The most major news first: Lloyd Robertson’s last-ever newscast will be September 1, 2011.  Nothing’s going to top that, so here’s some news from the past two days that I haven’t covered yet.

Ed the Sock’s This Movie Sucks! (CHCH/CHEK/CJNT: second season premiered Saturday, September 25, 2010, midnight ET/PT) is one of those “if they find it, they find it” shows common to Canadian television.  Viewers and fans have most likely found new information about TMS! from this CHCH press release and, well, me.  Ed the Sock’s website is still “under construction,” while CHCH’s website is occupied with news and the odd full episode of Sportsline.

That’s a shame, since the second-season premiere of This Movie Sucks! is the best of the series.  There are still production problems – Ed the Sock points out that TMS!’ set is disintegrating in the season premiere.  The TMS! set looks slapped-together to begin with, so curtains don’t make a difference.

This Movie Sucks! has by now become a triad of Liana K, Ed the Sock and Ron Sparks.  Andrew Young’s on-screen role has been diminished by now, and he doesn’t even appear on TMS!‘ second-season premiere.  ”Naked Dave” Ross, so named since he shows his bare torso off in many different costumes, does.

By now, This Movie Sucks! is comfortable in its riffing.  TMS! does an excellent takedown of Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter.  Fart jokes still exist on this show, but TMS! by and large points out plot holes in Jesse James… Quick Draw McGraw can see.

Naked Dave even dresses up as Jesse James…‘s featured monster.  The monster has a bare torso, so that’s his excuse.

Longtime sweetposer.com readers might remember my review of The Master six years ago.  TMS!‘ print of The Master looks exactly like Platinum Disc Corporation’s.  I’m not saying TMS! cribbed the print from a DVD, but it looks washed-out and soft.  CBS Corporation now owns the series, so I have no idea how The Master is public domain.

The Master is awesomely slapdash.  It plays fast and loose with ninja lore, which isn’t surprising for a show starring Lee Van Cleef.  1980s ninja archetype Shô Kosugi is wasted as chief antagonist Okasa.

Hell, in some scenes Kosugi is Van Cleef’s stunt double.  Don’t ask me how that works.  Ask Michael Sloan.  He created the show.  The man had a fetish for ass-kicking older men back then.

Timothy Van Patten, now an accomplished television director, mushmouths his way through lame dialogue as Max Keller.  Van Cleef’s doubles look visibly thinner than the actor himself.  It’s Kung Fu meets The A-Team, right down to the custom-painted van and miscasting of a western star.  NBC would air anything in the early 1980s.

The riffing of The Master is as good as Jesse James…‘ riffing.  Granted, it’s The Master.  Mystery Science Theater 3000 based two episodes around the Master Ninja pseudofeatures this show became.  The Master is a no-brainer to riff.

Also, This Movie Sucks! has Roninja.  Allegedly, this is a ronin whose parents have been killed by the Yakuza Gang.  To that end, the ronin becomes a ninja, fighting crime at night.  Ron Sparks may or may not be Roninja.  Look it up on Wikipedia.

I hope This Movie Sucks! comes into its own this “season.”  The series has pretty much been bashed into shape, much like MST3K was in the pre-Comedy Central days.  I can’t see TMS! “graduate” to a higher budget or Showcase any time soon, but I’ll be happy if the show doesn’t cycle the first six episodes like it has this summer.  There’s only so much one can take of Wild Women of Wongo.

Since Ed the Sock’s This Movie Sucks! debuted on May 28, 2010, the show has been a popular search topic for URBMN.  Channel Zero recently announced a “renewal” of sorts for TMS!, in this press release for CHCH’s second year under Channel Zero ownership.

The show will have two new episodes in the coming weeks, according to Channel Zero’s Sonya Davidson.  August 28, 2010 will be what Davidson terms an “E3 Special,” which I assume means TMS! will visit/make fun of the Electronic Entertainment Expo.

September 18, 2010 will be the “season premiere,” though it’s really the seventh episode.  The schedule since c. July 2010 has been one new episode followed by two to three reruns.  There have been re-edits of the Attack from Space and Bride of the Gorilla episodes, as well as new opening credits.

At this point, This Movie Sucks! is definitely not as slick as Mystery Science Theater 3000 in its prime.  I’m not aware of MST3K in its KTMA days being as sloppily-edited as TMS! often is.  At least Charlene Zacks was turfed after the initial outing.

Ron Sparks’ involvement with This Movie Sucks! varies by episode, and Andrew Young is now well-established as chief butt monkey.  I don’t know what kind of a budget TMS! has to work with, but it certainly isn’t playing with CityTV scratch.

The show’s still a “find out at midnight Saturday to see if it’s a new episode” affair, but that’s due more to lack of publicity than anything.  At least TMS! actually re-edits weaker episodes.  You would not believe how much the Bride of the Gorilla episode has improved with actual riffing.

With this and CHCH’s new version of Sportsline, it’s like CHCH wants to assemble some weird amalgamation of “classic” Toronto television.  I mean, Mark Hebscher‘s hosting nü Sportsline.  Now all we need is a Just Like Mom revival…oh, shit.

Addendum (September 19, 2010 – 12:28 AM) | According to Channel Zero’s Sonya Davidson, new episodes of This Movie Sucks! will now air September 25, 2010.

I’ve known about this change since September 17.  I decided to wait until shortly after This Movie Sucks! aired in its usual time, just to see if CHCH would air yet another rerun.  It has.  As of the time I write this, the second version of Attack from Space is being rehashed.

I’m not even expecting a new episode for September 25, the way things are going.  I apologize for being late with this news, but I just don’t understand the show’s production schedule.  I’ve given TMS! a pass for a few months, but come on.  Geek-O-Rama just doesn’t cut it.

The first episode of Ed the Sock’s This Movie Sucks! (CHCH/CHEK/CJNT/Silver Screen Classics/Movieola: debuted May 29 at midnight ET/PT) is strictly amateur-hour, not the best of comebacks for Ed the Sock.  The show promises a celebration of bad movies.  All This Movie Sucks! celebrates in its initial outing is how half-baked it is.

Ed and Liana K are flanked by Ron Sparks, Andrew Young and Charlene Zacks.  Ed makes with the insults.  Liana throws popcorn, while Sparks and Young lob token wisecracks.  Bride of the Gorilla is screened, largely free of Ed’s cutting wit.

This doesn’t play to Ed’s strengths, since Bride of the Gorilla is boring as hell.  Raymond Burr is cursed by a witch doctor, becoming a gorilla mentally and/or physically.  It’s a weregorilla film that half-asses on the monster itself.  Bride of the Gorilla cries out for a riffing that never comes.

I don’t know what to make of Charlene.  She’s gap-toothed and awkward.  I’m not even sure if she’s acting.  Charlene and Ed play off each other, not that it makes This Movie Sucks!‘ debut more watchable.

This Movie Sucks!‘ debut goes for a Dinner and a Movie-type format, the worst format a show like this could pick.  Ron Sparks is almost completely wasted.  Even Ed the Sock creator Steven Kerzner states how bad the first episode is in the closing credits, calling TMS!‘ debut a “beta test.”

This touch-and-go approach to show creation is almost gone from North American television.  This Movie Sucks!‘ debut should have been better thought out, but this is CHCH in the Channel Zero era.  You can painfully see the feeling-out process firsthand.  At least This Movie Sucks! is honest about its own shittiness.

Here are the first four minutes of This Movie Sucks!, from CHCHnewsfan’s Youtube account.  I wonder if Charlene Zacks will appear on This Movie Sucks! in the future.  She might be to TMS! what Beeper is to Mystery Science Theater 3000.

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The second episode of This Movie Sucks! has Ed and Liana K embrace the Mystery Science Theater 3000 house style.  The riffing on TMS! isn’t nearly as clever as on MST3K, but it’s adequate enough.  After TMS!‘ first episode, there’s nowhere to go but up.

Wraparounds for the second episode have Ed and the gang attend Anime North 2010.  Ed explains that the studio shoot for this episode is so terrible, they’re scrambling to fill time.  Young and Sparks are still around, yet Zacks is nowhere to be seen.  Thirty minutes of airtime have also been excised.

Attack from Space is the target of Ed and Liana’s riffing.  The “film” stitches together two Super Giant short films, The Artificial Satellite and the Destruction of Humanity and The Spaceship and the Clash of the Artificial Satellite.  Super Giant is redubbed Starman for American audiences.

The dubbing is of 1960s standard.  Dialogue is heavy.  A narrator neatly delineates the plot – well, as much of it as he can, considering Attack from Space‘s ill-thought-out nature.  We’re talking about a film where Starman’s wings flap in the vacuum of space.  Attack from Space deteriorates from there.

I hope future episodes of This Movie Sucks! use the second episode’s format.  Riffing is familiar Ed the Sock territory, a fact Fromage viewers well know.  Young and Sparks should also be riffing, since they’re comedians, but the show’s format is not yet etched in stone.

The Anime North footage is an excuse for Liana K to cosplay.  There are some half-decent moments, like when Ed tries to sell conventioneers on the wonders of Everyburger, pork jerky and Cream Collon.

The fans are initially put off by odd examples of Japanese food culture.  That’s so much better than Ed the Sock constantly referencing an overexposed YouTube clip in the first episode.  Come on, Cream Collon!

I hope This Movie Sucks! improves from its second episode.  For one thing, CHCH isn’t going to turf TMS! for more badly-dubbed martial arts films.  TMS! might as well be the best damn Mystery Science Theater 3000 ripoff it can be.  What does This Movie Sucks! have to lose?

As a bonus, here’s a poor-quality clip of Ed the Sock at Anime North 2010.  Watch as Cafe Delish gives love to a dessert tray.  It’s otakuriffic!

URBMN readers – hell, anyone familiar with CityTV and MuchMusic – should remember Ed the Sock.  The green-haired, sardonic sock puppet has been around since the late 1980s, when Ed first debuted on Newton Cable in Toronto.  This Movie Sucks! will mark Ed’s debut on CHCH, CJNT and CHEK, as well as Movieola and Silver Screen Classics.  The show first airs May 28, 2010, from midnight to 2:00 AM.

This Movie Sucks! reads like a reiteration of Ed’s Nite In, where Ed and human sidekick Red (Liana Kerzner) make fun of bad films.  This Movie Sucks! will be followed by I Hate Hollywood! in September 2010, according to Bill Brioux and the Ed the Sock website.  A new version of Fromage is also planned.

I’m ambivalent about Ed the Sock’s return to television.  This Movie Sucks! is the perfect fit for both CHCH and CHEK.  It’s a terrible fit for Movieola, the short-film channel.  At least CHCH is airing more than its usual midnight martial-arts film, so I shouldn’t complain.  I’ll only judge This Movie Sucks! once it airs.