Suburbarazzi

I headed to Queens yesterday to check out a taping of the brand-new, yet-to-be-broadcast CBS game show “Million Dollar Password,” hosted by Regis Philbin.

It turned into a Suburbarazzi goldmine when South Nyack resident Rosie O’Donnell emerged from backstage to try to help contestants to win the big prize. She looked great, jelled with contestants and quickly became a crowd favorite on-camera and off.

And although she didn’t get to host “The Price Is Right,” she proved Sunday that she more than holds her own as a game show celebrity panelist. Skateboarder Tony Hawk was the other celebrity clue-giver for the taping I viewed.

There’s so much more I want to say about what I saw, but because I signed my life away upon witnessing the taping, I’m probably not at liberty to disclose much more until that episode airs.

So why am I comfortable disclosing even this much information? Rosie documented this much on her blog yesterday:

today i shot million dollar password
hosted by regis – who is just the best
the set is HUGE
like millionaire/deal-no deal/1vs100 HUGE
this aint the old password
4 sure

it’s on CBS
in may
fun fun fun

You’d never be able to discern it, but if you watch Rosie’s video in the same post, I’m a maroon blur in the extreme lower-left of the audience at the 1-minute, 24 second mark. I swear.

Oh, and as a game show enthusiast, I really like the new “Password” format. True enough to the original(s), but more exciting.

More details about Rosie’s contributions to the show—and another local connection—after the episode airs, I promise!

(AP Photo/Tina Fineberg)

On tap this week: Rosie’s return to television, how Hillary Clinton got her groove back (with a little help from SNL and Jon Stewart), and the latest on Al Pacino playing the bad guy in the next James Bond film.

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Also, you may have seen Vanessa Williams on the Barbara Walters Oscar special a week ago. During it, she confirmed a whole slew of rumors about her personal life. Which brings us to this week’s quiz: Can you guess which of the following she did NOT cop to?

A. Using Botox
B. Being the victim of racism while growing up in Millwood
C. Living with her 2 ex-husbands in Chappaqua simultaneously
D. Being an a Barack Obama booster

The answer is at the end of the video and after the break.

(more…)

And just when you thought it was safe to go back on the boob tube … (cue John Williams score)

Yes, it’s true: Rosie O must be going through some kind of Joy Bahar withdrawl. Why else would she choose to team up with the equally annoying yenta, Fran Drescher, for a sitcom about three best friends.

O’Donnell, who lives in South Nyack, confirmed that she’s working on the new show via her blog. All of which set of a deluge of comments on “Ask Ro”:

“Ro, is it true you and Fran are going to do a sitcom or are you just teasing us?” one wrote.

“True,” said Rosie.

“OMG. . . . you and Fran are going to be the new Lucy and Ethel! I am about to bust at the thought of it,” wrote another fan.

O’Donnell’s reply: “Honey, sign me up.”

Yeah, um, am I the only one who sees this as the god awful idea that it really is? Rosie on MSNBC—that I could see. Rosie as the host of “The Price is Right”—that had a kind of twisted logic, too. Even resurrecting “The Rosie O’Donnell Show” might make sense financially. But this new show, apparently initiated by Drescher, sounds like a nightmare. Even if you took Ro’s best moments from “Nip/Tuck” and crossed them with Drescher’s least annoying spots on “The Nanny,” you’d still have a cross between “Nip/Tuck” and “The Nanny.”

So with that, I’m prepared to declare that the Rosie renaissance has officially jumped the shark. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

“O’Donnell, Drescher may star in new sitcom” [Los Angeles Times]

(AP Photos) 

Ever since leaving The View, Rosie O’Donnell’s blog hasn’t had nearly as many salacious anti-Hasselbeck haikus as it used to. But last week its regular readership was treated to one interesting little “Ask Ro” Q&A:

Kathy writes:

So Rosie, Alcoholic or NOT? Just spit it out! Don’t go all Star Jones on us here. What led to you stopping the Beer? You’ll only help someone else. “you felt it was time�…WHY…inquiring minds…

Rosie’s response:

cause i was drinking too much
cause i didnt want to anymore
cause it is hard to lose weight wen drinking
cause i can never have only one

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South Nyack resident Rosie O’Donnell is usually conclusive with her opinions, so it’s a bit surprising on this Super Tuesday that she’s torn between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Her feelings on the two Democratic presidential candidates were published yesterday on the Web site of the Huffington Post:

It’s still early yet, but so far I find both candidates believable. They are different, with a different mix of talents to bring to the political table, but they both seem to have the passion, plans, drive, and intelligence I want in my next president.

Could a Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton ticket be our future? I hope so. I think America would benefit from the strengths of either individual, but if those strengths were combined, we might just have the Democratic powerhouse the country needs to turn itself around, and back into peace, prosperity and opportunity.

Clinton stayed in her hamlet of Chappaqua to cast her vote this morning.

(AP Photo/Tina Fineberg)

Remind us never to mess with Bjork at LaGuardia. The Icelandic songstress, who now lives in Rockland, opened a major can of whoop ass on a New Zealand newspaper photographer when he attempted to snag her shot at a New Zealand airport. As Glenn Jeffrey, the recipient of Bjork’s wrath, reported to the press,

“I turned and walked away she came up behind me, grabbed the back of my black skivvy and tore it. As she did this she fell over, she fell to the ground.”

Jeffrey hasn’t filed suit, but he did speak to the cops. “I don’t see being assaulted as I’m working as a press photographer as an acceptable thing,” he added. “If anybody assaults anybody you have the right to a legal recourse, whoever they are.”

More after the break.

(more…)

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At last, we’re finally putting our completely overexposed “People of the Year” package to bed. In the clip, we count down the final five people on our list, and Stacy-Ann Gooden makes her pitch for Mary J. Blige (raised in Yonkers, first discovered doing karaoke at the White Plains Galleria).

While she didn’t make the cut for 2007, she’s already a strong 2008 candidate. In fact, aside from Nyack rapper Lucky Me, she’s the only other hip-hop star on our radar screen thus far.

No need to roll your eyes. Aside from Britney, Paris, and Lindsay, few tabloid regulars exhausted the public’s patience quite like O’Donnell. From the never-ending feuds—with Trump, Ripa, O’Reilly—to the now-infamous split-screen showdown with View co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck, the South Nyack resident became a better fight-maker than Don King in 2007. Even after she quit the daytime gabfest (three weeks before her contract was up), Rosie continued churning up controversy in her wake, even going so far as to suggest in her new memoir, Celebrity Detox, that Barbara Walters should retire. But putting aside all the bilious rhetoric for a sec, one thing separates the former Queen of Nice from the aforementioned tabloid bimbos: O’Donnell’s public showdowns all stemmed from a passionate defense of her liberal views (on Bush, the Iraq war, gay rights, etc.)—and not from, say, a lack of panties or repeat DUIs. Her tirades might have been over the top, but her political courage does make her a role model of sorts. That said, if she ever takes your parking spot at the Palisades Center, don’t even think of starting a shouting match—she’s way out of your league.

Prediction for 2008: She may have lost The Price is Right hosting gig to Drew Carey, but we predict a return to network TV, as the co-host of the newest British import, Boiling Point.

Adapted from “People of the Year,� Rockland Magazine, December 2007

(Illustration by Ismael Roldon)

Over the holidays, I’ve been hemming and hawing like Hamlet over whether to get an iPhone. The dilemma boils down to this: Come MacWorld Expo in mid-January, is Steve Jobs going to unveil a brand new version of the gadget? iPhone 2.0, complete with GPS, faster 3G connectivity, and of course 16GB of storage? Yes, I’m a geek. And yes, I’ve decided to wait it out. But in the meantime, I can’t get enough of these iPhone rumors, and in the process of searching for them, I also happened to stumble upon a bunch of stories about Lower Hudson Valley stars who have joined the cult of multitouch. Here are just a few of the ones I found:

Bill Clinton: A guy named B. Ioffe broke the news the Chappaqua resident got his iPhone directly from Steve Jobs. How exactly did Ioffe learn this? By asking the former prez to sign the back of his iPhone, of course (go to the link above for a pic of the signed phone). The Unofficial Apple Weblog also makes a funny observation: “If ex-Veep Al Gore is on Apple’s Board of Directors, why didn’t he snag his old buddy an iPhone himself?”

Rosie O’Donnell: In an interview with Switched, a blog devoted to gadgets and the digital life, the South Nyacker says that she (and her partner Kelli) go everywhere with two gadgets: a Nextel walkie-talkie phone and the iPhone. If stranded on a desert island, Rosie/Kelli says, “I would bring my iPhone. You can do just about anything—from e-mailing and surfing the ‘Net to listening to music, watching movies, and taking photos—on it. What more do you need? Well, besides someone to share it with on the island!!!!”

Me, I’m not so sure. That is, unless iPhone 2.0 comes with a built-in swiss army knife (sort of like the one from this classic Conan O’Brian skit). Oh, and Stevie J., if you’re listening, a flint wouldn’t hurt either.

(AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)

Yeah, we hear you groaning. But forget about that whole trumped-up bitch fest with Rosie O’Donnell for a sec. That may have made tabloid headlines, but this year the Bedford homeowner (or rather, mansion-owner) also made plenty of legitimate news here in Westchester. In addition to opening the doors to Trump Plaza in New Rochelle, beginning work on Trump Parc in Stamford, and campaigning to get the U.S. Open played at one of his Trump National golf courses (either Briarcliff Manor or Bedminster, New Jersey), he also erected some hard-to-miss road signs announcing Donald J. Trump State Park on the Taconic. Donating 436 acres for a park in Northern Westchester: generous. Congratulating oneself by branding your name all over the county: not exactly, to use his word, “classy.� (What’s next? Trump-onic Parkway? Trumpchester?) Some other unclassy moves: The Apprentice got its worst ratings in six seasons; his eponymous, SkyMall-esque magazine sent its backers into financial meltdown; and The Daily News reported that, to boost anemic book sales, he paid people to buy his new self-help tome, Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and Life.

Prediction for 2008: Trump currently has four—count ’em, four!—TV shows in production: Fox’s Lady or a Tramp, MTV’s Pageant Place, a syndicated Judge Judy/Dr. Phil-type daytime show (with Trump mediating financial disputes), and The Apprentice: Celebrity Edition for NBC. Just try to top that, Rosie!

Adapted from “People of the Year,� InTown Westchester, December 2007

(Illustration by Ismael Roldon)

Sooner or later, it seems, every A-, B-, and D-list celebrity will be forced to weigh in on where they stand on South Nyack resident Rosie O’Donnell. The latest to sound off is Hulk Hogan, who, at a press day for his new show “American Gladiators” was asked which celebrity he’d most like his gladiators to pummell.

“Without a doubt Rosie O’Donnell,” he said. “Somebody needs to shut that big mouth up.”

Rosie’s response, via her r blog in a post inexplicably titled “Dead in Iraq”:

hulk hogan
the wrestler guy
wants to pummel me
isnt that sweet
and wildly odd

its like a gang of gross guys
a club almost
old dumb white and on tv

“Hulk Wants to Pummel Rosie … and Not in a Good Way” [TMZ.com]

(AP Photo/Matt Sayles)

Despite all kinds of hype—on this blog and elsewhere—it appears that Rosie O’Donnell’s tell-all memoir, “Celebrity Detox: (The Fame Game),” doesn’t quite have the demand we predicted.

Sure it had all kinds of juicy details about how the South Nyacker used to break her limbs as a child with a baseball bat and wooden coathanger, but still, that wasn’t enough to seduce book shoppers. As our Suburbarazzi poll showed, 75 percent of you have no interest in buying the book—“enough of Rosie already!” Only 11 percent said they intended to buy it, while another six percent went so far as to say they were planning a “Celebrity Detox book-burning party.” Personally, I fell into the camp of “Yes, I’d read it, but I wouldn’t pay my own cash for a copy.” In the end, though, I was content to just read a couple chapters in the Mount Kisco Borders and leave it at that.

Curious how the book’s sales have held up, I called Ingram, the largest wholesaler for independent book stores (and one of the only vendors that makes its sales data available to the public). They report that 33,247 copies of “Celebrity Detox” have sold. Generally, you can multiply that number by six in order to get a rough estimate of overall U.S. sales—so I’m figuring O’Donnell has moved just shy of 200,000 books. Not bad. Still, hardly enough to justify the hefty advance I’m sure Grand Central Publishing forked over.

Hmm, maybe passing on that Oprah interview wasn’t such a wise move after all.

While Rosie’s celebrity capital appears to be waning, will she still have enough to top our list of “People of the Year”? Check out the new poll in our sidebar and vote on who you think will be our top newsmaker—for better or worse—of 2007.

 

Two quick Rosie tidbits:

• In a recent interview with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (yes, seriously—she passed up Oprah and Diane Sawyer, but apparently talked with a Seattle newspaper), the South Nyack resident says that her return to playing Dawn Budge on the FX series Nip/Tuck was “fascinating” and that the show’s creator, Ryan Murphy, is an “artist”—”[He] feels that the color that I create for him in Dawn Budge is something he can paint with—that’s an amazing feeling. Very different from ‘live studio audience!’ and ‘me, me, me!’ And, every time you move, being on Entertainment Tonight.” She does realize that he “painted” her as the victim of an animal mauling—with her mouth sewn up, no less—right? [via BuddyTV]

• If you haven’t already seen video of the scene that precipitated O’Donnell’s return to the show—the eagle attack on her face—you’re in for a treat. Consider it an early Xmas present. [Defamer]

Thanks to FOS Amy Vernon for the tips.

(photo: Michael Becker / FX)

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Before anyone says anything, I’ll be the first to admit it: Yes, we’ve been punditing more on RNN lately than we’ve been blogging. It’s a problem, I suspect, that’s due to a lack of tryptophan in our diet—a condition which should be easily remedied in the coming days. Prepare for an onslaught of posts in the coming weeks, as well as our holiday countdown of the top 25 Westchester and Rockland celebrities (based on the recent articles I wrote for InTown Westchester and Rockland Magazine).

In the meantime, here’s this week’s quiz. The answer is at the end of the video or after the break.

QUIZ: Which of these local LoHud celebs has not been seen supporting the striking writers on the picket line?

A. Pound Ridge’s Tim Robbins
B. South Nyack’s Rosie O’Donnell
C. New Rochelle native Jay Leno
D. Chappaqua’s Vanessa Williams

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The grand arbiter of cheers/jeers-dom decided to give “Nip/Tuck” an official scoff for “going way over the top — and hitting rock bottom.” The offense? Bringing back Rosie O’Donnell’s lottery winner trailer trash alter-ego, Dawn Budge. OK, I could sort of see that … except the premise of her return excuses everything.

In the show, Rosie’s character seeks out the surgeons to repair her mouth after she’s attacked by an eagle. What’s more, the South Nyack resident has her mouth sewn shut. Who can’t see the humor in that?

And as if that isn’t enough, she’s violated by an “ass bandit.” All of which TV Guide spells out to make their case that the show deserves Jeers. But come on, honestly, if that’s not a case for an open-and-shut Cheers, what is?

“Jeers: A Less-Than-Rosie Nip/Tuck” [TVGuide]

(Nip/Tuck photo: FX)