To celebrate Katie Couric's first night on the job at the CBS Evening News, her new bosses arranged for her to present a sneak preview of the long-awaited, heavily guarded first photographs of suspiciously unseen celebrity infant Suri Cruise. The internets, of course, were already hard at work reproducing the images, which won't be officially available until Vanity Fair hits the streets tomorrow, posting stills and video of the pictures shown on the Couric broadcast minutes ahead of CBS's sanctioned stories.

If there is a Desperate Housewives fanatic in your life, may we suggest gifting them with this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to dine and mingle with the show's cast at the home of series creator, Marc Cherry, as part of a GLAAD fundraising event:

· Music round-up: Kinky at Avalon; The Adored at Safari Sam's; Jennifer Terran at the Hotel Caf ; Centro-Matic at the Troubadour;
· Comedy Central attempts to get in your pants by sponsoring a free showing of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy at the Santa Monica Pier's "Drive-In" screening series. And they will succeed because you're a cheap date. [via Cheapskatin' LA]
· Writer Amy Wilentz will read from the chronicle of her left-coast angst, I Feel Earthquakes More Often Than They Happen: Coming to California in the Age of Schwarzenegger, at Book Soup.

Either the emotional trauma of Tom Cruise's abrupt separation from longtime partner Paramount made him suddenly introspective about how the couch-pounding, psychiatry-slamming antics of the last year might have negatively affected other people in his crazycentric orbit, or his PR team finally convinced him to do some long-overdue damage control to save what's left of his image, but the star is finally showing a heretofore unseen humbler, apologetic side. Earlier today, he sent a lovely flower arrangement to new The View host and longtime platonic stalker Rosie O'Donnell to ask her forgiveness for his continuing failure to become a lesbian, but even that touching gesture was far overshadowed by his recent, contrite housecall to his recovering street-drug-addict nemesis, Brooke Shields:

It seems like only yesterday that freshly Redstoned ex-Viacom president and CEO Tom Freston excitedly introduced new studio head Brad Grey to his corporate family by gushing about how "great" everything was going to be at the New Paramount in an e-mail so laden with giddy exuberance that computers on the company's overtaxed network nearly exploded into a hail of rainbows and smoldering happy face emoticons. But roughly nine months later, things are considerably more sad-face for Grey, as he had to take some time from his busy schedule of nervously hand-shredding stacks of buckslips while worrying about his own job security to approve a heartfelt goodbye to Freston lovingly penned by someone in Viacom PR.

After months of goosebump-inducing lesbianticipation, Rosie O'Donnell at last made her debut as a regular co-host of The View today. Amply filling Meredith Vieira's vacated chair—in high heels and makeup no less—Rosie looked every bit the bulldyke lady, with only Joy Behar beaming more, as visions of tag-teaming Elisabeth Hasselbeck danced in her head. After Rosie assures the cameras that she's been cured of all asymmetrical hairdos and rampaging mood swings now that she's "taking her medicine," the subject quickly turns to that of longtime, nonsexual crush Tom Cruise, and the gargantuan floral arrangement sent by none other sitting conspicuously at her feet—a lush bouquet of blossoms plucked from the greenhouses of Scientology's Gilman Hot Springs headquarters, and specially bred to dispense an intoxicating aroma that should have the typically outspoken and opinionated View team coming to an almost magically harmonious agreement in the days to come on the life-changing benefits of a sauna-and-vitamins based lifestyle.

A Defamer reader looking for some stripped down, hard-rock entertainment at the Malibu Inn Saturday night instead got the inept musical stylings of a celebrity clusterfuck: a band composed entirely of rock star progeny conceived during a series of Jack n' Coke-enhanced blackouts in the 80s was usurped by a blitzed, mic-hogging Kid Rock and substitute drummer Jeremy Piven, who made up for his inability to keep time by proudly shouting to the crowd the classic punk credo of all Emmy-winning, rock star-wannabes: "I won metal!"

In a conference call explaining Tom Freston's exit from Viacom, a displeased Sumner Redstone let on that he was "like, Tom-Cruise-shitcanning pissed" that Freston let MySpace slip through their fingers and get snapped up by rival Rupert Murdoch. [Variety]
And just because repetition is fun, here's THR noting the same thing from the conference call. [THR]
Studios embrace box office mediocrity, as their collective summer tally is up six percent this year over last thanks to middle-performing, lower-budgeted films. [Variety]
· The studios urge the Guilds not to prematurely complain about the screwing they're getting while the networks "experiment" with streaming content, assuring them that once the platform becomes a viable retail option like downloading, they'll figure out a way to give them the same, unsatisfying ass-fucking they're taking on iTunes residuals. [THR]
· Realizing that even a limited corporate sponsorship of its Path to 9/11 minseries might make the network seem like tragedy-exploiting whores, ABC decides to go with a commercial-free broadcast. [Variety]

Radar has awoken from a nine-month hibernation to relaunch its website today, celebrating the rebirth with the publication of its poll of the "industry's heaviest hitters" that it first started researching back around the time of its 1981 "Ron Howard Washed Up At 27?" issue. The survey doesn't really contain any surprises: Howard is nice, Brett Ratner's a hack, Russell Crowe has a temper problem, and CAA's partners are the agents you'd most like to have devouring babies on your behalf. Among Radar's "winners" is Imagine Entertainment superproducer Brian Grazer, whose signature "Produced By Brian Grazer, From An Idea Brian Grazer Had While Distracted By A Shiny Object During A Meet-And-Greet With Stephen Hawking, And Directed By A Guy Brian Grazer Hand-Selected to Execute Brian Grazer's Uncompromising Vision" movie credit seems to have rankled some of his peers:

It's not just General Motors who have withdrawn their advertising from Survivor: Cook Islands: Major corporations like Coca-Cola, Home Depot and Campbell's Soup have also opted not to sponsor CBS' foray into competitive ethno-Darwinism. And while a Campbell's spokesperson insists the decision was made "back during the upfront," we imagine the show's race vs. race premise certainly helped cement their decision; after all, familiar, comfy sentiments such as "Mmm mm good," and "You Can Do It. We Can Help," become that much harder to sell when immediately following a contestant's meanspirited implorations to, "Paddle harder! The Chinamen are gaining on us!" But not everyone has shown a reluctancy to the series' concept: Since the announcement, white-supremacist internet boards have been ablaze with excited chatter about what the series could do for their cause. From TV Week:

One has to wonder what crime Mike Judge perpetrated against Fox to make them bury Idiocracy so deep that not even Moviefone can tell you what it's called, much less where you could have found one of the 130 theaters where the studio was quietly hiding prints of the film. Fox's "we dare you to see this movie" strategy paid off handsomely, as Idiocracy pulled in $160,000 (and a "dismal" per-screen average of $1,231), a result they can say was predicted by a test audience comment card complaining, "Hey, this movie is calling us dumb! I don't like that very much. But can you really get a handjob at Starbucks? I gotta order one of those."

Wow, we really weren't expecting that Sumner Redstone would feed again so quickly, especially before anyone had returned to their desks following the Labor Day holiday, but you have to admit that the guy really knows how to grab the headlines. Shake off the trauma of unexpected corporate upheaval with the weekend box office numbers. —Mark

Disappointed that absorbing Tom Cruise's lifeforce was not sufficient in restoring his rapidly desiccating, centuries-old human shell to a sufficiently vital state, immortal Viacom executive vampire Sumner Redstone has also drained president and CEO Tom Freston of his essence, announcing this morning in a company-wide e-mail that he's cast aside Freston's spent, fleshy husk and replaced him with a pair of new minions, who will be allowed to ripen a bit before suffering the same soul-gobbling fate:

· The Emmy Awards: Our recap. Conan O'Brien proves the old adage that tragedy + not enough time = controversy. A cleavage quiz. Jeremy Piven's latest hand-candy. It's a cash bar, but no problem—Paula Abdul's loaded.
· Cruise, Post Paramount: Redskins/Six Flags owner Daniel Snyder comes to the financial rescue, and "amusement park money" enters the popular lexicon, replacing the long outmoded "peanuts." Meanwhile, we offer some thoughts for how to spruce up the new office.
· Matt LeBlanc's lapdance tormentor sues him for having done nothing of the kind.
· Les Moonves is not playing nicely with Tom Freston.
· Who says romance is dead? Hilary Swank could very well end up providing John Campisi with many delicious babies.
· Vanity Fair is guarding her picture with their lives, but Suri's gilded poop steals their thunder with its impressive debut.
· Fly the extra-friendly skies with Captain John Travolta.
· Donald Trump cans Carolyn, and the show, robbed of her incredulous faux-smiles and condescending eye-rolls, never recovers.
· Watch for the 12-year-old goulash delivery boy sequence. Hot.
· Ben Affleck would like you to focus on the man in the red suit, not the man in the sweatsuit.

Stand with us for a moment behind the two-way mirror, and gush like a proud parent as the focus group on the other side of the glass extols the many-splendored virtues of our sponsors—companies whose goods and services in their opinion will never get sufficient screen time. If you'd like to advertise on Defamer yourselves, everything you need to know is right here.

Friday
· Friday night music: Jamie Lidell and Daedelus at the Getty, Dirty Vegas at the Avalon, and Simon Dawes is at the Troubadour.
· Kirby Dick unmasks the faces of the shadowy cabal of the MPAA's ratings board in This Film Is Not Yet Rated, now playing at the Nuart.
Saturday
· Saturday Night Music: DJ Z Trip spins at MOCA After Dark, Rollins Band plays the Key Club and Lucinda Williams opens for John Fogerty at the Greek.
· Choose your gang and cheer them on (go, Lizzies!) as The Warriors screens at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
· Run Run Run performs an acoustic set at the Nobody Walks Artist Movement.
Sunday
· The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players are an eccentric mom, dad and daughter trio who perform original songs based on found family slides. It's at the Troubadour.
· According to Wikipedia, Labor Day was inspired by a similar holiday held in Toronto, Canada. So, in some little way, your Monday off makes up for Howie Mandel.

· A scene from an upcoming Desperate Housewives in which Kyle MacLachlan goes down on Marcia Cross, "with explosive results," according to Variety, was distributed on YouTube. This angered ABC execs, who insist it wasn't an "official leak" intended to build buzz. We're starting to feel extremely nauseous at the moment. [Variety]
· What do Idi Amin, Diane Arbus, Truman Capote and John Lennon have in common—besides being invitees #2 through #5 to the ultimate dinner party/coke-fueled-orgy of our wildest fantasies? They're all the subject of movies at the Telluride Film Festival. [Variety]
· Fox is stumped, not knowing what possibly more than Emily Deschanel's terrific rack audiences could need to show up for their faltering forensics drama, Bones. [Variety]
· NBC swaps the Jeffrey Tambor/John Lithgow sitcom Twenty Good Years with 30 Rock, putting it in the 8:30 slot, because, Kevin Reilly explains, it makes for a "more compatible lead-in to 'The Biggest Loser'." Take from that what you will, Misters Tambor and Lithgow. [THR]
· CBS wins a Thursday night with mainly reruns of CSI and Without A Trace. One can only imagine how well the network would have done had those CSI staff dunderheads not blabbed about the exciting K-Fed surprise. [THR]

• VMA-holes: Your Gold Teeth II [Gawker]

Yesterday, we noted how Ben Affleck recently bemoaned to a reporter at the Venice Film Festival about the ever encroaching eye of the moviegoing public, who allow frivolous external details about the actor's personal life to color their full enjoyment of his screen performances. (Perhaps, though we'd argue that no amount of photos of the actor on a Baby Bjorn-saddled latte run could ever dilute the simple, cinematic pleasures of James Gandolfini whacking him across the skull with a snow shovel.) An amused Defamer reader writes: