"Fine Art Treasures" (2003) TV series 2003-2006

Directors:

Chris Buckely
Pat Cardi

Release Date:

12 September 2003 (USA)

Genre:

Family

Plot:

Fine Art Treasures currently airs for (4) hours every Friday night across the nation. It airs on DirecTV...

Cast

T.J. Myers	...	Host (2003-2005)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Tamara Hambly	...	Herself - Co-Host
Jennifer Keith	...	Hostess

Runtime:

USA:60 min (6 episodes)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Filming Locations:

Studio City, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

CineVision Entertainment Corporation

A Train Wreck--You Can't Look Away!

I came across this "show" on cable one late Friday night--as an art enthusiast, I was intrigued by the title "Fine Art Treasures." I suppose I was expecting something like "Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous," what I got was some of the most compelling bad television I have ever seen.

Low-budget and amateurish are under-statements. This is the home-shopping show your junior high school A/V club would have produced. Hosted by young women wearing too much makeup—who know nothing about art—and an auctioneer who must have honed his skills at cattle auctions, FAT seems at first like a parody. But, from what I can tell, it's not.

The frog-voiced auctioneer, alternates between yelling out prices and barking at folks in the studio. Statements like "I have $500, can I get $10,000?" or "Ladies and gentlemen, you can not find this anywhere in the world" while selling a print with hundreds of copies in circulation, are typical. Also funny: Opening a can of soda too close to his microphone, saying hello to off-camera people while the hosts are talking, yelling for air conditioning, and requesting the 45-second countdown clock that finished counting down a minute earlier. Classic moment: arguing with a host that her 48 by 60 inch painting is "much bigger than that—it's gotta be four by five feet!"

The hosts, including reality TV and Skin-emax veterans, provide many hilarious malapropisms: an art exhibition is an expedition, the term impasto becomes antipasto, e.g.; every artist is "very famous"; and attempts at art history go something like "this is from Dali's period when he painted a lot of big steeds and women with them." A particularly strange Dali print led one to exclaim: "That's our Dali!" The actual real-time auction is a bit of a puzzle. The auctioneer calls out prices in hundred dollar increments until reaching approximately 10% of the "retail price" displayed on screen. Then the real bidding begins (or, in many cases, doesn't) as we hear him taking bids of $1 or $5. Yes, you can buy a Picasso litho for $3,006.

I don't know how callers are screened or bidders verified, but when a bid is retracted, everyone goes into a tizzy, begging the under-bidders to call back, or offering a $1,000 bill to the next person who calls. (The explanation of the rarity of such U.S. currency is not to be missed).

Rounding out the comic elements of FAT is the ridiculous on-screen text. Given a format that calls for an item number, description, retail price and current bid, it's surprising how humorously befuddled the person at the keyboard is.

On from 8 PM to 2 AM on the eastcoast. I recommend the Friday night art sale—Saturday jewelry auctions are also amusingly terrible, but don't afford the same level of unintentional humor.