Yearly Archives: 2015

When Poets Blow It: Guess The Celebrity Bards!

Posted in GSOY (Gratuitous Story of Yourself) by

It can be very hard for celebrities to know what they’re bad at. I say that with genuine empathy. Once you reach a certain level of fame, you are probably surrounded by people telling you how wonderful you are at everything. It must be difficult to parse out who’s just humoring you. Somebody at some point told all of these celebrities that they were good at poetry, and you know what? I have to commend them for trying. See, even though an enthusiastic fifth grade teacher probably told all of us that “everybody can write poetry,” the fact remains that most people shouldn’t.

These stars aren’t exactly Dylan Thomas staggering through Chelsea or Mary Oliver roaming through a woodland with, like, a gentle fox, but they put forth an effort. Some of them – though not technically great writers – even managed to capture their personal voice in their poems, something that even accomplished writers can struggle with. Don’t believe me? Try guessing which celebrity wrote these tragic verses. If you’re up for it, you could even stage a poetry reading! With verses about three-way phone calls, an assistant named Fe, and bitchy organic food enthusiasts who don’t know how to stay in their gluten-free lane, you’re in for a good time.

Like all good fifth grade workbooks, we”ll even provide a “word bank”:

  • Suzanne Somers
  • Ashanti
  • Jennifer Aniston
  • Charlie Sheen
  • Pamela Anderson
  • Britney Spears
  • Sean Penn
  • Rosie O’Donnell
  • James Franco
  • Sarah Palin
  • Kate Moss
  • Ally Sheedy
  • Jewel
  • Kristen Stewart

Okay, here come the poems!

I reared digital moonlight
You read its clock, scrawled neon across that black
Kismetly … ubiquitously crest fallen
Thrown down to strafe your foothills
…I’ll suck the bones pretty.

  • ANSWER: Kristen Stewart, From My Heart Is A Wiffle Ball/Freedom Pole

Lucky in love
Lucky in love
Didn’t forget me when I asked you to leave me
Didn’t forget me
Now you’re alongside me
You’ve brought luck to love
I’ve been hit by a truck in love.”

  • ANSWER: Jennifer Aniston, re: John Mayer

honeymoon at last, to get away from it all
My assistant Fe gave me the call.

I remember it well, as she was smilin’
She said it was called Turtle Island.

I packed my bags light and quick,
Then grabbed my pink dress & favorite lipstick.

  • ANSWER: Britney Spears, in Honeymoon Poem

There had been a time
When we were up for the same roles,
10 Things I Hate about You
(Based on The Taming of the Shrew),
And The Patriot —
Funny, you were Australian and so was Mel —
You were the knight in A Knight’s Tale
Although I’m sure you wished you weren’t.

  • ANSWER: James Franco, in Ledger

Excuse me, aren’t you…?”
“Hey, you look just like…”
“Oh my God, that’s…”
“Sorry to interrupt your dinner, but aren’t you…”
“Look, I never do this, but, my wife thinks you’re…”
“My friend is so convinced that you’re…”
“I’m so embarrassed, but, aren’t you…?”
“I know you must be tired of this, but…”
“WAIT!!”
All eyes held in stare, all mouths locked open in shock, as he pulled the latex [REDACTED] mask from his head, revealing the rotted skull of President Lincoln.

  • ANSWER: Charlie Sheen, in I.D. Blues (redacted = “Charlie Sheen,” of course)

Organic girl dropped by last night

For nothing in particular

Except to tell me again how beautiful and serene she feels

On uncooked vegetables and wheat germ fortified by bean sprouts—

Mixed with yeast and egg whites on really big days—

She not only meditates regularly, but looks at me like I should

And lectures me about meat and ice cream

And other aggressive foods I shouldn’t eat.

  • ANSWER: Suzanne Somers, in Organic Girl

I do not like this Uncle Sam. I do not like his health care scam.

I do not like — oh, just you wait — I do not like these dirty crooks, or how they lie and cook the books.

I do not like when Congress steals, I do not like their crony deals.

I do not like this spying, man, I do not like, ‘Oh, Yes we can.’

I do not like this spending spree, we’re smart, we know there’s nothing free.

I do not like reporters’ smug replies when I complain about their lies.

I do not like this kind of hope, and we won’t take it, nope, nope, nope.

  • ANSWER: Sarah Palin, in an actual speech at a real convention

 

I’ve been thinking you’ve been cheatin
and you know that’s just not right
So just to be sure
I gave you a call
to see exactly what you’d say
You said, “Girl you know I’m not lyin!”
Good, lets call her on three-way

  • ANSWER: Ashanti, in Three-Way

…ME – I miss PLAYBOY – The end of an Era – Chivalry, elegance, celebrated imperfections…

  • ANSWER: Pamela Anderson, in Untitled Facebook Poem

we wait
it passes
kito – we figured out
was the place they stopped
b4 the galapagos

ee cummings was just lazy

  • ANSWER: Rosie O’Donnell in Aloha

brighter and brighter every day
calmer
my insides slosh about like a nauseous ocean
it takes great gulps of air
words from religious books
and Diet Cherry Coke to quiet the sound

  • ANSWER: Ally Sheedy in On The Road

I saw a woman
whose teeth were
straight like
White picket fensces
Until she looked
at her husband-
They they looked like
Shattered windows

  • ANSWER: Jewel in Untitled

What is this on my chin…?
It’s f**king s**t, man
All right
F**k this
F**k it
Give me a f**king shower.

  • Sean Penn in This Water’s Cold

 

 

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Mad Men Crush Monday

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Our beloved Mad Men kicked off its final seven episodes of its seventh season on Sunday (hello alliteration), and while I’m so glad it’s back, I’m equally sad that these will be the last seven stories we’ll get to see of Don and company as they head into the 1970s and into the abyss of New York City forever.

While Mad Men has obviously provided us with plenty of “mad men” over the years, there are definitely some better than others. And although #ManCrushMonday is technically purely about attraction, I’m bending the rules a bit today and ranking the Mad Men on their overall likability, because frankly, in a male-ruled world of advertising in the 1960s, there are a handful of egotistical, cheating, at times misogynistic douche-bags, so they can’t all be crush worthy in the traditional sense. So if there’s anything Mad Men has taught us, it’s that there’s more to people than it seems on the outside, and it’s that very complexity that makes us, as human beings, interesting and worth knowing.  These are the men that have kept the world’s attention for the past eight years, and the ones we’ll miss the most.

12) Bobby Draper

The fact that four different kid actors have played Bobby is reason for him to make the list alone, and a running joke throughout the series (to the viewers, at least). It’s the current Bobby that has really taken the cake, as well as the title for longest-held position as Bobby Draper. He can actually act and not just spit out lines, and he’s sassy at that.

11) Harry Crane

So Harry Crane is kind of a dud. He may have started Sterling Cooper’s TV division but just makes poor life choices. He’s cheated on his wife (but I guess, who hasn’t), he’s a pushover – he asks Roger for a raise from $200 to $310, and Roger gets him to accept $225 and Harry is super stoked about it. He’s often ignorant and can be dumb, and Don doesn’t like him. I guess what I’m saying is, there’s a reason why he’s on this list… but I just can’t pinpoint why.

10) Pete Campbell

The things Pete Campbell says are usually arrogant and offensive, he is always seeking approval and resents his co-workers when they find their own successes. He’s a white child of privilege who gets away with sleeping around and being a double standard. He has a face that is extremely punch-worthy, so when you see scenes of him getting into fights or walking into walls or falling down stairs, it brings you pure joy. Pete may be the biggest douche on the show, but at least he’s interesting. He’s like a car crash on the side of the road that you can’t help but slow down and watch.

9) Freddy Rumsen

Freddy had a rough start. When we meet him, he’s already hammered, and he stays that way for most of the earlier seasons. It’s no surprise that Freddy is an alcoholic, seeing the environment he works in, but when it comes to a point when he unknowingly pees his pants right before a huge presentation, it’s a problem. Incidentally, that pee incident led to Peggy stepping up and pitching a campaign which ultimately helped her move forward within the company, and it was always Freddy who believed in her talent. He showed up sporadically throughout the rest of the series, and when he becomes sober, the tables are turned and he’s the one confronting a drunken Don. For a man whose life seemed to be in shambles at the beginning, he’s one of the only ones that seems to have it together in the end.

8) Ken Cosgrove (Accounts)

Ken Cosgrove is the Bob Vance of Vance Refrigeration of Mad Men. He’s one if not the only one who actually has good intentions and is constantly the guy you can count on. He always wants to be the best at his job and tries not to get caught up in the drama or politics at work. Instead of cheating and drinking excessively, he spends his time writing sci-fi stories that get published in magazines, and I’m pretty sure if Ken was alive and real today, he’d be one of those cult writers signing books at sci-fi conventions. And he’s unintentionally endearing, since he doesn’t exactly have the best of luck. He lit’rally got shot in the face by a client and has had to wear that eye patch for a couple seasons. Also he’s married to Alex Mack.

7) Michael Ginsberg

We meet Ginsberg (played by the delightfully handsome and charming Ben Feldman) in season five, when Peggy wants him on board as a copywriter. He seems a little off when they first hire him, which is obviously foreshadowing of his future at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. He’s got good ideas, but unfortunately for him, Don doesn’t care much for him. And poor Ginsberg, when a huge-ass computer takes over the office, he slowly starts to go crazy. His proclamation of being a martian is truly Xenu-worthy, and his paranoia that the computer somehow transmits signals to make men engage in gay sex takes over his brain. He eventually professes his love for Peggy and in the most shocking/disgusting scene since the lawnmower/foot incident of season 3, Ginsberg hands Peggy a box containing the severed nipple he just cut from his person. Honestly, I just feel really bad for the guy.

6) Stan Rizzo

Stan joined SCDP in season 4 as the art director and was this misogynistic type who flirted with every woman that passed by. The one woman who hasn’t reciprocated romantic feelings for (and never should) is Peggy. It’s their relationship that ranks him at number six. They literally bare their souls for each other by actually stripping down and for the last few seasons, we’ve seen Stan turn into seemingly the only stable mad in Peggy life since Don goes off the deep end as we approach the 70s. Stan and Peggy have both helped each other evolve into better people, and that’s really all you can ask for in world where it seems everyone’s going downhill.

5) Sal Romano

SAL! I miss Sal. A lot of fans miss Sal. Ever since he made his last appearance on the series in season three, people keep asking when he’s coming back. Unfortunately the answer to that is never. The closeted art director who was married to a woman and finally had a tryst with a bellhop but then when a big-time client tried to come on to him, Sal refused and in turn the client forced Don and the other bosses to fire Sal. It was a super warped sexual harassment case that was sad to see play out on TV, especially knowing how difficult it was to be gay back then, and comparing it to the world we live in now.

4) Don Draper

Even if you haven’t seen Mad Men, you know that Don Draper isn’t exactly the most moral protagonist. He’s no Walter White, but he’s no Phil Dunphy either. In the pilot, it’s not until the very end that we find out that the womanizer we meet in the beginning actually goes home to a wife and two kids in the suburbs every night. While Don may be the head honcho at work, his secrets, as we come to find out, are deeper and more complex than we ever could have imagined, and that’s why he’s such a flawed character. Even in the title sequence, we see a man in a suit free falling from the top of a building, and it seems as if Don has been living a parallel life to that image for the past seven seasons. We don’t know where and how he’s going to end up, but like the promo pic above – he may be in over his head soon enough.

3) Dick Whitman

Speaking of Don’s secret background, we find out that Don is actually Dick Whitman. After taking on the Don Draper persona from a fallen fellow soldier in the war, Dick Whitman “dies”. But in a turning point in the show, we get to see not only the real Dick Whitman’s origins, but his interactions with the late Don Draper’s wife, Anna. That guy who shows up to Anna’s door to tell her that her husband is dead is someone we’ve never seen before. He’s a compassionate, almost shy man who is the complete opposite of the often arrogant Don Draper. In any scene with Anna, we get to see the real Dick Whitman – the one that happily provides for a widow, spends every Christmas with her, and gushes about how much he loves Betty when he tells Anna they’re going to get married. Fast forward to years later, when most of the people close to Don not only know about his sordid past, but don’t hold it against him – a feat he’s had since the beginning. Now we just have to see if he can get over his past himself.

2) Bert Cooper

Bert provided the Cooper of Sterling Cooper, founding the company with Roger Sterling’s dad in 1923. He basically played the seniority card throughout the show, often walking around without shoes (because he didn’t have an office), staring at his Rothko paintings, and providing excellent advice to the young blood around the office. Bert was like the strong grandfather of the office who everyone trusted. He was smart and loyal and frank – and to that I say, Bravo.

1) Roger Sterling

Roger Sterling has so many faults. He, again, like many others in the show, is an adulterer, constantly drinks and smokes, gets naked, participates in orgies, has threesomes (and ends up having a heart attack), gets high on LSD, and says the most inappropriate politically incorrect things to clients and co-workers alike (and has a book to prove it). But like other memorable TV characters like Dwight Schrute and Ron Swanson, they all have their own quirks and oddities and beliefs that we may not agree with, but it sure is fun to watch it play out. And I’ll miss that.

(Dis)Honorable Mentions: Dr. Rapist Greg Harris, Henry Francis, Ted Chaough, Duck Phillips, Jim Cutler,  Glen Bishop, Bob Benson
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Kid Sleepovers vs. Big Kid Sleepovers

Posted in GSOY (Gratuitous Story of Yourself), Miscellany by

Before you continue reading, get your mind out of the gutter. The sleepovers I’m talking about have nothing to do with shacking up with a significant other. It’s about the pure (semi-pure) and un-adulterated (adult) sleepovers with your gal or guy pals to celebrate friendship. I’ve gone to a number of these over the past few years, and I am such an advocate of them. We’re all so busy with our own lives, and while we get to hang out with our friends on a semi-regular basis, it’s not the same when you spend 12+ hours together in a confined area with an endless amount of snacks and booze.

Obviously there are big differences between having these sleepovers as a child and as an adult, and I’m here to help you realize that grown-up sleepovers are just what you need in your life right now to *reconnect* with your nearest and dearest. Just be aware that things have changed since you were 13 years old.

Juice Boxes vs. Wine

We all know the secret to any get together is booze. Unless you’re Mormon on an alcoholic, it’s mandatory at every event you go to, and I feel even more crucial if you’re attending a sleepover. As kids, you’d get soda or apple juice or grape juice – and I guess it’s kind of the same if you count wine as grape juice.

Boys vs. Men

Mrs. DiCaprio. Mrs. Leo DiCaprio. Mrs. Leonardo DiCaprio. *signs name over and over again* When we’re tweens, we discuss matters of the heart like, ‘Wanye asked me for a pen today in class and he totally touched my hand for too long when he grabbed it from me what does this mean??’. All the talk is the ‘what ifs’ and questioning what it would be like to kiss so and so and who’s likes who at school. And then when you grow up, it’s all real. It’s tangible. Your friends are engaged, in long-term relationships, married, have babies, the topic changes from ‘what would it be like to kiss Wanye’ to ‘I am going to strangle Wanye’s mother over these wedding plans.’ It ranges from why you think your friend’s boyfriend isn’t good enough to what kind of birth control you’re on, and nap time patterns for the little ones. The things you always thought were so far away as a kid are currently staring at you straight in the face.

Staying Up All Night vs. I’m Gonna Pass Out

In my mid-20s, I had a sleepover where we stayed up until like 4:30 in the morning. This isn’t totally out of character for me because I am insane and go to bed around 2:30-3am. However, it’s different when you’re interacting with your friends until that time of day/night. It felt like we were kids again, staying up as long as we could to prove that… we could. Albeit, as kids, staying up “late” basically meant anything after like, 11pm. But at the most recent sleepover I attended, I could’ve sworn it was lights out by like 1:30-2am. And on top of that, we were super organized about it because we arranged who was bringing sleeping bags and where everyone was sleeping. And no one fought to stay up late, because we’re all old now and need our beauty rest for real.

Kid Movies vs. Serious Movies

Let’s be honest. We watched Save the Last Dance a few weeks ago. That is the same exact movie I watched when I attended sleepovers as a kid. This is exactly the same.

Parental Superversion vs. Significant Other Supervision

Part of the allure of sleepovers as a kid is that you’ll be with your best friends with only one or two parents around to check in on your shenanigans. It’s also helpful that the responsibility of buying food and cleaning up isn’t yours and that you don’t have to worry about making breakfast in the morning. As an adult, you take on all that responsibility on yourself – and you also might have significant others wondering about your whereabouts and supervising your life in a different way.

Pranks vs. No Pranks

I (luckily) never had friends who were dumb enough to do pranks like the freezing of the bra and writing on sleeping faces and putting hands in water so they’ll pee. Like, what is wrong with kids? Anyways, I guess it wasn’t that much different for me as an adult since I suppose I keep similar company, because those pranks still don’t happen.

Games vs. Social Media Stalking

Games at girls’ sleepovers always involve boys, like MASH and Truth or Dare or scary paranormal stuff like Light as a Feather or Bloody Mary. What happened to us as children? Anyways, as fun as those may be, we as adults like to play a different game that involves stalking people on social media and talking about them because we’re only human.

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There Are A Lot Of Reasons To Hate Surprise Parties

Posted in GSOY (Gratuitous Story of Yourself) by

I’m not an April Fools’ Day person. Neither of us are. Wasting my time in the service of a joke that’s never even funny? No thanks. I’m also not a birthday person. I know this is aggravating, because I don’t want my loved ones to Sixteen Candles it and forget my birthday, but I also don’t want anyone to make a big fuss. This is actually more demanding than asking your friends to throw a straight-up bash, and for that I apologize. But you know what I don’t apologize for? Hating surprise parties, a.k.a. the birthday version of April Fools Day, a.k.a. the kind of parties they throw in hell. Seriously. When the devil has a birthday, John Wilkes Booth and freaking Hitler and like … is Genghis Khan something people still talk about?… all collude to get the devil to “meet his sister for brunch” so all his friends can leap out at him from the shadows. Screw surprise parties.

Surprise parties play into two of my biggest fears: people doing things without me, and people knowing things that I don’t. I’ve felt this way since I was a toddler. My mom used to make my siblings put on a mock-bedtime, saying their prayers and brushing their teeth, because I couldn’t go to sleep if I thought that everyone else was awake. Strike one: doing things without me. When I found out that everyone had been faking bedtime behind my back, I was livid. By the way, I found out when I was like 22. Strike two: knowing things I don’t.

I don’t even like when the animal kingdom tries to get the better of me. The other day I was walking my dog when we came across a flock of deer. As we passed not 20 feet away from them, the deer stood statue-still, hoping that we wouldn’t notice them. I could not let those deer think they had fooled me. I yelled “bye, deer!” after we passed them just so those animals knew damn well that I knew.

You ever know someone where your friends are like “you two should totally go out” or “we all know you’re going to end up together?” I will never let that happen, so strong is my aversion to people thinking they know my life.

And let’s talk about outfits. At least one day a week, I hate what I’m wearing by midday. That means that there is a solid one in seven chance that I would attend my own party wearing something I don’t even like. See? There are a lot of reasons to hate surprise parties.

Worst of all, all of your loved ones have to make a ruse of forgetting or not caring about a major life event, whether it’s a birthday, an engagement, or an anniversary. Two hours of being showered with love do not make up for weeks of thinking that everyone’s being a dick.

It wasn’t always like this. I was the victim of a surprise party when I was a kid, and I liked it.  It was a simple pool party at my aunt’s house, in late summer when I hadn’t seen some of my friends for months. My birthday was in September, so I never saw it coming. But even at 11 years old, I felt like such a putz. Having the wool pulled over your eyes isn’t better just because there’s confetti in the wool. My aunt didn’t really pick me up because she wanted me to go swimming at her house … I mean she did, she just wanted me to go swimming with cake and all of my best friends. Okay, I already admitted that my anti-surprise party stance is aggravating. And my mom didn’t ask who my best friends were because she cared, she asked because … she cared and wanted to invite them to a party to celebrate my birth. She’s a good mom, okay? But my outfit was still stupid.

Besides, I was a child then. As far as I’m concerned, big birthdays, as well as low-grade holidays like April Fools’ Day and Valentine’s Day, are for children. They just aren’t a good use of time. I mean, everybody was born once, it’s not that big a deal. Also, Surprise Parties are the party version of pranks, and you know how we feel about pranks: they’re jokes for unfunny people.

The worst is when you meet a family or friend group who do surprise parties for everything. Every time Ruth has a birthday or Margie has a baby, everyone pretends they aren’t doing anything for it, makes them go to some dumb fake outing, then – BAM! – they throw a party at them. And if you ask why they didn’t just tell Ruth or Margie that they were throwing a party,they’ll be like “oh, she’d say she doesn’t want it.”

YO. THAT’S BECAUSE RUTH DOESN’T WANT A PARTY, THEN. Respect that. There are a lot of reasons to hate surprise parties. I get it.

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We Need To Talk About Happy Endings’ “New Day”

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Happy Endings fans – we need to talk about the show. If you’re not a Happy Endings fan, you are missing one of the greatest things that has ever happened to television so stop reading this right now and go out and buy the DVDs of all three seasons and binge watch until you look like Max hibernating in his apartment.

Great. Welcome back all Happy Endings fans new and old. In February, someone from the Happy Endings writers’ room Twitter account posted a mysterious link to this countdown, with the phrase, “It’s almost a new day”. WHAT DOES IT MEAN, cried every single person in the fandom. Some folks quickly figured out that the countdown led to April 1st – AKA April Fool’s Day AKA THE DAY EVERYONE THINKS THEY’RE A JOKER (see whole rant here).

Since then, the anon Tweeter has been posting random hints, like pictures of Michael Jordan – who not only played for the Chicago Bulls/the city where Happy Endings takes place – but made a brief comeback to the Washington Wizards, the great Mark Morrison hit, RETURN of the Mack, stuff about ketchup, and coordinates to the Four Seasons Hotel in Chi-town.

All these hints could mean nothing or they could mean something, but I’m hoping they do mean something, like a brief reunion of sorts? A revival on Netflix? Recently, the anon did start following the Netflix and Yahoo! Screen accounts on Twitter.

So in saying this, I’m a naturally positive person. I’m a “everything happens for a reason” type of gal. No cynical bones in my body. Which is why I really think something significant will happen come April 1st.

Reasons Why I Think This Is Not Bullshit

  • Ever since the show was cancelled in 2013, it has had a strong cult following grow year by year. Happy Endings’ grassroots fans used word of mouth as a weapon, also with the help of TV critics and Internet critics who loved the show and will forever put it on the “Cancelled Too Soon” lists from now until eternity. Fans were clamoring for more when it ended, and that need/want hasn’t faltered since
  • This is the age of TV where there are 10 million pilots made and only a handful are actually picked up. But this is also the age where shows like Community or Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, both of which were given the axe by NBC, were picked up by online services Yahoo! Screen and Netflix, respectively. TV is changing, so why can’t Happy Endings do the same too?
  • Adam Pally is leaving The Mindy Project and Damon Wayans Jr. is leaving New Girl. Eliza Coupe’s show Benched, was recently cancelled, Casey Wilson is on the bubble for renewal for Marry Me, and Elisha Cuthbert and Zachary Knighton are on shows that could possibly get the boot. Are they secretly quitting all their current jobs to be avail for Happy Endings reincarnate??
  • Adam Pally said this of the countdown to The Huffington Post: “I can’t tell you anything. I know as much as you. I’ll tell you this: I know the origin of that Happy Endings countdown clock was not intended to be where it is headed. That’s as much as I can give you.” BUT LIKE, OBVIOUSLY HE KNOWS SOMETHING, RIGHT
  • It would be extremely mean to have a 50+ day countdown to nothing. 

But even for the most positive of people, I know that like most things in life, we can’t get our hopes up too high.

Reasons Why I Think This Is Bullshit

  • It’s on April Fool’s Day. Honestly, this “holiday” needs to stop. Reiterating this with another link to my previous post.
  • Reps for Netflix, Amazon, and Yahoo have all denied any news of a comeback. ABC bosses are clueless, Sony (the studio that produced the show) has “no comment”. This could also mean something is most definitely happening.
  • The writers link pranks. See Season 3, Episode 12, “The Marry Prankster“
  • Casey Wilson is pregnant. Her husband, the creator of Happy Endings and their new show Marry Me, still might have a second season of the NBC show to get ready for, come fall.
  • Speaking of Casey Wilson, she’s a life ruiner. She ruins people’s lives (jk, love ya Pen Pen, but ugh). In a new interview, Casey basically shuts all the speculation down. And she would know, because, again, her husband was the creator of Happy Endings (yes, that’s how they met).
It’s certainly nothing to my knowledge so I think it might be our writer’s assistant joking around and unfortunately, I know it’s not a welcome joke for everyone necessary.

Casey Wilson: I know. I don’t love that he did it to be honest. But at the same time, I think he was framing it like he knew fans would be excited. I don’t think he meant it in any way but to my knowledge, there’s nothing moving forward. I mean I’m still on the show.

You’d probably know.

CW: I would hope. I would hope. But nothing sadly and I apologize if it got anyone excited… It got me excited.

For a second, were you like, “Oh, great, why didn’t they tell me”?

Yeah. I was like I’m sure they want to tell because they’re bringing me such a great offer that they want to wait… So nothing yet.

You’d think I’d be convinced that there’s definitely nothing happening  after Casey’s interview, but I’m still holding on to a glimmer of hope. Maybe at least a small series of webisodes?? A TV movie a la Lifetime? I’ll even settle for a reunion where the cast sits around and does nothing but drink and and eat ribs. Anything. Just let it be something. I can’t be the only one who’s dying over this! And there’s less than 24 hours left!!! What do y’all think? Are we just wasting our time? SHOULD WE ALL JUST GET TOGETHER AND HAVE A MASSIVE HAPPY ENDINGS VIEWING PARTY??

