Stars Come Out (on Tape) for Tom & Oprah, Part 2
Oh, so that's why some people gave a flying fizz about Tom Cruise's opinion on postpartum depression. He used to just be the hot guy (with pretty decent acting chops) in the movies.
Day two of the star's sit-down with Oprah Winfreyhis first interview with the daytime queen since he flipped his lid for Katie Holmesgot down to business in honor of Cruise's 25th anniversary as a cinematic leading man.
With the down-to-earth, "real guy" stuff having been hashed out already at TomKat's Telluride, Colo., getaway last week, today's installment of The Oprah Winfrey Show featured taped kudos from Cruise's past costars (Renée Zellweger, Jamie Foxx, Dustin Hoffman, Dakota Fanning) and miscellaneous superstar pals (cuteness alert: Posh & Becks saw Jerry Maguire on the night of their first kiss, and their future neighbor later gave David Beckham his "you had me at hello" jacket"and he hasn't taken it off since," Victoria said), as well as the star's own musings on a career well done.
Well, for the most part.
Some highlights:
- Why is Tom Cruise special? "You don't know…he just is," Zellweger says of her Jerry Maguire costar.
- Hoffman's fave moment on the set: "The fart scene" when he and Cruise are in the phone booth in Rain Manapparently a completely improvised scene thanks to whatever Hoffman ate before the cameras started rolling. "It's a tribute they thought you were handsome enough to be my brother in that film," the Oscar winner said before the camera pulled back to reveal Hoffman slurping soup and chatting with a life-size cardboard cutout of Cruise.
- Cruise does an utterly terrible Jack "You can't handle the truth" Nicholson impression.
- Of those he hasn't crossed paths with yet, Cruise named Robert De Niro and Al Pacino off the top of his head as a couple of actors he'd like to work with.
- Foxx dug Cruise in Born on the Fourth of July, while Steven Spielberg's a Magnolia fan.
- Each member of the studio audience took home 25 of Cruise's films on DVD, a box set you can't get anywhere. Whether you like the dude or not, that's just cool.
Jamie Lynn Goes Out on Top
And for her first baby shower present, Jamie Lynn Spears got a hit Zoey 101. One last time.
The hourlong seasonand seriesfinale of the hit Nick tween comedy, billed as the Zoey 101 movie Chasing Zoey, was the most watched show in the 10,000-show cable universe, averaging 5.1 million viewers, per the latest Nielsen Media Research rankings.
Another Zoey 101 airing after the finale placed second, with 5 million viewers.
The shows aired Friday, the night before the pregnant Spears celebrated a baby shower in Louisiana with her family, elder sister Britney Spears included.
In real life, the 17-year-old Spears is expecting her first out-of-wedlock child this summer. In Zoey life, Spears' character went gently into the prom night after sharing a chaste first kiss with her star-crossed crush, Sean Flynn's Chase Matthews.
As previously announced, Zoey's just-concluded fourth season was its last.
One of Nick's top shows, the comedy only got bigger with its with-child star. January's season opener, airing a month after the Spears pregnancy story broke, averaged a series-best 7.3 million viewers.
Here are other ratings highlights from the TV week ended Sunday:
- In American Idol news, Neil Diamond night (first place, 25.1 million) was bigger than the previous week's Andrew Lloyd Webber night (24.7 million). But the Brooke White farewell (second place, 22.8 million) was less well-attended than the Carly Smithson goodbye (23.2 million).
- While it's fun to speculate why Idol is down this season5 percent on Tuesdays, and 10 percent on Wednesdaysit's ludicrous to portray the show as troubled when CSI (fourth place, 18 million) is down 19 percent, and Grey's Anatomy (seventh place, 15.3 million) and CSI: Miami (10th place, 13.9 million) are both down 20 percent. If Idol's in trouble, then those Top 10 hits are about to be canceled. Which they're not.
- Here's what's endangered: The habit of watching TV on TV. Through the first two weeks of the May sweeps, every English-language broadcast network, save Fox, is down at least 15 percent from last year. Fox, which airs Idol, is "only" down 7 percent. MyNetworkTV, which cleverly scored as low as possible ratings last year, so as to make this year's ratings look fantastic by comparison, is up a whopping 40 percent.
- Among TV's top hits, only two shows are up right now over last year: Dancing with the Stars' results show (fifth place, 17.1 million); and, Desperate Housewives (sixth place, 16.8 million), which are both on ABC, which overall is down, natch, 14 percent for the season.
- Fox's Hell's Kitchen (16th place, 11.9 million) is actually pretty hot. (Airing after Idol will do that to a show.) It's even hotter among 18- to 49-year-olds, where it finished sixth.
- Lindsay Lohan can't show up soon enough on ABC's Ugly Betty (37th place, 7.9 million), which is drawing the kind of numbers has CBS' Moonlight (36th place, 7.9 million) on the bubble for a fall renewal.
- Out of all NBC's trendy Thursday night shows, untrendy ER (38th place, 7.8 million) drew the most viewers.
- In cable, MTV's The Hills (4 million) and Nick's Zoey 101 heir apparent, iCarly (3.9 million), were among the top performers.
- George W. Bush was the old ratings draw for Fox News. Hillary Clinton is the new one. The Democratic presidential contender stopped by The O'Reilly Factor, and led the show to its weekly best3.7 million viewers.
In the network races, CBS was the most watched network, averaging 10 million procedural crime fans. Fox was the most watched network by 18- to 49-year-olds, averaging 4.6 million Idol worshippers and others.
Among the cable networks, TNT was the top prime-time network (2.8 million), followed by USA (2.3 million) and Disney Channel (2.1 million).
Here's a look at the 10 most watched broadcast network prime-time shows for the week ended Sunday, according to Nielsen Media Research:
- American Idol (Tuesday), Fox, 25.1 million viewers
- American Idol (Wednesday), Fox, 22.8 million viewers
- Dancing With the Stars (Monday), ABC, 18.2 million viewers
- CSI, CBS, 18 million viewers
- Dancing With the Stars (Tuesday), ABC, 17.1 million viewers
- Desperate Housewives, ABC, 16.8 million viewers
- Grey's Anatomy, ABC, 15.3 million viewers
- NCIS, CBS, 14.8 million viewers
- House, Fox, 14.6 million viewer
- CSI: Miami, CBS, 13.9 million viewers
Stars Come Out (on Tape) for Tom & Oprah, Part 2
Oh, so that's why some people gave a flying fizz about Tom Cruise's opinion on postpartum depression. He used to just be the hot guy (with pretty decent acting chops) in the movies.
Day two of the star's sit-down with Oprah Winfreyhis first interview with the daytime queen since he flipped his lid for Katie Holmesgot down to business in honor of Cruise's 25th anniversary as a cinematic leading man.
With the down-to-earth, "real guy" stuff having been hashed out already at TomKat's Telluride, Colo., getaway last week, today's installment of The Oprah Winfrey Show featured taped kudos from Cruise's past costars (Renée Zellweger, Jamie Foxx, Dustin Hoffman, Dakota Fanning) and miscellaneous superstar pals (cuteness alert: Posh & Becks saw Jerry Maguire on the night of their first kiss, and their future neighbor later gave David Beckham his "you had me at hello" jacket"and he hasn't taken it off since," Victoria said), as well as the star's own musings on a career well done.
Well, for the most part.
Some highlights:
- Why is Tom Cruise special? "You don't know…he just is," Zellweger says of her Jerry Maguire costar.
- Hoffman's fave moment on the set: "The fart scene" when he and Cruise are in the phone booth in Rain Manapparently a completely improvised scene thanks to whatever Hoffman ate before the cameras started rolling. "It's a tribute they thought you were handsome enough to be my brother in that film," the Oscar winner said before the camera pulled back to reveal Hoffman slurping soup and chatting with a life-size cardboard cutout of Cruise.
- Cruise does an utterly terrible Jack "You can't handle the truth" Nicholson impression.
- Of those he hasn't crossed paths with yet, Cruise named Robert De Niro and Al Pacino off the top of his head as a couple of actors he'd like to work with.
- Foxx dug Cruise in Born on the Fourth of July, while Steven Spielberg's a Magnolia fan.
- Each member of the studio audience took home 25 of Cruise's films on DVD, a box set you can't get anywhere. Whether you like the dude or not, that's just cool.
Possible book chapters for Hannah Montana memoirs
As our own Jonathan Toomey has reported, Miley Cyrus, age 15, has signed a book deal with The Disney Book Group.
The book is said to be focused on Cyrus’s relationship with her mother, and to emphasize how important Cyrus’s family is to her. This is surely gripping material that can fill an entire book. Why, with the exception of some books by a little-known author named Laura Ingalls Wilder, I don’t think we have any books about teenage girls and how important their families are to them.
Some have questioned what a 15-year-old girl could possibly fill a memoir with at such a tender age. Let’s take a look at some possible book chapters:
Chapter One: Potty Training
Chapter Two: Elektra Complex
Chapter Three: Don’t Other Girls Get Their Own TV Show?
Chapter Four: Learning to Live with a $10,000/Week Allowance
Chapter Five: Getting My Period.. On Set!
Chapter Six: My First Starbucks Mochachino and Other Milestones
Chapter Seven: My Journey From Blond to Brunette
Chapter Eight: Touring can be Tiring
Chapter Nine: How I Missed out on the Suckiness of Junior High by Being Tutored
Chapter Ten: Learning to Shop for Awards Show Dresses!
The sequel could feature Cyrus’s first kiss and cover How I Missed Out on High School by Touring and Being Famous as well as Learning to Drive from my Limo Driver.