· Bravely ignoring the fact that no one has cared about the Pussycat Dolls since "Don't Cha" was licensed out for a series of feminine hygiene ads late last year inquiring if women harbored secret, envious wishes that their "douche was fresh like me," The CW will enable The Search for the Next Pussycat Doll, which is exactly what you think it is: a reality show ripping off both Idol and Top Model. [Variety]
· Universal moves the comedy Accepted to August 18th, hoping that confused males between the ages of 18-30 will mistakenly wander into theaters showing the movie while looking for Snakes on a Plane. [THR]
· CNN finds that Israel's invasion of Lebanon is great for ratings. If only there were a joke to be made about Mel Gibson's thoughts on war and Jews... [Variety]
· Sensing an opportunity to bring pictures and full-motion video of famous people to television for the first time, Warner Bros. Telepictures mulls rushing a TV version of TMZ.com into syndication. [B&C]
· New Bond girl Eva Green gets a gig playing "the queen of witches" in The Golden Compass. No word on whether this witch-queen has a penchant for gratuitous nudity, so our excitement is muted until more facts are gathered. [Variety]

Variety announced today that Seed Prods., the production entity happily married Hugh Jackman set up with his handsome (professional) life partner John Palermo, will be making a movie for Fox 2000. What this means for you—beyond any frivolous, giggly satisfaction derived from reading yet another headline announcing "Jackman's Seed planted" with his longtime producing companion—is that your long wait to see Jackman serenade his way through a screen version of the 1945 Rodgers & Hammerstein musical Carousel is soon over:

This is a story of an actor's unshakeable faith rewarded.

In today's story about the second draft of Mel Gibson's public apology, in which the forcibly contrite star finally remembered to apologize to the Jewish people for suspecting that they'd shrewdly infiltrated the Malibu police department in order to fuck his life, the NY Times coaxes longtime Gibson agent Ed Limato into breaking his silence on the matter. And after an obligatory statement about the inexcusability etc etc of his client's tequila-liberated remarks, he makes sure to fire a warning shot across the bow of the hypocritical "people in [his] business" who cast a stone at Gibson with one hand while trying to poach him with the other:

Yesterday, Comedy Central took out this ad in Variety to congratulate South Park on its Emmy nomination for their "Trapped in the Closet" episode, a good-natured, lightly self-satirizing attempt to chuckle at themselves for so readily allowing themselves to become Tom Cruise's bitch by yanking a repeat of that show because of its unflattering portrayal of the cherished corporate asset about to open a movie for parent company Viacom. But because of the copy's inclusion of the word "Jews," a term now copyrighted by Mel Gibson's Icon Productions, some people assumed the ad was some kind of reference to Gibson's recent war-mongering-Hebrews-related troubles. Today, a Comedy Central spokesperson assures the LAT that the ad is merely a quaintly retro dig at Cruise and riff on the time-honored "Jews run Hollywood" joke, not a perfectly timed assault on the currently rehabbing serial apologizer. We think the giant cartoon rendering of the Celebrity Centre should've been a pretty obvious tip-off as to the ad's target, but whatever. The publicists have spoken.

· The inevitable Mel Gibson t-shirts arrive, in both "Mel Gibstein" and "What do you think you're looking at, Sugar Tits?" styles. Get one before CafePress is flooded with inferior "Save Mel" and "Free Mel" tees. [via Tabloid Baby]
· In case you haven't seen these yet, here are those pics of Gibson and his newfound drinking buddies at Moonshadows.
· Even Craigslist escorts are trying to get their piece of the Gibson action. (Warning: link NSFW)
· This is so wrong, and yet...so wrong: The Passion of the Christ mashed up with "Sometimes When We Touch."
· Arianna likes Mel's second apology a lot better than the first draft.
· How can you tell the difference between real and fake tits in Hollywood? Hint: There are no such thing as real tits in Hollywood, silly!
· Losanjelous takes their Mr. T doll to the George Michael Bathroom, but Little T emerges unblown and unfondled. Better luck next time, tiny fool.

Dependable E! gossip-geyser Ted Casablanca—whose many closet-case and cokehead-centric blind items have provided Defamer readers with the foundation for countless hours of Guessing Game fun—has found himself embroiled in an ongoing controversy at his host network, which he dubs "CasablancaGate" in an unabashed airing of dirty-laundry in today's Awful Truth column. After posting several e-mails demanding some explanation as to his recent absence from E! News broadcasts, Ted offers this sketchily detailed response:

The marketing braintrust at Paramount really weren't fucking around when they decided to leave no teen behind in their promotional campaign for World Trade Center, as they've erected a tasteful monument to their upcoming blockbuster hopeful on MySpace, the online home of all sophisticated discourse on recent national tragedies. The movie's collected just 40 friends so far (some of whom appear to be Paramount employees), but we're sure once WTC learns the ropes of social networking, it will soon collect an enthusiastic gang of Tila Tequila clones and middle-aged men who lie about their age to lure the naive Twin Towers into some hott cybersex while its parents are still at work.

· There's a free advance screening of IFC Film's Brothers of the Head at the Los Feliz 3, followed by the requisite director and cast Q and A. Should your questions not be answered to your satisfaction, you can corner the talent at the afterparty at Safari Sam's.
· Comedy Death Ray gathers Mary Lynn Rajskub, Andy Kindler, the Sklar Brothers, Andy Daly, and Nikki "The Funny One from Last Comic Standing" Glaser on stage at the UCB Theatre, where they will try their absolute hardest not to mine easy jokes from the mention of the name "Mel Gibson."
· Music round-up: Bloc Party at the Grove of Anaheim; Backbiter and The Paparazzi at Spaceland;Ninja Academy at the Silverlake Lounge.

Queer Eye for the Straight Guy's Jai Rodriguez is the Fab Fiver whose area of expertise is... um, well, we're not exactly sure, but it involves taking the straight guys aside for heart-to-heart talks in which he advises them to take up swing-dancing lessons. He recently sat down for a surprisingly frank interview with AfterElton.com, revealing that the hit reality series would soon be szhuzhing no more:

A resourceful operative dug up this video of serial killer-befriending actress Victoria Redstall's fine work for Grobust, an herbal breast-enhancing remedy whose unfortunate side-effects seem to include the atrophying of the part of the brain responsible for making generously bosomed females flee from incarcerated men with a track record of storing surgically removed mammaries in recloseable sandwich bags. Should any other clips from her reel be made available online, we'll be sure to pass them along and do our part to get her some work that might leave her less time to hang around inside prisons.

A reader spotted this low-grade El Camino-pimping in the parking lot of the 7-11 on the corner of Highland and Wilshire, which he referred to as "a highly visible salvo of support from the Koreatown pro-Mel camp." We hope that Endeavor superagent Ari Emanuel responds to this display by immediately spray-painting the words "Fuck Mel" on the back of his Prius and showing that the Gibson-boycotting faction is just as firm in its convictions as the wrongheaded K-town crew. A blog post isn't going to get the job done this time.

You hardly need the local newspaper of record to provide you with anecdotal evidence of the immutable Hollywood law that "actresses are crazy," but today's LAT features a tale that goes far beyond the realm of the usual "three hundred calls a day from the needy scene partner you didn't call back the morning after a regrettable one night stand" kind of benign imbalance, and into the previously unexplored "forming an emotional attachment to the jailed, misunderstood serial killer who's totally gotten over his chopped-off-breasts-in-a-Ziplock-bag phase" flavor of insane. Welcome to the story of Victoria Redstall, actress and "former spokesmodel for breast enhancement supplements,' who befriended repeat hooker-slayer Wayne Adam Ford while shooting a documentary:

· The Evil Beet blog points us to the above CNN.com poll, which seems to reveal that either not everyone shares Hollywood's outrage over Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic comments, or that Disney has hired internet poll voters to let America know it's OK to go to Apocalypto. [CNN.com]
· It's a good thing that Gibson didn't hire David Mamet's obviously incompetent Acme Public Relations firm, and wisely retained the services of a guy who was smart enough to check off the "alcoholism" box, then write in one for "eventually remember to beg for Jewish forgiveness." [HuffPo]
· Mel Gibson wasn't really arrested on terrorism charges, but given the way the last few days have gone for him, you'd believe that for a second, wouldn't you? [BBC News]
·The DVD Dossier reveals Gibson's Netflix queue.
· Need a Gibson hate-fuck? This Craigslister "Mel Gibson look alike, cute, clean shaven-face, moderately hairy body" posted his ad on Thursday, back when that particular physical resemblance might have been more of a selling point. [Craigslist]

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger addressed a group of journalists yesterday in Long Beach to tout their anti-global warming initiative, the Funny-Accented Coalition for the Environment. When Blair, who will not be seeking re-election, was asked by a reporter about his future career aspirations, Schwarzenegger quickly stepped in to do what he does best: Obliquely reference one of his own movies.

Var's article on Mel Gibson fallout in the business: "The oys of summer." Yes, really. [Variety]
Warner Bros. shifts the opening date for Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain to November 22nd, setting up a time-traveling-related deathmatch with Buena Vista's Tony Scott-directed Deja Vu. Early prediction: America chooses The Fountain's Hugh Jackman as its favorite unstuck-in-time hunk! [THR]
A graph that looks like a red and blue pair of salad tongs (or pliers?) says scary things about the impact of foreign runaway production on the domestic film industry. [Variety]
· Because the networks stubbornly insist on measuring how few people are actually watching TV this summer, we note that Hell's Kitchen beat out CSI: Miami last night, but CBS still beat Fox for the night. [THR]
Hollywood Out Of Ideas, Supernatural CGI Dwellings Edition: Sony greenlights the animated comedy Hotel Transylvania, not to be confused with the studio's Monster House, currently in theaters. [Variety]

Back in the prelapsarian world in which an on-the-wagon Mel Gibson was merely a suspected anti-Semite, Hollywood had a different favorite whipping boy, one whose strenuous disdain for the practice of psychiatry, mysterious concealing of his newborn baby from the public, and suspicious, indefinite engagement to an actress of much lesser fame made him a daily fixture in the tabloids. Page Six reminds us of those more innocent days with this item in today's column:

The rumors swirling around Comic-Con last week that Heath Ledger was cast as the Joker in The Dark Knight, the Batman Begins sequel, were confirmed today by THR. The choice is sure to send ripples of controversy throughout the highly factious fanboy community, who'll debate endlessly whether or not the role should have been awarded to an actor most famous for starring in Brokeback Mountain. Their concern wouldn't be that he'd make the supervillain too effete, mind you, but rather that the guy who played Ennis del Mar wasn't capable of going nearly gay enough with the role: Requiring a face full of makeup, a Manic Panic Green Envy dye-job, and the need to punctuate every statement with a round of ear-piercing shriek-laughter, the Joker is one part that requires an actor to really embrace his inner drag queen.

Alan Nierob, current holder of the title of Hardest Working Man in Show Business (and whom we hope is getting paid by the official statement), has released the latest version of client Mel Gibson's apology, signalling the PR team's desperation shift into "Holy shit, he's in rehab and this thing still isn't blowing over, so maybe we should mention the Jewish stuff this time" mode:

We'd like to pause to thank the front page of the LAT's website for providing us a glimmer of perspective in this Mel Gibson debacle, which threatens to destroy the good name of Alcohol by depicting it as nothing more than the fermented nectar squeezed from the heaving, infernal bosoms of a thousand hissing succubi, and which drives powerful men to destroy their careers while under its evil influence. Sure, it may be expedient for Gibson to blame the devil juice for his current situation, but his LDL cholesterol has never been lower.