Always on the lookout for free creative ways to promote their artery-jacking Famous Bowls, KFC has again appealed to the newly minted stars of American Idol to help usher its gustatory message to the finger lickin' masses. Having struck out last season with a generous offer to the runner-up of a $10,000 "commercial recording contract," the fast food outlet has now set its sights on the series' most polarizing contestant—tone-deaf hairdevil, Sanjaya Malakar:

· One billion Indian citizens raise their voices in harmony and declare: "Sanjaya's not our fucking fault! We swear!"
· TMZ, as you would expect, is all over the story about the porn star who signed a boob.
· This couch was once on American Idol. Therefore, you must own it.
· This is a partial list of Angelina Jolie's tattoos, because we know you're been wondering about such matters lately.
· A CNN.com plea for NBC to kill Studio 60.
· Is this the cutest thing you've ever seen? Trick question, because this is. We think we just pooped ourselves a little, so overcome are we by adorableness.

Before you jump out of your seats to call Photoshop foul on this heartwarming candid of Timberlakian Idol finalists Blake Lewis and Chris Richardson snuggling up backstage as co-contestant Sanjaya Malakar lurked just feet away, lustily soaking in every boy-on-boy caress from behind a massive pair of bug-eyed Christian Dior sunglasses, a keen-eyed Towleroad reader has already spotted the original on a wire photo site. (Just kidding! Here's the real, unaltered image.) Still, we were impressed enough with the quality of this specimen to share it with our readers, to say nothing of its implied tenderness; the slash-Photoshop-fic artist could have easily gone the hardcore route, as did the author of that other tampered Idol image currently circulating the internets, of Melinda Doolittle as a latex-clad dominatrix disciplining a naked, ball-gagged Ryan Seacrest. (At least we think it was tampered.)

· These people and movies will be in the mix at Cannes this year: Martin Scorsese, The Golden Compass, the Coen Brothers, U2. Get excited for all the fun stuff your boss is gonna get to do in France! [Variety]
· Judd Apatow is getting into the David Krumholtz business in a big way, signing up the actor to write and star in Attorneys at Raw and to co-star in Jake Kasdan's musical biopic spoof Walk Hard. [THR]
· This year's Tribeca Film Festival premiere of Spiderman 3 is shaping up to be even bigger n' crasser than last year's M:i:III Tom Cruise city-crossing, multivehicle stuntacular, with simultaneous screenings in all five boroughs and a marching band angering residents of Peter Parker's Queens neighborhood. [Variety]
· An average of 25 million viewers tune in to watch the the hot one with the legs and the bald one with the funny hats outlast the rocker chick whose name we can never remember on American Idol. (It should go without saying that Sanjaya was nowhere near elimination.) [THR]
· Dealing with Pirates 3's dad-snorting PR crisis will be among Buena Vista's Head Flack in Charge Dennis Rice's last acts at Disney, as he's been brainwashed and stolen away by Tom Cruise to trick the world into believing that United Artists is a real movie studio, and not just an elaborate front for producing training films for Celebrity Centre e-meter repairmen. [Variety]

· Showtime is positively atwitter about heavily promoted costume drama The Tudors' 1.2 million premiere night viewers (over two showings), a number representing the network's biggest debut success since Fat Actress kicked off its tragically short-lived run of three years ago. [Variety]
· Adam Sandler, already over the "dressing like Bob Dylan and moping around" phase of his career, will star in a Disney comedy directed by former choreographer Adam Shankman, Bedtime Stories. [THR]
· Fox's Idol tries to lure timeslot rivals into a false sense of hope by pulling in a smaller-than-usual rating, though one still large enough to crush its competition by a comfortable margin. [Variety]
· The Tribeca Film Festival happily whores itself out to Sony by allowing the studio to premiere Spider-Man 3 at their event on April 30. To its credit, however, the organization did reject an earlier proposal to temporarily rename itself the "The Spider-Man 3 Film Festival of Tribeca" as "too crass." [THR]
· Paul Haggis' The Black Donnellys takes the next step towards "official" cancellation, as NBC has pulled the show from its airwaves effective immediately. [Variety]

