PASADENA, Calif. -- George Stroumboulopoulos addressed Canada's most burning question: Where was the nose ring?
"You would think Justin Timberlake just exposed my breasts," Stroumboulopoulos said.
The Canadian host of ABC's The One: Making Of A Music Star was a late arrival at Wednesday night's Disney/ABC All Star press tour party. That must be why he was able to zip down the red carpet far faster than the likes of Eva Longoria, Calista Flockhart, Patrick Dempsey or the other ABC stars.
When he finally made the scene, having dashed directly from the set of his fast-bombing show (where the first of 11 finalists were eliminated), "Strombo" -- as he is known among the Canuck critics -- addressed the mystery of the ring.
"Holy Christ, I'm going to be 34 next month," he told a handful of Canadian TV critics who were waiting for him at the party. Not wanting to freak out America, he told ABC he was going to lose the ring before they snatched it from him.
"But I'm not taking my earrings out and I'm still wearing all black, and that's the deal," he said.
Even without the ring he was instantly recognizable in his ever-present black T. Any American scribes who had even heard of the show -- which went unpromoted by ABC during their two-day press tour -- were probably looking for George Stephanoloulos. At least one American scribe mistakenly identified ABC's This Week host as The One's new dude.
Stoumboulopoulos' life lately has been like some weird Peter-Fonda-meets-Ryan-Seacrest acid trip.
Two weeks ago, he was done for the season on The Hour, his Newsworld magazine series that is moving to late nights on CBC next October. Anxious to be Out Of Town Brown, he hopped on one of his three motorcycles, packed a couple of changes of clothes and headed on a solo, Toronto-to-L.A., cross-continent chopper trek.
He got as far as Chicago's infamous Joliet Prison -- the joint where Prison Break was shot but, more importantly to Strombo, where Elwood met Jake at the gates in the Blues Brothers -- when his cell phone rang. Screw it, he said, ignoring the call.
Some 200 kms later, at a gas station, he answered it by accident. It was his manager putting a conference call through from the producers of The One. They wanted to meet with him, immediately. They had a little star-search show for him to host in 10 days.
Strombo stashed his bike, hopped a plane out of Chicago and had a 15-minute meeting with the producers. After getting a green light from CBC to moonlight down south -- and getting assurances that his bike would be shipped to L.A. -- the deal was done.
Shooting the series on the same Hollywood lot where I Love Lucy was once filmed is all part of Stroumboulopoulos' dizzy, real-life fantasy. He compared shooting The One to shooting the MuchMusic Video Awards "every day," paying homage to his old Queen Street West roots. "The MMVAs are the best award show, bar none, in Canada."
Strombo said he'd made enough trips to L.A. before that producers here had some idea of who he was and what he could do. His background as a sports radio host, MuchMusic VJ and CBC news punk was tailor-made for handling The One. "They were looking for people who were essentially trained by MuchMusic and CBC," he said.
All that is the good news. The bad news: The One was DOA in America, one of the lowest-rated network premieres ever.
Up against Canadian Idol and Rock Star: Supernova -- two similar and already established shows -- it got creamed in Canada. There is some speculation that it won't last past next week -- putting CBC's plans to spin off a Canadian version in jeopardy.
Strombo can't, won't and simply doesn't have time to worry about that now. He still doesn't even know where his motorcycle is. If The One goes two and out, he can hopefully hop back on his bike and still make that lost weekend in Vegas.
All he knows is that he is having fun, the cheques are clearing and he has the blessing of Peter Mansbridge -- whose CBC National newscast was bumped an hour for The One's debut.
"I actually called him," Stroumboulopoulos said. "He was laughing. He kinda got the irony. He was totally supportive."
But, no, he was not going to put on the nose ring.
