March 2008 Archives

I can't tell you how many times I have heard people talk about NBC's "The Biggest Loser.”  Saying things like: “if I could just find a place like the weight loss ranch.”  Or, “I want to find a place where I would be pushed for weeks and sometimes months at time, so I could finally lose the weight.”  This week I learned there actually is such a place, but it's not an easy fix.

 

You have to be willing to work hard and be open to learning new ways of viewing the food you eat. If you can do that, then let me tell you about a place called Fitness Ridge, which was featured on "The Biggest Loser" on March 18th as the reward for a tough treadmill challenge (won by Mark).  
 
Last year, when I went to the set of "High School Musical 2", I fell in love with the beautiful town where it was being filmed: St. George, Utah.  Located about two hours north of Las Vegas, it's surrounded by colorful mountains of red, white and many shades in between.  It's become known as a spa destination for those looking to pamper themselves. It's also known for great golf, tennis and hiking.  I knew that I eventually wanted to come back.  

 

Several months ago I stumbled upon Fitness Ridge, which labeled itself as a "compassionate boot camp."   Granted I didn't have a ton of weight to lose. I just wanted to get in better shape and lose a portion of those ten pounds the TV camera adds.   I checked out their information and when I realized it was right near St. George, I booked my trip. 
 
For some reason I kept going back and forth to their website.  One day I stumbled upon a photo of that week's clients.  It concerned me because many of them looked much older and many were out of shape. I thought this was going to be a place where healthy people came to get a killer workout for a week.  I was concerned and somewhat disappointed.  However, I was committed to going and figured I'd just enjoy it for what it was. 
 
The day I arrived, I found that my entire concept of what this place was turned out to be completely wrong.
 
What I found was a group of people - all shapes and sizes - committed to one common goal - change.  That change could be to lose 50 pounds, bounce back from illness, or lose the last bit of baby weight.  Maybe it was to learn how to eat healthy or just simply keep in shape what you already had.    Some people come for a week while others stay for extended periods - weeks and even months.  They keep the prices really reasonable.  A week starts at just $1295 and the more weeks you stay the price per week drops.  

By Jeremy Blacklow

Managing Editor

 

Ahhh, another spring week, another booted "Idol!"

 

Laura's on vacation this week, so I'm pinch-hitting in her absence.

 

This week we lost Chikezie – the man who dropped his last name WAY too soon before he became famous. C'mon Chikezie, even Fantasia waited until she WON "American Idol."

 

I'll miss his personality and his name, but his singing… not so much.

 

Last night's "Idol" was more of the same – I was surprised to see Syesha in the Bottom 3, but I was happy that Carly escaped the same fate. Jason Castro is starting to bury all goodwill that he built up with "Hallelujah" three weeks ago.

 

Oh, and David Cook is kinda officially the "Idol" front-runner now. He's definitely gained serious momentum. In fact, our friends at TV Guide have him with 50 percent of the winning vote, compared now with David Archuleta's 2^nd place 16 percent. I seriously never saw this coming in the first couple of weeks. At the start of the competition phase, this would have been the reverse.

So, I didn't realize, until someone pointed it out to me today, that when Amanda Overmyer is surrounded and hugged by her fellow contestants (as she finished singing her swan song) that the show was going into commercial. So, viewers didn't really catch the uncomfortable look Amanda had on her face as this happened. 
 
We all saw it inside the studio and in the picture on my blog yesterday you can certainly tell she is not thrilled. Click on it to make it bigger and study the expression on Amanda's face. This morning I said to her, "you could not have looked more uncomfortable." 
 
She candidly told me,
 
"When you have 15 people coming up and they're like, 'ugh! This is the worst thing, it's a crisis!' It's like, god, stop touching me. It's like it'll be fine. There were other people crying, I wasn't crying. I was like, it's fine, go sit back down guys."

