Leno to Get Makeover from 'Queer Eye' Guys
Mon Aug 4, 5:43 PM ET Add Entertainment - Reuters to My Yahoo!
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Is a "Queer Eye" plus Jay Leno (news - Y! TV)'s big chin the right look for good ratings? The NBC television network thinks so.
With new reality series "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" having become a breakout summer hit for the Bravo cable TV channel, Bravo parent NBC said on Monday it will bring the show's "Fab Five" make-over artists onto "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" for a pair of special appearances next week.
The "Queer Eye" quintet will make their "Tonight Show" debut as guests on Aug. 14, then return the following night to give Leno and his program a special make-over.
"Queer Eye," which has become a major ratings winner for Bravo, features five gay men with expertise in good grooming, food, fashion, culture and interior design coming to the aid of a hapless heterosexual slob. The hour-long show has drawn the cable channel's highest audience numbers ever.
An initial half-hour repeat of the show on NBC proved to be a solid ratings performer, and "Queer Eye" hype has continued to build in U.S. popular culture since that special broadcast. NBC plans to air a second 30-minute prime-time installment on Aug. 14, the same evening as the Fab Five's debut on Leno.
While audiences have taken warmly to "Queer Eye," some of the nation's top TV critics have been mixed in their reviews.
"In this long summer of instantly disposable reality TV, cable's Bravo channel manages to break through the pathetic pack by slyly subverting one of the genre's conventions," TV Guide critic Matt Roush wrote in this week's issue. "Yes, the 'Fab Five' can be bitchy, but as they bond with their subject, there's a lot of heart in the way they root for him."
Washington Post critic Tom Shales took a different tack, though, in his initial review of the show.
"Forced to choose between scorn and condescension, gay people could hardly be blamed for preferring the latter -- and thus might not object to the stereotypes on parade in the series," he said last month.
NBC and Bravo are owned by General Electric Co.
'You can cruise for women; we'll cruise for men,' quips Carson Kressley, the flamboyant fashion consultant on cable television channel Bravo's new smash hit, 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,' to his straight companion. It is a message not lost on advertisers, who are taking a closer look at reaching the gay and lesbian market with a batch of summer programs highlighting gay-versus-straight themes. The show's cast are (L-R) Thom Filicia (Design Doctor), Ted Allen (Food & Wine Connoisseur), Carson Kressley (Fashion Savant), Kyan Douglas (Grooming Guru) and Jai Rodriguez (Culture Vulture). Photo by Craig Blackenhorn/Bravo/Reuters