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Showbiz Tonight
SHOWBIZ TONIGHT, April 8, 2005, CNNHN
Aired April 08, 2005 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KARYN BRYANT, CO-HOST: A Wales of a wedding.
HAMMER: And "The Nanny" becomes a mommy. I'm A.J. Hammer.
BRYANT: I'm Karyn Bryant, and this is SHOWBIZ TONIGHT.
HAMMER: Marriage of a monarch. But it's different this time. Why Charles and Camilla are no Charles and Diana.
BRYANT: Fashion firing. Angie freezes, and Trump gets hot.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, ""The Apprentice"": You're fired.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRYANT: The latest "Apprentice" cast-off live.
HAMMER: Plus, scent of a woman. The famous get their own fragrances. Celebrity scents. We'll take a whiff, but should you?
BRYANT: Sounding off. Music's biggest names choose their favorites. "Rolling Stone's" greatest artists of all time.
HAMMER: And:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FRAN DRESCHER, "LIVING WITH FRAN": I was waiting for the perfect time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAMMER: How about now, Fran? The flashy girl from Flushing. "The Nanny" has something new to show you. It's a "SHOWBIZ Sitdown" with Fran Drescher.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DRESCHER: Hi. I'm Fran Drescher. And if it happened today, it's on SHOWBIZ TONIGHT.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRYANT: Hello. I'm Karyn Bryant, and you are at the top of the show.
HAMMER: And I'm A.J. Hammer. We are live with you from Headline Prime studios in New York City for the next hour.
BRYANT: Right now, it's already morning in London, the morning before the royal wedding of Prince Charles and his long-time love, Camilla Parker- Bowles.
HAMMER: But what a difference a marriage makes. No Diana, no pomp, no circumstance, not even the queen herself. SHOWBIZ TONIGHT's David Haffenreffer is here now with the tale that is no fairy tale at all, David.
DAVID HAFFENREFFER, SHOWBIZ TONIGHT: No, it isn't, A.J. and Karyn. Prince Charles will marry Camilla Parker-Bowles on Saturday. As you probably know, this will be Prince Charles's second wedding. And as is the case with many sequels, the royal wedding part 2 probably won't be as popular as part 1.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAY LENO, HOST, "TONIGHT" SHOW: ... and Camilla Parker-Bowles's wedding will not be broadcast on regular TV. It'll only be available on pay-per-ew!
HAFFENREFFER (voice-over): As we saw on the "Tonight" show last night, it may be a wedding, but the world isn't showing a whole lot of love for Prince Charles's long-awaited wedding to Camilla Parker-Bowles, especially when you compare it to the royal spectacle that was Prince Charles's first wedding to young Lady Diana Spencer.
J.D. HEYMAN, "PEOPLE" MAGAZINE: Well, Charles and Diana's wedding was a fairy-tale wedding. You had a beautiful young bride, a fairly young groom. And it was, you know, a magical time for both of them.
HAFFENREFFER: What a difference 14 years makes. Charles and Camilla's low-key civil ceremony in the town hall of Windsor is a low-key world away from his first.
Let's take a look at this tale of two weddings. Chuck and Di's 1981 wedding was watched by an estimated 750 million viewers worldwide, but a recent poll shows 67 percent of Brits don't even plan to watch the Charles and Camilla nuptials. U.S. TV networks will be covering the wedding, scheduled for 7:30 AM Eastern time Saturday. We'll have to see how it does against its main TV competition, "The Rug Rats." In 1981, an A-list throng of celebrities, royal dignitaries and VIPs attended Charles's first wedding, but only a handful of people will witness Charles and Camilla exchange vows.
HEYMAN: Well, the wedding itself really is for family. It really is for Charles and Camilla and their children and their closest relatives. It's not a big ceremony or a big show. The reception is larger. It does have a few famous names on it.
HAFFENREFFER: The key word is "few." Joan Rivers is going to that reception. So are actor Kenneth Branagh, Joanna Lumley, best known as the aging boozer Patsy on the show "Absolutely Fabulous," and Sting's wife, Trudie Styler. But Charles's mom, the queen, a no-show. OK, so maybe this wedding won't be the highly-rated fairy tale that Charles's first wedding was. Still, you have to admit, it's a pretty good story.
HEYMAN: No one doubts that this is a great love affair. These are two people who have wanted to be together for more than 30 years, and they are finally getting the chance to be together.
HAFFENREFFER: So maybe unlike the royal wedding, the royal wedding part 2 might have a happy ending.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
Time will tell. That wedding was originally scheduled for today, but Prince Charles postponed it so it would not conflict with the pope's funeral -- Karyn.
BRYANT: Well, thanks, David. And of course, you'll want to watch CNN's coverage of "A Royal Wedding: Prince Charles and Camilla" tomorrow morning beginning at 6:00 AM Eastern time with Anderson Cooper and Becky Anderson.
And the nuptials are the focus of our SHOWBIZ TONIGHT question of the day. Royal wedding: Do you care? You can vote at cnn.com/showbiztonight and send your e-mails our way at showbiztonight@cnn.com. We'll share some of what you had to say at 55 past the hour.
HAMMER: Tonight, Rosie O'Donnell opens up to Barbara Walters in a personal and revealing interview. O'Donnell, the former talk show host and comedian, married her companion, Kelli Carpenter, in California last year. But courts annulled their same-sex ceremony, along with 4,000 others. Rosie and Kelli talk about their lives together, the four kids they're raising, and the day that they heard their marriage was wiped out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROSIE O'DONNELL, FORMER TALK SHOW HOST: Well, I expected it, truthfully. So when she was so upset, I was, like, Honey, you know, civil rights, they don't get changed overnight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAMMER: Rosie O'Donnell also opens up about when she realized for sure she was gay, saying she was 16 years old at the time. The interview airs tonight on ABC on "20/20."
BRYANT: Time for "SHOWBIZ Shorts," a look at more stories making news tonight. Bart Simpson may be saying "Eat my shorts" in Russian. A Moscow court has just rejected a lawsuit brought against the television station there that was broadcasting "The Simpsons" and "The Family Guy." The man who filed the suit said the shows promoted drugs, violence and homosexuality.
Well, America voted on line, and it's Diana Ross. "American Idol" fans have chosen "When you tell me that you love me" by the former Supremes singer to be the single that the season's 12 finalists will cover. The release will raise funds for the American Red Cross. It drops April 19.
More "SHOWBIZ Shorts" coming up throughout the show.
HAMMER: Elton John talking about Eminem. Dave Matthews on Radiohead. Aerosmith's Joe Perry on Guns 'n Roses. All this can be found in "Rolling Stone's" special issue called "The Immortals: The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time," where today's biggest stars pay tribute to their musical heroes.
And joining us live, Brian Hiatt, who's an associate editor at "Rolling Stone" magazine. Thank you very much for joining us, Brian. Basically, these are legends talking about legends. And it's always so great to hear big-time superstar artists talking about the artists that they love.
BRIAN HIATT, "ROLLING STONE": It's very special. I mean, basically, what we did is we reached out to people like Bruce Springsteen and Don Henley and had them vote on their greatest artists of all time. And from there, we sought out -- from the people they chose, we sought out artists who could write about why these artists are great, and that's exactly what we did.
HAMMER: Well, let's get to a couple of them right now. Elton John and Eminem, infamous for the supposed feud that wound up as a 2001 Grammy appearance on stage together. What did Elton have to say about Em?
HIATT: Well, Elton John had some very nice things to say about Eminem. He basically said that he is the Dylan of his generation. He said that when he first saw him perform, he felt the electricity that he felt seeing Mick Jagger. So I think people who are not Eminem fans but are Elton John fans can learn a lot from this, maybe.
HAMMER: Another interesting tribute in this issue, I found -- Dave Matthews, one of my favorite artists, and Radiohead, an amazing band, two totally different ends of the musical spectrum. What was said there?
HIATT: Well, you know, Dave Matthews basically said that he feels like Salieri to Radiohead's Mozart. He feels that -- he feels sort of resentful of how great they are, but he really appreciates them. And it was a pretty funny and almost touching tribute. It was great.
HAMMER: That is funny, and rather humbling because, of course, Dave, millions of followers around the world who just love him.
HIATT: Exactly. Yes.
HAMMER: All right. Well, we want to talk about Joe Perry, of course, from Aerosmith, who has played on the same stage with Guns n' Roses, and he's paying tribute to them. You'd think it might be the other way around.
HIATT: And it might be the other way around. In fact, it was. We had -- not only did we have Joe Perry paying tribute to Guns n' Roses, in the same issue, we had Slash paying -- from Guns n' Roses paying tribute to Aerosmith. So it was a great -- it's a great example of kind of the tradition of rock-and-roll here that we're kind of celebrating with this. There's different traditions, and they all kind of flow into each other. And here's an example of an influence and someone who was influenced by them. And it just shows how this is an ongoing thing that is still going to this day.
HAMMER: Well, it is a great read, Brian. Thanks for joining us, Brian Hiatt from "Rolling Stone" magazine. And the magazine's special issue called "The Immortals" hits newsstands today.
BRYANT: Tonight, we've got the smell of a woman. Actually, lots of women, stars who have gotten into the celebrity scent business. SHOWBIZ TONIGHT looks at the celebs, the scents and the booming biz that's got everyone sniffing.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): If you are a babe and you're big in Hollywood, chances are you've got your own perfume line.
SARAH JESSICA PARKER: I want to rule the world with my fragrances!
BRYANT: Sarah Jessica Parker announced plans to launch her own fragrance later this year. And Britney, Jessica, J.Lo and Paris are just a few of the celebs with scents out there competing for a spot on your wrist.
PARIS HILTON: Mine is very sexy and young and fun and smells different than everyone else's. Smells better.
BRYANT: It may smell better, but it's better for business, too. All that star power is pumping up an otherwise stale fragrance industry.
BRITNEY SPEARS: I've always wanted to have a fragrance of my own, and now I've seen my dream come true.
BRYANT: And it's been a dream come true for Elizabeth Arden, the company that makes Britney's Curious. Because of her, Elizabeth Arden's earnings spiked almost 50 percent in just three months. So what exactly does it take to get your own perfume?
WENDY LIEBMANN, WSL STRATEGIC RETAIL: You want somebody who's a little bit naughty and a little bit nice, so you've got a bit of both. And you also want somebody who's got some degree of longevity, a little trustworthy, so that you've got some time to build the fragrance, to get a lot of usage and to get people to keep coming back.
