Already plagued by questions about which honorees might be willing to cross the WGA picket line to collect their gilded tokens of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's inscrutable esteem, the producers of the Golden Globes learned late yesterday that the Guild had turned down a waiver request to allow WGA writers to toil on their show, a move that will force their telecast to rely on the booze-fueled improvisations of its presenters to an even greater degree than usual. (This year, on-air talent will be compelled to drain half a bottle of cheap tequila—purely a voluntary option at past ceremonies—before they're allowed to exit the green room and take their wobbly place behind the podium. A vomit receptacle will be made available for those whose dangerously low body weights hamper their ability to hold down quickly imbibed quantities of alcohol.)

· While lesser, fake-model-agency-running crazy people would probably allow the last-second pullout of an A-list cover model like Carlos "Mind Of" Mencia ruin their shoot, the plucky Janice Dickinson has no problem "whoring herself out" if that's what it takes to save the day.
· This pretty much made this inevitable.
· And this has made us officially excited for this. Even the Heath Ledger parts.
· A slow-healing nose job breaks thousands of teen hearts.

The AMPTP, while still officially suspicious of the newfangled, profit-deficient internets that have cleaved their precious Hollywood in twain, continues to take bold leaps forward in adapting its once embarrassingly outdated web presence into a tool that will better serve their information-disseminating needs. The studio collective-bargaining group has now not only modestly overhauled the site's entire design (even their much-derided logo has received a minor touch-up), but added the twin extravagances of a second Doomsday Ticker™— this one showing what the strike is costing union crew members—and an intermittently ungrammatical "The Average WGA Writer Makes More Than These Highly Paid Smiling White Guys Box."

In news sure to rock the voiceover world, the Eat the Press blog's audio forensics lab has revealed that the new, disembodied voice of NBC Nightly News is...[SFX: drumroll] Michael Douglas. (In fairness, we should note that some false positives—like Richard Dreyfuss and Alan Alda—preceded the final announcement.) We're not sure which NBC official is responsible for this coup, but we wouldn't be surprised if co-chairman/designated big-idea-haver Ben Silverman called up boss Jeff Zucker and demanded that he patch this latest hole in the their leaky network with the finest celebrity spackle available. [Eat the Press]

Autograph magazine, which actually exists, has just released their annual ranking of the best and worst in celebrity acquiesence to demands to scribble on a napkin outside of a Starbucks bathroom. Topping the list is Johnny Depp, whom, should he ever win the Best Actor Oscar, will have both the most and least prestigious accolades this industry has to offer under his belt:

On today's The View, Sherri Shepherd took a break from expatiating upon the true meaning of blinkered Christian zealotry to instead share her pointed observations about Christmas parties. In the above clip, the gals gab about the show's Christmas bash. After Whoopi—who, by the way, has recently taken on the on the vocal intonation, resonance, and appearance of a Depression-era jazz guitarist—shares that she had to leave early to get up for her "other gig" (a one-nighter at the Cotton Club?), Sherri leaps at the opportunity to make sounds come out her mouth as she giddily recounts lettin' her freak go.

· Music round-up: Great Northern at the Viper Room; Butch Walker at the Hotel Café; The Blind Boys of Alabama do a Christmas Show at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
· Comedian Brently Heilbron risks driving himself irreversibly insane by performing all 22 chapters of batshit R. Kelly opus Trapped in the Closet at M Bar. (A band and full complement of actors will be on hand to help shoulder some of the psychological load.) Elsewhere, Zach Galifianakis is rumored to be dropping in on the free stand-up and music show at Tiger Lily on Vermont.
· Cast members from Disney's High School Musical On Tour put on "The Afterschool Special" at the Knitting Factory, a benefit for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

For those whose Michael Jackson nightmares feel a little out of date (really, there's nothing less satisfying than bolting upright in bed after an imagined encounter with last year's bogeyman),
TMZ has a photo that should provide your subconscious with all the material it needs to keep the night-terrors fresh. It seems that Jackson has added some bandages to his now-signature "noseless, alabaster ghoul" look, perhaps an attempt to cover up the shameful, freakishly normal face he recently spied on the cover of Ebony. (We've mercifully pixelated the thumbnail here so as not to disturb those disinclined to follow the link to the photo.) [TMZ]

Following this morning's announcement that both The Tonight Show and Late Night are returning to the air without their scribes, expect taser-wielding NBC pages to be put on high-alert and given instructions to fire at will the moment an audience member begins to heckle Jay Leno for not being funny enough, a tragically indiscriminate policy that likely will claim as many bored tourists as Guild vigilantes.

It's the story no one saw coming: Pamela Anderson's marriage to Rick Salomon may have actually lasted for two whole months. The mésalliance between the erstwhile amateur pornographer and the erstwhile amateur pornographer with a career is (maybe) over. The couple came together trailing a combined four failed attempts at matrimony in October, and will be walking away with three each...unless they don't! Reports CelebTV.com:

After suggesting that Donald Trump might be more famous for his reality TV endeavors than for the untold billions he's made in real estate (not to mention his premium-meats-derived riches) , LAT business columnist David Lazarus feels The Donald's epistulary wrath, an honor usually reserved for his higher-profile enemies: "I am worth many billions of dollars, am building large scale developments all over the world, am considered by many to be, by far, the hottest name in real estate, and I have to read an article by a third-rate reporter in your newspaper that my "primary claim to fame" is hosting The Apprentice. Unlike many other people that make their money giving seminars, I made my money in real estate and, as your reporter should have known, I never filed for bankruptcy. [...] P.S. The picture, however, was great!" [LAT, LAT]

· Bad news for those who were aching with anticipation over Tom Cruise's turn as the cutest little would-be Hitler-killer in all the German army: United Artists and MGM are pushing Valkyrie's release date back from the Fourth of July holiday weekend until October. The official reason cited for the move is the need to find a new location for a pivotal, still-unshot battle scene, not a desire for the skittish studio to get the film as far away from summer blockbuster competition as possible. [Variety]
· Live Free or Die Hard, National Treasure: Book of Secrets and Evan Almighty keep their miniscule Oscar hopes alive by making the shortlist for the Academy's visual effects award. [THR]

A prosecutor who has not been to the movies in 28 years is lashing out at the film he thinks inspired two prison escapees to cover holes in their cell walls with posters of sexy women: Escape from Alcatraz. "This isn't fiction; this is real life. It is dangerous for other people, and I don't find it entertaining," vents County Prosecutor Theodore Romankow. The two inmates, one of whom was born 8 years after the Fred Ward-starrer hit theaters, went over the wall of the Union County on Saturday evening, escaping with just the clothes on their back and the entirety of IMDB's #2 rated film in their head. Damn you, Clint Eastwood. [CBS News]

The newly sober (keep hitting "refresh" for updates) former actress Lindsay Lohan is in collusion with the paps, alleges the NY Daily News' Gatecrasher column. Pics of the starlet (should that word be amended to simply "let"?) en route to a recording studio are being flogged to the tabs for 30 Gs. The problem? The one other than Lindsay Lohan being back in a recording studio? It's a set-up:

It's looking like our long national nightmare of a rerun-plagued late-night network schedule is finally coming to an end, even as the WGA strike stretches on into the new year; over the weekend, the NY Times reported that David Letterman's Worldwide Pants, the independent producer of The Late Show and The Late Late Show, was trying to reach its own CBS-circumventing deal with the Guild to get back on the air with its writing staff; this morning, NBC has announced that both Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno are headed back to work on January 2nd without writers, a move that O'Brien explains was necessary to keep his bosses from pulling the trigger on the gun pointed at his staff's collective temple. Reports Variety:

More bad Dallas-remake news: they're still going to remake Dallas. Also, John Travolta is no longer in it. I guess that's more like bad news and irrelevant news. (Yes, that last line was lifted directly from the British Office, so look for this site to win a Pulitzer soon.) Page Six is reporting that the in-his-umpteenth-career-renaissance actor is heading into his umpteenth-plus-one career turnaround with the news that he's been dropped from the coveted role of J.R. Ewing, with Ben Stiller opting to take the bullet instead. Reps for both both actors quickly went into denial mode, refuting that Travolta was fired and that Stiller has any attachment to the doomed project:

Apologies for our slower-than-usual start; we've been dealing with a technical issue that makes an already half-lucid Monday morning all the more fun. (A tip we read on Lifehacker but nonetheless ignored: Repeatedly screaming "Fuck you, devil box!" at your computer is generally an ineffective troubleshooting technique.)

We knew that Hollywood wouldn't allow itself to limp out of 2007 on the back of a crippled, armored polar bear—celebrate the studios' late-year resurrection with a quick perusal of the weekend's box office numbers:

· Golden Globes can't make up their minds, and neither, it seems, can the nominees. Catching up with Quentin T.
· StrikeWatch: A whole new slew of logos for the AMPTP, and a ticking, dollar-based death clock. Daly, interrupted.
· Denials and outings amongst the Rubyfruit Mafia.
· Introducing American Gladiators 2.0.
· Steven Spielberg insists he isn't going anywhere.
· The Olsen twins have chinchilla blood on their hands.
· Adam Sandler, übermensch.
· Britney Spears goes missing.
· Does KITT sound a little like Gob to you?
· A Dolce Group rape accusation.
· A week of Forbes lists: Overpaid A-listers, and babies who are worth every penny.
· Kid Nation ends in kid self-annihilation.

· Why doesn't this surprise us: As his ex-wife recovers from a fainting spell, David Gest is standing in the wings, ready to take her place.
· One winner claims The Price is Right is giving away lemons.
· Alec Baldwin pledges to hold the Golden Globes at his place this year, with a deli spread to rival anything those fancypants Wolfgang Puck-types could come up with at the Beverly Hilton.
· "Sources: George Clooney Looking Good"
· Katie Holmes spills all of Tom Cruise's turn-ons to In Style, including the platinum Harry Winston ankle-shackles he had specially made for the couple's first anniversary.