 

Amanda is not exactly the warm and fuzzy type around strangers. This is not a bad thing. It's just who she is. When I met her at the Top 12 party she basically told me she wasn't on the show to make friends, she was there to compete. This morning she reiterated this, 
 
"I mean I'm close to them in a sense that when you're with the same group of people for as long as I've been, there's an element of camaraderie there. On top of that I don't want to be mauled on TV."

Here we go again -- another season of "American Idol" and I'm feeling those horrible guilt pains.  Yet again, "Access Hollywood" has hosted a Tuesday night viewing party, with the friends and family of an Idol contestant who then ends up being sent packing on the next night.
 
Poor Amanda Overmyer. There were shouts and boos as Ryan read her name and I just wanted to crawl under my seat. It's a proven theory that anytime we host a viewing party, that person usually ends up in the bottom three. Even worse, is that for the fifth time in seven seasons that person has been eliminated! Matt Rogers from season three, Nikko Smith from season four and Ace Young and Mandisa from season five.  
 
Our friends from Entertainment Weekly even paid homage!  

 

Read Pop Watch Here

 

OK, sure, you could argue that we are just really good at picking who we think will go home. So, we purposely choose viewing parties based on their likelihood of staying in the competition. This was certainly not the case with Mandisa and absolutely not the case with Amanda. We chose to do Amanda because our David Hernandez party was originally scheduled for Tuesday but you know what happened there. Another reason we chose Amanda was because I thought it might be fun to see her biker pals and we were scheduled to meet the hairdresser who put her blonde streaks in. The viewing party turned out great. Some of her friends were even sporting wigs with black hair and blonde streaks! 

So, last night I'm sitting in the audience at "American Idol" and in walk these two beefy men dressed in suits, wearing Secret Service type ear pieces and talking into their sleeves. I was the first to notice something was up and pointed it out to my fellow reporters. We all thought that maybe Senator McCain or Senator Clinton was making an appearance tonight. We waited. We waited. No one showed up. Nothing happened. We knew it was someone big though. At least, that's what we thought.

Well, apparently I have a very bad memory or I haven't been around enough Spice Girls. Thirty seconds before the show is about to go live the two beefy security guards escort in their precious cargo - Victoria "Posh" Beckham and her three young sons. These were not Secret Service. These were bodyguards. All of a sudden it hits me. I have seen these two Secret Service looking men before, at the "High School Musical 2" after party. Posh and her family were sitting a foot away from me that night. I even snapped a photo that actually includes the bodyguards. Apparently, across the pond there have been several kidnapping plots uncovered - hence the bodyguards. Here in America though, I don't think anyone would care enough to put together such a devious plot against the Beckhams.
 
This is not to say that I did not spend the entire time watching Posh and the boys as they enjoyed the show. In fact, many people were doing the same and the ones in front of her were getting whiplash from staring. Her youngest son, three-year-old Cruz, was way too cute wearing a Buzz Lightyear costume complete with the wings and boots! I can just imagine this conversation in the Beckham household. "No Cruz, you cannot wear your Buzz costume, it's not Halloween." He was snapped wearing a Batman costume to the movies last week. I guess we know who won that battle.

If you happened to catch David Hernandez's performance on our show last night (or, you can watch it HERE -- then you know that his elimination from "American Idol" was unjust. The boy can sing. Last season, when we had the Top 12 perform on our stage, many times I would snicker to myself or gossip with others about how bad several of them actually sounded. This was not the case. He sounded every bit as good singing "Midnight Hour" as he did during Hollywood week. 
 
So, why was he eliminated? He wasn't at his best when he performed on Tuesday's nights 'Idol,' but it was certainly nowhere near as bad as Kristy Lee Cook or Syesha Mercado, who found themselves in the bottom three with him. My guess is he got caught up in the popularity contest aspect of this show. His stripper scandal, unfortunately, made him a bulls eye. I spoke to many people last week who told me they would not vote for David because of it, especially since he never mentioned one word about it when he spoke about what he was doing before "American Idol" during the show's taped segment on him. Most people thought he should have copped to it and then moved on. The honesty would have done wonders for him.
 
