To help prolong his career in the face of a failing marriage, Newlywed Nick Lachey took his publicist's advice to replicate wife Jessica Simpson from the DNA in a loose strand of hair and bring the resulting clone to the Vanity Fair post-Oscar party at Morton's. Unfortunately for Lachey, a raccoon and a basted turkey crawled into the incubator vat while he was growing his tabloid-baiting party date, and the results from the hybrid DNA were somewhat less than convincing.

MTV announced yesterday that they've signed up Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson for another season of Newlyweds, but maybe they're just trying to make sure they get the relationship-ending murder-suicide on tape. Sister site Gawker has an e-mail from a PA working the Rockefeller Center's tree-lighting show that shows a marriage on its last legs—it looks like it's all over except for the flying china and attempts to invalidate the pre-nup. Here's Lachey's response to a request for extending his intro for his lovely wife: