To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser salon.com > People March 27, 2000 URL: http://www.salon.com/people/col/reit/2000/03/27/npmon Stealing thunder How the "Tumbleweeds" cast broke like the wind. Plus: A faux Brad Pitt goes home to Springfield; and "Growing Pains" movie reunion will be Leo-less. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Amy Reiter And the Academy Award for most gas-resistant performance goes to ... Janet McTeer. The Oscar-nominated actress recently told gossip guy Baird Jones that the cast and crew of "Tumbleweeds" held daily farting contests on the film's set -- just to make her 14-year-old co-star, Kimberly Brown, feel at ease. "As many as 12 people would let them rip to see who could be the most smelly or loud and unusual sounding," McTeer said. "My young co-star was at first disgusted, which is to say completely delighted." McTeer said that Brown "kept asking me when I would pass gas." To which, she recalled, "I always replied in my most regal manner that, although I was an enthusiastic applauder of our daily flatus competition, like the Queen of England, I neither farted nor carried money." What a gas! - - - - - - - - - - - - From the horse's mouth "We don't care if people make fun of us. We make fun of ourselves. We have hats and shirts that say 'In Stink' on them." -- 'N Sync's Chris Kirkpatrick on why his band deserves a good-sportsmanship award for appearing on "Saturday Night Live," in the Toronto Sun. - - - - - - - - - - - - Some prize Has inveterate virgin Gary Coleman found true love at last? I'm told that diminutive "Diff'rent Strokes" star attended the Academy Awards on Sunday night with Jennifer Vanlerberghe on his arm. Vandlerberghe is the 23-year-old, 6-foot-2 former model and collegiate basketball player who won a date with 4-foot-7 Coleman through an auction on Ugo.com last Christmas. - - - - - - - - - - - - DIY Elton "The score might have been assembled from a 'make your own Elton John song' software program" -- New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley on Elton John's new Broadway musical, "Aida." - - - - - - - - - - - - Comic con cojones Tom Green may be less one testicle -- but he's still pretty ballsy. Not only did the MTV talk-show host, now recovering from last week's surgery to remove a cancerous testicle, flash his testicular scar to an television reporter to prove that he really was sick -- but he's also finding whatever humor he can in his health fright. Green, who is hoping to raise $10,000 through "Tom Green's Nuts Cancer Foundation," has decided to raise consciousness, too. "Young men -- go to the bathroom and feel your testicles," Green told Entertainment Tonight. "Every day when you wake up in the morning, in the shower, feel your testicles. Feel your testicles as much as you possibly can." Now that's what I call a feel-good message. - - - - - - - - - - - - Virtue, rewarded "If anybody says honesty doesn't pay, send them to me ... Honesty just paid me $50,000." -- Salvage man Willie Fulgear, who scored 50,000 clams and tickets to the Academy Awards for turning in the 52 stolen Oscars he found in a dumpster. - - - - - - - - - - - - Juicy bits Will the real Brad Pitt please stand up? Or could that fellow who's going around impersonating him please keep his profile down? He's upsetting the star's mother. The Associated Press reports that mama Pitt is peeved that a young man pretending to be her son has been out carousing in the actor's hometown, Springfield, Mo. The faux Brad is sporting a black cowboy hat, a goatee and his own batch of bodyguards. "It is very irritating to me," sniffed a miffed Jane Pitt, after hearing that the imposter had been drinking and cavorting with women. "Brad doesn't get home enough that he spends time holding court in downtown Springfield." Sounds like someone's mother needs a hug ... Is it just me -- or is the '80s revival growing ever more painful? Entertainment Weekly reports that the cast members of the old sitcom "Growing Pains" -- Alan Thicke, Joanna Kerns, Tracey Gold and Kirk Cameron -- are reuniting for a TV movie. The teleflick will see Thicke's character become a mystery writer and Cameron's character becoming an ad exec. Leonardo DiCaprio, however, will not be able to make the film reunion. Too bad, since many consider him to be the biggest growing pain of them all. Mmmbop.com? Those all-but-forgotten brothers Hanson are pulling a David Bowie. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the teeny-bopping boy band has hired Bowie's Internet company to launch a www.hanson.net, a subscriber-based Web network that includes Internet access, content, chat rooms and e-mail addresses ending in @hanson.net. Wonder if dumbidea@hanson.net is taken. Alex Trebek might want to give Diana Ross' lawyers a call. A security employee at Los Angeles International Airport has filed a lawsuit against the "Jeopardy!" host, contending he slammed a metal template on her hand when she tried to keep him from putting an oversized bag on a conveyor belt. I'll take Celebrity Airport Scandals for 500, Alex. salon.com | March 27, 2000   - - - - - - - - - - - - About the writer Amy Reiter is a staff writer for Salon People. For more columns by Amy Reiter, visit her column archive.