It was also a slime spectacle for the Nickelodeon children's television network, which broadcast the 21st annual show live from UCLA's Pauley Pavilion in front of 10,000 screaming fans, almost all of them teens and preteens.
Akon crashed a dune buggy into giant containers of Nickelodeon's trademark green slime, Usher blasted a sumo wrestler several yards with slime fired from a cannon and supermodel Heidi Klum, attached to a bungee cord and wearing a specially equipped "butt spike belt," flung herself into a wall covered with slime-filled balloons.
"Don't try this at home," boxer Laila Ali said as Usher turned the cannon on the sumo wrestler.
The slime stunts and other assorted foolishness — which included a soundtrack of celebrities burping as an instrumental version of the Village People song "YMCA" played in the background — took up so much time that presenters never got around to announcing three awards.
In the categories that were announced, teen heartthrob Drake Bell was another double winner, collecting his third consecutive orange blimp-shaped trophy for favorite TV actor and another for favorite TV show for "Drake and Josh."
"Drake and Josh" upset Cyrus' hit program "Hannah Montana" in the TV show category. Other winners were Eddie Murphy for favorite voice from an animated movie for "Shrek the Third," "American Idol" for favorite reality show and, one of the biggest crowd favorites of the night, the Jonas Brothers for favorite music group. The ever-polite Jonas Brothers each offered brief thank-yous. Chris Brown won for favorite male singer. Ryan Seacrest accepted the reality show award saying he looked forward to presenting it to "two of the three" of the show's judges. Cyrus, in a black dress with silver spangles, thanked several people, including her mother, father, agent, manager "and my lord and savior Jesus Christ."She returned a few minutes later to perform her song, and had a camera crew scampering to get out of the way when she charged into the audience, microphone in hand.