You may have seen Neil’s recent Tweet, in which he commented that he’d seen a lot of negative reactions to his opening number for the Oscars. While we don’t really think he’ll ever see this, we wanted to put together a bunch of the best reviews, for your reading pleasure. If you know of a review that we missed, please get in touch and we’ll add it to the page!

“NPH opened the show with a rousing, Broadway-style musical number. He was on fire, a vibrant presence on that stage and — as we soon learned — an impossible act to follow for co-hosts Baldwin and Martin.” ~ MTV

“An outstanding song-and-dance number from Neil Patrick Harris trumped the ho-hum opening monologue of hosts Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin.” ~ LA Times

There were understandably a lot, so we’ve given them a page of their own. You can read the rest here!

Posted by: Rach at 11:50 pm | · Filed under: Public Appearances | Comment
Tags: Oscars, Public Appearances, Reviews, TV Appearances |

First, the upcoming: Neil will be taking part in Days 17 and 18 of the SF Sketchfest. On January 30th at 8pm, and January 31st at 7pm, Neil will be appearing in “Celebrity Autobiography” alongside Rachel Dratch, Lesley Ann Warren, Fred Willard and more. Tickets are $35 for the event, taking place at Cobb’s Comedy Club in San Francisco, California, and you can purchase them here.

FOX today released their American Idol schedule for season 9. The show kicks off on Tuesday January 12th, in Boston. Neil sat in on the auditions in Dallas, which are set to air Tuesday, Jan. 26 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT).

The year is almost over and Neil is appearing on “best of” lists all over the place, including People magazine’s most intriguing people of the year, and places him at #2 on Buddy TV’s Breakout Star of 2009 list.

His Emmy’s hosting gig makes AOL TV’s Top Moments of 2009, Canada.com list him on their 2009 “Naughty and Nice” list, there’s an Honourble Mention on AfterElton’s 2009 Visibility Awards in the Theatrical Event category, for his Tony’s hosting gig. And for HIMYM, he makes TV Guide’s 25 Best Performances of the Year.

Reacting to his Golden Globe nod, Neil joked that he’d like a gift from CBS. “Maybe this year CBS or Fox will give me a new car. Didn’t they do that with all the ‘Will & Grace‘ people once? Didn’t they give them all Miatas for getting nominations or something? One can dream!”

Finally, Advocate.com has a little more from Neil’s acceptance speech at the Trevor Project event back on December 5th.

Posted by: Rach at 11:09 pm | · Filed under: TV Appearances | Comment
Tags: Event: SF Sketchfest, Events, Golden Globes, Public Appearances, Reviews, Stage, TV Appearances, TV: American Idol |

Neil will host “It’s Magic”, part of a week long celebration of the Magic Castle’s 100th anniversary. “It’s Magic!” will take place on Sunday, November 8th, at 7:00pm at The Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, California. Tickets cost between $25 and $67.50, visit Ticketmaster to purchase.

Neil’s hosting gig at the Emmys saw the ratings rise almost 10%, similar to the ratings high achieved when he hosted the Tonys back in June. And the glowing reviews have continued to roll in over the last 48 hours; they now include NPR, Time Magazine, eonline, TV Guide, and Hugh Jackman.

Charity Folks are running an auction to win the chance to visit the set of HIMYM and meet Josh Radnor, to benefit Young Storytellers. The bidding currently stands at $1,500 and the auction runs for another 7 days. To find out more about Young Storytellers, visit youngstorytellers.com.

And finally, according to Roger Friedman of The Hollywood Reporter, Neil is set to join the cast of David Mamet’s “Race” on Broadway this winter. Rehersals begin on October 19th, previews run from November 17th and the play officially opens on December 6th, but there’s no official confirmation one way or the other yet, and we would suggest taking it with a pinch of salt at the moment as it would obviously seriously interrupt with Neil’s HIMYM commitments.

Posted by: Rach at 7:44 pm | · Filed under: Hosting | 2 Comments
Tags: Broadway, Charity, Hosting, Magic, Public Appearances, Reviews, Rumours, TV: HIMYM |

Glossing over the fact that (if you haven’t heard) Neil was robbed once again and even without Jeremy Piven being nominated, he lost the Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series award to Two and a Half Men’s Jon Cryer, the show has been getting rave reviews. If you watched the ceremony you’ll have seen many of the presenters praising Neil’s handling of the show, Jon Stewart in particular.

And the compliments don’t stop there. There are reviews of the show all over this morning and they’re all incredibly positive about Neil and the way the show was put together. There’s USA Today, Los Angeles Times, the LA Times Awards Insider, Entertainment Weekly, Zap2it, StarTribune, Reuters, the Arizona Republic and The Celebrity Cafe, to name just a few.

There are photos from the arrival and the show in our gallery, with more to come as today progresses, so keep an eye on it! And if you check out our YouTube channel, you can check out the Dr Horrible interruption, and Neil’s awesome opening number.

And don’t forget (as if you could!) that How I Met Your Mother season five premieres tonight on CBS at the new time of 8/7c!

Posted by: Rach at 11:51 am | · Filed under: Hosting | 2 Comments
Tags: Awards & Nominations, Emmy Awards, Events, Gallery Update, Hosting, Reviews, TV: HIMYM, Video Update |

Psychology Today has a lengthy review of the Tonys, with a nice quote on Neil’s performance.

“Harris was superb, relaxed, affable, great timing for comedic delivery and even managed some very pleasant delivery of a satirical number about the nominees and winners hurriedly delivered at the end of the show. Harris’ hilarious closing number re-inventing the lyrics to the music of West Side Story’s legendary song, “Tonight,” was a savory moment.”

Fox has announced the nominations for this year’s Teen Choice Awards. He’s nominated in the “Choice TV Actor: Comedy” category, and there’s certainly no Jeremy Piven in his category! His competition includes Steve Carell, Jonas Brothers, Charlie Sheen and Jerry Trainor. HIMYM is also nominated in the “Choice TV Show: Comedy” category against Hannah Montana, iCarly, The Office and Ugly Betty. To vote you have to register on the site and be aged 13-19. Once you’ve registered, you can vote once each day until the voting closes. The winners will be announced on Monday, August 10th on FOX.

Posted by: Rach at 8:50 am | · Filed under: Awards & Nominations | 1 Comment
Tags: Awards & Nominations, Reviews, Voting |

So we don’t usually link to a whole stack of HIMYM reviews or recaps, but this week I felt we should, because I’ve already seen so many reviewers raving about Neil’s performance this week. There’ll be no spoilers in this post, but obviously the articles I’m about to link to will be chock filled with them! TVGuide, the AV Club, and the TV Squad in particular all pile on the praise!

And don’t forget to check out Barney’s first blog entry of 2009!

Finally, many thanks to Cori for pointing out this “NPH Career EKG” put together by Yahoo.

Posted by: Rach at 6:04 am | · Filed under: HIMYM | 1 Comment
Tags: Barney's Blog, Reviews, TV: HIMYM |

Entertainment Tonight talks to Neil about his Golden Globes nomination – how he feels about it, how he found out about it, and what he thinks of his competition.

E!Online have posted a clip from tomorrow night’s HIMYM, and without spoiling what he’s doing – it’s almost a minute of mostly Barney doing what Neil does best. This week’s Big Bang Theory/HIMYM preview is also up on YouTube now.

There are also some Dr Horrible DVD reviews starting to appear around the web. Check out the first two, from Newteevee and CliqueClack, and if you haven’t yet pre-ordered the CD or DVD, they’re both due for release this week so now is a good time! Both are retailing at $9.99 on Amazon.com.

Posted by: Rach at 8:25 am | · Filed under: Awards & Nominations | Comment
Tags: Awards & Nominations, Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, Golden Globes, Merchandise, Reviews, TV: HIMYM, Video Update |