Here is this week’s Pop Culture IQ brought to you by Shout! Factory as heard exclusively on this week’s  Radio Happy Hour:

Game starts at approximately the 37:00 mark. Just hit play below!
Download audio file (ayla-brown.mp3)

Biggest “American Idol” Losers quiz
(drag your cursor under each question to highlight the answer)

Q: Name the Season 2 runner-up who went on to star on Broadway in “Spamalot” and whose fans are called “Claymates.”
A: Clay Aiken

Q: Name the Season 8 runner-up who was banned from appearing on “Good Morning America” this past November after kissing another man on stage during his American Music Awards performance.
A: Adam Lambert

Q: Name the only “American Idol” alumni to win an Oscar and a Golden Globe.
A: Jennifer Hudson (for “Dreamgirls”)

Jason Sadler of iWearYourShirt.com played this week and won.  He got the first two questions correct.  He didn’t know the third, but all he needed was 2 out of three.  He was playing as a fill in for his t-shirt buddy, Evan White.  If you remember last week’s Pop Culture IQ, Evan failed so miserably during  that was invited back this week but was unable to play at the last minute due to “pre-hab” on his soon to be surgically repaired leg that he messed up while sky diving.

Jason, who was wearing a t-shirt for Jason Hamlin, a man trying to raise awareness for kidney disease and to get a new kidney himself, won a DVD of the TV series My So-Called Life courtesy of Shout! Factory.

This week on the
Radio Happy Hour:

Press Play–>Download audio file (ayla-brown.mp3)

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Ayla Brown is a former American Idol contestant, current senior guard on the Boston College Eagles woman’s basketball team and was recently declared  “available” by her father, newly-elected Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown.

Ayla has just released her latest EP Circles, on Thursday, three months earlier than planned!

www.AylaBrown.com

The Charles Horn segment begins at the 47:30 mark
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Charles Horn is an Emmy-nominated comedy writer (Robot Chicken) and a Princeton PhD. He just released a new iPhone app called Comedy Vocab to help adults expand their vocabularies through comedy.

www.learningisfunny.com

Also this week:

• Collette McLafferty, lead singer of edibleRed, cohosts
  

• Co-host Vinny Bond sits on his Big Leather Couch to chat live with the listeners

• The Burl of Annie and Burl Live works behind the scenes as pro-doucher

• Shawn Amos tests our Pop Culture IQ

• and we’ll take your calls at 646-652-4804

Press Play–>Download audio file (ayla-brown.mp3)

Or download to your computer

Become a Radio Happy Hour subscriber

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Press Play–>Download audio file (american-idol-jessica-sierra.mp3)

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Former American Idol finalist Jessica Sierra (left) admitted to being drunk while performing on the fourth season of the hit reality show.

Her downward spiral began when her mother died during the audition process, she tells Dr. Blogstein’s Radio Happy Hour.

“I couldn’t function for a day without being drunk.” Sierra said about her time on AI, “The drinking part, I think I could hide that pretty well, but I was a mean person.  I was really mean to everybody.  I just didn’t care.”

“I think I was particularly mean with Carrie Underwood (right).  Our personalities just didn’t click. She was such a happy person all the time and I was so miserable and I had to take it out on someone.”

Sierra, who later appeared on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, was never able to get in contact with Underwood to make amends, the ninth step in the Alcohol Anonymous 12-Step Recovery program, so she used the radio show to reach out.

“I am sorry for being such a bitch.” she wants Underwood to know, “It wasn’t anything that she did other than being happy all the time. “

This week on the
Radio Happy Hour:

The Jessica Sierra interview begins at the 14:00 mark

Press Play–>Download audio file (american-idol-jessica-sierra.mp3)

or download to your computer

Jessica Sierra was a tenth place finalist in the fourth season of American Idol.  She later appeared on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew after pleading “no contest” in a Tampa, FL courtroom to assault and cocaine possession.

Now, with two years of sobriety under her belt, Jessica is back in the studio recording music and recently gave birth to a  new baby boy, Kayden Cash, on December 5, 2009.

www.JessicaSierra.com

Press Play–>Download audio file (american-idol-jessica-sierra.mp3)

or download to your computer

Jason Sadler returns to the Radio Happy Hour, once again wearing a Got Blogstein? T-shirt.

As he did in 2009, Jason, now with his t-shirt buddy Evan White, is spending 2010 getting paid to wear shirts.  Each day of the year is sold at face value, so January 1 was $1 for Jason and $1 for Evan and December 31 is $365 for Jason and $365 for Evan.

Since Tuesday is Got Blogstein? Day, Jason and Evan will spend the day blogging, twittering, facebooking and making videos all about Dr. Blogstein’s Radio Happy Hour and all in their Got Blogstein? T-shirts.

www.iWearYourShirt.com

Also this week:

• Collette McLafferty, lead singer of edibleRed, cohosts
  

• Co-host Vinny Bond sits on his Big Leather Couch to chat live with the listeners

• The Burl of Annie and Burl Live works behind the scenes as pro-doucher

• Simone Sinclare of EstablishedMen.com and HDNet’s “New York Confessions” discusses Do’s and Dont’s for Valentine’s Day Gifts

• Shawn Amos tests our Pop Culture IQ
  

• and we’ll take your calls at 646-652-4804

Press Play–>Download audio file (american-idol-jessica-sierra.mp3)

or download to your computer

Become a Radio Happy Hour subscriber

for free !

For the full interview, listen to this week’s Radio Happy Hour.

A new book claims that famed escape artist Harry Houdini was a spy for Scotland Yard, monitored Russian anarchists and chased counterfeiters for the U.S. Secret Service. According to The Secret Life of Houdini, the magician used his act as a front for his real career in espionage and law enforcement.

All of this is fascinating and is making big news today, a full EIGHTY years after the death of Houdini. There is probably nobody left alive who had ever watched Houdini perform yet we all know who Houdini was. And we’re all intrigued by these new revelations.

Is there anyone alive today that you think we’ll be interested in 80 years after they die? I’ve been thinking about it all day and can’t come up with a single one.

Maybe Madonna. Maybe.

They don’t make famous people like they used to. Guys like Harry Houdini and Babe Ruth were larger than life. They were legends while they were still living. Celebrities of today are lame and disposable.

Are our great-great grandkids going to care when a book comes out proving that Ryan Seacrest was an undercover CIA operative using American Idol auditions as a front to hunt down terrorists? No. They’ll probably ask, “Ryan who?” Will they care when the definitive Oprah biography claims that she was the driving force behind the War in Iraq?

We are still in awe of Harry Houdini–a man who has been dead for almost thirty years longer than he was alive. Who will our great-great grandchildren be in awe with?

Probably Harry Houdini.