Image Credit: Albert L. Ortega/PR Photos Christian Slater didn’t use to be a morning person, but phoning PopWatch at 6:30 a.m. PT on his way to work Monday — the reason he had to bow out of DirecTV’s Celebrity Beach Bowl last weekend, FYI — you wouldn’t have known it. We chatted about his cameos in last week’s episode of The Office, Curb Your Enthusiasm‘s seventh season, and the new Funny or Die video Nine Lives, as well as about 24‘s Elisha Cuthbert joining the cast of The Forgotten (tonight, ABC, 10 p.m. ET), the viral video he’s just sitting on, and the whereabouts of the belated 40th birthday presents Ellen DeGeneres recently gifted him on her show. (In case you weren’t watching, those were pillows she won on eBay: one with a fully clothed photo of him that read “Don’t wake me I’m dreaming about Christian Slater,” and one with a shirtless shot of him that said “Dream a little dream of me.”) READ FULL STORY »
Archive: February 2010 (321-330 of 489)
Christian Slater: The stories behind his recent comedic turns (and what he did with those pillows Ellen DeGeneres gave him)
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Late Night: All the teleprompter monkeys noticed Sarah Palin's buzzword-tattooed hands
On last night’s late-night shows (and one weird one at 10 p.m.), everyone who qualified as “a charismatic guy with a teleprompter” reacted to Sarah Palin’s address to the National Tea Party Convention. They also picked up on what Jon Stewart called Palin’s “Maverick-y note card hand-scribble buzz words” Palin had been consulting instead of a teleprompter. Politico.com compiled the best moments as Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, Jay Leno, and Stephen Colbert attempted to go analog themselves.
Which buzzwords are on your hands today? My left hand says “Slezak” and the right one says “Kill” but the lettering is backwards. And “look in the mirror” has been knitted into my sweater upside-down, but that’s usually the case. I don’t know what it all means because I don’t have a teleprompter. Life!
Annie on Twitter: @EWAnnieBarrett
'The Theorists': 'Big Bang Theory"s big Belarusian rip-off
Chuck Lorre has used the vanity cards at the end of his shows for a variety of purposes: complaining about CBS, commenting on racial politics, explaining science, and last night, he used a card to call out a Belarusian version of The Big Bang Theory.
According to the card, “…Belarus does have a bustling TV production industry. One of their most recent hits is a sitcom about four nerdy scientists who live next door to a beautiful blonde waitress. The characters are named Sheldon, Leo, Hovard, Raj and Natasha, and the show is entitled, The Theorists. Each episode begins with a rapid-fire montage of images which takes us from the dawn of time to the present moment. Keeping with that theme, the montage is scored with what is probably the worst piece of recorded pop music since the dawn of time. And finally, each episode appears to be a Russian translation of a Big Bang Theory episode.”
Judging from the photos on the show’s website and the way-too-familiar videos [via], it’s a blatantly obvious clone:
It’s also apparently unlicensed, and according to Lorre, “it’s next to impossible to sue for copyright infringement in Belarus because the TV production company that is ripping us off is owned and operated by the government of Belarus.”
The theft bugs me, certainly, but I’m almost more bothered by how old faux Walowitz and Leonard are. Yikes, PopWatchers.
The George W. Bush billboard: Miss Me Yet?
A mystery billboard in Wyoming, Minn. is attracting lots of buzz today, in part because everyone wants to talk about it, but no one, it seems, knows much about it yet. (Seriously: For a great lesson on news in the virtual age, witness the initial speculation that the shot was a digital fake. Then when Minnesota NPR’s Bob Collins blogged that he had driven past it on I-35, he wrote that he immediately got calls from Fox News and MSNBC asking him to appear and talk about the billboard. He declined incredulously, because the only thing he had to offer was he’d seen it in person.) I’m curious whether the people/person/organization who put it up are actual, ardent, dyed-in-the-wool Bush supporters. There’s something about the shot that’s a little off-center: It’s Bush at his goofiest, closer to Jon Stewart’s heh-heh impression of the former president. What do you think? Have you seen it live and in person? Do you think it’s courtesy of a Bush friend or foe? And perhaps most importantly, do you miss Dubya?
'RuPaul's Drag Race' recap: Talent wins over charisma this week
My favorite moment of last night’s episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race revolves around this quote from RuPaul herself: “Tatianna, that’s an answer for the Miss America contest—not the RuPaul Drag Race contest.” Zing!
Sitting at the judges’ table, the drag superstar host had just asked Tatianna who from Team Pandora Boxx deserved to go home after losing the burlesque challenge. And, while everyone else on the team was saying that Tatianna herself should take her high heels back to the streets and leave the Drag Race womb, Tatianna decided to go allllll kinds of PC with her answer, picking the increasingly adorable Morgan McMichaels because “she has immunity.” No, no, no. Finger wag! Bad idea. Because then came the aforementioned head-thump from RuPaul. We don’t play that way here at Drag Race, RuPaul scolded, telling the (truly sweet) Tatianna how things work. READ FULL STORY »
Leno-Letterman-Oprah Super Bowl commercial: Who came out of it looking the best?
Last night on the Jay Leno Show, Leno addressed his and David Letterman’s (and Oprah’s!) surprise Super Bowl promo for The Late Show. (Our esteemed Ken Tucker blogged all about it.) We’re still talking about the ad around the office, in part because we’re all trying to figure out one crucial thing: Who came out of it looking the best? It was quite a coup all around, as our colleague Lynette Rice’s reporting attests, but there was one quote in particular she got from Letterman producer Rob Burnett that has stuck with me since I read her interview with him. At one point, Burnett quotes Leno as saying, “This is the way show business should be.” It seems to get at an essential truth at the heart of all this late-night mess: That no matter what’s going on between the personalities involved, in the end, the true pros will put anything aside for the sake of a good bit. That Letterman, Leno, (and Oprah!) got that immediately speaks well of them, I think, as entertainers. Who do you think came off looking the best? Did it rehab Jay in your minds?
More Leno-Letterman commercial:
Lynette Rice: ‘Late Show’ producer on Leno-Letterman-Oprah Super Bowl spot
Ken Tucker: Watch Letterman and Leno declare a grumpy truce during the Super Bowl
Ken Tucker: Jay Leno talks about the David Letterman – Oprah ad
Breaking News: Jeff Probst tells EW.com he has renewed his 'Survivor' contract, but for only one year
Good news, Survivor fans: Jeff Probst, whose contract on the CBS hit reality show was expiring, has decided not to snuff his own torch…yet. The host tells EW.com he will be back on the show past the season’s 20th edition, Heroes vs. Villains (which kicks off Thursday night at 8pm). “What has kept me interested in Survivor for 20 seasons is the study of human nature,” says Probst. “How we justify our ethics, and watching what happens to people when they are put in situations of extreme conflict. Sometimes it’s hard to watch, and sometimes it’s enjoyable to watch, but it is always interesting to watch.”
But, like any good Survivor story, this one has a twist. When Probst renewed his contract in the past (after seasons 12 and 16), it was for four cycles over two years. His latest renewal, however, covers only seasons 21 and 22 and will expire in 2011. While that would seem to indicate that the host is ready to finally call it quits and take his act elsewhere next spring, Probst insists that is not necessarily the case. “I’m not approaching this as my last year of Survivor,” says Probst. “I was just comfortable taking it one year at a time. It certainly made it easier for me to just commit to one year and then we can revisit it again next year if everybody wants to.” [Could Survivor continue if Probst hangs up his snuffer, plus more after the jump.] READ FULL STORY »
Have you ever taken karaoke too seriously?
According to a widely read feature in Saturday’s New York Times, there have been at least half a dozen murders in the Philippines after people sang karaoke to Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.” The “My Way Killings” have occurred “after the singer sang out of tune, causing other patrons to laugh or jeer.” This is so sad and messed up. We at PopWatch are such losers at karaoke that it has never occurred to us that things could so easily turn violent. The most potentially violent karaoke-related scene I’ve witnessed was when a coworker who may or may not be pictured muttered an obscenity under his breath after a karaoke-bar manager politely requested that we depart the premises because our paid hours had long expired. I guess I once technically killed a pitcher of Sapporo when I fell during “I Am The Walrus,” but I don’t think that counts. Wow, we’re cool! Your stories will be better. Tell us: Have you ever had violent thoughts during karaoke? And how did you suppress them?
PopWatch has always advocated private room karaoke, the benefits of which also include padded furniture, not subjecting strangers to the horrific sound of your voice, and the freedom to move about whenever, wherever you want.
Annie on Twitter: @EWAnnieBarrett
Scott Hamilton: The five times I was a little too excited
Each day this week leading up to the opening of the Winter Olympics (Friday, 7:30 p.m. ET, NBC), PopWatch on Ice presents a Top 5 list from Scott Hamilton, the 1984 men’s figure skating gold medalist who heads to Vancouver to call his sixth Games. Today’s topic: The 5 times he was a little too excited in the broadcast booth. Check out his countdown, then tell us which moment had you a little too animated in your living room.
5. 2002 Salt Lake Pairs event when I reacted to the marks of Salé and Pelletier that ended up putting them in second place. I might have freaked a little bit.
'Big Bang Theory' recap: Leonard and Sheldon (almost) break up over the Large Hadron Collider
Now that is more like it. After a string of episodes that were simply overloaded by Sheldon Cooper’s shenanigans, last night’s Big Bang Theory managed to tip the show’s balance back into rib-tickling equilibrium, and yet still keep the spotlight affixed on its breakout star. Leonard’s announcement that he would spend his Valentine’s day traveling to Switzerland to visit CERN and the Large Hadron Collider — which I would spend this aside explicating if I didn’t fully trust that anyone reading a recap of The Big Bang Theory is already intimately familiar with CERN and the Large Hadron Collider and/or is happy to click on Wikipedia links — left Sheldon thunderstruck after he learned Leonard planned to bring Penny, and not him. This led, inevitably, to the reemergence of the famed, and improbably slender, Roommate Agreement.
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