Leo Laporte Returns to G4TV

TimeForGuinness writes "Leo Laporte returns to G4TV along with the show Call For Help. It premieres Monday the 29th of August at 11am ET/8am PT. As a long time ZDTV and TechTV fan, I am happy to see him return." Agreed. Good to see him back on a cable show. The first few episode topics include: "Waterproof Your Gadgets, Find a Wi-Fi Hotspot, Tweak Your TV Tones, Network Enabled DVD Players"

Comments

That channel went to hell

[illegal_op]

after g4 took over

Re:That channel went to hell

[Seumas]

Cheats! is an awful show. Aside from it being just a dumb idea, the host is awful. Some gimpy looking ostrich-like chick who clearly knows dick about gaming telling a bunch of people how to beat a crappy console game with her oh-so-witty scripted remarks?

Filter is just as retarded. Another weird looking chick (they're trying to push the hot-chick thing for the male viewers, but aside from the punky blonde, morgan webb and sarah lane, they're all kind of below-average). And she basically presents what's nothing more than a weekly slashdot-poll/meme.

Then the stupid Arena show. A bunch of total dorksj playing games with commentary on TV. And it's so boring. *yawn*. And the host is some blockhead douchebag who probably hasn't played a game in his life and who doesn't get most of the jokes Kevin Perera throws out.

Then there's X-Play, which is okay - Adam is a smart guy even if they make him act like a spaz on the show. And Morgan... smart chick and I'd watch her read the phone book for all it matters.

Kevin Pererra is pretty funny. Kevin Rose was a good balance to him, though. I miss Rose because he added some authenticity and credibility to the show. And a little edge. He was the linux, OSS, screw the RIAA guy. Probably the best thing G4/TechTV has ever had.

Laporte and Patrick are both cool guys. Laporte explains thing so well. I actually like listening to his radio show, because while he talks about mundane windows-oriented stuff that my dog could figure out, I still learn a little bit about how to deal with explaining tech to people and after all these years, that still benefits me in my career. He has a knack for that.

Their race car/naked-whore shows are boring and retarded. If I cared about drifting or car racing, I'd fucking watch ESPN.

Mostly, I just hate all the god damned reruns. I swear to god they play X-Play 12 times per day.. and half the episodes are about games that have been out for two or three years!

Sarah Lane is pretty cool, too. I guess I just think that because I've been watching for a long time and she kind of grows on you. Plus, she's kind of hot in a petite little... nevermind, Kevin Rose might be reading this....

Brendan Moran is... well... Clealry not too tech oriented. But he's a lush. Drunks are cool.

I miss Jessika. The hot little redhead. I miss Patrick. I hoe Leo brings him back on. And Martin Sargeant and (Lauren? - his cohost) were decent. Sometimes his show sucked, but I'd rather watch that than yet another god damned rerun.

And this Cinematech thing... a half hour stretch of fucking videogame vidcaps? LAME!

Their historical stuff is really cool though. Like when they do a whole half hour or hour about the guy who invented the gameboy or Nolan Bushnell or something. Aside from Attack of the Show, that's probably the best thing they do.

You know what I wish? I wish Sean Baby was going to be the new host of Attack of the Show. I swear to god I've always hated that fucking asshole douchebag, but after watching him on the show for about two weeks, I completely changed my opinion of him. He's funny, smart and kind of charming. I don't wanna give the guy a rimjob or anything, but he was just obnoxious enough and smart enough to be fun to watch.

I guess he has his own animated show or something coming on G4 soon, though.

You had me at Hello Leo

[Anonymous Coward]

.. *glances at the TV* .. *kicks the dirt*..

*unblocks G4 from his receiver*

ok, you got me this time, but I'm not enjoying it!

What the heck...

[Ambush Commander]

For those of you who don't watch TV anymore :cough:, here's a primer: Call for Help and Leo Laporte.

Laporte Returns

[Pablopelos]

I always thought that he was fairly intelligent, but where Leo really shines is his ability to talk to non-techies about technical things. I wish they would put Kate back on also. ;)

It's about time

[dynamo52]

This is great

Ever since G4 took over, that channel has become increasingly childish and mindless. There is an overabundance of programming devoted to video games and other distractions while the "tech" element has been brushed completely aside. Even if the show is a bit basic, at least it has substance.

Re:Show for n00bs

[Seumas]

Call for Help had some good interviews. And they had some good segments (usually involving Kevin Rose and some hack or Yoshi and some mod). And yes, it was very n00b oriented. That's the point. It was a show your dad or grandma could watch and learn something from.

Attack of the Show is more like a cross between Slashdot and Fark, but clean enough for television.

Most of the content from G4/TechTV is just awful. It's too MTV-ish geared for zit-faced basement dwelling pre-pubescent kids who'll never get a date. You know, the kind of people that would think some stereotypical black guy with cornrows, bling and a funky nickname interviewing half naked asian pornstars in between showing "drift" races is "really awesome". TechTV wasn't like that. G4 has become that. Of course, G4 is owned by Viacom, which owns MTV - I believe. TechTV was owned by Paul Allen.

Most people who watch G4/TechTV don't do it because it's the best thing in the world. They watch it because it's all there is. What other tech shows are you going to watch on TV? You're not - there aren't any, unless you count a re-run of Monster Garage or a rare episode of Alan Alda hosting Nova (which is probably about my favorite non-fiction series ever on television).

Actually - I wouldn't even qualify Attack of the Show that way. That show actually is good. But everything else on the station is mediocre. Well, except for those cool 'documentary' shows about the history of gaming. That shit is pretty cool.

What I'd really like is to see some sort of a channel dedicated to learning. And then maybe a channel dedicated to science. Unfortunately, the two stations that used to be that are now "The Ladies Channel" that show nothing but "A Wedding Story" and "A Baby Story" and "A Makeover Story" and "A Dating Story" (I'm not shitting you - that's the lineup on The Learning Channel!)... and then Discovery.. I don't even know what that has these days. Probably just a bunch of send-person-out-of-town, redo-house, surprise-person shows.

Re:Show for n00bs

[Seumas]

What do you expect Leo to be?! He's a fucking television host/radio host who explains tech to average people. A lot of people at Slashdot have careers a lot like that, you know? Just because you're helping people figure their shit out instead of writing the next BitTorrent client or 200-mile wifi cantenna doesn't mean you're a n00b.

And yes, aside form his commentary, his "instructional" information could be learned from a book. You know what book? Probably the book HE WROTE. He writes an extremely popular technical almanac every year and has for quite a few years now. It's not bad. I wouldn't buy it, but if I had a tech-interested family member who was somewhat short on the actual tech experience or knowledge, I'd completely refer them to it.

Leo is a communicator. He's calm and polite and interesting and has a very smooth and helpful way of explaining things that would otherwise be very difficult for non-tech people to understand. He performs an important job in the tech industry - helping people. Some of us could learn a thing or two. If you want to draw in more customers and a larger tech community, you have to start somewhere. You're not going to get it by insulting people and turning them away if they aren't as incredibly 31337 as you and I. you're going to do it by empowering them. Help them through problems. Explain things to them. Maybe expose them to some stuff they weren't familiar with before. I gaurantee the first time a lot of people will hear about what P2P really is or wifi or the RIAA or Windows Update are through that guy.

He isn't going to tell you how to write your own software and port it to the iPod. He's going to tell you how to get your ipod to synch with your mac properly. He's not going to tell you how to create and post a bit torrent... but he'll tell you what bit torrent is and point you to some clients and some information about it.

There are a lot of hack "tech support genius" guys on the radio. They all suck and stay the stupidest shit. Laporte actually knows his stuff. You should listen to his show on KFI on the weekend some time. Or his podcast. Or watch him on TV. Or read one of his books.

Management Probably Doesn't know about it

[dthree]

This is probably the only good thing G4 has EVER done. I still can't figure out why they bought TechTV, since They killed nearly every show, and fired everyone from Screen Savers and changed the name. (Why not just make a new show and leave screen savers alone?) Oh, wait. I forgot Morgan Webb. Is her whiny, sacrastic ass really worth $300 million? Xplay is redundant, since G4 already had a game review show, and everyone hates Adam Sessler because, although he is just as whiny and sarcastic as Webb, he lacks the cleavage to hold the viewers attention and make them forget about how whiny and sarcastic they are. So basically all comcast wanted was her ablility to pull in the geek demographic while at the same time they "urbanize" the network with more hip-hop, "bling" and "whip" style. Hey, comcast! Wake the freak up and see how badly this channel is.

THIS is what happens when you let the marketing people run the programming.