The Slug

Favoritest Photo of the Week: Boo Bear

(AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

Normally, we're not big fans of zoos, but we're staying objective for the selection of our Favoritest Photo of the Week. Nothing this week has simultaneously put The Slug in the Halloween spirit and made us say "awwwwww!" more than this grizzly bear stuffing her face in a jack-o-lantern. Carve out the original caption:

Kachina, a 4-year-old female grizzly bear, eats treats as she plays with a pumpkin at the San Francisco Zoo, Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2007. The bear treats are part of the Zoo's annual Halloween "Boo at the Zoo" and "Dia De Los Muertos" celebration. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

Favoritest Photo of the Week: Kiss and Tell

(AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Yeah, we know the kids think Zac Efron is a hottie. Apparently, so does Minnie Mouse, so much so that the floozy had the audacity to lay her lips on Troy Bolton right next to her beau Mickey — and the whole world — at the "High School Musical 2" premiere. Wait, does she even have lips? No? Guess it doesn't count then. You win this time, Minnie. But we're submitting this Favoritest Photo of the Week as evidence of your indiscretion. The original caption:

Zac Efron, a cast member in "High School Musical 2," poses with Mickey and Minnie Mouse at the premiere of the Disney Channel movie in Anaheim, Calif., Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2007. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Swimming with Shark Week

(AP Photo/HO/Discovery Channel)

Last night, The Slug had the pleasure of entering some shark-infested waters at the 20th anniversary party for Discovery Channel's Shark Week at Chelsea Piers' Pier 60. Can you believe there have been 20 years of eduterror (yes, we just made that word up) about these watery predators? Shark Week partygoers had to cross a makeshift bridge over some flat-screen TVs on the floor featuring shark footage to get inside the event. Scary!

After being baited with some preview footage from "Ocean of Fear: Worst Shark Attack Ever," a doc from this year's Shark Week about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in 1945, we noshed on sushi, poke and chocolate ganache — no shark meat! — and mingled among stars from Discovery Networks shows such as Mike Rowe from "Dirty Jobs," Jeff Corwin from a gazillion different Animal Planet shows and Clinton Kelly from "What Not to Wear."

Up Close with a Circus Elephant

Back in March, we told you about our crazy night riding in the back of pickup truck driving down 34th Street in Manhattan in front of an elephant. It was all part of an asap video series, which is now complete, that we were filming about a working family in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. What we didn't tell you was just how close we came to the 9,000-pound animal. We finally got around to uploading the footage. See the unedited encounter in this Slugvideo.

What's in the Trunk?

(AP Photo/Derrik J. Lang)

Wowie zowie. What a night. The Slug spent part of the evening in the back of a pickup truck driving down 34th Street in Manhattan, in front of an elephant. The 137th edition of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is coming to town. And it's become an annual tradition for the circus elephants and horses to be paraded into the city through the Queens-Midtown Tunnel and over to Madison Square Garden. We were in the back of the truck shooting footage for an upcoming asap video series about a real-life circus family. The father is an animal trainer. It was without a doubt the most insane New York traffic jam we've ever been in.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Easter Eggs

(AP Photo/Reed Saxon)

If you loved the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the late '80s and early '90s like we did and/or you're interested in the brand-new "TMNT," be sure you download our asap podcast, dude. It's all about Ninja Turtle nostalgia. Oh, and we couldn't fit this in the podcast, but "TMNT" writer-director Kevin Munore personally told The Slug about four things he hid for die-hard fans within the animated flick. Sorry, Vanilla Ice fans. No "Ninja Rap" included. See if you can spot them. "TMNT" slices into theaters today.

1.) Some of the turtles' dialogue is lovingly lifted from the comic books, especially a scene between Raph and Casey Jones.

2.) The turtle's sewer enclave includes a shelf full of relics from their previous adventures, such as a canister of ooze and time-traveling lantern. It's easy to spot at the end of the movie.

3.) Some of the computer-generated New York storefronts were modeled after those from the live-action trilogy.

4.) There's a sculptural shoutout to the nasty Triceraton Empire inside the movie villian's lair.

"Lair" Cake

(AP Photo/HO/Sony)

The Slug just got back from previewing the new dragon game "Lair," which flies into stores exclusively for the PlayStation 3 this summer. We're actually unicorn fans here, but the highly detailed environments and fiery aerial combat looked great in the unfinished version we witnessed.

However, The Slug was most impressed by the game's flight controls. When you want the serpent you've mounted to bank right, you tilt the Sixaxis controller right. Want him to do a reverse 180-degree turn? Flick that motion controller backwards. No analog controls here. Fun!

