While it's true we've rarely seen Harvard's Woman of the Year Paris Hilton far from at least one member of her four-legged menagerie, had you asked us to guess just how many animals co-exist with her behind the walls of her gated estate, we would have probably thrown out a number like a half-dozen: a chihuahua, a kinkajou, a billy goat, couple ducks, maybe an emu for good measure. Never, however, in our wildest, animal-exploiting, poopie-bedsheet dreams, did the following occur to us:

· Wait a minute: Did Ryan Seacrest think he was giving Ellen a dildo in a fun little gift bag? Oh, that's just a bingo stamper, and not a Big Blue Violator? What a silly mix-up! An honest mistake, really.
· Mona Lisa with a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher would've made a much better Rambo poster.
· Mary-Kate Olsen's thought process upon receiving that fateful call from the masseuse, in flowchart form.
· "Those pigs were about 400 pounds each, and there were four of them. I was tied pretty tight into that pigpen by my neck and my hands, and my mouth was gagged. At one point while we were filming one of the pigs broke through the fence and actually came right at me. I was freaking out, and they were rushing in to try to get me out, and of course Sly is in the background yelling, 'Keep the cameras rolling!'"

Eponymous talk show hostess and butch lesbian lover Ellen Degeneres is turning fifty. She's celebrating her birthday with a new policy of openness. As part of the new divulgey Ellen (though she's always been divulgey) she's shared with US Magazine some of her "own fashion blunders." They mostly involve vests which aren't very of-the-moment these days and strangely tailored jeans. Upon reflection, most of Ellen's sartorial faux pas are variations on the abuse of vests from 1989's tapestried vest to 1995's smocky vest. Fact: none of these outfits are actually that bad. (If you took a picture of me in 1989, I'd be wearing an oversized t-shirt that said, "GET A LIFE" in block letters, pink-and-green Umbros, and Pumps. Not pretty.) Ellen, a savvy 50 year old, has curated these images herself. We'd love to see what you can find. After the jump, our selections and the most amazing piece of Ellen artwork ever created.

It's hard to believe, but TV talk show host and scrappy-mutts'-rights activist Ellen DeGeneres is turning 50 on Saturday. (Also on that Day in Lesbian History: In 1913, Toklas and Stein discover the Scissor Sisters technique while on holiday in Marakesh!) To celebrate a life devoted to bringing unscripted laughter and the gift of aisle-choreography to the masses, the comedian has gone through the archives to share with Us Weekly some of the worst outfits from the past decades spent in the public eye. (Click here or the thumbnail for a closer view.) For you see, before discovering the custom-tailored Gucci tuxshedo, DeGeneres spent most of her time working the corner of Mullet Ave. and Fashion Nightmare Blvd., hitting style rock-bottom in a haze of high-waisted stonewash, bolo ties, and patterned linen vests.

From one Queer comic to another, Ellen, Margaret Cho wants you to know that she loves you. Adores you. She just refuses to do your show: "[B]ecause of the way that I was raised, because my political views are they way they are, because I believe that workers should have the power and the ability to make their lives better, because many of my close friends are the ones picketing, I cannot cross the picket line." Fine, Margaret. Take a stand—see if Ellen cares. No dancing for you! [HuffPo]

When news broke yesterday that the moviegoers of this great nation of ours had voted Lindsay Lohan's dead-stripper turn in "I Know Who Killed (My Career)" as the single worst performance of Anno Domini 2007, our reaction was laced with both sadness and shock. Sadness because we all long for days when the frecklecrotched wonder's biggest problem was her slightly jiggly thighs, shock because we could think of no fewer than six and no greater than seven performances that were CLEARLY worse than Lindsay's. What follows, dear friends, is that list (in descending order, no less)!

· This one from Ellen doesn't need any dressing up: Richard Simmons dances, falls down. All in a mere twelve seconds!
· Tom Cruise has trained his older kids to call "Kate" "Mom."
·This is what happens when you let it slip on Craiglist that your year-end bonus was over $700K.
·Nothing says Christmas like the Alien and Predator on a promotional tree ornament.

· Who needs writers when you have Carmen Electra, a pair of beds, and some pillows to hump? Not Ellen, that's who.
· A bigger impediment to one's game: being David Faustino, or having a giant dildo affixed to one's head?
· The Santarchy guys really need to crash the Beverly Center's Hunky Santa booth.
· New York may have found true reality TV love.
· The one about the vacationers and the toothbrush in the ass has always been our favorite urban legend.

· For heaven's sake, people: Heed Tippi Hedren's warnings about what happens when you bend over in front of a tiger! It could save your lives!
· First impressions of Britney Spears's new video: She's wearing more clothes, she's standing up without the use of steadying device, and several Britney-like extras are on hand to perform choreographed dance moves. Triumph!
· Madonna, Leonard Cohen, John Mellencamp, The Ventures, and The Dave Clark Five will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an honor the "Like A Virgin" singer has graciously accepted, so long as they start the ceremony with her, and she isn't expected to stick around for any of the decrepit British Invasion also-rans.
· "Tony Parker says he's not a double dribbler." We think this is about cheating, though he still might want to have a doctor check that out, just for his own peace of mind.
· In case you still haven't seen it, here's the NY Post's tasteful headline commemorating the passing of Ike Turner.

A tipster forwarded this cameraphone photo of an unattended WGA picket sign found on the Warner Bros lot this morning; hopefully, its owner has permanently abandoned it in favor of one with a more up-to-date slogan, as no one really needs a reminder that the strike has dragged on so long that references to DeGeneres' pet adoption problems once seemed timely.

In another demonstration of how well she's coping without the services of her striking writers—and one that was far more effective than Monday's bongo-enhanced effort—Ellen DeGeneres welcomed First Daughter Jenna Bush onto the show, whom she quickly challenged to try and reach her parents live via telephone, a stunt sure to send her ratings skyrocketing and make everyone forget about the show-offy on-air call Oprah Winfrey recently placed to God to get his opinion on her Favorite Things Special.

· In replacing her picketing writing staff with a set of bongos today, Ellen DeGeneres may be onto to something; look for Carson Daly to kill some time on his own strike-hobbled program by spending ten to fifteen minutes bashing away at a full drum kit before bringing out his guest.
· Jennifer Love Hewitt has broken her silence about the junk in her trunk, defending the honor of unfairly persecuted size 2's everywhere.
· Sandra Oh gives the Canadian perspective on the writers strike.
· And speaking of our neighbors to the north, there are more of those horrifying PSAs where that face-scorcher came from. [Warning: not for the weak of heart or delicate of constitution.]

Remember Brad Womack, the slab of The Bachelor man-beef who ripped out America's heart, doused it in Old Spice, and then set the still-beating organ aflame by failing to pretend he'd fallen for either of the two contestants who'd survived weeks of televised culling? Of course you do. That stuff only happened a week ago! Anyway: after giving him the what-for on yesterday's program, today Ellen DeGeneres invited Womack to her show so that should could get some fucking answers to questions she felt weren't adequately addressed during the post-finale interrogation that repeatedly stole the breath of a studio audience scandalized by his inability to let love heal his tortured soul.

In case there was any lingering confusion about whether or not Paris Hilton did or did not offer a tearful plea on behalf of the plight of India's pale-ale-addicted elephants, the celebrity heiress appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show today to dispel that rumor, and another involving an interest in cryogenics.

Stripped of her staff of writers, The Ellen DeGeneres Show manages to keep things lively using segments that require no words at all: Just the eagle eyes of an audience-scanning producer who can pick out nobodies who look like somebodies, and within seconds paste together a side-by-side guaranteed to have everyone else rolling in the aisles. (Come to think of it, that kind of sounds like our job description.) It's all good fun, until a red-faced P.A. was forced to point out that the Tom Bosley look-alike was in fact Tom Bosley, who's taken to filling the long, unoccupied afternoons with Burbank talk show tapings.

Between her recent canine custody battles and the contempt of her fellow striking WGA members, there's no question about it—Ellen DeGeneres has had a go of it lately. In this confessional monologue from yesterday's broadcast, a dejected DeGeneres recalls the time an officer offered some kind of words of fashion-police support during her darkest hour, inspiring her to the Gucci-tuxedo-wearing, Oscar-hosting heights to come. In doing so, she reminds us—and herself—that even in those moments when it seems like everyone you work with and deal with on a daily basis can't stand you, that too shall pass.

As the demonized Queen of the Picket-Line Crossers Ellen DeGeneres (it wasn't her Kathy Griffin was referring to on her placard slogan, but it easily could have been) continues to tape new episodes from her Burbank studios, the WGA East's campaign to prevent the comedian from bringing her show to New York next week appears to have been successful:

At the risk of entering Ellen overkill territory (oh, who are we kidding—we set up camp there somewhere around 14 Iggy posts ago), something about this beyond surreal Entertainment Tonight promo compelled us to return to the tale of the dog responsible for Phase One of the comedian's recent image-tarnishing campaign.

• Ellen DeGeneres is taking some flak for breaking the WGA strike by going ahead and taping her show, albeit sans monologue. Also maybe she's sort of mean. [Page Six]
  

Since the ghost of a writer's room presence from Ellen DeGeneres's past has come back to haunt the picket-line-circumnavigating chant-target—and in doing so, reopened the age-old debate about how much writer-abuse is too much writer-abuse when your name's in the title—the first new episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show has aired.