BuzzSugar

Sneak Peek: Swingtown's Premiere Episode

BuzzSugar — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 06:30:45 PDT

You know, I really want to like CBS' Swingtown, which premieres tonight at 10 p.m. I didn't make it one of my Top Ten Reasons to Keep Your TV On This Summer for nothing. But, unfortunately, the network's promo department doesn't seem to be doing the show many favors.

My evidence: the following video, a sneak peek of tonight's premiere, in which main couple Susan and Bruce Miller move to the suburbs and discover a whole new world of drugs and sex awaiting them. The video sets up what's going to happen in tonight's episode, which is fine - but it's made in the style of one of those seven-minute Sopranos videos, which seem to work best for established series whose viewers are ready to poke a little fun at a show's conventions. Applying it to a new show just makes Swingtown seem silly - which, reviews suggest, is one thing it isn't.

My hope remains that the show will be smarter than this video suggests, and I'll be tuning in tonight to see for myself. Anyone with me? To watch the sneak peek, just

First Look: Swingtown on CBS

BuzzSugar — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:34:36 PDT

At last year's upfronts, I was surprised to see CBS attempting to step out of its crime-procedural-and-laugh-track- comedy box with a couple of shows that sounded distinctly different from anything the network had done in a while. The first was Viva Laughlin and, well, we know how that turned out. The other was Swingtown, set in the socially (and sexually) revolutionary '70s.

Swingtown is finally getting its premiere this Summer, and over the past couple of weeks, CBS has started to promote it - I caught one ad after How I Met Your Mother on Monday. The show centers on Susan and Bruce Miller, who move into a ritzy Chicago suburb and discover a seedy alluring side to life that they never knew existed. Watching the promo, I'm having trouble imagining CBS's typically older demographic reacting well to this - but I certainly want to see more. Banishing a series to the Summer typically means it isn't very good (unless it's on cable), but with more networks talking about programming year-round, maybe Swingtown can be an exception.

Besides its thematic resemblance to one of my favorite movies (The Ice Storm), Swingtown has at least one other cool thing going for it: Liz Phair is doing the soundtrack. Melrose Place fans also might get a kick out of seeing Grant Show in the ensemble. Does Swingtown intrigue you as much as it does me? To check out the trailer, just

Are Classic Fairy Tales a Thing of the Past?

LilSugar — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 07:00:00 PST

Are the fairy tales we grew up with (not to mention our parents and grandparents) too scary and politically incorrect for our children? According to a nationwide survey in Great Britain, The Baby Website found that one in four moms forgo classics such as Sleeping Beauty and Little Red Riding Hood over The Very Hungry Caterpillar or The Gruffalo.

Traditional fairy tales were first popularized in the early 1800s with the publishing of The Brothers Grimm's Fairy Tales in 1812 and Hans Christian Andersen's Complete Fairy Tales and Stories in 1835. The stories have been told to generations of children through various waves of social reforms, but today's parents deem the classics to be too scary (Hansel and Gretel are abandoned in a forest) or not PC (the dwarfs in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs). The survey revealed that parents feared that this text would give their tots nightmares, with 65 percent saying they purposely choose happy stories for bedtime reading.

Tell us, have you abandoned traditional fairy tales for more modern storytelling? To see the survey's top 10 bedtime storybooks, as well as the classics we are neglecting,

read more. TOP BEDTIME STORIES OF 2008 according to The Baby Website

The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
Mr Men, Roger Hargreaves
The Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson
Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne
Aliens Love Underpants, Claire Freedman & Ben Cort
Thomas and Friends from The Railway Series, Rev.W.Awdry
The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
What a Noisy Pinky Ponk!, Andrew Davenport
Charlie and Lola, Lauren Child
Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Robert Southey

TOP 10 FAIRY TALES WE NO LONGER READ according to The Baby Website

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Hansel and Gretel
Cinderella
Little Red Riding Hood
The Gingerbread Man
Jack and the Beanstalk
Sleeping Beauty
Beauty and the Beast
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
The Emperor’s New Clothes

Source