Last June, Zach Anner became an Internet sensation when his video submission for Oprah’s “Your OWN Show” went viral. Despite some ugly developments in the online voting department, Zach is now one of three finalists to host his own show on OWN.

On the most recent episode of “Your OWN Show,” Oprah showed up for a surprise interview, and Anner was completely unfazed by it. He handled her questions with humor and self-aware honesty, and as she concluded the interview, he turned the meeting on its head by asking her some challenging questions. It’s really impressive to watch.

At this point, Anner can’t lose. He either wins and gets his own show, or he loses and gets a show on another network. And I really hope he ends up at another network. I have no idea how to find Oprah’s channel on my cable box.

[Videogum/Vulture]

This is a screencap from the results page of Oprah Winfrey’s “Your Own Show” contest for her OWN Network. You might be saying, “Hey, what about that Zach Anner fellow? You know, the charismatic wheelchair guy with cerebral palsy? Didn’t he have a lot of votes?” And the answer is yes. Yes, he did have a lot of votes. And even though Oprah and her cronies already went through one round of tampering with the online voting to work against Anner, they apparently decided, “Hey, that wasn’t quite enough. Let’s just take six million votes away from the leading candidate.” Even South American dictators are all, “Whoa, that’s pretty egregious.”

Anyway, Anner finished seventh in the obviously rigged voting and still has a chance to be a contestant on an OWN show to get his own show (wait, what?), but he’s already destined for bigger things: Reddit has started a campaign to make Anner “The Daily Show’s” Senior Travel Correspondent. Man, I hope that works out. I don’t want Zach anywhere near Oprah’s handicapped-hating clutches. She’s basically a Bond villain at this point. I’m shocked she doesn’t host her show while petting a cat. Which, coincidentally, would make her fans love her even more.

Ever since Zach Anner’s video submission to Oprah’s “Search for the Next TV Star” went viral, he has led the online voting for the contest, at one point being ahead by some 1.4 million votes. Mysteriously, overnight, a sassy black woman named “Dr. Phyllis” took the top spot when she got 300,000 votes in twenty minutes, according to one blog.

So it took over a week of viral efforts from Internet giants like 4chan, Reddit, and Digg to get Zach millions of votes, but a competitor overcame him while hardly making a peep on the Web radar. Surely Oprah wouldn’t rig an online election to award a show to a woman more appealing to her target demographic than Zach Anner, a young white male with cerebral palsy. I mean, she’s from Chicag– oh. Oh, I see how it’s gonna be.

As I write this, Zach has regained a narrow lead of less than two hundred votes, while he and Dr. Phyllis both have in excess of 5.356 million votes. You know, maybe it’s best that Oprah’s left to her machinations, so that we can see Zach on a REAL cable channel like Travel or Discovery. Or maybe… OPRAH CAN GO F*CK HERSELF. VOTE FOR ZACH!

By far and away, Zach Anner is my favorite wheelchair-bound cerebral palsy-afflicted aspiring TV host. Following up on his audition video to be Oprah’s next TV star (you can still vote for him here), he created this video of him touring the Texas capitol in his hometown of Austin. And he’s still great:

“This is a plaque commemorating Texas’s secession from the Union in the Civil War. I’d choose to highlight the grass. Look at this landscaping!”

He also makes out with a handicapped sign, yells “ATREYU!” in the echo-heavy central chamber of the capitol, and exchanges witty banter with a Texas state trooper. I have to admit, he’s pretty quick on his feet. Uh, metaphorically.

Anyway, here’s hoping Zach is successful in his quest to host a TV show. He’s by far and away my favorite physically disabled American. Suck it, FDR!

(via Urlesque)

This video has been all over Reddit and Digg and all those big Internet aggregators, but it merits an appearance on this little corner of the TV-obsessed internet as well: it’s Zach Anner’s pitch to Oprah for a travel show on her new network. Throughout the video, Anner displays charm and humor regarding his cerebral palsy while detailing a show about how to enjoy traveling even though plans may go awry:

“No obstacle is too big, no mountain is too high, no volcano is too hot, and no Atlantis is too underwater or fictional!”

I think it’s great that Zach’s looking to host a TV show, but he needs to set his sights a little higher now that he’s famous on the Internet. Forget Oprah’s backwater network, he could be a legitimate star on the Travel Channel or Discovery. And TLC is already lining up a new generation of palsied reality stars.

[more at Yahoo]