By John Rogers
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — It was the best of both worlds at Saturday’s Kids Choice Awards for Miley Cyrus, who took home trophies for favorite female singer and TV actress and rocked the show with a spirited performance of her hit song, "GNO — Girls Night Out."
It also was 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 and Usher blasted a sumo wrestler several yards with slime fired from a cannon.
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"Don’t try this at home," boxer Laila Ali said as Usher turned the cannon on the sumo wrestler.
The stunts and other assorted foolishness 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.
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.
Awards are voted on by people who cast their ballots at Nickelodeon’s Web site, with voting continuing until the day of the show.
The show’s host, Jack Black, announced that 88 million votes were cast this year, more than twice last year’s record number of 40 million.
