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MO�NIQUE�S FAT CHANCE AND CAMPUS LADIES OXYGEN�S MOST SUCCESSFUL ORIGINALS ARE BOTH RENEWED FOR SEASON TWO
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Oxygen Debuts Second Mo�Nique�s Fat Chance This Summer;
And Season Two of Campus Ladies in Fall 2006
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NEW YORK, February 8, 2006 � Oxygen two most successful original shows have both been renewed for a second round, announced Debby Beece, Oxygen�s President of Programming and Marketing. Mo�Nique�s Fat Chance, the reality beauty competition for plus sized women will return in Summer 2006 to crown the second Ms. F.A.T. (Fabulous and Thick). A second season Campus Ladies is set to start production this summer and premiere in Fall �06 with ten new episodes.
Mo�Nique�s Fat Chance was cable�s first full-figured reality competition and Oxygen�s highest rated original program in the network�s history. The special is also a 37th Annual NAACP Image Award nominee for �Outstanding Variety (Series or Special).� Oxygen�s critically acclaimed improv comedy series Campus Ladies launched as Oxygen�s highest-rated original series premiere, and the second season announcement comes after just five of the ten episodes have aired. Oxygen will air the current season�s remaining five episodes beginning Sunday, March 12th at 10 p.m. after it rests Campus Ladies during February.
�These ladies have created quite a stir over the past year by being hilarious, over the top women who don�t apologize for being themselves � whether they are fat or forty plus. They have broken out of the pack and demonstrated what we have long suspected - that our audience wants to see diverse women on television, and they want to laugh at the same time,� said Beece.
Mo�Nique�s Fat Chance
Mo�Nique�s Fat Chance is network cable�s full-figured beauty special that takes America�s average beauty competition and repackages it for America�s average-size woman. Plus-size icon Mo�Nique (The Parkers) marks her return to the Oxygen network this summer with a three-hour reality special for women who know that spirit outweighs size. The second season of Mo�Nique�s Fat Chance extends the open casting calls to five-cities from three in its first year, starting March 1st in Los Angeles. The other cites include New York, Miami, Baltimore and Seattle. Following the multi- city casting call, 10 full-figured finalists will be flown to Los Angeles to participate in an enhanced version of the first special�s �Beauty Boot Camp,� a series of mind and body training exercises focusing on attainable beauty and confidence building. This go-round, contestants will live together in a Los Angeles house where they will be mentored and supervised by a house �den mother.� Upon completion, the finalists will compete for the title of �Ms. F.A.T.� in front of a panel of expert and celebrity judges evaluating them on beauty, style, poise, and personality and how those qualities are reflected in each woman�s overall transformation.
Mo�Nique serves as creator, host, and executive producer of Mo�Nique�s Fat Chance. Mo�Nique is the recipient of four NAACP Image Awards� for her work on the hit UPN sitcom The Parkers, she is the first female host of the acclaimed Saturday night series, It�s Showtime at the Apollo and she served as host for the 2004 BET Awards. Her film credits include Baby Boy, Soul Plane, Hair Show, and the special The Queens of Comedy. She was most recently seen in the 2005 motion picture, Domino.
Both Don Weiner and Steven Imes serve as executive producers for the special. Weiner comes from an extensive reality television background. He served as the executive producer for both UPN�s The Player and Fox Television�s The Swan. He was also the reality consultant for Miss America 2004. Imes is currently the associate producer for It�s Showtime at the Apollo He has executive produced Mo'Nique�s One-Night Stand for DVD, the motion picture Hair Show and the upcoming feature film Phat Girlz.
Campus Ladies
Campus Ladies, called �infectious� by the Los Angeles Times and �very, very laugh-out-loud funny� by The Hollywood Reporter, is an improv comedy series about two middle-aged housewives (one a widow, the other a divorc�e), who decide it�s better to be a freshman at 40 than unhappy housewives forever. The series, returning for a second season with 10 new episodes in Fall 2006, chronicles the wild times of Joan (Carrie Aizley) & Barri (Christen Sussin), as they start their lives over as freshman at the fictional University of the Midwest (UMW). The co-eds experience their first keg stand, their first all-nighter, and an experimental lesbian love tryst and frat party gone wild. Each storyline leaves the ladies gliding through the craziest of situations with cheerful abandon along with their dormmates Abdul and Drew, roommate Paige and RA Guy.
Aizley and Sussin developed Campus Ladies while performing with the famous improv comedy troupe, The Groundlings. Many of the first season�s guest stars also are masters in sketch comedy and improv including Fred Willard (Best in Show and Everybody Loves Raymond), Maya Rudolph (Saturday Night Live), Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee�s Playhouse), Anthony Anderson (Barbershop), Will Forte (Saturday Night Live) and Dan Castelleneta (The Simpsons). Other well known guest stars are Jane Kaczmarek (Malcolm in the Middle) and Justin Long (Dodgeball and Ed).
Campus Ladies will again be executive produced by Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm), comediennes Carrie Aizley and Christen Sussin, Paul Young, Peter Principato and co-executive producer E. Brian Dobbins of Principato-Young Entertainment (Reno 911).
Production for Mo�Nique�s Fat Chance and Campus Ladies will be overseen by Aaron Meyerson, Oxygen�s Senior Vice President of Development and Production and Kristen Connolly Vadas, Oxygen�s Vice President of Development, West Coast.
About Oxygen Media
Oxygen, the only cable network owned and operated by women, is currently available in 66 million homes. The network was launched in 2000 to fill a void in the television landscape -- creating a network targeted to younger women. Oxygen is rewriting the rulebook for women's television, with the most original programming of all the women's networks including Campus Ladies, Mo�Nique�s Fat Chance and Talk Sex with Sue Johanson. Geraldine Laybourne, the network's founder, Chairman and CEO, has led the company to be a strong advocate for women. Through programs like The Mentor's Walk, Oxygen's national program for bringing along the next generation, and "Who Cares About Girls," Oxygen's new documentary series -- Oxygen is creating The New Girls Network.
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