For 2005 fun, you can't touch this
Sideshow rounds up some pop-culture touchstones of the year.
By SHARON FINK
Published December 29, 2005
MOST-SEARCHED TERM ON YAHOO: Britney Spears.
MOST-SEARCHED TERM ON AMERICA ONLINE: Paris Hilton.
TOP NEWS SEARCH ON GOOGLE: Janet Jackson.
BIGGEST MYSTERY: Janet Jackson? Maybe too many people confused Michael with her.
MOST-SEARCHED ACTOR BY PAID SUBSCRIBERS ON THE INTERNET MOVIE DATABASE WEB SITE: Johnny Depp.
BIGGEST MONEY-MAKING TOUR: U2, according to Billboard.
TOP-SELLING ALBUMS: Mariah Carey's The Emancipation of Mimi and 50 Cent's The Massacre, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
AT ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY ...: Readers voted Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire the best movie in wide release before Dec. 8 and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince best new novel. The magazine named the cast of Lost its entertainer of the year.
E! ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR: Desperate Housewives' five main female actors and show creator Marc Cherry.
"PEOPLE EN ESPANOL" STAR OF THE YEAR: Actor-singer Paulina Rubio. "Everybody wants to know what Pau is doing and where she is," the magazine said.
BOX OFFICE TOPPER: Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith was the year's top-grossing movie through Dec. 26, according to the Hollywood Reporter, taking in $380,262,555.
And Sideshow anoints a few touchstones of our own.
ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR: Superman.
- Tom Welling eclipses George Reeves as TV's quintessential Male of Steel.
- The loudest buzz about the latest movie version, out in 2006, was that new fly guy Brandon Routh looked too well-endowed in his tights, so he had to be digitally altered below the waist. The official response: You've got to be kidding.
- Nicolas Cage gives his new son Clark Kent's birth name, Kal-el.
BEST BREAKUP: Renee Zellweger and Kenny Chesney get an annulment after seven months of marriage and less than a year of knowing each other. She filed for it, citing fraud, then had to issue a statement saying fraud was just a legal term and nothing negative about Chesney.
WINNER OF THE FIRST NICOLE KIDMAN JILTED SPOUSE WHO WILL FOREVER HAVE THE PUBLIC ON HER SIDE AWARD: Jennifer Aniston.
PREDICTED WINNER OF THE FIRST NICOLE KIDMAN "I COULD HAVE TOLD YOU SO" JILTED SPOUSE AWARD: Katie Holmes.
BEST NEW PHRASE: "Jumping the couch," used to refer to someone acting so bizarrely that he frightens people.
PREDICTIONS OF "AMERICAN IDOL'S" DEMISE WERE GREATLY EXAGGERATED AGAIN: For the second straight year, the topic that has generated the most reader response to the St. Petersburg Times was American Idol in a landslide.
- RUNNERUP: Rock Star: INXS (do we need to point out the similarities?).
BEST TV PLOT SUMMARY: "Abe and Lexie had marital troubles because he was blind and impotent." (From Days of Our Lives, summarized by Soap Opera Digest).
SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN THE APPEAL: Gwen Stefani.
THE ONLY POP CULTURE FORCE THAT MATTERED: Green Day.
Sharon Fink can be reached at 727 893-8525 and fink@sptimes.com