Hollywood ChantWatch, When There's No One Left To Kick Around Edition: According to a tipster, "I just rolled into NBC Burbank and the picketers are chanting 'Ellen ain't no friend o' mine/ She danced across our picket line!' as her PA's are ferrying audience members through the line. Pretty catchy, especially considering they're largely her writers out there." That chant is definitely cute enough, but given the accusations about DeGeneres's relationship with a previous writing staff that surfaced earlier today, we'd hoped that there would be at least one member of her current team disgruntled enough to really stir things up by taunting, "Ellen ain't no friend o' mine/We rewrote the fucking dog speech nineteen times!"

Deciding delivering smiles to the faces of the tourists who had traveled great distances just to dance in her aisles was more important than delivering platters of Nate'n Al's lox to her striking writers and marching alongside them, Ellen DeGeneres chose, like many other daytime talk shows, to cross picket lines. Deadline Hollywood Daily printed what she'll say about the issue on tomorrow's show—a declaration of the love she feels for the drones who put the funny words in her mouth that amounts to no less than 1/10,000th of the love she feels for regifted rat-dogs. Unmoved, however, is blogger Surgical Strikes, who worked as a writer's assistant on her sitcom The Ellen Show in 2001, and remembers a far different DeGeneres/writer relationship:

· In other strike-related news, post-production houses prepare for the hit they'd take during a work stoppage, while indie film companies could see "the labor mess as a potential silver lining." [Variety, Variety]
· IggyGate provided The Ellen DeGeneres Show with a nice ratings boost, leading producers to plan a monthly stunt in which Ellen generously gives away one of her recently rescued pets to a young audience member, only to suffer an emotional breakdown as the gift is immediately ripped from the arms of the bawling child by adoption agency shock troops. [THR]

Ellen DeGeneres promises to liven up the Deal or No Deal proceedings when she makes a guest appearance on the hit NBC game show. But unlike past guests, like Donald "The Banker" Trump and Celine "Open Da Case!" Dion, the canine-regifter will join the show's Pyramid of Hot Briefcasemodels. TVGuide.com reports:

The Smoking Gun has procured the entire e-mail exchange between all relevant IggyGate parties, tracing the journey of Portia de Rossi and Ellen DeGeneres from proud new moms, kvelling over every healthy poop and successfully retrieved Nylabone, to harried and reluctant parents of a manic mongrel hindering the couple's ambitious construction plans. In light of all the daytime talk show hysterics that transpired afterwards, it's a highly compelling read.

What a difference a week makes, as only days ago our state's greatest displacement tragedy revolved around the fate of one lovable rat-dog, ripped from his hairdresser home by a mercenary squad of anal-retentive canine adoption officials. Still, those who hoped the IggyGate crisis would end with Ellen's clear-eyed meditation on the power of televised crying were sorely mistaken, as the armchair psychiatrists at Star Magazine have begun to examine the Iggy behind the Iggy—i.e., Ellen and Portia's allegedly deteriorating relationship:

Returning to her show after a brief hiatus necessitated by her well-publicized crusade to return an unwanted dog to a family that could shower the adorable animal in the love she never could, embattled pet-adoption facilitator Ellen DeGeneres says she's learned an invaluable lesson from IggyGate: Don't cry on television.

• Britney Spears has regained visitation rights with her children, but another custody hearing is scheduled for Friday.
  

Most of us are still struggling to make sense of IggyGate, in which a team of rescue-shelter special forces abducted a snoozing Brussels Griffon mix once owned by Ellen DeGeneres. (A helpful reader sent in the accompanying photo illustration.) Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States, blogged about the doggie's rights violation today:

Keeping true to her word that she wouldn't speak out again on the Iggy matter (a 48 Hours-style summation above courtesy of Access Hollywood) until the rescue was returned to what she deemed to be its rightful owners, Ellen DeGeneres opted to cancel today's taping entirely—a vivid indication of just how distraught she is over this national rat-dog tragedy.

Day three of IggyGate, the talk show host vs. pet rescuer clash that has divided a nation, brought a declaration of hope from distraught, Iggy-trafficking middlewoman Ellen DeGeneres. From the AP report:

Not since Britney Spears picked up a little London turd with a couture dress that wasn't her own has one Hollywood rat-dog caused such a firestorm. An Iggy round-up:
· Look, everyone! It's the adorable fleabag at the center of this mess! (Click it for a bigger Iggy.) [AccessHollywood]
· A terrorized Marina Baktis from Mutts & Moms explained that it was Portia de Rossi who signed the contract, and that there's no chance Iggy is going back to Ellen's hairdresser, where he might "be subjected to an unspeakably awful lesbian-shag hairdo." (OK—she might not have said that last part.) [AccessHollywood]
· Ruby, the tearful 12-year-old from whose arms Iggy was torn away after a "three-hour standoff in the family's backyard" speaks out: "I love Iggy and I just want him back." We all want a lot of things, kid, doesn't mean we get them: Now stick that in your empty doggie sweater and walk it around the block. [Inside Edition]

While most of us don't claim the luxury of a hit talk show with which to air out our grievances, Ellen DeGeneres does, and yesterday she used the pulpit of her celebrity-safe funzone to turn America against Mutts & Moms, an organization that seeks to place found dogs in good homes. Her blubbery, beyond awkward appeal begging for the return of Iggy (taken back to the shelter after the comedian pawned the dog off on a friend) has overloaded their website and resulted in multiple phoned-in death threats. And all this comes after the shelter refused to back down after DeGeneres unleashed her Michael Vick Academy-trained flack on them. From Page Six:

• Oops, that snowboarder named Riley who Lindsay Lohan had a rehab romance with was already engaged to someone else. [Us Magazine]
  

There would be no dancing on The Ellen DeGeneres Show today, not when the preternaturally upbeat talk show host offered a rare glimpse inside her tortured, pet-lover's soul: Through deep sobs, she relayed the shocking and sad story of Iggy, a Brussels Griffon mix she adopted from an unnamed local shelter (news reports later revealed it to be the Moms & Mutts rescue in Pasadena).

Reluctant martyr for all bullied gay TV doctors T.R. Knight returned to The Ellen DeGeneres Show today, eight months after sitting in the very same seat to jumpstart his Evil Gay Mastermind plot to undo his McThreateningy co-star, Isaiah Washington. In that time, T.R. appears to have relaxed a great deal, having had some time to acclimate to his new out status and fully savor the bottomless pit of emptiness that accompanies entering the L.A. gay dating pool.

It seems that the Academy Awards' Ellen DeGeneres Era, one marked by frequent tuxedo changes and playful trips into the Kodak Theater audience for some daytime-talkshow-quality banter with nominees struggling to stay awake during the punishingly long telecast, is over, as it's been announced that 2006 host Jon Stewart has been reinstalled at the Oscar podium, allowing the comedian to forfeit his membership in Hollywood's shameful Chris Rock/David Letterman Memorial One-and-Done Club.

The Ellen DeGeneres Show's new season debuted this week from New York, where she introduced audiences to her new DJ, KROQ's and Loveline's Stryker— though the two seem to be suffering from a chemistry deficiency. On today's episode, Stryker made an off-color joke that involved the word "bitches," prompting an awkward, angry lecture about the differences between radio and TV standards and practices.

"The story is that Ellen was watching me in her dressing room - and asked security if I looked weird or suspicious or something like that. My friend who works on the show overheard her and told Ms. Degeneris that I was a friendly - there is a little more to the story but I will keep that secret. But I was not at all asked to leave. If you do not dance with the creeps you are seen as a creep."

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are posted several times a week, so if lady luck should happen to gift you with one, don't squander it: Write it up and send it in! Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and tell everyone about the time you spotted David Hasselhoff working off a cheeseburger at your gym.