“Oh, I did sleep with Mick once or twice back in the day. 
But not in a way that you’d get pregnant” 
– Joanna Lumley’s character on the UK Amandaland Christmas special. 
This also was a reunion for Lumley and Jennifer Saunders,
who played her sister.  It’s a hoot!

Tradition dictates that I should open this column recounting how I spent my New Year’s Eve.  Longtime readers know I always spend it with two of my dearest lifelong friends watching selections from Lindsay Wagner’s extensive oeuvre.  This year, we decided to watch her two-part stint on the pilot of The Rockford Files.  However, just before the holiday, one of my friends did something unexpected.  Something she’d never done before.  She died!  The lengths people will go to in order to avoid watching Lindsay Wagner.  Rest in peace, GLH.

If there’s something else I didn’t expect on New Year’s Eve, it was Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen playing with puppets…of themselves!  These puppets look strikingly like Statler and Waldorf from The Muppet Show – if they didn’t live such healthy lives.  Anderson’s, in particular, looked like he had suffered an aneurysm – although if Andy’s hand were that far up me, I’d probably have a stroke, too!  As to the boys’ puppetry skills, I don’t think anyone at Avenue Q has anything to worry about.  Nor, I suspect, do the boys from Puppetry of the Penis!  A “refreshed” Cohen going off on Mayor Eric Adams?  Coop’s dramatic reading of the lyrics to Taylor Swift’s “Wood”?  And CNN lifting their ban on alcohol?  It’s everything you’d want in a New Year’s Eve show.

Just because Don Lemon is no longer on any network doesn’t mean he wasn’t broadcasting – even if it meant livestreaming himself!  I don’t care what else happens in 2026, a toasted Lemon talking into the wrong end of a microphone will be pretty hard to beat.  Eventually, it was pointed out to him he was holding it upside down.

A perfect segue to Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest.  I know Dick owns the show, but could we just retire the name and start something new?  Nobody is still talking about Guy Lombardo.  Just as relevant – Miss Ross, who went in and out of singing along with her own track.  You could tell when she was really singing because it sounded…well, “different”.  Most embarrassing was when she came in on the wrong part of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and had to vamp about being grateful and blessed.  I’m grateful she got through the blessed song!  Ryan Seacrest had another take on it: “That performance ranks alongside her unforgettable concert in the rain in Central Park as one of the most iconic performances of all time.”  Yeah, an 81-year-old Diane lip-syncing for six and a half minutes ranks alongside 39-year-old Diane at the peak of her career risking life, limb, and possible electrocution for an hour – and then two more hours the next day!  Bitch, please.

By the by, Dick Clark’s ratings were up 35% from last year.  In contrast, the Kennedy Center Honors had their lowest ratings in recorded history.  I’m not sure of the exact number, but I only had to slide one bead on my abacus.