· Megan Mullally, Kelsey Grammer, Charles S. Dutton, Bebe Neuwirth and Debbie Allen will star in MGM's remake of Fame. They are still looking for the breakout star who will play Coco Hernandez, forced to undress in tears as she capitulates to the perverted whims of a phony director and his "screen test." Coco will never be the same. [THR]
· To recoup some of his holding company's staggering $1.6 billion debt, Sumner Redstone reluctantly sold his majority stake in Midway Games Inc.—which also meant relinquishing the prized Ms. Pac Man bow he loved wearing to industry functions. [Variety]
· NBC tasted a rare victory last night thanks to a fierce battle between some Vikings and some Bears, neither of which had anything to do with Rosie O'Donnell. [Variety]

If a YouTube video gets yanked, if a Blogger blog gets deleted, if a website disappears from Google's search results, chances are Google lawyer Nicole Wong had something to do with it. Wong has kept a low profile, aside from the occasional post on Google's official blog, but after a profile in Sunday's New York Times Magazine, it's likely she'll be hearing more pleas than ever from frustrated users whose works have vanished from Google's sprawling Web empire.

The last Media Meshing networking event will be December 11th. According to its organizer, our videographer Richard Blakeley, "In the past 8 months the party has gotten many people laid and paid." [Fishbowl NY]

NBC's on-the-record response to the New York Times' David Barstow regarding his front-page story on their war-profiteering hack retired general Barry McCaffrey is pretty choice, as it's both filled with obvious factual inaccuracies and obtuse point-missing diversions. This is a letter from one major news outlet to another, remember, though it doesn't read like one. The whole thing, obtained by Salon's Glenn Greenwald, is below.

After weeks of doling out clips to a Cheeto-starved global audience, MTV finally aired the paparazzi cautionary tale entitled Britney: For the Record last night. "No topic was off limits," boasted the introductory crawl. "No question went unanswered." And no follow-up question went asked! Thus, we left the special with almost as many concerns as we had going in, including:

Only 50 more days of President George W. Bush. So many feelings, right? ABC has released the transcript of a Charlie Gibson sit-down interview airing tonight, and it must be said that our current president was, and remains, a very stupid man. For example, he blames the current recession on "a lot of the decisions that were made on Wall Street took place over a decade or so, before I arrived in president." But now is a time to look forward. Is there a future for the man who wrecked our nation and the world? Yes, and his stupidity is what makes it work. Take our advice and prosper, George; here are the five keys to the revival of your image:

What, now they tell us? A recession is not a recession until the number-driven meritocrats of the National Bureau of Economic Research declare it to be one. And now they have. The current recession actually began a year ago, in December 2007. The past 11 months? Blissful ignorance. [MarketWatch]

It's not just dealers and artists who will be feeling the effects of a much more subdued atmosphere at this year's Art Basel. Further evidence that the annual art event is not going to be teeming with hedge fund moguls, Russian billionaires, and party scenesters as in years past: Rooms at Miami's top hotels are not at all hard to come by, judging by what's available on sites like Expedia and Orbitz. A run-of-the-mill room at Andre Balazs's Standard Hotel, for example, will cost you $426 a night if you arrive on Thursday and leave on Sunday. And there are availabilities at a number of other spots that would normally be booked months in advance, including the Delano, Sagamore, Shore Club, Four Seasons, Gansevoort, and Ritz-Carlton. If you're thinking of making a last-minute trip south, you need not worry about transportation either. Seats aboard flights from NYC to Miami are still up for sale, and although we didn't call to check, we're guessing that NetJets customers won't have any trouble booking a reservation either.

Oscar's Stepchildren: Reclaiming the selective credentials that helped nudge Crash to a Best Picture win only three years ago, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is cracking down on new membership effective immediately. Among the first to feel the pinch: Last year's nominees Ellen Page, Casey Affleck and Amy Ryan, all snubbed in 2008 by an actor's branch that even Academy execs say might have gone too far in restricting invitations. But, reports the NY Times, Henry Winkler retains his influence, so, you know, as you were, Hollywood. [NYT]

Recently, we suggested that 59-year-old Ivana Trump's much-younger Italian gigolo husband Rossano Rubicondi was "dubious" and perhaps "masquerading as a heterosexual." Well, she has—surprise!—separated from him. They married last April and secretly split three months ago, but didn't announce it until now. That means they maintained exactly 4 months of wedded bliss. How will she spin this in her Page Six Magazine column? This week's installment was a bit outdated: "Every Christmas, I go to Aspen with my mom, and my husband, Rossano..." who is photographed making out with another woman after the jump.

Dreaming of a White Christmas? It's L.A., so a Wet Christmas is the closest you're going to get. It rained last week, so who knows, you might be making puddle angels in the Vons Hollywood parking lot while Santa cruises through the lower atmosphere. Let's just hope Ol' St. Nick's entrances require fewer sonic booms than the Space Shuttle Endeavor.

If your boyfriend happens to work on Wall Street, don't expect him to be in the mood for much romance this evening. The Dow dropped another 680 points today and it seems all the negative economic news is now taking a toll in the bedroom. Experts say that stress, depression and anxiety related to the economic crisis has led to a sharp drop in mens' libido. One couple that was once doing the deed four times a week? They've only had sex once since the "economy went soft," reports the Post. "A man's sexual apparatus is very delicate. If something is wrong, it is very difficult for men to get or maintain an erection," says Dr. Ruth Westheimer, who probably knows about these issues more than anyone else, especially since she's old enough to have been dishing out sex advice during the Great Depression.

With a recession in progress, but lots of robber barons left in a society that the media has just now noticed is more stratified than ever, the headline "Party Like It's 1929" has proved too irresistible for even the most austere of publications. This Sunday's New York Times "We're Going to Party Like It's 1929" header in the Styles section represents the apotheosis of the trend. Journalists and editors: it's been done. Retire the headline now. Proof after the jump.

60 Minutes caught golden Mer-man Michael Phelps with a box of General Mills' Honey Nut Cheerios—even though Phelps endorses rival Kellogg's! In his defense: that little bee is quite charismatic. [Ad Age]

The rimjob ecstasy of that first Benjamin Button screening has worn off for director David Fincher, who is said to be tormenting Paramount underlings just in time for the film's Oscar push. Studio staffers were encouraged enough in recent days to even sell the notorious taskmaster out to Page Six, which reports today that Fincher has brought his shouty perfectionist passion to Button's marketing campaign.

Last year sad old party boy Jay McInerney went to Art Basel Miami Beach, the American version of the fabulous Swiss art fair, and dutifully chronicled the schmoozy, hideous glitz of its high-end billionaire clientele, its so-un-self-aware-it's-almost-hip pretension, its insanely high sales figures. What a horror show it was! A horror show that stands to be repeated this year (December 4th - 7th) except for one tiny problem: ain't but nobody buyin' art in these penurious and precarious times. So what will the champagne and caviar-dribbled festivities look like compared to last year? We'll take some of our favorite McInerney anecdotes from last year and reimagine them for this ruined age after the jump.

♦ In this week's issue of New York, Adam Platt gives two stars to Brooklyn's Char No. 4. David Bouley's Secession isn't quite as lucky, coming up star-less for its "jumble of tired brasserie conceits." [NYM]
♦ Josh DeChellis has signed on to become executive chef at La Fonda del Sol, the Spanish restaurant inside the Met Life building that is slated to open in January. [NYT]
♦ David Burke's Fishtail opens this week; the soft launch is tonight. [Eater]
♦ Page Six mag takes a look at the city's "smoking speakeasies," spots where the city's smoking ban is almost never enforced. [Page Six Mag]

Every so often, Vanity Fair will consent to putting a television star on their hallowed cover, but there's typically an implicit bargain that actor has to make to earn it. Think back to Teri Hatcher, who grabbed VF's top spot only after revealing how childhood sexual abuse led to fantasies of suicide (which the magazine teased on its cover with some disconcertingly unclad pictures of the star, because of course). Now, Vanity Fair has placed Tina Fey on the cover — an utterly justified spot, to be sure — and has finally nudged the actress and her husband to reveal something Fey always said she wouldn't: just how she got that famous facial scar.

The funny thing about the holiday season this year (besides the unreported death of Santa) is that Americans no longer have any money to buy expensive presents for each other—but magazines are plunging ahead with their year-end holiday gift guides as if everything was fine and dandy! Okay, that's not really "funny." Nor is it tragic, because hey, if these magazines want to walk themselves off a cliff, that's their business. It's ominous. What the hell does the future hold for luxury magazines in a world where those cutesy "Gifts Under $100" are a necessity, not a niche?

As white-collar workers return desultorily to their desk jobs, they waste time by shopping online. To capitalize on this, a group of online retailers invented "Cyber Monday," a day of Internet discounts to match Black Friday's in-store deals. You'd think that the planned traffic from such a staged event would go off smoothly. But you'd be wrong.