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The Frappuccino, And Other 20-Year-Old Foods

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Happy birthday, Frappuccino! Starbucks’ premier beverage – proof that a milkshake by any other name really would taste as sweet – just turned 20. That means that this year’s incoming college freshmen never even lived in a world without the frap. Good for them. Who would want to?

Okay, I’m not actually a hardcore frappuccino enthusiast. However, I can remember what a big deal they were when they first came out, during a time when “iced  coffee” was spoken in such a tone that you could actually hear the quotation marks around the phrase. The frap brought coffee and espresso beverages to a whole new season (summer) and a whole new demographic (children). I felt super grown-up ordering a Venti Mocha Frappuccino with Whip at Barnes and Noble in 6th grade while perusing James Cameron’s Titanic book for the third time because that shit costs $19.99 and my gift card is only for 15 dollars, and this became my gateway drug into the world of caffeinated drinks. Starbucks, at least in me, you have created a monster.

The mid-90s were actually a big, weird time in processed food history. While you’re sipping your signature Birthday Cake Frappuccino today, raise your glass to these other treats that turn the big 2-0 this year.

Stuffed Crust Pizza – Pizza Hut

Two of my childhood obsessions – pizza and mozzarella sticks – combined into one food? Pizza Hut, you shouldn’t have. I can still remember my excitement when my friend Patty’s mom ordered the stuffed crust pizza at a sleepover. There was a marinara dipping sauce, and despite the resemblance to mozzarella sticks, her mom didn’t remind me not to choke and die like my mom always did. [There was, like, one well-publicized news story about a kid choking on mozzarella sticks, and I’m pretty sure it was a baby, but moms grabbed onto that information and wouldn’t let go.] The commercials said that you would want to eat your pizza “crust first” but that’s not true. You’d save the best part for last. Stuffed crust pizza was at once entirely unnecessary and seriously so necessary.

DiGiorno Rising Crust Pizza

What about when it’s NOT delivery? In those cases, it’s probably DiGiorno. In 1995, the rising crust pizza burst onto the scene and while I wouldn’t say I ever confused it for delivery, it was a hell of a lot better than Boboli. Remember Boboli? Anyway, the main pitfall of the frozen pizza – the flat, crispy crust – faded into the past, and suddenly it seemed a lot more respectable to dish out the frozen pizza at a slumber party. Just not AS respectable as Stuffed Crust*.

*Don’t worry, the future is now and you can currently buy DiGiorno stuffed crust.

Blue M&Ms

Next time you pour a handful of M&Ms, take a good look at the color selection. Then imagine if all of the blue M&Ms were tan instead. Yes, tan. Prior to 1995, M&Ms were significantly less colorful, like the first part of the Wizard of Oz, but after a popular mid-90s contest, the candies brightened up, like the second part of the Wizard of Oz. There was a big, pre-social media campaign to name the new M&M color, but the other entries – purple and pink – were obviously not as M&M appropriate. I voted blue and was thrilled to see the Empire State Building lit up blue after the winner was announced (we’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: the 90s were weird).

Here’s a curveball. Shortly after the contest, my mom noticed that the M&M-sponsored worksheet she’d been using in her classroom for years referred to “blue M&Ms.” So, did they know it was going to be blue all along? Had the worksheet guy time-slipped into the future? And why was my mother using an M&Ms handout to teach fourth grade?

Fruitopia

Fruitopia celebrated two decades in 2014, or it would have if the bev hadn’t died with pogs and sunflower hats. It’s hard to believe that they could bottle so much 90s into one little drink. It had psychadelic branding, “natural” juice that … wasn’t, Gen X-y marketing, and Peace And Love(TM) product names. Remember begging at the gas station for a bottle of Strawberry Passion Awareness, The Grape Beyond, or Fruit Integration? Those NAMES, oy. Coca Cola retired the Fruitopia brand in 2003, folding some surviving flavors into their Minute Maid flagship. Yeah, although Fruitopia was for awesome skaters who hung out under wall tapestries and Minute Maid was for moms who make the bed by billowing a crisp, white sheet into the air near an open window, they were basically the same thing.

Twizzler Pull n’ Peel

The mid-90s was all about taking time-honored junk food and doing weird stuff to it. Enter the Twizzler Pull n Peel. I have to say, I was never a huge fan of Twizzlers, but something about breaking the hard, flat rope into a twisted mass of smaller, softer round ropes was absolutely delicious. You could savor a single Pull ‘n Peel twist for ages, or you could bite through the whole thing for a whole mouthful of Twizzler. These bad boys are twenty years old and show no signs of slowing down.

French Toast Crunch

French Toast Crunch was just one of many high-concept, dessert-y cereals, like Oreo Os or Cookie Crisp. If the idea of toast and syrup condensed into cereal-sized nuggets and doused in milk doesn’t appeal to you, that isn’t surprising. For nearly a decade – from 2006 until the recent past – the product was off the shelves.  But it’s back now, so if you want to relive the 90s head to your nearest grocery store. Be warned: this crap had some sharp corners.

Arch Deluxe – McDonald’s

Looking a bit ahead, next year we will be celebrating the 20th birthday of the most adult burger of all time. Do you remember this? McDonald’s marketing concept was to bill this as a “grown-up” menu item, even though it was just a regular burger with bacon and some sort of sauce on it. It worked, I guess, because I was so offended that McDonald’s thought kids would hate the Arch Deluxe that I begged to try it. It was okay, not great, but at twice the price and twice the calories of a traditional cheeseburger, it didn’t last long.

Pop Tarts Crunch

Like I said: the mid-90s saw a lot of tinkering with junk foods to create Franken-junkfoods. Pop Tarts were already so unhealthy that I was only allowed to eat them for breakfast after I’d had an acceptable breakfast. I think this was actually worse than just letting me eat them for breakfast, since not only was I eating PopTarts, I was also eating two breakfasts. But I digress. What if you couldn’t choose between pop tarts and cereal? For a brief, shining moment from 1994- 1995, that’s not a question you ever had to answer. Pop Tarts Crunch cereal combined all the sugary unhealthiness of Pop Tarts with all of the sugary unhealthiness of kids’ cereals. What a time it was.

Doritos Tacos – Taco Bell

Wait, aren’t these new? Yes. And no. Taco Bell launched the Doritos taco shell a few years ago, but the shell was invented by advertising interns in 1995. I am not at all surprised. Doritos were THE Food in 1995, and we were obsessed with morphing our snacks into other snacks. Plus Taco Bell was super cool at the time – just not cool enough to incorporate Doritos into their fake Mexican experience.

