"It's gonna be sexy, I think. The wardrobe is amazing. I'm working with 10 dancers that I'm so impressed by. I was looking for a certain sensuality — five guys, five girls and they're all incredible."
-"American Idol" runner-up and For Your Entertainment mastermind Adam Lambert, telling MTV News about his upcoming performance on this Sunday night's American Music Awards broadcast, which marks the first time he'll sing in prime time since the "American Idol" finale in the spring. It'll be a big week for Lambert, as he will perform on Sunday and then drop his debut album on Monday, challenging a number of other high-profile artists (including Rihanna, Susan Boyle, Beyonc&233;, Lady Gaga and Shakira) to a Thanksgiving-week sales war. Lambert also talked about the band he brought together (the same group he just debuted online). "I auditioned a band a couple weeks ago that I've been working with," he told MTV News' Larry Carroll. "I'm so impressed by [them] and it feels really good to be part of a team situation again. It's great because I'm back in a team environment and it reminds me of my roots in musical theater." Check out Lambert — as well as the rest of the AMA performers, like Jay-Z, Rihanna, Eminem and Janet Jackson — this Sunday at 8 p.m. on ABC.
Yesterday, Ellen DeGeneres presented one of her "Read Letter Day" segments, where she reads and responds to fan mail. One of the letters was from a girl from Connecticut who lamented the fact that she missed the episode featuring Justin Bieber's performance. "That's why I keep guests around just in case," she said. The host stood up from her chair and found Bieber lying on the ground behind her reading an issue of O magazine.
Bieber was greeted with rapturous cheers from the audience and gave a shout-out to the fan from Connecticut. After announcing the release of his album My World yesterday, Ellen mentioned that Bieber was on Usher's label and that it was only appropriate that Usher was there too.
The curtain on the "Ellen" stage parted and revealed Usher, who danced in and hugged DeGeneres. The R&B superstar told the story about how he found Bieber and revealed that what sold him was Justin's rendition of "U Got It Bad."
DeGeneres then raised the stakes. "You guys should dance a tiny, tiny bit," she said. "Yeah!" kicked in on the PA and the pair both started busting out moves, including Usher's strange sideways moonwalk that Bieber aped perfectly. They closed out the show by reminding everybody about Bieber's golden ticket promotion, which will give winners a chance for a private concert from Bieber and the opportunity to be in one of his videos.
It's got to be a sign of the quality of dancers "So You Think You Can Dance" has amassed in recent seasons that they're no longer judged on how well they execute their steps. Instead, the judges struggle to explain these very intangible criteria: growth, humor, commitment, maturity. It's all so vague, I'm itching to see someone really screw up, fall on their face and drop their partner, just so we have some concrete reason to send them home. Sorry, I'm going to dance-fan hell for that, aren't I? Anyway, here are my own arbitrary categories for last night's episode.
Completely Agreeing With the Judges' Praise For: Kathryn and Legacy: Once I was able to tear my eyes away from Legacy's bare torso, I noticed that Kathryn was indeed killing it (as Adam Shankman put it). She had fire in her eyes and drama in every movement. And Legacy didn't just pose in that paso doble stance — he threw his partner around like a champ. (And they can't be blamed for Tony Meredith's ridiculously contrived "admiral and concubine" story.)
Ellenore and Ryan and Travis: The judges spent most of their time praising Travis Wall for his choreography, which included excellent storytelling and some gorgeously complex lifts and jumps. I'm still not in love with Ryan, but he certainly was adept at throwing and catching Ellenore, who seems to have wings on her feet. Read more...
It's been a long, winding season of "Dancing with the Stars," but at last we've arrived at the finals. This week's semi-final series of episodes ended with Joanna Krupa getting sent home in something of a semi-upset. Krupa certainly moved better than Donny Osmond or Kelly Osbourne, but she's far less famous than either of those two and was thus shown the door. She seemed completely unsurprised by the decision and did her exit dance without much fuss.
In fact, her dismissal was something of a metaphor for the back half of this season, as now that the drama-makers have been tossed off and the underdogs have all put their shoes away, we're down to actually naming a winner. And has anybody doubted — even for a nanosecond — that Mya was going to win this season? The public do love Osmond, but the goodwill of the over 60 set won't be enough to give him the crown. It's sort of a cheat, really, as Mya is about as close to a professional dancer as you can get without actually putting it on your tax return. (It's always been sort of unfair to have figure skaters on this show, too.) If the show was a sham, Osbourne would totally be named the winner next week, as she has provided a great story. Remember how borderline hostile she was in the opening episodes? And now she's totally great! In the brief history of "Dancing with the Stars," nobody has ever improved so much so fast.
This week's performance episode was great, as it was four couples doing impressive dancing (the choreography on this show is sometimes spotty, but everything was on point). The nearly drama-free results episode was one of the more insane hours of television in recent memory: Alicia Keys dropped in to perform "Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart" (the best song Price never recorded), Leona Lewis belted out "Happy" (from her excellent just-released new album Echo) and then Robin and Barry Gibb tapped into their falsettos for a run through "You Should be Dancing." Can you guess which on was the most surreal?
There won't be much tension during next week's finale, as Mya should already have printed up business cards announcing her as the season's victor. Just to make it interesting, the producers of "Dancing with the Stars" should give Mya some sort of stomach virus, just like Carol Hannah on "Project Runway." But unless there's projectile vomiting involved, the former "Lady Marmalade" contributor will dance away with the trophy.
The game show portion was especially brilliant, as it brought together the sort of knowledge found in dusty boxes of "Trivial Pursuit" with garbage facts left behind after hours of television viewing (movie theme songs, cast members on "The Partridge Family," details about "The Facts of Life"). In essence, Ober was a nerd who managed to spin his obsession with junk culture into a point of view and a career. In the age before the Internet, this was a remarkable accomplishment.
There may be no more definitive 90 seconds of "Remote Control" than the clip below. Ober introduces a lightning round called "Gershwin, Beethoven or Partridge Family," wherein he names song titles and the contestants must choose which of the above wrote that particular tune. It's followed by Ober's casual dismissal of the contestant, a wacky stunt exit and an incredible blast of audience participation. It's an incredible amount of comedy and zaniness crammed into a minute and a half, and it's all fueled by Ober's lightning fast wit.
Quinn weighed in on Ober's passing yesterday, but the top MTV News archivists resurrected an interview with him from 1999 (which was taped for an episode of "Uncensored" that contained a behind-the-scenes look at "Remote Control"). Ober and Quinn began on the stand-up circuit in New York in the '80s, so they were old friends who managed to elevate themselves to the strange cable creation that was "Remote Control." "We knew each other from comedy clubs," Quinn explained. "When we first started, all we cared about was what 20 comedians thought. We hoped they wouldn't see the show, because even then the 'Brady Bunch' jokes were hack. But all the comedians thought it was funny."
The former "Saturday Night Live" cast member and host of "Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn" had nothing but praise for Ober, even going so far as identifying himself as an "acolyte" of his. "Kenny was hilarious. He was just very spontaneous," Quinn said. "And he had a hard thing: Being funny and still reading all those damn questions for 45 minutes."
Arguably, Ober's most indelible legacy is "Remote Control," which premiered in 1987 and was one of MTV's first attempts at crafting an original television series. The premise was delightfully low-fi: Ober posited that he hosted a media-obsessed game show out of the basement of his parents' house, and he was joined by a cast of characters who wandered through the set (including fellow comedian and former "Saturday Night Live" cast member Colin Quinn, who acted as the Andy Richter to Ober's Conan O'Brien). The show featured three contestants getting asked a barrage of pop culture questions about movies, music, television shows, sports and, of course, music videos. Along the way, the show was interrupted by comedy skits, guest appearances, projectiles thrown at the contestants and plenty of Ober's trademark wit.
It can't be understated how important Ober was to the show. His jokes were always acerbic and steeped in irony, but his love for junk culture gave him a warmth that made him lovable. He kept the MTV audience connected to the world of comedy and also provided exposure for a ton of videos and pop culture touchstones that were hard to access at the time. In the age before the Internet, DVD and video on demand, it was sometimes difficult to find a place where lines from "Jaws" could be mentioned alongside David Bowie lyrics. Ober brought the geeks and the cool kids together to hang out in his basement, and that melding of two worlds helped make MTV the definitive television destination for youth across the country.
