| 04/10/2006 |
| Linden Hotel chosen for new TV series shoot |
| By Anna Troppens , Staff Reporter |
 Photographs of athletes and other paraphernalia hang on the walls. It's a familiar sight for owner Jack Furry and his regular patrons. The surprise is, the Crow's Nest could be featured on national TV in the "Check-Mate" pilot series. A television crew will be at the Crow's Nest on Saturday, April 8, shooting footage for the TV series. They expect to wrap up before the sports bar opens at 4 p.m., Furry said. "They're using a sports bar theme. They're bringing some extras, and they wanted me to have at least 30 people." He called some people he knows, who could end up appearing briefly on the television series. The Check-Mate series is about a private investigation firm from Brighton, Absolute Private Investigations (API). It is headed by Greg Catalano, who has appeared on TV talk shows for the past 10 years, said the Check-Mate Web site, www.checkmatetv.com. hotel On these talk shows, he shared his favorite undercover investigative experiences. Catalano has recently continued his television career by partnering with iTVGroup. Together, they assembled a production team for the creation of Check-Mate. The show is centered in Brighton, but locations for shooting will be throughout the metropolitan Detroit area. Furry said Catalano knows his daughter, Sharon Flowers, who works at the Linden Hotel. Flowers saw Catalano at a party at her aunt's house and discovered he was looking for a sports bar for filming. The rest is history. Catalano has visited the Crow's Nest twice to check it out, once alone and then with several others. Catalano said he expects the pilot to be ready by midsummer, and for the series to appear on television in the fall. The cases that will appear on Check-Mate will be a combination of actual footage and professional reenactment. The show is about finding how likely a person's "love interest" is likely to cheat on them. API sends in attractive decoys to talk and flirt with the love interest to see "if they take the bait," he said. This is caught on videotape for the clients, and the audience. Catalano is executive producer of Check-Mate, with Jason Schultz as co-executive producer. Catalano also is one of the writers for the series, the Check-Mate Web site said. More information about API is available at www.AbsolutePI.com.
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