Earlier in the week came the earth-shattering (or at least childhood-confusing) revelation that game show hero Pat Sajak and beloved American icon Vanna White would knock back a ton of margaritas before doing the show and more or less forget what the alphabet is. It so struck Anderson Cooper, who admitted to loving the show, that he put Sajak on the Ridiculist on Friday for the admission– and for claiming that the 1980s Wheel of Fortune “shopping” segment was “boring.”

During a post-debate breakdown, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer spoke with Anderson Cooper about his pointed questions to Newt Gingrich and why he decided to press the former Speaker of the House on Mitt Romney‘s bank accounts.

Isn’t domestic violence hilarious? I didn’t think so, either. Apparently, Real Time host Bill Maher does, at least when it happens to women who are part of a breakaway Mormon sect. In an appearance on AC360, Maher told host Anderson Cooper that he believes former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney will win the Republican nomination, and that “Obama is going to beat him like a runaway sister wife.”

Bill Maher took a break from his regular hosting duties on HBO today to stop by Anderson Cooper 360º and review the State of the Union address. He didn’t have too much negative to say about President Obama, and surprisingly little mean to say about at least one Republican candidate– Rep. Ron Paul, who he called “crazy” but praised for his courage.

Andrew Sullivan‘s Newsweek story on President Obama angered plenty of conservatives, as the magazine retitled the piece “Why are Obama’s critics so dumb?” and Sullivan, a self-proclaimed conservative, stood up for the president. On tonight’s Anderson Cooper 360º, Sullivan defended his thesis that the President had governed well against Republican strategist Bay Buchanan.

CNN’s Isha Sesay is noticeably British, and in so having grown up, seems to have missed out on a number of things Americans take for granted. Sesay celebrated her birthday yesterday, and in the tradition of Anderson Cooper 360º, host Anderson Cooper gave Sesay an absurdist image for her birthday: Gumby, a character Sesay was unfamiliar with, holding a plate of Hostess pastries, which Sesay had never tasted.

Jon Stewart had a lot on his plate today, with the Iowa caucuses cramming a week’s worth of news into the wee hours of the night early Wednesday morning. Stewart gave every candidate their turn, and praised everyone from Rick Santorum to Mitt Romney for sticking with it. One entity notably getting moans and groans from Stewart for its inanity: CNN, for its “weeble” cyber-illustration of the caucuses.

Do you remember those all-nighters in college, during finals period, where everyone would mellow out for a bit before heading out for a cup of coffee and then have a collective caffeine-induced laughing fit over nothing in particular? Prepare to get nostalgic, because that is apparently what happened to the CNN Election Center crew around 1:30 AM tonight as they waited for election results, and a Magic Wall mishap sent the show spiraling out of control.

You may or may not have heard yet, but Mediaite is losing Colby Hall, the only Managing Editor it has ever known. While Hall and Mediaite founder Dan Abrams have already had their say, the well-oiled cogs in the Mediaite machine still haven’t had their turn. As the last of the Mediaite O.G.s, it falls to me to guide this exercise, and to send Mr. Hall into the after-Mediaite-life with a full understanding of what he has meant to us.

During last night’s CNN coverage of New Year’s, co-host Kathy Griffin decided to strip down to her bra much to the chagrin of Anderson Cooper, who then had to subsequently field a call from political correspondent David Gergen. Awkwardness ensued.

While CNN New Year’s Eve host Anderson Cooper was waiting for his special with Kathy Griffin to begin, he wandered over to the Univision set and shared a few moments with Raúl De Molina and Laisha Wilkins. And proved, once again, why he’s one of the most likable people in television:

In the world of the microscopic news cycle, a year is a mighty long time. Think “dog years” on steroids. Over the course of the past year, in thousands (around 7,500 ) of articles and millions (between 3 and 4 million) of words, Mediaite has covered the ups and downs of that whizzing, ricocheting media world. In case you lost track in that sea of information, we’ve compiled a list of 2011 Media Winners and Losers that we hope will be the start  of a conversation, not the end of one. Here, in no particular order, are Mediaite’s 2011 Media Winners and Losers.

Tomorrow marks the fifth anniversary of the first New Year’s Eve in which Anderson Cooper courageously accepted co-hosting CNN’s last broadcast of the year with unpredictable comedienne Kathy Griffin, and she has yet to disappoint in the ways she inspires, as Cooper put it, “dread” in her co-host. Tonight she appeared on Anderson Cooper 360º to discuss tomorrow’s ceremonies, and promised various stages of undress– and possibly a drive-by disturbance of Paul Begala.

The folks from Big Government scored a phone interview with Alexandra Pelosi, the documentarian daughter of Nancy Pelosi, and she told the site that her mother wanted to be done with her position as House Minority Leader. According to the younger Pelosi, at this point, the job is just an “obligation.”

David Letterman was feeling a little Christmas-y on Thursday night’s Late Show, sending out a Tweet from his desk to his fellow talk-show hosts, wishing them a Merry Christmas and suggesting they all buy a zoo together:

Kathy Griffin was one of the more unpredictable guests to swing by Piers Morgan Tonight when she did so last August. Despite the obvious risks, Piers Morgan invited her back, however, and received something of a grab-bag of thoughts from the comedienne that ranged from how sexy Henry Kissinger‘s voice is to what her plans are to further embarrass Anderson Cooper this New Year’s Eve.

Kathy Griffin was a guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Wednesday night, and she dished on some of her adventures with Anderson Cooper, her co-host for CNN’s New Year’s Eve celebration, revealing that she walks around Cooper’s house in the Hamptons naked most of the time, and saying she wants to hog-tie Ryan Seacrest and put him in a can of peanut brittle at some point thie New Year’s Eve.

Well it appears that detente is now over and the “cheesy cable news feud” between Anderson Cooper and Stephen Colbert has once again heated up. The contentious issue is a recent Colbert report of a Denver area man who sees hidden phalluses in much of the Denver Airport artwork. Interesting story, right? Well Cooper’s AC360 covered the very same story back in May, and recently put Colbert on his “Ridiculist” for not giving CNN credit for their breaking phallus coverage.

Over the course of 2011, we covered an array of politicians, authors, entertainers, media mavens, and others as they discussed their crafts and their industries. (Here’s last year’s list.) We enjoyed most of the panels, lectures, and debates we took in, while some of them fell short. Here, a rundown of our 5 favorites, followed by the 10 quotes that defined the year in New York City media panels:

The cable news primetime triumvirate has now completely weighed in on Ed Schultz‘s position in GQ‘s “Least Influential People Alive of 2011” list. Bill O’Reilly started off his “Reality Check” segment tonight with the news of Schultz blaming Anderson Cooper for the article, ending with a bit of open-ended advice: “if you give gutter snipes publicity, they win.”

If there’s one thing Ed Schultz hates, it’s being treated as if he was inconsequential. The flagship MSNBC host naturally did not take very well to being labeled one of GQ‘s “Least Influential” people of 2011, a satirical end of year list, but instead of keeping his wrath focused on the magazine, he wondered aloud whether the competition was somehow involved. Needless to say, Anderson Cooper was somewhat surprised to find out that he was behind the entire ordeal, according to Schultz, and put the host in his place in his “Ridiculist” segment last night.

Back when Mediaite was still in its infancy, when all the writers you know and love were adorable baby versions of themselves being cared for by a mysterious, sock-wearing woman named Nanny, a tradition was formed. Whenever the holidays would roll around, the Mediaite brain trust would choose the big pop cultural event of the year and find all the media counterparts for the various characters. At the time, back in the sepia-toned days of 2009, that cultural event was Harry Potter. Well, now it’s 2011…

This is the week many Americans may have finally abandoned all hope that Congress will ever accomplish anything meaningful. In the midst of a debate over school lunches, pizza was officially classified by our elected representatives as a vegetable. The qualifying standard is no less than two spoonfuls of tomato sauce. So this technically counts as a vegetable now. This quite literally reaches the height of political absurdity, and Anderson Cooper did a pretty thorough job of mocking the whole debate on his show last night.

On Thursday evening, CNN’s Anderson Cooper sat down with Hillary Adams, the daughter of the Texas family court judge shown beating with a belt her in a now widely-circulated video. Hillary explained that her father’s methods of castigating her had devolved from merely “corporal punishment” to full-blown physical abuse over the years and that, the night of the recorded beating — sensing that her father was growing angry and violent — she had set up a camera in advance.

Friday nights are always a little weird — MSNBC shows prison documentaries, and plenty of 25-54 year-olds are out from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m., doing 25 to 54 year-old things. But Friday night had a few other elements in the mix — Monica Crowley was guest-hosting for Sean Hannity at 9:00, while On The Record ran a special on the economy at 10:00. The result? An unorthodox night of numbers, with FOX taking the first four time slots and MSNBC taking the final three (FOX, it must be noted, ruled primetime overall, continuing its dominance).