But mostly, "Remote Control" was just supremely weird, and made MTV a place where you could find subversive comedy (most of it Ober's). For example, take the clip below: It features a college student playing for a series of prizes by being spun around on a wheel, Colin Quinn as the "Evil Dwarf," a random model and a ton of confetti. It was loose, it was loud and it was incredibly fun to watch.
This weekend's edition of "Saturday Night Live" didn't live up to the highs of the previous week (when Taylor Swift reigned supreme over just about every aspect of the show), but it still provided a handful of laughs. Host January Jones (of the critically-acclaimed television drama "Mad Men") looked a little lost at times but still turned in some memorable moments. But most of the notable highlights came courtesy of musical guests the Black Eyed Peas. The group turned in a trio of excellent performances and managed to get the normally staid "SNL" audience to make a little noise and bang around a bit.
The quartet also delivered on the comedy front. In one of the episode's first sketches, the Peas appeared as the guests on "Today," hosted by Kathy Lee Gifford (played by Kristen Wiig) and Hoda Kotb (played by newcomer Jenny Slate). During the sketch, Wiig's Gifford starts singing, which profoundly upsets the members of the Peas (their reactions are pretty priceless). Eventually, they attack Gifford. Fergie throws a haymaker, Apl.de.ap drops an elbow and Taboo even beats her with his new signature sneakers (as clever a piece of product placement as we've seen). Really, the Peas could have easily shared hosting and performing duties just like Swift did, as Fergie, Will.i.Am and Taboo all have acting experience (Will starred in this summer's "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," Taboo appeared in "Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li" and Fergie stars in the upcoming movie musical "Nine"). Check out the attack on the faux Kathy Lee Gifford below (jump ahead to the final minute if you can't take Wiig's schtick — nobody would blame you).
I'm not quite sure how to best introduce this next piece of footage, so I'll keep it brief.
We have this guy here at MTV News called CJ. We love him. He's awesome. But CJ has a problem. He walks funny. There's really no way to describe it apart from the fact that he walks like he's possessed. Even if its just a few steps or a couple of blocks, CJ walks everywhere like he's being chased by a serial killer or worse. Arms flail, his mop-hair bounces and people stop and stare. We've all kind of become immune to it here at MTV News, but for CJ's own sake, we felt that something had to be done.
When J. Alexander — also known as Miss J, the runway coach and judge from hit reality show "America's Next Top Model" — stopped by the MTV Newsroom for an interview (he's promoting his new book "Follow the Model: Miss J's Guide to Unleashing Presence, Poise, and Power"; stay tuned for more from the interview later in the week), MTV News' Rya Backer and I decided to stage an intervention for our friend CJ.
Miss J has made a career out of teaching girls how to strut on "Americas Next Top Model" and has helped some of the world's most iconic models develop signature walks. But we knew that this was going to be his most daunting task yet. Could Miss J help CJ unleash his own poise and power? Check out the video below to find out.
Thanksgiving night is usually reserved for spiraling deep into a food coma while watching "Home Alone," but this year there will be an alternative to that. ABC is airing a special called "Beyoncé: I Am ... Yours" on Thanksgiving night at 9 p.m. The show will be made up primarily of a performance from her "I Am" tour (in particular, a show at the Wynn in Las Vegas), but also promises to feature behind-the-scenes footage and a rarely-seen look into her professional life on the road.
The first teaser ad just appeared online, and it looks like it will be worth fighting back the inevitable Tryptophan-induced psychosis to stay up and watch. The special promises to show the audience a side of Beyoncé that we've never seen, and it may just live up to that hype. There is footage of her in rehearsals, overseeing production and, in one especially telling scene, she tells somebody "it's good, it's all right, but it ain't great." There's plenty of footage of Beyoncé having fun as well, and it seems as though her production team and tour group seem to get along awfully well. As a bonus, it even looks like the special will offer up home movie footage of a very young Beyoncé dancing in the family living room.
All told, it looks like it will be a rare peek behind the curtain of the Beyoncé touring machine, and it'll be an entertaining way to help digestion on Thanksgiving night.
