Nick Cannon (Getty Images)

NBC, finally emerging from its Jeff Zucker hangover (don't worry, Mr. Zucker's doing fine) with a booming fall season, has signed a first-look deal with comedian/TV host/radio personality/actor/Observer profile subject Nick Cannon. 

Mr. Cannon will develop programming for the network, a role he performed at cable network TeenNick. In our 2011 profile of Mr. Cannon, Mr. Mariah Carey noted, "I call it an entrepretainer. It’s a businessman and an entertainer at the same time. That’s kind of what you have to be.” His involvement with NBC has thus far included hosting America's Got Talent during the summer and briefly acting on oft-retooled sitcom Up All Night.

Simmons and Williams

“My first young experience with the arts was putting on my mother’s Afro wig and singing Michael Jackson songs in the bathroom mirror,” the actor Michael K. Williams reported to The Observer on a drizzly Saturday evening in East Hampton.

We were at Russell Simmons’s house for the 13th annual Art for Life Foundation benefit, which this year was to honor a slate of luminaries, including Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon, Bancorp Inc.’s Betsy Z. Cohen, Tamia and Grant Hill and Sun Capital Partner Inc.’s Marc J. Leder.

Just moments before, Mr. Williams had been posing for a few clicking cameras, a cigar tucked between his lips as he tugged at leather suspenders overlaying a blue-and-white checked shirt. We had no problem visualizing the mental image of a young Mr. Williams belting “Beat It.” Though Mr. Williams is perhaps best known for his role in HBO’s The Wire, he divulged that his creative career actually began with dance.

“In school, [art] stimulated me. It made me want to stay in school; it made me want to learn. It stimulated my mind in ways that I can’t ever really explain,” Mr. Williams remembered, his previously lighthearted tone on hiatus. “But as an adult, as a human being, the arts saved my life.”

But even with the former dancer’s current television chops and star credentials, the Brooklyn native admitted the evening’s trek to East Hampton was only his second. We took another glance at his dapper appearance before concluding that his Ralph Lauren getup certainly didn’t betray him as a Hampton newcomer.

We shifted attention toward the night’s cohost, artist (and older brother of Russell) Danny Simmons.

Though on painkillers after recently throwing out his back, Mr. Simmons seemed in rare form and eager for the fête.

“It’s going to be our biggest year ever, and we got blue people standing around on the lawn, we got pink people, orange and blue people,” Mr. Simmons told us emphatically, while motioning toward the performance artists outfitted in brightly colored jumpsuits on the lawn. (The chromatic theme for the evening was “the summer’s hottest hues: rush orange, aqua blue, chartreuse, and fuchsia.”)

Mr. Simmons announced that the foundation—which raises money for arts education and gallery programs to benefit inner-city youth—was entering the night having raised more than $1.5 million this year, not including the proceeds to be garnered from the evening’s auctions “A lot of money for me this year would be anything over $2.1 million,” he said. “That’s the most we’ve ever raised.”

We raised our gaze toward the tent (all while eluding the first drops of rain) to speak with designer B Michael, outfitted in all-white garb from his men’s wear couture collection.

“I love summer because as a New Yorker, I wear black every day and summer is my excuse to wear white and do color,” Mr. Michael told us, referring to his monochrome duds. His usual East Hampton attire is a pair of white raffia shorts combined with a linen shirt and “shoes like this,” he said pointing to his white, beach-print shoes (a brave choice for a red carpet of damp grass).

Jonathan Cheban must have read our thoughts. “What am I wearing?” he inquired preemptively. “Something that’s going to get destroyed tonight, for sure.”

Aside from his Out East look—which had him donning an open-necked tuxedo shirt—Mr. Cheban also spoke of his creative focus. “I feel like art is always related to people, and it’s helped people get to different levels and take them out of wherever they are,” he waxed. “It’s something that people with talent can kind of use.”

After Mr. Cheban retreated to a dry space, we turned to Rocsi from BET’s 106 & Park and solicited her opinion about the night’s honoree, Ms. Carey, joining American Idol as a judge.

“I think it’s the most brilliant thing,” she enthused. “I think so many other shows may be a little envious and jealous that they got Mariah. She is this generation’s Whitney in some people’s eyes.” (We left aside the more morbid implications of the comparison.)

MC Lyte later echoed Rocsi’s sentiments. “Five octaves?” she queried rhetorically of Ms. Carey’s vocal range. “That doesn’t happen today.”

The red carpet culminated with the appearance of Salt-N-Pepa, Cheryl James and Sandra Denton, respectively, who simultaneously cooed praises for the evening’s fundraising.

“The arts obviously are very important for young people to express themselves,” Ms. James said. “It’s the way we made our living, and, you know, I think it’s very important for kids to be able to express who they are through music. The creativity keeps them happy, keeps them going.”

By this point, heavy clouds began to release a steady drizzle, prompting red-carpet invitees to bid a final hello before seeking dry ground and comforting libations. We nabbed ourselves a French 75 (the drink du nuit, courtesy of Bombay Sapphire) before joining them.

Upon entering the tent, we were immediately greeted with work from a variety of artists. As we perused the exhibit, we noted the ballooned, asymmetrical fixtures ornamenting the room’s ceiling.

Large lamps served as centerpieces for the tables—some mimicked animal shapes while others stood bedecked with silverware painted to blend with the monochrome palette of each lamp. All boasted intermittent, blinking lights. The entire scene possessed enough whimsy that we wondered whether a child had blueprinted the entire experience—save for the ever-flowing wine bottles and performances by Anita Baker, Salt-N-Pepa and Diggy Simmons.

We kept these musings to ourselves as we retreated from the East Hampton abode and back to the water-logged city.
sgrothjan@observer.com

Nick Cannon (Getty Images)

In The Observer's 2011 profile of Nick Cannon, his fellow America's Got Talent personality Sharon Osbourne told us: “He doesn’t sleep... You see him taking 20-minute naps between takes.” She added that Mr. Cannon has also been eager to restart his music career. “We talk about it a lot. Nick wants to do everything.”

Mr. Cannon, though, will have a slightly less busy schedule, as he's departing the New York morning show that he has hosted on 92.3, citing health concerns. He was hospitalized for a second time in 2012 this week, due to what he claims was a blood clot in his lungs. About his own ambitions, Mr. Mariah Carey told us, "I call it an entrepretainer. It’s a businessman and an entertainer at the same time. That’s kind of what you have to be." The entrepretainment shall be on hold for a bit as Mr. Cannon recovers.

Who is most the worst?

While it's been pretty big news today that Ashton Kutcher tweeted #noclass to  Penn State's firing of football coach Joe Paterno (for his part in the scandal involving assistant coach Jerry Sandusky molesting young boys), what's less known is that Nick Cannon somehow managed to top that in levels of grossness this week.

Mr. Cannon, who runs part of Nickelodeon because he's married to Mariah Carey, played a hilarious prank on America when he pretended that he had tied his 92.3 radio co-host's dog to a bunch of balloons and set the little guy floating above the Hudson River.
From the 92.3 website:

How Many Balloons Could Lift Sarah Lee’s Dog? About 50. Now Can You Help Us Find Her?

During the Halloween festivities, Nick and Sarah Lee had a bet. The bet was over who could carve the best pumpkin. The wager was if Nick won, he got Sarah’s little yippy dog, Charlie Roo. If Sarah won she would get to watch Dem Babies.
charlieroo How Many Balloons Could Lift Sarah Lees Dog? About 50. Now Can You Help Us Find Her?

Charlie Roo

Well Nick won control of Sarah’s pup. So what’s he supposed to do now?

Nick has always wanted to know how many balloons it would take to lift lil Charlie off the ground, so he decided to get it done on the show today.

This was accompanied by a video of some citizen journalist who just happened to catch a video of the dog floating away:

Of course it's a joke and never happened, but it's a stupid, mean joke. It's akin to pretending you kicked a dog. "Haha! Fooled you! I only pretended to kick a dog!"

We hardly ever say this, but can someone call PETA and have them yell about this for awhile? And then can the Internet ban Ashton Kutcher for not understanding how the Internet works (again)?

Nick Cannon (Patrick McMullan)

In today's Observer, TeenNick network chairman and comedian Nick Cannon opens up about his history of picking feuds with celebrities (calling Eminem "Enema" and Chelsea Handler "white trash"), and compares his "standing up" to other stars as equivalent to anti-bullying lessons TeenNick ought to impart. "I don’t attack people, but I stand up for what I believe in. And I think that’s what we teach our viewers."

Maybe so! Or maybe not. On his morning radio show yesterday, Mr. Cannon read off a list of reasons why Christina Aguilera might demand money for a personal appearance, including "Because Weight Watchers is expensive!" and, referencing Ms. Aguilera's hit show The Voice, "To raise money for her new show, The Stomach!"

Lessons learned, teens!

ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_

"More colorful."

NBC is being taken to task for its whitewashed casting decisions: of its new series, reports the Los Angeles Times, only The Playboy Club features a minority lead performer, and advocacy groups are asking for more representation. (Observer profile subject Nick Cannon, who is black, is to play a recurring role on the new sitcom Up All Night.)

"Hopefully, you see these statistics going in our favor as time goes on," said NBC Entertainment Chair Robert Greenblatt--though past attempts to redress the balance (like NBC dramas Southland, Undercovers, and The Event, all of which featured lead performers of minority descent) have been quickly canceled.

ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_

Nick Cannon (Patrick McMullan)

One day in 2009, Nick Cannon, the rapper and former child performer best known for portraying the likes of “Latanya” the diva-ish convenience store clerk on early-2000s Nickelodeon shows All That and The Nick Cannon Show, as well as for having married Mariah Carey once the acting and music work dried up, arrived at the Viacom offices in Times Square with plan to recapture the adolescent demo that had been his audience. “I walked into the office with a bunch of stacks of paper, and a portfolio, and said, ‘I think I can take the network to another level,’” he recalled, “and, as crazy as it sounds, they should put the network in my hands.’”

Mr. Cannon was soon hired as chairman of what would become TeenNick (a Nickelodeon spin-off that began life as The N, a nighttime programming block on now-defunct network Noggin).

“I made ’em make that decision,” he said of his hiring. “And they went with it. They were impressed with how prepared I was”—he trailed off for a moment—“and my vision.”

Mr. Cannon was sitting in his 40th-floor corner office, wearing an orange suit that matched the Nickelodeon logo—albeit in a somewhat dustier shade—pink striped socks and loafers. The room, which was cluttered with unopened gift baskets as well as an Everlast boxing dummy, doubles as a set for his TeenNick promo and teaser shoots: “It’s kind of good branding,” he said, “to pull the velvet rope, to be like, ‘Yo, come in, and be a part of our network.’” (An anteroom next door was cluttered with T-shirts reading “BITCH I’M FAMOUS,” back issues of The Hollywood Reporter, and boxes of FRS Healthy Energy, an energy drink Mr. Cannon promotes.)

The network is now home to the teen show Degrassi (a spinoff of the long-running Canadian series), H2O, about a trio of Aussie mermaids, and popular reruns of 1990s Nickelodeon programming including Mr. Cannon’s own series. “That’s the beauty of what the Nickelodeon brand has always represented,” he said. “Even when I was 17 years old I was a staff writer at a television show for Nickelodeon. From the youngest staff writer in television to the youngest chairman, it makes sense. Kind of.”

Keith Dawkins, senior vice president and general manager of TeenNick and general manager of Nicktoons, meets with Mr. Cannon twice a week. “I look to leverage him for the things he’s excited about, his insight and knowledge and access to our audience—creative ideas he’s passionate about,” Mr. Dawkins said. “He’s a thought partner in that way.”

Mr. Cannon also has a number of other gigs. Since 2009, he’s been the host of NBC’s American Idol–type talent competition America’s Got Talent, and he wakes before 6 a.m. each morning to host a four-hour drive-time radio show on 92.3 NOW, Rollin’ With Nick Cannon. (That is, when he’s in New York; Mr. Cannon is often on the West Coast for America’s Got Talent, in which case he broadcasts through the night.) Each week, he tapes a nationally syndicated radio show called Cannon’s Countdown. He has a recurring role as a talk-show host on the sitcom Up All Night, which has been picked up by NBC for a fall premiere, and he manages several bands (including School Gyrls, an all-female foursome that had their own TeenNick TV movie co-written and directed by Mr. Cannon). He is also a new father, with 4-month-old twins Moroccan and Monroe, a boy and girl, respectively, with wife Mariah Carey, to whom Mr. Cannon reportedly renewed his vows in the maternity ward under the auspices of the Rev. Al Sharpton.

“He doesn’t sleep,” said Sharon Osbourne, a judge on America’s Got Talent. “You see him taking 20-minute naps between takes.” She added that Mr. Cannon has also been eager to restart his music career. “We talk about it a lot. Nick wants to do everything.”

Like Mr. Cannon’s efforts as an actor, which trailed off into supporting roles and small independent films after the 2005 fizzle of Underclassman, a movie he wrote, Mr. Cannon’s efforts as a recording artist have been on hold since the mid-2000s. But he appears to be revving up to re-enter the fray. He recently released a single, entitled “Famous.” In the video, Mr. Cannon appears in one of those “BITCH I’M FAMOUS” T-shirts and parodies stars like Michael Jackson and MC Hammer. (Sample lyric: “Lights, stars, money, cars / When this beat drop let them know who you are.”)

“We have a lot of other stuff coming down the pipeline,” he promised. “I never really left the music industry. I just was behind the scenes doing other stuff. So now we have this single on TeenNick and MTV—it’s one of those things I do because I love it.”
Ms. Osbourne said she had tried to get Mr. Cannon to quit his drive-time radio show to free up some of his time. “He loves it too much!”

She added: “He’s so much into pop culture, with youth, and TV, and film, and cartoons: he’s into everything. He’s going to be one of the next great billionaire entrepreneurs.”

One of Mr. Cannon’s signature achievements at TeenNick, he and others said, is spearheading the network’s annual HALO Awards, which honor young viewers for their charitable endeavors. (Last year’s winners included a high school senior who used Twitter to help Haitian earthquake victims find their families and the young president of a foster youth advocacy organization.) “It kind of just helps it build an identity,” Mr. Cannon said. The goal, he explained, was to make a statement about what TeenNick represented. “A socially aware, socially conscious, young-minded kid or teenager is who we look to gear towards,” he said.

TeenNick has made still more of a splash, though, with the launch of “The ’90s Are All That,” a programming block of Clinton-era Nickelodeon programs aimed at a slightly older viewer, the nostalgic 20-something, including reruns of Kenan and Kel (on which Mr. Cannon was credited as a writer), All That (on which he starred), Doug and Clarissa Explains It All. The idea was an instant hit: on the first night, TeenNick had four of the top 10 programs among 12 to 24-year-olds in the midnight-to-2 a.m. time period. Overall, the network saw a rise in total viewership of 114 percent from the previous year, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Perhaps more important, the repackaging of this archival material sparked a frenzy on Twitter and Facebook.

Credit for the coup is hard to assign. According to Mr. Cannon, he has been pushing the idea since starting his new job. “It was one of the first things I talked about,” he said. “It was probably more of a sell for myself—like, people love that! On Twitter, all the time, people were like, ‘Bring back All That! Bring back Kenan and Kel!’”

Mr. Dawkins, however, suggested that the idea had other origins. “The late-night block was an idea independent of Nick,” he said. “That was about the audience speaking out in volume, 15 million strong: ‘Bring our Nickelodeon back!’ We were hearing that out there on Facebook, Twitter, video-based sites. And then there’s a bunch of 20-somethings who reflect that audience who work here now, and they presented us executives the same idea.”

Mr. Cannon, he said, was helpful as a sounding board: “I asked him what it was like, what was the audience feedback,” he recalled. “I showed him the spots. I wanted to hear from anyone who was part of that journey.”

Mr. Cannon’s entertainment industry journey began early: he grew up in San Diego and Charlotte, N.C. (Dad was a televangelist), getting his start in local talent shows. After making San Diego his permanent home at 15, he began auditioning and was eventually cast on All That, sort of an SNL-for-kids, that still has numerous admirers. “At the time I thought I was too old to be on there, because there were younger cast members,” he said. “I was 18. Looking back, it was the perfect age.”

There are those to wonder if, at 30, he isn’t a little young to be the face of a network. Last year, to retaliate for the rapper Eminem’s various attacks on Ms. Carey’s virtue, Mr. Cannon released a comedy single under the persona “Slick Nick,” which included the lyric, “I dunno if I should hit him cuz he’s feminine, Slick / Excuse me, Eminem, but why you lyin’ on your dick?” Around the same time, he Tweeted that late-night host Chelsea Handler was “white trash” and “looks like she got hit in the face with a hot bag [of] nickels.” These are not the kind of comments that are likely to get someone a HALO award nomination.

Mr. Cannon was asked about such unguarded moments. “I think that’s part of life,” he said. “There’s a difference between my occupation and who I am. But it’s always from respect and positivity. I don’t attack people, but I stand up for what I believe in. And I think that’s what we teach our viewers. From Degrassi to the HALO Awards, everything represents using your voice to stand up for what you believe in.”

Mr. Cannon often finds himself standing up for Ms. Carey and their relationship. When we ventured that many observers found the pair’s 2008 wedding surprising due to an 11-year age difference and a certain perception of Mr. Cannon’s role, he finished our sentence. “Errand boy?” he said.

He chalked up the misconception to “everything from my youthful exuberance—the fact that I look young—to the fact that people think I don’t deserve to be in certain situations.” As for tabloid rumors: “It’s so damaging to their own credibility. It’s so untrue—to me, obviously untrue—if it seemed like a possibility that I could be a womanizer or my wife could be overpowering—all that stuff is so ridiculous to me.” (Mr. Cannon is somewhat reticent about his personal life these days, having perhaps learned a hard lesson about acting out a romance in the public sphere: in October 2007, he and his then-fiancée, Victoria’s Secret model Selita Ebanks, broke up just five months after he broadcast his proposal to her on the giant MTV Networks Times Square Jumbotron.)

Asked whether Ms. Carey ever advised him on his various endeavors, Mr. Cannon said pillow talk between them rarely touches on work. “There’s so many other things to talk about,” he said. “When you’re at home you want to talk about anything but work. We try to have fun, even though the media tries to make up stuff—we just have the perfect relationship.”

Not that ever loses sight of his No. 1 goal. “I just want to be a part of great entertainment, at the end of the day, whatever aspect it could be,” he said. “Whether I’m on stage telling a joke, making a record, TV, acting, hosting, producing, starring in a film, I just love entertainment. You ever have a sports buff, who loves golf, and basketball, and loves going to horse races—you’re a sports enthusiast. I’m an entertainment enthusiast.”

And he’s not alone in that: Ryan Seacrest, for example, produces programming for E! while hosting American Idol and a nationwide radio show, and Andy Cohen juggles a gig managing Bravo’s programming with another as host of a late-night talk show. The Observer asked Mr. Cannon how he’d compare himself with the two, and he pondered for a moment. “People say I’m the hardest-working man in entertainment,” he began, whereupon Mr. Dawkins walked into his office.

“Like those shoes, man,” said Mr. Cannon.

“A little Cole Haan, actually,” said Mr. Dawkins. The two discussed the more fashionable choices the shoe company’s designers had been making of late.

“It’s funny, I was watching—with my wife—your stand-up on Showtime,” Mr. Dawkins noted, referring to Mr. Showbiz, a special from this year during which Mr. Cannon referred to Eminem as “Enema.” He said she was pleasantly surprised. “I think she has a certain lens on what Nick Cannon is, and she was like”—Mr. Dawkins feigned surprise—“‘this is funny!’”

“It’s so funny that people say that,” Mr. Cannon replied, aware that his reputation as a kiddie entertainer has created a certain perception. “I’m sorry you were thinking it would be not hilarious.” Mr. Dawkins said Mr. Cannon would need to prove himself continuously. “Andre 3000 said it best,” said Mr. Cannon. “You’re only funky as your last cut.”

We asked Mr. Cannon, again, how he’d compare himself with Mr. Seacrest and Mr. Cohen. “I think it’s a new kind of entertainer now,” he said, before reconsidering. “Actually it’s not a new kind of entertainer. You think about Bob Hope and Johnny Carson, Desi Arnaz—he was a great producer. It’s the same thing where—I call it an entrepretainer. It’s a businessman and an entertainer at the same time. That’s kind of what you have to be.”

ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_

Let the good times zigzag.

Don't listen to all the reports of economic doom and gloom. The good times are here again! How do we know? Because insane condo parties have returned.

Once a staple of the bubble, over-the-top parties tapered off when matters grew more pressing for developers than whether to serve white Champagne or rosé. You could almost hear the madness coming to a head when John Legend performed at an opening in the Financial District and Seal was doing a gig at another project uptown. On the same night. The Times called it a real estate battle of the bands.

With units disappearing and prices creeping up from not-so lows, we'll go ahead and say it: the housing market, at least in New York, is back. As if we needed a clearer indication of that, consider the opening party for the Mercedes House.

First off, consider the Mercedes House itself. A high-profile architect, Enrique Norten, built an unusually shaped building that zigzags up from the Hudson. There is a Mercedes dealership on the ground floor. The building, the first major Manhattan project by David and Jed Walentas' Two Trees Development, is named after this dealership. Let us repeat. The building is called the Mercedes House. The building is called the Mercedes House.

If that were  not enough, the opening party will be hosted by former Nickelodeon darling Nick Cannon. Our favorite cabaretist and star spawn Alexa Ray Joel will be there, along with Rev. Run of Run DMC fame. Oh, and the chairman and the CEO of Mercedes. The food is by the chef at Danny Meyer's Modern, Gabriel Kreuther. A surprise musical guest is promised. Could it be Mr. Cannon's inimitable wife, Mariah Carey?

Pass the Champagne, would you?

Update: A point of clarification—the party is being hosted by Mercedes-Benz at their dealership, not by Two Trees at the condos. Still, we think the party, which is next Tuesday, speaks for itself.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

They packed the place, mostly journalists and political types. Dan Abrams was there. So was actor Tim Daly. But organizers’ nerves were finally soothed by the arrival of—wait for it—Nick Cannon. The 27-year-old actor best known for his recent marriage to Mariah Carey inexplicably arrived with two mountainous bodyguards. The threesome made a lap around the column that divided the restaurant from the bar area, which took a considerable amount of time as civilians made way for the behemoth bouncers, and then left.

The Daily Transom asked Mr. Daly, who was recently named co-chair of celebrity fund-raising locomotive Creative Coalition, if he was at all concerned about possible negative side effects of celebrity endorsement of a candidate.

“You know the thing no one seems to recognize about celebrities endorsing candidates,” he said, “is that [the celebrities] have nothing to gain from it.”

Maybe she was just saving her energy? Ms. Paltrow later attended at party at Def Jam Chairman L.A. Reid's house celebrating Mariah Carey's recent marriage to Nick Cannon. Mary J. Blige, Kelly Ripa, Samuel L. Jackson and Star Jones were also there. [P6]

Writer Jay McInerney called John Edwards's treatment of their mutual ex-girlfriend, Rielle Hunter, "unchivalrous." [Us]

Donald Trump is suing the Morrison Cohen law firm for $5 million for using his name in their advertising materials without his permission. That being said, Trump reportedly owes the firm around $600,000. [P6]

Model Brooke Shields was offended by some tasteless Heath Ledger jokes at a performance by the Upright Citizen's Brigade. [NYDN]

Lower East Side bar and restaurant Freemans will be closed Thursday-Sunday for renovations. [Down by the Hipster]