There's a slight discrepancy about the way drunks are treated these days. For instance, if you start staggering around your estranged daughter's infant school at noon drunk and crying and naked from the waist down, you get called a monster. Um, we heard.
However, if you drink the same amount of booze and head off to a nationally-broadcast daytime TV show where you burp, slur, ramble uncontrollably about having sex with your wife in the bed of a president and then do a monkey impression, you get treated as some kind of hero. Just look at Danny DeVito. On Wednesday morning Danny DeVito turned a simple promotional interview for his rubbish new movie on The View into a virtuoso performance in booze-induced dishevelled bewilderment; but instead of being banned from daytime TV altogether, he's been told he's free to go back on The View whenever he likes. Danny DeVito is a "fun drunk," you see, not one of those horrible drunks who hit you in the face and then try to rape you.
It's a generally-considered truth that people act differently when they're drunk. Take every recruitment consultant from Surrey, for example. When they're sober they don't attack men in the street with their shoes, burst into tears and puke curry down their New Look halterneck – but when they're drunk they all do. And, for the most part, drinking brings out the worst in celebrities, too. Alcohol helped Mel Gibson reveal his thoughts about the fucking Jews. Alcohol helped David Hasselhoff piss all down the inside of his trousers at an airport. Alcohol helped the kid from The Sixth Sense flip his car upside down. We could go on. Alcohol helped Jackie Chan scream "go to hell!" at a concert audience. See?
But Danny DeVito isn't affected by alcohol in this way. As you'd expect from the star of Twins, Taxi and It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, alcohol only enhances the good-humoured effervescence of Danny DeVito. On Wednesday Danny DeVito failed to shake off the effects of a night out with Sexiest Man Alive George Clooney before a scheduled television interview was due to take place, and therefore appeared on The View completely shitfaced.
Highlights of Danny DeVito's interview on The View included an especially long-winded account of the time he and his wife stayed in Lincoln's bedroom at the White House and had sex of every surface they could, a babbling recollection of his new movie Deck The Halls – including the entirety of the plot – that was only punctuated by deep vomity belches and this description of George Bush: "The guy who eb eb eb eb eb eb eb eb eb eb eb eb wuh wuh wuh wuh wuh wuh wuh wuh wuh wuh ung ung ung ung ung."
Usually after a performance like that you could expect some kind of negative repercussion, but not Danny DeVito. He was a blast! You loved him, we loved him and – most importantly – the hosts of The View loved him too. Confusing blogger turned weirdly sensible voice of reason Rosie O'Donnell told viewers of The View yesterday:
"Danny DeVito is not an alcoholic. He's just a guy who had too many with his friend."
While Forbes reports that this is a stance backed up by two of the other hosts of The View:
Co-host Joy Behar said Thursday on the show that DeVito was "drunk as a skunk." "But he was a fun drunk," chimed in co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Barbara Walters noted that she had gotten a message later to call him. It wasn't clear whether they connected or he had apologised.
All of this is helping to make Danny DeVito more famous than he's been for over a decade, and it's hoped that his eye-popping appearance on The View will lead to greater things, like his own daytime TV show – provisionally entitled The Mindblowingly Wasted Danny DeVito Puking Up Inside His Mouth Hour.
Read more: