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Cable | Carolla, Landis, Others Volley Verbal Punches With the Press
Occasional sparring matches between critics and panelists, networks and conference schedulers and among rival programming executives punctuated an otherwise smoothly executed and largely uneventful cable portion of this summer's Television Critics Association press tour.
The conference drew 164 critics (up from 144 in January and 156 last summer), who covered about 40 cable networks promoting their brands over four days at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills. As always, the panels generated wince-inducing questions from critics, who occasionally used the same blunt sarcasm when asking questions before a live audience as when writing a review.
This time, however, some panelists-including television personality Adam Carolla, director John Landis and actor Luke Perry-fired back.
At TLC's panel for "The Adam Carolla Project," a home renovation show hosted by the acerbic former "Man Show" host, a critic asked Mr. Carolla about his former sitcom project that "didn't last long." When Mr. Carolla informed the critic he never worked on a sitcom, the critic said, "After 15 years [of TCA] you all run together," which appeared to cause Mr. Carolla to become angry.
"Why don't you just go to the bar, write whatever shit you're going to write?" he asked. "Just write that the show sucks and leave me alone. ... Write something shitty about the show and give the mike to somebody else."
Mr. Landis likewise took offense when a critic asked the Showtime "Masters of Horror" panel whether gore was necessary for modern horror films.
"How do you know we...