Mike's Bloggity Blog

Lots of exciting news in the world of Canadian TV! Which is really the driving force behind this SUPER BLOG POST!  Enjoy!

The Kennedys have a date on History.
In true Camelot fashion, this movie has had a ton of buzz around it. The Canadian filmed production could not for the life of it find a distruber in the USA after The History Channel passed. After weeks of speculations, Reelz has announced it will show the four-part miniseries starring Greg Kinnear and Katie Holmes. Of course, the film will be shown in Canada has well. History Television has announced that it will happily air the controversial movie starting on April 10, 2011 at 9 pm ET/PT.

The ‘Dragon’s’ Hit the Road!
Do you ever watch Dragon’s Den and think, “Hey, I could easily do that!”  Well now’s your chance.  The Dragon’s have just announced that they are hitting the road for the Season Six audition tour, stopping in a whopping 36 cities!  Quick: Try to name 36 Canadian cities.  I’ll wait.  Well, while you are counting, I’ll give you more information.  I actually check out the auditions last year and I can tell you that you won’t be pitching to the Dragon’s but instead the show’s producers will be making all the decisions.  But when you go the auditions, bring your A game.  They really aren’t any different than the real pitch you would do on TV!  And from what I say, sometimes the producers are even meaner!

No experience is necessary to audition. Interested entrepreneurs should be prepared to pitch their business in under five minutes.

For more details, including a full list of cities and dates, visit their website!

Canada’s offices go Glee!

Yes, the rumours are true!  Global TV really has combined The Office and Glee into the more intriguing reality show of 2011.  The show is called Canada Sings and when it premieres later this year, offices from all over the country will be competing a nationwide sing-off!

Production has officially started on the show and I can only imagine the outtakes.  In case you are wondering, some of the work places participating include: Air Canada, Boiler House Restaurant, Eric Hamber Secondary School, Good Life Fitness, Hamilton Police, Just Energy, Lone Wolf Real Estate Technologies, Scarborough General Hospital, The Keg and the Toronto Fire Department.

I’m going to be honest, I’m going to act like I hate this show, but I already know that I’m going to secretly love it.

How awesome was last night’s Christmas episode of Glee?  I bet you are just itching to download the album right now, aren’t you?!  But wait!  Why go through that hassle when I’m giving away a fantastic Glee Soundtrack prize pack for day #3 of Mike’s Bloggity Blog’s Gift A Day Giveaway!

The winner of this giveaway will get the BRAND NEW Glee: The Christmas Album and Glee Volume 4.  Oh heck and let’s throw in Rocky Horror Glee and Journey To Sectionals too!

If you haven’t heard the music from this season, Volume Four is probably my favourite disc so far!  ‘Marry Me’ and ‘Valerie’ have basically been on repeat since getting the album.  If you have a Gleek on your gift list, trust me: They want these albums.

How to Win:
Two ways to enter, each one will get you an entry to a maximum of two entries per gift!  All entries must be received by Sunday, December 19th at Noon/MST

1) Leave a comment telling me your favourite song from either of the discs!
2) Tweet “I’m going to win The Music of Glee Prize Pack from @mikesbloggity. http://ow.ly/3lRu7 #bloggitygifts”

Gift A Day Rules:
1) Gotta live in Canada.
2) Two entries per contest.
3) I can’t guarantee prizes will arrive by Christmas.

Don’t forget to enter all the Gift A Day Give-A-Ways!
Giveaway #1: 2011 Microsoft Office for Mac
Giveaway #2: Degrassi Prize Pack
Giveaway #3:The Music of Glee (Four discs!)
Giveaway #4: Subscription to Film Movement
Giveaway #5: Sony Ericsson Phone and Bluetooth Headset!
Giveaway #6: Nestlé Noir Holiday Prize Pack
Giveaway #7: Netflix Membership
Giveaway #8: Smartbox Gift Cards
Giveaway #9: Harper Collins Canada Prize Pack!
Giveaway #10: Flip Ultra HD Video Camera
Giveaway #11: 4,000 Scene Points!
Giveaway #12: Marc Jacobs BANG cologne!
Giveaway #13: $50 McDonalds Gift Card!

This year’s Geminis were a who’s who of the best minds behind Canadian television.

The big winner of the night was HBO Canada’s Less Than Kind, which walked away with three awards, including Best Comedy.  The Best Drama went to the UK co-production of The Tudors.  I’ve never heard of The Cupcake Girls but they won Best Reality Show over Dragon’s Den and This House Has 22 Minutes won for best ensemble performance.  Flashpoint and Being Erica were essentially shut out!

As predicted, host Cory Monteith played the drums instead of singing. Besides that, I’ve read nothing buy glowing reviews for the Glee star for his role as MC!

The highlight of the night may have been the Degrassi reunion that say cast members from the last twenty years gather together to celebrate Degrassi being named Canada’s favourite show!  It definitely got my vote!

Here’s the list of this year’s Gemini Award Winners:

Best drama: The Tudors
Best comedy: Less Than Kind
Best actor, drama: Robert Carlyle, Stargate Universe
Best actress, drama: Caroline Cave, Cra$h and Burn
Best supporting actor: Clé Bennett, The Line
Best supporting actress: Catherine Disher, The Border
Best reality program: The Cupcake Girls
Best miniseries: The Summit
Best ensemble performance, comedy: Cathy Jones, Gavin Crawford, Mark Critch, Geri Hall, Shaun Majumder, This Hour has 22 Minutes.
Best music or variety program: 2009 MuchMusic Video Awards
Best host in a music or variety program: Michael Bublé, At the Concert Hall
Best actor, miniseries: Jared Keeso, Keep Your Head Up: The Don Cherry Story
Best actress, miniseries: Sun Li, Iron Road

Tomorrow night is Canadian television’s biggest night of the year.  The Gemini awards never really seem to get the attention they deserve but this year might be a little different.

Glee superstar Cory Monteith has been summoned to host the show but Gleeks shouldn’t expect to hear him sing.  At last year’s Gemini awards in Calgary, where Monteith also made an appearance, I remember hearing that he wouldn’t be singing because his voice just wasn’t strong enough to sing live, so he played the drums instead.  I’m expecting the same this year but then again, maybe a year’s worth of vocal lessons have strengthened the Calgary-born star’s voice.

Speaking of musical talent, producers have also secured quite an impressive line-up of singers who will be performing during the awards show.  Elvis Costello, Feist and Ron  Sexsmith are all now scheduled to perform.

For me, the night’s highlight will be the special tribute to Degrassi.  Some of the alumni expected to make appearances include Nina Dobrev, Stefan Brogren and Amanda Stepto, Adamo Ruggiero, Cassie Steele, Lauren Collins and Melinda Shankar.  Plus, since the awards are in Toronto, I’m sure you can expect a LOT more of your Degrassi favourites to get the night off from waiting tables to show up.

You can expect some of the night’s biggest winners to include The Rupublic of Doyle, Flashpoint, The Vancouver 2010 Olympics and hopefully Being Erica and MTV Live.

The Geminis air on Global and Showcase on Saturday night.

Remember when Glee premiered last year and a small group of people rallied to save the show?  It was the amazing “little show that could.”  Now Glee has completely exploded and everyone knows about it.  The flip side of the coin is that people who haven’t even seen it yet are sick of it.

The show will be back on Global TV in just a few week on and they’ve just released the first preview of the show’s second season.  Looks promising, but that probably doesn’t mean a thing!

As an example of how huge this show, watch how many blogs post this video today.

Okay so we don’t have a Canadian Amazing Race or Northern Survivor, but would you accept an all Canuck-version of Glee….eh?

Canwest Broadcasting announced on Monday it will develop and broadcast an all-new original production, Canada Sings! The reality series is sorta like The Office: The Musical and will explore workplaces nationwide (which really means just outside of Toronto) encouraging glee clubs to come together and perform in competition.

The show will premiere on Global in early 2011.

Complete details for Canada Sings! including the show host and judging panel will be announced closer to broadcast.

But for now, pull out your Journey cassette tapes and start practicing!

(Ps. Can I please be a judge?)

Since debuting just over a year ago, Glee has released a total of four discs and today the season’s final disc hits shelves.

The fifth album is called Glee: Journey to the Regionals and it is exactly that, a tribute to the 80′s rock band Journey.  Featured on the disc is a new version of Don’t Stop Believing, Anyway You Want It, and the ballad Faithfully.  Gleeks will also be able to Bohemian Rhapsody, To Sir With Love and Over The Rainbow.

So with the final disc of the season now released, I thought it would be a good time to look back and pick my five favourite songs of the season!

Don’t Stop Believing (Glee Cast)
The song that started it all was also one of the show’s biggest risks. By taking on the Journey classic even though it is still insanely popular, showed audiences that no song would ever be off limits.  Now that I’ve mentioned it, try to get it out of your head.

Like A Prayer (Glee Cast)
We knew from the beginning of Glee that a Madonna episode would eventually happen.  But who knew it would happen so quickly?  The Power of Madonnna was a collection the singer’s best and capped of the insane episode with one of Madonna’s best and most controversial songs ever.  While the Glee kids left their Jesus replicas at home, they did bring with them a full choir.  A choir for a show choir?  Who’da thunk!

Dancing With Myself (Kevin McHale)
You probably didn’t even realized that McHale as Artie is constantly the show’s MVP.  He’s the heart of the show and no song captured that better than his first solo.

True Colours (Jenna Ushkowitz and Cast)
The first half of the season didn’t see the show give too many of it’s solos to anyone except Lea Michele.  And while you usually can’t blame them, with this ballad Ushkowitz proved that she is equally deserving of the spotlight, that is why she stole it.

I Dreamed a Dream (Lea Michele and Idina Menzel)
I’ll admit that I had never heard of  Idina Menzel before her involvement in Glee.  But the apparent broadway legend cemented her role in one of the show’s most emotional moments.   Finding out that she was actually Rachel’s mom was just the icing on the cake.

And just because I can, here is the show’s worst song…so far:

One Less Bell to Answer/ A House is Not a Home (Kristin Chenoweth and Matthew Morrison)
If this season of Glee taught us anything, it is that the show’s creator Ryan Murphy has a big giant musical hard-on for Kristin Chenoweth.  While her voice is amazing, her duets with Morrison are the mayor and deputy mayor of dullsville.  This song was the culmination of one snoozer after another.

Sooooooo when did the Banff World Television Festival become the coolest festival in Canada?

With the four day event only a couple of weeks away, organizers are still adding to the growing list of celebrities who will be in attendance.

We already knew that William Shatner, Ricky Gervais, Nigel Lythgoe and Illeana Douglas would be speaking at the festival.  Now comes word that Erik McCormack and Ian Brennan will now be there too! Don’t know who Ian Brennan is?  Well he c0-created Glee with Ryan Murphy!  Bet that is ringing a few bells for ya!

I’m not embarrassed to say that that this event is turning into a big giant wet-dream for television lovers like myself.