Because we're sure that you're curious about what theme-meal goodies your peers at Fox might be enjoying right at this moment while you joylessly pick at your on egregiously atopical commissary offerings (Paramount, Sony, WB, and CBS employees—it's clear your employers don't care about you), we share the menu from their lot's Fire Prevention Day BBQ, wrapping up right now on the lawn outside their dining facility. Historically, Fox has reserved the efforts of its finest thematic chefs for the glorification of series launches or season premieres, but with the network's new crop of Fall shows hardly meriting their timeslots, much less a gustatorial show of company support, they were forced to apply their promotional gifts to a more mundane source of inspiration. By the out-of-the-box combining of the activities of eating delicious food and learning about fire safety, we're sure that the number of on-lot conflagrations will be significantly reduced in the coming weeks.

Please join us in our weekly moment of praise for the brave men, women, products, and services who have made the supreme sacrifice of their online advertising dollars so that we can continue to bring you important updates about the new and exciting ways that Mel Gibson finds to apologize to the people who are "not blameless" in their participation in selected armed conflicts. If you'd like to advertise on Defamer and temporarily keep us off the bread line, see this page.

Dallas fans who couldn't wait to see John Travolta attempt to cram 20 gallons of bloated cranium into J.R. Ewing's 10-gallon hat are in for a crushing disappointment, as New Regency's movie adaptation has been shelved until the studio can figure out what the hell to do now that every member of the cast but Travolta (even J.Lo!) realized it's going to be a fiasco and went running for the hills. [Variety]
· Roger Ebert's Chicago Sun-Times review for The Queen is his first published since he checked into the hospital for salivary cancer treatment back in June. He hopes to return to his TV show at the beginning of the year, where he will retake his rightful place demonstrating what a pinhead Richard Roeper is on a weekly basis. [THR]
China suspends the premieres of Miami Vice, World Trade Center, and, potentially, Casino Royale to clear room for the propaganda films scheduled for—and we're not making this up—"October Golden Autumn Excellent Domestic Film Exhibition Month." [Variety]
Ted Harbert, president of E! Networks, has been promoted to president and CEO of Comcast Entertainment Group, which will add overseeing G4 to his responsibilities. We are as exactly as excited as you are about this thrilling announcement concerning the corporate streamlining of basic cable network operations. [THR]
Weinstein-owned Genius Products picks up the North American rights to Dirty Sanchez: The Movie—the Welsh version of Jackass, not the sex tape featuring Screech's last ditch attempt to salvage something of career by painting a scatstache on some poor escort's upper lip. [Variety]

A surfeit of leisure time can lead to all sorts of self- and outwardly-destructive behavior, as best evidenced by the Drunken Stepfather blog's recent social experiment in which he sent foulmouthed text messages to the suspiciously acquired numbers of some blue chip celebutards, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Nicole Richie among them. When his initial dispatches, addressed to a fictional (we hope) love interest named Brenda, received nary a response, Drunken knew he had to up his game. (Translation: Alert them to the "12 warts bundled together" on his penis). And while even that continued to be ignored by the likes of Hilton and Lohan—after all, they receive dozens of those types of revelations from their gentlemen callers per week—Richie eventually thumb-typed out a furious response. From their exchange:

The airing of the second part of Mel Gibson's Good Morning America interview with Diane Sawyer today means that we might finally be done with soundbites explaining how the tiny, Tequila-swilling demon living inside the actor's liver is the one that's anti-Semitic, not Gibson himself, at least until his publicity commitments for Apocalypto require a new round of public healing. Above, we've pulled a clip of Gibson's previously teased heart wounds/"the last thing I want to be is that kind of monster" run, which lost much in the translation from squirmy, live-action performance to pullquote. And on the ABC News website, there's some additional transcription of today's segment, including Sawyer's request that Gibson explain the little "Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world" remark that ignited the entire controversy: [Warning: extensive blockquoting follows]

When asked about the state of his marriage while promoting the U.K. release of his hero-in-a-Speedo movie The Guardian, Ashton Kutcher was quick to replace the "m" word with a "don't weigh me down with labels, man"-style reclassification of feeling "in love" with Demi Moore. The semantic clarification isn't meant as a downgrade, however, as he then goes on to explain in the most flowery and incomprehensible language imaginable how a single love can change the world:

Sensing that this much-circulated photograph of Alec Baldwin trying to bypass a blockade set up in the aftermath of Wednesday's tragic NY plane crash by charming a police officer with a rendition of his favorite line from Glengarry Glen Ross ("What's my name? Fuck you, that's my name!" naturally) might make her client seem insensitive, Baldwin's publicist explained away the incident (and another one that occurred the same night) thusly, according to Page Six:

A tense moment passed between Access Hollywood's Maria Menounos and Big Bird, when the Sesame Street star began to suspect that the reporter's wandering hand was engaged less in the sensual caress that he demanded than in a fumbling search for his rapidly engorging avian member. But an impatient Bird decided to put a quick end to her amateurish attempts at manual stimulation by gently, but firmly, placing a three-fingered hand on her back and guiding her head downward; the tension quickly dissipated as the star finally relaxed and Menounos went about her task, quietly telling herself that the exclusive interview he'd deliver would be worth the temporary discomfort of a face full of yellow feathers.

· Disney has taken "appropriate action" against the EuroDisney employees who secretly made a "Mouse Orgy" video in which they portrayed a gay-seeming Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Chip, Dale, and a "giant snowman" (do they own Frosty now?) engaging in various simulated sex acts, claiming that the footage constitutes a copyright-violating, unauthorized preview of scenes they've already storyboarded for a direct-to-DVD Fantasia sequel targeted at adult animation fans.
Jennifer Aniston went on Oprah to announce that she and Vince Vaughn are still together, though not engaged. (And don't miss The Break-Up, on DVD October 17th!) Doesn't being in a fake relationship with Aniston sound like much more trouble than it's worth?
Hold on a second—the two Nip/Tuck doctors aren't gay all the time? We thought that was kind of the whole premise of the show.
Is the Butterscotch Stallion advocating felons' rights on the NY Times website? He must've been so baked when he wrote that.
Borat's legend grows in Amsterdam: "Borat boasted of picking up a date at a popular Amsterdam bar known as a gay meeting place. 'This woman reminded me of Kazakhi woman, she was more tall than me, with hair on arms, and some hair on face, and deep voice,' he told the Dutch press."
· The "Lede of the Year" competition is now all but locked up: "A woman has suffered severe burning to her anus after being struck by lightning which hit her in the mouth and passed right through her body."

By now you've probably read at least one American media outlet's report of Angelina Jolie's sideswiping of a teenager as she supposedly fled the paparazzi in India, where's she's shooting A Mighty Heart. (If not: Angelina Jolie sideswiped an Indian teenager while fleeing the paparazzi. You're all caught up.) But we find it far more interesting to look at a version of the story from the local Indian media, if for no other reason than we feel like having to puzzle through the occasional foreign word somewhat slows the usual neuron attrition associated with reading about celebrity misadventures. The Indian Express relays the firsthand accounts of both the accident victim and an eyewitness:

It's hardly surprising that Tara Reid sought the tender, inhibition-neutralizing embrace of alcohol following the botched everything-job that left her lopsided and with a new set of ridges. But in noting Radar's report of her recent, blitzed antics at a formal wedding in Santa Barbara—apparently things started out badly when the pre-reception cocktail hour failed to provide the cherry Jell-O shots she loves so much, with things tailspinning from there—we were left with a lingering sense of déjà booze. Then it hit us: A recent PrivacyWatch spotting of Reid at the Santa Barbara Four Seasons had detailed at least one part of her coastal meltdown already. By way of offering the most exhaustively complete version of the shitfaced events as possible, we bring to you an encore performance of the reader submission we refer to as "Tara Reid Plastered On Mimosas Desperately Wanting To Be Noticed in the Lobby of The Santa Barbara Four Seasons."

Jay Leno offered fellow lantern-jawed, hog-enthusiast buddy Arnold Schwarzenegger another network opportunity to charm the pants off voters on last night's Tonight Show, angering Democratic challenger Phil Angelides (sorry Phil—get a Q-rating or some funny zoo animals, then we'll talk), but nevertheless managing to delight the millions of Californians who insist their leaders address them in an endless string of 1980's action movie catchphrases. Aware that the President's low approval rating is one of his opponent's greatest weapons, Schwarzenegger made sure to distance himself from George W. Bush, using yet another Hollywood metaphor to help us grasp the absurdity of the concept:

· Music round-up: Our feelings about the greatness of this band are well-documented, so we'll merely note The Long Winters are at Spaceland (with What Made Milwaukee Famous, also more than worth your time); DJ Dan at King King; Jedi Mind Tricks at the Troubadour.
· Head over to Otis College to see what happened when the photographers of The Legacy Project converted an airplane hangar into a camera in an attempt to take The Biggest Photo Ever. We hope it was somewhat more exciting than the world's largest thumb obscuring their subject.
· If you can grab a friend with ties to UCLA, they're holding a free sneak preview screening of the documentary Jonestown: The Life and Death of People's Temple at the James Bridges Theatre. Survivors of the Jonestown massacre will be on hand to discuss why they didn't drink the Kool-Aid.

We thought we were through with the whole Snakes on a Plane thing, we really did, at least until the inevitable publicity assault accompanying the eventual DVD release forced us to relieve the summer's reptiles-on-aircrafts pop culture oversaturation. But now we've just watched this video of the USC marching band's stirring halftime reinterpretation of Cobra Starship's title track from the movie soundtrack, and our old, complicated feelings are stirring again. We suppose that our genuine disappointment that Samuel L. Jackson didn't burst through a paper gate adorned with an albino python, run to the middle of the field, and shout "I want these motherfucking snakes off my motherfucking tuba section" into a crimson megaphone is a sign that we still might have some issues to work through.

We missed 30 Rock last night, but a reader's curiosity about the fine kitchen appliance featured prominently in the show's premiere episode sent us to the DVR to have a look for ourselves:

With this morning's airing of the GMA interview in which Mel Gibson explained to Diane Sawyer how his addiction to devil's nectar renders him utterly defenseless to the basest impulses of his dark subconscious (except where his personal mugshot grooming regimen is concerned), focus returns once again to the world's most famous sugartit-leery, Jewish-warmongering whistleblower. Accompanying the renewed interest comes yet another wave of Gibson-themed interactive entertainments, such as Heavy.com's latest contribution to the subgenre, Mel Gibson Dress Up!. Prepare to spend fragments of hours getting lost in a fantasy world peopled by centurion Klansmen and kinky Mel Hitlers. You're limited only by your own imagination, and the narrow selection of the various uniforms of famous Jew-haters throughout history.

In easily the strangest TV news of the day, NBC signs up Jon Lovitz to star in the unscripted comedy Bad
Judge, in which he will play a "heightened" version of himself (read: encouraged to constantly lapse into his old SNL characters) who hands out unfair—but hilarious!—decisions in real legal cases. [Variety]
NBC's premiere of its new block of Must See Shows With Numbers in Their Titles TV fails to excite audiences, as 30 Rock and 20 Good Years finish third in their respective timeslots. It's starting to look like viewers won't support even a single behind-the-scenes-of-a-sketch-comedy-show series, much less one each from the sitcom and drama genres. [THR]
Noted North Korean cin aste Kim Jong Il's testing of his new nuclear toys isn't stopping stop film executives and journalists from attending the Pusan Film Fest in South Korea, Asia's most important film event. [Variety]
· In other TV-shows-with-numbers-in-the-title news, CBS will give recently cancelled Smith's Tuesday night timeslot to 3 Lbs., its hunky-neurosurgeon drama starring noted boob-tube albatross Mark Feuerstein. His involvement requires us to predict that it will be off the air after no more than five episodes. [THR]
Fox TV Studios nabs the rights to make The Devil Wears Prada for TV, which they'll develop for their broadcast mothership as a single-camera comedy they envision as "like Ugly Betty, but much better looking." [Variety]

A sharp-eyed Defamer operative noticed something curious on his way to work this morning: Paris Hilton's profanely expensive celebutard conveyance abandoned in a parking lot near Privilege and Hyde, perhaps indicating that her recent DUI might have her thinking twice about taking to the streets after enjoying a single, 65-ounce margarita on an empty stomach. Says our correspondent:

Despite flack Liz Rosenberg's smokescreen disavowals, it would appear that Madonna's Mission of Mercy™ to the impoverished African nation of Malawi also doubled as a baby-shopping spree, as the AP is now reporting that the latter-day, cone-bra'd Christ figure has signed all the necessary paperwork to adopt a motherless toddler:

Today's Good Morning America interview with Mel Gibson represented the troubled actor's long-awaited first step towards assuring the public that the money they might eventually spend on tickets to his upcoming Apocalypto won't be secretly funneled into a synagogue-burning fund through the frank discussion of his tequila-chugging demons with a respected member of the morning show community. We'll send you on to a clip from the first installment of Diane Sawyer's two-parter without too much preamble, but encourage you to note two moments that come towards the end of this footage: Sawyer's look of bafflement at Gibson's joke about alcohol having the ability to make him want to murder a toaster with his bare hands (apologies to the kitchen appliance community are forthcoming), and his admission that even grievous drunkeness can't diminish an actor's desire to look pretty in his mugshot.