· Maybe we've just spent too much time watching American Idol cattle-call-tryouts-of-the-damned shows, but we definitely prefer this version of "Glamorous" to the original. Also, we wanted more of the girl doing the toe-tapping thing. And the guy with the spinning hubcap.
· Ben Greenman's blog-musical Death Comes to Britney Spears makes a transition to YouTube.
· What the Heath Ledger situation really needs right now is for the feds to get involved to straighten the whole thing out.
· How did Randy Quaid earn a lifetime ban from Actor's Equity? (Hint: a Nazi plot is involved!)

A young woman wept hysterical Tears of Change tonight during the endless speech of ecstasy by Barack Obama, the President of North Dakota, Utah and the Yukon Territory. Even crusty old Brit Hume at Fox News was touched, in the place where his soul used to be, and where he thought there was no hope. He saw, for the first time in forever, someone fervently "enchanted with" and "rhapsodic about" an American politician. Either that or a chance to make idealistic Democrats look crazy and emotional. Either way, it's true; the lady idolized Obama and really was losing her shit. After the jump, the footage as captured and enhanced by Gawker video bot Richard Blakeley .

It's been nothing short of a whirlwind for STG Chris Bernheisel since the bubbly, bribe-bearing Kelly Clarkson interpretist was introduced to the world on Tuesday night's episode of American Idol: He already has appearances lined up on TV Guide Channel's Idol Chat (where he'll meet the King of Idol Casualties Justin Guarini), and Access Hollywood "plans to fly him to L.A. soon" to talk hair product with Billy Bush. Still, the brass ring of famewhoring STG appearances so far remains out of reach, despite haven't now sent 71 videos to Ellen DeGeneres begging to appear on her show. We humbly suggest she take him up on his offer, before the next package winds up containing something far more oozing and Iggy-head-shaped than a relatively harmless videotape. [Reality Blurred]

While American Idol positions itself as the greatest singing competition in the history of the world—and, let's face it...It is! It really is!—it also performs a crucial secondary service for which it too often goes uncredited: Introducing America to the Small Town Gay .

· Encouraged by the good-enough numbers generated by viewers lured to Celebrity Apprentice by the depressing lack of programming alternatives, NBC greenlights a second season of Donald Trump's salvaged franchise. Calls are already flooding in from other lesser-Baldwins, starving reality-show alumni, and aging supermodels hoping to fill out the next installment's roster of semi-recognizable names. [Variety]
· Though Fox, powered by American Idol and The Moment of Truth, is rolling along during a strike-affected early 2008, this week the top five broadcasters are down 21% in the 18-49 demographic compared to the same period from last year. [Variety]

· According to "an industry study conducted by informed sources" which Var was allowed to view on a "confidential basis" (we'll let you concoct your own theories about a trenchcoat-clad Nick Counter giving a sneak preview of the figures in a dark corner of the Beverly Center parking lot), the cost of the writers strike could reach $3 billion if it drags on for 60 to 90 more days. Also, in case you haven't heard: the national economy is headed down the shitter. [Variety]
· While NBC isn't canceling any of its current pilot scripts (unlike recent project-droppers CBS, Fox, and The CW), Jeff Zucker says that going forward, the company will cut back on traditional pilot development to focus its resources on ordering episodes of whatever Colombian telenovela or Dutch game-show Peacock programming-importation expert Ben Silverman thinks he can rush onto his primetime schedule without too much expensive tinkering. [Variety]
[After the jump: ast night's Idol numbers; CEOs and writers chatting; a Buffy reunion]

Please help us settle the contentious debate that rocked the Official Defamer American Idol Cattle Call Show Viewing Party last night: Was San Diego hopeful Alberto Hurtado actually the touchingly naive, peace-spreading angel descended from Heaven's gentlest hippie commune he claimed to be, wanting nothing more than to step "outside his walls" to share a message of love with Simon, Randy and Paula?

· Whoopsies! The MPAA admits that a 2005 study "incorrectly concluded" that movie piracy by college students is responsible for 44 percent of the industry's domestic losses, claiming that a "data entry" error ever so slightly inflated the actual "key number" of 15 percent. [THR]
· Fox and The CW have joined CBS in announcing a more "targeted" approach to the strike-abbreviated pilot season, taking an opportunity to dump projects the networks either can't or don't want to make whenever the WGA and AMPTP reach a new deal. Additionally, ABC is threatening to lighten its script load by 30 percent. [Variety]
[After the jump: Idol crushes rivals (again); studio speciality divisions dominate Oscar noms; Jericho finds a basic cable home.]

· Warner Brothers allows its options on the Justice League cast to lapse, putting the project on "indefinite hold," though the studio has assured its roster of mostly no-names that it still would eventually like to see what they all look like in their cute superhero costumes. [Variety]
· Like Monday's American Idol episode, last night's installment was down in the ratings from the show's 2007 season; still, the 30 million people who tuned in were more than enough to help Fox completely eviscerate its competition. [THR]
[After the jump: Hayden is a cheerleader 4ever, the DGA-deal waiting game, and WB layoffs begin!]

This is exactly why even a whispered mention of The Singing Competition That Shall Not Be Named triggers an instant pants-soiling reflex in rival network executives: After only two airings of American Idol, a largely hit-deficient Fox has already taken possession of first place in the current TV season, a lead they are unlikely to relinquish as Idol runs roughshod over its competitors' strike-hampered primetime schedules. [TVWeek.com]

Pausing ever so briefly from the important work of culling tone-deaf attention-whores and those mentally unbalanced enough to believe their cruel co-workers are sincere when they say, "You should totally try out for American Idol, Billy! We love the way you rock out to 'It's Raining Men' in your cubicle every day! Make sure you bring your stapler 'microphone,' Simon Cowell will get a kick out of that," from the show's cattle-call population, last night's installment took some time to present the moving story of Never Been Kissed Bruce, a 19-year-old virgin who has yet to experience the pleasures of a woman's touch. Bruce was, perhaps not unsurprisingly, chaperoned by his not-at-all overprotective father, the curator of the heart-lock necklace into which his son will place his throbbing key pendant whenever he meets a lady of acceptable moral fiber.

As the early episodes of each American Idol season are nothing more than the televised, cattle-call slaughter of talentless attention-seekers anxious for twenty seconds of screen time (in a new twist, a jaded Simon Cowell has taken to dispatching the deranged and tone-deaf with a blast of an Anton Chigurh-style pneumatic cow-pulverizer before they even finish their first, off-key verse), there's hardly a shortage of material for "Look At How Crazy This Guy Was!" clips.

We invite you to feast your eyes on the first known photo of Clay Aiken in his Spamalot costume, as he steps into the role of Sir Robin vacated by soft-outed Frasier star David Hyde Pierce. (That's for the razzle dazzle number. His knight's costume will look something like this.) Let the commenting wisecrack orgy begin! [Towleroad]

It was just a little over a year ago when then-NBC president Kevin Reilly, obviously depressed by the prospect of helplessly enduring another winter TV season in which all of his network's midweek offerings would be vaporized by Fox's Nielsen Death Star (obviously not to be confused with Hollywood's other destruction-dealing edifice), when he allowed himself this once delusional-seeming ray of hope at the TCAs: "Not to be shitty about it, but maybe they'll have a bad run. Nothing burns that bright forever. Some day it will be uncool to watch American Idol."

It's not often that we run tips from maids, but something about this e-mail from a woman who purports to be a cleaning lady temporarily employed at the manse of American Idol's muscle-shirted dream-douser Simon Cowell instantly caught our attention:

Record exec/talent scout/television mogul/dedicated Kool cigarette smoker Simon Cowell is denying reports that his tantrum torpedoed an American Idol publicity photo shoot budgeted at $50K. Cowell spoke to Extra in between drags on his minty cancer stick:

It was on Howard Stern's show that Tina Fey described SNL guest host Paris Hilton as "a piece of shit" who was universally hated by the cast, and now in Playboy (sorry Feynatics—just an interview, not a Naughty Showrunner spread in which she delivers script notes wearing only glasses and an unbuttoned men's dress shirt with the collar up), she recalls the experience of working with Paula Abdul:

Alas, not every post-American Idol story ends in record deals and sellout tours—for every Carrie Underwood or Kelly Clarkson, there is a Jessica Sierra, the husky-voiced, bad-girl contestant from the show's fourth season who's had repeated run-ins with the law since being ejected from the karaoke showcase Eden without so much as a creepy, lingering embrace and promise of, "I'll be in touch," from Clive Davis. But nothing has yet compared to Sierra's performance Saturday night, after being taken into custody outside a Tampa bar for "cocaine possession, battery, and disorderly intoxication." From The Smoking Gun:

Who would have thought that American Idol would get busted for violating child labor laws before Kid Nation? That's right, because winner Jordin Sparks and national joke Sanjaya Malakar were both under 18 while performing, the company behind the "American Idols Live Tour '07" was just fined a whopping $5000. Of course, that's less than Simon Cowell spends to have one of his tight black V-necks dry cleaned, but the point is, it sends a message. No longer will children be exploited for our entertainment. And if they are exploited, it will cost you a nominal fee. Are you scared yet, Les Moonves?

We're not sure what's a more distressing sign about the current state of Vin Diesel's career: that he's squandered so much time chasing his impossible elephant dreams that he now has no choice but to cash a 4 Fast 4 Furiouser paycheck (no logline, according to THR, "but fast cars are involved"), or that he's been absent from the multiplex for so long that he can no longer be distinguished from a fourth-place finisher from American Idol.