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Seven Bizarre Moments That Made the People’s Choice Awards Worth Watching

Although just yesterday we traced the reasons people stopped caring about the event that officially kicks off the televised portion of the 2009 Oscar race, we found ourselves unable to avoid clicking over to CBS at 9 p.m. last night to watch the People’s Choice Awards. And boy, are we glad we did! What last night’s show lacked in A-list star power and totally boring speeches that pander to the Academy, it more than made up for with an abundance of weirdly interesting award-show moments. From no-show presenters (shame on you, Kate Hudson!) to the single weirdest acceptance-speech moment we’ve seen in eons, please follow along after the jump for a countdown of seven moments that made us (temporarily) reconsider our stance on the Rodney Dangerfield of awards shows.

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7. Things got off to a rip-roaringly inappropriate start when Bride Wars star Kate Hudson failed to show up to the ceremony on time to present the coveted Favorite Funny Male Star award (apparently she was stuck in traffic). Ever the professional, Ellen DeGeneres — who later picked up an award for Favorite Talk Show Host — jumped in to present the award on a moment’s notice and even managed to ad lib in a great, insidery dig at Hudson by saying, “That’s no way to sell a movie, Kate.” True, true.

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6. Can you imagine how awesome The Dark Knight would’ve been had Queen Latifah been in it? It’s the fireball visuals that really sell it.


5. We don’t really listen to Carrie Underwood to begin with, but her egregiously tuneless rendition of whatever song she sang last night will go a long way to making sure we listen to her even less in the future. If you listen closely, you can hear thousands of dogs howling out in the alley behind the Hollywood Shrine auditorium.

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4. As Ben Silverman would proudly explain to television neophytes, there’s no use doing a show unless you can work in a few product-placement opportunities. However, the ad wizards who thought it would be a good idea for the Red and Yellow M&M’s to play some sort of Gen Y version of The Muppet Show’s Statler and Waldorf apparently aren’t familiar with the concept of staying “on-brand.” It was so terrible that we went out and bought a bag of Skittles after the show. Vote with your dollars, people!

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3. Memo to Hugh Laurie and Christina from St. Cloud: Get a room!

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2. Poor Robin Tunney. We always thought she had the chops and the looks to break out in movies, but things never quite worked out for her. Now she’s forced to play second banana to Simon Baker’s eyebrows on The Mentalist. Adding insult to injury, PCA producers fed her what might go down as the single worst setup line in awards-show history: “Whether you’re getting a little ‘Satisfaction,’ enjoying a ‘Bohemian Rhapsody,’ or taking that ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ a great rock song can be a real trip. One you want to take over and over again.” Total groansticks. Oh, and she forgot to wear a bra.

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1. Hey, Jay Mohr. We know you don’t get a lot of awards (any awards?). It’s okay, you’re on Gary Unmarried, it’s not like you can be expecting to pick up an Emmy anytime this century. And as much as we appreciate the sentiment of giving your wife, Nikki Cox, a shout-out, what came out of your mouth was the weirdest thing we’ve ever heard during an acceptance speech:

I would really like to thank my wife, my best friend, the funniest guy I know. And not even the rain has such small hands, baby girl. I love you.


Funniest guy? Rain hands? We have no words.

Seven Bizarre Moments That Made the People’s Choice Awards Worth Watching