In a move that would further reinforce perfectly storming NBC co-chairman Ben Silverman's programming philosophy that it's much easier to clone a proven hit than waste a lot of time generating untested "new ideas," TVGuide.com reports that the network is planning a spin-off of The Office, a show the Peacock has already supersized to within an inch of its life with the hourlong episodes that kicked off the first few weeks of this season:

Did you somehow arrive to work too late this morning to be handed your very own copy of the WGA Negotiations Update literature being handed out by the union's friendly, red-shirted flyer-distribution team at the entrances to every studio lot in town, or just generally feel left out of all the pre-contract-expiration fun?

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 spotted the guy whose voice was the last Tony Soprano ever heard.

Accused of raping a woman he lured to the Bahamas, other women are now coming forward to tell of their own experiences being cherry-picked from David Copperfield's audiences for backstage Q & A and photographing sessions, with one sharing a (completely innocuous yet entirely creepy) voice mail left by the magician, proposing a "very interesting opportunity for you." [TMZ]

· Universal and New Line join the list of those who strenuously object to the WGA's strike rules, warning writers in their employ that complying with their union's demands to validate the scripts they're trying to turn in before tomorrow's deadline will put them in breach of contract. [Variety]
· Writers and studio executives alike have caught Script-Flipping Fever! Unfortunately, any camaraderie the two sides may now feel as they rush to finish shootable screenplays together could be slightly undermined if they're forced to start trying to kill each other on Thursday morning. [THR]
· Warner Bros. wants to deepen its already very fulfilling relationship with model/host/producer/investigative reporter Tyra Banks, signing her to a multiyear deal in which Banks' production company will do everything for the Warner corporate family short of emptying their trash cans at the end of the day. [Variety]

As we've been reminded by a number of commenters and e-mailers this morning, referring to the members of the WGA's swarming strike-prevention team as "redshirts" (incidentally, a name many of the flyer distributors have given themselves ) creates an immediate and unfortunate association with the disposable Star Trek day-players whose uniform color invariably marked them for death. The application of this doom-connoting term seems a little premature at this time, as the presence of the Teamsters who might be soon joining the nameless ensigns on the picket line will probably make studio personnel think twice about trying to vaporize any of the crimson-appareled speed-bumps who block their path to work with the grills of their SUVs, allowing the nameless union ensigns to survive past the strike's dangerous first act.

With Oprah Approved™ presidential hopeful Barack Obama trailing to Hillary Clinton, it would seem the voiced support of Angelina Jolie's do-gooding wingman—rounding out a megastar hat-trick that already includes George Clooney and Matt Damon—would be precisely what the candidate needs to get ahead in the polls. However, fearing heartland voters might be turned off by the endorsement of someone perceived as an overly privileged and left-leaning actor who's "all shacked-up with that vampire lady and her 14 colored kids," Obama's campaign has kindly declined Brad Pitt's generous offer:

Though onetime NBC ABC News Now correspondent Merry Miller's fifteen minutes of YouTube-derived fame has expired by now, the always-generous ladies of The View today invited her to fill the chair temporarily vacated by the pregnant Elizabeth Hasselbeck, offering Miller a long-delayed shot at TV redemption.

Pablo Escobar is the new Steve Prefontaine! Or the new Truman Capote! Undeterred by the possibility that no matter how seriously they approach the material, they may never be able to erase Entourage's indelible, Tony Cliftonesque image of the Colombian drug lord, no fewer than three Escobar-related movies (including ones by Smoking Aces director Joe Carnahan, Oliver Stone, and Bob Yari) will be competing for attention at the American Film Market this week, where the projects' producers will try their best to laugh at each, "You can get me Vinnie Chase in this, right?" just as good-naturedly as if it's the first time they've heard it. [NY Times]

Appearing on Late Show last night to promote a small, low-profile animated movie soon to make its way into select art houses across the country, Hubbardian dabbler Jerry Seinfeld used the opportunity to try out a tight, three-minute set of new material based entirely around the everyman premise, "So a billionaire comedian's wife writes an Oprah-approved cookbook about hiding brussel sprouts in your kids' mac and cheese, and some celebrity-stalking lunatic accuses her of plagiarism, just because the book she already wrote on that topic contains 15 identical recipes!"

Perhaps hoping to avert an ugly incident in which obsolescent Tonight Show host Jay Leno makes a last-ditch effort to save his job by chaining himself to his desk while wrecking balls emblazoned with a cheerful peacock logo demolish his beloved Burbank studio, NBC Universal boss Jeff Zucker reasserted yesterday that the show will be handed over to Conan O'Brien as planned, recent intimations that Leno isn't quite ready for early retirement notwithstanding:

Following yesterday afternoon's announcement that the Teamsters will honor WGA picket lines during a possible strike—even though the organization can't walk out while they still have a contract with the studios, individuals can make the decision not to cross the writers' line without being disciplined—a work stoppage suddenly seems (dare we allow ourselves to even say it?) less of an inevitability, as the possibility of Teamster muscle backing up the scribes is certainly more intimidating than the presence of the skinny-armed reinforcements the union called upon the last time they needed some back-up. Additionally, a tipster tells us that the Guild already had about 15 members of its red-shirted army stationed outside of the Sony lot at 7 AM (do let us know where else you spot them), handing out "Negotiation Update" flyers urging workers to, "Please encourage the companies to bargain seriously with the Writers Guild, and let the writers on your show know you support their fair and reasonable stand."

