The summer of 2000 in entertainment was one of the most pathetic four months this world has ever seen. We listened to the same music that we did this time last summer, we watched the same television shows, and frankly, no movie was really that appealing (or good, for that matter). Despite slight glimpses of inspiration, a desperate industry exhausted their bag of tricks and set a new standard for what could be considered "entertainment." I think the awards speak for themselves:
Most Annoying Black Guy On A Reality Show Set In New Orleans:
David from The Real World.
Most Annoying Black Guy On A Reality Show Set In Studio City:
William "Mega" from Big Brother.
Most Annoying Black Guy On A Reality Show Set In A Recreational Vehicle:
Laterrian from Road Rules.
Most Annoying Black Guy On A Reality Show Set On An Island:
Gervase from Survivor.
Most Annoying Black Guys In Reality:
Shawn and Marlon Wayans. Did you see them host the MTV Video Music Awards? Dear God. I saw them on The Daily Show and Jon Stewart asked them, "Between the two of you, who gets more ass?" Their answer? "President." Retards.
Runners Up:
The Original Kings Of Comedy. These motherfucking motherfuckers need to motherfucking hone their motherfucking stand up routines just a little motherfucking more.
America's Fastest Growing Dance Sensation:
The arcade game Dance Dance Revolution.
Best Video Featuring Girls In A Dirty Winnebago That Wasn't Pornographic:
Hanson's music video for "If Only." If only we could see some Zac on Taylor action.
15 Minute Man Of The Hour:
Kid Rock. His "American Bad Ass," a recycled version of Metallica's "Sad But True," and The History Of Rock didn't last long on the charts. Guess he's not such a bad ass after all.
Best Case That A Summer Movie Needs More Than Just Good Visual Effects To Be Entertaining:
Dinosaur. This movie is like a blonde – pretty to look at but painful to listen to.
Best Case That A Summer Movie Needs Good Visual Effects To Be Entertaining:
X-Men. The deadly magnetic field didn't look so deadly to me.
Best Case That A Summer Movie Doesn't Need Jack Shit To Be Entertaining:
Godzilla 2000. The scene where Godzilla fights a flying rock is absolutely hysterical.
Where Are They Now? Poster Boys:
LFO. These guys actually released "Summer Girls 2000" in a desperate attempt to cling to the past.
The Old Saturday Night Live Nostalgia Award:
The MTV Movie Awards. If you want real sketch comedy, look no further than to Ben Stiller playing Tom Cruise's stunt double "Tom Crooze," South Park vs. Scientology, and a Matrix spoof with present-day SNL's own Jimmy Fallon as Neo.
Most Garish Image Aside From Michelle Pfeiffer Rubbing Her Crotch In What Lies Beneath:
Any shot from Madonna's music video for "Music."
Best Performance By A Black Guy Playing A Hispanic Guy:
Jeffrey Wright as Peoples Hernandez in Shaft.
Best Performance By A Hispanic Guy Trying Not To Play A Black Guy:
Enrique Iglesias proving that he's neither Milli nor Vanilli on The Howard Stern Show.
Best Performance By A Black Guy Playing A White Guy:
Tiger Woods. Swish.
Most Likely To Succeed:
The Return To Love tour With Diana Ross And "The Supremes."
Biggest Setback For Environmentalism:
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire
Greatest White Hype:
The Experience Music Project. What if you built a museum and nobody cared?
Biggest Mental Disappointment By A Comedian Playing More Than One Character:
Jim Carrey in Me, Myself And Irene.
Biggest Physical Disappointment By A Comedian Playing More Than One Character:
Eddie Murphy in Nutty Professor II: The Klumps.
Biggest Spiritual Disappointment By A Comedian Playing More Than One Character:
Britney Spears in the music video for "Lucky."
Best Band To Be Into Even Though Their Album Really Isn't That Good:
Papa Roach.
Most Unexpected Comeback:
Bon Jovi. I have to admit that I think "It's My Life" is infectiously catchy.
Most Subtle:
The Perfect Storm. Not even George Clooney deserves dialogue like, "This is the moment of truth," and, "It would be a disaster of epic proportions. It would be the perfect storm."
Most Delicious:
Rodents. Tom Green gives mouth to mouse in Road Trip. A laboratory rat gets devoured by an invisible mammal in Hollow Man. The Survivor Pagong tribe dines on rats a la carte. Jack In The Box…well, that's another story.
Most Creative Use Of The Male Anatomy:
Vince Vaughn's intestine as a musical instrument in The Cell.
Most "Creative" Use Of The Male Anatomy:
What do a Polaroid photograph, a transsexual counselor, and a glory hole have in common? Scary Movie.
Most Created Use Of The Male Anatomy:
The Dirk Digglish dildo in Me, Myself And Irene.
Weirdest Head Trip:
Chuck And Buck. Mike White's sick and twisted stalker comedy about a gawky idiot-savant who spends his life clinging to a friendship he had when he was 11 is severely fucked up and oddly entertaining at the same time.
Breakthrough Performance:
Big Mouth Billy Bass. Who can resist a talking, singing fish?
Most Ironic Song When Put In The Context Of The Napster Controversy:
"I Disappear" by Metallica.
Most Iconic Songs When Put In The Context Of The Napster Controversy:
"Take A Look Around (Theme From M:I-2)" by Limp Bizkit and "Totalimmortal" by The Offspring.
Best Book That Had Nothing To Do With Cheese Or Kids Of The Occult:
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris. This collection of essays on living in France (and other things) is hilarious, and I don't use that adjective very often.
Dead Man Walking:
Craig Kilborn. On top of being an unfunny egomaniac with a show that nobody watches, our friend Mr. Kilborn got into big trouble over an "In The News" segment where the phrase "Snipers Wanted" appeared under a photograph of George W. Bush.
Shameless Promotional Stunt:
The post-mortem return of Beanie Babies at McDonald's.
More Shameless Promotional Stunt:
The Britney Spears and *NSYNC album and video at McDonald's.
Even More Shameless Promotional Stunt:
The Backstreet Boys albums and video at Burger King.
Still More Shameless Promotional Stunt:
The Christina Aguilera albums at Sears (Sears!).
Most Shameless Promotional Stunt:
The Republican National Convention in Philadelphia.
Shortest Lifespan:
"Graduation" – Vitamin C.
Most Likely To Confuse His Audience:
Dennis Miller. He's the Tigris and Euphrates of awkward sportscasting.
Happiest Place On Earth:
The Up In Smoke tour. Forget Dave Matthews. Forget Ozzfest. This summer, the road belonged to Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Eminem, and the rest of this hip-hop menagerie.
Special Achievement In Being A Good Song That, When Overplayed, Becomes Really Fucking Annoying:
"Absolutely (Story Of A Girl)" – Nine Days
"Bent" – matchbox twenty
"Desert Rose" – Sting
"The Real Slim Shady" – Eminem.
Special Achievement In Being An Annoying Song That, When Overplayed, Is Still Really Fucking Annoying:
"Everything You Want" – Vertical Horizon
"I Wanna Be With You" – Mandy Moore
"I Wanna Know" – Joe
"Kryptonite" – 3 Doors Down
"(Rock) Superstar" – Cypress Hill.
Best Rapper Who Isn't White And/Or Doesn't Have Severe Anger Management Problems:
Nelly. Anybody who can use the phrase "shimmy shimmy cocoa puff" in a chorus merits praise.
Most Likely To Restore Your Faith In Humanity:
Kathie Lee Gifford's voluntary exit from Live With Regis And Kathie Lee.
Lamest Movie To Somehow Gross Over 100 Million Dollars At The Box Office:
Big Momma's House.
Television Event Of The Season:
The Daily Show's coverage of the political conventions. Jon Stewart and company are woefully underrated.
Television Rerun Event Of The Season:
The West Wing Playing after Survivor, the Aaron Sorkin drama was peachy-keen appointment television. The only thing better was the most excellent West Wing week.
Separated At Birth Award:
Donald Sutherland's ass in Space Cowboys and the boy from Disney's The Kid.
Feel Good Hit Of The Summer:
Incubus. With the TRL favorite "Stellar," a popular acoustic version of "Pardon Me," and "Still Not A Player," a posthumous duet with Big Pun, the SoCal-based band beats out P.O.D. for the title of Feel Good Hit Of The Summer.
Best Fight
WWF Summerslam. It's fake, it's scripted, and it's a hell of a lot more entertaining than, say, The Replacements.
Best Fights:
Gladiator. Duh.
Cock Fight:
Creed vs. Limp Bizkit. Fred Durst calls Scott Stapp an egomaniac. Creed gives Durst a pamphlet on anger management. Durst calls Stapp an egomaniac again. Stapp challenges Durst to a boxing match. It was a rock and roll feud between two cocky lead singers without the balls to act on their words.
Trite Fight:
The parental-advisory-recommended melee at The Source Hip-Hop Music Awards.
Worst Fights:
The Patriot. There's only so much you can do with cannonballs and muskets before it gets old.
Best Reason For Child Labor Laws:
Aaron Carter and Lil' Bow Wow. Prepubescent Carter drops mad rhymes about throwing an out of control party when his parents are gone while the slightly-older Wow boasts about being a bona fide rap star even though he's still wearing jewelry with Mickey Mouse on it. Where's Kathie Lee when you need her?
Freakiest Occurrence:
The rise of 2ge+her. Contrived as a parody of boy bands, Chad, Doug, Jerry, Mickey, and QT now have their own moderately-amusing sitcom, a moderately-amusing music video on TRL, and a moderately-amusing sophomore album in stores everywhere. Who'd a thunk it?
Miss Congeniality:
Susan from Survivor. The snake ate the rat all right, but what it really wanted to eat was tapioca.
Best Quotes:
"Pushy Americans. Always showing up late for every war. Overpaid, oversexed, and over here." – Fowler in Chicken Run.
"These are the years that you're supposed to go fucking wild, blame it all on your parents or society, not have to suffer consequences. Have unprotected sex. Go do drugs. Smoke cigarettes. Drink alcohol. Watch porno. Rent porno movies. Get porno magazines. Porno porno porno. Do whatever the hell you want. Go pick fights. Stay out all night. Go look at the stars. Hang out with friends. Go do what you want. Be reckless. Go to concerts. All that stuff. These are your teen years. And what are you sitting at home having to do? Homework." – Morgan Moss on the short-lived American High.
Worst Quote:
"I want stock options." – Dougray Scott in Mission: Impossible 2. I know somebody who walked out of the theater after hearing that.
Scariest Indication Of Americans Being A Bunch Of Followers:
The scooter – the evil son of SUVs.
Most Egregious Example Of Hypocrisy:
The fact that people decry Eminem's alleged homophobic slurs when they laud Rudy and Sean's (Survivor) blatant use of derogative terms like "queer" and "fat naked fag."
Guiltiest Pleasure:
VH1. MTV's sister station lives up to its "Music First" slogan with an addictive array of programs, movies, and specials that satirize and celebrate at once the art of music.
Most Likely To Succeed At Sucking Ass:
The Adventures Of Rocky And Bullwinkle
The Art Of War
Autumn In New York
Battlefield: Earth
Big Momma's House
Bless The Child
Boys And Girls
Bring It On
The Cell
Center Stage
Coyote Ugly
The Crew
Dinosaur
Gone In 60 Seconds
Hollow Man
The In Crowd
Loser
Me, Myself And Irene
Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps
Pokémon: The Movie 2000
Thomas And The Magic Railroad
Titan A.E.
Richard from Survivor (oops! wrong verb)
Clerks
Mandy
M.Y.O.B.
Mysterious Ways
The Opposite Sex
Sammy
Sex And The City
Sisqo's Shakedown
The X Games
Young Americans
"Fire" – Busta Rhymes
"Stupify" – Disturbed
"With Arms Wide Open" – Creed
Ultimate Survivor:
American public. Let's hope that fall is a bit more entertaining.