Pity John Cusack, who in the span of one junket for an earnest and well-meaning film has now been subjected to the advances of single-n'-ready-to-mingle The View guest hosts, The Chris Farley Show-caliber interviews with overzealous TV cooks, and now, this:

Though onetime NBC ABC News Now correspondent Merry Miller's fifteen minutes of YouTube-derived fame has expired by now, the always-generous ladies of The View today invited her to fill the chair temporarily vacated by the pregnant Elizabeth Hasselbeck, offering Miller a long-delayed shot at TV redemption.

Think you could do a better job than "world's worst interviewer" Merry Miller? Unless you have a suppurating neck wound, you probably could! In an attempt to make lemonade out of the lemon that was Merry's interview with Holly Hunter, ABCNewsNow is holding a contest where the "prize" is a guest shot hosting "What's the Buzz," the scene of Merry's famous flameout. As for Merry herself? The "risk-taking businesswoman" is sanguine!

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.

Finally, some details about the series of events that led up to ABC News contributor Merry Miller's amusingly inept interview of Holly Hunter. We had a feeling that a Teleprompter malfunction would figure in the explanation. [TV Newser via Gawker]

Merry Miller - who conducted that atrocious interview with Holly Hunter - only made it onscreen because it was ABC film critic Joel Siegel's dying wish (she was his booker). She won't be appearing live again, says ABCNewsNow Executive Producer Jessica Stedman-Guff. In case you missed it, or want to relive the agony all over again, you can find the interview here.

Crain's fills us in on the background of viral video's newest breakout star, Merry Miller, the NBC News ABC News personality whose appealingly botched interview of Holly Hunter will probably live on in the YouTubes long after we're all dead: "The same gumption that got Merry Miller a gig playing harp in a Dallas club when she was only 14 allows her to talk celebrities like Harrison Ford, P. Diddy and Joe Torre into teaching courses at The Learning Annex. The former Miss Dallas, who grew up in tiny Mesquite, Texas, has a list of contacts that's the envy of networking professionals all over town." [Crain's]