Like we said, Jesse Ventura kicks ass

Last night's premiere of Jesse Ventura's conspiracy series on truTV averaged 1.6 million viewers, which the network says was its "biggest audience ever for a new series launch."

truTV says the ratings for Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura were up 82 percent compared to the same programming last year. Among key demos, the show was up 84 percent with males 18-34, up 74 percent with males 18-49, and up 66 percent with adults 18-49.

Compared to the previous four weeks of programming in the same timeslot, truTV says Ventura's premiere episode was up 80 percent in total viewers and in the range of 50-60 percent growth among key demos.

It was nice that Jesse gave the show some good publicity by almost twisting of the head of comedian Jim Norton on some Sirius satellite radio show.

We hear Jesse was also great with Howard Stern, but unfortunately we and most of the rest of the world didn't get to listen to that one and Howard's people aren't as generous with the viral video.

Jesse Ventura kicks ass

Jesse Ventura kicks ass. When a writer for LA Times claims he didn't "get to the bottom of anything" in the premiere episode of his new TV series, Conspiracy Theory, he stuffed it back in the wiseguy's face:

"How can you get to the bottom, with a one-hour TV show and the limited resources I have? Hey, I'm doing a lot better than you guys are! How's that for you?"

"You don't think journalists investigate anything?"

"Not much. They investigate the death of Anna Nicole Smith, which I won't be covering."

When some Boston Herald pencilneck insinuated he was a "surf bum" for taking up the sport in Baja Mexico, he shot back:

“If one were that dedicated to religion, would they be called a religion bum? No.”


And now that George Bush is safely out of the picture and GE is selling NBC, the mainstream media is getting around to reporting what Jesse said four years ago: that MSNBC pulled the plug on his talk show and benched him for the duration of his three-year contract because he didn't support the war in Iraq. That was before they went all lefty for ratings.

Jesse Ventura is investigating conspiracies Wednesday nights at 10 and the difference is that he's sincere in his beliefs and means what he says. We happen to know that because Jesse Ventura is a Tabloid Baby pal. We'll be waiting to see what he does with John Lennon, Bob Marley, Sonny Bono and Danny Gans.

I know my kid's a star & my sister's a murder victim

Did anyone notice the bizarre cross-promotion on cable television over the weekend? Tru TV's cookie cutter crime series, Missing Persons Unit, ran an episode Saturday night about how DNA technology helped police in New Jersey solve a ten-year-old missing person case, charging Stephen Alfred Vanderbeek with murdering his wife Cynthia Louise Vanderbeek back in 1995.

Appearing on the Tru TV show was Cynthia's sister, who'd reported her missing. Hey, she looked familiar! She was Sandy DiFranco-- who, with her son Gian, was a contestant on I Know My Kid's A Star on VH1-- until she was kicked off last week!

Small world.

(See a clip of Sandy on the Tru TV series here-- and by the way, I Know My Kid's A Star is a great evil show, and host Danny Bonaduce is powerfully effective-- miles away from his own reality seasons).