TVSquad

New Year's Eve. A time to celebrate, get poop-faced drunk, reflect on the last year and the new one to follow, and get even more drunk as you see the daunting task ahead. It is, or was, also a time for an annual tradition that, whether you were stone-cold sober or falling down drunk, was a regular part of your celebrating.

Until his stroke in 2004, Dick Clark counted down the remaining seconds of the current year with millions of others during his annual New Year's Rockin' Eve specials, first on NBC (1972 and 73), then on ABC. In the beginning, most of the show was live. But as the years moved on, only the Times Square performances would go out live while many other performances would be pre-taped (remember that episode of Friends?). In it's most recent incarnation, Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve With Ryan Seacrest (God, what an awful title), there's a lot more performance and a lot less celebration.

In the Lame Title Department, ABC's annual New Year's Eve show will now be called Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest.

I dunno...couldn't they have come up with something snappier? Like maybe Dick and Ryan's New Year's Rockin' Eve ... oh never mind.

Anyway, it's old news that Ryan Seacrest has been co-hosting the show for the past three years with Dick Clark, who suffered a stroke several years ago. But now Seacrest has his name in the title, so I guess it's official.