Hollywood Blvd. doesn't lack for eccentrically costumed self-promoters, but you can have your Spider-Men and Jack Sparrows as long as you leave us Dollhouse Dude. A gadfly who showed up at the Britney Spears custody hearings wearing a dollhouse for a hat, Dollhouse Dude has since become a fixture of both the Walk of Fame and TMZ. Sensing a kindred spirit, gadfly James St. James of The Daily Freak Show put Dollhouse Dude in front of the camera, soliciting his surprisingly erudite thoughts on everything from housing policy (in need of reform), city hall ("Let's go fuck them up!"), and Viagra (just don't feed it to a donkey). Who knew that dollhouse sat atop one of our greatest minds? [The Daily Freak Show]

Do you lay awake at night worried that physicists tinkering in Geneva at the new Large Hadron Collider might destroy reality as we know it, or are you hoping they open a portal to a parallel dimension that just happens to have really hawt aliens? I do. Both. If you don't, let Will Barras and friends take you on a ride in their ode to the search for the Higgs boson. Mad props for the Stephen Hawking shoutout on the hype track.

Feast your eyes now upon those buzzy promo spots for the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards—featuring host Russell "Big in England" Brand, 2007 VMAs catastrophe Britney Spears, and a giant elephant in the room (not white, but you get it). 10 first impressions:1. Britney looks good. 2. Britney isn't chewing gum. 3. Britney is relaxed. 4. Britney doesn't appear to be pregnant. 5. Britney is good at covering up signs of fear and/or repulsion. 6. We're amazed she didn't say, "What's a surname?" 7. That hairstyle is atrocious. (You decide which.) 8. We believe she truly has no idea who Brown/Brand is. 9. She notices a passing resemblance to K-Fed at the :39 mark. 10. The elephant appears to be fantasizing about scraping saucy-British-comic out of his toes. Feel free to add your own in the comments.

For some reason, the official John Edwards YouTube channel still includes a speech Edwards made in 2007 accepting a "Father Of The Year" award, even though it contains various comments that sound funny/awful now that the former presidential candidate has admitted to cheating on his wife. Edwards' people might have been expected to remove the video Friday, when it was discovered and linked by producers for delicate CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, a crew no doubt highly attuned to subtle irony delivered in front of a camera (though Deceiver beat them to it —Update). Of course, the Edwards camp was busy dealing with Nightline late last week, and maybe they also figured removing the speech would lend credence to charges Edwards fathered a love child, which he still denies. Plus, at six minutes long, the YouTube video is a slog most haters will never get through. So here are the best 23 seconds, courtesy CNN. Click the video icon to watch.

· Was The Dark Knight, well, too dark for you? If so, then try this faithful recreation of the film's trailer — starring an adorable cast of child actors — on for size. [Wizard Universe via AOTS] · You've been RickRolled, you've been ShaniceRolled, but have you ever been BarackRolled? [Videogum] · "The new stoner is a successful career man. In a time of T.J. Mackey, The Game, and John Edwards, the successful stoner is one who can captivate women purely by making them comfortable, a functioning part of the capitalist dystopia in which we now reside." [This Recording] · The next time you need to call a taxi to get your drunk ass home safe and sound, expect it to cost about 10% more. It'll be worth it. [LAist] · "I wrote the first sentence-'If Dad hadn't shot Walt Disney in the leg, it would have been our best vacation ever!'-and the rest was automatic." - John Hughes, on writing Vacation '58, the story that would one day become National Lampoon's Vacation [Zoetrope via Alex Blagg]

Celebrities' complex relationships to the paparazzi who pursue them—can't live with 'em, evaporate into a puff of smoke without 'em—is the topic of Teenage Paparazzi, a documentary film from Adrian Grenier. The idea came to him as he was snapped by a "14-year-old paparazzo," reports THR—none other than intrepid adolescent shutterbug and celebrity in his own right, Austin Visschedyk: Kid Pap. (He's accompanied by his junior cronie and Porsche-driving chaperone dad in the accompanying CBS News profile.) The movie also explains Grenier's camera-friendly affiliation with puppymill proprietor/presidential hopeful, Paris Hilton:

When we last checked in with Sunset Tan's paragons of peroxide, The Olly Girls, they were in the process of being shitcanned from their jobs at the most prestigious tanning salon ever shown on basic cable television. But as the old saying goes, time second season storyboarding sessions heal all wounds. Or do they? After wearing Pauly Shore's patience thin and subsequently being fired from their positions as his bikini-clad housecleaning staff, Holly and Molly —or is it Molly and Holly?— decided to band together in an attempt to win over the leathery overlords who control the business that made them (marginally) famous last year, Jeff and Devin. Rather than going the Al Gore route and pulling together a PowerPoint presentation to showcase the value they can add to the business, the ditzy duo decided the best approach to getting their prestigious jobs as Sales Associates In Training back would be to break out their Crayola markers and start plotting out the X and Y axes on what they called their Happiness Chart. Talk about thinking outside of the bun!While we won't know until next week whether or not The Ollys were successful in their attempt to reclaim their rightful positions as the ultraviolet heirs to the Sunset Tan empire, we're fairly certain that the E! Network's promotional Olly blitz — see their Battle Of The Basic Cable Stars competition video below — means that good things are in store for the blonde bobbleheads. After all, there is only one thing that's more important to the team that runs Sunset Tan than moving a few extra cases of Banana Boat: getting renewed for Season Three. Click to view

Forget the anti-"retard" class rallying against Tropic Thunder — you know who really needs a nationwide boycott on his behalf? Corey Haim, whose long, troubling emotional slip-slide took a sharp downward turn into "exploited batshit crazy" Sunday night on The Two Coreys. But don't just take his perceptive mother's word for it ("I have seen a little bit of a decline in his behavior. I really have"); after the jump have a look at dress rehearsals for his putative comeback, featuring the actor himself as the verbally abusive, word-slurring hat-seeker who discovers terror in his very own bathroom as Judy Haim looks on. It could always be worse, we suppose — Corey Feldman doesn't sing or moonwalk — but when we say "Save Corey," we actually kind of mean it. [A&E]

Now that Jay Leno has entered the lame duck phase of his relationship with the Peacock network, it appears that he's decided to abuse his position as America's top-rated celebrity interviewer as fuel for his sexual reveries for many moons to come. While interviewing a crestfallen Scarlett Johansson on Friday night about Vicky Christina Barcelona (itself a rather sexually charged subject), noted auto enthusiast Jay figured he'd use the opportunity to engage the voluptuous starlet in some automobile-related foreplay. You see, he had done some research in advance of the chat and discovered that Scarlett told a lad mag that her number one sexual fantasy involved having sex in a car. But while Jay stopped just short of confessing that he has Crash playing on an infinite loop in his 17,000 square foot warehouse / garage, it was clear by reading his clearly flabbergasted guest's face that she's rather looking forward to sitting next to Conan O'Brien the next time she makes her way through Burbank. [The Tonight Show]

Kinda spooky crane shots through futuristic windfarms are the new adorable little girls sleeping at 3 a.m.. Or puppies, maybe. Both Barack Obama and John McCain used the same damn shot in recent ads, suggesting that their energy policies are both based on pissing off Ted Kennedy and his neighbors. They really ought to have someone vet stock footage, right? Our own Richard Blakeley spotted the matching footage and put together the damning clip that will swing this election to Ron Paul. Paul only uses fiercely independent stock footage the mainstream media are too scared to show you.

So the Rielle Hunter clips have been available on the internet for ages now. The Edwards campaign famously "scrubbed" them but they were still to be found elsewhere. Still, now that the affair is confirmed, it's fun to go back and rewatch them for creepy hints. Like how Hunter keeps the camera focused on Edwards' blue-jean-clad crotch in the first one. All the videos are available here, but we've put together our favorite moment from the webisodes with the most relevant parody advertising clip available.

Really, what is a movie or a TV show without a bad guy or bad girl to hate and admire at the same time? Not much, says I. So, let's share our most beloved baddies this evening, shall we? You know, all those great characters that you just want to see die in pain and ill-repute, but you still have to admire them in some awful way. I'll get us started with a true total bastard.

We interrupt your weekend to relay sad news: Comedian and star of TV and movies Bernie Mac succumbed to pneumonia early this morning at the ridiculously unfair age of 50. Mac seemed an unlikely candidate for crossover success: He never outwardly solicited an audience's love, instead playing on his cannily conceived persona of the put-upon, working-class every-African-American. Despite his imposing size, booming voice, and those angry eye flares, the comedic hook, of course, was his blustery impotence—like a latter-day Ralph Kramden who insisted on referring to himself in the third-person, but who could give a shit if we knew that deep down he had a heart of gold. (We'd suggest he should have played him in The Honeymooners instead of Cedric the Entertainer, but that thing was such a piece of shit it wasn't worthy of his talents. Motherfucker had an appointment with Clooney and Pitt, anyway.) Listen to the bit above about taking in his drug-addict sister's kids—what would become the premise of his underrated Fox sitcom. Of the youngest he says,"That two-year-old—she the motherfucker. She the ringleader. She was sent here by the Devil. She works for the Devil!" Peace, Bernie. You're gone too soon.

Here is an excerpt of John Edwards on Nightline, where the Democratic politician spent most of the time trying to explain the limited nature of his bad behavior. His affair was a brief fling he quickly told his family about, driven by "a narcissism that leads you to believe you can do whatever you want, you're invincible, and there will be no consequences." He didn't have a love child with his mistress, Rielle Hunter, and didn't know anything about any hush money she may have received. He'll take a paternity test and release the results to the news media, if someone can get Hunter to participate. And, Edwards said, he only visited Hunter again recently in a Los Angeles hotel at the insistence of a mutual friend, who promised to be present, to hear a story of Hunter's "struggles." Edwards gave the careful, plausible admission of a skilled lawyer. Whether he is believed will hinge on how people react to his most vulnerable moments. Click the video icon to watch two of them. [ABC News]

·It's never too late to wish Manoj a happy 38th birthday! ·Bomb and anthrax threats temporarily made MGM Tower the baddest-ass studio HQ in town. ·A lucky Morgan Freeman escaped a serious car accident with only a broken marriage. ·Alas, Christina Applegate, Bernie Mac and a pair of SYTYCD finalists faced more dire diagnoses. ·Matthew McConaughey's breakthroughs in placenta husbandry narrowly edged Clay Aiken in the race for the title of Best New Daddy. ·Was TV's highest-paid star among those accidentally exposed by a clumsy Hollywood madam? ·It was a close call, but Shia's pinkie will pull through. ·Defamer's political bureau stayed busy with Gwyneth Paltrow, Paris Hilton and Scarlett Johansson. ·Behold! The Chosen Blobs! ·Pineapple Express started big and will end bigger — kind of like co-star James Franco, if you catch our drift. ·Tropic Thunder RetardGate came and went. ·Meanwhile, Robert Downey Jr. will answer your stupid fucking questions now, sir. Yours, too, Debbie Matenopoulos. ·Drink, Play, F@#K and Puke, Broke, AIDS supplanted The Hobbit as the planet's most anticipated two-fer. ·Molls philosophized and we all remembered moonwalkier times as The Two Coreys took a turn for the worse. ·RIP Bernie Brillstein.

· We spotted this juicy little nugget of gossip just moments before last night's episode of Chelsea Lately aired on E! last night. One of the show's staffers maintains a Tumblr called C'est L.A. Vie, in which she often details the mundane things that happen on the show. Yesterday, all that changed when she alleged that someone who was wired with a hot mic was caught doing coke on set. Our handy video clip runs down the list of all the on-camera guests last night's episode; leave your guesses (and investigative rationale) in the comments! [C'est L.A. Vie]
· Our hearts just broke a little — scratch that, a LOT — when we read this anecdote about Life Goes On star Corky and his racist streak. This was a Wikipedia hoax; Corky doesn't see color. [Byron Crawford]
· Chuck Klosterman's latest Esquire column features a lengthy diatribe on Jennifer Love Hewitt's left femur ("Love Hewitt’s left thighbone strikes me as unusually long, and I feel like it lacks the convincing self-assurance of her right femur"), which he grades a B+. [Esquire]
· Ignore Lindsay Lohan's nipples for a second and, instead, focus on her mouth. Is she wearing braces? Grillz? Is she chewing tin foil? [Egotastic]
· And we know the day is almost over, but here are 88 ways you can enjoy 8/8/08. Our fave? "Call up Eddie Furlong and ask why there are 8 of him to a mile. Then, find out how he’s doing. Let us know." Guaranteed to be the best list until the 99 ways you can enjoy 9/9/09 comes out next year! [Best Week Ever]

Ah yes, the dog days of summer. These are the kind of days where nothing sounds finer than sitting 'round the backyard with a few of your closest chums, tossing back a few cold ones and firing up the grill. But this weekend, instead of cooking up some Hebrew Nationals and a few burgers, might we suggest that you bring all the fixins for a nice Dirt Sandwich instead? The ingredients are pretty simple, and you can't beat the calorie count: all you need is an internet connection, a computer and an internet browser that's pointed right here. If you have a laptop computer and a WiFi connection then, well, that's even better. Gather your friends round the warm light of your computer screen and click play. Because nothing says summer time like topless supermodels, a John Stamos marathon make out sesh and Katherine Heigl's continued emasculation of her husband Joshua. Enjoy!

The 2008 Olympics literally have us 19 ways of excited at Defamer HQ, where we've retrofitted our dungeon workspace with one television for each of the NBC channels broadcasting the summer games. But don't get the wrong idea — we couldn't care less about the pole vault or women's rowing. No way. We're talent scouting, babe, in search of the next Olympian to break through the ranks as a Hollywood star. It's kind of a ritual around here, really, going waaayyyy back to the days when our old-media ancestors at the Defamer Star-Courier foretold gold-medalist swimmer Johnny Weissmuller's ascent to fame as Tarzan.Alas, for every Kristi Yamaguchi who wins Dancing With the Stars, there are a dozen others whose athletic gifts fail to blossom into entertainment careers. Defamer videographer Molly McAleer has dug deep into our archives for a few of the most dramatic missteps and failures, from Bruce Jenner's ill-advised turn in Can't Stop the Music to Mary Lou Retton's less-than-convincing '80s-era battery pitch. May the limits of their championship spirit be a lesson to all those going for the gold in '08. We'll be watching. (Read more coverage of the 2008 Olympic Games.) 5. Bruce Jenner, You Can't Stop The Music

So we hit the open warehouse, and let's just say, if we had $5 million kicking around, we'd have found the ideal windowless converted foundry from which to run our punk rock mini-empire/host all-night after-Junction ragers with a few hundred of our closest neighborhood drunks. Yes, Kiefer is leaving us, friends. But that doesn't mean we can't still check in with him from time to time, albeit in the altogether less intimate arena of nationally televised talk show appearances. On Late Show last night, Kiefer recalled our collective nightmare—his incarceration for a parole-violating DUI—from inside the Glendale City Jail. Explaining that his celebrity status (translation: perky little ass) earned him unwanted attention, the simple act of communal showering became a perilous maneuver worthy of Jack Bauer himself, requiring slippery neck-snappings and shivs-to-the-eye if he planned on getting out with his bitch-virginity intact.

The gloomy state of print media can drive a man to do funny things and Los Angeles Times writer Bill Plaschke is no exception. In the face of layoffs and blog mandates, the sports columnist (currently in Beijing covering the Olympics) bravely took one for the team, eschewing a business dinner of prime rib and caviar for something a little cheaper: penis. Lucky for him, there's a restaurant in Beijing that only serves penis (both a la mode and with a soupçon of testicle), and lucky for us, the whole meal was captured for posterity. Hit up the video after the break. Hope you've already eaten lunch! [KTLA]