· David Hans Schmidt, the guy behind almost every celebrity sex tape or nudie pic ever sold, calls himself "the CAA of smarm." Actually, CAA is the CAA of smarm, so he might want to rethink that nickname before printing up business cards.
· Hey, unicorns! (NSFW)
· Network freebies, drunken publicist porking, and Les Moonves' balls: still more fun from the TCAs.
· This is not a picture of a Fez. (Really.)
· As recently as an hour ago, we'd never heard the term "jump the couch." We likey.
· Anyone wonder what Scott Peterson is up to these days? Oh, that's right, he's a little busy with Death Row. We expect that his next message will beg that Ben Affleck not be cast to play him.

With eminently quotable Viacom co-president/future galactic dictator Les Moonves tied up with corporate world domination meetings in New York, overmatched CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler was left to face journalists at the Television Critics Association convention yesterday. The LA Daily News reports that Moonves was sorely missed:

Nielsen Research, the fine company whose television ratings system lets you know that people are crazy for J. Peterman and Joey McIntyre stumbling through a Viennese waltz, have deployed new "local people meters," which have finally discovered something called "minority viewers":

The LAT reports that the ratings-hobbled NBC has finished its advertising sales for the fall season, and after being forced to cut their rates by skeptical buyers, sold about $900 million less of their primetime inventory than last year. As if this news wasn't bad enough for NBC's Jeff Zucker, the beleaguered, fading golden boy received a swift kick in the "sweeps" from his fiercest rival's spit-shined wing-tips:

Skeletal Viacom executive presence Sumner Redstone (still kicking it in the boardroom, even at 117 years young!) sat down with the LAT to discuss the announced division of his unwieldy conglomerate, serve notice to any whippersnapper family members and/or aspiring galactic dictators who salivate over the thought of picking his old bones clean, and announce his plans for immortality.

Viacom's board has approved the long-discussed split of the behemoth conglomerate into two somewhat smaller behemoths. Former co-presidents Les Moonves and Tom Freston will each run their own fiefdom, with Moonves taking over CBS Corp. (CBS network, Paramount Television, radio holdings, etc), and Freston topping Viacom, Inc. (Paramount Pictures, MTV Networks, various cable channels, pimped rides), but we're not going to get into the boring details any more deeply than we already have. While Freston has suddenly found himself a lot less likely to be snuffed out with a Cribs-branded pillow by Moonves once his co-presidency became "inconvenient" to the generously-betoothed future galactic dictator's plans for world domination, it seems that Moonves suddenly finds his potential resources drastically reduced. Cutbacks in his army of 50-foot robots may be announced (barring a big boost from Wall Street), temporarily delaying his plans to deploy the army to kick off an invasion by kidnapping rival Jeff Zucker and submitting him to the public humiliation of a automaton-applied rusty trombone.

· In an attempt to level the playing field with TNT and USA, AMC coughs up $80 million in licensing fees for 22 Warner Bros. movies (including Batman Begins, Million Dollar Baby, and The Last Samurai). Warner Bros. also receives "prima nocte" privileges with the brides of selected AMC execs, who described the unusual provision as "totally worth it for the rights to air Terminator 3 on cable." [Variety]
· Les Moonves assures CBS affiliates that a much-discussed Viacom split will be beneficial to the network. When his assurances were initially met with a skeptical silence, Moonves then added, "And no matter what happens on the corporate level, Jeff Zucker will continue to be my bitch." The crowd then exploded into a joyful hymn as Moonves stoked their passions with ten minutes of pantomimed Zucker-buggery. [THR]
· The Agent Dance, "We Can't Make Ourselves Care" Edition: Former William Morris network TV head Greg Lipstone shuffles over to ICM as a senior VP. [Variety]
· CBS picks up the Julia Louis-Dreyfus project Old Christine for midseason, when the dreaded Curse of Seinfeld will kick in, causing near-immediate cancellation despite everyone's professed love for Dreyfus' talent. [Variety]

CBS overlord Les Moonves just can't help himself. At their upfront presentation to advertisers yesterday, he continued his ritualistic humiliation of NBC pewter-boy Jeff Zucker, very publicly delivering the television executive equivalent of a taint-rattling wedgie, a swirly in an unflushed toilet, and the scribbling of "I LOVE DUDES" in Sharpie on his rival's forehead:

Each year at upfronts time, Les Moonves likes to invite the press over for an informal chat over bagels, during which he's known to take out his penis, slap it down among the lox and cream cheese, then swing the sloppy member around the room without concern for who it hits in the face. The NYT's Virignia Heffernan notes who got a faceful of junk in her "Upfronts Journal" (which, like the LAT's "Web Notebook," should not be mistaken for a blog):

· More fun from CBS: 60 Minutes Wednesday is kicked to the programming curb, but Moonves denies that Memogate had anything to do with it, but allows, "There's just something that bugs me about Dan Rather's face. It's all square and stuff." [Variety]
· John Woo will direct Chow Yun Fat in the "next generation action action game" Stranglehold. Things exploding stylishly and broken English to follow. [THR]
· In the unexpected, but potentially genius, casting move of the season, Kelsey Grammer will play Beast in X-Men 3. [Variety]
· Beware, the streets will be teeming with virgins carrying lightsabers: More than 80% of tonight's Star Wars post-midnight showings are already sold out. [Variety]
· Husband/wife team Laurie MacDonald and Walter Parkes leave their positions as co-heads of DreamWorks Pictures for the obligatory "shingle" gig. Curiously empty offices to follow. [Variety]

· CBS hasn't announced its Fall sched yet, but it looks like more Bruckheimer, some Jenna Elfman, and two heaping cupfuls of Jennifer Love Hewitt's rack. We'll leave them alone until it's official tomorrow. [Variety]
· 32 million fans say good bye to something called According to Jim. Oh, we mean Everybody Loves Raymond. [THR]
· Honeymooners star Mike Epps will play Richard Pryor in a biopic, presumably because Dave Chappelle is still too busy chilling the fuck out in South Africa to take the job. [Variety]
· Fancy directors Michael Haneke and David Cronenberg are frontrunners for the Palm D'Or (that's French for "Not an Oscar") on the strength of their "very accessible" films. As a result, Cronenberg is now in the running to direct either 3 Fast 3 Furiouser or take over the Rush Hour franchise from Brett Ratner. [THR]
· Warren Beatty, producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, and Tribune Co. fight over the rights to a comic book character everyone stopped caring about while Beatty was still banging Madonna. [Variety]

We're not going to dwell on the details of how sister site Gawker came to attend the "Time 100 Party" (oral) and breathe the same gold particle-infused oxygen specially imported for the respirating pleasure of their Most Influential Whatevers. We're going to skip to the good part, when our colleague accosted Viacom co-president Les Moonves, the man who will one day enslave us all, and enjoined him in idle chit-chat about the world-famous smile that makes hungry crocodiles weep with inadequacy:

· As previously discussed, Viacom's Redstone, Freston, and Moonves pull in a "shitload" of money in their executive overcompensation packages. [Variety]
· Holly Robinson Peete joins UPN's Shannen Doherty project, French Stewart is cast in the WB's Best Laid Plans, and Hollywood inches ever closer to 100 percent employment during pilot season. [THR]
· Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes Productions takes up the fool's errand of remaking the C. Thomas Howell/Rutger Hauer horror classic The Hitcher. Scuttle this one now, before more money is wasted—you just can't improve on a bloody finger in a plate of French fries (even a fingertip in chili doesn't cut it). [Variety]
· Tyrese signs on to play the prettiest ex-con ever in Waist Deep for Focus Features. We can think of nothing semi-clever or interesting to say about this; enjoy the link anyway. [THR]
· NBC Universal brings in profits for corporate parent GE with a strong showing in theme parks, movies, and DVDs—but not so much with the television part. [Variety]

The Big Three at multimedia corporate behemoth Viacom—shuffling, mummified executive presence Sumner Redstone, co-president/eternal teenager Tom "someone stole the 'gr' page in my thesaurus" Freston, and inevitable worldwide despot Les Moonves—had the overcompensation clauses in the contracts honored for 2004, in which each executive was paid in hundred dollar bills dumped directly into their empty, Olympic-size swimming pools. Once the money was tallied up, each executive received $52 million (Freston and Mooves) to $56 million.* (Redstone's contract, it seems, also stipulated that his ten-person Jacuzzi be filled with cash.)