· Defamer videographer Molly goes deep inside slow news day victim Barbara Walters' beef with her TMZ TV tormentors, stringing together the show's speech-impediment-based attack and Walters' subsequent Airing of the Grievances on today's The View. Enjoy the feud while it lasts!
· Brad Pitt's publicist patiently explains that just because someone at his production company may be looking at Unambomber script doesn't mean that he's wandering around the office trying on hooded sweatshirts, sunglasses, and various crazy-person beards quite yet. After all, he may eventually realize that Benicio del Toro is a much more natural fit for the part.
· David Beckham will attempt to save his adopted home from the wildfires through the power of soccer.
· An angry father accuses a strip club of fraudulently lapdancing and champagne-rooming his son into $53,000 worth of charges, threatening to diminish what was obviously the greatest day of his kid's life.

Ever since it was reported that irresolvable scheduling conflicts brought on by two years of unemployment prevented Katie Holmes from taking on a seven-figure gig reprising her Batman Begins character in The Dark Knight, we've eagerly anticipated getting a look at her big comeback project, Mad Money, in which Holmes joins up with gal pals Queen Latifah and Diane Keaton to rob the Federal Reserve. (Hilarity, as it invariably does in such high-concept situations, ensues.)

The Leaky Cauldron posted photos of the first public sighting of Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore as an outed wizard, snapped by a group of muggle bystanders taking in a location shooting of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in the small English village of Lacock. The autograph-seeking youngsters appeared to feel no differently about the conjuring great now that his proclivities have been made public. On the contrary—more than one delighted child's voice was heard to have cried out, "When I grow up, I want to be a powerful gay wizard, just like you!" which drew appreciative chuckles from the larger-than-life figure wearing an Invisibility Beard-Cloak.

Paris Hilton allegedly flew into a rage during a trip to a Toronto adult video store hawking One Night In Paris, ripping down posters and threatening to sue. (Our best guess for the reason behind the outburst: a joker in her entourage told her that she gets no residuals on Canadian sex tape sales.) Footage of the incident may be forthcoming, so get excited: since her miraculous jailhouse conversion to ChristiCatholBibleanity, fun moments like these have been maddeningly rare. [Canada.com]

· Music round-up: Tegan and Sara at the Orpheum; Queens of the Stone Age at the Nokia Theater; Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at the LA Sports Arena (there's still plenty of time to blow a scalper!); Ghostface Killah at the House of Blues; The Abe Lincoln Story finishes up its Monday night residency at Mr. T's Bowl.
· Take a flashlight tour of the Natural History Museum's darkened Spider Pavilion; the venue promises all its creatures are "safely" behind terrarium glass, but that won't stop you from wetting yourself each time your date insists on walking his "tarantula fingers" along your shoulder. [via Citybeat]
· Jenna Bush will be at Vroman's to sign (but not personalize!) copies of her book Ana's Story. Also n.b.: security will be high, so the weapons, explosives and fireworks you normally bring to book events are strictly verboten.
[Image: costumezone.com]

Director Peter Hedges explains how he and his marketing team arrived at his new movie's polarizing, flapjack-based poster, which strikes us as being a suitably quirky compromise between a bland "bunch of faces" offering and something that slightly overdoes the visuals in depicting a protagonist just trying to make sense of this crazy thing we call real life: "'What I'm really pleased with is what the poster isn't,' said Hedges. 'It's not a bunch of faces. We had thousands of attempts for poster and this one, for me, caught your eye.' Hedges adds 'the marketing is a real challenge because we live in a culture and a time where everything has to scream and grab, and this film is a human comedy,' which don't scream and grab. 'This film straddles so many genres, it is difficult in a short burst to communicate the fullness of it.'" [Risky Business Blog]

Portfolio's Hollywood Deal blog writes touchingly of the once-strained relationship between Imagine Entertainment superproducer Brian Grazer and black sheep sibling Gavin, whose reciprocal appearances at each other's recent New York movie premieres (Brian's the troubled $100 million blockbuster he brought to the screen by sheer force of will; Gavin's, a somewhat less expensive , surrealistic Anthony Hopkins art project) were indicative of a closeness that long eluded brothers on the opposite end of the spectrum of Hollywood success. You need to read the entire story to appreciate their long journey towards reconciliation, but we've excerpted a couple of the piece's feel-good moments here:

We'll have to wait until Wednesday to find out what The View has in store for us this Halloween: We're pretty sure it won't be nearly as scary as last year, which featured Rosie O'Donnell in full Queen Victoria drag, or the one before that, in which Barbara Walters horrified a nation by refusing to break her breathy, baby-voiced Marilyn Monroe character for the entire episode.