Now for the bad news: The dragons won't be customizable beyond some unlockable moves. So you can extinguish any dreams you had of crafting a green and yellow beast with pink hair. Pete, we're looking at you.

Favoritest Photo of the Week: Pucker Up

(AP Photo/Tom Uhlman)

We know what you're saying right now: "Awwwww!" That's exactly what The Slug said when we came across this photo in the AP Archive of a new male polar bear getting randy at the Cincinnati Zoo. And since we celebrated Valentine's Day this week with that low-rated episode of "Lost" — a show that, for some reason, loves polar bears — we decided to make this photo our Favoritest Photo of the Week. Smooch the original caption:

The Cincinnati Zoo's new male polar bear, Little One, right, from the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, gets to know one of his potential mates, Berit, as they swim in their exhibit in Cincinnati, Thursday, Feb. 15, 2007. (AP Photo/Tom Uhlman)

Our Favoritest Things in 2006

(AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Our long national nightmare is almost over! The year-end lists that plague this time of year will be null and void at the stroke of midnight Sunday. So before we take off for a three-day weekend full of speculating and drinking, here's, um, yet another year-end list! We skipped the crap and just went for our favoritiest pop culture nuggets from 2006. If you disagree or think there was something better, we probably didn't see it — or you're just wrong.

Favoritest Viral Video: Reverend Alecia. She simply spun, spun, spun around on a gold lamé-covered office chair to "give praise to the name of the Lord," but there was something so hilariously beautiful about it. And just when you thought you've had enough, she spins via split-screen.

Favoritest Song: "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley. Sure, it's played out now, but we remember when, we remember, we remember at the beginning of the year when the infectious beat and repetitious lyrics shook our tush. While OutKast was busy making a movie, Gnarls Barkley's Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo filled the genre-spanning void with the bestest ditty of 2006.

Favoritest Commercial: Little Richard for Geico. Usually we cringe at celebrities shilling in ads. (Case in point: Alan Thicke offering a "second honeymoon" at the Tahiti Village in Las Vegas. Oh, brother.) But Little Richard steals the show while hawking car insurance with the best description of Thanksgiving dinner ever. Whooo!!!

Favoritest Reality TV Show: "Survivor: Cook Islands." It started with a scandal and could've gone horribly wrong. Instead, viewers of this aging reality show were treated to a season of interesting twists that had nothing to do with that racial divide. By season's end, we were left with a dominating multicultural alliance who concluded the potentially viscous game with more integrity than any previous season.

Favoriest Movie: "Borat" and "The Queen." We know. We know. We're lame for the tie, but we couldn't pick just one. Surprisingly, we sorta loved both for the same reason. These scathing looks at two very different cultures successfully undulated between real and fake, fact and fiction. "Borat" did it for laughs. "The Queen" did it for chills. And we're better for watching both.

Favoritest Roller Coaster: Tatsu. Opened in April, this soaring Japanese-themed coaster, which suspends riders horizontally, whirls 170-feet above Six Flags Magic Mountain's other rides and — gulp! — the ground. When we visited Los Angeles in October, we rode in the front and truly felt like Superman.

Favoritest Game Show: "The Price is Right." You can keep "Deal or No Deal," "1 vs. 100," "Identity" and all those other prime-time game shows. They're boring and, frankly, seem phony. We'll take the crazy everyday men and women who compose "The Price is Right" audience any day of the week. And although Bob Barker announced he's retiring next year, we think he's still got it.

Favoritest Scandal: Clay Aiken's hand. When the "American Idol" runner-up put his hand over Kelly Ripa's mouth on "Live with Regis and Kelly," it ignited a firestorm across daytime television. We're surprised it didn't cause any havoc in Harmony on "Passions."

Favoritest TV Show: "Heroes." While "Lost" was busy dragging out its tiresome mysteries — there, we said it — this superhero drama moved forward with superhuman speed, improving upon a very ehhhh first episode and veering clear of copying "X-Men" by focusing intriguing they-could-be-real characters. We can't wait until 2007 to find out if we're on the list!   

Favoritest Video Game: "Loco Roco." Our favorite game this year wasn't on Wii or PlayStation 3. It was on — gasp! — the PlayStation Portable. With spirited graphics, addictive soundtrack and innovate gameplay, we think this gelatinous puzzle game was more vanguard than anything on those next-generation consoles.

Favoritest Blog: Adrants. We love this marketing and advertising blog for exposing bizarre commercials, flogs and silly P.R. campaigns. In a year when the line between entertainment and advertisement became even thinner, Adrants was there to point its finger and giggle. (And no, we didn't pick Adrants because they linked to our HeadOn post.)

Favoritest asap Story We Did: Waiting for Cats. This past year, we had the opportunity to create stories about amazing people (Mr. T, Bazooka Joe), amazing animals (Lassie, mascots), amazing places (Costa Rica, Flea World) and amazing things ("Second Life," Mardi Gras), but our favoritest was simply tailing a group of talented teenagers who were putting on an amateur production of "Cats."

Slug Gift Guide: Don't Forget Fido

(AP Photo/Derrik J. Lang)

You shouldn't surprise people on your shopping list with a pet for Christmas, according to animal welfare experts. That's like springing a kid on someone. However, this doesn't mean pups themselves should be left out of the gift-giving festivities Give the pooches you know something everyone would love for the holidays: beer and candy. Pup Life sells an organic 15-piece candy sampler for $10.99. And you can get some Happy Tail Ale — that's right, beer for dogs — from PetCo for $17.97. Woof!

Doggy World

(AP Photo/HO/Animal Planet)

Bow wow wow yippee yo yippy yay AKC/Eukanuba National Championship definitely in the house this weekend. Over the weekend, Animal Planet will broadcast the dog show live from Long Beach, Calif. If you heart hounds, you can follow the backstage action online. And the dogs are going all "Idol" on us again this year with a viewer-selected winner, too. Vote corgi. Vote often.

The Slug Found Nemo

(AP Photo/Derrik J. Lang)

The Slug went to another dramatic Disney press conference last night. We can't get enough. Mickey Mouse didn't announce anything shockingly new. The Disney folks just reiterated that they will fufill over a million dreams during their "Year of a Million Dreams" campaign and that Nemo will soon be found all over the place. The famous clownfish is taking over the submarine ride at Disneyland, The Living Seas pavilion at Epcot and a new musical at Animal Kingdom. Take a gander at the huge puppets from the show, which opens Jan. 24. Where do you put your hand up that turtle!?

Slugshots: We Just Want to Dance with Somebody

• "The Greatest Love of All" is officially ending.
• K-Fed is right where he belongs: in the wrasslin' ring.
• Dogs! Tricks! Cute!
• The Slug will miss Sara Evans on "Dancing with the Stars."
• Cracked magazine relaunched its site. Bookmarked!
• Say hello to my little friend again and again and again.
• Mommy, we want this for Christmas!
• Sean Lennon sounds cool.
• Fine. But it won't bring you-know-who back.

Take Fido to Texas

(AP Photo/Derrik J. Lang)

If you're looking to become a hotel maid, don't mess with Texas. That's because Houston, San Antonio and Austin top the list of North America's most accommodating cities for travelers with pets, based on the number of pet-friendly lodgings included in the latest edition of "Traveling with your Pet: The AAA PetBook." Houston has 108 pet-friendly accommodations available, including three five-diamond hotels. Yeehaw! Here's the top ten. And here's a podcast about the booming business of pet travel. And there's a photo of The Slug's Welsh corgi.

1. Houston
2. San Antonio
3. Austin, Texas
4. Albuquerque, N.M.
5. Phoenix
6. Dallas
7. New York
8. Orlando, Fla.
9. Nashville, Tenn.
10. Tucson, Ariz.

Just Imagine the House Training

(AP Photo/HO/NCsoft)

This is kinda cute and/or strange. In the latest version of the MMORPG "Lineage II," you can raise a dragon from a wobbling lil' baby to soaring, fire-spitting beast. OK, OK. So it requires doing totally geeky stuff like attaining Level 20, traveling to the town of Giran to raise a hatchling and then climbing to the top of a castle to call the creature. If you do plan to conjure one, please help control the dragon population. Have your dragon spayed or neutered.

Original "Snakes on a Plane" Director Wanted to KILL (OFF) SAM JACKSON!!!

(AP Photo/HO/Rogue Pictures)

While interviewing Ronny Yu (the one on the left, fools), The Slug's B.F.F. and "Snakes on a Plane" correspondent Ryan Pearson asked about the blog-buzzed horror film that Yu was originally supposed to direct (and that has pretty much flopped at the box office). The Hong Kong horror master cited the boring "creative differences" explanation, but then gave us the juice. He initially signed on because of the title (duh!) and though he was friendly with Samuel L. Jackson, Yu wasn't sure Jackson was the right fit for the film. Here's his explanation:

"If you put Samuel L. Jackson in it, and you have snakes on a plane, who is the star of the show? Is it Samuel L. Jackson, or is it the snake? If you want Samuel L. Jackson to be the hero, then the snakes weren't that important, because you knew at the end Samuel L. Jackson would save the day."

His big UNLESS: "If I'm allowed the creative freedom, then I'll do it a little differently with Samuel L. Jackson. I'll make him more of a surprise for the audience. ... He can be a cool guy, but kill off the cool guy, so people hate those snakes. Rather than have the normal hero come save the day, I think the audience wants to see something a little bit different, unpredictable. Of course, working with a studio you have to follow what they set down, what their rules are."

Bottom line: Yu wanted to kill off Sam Jackson. The studio didn't. Yu left.

Snakes On a (Insert Something Here)

(AP Photo/HO/Playboy)

We're not sure if we can even link to Playboy.com. (There's naked ladies there! We're owned by a traditional news wire!) But The Slug thinks the sexy magazine's "Snakes on a Playmate" feature, which is launching today, is quite possibly the breaking point in the saturation of "Snakes on a Plane," which is opening today.

Basically, Playboy has gone through their archives and found every photo of every model posing with a snake. The fact that there are enough photos for this is beyond us. Not since the lame homoerotic jokes that "Brokeback Mountain" spawned have we seen a potentially worthwhile film give birth to so many silly parodies.

Jasper Shows Us His Best Side

(AP Photos/HO/Traditional Home)

I know yesterday's news of Meredith Vieria's Photoshopped dog shocked you. But what's this on the Traditional Home Web site? It's Jasper! Either the Traditional Home design team perfected their Photoshop technique or the Aussiepoo is really real (and really larger than his cut-and-paste alter ego).

Meredith Vieira Poses Next to Photoshopped Dog

(AP Photo/HO/Traditional Home)

Tacky yet sophisticated Meredith Vieira always was our favorite co-host from "The View." But where's she been during all the Star Jones Reynolds vs. Barbara Walters drama? Seems she was hiding out in her fabulously renovated crib, which is featured in next month's Traditional Home magazine, with an Aussiepoo named Jasper.

Take a closer look at that photo of Vieira and her pooch. The poor thing's been haphazardly Photoshopped next to her! We all know magazines use computer magic for digital liposuction and face lifts — but canine injections? Oh my Lassie. That's new to us. Is Jasper just a figment of her imagination? Or is it in Jasper's contract to not actually appear with Vieira? Does she — gasp! — not even own a dog named Jasper?

Always an animal lover, The Slug wanted to know. So we put in a call to a Traditional Home spokeswoman who said Jasper does indeed exist, but she's not sure why he was cut-and-pasted next to the future "Today" show co-host. Maybe Barbara Walters will employ this technology for that Debbie Matenopoulos appearance next week.

The Great White Way

(AP Photo/HO/Discovery)

To commemorate publicize "Shark Week," the Discovery Channel attached this gigantic inflatable shark — it took 6.65 miles of fabric to make! — to their headquarters in Silver Spring, Md. "Shark Week" programming airs on the Discovery Channel for its 19th year from July 30 to Aug. 4. Mmmmm. Bet the meat from that sucker would make a mean burger.

Inside the Cat House

(AP Photo/HO/Meow Mix/Albert Ferreira)

The claws are coming out! Last night, The Slug stopped by the Meow Mix House — the set for the "first reality show starring cats." Think: "America's Next Top Feline." The "house" is actually inside a "Today" show-esque glassed-in storefront on Madison Avenue in New York, where 10 cats from shelters across the nation will live and compete. Viewers can watch all the pussy action on webcams and vote for their favorite catty contestant online. See more of these famous felines after the jump.

(AP Photo/Derrik J. Lang)

The Slug is in Love with a Blob

(AP Photo/HO/Sony)

The combinable blobs! The childlike graphics! The infectious Japanese pop soundtrack! The odd gameplay! The Slug doesn't usually get this excited about video games — how geeky, right? — but we're loco for the upcoming PlayStation Portable game "Loco Roco." And you should be, too. It won't hit the U.S. until September, but you can download the "Loco Roco" demo for free here.

(AP Photo/HO/Sony)

Lassie's Roots Revealed

(AP Photo/HO/Classic Media)

Recently, The Slug hung out with the biggest bitch in Hollywood for this story. Little did we know Lassie was such a controversial figure. She seemed so nice! After the story was published, we received this letter, setting the record straight about the pooch's history. In our defense, we were just writing about hanging with the bitch for one night. We weren't hired to write her biography. (But we totally would. Lassie, call us!) The bizarre letter, after the jump.