Like millions of my fellow Americans, I tuned back into American Inventor last night, but not to discover the fate of the edible snow globes. No, my motive was to keep AdFreak Nation up to speed on the burgeoning TV careers of two of advertising’s own: Just Ask a Woman’s Mary Lou Quinlan and JWT’s Ed Evangelista (pictured here), who make up an impressive 50 percent of the panel judging the inventions. (Hey, these two are in broadcast prime time every week. Not even Donny has managed that.) Within the first 10 minutes last night, Mary Lou—who is living up to her apparent responsibility to be the show's resident diva—careened about the set like a Catholic schoolgirl who just discovered amphetamines. When two women showed up to present their big idea—lingerie in which the wearer dresses up like a package that comes undone when the bow-like device covering the mammary glands is pulled—Mary Lou shrieked in horror at the moment of disrobement. Then she leapt into action, marching off stage to grab her coat. At first, it looked like she intended to leave the show, and her TV career, in the dust. But no—she was fetching the coat to cover up the naked woman. (The male panelists looked rather intrigued by the invention.) As for Ed, for a guy with a New York accent and attitude, he comes off as remarkably low-key, telling one inventor who'd given up everything for a creation the entire panel rejected: “I hope it won’t destroy you.”

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor