Hollywood hotshots hustle for charity in a new show from the network that brought you Celebrity Poker Showdown. Complete schedule >>The Players for the First Episode
TOM GREEN (The Tom Green Show), playing on behalf of the American Red Cross International Response Fund
HONEY LABRADOR (Queer Eye for the Straight Girl), playing on behalf of St. Jude’s Hospital
JOE ROGAN (Fear Factor) playing on behalf of the ASPCA
JOHN SALLEY (The Best Damn Sports Show Period), playing on behalf of Cedars Sinai Sports Spectacular
ANDREA SAVAGE (Significant Others), playing on behalf of Arts Share Los Angeles
MILO VENTIMIGLIA (American Dreams) playing on behalf of the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation
HARLAND WILLIAMS (Dumb & Dumber) playing on behalf of the World Wildlife Federation
DEBRA WILSON (Mad TV) playing on behalf of Create Now, Inc.
Rob Huebel
This South Carolina native now makes his home in New York, where he can be seen regularly on the stage of the Upright Citizens Brigade. In addition to his stint as host of Celebrity Pool, Rob has been seen on Bravo’s 100 Scariest Movie Moments and VH1’s A2Z, and on the big screen as “Inconsiderate Cell Phone Guy” reminding you how not to behave in Loews movie theaters.
Jeanette Lee
Known to billiard fans the world over as “The Black Widow,” this Korean-American star turned pro in 1993 and within a year became one of the top ten players on the Woman’s Professional Billiards Association tour. She led off the 1994 season with her first two championship wins. In all, she has won seventeen WPBA titles, a gold medal at the World Games and been dubbed one of the “Sexiest Female Athletes in the World” by ESPN.
————————————————————————————————————-
But…Here is what I thought about Celebrity Pool on Bravo
After 2 weeks of waiting for this show I guess you could say I had really high expectations. Those expectations only to get crushed after watching Celebrity Pool last night. It had what I expected out of the cast picked for the first episode. Tom Green doing stupid yet kinda funny antics, Debra Wilson flirting with honey and trying to make her laugh while she took a shot. John Salley smoking a cigar trying to look like a pimp and making big penis jokes. You know the usual. Don’t get me wrong. If it’s pool I’ll watch it. I love pool. And I will continue to watch Celebrity Pool on bravo for as long as it’s on. Cause this is what I love. And I would love to know who those pool sharks are in the world of tv who you never get very close to anyway. Seeing who shares the same passion as you would be awesome. Oh! and Jeanette Lee was gorgeous as always. She really knows the game and I love listening and watching her, but it would have been better with a comedian co-host. That guys isn’t funny and doesn’t know anything about the game. That’s what makes celebrity pool so good. You have a pro and a comedian host but the comedian actually knows the game and can talk about it intelligently. But that’s not the biggest issue. The problem is the format they have.
They start with 8 players matched up to make 4 teams. And the teams contain a good player and a bad player. Normal…that was expected. And then they play a race to 2 wins playing doubles. Now I love pool cause of the head to head action, so one on one is what I would have loved to see, but I do understand that for tv you want really hot stars, meaning both very beautiful people and big stars, and not all of those stars are gonna be very good at pool. So for that, Celebrity Pool I forgive you.
BUT…and I say BUT…very boldly…since you match up a good player and a bad player. You can’t then put emphasis on that CHAMPIONSHIP game that will be against a team consisting of a good and bad player. I mean Joe Rogan was a damn good player. You could tell he’s spent many nights at a pool hall in new york. And no offense to Debra Wilson who he played against in the champioinship, but she wasn’t very good. You could tell she spent many nights getting those big tattoos on her back done…as you saw from when she bent over to take a shot. So that last game…I wonder who was going to win? Joe Rogan kicked her ass…and that’s all there was to it.
Here’s my fix
The great side of this show was that I had no idea that Harland Williams, Honey (from queer eye for the straight girl), and Joe Rogan could shoot a stick like that. That’s why I was so pumped for this show. But again. I love the head to head action. So since you have big stars that can actually play. Why not match them up one on one. 4 players that can play and that are big stars playing a race to 2 then a championship match. I would love that, and I’m sure people that love pool would love that. But going back to what I said earlier…I understand. But keeping with the same format you could still have a good match at the end. 2 winning teams have a captain play their match for the championship. I mean there are a lot of ways to get this done.
If anything you could use the APA style of handicapping players. If you don’t know what I mean it’s set up like this. You are ranked by your skill level a 2 through a 10. 2 being a lower level player and 10 being the guy that will take your money. The way a match works between the to players is you have to win one less game than your skill level. So the player ranked a 10 regardless of who he’s playing has to win 9 games. And someone ranked a 5 would only have to win 4 games. So then you could have a good race between two people that one happens to be good and the other not so good.
This is just my 2 cents, and like I said I will continue to watch the show. I want it to succeed. Cause I really think it will be great for the Game of Pool. So to end, I’ll say this: “I wish Honey wasn’t a lesbian…she’s gorgeous and a pool player…I would so love to hang out with her :)”