SHOOTING STARS: NBC hits the road to Las Vegas — twice

  All roads lead to Vegas once again for not one but two reality-based series coming to NBC this summer.
  First up: “The Great American Road Trip,” a cross-country trek expected here Friday and Saturday.
  The show features seven families of four (from divergent backgrounds, naturally) piling into RVs to get their kicks on Route 66 and other, non-Mother roads — and competing for a journey’s-end prize.
  The odyssey includes a variety of “comical, clever challenges” (as NBC publicity phrases it) “set against iconic American backdrops” from the Grand Canyon to the Washington Monument. (If Las Vegas doesn’t qualify as an all-American icon, I don’t know what does ...)
  And Sunday, “America’s Got Talent” checks in for what’s become known as “Vegas Week.”
  It’s also known as “Judgment Week,” as executive producer Jason Raff explains, because the show’s panel of judges — David Hasselhoff, Sharon Osbourne and Piers Morgan — will evaluate hundreds of hopefuls and determine who makes it to the fourth-season finals later this summer.
  “We’re going to be all over town,” Raff says of the upcoming Vegas shoot.
  As for why the show is back in Pair-a-dice, “We are looking for the best entertainers in America,” Raff notes, “and Vegas is potentially the world’s capital for entertainers.” (What do you mean “potentially,” Jason?)
  Four play: Cameras roll this week on G4TV’s “2 Months $2 Million,” a new reality series featuring four online poker buddies trying to accumulate $2 million in winnings during a two-month residency in a swanky Vegas mansion.
  Because 26-year-old Brian Roberts hails from Texas and 24-year-old Emil Patel, 25-year-old Jason Rosenkrantz and 22-year-old Dani Stern call the New York/New Jersey area home, “Las Vegas made sense to physically get together,” notes Laura Civiello, G4TV’s vice president of development.
  And while G4TV has set them up in their luxury residence, “the money they’re gambling with is their own,” because “their lifestyle, their team play” are “all things that pre-existed” before they became reality-TV stars, she explains.
  Civiello estimates that the quartet will spend half of their time at home — and the other half out and about, at the upcoming World Series of Poker and elsewhere around town.
  “Las Vegas is sort of the epicenter” of not only the poker universe but “the entertainment, the lifestyle,” Civiello comments. “It really is the perfect place to do the show.”
  Reality bites: Las Vegas remains in the reality-TV spotlight, with two other shows including a Glitter City stopover — or more.
Spike TV’s “Ultimate Fighter” returns for another round of competition, with training sessions at Majestic Park. (Stay tuned to Shooting Stars for more details on this hometown favorite.)
  And Fox’s “More to Love” — a “Bachelor”-style dating show with 20 curvaceous contestants competing for one husky hunk — was scheduled to hit Vegas last Friday for a one-day visit featuring two sets of dates.
  The Las Vegas footage is expected to air during the show’s second episode in early August.
  Mob scene: London-based Blink Films begins a week of filming Tuesday on a TV documentary devoted to Las Vegas’ mob years of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
  With a working title of “Vegas and the Mob,” the hourlong documentary will be “focusing on FBI investigations” and “surveillance techniques” that led to the discovery of skimming at the now-imploded Stardust hotel-casino, reports assistant producer Crispin Green.
  Once completed, the documentary will air on the Smithsonian Channel in the U.S. and on Britain’s Five channel.
  A doll’s life: Las Vegas has been a celebrity magnet since its beginnings, but it’s taken one American icon a half-century to do the town.
  Fortunately, Barbie doesn’t look a day over 21. Which is a good thing, because she’s making her official Vegas debut this week at Licensing International 2009, a brand-marketing convention running Tuesday through Thursday at Mandalay Bay.
  In anticipation of her Vegas debut, Barbie recently hit the town, posing for photographers at the iconic “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign, a wedding chapel and at the Palms, home of a new Barbie-themed suite.
  “The photos are going to be used in a variety of ways to herald her arrival in Las Vegas,” explains Stephanie Cota, senior vice president of marketing for Mattel, Barbie’s corporate home. And Barbie’s superstar status fits right in with the “kitschy, campy, fun side of Las Vegas,” Cota notes, adding that the photos will be showing up on Barbie’s Facebook page while she’s “taking the town by storm.”