E-Pop! Issue # 25: E-Pop!'s Annual POPPIES Awards

Instead of analyzing, mythologizing, and trashing awards show, isn't it time that E-Pop! held its own?

Now that we're in the first month of 2000 (we don't call it the Millennium due to the overwhelming numbers of readers, mostly Virgos, who wrote us saying that the millennium really starts in 2001. Whatever.), E-Pop! looks back with fondness, nausea, and awe at some of the people, places and events that spurred us on this year.

Unlike Life Magazine, which is having a field day performing due diligence on every pop culture happening of the last century (from pop rocks to the hula hoop), E-Pop! is focusing on what rocked our world this year for better or worse. Without further adieu, the 1st annual "POPPIE" Awards:

THE 1999 POPPIES

* The "I smell a Goosebumps-style invasion of product offshoots saturating the kiddie market about to happen" POPPIE goes to…Harry Potter.

* The "Guns and Rosies" POPPIE goes to...The bitching about guns while getting paid by gun supporter K-mart was not such a smooth move Rosie.

* The "Your ass is grass this year" POPPIE goes to… Jennifer Lopez.

* The "Best Impression of Ricky Martin" POPPIE goes to….Chris "Mango" Kattan, who showed Jay Leno in three easy steps the guaranteed trademark Ricky Martin moves that are seeming more and more one-note.

* The "AIDS isn't over till Sharon Stone says so" POPPIE goes to...Sharon Stone, who kept reminding us over and over as if we actually forgot.

* The "Barbara Walters coming out interview about to happen" POPPIE goes to….Tinky Winky the Teletubbie, who will neither confirm nor deny Jerry Falwell's claim that he "models the gay lifestyle."

* The "No thanks, I'll fly US AIR even if I arrive late and hungry" POPPIE goes to…the single engine private plane that claimed JFK Jr and Carolyn this summer, and later, Payne Stewart.

* The "Best cleaning, scraping and painting the walls renovation" POPPIE goes to...(a tie!) The new Radio City Music Hall and…Cher.

* The "Most o-v-e-r awards show" POPPIE goes to…The Daytime Emmy Awards. Now that Susan Lucci won, who cares about daytime Emmy's now?

* "I (Wish I) Saw Dead People" POPPIE goes to...The cast of The Blair Witch Project for milking us all out of $8.50 to see a stack of sticks and hear three untalented actors use "Fuck!" as an adjective, adverb, noun and pronoun.

* The "Bye Bye Miss American Pie" POPPIE goes to...the Fox show Action, recently axed but the best show by far of the last TV season.

* The "Hey, have you looked at demographics, dude" POPPIE goes to...the directors of programming for all four networks who somehow forgot to include blacks, Hispanics, Asians and gays other than Will and Jack, in their 2000 lineups.

* Best "stellar return of two 2nd tier celebrities, can Ken Olin be far behind?" POPPIE goes to…Billy Campbell and Sela Ward of "
* The "Vanished faster than 'A Flock Of Seagulls"" POPPIE goes to…Leonardo DiCaprio.

* The "Hello Dolly, Well Hello Dolly, It's So Nice To Have You back" POPPIE goes to…The Dalai Lama for bringing peace and enlightenment to all during a free appearance in Central Park. That is, until you tried to get home amid gridlock and then it was just back to "get outta my F-ing way."

* The "Get a new name for yourselves and get a shave, too, 'cause you ain't babies anymore" POPPIE goes to…Generation X.

* The "Your 15 minutes is up Dude, I don't care what PEOPLE magazine told you" POPPIE goes to...That guy who won $1 Million on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

* The "Best War Posturing" POPPIE goes to…Madeline Albright who leaned up against Sean Connery at a D.C. function and told him he could "invade her territory" any time he wanted.

* The "Josie And The Pussycats camp value" POPPIE goes to…Pokemon the Movie, whose characters, such as Pikachu, talk like the 2nd string of The Scooby Doo
Adventure Hour.

* The "Internet slap on the keyboard" POPPIE goes to...Bill Gates for getting fined the equivalent (to most of us) of a dime or so, for monopoly infringements.

* The "tired song besides Shake Your Bob Bon" POPPIE goes to….Mambo # 5.

* The "inspiration for Mambo # 5" POPPIE goes to..Bill Clinton for "needing a little Monica in her dress, a little bit of Betty in the press, a little bit of Hillary and her slaps, a little bit of Linda with her taps."

* The "Three Strikes and you're out, we will not always love you" POPPIE goes to: Kevin Costner and "
* The "Just when you thought it was safe for middle aged people to stop having sex because no one else does" POPPIE goes to: Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo for looking so awesome at forty-five.

* The "I Smell A Naomi Judd" POPPIE goes to…Garth Brooks, who announced his retirement but do we really believe he won't be doing final concerts for the next ten years? One question, though: does his alter ego Chris Gaines get retired too? Now that would make for a happy new year.

And finally,

The "Now It's Lee Remick!" POPPIES for saddest departures go to...JFK Jr., his wife and her sister, Payne Stewart, Madeline Kahn, Dusty Springfield, sad suicide of the year David Strickland, Peggy Cass, Grandma Walton, Gladys Kravitz, the lady whose voice was the original Cruella De Ville, Doomed Dana Plato, flaming-caftan-wearing "Grease" Producer Allan Carr, Dr. "Bones" McCoy from Star Trek, Mario Puzo (God made an offer he couldn't refuse), and Stanley Kubrick, whose eyes were fortunately wide shut by the time his Tom Cruise movie opened and bombed this year.