Johanna Cox, the CW reality show contestant who won a gig at Elle magazine, recently announced that she quit Elle and moved back to D.C.

Cox, a Brown alumni who earned a Master’s from Georgetown in 2006, beat out 11 aspiring Stylista editors for the Elle job in 2008. In addition to securing a year of work at Elle, Johanna’s winnings scored her a paid year-long lease to a Manhattan apartment and a clothing allowance from H&M.

In the no-holds-barred post on her blog, Cox complained about long hours, low pay and “inter-office bitchery.”

“[W]ith the dumpster state of the economy, I knew how lucky I was to keep my tiny plot in that Broadway office,” Cox admitted in the post.

Although she’s back in D.C., don’t expect to see Cox around campus. She once told the Washingtonian, “[T]he best I can do is to tell people to avoid Georgetown at all costs, especially on the weekends. Nothing but entitled, preppy trouble in that part of town.”

Sorry Johanna, but the Curator of D.C. Style begs to differ.

Photo: CW

h/t: Jezebel

In what we can only assume will be can’t-miss television, GUTV plans to film a reality show about freshmen.

“Our reality show will follow five or six incoming freshmen through their first year at Georgetown—from budding relationships, roommate problems, to finding a place for themselves in an entirely new environment.” co-producer Alison Doyle (SFS ’13) wrote in an email.

Doyle will produce the show with Joe Mancino, a Voice contributor.

As of last Wednesday, Doyle told us that 12 incoming freshman shown interest in the show. This week, she and Mancino will hold video interviews to whittle applicants down to the final cast.

“After discussing what we wanted to get out of producing our show together, we realized that a reality show would be a perfect opportunity to learn more about all the aspects of television production and yet would still be manageable as we are both full-time students,” she wrote.

Between Darnall: The Sitcom and this untitled show, which Doyle hopes to air in the Spring, GUTV seems to be saturating the college television market with programs about freshmen. But we can’t blame them—where else can we watch the Amish sabotage elevators?

Remember when the first Lord of the Rings came out, and the end made you wonder why Peter Jackson would be so cruel as to make you wait a whole freaking year before you could see The Two Towers? I know we’ve all been sharing in that achy, anticipating feeling for the past two months, but now we can finally rejoice.GUTV has finally released Darnall: The Sitcom, episode 2!

I guess because of the lengthy delay between the two episodes, Episode 2 opens with a “previously on Darnall!” montage. But its scenes of awkward freshmen sharing uninteresting small-talk (and then getting stuck in a basement without a single functioning GoCard to swipe the door open), made me super duper excited to spend the next fourteen minutes of my life watching some awkward freshmen live their boring, day-to-day lives.

This week’s episode finds the gang doing—wait, what was the gang doing? Looking back on the episode, all I remember are short, inconsequential conversations (which I can hear a lot better now. Thanks for listening, GUTV!) about which boy is cuter and the toils of eating Grab n’ Go salads. Where’s the plot? The adventure? The romance? Did I really need to watch three minutes of “Previously on Darnall!” to understand that freshmen have incredibly uninteresting lives, which get even less interesting when you try and get people to watch them on television?

The gang eventually wound up at an awkward Henle party with about as many people in attendance as you can fit inside a Darnall closet, complete with a soundtrack of thirty-second-or-so clips of standard party songs, blended together as well as any drunk kid who grabs the iPod off the speakers would do. The party’s host passes out, and Beatrice (one of the Darnall-ers) gets rejected by Christian, who says that he doesn’t have enough time for her because he’s a basketball player. To top the heart-wrenching scene off, “Such Great Heights” by the Postal Service provides the aural backdrop.

I haven’t cried that hard since middle school.

But the best part of this month’s installation of Darnall? Awkward sexual innuendos. When two guys shoot some hoops together at the beginning of the episode, a girl comes up to them and asks if they’re “scared of a little two-on-one.” One of the dudes chuckles, and she gets confused. Now that’s high comedy.

1) Erika (previously #2)

The majority of the episode was devoted to Erika’s long, overdramatic, and incredibly irritating struggle over whether or not to stay in the house, but I wouldn’t have given her the top spot if it weren’t for her actual decision: in the end, she left! The housemates were openly happy about it (they claimed it was best for her, but they were pretty obviously getting sick of her), and the viewers were thrilled. I just feel bad for her poor boyfriend.

Choice Quotation: “D.C. is not the place to start a music career!” She uses this as reason for her to go back to Cleveland?

Moment of High Comedy: Her never-ending chain of complaints and drama is seemingly instigated by a night out at a bar, when she complains about how she has to pee and doesn’t want to wait in lines.

2) Andrew (previously #1)

Given all the horniness, the panda hats, and the completely ridiculous entertainment that Andrew has provided over the past twelve episodes, it’s no wonder we forgot about his offhanded comment in the first episode about wanting to be a cartoonist. He pursues that goal this week, and despite some initial rejection winds up with a published cartoon in the Washington Times. Plus, he gets a trip to the White House out of it, for which he unfortunately leaves the panda hat at home.

Choice Quotation: “Pressure doesn’t really motivate me. Sex motivates me. Candy, treats, these are motivational things. But yelling and mean words just make Andrew sad.”

Moment of High Comedy: When he gets a call from his boss at the Post, reminding him that his deadline was yesterday, he makes up a lie about the scanner not working and whips together a (surprisingly good) cartoon in record time.

Read the rest of this entry »

“Well, at least we don’t live in Darnall.” It’s the mantra of every Harbin resident with a leaky ceiling, every New South-er with a filthy public shower, and every Village C kid with a toilet-hating gunman on the loose.

But talk to anyone who actually lives in that hellhole, and they’ll tell you the sense of camaraderie among floormates makes it the best thing that’s ever happened to them. And now, thanks to GUTV, it’s a sitcom! That makes it campy-cool, right?

Well, if you were one of the tens of viewers who tuned into the premiere of Darnall: The Sitcom on GUTV last night, you saw that kids in this infamous residence hall live a life shockingly similar to that of any other Georgetown freshman. It’s filled with awkward floor-cestuous flirtation, irritating RAs, and slow-moving elevators. Aren’t you on crippled with laughter just thinking about it?

The premise of the show is a Friends-style living arrangement with Gilligan’s Island’s isolation. The cast is your standard, not-so-special freshmen, along with two freshman basketball players and an RA who won’t let the kids play by themselves. The episode’s climax involves a broken elevator door that leaves the gang trapped, feeble and Facebook-less in the dorm’s basement.

Read the rest of this entry »

Update 12:19 p.m.: Commenters are right—Vox took a walk down to Georgetown Cupcake and there are camera crews there already. But Vox thinks it may be a stretch to call this a reality show the same caliber as, say, Real World—owners Kallinis and LaMontagne are being asked to repeat their conversations several times before the cameras.

—

Want to be on TV? You could be, if you hang out at Georgetown Cupcake in the next couple of weeks. Local resident Carol Joynt is reporting on her blog that the Georgetown Cupcake reality show starts filming this Saturday.

“This is no Real Housewives type of production. Instead of boob jobs, cleavage, French manicures and bitch slaps, it will be buttercream icing, the secrets behind a great red velvet, the importance of one shredded coconut vs. another, and how to please all those brides,” wrote Joynt, who has been in contact with Georgetown Cupcake owners and sisters Katherine Kallinis and Sophie LaMontagne. Sounds awesome.

When Vox caught wind of the show earlier this month, we couldn’t confirm a network or name for the show. Joynt’s got both—TLC, home of Cake Boss, is producing the show, which is called Cupcake Sisters

Fine, but we still like Georgetown Cupcake: Unfrosted.

Photo from Flickr user mastermaq used under a Creative Commons license.

Bake and Wired may be gaining grassroots support in the Ward 2 cupcake wars, but so what? Sisters Katherine Kallinis and Sophie LaMontagne, who started Georgetown Cupcake just about two years ago, are getting their own reality TV series.

