OK, so suppose that you are Anderson Cooper. CNN spent millions promoting you, you are the darling of the Manhattan Mafia, and yet because CNN beams to people outside of the Upper East Side and the West Village, your nationwide ratings stink.
So what do you do? If you're La Anderson, you double down. You say to yourself, "Most likely, I am not going to get renewed when my contract expires, so why don't I just live it up in the meantime? As the song says, 'I am what I am.'" That seems to be the logic behind the announcement that CNN's New Year's Eve telecast will feature Cooper plus his good friends Lance Bass and Kathy Griffin.
Bass, of course, is the former boy-bander who recently "outed" himself as a gay man. And for her part, Griffin is as well known for her in-your-face advocacy of gay rights; even her Wikipedia entry lists her as "an American actress, stand-up comedian, media personality, and LGBT rights advocate." "LGBT," of course, stands for Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transexual. Moreover, Griffin routinely trashes the Catholic Church, in particular, as part of her act.
Such "comedy" no doubt endears Griffin to Cooper and Bass, and to various producer-types in New York City, but they are hardly appealing to Middle America.
All of which led the snarks at New York Magazine to observe in their Daily Intel column:
Showing that (thank God) they haven't learned anything since last year, CNN has decided to bring back Kathy Griffin to co-host their New Year's Eve broadcast from Times Square with Anderson Cooper. How well we remember the last few moments of 2008, during which we heard Griffin scream, on live television, to a heckler: "You know what? I don't go to your job and knock the dicks out of your mouth!" Anderson, of course, mostly just giggled helplessly next to her for the evening, which we also love. But this year, CNN has also decided to bring on Lance Bass to anchor the telecast from Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas. That's right: Lance Bass, Anderson Cooper, and Kathy Griffin, all together in one big happy New Year's extravaganza. It's almost ... well ... really? ... it's just ... there's too ... sigh.
Yes, a La Cage Aux Anderson. It's just too... fabulous for words. Or for viewers.
Clearly Cooper doesn't care, and Jon Klein doesn't seem to mind, either--he seems quite happy to be in fourth place. But where are the Time-Warner shareholders? Surely they care more about green than they do about pink.
