Julie Chen Discovers New Passion For Mini Putt-Putt

Sweet Sassy Molassy! Julie Chen was flubtastic tonight. Whether it was her voting play-by-play or her color commentary on a rousing game of miniature golf, the Chenbot was messing things up left and right. Luckily her misfortune is our entertainment, but in tonight’s case, the casual Chen flub may have actually changed the course of Big Brother 5. As we here at TVgasm have already noted, Julie Chen clearly did not listen to this season’s ponderous mantra, “Do Not Assume”, which is why she blew her wad (if that’s possible) on Marvin’s successful putt. But clever eyes and well-worn Tivos discovered a twist that not even the producers had anticipated. Karen’s ball actually dropped before Marvin’s. Project DNA THAT, Julie Chen. Gotcha, Chenbot! I guess we knew we’d be in for a night of scandal when Julie decided to wear a dress that was apparently inspired by the plastic binding on a six-pack of soda. I feared a wayward seagull might get caught in the straps and die. Of course no bird would ever fly close to Julie because her Darth Vader helmet hair was back in full force. I’d like Julie to introduce her fashions the way she does the weekly nominees: “What will be more awkward? Will it be my dress – the refuse from a Pepsi splurge earlier this afternoon – or my hair – the George Lucas inspired coif from Star Wars? We’ll find out in moments. But first…”

The good news for Julie was that she got through the first half of the episode with nary a camel toe inducing slip-up. She was even able to banter with the houseguests and let out a carefree laugh. Granted, while the Chenbot’s giggle sounded like she were literally saying “Ha ha ha”, you can’t deny the sheer pleasure she was taking in being sassy in her red cocktail dress . The live eviction brought a quick end to Julie’s joyride though. The Chenbot’s logarithms clearly had not calculated the inevitable 4-1 vote against Natalie, resulting in an awkward flubfest that was something along the lines of “With three votes for Natalie’s eviction, Natalie will be… [Chenbot pauses, thinks of another word instead of eviction, helmet hair closes in around her, slurry speech mode commences] leaving tonight”. There were a few more stutters and blips, and by the time the controversial Head of Household competition rolled around, I was convinced CBS would have to reboot Julie lest she devolve into that trance like sound of a CD skipping.

The biggest revelation of the night – for me at least – was discovering Julie’s secret love of Mini Putt-Putt. When Cowboy sunk his ball right off the bat, Julie Chen blurted out an overly excited exclamation like “Instantly!” or “Wow!” (I’m too lazy to go back and check the quotes – my bad). I had never heard such unbridled and unscripted enthusiasm from the Chenbot, and we here at TVgasm have this exclusive shot of Julie’s reaction.

Unfortunately, Julie’s overeager excitement for some ball in hole action led to an improper declaration of Marvin as a victor over Karen in a qualifying round of the competition. Ultimately, Marvin nabbed the HOH title, which capped off an already super freakin’ great week for him. Not only did Marvin not get nominated this week and grab HOH (at least for now), he also won himself a guest stint on the Young and the Restless. Apparently not enough people read our online plea to get Michael on the soap. People, don’t you know comedy? Anyway, Marvin did a bang up job of grumbling his three lines, which seemed to be variations on “You got it”. It all kind of reminded me of that scene in Soapdish when a gaggle of hungry actors determinedly practiced their one line, “Will you be having wine with dinner?”

Even though I wanted Cowboy to win, I was happy for Marvin. That is until I saw his newly decorated head which seemed to be the union of Big Brother and Adidas logos. It was a little silly, but then again, somebody’s gotta take the dumb hairstyle reigns now that Jase is gone. While Marvin flashed his striped dome from his comfy seat on the “safe” couches, Michael sweated it out on the lime green nominee seat. He didn’t have to act so “nervousing” because we all knew he’d be safe. Maybe he was nervous because he had overheard Diane and Drew plotting his egress from outside the bathroom stall where he was taking a dump. Talk about an awkward moment.

When Julie called upon the nominees to say their final words, Michael spewed out a decently articulate speech… that never ended. Michael thanked everyone and everything for so long I thought the Chenbot would explode. Julie tried to interject a few times, and a sharp eye could see her feet shuffling as if she needed to hit the ladies room. Little did I know that she was excitedly anticipating the miniature golf game later in the broadcast.

Julie did manage to give Cowboy a little zipit, which was a great relief to us – until Natalie launched into her own babbling speech. Whereas Michael spent what felt like hours thanking everyone under the sun, Natalie went for a more “Homeroom Announcements” style blabbing by rattling off seemingly every event that would be happening between now and Monday. I half expected her to announce a bake sale or a chess club meeting.

At the end of the day, it was Natalie who was sent packing to join what will now be the most awkward jury house EVER (in case you forgot, Will is there and no amount of tropical sun seems to have put out his angry gay fires). During the post-eviction interview, Natalie did make one good point which is that Nakomis kept using that stupid pinky swear thing as an excuse to go after the twins when she should have just admitted that Adria and Natalie were too much of a threat. That was my strategy comment of the night.

Understandably, Adria was pretty upset to lose her sister. Karen consoled her, which was nice, but last time I checked, Karen was one of the people who had thrown out Natalie. That would explain why Adria looked less than enthused to receive this bit of sympathy from Karen. I really like Karen, but I do have a pet peeve. Why must she adopt this pouty/breathless voice when she casts votes? It’s sort of creepy.

All in all, this was a fairly amusing episode, even if it was tainted by the specter of controversy. Who would have ever thought harmless Julie Chen could have sullied the dignity of the game with her poor refereeing? I guess anything can happen when the Chenbot shows a little cleavage. Anyway, time to vomit.