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Too Soon to #ReplaceZayn?

Posted in Entertainment by

We talked about giving you Directioners a week to deal with the fallout of Zayn leaving the group yesterday, but I’m going to talk about it again today, because the internet is still not over it, and in turn, with us being… the internet, we’re not over it either.

Unlike Molly, I am a proud card carrying member of The Cult of Boy Band (not a real cult, just made it up, should probs be legit tho).  Since I’m 29, I’m not really emotionally invested in Zayn’s departure, but I can only imagine what these teenyboppers are going through right now. Kind of.

In the summer of 2001, the Backstreet Boys, well four of them, appeared on TRL and sat down with MTV News dude John Norris for what looked like a serious chat. I knew something was up because 1) AJ was missing 2) Why was John Norris interviewing them and not Carson 3) They were sitting on stools. And sure enough, they came on to let everyone know that AJ had gone into rehab for his alcohol addiction, depression and anxiety and they put the Black and Blue tour on hold.

In full disclosure, watching this brought back a traumatic memory for me and I started tearing up just watching the clip. Because as a 15-year-old teen girl whose life centered around BSB, the moment was a traumatic one, like the kind of ‘JFK assassinated-9/11-Princess Diana’ type moment – I was sitting on my couch and crying uncontrollably, and when my parents got home they thought something went horribly wrong but then I had to explain to them that AJ went into rehab (This was around the time my mom informed me I liked ‘bad boys’ because I was also obsessed with Robert Downey Jr. during his dark days). I was sad, confused, concerned for AJ, mad because I had tickets to the tour and it was going to be delayed – I felt a lot of feels. So I get it, Directioners. I really do. If that moment had been the end of AJ in the group, I would be distraught too.

But times are different now. I didn’t have Twitter and Tumblr and Facebook and SnapTube to express my feelings. You know what I had? The Backstreet.net fan forum and a boom box to play Don’t Wanna Lose You Now on repeat. We didn’t have campaigns to get all 10 Trending Topics on Twitter to be 1D-related. We didn’t have a GoFundMe.com crowdfunding site to raise $877 million to “buy the band” (seriously I’m dying this is real and hilarious). There was no easy way for me to send a 140 character message to AJ’s (hypothetical) fiancee and blame her for being the Yoko of the situation and forcing him to leave the band. We had none of it. Which is why fandom in 2015 is still so fascinating to me. I could go on about that, but let’s stick to the topic at hand.

One of those Twitter trending topics that has been mentioned a lot in the past three days is #ReplaceZayn. Most of the posts suggest that NO ONE CAN REPLACE ZAYN THIS IS RUDE #TooSOon

https://twitter.com/fratkidniall/status/580793514360893440

^how do u even come up with this, people?

But then there are the hilarious responses, because this is the interwebs, and people are photoshop experts and clever 140 character wordsmiths. While the odds of the remaining members of 1D replacing Zayn with any of these people slash any one at all are very slim, it’s still amusing to entertain the idea that one of these folks could be on the next piece of 1D merch. Let the recruitment process begin!

Alan Rickman as Professor Snape

https://twitter.com/_Snape_/status/580800724172435456

He’s British, so that’s helpful. Also please note it’s not just ‘Alan Rickman’ or ‘Professor Snape’ it’s ‘Alan Rickman AS Professor Snape’.

Chris Kirkpatrick

He has a resume to prove his talent in a group environment, and what else is he doing? Also he’s apparently travelling back in time to #ReplaceZayn, per this poster? And why does everyone else look like they’re photoshopped too?

This Guy From The Wiggles

https://twitter.com/Anthony_Wiggle/status/580866522228248576

Honestly didn’t even know The Wiggles were still doing their thing. Respect.

Perrie Edwards (AKA Zayn’s fiancee)

PLOT TWIST

Jaden Smith

Any and all of his nonsensical tweets could easily be made into lyrics, so he’s like halfway there.

Duke Silver

Niall can play the guitar, but can anyone play a mean jazz sax? Didn’t think so.

Right Shark

Guys, I feel like we’ve been giving a lot of attention to Left Shark, and rightfully so, but what about Right Shark? While Katy is off making Left Shark onesies, and Left Shark is busy on his motivational speaker tour of Ramada Inns in North America, Right Shark is probably sitting at home kicking himself for getting the dance moves on point. Let’s give him/her/it a chance at fame, shall we?

Jeremy Clarkson

https://twitter.com/Year11Bants/status/580787581694058497

This person is relevant if you’re British or watch BBC America on Monday nights instead of The Bachelor or are like, really into cars? Either way, this dude just got fired from his job because he allegedly punched a producer of Top Gear. Use that anger and channel it in music, Jeremy.

Billy Zane

It’s like a warped version of Wheel of Fortune’s Before and After, but I think it can work, you guys.  Fans have already “mistaken” him for Zayn, so let’s just keep going with this.

Lil Wayne

I’m just rhyming things now, TBH. But hOLY HELL WTF IS THIS PIC

Robert Durst

Just don’t piss him off. In fact, he’ll probably never leave the band because the boys already know too much. Just keep your mouth shut, Louis.

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Can We Not With April Fool’s Day

Posted in Miscellany by

As a kid I looked forward to April Fool’s Day solely as a result of Nickelodeon magazine. If you’re a 90s kid, you remember this publication. It was constantly advertised on Nick and filled with comics, interviews with celebs, general silliness and pranks. There were tips on how to prank and actual pranks you could cut out and use for everyday life.

Looking back on it, I don’t think I actually had a passion for pranks, I just thought Nickelodeon magazine was so cool that I would do whatever was in it. Ah, my constant desire to my liked as a child. Anyways, I would attempt to pull those pranks, mainly on my Filipino parents who probably could care less slash didn’t know what was going on, so it was completely lost on them. Maybe the lack of reciprocation is also a reason why I just don’t care for it now.

Flash forward to present day, and I find April Fool’s Day not only annoying but exhausting and actually effecting my life in a way I abhor. It’s exactly one week away from today and I’m already over it. Why? I’ll tell you why, kids. Gather round and listen to grandma tell you why this “holiday” is pure nonsense.

Unfunny People Think They’re Funny

Look, I fancy myself a fairly funny person. I love watching comedy, I love learning about the process of making comedies, I’m a big ol’ comedy nerd. I appreciate a good laugh. But when it comes round to April 1st, naturally unfunny people come out of the depths of Last Comic Standing hell to attempt to do a prank or make a joke that they’ll be able to get away with that they wouldn’t be able to the rest of the year. April Fool’s Day is like forcing people to laugh at whatever dumb thing you’ve planned, simply because you’re allowed to be an ass one day of the year.

