Around the Tubes: 8/7/15

I have gotten a plethora of cool press releases have been flooding my inbox recently that you may find interesting. This post will include blurbs on Crash Test, Jimi Hendrix: Electric Church, Public Morals, Friends of the People, PBS Arts Fall Festival, The Hotwives of Las Vegas, Nirvana, Ties that Bind, Prophet's Prey, Keith Urban, Grace and Tony, Gilmore Girls, Jem and the Holograms, boxing, and the MTV Video Music Awards.

- Paramount Digital Entertainment (PDE) announced today their new comedy special Crash Test will premiere exclusively on Vimeo On Demand on August 18, 2015. Adapted from their beloved comedy show at Upright Citizens Brigade, Crash Test showcases Rob Huebel (Children’s Hospital, Transparent, Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp) and Paul Scheer (The League, Fresh Off The Boat, Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp) on a state-of-the-art party bus adventure, picking up famous comedians and celebrities as they go on a sightseeing tour of Los Angeles. Ben Stiller, Stuart Cornfeld and Mike Rosenstein of Red Hour executive produced the special. Crash Test will retail on Vimeo On Demand for $3.99. For further information and to pre-order the special, please go to: vimeo.com/ondemand/crashtest.

- Rock legend Jimi Hendrix captivated the world with his unique, highly stylized, jaw-dropping approach to blues guitar. The new Showtime documentary Jimi Hendrix: Electric Church, premiering Friday, September 4th at 9:00 on-air, on demand and over the internet, chronicles his largest ever U.S. performance at the massive Atlanta Pop Music Festival in July 1970 with never-before-seen concert footage of the icon in action. Standout performances include such Hendrix classics as Hey Joe, Voodoo Child (Slight Return), Purple Haze, as well as versions of Room Full Of Mirrors, Freedom, Straight Ahead and The Star Spangled Banner against a backdrop of fireworks. The recently unearthed footage, shot by Steve Rash (The Buddy Holly Story), details the historic night and the efforts of promoter Alex Cooley to create the definitive music festival with Hendrix as the centerpiece.

- Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. is ramping up its video-on-demand efforts to offer TV subscribers multiple binge viewing opportunities, including an on-demand sneak peek of episodes of the upcoming TNT series Public Morals the day after the series' Aug. 25 premiere, plus brand new episodes of truTV's Friends of the People before their TV debut. Additionally, beginning this week, every single episode of all seasons of truTV's Impractical Jokers and TNT's Cold Justice will be made available on a variety of platforms and devices including online and on mobile devices, giving viewers control over how they watch – whenever and wherever they want - as part of Turner's robust TV Everywhere offering, For the first time ever, TNT is offering fans an on-demand sneak peek of multiple upcoming episodes of a series. The day after the Aug. 25 premiere of the Edward Burns drama Public Morals, TNT will make episodes 1-4 available for fans to watch anytime and anywhere through set-top VOD, the Watch TNT mobile app and www.watch.tntdrama.com, as well as on participating TV providers websites and apps. Additionally, TNT will make every episode of the real-life investigative series Cold Justice available on demand to allow fans to binge-watch the past two seasons leading into the season 3 finale on Sept. 18. Episodes currently airing from season 3, which premiered on July 31, are made available on demand the day after their TV debut and will stay up through the finale, giving fans the option to catch up on the entire series all at once.

- PBS President Paula Kerger announced today at the Television Critics Association Press Tour the full lineup and airdates of PBS’ annual arts programming showcase. The 2015 PBS Arts Fall Festival returns October 9, 2015 at 9:00 p.m. ET, celebrating its fifth season, with eight new weekly programs. The Festival will launch with the inventive, high-energy Unity– The Latin Tribute to Michael Jackson, hosted by the legendary and world-renowned percussionist Sheila E. and featuring Michael Jackson’s greatest hits interpreted by award-winning Latin artists.

- The second season of Hotwives brings us to Las Vegas, a city where dreams and fortunes are made every day – along with hundreds of new cases of herpes. We’ll meet a fresh batch of real Hotwives – loving and clawing their way through Sin City with smiling faces because the Botox won’t let them frown. Brace yourself for double the drama, triple the heartbreak, and seven times the fake boobies on The Hotwives of Las Vegas. The Hotwives of Las Vegas will begin Tuesday, August 18 exclusively on Hulu and Hulu Plus.

- On August 28, 2015, Nirvana’s self-titled, double platinum-selling (United States) / 7x platinum-selling (Worldwide) posthumous collection Nirvana (UMe) makes its debut on 45rpm double LP, pressed on 200-gram heavy weight vinyl and packaged in a furnace black gatefold sleeve with liner notes and a digital download card for 96kHz 24-bit HD audio; as well as a 33rpm single LP 150-gram standard weight vinyl edition which will feature a download card for 320kbps MP4 audio. Nirvana will also be released as a Blu-Ray Pure Audio in high resolution 96kHz 24-bit and is available in three stereo audio formats: PCM, DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD stereo.

