If meeting a Karate Kid icon isn't your thing, maybe you'd rather meet one of the kids from "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory."

Powell's Sweet Shoppe is having its grand opening Saturday at Sierra Vista Mall and found the perfect candy tie-in with "Willy Wonka." The first 1,000 people to visit get free Wonka Bars and someone will win free candy for a year.

Part of the event is one of the golden-ticket grabbing youngins in the "Willy Wonka" movie -- the glued-to-the-screen Mike Teavee. Paris Themmen, the child-actor who played Mike, will be on hand to sign autographs and have lunch with a raffle winner.

You're probably wondering what this guy has been up to since 1971. I was. Not much, apparently. He'll be 49 in June and kinda looks like a member of Right Said Fred.

Think that's scary? Check out the sequel:

The Beehive's Mike Oz and Heather McLane recap the Fresno Grizzlies' Totally Rad '80s Night with special guest William Zabka (aka Johnny Lawrence from "The Karate Kid") ...

Mike: I was more excited about Billy Zabka coming to Fresno than pretty much anybody ever. I love "The Karate Kid" so much that I dressed up as the shower for Halloween once. What can I say? So Thursday morning, I put on my Cobra Kai T-shirt for the first time in a while and was amped at the prospect of saying whattup to and snapping a picture with Johnny Lawrence.

Heather: As excited as I was, I knew it didn't compare to what you were feeling. Prior to showing up at The Chuk, I imagined meeting Zabka for you would be the equivalent of me meeting Jim Halpert, though obviously with far more sexual tension between you and Johnny Lawrence. I felt like a proud mom, as I made sure to grab my video camera and extra batteries for the momentous occasion.

Up till now, it's been relatively easy predicting the finalists: We all knew that Jason, Syesha and Brooke would go home before the Davids. But now that we're down to D vs. D, who has the advantage? I'm fervently hoping for Mr. Cook, if only because he doesn't remind me of one of the marionette puppets in "The Lonely Goatherd" (thank you very much for that mental image, Heather, which I now can't erase), but there are a lot of teen-age girls out there.

What do you think? And do you agree with Felicia and me that this season has been a yawner?

On the jump: Links to our past "AI" blog entries.

Below you'll find the largest collection of Fresno concert, club and event fliers anywhere on the Web. It's our way of proving every week that anybody who says there's nothing to do in Fresno is either crazy or lazy.

As always, we welcome contributions bands, artists, venues, promoters and regular joes. Send flier links to mosegueda@fresnobee.com.

This comes on the heels of the NBC reality show “My Dad is Better Than Your Dad.” This TV answer to child abuse pitted fathers and a child against other family pairings. It was painful to watch the way some of the dads treated their kids.

It appears, based on these two shows, NBC is looking at family related reality shows to fill a schedule that gets weaker with each passing moment. You have to think more is to come. Here are some ideas for future NBC reality shows.

It's been one insane season for "The Office" – from the four subpar hour-long episodes that began the season, to that interminable hiatus in the winter, to the ups (Dwight) and downs (Ryan's coke habit) at the season's end.

Like the season itself, the season finale, "Goodbye Toby," left me with mixed feelings. About 15 minutes in, I turned to my friends and asked, "Why aren't we laughing?" Luckily, the episode picked up, producing some hilarious moments. Kevin as the "special" Dunder Mifflinite was classic; Creed, as always, provided some great stuff; and Phyllis got some really good moments – like when Michael asked her if she could plan Toby's party, and she hungrily said, "Yes."

And I was right.

In other Fragile Guy news, Owen Wilson and Kate Hudson have broken up again. We all know what happened last time, so I hope the other Wilson brothers have already put their Red Alert plan to take care of Owen into action.

Be safe, Owen! And Colin Farrell - just, I don't know, go back to Ireland until you work this out.

[Source: The Sun]

Within minutes of hearing the decision, Fresno couple Geoff Twitchell and Clark Willits, who were downtown at the time, appeared at the county clerk's office and requested a marriage license application. Bee reporter Marc Benjamin got word about this, and we headed out to see if we could get their story:

The Bee streamed the following interview live via Qik:

UPDATE: No marriage licenses handed out yet.

Yep, it's another of those super-busy Fresno Thursdays, evident already on The Beehive by Heather's Grizzlies vs. The Office post and Will's Taste of the Tower anticipation.

If neither of those interest you, here is some other stuff you could do:

1. The Inner Ear Poetry Jam marks its six-year anniversary with a big event at Full Circle Brewing Co. Poet Lorna Dee Cervantes is the headliner. You can also expect live music, spoken word, comedy, live painting and the usual open mic for poets. 7:30 p.m. $12.
2. It's ArtHop for the north-enders. Not sure how you navigate that -- never been to the other ArtHop -- but hit up the ArtHop site for more info.
3. The always-popular Starline Salsa Club has Orquesta Borinquen in town tonight. 8:30 p.m. $16. [flier]
4. Bladder Busters at Crossroads features local bands Descend Factor, Delirium and Flywright. 9 p.m. $5.
5. Malcolm Sosa of Rademacher hosts open mic night at Tokyo Garden. 9:30 p.m. $3. [flier]

Anything else cool going on? Where are you gonna be? Let us know in the comments.

When Whitney won the title of "America's Next Top Model" Wednesday night, I shoved my right fist into the air just as actress Camryn Manheim did when she won her Emmy Award and proclaimed to the audience: "THIS is for all the FAT girls!"

Whitney Thompson isn't as full-figured as Manheim. But she is the first full-figured winner on a show spotlighting the modeling industry's unrealistic and painfully thin expectations that women should be skin-and-bones. I'd say Whitney is a Size 8 -- which is still less than the average woman's size of 12-14 in the U.S. In modeling lingo, she's a "plus-size" ... like "addition" is a four-letter word.

The odds were stacked against Whitney. She was surrounded by twigs angled into unhealthy, emaciated looking shapes: Young women with no chests and no hips and no bootie. Their average size was 0-2 ... Size 0. I've never understood how zero -- which means nothing -- can be a size.

Well, Whitney had plenty of chest and hips and bootie, and she was proud of it. ANTM, for all its push on exterior veneers, also requires personality. And Whitney had plenty of that, too. Yes, she struggled to ratchet down her tendency toward beauty pageant demeanor and, at times, a show's assignment would befuddle her.

But she won! And she hopes to be an inspiration to other young women. You can read more about her win in this story from Salon.com. All I can add is my standing ovation.

While Heather will be debating why she didn't watch "The Office" live, I'll be drinking and eating my way down Olive Avenue. Who's coming with me?

The annual Toast & Taste of the Tower happens tonight, and it's a good thing I'm walking home, because if my scant memories of toward the end of the night in previous years is any indication, I don't want to be anywhere near a car.

After my last experience with the Fresno Grizzlies and their Thirsty Thursday promotion, there was little to no chance of me returning to the Chuk this season – and then I found out Billy Zabka was coming to town for Totally Rad 80s Night at the park. This has turned out to be both ridiculously awesome and heartbreakingly disappointing for the Beehive. Here's why:

Ridiculously awesome: Billy Zabka. William Zabka. Johnny freakin' Lawrence in the legendary movie "The Karate Kid." Enough said.

Heartbreakingly disappointing: Tonight is the season finale of "The Office." Sure, we can record it and watch it later, that's not the issue. Until we found out about Billy Zabka's Fresno appearance, however, the Beehive had plans to host a party tonight in celebration of the finale. I won't go into the details, but I can assure you it was going to be a very fun get together for local Officephiles.

Those of you who are the Beehive's friends on MySpace know that we love the Karate Kid movies (most of them, anyway), and we love "The Office" – equally. It was not easy to choose between Johnny Lawrence and Jim Halpert, and we resent the Grizzlies for making us make that decision (only a little – you can't stay mad at a group who had the amazing foresight to bring a member of the Cobra Kai to Fresno). All in all, we feel pretty good about our choice.

So, we'll see you at the Chuk tonight, and don't forget to record "The Office" so we can talk about it on the Beehive tomorrow.

Related: Check out Mike Oz's interview with Billy Zabka here.

Did you hear that huge, nervous sigh of relief from "American Idol" headquarters? In a season of worrisome declining ratings, the producers at least got the title fight they yearned for: The Battle of the Two Davids.

Well, there was very little doubt, after Tuesday's performances, that Syesha Mercado was headed for the exit. More than 56 million votes were cast this week, and Syesha got the deflating news Wednesday. She just didn't have enough fire power to finish ahead of either "D" locomotive that pulled most of the load fueling interest in Season 7.

I'll give Syesha this much: She was the last woman standing in a female field that included gifted Carly Smithson and the season's true original, rocker Amanda Overmyer. I mean, how many times was Syesha in the Bottom 2? Or among the lowest vote-getters? I still can't figure out how she came in third. (Can you imagine if she had competed against past winner Fantasia? The Season 3 champion's guest appearance Wednesday was an explosive force of nature.)

But now it's Cook, the ex-bartender who can style up a song, vs. Archuleta, who's apparently been groomed from birth by his stage dad for a moment like this. AI producers, I'm sure, want to replicate the Season 2 showdown of Ruben Studdard vs. Clay Aiken. And both Davids have the vocal gusto to live up to the moment. Stage presence? Well, Archuleta needs to work on that one. But let's hope they both let rip with something memorable for this sagging season's finale ... Please!

UPDATE: Donald Munro reacts to Wednesday's results.

Until recently, I honestly believed frolicking in the hills and marionette shows were daily Austrian activities. The world might be better off if they were.