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If you do, however, decide to brave the daylight and are granted access to The Royal Presence, or if you’re called in to take part in a royal review — where indigenous people are paraded about and subjected to the oblivious ethnic slurs of Prince Phillip — then you must observe certain points of protocol that clearly demarcate those born with a divine birth right from those whose birth is followed by paternity testing and a lengthy court battle.

Some of these have been detailed previously, such as:  “During meals, the Queen eats first and when she stops the others at the table stop. Eat what is served and do not request anything more or less.” However, when it comes to royalty, there simply cannot be enough protocol and in that spirit we offer you our 15 Etiquette Tips For Meeting Her Majesty The Queen of England!

1. Should your country feature a likeness of the Queen on its currency, have a bit of fun by holding a bill to Her Majesty’s face to compare and remarking, “Not exactly last year’s driver’s licence, is it love?”

2. Like a child in a perfect world, do not speak until spoken to—and to make sure this protocol is not violated, adhere to this twice—mollifying potential awkwardness by leaning in after her initial remark, with a hand cupped to your ear indicating it was not heard.

3. When the Queen stops eating/drinking, it’s acceptable to order another round of drinks with an index finger raised in the air and with a counter-clockwise circular motion.

4. Should you be granted an audience with Her Majesty in a room,  it is considered the height of impropriety to leave the Royal Presence in the manner considered acceptable for almost all other human beings — i.e. turning around and walking out.  As with a tweaking crystal meth addict who’s short on cash, it is never wise to turn your back on Her Majesty.  Instead, walk backward with your arms windmilling behind you to avoid other people or large potted plants.  Backflips are verboten.

5. Avoid contentious topics such as asking Her Majesty if she’s hung around this long due to her own good health or just a fervent desire to keep her oafish son from the throne for as long as possible.

6. Show solidarity by introducing your wife as your first cousin even if you are of different ethnicities.

7. When in the presence of the Royal Corgis, traditional pooper scoopers are frowned upon. Instead employ the metal tongs normally used for ice and a silk bag.

8. Should the unthinkable happen and Her Majesty drop her handbag, it is considered acceptably amusing to feign a struggle when picking it up for her and saying, “What the hell do you have in here, a brick?”

9. In terms of personal contact, only accept and never initiate chest bumps. Also a double high-five and bro hug are accepted protocol. However it is considered gauche to give thumbs up to your buddies for a photo op or, like a licentious relative, hold the embrace for longer than what would be deemed acceptable in a family setting.

10. Don’t say “pleased to meet you”, which is thought to be redundant as most people are pleased to meet the Queen. Say something more ambiguous like “European Union, indeed!” or simply lift your eyebrows in a “What next?” gesture.

11. Always stand, unless you physically can’t in which case it is acceptable to throw aside crutches and make a miraculously recovery in front of Her Majesty, provided royal photographers are ready to mark the moment for posterity.

12. Refer to her as Ace Queen or Royal Flush at all times, unless you’re seated in a less formal setting— like a poker table, where you call her ‘toots’. The Queen’s biographer Robert Lacey warns that people should never yell out Queen or Queenie as she walks past, as “That would be considered rather aggressive.” Instead, opt for ‘check mate’.

13. Do not mimic her accent, instead, copy a less common regional variant—West Midlands for example, and point out, self-deprecatingly, that you’ll do better next time.

14. As a Canadian, ask her in hushed tones, “But really now, you do prefer us to the bloody Aussies, right?”

15. Despite the obvious temptation, avoid falling for the ‘pull my finger’ gambit, especially if she is wearing white gloves (this is an obvious precursor to the ‘left holding the white glove’ gag).

But while a few thousand bucks can get a better looking face grafted on to the mug genetics gave you, a new voice – at least one that doesn’t sound like Stephen Hawking – is harder to come by.  You’re pretty much stuck with the terrible sound that you hear when you check your outgoing message unless you take on vows of silence as part of the monastic life or a loveless marriage.

Some people are fortunate enough to have terrific, resonant voices that make their careers. Vincent Price, for example, would not be able to hold up a bank while incognito, both because he’s dead (sentient mobility being an integral part of any escape plan), but because even the most terrified clerk would recognize him immediately as “that guy from Thriller”. James Earl Jones too is another one who could call you up and keep you entranced for hours while reciting the dinner specials at the Four Seasons.

Then there are these people, the tormentors of the blind and bed-ridden who are left with no other distractions. These are people who make one grateful for the Spanish audio track option even if you don’t speak the lingo. It’s a marvel that these people have managed success in their various fields, most of which require them to expel more air than normal for a living. So shove in the earplugs as we present 10 answers to James Lipton’s end-of-interview question, “What’s your least favourite sound?” Here are the Top 10 Most Annoying Voices!

10.    Nicolas Cage, Actor.

Cage speaks slower than a phone sex operator with a thyroid condition. As Kathleen Turner put it (black pot, meet kettle) “Oh, that stupid voice of his and the fake teeth!” We’re not sure if these are related.

Here he describes a voice role where he was channeling Mel Blanc which, if you were playing word association with the phrase “Nic Cage”, would come right after “hedge trimmer” in prevalence.  

9. Chris Berman, NFL Analyst.

Bellowing blowhard NFL commentator Berman never met a reference to 70s rock he didn’t like—the Grateful Dead being an integral cultural reference for a field goal or diving catch.

9. Rachael Ray, TV Chef.

Dubbed a ‘bobble-head’ by Anthony Bourdain, nerves are grated along with cheese on her show –it’s her Upstate New York by way of New England pack-a-day husk and catchphrases like E.V.O.O. (Extra Virgin Olive Oil) and yummo! Fittingly, her husband plays in a rock band called The Cringe. Probably not quite as deserving of web vitriol as some other celebs (we’re looking at you Bono),  though we would not want to be walking through the woods with her during mallard mating season.

Honorable Mention: Gilbert Gottfried. Gilbert gets a bit of a pass here as a great stand up and killer guest on Howard Stern, besides telling splendid rendition of the Aristocrats joke.

8. Ray Romano, Comedian / Actor.

The first person on this list who might require putting what he does in quotation marks, Romano is proof you don’t need to be a tin-pot dictator to get your own TV show, but that the forces of sheer dumb luck can sometimes prevail. Romano’s nasally New York accent was featured on an inspired Family Guy as a guest panelist alongside Kermit the Frog, Harold Ramis and Al Michaels, each indistinguishable from the other. As Muppet and SCTV fans (and because we can’t have more than two sports commentators on a list without violating some kind of established list decorum) they get honorable mention here, with Romano the Top Dog (or in this case frog).

7. Harvey Fierstein, Actor, Playwright.

Broadway notable Fierstein once opined, “I think the average voice is like 70 percent tone and 30 percent noise. My voice is 95 percent noise”. He was possibly not being generous enough as he sounds like he adopts a daily regimen of yelling “fire”, primal scream therapy and gargling with industrial solvents.

6. Dick Vitale, Basketball Analyst.

You’d be forgiven for thinking al Qaeda has struck again or that scientists have finally solved the mysteries of alchemy given the wild hysterics Vitale goes into describing amateur athletics from the US Midwest.

5. Rosie O’Donnell, TV Host, Comedian.

One of the dauphines of dimwittedness (see our list of 9/11 Crackpots) that graced the View, which, as far as views goes should be an obstructed one (Liz Hasselbeck excepted) O’Donnell, in addition to having a strident maw, is a one-woman argument for upgrading basic cable. She is presently the host of “Rosie Radio”, which at least means there’s no visual component.

4. Richard Quest, Journalist CNN.

As it says in his bio, Quest “is one of the most instantly recognizable members of the CNN team”, perhaps because the Liverpudlian articulates through clenched teeth and gets completely wound up discussing central banks and using bar props to elaborate macro-economic principles.

3. Fran Drescher, Actress.

Drescher had a scene-stealing turn as A&R rep Bobbi Flekman in This is Spinal Tap, but The Nanny and Living with Fran set a TV gold standard for annoying voices that has yet to be topped, unless a variety talent show featuring impressions and the following members of this list is green-lighted.

2.    Chris Tucker, Actor.

Google the words “ruined Fifth Element” and Chris Tucker’s name appears prominently among the hits and deservedly so as he ruined that otherwise decent film with his perpetual motion machine of a mouth. In Dead Presidents, he played a character called “Skip”, which is what we make a mental note to do when a trailer promises that a film will include his high-pitched antics.

"Rrrrr.... I see you have new blinds. Very nice..rrrrr."

1. Henry Kissinger, Former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State

Legend has it that back in the 1970s, bombing campaigns in Southeast Asia were extended by hours simply because of how long it took Henry Kissinger to croak out the orders to call them off.

He has the kind of guttural baritone one associates with a late-night caller who is in a darkened apartment in the high-rise across the road, watching with binoculars while wearing nothing but a raincoat.

In the interim, we’ll have to make do with the following instances Keef—the lifelong thwarter of Death Pools— has made it onto the printed page with this, our list of the Top 20 Keith Richards Quotes.

20. “I’m Sagittarius, half-man, half-horse, with a license to shit in the street.”

19. “In the business of crime there’s two people involved, and that’s the criminal and the cops. It’s in both their interests to keep crime a business, otherwise they’re both out of a job.”

18. “If you’re going to kick authority in the teeth, you might as well use two feet.”

17. “You can’t accuse me of anything I haven’t already confessed to.”

16.  “A painter’s got a canvas. The writer’s got reams of empty paper. A musician has silence.”

15. “I snorted my father. He was cremated and I couldn’t resist grinding him up in little bits of blow. My dad wouldn’t have cared. It went down pretty well and I’m still alive.”

14. “I’ve never turned blue in someone else’s bathroom. I consider that the height of bad manners.”

13. “Anything you throw yourself into, you better get yourself out of.”

12. “My epitaph will be: “Fuckers! I told you I wasn’t feeling well!”

11. “Love wears a white Stetson.”

10. “I don’t sit in trees anymore.”

9. “I’ve got nothing against daylight. I don’t live totally nocturnally. Only when I feel like it. Which is most of the time.”

8. “I hate predictions. They never turn out when I make them.”

7. “I read the Bible sometimes, but it bores me to death. I just want to know what other people find so bloody fascinating.”

6. ”Playing live with the Stones is like living in your own separate country. It’s like having an empire but no land.”

5. “What is life but playing with time?”

4. “Music is a necessity. After food, air, water and warmth, music is the next necessity of life.”

3. ”Yes, I’ve been trepanned. I’ve got pictures of it. They cut my head, brain, skull open, went in and pulled out the crap and put some back in again.”

2. “We all have our own personal laboratories. Life is an experiment, and it’s just a matter of getting the alchemical or chemical combination right.”

1. ”To me, life is a wild animal. You hope to deal with it when it leaps at you.”

For more, check out Jessica Pallington West’s fun book: What Would Keith Do? Daily Affirmations from a Rock ‘n’ Roll Survivor.

Horrified by tales of divorced men who were found cheating and left with nothing but a toaster and a fork (and a diagram suggesting on how the two could best be employed in tandem) from their vast fortunes, the need to keep “what she doesn’t know” from “not hurting her” becomes all the more pressing. Some poor slobs however just do not have luck, or perhaps it’s brains, on their side when it comes to keeping news of their carnal expeditions from reaching their wives.

Larry King is one such guy.

King, who’s been at his amphibious perch behind a CNN desk for twenty years plus, is alleged to have made a play for his wife’s sister of all people, while his wife, more appropriately, made a play for their son’s little league baseball coach. [Editors' note: One of their sons is named Cannon, who'd be a great future cast member of Donald Trump's reality show;  "Cannon, you're fired". For those keeping score at home, King's sister-in-law is Shannon].

Larry (who has had a different wife for every day of the week) and most recent ex-wife Shawn, just filed for divorce after an infidelity scandal the likes of which Sylvia Browne could not have predicted—given that psychics are unable to predict anything.

Of course, who knows how much King and wife knew about and tolerated each other’s escapades?

Jim Carrey, would-be couples therapist, commenting on the Tiger Woods situation opined in 140-characters or less, “No wife is blind enough to miss that much infidelity… Elin had 2 b a willing participant on the ride 4 whatever reason.”

Speaking of Tweets, a new book is pointing out that birds are not nearly as monogamous as previously believed.

According to a Toronto biologist and author of The Bird Detective, “There are a number of theories about why birds go their separate ways. One hypothesis is that birds that are genetically or behaviourally incompatible separate when both can benefit from finding a new partner.”

Time will tell if old bird Larry will shack up with any new chicks.

Anyone watching Inside The Actors’ Studio for the first time would be forgiven for assuming that the interviewees did at some point within the past 24 hours regenerate a spinal cord or help a leper perform his morning ablutions. James Lipton – him of the fawning and sexually ambiguous interview – treats his guests as gods descended to Earth, who can only stay for as long as it takes to tell us mortals what their least favorite sound is. For his part, Lipton often seems on the verge of a central nervous system collapse, so overcome is he at the gift of being able to bask in Mickey Rourke’s whiskey fumes.

Acting in films looks fairly easy— at least when you compare it to landing a plane or removing a gall bladder. Theatre would be tougher as a live audience gives immediate feedback—chatting during the main course, sneaking out for a smoke, being on a different plane of wakefulness—than the relatively small, indifferent group (nude scenes notwithstanding) assembled on a movie set. While stage actors have to memorize say, the soliloquy from Richard II – which contains more dialogue than the Transformers trilogy – most actors rarely have to remember anything longer than the lunch specials at the restaurants employing them.

Jaws 4: Should have been a Caine mutiny

It’s much harder to act in a bad film than in a good one. A terrible script makes for very difficult acting. You can win an Academy Award for some of the easiest acting in your career, made possible by a brilliant script.
Michael Caine

Jaws 3D must have been his King Lear

[Editor's note: Oops. It was Jaws 4: The Revenge. We apologize as Sharks for this grievous error. However, in our defence, movies featuring large fish eating people tend to blend together] 

Only a few of us will admit it, but actors will sometimes read a script like this: bullshit…bullshit…my part…blah, blah, blah…my part…bullshit…”
Michael J Fox

POINT

To be honest, I don’t usually do very much research, especially if I’m working with a director who also wrote the screenplay. They’ve usually done a tonne of research. And they’ll tell you about it from their perspective which is better than doing your own research…
Christina Ricci

COUNTERPOINT

for every In the Heat of the Night there are 50 Kindreds

Film acting would be about 80 percent better than it has been lately if actors did their homework, if they didn’t have egos that took the size of their talent for granted.
Rod Steiger

Mama gave me only one piece of acting advice: ‘Don’t do anything. It’s better than doing it wrong or badly. There will always be violins to give your character the right mood.’
Isabella Rossellini (referring to Ingrid Bergman)

So the wisdom that one of the legends of the silver screen had to pass on to her daughter, a famous screen presence in her own right, was basically: Be quiet and hope they don’t notice.

It’s really basically really easy. We’re not curing cancer—wish to God we were—we’re not. And it’s not rocket science. We’re just interpreting what somebody else who’s much cleverer than me, has written.
Malcolm McDowell

Silent Night Deadly Night 5, working title He Who Smelt It Dealt it

Clark Gable once said to me, “‘Acting school?’ [If you go,] I’ll kill ya!”
Mickey Rooney

Show me a bad script and I will show you a big payday.
Al Pacino

And for punishment, we’ll show you the lousy film that has been inflicted on the public.

My daughter used to sit and watch Murder, She Wrote. I tried to watch with her, but I fell asleep.
Angela Lansbury

Anyone not wowed by the opening credit sequence of Murder She Wrote — where Lansbury rides around her hamlet on a bicycle — is a narcoleptic.

I don’t see that anybody needs to earn $12 million for three months’ work, quite honestly.
Helen Mirren

Not unless that person has invested time and effort into establishing a successful drug cartel.

Movies today are like fast food. Today’s names won’t become legendary and lead to the next generation
Angela Lansbury

It’s a business you go into because you’re egocentric. It’s a very embarrassing profession.
Katherine Hepburn

Broadway producers are happy to have a big Hollywood name they can post on the marquee, but most of them assume that television and film stars really can’t handle stage work. Too often, they’re right.
Rue McClanahan

Who could handle making adolescent males watching TV with their parents uncomfortable by playing a promiscuous senior citizen on a popular sitcom.

There is only one thing that can kill the movies and that is education.
Will Rogers

That is especially true about when it comes to terrible movies about education, like Dangerous Minds.

An awful lot of actors who are considered very good actors are not very good actors. There are people who just strike gold, they have intrinsic talent but the point is that if they did train…it would only broaden them more.
Martin Landau

The actor is merely a crude empiricist, a practitioner guided by vague instinct.
Antonin Artaud

Artaud was best known for his Theatre of Cruelty manifesto—best experienced as the director’s cut of Batman & Robin. 　

I despise those prick actors who say ‘I was in character’, and ‘I became the character’ and all that stuff…It’s hideous. It’s just masturbation at the highest level.
Johnny Depp

Technique is something that you use if you need it. Otherwise, to hell with it.
Sanford Meisner

Remind us not to visit his barber.

The performances you have in your head are always much better than the performances on stage.
Dame Maggie Smith

Also better in your head: The pool of people interested in having no-strings sex with you.

[Reference: The Quotable Actor by Damon DiMarco]

Skeletal provocateur Ann Coulter continues to make waves, advocating ‘Muslim-free air travel’ recently in The Guardian and saying that “airlines ought to start advertising: ‘We have the most civil rights lawsuits brought against us by Arabs’”.

If this wasn’t enough the left-baiting whippet offered: “they could use flying carpets”, as a mode of transport—-which clearly is outrageous as these would’ve been employed in the 911 attacks if they were available.

Creepy Coulter is making the rounds at Canadian university campuses spreading good cheer and jocular bigotry as an icy, slightly paler female equivalent of Riff Raff (though considerably more verbose) the slouching manservant from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.  

“It’s just  to jump on the left
And then a step to the faaaaaarr right
With your hands on your hips (not applicable)”

I don't want the bad Mojo from 'The Village' rubbing off on me

Many professional associations hold ceremonies recognizing outstanding achievement in a given field. Give a guy a personalized plaque and it’ll be at least a week before he places a silent call to his boss followed by an email saying he can’t make it to work that day due to a case of acute laryngitis, and sending out resumes like distress signals.

The awards show that trumps them all when it comes to stroking more egos than a brothel on Small Penis Island is the Oscars. Watching them, you have to pinch yourself to remember that Ben Kingsley only played Gandhi, and had no part in actually helping India break from colonial rule. The approbation doled out will have you believe that the recipients spent their lives massaging lepers and filling holes in the ozone layer by hand rather than lolling about in a Malibu pool while a personal assistant organizes a timed sprinkler light display in front of their on-set trailer.

This pomposity reached its pinnacle in 2009, when nominees for the acting categories had a past winner read their IMDB highlights and explain why they were the best thing since the flush toilet. Even those who don’t have a hope in hell of winning can go home basking in the knowledge that Jack Nicholson reenacts scenes from their movies in his backyard gazebo.

The hauteur, the lack of perspective and the threat of being exposed to the comedy of Billy Crystal are reasons enough to get caught up on your Home Shopping Channel viewing come Oscar night. But there have been some moments in the history of the Academy Awards that are obnoxious even by the sky high bar set by Hollywood:

Clooney cracks himself up. However the real joke was that his movie won out over A History of Violence

10) George Clooney, Best Supporting Actor for Syriana, 2005:

In 2005, George Clooney’s affected Oscar speech for the baffling Syriana summed up just how deeply Hollywood’s head is implanted up its ass. Responding to host Jon Stewart’s earlier dig that Hollywood was out of touch with America, Clooney said: “I would say that we are a little bit out of touch in Hollywood… It’s probably a good thing. We were the ones talking about AIDS when it was just being whispered, and we talked about civil rights when it wasn’t popular and this group of people gave Hattie McDaniel an Oscar in 1939 when blacks were sitting in the backs of theaters.” Clooney failed to mention how this same group shoved more ethnic stereotypes down people’s throats than racist Uncle Lou the master impressionist at a family barbecue.

9) Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra as hosts, 1975:

The film chosen as the best documentary for 1974 was “Hearts and Minds” a hard-hitting documentary on the Vietnam War by Burt Schneider. Bob Hope, one of the hosts that night was featured in the documentary in a less than flattering light: as a hack comedian and cheerleader for an unjust war (in other words, accurately). He was no doubt refraining from doing knuckle bumps with anyone when Schneider was announced as the winner, but was peeved into action when the documentarian took the opportunity to read a message from the North Vietnamese after the recently signed Paris Peace Accords: “Please transmit to all our friends in America our recognition of all they have done on behalf of peace.” Jane Fonda obnoxious? Sure, but the guy had just won an Academy Award for a film condemning the Vietnam War, so fair pool. A furious Hope scribbled down a message and cajoled fellow presenter, Frank Sinatra, into reading it, purportedly “on behalf of the Academy”. “We are not responsible for any political references made on the program, and we are sorry they had to take place this evening.” Hope became persona non grata at the Oscars following this for invoking the name of the academy because of his bruised ego.

8) Debby Boone (Award for Songwriter Joseph Brooks):

In 1977, singer Debby Boone performed “You Light up My Life” at the ceremony. The ditty would later go on to win an Oscar for songwriter Joseph Thompson, who would go another few decades without accomplishing much before returning to the limelight as a defendant in a slew of rape cases. Boone thought it wasn’t fair that deaf people should be kept from enjoying this terrible song, so she brought a group of 11 kids on stage to sign the song for the hearing impaired watching the broadcast. As it turned out, the 11 kids were not deaf, as everybody had assumed they were, and had no clue how to sign. Deaf people called the performance “mumbo jumbo” and likely offered up a single digit you don’t need conversational ASL to comprehend.

7) Greer Garson, Best Actress, Mrs. Miniver, 1942:

Greer Garson won the Academy Award for her role as a strong wife and mother in World War II England and to support the war effort, the Oscars that year were made of plaster (producers of the Adult Video Awards take note)—a fact you can pull out of your hat if charades fails to enliven the dullest party imaginable. Garson rambled on for what the Guinness Book marks as the longest Oscar acceptance speech in history, one that made the Gettysburg address seem like a knock-knock joke. The presenter sat down and in an eerily prescient moment being that Cuba Gooding hadn’t even been born yet, Garson touched on the arbitrary nature of the awards. Wags dubbed it longer than her performance in the film and due to her long-windedness, speeches were capped.

"listen to the beating of your heart!"

6) James Cameron, Best director for Titanic, 1998:

Fittingly, as he also directed the Abyss, just when you thought things couldn’t sink any lower, Cameron proved the sea bottom could still be trawled. After thanking the cast earlier for giving him “pure gold every day” (since this is one of the worst films ever to win an Oscar, we’d hate to see how things would’ve turned out if they’d given him the stuff that rusts), Cameron noted “this is for a real event that happened when real people died and shocked the world in 1912 and I’d like…to do a few seconds of silence in remembrance of 1500 men, women and children who died.” Don’t’ forget, earlier he’d completely shattered whatever sense of solemnity he’d manage to craft among the drunken Hollywood assembled, by pumping his fist in the air and shouting: “I’m the king of the world!” not to mention following up that moment of silence with “now let’s party ’til dawn!”

5) Laurence Olivier, accepting the Irving Thalberg Award, 1979:

Olivier is often considered the greatest Shakespearean actor ever to fill out a codpiece while many of his acting rivals only graced a stage when it came time to bask in the glow of their charitable foundations. Olivier has consistently avoided the type of movie that topped box offices that year, such as Meatballs and The Muppet Movie and could’ve elevated the tone of the proceedings by dropping a bit of the ol’ Bard rather than copy that would’ve been edited out of the shittiest ‘thank you’ card, with this: “The prodigal, pure, human kindness of it [the Academy giving Olivier the award]—must be seen as a beautiful star in that firmament which shines upon me at this moment, dazzling me a little, but filling me with warmth and the extraordinary elation, the euphoria that happens to so many of us at the first breath of the majestic glow of a new tomorrow.”

4) Adrien Brody, Best Actor, The Pianist, 2002:

Brody won the Oscar for the Pianist and must have made the director of that film, Roman Polanski proud when he grabbed presenter Halle Berry and dipped the actress for an ill at ease lip-lock. He then cemented himself as a likely pincher of flight attendant bottoms with the lecherous quip: “I bet they didn’t tell you that was in the gift basket.” A follow-up was a meandering spiel mercifully interrupted by the band– a full minute after the usual cut-off time – but not soon enough to prevent Brody from sharing his revelation that war is indeed an ugly thing.

3) Julia Roberts, “Best” Actress, Erin Brockovich, 2001:

In 2001, Roberts, previously known for being out-acted by her body double in Pretty Woman, beat out Joan Allen, Ellen Burstyn, Juliette Binoche and Laura Linney – all far superior actresses. Roberts neglected any pretense of trying to keep things moving along with an under-two-minute speech, by going over six. Given lightning is unlikely to strike twice and she’ll never be granted hardware again, we can cut her some slack, but what made her speech particularly intolerable was her haughty bossing of the orchestra conductor. “You’re so quick with that stick, mister man, so why don’t you just sit down.”  Why the poor slob didn’t strike up the band with an up tempo “Roll out the Barrel”, we’ll never know.

2) Vanessa Redgrave, best actress for Julia (1978):

When Michael Moore won his Oscar for Bowling for Columbine, he proved himself one of the more disliked people in Hollywood by actually being booed by a room full of liberals when he called Bush 43 a “fictitious president” leading the country into a “fictitious war” (the latter sentiment likely not sitting well with the families of soldiers having their “fictitious asses” shot off overseas). But he at least won the award for what could loosely be deemed ‘a political documentary’. Vanessa Redgrave’s Oscar came for her role in Julia in which she played a woman struggling against tyranny in Nazi Germany, so it seemed incongruous to say the least, to single out “Zionist hoodlums” during her speech. That anger stemmed from a sympathetic documentary Redgrave made that same year about the PLO. While “hoodlums” were burning her in effigy in the stadium car park Redgrave said: “I think you should be very proud that in the last few weeks you’ve stood firm and you have refused to be intimidated by the threats of a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums, whose behavior is an insult to the stature of Jews all over the world.”

FACTOID: Redgrave’s middle finger was compounded by further obnoxious behavior later on in the night when screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky, there to present the award for best screenwriter, decided to upbraid Redgrave for her speech earlier in the evening: “I would like to suggest to Miss Redgrave that her winning an Academy Award is not a pivotal moment in history, does not require a proclamation and a simple ‘Thank you’ would have sufficed.” It would have sufficed for Chayefsky to announce the names of the nominees rather than just blurting out the name of the winner following his rant.

1) Marlon Brando, best actor for The Godfather, 1973:

Winning his first Oscar in 1959 for On the Waterfront, Marlon Brando accepted the award with humility, grace, and brevity worthy of rousing applause.  “It’s a wonderful moment and a rare one,” he said, “and I’m certainly indebted. Thank you.” Fast forward to 1973 when it was pretty much assured that Brando would win the Oscar for the Godfather, and he pulled off the most obnoxious stunt in the history of the Academy Awards. Instead of attending the ceremony, Brando sent Sacheen Littlefeather, supposedly as a representative of the Apache tribe, to read a prepared statement about Hollywood’s negative treatment of Native Americans. There were probably a few Italians in the house who found this ironic. Littlefeather, whose Apache credentials later came into doubt as she was reported to be a Mexican actress, had been given a 15-page statement by Brando to read, though the booing and catcalling that greeted her speech cut that short.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have his slapping hand at the ready when purity-ringleader Nick Jonas appeared on his show this week and implied that Dylan can’t sing.

Nick Jonas, a member of eponymous fraternal rubes who help fund Disney shareholder 401ks, awkwardly made his way through the interview with Kimmel, obviously made uncomfortable by Jimmy’s humor, and looking like he would run for the exits screaming “Jesus Saves” when the host broached the subject of sex.

During the second half of the interview, Jonas was discussing a remake of We Are the World in which rapper Lil’ Wayne was supposed to sing Bob Dylan’s original part. When the Louisiana rapper protested, “but I can’t sing”, the Jonas Brother quipped to Kimmel ‘Exactly!’

We assume Kimmel held back from shaking this kid by the lapels and slapping him until he became aware of how inappropriate it is for a maker of confectionery pop music to disrespect one of the all-time greats. Somehow, though, we think Bob Dylan will be able to weather this assault from a singer whose music does the opposite of what good music should do and that is encourage people to fornicate.

We’ve covered a few beefs here before, but this isn’t going to be anything close to a fair fight, like say, one between former Bloods gangbanger The Game and human flak jacket 50 Cent. The closest we’ve come is covering a restaurant beef between George Clooney and Fabio, who just never got the acting recognition he deserved. Here we are comparing Dylan, a musical meteor shower, with Nick Jonas, a discount firecracker.

But let’s see how it plays out on the tale-of-the-tape, even if it seems, to use a different metaphor—-blue fin tuna versus bycatch.

Bob Dylan has been called the voice of a generation

Nick Jonas has been a spokesperson for adult-onset acne

Dylan’s influence can be felt in literary, folk, jazz, hip hop and poetry circles

Nick Jonas’ influence can be felt in a mall food court.

Bob Dylan’s songs have been covered by thousands of artists globally from every genre of music

Nobody has covered a Jonas Brothers song to the best of our knowledge, or at least, have not fessed up to it if they have.

Bob Dylan wrote a critically acclaimed memoir, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle that spent 19 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

Nick Jonas dated Miley Cyrus.

Bob Dylan received a special citation from the Pulitzer Prize committee for his impact on American culture and academics have lobbied Nobel members to award him a Nobel Prize for Literature.

Nick Jonas, with his brothers, appeared in an ad for Baby Bottle Pops.

Bob Dylan was cited in Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century where he was called “master poet, caustic social critic and intrepid, guiding spirit of the counterculture generation”.

Nick Jonas has been photographed in Bop  and Tiger Beat

Bob Dylan Choice Lyrics:

‘Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood
When blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud
I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form.
“Come in,” she said,
“I’ll give you shelter from the storm.”

Jonas Brothers Choice Lyrics:

How long will I be waiting,
To be with you again
Gonna tell you that I love you,
In the best way that I can.

Bob Dylan has stayed relevant, constantly reinventing himself as an artist and his most recent albums are among the best of his career.

The most remarkable thing about Nick Jonas is that he has diabetes.

Bob Dylas has been a colossal figure in American music for half a century.

Nick Jonas writes his own songs—-but let’s point out that Danielle Steele and Stephenie Meyer write their own books but that doesn’t make it right.

Projected Winner: Any single day Dylan has spent in a recording studio victorious over the entire output of Nick Jonas’ career.

In 1992, in a move that riled both the previous host, Johnny Carson, and anyone with a sense of humor who had not been somehow decisively thwarted in life, Jay Leno won The Tonight Show spot over the far funnier, innovative legend of Late Night, David Letterman.

Leno then spent years upsetting anyone who made the mistake of turning on the television during a commercial break, figuring it had been tuned into Letterman and then getting into bed only to have the Chin appear on the screen and realizing too late that the remote was out of arm’s reach. His show was popular among the lowest common denominator of comedy fans, which also meant that it was hugely successful for a number of years since a surprisingly huge number of people embrace crap.

Do it for Team Coco!

Then the hope of pre-midnight laughter on NBC arose when it was announced that Leno was going to be stepping aside for Conan O’Brien.

Often when current, big shot comedy writers talk about their formative experiences, they talk about being on one of three writing teams: SNL, Letterman, and Conan during his time at Late Night. Conan wrote some of The Simpsons all-time best episodes, including a Shark Guy favorite, “Marge Versus The Monorail”, and he actually improved upon what had up to that point been the funniest franchise in late night talk show history, “Late Night With David Letterman”, with his team’s own hilarious sketches, top among them Triumph The Insult Comic Dog, and the Masturbating Bear.

The first week of the Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien contained more fresh ideas and innovative comedy than any single year of the show under Jay Leno. It seemed that Team Coco was going to extend and improve upon The Tonight Show franchise just as it had done with Late Night. Admittedly, this was far easier to do as it was building from the ground up comedy-wise with The Tonight Show, but still, all positive up to that point.

Of course, rather than fading into an endless succession of Las Vegas stand-up dates playing to rooms full of lobotomized people, Jay Leno announced that he was going to move to 10pm, which he called the “new 11.30pm”. He did the impossible and managed to produce a program that was even more derivative and uninspired than his Tonight Show.

Like being the captain of the next ship on the RMS Titanic Co's cruise calendar.

Leno might have been stroking that big chin of his when he made this decision, as it turned out to be a crafty one. The Jay Leno show comprised lame skits, monologues so bad they almost seemed antagonistic, and set pieces that made one wonder if the writer’s strike had really ended. Much good humor had already been sucked out of the world by the time 11.35pm came on and The Tonight Show began.

For Conan, following the Jay Leno show was like being thrown out of an airplane with a 200-pound weight on your back instead of a parachute. As Leno himself said in this interview when justifying why his own show was tanking at 10pm.: “Lead-ins are important. On the nights when we have a strong lead-in, we are competitive; on the nights we don’t, it’s up to us to try and carry the ball ourselves….”

To salvage the wreck of the Jay Leno Show debacle, NBC decided to give Leno back his 11.35pm slot, perhaps reasoning that it would be impossible for Leno to decimate his own audience by leading into his own show. After a few disingenuous jokes about how he had been “fired again”, Leno accepted the offer, undoubtedly thrilled to steer the Tonight Show franchise back on the path of unchallenging mediocrity that he has long championed.

Below we have identified five traits that we find particularly irksome about Jay Leno. This is by no means a definitive list — we make no mention of Leno’s band leader, Kevin Eubanks, the most uncharismatic man on television — but here are The Five Most Annoying Things About Jay Leno.

5. Shameless Corporate Shill

Network television is run by ads, so anyone on it can be dubbed a corporate shill, but there’s a way to handle that without seeming like the president of the local chapter of the Big Industrial Pollute, Fatten and Stupefy fan club.

The late comedian Bill Hicks once admired Leno, but grew disillusioned when he saw Leno on TV stuffing Doritos in his gob for cash.

This from Alternative Reel’s Top Hicks quotes:

“Selling Doritos on TV? What a fuckin’ whore. And not even when he needed the money either, you know? If you’re a young actor, I’ll look the other way, but the guy makes $3 million a year, he decides to hock Doritos to make more money. You don’t got enough money you fucking whore? You’ve got to sell snacks to bovine America now? It’s Satan fucking him in the ass on national TV man . . . fuck . . .”

To this day, Leno is no stranger to sucking at the teat of Corporate America, as this compilation from a September episode of his terrible recent foray into prime time makes clear.

4. But Says He’s Not in it for the money

It’s one thing to prostitute your creative output in the pursuit of filthy lucre. We can understand that, and we too like our lucre, the filthier the better. But Leno claims he’s not in it for the money.

He told Rolling Stone:

Showbiz is not that hard. People make it difficult. The problem starts when you have to have all the money. I don’t need all the money. I’ve said this a million times, and it’s clichéd, but I’ve never touched a dime of TV money. I put it in the bank and live off the money I make as a stand-up comedian. That keeps me honest.

If the money isn’t important to him, and he doesn’t give a crap about doing anything worthwhile in comedy, then why does he insist on continuing with the show?

Jay trades wits with a puppet. Puppet 1, Jay 0

3. His Nice Guy Shtick

Mention Jay Leno and the most common response you get even from those who would rather watch their own open-heart surgery in the OR is that he seems like a really nice guy.

First, who cares if he’s a friendly guy in real life, and tips generously at places with valet parking? Overly talkative people on the bus are often quite amiable, but we wouldn’t want to listen to them deliver monologues after the news, especially if the experience is not preferable to discount root canal at the dental college. But more importantly and as recent events make perfectly clear: he’s not that nice. Leno undermined Conan with his lousy lead-in show, and even went so far as to say in an interview that he would be happy to take up the reins at 11.35pm again “if [NBC] wanted it”. He said that before anyone suggested that NBC might return him to his old slot, and was basically implying that he’d happily knock Conan out of the position if given the opportunity.

Leno denied having any such ambitions in his Rolling Stone interview: “I said, ‘Guys, whatever you want to do.’ I’ve never been one of these guys that breaks up with a girl and goes, ‘But why? If I do this, will you go out with me?’ I’m more like, ‘Babe, if you don’t want to see me, I’m gone. It’s over. Thank you.’ ”

Actually, he’s more like the passive aggressive guy who gets dumped and then waits for the right moment when his ex is either drunk or suffering from low self-esteem to sweep in and get a leg-over.

Jay Leno, likely in the process of delivering a terrible monologue joke.

2. Horrendous Monologue Jokes

Also in his interview with Rolling Stone, Leno lists extending the monologue from 3-4 minutes to 14 as one of his innovations during his time at The Tonight Show. Since his monologues elicit more groans than recent gunshot wounds, this hardly seems like an innovation worth bragging about.

If these zingers from recent episodes of the Jay Leno show are any indication, he could have extended the monologue to PBS Pledge Drive drive proportion and not registered an increase in funny material:

(on the link between hemorrhoids and marijuana):
“Talk about a doubie up your bootie!” -Jay Leno

“Well, it’s growing more and more likely that California will legalize marijuana. You mean it’s not already legal?” –Jay Leno

“Well of course, the big political story, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid got himself in hot water during the election, when he described Barack Obama as a ‘light-skinned’ African-American ‘with no negro dialect.’ See, that may explain why Reid was the Senate majority leader and not the Senate minority leader.” –Jay Leno.

1. He was funny once

It may seem shocking, but Jay Leno was actually funny once. As Patton Oswalt noted in this Comedy Death Ray segment, Jay Leno’s current incarnation is all the more disappointing because at one time capable of producing great comedy.

Here, in a segment from Late Night With David Letterman, Leno does a bit on hackneyed comedy, and it seems a shame that he would go on to become synonymous with just that.