OXYGEN'S WHO NEEDS HOLLYWOOD? GOES LOOKING FOR DIRTY DANCING IN THE CATSKILLS

AIRDATE: 11/27/02 at 8 p.m. on OXYGEN

One-hour comedy/reality show transforms aging guests and hotel staff into variety show performers in 72 hours

Hollywood, Calif./Nov. XX, 2002 – Who Needs Hollywood?, the one-hour comedy/reality series produced by Shanda Sawyer and Katie Puckrik, drops host Puckrik and flamboyant choreographer sidekick Marvin Thornton into a fading Catskills hotel and gives them a mere 72 hours to convince aging guests, un-enthusiastic teens and hotel staff to participate in a live talent show.

“We wanted to know if Borscht Belt hotel staffs really scamper around doing Patrick Swayze-like mambo moves,” Shanda Sawyer, Executive Producer, said. “Could love really bloom between a smoldering hotel employee and an ingénue-like guest,” she asked?

In this episode titled, “Oy – So this is the time of my life?”, Pukrick and Thornton rally the community of the Raleigh Hotel - guests, staff and entertainers – to put on a show that celebrates the colorful characters and zany traditions of these old-school resorts.

The Raleigh Hotel, billed as, “the Catskills’ Liveliest Luxury Resort for the Entire Family” is one of the last surviving Borscht Belt hotels that thrived in the region in the 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s. Now struggling to revive interest in the area as a vacation getaway for a new, more ethnically diverse generation of budget travelers, the Raleigh holds proud to its traditions of bingo, corny comics and mambo lessons. In fact, the hotel’s dance director is none other than Jackie Horner, whose life story provided inspiration for the hit film Dirty Dancing.

From the radiant young lovers to the reluctant chorus line of elderly staff members, this episode of Who Needs Hollywood? celebrates the classic Catskills showbiz tradition: the triumph of the underdog.

The show airs on the Oxygen network at 8:00 PM PDT and EDT, November 27, 2002.

About Who Needs Hollywood?

Executive producers Shanda Sawyer and Katie Puckrik have created a genre-busting series that melds reality with comedic improvisation for an eccentric yet heartwarming look into human nature. Who Needs Hollywood? is a quirky comedy/reality show that celebrates the human spirit and the power of creativity to bring a community together. The show follows host Puckrik and her flamboyant companion, choreographer Marvin Thornton, into various locales including “Exotic World” (in Hellendale, Calif.) and the Catskills (in New York), where they must cast, write and perform a local talent show in 72 hours. The show airs on the Oxygen Cable Network.

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