A Christmas Story is perhaps the most famous and most beloved holiday movie of all-time. A Christmas Story Live!, however, is a musical adaption that aired on Fox and which was not met by positive reviews by… well… pretty much anyone at all. Scroll down for a look at the most memorable social media reactions… 1. Look, The Cast Was Terrific Chris Diamantopoulos… Maya Rudolph… Matthew Broderick… Jane Krakowski. We don’t blame any of the stars for this debacle. 2. However, There Were Problems Microphone and blocking mishaps, along with way too many musical numbers and far too much camera spinning, left viewers feeling dissatisfied. 3. Take It Away, Twitter! You won’t believe this, but social media users had a lot to say about the production. 4. Well, Yeah You could have just watched a commercial to learn this aspect of it. Come on. 5. A Dark Turn Oh, wow. Okay then. This sure took a turn down a different path than we expected. 6. WTH is Going On? This was a general theme on Twitter. For over two hours of the program. View Slideshow
Mariah Carey is finally taking responsibility for her debacle of a performance on New Year’s Eve. Kind of. Sort of. Okay, maybe not responsibility , exactly. But the singer has opened up extensively about the embarrassing “concert” in Times Square over this past weekend.. and at least she isn’t supporting allegations that she was sabotaged. By now, you probably are familiar with what transpired on Saturday night/Sunday morning: As the featured artist on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest , Carey took to the stage and immediately experienced technical difficulties. She messed with her earpiece. She couldn’t hear the background music. She planned to lip sync, but had no way of matching up her mouth to the lyrics. So she basically gave up, yammering away on stage and saying she would simply turn over the job of singing to the “audience” at one point. As Jenny McCarthy rightly pointed out, it was a train wreck of epic proportions all around. Watch snippets for yourself below: Mariah Carey: Worst New Year’s Eve Performance Ever? Carey Tweeted “Sh-t happens” shortly after this so-called performance went viral, which likely would have been enough. The story would have pretty much died if that had been it. But then members of her team tried to blame the incident on Dick Clark Productions, arguing that Carey was set up to fail by producers. Why didn’t the program cut to commercial once the technical difficulties became obvious , the singer’s rep argued? Because it wanted to milk her breakdown for ratings , Mariah’s camp has said. In response to this assertion, the production company fired back that it had “no involvement in the challenges associated with Ms. Carey’s New Year’s Eve performance.” So… yeah. It’s been a pretty giant mess all around. Even if Mariah’s boobs did look terrific during the Times Square humiliation: Now, however, Carey has spoken to Entertainment Weekly, walking the fine line between owning up to her lack of preparation and blaming others for what happened. “All I can say is Dick Clark was an incredible person and I was lucky enough to work with him when I first started in the music business,” Carey tells EW , adding: “I’m of the opinion that Dick Clark would not have let an artist go through that and he would have been as mortified as I was in real time.” Oooookay. That seems like quite the random point to make. Carey is basically throwing shade at producers for not helping rescue her from the situation on stage, without going so far as to accuse them of anything under-handed. Mariah goes on to say she’ll continue to do live events, but will be “less trusting of anyone outside my team.” (That said, Entertainment Tonight has learned that the singer is no longer working with her longtime creative director and tour choreographer/dancer, Anthony Burrell.) View Slideshow: Mariah Carey Butchers New Year’s Eve Performance: Twitter Reacts! What sort of reaction has Carey received on social media and in person? “My true fans have been so supportive and I am so appreciative of them and everybody in the media that came out to support me after the fact because it really was an incredible holiday season that turned into a horrible New Year’s Eve,” she added to EW. Hey, at least she’s admitting that the performance was “horrible.” But it would have been nice if, just somewhere in this interview, Carey had taken at least partial responsibility for what went down. Then again… if she had… she wouldn’t be the super diva we’ve all come to know and quasi love for her super diva-ness, would she?
Beanie Babies creator Ty Warner has been hit with a tax evasion penalty to the tune of $53.5 million. Of course, when you’re worth a reported $2.3 billion … Warner was charged with federal tax evasion after allegedly failing to report more than $3 million in income earned in a Swiss bank account back in 2002. The CEO struck a plea bargain with prosecutors to stay out of prison. Ty was looking at five years in prison for the crime, but by agreeing to plead guilty to the tax evasion charge, and pay the penalty ASAP, he’ll be free. Warner’s lawyer said Ty accepts responsibility, calling the debacle “an unfortunate situation that Mr. Warner has been trying to resolve for several years now.” Probably wishes he’d put all his money in Beanie Babies. Oh, wait …
A few weeks ago, Lana Del Rey was an Internet singing sensation. Then, she froze up on Saturday Night Live ; got destroyed by critics; released a new album; and canceled a planned tour in promotion of it, due to the continued harsh responses from those in the music community and beyond. But Lana is moving on from the debacle as best she can, and she performed her single “Video Games” on last night’s edition of Jimmy Kimmel Live . Watch and judge her improvement for yourself: Lana Del Rey – Video Games (Jimmy Kimmel Live)
A few weeks ago, Lana Del Rey was an Internet singing sensation. Then, she froze up on Saturday Night Live ; got destroyed by critics; released a new album; and canceled a planned tour in promotion of it, due to the continued harsh responses from those in the music community and beyond. But Lana is moving on from the debacle as best she can, and she performed her single “Video Games” on last night’s edition of Jimmy Kimmel Live . Watch and judge her improvement for yourself: Lana Del Rey – Video Games (Jimmy Kimmel Live)
Photo via OSTC With the gruesome pictures of oil-covered birds and soiled shorelines now rolling in, and the narrative of the spill split between BP’s continued inability to get a handle on the flow from the source and the federal government’s inability to get a handle on BP, an important element of this debacle has slid under the radar: BP has continued to deploy hundreds of thousands of toxic chemical dispersants into the Gulf — despite repeated directives from the EPA demanding th… Read the full story on TreeHugger
Wednesday’s edition of Page Six reports that the ratings for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon are down 20 percent from May of 2009 and that NBC executives are “on edge” over the fall. Gasp! Says Mediaweek’s Marc Berman — who actually goes by the late, great Milton Berle’s old nickname “Mr. Television” — “When they took out Jay and put in Conan, they lost a lot of the viewers who would usually have stayed on to watch Fallon. The lead-in is pivotal . . . When you mess around with viewers, sometimes it’s hard to get them back. TV is a very fickle business . . . If there is a lesson to be learned from this debacle, it is that if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.” Good point, Mr. TV! And good thing Fallon isn’t broken.
