Andy Rooney fixed his sights last night on an issue plaguing our nation, one that haunts us and confuses us each and every day: What is the deal with fruit?
"I think we would eat more fruit if we knew it was going to be any good when we bought it," Rooney says because total confusion is definitely the reason American diets are so effed. There are lots of serious issues about fruit, starting with OMG WTF is a papaya?!, and including the baffling concept that people work at grocery stores. "How'd you like to have the job of stacking fruit in a fruit store?" he chuckles. Also on Rooney's radar: Lemons are "one of the great fruits," melons are the money-sucking con-artists of the produce aisle, and green apples get DQ'd from the great fruit debate on account of being green!
Eight million people watched 60 Minutes last night, PopWatchers. We could marvel at that fact alone, but instead, we choose to spin this story forward in the comments section by asking you: What is your favorite fruit?
Last night's Daily Show with Jon Stewart was one of its most femme-y episodes to date, with segments from both of the show's lady correspondents, Samantha Bee and Kristen Schaal. Kristen's interview, which covered the possible burka ban in France, quite reasonably led to her seductively licking mayonnaise off of a spoon. She is officially my Fourth of July Weekend hero. Watch and learn...how to become an empowered woman.
She committed way harder to that mayo than Stewart himself committed to the pancake-wrapped sausage dipped in Baconnaise, don't you think? All he did was spit it out! Unacceptable.
For purely visual reasons, Ernie's quest for the perfect chocolate, strawberry, peach, vanilla, banana, pistachio, peppermint, lemon, orange, and butterscotch ice cream cone is still one of my favorite Sesame Street skits, even though I don't usually condone the mixing of fruit and dairy.
Still. stop whining, Ernie! You're about to eat 10 scoops of ice cream that miraculously haven't toppled to the floor. Mr. Bluman didn't mess up your order at all. It's not the world's job to cater to your ridiculous whims. Time to embrace an alternate perspective, man. C'mon, don't be a tool.
Whoa, what just happened? I blacked out. Time for ice cream.
"I used to feed my sister in her sleep so she wouldn't get skinnier than me." --Veronica (Portia de Rossi), on Better Off Ted. (New episode tonight, 9:30 ET on ABC)
Yes, you heard/saw right: The trash food chain is now shilling Biscuit Holes. Or, as the people in the spot renamed the new product at the behest of an annoying host: "creamy sweet holes," "hole munchers," and "dingle balls," among many other names. Because, as the ad says, "They sound wrong. But taste so right." That's seriously doubtful. Am I really supposed to be enticed to buy Biscuit Holes simply because they have a disgusting name? Honestly, I found yesterday's Burger King ad revolting in, as I said yesterday, an "I-love-trash kind of way." Maybe it's just that I've now hit my boiling point with such rubbish, but I'm over finding delight in garbage like this.
What do you think? Are Hardee's Biscuit Holes disgusting -- or hilarious? Has advertising hit a new low?
Wanted: Your questions for Bear Grylls. Why: We're sitting down with the Man vs. Wild host tomorrow when he's in town to promote his role as a Distinguished Instructor at Dos Equis' Most Interesting Academy, "the world's premier institution for the education and
dissemination on the study of being interesting" or, as I like to call it, "one hell of a marketing campaign." Grylls' online course, "Survival in the Modern Era", went live today. The five-part tongue-in-cheek web series teaches urbanites valuable skills in commuting, ensuring personal safety, eating (rat? with mint apparently), overcoming obstacles, and making an entrance. It features a theme song that is half Mission: Impossible and half Priceline (Ne-go-ti-a-tor!), and is guaranteed to delight fans of hearing the word "heli." I think my favorite is "Making an Entrance": We get a butt shot, some of the best impromptu high bar work since Kurt Thomas in Gymkata, and Bear donning the tux that, in my dreams, he's wearing for our 9:30 a.m. chat.
