Last night, George Lopez became the most powerful man in the after-hours landscape by convincing an A-list actress, once favored as America's Sweetheart, to surrender herself to a full Chola makeover. A bottle of Aquanet, two Sharpie eyebrows and a flannel shirt later, Sandra Bullock allowed G-Lo to parade her around his stage like a three-headed circus freak. Your move, Monique. The full makeover video, along with the other late night moments you missed while melting down on Facebook last night, after the jump.
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Comparing the dancing ability of newly crowned Dancing With the Stars champion Donny Osmond and first runner-up Mya is like comparing country and rock 'n roll -- one requires toothy grins and sentimentalism and the other requires sex, agility, and a penchant for the acrobatic. Unfortunately, justice took a backseat to America's (and the judges') vote, and the "Puppy Love"-touting icon stole the gold from the flawless "Case of the Ex" chanteuse. In fact, dubious winners of all stripes abounded on last night's telecast, and some of the empty-handed champs were forced to just look like a trophy.
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Are you having trouble completing your holiday wish list? It might be because Oprah has not aired her legendary "Favorite Things" episode (and that 60s show does not count). Harpo staffers confirmed that Oprah would not be airing the Thanksgiving week special, but did not give a reason for removing her epic give-away from the production schedule this year. [Huffington Post]
· So it took nine long seasons (and an under-the-table deal that Tom Bergeron will only drive an I Look to You-skinned batmobile until 2012) but Dancing With the Stars finally convinced pop-gospel legend Whitney Houston to sing her career-making single, "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" on last night's season finale. The strained performance (after the jump) did not move winner Donny Osmond enough to warrant a bouquet of purple roses and a private "Puppy Love" serenade, but it did upstage Cloris Leachman and Steve Wozniak's Mambo redux.
Oprah storms the White House, Fox is predicted to win November sweeps, and more TV Bites after the jump.
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Slowly but surely, MTV has transformed The Real World from a house full of diverse young people to a laboratory that creates drunken meatheads for use in the Real World/Road Rules Challenge. Given that, perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised that the channel took the format to its logical extreme with next month's Jersey Shore -- a docudrama about, and I quote, "the hottest, tannest, craziest Guidos" that New Jersey has to offer -- but one group of Italian-Americans is up in arms about the show (the trailer is excerpted after the jump).
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James Franco spent most of this afternoon's General Hospital episode hidden away in his eerily lit crime scene of an apartment with only Maxie and a rich, blood-hued blindfold as company. The blindfold (a character tied over from yesterday's cliffhanger) showed more depth than any of its co-stars, transitioning effortlessly from an erotic accessory to a possible murder tool to a power symbol. The blindfold then inspired Franco to deliver his best monologue thus far -- a minute-long soliloquy about number 4 steak knives -- and shared so much heat with its A-list star that the flames of their passion threatened to singe through your grandma's dusty Sony screen and set her war bonds on fire. So for your Daytime Emmy consideration, I am pleased to present: Red Silk Blindfold.
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Last night, Dancing With the Stars sweetheart Kelly Osbourne brought a James Franco-sized dose of meta performance art to part one of the season finale. During her freestyle routine, the star hustled and cha-cha-ed to "I Will Survive" before taking a devastating tumble, but Osbourne quickly rallied by picking herself off the floor and touch-dancing her way through the rest of the number as her family cheered on. Her fall most likely knocked her out of the running for first place, but Osbourne can sit back and lick her wounds as fellow survivor Whitney Houston takes the stage to perform "Million Dollar Bill" and her classic "I Wanna Dance With Somebody."
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After his sexually-charged AMAs performance was censored on the West Coast, Adam Lambert complained, "In a way that's discrimination. I don't mean to get political, but Madonna, Britney and Christina weren't edited...Female entertainers have been risqué for years. Honestly, there's a huge double standard." While I agree that people should freak out less when gays or innuendo or "controversy" creep into primetime establishments like the American Music Awards, I've got less sympathy for Lambert's claim that female performers get away with similar antics all the time. As a curated history of award show performances proves, the most scandalous chanteuses reserve their insidiousness for basic cable, not CBS.
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Which Late Night skit is creepier: Jimmy Fallon singing Heart of Gold as Will Smith, or Jimmy Fallon singing The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song as Neil Young? Find out, and catch the other great late night moments you missed while sleeping off that aerobic Saturday Night Live monologue, after the jump.
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Savvy viewers of Bravo's NYC Prep realized two things: Sebastian Oppenheim is Kristy McNichol, and P.C. Peterson, the sexually ambiguous male cast member, is uncomfortably hostile. OK! says that the star's beady-eyed rage boiled over in Madison, Wisconsin, at Kollege Klub, where Peterson throttled someone with a metal napkin dispenser. And all after some playful poking and teasing!
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· Congratulations to Nick Lachey, who is finally rebounding from his disastrous Nick and Jessica Variety Hour with a hosting gig on NBC's four-day holiday series, Sing-Off. The 98 Degrees alum will play the Ryan Seacrest role, as eight a cappella groups compete for a $100,000 prize. The judging panel will be made up of Ben Folds, Shawn Stockman (Boyz II Men) and a third rotating judge each night. So The Office's resident a cappella vet, Ed Helms, was not available? [Hollywood Reporter]
Regis takes a break, Susan Boyle fulfills her own cable dream, and more TV Bites after the jump.
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Just a month after sacking showrunner Marc Guggenheim, ABC is halting production on its freshman sci-fi series, FlashForward. The show has been picked up for a full season order but hit a ratings low last week. ABC sources allege that the break was budgeted in production schedules. Meanwhile, ABC's other rookie series, Cougar Town, is already back in production after shutting down briefly last week so star Courteney Cox could deal with a "family matter." [EW]
On today's episode of General Hospital, Franco was upgraded from dumpster-lurking bum to internationally revered crazy person during his art show. The mysterious performance artist, visiting Port Charles to hawk his gory corpse photos and murder-inspired installation pieces, alternatively charmed, entertained and creeped out admirers of his work through cheap pick-up lines, graffiti tic tac toe and scary blindfold games. After the jump, the five most remarkable moments.
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ABC is resorting to cold, hard numbers to prove that Adam Lambert's crotch-grabbing, fellatio-simulating AMA performance should not launch a FCC investigation akin to 2004's Nipplegate. The network reported earlier this afternoon that Lambert's racy number received 1,500 phone complaints, a completely average number, while "a major PR disaster would normally prompt 15,000 to 20,000 complaints." On the plus side, ABC says at least 100 people called to say they liked it. [USA Today]
At 78 years old, Regis Philbin has celebrated many television milestones before our eyes. One of the oldest (but not nearly the most befuddled) talking heads on the small screen, the Reege set the Guinness World Record for "Most Hours on Camera" in 2004, rang in his 30 year anniversary of his syndicated morning show last year, and only jumbled a few names while hosting the red carpet arrivals for the 80th Academy Awards in 2008. As the hardest working septuagenarian in television approaches the end of his contract, reports are surfacing that the host, who has admitted to suffering from retirement anxiety in the past, is finally ready to vacate his seat next to Kelly Ripa, and that ABC has already found his replacement. So just which male personality is rumored to succeed the Reege in 2011?
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