Edgy designer gives HGTV “The Antonio Treatment”
By Stacey Harrison
© Scripps Networks
Having covered HGTV for the past couple of years, I’ve seen more than a few shows pitched as something completely different for the network. While sometimes you can chalk that up to clever marketing, it happens to be oh-so true in the case of The Antonio Treatment. For instance, how many design shows can boast life-size pink rhinos coming out of walls and boxing with a former Saved by the Bell heartthrob?
Design Star Season 4 winner Antonio Ballatore brings his rock’n'roll background heavily into play as he revamps dumpy spaces with his signature edgy style. Along with his crew of longtime friends, and his ever-present bulldog Chewie, Ballatore sets out to make radical designs custom-suited to his clients. Among his tasks this season are a renovating a non-profit music studio for young people, creating an art studio for a deaf cartoonist, a punk rock family looking to incorporate antique furniture into their home, and giving Mario Lopez a swanky new workout gym. It all gets started when The Antonio Treatment premieres with two episodes at 10pm ET Sunday on HGTV.
Ballatore took some time to answer some questions about getting the show off the ground, and the backlash to his unconventional approach.
Did you know right after you won Design Star what your show would be, or was there a lot of planning that had to be done?
Antonio Ballatore: I think we had a basic plan to begin with, and once we started, we really got into more of my life and what I was doing and captured a lot of that also. It’s definitely evolved since then. A lot of what goes on, it’s a lot of my friends, a lot of things that are in my life, a lot of artist friends I bring in as guest artists. I could have a guest artist come in every week. A lot of that developed as it went. [Read more →]
GOLF CHANNEL is launching a new reality series following pro golfer John Daly on Tuesday, March 2 The series looks a Daly as he looks to reinvent his golf game — and his life — by quitting drinking and losing weight. From GOLF:
After attempting to fix Charles Barkley’s infamously awful swing in the first season of GOLF CHANNEL’s reality series The Haney Project, guru of the golf swing Hank Haney takes on a slightly better but no less entertaining pupil in actor Ray Romano. Haney will try to help Romano — a frequent player at celebrity golf tournaments — break an 18-hole score of 80 in The Haney Project: Ray Romano, premiering March 1 at 9pm ET on GOLF CHANNEL. Haney will work with Romano over the course of the seven-episode season, which visits the Ray Romano and Kevin James Celebrity Golf Classic in Los Angeles, the Hank Haney Golf Ranch in Lewisville, Texas, and other locations.
Move over, Trista and Ryan. It looks like number 13 is lucky after all.
