Bowling Beauties Blog Pt. 1 - By Lee Gerowitz/Howard TV Producer

If you log onto the web site for Howard TV’s Bowling Beauties at www.craveonline.com/howardtv, a video promo begins to play. Immediately, a voiceover says, “When you think ‘bowling,’ you think” and goes on to list bowling analogies such as “fat guys” and “ugly shirts.” “How appropriate,” I thought. “They’re describing the Howard TV/Bowling Beauties production crew to a tee – myself included. The “fat guys” analogy speaks for itself. The “ugly shirts” analogy refers to Howard TV Executive Producer/fashion icon Doug Goodstein and his decision to make certain members of his production staff wear bowling shirts during our shoot on April 15, 2008.

Like the promo says, bowling shirts are “ugly shirts.” On top of that, just about every shirt seemed to be a size too small. Put those undersized shirts on chubby guys and make them interact with 16 hot Penthouse Pets, porn stars and models over the course of 11 hours and you have what the dictionary lists as “humiliation.” There wasn’t a second of our shoot day where I didn’t wonder why this fashion decision was made. After all, when I shot an episode of Howard TV Cribs at Siobhan The Transsexual’s apartment, Doug didn’t make me get a sex change for that shoot, did he?

Bitterness aside, it could have been worse. None of the girls vomited. Which begs the question, “How did Howard TV get Penthouse Pets, porn stars and models to agree to enter a 16 girl, single-elimination bowling tournament?” Offering a $5,000 grand prize certainly helped. But the Pets and porn stars part was easy. Asking this group to partake in a Howard Stern Show related event is like asking Richard Christy to not partake in a shower: easy. Penthouse Pets Justine Joli and Krista Ayne, as well as porn stars Savanna Samson and Gina Lynn, all agreed to do the show the second we asked.

As far as how the models were chosen, this required an in-depth casting process, overseen by myself, Doug Goodstein and Howard TV Supervising Producer Mike Gange. The process was simple. The model was required to enter our casting room in a bikini swimsuit, no questions asked. Remember, they weren’t trying out for Business Suit Bowling here. Each model was interrogated for five intense minutes. Remember the interrogation scene from Basic Instinct with Sharon Stone? Picture that, but a lot sweatier. Besides looking for “beauties,” we were also looking for girls with outgoing personalities who were competitive, but not overly experienced bowlers. We wanted the competition to be fair bowling-wise and we wanted it to look good too.

For me, the hardest part of the casting process wasn’t selecting the girls. It was staring at my lunch that I couldn’t eat while interviewing them. Before each casting session started we would order lunch, but the problem was, it would arrive while girls were showing up. And you can’t just say to a girl, “Hey sweetie, I know you haven’t eaten in three weeks so you could look skinny in front of us, but do you mind if I eat this slice of pizza first?” So you just sat there during the casting sessions, looking back and forth between these gorgeous girls and your deliciously smelling food, thinking, “PLEASE shut up and leave NOW so I can eat.” Then, a model would leave and you’d do everything in your power to eat as fast as possible before the next one came in. It’s moments like this that make you realize your priorities in life. For me, it’s food over chicks. This is why I’m 36, single and list “Whole Foods” as my favorite club on social networks.

Once casting was complete, we continued pre-production for our shoot, which would consist of one day of prep work on-site, followed by the shoot itself the next day. However, on the weekend before the shoot, our crew was thrown an unexpected twist when our original shoot location fell through. But, we quickly pulled together and found what was ultimately a great location for the show, Harlem Lanes, located in- you guessed it - Harlem, New York City. Big props to Harlem Lanes (www.harlemlanes.com) for welcoming us with such short notice.

On the day of the shoot, everything was just about picture perfect. There was tons of food – and oh yeah, the girls looked great and appeared to have lots of fun. So much so, that some of them decided to brave the extreme, air-conditioned elements and take off their bikini tops while bowling in their custom-made, stiletto bowling shoes. You’ll have to tune in to see who got topless though.

Speaking of boobs, let’s segue to the black cloud of The Howard Stern Show, Scott “The Engineer” Salem. For those of you who don’t know, bowling is Scott’s passion, so we asked him to provide us with his expert color commentary for our matches. If you want to know what it means to “throw it to the Brooklyn side” while bowling, then you need to tune in. Scott really does know his stuff when it comes to bowling. If he could only apply that passion to his real job….just kidding Scott!

Then comes our host of Bowling Beauties, Miss Robin Quivers himself, Jim Florentine. Watching Jim interact with these half-naked beauties was a treat, because you knew that in the back of his mind he was always thinking, “(insert Fred Norris imitation of Jim) Oh man, what if Robin sees me staring at her boobs? Did I stare too long? Man, I hope she doesn’t catch that on the show.”

To see Jim act like he’s not noticing bare breasts and to find out which girl becomes the ultimate bowling beauty, make sure you tune into Howard TV’s Bowling Beauties, beginning on May 12th. Don’t miss it!