Daniel J. Stasiewski & Erika Jarvis,
a&e editors
The Behrend Beacon
lurotripf a boring guide to the
review by Chris Hewitt
Knight Ridder Newspapers
What does it say about a movie when
the best thing in it gets cut?
That's the dilemma with "Eurotrip,"
in which a side-splitting cameo by
Joanna Lumley unspools as an outtake
during the closing credits.
Lumley isn't in the movie proper, but
her role as the unhospitable hostess of
a Teutonic youth hostel is funnier than
anything else in this cautiously written,
charismatically acted gross-out com
edy.
It's your basic four-friends-on-a
road-trip-encounter-romance-and-
vomit movie, in which the regurgita
tion begins during the opening credits
and gets gurging again every five min
utes or so. I like the cast of newcomers
Upstart cable channel Fuse puts the heat on video giant MTV
by Cary Darling
Knight Ridder Newspapers
The billboards started popping up
around Manhattan on May 12.
Here was Sally Struthers, getting her
beg on, trying to save an endangered spe
cies: the music video. "Every Day, thou
sands of music videos go unplayed.
Please help save music videos," she im
plores. "Watch Fuse."
One of the billboards - huge, inescap
able, like the monolith in 2001 - just hap
pened to be right outside the Times
Square offices of MTV.
Then there were the coffee cups. Two
million of them. Handed out around New
York, emblazoned with the phrase,
"Where's the M in emptee-vee?"
And so was born Fuse, the upstart, 9-
month-old, New York-based, cable mu
sic channel that's starting to pump up the
volume and attract a lot of attention, and
not just for its smart-aleck ad campaign.
According to Crain's, an ad-industry
publication, Fuse ended 2003 with a 20
percent gain in subscribers and now is
available to 36 million households.
A sampling of teen tastes conducted in
October by media analyst Jack Myers,
who interviewed more than 1,300 teen
agers, ranked the network sixth among
the 35 broadcast and cable networks in
cluded in the study. Among teen girls and
all 15- to 18-year-olds, it came in at No.
1.
Fuse is already branching out to con
cert sponsorship, slapping its name on
tours by Staind, Deftones and the current
The Jarvis File
Another round of 'Sex':
Don't put down those cosmopolitians yet, and keep your Manolo
Blahniks on. The ladies of "Sex and the City" are in the works to make
a movie continuing the lives of Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha and Miranda.
The city of New York will continue to be the star of the movie as the
ladies continue - Where they will leave off this Sunday.
Second best:
Even though Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey are America's sweet
hearts of reality television, it seems that Jessica might be the more popular
of the two. Jessica's album has outsold Nick's and at the Golden Globes,
Nick was asked to move out of the way as the photographers clamored
to get Jessica's picture. Jessica has even snagged her own television
show where her character will be named, Jessica Sampson. Nick got his
own televsion show, too, but after Jessica was already offered one. She's
the hotter of the two and now, more than ever, the more popular one.
You're fired:
If you watch NBC's "The Apprentice" you may notice that Donald
Trump does the firing. Turns out in real life this real estate tycoon has
never uttered those words before. He has enough money to pay people
to do his dirty work.
1. "The Way You Move" Outkast
featuring Sleepy Brown
2. "Yeah!" Usher featuring Lil Jon
& Ludacris 8. "Here Without You" 3 Doors
3. "Hey Ya!" Outkast Down
4. "Someday" Nickelback 9. "My Immortal" Evanescence
s." Toxic" Britney Spears 10. "It's My Life" No Doubt
**According to Billboard.com**
(particularly the Owen Wilson-esque
Jacob Pitts), but the movie doesn't push
its outrageousness hard enough to give
us that I-can't-believe-I' m-laughing-at
that feeling.
Nude beaches? Incestuous kissing?
Big whoop. Heck, even "Barbershop 2"
is more politically incorrect than that.
"Eurotrip" is probably about two
thirds as funny as "Road Trip," on
which it's modeled. It also boasts a
primo running gag featuring Matt
Damon, and at least the filmmakers had
the smarts to include the Lumley scene
at the end instead of saving it for the
DVD.
2 stars out of 4--Directed by: Jeff
Schaffer Rated: R, for tons of frontal
nudity and raw language, as well as
drug use. SHOULD YOU GO? It's a
renter.**
Simple Plan/MxPx run. Upcoming is the
Crystal Method tour.
While Fuse has a long way to go be
fore attaining MTV's name recognition
and clout - the landmark network is in
more than 86 million homes, spinoff
MTV 2 is in 50 million homes, and
MTVU, on college campuses, was just
launched - it has both music fans and
music-industry watchers buzzing.
"Even though their ratings are a frac
tion of MTV's, their audience is ex
tremely loyal," says Myers, publisher of
the Jack Myers Report and the Teen Me
dia Brand Tracker Study. "They've
tapped into a market that MTV has ig
nored, that is looking for new music."
