Gone are the days when one could enliven their Sunday mornings by watching Julia Child and Jacques Pepin affectionately debate the proper way to scramble eggs or divulge their secrets to whole chicken perfection. Enter Hungry, YouTube's new food channel that, it seems, signals a shift away from network food television by offering viewers "culinary competitions, food pranks, and unique gastronomic dining experiences" (e.g., high caloric freak show food items.) more ›

Men's Health has a breakdown of the top 100 "smuttiest" (i.e., porn-happy) cities in the United States. Orlando, Florida comes in a No. 1. However, San Francisco ranks a distant 23rd and Oakland 79th when it comes to porn. The criteria went something like this: compiling the number of DVDs purchased, rented, or streamed (AdultDVDEmpire.com); adult entertainment stores per city (StorErotica.net); rate of porn searches (Google Insights); and the percentage of Cinemax-subscribing households (SimplyMap). You will have to take the results with a massive salt lick, though. (What self-respecting gay uses AdultDVDEmpire.com or Cinemax for ejaculatory assistance?) The top 100 is as follows: more ›

ABC's drama The Bachelor is looking for a few good-looking men. Well, one. They need a new bachelor to pretend he's looking for love and lifetime companionship. Might that be you? "We are very open to all ethnicities," producer Holly Golden explained to SFist. You should also be "handsome and eligible." To the press release! more ›

Bravo unveiled a new batch of must-see shows for the fall season. One in particular, Silicon Valley, produced by Randi Zuckerberg, Mark's sister, will take place here in the Bay Area. (Regarding the new series, she told NBC Bay Area, "I'm a strong believer in innovation and entrepreneurship and hope that through this series other people will be inspired to build the next break out companies and technologies.") And like all Bravo shows, Silicon Valley promises to feature a cast of characters that are dynamic, wealthy, unapologetic, insufferable and, with varying degrees of success, camera-ready. more ›

Saturday Night Live recently hired a new female comic, Kate McKinnon, known for her work with Upright Citizens Brigade and the Big Gay Sketch Show. The latter hints at the fact that, yes, McKinnon is gay, which effectively makes her SNL's first openly lesbian featured player. (Terry Sweeney, who appeared in the disastrous 1985-86 season, was the show's first openly gay guy.) She makes her debut this Saturday when Sofia Vergara hosts. more ›

Have you always wanted to live your life in front of TV cameras, with a sundry of people ranging from skinny and attractive to skinny and young? Now's your chance: On April 7th, CBS' Big Brother will be interviewing potential hamsters to live in the Big Brother house this summer. If you make it through to the show, lightening-brief fame is yours; if you outlast your fellow housemates, a cool $500,000 is also yours. more ›

Basically everything is trippy slowed down by 800%. The true music geeks among you should enjoy this, as well as the same thing done to the Sanford & Son theme song. more ›

Oh dear. Can you find the misspellings on this map that aired on FOX's Alcatraz? For those not in the know, Alcatraz, which aired last night, is J.J. Abrams' latest show is about a group of guards and prisoners who disappeared from the prison during its '60s heyday, only to reappear in the present. more ›

Among NBC's lineup of must-see-free TV this past couple seasons — oh, don't you "OMG, Smash" us — the most useless, America's Got Talent, will hold auditions in San Francisco's Civic Center this weekend. Who should audition? Those of you with sad background stories (make something up; NBC doesn't care either way) and some talent involving singing or dancing or dancing and singing. Simon Cowell, who produces America's Got Talent, has the following advice for acts auditioning: 1) Be original, 2) don't be boring, 3) Stand out from the crowd, and 4) be fearless. more ›

Last night was the private premiere party for J.J. Abrams' new San Francisco-based time-and-space-bending TV show Alcatraz. As far as we can tell, no one other than Entertainment Weekly and the show's principal stars were in attendance at the shindig, which was held — where else? — on the Rock itself. We're kind of bummed nobody invited us along because we love television and have been saving up a ton of Jurassic Park jokes to tell Sam Neill for, like, years now. Anyway according to EW's party report, Fox and Warner Brothers "pulled out all the stops" for the party, which included making people eat off of prison-issue tin plates at dinner and interviewing the cast in the shower room. Because that seems fun. more ›

We've done a 180-degree turn on Mr. Anthony Bourdain after viewing last night's San Francisco The Layover on The Travel Channel. Bourdain calls Swan Oyster Depot one of his favorite places in San Francisco, talks about crossing swords at The Tonga Room, slurs his words, and throws shade at food bloggers. At North Beach's Mr. Bing's, he yells, "You're going to get a lot of annoying, foodie f**kin bloggers saying...What kind of psychotic f**king freak would not love this place?" more ›

Are you a talented (or camera-friendly) home cook? Producers of FOX's MasterChef, a cooking reality show that insults amateur chefs, will be in San Francisco on Saturday to cast for the third season. You must bring with you one prepared dish to be served to the food judges. According to the show's site, "You will be given a few minutes to plate your dish at the given casting location, but there will not be a kitchen to cook or warm it up so come prepared!" more ›

