The Year That Was: 1999

TRIGGER UNHAPPY A month after Columbine, Tom Selleck appears on The Rosie O'Donnell Show to promote his film The Love Letter--and Rosie attacks him for supporting the NRA. The next day, Selleck shoots back on Live With Regis & Kathie Lee, bemoaning O'Donnell's "moral vanity and intolerance," while Howard Stern reportedly tries to storm O'Donnell's studio to challenge the host to a gun-control debate, calling her a hypocrite for doing ads for Kmart, which sells guns (O'Donnell drops that gig in November). Meanwhile, at the Cannes film festival, director Spike Lee suggests that NRA president Charlton Heston should be shot "with a .44 caliber Bulldog." Lee later says his comments were in jest.

MAY 21

FOR A SONG Princess Di's brother, Earl Spencer, shells out $41,000 for the manuscript score of "Candle in the Wind '97" at a Sotheby's auction. The piece (hand-notated by Sir George Martin and sung by Elton John at Di's funeral) is displayed at Althorp, the Spencer family estate, where the princess is buried.

MAY 24

END OF THE LINE Not a season too soon, Mad About You airs its limp series finale, cowritten and directed by Helen Hunt. Other programming euthanasia: Home Improvement (May 25)--Wilson's face is revealed!--and The Nanny (May 12) pack it in; NewsRadio goes silent (May 4), one flailing season after the death of Phil Hartman; and Homicide: Life on the Street finally succumbs to its perennial low ratings (May 21). Meanwhile, fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 launch websites and letter-writing campaigns to save the Sci Fi Channel's cult show--to no avail (its plug is pulled Aug. 8).

LANKY, GO HOME MTV's Jesse Camp trades in his VJ gig for a bid at rock superstardom. His first album, Jesse & the 8th Street Kidz, is released by Hollywood Records with not a headbang but a whimper: It has yet to break into Billboard's Top 200 chart.

JUN 1

RISING SON Michael Jackson pulls out of a charity concert featuring Luciano Pavarotti at the last minute to be with his son, Prince, 2, who, Pavarotti says, "may be dying." The child, as it turns out, had a febrile seizure and was released from the hospital within hours.

JUN 4

JERRY SKIDS At a Chicago City Council hearing, Jerry Springer confronts questions that fights on his chaos-fest are staged, saying "it looks real to me." He adds that it's "just a stupid show." The hearing was called to determine if police should be arresting those involved in the on-air assaults. The proceedings prove moot when distributor Studios USA reiterates its pledge to pull the show's punches.

JUN 8

RATED GRRR President Clinton and the National Association of Theatre Owners announce that kids must show photo ID to get into R-rated films sans adults. "When you drop them off," says Clinton, "you shouldn't have to worry about your G-rated kids getting into violent or suggestive R-rated movies." Vigilance by theater owners varies, while on June 30, a prescient South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut satirizes the whole ratings imbroglio. Also in June, the House of Representatives defeats a measure from Republican Congressman Henry Hyde that would have prohibited the sale of extremely violent movies, videogames, or violence-glorifying music to children under 17.