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• TEAM COCO!!!  It’s about time that smart, actually funny people take back late-night TV, and Conan O’Brien is the key.  NBC needs to recognize talent when they see it—here’s a hint: it doesn’t have a giant chin and a lisp.  The latest disheartening rumor is that next week will be the hilarious ginger’s last week of late-night!  If you agree with me, join the group on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/imwithcoco?ref=ts.  And if it makes any difference to you, President Obama is on our side too: http://www.tonightshowwithconanobrien.com/video/clips/obama-supports-conan-011310/1192856

My favorite ginger.

• American Idol is going way downhill after this season—Simon Cowell, the delightfully persnickety Englishman of Idol has announced that he’ll be leaving to work on his new show.  It’s called The X-Factor, and it’s a spin-off of a hit British reality series similar to Idol.  Simon’s brutal honesty will surely be missed, since we’ll be left with Kara DioGuardi trying to translate Randy Jackson’s virtually incoherent critiques of the contestants: “Dawg, it just didn’t do it for me dawg.  I’m like, what?”  Good luck with that.

At least I'm not as judgmental as this guy…right?

• Did anybody bother to tell James Cameron that he should really watch Pocahontas and FernGully before he decided to spend half a billion dollars on Avatar?!  Because when you combine those two animated children’s movies and add some cool 3-D effects, Avatar is what you get.  Don’t get me wrong: I thought it was an awesome movie, and I really want an avatar now.  It just blows my mind that even $500 million can’t buy you an original storyline.  Oh well.
• There’s a rumor floating around that Jersey Shore’s most punch-worthy cast member, Snookie, will star in her very own reality TV show—Snookin’ For Love.  I can only hope that it’s just a rumor for the sake of my fellow Jersey natives; I’m not sure we can take any more humiliation at the hands of MTV.  For the record, most of the cast members are from New York—shouldn’t the show be called something like Dirty New Yorkers Who Invade the Jersey Shore?  Ugh.

Who told her that hair poof looked good?

• Tiger Woods has reportedly checked into rehab for a sex addiction.  I wish him all the best…NOT. What a pig.

Image sources: www.blogs.villagevoice.com, www.celebritywonder.com, www.turbo.inquistr.com

• If I ever name my kid something completely ridiculous, like Sparrow James Midnight, please punch me in the face as hard as you can.  Apparently, Nicole Richie and Joel Madden think this is a perfectly reasonable moniker for their newborn son.  Really? Are they trying to ensure that this kid’s adolescence will be a living hell?  I mean, I’m not a bully, but how can you possibly resist taunting a boy named Sparrow?  Seriously, the happy parents might as well tattoo a target on the kid’s forehead.  What will I name my child someday, you may ask?  Easy: Kookaburra John Daybreak.
• I wonder what it’ll be like to have two completely coherent female judges on American Idol…I’m excited!  Ellen DeGeneres has just announced that she will be taking Paula Abdul’s spot on the hit show, and she just hopes that Paula isn’t mad at her.  Who cares?! Ellen is hilarious, and even though she doesn’t have Paula’s experience as a singer, she’s one hell of a dancer.  And I’m willing to bet that Ellen won’t tear up every time a contestant ruins sings a Sarah McLachlan song.

Even the hat is funny. Dance, Ellen, dance!

• (484): So after your 27th or so beer, you gave me songs you want to have used if you’re ever on intervention.   This, dear friends, is coming to a TV near you.  I am not kidding.  The good people at Fox are reportedly planning a series based on the website textsfromlastnight.com.  Steve Holland (from The Big Bang Theory) will write the comedy, which will presumably be all about post-graduate alcoholics and their bizarre, occasionally offensive hopes and dreams.  Sounds like some quality entertainment.  Here’s hoping CBS picks up a docudrama based on fmylife.com.
• If Hugh Hefner can’t make it work, what hope is there for the rest of us?!  The Playboy founder and creepy old man just filed for divorce from his wife of twenty years, Kimberly Conrad Hefner.  They’ve been separated for eleven years, and apparently he’s tired of paying her $40,000 annually in child support.  Never mind the money…how bad do you feel for those kids?  They should be getting a monthly check from their sex-crazed dad for not getting their own reality show, all about life as the offspring of a Playboy and his bunny.  Yeesh.

Jeez, he creeps me out. I think it's the robe. *shiver*

By Allie Edwards

Just before I began to write this week’s blog, I was browsing through TMZ and I read the latest headline: director John Hughes is dead at age 59 from a heart attack.  Hughes directed the 80’s classics Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and wrote the movie that reminded kids to be careful what they wished for: Home Alone.  A truly talented filmmaker, Hughes reminded us how painfully awkward it is to be a teenager, and made audiences laugh with his sharp-witted writing, featured in movies like Uncle Buck and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Thank you, Mr. Hughes, for all the laughs, for your sympathetic understanding (of what it’s like to be sixteen years old), and for all the timeless classics. You will be sorely missed.  If he were real (and really, how much do you wish he was?), I think Ferris Bueller would probably reiterate one of the truest lines ever written by the man who created him: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Now, onto the news:

• Seriously, Vanessa Hudgens?! Nudie pictures again?! Sheesh, I’m starting to think that High School Musical 4 won’t be so family-friendly. Supposedly, these naked pictures aren’t new, they just weren’t released with the original batch that caused such controversy a couple years ago. Her rep claims that they were uploaded onto Hudgens’s computer, and that the HSM star may be the victim of a hacker. Okay, I get that she’s pissed, but why did she take naked pictures of herself in the first place? We get it, they were for your boyfriend and they were personal. Don’t care. That’s still trashy. We might expect this crap from Miley Cyrus, but not you! As a side note, why aren’t there any naked photos of Zac Efron circulating online??
• Speaking of Disney’s favorite redneck, Miley Cyrus’s alleged stalker has been served with a temporary restraining order. 53-year-old Mark McLeod is being held in jail while authorities investigate the claim that he’s been following the 16-year-old and being an overall creeper. So far, they’ve searched his house and seized his computer, where he claims to have “thousands of pictures and letters written to Miley”. McLeod assured the cops that he’s been receiving “secret messages” from Cyrus through her hit show Hannah Montana, and that they (authorities) can’t keep them (Miley and McLeod) from “being together”. Watch out, Nick Jonas…this McLeod guy might be a keeper!

Looks like a pretty nice guy. You know, for a predator.

• I’m almost sad to break the news, but Paula Abdul won’t be returning to American Idol next season. She’s not making nearly as much money as co-judge Simon Cowell, or even Ryan Seacrest, who, let’s be honest, doesn’t do much of anything except look adorable and make occasionally witty comments. In all fairness, Abdul’s unique, inarticulate way of providing criticism and her uncanny ability to cry after any remotely good performance will be missed. Plus, it was always really funny when she was completely hammered. And she totally was, at least a couple times. Oh well.

Oh yeah. Those tears are real.

Image sources:  www.tmz.com, www.givememyremote.com