BRYANT: Keeping them coming back may be important, but it takes more than star power to sell bottles, or so says the president of the company that created Paris Hilton's new scent, aptly called Paris Hilton.
ILEA LKACH, PRESIDENT, PARLUX: There is a huge confusion, at least in the business side, where they think that you sign a celebrity, you got yourself a winner. I can -- the roads are paved with celebrities' failures. We have been approached by many, many, many celebrities, but the ones we work with is -- we think that they transcend their field.
BRYANT: So is that all it takes to make a great celebrity scent? Aren't we forgetting something? Oh, yes, how it actually smells.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's strong.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Smells more like lotion.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is fresh and fruity.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, that is really sweet.
BRYANT: We took the juice to the streets and asked people which fragrance they liked best.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: J.Lo.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Britney.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Paris.
BRYANT: Reviews were, well, mixed. So we decided to visit one of the toughest sniffers out there and get her take.
VERONIQUE FERVAL, FRAGRANCE EXPERT: This one is Jessica Simpson. It's a very (UNINTELLIGIBLE) vanilla.
BRYANT: Meet Veronique Ferval, head of the fragrance department for one of the leading perfume companies in the world.
FERVAL: Very fruity, very colorful.
BRYANT: She sniffed. She smelled. She had herself a nose full of celebrity. Her verdict?
FERVAL: I would almost say Britney (UNINTELLIGIBLE) It's a very powerful scent. It's very sensual. It's to date.
BRYANT: The expert may have spoken, but we'll have to call her to a rematch soon. The pool of celebrities getting in on the fragrance front is getting bigger every month. And like the scent or hate it, there's something to be said for loyal fans.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wear Glow. I'm not going to lie. J.Lo, I love you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRYANT: Some of those celebrities who will soon announce their own fragrances include Usher and Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen.
HAMMER: Well, we're sensing a visit from "The Nanny." Coming up, a "SHOWBIZ Sitdown" with Fran Drescher. She's still taking care of young ones, but not exactly how you may think.
BRYANT: And counting cookies. Cookie Monster is cutting back, while "The Simpsons" aren't being cut out. Will our "Buzz Bench" say "Ha-ha"? Find out.
HAMMER: Now tonight's "Entertainment Weekly Great American Pop Culture Quiz. And we're in a royals mood, so in which movie did the lead character watch the wedding of Charles and Diana over and over? Was it "My Best Friend's Wedding," "Muriel's Wedding," "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" or "Father of the Bride"? We're coming straight back with the answer.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAMMER: Welcome back. So again, tonight's "Entertainment Weekly Great American Pop Culture Quiz." In which movie did the lead character watch the wedding of Charles and Diana over and over, "My Best Friend's Wedding," "Muriel's Wedding," "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" or "Father of the Bride"? Well, along with 750 million others, Muriel from "Muriel's Wedding" tuned in. The answer is B.
HAMMER: Tonight's "SHOWBIZ Sitdown": Fran Drescher is back on TV. It's been nearly six years since "The Nanny" went off the air, and the flashy girl from Flushing has grown up a bit. She's now starring in a new comedy series that may raise a couple of eyebrows. It's about a woman whose boyfriend is not much older than her son. So Fran Drescher and Esther, thank you for joining us here on SHOWBIZ TONIGHT.
FRAN DRESCHER, "LIVING WITH FRAN": Thank you for having us.
BRYANT: So I want to talk about your new show, "Living With Fran."
DRESCHER: "Living With Fran," yes. On the WB.
BRYANT: How does it feel to get back into sitcoms? Because there are many who think you never left because "The Nanny" is on all the time.
DRESCHER: I know. It's really picked up momentum since it joined Lifetime network.
BRYANT: Right.
DRESCHER: And I'm very proud of that. But it's actually been five years.
BRYANT: Wow.
DRESCHER: So you know, and a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then. I had been diagnosed with cancer and battled that and survived, wrote a best-selling book...
BRYANT: Right.
DRESCHER: ... "Cancer Schmancer." And I've done some directing and acting and commercials and things like that along the way. I also have done a lot of advocacy work in Washington.
BRYANT: Right.
DRESCHER: I got a kind of a purpose to my life...
BRYANT: Right.
DRESCHER: ... subsequent to my illness, so now I try and, you know, encourage our elected officials to appropriate more money to cancer research...
BRYANT: Right. Right.
DRESCHER: ... and to women's health care issues, in particular. And then, you know, I just kind of felt like maybe now is the time. I started to develop a new idea in my head that was loosely based off of a relationship that I had with a man who was much younger than me for four years...
BRYANT: Go, Fran!
(CROSSTALK)
BRYANT: All right. Well, great. Well, you know, let's take a look at a clip, and then...
DRESCHER: OK.
BRYANT: ... we'll talk about that some more. So it's "Living With Fran."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DRESCHER: I've had it with you! While you're under my roof, you give me respect~! Oh, my God. Now I really sound like my mother.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mom, this isn't your fault. Your hormones are making you crazy.
DRESCHER: Don't you be talking about my hormones! I'll have you know that I'm at my sexual peak!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll say.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRYANT: So what is the deal with this? Because, you know, women get a lot of heat about dating younger men. And yet, men can date women 30 years younger and there's no problem.
DRESCHER: Well, I think Demi and Ashton kind of broke that taboo.
BRYANT: Right.
DRESCHER: And now, you know, it just hasn't been explored in sitcom yet, so I think we're breaking new ground in that regard. But I had a great time, and I continue to date, you know, younger men. I think that it works out in many different respects. And I'm open to men of all ages, I mean, you know, but it just turns out that way. I think I like, you know, a lot of very contemporary music. I like going to rock concerts and things like that. So I tend to end up having more in common. But you know, it's all good.
And a lot of my situations that happened in my real life experience, I kind of applied to the stories that we tell on "Living With Fran" because I do have a younger boyfriend on that show, and I'm living with him and -- or rather, he's living with me.
BRYANT: Yes.
DRESCHER: And my son and my daughter. And he is closer in age to my son...
BRYANT: Than -- right. Right.
DRESCHER: ... than he is to myself.
BRYANT: So now, in real life, though, have you ever been set up? Do you have any, like, horrible dating nightmares?
DRESCHER: You know, I was -- I was set up to go out with this guy who was an older man. And I'm trying to be open to it.
BRYANT: Sure. Sure.
DRESCHER: And I Googled him to see what he looked like, but the picture must have been from 1970...
BRYANT: OK. Right. Right.
DRESCHER: ... because, you know, when we finally sat down and met at a restaurant, he's talking to me, and you know, whatever. He says he's going up north to visit his son.
BRYANT: Right, right.
DRESCHER: And I said, Oh, where do you stay? And I'm always interested in hearing about...
BRYANT: Sure.
DRESCHER: ... new hotels. And he answers me, In Grandpa's room.
BRYANT: Oh!
DRESCHER: Now, that's sexy.
BRYANT: End of that date! Well, Fran Drescher, thanks for joining us. You, too, Esther. What a sweet little puppy. It's "Living With Fran" on the WB.
DRESCHER: Thank you. Thank you so much.
HAMMER: Well, should you get the fever for "Fever Pitch"? Or is "Sahara" a treasure hunt worth hunting down? "People's" "Picks and Pans" are going to tell you where to spend your bucks.
And all choked up, a fashion task, a faux pas and a firing. The latest fired "Apprentice," Angie, joins us live.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAMMER: It is time for "People" magazine's movie "Picks and Pans." The romantic comedy "Fever Pitch" is hoping to hit a home run against the first action-adventure film of the year, "Sahara." Both are out in theaters today. "Kung Fu Hustle" is also hitting the big screen today in New York and Los Angeles. Should you check any of them out?
Well, joining us now from "People" magazine, movie critic Leah Rozen. Always good to see you, Leah, because it means Friday's here, quite frankly.
LEAH ROZEN, "PEOPLE" MAGAZINE MOVIE CRITIC: Thank God!
HAMMER: Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon, so adorable when they showed up on SHOWBIZ TONIGHT to talk about "Fever Pitch." It looks like a lot of fun.
ROZEN: It is a lot of fun. I mean, it's not a great movie, but you don't mind. You have a -- it's very sweet at heart. It's a romantic comedy. Boy loves girl, girl loves boy, boy loves baseball. Which does he love more? But it's just -- it's very sweet. Nice performances. Good stuff shot at Boston Red Sox games.
HAMMER: It does seem like you get swept into the hype of all the fever that was going on around World Series.
ROZEN: It's one of those movies you end up liking, and you just don't respect yourself the next morning.
HAMMER: OK. Well, let's move on, then, to another guest who was in our studio last night, Steve Zahn, who's in "Sahara," along with Matthew McConaughey. What about this film?
ROZEN: About as sound as the sand it's built on.
HAMMER: Oh, no!
ROZEN: This is big action derring-do, but it's kind of "Indiana Jones" like. I mean, they have all the aspects you want in an action film...
HAMMER: Right.
ROZEN: ... but just none of them are done with as much oomph...
HAMMER: And they spent...
ROZEN: ... as you want it.
HAMMER: ... a fortune doing it. Really, it's a little...
ROZEN: They spend a fortune on a lot of movies, A.J.
HAMMER: That are disappointing.
ROZEN: And they often -- so it's OK. If it's Saturday night, you're desperate to go to the movies, hey, it'll be OK. It's not going to go on - - you're not going to be telling everyone else, You got to go to this one.
HAMMER: OK, how did the filmmakers do with "Kung Fu Hustle"? And explain a little bit about this to me.
ROZEN: OK. "Kung Fu Hustle" is by Stephen Chow, is the writer, director, star. He did a huge hit in Asia a couple years ago called "Shaolin Soccer." This is sort of a tribute to the Kung Fu movies of the '70s he grew up with. Really fun.
HAMMER: Oh.
ROZEN: Visually exciting, things you haven't seen before in martial arts films. Plus, it references a lot of '70s Kung Fu stuff, I mean, but stuff Bruce Lee never managed.
HAMMER: All right, Leah. Know how to spend our money this weekend. We appreciate you stopping by. And of course, for more "Picks and Pans," you can always check out this week's "People" magazine. It is available at newsstands everywhere.
BRYANT: They have been talking all day, and we've been listening. Now, as we do every night on SHOWBIZ TONIGHT, the best from today's talk shows.
A lesson in the art of belly dance on "Live With Regis and Kelly." Regis, though, may need a little more than just one class.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REGIS PHILBIN, "LIVE WITH REGIS AND KELLY": All together!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All together! (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAMMER: I get the impression Kelly's going to be receiving some additional fan mail over the weekend.
Well, Cookie Monster is looking to keep his belly beautiful. The blue furry guy is going on a diet. Well, sort of. We're going to shake it over to the "Buzz Bench."
BRYANT: And Selena knew how to shake it for her fans, but a decade after her tragic death, she's as popular as ever. The business of Selena - - that's up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWS BREAK)
HAMMER: Tonight's "SHOWBIZ in-depth", the royal wedding. The prince set to marry Camilla in a matter of hours. We're going to talk to the royal watchers and find out if you'll be watching.
BRYANT: Apparel on "The Apprentice". The task was fashion and the Donald says Angie choked. The latest apprentice castoff joins us live.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNA NICOLE SMITH: Hi, I'm Anna Nicole Smith. If it happened today, it's on SHOWBIZ TONIGHT.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAMMER: The Empire State building as seen from the top, top, top of headline prime studios in New York City. Finally springtime and the weekend is upon us. Welcome back to SHOWBIZ TONIGHT, 30 minutes past the hour. I'm A.J. Hammer and here are tonight's hot headlines.
Elton on Eminem, Elton John has written an essay in the brand new issue of "Rolling Stone" all about how much he likes Eminem. John compares the rapper to get this, Jimmy Hendrix and Mick Jagger and he says he's never bought into the idea that Eminem is homophobic. John and Eminem of course performed together at the 2001 Grammys.
Royal countdown, Prince Charles is set to marry Camilla Parker-Bowles in just hours from now in a low key civil service. But there are about 800 people on the guest list for the blessing afterward including royalty, world leaders and celebrities, which include Joan Rivers and actor Kenneth Branagh.
BRYANT: Thirty one minutes past the hour and we are focusing on the Charles-Camilla wedding in tonight's "SHOWBIZ in-depth." It's the royal wedding even the queen won't attend. There will be no fanfare, no horse drawn carriage or streets filled with millions of fascinated fans. Joining us live in our New York studios, "Newsweek" magazine correspondent Nicki Gostin and Diane Clehane, a Princess Diana biographer who will be featured in the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) channel primetime wrap up of the royal wedding tomorrow night. Thank you for joining me ladies. So who cares? Does anyone care? Does America care? Who cares, Nicki?
NICKI GOSTIN, NEWSWEEK CORRESPONDENT: According to the polls, English people couldn't care less. I think it was like 67 percent aren't planning on watching it.
BRYANT: That's right, in the "Daily Mail," 67 percent.
GOSTIN: I think Americans seem to care at this stage a bit more than British people do right now.
BRYANT: Would you agree with that?
DIANE CLEHANE, DIANA BIOGRAPHER: I think there's always a legion of royal watchers and this is just the latest chapter in the soap opera, so those people that have been following it are going to follow this chapter as well.
BRYANT: So we've mentioned the fact that Joan Rivers is going to this wedding. How did she get the invite?
CLEHANE: Joan is actually quite close with Prince Charles' inner circle and she's told me on several occasions that she loves Camilla. Camilla really gets it and she is just a big fan.
BRYANT: Because she's actually made a lot of fun of Camilla over the years, hasn't she?
CLEHANE: Everyone is fair game for Joan, so, but she actually is quite friendly with them and is quite popular over there.
BRYANT: OK. Well, I want to talk about the ghost of Diana. Some people are sort of saying that the reason the wedding had to be postponed, that's Diana, these different things. The queen is not coming, that's Diana. What's your take on that?
GOSTIN: I think the wedding got postponed because the pope died. But, yeah, I mean, it certainly seems there's just been all these embarrassing gaffs happening and it certainly seems like Diana's ghost is meddling with it. But I think the queen not going is that she doesn't really, I think, like Camilla and isn't approving of this. Otherwise, she would go. It's ridiculous for her to say that she doesn't want to overshadow the event. It's her son getting married. It's crazy.
BRYANT: That's the thing about it. It's not necessarily that there's a ghost of Diana, but there is sort of this lingering resentment it seems that some people have of Camilla in the first place.
CLEHANE: Well Diana clearly is really the star of the royal family and I think much to their chagrin, she remains the star. And in many ways, the only reason that people are remotely interested is Camilla and Charles is because of the fact that Diana was part of a very public royal triangle. So in that case, it's the kind of thing where there's this outcry where people don't want Camilla to be queen certainly, because that's something that Diana was not able to do and she wanted to be the queen of people's hearts and clearly she is and Camilla will never be and I think that's what's kept people really interested.
BRYANT: In that poll, it did say 73 percent of Britons oppose her being called queen.
GOSTIN: Right. They've said -- Charles has said that she will be princess consort. But legally, once they marry, she will have the title of queen if she wants it when he becomes king.
BRYANT: Last quick question. What about the sons, William and Harry? How are they feeling?
CLEHANE: Well, they're very -- the royals -- the insiders are very sort of interested in putting out the message they're very keen on their father getting married. I would think that it's safe to say they want their father to be happy, but you have to think that standing there tomorrow, they have to think about their mother because don't forget that she really took them into their confidence when they were very young so they saw all that pain.
GOSTIN: It will be a tough day.
CLEHANE: Diana does loom large over the entire event.
BRYANT: All right. Thank you very much, Diane and Nicki. We want to hear your thoughts at home. It's our SHOWBIZ TONIGHT question of the day. Royal wedding, do you care? You can vote at cnn.com/showbiztonight or if you want to tell us more, e-mail us at showbiztonight@cnn.com. We'll share some of what you had to say later in the show.
HAMMER: Well, tonight, the director of "The Godfather" movies, Francis Ford Coppola is upset that "The Godfather" is being turned into a video game. Actors from "The Godfather" reprise their roles for a shoot 'em up video game. But on the AMC show Sunday morning shootout, Coppola says he had absolutely nothing to do with the game and thinks it's a misuse of the film. Coppola says if they made him the offer, he would have refused. But he never got the chance because Paramount owns the rights.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA, DIRECTOR, "THE GODFATHER": You know, it was a little discouraging to see the basis of how they do that. What they do is they use the characters everyone knows, then they hire those actors to be there, only to introduce very minor characters and then they for the next hour shoot and kill each other.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAMMER: You can see the rest of Coppola's interview on Sunday morning's shootout on AMC.
BRYANT: It has been a decade since the sudden death of one of the world's most promising Latin stars. Ten years later people are still celebrating Selena's legacy. SHOWBIZ TONIGHT's David Haffenreffer joins us again with more on Selena. David.
DAVID HAFFENREFFER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They are celebrating Karyn. To this day, Selena remains one of the top five Latin recording acts of all time. Thanks to her record label, family, fans and of course radio stations, her popularity shows no sign of weakening.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SELENA: How you doing, Houston, Texas?
HAFFENREFFER (voice-over): At just 23 years old, Selena Quintanilla- Perez filled the Houston Astrodome with more than 60,000 fans. She was at the peak of her career, but a gunshot cut that short. Last night, 10 years after she was murdered, a similar sized crowd showed up at Houston's Reliant stadium to pay tribute to the Tejano star.
Selena is bigger and more popular today than ever.
BRUNO DEL GRANADO, ENTERTAINMENT MEDIA FACTORY: The main reason why Selena is still very relevant, it's because of her humongous fan base. Don't forget there's 40 million plus Hispanics here, of which 60 to 65 percent are Mexican, Mexican-American. That's what Selena was all about.
HAFFENREFFER: A steady stream of releases has also helped to keep her legacy alive. At least half a dozen CDs and DVDs have come out recently to commemorate the artist who died just as she began to climb to superstardom.
DEL GRANADO: I think the sky was the limit for her. She was in the process of recording her crossover English language album when she passed away. That album was put together by the label afterward, debuted at number one and that was the first time a Latin artist has ever debuted at number one on the "Billboard" charts.
HAFFENREFFER: Selena was shot and killed in a Corpus Christi hotel by this woman, the ex-president of her fan club, Yolanda Saldivar. She remains in prison today serving a life sentence. Selena's life story was made into a movie, one that sparked the blockbuster career of one of today's most famous Latin women, J.Lo.
Indirectly, I think Jennifer Lopez owes a little bit of her acting career to Selena, because she got rave reviews when she played Selena in the movie.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HAFFENREFFER: Just to give you more of a sense of how big Selena still is, she was the cover girl of last month's "Latina" magazine and her latest EMI release, "Unforgettable," the studio album, debuted at number 25 on the "Billboard" top Latin albums chart. Karyn.
BRYANT: Thank you very much David Haffenreffer. Well, we all love "The Simpsons" here on SHOWBIZ TONIGHT. But there's a guy in Russia who is not much of a fan. "The Simpsons" hauled into a court in Moscow. We'll take that to the buzz bench next.
HAMMER: Plus, it is fired-up Friday. Did Angie Choke on last night's episode of "The Apprentice"? We're going to get her side of the story coming up live.
BRYANT: And now Fran Drescher tells us what she's wearing these days.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FRAN DRESCHER: I'm wearing Harry Winston.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAMMER: It is time now for the Friday night buzz bench. Here's what we're buzzing about tonight, the royal wedding. Cookie Monster on a health kick and "The Simpsons" hauled into court.
BRYANT: Joining us on the buzz bench, Devin Jordan of "Newsweek," VH1 classic host Amy Scott and CNN's pop culture correspondent Toure. So we're starting with the fact that the royal wedding is in a matter of hours. There will be fewer than 30 people there to watch Prince Charles marry Camilla Parker-Bowles. The queen will not be one of them and of course this is taking place at the town hall, Windsor town hall. Toure.
TOURE, CNN POP CULTURE CORRESPONDENT: Do you know what the word skanky means? The bride is skanky. The first thing she said to him was my ancestor was the mistress of the Prince of Wales, what do you think? How about it? That is so skanky and you know what else? She is ugly, extremely ugly. It's so true, though. It's so true. It's so true. He could have any woman in the country and he wants her?
DEVIN JORDAN, NEWSWEEK: Where is the romance here? My gosh! If that's how he made his choice, it must be true love. The only thing I want to know about this, how did Joan Rivers get into this wedding? (UNINTELLIGIBLE) There are 30 people there.
AMY SCOTT, VH1: I don't know. Joanna Lumley is going to be there. I guess she'll be hanging out with Prince Harry at the bar. Joan Rivers, I can't figure -- I figure the queen is not going to the wedding because she's offended that Joan Rivers is going to be there.
TOURE: She's not been outside since 1984. That's the only way I can account for Squeeze and Joan Rivers being at the same wedding. It doesn't make sense to me.
SCOTT: I'm with you. It must be true love because she's clearly not a trophy bride.
TOURE: Anybody that ugly who gets somebody that powerful, she must be incredible in bed.
BRYANT: They've been in love supposedly over the course of 35 years or something like that.
TOURE: Oh, please!
BRYANT: Moving on.
HAMMER: Let's move on to desserts they may be serving at the royal wedding. Perhaps they'll be serving cookies, which brings us to topic number two. Cookie monster changing his tune, cutting back on the cookies so he can promote healthy eating for kids. His new song, by the way, "A Cookie is Sometimes Food." Amy, what's your take on all of this?
SCOTT: Not anytime food, whereas there's a big difference. I know a lot of people, myself included, who consider cookies anytime food. I think it's kind of ridiculous. We're talking about a puppet's dietary restrictions. But let's think about it. He's like 36 years old. This is the time that we all pretty much start worrying about our waist line and our blood pressure and cholesterol. So it's about time.
TOURE: He's a sign of like happy gluttony.
BRYANT: There are so many overweight children nowadays and it's setting a bad example is really what they're thinking.
JORDAN: When SESAME STREET is taking account, they're the ones checking themselves. Come on, SESAME STREET is not the problem here. It's McDonald's with the cup of Coke bigger than the kid's head. That's the problem, not cookies.
TOURE: That initial image that you see when you're three and four of the cookie monster, just happily glutton...
(CROSSTALK)
HAMMER: They are going to have the singing and talking vegetables and Karyn suggested maybe they're going to have the special singing fingerling potatoes.
BRYANT: No, that's (UNINTELLIGIBLE) eggplant and asparagus. I wanted butter nut squash, carrots.
SCOTT: A segment called American fruit stand, which I think could possibly be hosted by carrot stick Clark.
JORDAN: ... so politically correct. Pretty soon big bird is going to be like big-boned bird.
BRYANT: Moving on, in Moscow, there was a case in court -- it did get thrown out, but a man wanted to sue a television station for showing "The Simpsons" because he said it made his son call his mother a toad, said that his son got interested in drugs and homosexuality because of "The Simpsons" and "Family Guy" -- Devin.
JORDAN: Here's what -- I didn't sue anyone over Yakov Smirnoff so I don't understand why they're suing us over "The Simpsons". I mean it just doesn't make sense to me. The one thing I am heartened to see is that Russian parents apparently have the same problem that American have, getting up off the sofa and changing the channel and turning off the TV. It's apparently a worldwide problem that people haven't figured out you can just turn off the television. Don't do it now, but (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
SCOTT: Fox never intended for "The Simpsons" to be a kids cartoon to begin with. So if you don't know the difference between Bart Simpson and Dora the Explorer, maybe you should look at your own self.
BRYANT: The case did get thrown out I should mention. Again, well, Devin, Amy and Toure, thank you for joining us here on the buzz bench, Friday night buzz bench. Got to love it.
Here's something else to buzz about, a wardrobe malfunction. I thought it was out of the dictionary but it's not. On Conan O'Brien, that is coming up in "laughter dark."
HAMMER: Fingerling potatoes in, however. Plus the latest APPRENTICE castoff is here with us on SHOWBIZ TONIGHT. And she heard those two famous words from the Donald last night and she joins us live coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BRYANT: Time nor another "SHOWBIZ Short." Survivors tribe of one. Stephanie the only member of the Ulong tribe left. Her tribe has lost every immunity challenge so far. On last night's episode, it was down to her and Bobby Jon, so instead a tribal council, they competed in a one-on- one immunity challenge and Stephanie came out on top.
HAMMER: And then there were six on last night's episode of "The Apprentice". The task with for each team to design technology friendly clothing for the youth market, kind of a good idea. It's like clothes for, that have places to stash all your gadgets, your iPods, your phones and in the end, team net worth landed back in the board room with one member getting an unexpected dismissal.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANGIE MCKNIGHT: I think I uh'd in the middle of it all. I'm not going to get fired over this. The fact that the project manager couldn't get us all there on time is not my responsibility.
DONALD TRUMP: When you made your presentation, you choked. Do you agree with ha?
MCKNIGHT: I could have done better.
TRUMP: Do you agree that you choked?
MCKNIGHT: Yes, sir.
TRUMP: Angie, you're fired.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAMMER: Angie McKnight, those words one more time. Thanks for joining us on SHOWBIZ TONIGHT. It seemed like Donald Trump was giving you a shot at the end to say the right thing, either say the words that he thought you wanted to hear or say what was truly in your heart. That's what it seemed to me. If you had said, I didn't choke, Mr. Trump, maybe he would have nailed Chris. What do you think?
MCKNIGHT: A.J., of course, I spent many many, many minutes in that board room saying I didn't choke Mr. Trump. I could have done a better job. Next time I'll do a better job. And then finally he was just relentless about the choking thing. I think that the take is that I was in shock. I'm still a little in shock that Chris wasn't let go.
HAMMER: You even said yourself -- and we just showed that clip. You said, I'm not going to get fired and you got blown out Angie.
MCKNIGHT: For the love of God. As everyone saw last night, the list of responsibilities was the infamous list of responsibilities and Chris had one responsibility that he failed at. And, of course, Alex failed at his and then I had everything to do. And my three-minute presentation wasn't the strongest, but...
HAMMER: All right. But you weren't always a loser. You were a winner early, not for the last six weeks of course. Last night the winners, the reward was a shopping spree at Bergdorf. Of the rewards you got, what was the best one, because these are pretty cool?
MCKNIGHT: Well, I think that the helicopter ride was my favorite because always I was the project manager. That was the Nescafe. I came up with the entire marketing strategy for that and we won huge. That was our biggest budget, $75,000. And we got to take the helicopter around New York. But I also loved -- you know what else I loved? When we did the mobile casting and we won one the Micimoto (ph) pearls.
HAMMER: That was a good one too. We got to wrap it up, but real quickly, you're playing at...
MCKNIGHT: At Feinstein's April 11th, Monday night, I'm appearing at Feinstein's (UNINTELLIGIBLE) in Manhattan.
HAMMER: Best of luck to you. Thanks a lot, Angie McKnight for joining us. And of course you can catch the next apprentice on Thursday night on NBC. Karyn.
BRYANT: It's a side of Conan O'Brien you've never seen. That's coming in "laughter dark."
HAMMER: And there is still time for you to sound off in our SHOWBIZ TONIGHT question of the day. The royal wedding, do you care? Vote at cnn.com/showbiztonight or e-mail us at showbiztonight@cnn.com. We're going to share some of what you had to say coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAMMER: Time now for more "SHOWBIZ Shorts." Heather Graham is lending her lovely locks to commercials for hair color. She's the new celebrity spokesperson for Garnier's 100 percent color and will appear in print and TV ads. Graham is also shooting several movies to be released this year, including a film called "Cake" with Taye Digs and Cheryl Hines.
Some George Clooney casting news. Today's "Hollywood Reporter" says Clooney is in talks to star along with director Steven Soderbergh upcoming film "The Good German." Kate Blanchett is in negotiations to costar.
BRYANT: It is time to get your laugh on in "laughter dark." As we do every night, we bring you the late night laughs you may have missed.
HAMMER: On late night, Conan O'Brien complains about his show is beginning to suffer from these recent budget cuts. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONAN O'BRIEN: All right. NBC -- here's another one, NBC is so obsessed with saving money, they're even cutting back on my wardrobe budget. That's right. Even though the suits I wear on the show are hand made and beautiful, those penny pinchers have found a way to save money on the suits. Check it out. So, folks, as you can see, we have a terrific show tonight. We got great guests, really fun comedy. We'll take a break. We'll be right back after these messages.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRYANT: That is one lanky, lanky man.
HAMMER: You save money if you don't include the pants. It's just a fact.
BRYANT: Well, on THE TONIGHT SHOW with Jay Leno, a look at the future of America in a segment called teenage wasteland.
HAMMER: Here's one participant's very special talent.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAY LENO: How do you -- go ahead. He's going to blow up a balloon with his armpit again. Oh, wow! Look at that. Show it in fast motion rather than slow motion. Can we show it in fast mo? There you go. Good for you, buddy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAMMER: Hold on one sec. I think I have a balloon here. Do you want to give that a whirl.
BRYANT: That is something women don't even do.
HAMMER: You want to do it?
BRYANT: No thank you. We've been asking you to vote online in our SHOWBIZ TONIGHT question of the day, royal wedding, do you care? Well, the vote so far, 4 percent of you said yes, you do care about the royal wedding, 96 percent of you said you don't care.
HAMMER: Everybody is going to be watching.
BRYANT: You've been sending us e-mails as well. Heather from Greenfield, Wisconsin says, people would rather do anything but watch a ridiculous spectacle. May the monarchy end with this wedding.
And Hari from Rhode Island asked, finally there's sunshine on Charles' face. Hope this marriage is a total success.
Well, you can continue to vote at cnn.com/showbiztonight.
HAMMER: It is time now to see what's playing on SHOWBIZ TONIGHT on Monday.
BRYANT: Let's get a look at the "SHOWBIZ Marquee." Marquee guy, go for it.
ANNOUNCER: Why, it must be spring, because I see a robin. Oh, it's that Robin, Robin Williams and guess what. He's taking orders from the former star of the "X Files." But why? Conspiracy theory? Robin tells all to A.J. Monday. Also Monday, if anybody can save the music, they can. John Legend, Rob Thomas, Alicia Keys, they'll all be out to save the music on a very, very special night.
And SHOWBIZ TONIGHT will be there with them live. This is the marquee guy. It's Friday night, baby, and what could be better than that? Life is good!
BRYANT: That's it for SHOWBIZ TONIGHT. We'll see you here Monday.
HAMMER: Nancy Grace coming up next right after the very latest from headline news.
(NEWS BREAK)
END
Aired April 8, 2005 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KARYN BRYANT, CO-HOST: A Wales of a wedding.
HAMMER: And "The Nanny" becomes a mommy. I'm A.J. Hammer.
BRYANT: I'm Karyn Bryant, and this is SHOWBIZ TONIGHT.
HAMMER: Marriage of a monarch. But it's different this time. Why Charles and Camilla are no Charles and Diana.
BRYANT: Fashion firing. Angie freezes, and Trump gets hot.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, ""The Apprentice"": You're fired.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRYANT: The latest "Apprentice" cast-off live.
HAMMER: Plus, scent of a woman. The famous get their own fragrances. Celebrity scents. We'll take a whiff, but should you?
BRYANT: Sounding off. Music's biggest names choose their favorites. "Rolling Stone's" greatest artists of all time.
HAMMER: And:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FRAN DRESCHER, "LIVING WITH FRAN": I was waiting for the perfect time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAMMER: How about now, Fran? The flashy girl from Flushing. "The Nanny" has something new to show you. It's a "SHOWBIZ Sitdown" with Fran Drescher.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DRESCHER: Hi. I'm Fran Drescher. And if it happened today, it's on SHOWBIZ TONIGHT.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRYANT: Hello. I'm Karyn Bryant, and you are at the top of the show.
HAMMER: And I'm A.J. Hammer. We are live with you from Headline Prime studios in New York City for the next hour.
BRYANT: Right now, it's already morning in London, the morning before the royal wedding of Prince Charles and his long-time love, Camilla Parker- Bowles.
HAMMER: But what a difference a marriage makes. No Diana, no pomp, no circumstance, not even the queen herself. SHOWBIZ TONIGHT's David Haffenreffer is here now with the tale that is no fairy tale at all, David.
DAVID HAFFENREFFER, SHOWBIZ TONIGHT: No, it isn't, A.J. and Karyn. Prince Charles will marry Camilla Parker-Bowles on Saturday. As you probably know, this will be Prince Charles's second wedding. And as is the case with many sequels, the royal wedding part 2 probably won't be as popular as part 1.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAY LENO, HOST, "TONIGHT" SHOW: ... and Camilla Parker-Bowles's wedding will not be broadcast on regular TV. It'll only be available on pay-per-ew!
HAFFENREFFER (voice-over): As we saw on the "Tonight" show last night, it may be a wedding, but the world isn't showing a whole lot of love for Prince Charles's long-awaited wedding to Camilla Parker-Bowles, especially when you compare it to the royal spectacle that was Prince Charles's first wedding to young Lady Diana Spencer.
J.D. HEYMAN, "PEOPLE" MAGAZINE: Well, Charles and Diana's wedding was a fairy-tale wedding. You had a beautiful young bride, a fairly young groom. And it was, you know, a magical time for both of them.
HAFFENREFFER: What a difference 14 years makes. Charles and Camilla's low-key civil ceremony in the town hall of Windsor is a low-key world away from his first.
Let's take a look at this tale of two weddings. Chuck and Di's 1981 wedding was watched by an estimated 750 million viewers worldwide, but a recent poll shows 67 percent of Brits don't even plan to watch the Charles and Camilla nuptials. U.S. TV networks will be covering the wedding, scheduled for 7:30 AM Eastern time Saturday. We'll have to see how it does against its main TV competition, "The Rug Rats." In 1981, an A-list throng of celebrities, royal dignitaries and VIPs attended Charles's first wedding, but only a handful of people will witness Charles and Camilla exchange vows.
HEYMAN: Well, the wedding itself really is for family. It really is for Charles and Camilla and their children and their closest relatives. It's not a big ceremony or a big show. The reception is larger. It does have a few famous names on it.
HAFFENREFFER: The key word is "few." Joan Rivers is going to that reception. So are actor Kenneth Branagh, Joanna Lumley, best known as the aging boozer Patsy on the show "Absolutely Fabulous," and Sting's wife, Trudie Styler. But Charles's mom, the queen, a no-show. OK, so maybe this wedding won't be the highly-rated fairy tale that Charles's first wedding was. Still, you have to admit, it's a pretty good story.
HEYMAN: No one doubts that this is a great love affair. These are two people who have wanted to be together for more than 30 years, and they are finally getting the chance to be together.
HAFFENREFFER: So maybe unlike the royal wedding, the royal wedding part 2 might have a happy ending.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
Time will tell. That wedding was originally scheduled for today, but Prince Charles postponed it so it would not conflict with the pope's funeral -- Karyn.
BRYANT: Well, thanks, David. And of course, you'll want to watch CNN's coverage of "A Royal Wedding: Prince Charles and Camilla" tomorrow morning beginning at 6:00 AM Eastern time with Anderson Cooper and Becky Anderson.
And the nuptials are the focus of our SHOWBIZ TONIGHT question of the day. Royal wedding: Do you care? You can vote at cnn.com/showbiztonight and send your e-mails our way at showbiztonight@cnn.com. We'll share some of what you had to say at 55 past the hour.
HAMMER: Tonight, Rosie O'Donnell opens up to Barbara Walters in a personal and revealing interview. O'Donnell, the former talk show host and comedian, married her companion, Kelli Carpenter, in California last year. But courts annulled their same-sex ceremony, along with 4,000 others. Rosie and Kelli talk about their lives together, the four kids they're raising, and the day that they heard their marriage was wiped out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROSIE O'DONNELL, FORMER TALK SHOW HOST: Well, I expected it, truthfully. So when she was so upset, I was, like, Honey, you know, civil rights, they don't get changed overnight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAMMER: Rosie O'Donnell also opens up about when she realized for sure she was gay, saying she was 16 years old at the time. The interview airs tonight on ABC on "20/20."
BRYANT: Time for "SHOWBIZ Shorts," a look at more stories making news tonight. Bart Simpson may be saying "Eat my shorts" in Russian. A Moscow court has just rejected a lawsuit brought against the television station there that was broadcasting "The Simpsons" and "The Family Guy." The man who filed the suit said the shows promoted drugs, violence and homosexuality.
Well, America voted on line, and it's Diana Ross. "American Idol" fans have chosen "When you tell me that you love me" by the former Supremes singer to be the single that the season's 12 finalists will cover. The release will raise funds for the American Red Cross. It drops April 19.
More "SHOWBIZ Shorts" coming up throughout the show.
HAMMER: Elton John talking about Eminem. Dave Matthews on Radiohead. Aerosmith's Joe Perry on Guns 'n Roses. All this can be found in "Rolling Stone's" special issue called "The Immortals: The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time," where today's biggest stars pay tribute to their musical heroes.
And joining us live, Brian Hiatt, who's an associate editor at "Rolling Stone" magazine. Thank you very much for joining us, Brian. Basically, these are legends talking about legends. And it's always so great to hear big-time superstar artists talking about the artists that they love.
BRIAN HIATT, "ROLLING STONE": It's very special. I mean, basically, what we did is we reached out to people like Bruce Springsteen and Don Henley and had them vote on their greatest artists of all time. And from there, we sought out -- from the people they chose, we sought out artists who could write about why these artists are great, and that's exactly what we did.
HAMMER: Well, let's get to a couple of them right now. Elton John and Eminem, infamous for the supposed feud that wound up as a 2001 Grammy appearance on stage together. What did Elton have to say about Em?
HIATT: Well, Elton John had some very nice things to say about Eminem. He basically said that he is the Dylan of his generation. He said that when he first saw him perform, he felt the electricity that he felt seeing Mick Jagger. So I think people who are not Eminem fans but are Elton John fans can learn a lot from this, maybe.
HAMMER: Another interesting tribute in this issue, I found -- Dave Matthews, one of my favorite artists, and Radiohead, an amazing band, two totally different ends of the musical spectrum. What was said there?
HIATT: Well, you know, Dave Matthews basically said that he feels like Salieri to Radiohead's Mozart. He feels that -- he feels sort of resentful of how great they are, but he really appreciates them. And it was a pretty funny and almost touching tribute. It was great.
HAMMER: That is funny, and rather humbling because, of course, Dave, millions of followers around the world who just love him.
HIATT: Exactly. Yes.
HAMMER: All right. Well, we want to talk about Joe Perry, of course, from Aerosmith, who has played on the same stage with Guns n' Roses, and he's paying tribute to them. You'd think it might be the other way around.
HIATT: And it might be the other way around. In fact, it was. We had -- not only did we have Joe Perry paying tribute to Guns n' Roses, in the same issue, we had Slash paying -- from Guns n' Roses paying tribute to Aerosmith. So it was a great -- it's a great example of kind of the tradition of rock-and-roll here that we're kind of celebrating with this. There's different traditions, and they all kind of flow into each other. And here's an example of an influence and someone who was influenced by them. And it just shows how this is an ongoing thing that is still going to this day.
HAMMER: Well, it is a great read, Brian. Thanks for joining us, Brian Hiatt from "Rolling Stone" magazine. And the magazine's special issue called "The Immortals" hits newsstands today.
BRYANT: Tonight, we've got the smell of a woman. Actually, lots of women, stars who have gotten into the celebrity scent business. SHOWBIZ TONIGHT looks at the celebs, the scents and the booming biz that's got everyone sniffing.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): If you are a babe and you're big in Hollywood, chances are you've got your own perfume line.
SARAH JESSICA PARKER: I want to rule the world with my fragrances!
BRYANT: Sarah Jessica Parker announced plans to launch her own fragrance later this year. And Britney, Jessica, J.Lo and Paris are just a few of the celebs with scents out there competing for a spot on your wrist.
PARIS HILTON: Mine is very sexy and young and fun and smells different than everyone else's. Smells better.
BRYANT: It may smell better, but it's better for business, too. All that star power is pumping up an otherwise stale fragrance industry.
BRITNEY SPEARS: I've always wanted to have a fragrance of my own, and now I've seen my dream come true.
BRYANT: And it's been a dream come true for Elizabeth Arden, the company that makes Britney's Curious. Because of her, Elizabeth Arden's earnings spiked almost 50 percent in just three months. So what exactly does it take to get your own perfume?
WENDY LIEBMANN, WSL STRATEGIC RETAIL: You want somebody who's a little bit naughty and a little bit nice, so you've got a bit of both. And you also want somebody who's got some degree of longevity, a little trustworthy, so that you've got some time to build the fragrance, to get a lot of usage and to get people to keep coming back.
BRYANT: Keeping them coming back may be important, but it takes more than star power to sell bottles, or so says the president of the company that created Paris Hilton's new scent, aptly called Paris Hilton.
ILEA LKACH, PRESIDENT, PARLUX: There is a huge confusion, at least in the business side, where they think that you sign a celebrity, you got yourself a winner. I can -- the roads are paved with celebrities' failures. We have been approached by many, many, many celebrities, but the ones we work with is -- we think that they transcend their field.
BRYANT: So is that all it takes to make a great celebrity scent? Aren't we forgetting something? Oh, yes, how it actually smells.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's strong.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Smells more like lotion.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is fresh and fruity.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, that is really sweet.
BRYANT: We took the juice to the streets and asked people which fragrance they liked best.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: J.Lo.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Britney.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Paris.
BRYANT: Reviews were, well, mixed. So we decided to visit one of the toughest sniffers out there and get her take.
VERONIQUE FERVAL, FRAGRANCE EXPERT: This one is Jessica Simpson. It's a very (UNINTELLIGIBLE) vanilla.
BRYANT: Meet Veronique Ferval, head of the fragrance department for one of the leading perfume companies in the world.
FERVAL: Very fruity, very colorful.
BRYANT: She sniffed. She smelled. She had herself a nose full of celebrity. Her verdict?
FERVAL: I would almost say Britney (UNINTELLIGIBLE) It's a very powerful scent. It's very sensual. It's to date.
BRYANT: The expert may have spoken, but we'll have to call her to a rematch soon. The pool of celebrities getting in on the fragrance front is getting bigger every month. And like the scent or hate it, there's something to be said for loyal fans.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wear Glow. I'm not going to lie. J.Lo, I love you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRYANT: Some of those celebrities who will soon announce their own fragrances include Usher and Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen.
HAMMER: Well, we're sensing a visit from "The Nanny." Coming up, a "SHOWBIZ Sitdown" with Fran Drescher. She's still taking care of young ones, but not exactly how you may think.
BRYANT: And counting cookies. Cookie Monster is cutting back, while "The Simpsons" aren't being cut out. Will our "Buzz Bench" say "Ha-ha"? Find out.
HAMMER: Now tonight's "Entertainment Weekly Great American Pop Culture Quiz. And we're in a royals mood, so in which movie did the lead character watch the wedding of Charles and Diana over and over? Was it "My Best Friend's Wedding," "Muriel's Wedding," "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" or "Father of the Bride"? We're coming straight back with the answer.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAMMER: Welcome back. So again, tonight's "Entertainment Weekly Great American Pop Culture Quiz." In which movie did the lead character watch the wedding of Charles and Diana over and over, "My Best Friend's Wedding," "Muriel's Wedding," "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" or "Father of the Bride"? Well, along with 750 million others, Muriel from "Muriel's Wedding" tuned in. The answer is B.
HAMMER: Tonight's "SHOWBIZ Sitdown": Fran Drescher is back on TV. It's been nearly six years since "The Nanny" went off the air, and the flashy girl from Flushing has grown up a bit. She's now starring in a new comedy series that may raise a couple of eyebrows. It's about a woman whose boyfriend is not much older than her son. So Fran Drescher and Esther, thank you for joining us here on SHOWBIZ TONIGHT.
FRAN DRESCHER, "LIVING WITH FRAN": Thank you for having us.
BRYANT: So I want to talk about your new show, "Living With Fran."
DRESCHER: "Living With Fran," yes. On the WB.
BRYANT: How does it feel to get back into sitcoms? Because there are many who think you never left because "The Nanny" is on all the time.
DRESCHER: I know. It's really picked up momentum since it joined Lifetime network.
BRYANT: Right.
DRESCHER: And I'm very proud of that. But it's actually been five years.
BRYANT: Wow.
DRESCHER: So you know, and a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then. I had been diagnosed with cancer and battled that and survived, wrote a best-selling book...
BRYANT: Right.
DRESCHER: ... "Cancer Schmancer." And I've done some directing and acting and commercials and things like that along the way. I also have done a lot of advocacy work in Washington.
BRYANT: Right.
DRESCHER: I got a kind of a purpose to my life...
BRYANT: Right.
DRESCHER: ... subsequent to my illness, so now I try and, you know, encourage our elected officials to appropriate more money to cancer research...
BRYANT: Right. Right.
DRESCHER: ... and to women's health care issues, in particular. And then, you know, I just kind of felt like maybe now is the time. I started to develop a new idea in my head that was loosely based off of a relationship that I had with a man who was much younger than me for four years...
BRYANT: Go, Fran!
(CROSSTALK)
BRYANT: All right. Well, great. Well, you know, let's take a look at a clip, and then...
DRESCHER: OK.
BRYANT: ... we'll talk about that some more. So it's "Living With Fran."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DRESCHER: I've had it with you! While you're under my roof, you give me respect~! Oh, my God. Now I really sound like my mother.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mom, this isn't your fault. Your hormones are making you crazy.
DRESCHER: Don't you be talking about my hormones! I'll have you know that I'm at my sexual peak!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll say.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRYANT: So what is the deal with this? Because, you know, women get a lot of heat about dating younger men. And yet, men can date women 30 years younger and there's no problem.
DRESCHER: Well, I think Demi and Ashton kind of broke that taboo.
BRYANT: Right.
DRESCHER: And now, you know, it just hasn't been explored in sitcom yet, so I think we're breaking new ground in that regard. But I had a great time, and I continue to date, you know, younger men. I think that it works out in many different respects. And I'm open to men of all ages, I mean, you know, but it just turns out that way. I think I like, you know, a lot of very contemporary music. I like going to rock concerts and things like that. So I tend to end up having more in common. But you know, it's all good.
And a lot of my situations that happened in my real life experience, I kind of applied to the stories that we tell on "Living With Fran" because I do have a younger boyfriend on that show, and I'm living with him and -- or rather, he's living with me.
BRYANT: Yes.
DRESCHER: And my son and my daughter. And he is closer in age to my son...
BRYANT: Than -- right. Right.
DRESCHER: ... than he is to myself.
BRYANT: So now, in real life, though, have you ever been set up? Do you have any, like, horrible dating nightmares?
DRESCHER: You know, I was -- I was set up to go out with this guy who was an older man. And I'm trying to be open to it.
BRYANT: Sure. Sure.
DRESCHER: And I Googled him to see what he looked like, but the picture must have been from 1970...
BRYANT: OK. Right. Right.
DRESCHER: ... because, you know, when we finally sat down and met at a restaurant, he's talking to me, and you know, whatever. He says he's going up north to visit his son.
BRYANT: Right, right.
DRESCHER: And I said, Oh, where do you stay? And I'm always interested in hearing about...
BRYANT: Sure.
DRESCHER: ... new hotels. And he answers me, In Grandpa's room.
BRYANT: Oh!
DRESCHER: Now, that's sexy.
BRYANT: End of that date! Well, Fran Drescher, thanks for joining us. You, too, Esther. What a sweet little puppy. It's "Living With Fran" on the WB.
DRESCHER: Thank you. Thank you so much.
HAMMER: Well, should you get the fever for "Fever Pitch"? Or is "Sahara" a treasure hunt worth hunting down? "People's" "Picks and Pans" are going to tell you where to spend your bucks.
And all choked up, a fashion task, a faux pas and a firing. The latest fired "Apprentice," Angie, joins us live.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAMMER: It is time for "People" magazine's movie "Picks and Pans." The romantic comedy "Fever Pitch" is hoping to hit a home run against the first action-adventure film of the year, "Sahara." Both are out in theaters today. "Kung Fu Hustle" is also hitting the big screen today in New York and Los Angeles. Should you check any of them out?
Well, joining us now from "People" magazine, movie critic Leah Rozen. Always good to see you, Leah, because it means Friday's here, quite frankly.
LEAH ROZEN, "PEOPLE" MAGAZINE MOVIE CRITIC: Thank God!
HAMMER: Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon, so adorable when they showed up on SHOWBIZ TONIGHT to talk about "Fever Pitch." It looks like a lot of fun.
ROZEN: It is a lot of fun. I mean, it's not a great movie, but you don't mind. You have a -- it's very sweet at heart. It's a romantic comedy. Boy loves girl, girl loves boy, boy loves baseball. Which does he love more? But it's just -- it's very sweet. Nice performances. Good stuff shot at Boston Red Sox games.
HAMMER: It does seem like you get swept into the hype of all the fever that was going on around World Series.
ROZEN: It's one of those movies you end up liking, and you just don't respect yourself the next morning.
HAMMER: OK. Well, let's move on, then, to another guest who was in our studio last night, Steve Zahn, who's in "Sahara," along with Matthew McConaughey. What about this film?
ROZEN: About as sound as the sand it's built on.
HAMMER: Oh, no!
ROZEN: This is big action derring-do, but it's kind of "Indiana Jones" like. I mean, they have all the aspects you want in an action film...
HAMMER: Right.
ROZEN: ... but just none of them are done with as much oomph...
HAMMER: And they spent...
ROZEN: ... as you want it.
HAMMER: ... a fortune doing it. Really, it's a little...
ROZEN: They spend a fortune on a lot of movies, A.J.
HAMMER: That are disappointing.
ROZEN: And they often -- so it's OK. If it's Saturday night, you're desperate to go to the movies, hey, it'll be OK. It's not going to go on - - you're not going to be telling everyone else, You got to go to this one.
HAMMER: OK, how did the filmmakers do with "Kung Fu Hustle"? And explain a little bit about this to me.
ROZEN: OK. "Kung Fu Hustle" is by Stephen Chow, is the writer, director, star. He did a huge hit in Asia a couple years ago called "Shaolin Soccer." This is sort of a tribute to the Kung Fu movies of the '70s he grew up with. Really fun.
HAMMER: Oh.
ROZEN: Visually exciting, things you haven't seen before in martial arts films. Plus, it references a lot of '70s Kung Fu stuff, I mean, but stuff Bruce Lee never managed.
HAMMER: All right, Leah. Know how to spend our money this weekend. We appreciate you stopping by. And of course, for more "Picks and Pans," you can always check out this week's "People" magazine. It is available at newsstands everywhere.
BRYANT: They have been talking all day, and we've been listening. Now, as we do every night on SHOWBIZ TONIGHT, the best from today's talk shows.
A lesson in the art of belly dance on "Live With Regis and Kelly." Regis, though, may need a little more than just one class.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REGIS PHILBIN, "LIVE WITH REGIS AND KELLY": All together!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All together! (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAMMER: I get the impression Kelly's going to be receiving some additional fan mail over the weekend.
Well, Cookie Monster is looking to keep his belly beautiful. The blue furry guy is going on a diet. Well, sort of. We're going to shake it over to the "Buzz Bench."
BRYANT: And Selena knew how to shake it for her fans, but a decade after her tragic death, she's as popular as ever. The business of Selena - - that's up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWS BREAK)
HAMMER: Tonight's "SHOWBIZ in-depth", the royal wedding. The prince set to marry Camilla in a matter of hours. We're going to talk to the royal watchers and find out if you'll be watching.
BRYANT: Apparel on "The Apprentice". The task was fashion and the Donald says Angie choked. The latest apprentice castoff joins us live.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNA NICOLE SMITH: Hi, I'm Anna Nicole Smith. If it happened today, it's on SHOWBIZ TONIGHT.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAMMER: The Empire State building as seen from the top, top, top of headline prime studios in New York City. Finally springtime and the weekend is upon us. Welcome back to SHOWBIZ TONIGHT, 30 minutes past the hour. I'm A.J. Hammer and here are tonight's hot headlines.
Elton on Eminem, Elton John has written an essay in the brand new issue of "Rolling Stone" all about how much he likes Eminem. John compares the rapper to get this, Jimmy Hendrix and Mick Jagger and he says he's never bought into the idea that Eminem is homophobic. John and Eminem of course performed together at the 2001 Grammys.
Royal countdown, Prince Charles is set to marry Camilla Parker-Bowles in just hours from now in a low key civil service. But there are about 800 people on the guest list for the blessing afterward including royalty, world leaders and celebrities, which include Joan Rivers and actor Kenneth Branagh.
BRYANT: Thirty one minutes past the hour and we are focusing on the Charles-Camilla wedding in tonight's "SHOWBIZ in-depth." It's the royal wedding even the queen won't attend. There will be no fanfare, no horse drawn carriage or streets filled with millions of fascinated fans. Joining us live in our New York studios, "Newsweek" magazine correspondent Nicki Gostin and Diane Clehane, a Princess Diana biographer who will be featured in the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) channel primetime wrap up of the royal wedding tomorrow night. Thank you for joining me ladies. So who cares? Does anyone care? Does America care? Who cares, Nicki?
NICKI GOSTIN, NEWSWEEK CORRESPONDENT: According to the polls, English people couldn't care less. I think it was like 67 percent aren't planning on watching it.
BRYANT: That's right, in the "Daily Mail," 67 percent.
GOSTIN: I think Americans seem to care at this stage a bit more than British people do right now.
BRYANT: Would you agree with that?
DIANE CLEHANE, DIANA BIOGRAPHER: I think there's always a legion of royal watchers and this is just the latest chapter in the soap opera, so those people that have been following it are going to follow this chapter as well.
BRYANT: So we've mentioned the fact that Joan Rivers is going to this wedding. How did she get the invite?
CLEHANE: Joan is actually quite close with Prince Charles' inner circle and she's told me on several occasions that she loves Camilla. Camilla really gets it and she is just a big fan.
BRYANT: Because she's actually made a lot of fun of Camilla over the years, hasn't she?
CLEHANE: Everyone is fair game for Joan, so, but she actually is quite friendly with them and is quite popular over there.
BRYANT: OK. Well, I want to talk about the ghost of Diana. Some people are sort of saying that the reason the wedding had to be postponed, that's Diana, these different things. The queen is not coming, that's Diana. What's your take on that?
GOSTIN: I think the wedding got postponed because the pope died. But, yeah, I mean, it certainly seems there's just been all these embarrassing gaffs happening and it certainly seems like Diana's ghost is meddling with it. But I think the queen not going is that she doesn't really, I think, like Camilla and isn't approving of this. Otherwise, she would go. It's ridiculous for her to say that she doesn't want to overshadow the event. It's her son getting married. It's crazy.
BRYANT: That's the thing about it. It's not necessarily that there's a ghost of Diana, but there is sort of this lingering resentment it seems that some people have of Camilla in the first place.
CLEHANE: Well Diana clearly is really the star of the royal family and I think much to their chagrin, she remains the star. And in many ways, the only reason that people are remotely interested is Camilla and Charles is because of the fact that Diana was part of a very public royal triangle. So in that case, it's the kind of thing where there's this outcry where people don't want Camilla to be queen certainly, because that's something that Diana was not able to do and she wanted to be the queen of people's hearts and clearly she is and Camilla will never be and I think that's what's kept people really interested.
BRYANT: In that poll, it did say 73 percent of Britons oppose her being called queen.
GOSTIN: Right. They've said -- Charles has said that she will be princess consort. But legally, once they marry, she will have the title of queen if she wants it when he becomes king.
BRYANT: Last quick question. What about the sons, William and Harry? How are they feeling?
CLEHANE: Well, they're very -- the royals -- the insiders are very sort of interested in putting out the message they're very keen on their father getting married. I would think that it's safe to say they want their father to be happy, but you have to think that standing there tomorrow, they have to think about their mother because don't forget that she really took them into their confidence when they were very young so they saw all that pain.
GOSTIN: It will be a tough day.
CLEHANE: Diana does loom large over the entire event.
BRYANT: All right. Thank you very much, Diane and Nicki. We want to hear your thoughts at home. It's our SHOWBIZ TONIGHT question of the day. Royal wedding, do you care? You can vote at cnn.com/showbiztonight or if you want to tell us more, e-mail us at showbiztonight@cnn.com. We'll share some of what you had to say later in the show.
HAMMER: Well, tonight, the director of "The Godfather" movies, Francis Ford Coppola is upset that "The Godfather" is being turned into a video game. Actors from "The Godfather" reprise their roles for a shoot 'em up video game. But on the AMC show Sunday morning shootout, Coppola says he had absolutely nothing to do with the game and thinks it's a misuse of the film. Coppola says if they made him the offer, he would have refused. But he never got the chance because Paramount owns the rights.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA, DIRECTOR, "THE GODFATHER": You know, it was a little discouraging to see the basis of how they do that. What they do is they use the characters everyone knows, then they hire those actors to be there, only to introduce very minor characters and then they for the next hour shoot and kill each other.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAMMER: You can see the rest of Coppola's interview on Sunday morning's shootout on AMC.
BRYANT: It has been a decade since the sudden death of one of the world's most promising Latin stars. Ten years later people are still celebrating Selena's legacy. SHOWBIZ TONIGHT's David Haffenreffer joins us again with more on Selena. David.
DAVID HAFFENREFFER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They are celebrating Karyn. To this day, Selena remains one of the top five Latin recording acts of all time. Thanks to her record label, family, fans and of course radio stations, her popularity shows no sign of weakening.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SELENA: How you doing, Houston, Texas?
HAFFENREFFER (voice-over): At just 23 years old, Selena Quintanilla- Perez filled the Houston Astrodome with more than 60,000 fans. She was at the peak of her career, but a gunshot cut that short. Last night, 10 years after she was murdered, a similar sized crowd showed up at Houston's Reliant stadium to pay tribute to the Tejano star.
Selena is bigger and more popular today than ever.
BRUNO DEL GRANADO, ENTERTAINMENT MEDIA FACTORY: The main reason why Selena is still very relevant, it's because of her humongous fan base. Don't forget there's 40 million plus Hispanics here, of which 60 to 65 percent are Mexican, Mexican-American. That's what Selena was all about.
HAFFENREFFER: A steady stream of releases has also helped to keep her legacy alive. At least half a dozen CDs and DVDs have come out recently to commemorate the artist who died just as she began to climb to superstardom.
DEL GRANADO: I think the sky was the limit for her. She was in the process of recording her crossover English language album when she passed away. That album was put together by the label afterward, debuted at number one and that was the first time a Latin artist has ever debuted at number one on the "Billboard" charts.
HAFFENREFFER: Selena was shot and killed in a Corpus Christi hotel by this woman, the ex-president of her fan club, Yolanda Saldivar. She remains in prison today serving a life sentence. Selena's life story was made into a movie, one that sparked the blockbuster career of one of today's most famous Latin women, J.Lo.
Indirectly, I think Jennifer Lopez owes a little bit of her acting career to Selena, because she got rave reviews when she played Selena in the movie.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HAFFENREFFER: Just to give you more of a sense of how big Selena still is, she was the cover girl of last month's "Latina" magazine and her latest EMI release, "Unforgettable," the studio album, debuted at number 25 on the "Billboard" top Latin albums chart. Karyn.
BRYANT: Thank you very much David Haffenreffer. Well, we all love "The Simpsons" here on SHOWBIZ TONIGHT. But there's a guy in Russia who is not much of a fan. "The Simpsons" hauled into a court in Moscow. We'll take that to the buzz bench next.
HAMMER: Plus, it is fired-up Friday. Did Angie Choke on last night's episode of "The Apprentice"? We're going to get her side of the story coming up live.
BRYANT: And now Fran Drescher tells us what she's wearing these days.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FRAN DRESCHER: I'm wearing Harry Winston.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAMMER: It is time now for the Friday night buzz bench. Here's what we're buzzing about tonight, the royal wedding. Cookie Monster on a health kick and "The Simpsons" hauled into court.
BRYANT: Joining us on the buzz bench, Devin Jordan of "Newsweek," VH1 classic host Amy Scott and CNN's pop culture correspondent Toure. So we're starting with the fact that the royal wedding is in a matter of hours. There will be fewer than 30 people there to watch Prince Charles marry Camilla Parker-Bowles. The queen will not be one of them and of course this is taking place at the town hall, Windsor town hall. Toure.
TOURE, CNN POP CULTURE CORRESPONDENT: Do you know what the word skanky means? The bride is skanky. The first thing she said to him was my ancestor was the mistress of the Prince of Wales, what do you think? How about it? That is so skanky and you know what else? She is ugly, extremely ugly. It's so true, though. It's so true. It's so true. He could have any woman in the country and he wants her?
DEVIN JORDAN, NEWSWEEK: Where is the romance here? My gosh! If that's how he made his choice, it must be true love. The only thing I want to know about this, how did Joan Rivers get into this wedding? (UNINTELLIGIBLE) There are 30 people there.
AMY SCOTT, VH1: I don't know. Joanna Lumley is going to be there. I guess she'll be hanging out with Prince Harry at the bar. Joan Rivers, I can't figure -- I figure the queen is not going to the wedding because she's offended that Joan Rivers is going to be there.
TOURE: She's not been outside since 1984. That's the only way I can account for Squeeze and Joan Rivers being at the same wedding. It doesn't make sense to me.
SCOTT: I'm with you. It must be true love because she's clearly not a trophy bride.
TOURE: Anybody that ugly who gets somebody that powerful, she must be incredible in bed.
BRYANT: They've been in love supposedly over the course of 35 years or something like that.
TOURE: Oh, please!
BRYANT: Moving on.
HAMMER: Let's move on to desserts they may be serving at the royal wedding. Perhaps they'll be serving cookies, which brings us to topic number two. Cookie monster changing his tune, cutting back on the cookies so he can promote healthy eating for kids. His new song, by the way, "A Cookie is Sometimes Food." Amy, what's your take on all of this?
SCOTT: Not anytime food, whereas there's a big difference. I know a lot of people, myself included, who consider cookies anytime food. I think it's kind of ridiculous. We're talking about a puppet's dietary restrictions. But let's think about it. He's like 36 years old. This is the time that we all pretty much start worrying about our waist line and our blood pressure and cholesterol. So it's about time.
TOURE: He's a sign of like happy gluttony.
BRYANT: There are so many overweight children nowadays and it's setting a bad example is really what they're thinking.
JORDAN: When SESAME STREET is taking account, they're the ones checking themselves. Come on, SESAME STREET is not the problem here. It's McDonald's with the cup of Coke bigger than the kid's head. That's the problem, not cookies.
TOURE: That initial image that you see when you're three and four of the cookie monster, just happily glutton...
(CROSSTALK)
HAMMER: They are going to have the singing and talking vegetables and Karyn suggested maybe they're going to have the special singing fingerling potatoes.
BRYANT: No, that's (UNINTELLIGIBLE) eggplant and asparagus. I wanted butter nut squash, carrots.
SCOTT: A segment called American fruit stand, which I think could possibly be hosted by carrot stick Clark.
JORDAN: ... so politically correct. Pretty soon big bird is going to be like big-boned bird.
BRYANT: Moving on, in Moscow, there was a case in court -- it did get thrown out, but a man wanted to sue a television station for showing "The Simpsons" because he said it made his son call his mother a toad, said that his son got interested in drugs and homosexuality because of "The Simpsons" and "Family Guy" -- Devin.
JORDAN: Here's what -- I didn't sue anyone over Yakov Smirnoff so I don't understand why they're suing us over "The Simpsons". I mean it just doesn't make sense to me. The one thing I am heartened to see is that Russian parents apparently have the same problem that American have, getting up off the sofa and changing the channel and turning off the TV. It's apparently a worldwide problem that people haven't figured out you can just turn off the television. Don't do it now, but (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
SCOTT: Fox never intended for "The Simpsons" to be a kids cartoon to begin with. So if you don't know the difference between Bart Simpson and Dora the Explorer, maybe you should look at your own self.
BRYANT: The case did get thrown out I should mention. Again, well, Devin, Amy and Toure, thank you for joining us here on the buzz bench, Friday night buzz bench. Got to love it.
Here's something else to buzz about, a wardrobe malfunction. I thought it was out of the dictionary but it's not. On Conan O'Brien, that is coming up in "laughter dark."
HAMMER: Fingerling potatoes in, however. Plus the latest APPRENTICE castoff is here with us on SHOWBIZ TONIGHT. And she heard those two famous words from the Donald last night and she joins us live coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BRYANT: Time nor another "SHOWBIZ Short." Survivors tribe of one. Stephanie the only member of the Ulong tribe left. Her tribe has lost every immunity challenge so far. On last night's episode, it was down to her and Bobby Jon, so instead a tribal council, they competed in a one-on- one immunity challenge and Stephanie came out on top.
HAMMER: And then there were six on last night's episode of "The Apprentice". The task with for each team to design technology friendly clothing for the youth market, kind of a good idea. It's like clothes for, that have places to stash all your gadgets, your iPods, your phones and in the end, team net worth landed back in the board room with one member getting an unexpected dismissal.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANGIE MCKNIGHT: I think I uh'd in the middle of it all. I'm not going to get fired over this. The fact that the project manager couldn't get us all there on time is not my responsibility.
DONALD TRUMP: When you made your presentation, you choked. Do you agree with ha?
MCKNIGHT: I could have done better.
TRUMP: Do you agree that you choked?
MCKNIGHT: Yes, sir.
TRUMP: Angie, you're fired.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAMMER: Angie McKnight, those words one more time. Thanks for joining us on SHOWBIZ TONIGHT. It seemed like Donald Trump was giving you a shot at the end to say the right thing, either say the words that he thought you wanted to hear or say what was truly in your heart. That's what it seemed to me. If you had said, I didn't choke, Mr. Trump, maybe he would have nailed Chris. What do you think?
MCKNIGHT: A.J., of course, I spent many many, many minutes in that board room saying I didn't choke Mr. Trump. I could have done a better job. Next time I'll do a better job. And then finally he was just relentless about the choking thing. I think that the take is that I was in shock. I'm still a little in shock that Chris wasn't let go.
HAMMER: You even said yourself -- and we just showed that clip. You said, I'm not going to get fired and you got blown out Angie.
MCKNIGHT: For the love of God. As everyone saw last night, the list of responsibilities was the infamous list of responsibilities and Chris had one responsibility that he failed at. And, of course, Alex failed at his and then I had everything to do. And my three-minute presentation wasn't the strongest, but...
HAMMER: All right. But you weren't always a loser. You were a winner early, not for the last six weeks of course. Last night the winners, the reward was a shopping spree at Bergdorf. Of the rewards you got, what was the best one, because these are pretty cool?
MCKNIGHT: Well, I think that the helicopter ride was my favorite because always I was the project manager. That was the Nescafe. I came up with the entire marketing strategy for that and we won huge. That was our biggest budget, $75,000. And we got to take the helicopter around New York. But I also loved -- you know what else I loved? When we did the mobile casting and we won one the Micimoto (ph) pearls.
HAMMER: That was a good one too. We got to wrap it up, but real quickly, you're playing at...
MCKNIGHT: At Feinstein's April 11th, Monday night, I'm appearing at Feinstein's (UNINTELLIGIBLE) in Manhattan.
HAMMER: Best of luck to you. Thanks a lot, Angie McKnight for joining us. And of course you can catch the next apprentice on Thursday night on NBC. Karyn.
BRYANT: It's a side of Conan O'Brien you've never seen. That's coming in "laughter dark."
HAMMER: And there is still time for you to sound off in our SHOWBIZ TONIGHT question of the day. The royal wedding, do you care? Vote at cnn.com/showbiztonight or e-mail us at showbiztonight@cnn.com. We're going to share some of what you had to say coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAMMER: Time now for more "SHOWBIZ Shorts." Heather Graham is lending her lovely locks to commercials for hair color. She's the new celebrity spokesperson for Garnier's 100 percent color and will appear in print and TV ads. Graham is also shooting several movies to be released this year, including a film called "Cake" with Taye Digs and Cheryl Hines.
Some George Clooney casting news. Today's "Hollywood Reporter" says Clooney is in talks to star along with director Steven Soderbergh upcoming film "The Good German." Kate Blanchett is in negotiations to costar.
BRYANT: It is time to get your laugh on in "laughter dark." As we do every night, we bring you the late night laughs you may have missed.
HAMMER: On late night, Conan O'Brien complains about his show is beginning to suffer from these recent budget cuts. Take a look.
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CONAN O'BRIEN: All right. NBC -- here's another one, NBC is so obsessed with saving money, they're even cutting back on my wardrobe budget. That's right. Even though the suits I wear on the show are hand made and beautiful, those penny pinchers have found a way to save money on the suits. Check it out. So, folks, as you can see, we have a terrific show tonight. We got great guests, really fun comedy. We'll take a break. We'll be right back after these messages.
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BRYANT: That is one lanky, lanky man.
HAMMER: You save money if you don't include the pants. It's just a fact.
BRYANT: Well, on THE TONIGHT SHOW with Jay Leno, a look at the future of America in a segment called teenage wasteland.
HAMMER: Here's one participant's very special talent.
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JAY LENO: How do you -- go ahead. He's going to blow up a balloon with his armpit again. Oh, wow! Look at that. Show it in fast motion rather than slow motion. Can we show it in fast mo? There you go. Good for you, buddy.
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HAMMER: Hold on one sec. I think I have a balloon here. Do you want to give that a whirl.
BRYANT: That is something women don't even do.
HAMMER: You want to do it?
BRYANT: No thank you. We've been asking you to vote online in our SHOWBIZ TONIGHT question of the day, royal wedding, do you care? Well, the vote so far, 4 percent of you said yes, you do care about the royal wedding, 96 percent of you said you don't care.
HAMMER: Everybody is going to be watching.
BRYANT: You've been sending us e-mails as well. Heather from Greenfield, Wisconsin says, people would rather do anything but watch a ridiculous spectacle. May the monarchy end with this wedding.
And Hari from Rhode Island asked, finally there's sunshine on Charles' face. Hope this marriage is a total success.
Well, you can continue to vote at cnn.com/showbiztonight.
HAMMER: It is time now to see what's playing on SHOWBIZ TONIGHT on Monday.
BRYANT: Let's get a look at the "SHOWBIZ Marquee." Marquee guy, go for it.
ANNOUNCER: Why, it must be spring, because I see a robin. Oh, it's that Robin, Robin Williams and guess what. He's taking orders from the former star of the "X Files." But why? Conspiracy theory? Robin tells all to A.J. Monday. Also Monday, if anybody can save the music, they can. John Legend, Rob Thomas, Alicia Keys, they'll all be out to save the music on a very, very special night.
And SHOWBIZ TONIGHT will be there with them live. This is the marquee guy. It's Friday night, baby, and what could be better than that? Life is good!
BRYANT: That's it for SHOWBIZ TONIGHT. We'll see you here Monday.
HAMMER: Nancy Grace coming up next right after the very latest from headline news.
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