- Kelli Williams (“The Practice,” “Army Wives”), Jonathan Scarfe (“Hell on Wheels,” “Perception”) and Dion Johnstone (The Tempest, “Stargate SG-1”) star in UP’S first original scripted drama series Ties that Bind with special guest stars Jason Priestley (“Haven,” “Beverly Hills 90210”), C. Thomas Howell (The Outsiders, “Grimm”), Kirsten Prout (The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, “Kyle XY”) and Luke Perry (UP’s Welcome Home, “Beverly Hills 90210”) – Premieres exclusively on Wednesday, August 12 at 9 p.m. EDT.

- The highly-anticipated documentary Prophet's Prey will make its world television premiere on Saturday, October 10th at 9:00 on Showtime. The film, focused on the tyrannical cult leader Warren Jeffs, debuts theatrically nationwide under the Showtime Documentary Films® banner on September 18th in New York and on Friday, September 25th in Los Angeles, followed by additional cities including San Francisco, Chicago, Denver and Salt Lake City, among others, on Friday, October 2nd. An official selection of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and directed by Academy Award® nominee Amy Berg (Deliver Us from Evil, West of Memphis), Prophet's Prey is a unique and intricate look inside the world of one of the largest cults currently operating in the United States, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS).

- As you may have heard, Keith Urban was recently named a Music Education Ambassador by the Country Music Association in efforts to bring attention to the grossly overlooked educational benefits of music. Such lack of understanding has led countless districts across the country to cut their music programs under the belief that music is more a hobby than an education. Yet an infographic, created by Kent State University’s School of Music, clarifies any confusion, showing that music not only has educational merit, but that it can be used to close the educational gap amongst students and schools. For more information, please see the full infographic, which can be found here: musicedmasters.kent.edu.

- Husband-and-wife duo Grace & Tony are set to release their next album, Phantasmagoric (a favorite word of Edgar Allen Poe’s meaning “out of this world”) on September 25, 2015. Featuring 10 tracks that sound as if they belong in a macabre Broadway musical, the album is rife with dramatic tales of plagues, serial killers, mass suicide, Frankenstein’s nameless creation and similar subjects so inherently theatrical that they’d be right at home in a Sondheim or Brecht-Weill classic.

- UP announced today it has acquired the full seven-season run of Gilmore Girls, the award-winning, fan-favorite family drama.

- Hasbro Studios and Sony Music/Legacy Recordings will release a #TrulyOutrageous tribute album to Hasbro’s 1980s cult classic Jem and the Holograms today, featuring modern renditions of hit tracks from Starlight Records very own JEM Jem and the Holograms, The Misfits, and The Stingers. The Truly Outrageous: A Jem and the Holograms Tribute is a contemporary salute to one of Hasbro’s most successful animated television series of the 1980s. The digital-only album provides a showcase for some of today’s hottest up-and-coming artists to perform new versions of 12 classic songs first heard during the top-rated 65-episode run of the beloved Hasbro Jem and the Holograms series. It is available to pre-order now at: smarturl.it/TrulyOutrageous.

- Pickin' and grinnin', singin' and spinnin' tall tales and corny jokes, the citizens of Kornfield Kounty landed on television in 1969 with the arrival of Hee Haw as a summer replacement series for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Each week, co-hosts Buck Owens and Roy Clark and the cast of comedians and musicians welcomed the biggest stars in country music to perform their songs and help deliver the legendary corny one-liners. Though a hit, CBS dropped the show in 1971 in an attempt to "de-countrify" the network's programming; however, it was quickly picked up and became the longest-running weekly syndicated series in television history. And, this September, Time Life invites home audiences back to rural Kornfield Kounty for some timeless, down-home entertainment with The Hee Haw Collection in stores September 8.

- In what is expected to be the final fight of his illustrious 19-year career, boxing superstar and pound-for-pound king Floyd “Money” Mayweather (48-0, 26 KOs) will put his undefeated record and WBC and WBA Welterweight World Championships on the line against power-punching, two-time welterweight world champion Andre Berto (30-3, 23 KOs) Saturday, Sept. 12 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, live on Showtime PPV (8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT).

- On the heels of his highly anticipated music video for Cant Feel My Face, critically acclaimed singer-songwriter, The Weeknd will make his MTV Video Music Awards debut with the first-ever televised performance of the hit single. The telecast is set to air LIVE on Sunday, August 30 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on MTV from the Microsoft Theater, formerly Nokia Theatre L.A. Live. Miley Cyrus will serve as host.