TVSquad

(S03E09) "If I hadn't of been here, you'd have whatever disease Hepatitis Bob has!"

How stoked was I to see Craig T. Nelson again? I was never a fan of Coach and I thought Nelson could do a lot better. It's great to see him on a show where he can really make people laugh.

I had all but forgotten about Liberty & Ray Ray. Their re-appearance. however, answers the question I had about how the writers will deal with a new baby. They won't. Just like when Phoebe had her brother's babies, Joy will give birth and we'll never see that kid again, except maybe during sweeps.

Seriously. Mario Lopez is supposedly one of the three finalists in the running to take over for Bob Barker when he retires from the long-running CBS game show later this year. The other two finalists? Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Donald Trump.

OK, I'm kidding about those last two names. But would they be more of a ridiculous choice than Dancing with the Stars star Lopez? What do producers see in him that they say, "you know, he might be a good replacement for Bob?"

I promised myself - promised, promised, promised - that I wouldn't write another story about Anna Nicole Smith. But then I saw this video, and I had to post this. If it stops just one person from watching another second of Entertainment Tonight, then this post is worth it.

The video is from Entertainment Tonight, who had EXCLUSIVE! access to the funeral in the Bahamas (*cough* $$$$$ *cough*), and while we get all of the expected weeping and slow motion and doves being released, we also see various friends and relatives of Anna Nicole taking a shovel and grabbing dirt out of the back of a wheelbarrow. I'm sure this is done at funerals, but it just seems odd to have everyone at the funeral grab the shovel and join in. After a while it seems like less a tribute than just doing some maintenance work at the cemetery.

Pay special attention to the job Anna Nicole's mom does.

It's hard to believe, but Mary Hart and her legs have been hosting Entertainment Tonight since August of 1982, meaning that she is now beginning her 25th season with the entertainment news program. Throughout all the changes in how entertainment news is reported -- believe it or not, ET used to be a much more informative and sedate program than it is now -- and all of the show's male co-hosts -- remember Robb Weller? Bob Goen? John Freakin' Tesh? -- she's been there.

Now comes word that Hart has signed a multi-year deal to continue hosting the show. Since Hart is already a month shy of her 56th birthday (she got an honorable mention when I listed the hottest TV women over 50), the deal will likely take her past her 60th birthday. That's quite a feat in the youth-obsessed world she covers. Wonder if the producers still have an insurance policy out on those legs...

This is going to be the last post I make about the gossip shows.

I can't take it anymore. I've said before that these shows (The Insider, Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, etc) are awful. But now I think they've crossed the line into despicable, hurtful, and disgusting. I truly can't watch them any longer.

The obsession the past week has been the Anna Nicole Smith story. The death of her son Daniel and the birth of her new daughter. The last couple of nights, The Insider and ET have been talking about how they have the EXCLUSIVE last pics of Daniel holding his new sister. First of all, how can they be "exclusive" when In Touch magazine and a dozen web sites have run them too? Second, I notice The Insider and ET aren't telling us how much they paid for the photos...or where they came from.

And they have this guy who says he's the father of Anna Nicole's baby. Maybe he is, but what is the point of coming on television and giving these interviews to ET and The Insider? They keep pushing these stories, teasing "Do the photos hold a secret clue to what happened?" Um, NO, THEY DON'T.

I could say this about Access Hollywood too, but just look at the stories on The Insider and ET tonight:

• Psychics at a nudist colony!
• Star Jones talks about her boobs!
• Male star sex change...in 7 minutes!
• Pat O'Brien - or "P.O.B." as they call him - interviewing Sharon Stone! (Enough said.)
• New Terry Schiavo book scandal...in 8 minutes!
  

Gah. These shows can make you hate humanity. (Tomorrow The Insider goes into "Paris Hilton's million dollar closet.")

What is it with shows like Entertainment Tonight, The Insider, and Access Hollywood, breaking news stories that not only aren't breaking, they're not news and they're not stories. For example: ET has the habit, every year at this time, of saying, "Breaking News! ET has learned that Cameron Diaz will be a presenter at this year's Oscars!" How the hell is this news? That a star is going to be a presenter? And they do it almost every episode, for about two weeks leading up to the awards show.

A celeb deciding to go to an awards show is not news. Now, maybe if Cameron Diaz decided to boycott the Oscars, and picketed the red carpet dressed like a giant chicken, that would be news. But don't tell me that there's this incredible news breaking that she's going to be a presenter.