Local blog DC Fab! says that the show “will be an educational, how-to show that will probably showcase the special Georgetown community along with going behind-the-scenes in their bakery.” (So, less Buddy Valastro and more Paula Deen?)

So far, no one has established which network is offering these local pâtissières a show. But on her blog Oh My Goff WUSA 9′s Angie Goff said an “industry insider” told her that the show will be on TLC, the same network that hosts Cake Boss. Production is scheduled to start this month, she wrote.

This may just about make up for the loss of Blond Charity Mafia, a show about brats who fund-raise and drink in Georgetown. Vox is terribly excited to see the trailer for this one, and we can’t wait to find out what the show will be called. Georgetown Cupcake: Unfrosted? Behind the Sprinkles? Endless possibilities.

Photo from Flickr user mastermaq used under a Creative Commons license.

The Real World D.C.‘s first airdate, December 30, is close at hand—and here’s hoping RWDC has plenty of glam shots of Georgetown, because for now, it looks like that’s it for Georgetown reality show junkies looking to get their fill of “Hey, I’ve been there!” moments.

Blonde Charity Mafia, a reality show about the Late Night Shots crowd (the Georgetown-centric private social network for aspiring/alcoholic future-trophy wives and young Republicans, as Vox‘s Juliana Brint so aptly put it) appears to have gotten the ax from its network, the CW.

The Washington Post reports that the show has been removed from the CW’s website, pulled a Facebook fan page, and that its actors have been told that they are “free to search for other TV project options.” Ouch.

All this, after the show’s original airdate was already pushed back from this summer.

Reliable Source has the deets the what we’re missing out on—like “Made-for-TV” parties that the producers organized when real party hosts didn’t want to let camera crews into their homes. At one such “Welcome to Washington!” fête, one of the four starlets supposedly meets a Congressman who gave her a job. I’ll bet!

Via DCist.

Photo from the CW website.

Real World cast members

The Real World DC doesn’t premier for another month, but if this this trailer that MTV released is any indication, the eight cohabitating strangers who moved into a house in Dupont Circle in August spawned plenty of he-said, she-likes, he-slept-with drama amongst themselves. (See: “There’s just something about Callie” and “It’s about being true to yourself, being true to others, and being genuine”).

It doesn’t seem like there will be any shortage of reverent references to the show’s taking place in D.C., the seat of government, either. Several cast members are eager to prove that living in America’s capitol city made an impression on them, like Erika, who can be heard saying, “Like, that’s why our generation is so important. We’re in a position where we can take a stand on things and our voice will be heard,” while Andrew eats something microwaveable out of bowl in a panda bear hat.

OK, so it’ll be silly, standard Real World fare. But there’s reason to hope that a lot of that silliness will take place in Georgetown. Cast members were spotted barhopping all along M Street this past summer, for example. Georgetown centric or no, Vox will be running weekly episode recaps of The Real World DC —we’ll let you know who DFMO’ed with whom after too many rail drinks at Rhino.

If you need tiding over until then, the Voice‘s November 12 feature by Sam Sweeney covered The Real World, coverage of The Real World, and let us glimpse their kind souls:

So what was the cast’s relationship with the producers and cameramen like?

“As far as I’m concerned, they don’t exist,” Ty Ruff, the athletic Baltimore-native said. “It’s like mice in your house. You’re like, what the fuck, how do we get rid of these people?”

Photo courtesy Beth Ploger

This week marks Wheel of Fortune’s College Week, where the show “gives contestants the chance to pay off those pesky student loans!” and one of Georgetown’s own will be participating in tonight’s show.

Jed Feiman (COL ’12) will be competing against students from Tufts and the University of Maryland.  In his interview posted on the show’s website, Feiman says he learned to read by watching the show and that whatever money he wins will go towards paying for college and improv classes.

The show airs at 7 p.m. tonight on ABC 7.