SERIES PREMIERE: Todrick, who went by the name of Todrick Hall when he was an American Idol contestant years ago, is going the single-name route now. He’s become a YouTube sensation, starring in and creating hugely viewed self-made video mini-epics – my favorite being 2013’s Spell Block Tango, which reimagined the “Cell Block Tango” number from Chicago as sung by villainesses from Disney movies. In this new series, beginning tonight on MTV, Todrick devotes each episode to a behind-the-scenes making of a new video. In other words, it’s entirely, and aggressively, self-promotional – but in this new media age, that may be what’s necessary to break through. And even in an older media age, when TV was young, Walt Disney itself pulled the same trick with ABC’s Disneyland, a show designed in 1955 primarily to promote his about-to-open theme park. And so it goes…

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