We don't know who the Kaplans are, but we sure do like their style. Lauren and Michael Kaplan used edited footage from a recent trip to San Francisco to re-creating the intro to Full House, the greatest Friday night sitcom in ABC history. While it starts off with an eyebrow-cocking "San Fran" (forgive them for they know not what they do, commenters), the entire thing is delightful, humorous and well-produced. more ›

Jane Lynch was the guest of honor at Fall Free for All, the season-opening celebration for Cal Performances, this past Sunday. While speaking to a (rapt) audience, Lynch said, "If I could choose who I want to be when I come back in my next life, it would be Darren Criss." more ›

Convicted in the 1989 murder of an off-duty Savannah police officer, Troy Davis presented affidavits of seven of the nine witnesses at his trial who have since recanted their testimony. Davis never received a new trial and was unjustly executed this week. more ›

Spotted in the the Talent Gigs section of Craigslist: a call for actors to star and support in "a TV Pilot about a clairvoyant female cafe owner that helps singles find true love." [sic] Hard to tell if the producers here are shooting for a Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place-style situational comedy or if will be more of a Touched by an Angel spiritual drama, but the core pitch is solid. We are, after all, well-known for our abundance of both café owners and clairvoyants around here. more ›

Boy, do we love us some Mr. Bing's in North Beach. In fact, it's where we might or might not have gotten into a heated argument recently with the editor of Inside Scoop over the intellect, or lack thereof, of one Miss Britney Spears. (We lost that argument, clearly.) Anyway, the popular-yet-dusty bar hosted a segment today for Anthony Bourdain's new show tentatively titled The Layover. more ›

During Thursday night's Tonight Show comedian and macadamia nut purveyor, Roseanne Barr announced her bid for U.S. President in the 2012 election. "I decided since you're the one who got Arnold Schwarzenegger elected as governor of California, I wanted to make my announcement here on your show," she told Jay Leno. "My announcement is that I am running for president of the United States." After some chortling from the studio audience, she went on to add, "I'm totally serious." more ›

On last night's Intervention (the Emmy Award-winning reality series that follows drug addicts around with a camera, culminating in a usually heart-wrenching "gift" of rehab presented by the subject's family) two locals were featured on the show. Luke, one of the kids you see skateboarding by the Ferry Building, and his mother live on the streets due to the former's problem with crack-cocaine. He's a bright kid who wants to become a journalist (not a good profession for an addict, by the way) and loves to read (Hunter S. Thompson and Jack Kerouac, just to name two), but can't seem to stop using that which is whack. The whole ordeal is sad (yet entertaining) and a testament to the folks we see living on the streets each day. more ›

Sex advice columnist and It Gets Better founder Dan Savage stopped by The Cobert Report last night to discuss monogamy in marriage. Profiled in the New York Times recently, he "argued that sometimes monogamy is what dooms a marriage." Some foes of gay marriage have since blasted Savage for being pro marriage, against divorce and yet not having a monogamous relationship with his partner. more ›

Your days of enjoying a combo plan of getting a disc or two via those red envelopes in the mail and streaming content from California-based Netflix are numbered, kids. Starting September 1, the popular site is implementing separate plans for streaming and physical disc borrowing. more ›

Inside Scoop's masterful Paolo Lucchesi brings us crucial entertainment this afternoon: James Brown's two long-lost Cup-O-Noodle commercials. They're beautiful. Lucchesi notes: "Sometimes there are no words. This is not one of those times. There is just one word here: Amazingness. This is guaranteed to brighten anyone's day." And how. more ›

Former KPIX news anchor and Emmy Award-winner John Kessler felt the need to apologize on Facebook today after announcing his new gig at NBC Bay Area, which, ridiculously, managed to upset some of his future on-air colleagues. Kessler writes: more ›

On tonight's season opener of The Bachelorette -- girlie spinoff of The Bachelor, ABC's popular fake reality dating show about white people -- one of the 25 bachelors in competition is 28-year-old Sonoma winemaker Benjamin Flajnik. And just look at him. No, look at him! He looks like the kind of guy with whom one might want to have premarital sexual intercourse. Good call, Disney Company. more ›

Alcatraz, the latest time-traveling island psychodrama from J.J. Abrams and company got picked up by Fox for the 2012 season. Wonderful, and now we have this teaser trailer. It looks very... mysterious? Kinda dark? Apparently J.J. Abrams' vision of San Francisco is as gray as Sam Neill's hair these days. Jump to around 1:34 for a cameo from those gunshots on Filbert Street from a couple months back, and it only took a minute and forty seconds for Hugo Reyes Jorge Garcia to utter "Holy crap! You gotta come see this!" Glad to see he's not a victim of typecasting, at least. [YouTube] more ›

The 8-year-old girl whose mother gave her Botox injections and bikini waxes, in a bizarre effort to turn her into a pageant beauty winner, was taken out of her home. After fame-hungry San Francisco mom Kerry Campbell appeared on Good Morning America and Inside Edition on March 12 to defend her daughter's painful beauty treatments, the "San Francisco Human Services Agency" and SFPD conducted an investigation. more ›