ARE WE GONNA GET SNOW THIS WINTER?

1. . . . They say the Farmers Almanac says yes and it did last year and we all know how much that came true.
2. Celine Dion looked better with longer, darker hair. The bleach job and short cut she sports just don't work. Now she's got that washed out look.
3. Whoopi Goldberg says, "I'm a big loser" as a pitch woman for Slim-Fast which now features not only the standard shake drinks which have that odd soy flavor but soup, pasta, meal bars and ice cream which probably also have that odd soy flavor. Whoopi's ballooned up. She needs to be deflated.
4. NBC's Campbell Brown still seems to have a bit of a stiff neck from a recent injury. You notice it when she looks left at her weekend Today co-host Lester Holt. So why don't they put her on the right of the screen so she can look in that direction? It wouldn't be so noticeable.
5. NEW LOOK. The Brawny paper towel man is now updated. Gone is the blond, mustachioed young lumberjacky-looking dude who some have said looks like a Village Person. The new man has dark short hair and sports an orange plaid shirt with sleeves rolled up and T-shirt underneath with the woods behind him. More of a now look, the people at Georgia-Pacific think.
6. . . . He's a drawn symbol, like Mr. Clean. I liked it better when Clean was a real person with the shaved head, ring in the ear and looking like a genie or something. He'd be real in now, especially with the shaved head. Everybody's got that now.
7. SHADES OF MICHAEL JACKSON? Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, said he wanted his kids to be "croc savvy." This, after dangling some chicken for the croc to snatch out of one hand and clutching his baby son in the other and then walking the little tyke away from the reptile. Child endangerment, people say. Dumb move, I say.
8. Michael Jackson's Number Ones special on CBS Friday night was well put together. Nothing new though. Just another clips show made up of his videos we've all seen a million times interspersed with tributes from fellow artists. How many tribute shows does he need? Every show he does is like that, for crissakes.
9. . . . A friend of mine did say that the special really pointed out how talented he was with his music, video-making and dancing.
10. . . . And you did hear his new record, One More Chance, which is a shuffley ballad that sounded pretty good. Generic Jackson video was laid to that because the production of it was interrupted when he was arrested in Las Vegas a couple weeks ago.
11. If you're "looking for a hot spot tonight, turn on D. McGinty tonight." So says the promo for Derek McGinty and his USA Tonight show on WUSA/Channel 9. I guess they like to call him D over there.
12. CROTCH GRABBING EXPLAINED. Tap dancer/singer Savion Glover said on that Michael Jackson TV special that when Jackson grabbed himself down there it was as if to say, "Take that!" And Beyonce mentioned that the grabbing started in his Bad video. And he's kept it up.
13. Is the thing that keeps the Old Faithful geyser gushing out in Yellowstone National Park really Metamucil? The commercial shows a park ranger sneakily putting it down the hole in the ground to make it regular
14. LATEST GET. So now Pete Rose is finally gonna talk. Why, we wonder? The answer is obvious: a book is coming out - an autobiography (My Prison Without Bars) in which he admits he bet on baseball while managing the Cincinnati Reds. ABC's Charles Gibson interviews him on Primetime this Thursday at 10.
15. The M&M black and white campaign seems pretty clever. The Wizard of Oz commercial is a really good idea and is well done. Just hope they don't play it to death.
16. Mr. High Falutin thinks Rod Stewart needs to stop gesticulating so much when he's singing the standards. "Just stand still and sing the song," he says. "You can sway a bit but don't prance all around the stage trying to do the old soft-shoe. It's not like you're singing Maggie May."
17. Entertainment Tonight's Mary Hart has her "trunks packed" and will be reporting aboard the new Queen Mary II this week, a promo says. They're doing it up big in what looks like a shameless infomercial for the cruise line.
18. Actor Dean Cain is a deadringer for Scott Peterson. He plays him in the upcoming USA Network's The Perfect Husband: The Laci Peterson Story, on Feb. 13. Will it taint the jury pool? An executive VP of the network told TV Guide, "Our little movie is a grain of sand on the beach compared to the nonstop coverage of CNN and MSNBC." So there.
19. "A VIDEO IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS." That's an updated variation of the old saying, spoken by criminal attorney Kimberley Guilfoyle Newsom when commenting about Michael Jackson waving to fans after his release from jail and then later complaining that he had dislocated shoulders. And she likened the Michael Jackson case to a CSI investigation.
20. It looked like Saddam Hussein maybe dyed the hair on his head black but didn't bother to do it to the beard which was full of gray. Guess he didn't have the facilities down in the rat hole for that.
21. MONA LISA SMILE. Lightweight movie and a little ridiculous. Julia Roberts plays Katherine Watson, a bohemian-type teacher who comes from California to teach at stately, conservative Wellesley College for young women. It's 1953 and she wants to change the students and give them things to think about other than marriage but that mission meets with mixed results from the gals and the administration. Good performances, though, by Maggie Gyllenhaal, Julia Stiles and Kirsten Dunst. That's about all I have to say.
22. MAKE-A ME SICK-A. TV Guide's Michael Davis wrote this about Wheel of Fortune's Vanna White: "She is the contessa of consonants, the voluptuous vendor of vowels, the touch- screen temptress who provides a sense of alphabetical order to the universe." Good God. And he went on to gush some more.
23. ASHCROFT RECUSED HIMSELF. Do they mean he refused himself? And why would he do that? Doesn't he like himself?
24. A friend of mine can't wait not to see Cold Mountain. He's no Nicole Kidman fan. Thinks she's only where she is because she was married to Tom Cruise. And as for Oscar-worthy? He says Katharine Hepburn would roll over in her grave if she heard that.
25. . . . Me, I'm in love with Nicole.
26. Michael Jackson seemed to be whistling Good King Wenceslaus in the cop car when he was arrested. It was around Christmastime.
27. MUSICAL CHAIRS. Will Deborah Norville be a hit over at MSNBC when her new weeknight 9:00 show debuts in January? That timeslot was occupied by The (Dan) Abrams Report but he's being shifted to 6:00 where Buchanan & Press was. That show's done now and Jesse Ventura was to occupy that but he's out now. Fickle business.
28. Are actors Sofia Milos and David Caruso gonna get together on CSI: Miami? There's obvious attraction there but he's not giving in to temptation because she was married to his brother who was murdered. The producers oughta let it happen. Make Horatio let his guard down and prove that he's human and not a constantly driven automaton.
29. Is Chris Wallace's Power Player of the Week (Fox News Sunday) the same as Peter Jennings's Person of the Week (World New Tonight)?
30. The kid who plays Peter Pan in the new movie (Jeremy Sumpter) said he grew eight inches during the filming and the producers had to keep adjusting the stage settings for him, like the window he jumps out of.
31. Somebody wrote that Chris Matthews is a little lower-key and more subdued on his Sunday show as opposed to the way he is on Hardball. Can't convince me.
32. NOTICED ON NEW YEAR'S. Girls/women wearing bright-colored Happy New Year tiaras. Looked nice.
33. Did you get the Ove Glove (Hot Surface Protector) for Christmas? It'll save your fingers.
34. Face the Nation has now been on the air for 50 years. Host Bob Schieffer said Sunday that the CBS program "has been more than a television show, it's been a window on history." They showed an old kinescope of the first program (Nov. 7, 1954) and the guest was Joseph McCarthy, the infamous senator who accused many of being Communist back in the 50s (the Red Scare).
35. The hole in the ground up on Mars was named Sleepy Hollow by the NASA folks. Was Rip Van Winkle up there snoozing?
36. John Kerry looks good with a fresh haircut.
37. Who's that Men's Warehouse guy talking to in those commercials? He always looks to the side and not to the camera. "I guarantee it."
38. It sounds like Casey Kasem in those St. Joseph Aspirin commercials for heart health. Is it? Also, I hear American Idol host Ryan Seacrest is taking over Casey's American Top 40 show. That guy's into everything. He's got a syndicated late afternoon talk show coming up too.
39. Sometimes Donald Trump's combover reminds me of Michael Landon's hair when he starrred in I Was a Teenage Werewolf.
40. UH . . . Kookie, Kookie, (Lend Me Your Comb) - Connie Stevens and Ed (Kookie) Byrnes on Warner Records. 1959.

rocci@roccifisch.com

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