Ironically, it was after he was voted off that David lightened up about the whole scandal. When I spoke with him at the Top 12 party he was obviously nervous, agitated, and from what I saw…  slightly embarrassed to go in front of the press corp. We were told we could ask one question of  him about StripperGate. He had rehearsed his answer and, from what I could tell, it was the same answer he gave to every single reporter.  

So great that “Dancing With The Stars” is back.  As Steve Guttenberg said, "It’s great to be part of something so positive".  I was impressed with Jason Taylor of the Miami Dolphins whose partner is Edyta.  Edyta is married but clearly enamored with him.  Sorry, my wife agrees. 

 

Steve Guttenberg has infectious warmth. He is a happy, nice guy and he ignites positively in everybody.  Adam Carolla was hysterical...funny and unpredictable in that he wasn't entirely "cool guy", he was vulnerable and real, as well as funny and "male". 

 

Cristian de la Fuente is very sexy.  He awoke a dormant pair of hips and my wife and I agree he will excel.  Privately, I'm sure you could get her to admit that he is gorgeous.

I’ve been very off on my predictions this season. I was pretty convinced that Syesha Mercado was going home on "American Idol." Sitting in the studio last night, when she was called up first to the bottom three I thought to myself, "Yep, she’s a goner." I figured Kristy Lee Cook would be in the bottom three and I was positive David Hernandez would be there too. I did not, however, see his elimination coming. I figured he had at least one or two more weeks in him.

My theory though is his whole "Pizza Bistro" confession hurt him. When it came time to talk about what the contestants did before they got on the show, he chose (or maybe the producers told him too) not to mention what he actually used to do – strip. Why not own up to it. Put it out there. Have a chuckle about it and then move on. I think America would appreciate a little honesty. We rarely get it unless someone is forced into it as we have seen this week with Eliot Spitzer. 

It will be interesting to see how David handles himself on the conference call with reporters this morning. I’ll have to miss it because I’m on a shoot but I will listen in and let you know what he says later today.

I have to run to my shoot so here are just a few quick tidbits I saw last night from the studio:

Katharine McPhee and David Foster actually pre-taped their performance last night right before the show. I arrived to the studio at 5:30 PM to find out I couldn’t get in just yet because Kat was still on stage. That entire section with the callers was pre-taped together with Kat’s performance. Savvy viewers might notice that the people behind the judges were just a little different from the rest of the show.

 

My face is such a familiar one on the CBS lot where “American Idol” tapes, having spent so much time their covering “Idol” and its neighbor “Dancing With The Stars”, I figured I could get away with parking on the lot even though spaces are limited. So, I rolled up showed my ID and I was in!  Usually I’d have to park all the way at the mall across the street and walk over. 

 

Just as I was pulling into a parking space (next to Gina Glocksen’s assigned spot) a white Mercedes G500 pulls up ahead of me with the vanity license plate that had a ♥ in it. A bunch of brunettes got out and I instantly recognized Kim Kardashian. I caught a glimpse of her and was pretty sure it was her since Ryan Seacrest produces her E reality show “Keeping Up With The Kardashians. So, it would make sense that she got tickets.  At first I saw her from the side and then I saw the butt and knew it was definitely her. 

 

I’ve never seen this girl in person but from what I know of her she has a rather large backside.  That’s an understatement.  It’s huge.  When she walked into the studio and someone pointed her out its all people were talking about.  She spent the commercial breaks texting on her cell phone and I caught her yawning after Michael John’s performance and checking herself in the mirror after Kristy Lee Cook sang. 

 

Other celebs I spotted in the audience were Taye Diggs and Camryn Manheim. 

 

I have to say the energy inside the studio was at an all time high tonight.  It felt like a brand new show.  The new stage had producers, audience coordinators and pretty much anyone involved with the show on edge – but a good sort of nervous energy that became infectious and had the audience full of spunk.

 

Executive producer Nigel Lythgoe came on stage to psych up the audience for the new set and joked,

 

“Not all of which is working at the moment. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that it will light up.”

 

So, I was on a conference call with the new British Bachelor, Matt Grant, yesterday morning.  I meant to write a blog about it immediately after I hung up yesterday but unfortunately I couldn't really understand half of what the guy was saying!  It was partly due to his British accent and partly due to the fact that he was all the way in London and it was really hard to hear him. So, I had to wait for the transcript to arrive this morning.    
 
I'm actually kind of glad I waited though because I tuned into last night's "The Bachelor: Where Are They Now" special which featured a long promo for this new season.  From the looks of it 27-year-old Matt doesn't really seem all that interested in finding a wife.  The promo made it seem like he was much more into partying it up with the girls despite his proclamation on the conference call that,  
 
"I definitely found love."
 
He also definitely found one very aggressive lady who, it was revealed, slipped her thong into his pocket the night of the first meet and greet party.
 
"I was still in discussion with someone and she just tucked it into my pocket and a few minutes later, I sort of pulled it out and realized what it was. I was fully aware that wasn't you know standard sort of American ritual thankfully."
 
On this show nothing is standard American ritual. 

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is an embarrassment.  People should be outraged that the Governor of New York was subverting his wife and chasing a prostitute.  Client #9....way to go, Spitzer.

 

How stupid and self-destructive can this guy be?

 

For a TV personality to do this, for example, it would be monumentally stupid.  For the Governor of New York...amazingly, stratospherically dumb.

 

Never mind that the guy is an unfaithful weasel, he's too reckless to be Governor.

If you think we have seen the last of Danny Noriega, think again.  The saucy teen says he plans to be back at "American Idol" each and every week.  I personally enjoyed him but for those who didn't - fortunately it won't be as a singer.  It will come courtesy of Danny's close friendship with top twelve contestant, Ramiele Malubay who he befriended towards the end of Hollywood week.
 
"Yeah she is my little mini me," Danny told me.
 
When I spoke to Danny on Friday, a day after getting voted off the show, he assured me he and Ramiele are attached at the hip and plan to stay that way.
 
"They get a certain amount of tickets and she is giving me a ticket for every week she performs. So, I will see her every week," he revealed.
 
Of course he'll have to fit this in all while he looks for his next big gig. Unlike most rejected "Idols" who plan to continue with their music, Danny says he has a different plan.
 
"I definitely want to look into the whole hosting gigs," Danny added. "I think it would be cool to be on MTV or something or VH-1."

Last night was the “American Idol” Top 12 party here in Los Angeles. Standing on the red carpet waiting for the contestants to arrive, I was struck with the realization that it felt like not one day had past since I had been standing on that same carpet last year waiting to meet Jordin Sparks, Blake Lewis, Haley Scarnato and the others.   

Nothing has changed really this year, just the faces. The contestants still arrived an hour and half after the party started and were out on the carpet talking to media for an hour and a half at least. A scandal had again broken out the week before the Top 12 party. I annoyed some Fox people for getting too personal with some of the contestants lives. Yep, another year, another Top 12 party.

The first person I got to meet with was Chikeze, who was so excited that when the photographers called his name tonight they pronounced it correctly. He told me this is why he dropped his last name for the show. He didn’t want to go around being called Chikeze EASY. His last name is Eze but that is not how its pronounced. It’s EZAY. So it was just better to lose the last name altogether.  

Next, I met Ramiele Malubay and Syesha Mercado. Ramiele is seriously tiny, tiny, tiny.  Even smaller in person than I thought. I had to take my shoes off for the interview so as not to feel like a glamazon and I'm only 5’4". The girls are roommates and told me they get along great because they are both messy. I had to ask about those photos that came out of Ramiele and she said that it's just girls having fun. Later, inside the party, Ramiele and booted Idol Danny Noriega were holding onto each other for dear life. I asked how she would handle life without Danny and she replied, "He’s NOT leaving."

While Brooke White was working the carpet for nearly two hours, her dad and husband stood behind the media the entire time watching her. It was so sweet. She’s as easygoing and down to earth in person as she looks on the show. I found out she lives about a mile from my house!

Another stellar season of "Project Runway" came to a close last night, with cocky and flamboyant Christian Siriano, reserved and indecisive Jillian Lewis, and Grecian drape-obsessed and sardonic Rami Kashou battling for style supremacy in a knockdown fashion melee in the middle of Bryant Park.

Before we get to who out chic'd who, lets go over what these style-soldiers were waging war for?
 
- A spread in Elle Magazine (unless Nina Garcia hates it)

- A chance to sell your collection on BlueFly.com (I don’t care how many times she says it, but Heidi Klum is not logging on to the internet to get her gear.)

- A 2008 Saturn Astra (this product tie-in has never made sense. Besides the last three "Runway" winners, I challenge you to find a fashion designer who would buy a Saturn. Even if it was adorned with Mood fabrics, I still don’t see it.)

 - 1 year of representation from Designers Management Agency (who doesn't love a good agent to do their dirty work!)
- And the jackpot-- $100,000 to start their own collection (furnished by Tres Semme)
 
And now, on to the recap!

For those of you paying attention, Jury Duty is finally OVER!!! If you have never done it, it’s an interesting process, but 11 days is way too much time to be away during "American Idol." Well, at least for me. I mean this show is my bread and butter from January to May! On the bright side I now know everything there is to know about asbestos.

 

Now, I’m back on board and ready to dish. I’ll be interviewing the contestants as they get voted off so look for that every week. Thursday night will be the Top 12 party, so check on Friday for inside dish on all the goings on there.

 

Now, onto breaking down tonight’s show.

 

So, first up was Asia’h Epperson who I think went in my closet to borrow that 1980’s outfit. Sadly, I think I wore that to a Sadie Hawkins dance in high school. Randy only liked it because he recorded that song for Whitney Houston and got to tell everyone again. Simon was right on the money on this one.

 

I put Kady Malloy as one of my ten to watch and after that performance I’m regretting it. What was that song? Seriously girl, show a little personality and have some fun. My boyfriend says he’s gonna vote for her "cause she’s hot." Whatever!

 

The rock and roll nurse toned down that crazy hair and pulled off a great performance this week securing herself a place in the Top 12. I’m waiting for my conservative mother to call me and tell me, "I don’t like that Amanda Overmyer." She always hates the rocker chicks. Last year she was horrified by Gina Glocksen’s tongue ring and decided that was the reason she was voted off. OK mom, whatever you say. She’s in her sixties. What do you want?

Another season, another juicy "American Idol" story! Last year it was Antonella’s racy photos, this year it’s David Hernandez’s stripper scandal. Normally, these are the types of stories that I uncover from message boards, blogs and my "Idol" sources long before other major news outlets get to them. So, to see an e-mail come across my blackberry this morning from the AP about Hernandez’s supposed stripper past was quite shocking and traumatic to me (in a completely trivial and ridiculous way). How could I have missed all this scandalous action! I blame it on this damn never ending jury duty that I am still on. Day eleven is tomorrow. AAAAAHHHH! 

I was also busy all weekend long interviewing past Idols like Sanjaya, Ruben Studdard,, Bo Bice and even our favorite reject, William Hung. So, I’ve been away from my usual "Idol" sleuthing. I will not let this happen again this season! My ego can’t take it. Now that I’ve made myself feel better by putting that out there I’ll get to my random thoughts about this weeks performance. My boyfriend is sitting here watching this show with me and has hijacked my laptop so he can add his "witty" commentary from someone who doesn’t really watch this show instead of a crazy "Idol" psycho such as myself. So, please indulge him. His comments will be the ones in (parentheses).

Up first was Luke Menard who secured himself a place standing next to me being interviewed at the booted "Idol" junket on Friday with that cheese-ola George Michael-interpretative performance of Wham's "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go." Just the fact that his song has the words "go go" in it assure me that’s exactly what he will be doing on Thursday night. There is no way his looks can save him this time. I wonder if the producers put him first because they want him gone.  ("Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go?"  How about "Mute the TV Before He Sings-Sings"??? He’s gone gone on Thursday.)

I went to Aspen this past weekend and skied in a celebrity race to benefit Aspen Youth Experience.  What started out as a fun ski weekend to Aspen with friends turned out to be a moving experience for all of us.

 

A young woman named Ayesha, who raced on my team incidentally, got up on Saturday night dressed beautifully and spoke of her painful journey in life.  From early teen alcohol abuse to being sexually assaulted by a group of boys one awful day at a bus stop, this girl got up and told us all what happened to her and how Aspen Youth Experience came into her life at when the whole thing looked like a dead end.

 

This charity takes at youth teens and sets them up in Aspen with families who are privileged. They ski, they taste the better life, they enter workshops with other kids and share painful but MUTUAL experiences.  They heal together and inevitably they come out alright.  After they leave Aspen, AYE does monthly follow-ups to make sure the kids are ok until they return again. 

 

I cried during young Ayesha's speech. She is now a mother AND a staff sergeant in the Us Army.  I’m crying now just typing this.  Her interest is communications.  I told her I'd hire her if she wanted a job someday with me.  Note to boss, sorry if we weren't hiring, but we have to on this one.  I'll pay her salary if need be.  The kid is bright and way beyond "battle tested".

 

The energy in the room was palpable. I've watched numerous presidential debates on television but none compared to my witnessing one in person.

My red-eye flight arrived into Cleveland at 7:00 in the morning on Tuesday. The city had just gotten up to 8 inches of snow and many of the flights had been delayed. When I walked outside the airport to my car, the snow-covered trees instantly reminded me of being back in Detroit, my hometown.

After a quick change, I headed to Cleveland State University's Wolstein Center. The NBC Press Room had hot plates of food for the crews that were beginning to pile in. My first interview was in the production control room where the director of the debates was mapping out the camera shots and perfecting the lighting on stage for the evening.

"How do you make sure one candidate doesn't get more camera time than the other?" I asked.

"That ball is in the candidate's court. We follow the action."

 

One woman had the job of greeting both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton when they arrived through the back door of the auditorium.

 

Then we took "the walk," the path that Clinton and Obama took from their rooms, down the hallway, up the stairs, through the curtains, and onto the international stage. My heart was racing, just thinking about the pressure they were about to be under. With the debate just moments away, I got to my seat in time to hear the moderator tell us to hold our applause and comments throughout the debate so each candidate could be heard. Surprised that, for the most part, everyone kept the promise. When the candidates walked out, everyone erupted into applause, whistling and yelling their names, followed by respectful silence.

And after the final "thank you for joining us," supporters rushed to the stage, begging for autographs and handshakes.

And I realized I had just witnessed history.

It takes about a week to recover from the Oscars.

It was such an incredibly wonderful day—mainly because I got to share the Oscars with my dad. And yes, he got his tux!

 

I sent a limo to pick him up from the airport Friday night which he could not believe was all for him. Saturday morning we headed down to the Kodak Theatre so Dad could get his credentials (the security could not be tighter at the Pentagon) and I could begin rehearsals.

 

I hosted the official Oscar Red Carpet show for the Academy on ABC and since we were preparing for a global audience, we had several days of practice.

 

On Saturday the carpet was full of camera crews from all over the world. I told Dad while I was doing my run-through, he could roam the carpet. So he checked out the sights and took pictures with Oscar. After a couple of hours, I went to look for him and spotted him doing an interview with a German television show!

by Michael Lewittes, Access Hollywood producer

 

(The following blog also appears in The Huffington Post. CLICK HERE to view.)

 

Traditionally, right after the Academy Awards, the entertainment magazines feature the big winners on their covers. But this year you would have had a better chance of finding Waldo on a weekly’s cover than Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Tilda Swinton or Javier Bardem. 

 

Actually, we’ve come to expect the weeklies to run post-Academy Awards covers, promising all the “Oscar Glitz, Glamour, Gowns and Gossip!” Not this year, the Academy Award’s 80th anniversary. No, this year the only thing expected were those who were expecting – and a few stars who already gave birth.

 

In fact, you have to turn 63 pages in People magazine before uncovering an Oscar winner. And there, you will only find a goofy grimacing Javier Bardem clutching an Oscar at Prince’s post-awards party. But then again, maybe it’s better being hidden away than to be included on page 15 of OK!, for example, where winners Tilda Swinton, Marion Cottilard and Daniel Day-Lewis were in a fashion feature called, “What Were They Thinking?” 

 

But what ever could have motivated two-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis to wear brown suede shoes with his tux thankfully wasn’t that mag’s main cover question. Like the other tabloids, OK! was baby-obsessed this week, and asked, across a cover shot of (the not nominated) Katie Holmes, “Is She Pregnant?”

 

Here’s another question: Aren’t the entertainment magazines supposed to know those answers instead of asking its readers to find out. According to OK!, “Katie’s and Tom’s reps deny Katie’s pregnant.” So then one more question? Why put her on the cover if she’s not pregnant? (OK! argues its it piece that recently “Katie uncharacteristically wore loose-fitting dresses that seemed to reveal the hint of a bump to spectators.” Oh, OK.) 

 

The real reason for these types of covers is that bona fide American stars having babies – whether true or not – sell better than award-winning foreign film stars like Marion Cottilard (quick name three people who saw, “La Vie En Rose” – don’t worry, I couldn’t either.) Plus, this year’s Oscars, considered to be a real snooze, was the least watched telecast ever.

 

On Friday night the casts of "Grey’s Anatomy" and "Private Practice" joined together to help out the crewmembers affected by the writer’s strike. They all joined together at UCLA’s Royce Hall to put on a charity show dubbed "Good Medicine." Considering that between the two casts there are Tony Winners, Broadway stars and Emmy winners, it promised to be an interesting night.

Only 1,800 people got a chance to catch this fun evening of music and laughter. While the majority who attended was family, friends, press, crew members and recurring cast members (Joe the bartender from "Grey’s" was three seats in front of me) many of the attendees had traveled from as far as Canada to come catch a glimpse of their favorite TV doctors.

I was lucky enough to be able to get tickets to the sold out show, which I'd call a combination "American Idol" meets the SAG Awards meets "The Gong Show" meets your local high school’s talent show. Here is what went down inside.

The show started off with a funny taped message from McDreamy himself, Patrick Dempsey, who said he was in Japan promoting his Disney film "Enchanted." With a 'wink wink' he couldn’t miss the chance to plug the film, "Soon to be released on DVD."

Dempsey acknowledged how important the writers were to his show by joking, "Without them I'd still be known as that beefy teen from ‘Can't Buy Me Love.’"

Next to the stage was Dr. Izzy Stevens, Katherine Heigl, looking beautiful in a red knee length dress. Heigl revealed that all proceeds from the event would go to the Solidarity Fund started by the WGA.

True "Grey’s" fans know that Sara Ramirez, who plays Dr. Callie Torres, won the 2005 Tony for her role as 'The Lady of the Lake' in Monty Python's "Spamalot." I knew this, but I still had no idea how well this chick can sing! Her booming voice brought the house to its feet with a performance of the song "Meadowlark."