Orange and Green and Yellow and Pink and...

The Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Awards show was a hurricane of celebrities, bright colors and slime.

We arrived bright and early the morning before, only to sit for nearly three hours while the dancers rehearsed. And of course they rehearsed! There were new dancers and a smaller stage to contend with. But there was definitely a kink in the planning.

Fortunately we were able to keep ourselves busy with the mountains of paperwork that accompany events like this. Generally, I spend more time filling out paperwork than I do on stage.

We were all stunned at how cheap and high school production the set looked. How many neon colors can you cram onto one stage?

The sets for all these TV shows look pretty dumpy in person. But once they light 'em all purty, and film them with high definition cameras, they look like a million bucks. Wonder of wonders.

Once we finally got on stage and played through the song twice with Miley, they brought up some kid extras to sit on the risers in front of us. Fun, right? Except the kids weren't having fun. Here's the Miley Cyrus singing and dancing inches away from them. Nothing.

So Valdez the production manager and another woman (who had a chip on her shoulder or a brick up her nose or something) came over to try and get a little more energy from the kids. Valdez sweetly said, "this is Miley Cyrus! Let's get excited! Scream! Smile!"

Ol' Bricky Nose tried a different tactic. She said, and I quote, "You people are terrible. Just awful." I'd also like to add that she was wearing a bright orange shirt that said "Psychiatric Hotline" and had an 800 number on it. She continued, "The execs said that you were THE kids to use for this. Well, they were wrong. Just atrocious."

I considered jumping in, but was in the midst of a rare moment of restraint.

Big esteem builder for the kids, though. This only led to even more shellshocked silence from them. Way to shut 'em down, Psychiatric Hotline!

Eventually, our choreographer Theresa came over, screaming and flailing like she was on fire. "Miley Cyrus! Yaaaaay! Everybody wave your hands in the air the whole time! Yaaaaay!"

Of course that worked.

[Day Two - the actual ceremony - coming tomorrow.]