When Molly Shannon was four years old, she was in a terrible car accident in her home town of Shaker Heights that took the lives of her mother, her little sister, and her cousin. That left her dad James Shannon, who survived the crash with a crushed leg, to raise Molly and her older sister Mary. Stopping by The View today to chat about upcoming projects (she'll be starring in the U.S. version of Australian sitcom hit Kath and Kim), Shannon veered onto the subject of her dad.

Despite the dearth of new programming options on television these days, successfully launching a new show can still be quite the challenge. Fox's new show, Unhitched, is no exception. While it has a strong pedigree (EP'd by The Farrelly Brothers), there's still a lot of work to be done in getting viewers to pay attention to a show that has no stars (we crush on Rashida Jones, too, but her name doesn't exactly equate to appointment viewing). And although the show debuted strong when it aired this Sunday (Mediaweek reported a 4.5/7 in overnights, good for a 92% hold from its Family Guy lead-in), the suits at Fox are taking no chances in their promos for the show. Their latest work invokes not one, not two but THREE quotes from TV scribes who compared the show to Seinfeld. Subtle, it is not. As for its effectiveness, we'll just have to wait and see. Oh, and for what it's worth, we liked the pilot quite plenty. [Fox]

After hearing last week that Britney Spears decided to give Sean Preston and The Other One haircuts on a rare visit with them, we worried the next pap shots of the doomed little pair would involve razors, tears, and bald babies bearing umbrellas. Fortunately, our worst fears weren't realized; The Package managed to gift the two with perfectly acceptable 'dos. But the most recent gift from Momma isn't quite as sweet. According to PageSix.com, the boys are so "confused" when they see their mother these days, that SP is having nightmares regularly, and even needs to hop into bed with huggy bear (now perfectly cushion-sized!) Kevin Federline. What is Britney doing that's so frightening? Apparently she sings them lullabies. We'd hop into our parents' bed too, no matter how long the plane ride, if we heard Mommy singing us "I'm A Slave 4 U" while drifting off to Never-Never-Land. [PageSix.com]

'Tough' guy, musician and Paris Hilton's fake BF du jour Benji Madden has made a few additions to his entourage or, as he likes to call it, the Party Posse. The reasons are two-fold: one, to make him look him taller and two, to make him look even crazier. After all, would you mess with a man that rolls with short people dressed as if every day is St. Patrick's Day?

We never could have anticipated the groundswell of interest that would follow our noting of crank-calling recidivist Thelma Dennis, whose addiction to dialing 999 has thrown all of Britain under a state of fake-bomb-threat siege. While we took your many casting and title suggestions for the inevitable MOW into serious consideration, one in particular, courtesy of commenter Gwendolyn, was particularly inspired, sending us directly to the Defamer Side-By-Side-O-Tron 2000 to whip up the above illustration. Ladies and gentlemen: Brian Posehn IS Thelma Dennis. We thank everyone else for coming out to the audition. [brianposehn.com]

Forget Darfur, Iraq and figuring out that whole peace in the Middle East messiness; the UN is currently most concerned with figuring out why the kiddies love crackheads and drunks like Pete Doherty and Lindsay Lohan so damn much! According to the NY Daily News, a United Nations narcotics committee thinks that "Celebrities are often involved in illicit drug trafficking or in illicit drug use and this is glamorized." Oh the glamour of it all. After all, nothing makes us want to hit the pipe harder than seeing Pete Doherty smoke down with his kitten. And we've never wanted a drink so badly until we saw those positively French Vogue-worthy images of Lindsay double-fisting shots. We have a feeling you'll feel the "glamour" of it all racing through your soon-to-be-poisoned veins after taking a look at our gallery of the best moments in downright gorgeous coke-nosed, passed-out, nodding-off celebrity history:

Recently Nick D'Urso, manager of New Jersey's Satin Dolls gentleman's club, got a call from HBO asking him to hold off on his planned renovations. You see, Satin Dolls also doubles as the Bada Bing strip club from HBO's stunning, somber, and definitively over mob series The Sopranos. D'Urso swears that he heard legit info that a Sopranos movie could be in the works and HBO is making sure its top locations stay as much the same as possible. Soprano Sue, a crazed fan of the show who did some amateur location scouting for HBO, also says she heard about a movie from a crew member. And that pretty much sucks. If it does happen, it will completely negate the series finale's brilliantly confounding and expressive abrupt cut to black. Unless, you know, it's a prequel or something. Though that would probably involve unfortunate hairpieces and casting new kids and ick I think that would be much, much worse. HBO honors their omerta and says "No comment." Though they seem to like the show to movie idea. A lot. Give it a rest, everybody. [OhNoTheyDidn't] After the jump, that famous final scene.

It's now official: We are in the midst of another Golden Era of Idol. You can toss it all at us—the gay stripper-boogers, the teen Mormon prodigies, the butch nurse-rockers (with male fiancés—DVR replay does not lie!), the off-duty drag queens with moms that look like Divine—but without a completely incoherent, equilibrium-challenged Paula Abdul, it really amounts to a whole lot of nothing.

· Jason Reitman will direct Jim Carrey in Pierre Pierre for Fox Atomic, a "politically incorrect story centers on a self-indulgent French nihilist who transports a stolen painting from Paris to London." The challenging role will require Carrey to stretch as never before, with several scenes written to be spoken through the ass in fluent French. [Variety]
· Seth Rogen, meanwhile, is attached to Warner Bros.'s Observe and Report, about "a deluded, self-important head of mall security who squares off in a turf war against the local cops." We don't know why. We just think he can do this. [Variety]

Did the winter movie season—with its prestigious yet completely depressing crop of cattle-bolt murderers, paralyzed wink-authors, Alzheimer's sufferers, and the like—get you down? Fear not: As the NY Times reports, a massive crop of Hollywood comedies are coming down the pike. Didn't care for the potty-mouthed Russian Roulette humor of Semi-Pro? No matter, as every taste will be accounted for in The Great Comedy Rush of 2008: Apatowian sex farce, period screwball, and the wacky worlds of surrogate pregnancy and Mossad have all been covered. To predict how they fare, we might look to the past—in 1988, the Times notes, a recent writers strike and weakening domestic economy provided the backdrop to four comedies (Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Coming to America, Big, and Crocodile Dundee II) that dominated that summer's box office. But as it turns out, there's a far simpler method to determine how much your dumb comedy is going to rake in:

Another day, another beauty splits up with legendary duck-faced serial dater Zach Braff. Seems Shiri Appleby, like her predecessors Drew Barrymore, Mandy Moore and Kirsten Dunst, just wasn't up to Zach's inexplicably high standards. It's embarrassing to admit, but we've always embarrassingly found the Scrubs star kinda charming in a college boyfriend who makes you laugh kind of way, but then again, we're mere mortals. So why do actresses like Shiri and Drew fall head-over-heels for this guy? Still, Zach is hardly the only aesthetically-challenged male star notching hottie after hottie on their (rarely worn) belts. We select our picks for the top five improbably lucky swordsmen in Hollywood after the jump.

The perenially ratings challenged yet highly adored Friday Night Lights has been on life support ever since the WGA Strike shut production down on the show's second season. First, Peacock Emperor Ben Silverman gave the show the Diss Of Death ("Unfortunately, no one watches it. That's the thing with shows. People have to watch them.") in an interview with Radar. Then, the good people over at Bestweekever.tv launched a spirited internet campaign in an attempt to save the show, only to be shut down days later by the shortsighted suits at Viacom. But just when it appeared that the guillotine was ready to fall, Nikki Finke is reporting that the show is set to be picked up for a third season, thanks to a unique partnership formed between NBC and DirectTV.

Sure, everybody might view Reese Witherspoon as America's sweetheart, but deep down inside her lies Tracy Flick. A Tracy Flick who will come out and go off on any actress that threatens to take parts and awards away from her. Watch your back, Amy Adams. Oh, by the way, if Variety has been wondering who ripped down all those "For Your Consideration" posters, look no further.

The Color Purple is reportedly heading back to the screen, this time in the form of the Oprah Winfrey-produced Broadway musical currently starring American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino. "'That's going to happen and I'm going to do it,' the former Idol champ said, smiling broadly. 'They're going to work with me. They don't have to [but] that's a favor,' Fantasia said. 'Working with someone like Miss Oprah who's so talented and amazing - It's a blessing.'" Approached for comment, Miss Oprah explained, "All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my uncles. I had to fight my brothers. A girl child ain't safe in a family of men, but I ain't never thought I'd have the opportunity to bring this timeless musical adventure into theaters everywhere, Summer 2009! And don't forget to watch Oprah's Big Give, ABC Sundays at 9!" [moviesblog.mtv.com]

Last night was the Project Runway finale. Could you feel it? It was in the air! It was positively zeitgeisty! Even our bartender at Little Dom's was going on about it. (Well, actually, she had forgotten, but we reminded her. And then she was all, "Runway this," and "Christian that!") We scarfed down a pizza with speck and fresh arugula (delish!), and headed over to our friend's place on Elevado St. for the big show. Things only got better from there. There was champagne and guacamole, and a wall-mounted TV, and a whirlwind of last-minute Bryant Park preparations. Silly Jillian, you took a model variety-pack when you should have stuck to just one kind, like a dozen 5'10" Asians—how fierce would that have been? You're OK, but you're not, like, fierce. Your dad is kind of fierce, though. And there's Rami, who is deeply influenced by a Joan of Arc poster or something. Quit hissing, everyone, we can't hear what Rami is saying! Oh—he's saying Christian is young and has a lot to learn about the fashion business. [Fierce megaspoiler after the jump!]

One of the most difficult decisions facing today's television watching youth is whether or not to absolutely loathe or laughably love beach yogi Jeremy Piven. And that head-scratcher has been made that much more difficult this morning when confronted with news that the (already taken) actor allegedly asked two models for their numbers at the same party on Monday night in New York, only to discover later that the two Amazonians were besties. Gross, correct? But! He slightly redeems himself by providing Page Six with this stellar quote:

What does NBC's revolutionary, 52-week programming schedule mean for you, the couchbound summer viewer with no interest in interacting with your children or lowering your cholesterol? Lots of really long, really crappy reality TV! Marketed under the tagline "All-American Summer," many of your TV-wasteland favorites are returning in super-sized, 90-minute episodes (presumably because it was really hard to follow the action of America's Got Talent when it was confined to the hour-format).

Shocking (shocking!) news has surfaced that yet another flat-chested actress was deemed not voluptuous enough for her movie poster. The lusty marketing team behind Fool's Gold are not fools; they realized that Kate Hudson's no Lindsay Lohan in the breast department. To that end, The Daily Mail is reporting that Hudson's natural A-cups were boosted up to Bs in promotional pictures for the film, possibly in an effort to give Matthew McConaughey's pecs a run for their money. But Kate's not the only cleavage-challenged actress that's been digitally bazoomed on a poster. Anyone remember the titular tales behind Keira Knightley, Jessica Alba, Emma Watson and yes, even Lindsay Lohan's digital enhancements? We do!

· While not quite as awesome as when The Simpsons pulled the same trick, we think this reimagining of the Star Wars title sequence by way of Saul Bass hits most of the right notes. [YouTube via AOTS]
· As anyone who has seen Shaolin Soccer or Kung-Fu Hustle will attest, Stephen Chow is an undeniably talented and wholly unique presence in the world of cinema. Which is why we're gonna give CJ7 a shot, against our better judgement. [Detour]
· Tina Fey's Baby Mama is set to open the TriBeCa Film Festival in May. We've said it before but we'll say it again: we loves us some Tina Fey, but this movie looks stillborn. Stick to the small screen, toots. [The Reeler]
· Nothing can brighten a dull day like the sight of a Dexter bobblehead sitting on your desk! Only bad news? You're gonna have to wait until June to get your hands on one. [Entertainment Earth]

We apologize for being a little behind the curve on the story of Thelma Dennis, the 50-year-old woman who tormented British police and emergency workers for 24 years by obsessively phoning in fake bomb threats to 999, the U.K.'s version of 911. Apparently, not even a court-mandated electrode therapy, "which left her screaming in pain every time she dialed the third '9' of 999" seemed to break the crank-calling cycle. We'll leave you now to gaze into her mischief-making eyes as you assess such imponderables as, "What about a court-appointed taking of her phone away?" And if you're still looking for the Defamer angle to all this, well, we think there's a TNT Original in here somewhere. No need to thank us—an Associate Producer credit will do. [news.bbc.co.uk]