New York, NY – 1972: David Carradine karate chops his way onto TV as America’s favorite faux Asian. 2003: muchmusic usa, the nation’s only viewer-driven, all-music cable network, fuses old martial arts films with new music and comedic voiceovers in new TV series, Kung Faux. The new series premieres on muchmusic usa Friday, April 4 at 9:30 PM.
Kung Faux is the first-ever television venture of Tommy Boy Films, a new television and film division created by the legendary independent music label Tommy Boy.
The weekly, half-hour series will air Fridays, from 9:30-10 PM (ET), rounding out muchmusic usa’s iconoclastic Friday-night line-up, which includes Behind the Music that Sucks, a new series airing Fridays from 9-9:30 PM. Both air as part of muchmusic usa’s new Fuse Friday all-day programming that features new series premieres and special episodes of ongoing series.
“We’re pleased to partner on Tommy Boy Films’ first foray into television,” said muchmusic usa President Marc Juris. “Like so much of muchmusic usa’s programming, Kung Faux brings music – in this case, hip hop – to our viewers in a totally unexpected and uniquely entertaining way.”
“Kung Fu and Hip Hop are like burgers and fries, they go together. Kung Faux is an artful melding of the two most important cultural phenomena to rise from the streets of urban America. Kung Faux is to this decade what Andy Warhol’s soup can was to the 70’s and Keith Haring was to the 80’s. Not since Afrika Bambaataa made “Planet Rock” have I been so excited about a project that is bound to become a cult classic,” stated Tommy Boy President Tom Silverman.
Tommy Boy Films Director Mic Neumann explains even further, “Tommy Boy Films is following the same formula used in the creation of hip-hop music. We’ve taken existing product, and re-mixed it with new music and talented artists, new technology, and a healthy sample of pop culture to create a new genre that we call ‘dubtitled’ and a new brand called Kung Faux.”
” Kung Faux is the spawn of video game and comic book imagery combined with hip hop metaphor and slamming music,” added Silverman.
Tommy Boy Films has assembled a top-notch production crew for Kung Faux, including: Julian Bevan, the former creative director for The Shooting Gallery; Alan Oxman, the editor for most of Todd Solondz’s films including “Happiness” and “Storytelling”; and Jennifer Ruff, whose work includes “Boys Don’t Cry,” and “Y Tu Mama Tambien.”
Immediately following the launch of the series on television, episodes one and two of Kung Faux will be available on DVD on April 8th 2003. Kung Faux – Volume One will contain such functions as a “Karaoke” version of each episode in which viewers can interject their own dialogue. Each DVD will also feature commercials from some of the hottest companies such as Rockstar Games, And 1 and PONY. This release will mark the first time commercials have been intercut on a commercially available DVD. Kung Faux – Volume Two is due out in June. For more information visit, www.kungfaux.com.
This year marks the 22nd anniversary of Tommy Boy, a label that has released gold, platinum and multi-platinum albums by artists such as Everlast, Queen Latifah, Coolio, Naughty By Nature, De La Soul, Digital Underground, Afrika Bambaataa and House of Pain. Those artists have established Tommy Boy as one of the most successful independent and globally recognized record labels in the history of the music business.
muchmusic usa is one of cable’s fastest growing networks, with the largest per household concentration of teen viewers (Nielsen Universe, February 2003). It is distributed in more than 30 million cable homes nationally, via leading cable operators like Time Warner and satellite services including DirectTV. The network programming, which includes music videos and live concerts in an all-music-all-the-time format, is viewer-influenced and generated. On muchmusic usa, viewers voice their opinions, influence what’s on the air, participate in discovering new music, and even create music video programming to air on the network. For more information, visit www.mmusa.tv.
A leader in sports, news and entertainment programming, Rainbow Media Holdings, Inc. is a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corporation (NYSE:CVC). Rainbow owns and manages AMC, WE: Women’s Entertainment, IFC (The Independent Film Channel), muchmusic usa, Mag Rack, Rainbow Sports Networks, News 12 Networks, and MetroChannels as well as the Rainbow Advertising Sales Corporation and Rainbow Network Communications. Rainbow is a 50 percent partner in Fox Sports Net and has a strategic partnership with MGM (NYSE:MGM), which owns a 20 percent stake in three of Rainbow’s national networks: AMC, WE: Women’s Entertainment, and IFC.