CD-Y to Take Pout and Push-Ups to Pusan

As with everything about Pyne Prize superstar Connor Diemand-Yauman, this just makes us say OMG: He’s going to be an Asian TV star! A tipster confirms the bizarre clause in this article to be true:

Next year, he hopes to volunteer with the Global Literacy Project in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. After that, he intends to accept an offer to write and act on his own children’s English educational show on Korean PBS.

Yep! Our tipster tells us that he’s going to star in the kids’ show after he graduates — anyone want to TiVo it for us? At least Connor obsession isn’t alone. We hear from our tipster:

My roommate and I currently have a Nassoons poster in our room (stolen from Frist, no less) with a large pink-sharpie heart around CDY’s head.

So many words in that sentence make so little sense to us. But the pink-sharpie heart — that is eternal. If you get lonely in Korea, Connor, at least you can get a few guest stars to join you on the show.

Every Late-Night Host a Mere Pawn in Harvard Publications Feud

cuar01_conan0708Okay, the three of you who watch late-night network TV on the regular: Vanity Fair has released a scintillating, way-insidery take on the Conan O’Brien sturm und drang: apparently, NBC head Jeff Zucker H’86, former Crimson president, is taking revenge on former Lampoon president O’Brien, H’85:

It’s a prank that included uprooting Conan and his staff from New York to Los Angeles, spending hundreds of millions of G.E. and Universal shareholders’ dollars, all just to yank the rug out from under O’Brien. Was it really worth the effort?   Yes, when you remember that Conan started it.

Turns out, NBC never wanted Conan at all! And Crimson editors are able to turn their aggression towards outsiders, not just each other.

The post unfolds like an online-only version of Pale Fire (with Carson Daly playing the role of Zembla), as the “editor,” a Lampoon alum, cuts chunks of Ben Schwartz’s prose and asks “What about the lobster incident?” Well. The Cheerful Money bit has been done to death, but the theory maybe holds up—that this whole fracas is just one in a series of escalating pranks. Hey, remember the prank war Gob and the seal dealer had on Arrested Development? Well, it ends with middlebrow lisping on NBC at 11:35.

More theorizing after the jump.

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The Mad Men of the Ivy League

Mad MenRemember a time when all you had to do to get a job was be a white male Ivy League graduate and show up? Not since 2004 have such impressive qualifications given you a shot at even the presidency, let alone any other job. In today’s tough climate for the white male it’s up to the AMC show Mad Men to remind us of how good things used to be. And man, do caucasians love this show.

The third season of the award-winning show premiered last Sunday, and every week for the next three months we will be transported back to the 1960s. It was a time when everyone smoked, “diversity” meant hiring Italians, getting drunk at 10 a.m. was a good day, and cheating on your wife and mistress with a prostitute was the rule. In honor of the third season of this ode to status and excess, we’ve put together a list to help readers put a face to an alma mater. Hopefully, it’ll reinforce some stereotypes as well. Go to red spoiler alert! Read the rest of this entry »

Andy Bernard Isn’t the Only Cornell Grad On NBC Primetime

Many of us, starved as we are for even more unscripted television, have become fans of this writer-strike season’s breakout show, American Gladiators. Hulk Hogan, weird bodybuilders, nostalgia for the early 90’s – what else could a young man ask for? 

Still, we’ve all wondered: why can’t I do that? how did the gladiators develop their superhuman strength?  Well, Ivy Leaguers, there’s hope yet! The gladiatrix Fury – née Jamie Reed – is actually Cornell ‘01. Before she settled into a career of jousting contestants off ledges, Reed was a record-setting pole-vaulter for the Big Red. She even used to be a structural engineer!

There’s now at least one Ivy League alumuna/alumnus somewhere in the space-time continuum who is not an effete wimp.

Reed is 5’8”, 150 – more than enough to take me down any day of the week. She was voted “Most Likely to Be On American Gladiators” in high school, so this is like a dream come true for her. My bet is that if there’s ever an Office/American Gladiators crossover episode, she’ll beat the crap out of Andy Bernard.

‘The Gates’: Sneak Preview Exclusive

The Gates

As far as guilty pleasures, there’s nothing we’re looking forward to more than The Gates, a new soap opera about life at Columbia. (Harvard has been enjoying the nation’s first college soap, “Ivory Tower,” off and on since 1984.) Armchair philosophy? Check. Frat brawls? Check. Lesbian love scenes? Check. The show debuts this Thursday night at 9 p.m. on CTV. We’re doing our best to get a YouTube-able version to watch here, but in the meantime, we’ve got a few screenshots after the jump to tease your parched palette.

(All photos by Davide Barillari)

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