· Black Wednesday becomes Blacker Tuesday: 109 of the 129 employees in Paramount's domestic distribution department were fired to make room for a leaner, meaner team mostly comprised of DreamWorks staff. Somewhere on the Melrose lot, Emperor Grey shrugs off the executions by imagining all the money Steven Spielberg might one day make for him. [Variety]
· ESPN/ABC Sports trades sportscaster Al Michaels to NBC for an animated, lucky rabbit. Seriously. [THR]
· Producer Bob Yari loses an appeal to the Academy for a producer credit on Crash, which will keep him off the podium should our worst nightmares be realized and the movie win Best Picture. [Variety]
· In perhaps today's most inspiring trade paper tale of redemption, the guys who wrote Elektra have overcome that tragedy to continue to work in Hollywood. [Variety]
· Jennifer Beals joins the cast of The Grudge 2, leading to much rejoicing at Defamer HQ. We loves us some Beals. [THR]
· Holy fucking shit: Someone actually took the $100K and got the Pink Panther surgery. [Variety]

· Hollywood seems disappointed with the Anthony Pellicano Wiretapping Trial of the Century, which so far lacks enough sizzle and star power to get even a TBS movie greenlit. [Variety]
· The Super Bowl is the most-watched in 10 years, and the most-watched TV program since 1996, with 90.7 million viewers. Grey's Anatomy, rapidly becoming the most hit-protected show in the history of the medium, hangs on to 38.1 million of those viewers after the big game. Is all the special ratings protection just because ABC's Steve McPherson can't wait to see if the doctor who looks like Renee Zellweger will ever get back together with the pizza delivery guy from Loverboy, or are incriminating telephone recordings of the ABC topper involved? Eh, maybe we have Pellicano on the brain and McPherson just loves his stories. [THR]
· Disney sells their radio stations to Citadel Broadcasting in order to ease the $7.4 billion sticker shock from buying Pixar. [Variety]
· Here's as big of a casting about-face as you'll ever see: Steve Buscemi is in "final negotiations" to take Will Arnett's place in New Line's the-wacky-things-drug-dealers-will-do-for-money comedy We're the Millers. [THR]
· ABC and Endemol are importing the Spanish reality hit Operacion Triunfo, a "mash up" (we hear the kids love their mash-ups!) of American Idol and Big Brother, or, to simplify the concept for you, Making the Band with some judging bolted on. [Variety]

Oh man, ABC is just TOO GOOD. Sorry to pull a week-old video out, but it's worth it, starting from frame one. Video on top, commentary after the jump.

• We're shocked shocked that ABC killed the words "cum" and "cock" from Stones songs at the halftime show last night. [AP via WP]
• So how do Time Inc. mags cover the Dick Parsons-Carl Icahn battle of Time Warner? Just like they cover anything else, insists John Huey. [MW]
• Jim Cramer's crazy shtick sells big. [NYT]
• Rupert Murdoch likes Time Warner and Google, doesn't like the video iPod or the Viacom split, and promises a CNBC rival in 2006. Because what the world really needs is more Neil Cavuto. [Newsweek]
• Elle goes green for a month. [WWD]

A correction to a THR report on Elton John's ABC comedy pilot Him and Us has been winding its way around the Reuters wires:

· "Now you listen here, Jakey. This might seem all silly-goose to you, Mr. Serious Actor Man, but I'm milking this thing until the Oscar nominations are out, OK? Now if you don't want to wind up snubbed, put your hand on your goddamn hip and play along!"
· Blogger Tony Pierce figures out where Heather Graham moved her birthday party (The Short Stop—nice choice) after snubbing Akbar.
· Just like in her acting career, Jessica Alba's incredible good looks obviously played no part in her success in this poll.
· Gallery of the Absurd never fails to horrify us with its artwork. Today, Britney Spears and Cheetos team up to chill us to the bone.
· A Craigslister in NY is less than thrilled with the medical accuracy of last night's Grey's Anatomy. Seriously, though: The flesh-eating bacteria? That's been around long enough to been recycled through ER three or four times, hasn't it?

· The trades break down last night's SAGgies, where Reese Witherspoon celebrated the warm-up to her seemingly inevitable Oscar win. [Variety, THR]
· Even without the protection of the Desperate Housewives bully, ABC's Sunday night Nielsen toady Grey's Anatomy dishes out some ratings intimidation. [THR]
· Quinceanara and God Grew Tired of Us pull the first-ever double-double victories at Sundance, winning both audience and jury prices in the dramatic and doc competitions, respectively. Sadly, Destricted's brave depiction of the forbidden love between man and bulldozer goes unrewarded. [Variety]
· McG plans to reclaim his long-abandoned place in the fauxteur pantheon, finally ending a three year behind-the-camera hiatus to direct Matthew McConaughey in a college football tragedy-and-redemption pic. [THR]
· And please, we beg of you, don't go to Variety's homepage and gaze upon the truly horrifying picture of Martin Lawrence, in full Big Momma drag, bounding towards you in a yellow one-piece. You've been warned. [Variety]

In addition to, you know, all the other deaths in Iraq, our merry little jaunt abroad has taken the lives of Atlantic editor Mike Kelly and NBC correspondent David Bloom, as well as the hand of Time reporter Mike Weiskopf. But now that it's threatened the life of ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff, this shit is serious. If you fuck with our square-jawed anchors, it means war.

ABC News forced Larry Page and Sergey Brin to sit and talk with dippy "World News Tonight" anchor Bob Woodruff. The get-drunk-quick drinking game: every time Larry's face freezes, take a shot.

A reader sends along this delightful, if brief, exchange in response to our earlier post about Heather Graham's suddenly tragic Life cover story:

Is there no limit to the perilous lengths daytime dramas will go to outdo one another? Not to be trumped by the Passions flood sequence that nearly destroyed their entire set, All My Children decided to up the carnage with a "Mardi Gras explosion" that put four stuntmen in the hospital:

It's usually a recipe for success: Simply take one star of a newly launched sitcom, add a gushy puff piece, throw in a goofy angle for garnish, shake, and serve a fizzy, goes-down-easy PR cocktail. But when long magazine lead times go to battle with short series shelf-lives, the results can turn sour. Case in point: In this Life cover story that came included with weekend newspapers across the country today, Heather Graham is touted as "TV's sexiest star...she's in almost every scene of her bubbly new ABC sitcom, Emily's Reasons Why Not," a series which we now know was unmercifully elimidated after a single episode. (We didn't watch it, but when the president of the network is going on record about how hard it blew, you tend to get the feeling that a beloved series for the ages, it was not.) The angle of the piece is, ironically enough, how the actress spends her time off, with Graham explaining "I can't wait to turn off on the weekends. I don't have to like anything for anyone, or be in a good mood, or fix my hair. If I want to be in bed for two whole days, I can." With her schedule clear, a foul-tempered, rat's nest-haired Graham is now free to loll around far longer than a mere two days in bed, unburdened of having to "like anything for anyone."

Coming out of the closet is a deeply personal journey for a gay individual, often a gradual process involving much soul searching and courage. Sometimes, however, that process is inadvertently helped along by a third party, such as the flappy-lipped TV exec who outed Crumbs creator Marco Pennette to his family on a red carpet:

· We thought that there was no new territory to mine in Brokeback Mountain parodies, but Brokeback Squadron, the unforgettable tale of a couple of hotshot pilots' forbidden love, can be our wingman any time.
· The Blowing Smoke blog gets an advance look at The CW's Fall schedule.
· The very brave Brooke Shields risks Tom Cruise's renewed wrath by preparing to bring yet another child into the world.
· Meanwhile in other baby-related news, Meg "America's Sweetheart, Before All The Chilling Plastic Surgery" Ryan gets it all wrong by adopting a Chinese baby. You're supposed to go Cambodian, Meg. Have you learned nothing from Angelina?
· Meanwhile In other Angelina Jolie-related news, Film Stew says Jolie extorted People into giving money to charity in exchange for bump pics.
· ABC's Steve McPherson has the hots for John Stamos, but might lose him to NBC's Kevin Reilly.

An ABC series you won't be hearing Steve McPherson complain about any time soon is Lost, that rare show which manages to remain both a huge critical (it just won the Golden Globe for best dramatic series) and ratings hit. And in much the way salary allotment works in your workplace, Lost's entire cast has just been rewarded for a job well done with a huge pay increase:

The great circle of network television life continues, with the recent loss of two underperforming series: Lumbering giant and one-time king of the primetime jungle The West Wing has finally succumbed to a long stretch of low ratings and the death of one of its leads. But like a lame-legged baby zebra struggling to keep up with the herd as a pack of predatory executives stealthily approach it from all sides, the cancellation of the heavily-promoted ABC comedy Emily's Reasons Why Not after just a single episode airing seemed particularly barbaric, and prompted a justification from ABC network head Steve McPherson:

ABC's Bob Woodruff tours Google HQ in an embarrassingly unedited video. "Does it up your productivity to have all this stuff?" he asks a developer with a "chaos tower" by his desk. "It looks like a mousetrap." We watched the whole seven-minute "hey look cute" trip, or we may have been watching Steve Carell in "The Office." We're not sure.

· The Sundance Festival loses some of its excitement due to the fact that many buyers are showing up having already seen screeners of most of the films in the comfort of their own homes, at what is unofficially being referred to as the Underpants Festival. [Variety]
· As the WSJ reported yesterday, talks between the purported Disney acquisition of Pixar are at a very sensitive stage, with Bob Iger and Steve Jobs courtship being observed more closely than two newly-introduced pandas at the San Diego Zoo. [Variety]
· The team behind Dodgeball sells Dreamworks a pitch for a Dr. Evil-envying $1 million. While the plot is being kept a secret, we have it on good authority that it relies heavily on Ben Stiller playing a pompous and/or put-upon guy who is constantly humiliated and/or has trouble keeping his rage bottled up. [Variety]
· Tooth gnashing, wild-eyed crusader for moral betterment Jack Valenti introduces a multimillion-dollar plan to educate Americans about the various ways to protect their children from Satan s tangy gumdrops, i.e. televised smut and violence. [Variety]
· Commander in Chief has been seeing a steady decline in its ratings since its debut, though producers are optimistic that people will show up for their ripped-from-the-headlines episode in which Geena Davis likens the Senate to Uncle Tom s Cabin. [THR]
· Showtime president Bob Greenblatt announces at the TCA winter press tour that there are ongoing negotiations for the premium network to pick up Arrested Development, but that no deal has been reached, further stretching out the series excruciatingly long death sequence, while bringing hope to millions of Arrested fans who, push comes to shove, won t shell out the bucks to subscribe to Showtime in the end, anyway. [THR]

· Welcome to Cancellation Town, population Heather Graham and John Stamos: ABC extends its "unplanned hiatus" for Emily's Reasons Why Not and Jake in Progress for at least two more weeks, and doesn't know when or if it'll show the remaining unaired episodes. [Variety]
· ...Meanwhile, Fox puts down Malcom in the Middle, sending Frankie Muniz into his movie career full-time. [THR]
· Finally, closure: Glory Road ends up edging out Hoodwinked for the weekend's number one spot after all, by a Jerry-Bruckheimer-farts-and-more-money-than-this-falls-out margin of $48k. [Variety]
· American Idol's deranged talent show of the absurd pulls in an amazing 35 million viewers. The other networks might as well run test patterns and snow on Idol night and save themselves some pain. [THR]
· New Paramount Classic honcho John Lesher, the huggingest exec in town, throws his arms around producer Scott Rudin, director Paul Thomas Anderson, and star Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood, loosely based on a 1927 Upton Sinclair novel. [Variety]

· Yahoo! might be planning to revive the long-shelved ABC/Live Planet (Affleck and Damon) project The Runner as a Web-centered event. Original concept was a reality TV show with a "runner" trying to avoid capture by viewers in the real world, but now may reward any person spotting Ben Affleck coming from any meaningful meeting at a Hollywood studio with a cash prize. [Variety]
· Narnia finish first at the international box office for a fourth consecutive weekend, pushing its foreign take to $319 million, and its overall haul inches towards the $600 million mark. Disney is rumored to be considering plans for 58 Narnia-based sequels. [THR]
· Inspiring basketball drama Glory Road wins the MLK holiday weekend box office with $13.5 million, edging out inspiring Queen-Latifah-has-a-terminal-disease comedy Last Holiday. [Variety]
· Brokeback Mountain puts on its chaps and rides into some smaller cities, taking in $5.8 million in 683 theaters. It can't be long now before kids in small towns start showing off their Brokeback lunchbox/thermos sets at recess. [Variety]