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Southwest Las Vegas in the spotlight

The southwest area of the Las Vegas Valley is full of fame. Local people, businesses, restaurants and houses have been featured on national television. View Neighborhood Newspapers brings you some of the prominent characters you can find in your own neighborhood.

(non)Reality TV

Southwest-area resident Penn Jillette, half of the comedy magic duo Penn & Teller, has been featured in dozens of movies and TV shows.

His recent work includes "Penn & Teller Tell a Lie" on the Discovery Channel and "Celebrity Apprentice," at 9 p.m. Sundays on NBC.

Jillette said he appeared on "Celebrity Apprentice" to help his charity on the show, Opportunity Village, to promote his and Teller's show at the Rio and because he found unscripted television "fascinating."

"Calling it reality television is an insult to everyone," Jillette said. "It is a fascinating thing. When they look back on the early part of the 21st century, they will look back at reality shows. They are a very important part of our culture right now. Seeing that stuff from the inside, you learn a lot."

Jillette, though outgoing in his performances for his Penn & Teller show, is quiet and calm on "Celebrity Apprentice." He does not make for good television, he said.

"The funny thing is," Jillette said, "if you actually say nothing bad about anyone else and work as hard as you can on each of the tasks, that's not a winning strategy on the show. It's a winning strategy for life.

"What they really want is tantrums and weird emotion. When you go nonscripted, you get down to unpleasant people yelling, and there's entertainment in that."

And even though he and the other cast members were followed by cameras for 16 hours a day, six days a week during October and November, Jillette dispelled any notion that it was strenuous.

"Everybody will tell you how hard 'Celebrity Apprentice' is, and that's a lie," he said. "It's hard for show business, which means it's easier than any job any person's every had. Any single work day outside of show business is harder than being on 'Celebrity Apprentice.' "

Famous fried chicken

Whenever NBC weatherman Al Roker visits Las Vegas, Hash House A Go Go co-owner Jim Rees said he can almost guarantee he will see Roker at 7:30 a.m. as he opens his restaurant at 6800 W. Sahara Ave. And Roker always orders a giant pancake.

Hash House opened in 2005 and first received national attention because it was featured on "The Martha Stewart Show." An associate of Stewart frequented the restaurant, Rees said, and recommended that she feature it during a weeklong Las Vegas theme.

"The day it aired for the first time, we were getting calls from the East Coast," Rees said. "We were getting calls for reservations months in advance."

Hash House would be featured on several travel and food networks, but its biggest boost came from the Travel Channel's "Man v. Food."

In "Man v. Food," food enthusiast Adam Richman came to Las Vegas in 2009 to attempt to eat a 5-pound burrito at the NASCAR Café in the Sahara. Food won the fight.

Beforehand, he visited some other local eateries. At Hash House, he had the sage fried chicken benedict. It has become the most popular item on the menu, Rees said.

"People still come in to this day and say, 'What did he eat?' " Rees said. "It just did wonders for business. We had to install another fryer because we couldn't keep up with the fried chicken."

The shoot at Hash House took about eight hours to film the segment of just a few minutes, Rees said. Richman and Rees still stay in contact, and Richman sends his friends to the restaurant when they visit Las Vegas.

"You couldn't ask for a better compliment than that," Rees said.

'Kitchen Crashers'

On the set of the DIY Network reality show "Kitchen Crashers," host and southwest resident Alison Victoria was getting a heavy dose of reality.

Victoria and homeowner Mike Lopez were halfway into the process of covering an unattractive door with sheet music when they realized it wasn't working. The glue being used was loosening the paint from the door, and clumps of paper and paint were sloughing off.

"We should have stripped the door first," Victoria said.

"Well, I painted it last night," Lopez said sheepishly.

After regrouping, the door issue was resolved. There isn't a lot of time to worry about mistakes when the pair has three days to completely remodel a kitchen.

Las Vegas was one of the first cities to be involved in reality TV when it was featured in several episodes of the long-running Fox program "COPS." Currently, several programs, including the popular "Pawn Stars" are based here, and many others come here to film sequences.

Victoria was born in Chicago but has lived in southwest Las Vegas for 11 years. She went into interior design right after graduating from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She now lives part time here and part time in Chicago, and the show is filmed in both cities.

Victoria first got into reality TV when she received an email seeking designers for the show. She said she worked as a behind-the-scenes designer but was asked by the producers to appear on camera in an episode. When the ratings proved to be unusually high on that episode, she was offered her own show, which is currently filming its second season. Victoria believes the popularity of the show owes something to the housing crisis.

"With the way the market is now, everyone is staying put and putting money back into their homes," she said. "The kitchen is usually the most expensive part and complicated because everything has to fit and work."

"Kitchen Crashers" airs on the DIY Network at 9:30 p.m. Mondays.

Some other people and businesses featured on TV include:

-- Rick Dale of Rick's Restorations, 1112 S. Commerce St., appears on the History Channel's "American Restoration." Dale restores antiques to pristine condition. "American Restoration" has also featured local Celebrity Estate Auctions, 4355 W. Tropicana Ave.

-- Scott and Amie Yancey star on A&E's "Flipping Vegas." The Yanceys buy troubled houses, renovate and sell them. Scott Yancey owns a real estate development business, Goliath Company, 4280 S. Hualapai Way, Suite 107. They finished filming their second season this month, and episodes are scheduled to premier this fall. The season finale is scheduled to feature a Spring Valley home that is donated to a wounded veteran.

-- Southern Highlands resident Zak Bagans hosts the Travel Channel's "Ghost Adventures" and "Paranormal Challenge."

-- Acrylic Tank Manufacturing, 6975 S. Decatur Blvd., Suite 130, is featured on Animal Planet's "Tanked." Brothers-in-law Wayde King and Brett Raymer build elaborate, custom aquariums.

Contact View education reporter Jeff Mosier at jmosier@viewnews.com or 224-5524. Sunrise/Whitney View reporter F. Andrew Taylor contributed to this report.

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