Nickelodeon award winners offer slime, advice

Los Angeles — The green slime poured down on celebrities and fans alike Saturday night at a raucous 18th annual Kids Choice Awards broadcast on the Nickelodeon children’s cable network.

Rapper-actor Will Smith kicked off the evening with a spirited performance of the song “Switch” accompanied by a supporting cast that included breakdancers and throngs of people in feathered costumes.

Host Ben Stiller arrived in a tricked-out miniature convertible, dressed from head to toe in a silver jumpsuit he said would prevent him from being that year’s celebrity slime victim.

Last year’s co-host, Cameron Diaz, immediately pelted him with cream pies.

Between bouts of silliness, a number of awards were handed out, including the “Wannabe Award,” for the celebrity kids most want to be like. This year’s trophy, a silver blimp, went to Queen Latifah, who was introduced by Halle Berry.

Other top winners included Adam Sandler for favorite movie actor, teen idol Hilary Duff for movie actress, Usher for male singer and Smith for voice from an animated movie.

Smith insisted that the audience quiet down and listen after he accepted his award from his wife, Jada Pinkett-Smith, and Chris Rock. He encouraged the crowd to make reading a habit, telling them books contain all the answers they will ever need.

“There is no problem you can have that some person hasn’t had before and solved,” and then written about, he said.

Will Ferrell was the evening’s first slime victim, having buckets of the green goo dumped on him after he challenged soccer star Mia Hamm to a soccer kickoff.

The evening concluded with Johnny Depp coming on stage supposedly to slime Stiller, but getting the green goo dumped on himself. Stiller, saying he was jealous, dove onto the stage and rolled in the slime.

Award winners are chosen by fans who vote up until the day of the show, casting ballots online, by phone and through Nickelodeon’s magazine.

Grammy-winning rapper’s autograph session broken up

Fresno, Calif. — Grammy-winning rapper Kanye West was shuffled out the backdoor of a new urban boutique after a fight cut short the entertainer’s autograph-signing session, police said.

Owners of the FTK store abruptly canceled the grand opening event and locked the doors after the fight broke out Saturday between a patron and a security guard. The brawl erupted about 40 minutes after West began signing autographs.

Authorities spent nearly a half-hour clearing about 1,000 fans from the store’s parking lot as a police helicopter hovered above.

“Everybody’s chance to meet Kanye West was ruined,” said Anna Reyna, 19, who waited in line for the rapper’s autograph but never got to see him.

Opera star drops out of slave drama role

Detroit — Concerns about rehearsal scheduling caused opera star Jessye Norman to drop out of next month’s performances of the slave drama “Margaret Garner.”

Norman, a 59-year-old soprano, had been scheduled to play the role of Cilla — a sympathetic mother-in-law to Margaret Garner — during the May 7-22 performances at the Detroit Opera House, according to a statement released Saturday.

The Michigan Opera Theatre announced Friday that Norman would be replaced by Angela M. Brown, who created a sensation last year with her performance in Verdi’s “Aida” at the Metropolitan Opera.

“Margaret Garner,” a collaboration of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison and composer Richard Danielpour, is based on Garner’s escape from Kentucky to the free state of Ohio in 1856. The story inspired Morrison’s 1987 novel “Beloved.”

When slave-hunters tracked down Garner, her husband and children, she slit her baby daughter’s throat in a thwarted attempt to kill the family and avoid returning to slavery.

She was found guilty of “destroying property” and returned to slavery.