What began as an ambitious, often hard to find network dedicated to Hollywood movies is spilling out into the world of lowbrow reality highjinx and Kennedy-prodding.
Reelz Channel, which first hit the radar by broadcasting “The Kennedys” mini-series that the History Channel rejected, made a splash at its initial appearance at the TV Critics Press Tour Saturday presenting a couple of reality shows full of outrageous characters and one just as audacious JFK documentary that goes as far as naming the supposed second gunman (a Secret Service man in a lurching trail car accidentally fired in the mayhem after Oswald did, it posits).
“This is not another conspiracy theory,” says Reelz Channel CEO Stan Hubbard. Instead, relying on the reporting of Australian detective Colin McLaren, the documentary “’JFK: The Smoking Gun,” which premieres Nov. 3, uses modern ballistics techniques and forensic evidence to make their case.
“We believe there was a second shooter. We’re going to name him in this show, and we’re pulling together we have the facts to prove it.”
Beyond that, he presented two new reality shows to go with the established “Beverly Hills Pawn,” which has been renewed for a second season.
One, “The Capones” follows a family with nicknames like Meatball, Cherry Lips and Sausage, that runs a pizza parlor in Chicago and “re related to and shares the name with the famous gangster.” They got on stage, squabbled and answered questions about their ancestry.
Then came “Hollywood Hillbillies” celebrating the rural Georgia family of an easily riled young man known on YouTube as The Angry Ginger. “Think ‘Beverly Hillbillies’ meets ‘Honey Boo Boo,'” Hubbard says.
How does this all fit in the Reelz mission?
“I would say the mission is evolving,” Hubbard says. “Having that thread to movies and being a network that celebrates movies and entertainment is not going away. One of the things that you’ll see you’ve seen it already with ‘Beverly Hills Pawn.’ You’ll see it with this family. You’ll see it with ‘The Capones.’ You’ll see it with all the characters that come to our network. One of the things that we get them to do is they make movie recommendations of current and contemporary movies. ”
As for “The Smoking Gun,” Hubbard said “That doesn’t have a movie thread. Because we stepped into the fray of what the Kennedys miniseries was a few years ago, everything that’s Kennedy comes to us.”