During a rare interview in which chameleonic prankster Sacha Baron Cohen answered questions without retreating into one of his ego-protecting characters (apparently, the marketing team for Sweeney Todd felt that conducting junket appearances as singing, enormously beschlonged barber Adolfo Pirelli wasn't the way to go for their film), Cohen confirmed that he has no choice but to kill off both Ali G and Borat, the alter-egos he used to torment scores of clueless politicians, intolerant frat boys and litigious driving instructors. Laments Cohen about the old friends he now must sacrifice upon the altar of success:

Our rough calculations bring us to Day 17 of Kiefer Sutherland's 48-day stint in the Glendale pokey—perhaps the writers strike can lend us their ring girl— and while we've already established that this would be a bleak Christmas (and birthday) for Kief, bereft of cupcakes, hearty Tannenbaum tacklings, and single malt holiday cheer, we barely knew the extent of it:

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]

Though Claus, after enjoying a goodbye buggering of Rudolph (played with lusty relish by real-life sexual partner Demi Moore), briefly must suffer the indignity of taking an internship within Katalyst, the jolly icon does eventually get his obligatory happy ending. This is, after all, a Christmas greeting; watching a down-on-his-luck Santa succumb to a more realistic Hollywood fate—a crack addiction, a stint on Santa Monica Boulevard turning tricks in Mrs. Claus's clothes— would be far too depressing a prospect as we all head off to our holiday vacations. Enjoy.

· This one from Ellen doesn't need any dressing up: Richard Simmons dances, falls down. All in a mere twelve seconds!
· Tom Cruise has trained his older kids to call "Kate" "Mom."
·This is what happens when you let it slip on Craiglist that your year-end bonus was over $700K.
·Nothing says Christmas like the Alien and Predator on a promotional tree ornament.

With Conan, Jay, Jimmy, and the rest of the late night gang announcing they're reluctantly headed to back to work without their striking writers, it seemed inevitable that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert wouldn't be far behind. They've released this joint statement on their January 7th return: "We would like to return to work with our writers. If we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence, but without our writers we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence." A more disappointed than ambivalent WGA has already issued a reminder that writerless versions of the shows aren't going to fill the Colbert and Stewart-shaped holes in our lives: "Comedy Central forcing Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert back on the air will not give the viewers the quality shows they've come to expect. The only way to get the writing staffs back on the job is for the AMPTP companies to come back to the table prepared to negotiate a fair deal with the Writers Guild." [AP, WGA.org]

Thanks to Michael Jackson's new look, we got an answer to the question, "What would happen if a Jackie O. zombie and the hook-handed fisherman from I Know What You Did Last Summer had a secret love child who enjoyed smearing his face in honey and Corn Chex?" Now comes the answer to an even more confounding query: Why?

In the latest of our ongoing attempts to keep you updated on the progress of Paris Hilton's career in the post-incarceration era, we pass along the one-sheet for The Hottie and the Nottie, the fledging actress's much-anticipated follow-up to modestly budgeted triumphs Pledge This! and Bottoms Up. Even after a long glance at the seemingly self-explanatory poster, we were still left with some questions about the movie's plot, which a trip to IMDB's user-generated synopsis page partly answered: "Frodo Baggins meets The Flintstones style comedy." You know what? Good enough for us. [WildAboutMovies]

We still haven't fully recovered from the emotional devastation of watching helplessly as the kids' primetime community failed, but this video, alleging to show scenes of a Nation reunion, does makes us feel a bit better; even though we're well aware that there were no survivors after the network detonated a small atomic bomb in the town square in an effort to erase their God-playing mistakes, we're nonetheless touched that CBS bothered to pre-shoot such a happy epilogue to the tragic series in case things didn't go as planned, allowing us to pretend—however briefly—that the Great Candy Riot of 2007 never happened.

Larry Birkhead and Britney Spears? It's not as crazy as it sounds: Says an insider to In Touch, "Larry has a thing for vulnerable blondes - and no one seems more vulnerable than Britney these days." Of course, his lower back will always belong to Anna Nicole, but we're thinking those two might not be the worst coupling we've ever heard of—the Sean Preston/other one/Dannielynn/Casey Jr. playdates alone make it something worth exploring. [In Touch]

· Music round-up: Lilys and Mezzanine Owls at Spaceland; Ozomatli at House of Blues; The Monthlies at the Knitting Factory.
· There is no better time than the holidays for some burlesque fun (twirling candy cane pasties!), so the Hollywood Pin-Up Girls are putting on a Christmas-flavored version of their Super Sexy Show at El Cid.
· The Red Cat hosts the Charles Phoenix Holiday Jubilee, complete with a slide show, marionettes, ballerina dancing, live organ music, and a "wild Christmas bondage party."

Has Sundance "gone Hollywood"? Of course it has! But for those clinging to the belief that Park City is anything other than a weeklong gifting suite that screens independent films to kill time in between agency parties, and who are looking for a fresh excuse to get outraged about the festival's commercialism, have a look at their shiny new online store—where people can—gasp!—buy things bearing the Sundance brand: "'They can't really claim to be 'art house' if they're basically operating a Disney Store online,' said one top film critic who asked to remain anonymous, fearing reprisals.'" [Page Six]

In all fairness, when the ladies of The View rendered their initial opinions on The Jamie Lynn Spears Knocking-Up Controversy yesterday, they'd had precious little time to sort through their thoughts on a very complicated and polarizing situation; under the circumstances, who can blame Sherri Shepherd for indulging her gut reaction by brandishing a steak knife and declaring that she'd like to "cut the evil bastard-making stick off the virginity-stealing heathen" that unexpectedly put Jamie Lynn in a family way?

The Independent Commission into Possible Police Censorship of Certain Jew-Baiting, Sugartit-Disparaging Comments Spoken by the King of Malibu Upon His Cazardores-Fueled DWI Arrest has reached its findings, concluding there was no cover-up in the omission of Mel Gibson's now-legendary statements from the initial L.A. County Sheriff's report. Their reasoning: "Because of a concern about certain information gathered during the arrest falling prematurely into the hands of media sources and because there was no clear Departmental guidance provided on how to handle this scenario presented, supervisors made spontaneous decisions with regard to how to package the information and describe the arrest." [TMZ]

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are posted several times a week, so send them in often! Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line so we don't lose them) and tell everyone about the time you saw Edward Norton looking so motherfucking gangsta at a RZA concert.

Carson Daly's Last Call is hiring! (At least for an assistant to the Executive Producer.) The ideal candidate will, naturally, need to have all the essential coffee-procuring and errand-running experience necessary to function in any fast-paced TV production environment, but also "must be willing to take drug test and submit to a background investigation." (Hey, NBC boss Ben Silverman passed his, so that shouldn't be much of an obstacle for a qualified applicant.) Also, potential hires should possess the ability to think on their feet, not needing an explicit command from the EP before they're willing to taser any striking Writers Guild members who've infiltrated the studio audience for a renewed attack on the frazzled, vulnerable host. [Monster.com]

Faced with perhaps their trickiest PR dilemma since it was discovered that Jimmy Neutron's true boy genius was for producing some of the most potent meth in the western United States, Nickelodeon now has a star of Zoey 101 on their hands who was apparently absent for the lecture on how to not to be impregnated by your older boyfriend. To their credit, the network has opted not to put Zoey in a variety of ever-expanding smock-tops and pretend the pregnancy never happened, perhaps addressing her dramatic weight gain with a PSA on the dangers of Oreo addiction. Instead, they have a teen pregnancy special in the works, hosted by touchy-subject expert Linda Ellerbee:

· Studios are reviving Hollywood's love affair with the Super Bowl's TV audience, with at least eight movie commercials scheduled to air during the game—at a record price of $2.7-3 million per 30 seconds. Cinematic product you'll be sold in between supposedly clever ads for watery domestic beer: Iron Man, Will Smith's Hancock, and Will Ferrell's Semi Pro. [Variety]
· The Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp forecasts that the writers strike will cost the local economy $220 million each month it drags on, and has already caused $342 million in "lost wages and ripple effects" on related businesses. Now we all have a staggering dollar amount to attach to our free-floating strike dread. [THR]

Today's NY Post offers Hollywood a story sure to finally distract bored agents and studio executives from their fifteen active Scrabulous games and ongoing zombie/werewolf melees: according to the paper, wiretaps from an investigation into in illegal gambling ring reveal that Paramount VP of production Pam Abdy had "a personal dating relationship" with the alleged Jersey mobster recently charged with helping to run the operation. (Fortunately, the Post already burned the joke about Abdy's involvement in upcoming Reese Witherspoon project Gangsta Bitches, saving us from having to draw from that particular well.) During their surreptitiously recorded phone conversations, the topic of whether toiling in Hollywood or in the Mafia is a more life-endangering line of work inevitably came up:

Despite the flaccid-sounding acronym, there's nothing namby-pamby about the SAG awards—the greatest honor Hollywood's thespians can bestow upon each other (besides, of course, the Oscars, the Backstage Westies, and the Craigslist Jobs: TV/Film/Video Awards). Jeanne Tripplehorn and Terrence Howard announced this year's nominees early this morning to an enraptured crowd of before-hours cleaning crew and building security at the Pacific Design Center: