Happy New Year!!!

Hey kids! Yep, I'm late. But since this has become standard operating procedure for me, really, I'm right on time. It's the rest of you that are annoyingly early. See how that works?! Anyhoo, this is your post o' fun involving CNN's New Year's hijinks. Once again, we watched the ball drop with Kathy Griffin and Anderson Cooper--torturer and torturee.

Opinions of Kathy can run the gamut from love to downright hostility, but I find myself somewhere in the middle. Sometimes she cracks me up; sometimes she really doesn't. My view is that if you went into the broadcast with the belief that she was going to be annoying, that's probably how things turned out for you. But I went in ready for fun, and fun was had.

Ms. Griffin informed us that due to her past behavior (ahem!), the network had promised to literally yank her off the show if she stepped out of line. Suuure, CNN. Cute. So yeah, obviously that wasn't going to happen, but it allowed for some fun with a "No Swearing" sign. Because if there's anything that makes Kathy mind her P's and Q's, it's signage.

Are you ready for the bullet points?! Though their overuse in 2010 has perhaps worn down the specialness of these posts, I assure you I tried very hard to make them extra shiny and awesome. Time to jump into 2011:

• What better way to kick things off than with our duo regaling us with their adventures in crashing Carson Daly's live show? Also a great reminder that Daly continues to exist!

• This is the obligatory bullet point where I state that I could watch Anderson Cooper giggle all day. Extremely dorky, but he works it!

• Ok, Kathy, I can (shamelessly) get behind the molesting and undressing of the Silver Fox, but the punching needs to go. No bruising of the anchor!

• In years past, the broadcast featured New Orleans. For 2010, Nashville got the love due to their struggles with flooding. Brooke Baldwin rocking out the cowboy hat was a sight, though not quite the sight as the weird guy behind her. Anderson and Kathy giggling about him like high schoolers was mean yet hilarious: "Don't turn around!"

• Is anyone else worried that the meshing of New Kids on the Block and the Backstreet Boys will result in some sort of apocalyptic event? ZOMG, is that why all those birds died?!

• Throughout the night, Kathy asked Anderson Twitter questions (no people, I didn't tweet one). One question was who won the World Cup, which he never answered. This makes one of my friends very sad inside (shout out, bb!).

• Was really excited to see Sushi back. I thought she was retiring. It's not New Year's unless a drag queen drops in a pump.

• We also had Gary Tuchman back doing the four mile Fun Run in Central Park with his daughter Samantha. It's impossible to not love Gary. "I'm talking to a banana right now...I've never met this banana before." Bwah! And, "It's a dance party," complete with semi-boogying. Adorable.

• I think I'm over being horrified about Anderson's glasses. They've grown on me, Silver Fox! Now please wear them.

• One of the funniest moments to me was Jack Gray's little cameo at the hands of our anchor. Anderson should always just randomly man-handle his staffers into the shot.

• Kathy: "You know, your staff, they really run rampant." Truth. (And I love it.)

• Gloria Vanderbilt phone in! I love how it said "Anderson's Mom" on screen.

• Another tweeter asked what was our anchor's favorite curse word. "I don't tolerate such talk," said the Silver Fox. Oh Anderson, you adorable liar you. Me thinks Mr. WASP has a secret potty mouth.

• Isha Sesay is a great addition, but is she unaware of our anchor's aesthetic appeal? A crowd-goer excitedly relayed her picture-taking with the Silver Fox, and Isha was all, "ohhkay." Ha!

• Well! I'd say our Jack Gray has really come out of his shell. It was only about two years ago when a friend and I demanded politely asked him to post a picture of himself on the 360 blog, and now...dude's gone a little slutty! Kidding. But I was definitely a bit shocked by that make out session with Kathy. I literally asked someone, "did that really just happen?" Oh, it did. Plus? This.

• Not enough camera time on our duo when the ball dropped. What did we miss???
  

• Twitter question: What does Anderson smell like? I reject Kathy's long answer. I have it on good authority that the Silver Fox smells like peppermint sticks and truth!

• I feel out of breath just watching Gary running and talking. I don't know how he does it. Samantha was by his side and as cute as ever. A teenager now! How did that happen? (Gary's probably wondering the same thing-heh.) I feel like I'm watching this child young lady grow up one mile at a time. Also? Her shark hat was awesome.

• Anderson: "How great is Gary Tuchman?" So great! Even Kathy couldn't bring herself to mock him: "By the way, you know, I can't bring myself to make fun of Gary Tuchman anymore. I used to love to make fun of him, but after I saw him with you in Haiti and the Gulf disaster, he gets a pass this year." And more gratuitous Gary love from Anderson: "Gary Tuchman is the greatest guy on the planet." As I said on Twitter, damn straight!

• Anyone else get nervous when they drop Sushi? She's a trooper.

• John Zarrella cracks me up. Every year, just chilling with the drag queens. And I think he loves it. Plus? Cher.
  

• Did the Silver Fox dance for a second?!

• This is what you look like when your famous mother becomes besties with the woman who molests you and you're disturbed by the whole situation:

• This was about the end of the road for Kathy and Anderson, lest they again get heckled by the few stragglers left in Times Square. While I would have preferred to do my countdown with this duo, at least CNN threw the central time zoners a little love by staying live with Brooke Baldwin through our midnight. My Seacrest reprieve!

• More Gary and Samantha! Post-race this time. No actual win for them (sad face), but according to Samantha, it was a moral victory. Those are the best kind!

• All together now: Awww!
  

• Gary was also kind enough to give the behind-the sceners a little love. There was Bob the cameraman (congrats on the marriage!), Deb the technician, and one of my favorite 360 kids, Joneil* the producer.

• Our correspondent explains that, no, the crew did not run with him--instead they had the luxury of sitting on a truck. Now, Gary is too nice to say it, but I think the implication of slackerdom was clearly there. Brooke, by the way, just flat out says they were "cheating."
  

• When it comes to the behind-the-sceners it wasn't all just truck-riding and making out with divas--some of the 360 kids brought a little class to the occasion.

• I think that's about it. Twas fun. Thanks to everyone who participated on the Twitter.
  

• Below is gratuitous hilarity. It was that kind of night.

*AC360 Review does not endorse that hat.

Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2010! Okay, yes, we actually left 2009 a few days ago, but what can I say? I like to be fashionably late. Now that we're in a brand-spanking new decade, I've got a question: Where are the friggin' flying cars?! Seriously, didn't you think we'd have them by now? I mean, God knows what the TSA is about to make us all do with our underwear. Some flying cars would be pretty sweet at this point.


Anyhoo! As per recent tradition, I spent my New Year's Eve with our friends at CNN. And had a blast. Pretty ironic given that a mere five or six years ago I was rolling my eyes at the concept, wondering who in their right mind would actually tune into a news channel to watch a countdown hosted by that gray-haired guy from "The Mole." Cut me some slack, people. I did not yet know of Anderson Cooper's awesomeness. But awesome he is, and the pairing with comedian Kathy Griffin ensured that we saw him in all his embarrassed-giggling glory.

I'm probably one of the few people on the planet that's pretty Switzerland when it comes to Kathy. She seems to be a love her or hate her kinda gal. I think she can be very funny; I also think she can be hella annoying. This year she probably trended more towards the latter. Her material for the entire show was a one-note joke: will she say something bad? Turns out, um, yes.

I'm not going to lie, though I thought last year's little, ahem, incident was over the line, I secretly had my fingers crossed that she'd top it. In my opinion, she did not. Yes, an f-bomb was dropped, but quite frankly it was a little disappointing. In fact, I think I can hear people yawning right now. Aren't we pretty much past pearl-clutching over f-bombs at this point? As for the children watching (THINK of the children!!!) I had to listen to that tape three times to even be sure she said it. Trust me, they didn't notice.


The show felt shorter this year. One reason for that is probably because it was shorter (more on that later), but I found the feeling strange given that there were no musical acts. For ushering in 2009, there was some ridiculousness as well (Coolio interview, anyone?) and I'm sorta wondering if that stuff is needed simply for Kathy and Anderson to have more material to work with. Oh, the Catch-22! Anyway, I think that about wraps up the generalities. So, without further ado, you know them, you love them, the first shiny bullet points of 2010!:

• Okay, I admit that Kathy bringing her official legal document was fairly amusing. The real question: Did she have to write that check back?

• Don Lemon is too cute, but oh my, FYI to him: don't ever ask a woman on national TV if she's wearing underwear--even if you're referring to the "long" kind.

• I think this is the second time in recent memory that Anderson's forehead line has come up in conversation, which makes me feel like there might be Botox consideration going on. If I may weigh in: Don't do it! First of all, I don't think injecting poison into your face is ever a good idea (but hey, that's just me). And second, if he gets rid of the line, I won't be able to as easily call him Grumpy McFrowny-Pants, and let's face it, that's just fun. As for the rather regular squinting, that's how we know the news is serious, people!

• Did Anderson really say he needs to lose weight and is a "little doughy"? What?! Are we having a midlife crisis? When your public nickname is "The Silver Fox," I think you're doing okay.

• Yay for it (appearing) to be a little warmer! Though rain, bleh.
  

• I like how when Kathy asked Anderson to name a political person he'd interviewed, he answered "President Obama," but said it like a question. Like he's not quite sure it happened. Yes, Anderson, it happened. Now allow me to blow your mind: You interviewed him twice!

• I've got nothing against Lance Bass and his post-boy band enthusiasm, but other than causing the Internets to raise an amused eyebrow when they heard of his inclusion, I'm not sure why he was there. I mean, Anderson Cooper, Kathy Griffin, Lance Bass, "Cher", and a drag queen named Sushi who drops in a pump. I'm just sayin'. (Not that there's anything wrong with that!)
  

• Very nice to see the shout outs to the troops.
  

• That picture of John King in bed with Kathy Griffin was both surprising and hilarious. I don't have a link for you for that one, but later Kathy tweeted this pic with Anderson. Initially, I just thought it was gratuitous adorableness. It wasn't until I re-watched the broadcast in order to do this blog, that I realized it was a take-off on the King pic. Well done.

• I know nothing about Poppy Harlow, but wow, she's bouncy. Yet insisted she wasn't cold. And she did the Cabbage Patch and The Wave. I think Kathy wasn't the only one drinking the Red Bull.

• I would like to concur with Anderson that Cher is, in fact, awesome. I actually remember when they had her on the show years ago. I was doing a little eye-rolling because they seemed to be in a celeb phase at the time and here they were announcing another one. But then Cher came on and started talking about helmets for our troops (great cause!), was totally funny, and completely down to earth. And yes, she really does call into CSPAN all the time. Awesomeness. Oh, and special points for the impersonations by our hosts.

• This year, since the whole world is jumping on the Twitter boat (I actually tweeted during the broadcast), they used the medium to take questions from the public. I sent them a couple earlier that were very clean and might have facilitated some funny, but did they use them? Noooo. Instead we got one about our anchor, um, making himself happy in front of a mirror. Ohhh my. Even Kathy could hardly get that one out (which was actually the funniest part).

• Man, Anderson really takes "playing dumb" to a whole new level. I think he answered "I don't know" or "I don't know what that is" to basically everything Kathy asked him. Your salary, really? Frizzies? C'mon man! At least lie believably. I'll refrain from commenting on mention of a "safe word." Ahem.

• We see Kathy's assistant Tiffany on camera, but don't get any Jack Gray face time? What's up with that? He has over a million Twitter followers. I mean, what's a guy gotta do?

• Anderson in a continuous state of embarrassed giggling is probably my favorite thing about the NYE show, but coming in an extremely close second is Gary Tuchman's midnight run in Central Park. Once again, he was joined by his daughter Samantha--now twelve. And she's more adorable than last year, which doesn't even seem possible. When the duo hit the screen, several of my tweeps immediately commented that it was time for Gary to buy a shotgun. Because the boys? They're coming! Also? Apparently, my tweeps are kinda violent.

• I'm making another bullet point to talk about the cuteness. Because that's how I roll. I loved Samantha's face when Gary informed us that she used her allowance money to fly them to Hawaii for training. And yes, the camera caught him kiss her when their shot was over. All together now: Awwww! I just found it hilarious that for a second there we had a split screen of the cutest father-daughter duo evah, and then Anderson and Kathy, who were constantly on the verge of obscenity all night long. CNN must have been like, see, we have something for everyone!

• Dear Ed Henry, I hate you. Sincerely, me. P.S.: Thank you for all those twitpics. You rock the board shorts. P.P.S.: Okay, I don't really hate you. But your next assignment is in Buffalo.

• Did our anchor go all passive aggressive on Kathy? Kinda interesting that the only tweet he read was the one that basically told her to shut it. I expected him to soften it at the end with a joke, but nope. Kathy looked a little flummoxed. But I wouldn't read too much into that, people.

• I don't know why, but Don Lemon wearing the New Year's glasses and taking video completely cracked me up.

• Another thing that cracked me up was Gary talking to the people from Denmark and bringing up the climate summit. You could almost literally see his thought process regarding what to talk about: "Denmark... Copenhagen...Climate Summit!" Aw, he's juggling a lot of balls up in the air there. Frankly, I'm amazed he can run and talk to us at the same time--not to mention trying to interview.

• What NYE would be complete without a drag queen dropping in a shoe? But this is Sushi's last year? Say it ain't so! I love how go-with-the-flow John Zarella is with everything. Even his family is basically like, "Yay, dad's hanging with drag queens!'

• There are many people on the Teevee who clearly need counseling (coughBeckcough), Gary Tuchman is not one of them. Boo on Kathy for ragging on the nicest guy in news. I was, however, amused by his "I'm insulted!" because he didn't sound insulted at all. I hope he's honing his scary dad face at home. I think we've already established he's going to need it.

• That about wraps up CNN's broadcast. They left me all on my lonesome with 30 minutes still left in 2009. Not cool. It's like every other year the central time zone gets love. So anyway, I was forced to turn to ABC and watch the human Ken doll, otherwise known as Ryan Seacrest. Also,why does that dude have so many jobs? It's a recession, save some for the rest of us, buddy!

• WHAT was J-Lo wearing? Oh, honey...

• Dick Clark makes me sad.

Thus endeth the bullet points. Also airing on NYE was Jack Gray's (okay, Tom Foreman's) 2009 wrap-up special. I've yet to comment, so I shall do it here. I've said this before, but look how far our Jack has come! The first time I saw him was on the webcast (I'm not counting that Utah piece--yes, I remember) and he looked all nervous. Heck, even his original avatar made him look like he was a little confused about something. But now? Our Jack has come into his own.

I like to imagine that some day in the not-so-distant future, Jack will be doing book signings of his debut collection of David Sedaris-like short stories. Unlike a certain silver-topped writer, he'll come to St. Louis. I'll go to a signing, introduce myself by my Twitter name, and he'll become slightly frightened. Ah, yes, a time will be had. All kidding aside, Jack's a good guy. Long before the million followers, he earned my respect not by being funny, but by handling criticism better than many of his much more experienced colleagues in the industry. Okay, there was a little funny sprinkled in too. In fact, the combination won him the spot of my very first favorited tweet (which you can view on my page by clicking "favorites"--scroll down).

A special thank you shout out to stormi0611 for the screencaps. Santa brought Eliza a new TV for Christmas to replace the old one that fried (just like my computer and stereo--it's been a tough year in Casa de AC360 Review on the electrical front), but I am shame-faced to say that I have yet to figure out how to hook up my DVD recorder.


I want to wish everyone a happy and healthy New Year. To the 360 kids, I'm still rooting for you. Let's make 2010 one for the books.