Friday, October 17, 2008
The Crazy McCain Lady on ‘SNL’: ‘Mmm Ummm Ahhh Hobama?’
6:55PM Kyle Buchanan | Saturday Night Live just aired its second Thursday political special, and it was a marked improvement on last week’s middling debut — why, even the presidential debate skit was sort of funny! For our money, though, the extended Weekend Update was the show’s crown jewel, and that segment’s MVP was Kristen Wiig as the confused Republican who notoriously asserted that Obama was an Arab at a recent rally. Though hilarious enough on its own, Wiig’s halting impression also reminded us of Chester from Sifl & Olly, and that’s never a bad thing. The entire segment, after the jump: More »
Enjoy This Squirmy Footage of McCain on ‘Letterman’!
6:28PM Kyle Buchanan | As promised, John McCain finally made it to the Late Show with David Letterman tonight, and we’ve got CBS-supplied footage of many of the highlights. Not included: the twenty minutes of relentless McCain jokes that Letterman opened the show with to signal that this would hardly be a pushover appearance for McCain. And it wasn’t! More »
YouTube Clip Of The Day
4:46PM Jess McGuire | Today’s Clip Of The Day is courtesy of my great chum Born Dancin‘, who sent it to me saying “This hurts my eyes and ears a bit.”
Vin Diesel is a TOTAL DORK. More » 
Richard E. Grant Uses His Time As An Idol Mentor To Reveal Some Hard Truths To Contestants
2:21PM Jess McGuire | It’s all very good and well for Australian Idol to ship in token mentors each week who are concerned with attempting to flog tickets to something and/or boost record sales, but where are the mentors willing to paint ugly but factually correct pictures for our would-be Idols, huh?
Thank god for Richard E. Grant then, who has used his brief time with our Australian Idol contestants to hammer home a bitter truth – for most of them, their time in the spotlight vaguely entertaining a nation will be short, and then they’ll end up collecting aluminium cans, jamming them in the back of a hatchback, driving to SA, and selling them in order to purchase a tent for a home. FACT.
Describing the talent quest as “brutal” and a fast-food approach to fame, the esteemed English actor slammed the series for making then breaking dreams.
In yet another PR blow for the show, Grant predicted a poor future for the finalists he was asked to teach the secrets of movement and projection.
More » 
Great Ideas In Australian Cinema (Brought To You Telstra)
12:40PM Jess McGuire | Can we expect a film version of the life of Emperor Nasi Goreng to hit the big screen soon? Not quite. But Telstra have decided to approach funding bodies in order to get enough money to bring the tale of Daniel and Patrick, the father and son who appear in Telstra’a BigPond commercials, to cinemas everywhere.
No, really.
Telstra, one of the nation’s biggest advertisers, plans to seek millions from taxpayers to make a film featuring the father-and-son characters from its BigPond “Rabbits” commercials.
More » Should The ABC And SBS Merge In Order To Become A Supernationalbroadcaster?
12:12PM Jess McGuire | Interesting news this morning, with the revelation the Federal Government is considering merging SBS and ABC (amongst other changes to the national broadcasters). I cannot even fathom this. What would we call this superstation? ABS? SBC? They sound like something to do with braking and baked beans, respectively. I fear change. The ABC and SBS face a possible merger and their boards are to be “de-politicised” in sweeping reforms announced by the Federal Government. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy outlined the changes to end decades of political interference in the ABC and SBS by governments on both sides of politics Stephen Conroy drawing up the plans? I don’t know if I’m comfortable with the idea of the future of the national broadcasters being placed in the hands of a man who doesn’t wash after peeing. More »
Jenny McCarthy: ‘A Diet Of Cleavage And Veggies Cured My Son Of Autism!’
10:13AM Seth | While Rescue Me star and Miss Worcester second runner-up Dennis Leary may have rankled some with his book’s assessment of autism sufferers as being “dumb-arse kids,” “junior morons,” and “dumb, lazy, or both” (”Totally out of my book’s contest!” rebutted Leary), one true believer in the disorder—an outspoken activist, in fact—is Jenny McCarthy. Where she veers from her fellow crusaders is in her theory on its cause: She blames the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella vaccination drained the life out of her young son Evan, and gave him autism. Now she’s raising even more eyebrows by claiming on the cover of the current Us Weekly that she “saved [her] son” through “a strict no wheat-and-dairy-free diet.” From usmagazine.com: More »
‘Rebel In You’ By Supergrass
10:01AM Jess McGuire | You may have heard this song being flogged on one or two radio stations (or maybe you haven’t – I have no idea, I don’t own a radio, but I certainly heard it being played once when I was in someone’s car who had a radio on) but I’m going to get all Molly Meldrum on you regardless of whether this tune’s awesomeness is well and truly public knowledge. It’s new stuff from Supergrass and it has become my favourite strutting-around-the-neighbourhood song.
Let it kick your Friday into stylish, swaggering gear.
Am I alone in thinking Gaz sounds a bit Bowie-ish?
To hear the studio version, head to the Supergrass MySpazz page.
MORE: Supergrass on MySpace More » 
Steven Spielberg Presents ‘Marcia Brady and the Kingdom of the Crystal Coke Spoon’
9:21AM Kyle Buchanan | After traumatising the Today audience yesterday with her delightful tale of family syphilis, former Brady Bunch star Maureen McCormick took her unsettling book tour to The Morning Show with Mike & Juliet, where she opened up about cocaine (”They would call me ‘The Hoover’ because of how much cocaine I would do”) and family planning (”I was 18, 19 and 20 when I had each abortion”), then recounted a brand-new story about hitting rock bottom that was markedly different than the one she told Meredith Vieira on Tuesday. This one, you see, involved Indiana Jones: More »
