Ask anyone who actually lives in New York City – Times Square is the last place you want to be on New Years Eve. Still, every year people trek from all over the USA to that spot in order to wear unusual eye wear and wait for midnight to strike. And, out of morbid curiosity, plenty of us sneak at peek at this action via TV.

It’s the 40th anniversary of New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. And it appears C list celebrities were all they could rope in to host the event. Jenny McCartney (in a hideous black faux fur coat) and Fergie (in something predictably sparkly and short with arrows pointing to her hoo-haw) started off the night by counting down the top 40 performances (TLC, Taylor Swift, Tears for Fears, Justin Bieber, Fergie, NKOTB with BSB, Gloria Estefan with Miami Sound Machine, Pink, The Beach Boys) from previous Dick Clarke’s Rockin’ Eve. Live performances in the first hour included by The Band Perry and Hot Chelle Rae.

Original New Years Rockin’ Eve host Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest will appear as hosts later in the evening. The bar is low when we’re looking forward to Seacrest.

The highlight of the first hour was in seeing older performances from the 80’s and 90’s for the vintage appeal. But then when something more recent appears and you cringe to remember that Fergie made her name into a verb with her song Fergalicious (only Ken Jeong as Chang on NBC’s Community can chang things, you mother changer!)

Commercials hyped up during this show were for The River, The Bachelor and Celebrity Wife Swap. Not as much mention went to the New Years Day marathon of Once Upon a Time – which we’re  actually looking forward to.

New Years Rockin’ Eve airs on ABC.

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