Paige Davis Rides Again

Great news from TLC, home of the floundering "Trading Spaces" franchise: Paige Davis is set to return as host, and many of the classic designers from the early production run like Doug Wilson and Hilda Santo-Tomas are coming back to the show too. Since we did a bunch of "TS" coverage from 2003 to 2005 around here, we can't let this great news pass without notice.

The show is also getting a new production company. Banyan Productions, who have produced the show since the first season with Paige Davis (the very first season with Alex McLeod being produced by Ross Productions), has been ousted in favor of A. Smith & Co. Productions, which is the producer of chef Gordon Ramsay's TV projects.

TLC rather short-sightedly canned Davis in January of 2005 in favor of a "hostless" format to try to set it apart from all the other home makeover shows then coming out. Besides Wilson and Santo-Tomas, Laurie Smith and Frank Bielec - two other "TS" originals - are slated to return too.

Will I be watching when Paige Davis comes back in January? You bet!

A Face That Can Sell Vacuum Cleaners

Remember Trading Spaces? That show that used to be on TLC where people swapped houses and redecorated rooms? I have no freaking idea about the show that replaced it, but what we miss most about the old TS are the people. Those who are walking zombie-like around the hostless landscape of the post-Paige Davis TS are doppelgangers for the real stars of the show.

Take for example this lady. You will remember Genevieve Gorder as the very blonde, very buxom, very crafty designer of many great rooms. Along the way she became the spokesperson for Swiffer. Six months or so ago, Swiffer was all set to roll out the new Sweep Vac, but ran into some recall snafus and an entire ad campaign with Genevieve was trashed. Well, the bugs are out of the vac, and Gen rides again with her most appealing commercial to date for the Swiffer folks. Here's a teaser image; more to come next week sometime when I get back from a couple of days R&R. (Today was the first day of my summer break. I trimmed my lawn and changed the oil and washed and cleaned out my van. That's a big accomplishment for the first day.)

What A Wynn-derful World

Lest this become a baseball blog, we remind you that we still have our Trading Spaces Store in operation.

Soon to be added is the book Yes You Can: Home Repairs Made Easy, by veteran Trading Spaces carpenter-babe Amy Wynn Pastor. Yes, we make no bones about the fact that she is a remarkably good looking woman. But can she ever build things! And the book - which I browsed tonight at my local bookstore - is a treasure trove of hints on how to do practically everything around your house, from fixing leaky toilets to painting. It's written in a straightforward style and for you Amy Wynn fans there are plenty of pictures of your home improvement heroine. If you click on the hyperlink, you can get the book from Amazon and throw a few cents toward the continued operation of this website.

"Trading Spaces" Fansite Reopens With Four New Recaps

About two years ago, your webmaster began watching a humble but growing little cable TV design show called Trading Spaces. It had an interesting premise, two neighbors swap rooms for two days and redecorate a room for $1000 or less, with the help of a professional designer and a carpenter.

In spite of our championship of the show (and a lot of good vibes from those who worked within the show), Trading Spaces was on its way to becoming one of cable's biggest hits.

Until the day that people stopped watching it.

Then the show's producers and network got pretty desperate, and started making changes to rekindle people's interest in the show. The winds of change were apparent with the beginning of this season, where there were now a selection of rooms to choose from and one being a jackpot bonus room worth more money, plus a more "verite" feel to the proceedings that made these new episodes a chore to recap.

Now, TLC is on the verge of premiering a new, reformatted Trading Spaces that bears only a vague resemblance to the original format, with the chief difference being that the show has lost its central guiding presence with the dismissal of hostess Paige Davis. We feel that the new TS is going down the wrong road, emphasizing homeowner/designer/carpenter conflict and the sort of pathos that typifies everything that has gone wrong with the genre (see under "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition"), rather than the giddy, harmless fun of the original.

For those reasons, Dave and Robair present the new Trading Post Goes Old Skool, which will now feature highlights and recaps from the first four years of the show. It's almost as if Season 5 never happened, with the exception of one celebrity show that hews to the old format as done in Seasons 1-4. We may be expanding the site's focus to include Trading Spaces Family, which has happily stuck with all the original trappings of the 2001 vintage TS, from graphics and theme music to attitude.

We hope you enjoy our take on these older shows, many of which are no longer being aired.

48 Hours... 2 Designers... 1 Carpenter... $1,000... 4 Friends... And Your Ol' Pal Dave!

Yes, that's a davemackey.com navigation flag with Paige Davis' picture on it. That can only mean one thing... Trading Spaces is coming to davemackey.com!

In the true spirit of Trading Spaces, our Trading Post is presently under construction. Amy Wynn is out in Carpentry World building me some bookshelves and a love seat. Some designer bios and other graphics are missing from the pages, and we're working on cleaning it up (without benefit of that nifty speed up music, unfortunately). But what we hope will be the true meat of the site will be our Episode Recaps of all Season 4 episodes. Season 4 begins tomorrow and you can expect to see the recaps - some authored by me, some authored by Robair - on the Monday after new episodes air. We will also have episode galleries so you can see what we're talking about.

Why is davemackey.com doing this? Because televisionwithoutpity.com doesn't want to any more. For them to discontinue coverage of this show at the height of its ratings popularity can't possibly help their credibility. (I'm waiting for tvtome.com to recap the "What's My Line?" that aired the other night where Groucho Marx literally hijacked the show and made it into something a plane more zanier than your garden variety episode of "You Bet Your Life". But I digress.)

So join me, Robair, Gen, Hildi, Doug, Ty, Amy Wynn, Paige, Rick, Barry, Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds and the entire crew as we do Trading Spaces... MACKEY style!

Happy Fair And Balanced Day!

Friday is Fair And Balanced Day at www.davemackey.com. This article reveals why. Of course, this is a side result of Fox News Channel suing Al Franken (former "Saturday Night Live" writer/cast member) over the use of the phrase in the title of his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, available from our partner amazon.com by clicking the book's little ol' title.

Okay, so I'll never get on Pat Sajak's show this way, but who cares.

Incidentally, we have now put permanent links up leading out to our General Store. We have some of the forthcoming "Trading Spaces" merchandise (specifically the new episode guide and trivia books coming out in November), but we have some big news coming soon regarding this series, a website that has decided not to recap the show any more starting with the fourth season premiere on September 6, and a website that is planning to take up the mantle on that date in that same snarky, catty manner. Anyone we know? Why don't you come back here on September 8 and find out?

More "Trading Spaces" Books

Now available for purchase in the General Store are some new Trading Spaces items. Three soon-to-be released books and a calendar you can order now. (You can literally order them now by clicking on each which will take you to our partner, amazon.com.