· Richard Simmons, a booby-trapped steamer, and David Letterman. We've said too much!
The recent panty-free, cooch-flashing celebutard outbreak seems like a perfect opportunity for some timely e-commerce.
The NY Times' Alessandra Stanley celebrates Studio 60 for all the reasons it drives us crazy.
If the Untitled Dakota Fanning Rape Project doesn't sound like it would unsettle you enough, why not check out Sundance's doc on the guy who was fucked to death by a horse?
· Dispatches from your favorite networks' East Coast offices: CBS's shit-wall, NBC's unloved boss.
· Instead of leaving you with something calming and happy-making, today we send you off with this.

Leslie Sloane Zelnick, crisis-managing protector of some of Hollywood's hottest, most profoundly troubled and image-impaired stars, has cordially invited those media outlets who uncharitably mocked client Lindsay Lohan's epically impenetrable, rambling, hastily Blackberried (we guessed Sidekick, which is close enough for our purposes) eulogy for Robert Altman to kiss her flacktastic posterior:

The coalition of human rights groups insisting on a full review of the circumstances surrounding Madonna's relatively swift adoption of an African demi-orphan have won a crucial legal victory, allowing them to join the court in ensuring David Banda wasn't traded for an autographed copy of "Confessions on a Dancefloor" with a starstruck orphanage guard with a Chichewa nickname that translates roughly as "the Gay One":

Preternaturally unfunny talk show host Jay Leno and keeper of the sing-songy one-liner, Rita Rudner, have both filed a lawsuit against an author who has reprinted hundreds of the performers' jokes—many of which were quite possibly written by the comedians themselves!—in a series of joke compendiums currently designated as required reading for scores of "Death of Humor" college seminars across the country:

· Music round-up: Imogen Heap at the Wiltern; Joanna Newsome at the El Rey; Trail of Dead at the Henry Fonda; Lucinda Williams at Royce Hall; the Melvins at
the Troubadour; The Jane Does The Jane Doe's* at O'Brien's in Santa Monica. [Thanks to the many readers who wrote in to point out the correct spelling of the band's name makes confusing use of an apostrophe.]
It's a Well-Regarded Indie Actor Portraying Drug Addicts Double Feature at the New Beverly Cinema! See Ryan Gosling hit the crack pipe in Half Nelson, then stick around for Maggie Gyllenhaal's powerful and frequently unclothed turn as a semi-recovering heroin abuser in Sherrybaby.
Doug "Best Week Ever" Benson hosts The Benson Interruption, where the comedian lures Sarah Silverman, Paul F. Tompkins, Matt Besser and Graham Elwood onstage at the UCB Theater, then proceeds to rudely cut them off whenever he feels like it, a shocking abuse of emcee power sure to scandalize the comedy community.

Today's NY Times story on the films entered into competition at the 2007 Sundance Festival Of Film, Open Bars, And Swag Suites updated us on the journey of a project we first heard about in July, back when it was struggling for financing to complete the shoot and the agent of its talented, pre-teen star was raving about how proud she was of her client's ability to convincingly portray the violent taking of her innocence:

A spy just sent us this blurry cameraphone image of embattled Apocalypto director and recovering-anti-Semite-about- town Mel Gibson browsing the crafts table in the lobby of the Santa Monica office building where EMI, FremantleMedia, Lionsgate and other media concerns make their home. We don't know the purpose of Gibson's browsing or if he made any purchases, but it temporarily warms our cold hearts to imagine that he picked up a dreamcatcher to enclose with the considerate note he's planning to send to Michael Richards, hoping that the trinket lets his fellow victim of relentless media persecution know that there's someone out there thinking of him.

It's been too long since last we paid a visit to the real world soap opera that is Anna Nicole Smith's life—Generally Hospitalized? All My Surviving Children?—in a year that has tested her like a busty, methadone-addled Job being toyed with by the Almighty. And yet through it all, and we hate to have to keep going back this, she somehow managed to limit our unobstructed views of her C-section scar and beyond to the one she sold to Entertainment Tonight featuring her baby being pulled out of it with forceps. When last we checked in, former Smith sugarpapa G. Ben Thompson had turned off the power in the Bahamian estate he helped her buy, which she insists was a gift. Now, the final steps are being taken to have her booted from the property completely:

Hollywood Out Of Ideas, Now They're Really, Really Out Of Ideas, We Mean It This Time Edition: Paramount, Eddie Murphy, and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura will work closely to "reinvigorate" and "update" the Beverly Hills Cop franchise. We expect that Paramount will immediately hire Moby to re-record the "Axel F" theme, put in a call to Josh Hartnett's people to gauge his interest in being "the next Judge Reinhold," and deposit $30 million in Murphy's bank account to prove to the star how important retaining the integrity of the franchise is to them. [Variety]
Warner Bros. signs up George Clooney to star in and produce an adaptation of the James Ellroy novel White Jazz and to direct the heist flick The Belmont Boys, and in return for his involvement in these more creatively satisfying projects, Clooney has agreed to appear in Ocean's Fourteen through Twenty-Eight for the studio. Under this latest art-for-commerce swap, should Clooney expire or lose his Old Hollywood good looks before the production of the latter sequels, Warner Bros. has the right to use a digital recreation of the actor to complete his commitment. [THR]
Disney's screening Apocalypto for just about every group that might be remotely interested in the film (even the media!), hoping that the public will forget about Mel Gibson's interesting, tequila-amplified thoughts on Jews and judge the films on its own, Mayan-talkin', graphically violent merits. [Variety]
Facelift enthusiast Meg Ryan now officially unrecognizable enough to play a thinly veiled Carrie Fisher. [THR]
· On the last day of November sweeps, ABC discovers that Show Me the Money and Day Break are pretty poor substitutes for Dancing with the Stars and Lost. [Variety]

