It's Day Four of the upfronts, that special mid-May week during which network executives lure advertisers to fancy venues, use elaborate presentations about their Fall programming to trick the media buyers into believing that spending their money on unproven shows is any less risky than letting their entire budgets ride on a single roulette-wheel number, and then retire to after-parties to toast their mutual delusions with free booze. Today, Fox wraps up the festivities with the announcement of their slate of new shows, coyly refusing for a fifth straight year to abandon their largely useless development process and switch to a year-round, all-American Idol format.

In the interest of streamlining our coverage of podiatric oddities and mishaps in the greater famous-people population, we bring to you a round-up of today's top toe-related celebrity health stories, as reported by TMZ:
· Blake "For the Love of God, Please Stop Beatboxing and Win Already So We Can Forget You Ever Existed" Lewis, American Idol final three finalist, reportedly had to see a doctor about a hangnail that turned black. (Warning: The accompanying photo of a toe is marked as "not Blake's," but who can resist lingering over a close-up of a stranger's infection!) We encourage you to tie a yellow ribbon around your own big toe as a reminder that our thoughts and prayers are with Blake at this difficult time, vowing not to remove it at least until the swelling reduces and color begins to return to normal. [TMZ]

As we approach the end of yet another memorable cycle of American Idol (fare thee well, dreamy-eyed Chris and dreamy-eared Phil!), the country braces for the most devastating rite in the communal search for our next exalted Karaoke Superstar: the singing of the Idol single, in which the two finalists are handed microphones, ordered at gunpoint into a death sphere set up on the stage of the Kodak theater, and are required to sing specially commissioned, unfathomably horrendous songs until someone's head explodes into a cloud of skull and brain fragments. (In the case of a tie, the second runner-up is crowned.)

· Rory and Lorelai will banter adorably no more forever: The CW announces that Gilmore Girls will air its final episode on May 15. We're not too sad, as we're sure the network has alternative MILF-related programming ready to take its place in the Fall. [Variety]
· Chris Von Goetz and Kevin Crotty are named co-heads of the TV lit department at ICM., which had been leaderless since the merger with BWCS. All we really care about: How nice are their shoes? Are we talking Whitesell nice or WMA nice? [THR]
· George Clooney and producing BFF Grant Heslov will co-write a dramedy, about how the CIA used Hollywood to stage a fake movie project (which was so well-faked Var and THR wrote about it) to sneak hostages out of Tehran in 1979, for Warner Brothers. [Variety]
· 28.1 million Idol fans tuned in to watch the final performances of The One Who Thinks He's Justin Timblerlake—As If! and The One Now Free From Being Forced To Wear Funny Hats By Cruel Wardrobe Assistants on Wednesday night. [THR]
· HBO will air a concert featuring the real Timberlake (suck, it Richardson!), its first one in four years. [Variety]

· Thighmaster Records proudly announces the forthcoming greatest hits package from Andy Bernard, The Office's beloved rageoholic crooner.
· As fun as standing in a field and roasting in 100-degree weather sounded to us, we somehow never got around to buying tickets for Coachella. But here are a shitload of videos from the festival, and a link to LAist's exhaustive coverage.
· Haley Joel Osment gets behind the wheel again.
· A former American Idol contestant is in legal trouble. Must be Monday!
· Lionsgate will find out if a post-Virginia Tech America is ready for some fresh torture porn.

In the Wall Street Journal Weekend Edition, Karen Richardson has a wonderful story about World's Second Richest Person Warren Buffet — he's a bit like John the Baptist to Bill Gate's Jesus — and how he's cutely put out an A.P.B. for a man (yes, MAN; let's not kid ourselves) to replace him as Berkshire Hathaway's Chief Investment Officer. You can imagine the meta-narrative all this fits into:

· Variety remembers recently deceased MPAA legend Jack Valenti, calling him "colorful," "charismatic," a "prime mover behind the movie ratings system," and the "industry's most ardent cheerleader." Also: "The silver-haired Valenti was a natty dresser and courtly gentleman who enjoyed using five-dollar words and arcane historical and literary allusions as he spoke out on numerous issues, all of which seemed to get him into a high lather." [Variety]
· The Reporter remembers Valenti as an "eloquent, high-level power broker" and recalls the "hump the hostess" anecdote of which we're so fond. [THR]
· In other Valenti news: His memoir, This Time, This Place, will still be released on June 5th, as planned. [Variety]
· American Idol fans overlook the show's unspeakably inhumane gotcha! prank on eventual winner Jordin Sparks, donating $60 million to its Idol Gives Back charity drive so far. [THR]
· ABC rides a penis worm and a set of giant, deformed balls to a Thursday night win to kick off May sweeps. [Variety]

At some point during American Idol's recent blockbuster-pimping Shrek-tacular, in which DreamWorks mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg and incomprehensibly accented sidekick Antonio Banderas consumed a puzzling amount of screen time in plugging their upcoming animated product, virtually every one of the show's millions of teenage fans probably found him or herself wondering, "Hey, who's this awkward little bald man trying to sell me on a movie I'm going to go see anyway?" Slate's Kim Masters claims to have solved the mystery: Katzenberg was supposed to drag Shrek star Justin Timberlake onto the show, but perhaps still feeling a little dirty from whoring himself out for a duet at the Grammys, the singer escaped the country, avoiding the promotional duty. All in all, we're pleased that's the way things turned out; had Timberlake shown, we might've been denied the wonderful moment (at about 43 seconds in the above clip) when Katzenberg—just moments after showing off his Oscar—somewhat bitterly remarks that the Idol hopefuls are achieving their dreams much faster than he did, stopping just short of adding, "But, you know, hard work and stuff like that takes a lot of time. You can't karaoke your way to running a studio. Just sayin'."

· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Special 80s Possession-Comedy Edition: Queen Latifah will star in a remake of Lily Tomlin/Steve Martin farce All of Me for New Line, though it's unclear from the story if their reimagination of the material will call for Latifah to play the possessing spirit or the showier role of host body. Either way, we hope they keep the bit where the guru flushes a toilet each time the telephone rings. That really cracked us up when we were ten. [Variety]
· Last night's two-hour Idol Gives Back special eradicates world poverty, network competition. [THR]
· The FCC declares War on TV Violence, threatening that if networks don't clean up their acts, the government will do it for them. [Variety]
· A puff of pink smoke rises from a chimney atop Lifetime's headquarters, indicating that the company has chosen a new spiritual leader to preside over its housewife-narcotizing slate of eating-disorder-related MOWs. [THR]
· The highly successful, industry-wide Agent Literacy Program continues to pay impresive dividends, as Gersh joins Endeavor in starting a new book division. [Variety]

As far as we're concerned, as soon as any penis-bearing young adult sets foot on the American Idol stage, they're instantly classified a Gay, regardless of sexual inclination. But Season 6 breakout star Sanjaya Malakar was more than just a Gay to us: He was a no-talent Gay with almost supernaturally versatile hair. As it turns out, however, Sanjaya is actually a 100% red-blooded heterosexual male, trapped in the body of an extremely gay-seeming teenager:

When even Rich Little has to admit this year's White House Correspondents' Dinner could have used a marquee act with some edge ("It's a little bit of a hard room. Next year, they may go back to someone a little more biting," the cuddly, Carson-era impressionist said shortly after bombing to a packed D.C. Hilton ballroom), it fell, as we predicted, to People magazine's guest of honor Sanjaya Malakar to inject the proceedings with a little watercooler-worthy pizzazz. Looking dashing in a blue pinstriped suit and chunky highlights Valerie Plame would kill for, Malakar greeted his throngs of admirers (including a gushing Governor Eliot Spitzer), as lesser celebrity entities at the People table—Valerie Bertinelli, Zac Efron (ask your teenage daughter or new AOL chat room friend), Eddie Izzard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Project Runway's Tim Gunn—simply looked on in astonishment. Gunn describes the scene to his blogging boss Andy Cohen, in a post discomfortingly titled, "Sir Tim Does DC and Sanjaya!":

As if poor Sanjaya Malakar, whose talent-free, network-destabilizing run on American Idol ended on Wednesday night, hasn't suffered enough, he now must face the indignity of knowing that 1.1 billion Indian citizens have risen up with one voice to celebrate his dismissal. This report of supposedly monolithic scorn, however, has us suspicious that the writer might not have done his due diligence in the pursuit of an easy hit piece; had he penetrated the subject more deeply than merely rounding up some anti-Malakar pieces from the Indian media, he probably could've turned up at least one ponyhawked, tone-deaf teenage dissident willing to offer a word of encouragement to his American TV hero.

We swore we weren't going to take another dip in the fragrant and inviting Sanjaya pool today, satisfied that enough digital ink had been spilled obsessing over the ouster of the Idol contestant who so completely transfixed a nation with a magical combination of really bad singing, funny hairdos, and a confounding ability to skirt all gender classifications. And yet, why are we beset with the sinking feeling that the end of Sanjaya's Idol journey was really just the beginning of something else—something far bigger and more foreboding, that begins, say, with an appearance at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner:

As we dry our tears, lick our wounds, and fashion as much of a ponyhawk as we can from our limited hair growth, we present to you a farewell to Sanjaya round-up:
· 28.2 million tuned in to watch Sanjaya tumble like an overturned bag of scrunchies into LaKisha's comforting bosom, unaware of the bright future that lies ahead as the world's most recognizable cosmetics and haircare endorser. [THR]
· 2007's all-new, non-slurring, tell-it-like-it-is model of Paula Abdul shows little signs of waterworks when she's asked about Sanjaya's future signing autographs last night outside Mr. Chow's. [TMZ]
· Exclusive! Sanjaya's (fake) Netflix queue offers a fascinating glimpse inside his rainbows-n'-unicorns-filled imagination. [DVD Dossier]

In the interest of providing some closure for yesterday's controversy over the meaning of American Idol judge Simon Cowell's much-disputed eye-roll, we feel it's our responsibility to spotlight this follow-up clip from last night's broadcast, in which an entire segment was dedicated to exonerating Cowell of all charges of insensitivity levied against him by the sensationalist media. As anyone can clearly see in the pciture-in-picture replay [Ed.note—But where are the synchronized timecodes?] of the incident (the impatient can skip directly to the 2:48 mark), the innocent host was lost in conversation with the fascinating Paula Abdul and thereby unable to offer any outrage-inviting reactions to the contestant Chris Richardson's tribute to the Virgina Tech fallen.

America, it seems, has spoken: Sanjaya Malakar, whose rendition of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me" rendered little girls completely paralyzed with tears of existential terror and whose final performance of "Something To Talk About" will likely drive Bonnie Raitt back to the bottle, will not be your next American Idol. At first, it may be difficult to watch this clip of Ryan Seacrest casting a tear-soaked Malakar out of Karaoke Eden, but know that his supreme sacrifice was for Idol's greater good: his dismissal represents the restoration of this grand competition's dignity, and with the distraction caused by the myriad conspiracy theories about the pitchy, pony-hawked incubus's continued success finally removed, it can again focus on its noble mission of deciding whether The Girl With No Neck, Bat Boy's Slightly More Handsome Older Brother, or The Guy Who's Hypnotized Simon Cowell Into Believing That Beat-Boxing Is Somehow Cool deserves to be temporarily installed atop the pop charts following the show's season finale.

Famously sympathetic and non-controversial American Idol judge Simon Cowell sought out on-air sparring partner Ryan Seacrest on his radio show this morning to explain an ill-timed eye-roll that some people—we'd never make that leap, of course—may have uncharitably interpreted as an exasperated dismissal of contestant Chris Richardson's expression of sympathy over Monday's horrific Virgina Tech massacre. Cowell claimed to not even have heard the remark to which he was allegedly reacting, so enthralled was he by reliably insightful co-host Paula Abdul's thoughts on Richardson's explanation of his intentional use of the nasally upper registers of his singing voice. We feel it's our responsibility to pass along the above clip of the incident, allowing you to form your own judgments about a controversy threatening to tear apart a grieving Nation.

The tabloids are once again pushing the Scientology panic button on Jennifer Lopez, who was caught dropping some Hubbardian jargon into her attempts to soothe the feelings of vulnerable American Idol contestants following judge Simon Cowell's litany of enturbulating put-downs. Notes Rush & Molloy:

· Brendan Fraser is happy to cash a huge paycheck for yet another Mummy sequel, but heroine Rachel Weisz abandons the franchise, realizing that her Oscar affords her the chance to do some projects that don't involve her screaming at a tennis ball at the end of a stick representing the giant scarab that will be added months later by an effects house. [Variety]

· Tom Hanks and Ron Howard are in "final negotiations" to return for the Da Vinci Code prequel Angels and Demons, presumably for amounts of money so staggering you would instantly become incontinent upon seeing them discussed in print. [THR]

· Forest Whitaker and Denzel Washington will star in The Great Debaters (think Pride, but with debaters and two Oscar winners instead of swimmers and Terence Howard), which Washington will also direct. [Variety]

· 27.9 million viewers tune in for their last glimpse of Haley Scarnato's legs on Idol; Phil Stacey gets one more week to try and escape elimination by hiding his batlike ears and strangely shaped, clean-shaven cranium under a silly hat. [THR]

· Nielsen discovers a discovers a hidden community of Lost fans who screw up their weekly viewer-tabulation efforts by catching up with the show on the weekends via DVR. [Variety]

While you might have held out secret hopes that the first American Idol-related sex tape would be Taylor Hicks: Silver-Haired Manslut, or, if your taste in amateur pornography runs towards the disturbing and kitschy, William's Hung Like A Horse, you had to suspect that the first foray into the Idolporn genre would star one of the competition's more obscure contestants, if for no other reason than Simon Cowell's production company owns all the double-penetration/ATM rights for anyone cracking the show's rarefied Top Ten. This morning, Vivid Entertainment, the company that so recently redefined the idea of the celebrity sex tape with Kim Kardashian: Remind Me Why We're Watching This Person Fuck Again?, has announced it's going forward with the sale of Olivia Mojica: Hard Core Idol, a video filled with all the steamy, person-who-didn't-get-very-far-on-Idol-on-her-boyfriend-at-the-time action you can handle. As even repeated viewings of the Vivid site's preview materials didn't jog our memories about Mojica's brief appearance on the show, we think we're going to sit this one out and wait for an Antonella Barba or Kellie Pickler-level also-ran to get desperate for rent money and invigorate the Hard Core Idol imprint.