Television

Got to Be Real

‘The Cho Show’ promises to explore a previously unchartered territory.

TVMargaretCho
Margaret Cho

Say you need a witty and well-spoken host for your new television reality show who is unafraid of exploring such cosmopolitan topics as anal bleaching and G shots. Who you gonna call?

Margaret Cho, of course.

VH1 has announced the addition of The Cho Show to its stable of programming that already includes reality classics like Hogan Knows Best, Scott Baio is 46 . . . And Pregnant, and three remarkable seasons of aging rapper Flava Flav’s Flavor of Love.

In the semi-scripted seven episodes, Cho is shored up not only by her “glam squad gays,” but also her diminutive assistant Selene Luna, a real-live “little person.” Taking a ratings-busting clue from her comedy cohort/reality show queen, Kathy Griffin, Cho also brings along her parents (now famous in their own right, thanks to Moran’s [Cho’s Korean birth name] hysterical stand-up impressions) for the ride.

Eighteen years after her ill-fated All American Girl sitcom on ABC (she wasn’t Asian enough, remember?), Cho tells the Los Angeles Times the new series is a poo-poo platter of “Madonna’s Truth or Dare, Joy Luck Club, and Little People, Big World.”

It’s not all show for Cho, though. One Saturday this past June, she was sworn in as a deputy marriage commissioner at San Francisco’s City Hall so she could perform weddings.

“Getting to preside over these actual ceremonies—these rites of rights that were so hard won and precious and still could be taken away at any second—it was a profound and beautiful thing,” she recount on her blog.

That’s our Margaret. So real.

By the way, G shots are collagen boosters injected “down there” to plump up a woman’s sometimes-elusive G Spot. Ouch.

Debuts August 21 on VH1 (www.vh1.com).
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‘The Black List, Volume 1′
Openly gay choreographer Bill T. Jones is among a cadre of heavy-hitting influential African Americans profiled in the documentary by filmmakers Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and Elvis Mitchell. Jones shares his personal insight regarding “the struggles, triumphs, and joys of black life in the U.S.,” alongside Sean Combs, Lou Gossett Jr., Vernon Jordan, Toni Morrison, Chris Rock, Rev. Al Sharpton, and others. Debuts August 25, 8 p.m., on HBO (www.hbo.com).

The unfiltered aspirant to George Carlin’s now-empty throne returns for a sixth season to shake up the political status quo with his rotating panel of pundits. With the presidential election just months away, they’ll likely have plenty to banter about. What’s more, Real Time appropriately prepares fans’ palettes for Maher’s own October surprise, a feature-length film entitled Religulous. Returns August 29, 10 p.m., on HBO (www.hbo.com).

BillMaher
Bill Maher

‘Real Time with Bill Maher’

‘Food Detectives’
Culinary expert and author Ted Allen is trying hard to shake off his one-note Queer Eye for the Straight Guy personae — not that there is anything wrong with having a queer eye. This new six-episode series combining foods with fun scientific facts may be just the vehicle to propel him to Alton Brown-level credibility. Ted is accepting foody questions like “Is the five-second rule true?” at asktedallen @ foodnetwork.com. Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. on Food Network (www.foodnetwork.com).

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