BY DC CUEVA
In many past posts here, we've brought up a staple of our television landscape - and one that your mom loves to spend time with while most of you are at work or in school: daytime TV. A person who made a cameo in Cory & Cheyenne's debut last night on Teen Mom OG and is in action tonight did a game show on GSN with Jerry Springer, two fellow AYTO alumni being spotted in the audience on Dr. Phil, three alumni competing on Let's Make A Deal and The Price Is Right, and a Real World'er providing gossip on Wendy Williams. And then, there's this...
Ellen has also hosted all three major entertainment awards shows: the Grammys, Emmys and the Oscars, and it's with the ladder that she has perhaps her most iconic moment. At the 2014 Academy Awards, she paid homage to record-setting actress Meryl Streep by asking fellow celebs to join her and Meryl to take what's perhaps the most notable selfie of all. The result: 1.8 million retweets within an hour, more than 2 million by night's end, and 3.4 million overall… it was so popular that Twitter was shut down temporarily on Hollywood's biggest night. So many others have since done their best to emulate that iconic photo, including the Are You The One? Season 1 cast and Derrick H.
And there's her talk show, which has had a more deeper shelf life in the daytime than any of her other TV efforts at night. Those who tune in each day are offered an uplifting, one-hour escape from what's going in our world for Ellen's unique mix of comedy, celebrity and musical guests and human interest stories. Just last week, a viral video came to her attention, and she decided to play a prank on her production staff by having a snake fall down from the air conditioning vents in their office and scaring her fellow employees.
The audience is just as part of the everyday fun of Ellen as the star herself… take the joy they have when they are part of her annual Twelve Days of Giveaways, the show's equivalent of Oprah's Favorite Things special over the Christmas holidays. And it's with being part of getting to be in the audience -- a highly coveted but elusive part for many fans -- that makes the show as vibrant as any you'll find on TV today. And two of those who know what it's like to sit in the Ellen audience - and even get down on the dance floor - are our subjects.
When I first watched a modern season of The Challenge six years ago on, until Champs vs. Stars II, the last season to not have Johnny Bananas on its cast, Battle of the Seasons II. Just as it was on Vendettas, the season's biggest competitive moment was a closely-fought physical elimination: Zach having perhaps his biggest moment as a Challenge competitor when, after five rounds in the Turkish night, he manhandled a football punter turned fitness guru, C.J. Koegel. He was that dreamy stud who appeared on Real World Cancun nine years ago, was eliminated by Wes on his first Challenge and returned the favor a few years later on that rookie-filled season.But aside from translating those two Challenge seasons into becoming that fitness nut and who also looks forward to the magic of the Christmas holidays, C.J. is a superfan of Ellen - and makes it a point to take a one hour's break in the afternoon from helping people get fit to getting to watch her show. No wonder why he felt like a kid on Christmas morning when he was given the opportunity to fly out to Los Angeles and attend a taping of her show on the Warner Bros. lot. He did just that last week when he got to live out that dream. And to make it even more memorable: he joined the show's resident DJ, Twitch, as the dancer of the day during after Ellen's opening monologue.
The host loved her so much that she was invited back to once again dance on her show, but this time in a different setting. Since so many of us have a love affair with our phones - me included, we sometimes forget to take a break from staring down at our mobile toys to rest our eyes and to enjoy the world around us. Ellen and friend Andy Zenor initiated a dance dare challenge where dancers chosen from the social verse would dress up as gnomes and surprise bystanders who dance up to them to ask them to give their eyes a break and look at what's around them. Kayla sent a video of Ellen, which gave her a chance to dance her way into daytime as a female gnome.
And a side note: for someone who also loves watching The Bachelor like the rest of Ellen's staffers who do recaps of the franchise - in perhaps a harbinger of what would come for her, just before her national TV debut Kayla got to meet and take a selfie with Jasmine Goode from The Bachelor while at a viewing party for the ladder's season on the controversial Season 4 of Bachelor in Paradise. Little did both know that they would join the same MTV family in the same year: Jasmine on Ex On The Beach, and Kayla months later on AYTO.
IM ON @TheEllenShow's INSTAGRAM STORY 😭😂 pic.twitter.com/uc9CZSHePN— Kayla Umagat (@KayCamUmagat) September 12, 2017
All of us have those fantasies of wanting to go onto a talk show or game show we watch every day or every week... all it takes is having to go onto the website for that show, apply for tickets and then head out to L.A., to New York or sometimes elsewhere and you will be the talk of your family and friends for a long time if a camera focuses on you reacting just like all of us in our living rooms. For CJ and Kayla, they realized that dream of being on The Ellen Degeneres Show, and then something more: by dancing and making everyone laugh and applaud. There's nothing better in daytime.
- I AM DC
#DCBLOG
UPDATE: 4/28/19 to include additional Instagram media
No comments:
Post a Comment
Got something on your mind? Let us know! But please be mindful and do not post spam or negative comments (due to that, all comments are subject to blogger approval... and we reserve the right to disable these sections if things get way out of hand).