I’m Not a Cat Lady

I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Finale: See You Next Year?

As our comely hosts Damien Fahey and Myleene Klass open the show, they announce that it's pouring with rain in Costa Rica—a fitting outcome for the final episode of this soggy version of what should have been a really fun and engaging series. After three-and-a-half long and uneventful weeks, we've finally reached  the bitter end. Three are left—former NBA champ John Salley, ex-WWE sweetheart Torrie Wilson and once-promising Hollywood actor Lou Diamond Phillips—and one of them will be crowned King or Queen of the Jungle. Unfortunately, everybody was watching So You Think You Can Dance or Wipeout instead, so this will be a fairly intimate coronation.

But first, let's recap everything that's gone before. No, I take that back, let's not. There's a rehash of pathological famewhores Heidi and Spencer Pratt and their acting out routine, which sucked up the entire first week and has generated plenty of publicity already, so to hell with that. We go back over Sanjaya's and Patti Blagojevic's expulsions, probably for the sake of all the viewers who dropped off over the weeks and whom NBC figured would tune in at least to watch the finale and totally did not.

Finally, it’s the long-teased reunion of rejectees—I mean, ex-campmates—all scrubbed up and sitting on logs. Heidi is velcroed to Spencer's lap and Myleene observes that they both look "so much better” than when we last saw them, and indeed, she's right: Their faces are preternaturally shiny and all plump and juicy—no doubt the results of some dermabrasion and a few strategic pricks of restalayne. Because all 22-year-olds need that kind of help to look rested. We get the old "I'm too rich and too famous" montage and Spencer whooping like a gibbon. Oh enough with these two.

Janice Dickinson has come dressed for the disco in a tight hot-pink number, hair a cascade of shimmering jet-black curls, with a smile plastered on her face like Bob the Enzyte guy. She's so happy to be here! A little too happy, methinks—she's chewing her face off and, well, she's vibrating. She must be on some very effective happy-pappy pills right now. We get a J-Dick montage showing her scowling and hobbling around, unable to "go poo," and instantly, all her efforts to look fabulous tonight are pretty much shot to hell.

Back to camp and the final three. Oh, there's a food challenge. Why? It's over! The votes are in! Haven't these poor starving smelly creatures been through enough? Apparently not. The producers must think we need another fix of snake-and-bug porn. The game is something to do with a spa and it's all, hee hee, ho ho, Torrie you need a shampoo, and she gets to lie with her head covered in all manner of things that crawl as she fishes around for her two stars. John gets a fruit facial, which means he has to submerge his head in a tub of slop filled with something known as vomit fruit. Belligerent to the end, John demands, "Is this legal in America?" and Damien is right back at him: "That's why we’re in Costa Rica, John, we’re breakin' rules. Now shut yer trap!" Okay he didn't say that last part, but his face did.

LouDi gets a manicure courtesy of some great horny toads and a few spiders in a tank. LouDi had his hand gnawed off by rats and tarantulas crawling over his eyeballs, this is a cake walk for him. Next, a hot tub for Torrie, which is filled with wee crocodiles. Oh big deal—we know these croccies are completely harmless. Torrie picks one up and gives him a kiss. And all the men go boinnnng! I gotta admit, it's pretty hot.

John gets a snake sauna. They’re all pretty little decorative snakes, ain't gonna hurt nobody, no biggie. LouDi gets a jungle spray tan, which translates as meal worms. Oh, ewww. He's got worms in his ear. Everyone's giggly and giddy, Myleene and Damien are more chipper than we've ever seen them, they are unanimously thrilled that they're all finally going to be out of there for good.

The final three return to camp all cleaned up, and sit by the fire to chit-chat with the hosts some more. Now they're in earnest mode: This is like nothing I've ever done before I got more out of this jungle and it's still surreal and I would never have quit and get me back, Clarence, I want to live again! We waste more minutes on the ex-campmates who are asked about their favorite trials and Sanji waffles on again about how he loved being immersed upside down in the tank with snakes on that very first night and .... Damien's all, yeah yeah, uh-huh, great.

Back to the final three. They eat their well-earned meals and talk about how much winning means to them. Torrie announces that she thinks she'll be an inspiration to women by showing them you can be strong, brave and feminine. As opposed to the role model du jour, skinny, trashy and slutty. It's an admirable goal but... good luck with that, Torrie!

Now one of the three musketeers has to go. Damien: “The next celebrity….. to leave the jungle forever is…. …. …. ….. ….. …. John." Good. John gets that rictus grin and leaps up a little too quickly, pretending he's excited to be getting home. Even through they're all going home tonight. There's a soupy montage of Salley's Greatest Hits. He simmers down as he watches, becoming gracious and humble at last.

We get a LouDi recap. He’s the good guy, everybody loved Lou, nobody had a gripe with him, and he’s proud of that. He triumphantly proclaims, "I do what I set out to do, my experience in this jungle has been complete." Bravo, fine ac-tor! Time for Torrie. She surprised herself with how strong and fearless she’s been. Awww. She feels like she can do anything after this.

We're back in camp and Damien reminds us the final three have been roughing it for 24 days, and I realize I really lost count with this thing—that's two days longer than I thought. Oh well, my bad. Myleene: "Lou, Torrie, one of you is about to be crowned King or Queen of the Jungle." Damien. "Lou……… you nervous?" Indeed, Lou looks like he’s about to cry. Back to Myleene: “There can only be one winner." Oh come on, we know that already, you've been telling us for 24 days! "The public has decided and voted and I can only tell you two, it has been incredibly close. The winner. Of I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here 2009 is ….. …." Torrie? Please?

"Lou Diamond Phillips."

Well of course. The ex-campmates are ecstatic. J-Dick, I think, self-combusts. LouDi gets a shiny wreath of leaves. Myleene says, "We'll see you next year!"

And there will be pork in the treetops come morning. 

 

The End.

photos courtesy of nbc.com

I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Day 21: You Will NOT Lose Interest in This Show

Last night's episode, which contained more filler than Janice Dickinson's, Renee Zellweger's and Madonna's faces combined, hit an all-time season low. So I guess it's in with a whimper and out an even sadder whimper for IACGMOOH-US. And it's no big surprise. With low-grade celebrities coming and going like Lindsay Lohan in the bathroom at Bar Marmont, IACGMOOH never found its rhythm, it didn't know which way to turn. It was a show made up of recaps and insta-flashback montages, with a few random challenges squeezed in between.

So here we are, it's the penultimate episode, and we kick off with, yes, a recap of the night before: Stephen Baldwin the quitter, fake showmance, bug cocktails, Holly goes home. And two more go home tonight! Here's Damien and Myleene, our comely hosts, live in the jungle, chirpy and wide-eyed and a little desperate to drum up some enthusiasm. Myleene's wearing a fetching little coral.... Holy cow, what happened to her hair? She is channeling the Bride of Frankenstein tonight. This is not a good look for her.

They promise us we've got a nail-biter coming up. But first... Let's hang out with the campers as they sit around the campfire and reminisce about their favorite moments and how they've been jungle-transformed.

Great, yet another opportunity to watch sepia-toned scenes we've already seen. The only compelling moment here is when John Long Tall Salley recounts how he found his soul in the river as well as his new BFF Patti Blah-go. Cut to Long Tall lotusing atop the waterfall episode, eyes closed, as Patti slithers soundlessly to his side, like a pigtailed river snake. It's quite hilarious—I have to rewind that bit and watch again.

Hey, it's our friends, the ants with fern. Cut to Lou Diamond Phillips and his granny glasses; he announces: "I need everyone on the benches, please!" Who named him camp leader again? We have a bald-faced product placement segment: Heads up, everybody, the good folks at Colgate think we need to freshen up! Here are some new Colgate Wisp dry toothbrushes, which come in lots of yummy fruit flavors. Everyone oohs and aahs on cue, like they just got lollipops from the dentist. "That’s sweet, Colgate!" yells Long Tall. Good celebrities! Contract fulfilled.

The big finale tomorrow night is teased. Yay, all the people we didn't care about enought to vote for will be back—can't wait! Most of them just left a minute ago, so where's the suspense? Back to camp. Scroll! Long Tall is leader again. He announces the next food trial, Catch a Crawling Star. The campers file over the jungle bridge and head to the Jungle Clearing. "Let’s to get 'em buckaroo!" cheers LouDi. "Arrgghh, harrrr harrrrr!" growls Long Tall. "No, that's a pirate," corrects Uncle Lou. Heh!

There's a cable strung a few feet over the river with five hanging flags. I'm sorry but this is a doddle compared to the challenges in the Real World/Road Rules Challenges. Torrie has a sudden fear fit, though, crying sweet, pretty tears. She's all scared because she's tired, or something. They go in pairs, Torrie and Long Tall first. They straddle the cable in the most awkward and unflattering position imaginable. Long Tall hurls himself across, but won't take his last flag until the lagging Torrie catches up. Where did that benevolent team spirit suddenly spring from? Maybe the river really did change him.

LouDi and Sanji go next. Sanji makes like Tinkerbell on that cable, ha ha Lou, you didn't win for once, suck it. And then there's Patti. Whoops, they've run out of pairs already. Why in the world did they bother with that? Patti goes solo, and the editors try to fake us that she’s doing a kick-ass job. So do the campmates, who are all "Look at her go!" "She's a fighter!" They pity poor Patti, who flips upside down and starts dropping her flags. Yeah, she’s toast. Sanji and John win. Torrie shows off a stomach as flat as an ironing board.

Quick-cut montage of the remaining five all saying, I will not lose this, I will not lose this, I will not lose this. Since when did everybody stop using the contraction? This has been going on for a quite a while with Generation Valleyspeak—seemingly overnight, it wasn't "don't speak to me", it was "do NOT speak to me." And, as if to prove my point, on comes that super-annoying Verizon Wireless ad, probably the most annoying of Verizon's entire oeuvre of annoying ads, where that fat guy says to his smug-couple friends showing of their new phone, "One thing I do NOT need is a new phone" and then says in his head, "Do NOT set that down, I WILL take it."Like some copywriter seized on that particular vocal trend 10 years after the fact, hammered it into his script and instructed the director, "He WILL say the line like this." 

After this extra-super-annoying break, which, obviously, I didn't fast-forward over fast enough, we get one of the dumbest filler segments so far this season, and that IS saying something: The campmates give each other awards. Fast-forward!

We're live. Damien is in camp to deliver the first blow of the hour, working his dramatic pauses. "Torrie… yewww ….. .....are safe." Yay! I want her to win.  "Lou……. yewwww ……. ....... Are also safe."  Yeah, yeah, come on. "Okay, guys, the first person leaving the jungle… tonight...... is......." Patti, it's Patti, come on, say Patti... "Sanjaya!" Hey! That actually caught me by surprise. Although I had a hunch last night, when he danced his little wood-nymph dance as the credits rolled, that he might have tried the patience of his fan base. Maybe the showmance pushed them over the edge. Life lesson for Sanjaya: Pick a side and stick to it.

Sanji takes a seat with Myleene and her horror-show hairdo. She is a gorgeous girl but even she can't pull this frightwig off. She milks the showmance angle, clutching at straws, desperate to eeke out a storyline, any storyline, and Sanji plays along. Contract fulfilled! We cut to confessional clips of the campmates testifying to their love for Sanji. Wait. Is this live too? When did they film and edit this part? Did everyone have to record a pre-emptive testimonial for each and every remaining campmate the day before? It doesn't matter at this late stage, I give up trying to figure out this stuff. Sanji dissolves in tears, it looks like entire face is watering.

We're live again, or still live, whatever, and it's between John and Patti. And it's..... Patti. About bloody time! Bye, Patti, don't let the bridge hit you on the way out! I'm sorry, but I don't like her, never did. There is something very odd about her, like she isn't comfortable in her own skin. She's all awkward, nervous energy. And it's not good energy. Plus, she's got that flat midwestern-sounding Soccer Mom voice, you know, that sounds like there's always a saliva bubble in the throat.

Patti fairly sprints across that bridge, not looking back once. She gets her testimonial. She Soccer-Moms  her debrief. And I do NOT care what she has to say.

And now there are three. And it's all gonna happen tomorrow night. Why do I feel so painfully underwhelmed? "You do NOT want to miss it!" insists Damien. No, Damien. We do NOT!

photos courtesy of nbc.com

I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Day 20: You Must Be Outta Your Rabbit-Ass Mind

 
I missed the first half hour of this episode because I have IACGMOOH programmed on my DVR and usually watch on a 30-minute delay so I don’t have to deal with all the commercial pods. (I just learned that term yesterday while doing research for a fall preview piece I'm writing for that rare thing writers get anymore—money.) But I have Comcast, so any series recording setting means jack. So I missed the big development: Stephen Baldwin walked off the show. According to The Live Feed, which also tells us that the show's numbers were down 10 percent from last Monday, he left because of bug bites and back pain. The big wuss. (They have a video of Balwin explaining, if you really care.) This makes him the fourth contestant to quit the show, which I think sets a reality TV record. TJ Lavin would never stand for this.

I tune in right when the bomb is dropped that to fill the Stevie B. void, two evictees are coming in to beg to stay and the remaining campmates have to pick one. I fully expect it to be Heidi and Spencer but, silly me, it's the two players who are still in the neighborhood: Holly Montag and Janice Dickinson. J-Dick tries to squeeze tears through her botox-deadened tear ducts to convince the group she really wasn't a bitch who belched and peed beside the bed and talked about her bowels and her menopause all day. Holly cried sweet little sugar drops and just said "I really love you guys!" Holly wins. Big teddy-bear hugs all round.

We have a long segment on how Holly and Sanjaya are picking up their showmance right where it left off and a big tease about how they might be, oooh, hooking up all jungle-style. Meanwhile I've got a bridge to sell you. 

So that's the first hour down. Hey, that was easy! Onto the second. Welcome back, says Damien as Myleene stands fetchingly by his side her her latest shrunken frock from the Sears Junior Miss Department. We run through the campmates' various charities. Good for you, celebs, I hope you get some $5 texts, I really do!

Food trial. It's called Head of Horror and it has something to do with bugs and snakes and spiders. They mislead us into thinking Holly’s going to kill it. They’re playing for more junk food: a double whopper! In rounds of two, celebs have to pop their heads inside a plastic box full of little crawly critters and remove some stars with their mouths. So, yeah, a nice little oral challenge for a change.

Patti Blah-go doesn’t even try. Holly makes a game attempt—oh fellas, some major tongue action!—so she wins that one. John Long Tall Salley starts whining immediately, tries to put his head in the box and yells over at Damien, "You must be outta your rabbit-ass mind!" Hey now! Could this be the new "hell to the no"? He finally gets his rabbit-ass head up in the rabbit ass-tank. Naturally, Sanji takes their round. Then Long Tall rabbit-asses on in the confessional about not letting his daughters not see him do something. As opposed to see him do something. Like hollering about rabbit asses.

Ad break. I catch the tail end of that Brooke Shields commercial where she tries to persuade the ladies of America to slop some kind of toxic prescription-only chemical onto their eyeballs to make their lashes grow. What a crock. Shame on you, Brooke Shields. As if those ads about mascara showing models wearing five layers of falsh eyelashes aren't heinous enough.

We're back to the Head of Horror. Lou Diamond Phillips is up against Torrie. Guess who wins. Torrie sweetfaces about her frustration. I don't blame her. LouDi is almost scarily competitive, he'll do anything to win. Including let tarantulas crawl into his nostrils, which he does in the final round between him, Holly and Sanji. He announces that he was thinking about his daughters too—unlike Long Tall, he lets them see him do something.

Before LouDi gets his whopper, the camp is given some scales. Which is funny, because I was just thinking about how skinny everyone suddenly looks, like they all lost 10 pounds over the weekend. And, indeed, some have: Patti's lost 10 pounds, Long Tall's rabbit ass lost 21—whoa!, scrawny Sanji lost 8, Holly lost 9 and LouDi lost 15. Torrie gained weight—7 whole pounds. It's solid muscle, of course. Just like me! 

LouDi wraps his face around the burger and stuffs it in. Torrie sweetfaces that she hopes he doesn't get sick from eating the whole thing. Tell you what, I wouldn't want to be on latrine duty that day. Then: a father's day montage. Long Tall and LouDi get to skype home. Because they’re dads. LouDi is a bawling mess. Boo-hoos all round.

Myleene and Damien are back. Oh no! Someone is leaving the jungle forever. Reeaa-eeeaaarrr-eaarrraagghh shrieks the violin. But... a twist. It's the two celebs with the lowest votes. Or "the vowest lote getters," as Patti explicates. Holly is at the bottom, duh. But who's next? Patti, for sure, right? No. It's Long Tall.

Oh, his face. It's that awful sore loser face we've all come to know and love by now. Long Tall is seriously gutted. He doesn't have the support system of America behind him that he thought he had. He's in the loser's circle of two, way down there with Holly. And as we know, Long Tall does not like to lose, no sir. He and Holly have to drink evil creature-ridden cocktails in the Last Chance Saloon. Long Tall has a big tight toothy smile plastered on his face that makes him look like death's grinning skull. He is second to last. He is hating this. Hating.

The first is a bright green cocktail of grasshoppers. Holly chugs it fastest. Long Tall blames his height. His death-grin is so forced, his upper lip is starting to twitch. Next, a Tarantula Teaser. Yep, blended tarantulas. Long Tall literally swallows his fear and takes that one. Dung Beetle Daquiri. This is too gross for words. What a great challenge! Long Tall takes that one too. Holly has dung beetle on her teeth. This can't be nice for them at all.

Next: Scorpio Sunrise. With a whole dead scorpion floating inside. Holly deep-throats it. Long Tall lets out a very impressive big-man belch. Finally, Chili Colada. Oh, it's close! Damien pretends to go to the tape to call it. This series has been full of some lame moments, but this one takes the cake. It's Long Tall's win. He gloats so hard, he drinks the leftovers and flounces back to camp, all Nyah nyah America, I won. There is something very.... not nice about this guy. Holly, in major contrast, is a gracious good sport.

So tomorrow night, three are going home, leaving two two are going home, leaving three to battle it out on Wednesday night's finale. [Thank you, my dear friend Rich Sands of TV Guide!] Each campmate gets a camera-moment to appeal directly to us, America, why we should vote for them tonight.

Sanji is uncomfortably charisma-free as he rattles through his greatest jungle hits and then trills, "I'm the baby here, I should win!" Long Tall bombasts, "My strength is my will, I have been very resourceful, I have not taken from the jungle, I have given back." Say what? Patti says something super forced and awkward, and I'm so distracted by the way she's displaying both rows of her teeth that I have no idea. Torrie sweet-faces about how she’s not going down without a fight. LouDi thinks he's Barack Obama on the stump and speechifies about what a great and fair leader he's been, and then signs off with a terrible Elvis impression. Sanji does some very wood-nymphy jumping jacks as we sign off. Curiously, I don't have the slightest inclination to pick up my phone and vote.

Photos courtesy of nbc.com

I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Day 14: Sanjaya, Gay?

After a relatively action-packed episode on Monday night, last night's IACGMOOH was a bit "eh!" So were the numbers: According to The Live Feed, it slipped to a new low, down a tenth from the night before. Still won its time slot, though, but apparently it doesn't count: Its only competition was reruns.

Onto the broadcast: There's a quick cross-promotion with Microsoft's new Google, bing. Yes, that's bing,  all lowercase. Please tell me the high-pitched man-voice that goes “biiiiinggg!” noise annoys you as much as it does me. Plus, bing won't work as a verb, like Google. Not in the past tense, anyway. Read it: binged. Makes you think of a heavy drinking session, doesn't it? That can't be good.

Now to the episode: We open with everyone talking about the new  sheriff in town, Long Tall John Salley. His style is Strict Dad versus Lou Diamond Phillips' Nice Uncle. That's right, big boy's a hardass. He immediately doles out responsibilities to each and every campmate and lays down his Commandments of the Camp. Such as: "If you do not wash your hands, you do not get food."

"He’s now forcing his will on his people," complains Stephen Baldwin, showing off his sack-of-oatmeal physique. Get some sun on that torso, dude! "I think he’s taking this leadership thing a little too seriously," Patti asides about her BFF behind his back.

The Great Jungle Storm of the night before has passed, and Damien and Myleene are back in their cushy studio, and good for them. They introduce a segment about the camp's latest cockamamie time-killing game: Let’s make a slasher flick! Hoo boy. Horror props arrive out of nowhere, the fake knife the ketchup, the Scream mask. LouDi’s the director. It's the biggest break he's had in years, you can totally tell. Ever the adorable naif, Holly is excited to be making a movie "with people of such high caliber as Lou Diamond Phillips."

True to form, Janice Dickinson yells, "Who do I have to sleep with to get the lead?" Dream on, honey. Not with the Bombshell Wilson around, and LouDi is terribly diligent about blocking her shower scene. Then  Long Tall deadpans to camera, "I've worked with the great Lou Diamond Phillips. How may people can say that?" Beat. "How many people want to say that?" Oh, snap!

The scroll. Long Tall don't need no reading glasses. It's a food trial, one from each team goes head to head, yada yada. No prizes for guessing who's up for the ladies: Torrie. "She can move mountains because she's a brick shithouse," explains J-Dick, channeling The Commodores from that hit song back in the 70s when she was famous.

So it's the two muscle queens, again, Torrie and LouDi. How redundant. And how many times do I have to say it: These trials are mean to be voter driven. It's supposed to be a democracy. The players going into the trials are meant to be the ones the public wants to see in there.  Although it's entirely possible that that's a moot point by now, as there's not much of a public out there that wants to see them, period. Still, the US remake doesn't hold a candle to the UK version in so many ways, but now I'm getting redundant so I'll shut up about it already.

Onto the trial: There’s a tank with snakes. The food is pasta. Is it just me or do the food presentations all look like those plastic displays you see in the window of cheap tourist restaurants? None of it looks appetizing, but those guys are starving so even plastic food would look great to them at this point. There are 35 snakes in the tank along with those darn toy stars, which are  numbered this time, so they must be retrieved in order. Ah, a twist! It's a race between Torrie and LouDi, who grope around in the tank together. The snakes are striking! They’re not poisonous, of course, just unpleasant. One seems to be sunning itself on top of the tank, its head jutting right in their faces, completely unperturbed. It’s got to be a prop.

LouDi capers all over, falling on his knees, putting his whole body in it, as per. He wins by one second. Torrie wants to cry. I don’t blame her. "It’s getting too repetitive here," she wails—speaking for the viewers as well.

Back at camp, J-Dick takes the bad news lying down, for a change. The girls placate teary Torrie: Pasta's fattening, we don't want that, do we girls? Who said the Sisterhood was dead?

Back to Damien. He tries to assure us that the battle for king and queen is really heating up. He is not  convincing.

Back to camp. J-Dick wants “booby”, aka Sanji, to put guy-liner on and of course he happily complies. The others shake their heads and start to gossip sotto voce. "He looks very gay when he’s doing that," Long Tall tsk-tsks to Patti. "It’s not attractive to women," she tsk-tsks back. Long Tall complains in the confessional that Sanji goes "from being smooth Mac Daddy around Holly"—cut to Sanji telling Holly mid-massage, "You can actually sit on me if you need to," HAH!—"to not being Sanjaya around J-Dick." Not being Sanjaya meaning, you know, behaving like a prancing wood nymph. 

Holly quietly confronts her crush. "I feel like she like wants you to be really gay or something," she says. "A lot of people want me to be their gay best friend," Sanji explains, "but I don’t like guys, so it really confuses people." No kidding. In the confessional, Sanji explains away his girly affectations: He was raised by women.  So was Jack Nicholson, bro. We cut to Sanji, under heavy gaydar scrutiny, making the world's most awkward attempt to macho-up to Torrie. J-Dick delivers her verdict on the gay/not gay thing with one word: "Please."

A rain drop pelts the clueless tree frog on the head. I think that’s code for DENIAL!

Time for the immunity trial:  It’s a hands-up-over-the-head again, something to do with standing on a plank over a muddy pool holding a pole and a box filled with slime. Stevie B. opts out, he wants to leave his fate in God's hands. He said America's hands, but, same thing. Have you ever known a reality competition show that was so sloppy with the rules? No wonder nobody's watching.

The rest step up. J-Dick doesn’t last a nth of a second and gets duly slimed and slopped. "I tried," she lies. She doesn't give a damn about winning any immunity trial—her ass is covered by The Gay Nation. Torrie starts giggling uncontrollably—I think she's flashing back to Sanji's  pass at her earlier—and she's out. Long Tall starts up with the trash talk—"my strategy!"—and instantly gets his comeuppance. Sanji throws it, LouDi wins immunity, the sun rises in the morning and it goes down at night.

It's movie time. And it is godawful. LouDi, however, is rapt—so engrossed, he gets some popcorn stuck in his chin-stubble. He starts pulling the most creepy, insane expressions, looking exactly like Reese Witherspoon when she pulls that devil-face in Cruel Intentions. LouDi is psyched. He'll start shopping that thing around the minute he gest home, no doubt about it.

We're live. Myleene announces that John has "a very, very difficult decision to make." He gets to pick one person to be exempt from the vote, including himself. Myleene says, "You have 20 seconds starting no—“ “Myself,” he interrupts. Best team player indeed. "I came here to win," he declares. And good for him. You don't win shows like this by being benevolent to your fellow players. The ones who are always get screwed.

We're given the numbers to vote. I can’t help it. I vote for Janice.

photos courtesy of NBC; Reese Witherspoon courtesy of The Jay.

I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Day 13: The Rise of Long Tall Salley

Well, the already-low numbers for IACGMOOH are slipping, but audience viewership was down last night across the board. Could it be all those poor wretches who weren’t ready for the big digital conversion on Friday? Whatevs, it’s a week since the departure of the Desperate Duo, Heidi and Spencer, and IACGMOOH’s numbers haven't plunged all that much. Last night's two-hour extravaganza begins with drama: The set is besieged by a major tropical storm! Damien and Myleene's cushy little studio location has been flooded! Everyone's hair is frizzy! In this weather, Damien promises us, literally anything can happen. Literally!

But not till we've recapped what happened waaayyyy back on Thursday night: Daniel Baldwin was voted off. We get a post-mortem of his brutal execution. His little bro Stephen  is so choked up about it, he can't even swallow right now. Just like LouDi back in that nasty food challenge. They need to do a swallowing trial; that's one Janice Dickinson would totally take.

And here she is, with her kabuki eyebrows again, rasping to camera, "I couldn't be happier that Daniel Baldwin is gone because he's a big bully." We cut to everyone in camp wringing their hands over Big Bad Daniel's absence. Everyone but a jubilant J-Dick, of course. Stevie B. says he'd better not catch anyone going through his big brother's things. J-Dick barks, "I already did!" "You went through his stuff?" gasps Stevie B. "Hells to the yes!" she ripostes.

Okay, off topic for a minute: J-Dick has to be the only person in the land who is still using Whitney Houston's cracky catchphrase from Being Bobby Brown way back in 2005. I don't know about you, but I've noticed that catchphrases don't have the same shelf-life as they used to. Everyone was saying "Hell to the no" when BBB came out. When's the last time you heard it? That's four relatively short four years ago. Expressions like "way... no way" and "...not!" from SNL's Wayne's World were all over the mainstream for almost two decades; variations on Jerry Maguire's "you had me at hello" are still being written into scripts. But remember when everyone was saying "high five!" and "sexytime" after Borat just a couple of years ago? Wouldn't you feel like the proverbial douche saying them now? And wouldn't you feel like an even bigger douche uttering any single line from Juno, like the execrable "honest to blog"?

But I digress; back to J-Dick. She's lying on her back and rasping out orders from her sticky glossed lips non-stop. She's aged yet another five years over the weekend; the perma-scowl is not helping, nor is that cooking oil she's got slathered all over her face. It's all about J-Dick and her vile temperament tonight. This is bad. The producers are clearly having a problem eking out a storyline if this is all they can come up with two weeks in.

And then, more wind-baggery. In an effort to lecture sweet innocent Holly on the pitfalls of celebrity, LouDi harkens back to his heady heyday on La Bamba. Which he pronounces "Lammaammmbaaa" in that way people tend to over-emphasize Lad-tiiiiino names or words of any kind. J-Dick chimes in about TMZ going through her trash and robbing her of her privacy, which she pronounces "privvacy"— she probably picked that up from her British ex-husband Simon Fields. Patti rabbits on about her deadbeat husband again… She really wants that sympathy vote.

Out comes the scroll and LouDi's reading glasses. It's a luxury trial, and the reward is a massage. LouDi says he fancies getting a rub. I'll bet. Long Tall Salley wants one two. It's the two old guys versus the alpha chicks, Torrie and Patti. Muscle queens LouDi and Torrie go head to head cranking a lever to pull an ever-shortening plank out from underneath Patti or Long Tall. Long Tall tries the charming courtside trash talk on Torrie but he drops like a sack of bowling balls, yelling "Mutha—!" on the way down. 

Back to camp. J-Dick's lifting dumbbells. Word to the ladies: Want good muscle tone in your 60s? Take J-Dick's lead. Suddenly, she opens up to LouDi about her lousy marriage and her messy past. He's honored. Such a good daddy.

Again with the scroll and the reading glasses. Another trial. My mind wanders for a millisecond and I miss the details, but it's some kind of a scavenger hunt. Everyone has to find a particular item, all of which seem to be in J-Dick's bag: tweezers, hand-mirror, brillo pad. J-Dick sets off to find her item while clutching her crotch for some reason. They win smores.

Suddenly Long Tall is talking about leaving the game. He's too proud to lose and being on the bottom two last week shook him up quite a bit. "I'm not the white girl with the pretty face and the blonde hair," he grouses. Wow, bitter much? And also, by the way, do either LouDi or Sanjaya or J-Dick—none of whom has hit the bottom two—fit that description? I'm sorry but that is lame.

Sanji feels bad that Long Tall is down, though, so he offers to do the cooking and decides to fry some chips. Chips of what, it's not clear. J-Dick chides his one-chip-at-a-time frying style. He loses his temper for the first time and threatens to throw hot chips in her face. Well, she's already got the oil! Holly stands by her little man: "These are sowww good, Sanji. Soooowww goooouuud." Bleh. J-Dick takes a bite and announces, "You are Lord of the Fries." Every now and then, the old girl hits one out.

Coming up: What’s wrong with Janice? We see her doing something unspeakable. Has she got the crabs?

And... back. Long Tall retracts his idle threat and decides to stick it out and "man up". About time. Then old lady Dickinson waddles into the woods. Seems she's all clogged up. "I haven't had a shit in 7 days!" she rasps. Everyone but LouDi exits camp in disgust. She doesn't miss a beat: "I sure know how to clear a room, don’t I Lou?" She shows off her distended belly. She scarfs down the papaya and the prunes. Nothing works. " I’m surprised she doesn’t have some yoga pose that doesn’t make it come flying right out," yuks Stevie B.

Ooh! An iguana on a log. Finally, some new stock creature-footage. Patti's rabbiting on about Blago issue again. Fast forward. We’re an hour in. Let's get on with it!

The public voted Torrie and Sanji into the Tunnel of Terror. Sanji thinks the public want to see his breaking point. That's what you get for being so damn competent, Jungle Boy. Actually it's a joy to watch him kill it every time. So, we have  stars hidden in all kinds of scary places in an underground tunnel. Myeene warns: "You won’t be alone in there." Reeeerrreeeerreerrrrrrr! There's that screechy-violin noise from Top Chef and Kitchen Nightmares and every other reality show again. A few critters await, alright already, we know the drill, please stop that noise! In goes Sanji. And: spiders, iguana, snakes, oh no, a tarantula on his back, crayfish. Wait, crayfish? In the jungle? And then the weeny baby crocodiles. Watch out Sanji! They might bite your pinky toe!

Sanji, of course, kills it again. How anyone could crawl through an underground tunnel full of water and mud, in the dark, is beyond me, critters be damned. It's Torrie's turn. We hear her wimpering and gasping and breathing heavily.  I’m worried the neighbors will think I’m watching porn. She does extremely well but Sanji wins. The camera pans slowly up Torrie's mud-soaked frame, a loving journey from feet to face. Subtle. But I have to say, she looks as gorgeous coming out of that filthy tunnel as she did going in. She is stunning.

Unlike J-Dick. She's not looking so good. The campmates are worried about her and choose their words verrrryyy carefully. Patti: "She looked... really... frail." Torrie: "She looks....horribly sick." Stevie B. gets to the point: "She's sick, dude." Long Tall concedes that "she's not crying wolf today." Eat your words, mean campers.

But J-Dick isn't running for the jungle door. "I've made it this far," she whimpers. Girl's a trouper in her own messed-up, scowly, angry way. But she's sent to the medico. She’s got a virus. They're keeping her there for the night.

It's night at camp, and we've got on our night-vision goggles. Everyone's sleeping. Ooh! A snake slithers into camp. Some men in camouflage stealth-creep in. They're identified: "onsite security."  They’ve got sticks, they’re prodding in the bushes, Patti wakes up. They sneak off wordlessly with the snake. It's a bizarre little pantomime, completely surreal. Patti tippy-toes over to Long Tall's bed. He wakes up just long enough to exchange a word with her. "Did you see those ninjas over there?" she asks. "Snake?" he goes. "Snake," she confirms. He sinks back into his jungle coma, leaving Patti alone and awake in the dark.

Morning. The camp talks about the Great Snake Invasion. It finally hits Stevie B. like a mallet to his low-hanging brow that he's not on a movie location. Holly's hair is in a full-on frizz, she should have used her sister's dry shampoo. J-Dick comes bounding back. She must have had an enema: She is walking on air. The old-lady droop is gone, too. Amazing what a good movement can do.

Time for a new camp leader. LouDi's reached his term limit. We have a eulogy for him that goes on way too long—yeah, yeah, he's Obama, he's been cool, we get the point. We have a quiz stolen straight from Survivor—match the adjective with the player as voted by America. So we learn that America thinks John Salley is the hardest worker, the most famous, the best team player, has the best strategy and is the smartest. What was it you said about pretty white blonde girls again, John?  Plus: I'm not sure what show America's been watching, but it's definitely not this one. I'd have thought LouDi would take the vote for smartest, what with the reading glasses and all. Strangely, the majority of the campmates thought Patti was the smartest. And as if to prove it, Patti's vote for the most vain is "Stephan."

Long Tall voted for himself in just about every category so he wins. Ever humble, he declares, "I was already a leader in so many ways."

The camp plays "who's your best friend?" It's a lovefest between Stevie B. and LouDi. John's BFF is Patti, and she's all "right back atcha." Torrie and Stevie B. have bonded because they're both—take a guess—Christians. Holly and Sanji call each other out all googly-eyed. J-Dick, the gooseberry, declines to call out anyone... and goes off to take a dump. Which, under the circumstances, seems completely appropriate.

Immunity trial. But first, an IACGMOOH promotion. Get jungle gossip on your phone! There’s Heidi and Spencer. They’re still using them for the interstitials? More proof that NBC was bankng on them, hard.

Back to Damien, who shares shares a lot of irrelevant information about things we can't see, and... out.

photos courtesy of NBC

I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Day 10: The Great Granola Bar Mystery Continues

I'm a Celeb was up against both So You Think You Can Dance and the NBA playoffs last night. How do you think it did? Yep, pulverized. So, anyway, we pick up where we left off—with the Great Granola Bar Mystery. The wrapper is found, outside the confessional. The Bully Baldwins do what they do best—asking Janice questions about it and muttering over and over again, really fast, “where’s-the-granola-bar? where’s-the-granola-bar?” and cracking up laughing, right in her face. She glowers and grimaces and scowls as hard as she can and avoids eye contact at all costs. It's taking quite a toll of J-Dick’s looks—she’s looking 65 today. Then Daniel shoots her a look that would turn a rabid Grizzly bear’s blood to ice and says, quiet seriously, “You’re dead to me.” Oh. This is not funny anymore; if anyone looked at me that way, I’d age instantly too.

We get a bug-bite montage next, with a night-clip of Long Tall Salley manically swatting some kind of prehistoric winged creature from his face. The camp is given bug patches and tubs of what looks like calomine paste. The guys' backs are covered in a Milky Way's worth of white dots.

Food trial! It’s a shopping challenge. Sanji and Holly step up because, you know, if there’s one skill this hre young generation has mastered, it’s shopping. They’ve got to push a bamboo trolley across a cable and pick off big pieces of fake food. Sanji, who sprints across as if he was born on a tightrope, kills it. There really is nothing this wood nymph can’t do. 

Back at camp, J-Dick is regaling the group with every detail of her career, all 85 years of it. “Is it time for Janice’s meds?” Meanie Daniel Baldwin asides. Apparently the game they’re playing now is “What was your career-defining moment?” Holly shares that it was when her sister Heidi invited her to L.A. after her step-brother was killed in Iraq. Actually, that’s sad. She cries, and everyone wells up with her.

Patti dashes from the group, because it’s making her think about her husband’s career-defining moment, which is probably going to land him in the hoosegow. She hides in the confessional to have a good cry. J-Dick is waiting for her at the door when she comes out, all ready to console her, but Patti cuts her off. “I’ve just composed myself, I don’t want to hear it.”  J-Dick is stunned. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.” It’s a pretty raw and deeply uncomfortable moment. Talk about “let’s get real.”

There’s a silly segment about a potential romance blossoming between Holly and Sanji. The whole camp and even the hosts are rubbing their hands about it. Now wait a minute. Is it just me, or is Sanji unmistakably…. a wood nymph? Next: some of the campmates get to Skype home. Sniffle, sniffle, boring, next?

We’re live, time for the elimination. Holly, who’s been on the show for two seconds, is safe. Ben Silverman must have been working those phones. Torrie’s climbed up from the bottom; she’s safe. Cut back in time to last night’s dinner: Everybody except Janice sits around the campfire telling each other what they love most about them; tears and bonding, family talk, next?

Back to eliminations. Sanji is safe (he was right!), and so are Stevie B. and, shocker, Janice, who screeches, “Are yewewww kidddinngggg meeeee?” Patti, Long Tall and Big Bad Meanie Daniel are in the bottom. I’m convinced it’s going to be Patti. But no! It’s Daniel. He takes his dog-eared black-and-white family photo and says his goodbyes. J-Dick steals his last live-on-air moments by rasping in the background, “Say no to Prop 8! Say no to Prop 8! Perez can you hear me?” No teary goodbyes to Daniel from her. In fact, no goodbye at all. Can't blame her.

Coming up: the contestants compete in the Tunnel of Terror and to demonstrate how scary it will be, a tarantula attacks the camera. We’re told in advance that Janice will be exempt for medical reasons. Again? Are her health concerns mental or physical? Tune in for the next two-hour-long episode on Monday and maybe you’ll find out. But you probably won’t.

UPDATE: It was reported on the Huffington Post today that Stevie B.'s home in Rockland County, N.Y., has been foreclosed and is up for auction. Whoa. I wonder if that will come up around the camp fire.

photos courtesy of NBC

I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, Day 7: Sanjaya the Jungle Boy

 
Well, enough already with the Heidi and Spencer hype. I guess all the palaver over the weekend worked—IACGMOOH's viewer numbers were up an iota or two from last Thursday night. As suspected, there was no torture in the Lost Chamber—the walls were alive with bugs and spiders, that’s all, which made Heidi and Spencer pogo in panic all night long. Their arc is spread out over the first hour, but let’s get it over with right now: They’re allowed to rejoin camp; they speechify about the Lord and redemption and demons and the power of Christ (and somebody please explain to me why, in three years of The Hills, we’ve had no clue about Heidi’s obsessive Christianity yet now she's incapable of uttering a single syllable without the words Christ or God or praise Jesus leaping from her mouth); Heidi sings for the camp and sounds to Janice like “a cat that somebody has put water on”; Heidi gets sick, she’s rushed to hospital, it’s gastric, it’s serious, the charade is over, they’re gone.

Now they’re out of the way, here’s what else happened. The "aunties from the other side of the family"  have both gone back to the other side. Frances pulled her celebrity card and walked. She couldn’t take it without her BFF Angela. She was justifiably revolted by the return of the Terrible Two, and had nobody to crack wise about it with. I’m sorry to see Frangela go, this show needs their comic relief.

Now to the vote: Who did the public choose to compete in the Houdini Trial? Why, Sanjaya and J-Dick! Yay! I guess my vote counted. But the downside: Clearly, the public isn’t rooting for the Lady Team, there’s no way J-Dick will win. She receives the news perched on a log, looking particularly insane with a  new jungle hairdo that’s just begging to be accented by a bone.

They’re playing for lobster. Sanji goes first. He’s very calm and casual, bound by chains inside that narrow tank, as if he’s hanging out at the local pool. The snakes are added. Then cute little baby crocs. And wee frogs! Aww. The water’s rising fast—I’m starting to panic on his behalf, this can’t be easy!—and Sanji seems to have the ability to breathe underwater as he just keeps diving down for his keys. All the wee froggies float and bob around him, unperturbed, their pointy little frog-fingers dangling underwater. Sanji unlocks all five locks in 3 minutes and 12 seconds. He does a victory dance underwater. Dude didn’t break a sweat.

Next up is J-Dick, who acts like she’s pumped and ready to go. Once she’s all locked in, though, the mood swings wildly. The water rises, the critters are dispensed and she promptly wails: “No-no-no-no-no-no!” The froggies are as scared of J-Dick as she is of them: they bunch together in a corner, as far away from her as they can get. J-Dick screams, “Get me outta here!” and she’s done. Not one lock. She’s hysterical. And yet… her lip gloss is miraculously intact.

Sanji and J-Dick return to camp. “Hey, what happened?” Patti asks gratuitously. Take a guess, hon. J-Dick is traumatized and has to have a lie-down. A tarantula crawls on a rock. The boys come up with an idea to devise their own game for the girls to play, and the winner gets one of their meals. J-Dick is pissed and screeches about how she’s sick. She breaks down and whimpers for Sanji, who runs to her side. He’s got huge, angry red welts all over his skinny body. Do you hear him complain? J-Dick is shaking and crying about how freaked out she was by the trial. Sanji holds and kisses her to make it all better. It’s a little bit creepy, a bit too Spanking the Monkey for me. And Daniel “Papa Bear” Baldwin too—he’s done with her lousy menopausal moods.

We get a short Sanji the Jungle Boy montage. He’s gone completely Mowgli now. “I’m totally in my element!” he squeals, black warpaint smeared on his face. He makes jungle jewellery. He designs a broom out of some palm fronds. He whittles a vine to make some furniture. He’s really at home here. “He’s like a wood nymph,” coos Lou Diamond. Wise, wacky Uncle Lou.

By now the men have had it up to here with the Diva Dickinson and her drama. She orders SanjiMow around—“get my shoes, give me a massage!” She lies around all day and scowls. Which is such a waste of all the time and money she’s invested in her various nips and tucks and fillers—when she’s not scowling, she can look quite pretty. Why have all that work done and then pull a face all day like Jabba the Hut? Long Tall bitches behind her back, “She’s she’s mean she’s selfish … she’s a witch.” Papa Bear is more direct, telling her straight up: “I just want to see you do something around this camp besides eat and sleep.” Naturally, this just makes her sneer and scowl some more.

It’s time to pick a new team leader, Wacky Uncle Lou announces in his reading glasses. Hee! They have to split into two teams and do another eating challenge at Jungle Joe’s Café. The first group gets some kind of spiky grub. J-Dick sprints out of there, followed by Torrie and Long Tall. It’s up to Sanji, who breaks them into tiny chips and ingests them at his leisure. On the other team, Papa Bear starts talking trash about how he’s hogging the camera time, so Sanji hands him a plateful and Papa scarfs 'em right down. This gains him no points at all: it’s not his round yet and it isn’t even his dish. Such a showoff.

Papa Bear's team gets leaf cutter ants. Brother Stevie informs us that they taste a “little smoky, little jerky” but can’t get them down and walks, with Patti hot on his heels. LouDi has one little problem: He can’t quite swallow. You and a million ladies out there, Lou. Papa Bear wins. 

It’s Sanji and Papa Bear. The dish is a bull’s testicle. In true team spirit, J-Dick gags loudly. Equally helpful, Myleene shouts, “Oh it smells rank!” I’m sure Mario Batali serves these at Babbo, what's all the fuss? One bite and Sanji’s out. LouDi and Papa Bear face off in the next round: stick insect with cow tongue chaser. Daniel inhales the bug, no problem but he can’t do the tongue. He forfeits to LouDi.

J-Dick is relieved because LouDi “doesn’t have snarly comments like the Baldwins or Salley.” Not for long. LouDi decides, in the effort to be a fair leader, to have a Janice intervention. He assigns her to dish duty. J-Dick responds by hawking something up from her chest.

Suddenly we’re invited for the first time to learn exactly which charities these celebs are suffering for. Daniel is there for the his mother’s institute, Carol M. Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund. She’s a breast cancer survivor, but he cries just talking about it. Salley’s is the Cedar Sinai Sports Spectacular. Torrie’s for Disabled American Veterans. LouDi’s is the Art Has Heart Foundation. J-Dick is supporting the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric Aids Foundation. Sanji’s is the Shriners Hospital for Children. Patti’s is the Children’s Cancer Center. Stevie B’s is Love 146, which helps young girls sold into sex slavery. Okay, good. Now we know. And Myleene and Damien remind us that we can chip in anytime.

It’s dinner time. A basket is lowered into camp from somewhere overhead. But wait—there’s only one lobster in there. J-Dick, who totally threw both competitions today, is all, What? The guys aren’t going to feed me? Unfortunately, the male team is being penalized for exactly that: They were not supposed to share their meals with the losing Lady Team. Now they tell us! Salley’s not having it. “I got children! You don’t punish me!” Not sure why having children exempts anybody from breaking the rules, but whatever. Myleene’s a little tickled by the latest twist; she’s all, Ha ha, suck it!

We’re live and it’s time for the immunity challenge. J-Dick grimaces and invites America to vote her off and then immediately takes it back and then pleads too sick to do the challenge. Papa Bear holds up that black-and-white photo of somebody's baby and, as usual, nobody pays him any mind.  There will be no IACGMOOH tonight thanks to the Stanley Cup, but they’ll be back Wednesday! With a brand new surprise campmate—Heidi’s sister Holly! So the rumors were true after all. And a nation yawns.

Photo courtesy of NBC