Crazy Enough for Breakfast Cereal

I'm going to start off by saying, this is an actual product. Ochocinco has a breakfast cereal, naturally enough named "OchocincO's!

It will be available at the Newport, KY Kroger Marketplace Store and online according to Sports Business Digest. The cereal was manufactured by PLB Sports who apparently made a Terrell Owens themed breakfast cereal last year for the ever elusive Buffalo market.

This finally gives Ochocinco the edge he needs to get back into the Ron Artest insanity race. Artest's perfectly reasonable victory lap after finally earning an NBA title has given Chad ample time to make up ground. He may have started to do so with The Ultimate Catch and numerous nonsensical Batman references, but this may prove to be the coup d'etat.

How, you ask, can an endorsement deal make Chad crazier? Well, if this were a sports drink or a sneaker it simply couldn't. But this is breakfast cereal, where America's most insane creations meet to try and woo unsuspecting children to eat ever more sugary treats.

Let's take a quick look at Chad's company in the cereal aisle: Toucan Sam, Lucky the Leprechaun, Count Chocula, Captain Crunch, the Trix Rabbit, Snap, Crackle, Pop and Sunny the Cuckoo Bird (who is advertised specifically as being "co-co for Cocoa Puffs" mind you). And if you branch out to other breakfast foods you can throw in Mrs. Butterworth and Poppin' Fresh AKA the Pillsbury Doughboy. It's quite simply the most insane collection of characters ever assembled, and Ochocinco is now proudly part of it

Ron Artest, your days are numbered!

*as a final thought, do you like how instead of licensing the Bengals' jersey they just made a really shitty imitation.

**final final thought - does this put Chad in direct competition with Tony the Tiger as far as striped cereal mascots?

Ochocinco Drops His Ultimate Catch

In a story that should surprise NO ONE, reality TV star Chad Ochocinco is no longer with whichever slut won his bracket-style dating show Ochocinco: The Ultimate Catch.

Apparently he is now dating another VH1 reality star, Evelyn Lozada of Basketball Wives. I'm not really sure how if she's a basketball wife she's dating Chad, but I'd much rather assume she got divorced or something than investigate yet another terrible VH1 reality program.

According to TMZ (eww!) VH1 is "pissed at Ochocino about the relationship," as Ultimate Catch does not wrap up it's season for another few weeks. Apparently it is a "spoiler" that Chad does not stay with the girl he picks. I'm not aware of any successful relationship being started by a reality dating show, and I sincerely doubt anyone watching Ultimate Catch actually gives a damn about Chad's relationship. Clearly they're tuned in for either Chad's personality, really slutty girls making incredible asses of themselves, or both.

Anyway, let's hope VH1's alleged ire at Ocho is enough to prevent a second season of Ultimate Catch from coming to fruition. I can't take it anymore!

Lost in the Reality Shuffle

I wanted to post something about the Bengals today, given that preseason starts in mere hours. But I kind of ran the gamut on current Bengals stuff to talk about in my last few posts (minus Roseanne Barr National Anthem). But in the spirit of Who Dey, I will talk about Dhani Jones.

Dhani is the only Bengals player I've actually talked to, and it's no surprise why he was the first Bengal with his own reality show, Dhani Tackles the Globe. Jones is entertaining and engaging, and his show is actually considerably more watchable than either TO's or Chad's (including Dancing With the Stars).

OK, so I've only seen part of one episode a year ago. But I got the gist of it; Dhani goes to some non-US part of the world and learns and competes at a local sport. Usually it is something rough, like rugby or sumo wrestling or something. This description really does the show no justice, but I assure you once again that it is much better than the TO Show or Ultimate Catch.

For some reason, when Bengals reality TV shows are mentioned since the TO signing, which is frequently, DTtG rarely gets mentioned. And it's a shame, because it's totally the best one. I guess folks like VH1 better than the Travel Channel.

Anyway, the season starts in a couple of hours, so we can forget about the reality shows now. Yeah!

TO Show vs Ochocinco: The Ultimate Catch

As if Hard Knocks, Dancing with the Stars and Ochocinco: The Ultimate Catch weren't enough! In the wake of the TO signing, Bengals fans are stuck with another reality show, The T.O. Show.

Of course, the good folks at VH1.com stream full episodes (complete with even more ads for Dinner For Schmucks - seriously, this looks terrible). I felt it was due diligence to watch at least one episode. I also watch highlights from Ultimate Catch episode 2 so as to make the fairest possible comparison.

The T.O. Show:

In episode 103, Terrell goes to Manhattan for Fashion Week with one or his two assistants (the hot one; the other one is very pregnant). They have a serious of misadventures, first the assistant getting, then being booted from the larger hotel room. They then go to a fashion show where both were supposed to sit front row, but the assistant ends up losing her seat. Finally Terrell gets asked to model something on the runway later, so their plans for the rest of the day are canceled.

As the assistant was really looking forward to the trip, she is upset she keeps getting the short end of the stick. But in the end TO makes it up to her by hiring a helicopter tour of the city for the two. What a sweetheart.

It's pretty obvious that the situations are rigged and that the assistant is almost certainly an actress. It is marginally humorous though.

Ochocinco: The Ultimate Catch

In episode 102, the Ocho goes on his first two elimination round dates. Three of the four girls on these two dates are either insane or incredibly stupid or both. The funniest girl is the slightly larger black girl, who is subjected to a Ustream'd dinner date where Chad's fans informed him that despite the attractiveness of the other girl, she was a total bitch. Chad picked the funny "fat" girl.

The other date featured a girl who was supposedly funny against a born-again virgin. The "funny girl" actually promised in the elimination that she would "get down" with Chad. I'll give you one guess who Chad picked.

Conclusion:

I can't recommend either of these shows. To anyone. But if you're into Blind Date type shows and think Ochocinco is funny, I guess you'd like Ultimate Catch. And if you like really bad sitcoms, you'd probably like The T.O. Show better. I'll give the edge to The T.O. Show, because I found it much easier to sit through the whole thing (and I only watched highlights of Ultimate Catch).

When the fuck is Artest's reality show coming out?

The Ultimate Catch Episode 101 Review

The wait is over - VH1's Ochocinco: The Ultimate Catch debuted last night with 85 women meeting Chad in Pasadena, California's Rose Bowl.

Of course the 85 women thing was clearly just a play on his name/number, as he was eliminating women within minutes of seeing them for the first time. In all, he cut 68 girls over the course of an afternoon. As ridiculous as this "dating mini-camp" was, it is still a relatively fresh idea in the overcrowded genre of dating shows. Events at the mini-camp included trash talking, touchdown dances and hugging pads with pictures of Ochocinco on them.

The seventeen survivors were invited to a soiree at an LA mansion where Chad, Vikings receiver Bernard Berrian and free agent wide receiver Terrell Owens entertained the lucky ladies. Bernard let the ladies do the talking, of course discovering that some of these women are certifiably insane. TO kept trying to get the ladies numbers for himself, trying to find out if any of them weren't truly there for Chad. At the end of the night the three discussed the positives and negatives of the seventeen ladies, setting up the cliffhanger for next week. Chad will immediately cut one of the ladies and proceed to rank the other sixteen setting up an NCAA March Madness style bracket.

Ultimately, this show was quite bad. Hopefully I've given you enough of a description that you won't feel the need to watch it yourself, although you can on VH1's website. You might have to watch several soap and Starburst commercials, as well as spots for "Dinner for Schmucks" which likely only schmucks will enjoy. Overall I did like the show more than "Dancing With the Stars" if for no other reason than there were neither cranky British judges or that douche from America's Funniest Home Videos that isn't Bob Saget.

The Ultimate Catch

Attention VH1 reality TV show fans / Cincinnati Bengals fans. The two entertainment powerhouses have teamed up to bring you the reality dating show that is now (and I assume finally) titled Ochocinco: The Ultimate Catch.

Originally the show was going to be called The Tournament with Ochocinco, but the producers were scared away by my sample artwork. Anyway, in the time since the show was announced, my interest has waned enormously. The thing is, in the time since Ocho appeared on the over-rated Dancing With the Stars, I realized that I don't like VH1 reality shows. Furthermore, most avid Bengals fans probably don't like them either.
Here's a Venn Diagram expressing my point. It may not be a scientific, but I figure it's fairly accurate.

So I'll give you the newest details of the show in the event that you're still reading. The Ocho will be dating 85 women, quickly whittling the pool down to 16. These sixteen women will live in a "huge Los Angeles mansion," which could technically be one of the run down old mansions in South Central. Just sayin'

He will then pair up the women for some sort of competitive dating. Naturally one of the women will go home at the end of each of these. There will be 10 episodes this summer, running from July until the week before the regular season starts.

As bad as this show will probably be, at least it can serve as an unofficial count down until football season begins.

Wait, the Bengals Are Good Now?

The national media will always hate the Bengals. The Browns, Ravens and especially the Steelers have so many homers that for most pundits the 2006 crime spree is the only thing the Bengals conjure. But those who actually follow the Bengals closely have all reluctantly started to admit that this team is looking really good.

Just about every local Bengals publication I puruse with any regularity (with the sole exception of CBSsports) has Cincinnati poised to repeat a winning season and a playoff berth. Of course every team is optimistic after the draft, not knowing just how much production they'll get from their rookies and dreaming about the best. But Bengals fans are not the most optimistic of NFL fans - in fact outside of maybe Detroit they're probably the most pessimistic.

So it really means something when some Bengals beat writers actually give the team credit. And if every other blog in town is going to write a Bengals-to-the-Superbowl? article in May, I will not be left out. So let's look at some examples of what others are saying.

Cincyjungle.com has run posts from practically all of their writers with the proclaimation that the Bengals are poised to repeat a successful season, and in theory will be even better than last year. Pat Kirwin of NFL.com believes the Bengals are a "Tier 2" team, meaning that they should make the playoffs. Even WhoDeyRevolution, who exist to insist that owner Mike Brown shouldn't make football decisions for his team, have admitted that the Bengals, somehow, are good. I could go on.