Jokes That Go Awry Can Make People Feel Like Shit

There’s a segment on Ryan Seacrest’s L.A. radio morning show called Ryan’s Roses, that isn’t exactly a prank per se, but it’s basically designed to catch a cheating partner. A person who thinks their significant other may be cheating on them enlists the help of Ryan and his morning crew. They have someone on the staff call the alleged cheater, telling them they’re from a florist and they’ve won a free dozen roses to send to anyone. When asked whose name should be put on the card, the alleged cheater either A) gives their real S.O.’s name or B) gives a third party name, thus proving them to be a cheater, and then the original person gets on the line and all hell breaks loose. It gets heated and embarrassing and I can’t even listen to it. There is nothing worse than witnessing something go awry when real feelings are involved. There’s been a horrible history of April Fool’s Day pranks gone wrong, and you can’t help but hang you head in shame and embarrassment for them, unless it’s just pure anger. Like the time an employee at a Virginia college texted her daughter saying there was a shooting on campus, and the daughter immediately called 911 – police swarmed the school and now said woman is facing charges. Or maybe the time a woman in Tennessee called her sister saying she killed her husband and she needs to help her dump the body – and the sister turned prankster sister into the cops. People are dumb.

There Will Always Be a RickRoll

I remember being at my internship senior year of college and sitting at the computer and being told I needed to go to YouTube and click on any video. I clicked a random link. I was all, “WTF”. I laughed, I think. Do y’all remember what happened? Of course you do, because unless you’ve been living under a rock, that meme won’t die. The bait and switch of Rick Astley was funny for a minute in 2008 – not so much now.

Radio DJs Always AssBuckets

Is there some kind of clause in radio DJs’ contracts that state they must perform some elaborate, ridiculous, horrible prank on April Fool’s Day? I feel like they’re usually the perpetrators and egging listeners on to play pranks on their friends and loved ones. This morning show crew even has a hand list of “last-minute pranks”, which include putting tape over the laser at the bottom of a computer mouse and mixing Skittles, M&Ms and Reese’s Pieces in a bowl. What kind of fuckery… And then there’s the category of pure idiocy when well-known Boston shock jocks Opie and Anthony told their listeners in 1998 that beloved Mayor Tom Menino had died in a car crash. Unfortunately, Tommy Menino was on a flight at the time and couldn’t be reached, leading to even more panic. Opie and Anthony were eventually fired. (RIP Tommy Menino frreal.)

There Will Always Be A Story You Think Could Be True

Number one reason I hate April Fool’s Day. Since I work in entertainment news, I have to be vigilant of fake stories beginning… like, today. And when it comes to April 1st, I have to constantly double check and make sure it’s not some elaborate joke ‘N Sync is pulling and they’re not actually coming back together for a new album and world tour. But some of the fake stories put out there are actually believable and it’s frustrating to find out when it’s not. For instance, if it was announced that Abe Vigoda died on April 1st, I would actually believe that, because he’s old. Skip to two hours later and Abe is confirming he’s alive on Twitter. IT’S JUST ANNOYING AND NOT FUNNY AND EVERYONE JUST STOP PLEASE, FOR MY SANITY.

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MTV’s Spring Break: Expectations Vs. Reality

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First things first: before you ask “but Molly, isn’t Spring Break just a trash-cation for college-aged garbage people?” Yes. Yes it is. I should know – I used to be a college-aged garbage person.

But before I was a college-aged garbage person, I was an impressionable tween learning about my world through MTV. I have no idea if MTV is still considered cool or relevant to today’s teenagers. I just know that when I was 12, MTV was “all that.” My parents didn’t love it, but I was like “guys, they’re marketing to ME! Now, can you please buy me some Clean & Clear and a Seventeen Magazine subscription? I’m told I want both.”

Late 90s, early 2000s MTV is where I learned about the American rite of passage known as Spring Break. This, coupled with watching P.C.U. on cable, formed my basis of what college was like in the 1990s. Imagine my surprise during my 2008 trip to Panama City Beach, when I learned that Spring Break is nothing like I was led to believe.

Expectation: When you go on Spring Break MTV will be there, filming everything.

Reality: A tenth-level MTV affiliate, like MTV-Z or MTV-X, will be there. But creepy old men will also be there filming everything. Yeah, the internet gets pretty weird in the 2000s.

Expectation: You won’t just dance to awesome party jams, you’ll BE the awesome party jams on Say What Karaoke. By the way, Say What Karaoke is where I learned the lyrics to “Too Close” when I was just old enough to know what it meant.

Reality: Say What Karaoke goes the way of the dinosaur by the time you’re in college. However, your first night in Panama you will find a seedy karaoke dive bar with cheap drinks, and you’ll go there every night. The troll-looking bouncer becomes obsessed with one of your friends and for some reason, you find this not just okay but hilarious. But seriously, college kids: if it still exists, you should go to the cheap karaoke bar in Panama. It’s a blast. It’s just not Say What Karaoke-level glamorous.

Expectation: You will spend the weekend in the sand and sun, surrounded at all times by a crowd of fun-loving drunk college kids.

Reality: No, that’s all true. But all of those things are awful.

Expectation: You’ll make friends with college kids from around the nation and maybe the world!

Reality: Here is a rundown of “friends” we made on spring break:

  •  The kids from Ohio who taught us all the OH-IO cheer. Actually, they were cool but it only goes downhill from here.
  • That troll-looking Karaoke Bar guy.
  • These guys we met the first night at the karaoke bar after a 24-hour sleepless bus ride. They were from the South and took us to a diner for grits. Then they took us to see the high-rise the one kid’s dad owned; they were staying in the penthouse. Then they were like oops, that driver we said would take you home just left and it’s 5am, guess you all have to stay! TL;DR I got kidnapped.
  • The girls from our college’s most vicious sorority, whose room was next to ours. When my friend accidentally went into their room and fell asleep like Drunk Goldilocks, she woke up to one of the girls saying “If I were you, I would kill myself.” My friend responded “If I were you, I wouldn’t be such a bitch.”
  • The Christians in a white van who offer free rides to people.
  • The DJ who was from the same super-tiny town as my friend, which gave us a pass to request See You Again by Miley Cyrus more times than was even okay in 2008.

Expectation: You’ll probably run into Jesse Camp!

Reality:  Nah. You’ll run into a lot of people talking like Jesse Camp. That’s because they’re all wasted. The one that stands out in my mind is a girl in our hotel lobby raving about the Baconator she just bought. I congratulated her without any irony, because she was really proud of that Baconator.

Expectation: You will observe and take part in all kinds of wacky contests and win fabulous prizes!

Reality: The contests all involve things like mud and jello, and the grand prize is an extra-large giveaway t-shirt that for some reason people will go apeshit for.

Expectation: College spring break is the best you’ll ever look in your life, just like those girls on Fashionably Loud.

Reality: Let me break it down for you:

After an hour of pre-trip bathing suit shopping, my friends and I were so miserable that we decided we must have low blood sugar. We bought some Auntie Anne’s pretzels, signed up for department store credit cards that we should NOT have signed up for in order to get a 20% discount, then wore our bathing suits occasionally at our house to get used to them. This is probably not an advisable bikini-body plan.

I was also day-glo pale the whole time, because even in Florida, even on Spring Break, I’m still a freckly redhead. And I had giant bags under my eyes because bars closed at 4 A.M. and the free band on the beach started playing at 8 A.M.

Finally, the week before Spring Break I decided I wanted my hair to be more manageable. Do you see where this is going? I went to the bargain salon chain in our small college town for something between chin and shoulder length. This was the second of three times in my life when “between chin and shoulder length” ended up being ear length. I don’t know if it’s my hair type or if all of these hairdressers went to some weird anatomy class where your ear is located somewhere after your face. Then I had to go back the next day and get it cut even shorter because the right side was two inches shorter than the left.

Anyway, I looked sort of appealing, in the same way Dorothy Hamill did and also with the same haircut. It was the haircut every mother hopes her daughter will get right before Spring Break.

So yeah. I did not, in fact, belong on Fashionably Loud, even from far away in one of the crowd scenes.

Expectation:  You will be so pumped for SPRING BREAK! that you’ll have energy for days.

Reality: After a full day on a bus, which kicked off with you scurrying down a gully on a bathroom stop to get shots at an Applebee’s, you will still be shouting “SPRING BREAK!” That’s because you’ll have energy drinks for days. Energy DRINKS. One of my friend had a bunch of Red Bulls then totally tweaked out. He called us in a sweaty panic because his wallet was missing. His wallet was in his bed.

Expectation: One of the hottest bands of the 90s will play for free!

Reality: One of the hottest bands of the 90s WILL play for free. At 8 in the freaking morning. In 2008.

Expectation: You’ll have a crazy week full of wacky stories that you and your friends will laugh about for years to come.

Reality: That’s completely true. But you’re sort of laughing at yourself instead of with yourself, if that makes sense.

 

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‘Ello Gunvor! Getting To Know James Corden

Posted in Entertainment by

Tonight, British import James Corden is taking over hosting duties at The Late Late Show – aptly titled – With James Corden. As he joins the ranks of fellow late night hosts Letterman, Fallon, Kimmel, and Meyers, he doesn’t exactly have the same popularity as said comedians. He’s a Brit who you “probably know from that thing” (Into the Woods, Begin Again), more on the ranks of Freddie Highmore and less like Daniel Radcliffe.

I personally was excited to hear of the news James was taking over because I had been a casual fan of his for years, so I’m glad he’s finally going to make a name for himself in America. Before he makes his debut tonight, here are six things to know about him that will hopefully make you love him as much as I, and a bunch of Brits do.

He is a Tony Award Winner Who Loves His Wife

In 2011, James starred in One Man, Two Guvnors, a one-man show about a guy who becomes employed by two men (see the amazingness here). The success in London led him to transfer the show to Broadway, and in 2012, the production received critical acclaim and allll the awards. This includes James’ first Tony, for Best Actor in a Play. He was up against household names like Phillip Seymour Hoffman, James Earl Jones, Frank Langella and John Lithgow for the prize, but even with that feat, the best moment is his speech in which he thanks his then-girlfriend for being by his side through everything. I’M NOT CRYING, YOU’RE CRYING.

He Cut Off Adele During Her Acceptance Speech

In 2011, James hosted the BRIT Awards, which is the British equivalent to the Grammys. Of course, this was during the time when Adele wasn’t in hiding and was winning all the awards, and she went up to the podium to accept her British Album of the Year prize. It being the last award of the night, producers were yelling in James’ ear piece to cut her off so they could have one last performance and end the show on time. But of course, that would mean interrupting ADELE. He hated that he had to do it, and when he did, she was not pleased and the crowed booed, she gave the middle finger and fans were outraged. James later said that although there was a bunch of shouting, in the end, it’s just an awards show and Adele was super understanding.

He had a Number One Song in the UK

Not only is he a Tony winner, but he’s also a best-selling recording artist. Okay, well he recorded a song that made it to number one. You know how countries participating in the World Cup make songs to pump up the nation and its players? James Corden and British rapper Dizzee Rascal collaborated for Shout, a song that samples Tears for Fears’ Shout and Blackstreet’s No Diggity. It debuted at the top spot in 2010, but it didn’t exactly help England win the top prize.

 He Was Given A Fancy Title By The Queen

Just this past year, James was awarded the Officer of the Order of the British Empire (or OBE, for short) for his services to drama and his charity work. I’m still not really sure what this means, but according to Wikipedia, he is “the most junior and most populous order of chivalry in the British and other Commonwealth honours systems.” Okay. Whatever it is, I think he met the Queen.

He’s Friends With One Direction

This may seem like an odd friendship, but when you think about it, it’s really not. I mean, they’re both British (Irish) and all Brit celebs are friends with each other, right? No you stupid American. However, in this case it’s true. James’ longtime BFF Ben Winston (who is now the executive producer on The Late Late Show) has done multiple projects with One Direction, including The X Factor and directing a bunch of their videos. The boys have already helped him promote the new show, and one time, James even gave Niall a tattoo of his face on his bum.

He Used To Be in a “Boy Band”

Boy band is a super loose term in this case, as James and his mates were more like 2Gether than 1D. As he explains in the clip above, he starred in a British show called Boyz Unlimited in 1999, the height of the boy band era. It was a comedy about a boy band and their attempts at fame, but it was art imitating life as he really thought he could make it big as a teen idol. He was in a band called Full Frontal as well as one called Insatiable, that had a “song” titled “Girl Are You Ready”. James’ boy band dreams came true when he sang and performed with Take That (Back for Good? Robbie Williams?) star Gary Barlow during one of his solo shows. Gary sang Take That hit Pray, and James came out and not only sang the shizz out of it, he danced his bum off too.

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