TVSquad

Every Top Gear fan remembers the little excursion that Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond took through the southeastern corridor and the very warm reception they received in rural Alabama.

For those of you who haven't seen that episode or still can't grasp the concept of sarcasm, you can watch the whole thing here. The long and the short of it is the challenge ended at a backwoods gas station where a group of nearby hillbillies attacked their cars and the crew's vans with rocks, sticks and just about anything their beer stained hands could grab without the need of an opposable thumb.

Hammond wrote in his new memoir Or Is That Just Me? that fans constantly ask him if those rednecks were the genuine article or "just made up for the telly." Hammond not only insisted in an excerpt from the book printed in The Times that they were real people, but they also gave him one of the biggest scares of his life.

I was pokin' around NBC's YouTube channel the other day when I came across this video of Leno interviewing celebrity lookalikes on the street.

The bit isn't all that funny, but check out the first guy Jay interviews. That's right, it's Sammy Stephens, owner of Flea Market Montgomery in Montgomery, Alabama. Stephens' commercial, which features him both rapping and dancing has made him a minor celebrity both online and on TV (Ellen DeGeneres loved his commercial and invited him on to her show).

Late last week, Paula Abdul appeared drunk or stoned on a morning television show in Seattle. She was doing a live satellite interview with the affiliate from New York. In the interview, which I posted last week, Paula swayed back and forth on camera and she slurred her speech.

Last night she appeared on The Tonight Show and explained her behavior to Leno. She said that she had two television stations asking her questions in her earpiece. Instead of calling an end to the interview(s), she just went with it. She thinks she was answering questions from Alabama while appearing on television in Seattle. She denied being drunk or on medication, but she couldn't really explain away her slurring. Maybe that's just how she talks now? Paula said it's a big deal out of nothing and all she was trying to do was have fun with a challenging situation.

Do you guys believe her?

Ruben Studdard is at the helm of a statewide effort to encourage people in Alabama to lose weight. Ruben, who won American Idol in 2003, lost more than 100 pounds when he began a weight loss program last summer. He is asking 25 percent of Alabamans to lose 10 pounds in eight weeks. Studdard's weight loss program, called Scale Back Alabama, kicks off January 4th. Alabama is ranked as the "heaviest state" in the nation with 28.4 percent obesity.

Ruben says he was motivated to lose weight because of a family history of diabetes and heart trouble. He did it in a very extreme way, though. He went to Duke Diet & Fitness center for a month to learn how to become a healthy eater. His mentor for weight loss has been Idol judge Randy Jackson.

Ever the philanthropist, Stephen Colbert is extending a helping hand to the residents of Tuscumbia in Colbert County, Alabama by opening the only museum in the nation dedicated exclusively to celebrating, well, Stephen Colbert (he thinks the county was named after him). Starting November 27 and running throughout the week, The Colbert Report will show behind-the-scenes footage of the struggle to open the Stephen Colbert Museum and Gift Shop, and to thwart the efforts of people who want Colbert County to be remembered for Ivy Green, the birthplace of Helen Keller. Frankly, I'd love to see Colbert play Helen Keller in a production of The Miracle Worker, but that's probably just me.

As long as I'm on the subject of The Colbert Report, does anyone else think that Stephen's show is better than The Daily Show? I still love the Daily Show, and perhaps I'm just becoming too familiar with it, but I find myself more and more preferring Stephen's role playing as an idiot pundit over Jon Stewart's dry wit and occasional self-deprecation. Perhaps it's because Stephen never breaks the fourth wall that is constantly smashed to bits on The Daily Show. I still think there's room for both, but I find myself leaning more and more toward the Colbert Nation.

Check this out. Taylor Hicks, the grey-haired singer who is my favorite contestant so far this season on American Idol, released a CD earlier this month. It's not in wide circulation. In fact, I don't think he even has a recording deal of any kind, it appears he just made the album on his own. It's called Under the Radar. Heh. Not any more, pal.

The NPR station in Homewood, Alabama has downloads of three of his original songs and also an interview with Taylor that includes some of his music. It's all pretty terrific, actually. Since it's a mixture of Blues and Soul music, now I'm a little concerned about how well Taylor is going to do on disco night.

*A lot of you have asked how to buy the album. Go here. (beware: the website is super slow because so many people want the album!) I am trying to verify the phone number listed in comments but so far I'm only getting a busy signal.

[Via Pop Candy]