buy

In the spring of 2006 ... The WB ... on the heels of the massively successful series Smallville ... decided to spawn off another DC Comics hero into his own drama series ...

A pilot episode for the planned series Aquaman ... with ex-Passions star Justin Hartley in the title role ... and with a supporting cast that included Lou Diamond Phillips and Ving Rhames ...

Aquaman was touted as a guaranteed series to be place on The WB's schedule ... But that fall saw the demise of The WB ... and the creation of The CW (a merging of UPN and The WB) ... So the Aquaman series was not picked up ...

Executives were highly impressed with Justin ... So they cast him as The Green Arrow on Smallville ...

The pilot episode was sold to iTunes ... and it was extremely popular there ... This week the pilot found its way onto DVD ... Best Buy has the pilot episode attached to specially marked season sets of Smallville ...

So if you want a piece of television history (because pilot episodes of defunct series are rarely available to own) ... I suggest you go to Best Buy and pick up a season set of Smallville to check out the series that could have been ...

~Papi Chulo~

Desperate Housewives :: "Now You Know" Reappears

Over the weekend a slightly trimmed version of DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES' season premiere ... "Now You Know" ... returned online ...

The episode briefly disappeared from both the online superstore iTunes and from ABC's free live streaming ...

The episode vanished to edit out a line that Teri Hatcher's Susan Mayer says to her gynecologist ... The line caused a controversy with the Filipino community ... which was outraged at the racial slur ...

The line was edited to say: "Can I check those diplomas?" ... editing out the Filipino reference ...

~Papi Chulo~

Desperate Housewives :: "Now You Know" Disappears

It appears that ABC has kept its word ...

A few days after the season premiere of DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES ("Now You Know") was available to download on Apple's iTunes ... and for live streaming on abc.com ... ABC pulled the episode from both locations without warning due to the controversy over a line of dialogue Teri Hatcher's Susan Mayer said during the episode ...

The Filipino community was outraged at this line that Susan says during the season premiere ... "Can I check those diplomas because I want to make sure that they're not from some med school in the Philippines" ...

ABC has since apologized and kept to its word ... It has pulled the episode to edit the line of dialogue ...

The episode should be available online once again ... after the edit has been made ...

~Papi Chulo~

PORN In the U.S.A.: Pornography Goes Mainstream, Part One

Earlier this year ... I got to hang out with a long time friend ... that friend was adult MEGA star JACK NAPIER! The company he works for VOUYER MEDIA sent him to FTL for some meet and greets ... and we got a chance to hang out ...

This got me to thinking about the past ... and about a year after I met Jack ... I wrote a term paper for my second semester literature course on Pornography Going Mainstream ... and I interviewed him ...

At the time I wrote the paper ... Snoop Dogg joined the porn world in hosting a couple of DVDs ... Ron Jeremy was all over the television on reality shows and game shows ... and more and more porn stars started popping up in music videos ...

So here is ...

In the News :: NBC Universal Drops iTunes

NBC Universal has a new attitude ... Unhappy with the way Apple sells its content ... NBC Universal said on Friday it would not be renewing its contract with the internet powerhouse ... The news is a big blow to the online retailer ... particularly because NBC Universal-produced series ... as well as related sporting events, news specials, and entertainment offerings ... account for approximately 40% of its downloads ...

iTunes however ... is taking this in stride ... In retaliation to NBC Universal's announcement ... Apple will discontinue selling NBC programming prior to the start of the 2007-2008 television season ...

Talk about bad timing for NBC Universal ... NBC right now is in fourth place among the major networks ... and I am sure they were hoping for a major internet presence to aide in promoting its new shows and returning series ...

Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of iTunes: "We are disappointed to see NBC leave iTunes, because we would not agree to their dramatic price increase."

The price increase Mr. Cue mentions above would have doubled the current price of an iTunes download from $1.99 an episode to $4.99 ... NBC Universal also wanted to bundle shows together at different price ranges ...

Apple argued that a varying price scheme would cause confusion to their customers and prohibit more people from using the store ...

The two sides are said to still be in talks ... but NBC Universal wanted to withdraw from iTunes so that their current contract would not automatically renew ...

~Papi Chulo~

In the News :: 50 Cent to Quit If Kanye West Outsells Him

In some of the most ludicrous news that I have heard recently ... 50 Cent said on Friday, August 10th ... and I quote ...

"If Kanye West sells more records than 50 Cent on September 11, I'll no longer write music. I'll write music and work with my other artists, but I won't put out anymore solo albums."

... seriously!?! LOL ... Both have new albums to be released on Sept. 11 ... 50's "CURTIS" and Kanye's "Graduation" ... both albums are eagerly anticipated ...