 Oh, Boy—the Ty Pennington Lookalike Contest!
Ear to the Ground
Ed Chulmsky
Hello again, friends! If you’re like me—and I’ll just bet you are—you’re probably as thrilled as can be for this week’s Philadelphia Home Show! It’s the 28th annual installment of the home-improvement wonderland, which, I have to admit, makes me feel practically ancient! Where, oh where, does the time go?
This year’s show has plenty of attractions for sprucing up the ol’ homestead, from “eco-friendly” decorating tips to super-helpful landscaping seminars! But what I’m most looking forward to is the “I look like Ty” contest! Now, before you head over to Mitchell and Ness for a vintage Tigers jersey, I’ve gotta stop ya! Because it isn’t a contest for Ty Cobb lookalikes; it’s for Ty Pennington lookalikes! Save the Georgia Peach costume for Halloween!
For those of you who’ve been under a big ol’ rock the last few years, Ty Pennington is the super-cool host of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition! Even though he’s this year’s Home Show spokesman, he isn’t going to be there (darn it!)—so it’s up to us to “Ty things up” with our very best Pennington impressions!
I’m not usually one for the spiky hair and colorful clothes, but dang it if I don’t want to “give it the ol’ college Ty”! Not only does the winner get a $250 Home Show certificate, but he gets to be Philadelphia’s reigning Ty Pennington doppelganger—an honor in itself, if you ask me! Now, I know what you’re saying: Ed, you’re a Philly guy—why try to look like this wacky celebrity dude? And I’ve gotta admit: I just don’t know! The exciting combination of the convention center, home improvement, and the great Ty Pennington must’ve scrambled up the ol’ noggin!
So on Thursday, come visit the show, where I’ll be competing with hundreds of other Ty-rific hopefuls! And don’t be afraid to come on over and say hello—I’ll be the one who looks like Ty Pennington!
That’s all for now, folks! I’ve gotta run to the K-Mart for some hair gel and an outfit that’ll make me the life of the par-Ty! See you next time!
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Marley & Me Ads Now Truthful
January 27, 2009 –
As Marley & Me enters its fifth week in theaters, producers for the hit film yesterday announced a dramatic promotional shift in hopes of reviving its dwindling box office. “Most people were horrified to find that Marley gets put to sleep in the end—and not off-screen, either, but right there in front of you, with the whimpering and the twitching,” 20th Century Fox’s Gil Netter said at a Hollywood news conference. “By highlighting the dead-dog aspects of the film, we expect to bring in a whole new demographic.”
 Local cinema observers wondered what had taken so long. “Based on the original ads, Marley & Me looks to be a standard floppy-puppy movie—and for the first hour and forty-five minutes, it is,” said Philadelphia CityPaper’s Cindy Fuchs of the film, based on the bestseller by former Inquirer columnist John Grogan. “But then things get almost aggressively bleak—like a doggy version of Dead Man Walking.” The Philadelphia Daily News’ Gary Thompson agreed. “They’ve already made most of their money, so I think it’s a pretty shrewd move to get the Einstürzende Neubauten crowd in there,” he said. “And this way, there’s actually some honesty in the advertising.”
Grogan, however, objected to the film’s wholesale rebranding. “It pains me that they’re making it look like some kind of crushing experience, because that’s not what it’s all about,” he insisted by telephone from his Lehigh Valley home. “It’s about the happiness that a silly ol’ pup can bring you—whether or not you wind up jabbing a pointy death-needle behind his ear.” To Netter, though, that detail was crucial. “We’ve gotten a lot of complaints from customers whose kids are now scarred for life, basically,” he laughed. “Now we’re just going to cater to people who are already scarred for life.”
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