Las Vegas featured in two reality shows

Las Vegas remains a definite contender for another "capital of the world" title -- this one for reality TV.

And two very different reality-based series demonstrate just how varied Las Vegas life can be.

The new truTV show "Vegas Strip," which launched Sunday night, follows Metropolitan Police Department officers patrolling that tourist-clogged stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard .

And "Kitchen Crashers" -- the DIY Network's upcoming addition to its successful "Yard Crashers"/"House Crashers"/"Bath Crashers" renovation franchise -- was expected to wrap the first of five made-in-Vegas episodes Sunday.

More on "Kitchen Crashers" in a minute.

But first, we're heading to the "Vegas Strip" with Metro's Homeland Security Saturation Team and the Convention Center Area Command.

Unlike the typical ride-along cop shows, "Vegas Strip" goes where the action is, "on foot, on bike and on horseback," notes Metro spokesman officer Jacinto Rivera.

"Vegas Strip" is the latest from Langley Productions, which pioneered the genre more than two decades ago with Fox's "Cops" and has previously visited for such series as "Vegas Jailhouse."

The production company has "had a working relationship" with Metro "for going on 25 years," Rivera notes. "We don't want the city to be viewed in a negative light."

Makeover mania: Las Vegas' allure for audiences extends from the Strip to the 'burbs, as "Kitchen Crashers" demonstrates with its focus on kitchen redos.

"I think anytime you do something in Las Vegas, it intrigues the viewers," says DIY general manager Andy Singer.

In addition to "the glamour and the glitz," however, Southern Nevada "still has great home ownership" despite the troubled economy, he says -- including the lucky home improvement store customers who find themselves the recipients of complete kitchen transformations. Host Alison Victoria hails from Southern Nevada, which makes Las Vegas a logical production base; about half of the show's initial episodes will shoot here in August and October.

Odd couple: Barbra Streisand has played plenty of high-profile Vegas gigs, from 1969's debut of the International Hotel (now the Las Vegas Hilton) to 1999's Millennium's End concert at the MGM Grand.

But we'll have to wait until next March to catch her latest Caesars Palace act -- on the big screen, as Seth Rogen's co-star in the upcoming "My Mother's Curse," a cross-country comedy about an inventor and his mother trying to sell his latest invention.

The movie was scheduled to wrap production last week at Caesars and along the Strip, under the direction of "The Proposal's" Anne Fletcher.

Quick takes: Top NCAA basketball coaches, in town to scout high school basketball tournaments, will be in the ESPN interview spotlight over the weekend at Dream Vision Studios and a local high school. Other expected projects include the French comedy "Les Infideles," featuring star Jean Dujardin, scheduled to wrap a six-day stay Saturday; the German TV documentary "The Colors of the Desert," concluding a two-day visit today; and, next weekend, TLC's "Kate Plus 8," planning to hit downtown and the Strip, and the horror short "Zombie Ferox ," shooting at Boulder City's Eldorado Canyon.

Carol Cling's Shooting Stars column appears Mondays. Contact her at (702) 383-0272 or ccling@reviewjournal. com.