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Fallen star Sean Young showed up in Search for the first time in many moons after she heckled “Diving Bell and the Butterfly” director Julian Schnabel at the Directors Guild Awards. Buzz on Ms. Young surged 1,244% and related queries on “sean young outburst” and “sean young yelling” both raised their voice to uncomfortable levels. Young has since entered rehabilitation for alcohol abuse.

This isn’t the first time Young has made a spectacle of herself. Back in the early ’90s, she dressed up in a homemade Catwoman outfit in an attempt to win the role in Tim Burton’s “Batman Returns.” Searchers haven’t forgotten. Lookups on “sean young catwoman” and “sean young batman returns” posted big gains. So many memories…

It might be difficult to remember that the TV character Hannah Montana is played by Miley Cyrus. So news that she has changed her name may cause some to break out a chart. Luckily, she’s only added a name—changing it to Miley Ray Cyrus, in honor of her dad, Billy Ray Cyrus.

Searchers have been far more interested in “miley cyrus myspace” (+917%) and “new miley cyrus pictures” (+374%) than “miley cyrus name change” and “miley cyrus new name.” Maybe folks have become numb to artist name changes after all.

The dual-named singer/actress is ending a sold out concert tour on Thursday. The next day, her 3D film, “Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert” opens for a week-long run, and it’s already selling out.

This week, people have been frantically dialing up “hannah montana 3d movie tickets,” boosting the query by 349%. A whopping 56% of those lookups come from kids under 13 (31% and 25% from girls and boys, respectively). Related searches make us think the film will sell out just as easily as the concert tour: “buy hannah montana movie tickets,” “disney hannah montana 3d movie,” and “hannah montana movie tickets.” Just think—if you miss it, there’s bound to be a DVD soon to follow.

Whatever you may think about the auditions phase of “American Idol,” the extended segment pretty much encompasses the entire reality TV universe. The Omaha tryouts had lady wrestlers (gladiator potential, anyone?), a forgetful Iowan who could’ve used “Don’t Forget the Lyrics” host Wayne Brady by his side, and a Hollywood-bound ingenue who squealed she’d be the next “America’s Top Model.”

As January nears its wintry end and striking writers continue to leave viewers at the mercy of reality TV producers, “Idol” has fended off all newcomers and old-timers to claim the top Buzz spot among its ilk. Let us exult as we review the top 10 TV reality competition shows this month.

1. “American Idol” (Fox). The show’s 40% Buzz margin makes the Fox program the clear leader. Of those who may have forgiven the singing contest for forgetting its true roots, the good people of Atlanta, Dallas, and Kansas (Missouri) led the queries. The show also attracts the widest age range, which may mean a generation of hopeful and/or delusional warblers for many seasons to come.

 

2. “The Biggest Loser: Couples” (NBC). If there’s a chance to buy a franchise stake, do so: Online fans seek out the cookbook, workout, and recipes. Not many television programs dare to take on a New Year Day’s crowd, but its successful January 1st season debut clearly fit into viewers’ resolutions… at least to sit and watch other people sweat.

    

3. “American Gladiators” (NBC). The brawny supersized entrant takes the lead among the newcomers… hardly fair considering it rode in on so much nostalgia. Still, its debut success means a renewal, and the second season will lead in to the summer Olympics… a surreal tableau to be contemplated later. One of the few reality competitions popular among males—indeed, resoundingly so, with guys making 75% of searches.

 

4. “The Amazing Race” (CBS). The long-lived reality show still floats on dreamy goodwill from fans and critics that its hoary peer “Survivor” can only dream of having. For as long as the Emmy award for the category has existed, the CBS program has taken home awards for “Outstanding Reality-Competition Program.” Searches have already popped for season 14 applications. Just don’t forget to update your passport.

 

5. “Celebrity Apprentice” (NBC). This triumphant Trump return appealed most to New Yorkers, Phoenix, and Boston, although the sight of celebrities doing menial corporate work heartened every state (except Vermont, curiously). Working stiffs aged 35-54 lead the interest in boardroom antics with a charitable twist. Then again, it could be the draw of yet another Baldwin brother on primetime. Mebbe not.

 

6. “Rock of Love 2” (VH1). How many dating faceoffs gives the “winner” the chance to kiss off the prize, i.e., canoodling time with Poison lead singer Bret Michaels? Last season’s victor Jes still pulls in buzz for showing reality TV cojones (and why somebody hasn’t already put her in a faceoff with the indecisive “Bachelor” confounds us). The Search favorite this round is Megan Hauserman—the former Playboy model and “Beauty and the Geek” familiar, er, face.

 

7. “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew” (VH1). With celebrity news and blogs tracking every rehab in Hollywood, the concept was sickly overdue. Accordingly, searches ratcheted up an astounding 4,264% for the voyeuristic cable show, making it the fastest moving show this month. And yes, “Rehab” features yet another Baldwin, although shocked Search sympathy lay with Jeff Conaway and Ricco Rodriguez.

 

8. “Project Runway“(Bravo). Fueled by urbanites from New York, San Francisco, and Boston, the lookups for the behind-the-scenes fashion frenzy began long before the actual debut. It runs second only to “American Idol” in its teen allure, with 1 out of 10 searches coming from ages 13-17. Juicy news for fans: In a new show, the production team will be working with fashion kingpin Tyra Banks, in a “The Devil Wears Prada” with an “Apprentice” twist. All we can say is: Trump, watch out for a Tyra takeover.

 

9. “Dance Wars: Bruno vs. Carrie Ann” (ABC). A shameless spinoff from successes like “Dancing with the Stars” and “So You Think You Can Dance,” the ABC incarnation takes an “Ultimate Fighter” approach to fancy footwork. Choreographers Carrie Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli school their own team of young’uns. Usually the women are the focus of Search inquiry, but in this round, Bruno’s got the Buzz edge.

 

10. “Make Me a Supermodel” (Bravo). Squeaking into the top 10, the copycat has a long way to go before approaching the buzz of precessors such as “America’s Next Top Model” and “Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency.” In fact, the Tyra Banks vehicle pulls in 14 times as many searches as “Make Me,” and it’s not even on the air. Still, the Bravo venture offers a nice twist by mixing boys and girls together in the contest. Here’s to equal-opportunity ogling on reality television.

What do searchers look for when they need that extra accent in clothing or home décor? This week, they’ve been dialing up the animal prints. Fashionistas might advise moderation, but queries show that people are wild for the savage look.

So which animal tops the list? Zebra print is the overall favorite for bedding, belts, children’s clothing, and MySpace layouts. A giraffe print is preferred for purses. And folks think dresses, shoes, balloons, and shower curtains are best covered with leopard print. But when searchers want to see the entire zoo of choices, especially when hunting for prom dresses, lingerie, scrubs, tattoos, and furniture—they check out “animal prints.”

We’ve never seen any real pink leopards, but the most interesting searches we encountered on our animal print safari were for “pink leopard print suitcase” and “pink leopard print clothes.” Those should go perfectly with the “leopard print folding walking cane.” Too much, you say? Party pooper.

Is romance possible with primary anxiety? This reading of distracted amor comes partly from a 402% spike in the query, “when is valentine’s day.” (Answer: February 14.) True, Valentine’s Day is more than two weeks away, but traditionally the annual Buzz homage to martyrdom and love begins at this time.

Lookups, especially among ladies of all ages, have begun to register according to schedule, but the online allure for “valentine” is down 27% from this same time period in 2006 and 2007. The quest for “romance” has also taken a hit (-29% compared to last January). Good thing “love” remains relatively stable.

Politics can’t take all the blame. Given the moody stock market and foreclosure downers, is it any surprise the only stimulus people are searching for nowadays is the economic kind? Ah, but take heart… all is not doom-and-gloom in the Valentine forecast. Take a look below at how searches stack up compared to 2007, and come to your own conclusion whether we’re in a romantic recession or just a temporary lull.

Searches for movie and TV quotes have always been popular, and why shouldn’t they be? It’s only natural that we’d want to find the original “Pulp Fiction” repartee that spawned the thought-provoking question, “You know what they call a Quarter Pounder with cheese in France?” And of course we’re curious to read the verbatim “Sex and the City” heart-to-heart that gave us the handy explanation, “He’s just not that into you.”

And so these quote searches continue. Those seeking the wisecracks of a precocious teen dealing with a “doodle that can’t be un-did” propelled “Juno” to the No. 1 spot on this week’s top 20. Rookie catfighters looking for snarky comebacks gathered ammo from “Gossip Girl,” while budding Cyranos mined “The Notebook” for sweet nothings. And fans of V (both the letter and the character) feasted on the “vichyssoise of verbiage (that) veers most verbose” in “V for Vendetta.”

Take some time to discover all the quotable gems awaiting you in this week’s top searches. After all, you know what they say the best medicine is. Kevin from “The Office” might think it’s “… a combination of interferon and dacarbazine.” But boss Michael Scott knows the real truth: “And laughter, also.”

Invoking the name of John F. Kennedy has become a campaign tradition among presidential candidates. The 1988 Democratic vice presidential candidate Lloyd Bentsen got the best line of his political career when his Republican opponent Dan Quayle likened himself to the 35th president. The most recent contenders for the Oval Office have borrowed lines from his speeches, and Mitt Romney (R) expressed his stand on Mormonism just 90 miles from where Kennedy articulated his position on being an American citizen first, and a Catholic second.

How powerful, then, is an endorsement from JFK’s daughter? After the New York Times ran Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg’s op-ed piece endorsing Senator Barack Obama, her searches rose 179%—fueled largely by men and women aged 35 on up. Whether she is a kingmaker is yet to be seen, but her words in the political arena did stir searches beyond her East Coast habitat, reaching across two-thirds of the nation.

Word of the Boston Brahmin’s advocacy, plus that of her uncle Ted Kennedy (whose own queries popped +248%), did drive buzz for America’s political royals, from JFK himself (+53%), to his wife and Caroline’s mother Jackie Kennedy (off the charts), and JFK niece Maria Shriver.

As for how this may affect Obama himself, searchers have been working overtime in checking his other endorsements, reviewing his religion, looking for his wife’s bio, and reading the top 10 list from his David Letterman appearance. How the anointed successor will fare in the long run remains to be seen. In the meantime, the endorsement may have worked more in reinforcing and reminding others of the Kennedy lore. 

Imagine a giant playground decorated in Sharper’s Image disco-style toys and friendly bullies trying to push you off every strobe-lit jungle gym, and you have the inkling of “American Gladiators” oversized appeal. The supersized and allegedly squeaky clean athletes have knocked out some hard-hitting buzz since its January 6 primetime debut on NBC, and search numbers in the past 7 days puts the reality competition in the top 2,000.

Its out-of-the-gate success already has the network casting the second season, scheduled as (of all things) a summer lead-in to the Olympics. Too bad producers didn’t hold auditions in top gladiator territories: Pittsburgh has led show queries in the past week (which makes sense considering it’s the City of Champions), followed by Louisville (Kentucky), Denver, Salt Lake City, and Columbus (Ohio).

As popular as scantily-clad Greco-Roman outings have been in the past year, from “300” to its latest parody, can the gladiators keep a fickle public entertained? Its ratings slipped just a tad (viewership registered at 10.1 million, down from 12 million at its debut), and searches have dropped by half since the first showing.

The key may lie with the ladies. While Hulk Hogan does command the most buzz of the show’s crew, cage fighter Gina Carano, aka Crush, lives up to her name in squelching her fellow gladiator’s online appeal. Focusing on Gina and her rear naked choke would probably lead to many willing submissions. Gird thy loins, and see how the other postmodern-day gladiators register on the Buzz Richter scale.

Super Sunday’s fast approaching, and searches for “super bowl date and time” and “super bowl kickoff” are scoring points in Buzz. That’s good; we all need to know the exact moment to flick on our TV sets. But another query is also rushing the Buzz goal posts—and it has a much more delicious ring.

Over the past week, “super bowl party recipes” surged a happy 840%. Go, team! Searchers flexing their dipping fingers and prepping the popcorn bowls have boosted buzz on “super bowl party food ideas” and “super bowl party supplies.” Interest in “super bowl trivia“—a staple of any self-respecting football fiesta—has leapt.

If past years are any indication, we’ll soon see spikes in “appetizer recipes,” “chicken wings,” “seven layer dip,” “nachos,” “salsa recipes,” and “chili recipes.” Lookups for “finger foods” will flourish. And “guacamole recipes” will ring merrily from coast to coast. Hallelujah! Don’t be caught unprepared on the country’s unofficial holiday. Get your Super Bowl supplies now. And feast happily on the great day.

In the days before the Internet, a journalist could let loose a few profane words, send a bikini shot to a married man, or be completely without a clue without many repercussions.

Not anymore. Former Philly anchor filly Alycia Lane still rules the buzz roost, first by sending suggestive photos to pal and NFL Network anchor Rich Reisen (which were intercepted by his wife) then, later, striking a police officer. However two other broadcasters could overtake her in Search. Golf Channel anchor Kelly Tilghman recently returned from a two-week suspension, after joking that Tiger Woods‘ competitors should “lynch him in a back alley.” (Cluelessness unfortunately can be a contagion: Searches for “golfweek noose” leapt more than 1,200% with that magazine cover’s illustration choice in covering the scandal, which then led to a firing.)

Online investigations into Tilghman’s background and, of all things, marital status continue, but the chastened anchor may see relief from further scrutiny. ESPN First Take anchor Dana Jacobson has her own one-week boot, thanks to a drunken display that was too dirty even for a roast. The debacle has doubled her Buzz profile compared to Tilghman and launched her into the top 1,000 searches. Despite a protest, there hasn’t been firm confirmation nor searches that Jacobson tried to be a poor woman’s Kathy Griffin. Instead, ESPN said alleged profane comments referred to the University of Notre Dame’s stadium view of a mural. Lookups however did soar for her insult to Notre Dame. Don’t mess with the Fighting Irish.