This is the first promo for A&E’s “Teach: Tony Danza,” which premieres October 1st. After initially planning to teach in New York City, Danza spent last year teaching at Northeast High School in Philadelphia. Here’s the YouTube description:

After more than 30 years in entertainment as an actor, talk show host, Broadway star, cookbook author, pro boxer and song and dance man, Tony Danza faces his toughest audience to date – high school students. Long before the launch of Danza’s showbiz career, he hoped to be a teacher and even earned a degree in history to pursue that dream.

I don’t want to crap in this punch bowl, but I’m not exactly bowled over by the way the trailer portrays Danza as some kind of hero for leaving showbiz to become a teacher. I’d be more impressed with Danza becoming a teacher if it wasn’t for a reality show, and if I were going to watch a reality show about teaching, I’d prefer to see one about actual teachers.

But hey, congratulations on teaching for a single year, Tony Danza. Do it for another 20 or 30 years and you’ll be as admirable as a real teacher.

[Philly.com]

Despite how hilarious it is with a laugh track, “Intervention” tackles addiction with an unprecedented level of success: of the 161 addicts featured on the show over the last five years, an astounding 130 of them are still sober. In an article for The Daily Beast, the annoyingly talented Natasha Vargas-Cooper (author of The Footnotes of Mad Men and the new book Mad Men Unbuttoned) examines the show’s dedication to recovery:

Take into account the high recidivism of drug offenders going back to jail, the chronic relapsing of people who have passed through state-based rehab programs, and anyone who has dealt with an addict in his or her personal life, the 71 percent recovery rate [sic: it's 81%] is, by any standard, astonishingly high. It is a number the producers of the show tout, not only because it’s impressive, but because they believe it is accurate. After the participants go through the show and complete rehab, Intervention has a dedicated staff member to do check-ins with participants, put them in touch with other support groups, and send out sobriety birthday cards.

Key aspects of the success rate include a 90-day stay at a rehab facility (instead of the standard 28 days) and the interventionists educating the addicts’ family and friends about how to stop their enabling habits. If you like the show, I strongly recommend the entire article.

What I want to know is how addicts are still falling for the “documentary about addiction” premise that gets them on the show. Really, guys? No one’s picked up on the ruse? Frankly, I expected more from people with inhalant addictions that go through ten cans of computer duster a day.

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Yesterday, I highlighted a GQ article in which Zach Galifianakis said that “if they put a laugh track on Intervention, it would be funny.” And then I stood atop a mountain with wi-fi and blogged, “INTERNET, MAKE IT SO!”

The gods of the Internet responded, selecting a portion of the “Intervention” episode about Corinne, a diabetic heroin addict who shoots up three to six times a day. The video’s creator, clippy2988, even added a slide whistle sound effect to Corinne snorting a line of smack. Delightful.

Things like this and the time I asked for M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” with dogs barking and cats screeching always make me feel so powerful. Part of me wants to press my luck and see just how much the Internet can deliver. “Internet, kill the hobo who asked me for change yesterday!”

A&E has ordered a show from Ryan Seacrest’s production company called “The Incurables.” I based my headline and the banner photo on the assumption that it’s about people with terminal illnesses like cancer and full-blown AIDS.

The cable network, home of such docu series about afflictions asIntervention, Obsessed and Hoarders, has ordered a pilot for The Incurables, which will offer a look into the lives of ordinary people on the verge of a personal crisis over their irrational behavior.

Each 60-minute episode would feature [British self-help guru Paul] McKenna trying to help two ‘incurable’ people with different psychological and/or physical conditions using his transformation techniques. Examples include the uncontrollable shouting and bizarre facial tics of a man suffering from Tourettes Syndrome and the shocking sight of a woman pulling out and eating her own hair (Tricotilla Mania). [Deadline]

Aw, dammit. That messes up my headline. The Incurables are actually curable? That’s crap. I want a show where the doctors come in and are like, “Well, not much we can do now but make sure he’s comfortable.” Then the last twenty minutes of the show is slow-motion shots of the family crying. Coming to ABC next fall!

Pictured: the lasting societal worth of reality television

Reality TV producers gathered in Santa Monica on Wednesday and Thursday for a conference in which they told each other how much reality TV benefits society and complained about how their genre — Factual Entertainment, they call it — is unfairly maligned. Then they finished with a big circle jerk (citation needed). From the WaPo’s Lisa de Moraes:

“I firmly believe it’s the most socially valuable product on television,” Rob Sharenow, senior vice president of nonfiction programming at A&E network told a Fairmont Hotel ballroom filled with people who nodded sympathetically…

“Who did more for a gay child struggling with their identity than Pedro did?” Sharenow asked rhetorically. He was referring to Pedro Zamora, the AIDS activist who became a pop-culture icon when he was cast on MTV’s “The Real World: San Francisco” and died not long after that edition of the reality series wrapped.

Oh, an example from 17 years ago! So timely, especially with the continuing AIDS pandemic. Hey everybody, remember when “The Real World” was about something besides people getting drunk and screwing?

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