Show Blog: A Day At Access (May 19, 2006, 10:55 AM)

#2  (10:55 a.m.) —

There’s a saying that goes “you are what you eat.”  Well, the way I see it, “you are what you wear.”

That’s why I pride myself on my eclectic tee-shirt collection.  Now, I’ve never been much of a suit-and-tie guy anyway, but thanks to my very cool (and often casual) job at Access Hollywood, I can pretty much wear whatever I want and usually do so with a tee-shirt that fits my mood of the day.  Just this week alone, my attire has included the likes of The Beatles, The Amazing Spider-Man, and today, The Empire Strikes Back.

Why wear a Star Wars tee shirt?  I supposed it’s because I watched Episode V of the Star Wars saga the other day and remembered why it’s one of the greatest movies ever made. At least, I think so, which certainly made for an interesting mini-debate at this morning’s news meeting.

So I figured I’d wear my tee-shirt of the original movie poster with pride.  Well, imagine my surprise when I walked in at 7am to see that one of my colleagues — Field Producer (and fellow Star Wars junkie Jason) — wearing the exact same shirt! (that’s me on the left!)

I guess it goes to show you that great minds really do think alike.  It also proves that you are what you wear, so I guess Jason and I are pretty cools guys — if I do say so myself!

-Scott Mantz

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#1 (6:50 a.m.) —

Looks like Access is on a roll, baby.

In two days, with three stories, we’ve managed to anger not only every single publicist who works at the Fox network, but, more importantly, a chunk of our audience. And during sweeps too – when programs like ours appreciate every viewer even more than we normally do. Which is a lot. Truly.

Last night, on the same night Billy delivered a sincere on-air apology for appearing to reveal who was getting booted from “American Idol,” some folks took exception to Nancy prodding “Idol” contestant Kellie Pickler into delivering a few new “Picklerisms.” To more than a few people, it looked like Nancy was having a laugh at Kellie’s expense. And not to make excuses, but having worked with Nancy for many years, I can tell you that she would never intentionally do something to someone to make them look foolish or feel bad. She’s simply too sweet for that. And that’s not the type of show we are.

That said, hopefully, from this point on, this Blog will be less about damage control and more about reporting on the daily goings on here at Access.

However, I do want to offer fair warning to anyone out there who might be angered by Mike Wallace taking a savage verbal swipe at Tom Cruise, because at about the 22 minute mark of tonight’s show, Mike is going to make it perfectly clear about what he thinks Tom can do with his opinions on psychiatry and depression. Billy was excited to sit down with Mike, and the Grand Old Man of Prime Time Journalism (Mike, not Billy) did not disappoint.

We’ve also got new interviews with Jennifer and Vince – no last names necessary – on tonight’s show, and thanks to the times they are scheduled, it’s going to be kind of a pain getting them onto the air. As of now, Jennifer will not sit down across from Nancy until sometime after noon, which is usually the cutoff time for when we can get something into an edit bay for that night’s broadcast. That means that everyone here is going to have to hustle, revise and re-feed the show much later than we normally do – especially on a Friday – so you can enjoy what she is going to say tonight. And when you look at it that way, hopefully it becomes clear that, sure, once in a blue moon we might make a mistake and do something we regret, but we also go the extra mile to get the best show we can on the air.

– Mathew Baxt