The Jeff Zucker Upfront Video: From Naked Mini-Exec To Mauled Freak
A reader who actually "sat through all eight hours" of the NBC upfronts questions the LA.comfidential item about a naked Jeff Zucker shilling for his shows that we linked to earlier today. (UPDATE: They've attributed the item to something called Electronic Media magazine. Not so Insider-y a scoop after all.) He says there was no "nekkid" Zucker (pictured at left, wearing an enormous, futuristic peacock headress, possibly to overcompensate for his all-around lack of size) in this year's wacky video. Instead, there was an interview with Roy Horn, seemingly duct-taped together as he continues to recover from his near-fatal white-tiger mauling, to promote the NBC computer-animated show Father Of The Pride.
I sat through all 8 hours of the NBC upfront, and there was no nekkid Zucker. The wacky video was a not-so-funny "Apprentice" skit featuring the NBC sales team with a midget mini-Trump (not so funny) and Moonves character (sort of funny - they yell "hey les, there's a reporter who wants to put your name in the paper" and when he wheels around they shoot him with a dart or somesuch). [Ed.note-As reported by Gawker weeks ago.]
The big show-stopper was the taped interview they showed of Siegfried and Roy after a rolling a clip of their new cgi show. Zucker was beaming about this, bragging that it was the first interview wtih Roy since his mauling. But the crowd was clearly uncomfortable with this, since Roy looked like - someone who had been mauled by huge tiger and was surgically reconstructed. People are still talking about it.
It was fucking creepy. S&R have already had a ton of work done on them to begin with, and now Roy looks even more like a CGI character: he had a buzz cut, and these weird glasses and the angles on his face are all wrong. Zucker didn't seem to get the weirded-out vibe in the room, because he told crowd that premiere of the sitcom would be preceded by another interview w/S&R. [Ed.note—As hinted at by Defamer weeks ago.]
