Showbiz on the Web
What's New, What's Brewing
by Andy Marx

Second City, the comedy troupe that scored big on TV in the early 80s, may be heading for similar success on the Web. "Second City Headlines and News" is a satirical offering that has been chosen by the Microsoft Network as its "funny pages." Showcasing a new breed of comedians from the "Second Cities" of Toronto, Chicago, and Detroit, the show also is attracting many of Hollywood's top TV writers. including Michael McCarthy, on leave from Fox's new Jim Belushi vehicle. Wise guy Dennis Miller is slated to make an appearance, and show insiders are claiming that "SCHN," which has been picked up by MSN for another 13 episodes, may well spin off into a network TV show. What goes around comes online... Most of us believe that O.J. Simpson has overstayed his welcome in the nation's courtrooms, but E! Online wouldn't mind a bit if he stands in the dock forever. Thanks to Judge Hiroshi Fujisaki's decision to ban cameras in the courtroom, E!'s O.J. Web page has become one of the premier resources for civil trial-watchers, getting more hits than the Juice's Titleists on a bad day on the links. The site features mock video clips of the trial, with actors reading their lines from court transcripts. Viewers are invited to submit questions by e-mail to news anchor Greg Agnew and legal expert Charles Rosenberg, who answer them live on the air. With its topicality, TV/Web interaction, and high drama, this is a new-media event nonpareil. "Jeopardy" time. Answer: the quickest way to get a bunch of jaded hacks to cover the launch of another Web site. Question: what are live nude girls, Alex? Correct, for a thousand (hits, that is). When former "exotic dancer and model" Danni Ashe and her all-female cast and crew recently took the wraps off Danni's Hard Drive at a Los Angeles-area cybervenue called World Cafe, they were, briefly, the most popular women in town. Among those elbowing their way in for a look at Danni and her soft-core site were journalists from People magazine, E! Online, and The Discovery Channel-the latter presumably on an anthropological expedition. World Cafe is only the latest L.A. venue to serve up silicon on the side, with rival Cyber Java rapidly becoming a most fashionable spot. "Friends'' star Matt LeBlanc and Terminator director-writer James Cameron have been spotted surfing over the lattes. Stanley Kubrick famously drove Jack Nicholson nuts during the filming of The Shining, but Jack wasn't the only one-Stephen King, it seems, could relate. As Mick Garris, director of a new six-hour TV miniseries, tactfully puts it, "Stephen feels that the original movie was wonderful, but it was Stanley Kubrick's movie and he wanted one that would be Stephen King's movie." You can get a behind-the-scenes look at this latest incarnation of King's tale of writer's block run amok when Garris is featured on the Writer's Guild of America's Web site. In addition to having written The Fly II and Hocus Pocus, he also directed a miniseries version of King's novel, The Stand, which might explain why the horrormeister feels so comfortable about the new project.