From as best as we can make out, Rodman loses it in the middle of a challenge (perhaps mounting a charity auction for Baron von Trump's wealthy nursery classmates?), towering over team-leader Black and bellowing, "Fuck this bullshit! You think you did fucking right, bro? Aw, fuck you, man. Fuck you!" as a small puddle gathers circumference beneath the country singer's feet. Rodman then stomps out of the room, a gesture of defiance sure to displease the toddler Trump at that evening's board room, who'll toss an apple juice drinkin' box at the recalcitrant contestant's head in disgust. [YouTube]

Welcome to the most depressing paragraph you're likely to read today:

♦ Is Kate Hudson trying to steal Alex Rodriguez away from Madonna? She was spotted with her "arms completely wrapped around" him at a party in Miami this weekend. But she might just be trying to steal Jason Statham away from his girlfriend, since the two were seen downing dirty martinis together. [NYDN, P6]
♦ A PETA activist pelted Lindsay Lohan with a bag of flour at an event in Paris on Saturday. Sam Ronson responded by dissing the activist on MySpace: "My dog is far more civilized than that person." [People]
♦ Kanye West was arrested in London on Friday after an altercation with a photographer. Now he's suggesting the entire episode was "bogus," and has upset some Brits by comparing himself to Princess Di. [People, The Sun]
♦ Sarah Palin may collect a $7 million advance if she writes a book. [MSNBC]

• Britney Spears is supposedly furious with her mother over her upcoming tell-all, which accuses the pop star's former manager of grinding up pills and sneaking them into her meals. She should be in a better mood, however, after she reads all the positive reviews from her appearance on the VMAs last night, where she kicked off the show and later won three awards. [P6, NYP]

Currently enmeshed in a terrible global conspiracy involving 17-year-old girls, U.S. District Judges, a shadowy cabal of vampires (and most likely the Stonemasons), Girls Gone Wild proprietor Joe Francis is on the hunt for a way to restore his good name — and there's no one more willing to help than Donald Trump. Already the crown prince of magnanimity thanks to his selfless (some might say tear-inducing) bail-out of the beleaguered Ed McMahon, Hollyscoop says that the billionaire and the porn purveyor are set to team up:

Yes, you read that headline correctly, and now you can experience the magic for yourselves. This comes to us via Videogum, and it appears (sniff) to be some sort of portal into (whimper, voice crack) Trump's brilliant, wealth-accumulating mind via your TV at 4 a.m. (sooooobbbbb). After the jump, an equally insane clip about Trump's love of red meat—a point he's driven home before on The Apprentice, if we're not mistaken, in a lyrical metaphor for sexual preference that compared enjoying gay sex to eating spaghetti.

· Sorry to ladle on the Kathy Griffin today, but did she just tell Jay Leno she wants to shoot the cast of The Hills dead? So, basically, if any John Hinckley-type admirers out there are looking for some spectacular gesture of devotion, you've just received your marching orders. [Tonight Show]
· Lede of the Day: "Ronnie Wood has walked out on his wife and four children to live with a teenage cocktail waitress he met in an escort bar." [Daily Mail]
· The real Jaws town of Amity had two beaches shut down after an unconfirmed Great White sighting. Then George Lucas appeared in a Speedo to ruin a beloved memory for everyone. [AP]
· Brett Ratner is bringing together the hottest Jewesses on Earth to pose in your 5769 Hebraic Hotties swimsuit calendar. [Page Six]
· Bleepers, start your engines: Joan Rivers will be competing in the second season of Celebrity Apprentice. [HuffPo]
· Hey: Unicorn-Aids! (Not what you're thinking, sickies.) [Perpetualkid.com]

So, the other day on Fox News, amidst a rant about Obama's support from the liberal Hollywood elite, the decidedly un-elite Stephen Baldwin told Laura Ingram that he'll leave the country if Barack gets elected. Obviously, the knee-jerk reaction here is to say, "Then we'd better do our best to make sure that happens." You can see it on Baldwin's face right after he makes his statement. He knows he's gonna get murdered in the blogsphere. But that's not happening here. Not today. I like Baldwin, and I'd be sad not to have him as a citizen of our country.

Trump: Barron, say hello to the group.
Barron: Haawdow!
Trump: And Barron hopefully some day will be a great entrepreneur. Melania, what do you think?
Melania: [Unintelligible] Vot vant do ven you grau up?
Barron: Beeednees.
[Laughter]
Melania: Beeezneesman. Zats riiiight. Like you daddee?
Trump: That is pretty amazing actually.
Barron: Daddee!
Melania: Daddee's a beezneesman. And vot doz daddee beeldeeng?
Barron: House.
Melani: Chauuuus.
Trump: He's doing well. Just 18 months old...
Carol: Wow.
Trump: ...and he's doing really well.

While most of America has shown only a passing interest in Semi-Celebrity Apprentice (an interest that continues to fade each week), we have found it to be one of the few great small-screen joys of this strike-ravaged season. Not because the challenges are particularly interesting, mind you; our interest lies mainly in observing this pack of Type-A C-Listers trade on their varying levels of "fame" and hubris like social currency (see: Stephen Baldwin in the clip above). Rarely are the challenges on Donald Trump's resurrected show about who has a better grasp on the four Ps; rather, it's more about watching these fame-hungry jackals tear down their competitors' self-worth while attempting to build theirs up. As close-to-brilliant as the show is in its current incarnation, we can only imagine how subversively stupendous it could be if Cris Abrego and Mark Cronin were steering the ship instead of Mark Burnett. [NBC.com]

· As we have detailed on these pages before, our hearts haven't really been with the Semi-Celebrity Apprentice since The Donald gave Gene Simmons the boot. However, because we are far too lazy to delete the Season Pass from our TiVos, we still find ourselves compelled to watch the show. Thank goodness, otherwise we would have missed the hilariously dated manner in which (spoiler alert!) Big Pussy found himself ejected from last week's show.
· Vulture presents their Top 10 list of inside jokes they'd like to see included in the potential Arrested Development movie.
· Hmmm. Robert Zemeckis' decision to insert Santa Claus into his adaptation of A Christmas Carol is makin' us thirsty. Even more than these pretzels.
· Slashfilm got not one, not two, not three but FOUR separate phone calls from Paramount lawyers today regarding the leakage of Crystal Skull pics.
· And finally, if you find yourself with a spare four minutes and twenty-four seconds, might we suggest spending it on Golden Fiddle? His tribute to the impossibly shiny-haired goddess Olivia Munn is, in a word, best.

· 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]

We're still having a hard time coming to grips with (spoiler alert!) the abrupt dismissal of Gene Simmons from NBC's Used-To-Be-Marginally-Famous Apprentice last week. While we concede that Gene got himself tossed because of his stubbon refusal to abide by the golden rule of new business pitches (that being, "the client is ALWAYS right"), we can't help but feel like the flaxen-haired Donald Trump made a grave mistake by ditching one of the few contestants on the show with any semblance of personality. From his shaky grasp of Greek mythology to his repeated attempts at fondling the long stemmed Ivanka Trump, Mean Gene provided this slumping nation of ours with at least 94 seconds of truly inspired reality television moments. Which, coincidentally, is the exact length of the moving video tribute that Intrepid Defamer Videographer™ Molly McAleer composed to honor the recently fired general of the KISS Army. Watch and enjoy, it's bound to be more fun than the now Simmons-less series.

On last night's episode of NBC's newest pulse-pounding series, Sorta-Celebrity Apprentice, Team Hydra and The Other Team found themselves suddenly plunged into the high stakes world of inkjet cartridge sales. Ask anyone who works at Staples, that shit is NO! JOKE! For real. Anyway, as we've learned through the course of the first three episodes, the real competition on this show has nothing to do with who wins a given challenge, it's all about which Not-Really-That-Famous-Anymore Celebrity has the most number of famous digits in their cellphone and is not afraid to use 'em. And last night, Stephen Baldwin raised the ante somethin' fierce by putting in a call to the most famous person that he knows. And no, it wasn't Billy Baldwin.

· Did you miss last night's premiere of Semi-celebrity Apprentice, Donald Trump and NBC's attempt to breathe new life into a moribund reality franchise by asking Gene Simmons, Big Pussy, a professional naked person, and a lesser Baldwin (there are other cast members, probably, but we can't think of them off the top of our head—oh, Omarosa's on it too!) to sell hot dogs? We did. But after watching this three-minute recap, we feel like we're all caught up and ready for next week's episode. (Spoilers ahead if you click the thumbnail to watch the vdieo.)
· Clearly, changing the title of Welcome to Valkenvania to Nothing But Trouble doomed the Chase/Aykroyd/Candy/Moore classic to failure.
· "I always wanted to be No. 1 at something, but I didn't think it would be something like this."
· Depending on the type of person you are, what you see at this site is either going to make or ruin your weekend.

Is the entertaining feud between delightfully unedited NBC perfect storm Ben Silverman and ABC's Steve McPherson spilling over into their networks' primetime schedules? ABC just moved the last new episode of Nielsen juggernaut Grey's Anatomy to January 10th, forcing NBC to shift the premiere of Celebrity Apprentice for the second time this week in apparent attempts to get the vulnerable show out of Grey's destructive path. There is no truth to the rumor that McPherson's scheduling move was announced to Silverman via the delivery of a muffin basket accompanied by a note reading, "Who's the little D-girl now, Big Ben?" [THR]

From the moment an all-celebrity version of Donald Trump's ongoing, competitive reality TV work-placement extravaganza The Apprentice was announced, the world eagerly awaited word on which A-list talent the Manhattan land baron would select to fill the seats in his Board Room of the Damned. After winnowing down a list of 125 celebrity applicants ("They were all begging to be on the show..."), 14 were chosen: