Universal PicturesHow did the small screen remember John Hughes? Why is TLC so defensive about Jon & Kate? And why should the Jonas Brothers stop following Miley Cyrus? Or start blaming Twilight?
The answers—and more questions—in the latest TV quiz:
1. How many times did The Breakfast Club air over the weekend? Zero. And, while, yes, the iconic filmmaker did only die last Thursday, the new iCarly movie debuted only last Saturday, and wound up airing a bajillion times. Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller's Day Off received a little more love: Each was aired once on AMC, albeit before Hughes' death.
2. How can you tell TLC is kinda touchy about Jon & Kate Plus 8? The network wrote a memo "for those of you who want to put some context/comparative information" on the numbers for the series' first post-split episodes. Suffice to say, the network didn't have as much 'splainin' to do when the show was putting up record ratings a couple of months ago.
3. So, is TLC losing it? No, it has a point. If you only see that last week's episodes were watched by fewer than half as many people as the divorce bombshell, as some surely did, then you miss that Jon & Kate was still cable's No. 1 reality show, and that both of its new episodes hit the Top 25 in the latest Nielsen rankings.
4. Why should the Jonas Brothers put more distance between themselves and Miley Cyrus? Because every time the young lads follow her—with their own concert movie, with their own Disney Channel show—they look like they're coming up short because they're not coming up as big as she did. Latest example: last night's broadcast of the Teen Choice Awards. The Jonas-hosted Fox telecast killed among teen girls, but overall, per preliminary Nielsen estimates, finished down about 10 percent from last year when guess who hosted?
5. Why would the Jonases have a gripe with Twilight? In the short history of the vampire movie franchise, the Teen Choice Awards has to be the first media enterprise to lose a half-million viewers when the Robert Pattinson coven was prominently featured.
6. One last time: America's Got Talent or So You Think You Can Dance? It wasn't close all summer, and it wasn't close last week, with the Tuesday edition of America's Got Talent topping everything on TV with 13 million viewers. The season finale of SYTYCD did go out with a season-high 9.6 million viewers.
7. Tori or Candy? Judging by Oxygen's record-sized audience for the Candy Spelling-free season finale of Tori & Dean, Tori. Then again, Dean, we suppose, cannot be ruled out.
8. Why did that iCarly movie air so many times anyway? Demand, apparently. The Saturday premiere of iFight Shelby Marx was cable's No. 1 show, with 7.9 million viewers. The season-three finale of Burn Notice was a close second with its biggest-ever audience: 7.6 million viewers.