2004-03-01 10:00 p.m.
The Scariest Bush of All
Shrub has some competition for Scariest Bush.
Billy Bush, spunky entertainment reporter and First Cousin, is possibly the most frightening person I've ever seen on TV. I'd been spared exposure to him until Oscar night, and now I'm permanently scarred.
In the opening shot of the Oscar pre-show, Keisha Castle-Hughes and her mom were trapped in the back of a limo with our golden boy. Mom Castle-Hughes looked like she wanted to crawl out the window and hurl herself into traffic rather than spend one more second listening to Bush's inane blather. In front of the cameras, Bush pumped the mortified 13-year old actress for information on who she most wanted to meet (Johnny Depp) and then just before the show started, he practically dragged her across the auditorium and, with a cheesy faux-magnanimity worthy of the campaign trail, Bush introduced her to Depp.
But bad as humiliating a young actress on global TV was, it wasn't Billy Bush's most creepy Oscar moment. That came in his frightening first red-carpet interview with an unsuspecting Scarlett Johannson. Lobbing his second softball question at Johannson, he quoted Steely Dan (because hey, she's 19 -- geddit?) and then visibly adjusted his face into a death mask version of Anchorman Smile as he waited for her response. It was as if invisible fingers inside his empty head were manipulating his features into something resembling a human expression.
Kingdom Hospital's got nothing on that kind of creepy. Maybe ABC should hire him and make a series.