Faces: KRISTIN CHENOWETH

Somebody once said that good things come in small packages, and Kristin Chenoweth is living proof. The girl may be small in stature, but she is tall in talent, and team her up with Lee Pace and Anna Friel and you have a good case to have the exec at ABC who cancelled Pushing Daisies put away for insanity!

Still sadly Kristin’s pie serving days are over, but with the enormous pool of talent in Kristin’s well to draw from I am sure she won’t require the Pie-makers magic finger to resurrect her career. This little lady is oozing with delicious yummy talent, and I for one can’t wait to see her on the small screen, big screen or stage again soon.

I shall now turn you over to the talented narrator to teach you more about this talented beauty.

“The facts are these”;

• Kristin was born on the 24th of July, 1968.
• She was adopted at birth and grew up in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.
• Kristin began singing in her local church.
• Kristin attended Oklahoma City University where she gained a degree in Musical Theatre and a masters in Opera.
• 1997 saw Kristin’s debut on Broadway in a production of Scapin.
• In 1998 Kristin appeared in a revival of You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown, the role which won her first Tony Award.
• In 1999 Kristin made her television debut in the mini-series Paramour.
• 2001 saw Kristin land her own television series simply titled Kristin, which sadly was cancelled after six episodes. Kristin also released her first solo album in 2001.
• 2002 saw Kristin make her debut on the big screen in the little seen film Topa Topa Bluffs.
• In 2003 Kristin starred in the Broadway production of Wicked (my personal favourite musical) and was nominated for another Tony award.
• Besides the wonderful Pushing Daisies, Kristin has also appeared in such great television shows as; Frasier, The West Wing, Robot Chicken and Ugly Betty.
• Her other film credits include Bewitched, Stranger Than Fiction and Running with Scissors among others.
• Kristin will next be seen on the small screen when she appears in Legally Mad.

Twitter with PUSHING DAISIES

So the Pieman, Olive, Chuck and the rest of the characters on Pushing Daisies have had their television world destroyed by the morons at ABC. Never mind, the gang lives on in cyberspace, and you can follow their day-to-day activities on Twitter… just click the links below to add your favourites to your account:

Follow Pushing Daises Characters on Twitter

• Ned The Piemaker
• Olive Snook
• Charlotte Charles
• Emerson Cod

5 Reasons why ABC were crazy to cancel Pushing Daisies

Series two of Pushing Daisies is currently showing on ITV1, and while I watch each episode, I find one thought recurring over and over again in my mind – who was the idiot who cancelled this show?

Easily it is the best show to come from the American networks for years, and it is for this reason that Outside the Box has decided to present our reason why the executive at ABC who chose to give Pushing Daisies the bullet, should be sacked… and never touched by the Pie-Man’s healing finger!!

1. When compared to the rubbish the US networks are producing, surely Pushing Daisies must look like the Land of Oz compared to the drab Kansas-like TV wasteland of most US network television.

   Is there not a place in the US schedules for PDs amongst shit output like Knight Rider? Three varieties of CSI, and Law & Order, not to mention what seems like a million other shows made in the mould of those two?… And don’t even get me started with 24; how can people watch that crap? Really how many bad days at the office can one man have? 24 is nothing more than an hour long advertisement for whatever mobile phone Jack Bauer happens to have on contract this year!

2. The dialogue in Pushing Daisies is absolutely amazing work. The narrator and his Dr Seuss-like lines are poetic, and the cast of characters come out with some of the wittiest and original lines on television – compared to rubbish like 24, the scripts for PDs is Shakespeare. Just compare the examples below:

   Pushing Daisies:

   Narrator:
   

   Ned ran away. No one from school saw him go.

   He needed to see what the postcard would show.

   His father’s new address was the place that he sought.

   A home to come home to. In his throat, his heart caught.

   But what came out of the door, scared him for life.

   His father with two brand new sons and a brand new wife.

   A hug is what he wanted, a wink and a quick, ‘The joke’s on you.’

   But what he got instead was a honeycomb chew.

   24 (series 5):
   

   [A stony-faced, silent Jack holds Logan isolated on Marine One.]
   

   Charles Logan: What are you trying to do, Jack? Whatever it is, you know you won’t get away with it! Are you going to kill me? I suppose you want some sort of revenge. I understand that. Bad things happened. I didn’t want them to happen. People who work for me, they-they-they went too far, they did things I thought I wanted them to do, but they were wrong! You have to understand, I have always acted in the country’s best interest. But you’re just trying to get even. Do you realize what effect this will have on the American people?! This day has been trying enough! And now the President is being attacked. If you want to do what’s right, you will turn this thing around, and go back. Damn it, Bauer, say something!

3. Pushing Daisies is a visual treat! The show’s cartoon coloured world is so attractive you could watch PDs with the sound turned down!
4. Anna Friel! She’s English, she’s talented, she’s got those girl-next-door looks that drive the boys crazy, and every time I see her on screen I can’t help but get a little mental flash of that girl-on-girl kiss from her days on Brookside. http://tinyurl.com/b7ufnu
5. And my final reason for keeping Pushing Daisies… Bryan Fuller deserves a break! I mean here is a guy who has created some of the most original TV shows of the last 10 years (Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, Heroes) and every one of them (except Heroes) has been prematurely killed off just because American TV executives are more worried about advertising revenue than actually creating entertaining, thought provoking television, and don’t even get me started on the Neilson ratings used to judge a show’s performance… I spent 25 years living on the other side of the pond and never in those years did I come across anybody who knew anybody who knew anybody who had even seen a Neilson box, let alone had one!

   
   

Bryan Fuller… too good for television?

Series two of the fabulous Pushing Daisies has not even gone to air here in the UK, and already I am mourning… yes I am sad, because news from the States indicates that ABC have axed the series (idiots!) and are not even going to air the last episode (asshole idiots!). So the news of yet another wonderful Bryan Fuller series going the way of the Dodo, makes me wonder; is Bryan Fuller too good for television?

I mean here is a television producer who not only creates wonderful things to watch (according to me, and the millions like me, but not according to TV execs) but also creates TV that is fresh, original, and sometimes a bit weird. Yet all his shows have been cut down before they have had a chance to bloom… with the exception of Heroes of course.

I mean just look at the viewer ratings of his shows on the IMDb and you will see that people love his work:

1. Wonderfalls – 9.0/10
2. Dead Like Me – 8.9/10
3. The Amazing Screw on Head – 8.2/10
4. Pushing Daisies – 8.4/10
5. Heroes – 8.4/10

So why is it then that all his shows are cut down in the prime of their lives? Simple; Bryan Fuller is too good, too creative and too original for conventional American television audiences. Americans don’t want to come home and watch television that may engage their brains. They want Jerry Bruckheimer and three different versions of CSI. Audiences know where they are with CSI; guy gets killed, police use science to catch baddie, baddie goes to jail, happy days!

Americans work hard, they don’t want to have to think when watching television, they want to relax… which is why they have a commercial break every 7-10 minutes, because even watching TV is too much for some. (If you have never been to America, TV there is littered with constant advertising, which is why a 40 minute episode of Heroes takes on hour to air.)

So this make me wonder, what is Bryan Fuller to do? Make films (let’s hope) or my personal preference would be come to England and spin his craft over here. British television audiences are a bit more willing to watch things that don’t involve the police, but sadly for Fuller the pay would probably be a lot less!

Pushing Daisies – showcasing new medical techniques

 Did any of you watch episodes four (Pigeon) and five (Girth) of the wonderful modern fairytale Pushing Daisies? Did you notice the new medical techniques on display???

Episode four Pigeon showcased to viewers the new veterinary technique of attaching an artificial wing to a pigeon which was so easy I don’t know why I didn’t think of it… all you need to do is get a wing from another dead bird (doesn’t matter the breed, they used one from a parrot) and sew it onto the injured bird… you can even add some decorative sequins! Then hey presto, your bird will be air-bound in a matter of minutes.

Then episode five, Girth showed us the new medical technique for re-attaching human limbs… well sort of! Say you were to get your legs crushed beyond repair… don’t despair just chop some off a horse, and graft them on. Not only do they work as good as new, you also will become several feet higher. Though we never did see the patients feet, so I am not sure if you will still be able to wear Nikes or if you will have to find a blacksmith every few months… never mind at least you will be able to walk!

Pushing Daisies 2nd episode dropped by ITV1

How can this be? ITV1 who bought the rights to broadcast Pushing Daisies in the UK have decided not to show the second episode of the series, they will skip it and go straight to episode three due to a scheduling error. This is despite the fact that Pushing Daisies’s premier episode, or Pie-Lette as it was titled the most watched US programme debut in the UK since Friends.

Personally I find this outrageous, and hopefully fan pressure can get ITV to change their minds, but somehow I doubt it! ITV stated that the scrapping of episode two was necessary in order to fit in the Euro Championships… which nobody is going to watch as England failed to qualify! Ya smooth move ITV! That is why your share price is as low as it has been for some years now!

If you are as outraged as I am about this leave me a comment, and I will see it gets sent to Michael Grade (he’s the moron who runs ITV).

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Pushing Daisies… fantastic writing, fantastic show!

 

  Bryan Fuller’s last two television shows, Dead Like Me and Wonderfalls, were both fantastic, but both of them reached a premature end, partly due to poor ratings and partly due to the fact that TV executives are morons, and don’t give shows enough time to gather an audience. Something tells me though that with Pushing Daisies he may have finally created a show that has some wheels, and will roll for a couple of years at least.

Originally planned as a semi-spin-off of Dead Like Me, Pushing Daisies is a modern fairy tale about a man named Ned who can bring the dead back to life with a single touch. The twist (there is always a twist) is that they can only stay alive again for one minute or somebody else will die and take their place and if Ned touches them again, they die again, forever. So what does Ned do with this power? He opens a pie shop, where he can use his power to re-generate fruit, and make delicious pies at maximum profit. One day though a PI named Emerson Cod discovers Ned’s power and enlists him to bring murder victims back to life so that they can ask them who it was that killed them, solve the crime and collect the reward. The fun of course does not end there, oh no, Ned soon discovers that his childhood sweetheart, Charlotte Charles aka Chuck, has been murdered, and Ned decides to bring her back to life, and keep her alive, enlisting her as a partner in the ‘murder-solving business for profit’ that he and Emerson have started.

 Pushing Daisies is a wonderful modern fairy tale perfect for a brain such as mine. It is funny, has quirky characters, fantastic writing, and is an original idea… oh and it has Anna Friel (ya Beth from Brookside, that Anna Friel). The show looks fantastic as well, it is all bright colours and great lighting… “Pushing Daisies looks as if it has been made by Tim Burton in a good mood” is how one reviewer describes the show, and I have to say I agree totally.

There is more to this show then just great visuals and Anna Friel though, it also has some very clever writing. The dialouge and the wonderful narration by Jim Dale, contain so many lines which I will be quoting in conversations for a long time… great lines such as the one when the narrator describes Ned’s childhood; “Chuck came ready-made from the Play Dough factory of life.” And it is the wonderful writing of the show, that will keep me watching week after week.