Yesterday we mocked you, Jason Castro, and in today’s clip, you see the results through your strange, emotionless glassy-eyed stare. Sail on, sailor. Though your fans may have abandoned you, your peers physically dragged away by a seemingly terrified host—watch how Seacrest keeps himself and Syesha out of striking range—just know that you’ll always have a place in the hearts of...Oh, we’ve already forgotten who we’re talking about here.

Inexplicable American Idol finalist Jason Castro giggled and shrugged his crazy-eyed way through a severe dressing down this week, after a performance labeled both “atrocious” and “a massacre.” When asked to explain himself, J.C. provided what seemed like a charmingly off-the-cuff answer, but does anyone else get the feeling this may not be the first time he’s used that excuse? “Jason, you just ate a handful of dryer lint! What were you thinking?” “I was thinking...Bob Marley!” Don’t feel too bad for Jason, though. Something about him makes us think he won’t be retaining much short-term memory of the event.

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Sorry for the delay.

Congratulations to The Soup Blog reader and all around correct answerer, Nickyechick! Enjoy your notoriety while it lasts—happiness is fleeting.

Clog Narter was, in fact, on The View. Specifically, we found ourself seated between Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar.

On our left is happiness by another name...Joy.

On our right is an exclamation of the same...Whoopi.

Three more sit to the left of the first...Sherri Shepherd, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Barbara Walters.

The ends are bad but the middle is the worst...no comment.

Thanks to all participants! We'd say this was a rousing success as someone actually divined the answer from our purposefully obscure clue. Watch for further installments, as soon as we feel like making them.

Photodisc, Paramount Pictures

[The Soup Blog is pleased to present the first in what we anticipate will be additional postings from our guest reporter, Your Mom.]

Hi hon, it’s your mom. How’s everything going? I hope you and Gordon aren’t still fighting. Well, anyway...Last night, your father and I went to see that new movie out called The Iron Men. Obviously, not my cup of coffee in the morning but Don really wanted to see it for some reason and getting him out of the house on a weeknight happens about as frequently as a phone call from your brother. So, I took the opportunity. We had a pretty good dinner at the Sizzler. Not my choice either but it was right there next to the movie theater in the mall and, well, you know your father. He’d eat a hubcap if it came with a side of ranch dressing. I had a chicken Caesar. It was just OK. I had a little heartburn last night, but I don't know if it was from the salad or something else. Well, it was a pretty good movie anyway. You know who was in it was that actress, she’s tall and thin and, oh, I can’t remember her name but she had red hair just like you used to in this one. I wish you’d put your hair back to its natural color. You always had such beautiful hair as a child. Everybody thought so. Well, anyway...in the movie the main guy, who I also know I’ve seen somewhere before, he makes a robot that he can fly around in and punch up some bad guys. Pretty cool! I bet Gord would love it. Well, your dad fell asleep about two-thirds in and if the movie wasn’t so loud I’m sure there would have been a LOT of complaints because he was snoring, of course, and you know what that sounds like. I guess I’ve gotten used to it now...I hardly even notice it anymore. Well, anyway...lotsa love to you and Gord. Oh, and when are you going to send me pictures of the new puppy? I want to see him! OK, write back or call or just come visit even, but if you do, promise that you'll bring that little doggers with you, all right?

Love,
Your Mom

Extra’s hard-hitting reporters nail their own hard-hitting Extra reporter Mario Lopez to the wall over his duplicitous allegations of public decorum. In Mario’s defense, while the unyielding fact finders were able to collate countless examples of Mr. Lopez in various states of flexed and oiled shirtlessness, exactly none of them show any evidence of “run(ning) around.” You may have won this time, Dimples, but if we know Extra, this battle—and by battle, we mean showing creepy videos of you with your shirt off—is far from over.

Mankini. There, we’ve said it. While no one has yet been able to pin down exactly why this enigmatic creature has become the dominant cultural magnet of our time, we here at The Soup Blog have our suspicions—most of which revolve around the fact that he repeatedly appears on television sans shirtwear. Recently, your humble correspondent had the opportunity to sit down across a virtual table and engage Mankini in a freewheeling email conversation to find out just what makes him hum, beep and whir. The results, as you could well imagine, were both wholly unexpected and somewhat surprising.

You died last year, how are you feeling today?
Well, when you die, you gain a ton of perspective. So I guess, I’m feeling extra perspectivey.

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On VH1’s Celebracadabra (apparently that’s a show), the usual assortment of questionable celebrities train to become magicians and win $100,000. Yes, it has come to this. Trouble occurs this week when ANT refuses to enter a costume shop due to a paralyzing—and evidently, snippy—coulrophobia. While he maintains that “it’s a clinical fear,” we wonder if it’s not just another example of self-centered clown intolerance. You know, ANT, just because some clowns are sneering evil demons, it doesn’t mean they all want to devour you. Get over yourself, already.

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In a brand-new idea that has never been done before anywhere—who's Matt Lauer? Never heard of him—we proudly commence what we hope to be an intermittent feature here on The Soup Blog. Each time we decide to post this, Clog Narter will be hidden in a non-geographical location. (Read that last bit again, it’s very important.) The first of you lucky people to post the correct answer in the not-really-working-all-that-well Comments section below wins absolutely nothing! Appealing, no? Appalling, yes!

Based on the following clue, can you guess where Clog Narter is?

On our left is happiness by another name,

On our right is an exclamation of the same.

Three more sit to the left of the first,

The ends are bad but the middle is the worst.

Again we ask, Where in the World is Clog Narter?

(Answer to be revealed on Tuesday, May 6, just after lunch PST.)

The estranged Mr. and Mrs. Gary Coleman appeared on this week’s Divorce Court in an attempt to settle their differences in a calm, reasonable and tasteful manner. Well, only in so far as daytime television will allow. Judge Lynn Toler, recognizing that actual manifestations of sadness and regret are anathema to ratings, changes tactics and prods the couple for lurid details of their sex life. Mr. Coleman hesitatingly obliges, and we’re all just a bit worse for it.

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JOKE ANSWER:

So, you think you have what it takes to be an audience member at The Soup? Well, maybe you do and maybe you don’t and, then again, maybe you do. Or...don’t. We really can’t make up our minds on this.

Let’s put it to a quiz: If you can respond in the affirmative (i.e., answer yes) to any of the following three questions, then we’re afraid you are decidedly not The Soup audience material.

1. Are you legally bound to remain a minimum of 500 feet from any member of The Soup cast or crew, excluding certain production assistants who are desperate for any form of human contact?

2. When watching a film or play in a theater environment are you prone to a lot of shouting and carrying on? Specifically, we’re referring to joshing around or horsing off with friends while others are trying to enjoy the show around you. Also, not welcome: any form of rumpusry, ballyhoo, hubbub or ruckussing.

3. Are you now or have you ever been a member of taxonomic classification Ursus arctos horribilis?

Well, except for the following:

REAL ANSWER:

Tapings of The Soup are currently not open to the general public due to a few annoying but ultimately impenetrable legal restrictions. The audience that you hear in the background is typically made up of a handful of E! employees and their guests. Yes, as you so rightly claim, that is mass lame, and we hope to conquer it some day, but as of now you are only able to enjoy the show from the comfort of your homes and not on a hard plastic chair in a strange, lonely television studio that frequently smells of tar. (No, really, it does.)

In some kind of twisted Stockholm syndrome-like behavior, Jill Zarin of The Real Housewives of New York City—a show regularly mocked by The Soup—sent us this photograph of her being involuntarily drawn to the icon of her tormentor. You may recall Jill as the owner of a small dog she allowed to lick the inside of her nose. Surely, these are not the actions of a well woman.

You can help Jill break the hypnotic grip she's under and return to a life of self-determination by buying one of her Team Jill jerseys.

Good luck, Jill. Stay strong!

On last night’s premiere of Farmer Wants a Wife, the competition and musical score became especially intense! The women were forced to hold—and slightly lift!—live, breathing chickens! Just listen to that percussion track! You can tell those hens aren’t going to take this lightly. And then, when those pizzicato strings come in? We just about laid an egg ourselves. Exciting! If the blank, emotionless expression on that last woman’s face doesn’t say, “posttraumatic stress disorder,” then we'll just never trust desperately edited television again.