Just one day after news surfaced that evil agenting monolith CAA has lost high-profile client Kate Hudson to rival Endeavor, Var reports that the Hugh Grant has decided that he no longer requires the agency's help in procuring the kinds of stammering-friendly roles for which he's known, choosing to have his legal representation assume all of the baby-gobbling responsibilities related to the advancement of his career:

For those of you for whom high hopes for Studio 60 were dashed by entire episodes revolving around the use of Final Draft format settings as a legitimate dramatic device, and who are hesitant to get too attached to 30 Rock, lest series asset Tracey Morgan should suddenly disappear for what characters will refer to as an "8 to 10 month sabbatical to shoot a direct-to-video remake of The Toy," there is now hope in the form of yet another "behind the scenes at an SNL-type sketch comedy show" project at NBC, set literally behind the scenes at SNL:

A Defamer operative who found herself in a New Mexico hospital early this morning reports on how the unexpected presence of an internationally renowned actor availing himself of the facility's medical services can enliven any ER visit:

A gossip-bomb dropped in today's Page Six could soon have the tabloids bracing for massive layoffs, paparazzi seriously exploring the possibility of returning to law school, and cause the immediate shuttering of up to a third of Hollywood's most exclusive nightclubs: Lindsay Lohan may have decided it's time to dry out:

· The headline "Yellow Wiggle Decides to Stop Performing" may not mean much to you, but trust us, there are millions of four-year-olds tearfully clutching CD covers right now and angrily accusing Yellow Wiggle Ono of having broken up their favorite band.
· By now you've probably heard that Sofia Coppola is a new mommy. Just like the one she almost got last week!
· We know you simply couldn't go on without knowing how Michael Douglas is doing after almost falling during a Bermudan "roof-wetting" ceremony. He's OK!
· Yes, all of Cracked.com's lame fight scenes are pretty terrible, but the knife-licking insanity of #1 wins by a wide margin.
· After over two decades, Beverly Hills is almost ready to endorse a subway route, but residents are secretly hoping the "wrong kind of people" who will inevitably end up riding it will bypass their manicured streets for whatever Santa Monica crack motel they're headed to.
· For those of you for whom the Michael Richards "Afro-American" apology on Letterman left them wanting, perhaps you'll prefer these more coherent sentiments from an old episode of Seinfeld...though they'll probably end up doing more harm than good.

The Hollywood Reporter has released its annual list of Hollywood's highest-earning actresses, many of whom have never once allowed themselves to be photographed without panties exiting a Mercedes SLR on their way into Hyde—an admirable stance that can only have contributed to their enigmatic allure and hefty asking prices. The top 10 as listed by a press release are:

The inevitable quote we have all been bracing for—in which a certain margarita-loving Malibu land baron harboring a mistrust of Jews and a sugar tit chip on his shoulder weighs in on recent events involving a former sitcom star's choice to silence chatty comedy club patrons by angrily sharing his historical knowledge of half-century-old, flatware-assisted lynching practices—has finally come. Not surprisingly, the quotee's heart goes out to the most recent victim stricken by the highly contagious outbreak of Celebrity Racist Tourette's Syndrome currently sweeping through Hollywood:

· Music round-up: Gran Bel Fisher at The Hotel Caf ; Mike Stinson at Safari Sam's; another chance to see Handsome Family at El Cid.
· The Boys of Baraka, a documentary that follows twenty 12-year-olds who temporarily escape the urban blight of Baltimore by going to Kenya to attend the Baraka school, screens at the Linwood Dunn Theater.
· Journalist and LA Observed blogging magnate Kevin Roderick will read from his book, Wilshire Boulevard, Grand Concourse of Los Angeles at Village Books in Pacific Palisades.

TMZ reports that Can't Hardly Wait star Ethan Embry was mugged at gunpoint in his Studio City driveway on Sunday night, but rather than just accept the powerlessness of victimhood, allegedly returned to the scene of the crime with a firearm to seek his own brand of semicelebrity vengeance:

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Inspired by yesterday's candid photos of Britney Spears taken just moments after a sensual, romantic encounter with Paris Hilton's heated bucket seat, WebJunk.tv shares a video of Jessica Simpson introducing her performance of "God Bless America" (we think—we actually didn't hear a word she said), and captured by an enthusiastic amateur in the crowd who maximized his camera's zooming feature by dizzyingly returning over and over to the singer's plainly visible undercleavage. It's a touching video keepsake, rendered even more precious by mercifully stopping short of Simpson's actual singing, and with her fur-trimmed Santawear, sure to enhance any e-mail greeting cards you may be putting together this holiday season.

Have you been meaning to check out NBC's hottest, low-rated new drama, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, but haven't yet done so because you're not sure if you're in demographic sweet-spot the network invites into the series' exclusive viewership club each Monday night? This easy-to-understand flowchart (click here to see the full version), put together by a reader with too much free time at work, should assist you in figuring out if you're an undiscovered member of the show's target audience. Enjoy.