It's all sweet music to the ears of Marc
Juris, the man charged with taking a well
regarded but obscure video-music chan
nel, Much Music USA, an offshoot of the
Canadian Much Music videochannel,
rebranding it, and getting people to watch
it. He's doing that by playing videos and
forgoing nonmusic programming, such
as "The Osbournes" and "The Real
World," which has dominated MTV's
schedule in recent years. Beyond that, he
made the station interactive: Fans can go
online and vote on videos, purchase or
sell "stock" in bands, or dedicate videos
to significant others and friends.
"What I saw was an opportunity to give
viewers a true voice in the way the mu
sic network would be programmed," says
Fuse President Juris. "The. Internet obvi
ously has been disruptive in the way busi
ness is conducted. But there was a great
opportunity to harness that power."
6. "With You" Jessica Simpson
7. "Slow Jamz" Twista featuring
Kayne West and Jamie Foxx
ANNIM 4
Friday February . 20, 2004
Like Frodo bearing the ring, Fuse has
started to attract the attention of the big
boy on the block: MTV. According to a
report in the Los Angeles Times, MTV
parent company Viacom, which report
edly has contracts with record companies
giving Viacom channels exclusive rights
to the labels' videos, lately has been en
forcing this provision. That means they
have claimed first rights to Radiohead's
"There There" and Beyonce Knowles'
"Crazy in Love" among others. (MTV de
clined to comment for this story.)
But Juris is not worried. "That has no
real direct impact, because our whole
brand is about up-and-coming new mu-
sic," he says.
Fuse is also seeking audiences that
MTV might only address on its niche
channels, such as MTV Espanol - chan
nels that may not be widely available.
Fuse is pursuing the "urban Latino"
crowd with a Monday night show,
Marcha, dedicated to Latin alternative
rock.
"I realized thern'was no Latin alterna
tive music being aired and there was so
much of it out there," says Marcha cre
ator/producer Moira Noriega.
Tomas Cookman, head of Los Ange
les-based Cookman International, which
oversees the careers of such popular Latin
rock bands as La Ley, Aterciopelados,
and the electronica Nortec Collective, is
a Fuse fan. "It's more in line with (the
bands') natural audiences than going to
Miami and doing the (Spanish-language)
morning shows," he explains.
For all the shots Fuse takes at MTV,
**not looking to good this
week**
rose side of travel
search
and even with the rumors of new music
channels being developed by the Univer
sal Music Group (1 A.M.) and the Play
boy Channel (H.Y.P.E. TV), Juris says
there's enough room for everybody.
"MTV is a very different network than
we are," he says. "They have different
expectations. They're building a large,
youth-oriented network. We're building
a new music network. We're building a
multidimensional music brand. That's a
very different model and point of view.
"I have a very basic philosophy: If I'm
only looking at MTV, MTV 2 or MTVU
as my competition, I'm looking at the
world with blinders on. Here's the com
petition: everything. Video games,
DVDs, the online world. A teenager has
a lot of things taking that time. It's not
about one TV network. It's about the
world of choice."
So what about those ads, then? In ad
dition to Struthers, others have featured
Hair Club for Men founder Sy Sperling
("Fuse - looks natural even when wet")
and Tammy Faye ("I've seen the light. It
was on TV and it has music videos on it.
Fuse - No. 1 with Tammy, who is No. 3
with drag queens").
"We just like to have a sense of humor
and be playful," Juris explains. "But you
know what? The music network ain't
playing music and we are. Clearly, it's a
competitive point with us. We hear it from
record companies and people: You play
music. (Until now) there's somehow been
broad public acceptance of a music net
work not playing music."
Just as Bart openly mocks Homer, so
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Eurotrip": Michelle
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Fuse can't resist slamming MTV. Be
cause MTV produced the Super Bowl
halftime spectacle that included Janet
Jackson's nearly full monty, the Fuse
folks had to have their say. They issued
an "open letter to MTV":
Dear Friends at MTV,
Every day the entertainment industry
is a victim of senseless, brutal wardrobe
malfunctions, accidents and outright
crimes
MTV, we at Fuse are standing with
you!
Even though we are competitors, we
think it's time to put aside our differences
and take a stand. Let us not dwell on last
Sunday's halftime show - the dated songs,
the random crotch grabs and the sense
less lip-synching. No. Let's put all that
aside and focus on the issue at hand:
VELCRO DOES NOT WORK.
Many of us here have been victims of
wardrobe malfunctions and understand
the life-long impact one single costume
catastrophe can have.
We at Fuse will support you any way
we can. We will continue to play music
videos every day, all day, day after day
after day.
We are also willing to donate gener
ously to the I.F.D.A.D.A.N.T. (The In
stitute for the Development of Advanced
Double Adhesive Nipple Tape).
Signed in solidarity,
Your Friends at Fuse
P.S. For what it's worth, we also
thought Chicken of the Sea was a
chicken-based product. Give die breast a
rest. Watch music videos on Fuse.
VDR
ses on F
Matchstick Men"
'Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over'
Page 7