Not since Merry Miller's Holly Hunter debacle has an ill-prepared celebrity interviewer caused us to cringe so, as an unnamed host (surely only moments away from being identified, trotted around the morning shows for her viral notoriety, then forgotten about, only to reemerge as a View guest couch-warmer fully in control of her non-inept life after having found God) begins her audience with the lauded actor by explaining that she's missing class, which, funnily enough, is covering American Beauty that day. What's funny about that? To Cusack—not very much. To us, pretty much everything.

• How Not to Start an Interview [YouTube]

Rightly realizing that the show's audience probably has no idea about the extent of their guest host's online popularity, Whoopi invited them to cringe at the unrelenting string of gaffes that still have a sweat-slicked Holly Hunter awaking from fitful sleep, screaming, "Why can't you fucking hear me! Am I in hell?" Disappointingly, the still-painful montage wasn't followed by Miller's tearful reunion with Hunter and a do-over of the original interview unimpaired by the "satellite problems" that plagued their first meeting, just some chatter about how the combination of God and her equally beneficent View saviors have pulled her back from "the precipice upon which you were standing," to borrow Goldberg's typically eloquent words.

• The View [ABC.com]
• Previously: A Brave Holly Hunter Barely Survives Junket Nightmare [Defamer]

Unfortunately for Miller and unknown to the crew, her IFB failed before she began speaking with Hunter. Another host might have known to alert the crew about the problem and delay the interview while the technical issues were worked out, but the inexperienced Miller gamely tried to speak with Hunter without hearing her responses.

"I couldn't hear her, and it's very hard to talk to somebody like that," Miller said. "I give credit to Holly Hunter. She was a pro, a class act. She saved the interview."

The technical problem explains the awkward delays and stumbled speaking but doesn't shed light on the most talked-about part of the interview, when Miller directed viewers to another news network's Web site for further coverage.

"It was just a blooper, it happens. Why do football players fumble sometimes? It was a disaster," she said of the network misidentification.

The article offers no mention for the off-camera, despair-tinged yelp that can be heard (turn up your speakers) immediately following the NBC blooper, but we suppose that's a matter that doesn't require much explanation; after everything that went wrong in the preceding four minutes, we're lucky it wasn't the report of a producer's self-inflicted gunshot wound that was audible in the background. But with the technical details dispensed with, the ABC News Now crew offers a challenge to those who think the gig is easy:

The Miller interview has inspired many people to think that they can do a better job hosting one of our shows. If you'd like to give it a shot, log on to www.abcnewsnow.com (yes — that is the correct site!) and submit your audition tape for the chance to be selected as a guest host on "What's the Buzz."

Be forewarned, hopeful Buzz guest hosts: we fear that this is a trap to humiliate haughty viewers who don't properly value the skills necessary to ask celebrities probing questions about their latest projects. Expect that any on-air opportunity will involve the precisely timed failures of satellite uplinks and IFB's, leaving you to flail in the same terrifying silence that's made Miller's internet-famous.

• The Interview Seen Around the World [ABC News]
Previously: A Brave Holly Hunter Barely Survives Junket Nightmare [Defamer]