DAYS Wedding: Not Just Green, It's Interactive

Beginning this week, through April 14, fans of NBC's DAYS OF OUR LIVES can vote online at NBC.com/days to help select the special gifts that Sami Brady (Allison Sweeney) will receive from her family and friends on her wedding day.

DAYS fans have the unique opportunity to be part of Sami's wedding by voting multiple times for their favorite elements that will be incorporated into her "green wedding" by logging onto NBC.com/days.

Over the next few weeks, viewers will be able to choose from the following categories once a week: something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue...and in a unique twist to tie in with Sami's "green wedding" her friends and family will get her something green!

The special items that are chosen by viewers will be given as gifts by Sami's friends and relatives on-screen: Something old from Caroline (Peggy McCay), something new from Hope (Kristian Alfonso), something borrowed from Marlena (Deidre Hall), something blue from Chelsea (Rachel Melvin) and something green from Kayla (Mary Beth Evans). And, all the gifts will be eco-friendly and fans will get to see their choices on air.

NPR's 'Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me' Turns its Satirical Eye on Daytime

Daytime continues to show it still has the stuff of the zeitgeist, finding itself featured this week as a topic on NPR's hit comedy gameshow Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me.

The celeb-studded Wait, Wait... (which bills itself as "the oddly informative news quiz") turns a satirical and side-splitting eye on current events each week. The show has a regular segment called "Bluff the Listener" where a listener-contestant is given details of three potential news stories based on a similar theme and asked to determine which is real.

This week's theme was "Daytime TV to the Rescue" and featured three "potentially" true news accounts of "do-gooders on the daytime dial," including:

• DAYS OF OUR LIVES choosing to throw an environmentally friendly wedding for characters "Sami Brady" and "Lucas Roberts," played by actors Alison Sweeney and Bryan Dattilo, complete with biodegradable party favors, as a way of raising viewers' environmental consciousness.
• Talk show hostess Kelly Ripa (ex-Hayley Vaughn Santos, ALL MY CHILDREN) claiming "cuteness" gets no respect to a weekly magazine, dissing Charlie Gibson, and proposing an "attractivness onslaught," led by Anderson Cooper, Reese Witherspoon, and the cast of NBC's HEROES--all capable of proving just how intelligent "cute" can be.
• GENERAL HOSPITAL, home of Luke and Laura (who panelist Charlie Pierce describes as "the hairstyles that did so much for daytime in the 70s") seeking to raise public awareness of holistic medicine by adding a character, "Dr. Sanjay Prada," who is specialist in Eastern Medicine--and facing protests from the evangelical right in the process.

Readers of Soappipe, of course, know that the correct answer is DAYS's upcoming "green wedding," and that the others came from the show's very creative imagination. Sadly, the listener-contestant did not, incorrectly identifying the made-up GH alternative medicine story as the correct one.

(More on Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me here.)

DAYS's Sweeney 'Takes to the Floor' in Hollywood

From the UK's Daily Record:

"DONCHA wish Carmen Electra could keep on her feet? The ex-Pussycat Dolls stunner came a cropper while hosting a charity fashion show in Hollywood.

She was closely followed by on the deck by US soap star Alison Sweeney, who took an even more spectacular tumble.

The DAYS OF OUR LIVES actress was left sprawling full-length on the floor and the two ended up looking more like fashion victims than icons."

Editor's note: I saw the footage last night on Keith Olbermann's show, and I can absolutely say that Sweeney and Electra showed everyone present exactly how to recover from an embarassing moment--with big, beautiful smiles and a laugh all around.

GH's Greg Vaughan takes golden "Road to the Oscars"

In honor of this weekend's festivities, and the increasing trend of a heightened media cross-presence for current soap stars, let me draw your attention to Oscar.com's "Road to the Oscars" feature, with multi-media content co-hosted by GENERAL HOSPITAL star, and "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" pitchman, Greg Vaughan ("Lucky Spencer").

[While the logic of hiring Vaughan at Oscars.com, bringing a Kelly Monaco ("Sam McCall," GH) onto Dancing with the Stars, or asking Alison Sweeney ("Sami Brady," DAYS) to host The Biggest Loser, is clearly in the expectation they will bring loyal soap fans along, the chance that this trend may bring a few more eyeballs to daytime, as well, is likely worth the efforts required for a show to work around a multi-tasking star's schedule.]

The site: http://oscar.com/roadtooscars/

DAYS's Sweeney to pull double duty as reality host

An NBC-Universal press release notes that DAYS OF OUR LIVES star Alison Sweeney ("Sami Brady") will replace actress/comedienne Caroline Rhea as host of the fourth season of the network's reality show The Biggest Loser.

The release specifically notes the passion and loyalty of Sweeney's soap fan base as a factor in the decision to replace Rhea with Sweeney, with the network clearly hoping to benefit from new sampling of Loser by soap opera fans.

Sweeney blogs about her new role on her NBC blog, noting that her hosting duties will correspond with an increasingly complex story for Sami.

Update: In an interesting note, Sweeney tells Soap Opera Digest that Loser will be scheduling around the DAYS schedule and not vice-versa, "They have agreed to work around my DAYS schedule, so....it's not going to change my shooting schedule or my DAYS storyline." Sounds like a welcome measure of accomodation by NBC and Loser for the daytime medium, star, and fan-base they hope to mine for new viewers. Is it a small, but good sign for DAYS future prospects?