New Year’s Eve Shows Recap
January 1, 2006 
[Ed.– This was originally written for TV Bits, but it was so good, I had to share.]
Happy New Year from TV Bits! Which countdown special did you catch last night while drinking yourself into the new year?
We caught them all and here’s what we thought:
ABC: Dick Clark returned, which was great, but who could understand what he was saying? Granted, he’s has to re-teach himself to walk and speak since his stroke in 2004, but it’s very hard to view last night’s co-hosting duties with Ryan Seacreast as a triumphant return. Anyone notice Clark mess up the final countdown? And let’s try not to even mention the pre-taped, boring Hollywood musical performances hosted by Hilary Duff. One last question: who dressed Mariah Carey for her outdoor performances?
FOX: Regis Philbin tried to exact revenge on ABC by hosting his own show on FOX this year. Too bad it was as monotonous as watching an episode of Millionaire. Regis couldn’t even sing the classic song “New York, New York” properly… and it was probably his own idea! Funny how the show could only manage to get celebrities to phone-in to the show, instead of actually appearing on it. And then we had to spend 10 minutes listening to Donald Trump talk about how great his finale of The Apprentice was…
CNN: If you were a drunk news junkie and/or Anderson Cooper junkie, then you were in heaven watching this news-oriented countdown. The special even featured live musical performances across the country, but only exactly half of each performance, before cutting back live to Times Square. We wanted to see the whole Barenaked Ladies performance! It was nice to see all the NYE celebrations around the world, though.
MTV: We had trouble naming anyone appearing on MTV’s countdown special, except for obligatory guest Diddy and free-styling rapper Common. Remember when Carson Daly used to host the show and they had really cool musical acts? This year’s show didn’t come close.
NBC: Carson Daly’s second attempt at hosting this show was even less-publicized than the first. We forgot it was on at first and then when we tuned in, all we saw was Daly reciting facts about the first NYE celebration in New York City and about how the ball was the same one from 2000. There were some musical performances and celebrity guests, but we can’t even remember any of them. The Rockefeller Center Tree lighting ceremony was way better than this special… plus it featured Al Roker.
ESPN: After watching the exciting (and long-running) Giants-Raiders game, ESPN’s special had to be partially pre-empted and then only featured highlight clips from 2005 and some commentary. It was nice to see ESPN getting into the countdown spirit, but it wasn’t even as exciting as Telemundo’s Spanish-language special.
Enjoy 2006, folks!
