THIS WEEK IN XENER  NEWS...  
TWXN 97
08/08/97
Friday

The advance sheet of XENA MEDIA REVIEW (XMR):
http://xenafan.com/xmr

Excerpts from the following cites will appear in future
issues of XMR.


From the editor:

1. XMR #24, due to be released on Monday Aug. 11, 1997,
will be a day or so late. I have to be in San Jose on
that Monday. It will get out as soon after that day as
possible. 

2. It has come to my attention that some people have
been quoting me without my knowledge or permission.
Although some parts of the information I have been
forwarded may have some validity, the information
somehow got garbled and is being presented in a way
which does not represent my original meaning when and
if I said it. My only advice at this point is to not
believe anything attributed to me unless you were
actually hearing it from ME in an on-line chat room, a
real-life fest, or reading it from an e-mail or on
WHOOSH or XMR. Please be aware that I cannot be
responsible for anything said by someone else
purporting to be speaking on my behalf. If you have any
questions, please feel free to write me at
ktaborn@lightspeed.net

3. It's Friday so we are going to have a commentary-
lite issue! 


Here's the stuff:


[    ] 03-24-97
   THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS. Monday. Page 1C. 937 words.
"Regis and Kathie Lee have no secrets from us" By Ed
Bark
   EXCERPT:
   ...Ex-cellent!
   The new TV Guide, which focuses on religion in prime
time, includes a telephone survey in which readers were
asked which TV character is "most destined for hell."
   Topping the list, with 20 percent of the vote, is
bossman Montgomery Burns of The Simpsons.  He's trailed
by Dr. Michael Mancini of Melrose Place (15 percent);
"Cigarette Man" of The X-Files (10 percent); Newman of
Seinfeld (3 percent); Mimi Bobock of The Drew Carey
Show (2 percent); Bill McNeal of NewsRadio (1 percent)
and Callisto of Xena: Warrior Princess (1 percent). 
   One problem with this survey: 40 percent of
respondents answered "Not sure."...


[    ] 03-24-97
   BRANDWEEK [formerly Adweek Marketing Week]. 529
words. "Ehrlich Plugs Kids into Turner Pitch" By Becky
Ebenkamp
   EXCERPT:
   ...Berlin Ties Universal Farm to Promos 
   Talking pigs, hungry dinosaurs and flying squirrels.
All are under the domain of Lisa Berlin, appointed in
January as vp-promotions for Universal Studios Consumer
Products Group in Universal City, Calif. The post
involves devising "original, creative promos that make
a difference in our partners' businesses," tying into
Universal's theatrical releases, home videos and TV
programs. Her first assignments have been licensing
products for May's Lost World: Jurassic Park release,
and ties with TV characters Hercules and Xena, which
link to Carl's Jr. in July. Berlin eyes serving as a
"marriage broker between packaged goods and our
entertainment properties." The plan, she said, is to
"make a difference in their sales and exposures, and
use our property in its integrity." Next year's
projects will involve "classic characters" Babe, Woody
Woodpecker and Rocky and Bullwinkle. Previously, Berlin
was vp-promotions at Hamilton Projects, a unit of
Spelling Entertainment, where she worked with Beverly
Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place. 


[    ] 03-25-97
   ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE. Tuesday. Page 1e. 1775
words. 'Teach your children well" by Michael Storey
(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
   EXCERPT:
   ...The Critical Viewing Project has produced a tape.
Taking Charge of Your TV is a free four-minute
instructional video narrated by talk-show host,
concerned parent and admitted TV junkie Rosie O'Donnell
(see box)....
   ...four steps to better tv
   But it all starts with awareness. Taking Charge of
Your TV is a good place to start. The video gives
parents a quick four-step program that will help them
help their children be wiser viewers.
   1. Television programs and their messages are
created to achieve specific results....
   ...2. Each person interprets what he sees on TV
differently.
   Depending on age, sex and life experiences, children
will get a variety of messages from a television
program. In other words, the adventure show a
10-year-old thinks is a hoot may scare the pants off a
5-year-old.
   The monsters in Xena: Warrior Princess may be great
fun for an older child, but can give a younger one
nightmares. The nature show where the lion eats the
zebra may be educational to some and terrifying to
others.
   The video suggests parents watch TV with their
children and actively discuss what's being shown.
   3. Television violence takes many forms....
   4. TV programs are used to sell something....


[    ] 03-26-97
   THE TIMES-PICAYUNE. Wednesday. Page E1. 1192 words.
'Meter Made. New Nielsen Rating 'Meters' Offer New
Insight into What We're Watching" By Mark Lorando
   EXCERPT:
   They have spent millions of dollars installing the
most sophisticated audience-measuring equipment money
can buy in TV homes throughout the New Orleans area.
And here is what the Nielsen Ratings Company has
concluded:
   WWL is the most popular TV station in the city.  
   To which the residents of the area's 620,000 TV
homes may wish to respond:
   Well, duh....
   ...Keeping in mind that a rating point is the
percentage of the area's roughly 620,000 TV homes, and
a share the percentage of homes watching TV at the
time, here's what nearly two months of Nielsen
overnights have told us....
   ...With a mere 7 percent share of the audience,
"Ellen" barely beat out "Xena" on WNOL, and had about
1,000 fewer viewers than an Urkel rerun at 3:30 that
afternoon....


[    ] 03-28-97
   ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY. Page 6. 460 words. "Mail"
   EXCERPT:
   ...ROAD WARRIOR
   Xena is an icon for the '90s on and off the screen.
When some jerk cuts me off on the freeway, I don't get
angry. I envision Xena, somersaulting and war-whooping
down from an overpass. Landing on the hood of his car,
she raises her chakram, looks him square in the eye,
and says with smirking disgust, "Hey pal, where's the
fire?" 
   VICKI NADSADY Santa Monica, Calif....


[    ] 03-29-97
   THE GUARDIAN (London). Page 4. 667 words. "New
Station, New Faces"
   EXCERPT:
   ...XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS
   Lucy Lawless plays television's "feistiest female"
in this adventure series set in mythical ancient
Greece. In abbreviated body armour, and pursued by an
evil warlord, Xena roams between the innocent and the
forces of darkness. Lawless gives the lie, according to
Channel 5, to the idea that you cannot combine combat
-readiness with an alluring decolletage....


[    ] 03-30-97
   THE TORONTO SUN. Sunday. Page S6. 494 words. "Tanks
for the Memories, Thomas" By Jim Slotek
   EXCERPT:
   I once shared a flight to L.A. with Michael Hirsch,
of the busy Toronto animation house Nelvana. And the
subject of conversation turned to planes, trains and
automobiles.
   Although not in that order. Hirsch -- a fellow
parent-of-males -- shared his professional observation
that, from toddlerhood, a boy's fascination goes from
toy trains to toy cars to toy planes (and thereafter,
I'm guessing, to Xena: Warrior Princess)....


[   h] 03-30-97
   THE TIMES-PICAYUNE. Sunday. Page T7. 698 words.
"Cherchez Peta Wilson" By Shalmali Pal (Staff Writer)
   EXCERPT:
   There probably are ventures "La Femme Nikita," the
humane hitwoman with her own USA series, can do better
than Peta Wilson, the Australian actress who portrays
her. Like blow up a van full of thugs or download
military secrets in seconds, for example....
   ...Such tough talk has landed "La Femme Nikita" in
the same boat as "Xena: Warrior Princess," as a tribute
to the pugnacious female. But Wilson is not convinced
that les hommes are actually seeing the real beauty of
strong-willed women....


[    ] 03-30-97
   THE INDEPENDENT (Manchester?). Sunday. Page  22.
1179 words. "Where my pitches had to pop; With 'Men
Behaving Badly' Simon Nye made
his name as one of the funniest writers in British
television. But did that mean our man could cut it in
the gag factory of Los Angeles?" By Simon Nye
   EXCERPT:
   ...American culture rubs a lot of people up the
wrong way, especially if you won't take the rough with
the smooth. In TV terms this means taking the hugely
successful Xena: Warrior Princess with ER, the
infomercials with Larry Sanders and The Simpsons.
Jingoism on both sides of the Atlantic blurs the rather
dull truth: that the ratio of good to bad shows is
probably the same in both countries....


Notices:

All back issues of XMR and TWXN are available at
(http://xenafan.com/xmr). We herein give praise and
thanks to Tom Simpson for the space he has graciously
donated from his spectacular, TOM'S XENA PAGE
(http://xenafan.com). If you have never been there, you
are **not** a xenafan!

TWXN is the advance sheet for XMR, an annotated world
press review of reports regarding the internationally
syndicated television show XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS (1995
- 2000+?) and the castmembers, Lucy Lawless and Renee
O'Connor. TWXN is not available for subscription,
however it is posted Monday, Wednesday, and Friday on
the XenaVerse, Hercules-Xena, and Chakram Mailing Lists
(thank you Lucia! I am greatly indebt to you), the MCA
NetForum, the Xenite Message Center, and alt.tv.xena. I
also would like to thank sirvin@law.wfu.edu for
assitance in collecting the newstories. For a free
e-mail subscription to XMR subscribe by e-mail to
ktaborn@lightspeed.net by stating somewhere in the
subject or text "sub xmr". 


