This post really doesn’t require an introduction after THAT title, but I’ll include one anyway, to answer your question(s) (which I’m already receiving via Facebook* and Twitter), preemptively.
Q: Why didn’t you tell us this craziness was going to be on?? Now it’s too late to record it!
A: I didn’t tell you this fustercluck would be airing because I didn’t know anything about it. I have long considered LIVE With Regis and Kelly to be a rather annoying TV program which rarely features anything I’m interested in— and I love the Today Show, so I’m not exactly difficult to please. Since I never watch the show…I had no way to know.
I’m at home, at my Mom’s house, and while I was getting ready to go out, I thought I’d watch the “third hour” of Today; in DC, we get all four hours of the show, so I assumed that it might be on here, as well. When I turned on the television, I heard unfamiliar theme music and mentions of Regis…and just when I was about to turn the set off, I heard, “Anil Kapoor!” being announced. “Oh. Because of Slumdog,” I thought.
Now I had a choice to make. I could do the responsible thing and finish my breakfast so that I would not be late for my full slate of appointments in the city today…or I could frantically pause the show, twitter a rhetorical question about whether I should blog it for SM and make coffee while pondering all of the above. When I returned to my iBook, I had my answer, as delivered by the pleas of several of you to not let this opportunity go by unblogged. Well, so much for making my appointments!
“Our next guest is one of the most successful and popular actors in Indian film history and has been blowing away audiences with his role as a game show host— a role that is near and dear to me— it’s in the hot movie ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ which is nominated now for ten Oscars…now please welcome— Aneel Kapore!”
M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” starts playing and the man walks out. I curse the remote for not being as useful as Comcast’s (never, ever did I think I’d type the words “useful as Comcast” btw) is, back home. I miss the “30 seconds back” button something fierce. I’m already having second thoughts about this. ;)
“Kapore” strides out in a suit and light-colored tie like he’s got tickets to the gun show…and by that I mean that he’s doing the “I am victorious!”-arm-thing. He immediately growls something like, “Hey!” and proceeds to grope Regis via a bear hug which lifts Reeg off the ground.
Let me type that again: Anil Kapoor has just bear-hugged Regis, whose feet are dangling in the air. Wait! It gets better! Kapoor is now spinning him around, as his co-host, Kelly Ripa, cackles gleefully and claps like a seal. Regis, who is shaken, then grabs Kelly, growls at her and spins HER around, and by doing so imitates Kapoor while reclaiming some of his threatened manhood. Or something. Kapoor is delighted at what he done started. Regis turns back to shake Kapoor’s hand and Kelly steps up to air-kiss him on both cheeks. They settle in to the most awkward-looking chairs/stools on daytime television.
“OH BOY!”, Regis exclaims. Kelly points out that Regis is going to “suffer tomorrow, just so you know” for his foolish act of hugging and spinning-bravado. As if wiry little Kelly weighs more than a buck-o-five. Anil can’t stop smiling. I wish he would shave; I hate the meesha** AND stubble look. Anil is now waving wildly at the audience.
“THIS GUY ALWAYS wanted to be an actor, his father was a producer in, in India’s movies, and so he was born in to the whole situation. And as a little boy, you got your first job, right?
Kapoor: ABSOLUTELY! I think I was about 12 years old, I ran away from my house to audition for my first film…(unintelligible).
Okay, I can’t transcribe more of this, not with this fakakta remote. You’re just going to have to live with paraphrasing, kids.
Anil tells a funny story about being 12 and how he was made up for his role, and how he refused to wash the makeup off of his face for two days. He was dirty for a purpose. As he expected, his friends at an “assembly” asked why his cheeks were a little red. “You know…I am acting in a film,” he replied in a hilariously pretentious way. “So everybody would know that I was acting in a film!”
Reeg asks if Kapoor was the host of India’s “Who wants to be a Millionaire?”, and when he answers negatively, they talk about Amitabh for a moment without mentioning his name. Kapoor relates that the show was so popular in India, that it was like “curfew” whenever it aired.
Regis then asks “Now was he upset that you got the role in Slumdog Millionaire?” Kelly says, “Mmmm!” like she finds this question oddly delicious. Kapoor brilliantly retorts, “Why don’t you ask HIM?” Regis is visibly shaken for the second time in five minutes but recovers quickly with a, “Well, I think he was! I think he was!” The audience applauds.
Kapoor then discusses how when Danny Boyle kept attempting to contact him for the movie, he blew off the phone calls since he “didn’t know who he was”. Only when Kapoor’s son realized what was going on did the situation change. Apparently, Kapoor Jr. dragged his father in to his bedroom and pointed at a poster which had been hanging there for years;”See that? Trainspotting? THAT’S Danny Boyle!! You just call him up right now! You call him right now!!” I’m thinking that AK owes Jr. a BMW for that crucial assist.
Regis compliments AK about Slumdog, “you played it so beautifully”. Anil returns the favor by smarmily telling Reeg that Reeg reminds him of someone…ah, yes. Dean Martin. Regis is concomitantly flabbergasted and as giddy as Kelly, who immediately asks, “Aneeel, who told you to say that to him!” AK then says “Ve Indians never lie!”
They cut to a clip from the movie. Anil claps for himself enthusiastically, but at least he doesn’t clap like a seal. Kelly tells AK that Reeg saw the movie before she did and later told her that it was the best movie he had EVER seen. Yowza. They discuss how he’s having the time of his life on awards shows and how he’s the toast of hollywood; when asked where he had dinner this weekend, AK exults, “Dustin Hoffman’s house!! What a host! WHAT! A! HOST!”
Kelly says “it’s so much fun just to watch you at the award shows, because your enthusiasm has taken us all on a journey, I mean it’s really been great to watch.” Anil expands on how happy he is but also emphasizes that the movie’s awards should go to the children. Cut to commercial break.
When they return, they’re on the Millionaire set (?!) and Anil is in the host’s seat. AK states that the “computer is not working”, which means he’ll have to just read from the cue card? Wtf? To do that, he needs his glasses. Except he can’t find them. He is ransacking his suit, pocket after pocket, exclaiming, “Where are the GLASSES!” and hamming it up to buy time for spectacle-searching.
He asks a question about Kelly’s soap opera past and I yawn. The appropriate music starts blaring and the graphic with multiple choice answers appears on screen. Regis gets the answer right and they’re both clearly having a great time trying to over-act and out-shout each other.
AK then says the Hindi phrase which starts with “Computer-ji lock something something”. Nice. The next question deals with when Regis’ anniversary is and the audience loves it. The third question is about college football and even I know the answer, because somehow, Regis Philbin’s sporting loyalties are floating through the atmosphere.
Perhaps because Anil says “Notre Dame” in a less-than-familiar way while asking the question, Regis over-enunciates the school’s name when choosing his final answer. At some point, Kelly joins Regis. Oddly, the show doesn’t end— it just goes in to even more commercials and then…wtf? The third hour of the Today show appears. Wow. We have come full circle, mutineers. I have found what I was looking for and you have been able to experience the cringe-inducing spectacle of Anil Kapoor and Regis Philbin, out-hamming each other. I feel dazed, and might require painkillers.
I love bloggin’, and all my friends they will agree
that when it comes to pimpin’ hoes bloggin’ shows…it ain’t easy (with apologies to all of you AND Big Daddy Kane)
::
*If you do send me a friend request, please tell me how we know each other, i.e. “I read SM and hate your posts but would like to be friends with you for some bizarre reason anyway.” I don’t approve reqs if I have no clue who someone is— hope that clears things up. :)
**Ask a Mallu. :p