NY Daily News JV gossip Lloyd Grove obtains a copy of the book proposal for the memoir of canned 60 Minutes producer Mary Mapes (of Rather/Memogate fame), in which Mapes recklessly endangers her life by disparaging the journalistic bonafides of Viacom co-president/future global despot Les Moonves:

Our semiregular morning feature (in which we attempt to trick your palette into thinking there's broken glass in the cream cheese on your lightly-toasted bagel through the presentation of disquieting blog content) continues, as we present this tossed-off quote from Page Six:

· Hollywood's out-of-work writers are given a ray of hope as scripted series seem to be selling at this year's Mip TV market in Cannes. Pull your heads out of the ovens and start wistfully browsing the WGA health plan brochure, boys, help may be on the way. [Variety]
· More Mip: "Not so fast, Yankees!" says some German media mogul we've never heard of. "Most of your puny American shows don't carry the market share that my powerful broadcasting company requires, and the DVD format has changed the game. Sprechen to the hand, Hollywood! I am so angry I've lost all command of my mother tongue!" [THR]
· Les Moonves brings to bear his infernal powers on the Masters, rigging it for an exciting Tiger Woods win, and boosting the ratings for CBS. [Variety]
· Riffling through the junk drawer of pilot casting, we discover that Shannen Doherty is in negotiations to star in the UPN comedy pilot Wingwoman. [THR]
· Alfre Woodard joins the cast of Desperate Housewives for next season, as a "seemingly normal" woman who eventually learns to despise Teri Hatcher for all of the media attention she receives as a stand-in for the show's fine ensemble cast. [Variety]

· Feeding tubes are red-hot right now. The Pope's deteriorating health and Terri Schiavo's death provided a tube-related field day for the news media yesterday. Today, CBS has announced plans to rush a Schiavo biopic to air during May sweeps, with Keri Russell to star as America's tragic heroine and Dean Cain as the husband who wants to let her die in peace. The net anxiously awaits the Pope's death to announce the casting of Ben Kingsley as the Holy Father. [Variety]
· Tired of making quirky comedies that are enjoyed by a handful of Spanking the Monkey incest fanboys, David O. Russell, the headlockingest director in Tinseltown, teams up with comedy hearthrob Vince Vaughn for a shot-by-shot slapstick remake of Saving Private Ryan. [THR]
· In a shocking move for fem-centric cabler Lifetime, recently-acquitted star Robert Blake is named CEO of the network. A press release announcing the unexpected hiring featured the tough-talking thesp-turned-exec vowing to "shut up them puking, Valerie Bertinelli-wannabe breast cancer whiners, or they're gonna get one in the back of the head between the antipasti and the spaghetti, if you know what I mean." [Variety]
· ER hearthrob Noah Wyle announces that he's leaving the show that made blood-splattered white labcoats the must-have fashion of 1996 after this season. Wyle plans to rejoin former castmate Eriq LaSalle in a touring musical theater production in which the two actors perform a dub-reggae version of the Jackson/McCartney smash "Say, Say, Say" at rural high schools throughout the country. [THR]
· Seth Green signs up to have his genitals sandblasted off for Will & Grace creators Max Mutchnick and David Kohan's new NBC pilot, Dry-Humping Eunuchs. [Variety]

· For some reason, Paramount president Donald De Line thinks that not being told about Brad Grey hiring Gail Berman to do his job means it's time for him to move on. He's leaving his post at the studio for parts unknown (i.e., Sony, if you believe the rumors.) [Variety]
· Just-anointed Fox president Peter Liguori has kissed his teary-eyed FX troops goodbye, and is already busy at his new home, ready for the challenge of getting bailed out by American Idol every year. [Variety]
· CBS development moves away from competition-based reality shows, and now embraces the new self-improvement/family-related paradigm. A surefire hit on its way: Les Moonves destroys your mansion in the Hills with his bare hands, then orders his minions to rebuild it in under 24 hours. [THR]
· ABC's premiering hot-doctors-doing-cute-things drama Grey's Anatomy rides Desperate Housewives' coattails to strong ratings. [Variety]
· Everybody works during pilot season, part thirty-eight: Brenda Blethyn, Jane Leeves, Donal Logue, Mariel Hemingway, Alyson Hannigan cast in pilots. We give it a week before sneaky agents get a handful of dead clients cast. [THR]

· The trades look at Viacom's potential bifurcation. Enthralling! [Variety, THR]
· The ankle bracelet's still warm, and already CBS is trying to throw together a Martha Stewart biopic. Naturally, they want Cybill Shepherd to reprise her role from Martha, Inc.; she's already doing research on how to sharpen spoons and shiv a hack. [Variety]
· Jennifer Aniston will star with Vince Vaughn in super-secret romantic comedy (you know, only like a thousand people in town know what it's about) The Break-Up. Let the Aniston-Vaughn porking rumors begin! [THR]
· We absolutely refuse to read an article with this headline: "Sprechen sie Soderbergh?" Knock yourself out, though. [Variety]
· Pilot casting is now making that sucking sound that you get when you get to the bottom of a Big Gulp, as we've never heard of anyone of these people with pilot jobs: AJ Calloway, Nicholas Brendon, Jodi Lyn O'Keefe, and Michael O'Neill. [THR]