Submit your questions, and I'll make sure Bear hears the best of the best. They don't have to be Most Interesting, just interesting. I, for example, am dying to know what the plan was to get Will Ferrell down that 100-ft. drop if Ferrell had succeeded in lowering Grylls first during their special Men vs. Wild episode. Also, why did he bring a heat-absorbing black T-shirt into the Sahara that time? Because he knew he'd end up peeing on it and wearing it around his head to stay cool, and that survival technique wouldn't have looked pretty on a lighter hue? If you need more inspiration than that, catch Grylls on Letterman tonight or read his highly informative 2008 Q&A with EW's Dan Snierson. An excerpt:
Would you rather cross a slow-moving river that contains piranhas
and candiru [the tiny, parasitic fish that supposedly swim up your
urethra while you're peeing in the water] or violent rapids that
contained no scary fish? The fast one is probably more
dangerous. Only certain piranhas will attack humans, and only when
there's real limited food source. As for those candiru, I'd go through
the river and not pee while I'm crossing it. And keep my pants on.
Twitter exploded today. Ha! You wish. A Twitter trending topic (or "hashtag," I guess? execute me) called "nicerfilmtitles" exploded today. Thousands of people attempted to improve, or "make nicer," the title of a film. Slezak and I racked our brains for a good few seconds and came up with Drag Me To Health and Black Snack Moan (pictured). You can't go wrong with a delicious apple or strong-as-chains spool of black licorice. Though now I'm thinking my more recent idea, Nachos Libre, is way better. The nachos would cost zero money.
Some of our favorite nicer movie titles from the day:Dude, There's My Car, Sleeping in Seattle, Two Lion Kings(because why not), Diet Hard, Lady and the Homeless Dog, and Who's Afraid of Virgin Wool?
I used to casually look away when it came on, but to no avail: The Wendy's commercial about the "Frosty Posse" has taken over the already-tiny "useful" section of my brain. By knowing it so well, I've elevated myself to "fairly in the know" status re: Top 40 music. This couldn't be lamer. But it's not entirely my fault. The song -- which may have inspired Jay-Z's "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)" -- is an entire minute long!
A friend of mine used to joke that I have at least a 10 percent chance of dying (happily) with my lips firmly suctioned to the spout of a Frosty machine. Seriously, what a way to go.
Should fast food ads quit trying to be music videos? I say no. But if you happen to be sitting across the subway car from me as I accidentally implement eye contact while mouthing the salacious line "Ooh, baby. Do you wanna get Frosty with me?" I could see how you, baby, might answer otherwise.
PETA has revealed to EW the winners of its Sexiest Vegetarians Poll: American Idol's Kellie Pickler and Heroes' Milo Ventimiglia. Runners up for the women's category included Robin Quivers, Ellen Degeneres, and Portia de Rossi, and on the men's side: Owain Yeoman, Horatio Sanz, Mark Ruffalo, and...wait for it...trust me, I'm not buying it either....Michael Ausiello. Look at him over there, gritting his teeth. He just can't stand it.
Yep. Despite repeated pleas to his fans to vote for him, EW.com's owndesperado TV scoopster is decidedly not the Sexiest Vegetarian -- not even in this office, if you ask me -- for about the sixth straight year. If you'll recall, this PopWatch "frenemy" once locked me in a closet but has recently atoned for that sin by buying me this mousepad of a buttery, syrupy waffle, which would honestly look much better topped with bacon bits. Better luck next year, loser.
It's gorgeous today in New York City, so naturally I'm spending the afternoon in my apartment, plowing through my DVR backlog with the blinds shut. Who needs bird calls and whistling wind when you can listen to Heidi barfing on I'm a Celebrity? And how could the sun possibly outshine the glory that is True Life: I Hate My Large Breasts?
Anyway, I finally landed on something that just might force me out of doors -- or at least onto my deck/elevated junkyard, with its broken chairs and big black grill left behind by a past tenant. You see, there's a PBS series called Primal Grill. And it's hosted by a nerdy looking guy with round transition-lens glasses (turns out his name is Steven Raichlen, and he's some kind of Grillmaster General of the Southwest US). And it's about meat. Not hot dogs or burgers, mind you. We're talking giant slabs of muscle coated in fat, the kind of meat that looks like it'll eat you if you don't get it first. Steve rubs the cuts with spices, treats them real nice, and then smokes the bejeezus out of them for 12 hours at a time until he's got a giant black slab of charred perfection.
In the immortal words of Liz Lemon: "I want to go to there." So next weekend, if the weather holds, I'm thinking I might just venture out the back door to give it a shot -- as long as I can point the TV out the window. Anybody else out there fired up for Raichlen and/or grilling this summer?
