Tippie Toe.

Remember that whole Ted Danson/Whoopi Goldberg conflagration? Like, what was that? They got together whilst filming edgy, topical comedy "Made in America" during which Whoops visits Ye Olde Sperm Bank and gets implanted with Sam Malone's fluids. Next thing you know, they're dating in real life and he's donning blackface at the Friar's Club in a misguided attempt to be his generation's Al Jolson (not to be confused with this guy).

Evidently, movie sets lead to strange bedfellows: Billy Bob and Angelina, anyone? Those were the days: those two sittin' around, swappin' blood vials and eatin' only orange foods. Then there was Brad Pitt and Juliette Lewis. Um... what? Slightly less weird was the Uma Thurman/Gary "Sid Vicious" Oldman connection. Homegirls were hitched when Uma was only 20 years old and Gary had not yet made cinematic history with his pivotal role in the cinematic classic, Tiptoes.

Are you aware of this film? If not, you should familiarize yourself with it, stat. It features Matthew McConaughey and Gary Oldman as twins. Not only are they visibly like 20 years apart in age, but Gary makes a brave choice here and plays a midget. Matt's midget twin brother. Walking around on his knees, not unlike Dorf. It's all quite extraordinary. Thrown in for good measure is a cornrowed Patsy Arquette, Kate Beckinsale and real-life midget Peter Dinklage. He also makes a brave choice by playing a Frenchman with what might be the worst fake French accent since that guy who called Sarah Palin pretending to be the King of France. I hope I'm not giving anything away, here. It's really a must-see.

Border Follies.

Here's a fact: when you flee Canada for the U.S. via plane, they make you go through U.S. customs in Canada.

In Toronto, for instance, you go into the airport, expecting to proceed through the metal detectors and on to your gate and the opportunity to buy duty-free perfume and tobacco, but no. First you're confronted with a bunch of signs saying "U.S. Customs Checkpoint" and a line about 7 billion people long. If you've been up all weekend chugging maple syrup and searching desperately for moose, being confronted by all of this is a bit disorienting.

To complete the tableau and create the illusion that you're really about to cross the border, the stations are manned by surly, unsmiling customs people. Just in case you still have doubts that you've actually left Canada (even though you're still in Toronto), a miniature Statue of Liberty flanked by two crooked American flags with a sad "Welcome to the United States" banner draped in between is the first thing you see after your passport (no longer) gets stamped. Like that's going to fool anyone. "Look kids, it's the statue of Liberty! We must be in NEW YORK CITY!" All I wanted to know was, can I still unload some of this money with beavers on it?

Fat Joe

I normally limit my reality TV dating show viewing only to shows with the word "Joe" in the title: Average Joe, Joe Millionaire, Outback Joe, Joe Cruise, The Littlest Groom... Then I discovered More to Love, which is evidently like a big-boned version of The Bachelor. The Bachelor's chunky cousin, if you will: a smarmy, husky fella dates a bunch of ample ladies then has to give one an engagement ring at the end. In between, we're treated to the stats of each trick, including name, hometown, age and of course, weight. Classy!

In between, there's a lot of boring dates involving rich desserts; forcing insecure, plus-sized women to appear in swim wear on national TV; labored breathing; and making out. Herein lies the problem (because obviously, the problem is not that this is a show that exploits the overweight while purporting to "empower" them, as Daisy of Love purports to empower hookers): the sounds of mastication and of sucking on one another's faces are not hot. Slurping, swallowing, sucking melted cheese out of one another's teeth - it's gross no matter who's doing it. And because the producers wanted to remind us that HEY THESE PEOPLE LOOOVE EATING! there was an inordinate amount of it on More to Love.

On the plus side (no pun intended), M2L marked the triumphant return of Emme, who is like the plus-sized version of one Ms. Janice Dickinson, minus The Crazy, probable Quaalude addiction and botched plastic surgery. Emme was the "hostess" of M2L, meaning that at the end of each episode when it was time for the smarmy guy to boot off one in his stable of women, she came out of nowhere wearing some rag that looked like a castoff from Dancing with the Stars to like, announce that he was about to kick someone out, then swiftly pivoted and stalked off without further explanation. Way to get that cash, Emme! Bravo. It was actually kind of awesome.

Cry & Cut.

In the grand tradition of formerly comedic television actresses who now weep on commercials featuring starving children, I bring you Laurie Metcalf:



Remember when she was funny as Jackie on 'Roseanne'? Yeah, not anymore. Is the intent here to make me want to help this poor kid or punch her in the face? Because I'm leaning toward the latter. Pull yourself together. Starving children doesn't call for smiles, but would it kill you to stop sobbing and maybe put on some blush while you're at it? Sally Struthers made the effort - you should, too.

And if you think that's bad, check out the photo on her Wikipedia page. WTF is going on there? For real. She was 53 when this picture was taken, not 83 as her hair would lead you to believe. Why would you go into a salon and get the "Queen Elizabeth"? It's a hot mess, minus the hot.

Getting Perspective.

Sad news: some dog that was like, in the running towards becoming the World's Smallest Dog, died. That's a bummer, because it was cute and its name was "Scooter", which was also the name of my favorite tertiary character on the original Degrassi Jr. High series (the Canadian one, eh?). He was like the original Urkel. But I digress.

Anyway, Scooter (dog form) was totally adorable, but just how small was this dog? I need a picture of it being held by some sort of standard-sized human hand so that I can do a compare and contrast. The only pictures I could find were that of Scooter in a tea cup (shown here) with the disembodied head of I guess his owner. This tells me nothing. That could be one of those big-ass cups you put ice cream in when you're trying to tell yourself that it's somehow less than if you just used a bowl.

Then the other picture was of scooter with the world's largest dog or something, which I suppose is approximately the size of a small elephant. I just want some perspective, here. Would this dog have fit in my pocket? Somehow if it did, it makes me miss it more.