Glenn Beck Appearance 12/11/06

This has to have been the most star-studded make-up room of the year – putting John Bolton and Anderson Cooper’s previous appearances to shame.
First there was the legendary Larry King, surrounded by a coterie of admirers fawning over his every word. He was chatting away, which is exactly what he gets to do for a living, which makes him a very lucky man. He was telling an interesting story about a doctor he knew, who I think was named Phillips. The doctor’s office had a sign that read “Doctor Phillips” with an arrow pointing upstairs. When the doctor died, his grave marker read “Doctor Phillips” with… an arrow pointing upstairs. Everyone cooed. Mr. King then complained that CNN was endlessly showing the surveillance footage of Lady Diana’s last moments. He said she was the only royal he’s liked.
But the real whoppers were Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie and Robert De Niro. Their presence turned the house upside down. You’d have expected that a television operation used to having various celebrities in it at any given time would know how to behave. But no. It was chaos, with an entire hallway filled with people who had no business being there. Folks from other floors, from accounting, from the cafeteria, maintenance folks and what seemed like people straight off the street awkwardly milled about the hallway, bumping in to the Jolie-Damon-De Niro entourage and the CNN security guards. You’d have thought Jesus was around the corner signing autographs but no, three actors getting powder on their mugs. It was a mess. If people behaved like that around me, I’d freak out and hide in Namibia too. No wonder these people go insane.
As Glenn is on the road this week, this segment took place on the set of the show as opposed to my usual closet with a camera. His console has fun sound effect buttons on it like “game show theme” which I’d love to press. The set is in the same soundstage as Nancy Grace’s. It’s about 50 degrees in these things which is great because at about 53 degrees I sweat like a White House press secretary.
Though I doubt the Grateful Palate bacon-of-the-month folks want their product back, it’ll be interesting to see if Melitta asks for their $200 weather-telling coffee machine.