You may have felt a sea change in the cultural consciousness recently, in the form of growing grassroots support for Sanjaya Malakar, the talent-deficient breakout star of an otherwise forgettable sixth season of the nation's opiate of choice, American Idol. In honor of His Awfulness, a round-up:
· BWE.tv declares Sanjaya the "single most important personality" to emerge from Idol, declaring him the ponyhawked King Arthur to finally pull Excalibur from the stone (in the form of sensory-raping performances America can't seem to get enough of) and slay the mighty Idol dragon that has terrorized the TV landscape for the past five years. [BWE]
· AOL TV counts down all the reasons they love Sanjaya, including the fact that he's been parodied to limited comedic effect by Andy Samberg in a pointless Weekend Update appearance on SNL. What other reason could you possibly need? [AOL]
· Join master of the mopey thespian arts Zach Braff as he intros a clip from his new movie The Ex (spoiler alert: He offends an Irish dude!), capping it off with the kind of endorsement for Malakar that Hillary would kill for. [apple.com/trailers]

On last night's edition of American Idol, pony-hawked karaoke incubus Sanjaya Malakar, did not, as we hoped he might, sprout enormous bat wings halfway through his pitch-raping rendition of "Bathwater," snatch a scandalized Gwen Stefani from the side of the stage, and ascend to the rafters, where he would hungrily gnaw at her flesh as hundreds of terrified audience members stampeded from the room, hoping to absorb some of her pop-star essence for his own nefarious use on subsequent performances.

· Whatever you do, don't go here if you don't want to know how Sanjaya is going to wear his hair on tonight's Idol.
· With her career not going so well that she felt comfortable spending a large sum of money on some orphans to bring back home, Jessica Simpson donates a van she didn't pay for to a Mexican orphanage instead.
· A Transformers screenwriter on why Megatron won't change into a gun: "That would be the equivalent of Darth Vader turning into his own lightsaber and someone else swinging him around." Good point!
· Tiny movie pirates infiltrate Jack Valenti's brain, induce stroke in sworn enemy.
· Watch out, Bindi! Behind you!

Tonight's guest coach on American Idol is Gwen Stefani, who, we anticipate, will come to rue the day she besmirched her resume by joining the same mentoring program that until now has been occupied by plastic-surgery-disaster musical relics like Kenny Rogers, Barry Manilow, and some guy from Herman's Hermits. Our stereo-hogging cousins over at Idolator, however, have found rumors on an American Idol fans' message board suggesting Stefani is already deeply regretting her involvement in the monolithic karoake contest, dreading the thought of one of her beloved No Doubt compositions finding its way onto "Sanjaya's Greatest Butchered Hits."

We've often suspected Ryan Seacrest didn't exist at all—that the ubiquitous, blockheaded munchkin and budding media mogul was actually just a series of perfectly rendered holograms, projected by a billion-years-old, crystal-based alien society, and sent to sedate the species in anticipation of their impending, hostile descent. Just something to think about. Another topic for discussion: Is he a Gay? Certainly, the evidence would seem to point that way. Reasonably priced celebrity news source InTouch Weekly finally puts the question to you, internet citizens, with a poll that offers zero room for hedging or compromise (i.e. you can't vote "I don't know" or "I think he likes the pole and the hole!").

American Idol's newest breakout star, tear-drenched 13-year-old superfan Ashley Ferl, has embarked on the first leg of her worldwide publicity tour, appearing on this morning's Today Show to chat with Meredith Vieira about fulfilling her dream of hugging feather-haired, music-destroying karaoke demon Sanjaya Malakar, a brief embrace that will nonetheless permanently arrest her emotional development. Her eyes spinning like pinwheels powered by the hellwinds rising from whatever chamber of Hades Malakar calls home in his Idol downtime, Ferl explained how she handles the blasphemies of those who would speak out against her warbling master, who was vindicated by last night's baptism into the Top Ten : "I just like, say they're wrong or just ignore them."

The LAT's crack American Idol Showtracker investigative team was backstage at last night's taping, which introduced Fox's latest breakout star to nearly 30 million television viewers: young Ashley Ferl, the girl so memorably paralyzed by the spasms of tears elicited by Idol's resident Destroyer of Popular Music Sanjaya Malakar's eardrum-perforating performance. Reports the Times on how the show's producers came to identify the undeniable talent in their midst:

If last week's Ford-sponsored bastardization of Modest Mouse's "Float On" delivered a point-blank gut-shot to popular music vulnerable belly, then Sanjaya Malakar's (whom we previously believed to be just a harmless, tone-deaf—yet alarmingly well-coiffed!—kid, but now realize is the earthbound emissary of some vengeful god sent to destroy us all) Tuesday night Idol performance of The Kinks' "You Really Got Me" stood astride its body as it lay bleeding in the gutter, rolled it over so that it could bite the curb, and then delivered the swift kick to the back of its head that finally ended its suffering. The strong of stomach can relive the harrowing ordeal through the clip presented above, in which an adorable little girl's salty tears stood in for those streaming down the collective cheeks of America on the night of music's grisly televised execution.

· Things had mostly remained civil between Angelina Jolie and the paparazzi during her ongoing orphan-gathering trip to Vietnam, but earlier today the frustrated actress commanded her bodyguard to fire a warning bird at the swarming photographers; luckily, new son Pax Thien was safely behind the curtain with the actress, where the impressionable youngster would be safe from any emotional scarring should the conflict escalate, forcing Mommy to order her protector to press some ham against the passenger-side window to drive away the rude shutterbugs. [Photo: Getty Images]
· Asthmatic Krelboyne wins potentially Pyrrhic victory over greedy manager!
· That Sanjaya kid sure has some funny hair, doesn't he? At least it's not Phil Spectoresque. Oh, we spoke too soon! Silly us.
· A concerned Page Six hopes against hope that airborne cocksman Ralph Fiennes had the presence of mind to use protection even while in the throes of Mile High passion.

• I was on American Idol (feat. Blake Lewis) [YouTube]

If you caught last night's American Idol elimination round, you may have experienced what could only be described as the kind of fever dream Paula Abdul has after taking one too many daytrips on the Percocet-Mezcal Express. What you were witnessing, however, was no opiate-induced hallucination, but something far more sinister: A Ford Motors-sponsored "music video", featuring the contestants—set adrift on a concept best described as "Let's dress you up as disco and old school hip-hop dancers! That'll be a fun kind of thing!"—performing "Float On" on the Fox backlot. It could have only been less deferential to the source material if producers has opted instead to have their budding superstars encircle Modest Mouse lead singer/songwriter Isaac Brock, beat him unconscious with a variety of blunt objects, then spin around to lower their bellbottoms and tracksuit pants and relieve themselves, Final 12-style, on his broken, bruised body.

A disappointingly coherent center American Idol judge Paula Abdul is offering us little to celebrate by way of memorable meltdowns this season. She did burst into tears last night, but who really cares about that if it isn't immediately followed by blacking out and some involuntary crowd surfing? At least we could still cling to one Idol truth (besides Ryan Seacrest being dwarfed by even the female contestants, regardless of whether or not he happens to be wearing heels), and that's that she and Simon Cowell hate each other's guts. Not so! says Abdul in a recent interview, calling Cowell "a really good friend" and likening him to an "antagonistic brother goofing on me." Alternately, she says she sees Randy Jackson as "kind of like the annoying guy who works in the cubicle next to you who says 'dawg' a lot? But like, no one really knows what he does? And he'll, like, eat the SnackWells in your top drawer when you expressly told him not to? Really, we're just co-workers. Maybe, like, once-in-a-blue-moon after-work-margarita friends, but nothing more."

On The View this morning, Outed-Stars-Of-American Idol's Rights crusader Rosie O'Donnell continued the campaign she began when she lambasted Kelly Ripa for her "homophobic" remarks about rumored fisting-enthusiast Clay Aiken's hands with her thoughts on the all-boy catfight heard round the world last night. (In case you missed it, Simon Cowell urged Ryan Seacrest to emerge from the closet, hinting that their recent mercy-mission might have been the lustiest safari tryst since Robert Redford wooed Meryl Streep in Out Of Africa.) The evidence that Seacrest might be batting for the West Hollywood Powerbottoms is rather compelling, particularly after viewing this Gawker montage of some of the finest pec-carressing moments of his career. Then again, there is evidence pointing to the contrary—particularly this clip of Seacrest modeling Scooby Doo Boxers, something no self-respecting Gay would ever be caught dead in.

Unlike fellow pretty-faced, effeminate American Idol top 12 finalist Sanjaya Malakar, Mario Vazquez legitimately seemed to belong there two seasons ago, and he shocked the world by pulling out just days before they were about to compete, citing "family reasons." Now, a scandalous lawsuit brought against the singer, FOX Entertainment, and Fremantle Media accuses Vazquez of having "sexually harrassed" the show's assistant accountant:

In what could point towards a slackening of the once-rigorous standards for recruitment into their Celebrity Goodwill Ambassadorship grooming programing, American Idol survivor and recent Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson was invited to address the U.N. yesterday. She wasn't there to tattle to the Committee on Human Rights Violations about Simon Cowell's Geneva Convention-violating treatment of fellow Idol contestants, however, but rather to represent ladies' face-painting giant Avon (she's their new spokesmodel!) on International Women's Day: