Yet another foreign television show is being imported from a far-flung country to be smoothed over and spoiled for American audiences. Though it's not an obscure Israeli show like In Treatment, which was dulled-down for HBO. And it's not a cultish oddity like Australia's Kath & Kim, nabbed by NBC with apparent diminshed returns. No this is one of those big old British shows that actually aired on American television during its run: Absolutely Fabulous. Mm hmm. Ab Fab. For American TV. Set in Los Angeles:

As if the borders distinguishing the fictional sex-junkie David Duchovny plays on Californication from the background-player-deflowering poon-addict he plays in real life weren't hazy enough, along comes another wrinkle to further confuse the issue—and this one involves us! On last week's Californication, Duchovny's character Hank is in jail for assaulting a police officer, where he's visited by ex-girlfriend Karen and their teenage daughter, Becca. At one point, Becca holds out an iPhone bearing his mugshot and says, "Check it out: You're on Defamer." Hank responds that he thinks it's "a pretty good picture," and we'd agree—though not nearly as good some others we've run. If your brain hasn't yet collapsed like a deflated beach ball from all the meta-ness, just wait until Tea Leoni stops by HQ to guest edit for a week.

· None other than Museum of Hollywood Jerks inductee Brian Grazer stopped by The Simpsons again last night. We can hardly wait for his take on Everyone Poops. We smell Oscar! · Sean Penn was so jazzed about getting in James Franco's pants, he just had to text his ex-wife about it. · It's your 2008 O.J. Simpson Conviction Keepsake Mugshot. · Ah, that's better: Recession Blocker allows you to read your favorite online news sources free of all those downer-inducing economic-apocalypse buzzwords. · Unfortunately, it does little to repel vampire hamsters and their similarly lethal friends.

Hot off the pages of Britney.com, we bring you these stills from the set of "Womanizer"—a new single that announces with a man-hating electrothump that the Queen of Pop is back, and for real this time, dammit. So productive has the New, VMA-Festooned Britney become, she plays three separate vixens in this production. In the accompanying photo, Britney is a PVC-bustier-rocking hotel cocktail waitress delivering a snifter of Courvoisier with a snarl, presumably to whichever Timbaland protege produced this song. More stills after the jump!

We're not sure whether Julia Louis-Dreyfus is angling for a "guest actress on a talk show" Emmy that doesn't exist, but she's certainly put in game performances over the past week, whether she's enlisting in the Letterman/McCain War or stealing from Tina Fey on the advice of a mischievous Conan O'Brien. Louis-Dreyfus's latest target was The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and she smoothly changed promotional gears to talk about the newest storyline on her sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine, which finds her character entering into a gay marriage with Wanda Sykes to help the latter stay in the country (even though immigration is a federal issue that California's same-sex marriage laws can't circumvent). Naturally, Ellen had a few Prop 8-related words to say on the subject — though, Ellen? Money talks, too. [The Ellen DeGeneres Show]

Bad television is still recognized as "intellectual property" no matter how stupid it is, as ABC has discovered in recent months with its hit Wipeout. After some vocal complaints from a producer who claimed the network not only ripped off his "inbreds on an obstacle course" idea but conspired with YouTube to pull evidence from the site, the Japanese network that launched the original show officially filed suit today against ABC to reclaim its fragile sense of propriety over irredeemably dumb shit — not to mention unspecified monetary damages:

To paraphrase an old Mel Brooks joke, the people are revolting. ("You said it. They stink on ice.") Their cause, of course, is the unjust and untimely departure of our beloved Molly McAleer, the first and only Defamer-minted microcelebrity. Without Molls...there's just so many ways that sentence could end. Without Molls, we'd never have bodacious Kanye West airport kerfuffle/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle mashups. Or Harvey Levin sippy-cup hip hop sonnets. We wouldn't have a medley of D-list gays spelling their names on the red carpet.* And we wouldn't have the Mark Lisanti goodbye video, which never, ever fails to make us cry. Oh god—here come the waterworks again! We love you, Molls!!! *That was the one when we first realized this girl's a prodigy. Some stuff to do after the jump, if you can emerge from your comforter igloo:· Charlie Horse EP Launch Party at Hotel Cafe · Liz Phair at the Troubadour · Naomi Wolfe at the Los Angeles Central Library

Fearless Predictions, with Oliver Stone: Cindy Adams has been there from the beginning with W., with her ambitious rewrite earlier this summer recently giving way to a late bit of story consulting with director Oliver Stone. Trouble persists at the 11th hour, however, as Stone's satiric dystopia hardly conforms to Adams's more optimistic vision at all: "There's no malice in the movie. It's just that it becomes obvious Bush's legacy has been trashed. The family name doesn't mean anything anymore. Like, for instance, Jeb Bush will never be president." And what will the president think of the film? "He'll say it's horseshit." Wait until he sees how our crystal ball plays it out. [NYP]

While much has been made of Tina Fey's return to SNL this season—starring as Sarah Palin in a series of pitch-perfect cold-opens that could well be the only things preventing a frayed America from tumbling off a flat Earth's edge—this week's episode also brought two other hilarious and viral-worthy sketches we thought we'd share. The first involves a Lawrence Welk Show-era sister act with a dark, attic-bound secret, played by Kristen Wiig. The second features Andy Samberg as Max Payne star Mark Wahlberg, in conversation with a variety of farm animals. Look—us explaining it is just delaying the funny. They're both after the jump.

Click to viewBoomp3.com Before heading off to a delicious brunch with a friend, Elizabethtown star Orlando Bloom tried to recall the events of the prior night and how he ended up with a sun tattoo on his belly. Bloom’s night started with a simple game of backgammon before heading off to Ye Olde Kings Head for a quick pint with a friend, and then Bloom’s memories become hazy at best. Bloom recalls eating slices of pizza that were as long as his arm and bacon wrapped street dogs, but it could’ve been something from a script he recently read. Bloom does recall waking up in the morning sprawled out on a sofa with a piece of Saran Wrap on his stomach. After much thought, Bloom decided to keep the sweet piece of ink since it will fit in within his overall tough guy make over. [Photo Credit: X17] *A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

After his golden-throated turn as Sperm Donor #2 in the hit Mamma Mia!, Pierce Brosnan had all the leverage he needed to push one passion project of his own through a Hollywood machine that had all but given up on him. Finally, life after Bond — real life, not his DOA indie Married Life — shone on the horizon in its unmistakeable, honey-tinged haze. And looking into that haze, we see a figure emerging in the distant hills — a hulking shadow of mysterious provenance, that rarest of phenomena we'd only heard rumored about before today and which Brosnan is determined to redeem. Behold Vanilla Gorilla, which one wag is pegging as the Beverly Hills Chihuahua of 2009, but about which the IMDB summary has us feeling slightly less optimistic:

Back when David Spade was dating Heather Locklear, Hollywood tongues wagged endlessly, wondering, "How does he do it?" Eventually, people realized that Spade is one of the great Casanovas of our time, able to woo some of the industry's biggest beauties by simply following the maxim, "Be normal and kind of have your shit together." Unfortunately, Locklear currently has her shit somewhat scattered, as she's dealing with a DUI called in by an ex-Us Weekly staffer who has a special relationship with Locklear rival Denise Richards. With so much going on in the life of his ex, how did the sensitive Spade check in?

In Johnny Depp, Disney found an unlikely Mickey messiah. His once-dicey-seeming turn as a scenery-chewing eyeliner junkie was a risk worth taking, it turned out, and it wasn't long before Pirates of the Caribbean's staggering grosses had execs' eyeballs rolling back into their heads, replaced by spinning gold bullion. Resisting the urge to stuff their single biggest revenue generator into a chest and throw away the key until Depp had completed filming on Pirates 4 through 18, the company instead lay out a buffet of properties and encouraged the actor to help himself—and he did, committing to parts like the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland; The Lone Ranger's sidekick Tonto; and, in his biggest stretch to date, the titular transportation device of Jerry Bruckheimer's thrilling Monorail: The Motion Picture. Still, we haven't yet seen the last of Captain Jack Sparrow, a role Depp is reportedly revisiting for a $56 million paycheck. From the Daily Mail:

And he's out! After a long, arduous stay in sex rehab, David Duchovny and his wife, Tea Leoni, were snapped at the Czech Street Festival in New York City this weekend. Roger Friedman will be pleased by his choice of coasts, though the actor will certainly have to return to Los Angeles at some point to shoot the soon-to-be-awkward third season of Californication. Tea, might we recommend the newest in fully-transparent glass Star Waggons? [ONTD]

Tyler Perry's crisp white tuxedo was a bold choice of attire at the opening of his new studio Saturday night, when the mogul was dodging the worst of his fired former writers' union-busting accusations reported here last week. The WGA came through with its picket line on behalf of Kellie Griffin, Christopher Moore, Teri Brown-Jackson, and Lamont Ferrell — the House Of Payne Four whom Perry allegedly let go for their attempts to unionize the show's writing staff. One reported list of attendees had Will Smith, Oprah Winfrey, Sidney Poitier and several illustrious others crossing the picket line Saturday night, while the WGA sent word late Saturday that a second protest was planned for another, smaller event at Perry's Atlanta mansion on Sunday morning. So what does it all mean besides Oprah scabbing her way to free drinks and having a drunken Madea-Off with Poitier and Ruby Dee?Nikki Finke evidently thinks this will have some bearing on the presidential race; more usefully, she also passed along an open letter from a small army of showrunners including Tina Fey, Mad Men creator Matt Weiner and TV legend Larry Gelbart:

For all too long, Sherri Shepherd has stayed relatively quiet on The View, keeping a low profile (except for the occasional blow-up at Bill Maher) and generally avoiding the sort of "flat earth" gaffes that would draw the pity spotlight away from her cohost Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Today, though, in the midst of another Hasselbeck political rant about Barack Obama's association with William Ayers, a surprisingly prepared Shepherd jumped in to rebut the show's token conservative with a "Wait, wait, wait — no you don't!"Following her interruption with a laundry list of facts, dates, and counterpoints, Shepherd was eventually cut off by Barbara Walters, who was not ready for the cohost to do anything but smile beatifically and occasionally chirp, "Ludacris!" Is our little Sherri all grown up and ready for war? Watch out, Elisabeth: Sherri Shepherd's got a whole fleet of angel-babies at her command — and they're hungry!

Click to viewBoomp3.com At the premiere of Body Of Lies, Russell Crowe was shocked to hear that one of the reporters on the red carpet was not a fan of cheese. The rough and tumble Aussie actor couldn’t believe that the reporter did not enjoy one of the finest things in life. Crowe said, “Perhaps, this woman has been given the wrong cheese and maybe I’m the person to teach her about the ways of proper cheese consumption. I love CHEESE! Give me a nice slice of Havarti and a beautiful Bordeaux and I’m as tame as a baby kitten.” [Photo Credit: WENN] *A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

His Coke Rewards. Former Roseanne Barr-satisfier Tom Arnold is grappling with an addiction to Diet Coke and Nicorette: "I've had 30 Diet Cokes in 12 hours on set and then I'll eat a whole cake. After I quit cigars, I got addicted to Nicorette. I've been on a cleanse...The first three days I was hallucinating. It was way worse than rehab for drugs. In rehab they give you a little something to take." It might sound like an innocuous enough addiction, but the truth is Diet Coke really is the devil's fizzy, 1-calorie candy. We'll never forget a story from The Black Table about DC addiction with one of the most chills-inducing ledes we've ever read: "Iva-Marie Palmer quite literally wakes up with a Diet Coke, downing her first one of the day while still in the shower." [Daily Star]

What's to be done when you've exhausted every conceivable scenario in which to place your series's quartet of homoerotically bonded ne'er-do-wells? In Entourage's case, it means sending them to the desert with Eric "Abs of Steel" Roberts and a bag of magic mushrooms for a mind-expanding journey towards should-Vince-or-shouldn't-Vince-do-a-Benji-movie enlightenment.The result is something akin to what might happen if the CAA Death Star were to hover off from its Century City docking bay and touch down gently in the middle of the Burning Man festival. In the clip above, Ari loses the group, and in the process, all control of his perverse, stranglehold-reliant existence. Is it any wonder that as he panics among the boulders, he turns to his own rock—fiercely loyal gaysian henchman Lloyd—for guidance? With a sixth season announced today, we look forward to future episodes in which the lovable foursome pull off their socks and inject some of Roberts's premium brown sugar between their toes in a heroin-fueled attempt at divining whether or not Vinnie should take on the lead in Eight Below 2. [Entourage]

So that does it. There will be no white Bronco to whisk O.J. Simpson homeward, no Cochranesque rhymes to grease a trail out the courtroom door. The Juice is cold and freshly squeezed, convicted late Friday on a dozen charges including armed robbery, assault and kidnapping with a deadly weapon. All told, Simpson faces life in prison for his role in the forcible theft of sports collectibles from a Las Vegas hotel room in Sept. 2007 (he's likelier to get seven to 10 years when sentenced Dec. 5), and while Simpson Murder Trial alums ranging from Fred Goldman to Marcia Clark are all but popping champagne corks at word of his date with the slammer, the all-white jury that convicted him insisted over the weekend that justice is blind — if not necessarily deaf.Convened for the first time since their landmark decision Friday, several of the jurors cited a parade of unreliable prosecution witnesses with convictions of their own and a weakness for checking their Keno tickets during testimony. The more important evidence was a collection of taped conversations that occurred between Simpson and pals "before, during and after the heist." Least incriminating, they swore, was Simpson's 1995 acquittal on charges of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman: