A bizarre discovery turned up outside America Idol tastemaker Paula Abdul's home last night: a dead body propped over in a car. Even more confusing was that the body belonged not to the klonopin chip brownie-loving singer/choreographer/karoake-feedback-deliverer herself, but rather a rabid Abdul fan, whose car bore a vanity license plate reading "ABL LV," ("4VR URGL" had already been taken) and Paula-scented air-fresheners dangling from the rear-view mirror. More details follow after the jump:

Not Your Average Bear. Family Guy spinoff The Cleveland Show has received a full-season order from Fox, but has been pushed all the way to Fall. In another announcement we totally saw coming, THR reports that "Arianna Huffington will join the cast in a recurring role as the [talking] matriarch of a bear family," who says things like, "Da eeconomeec game is not supposed to be rrrigged like some shaydee ring toss on a carneeval midway. Now who vould like another helping of flopping sah-mon?" [THR]

♦ More pain at 4 Times Square: Condé Nast is shuttering Elegant Bride. [Jossip]
♦ Despite the fact Portfolio fired 32 staffers last week, a spokesperson confirms the mag is going ahead with a soirée at the 21 Club later this month. [Page Six]
♦ Not surprisingly, Fox News has landed the first post-election interview with Sarah Palin. Greta van Susteren will sit down with her in Alaska over the weekend; the interview will be broadcast on Monday. [THR]

Back when Fox bought Joss Whedon's series pitch Dollhouse, the network bypassed the pilot stage and granted an immediate episode order in an attempt to speed the show onto the air with a minimum of speedbumps. Since then, though, the Eliza Dushku starrer has undergone cast shuffles, vicious network notes, episode reshoots, a set shutdown, and then, finally, a completely thrown-out premiere episode. Now, Fox has announced the latest, biggest setback, and it's one that even the former Faith may not be able to fight her way out of:

The job of the White House press secretary is a ridiculous one—DCs most overpaid "journalists" toss out leading questions they know the answer to, the press secretary replies with stonewalling, outright lying, or repetition of talking points, and everyone files the same information-free report—so it's fitting that President-elect Obama's probable pick for the job has extensive experience on the world's most ridiculous cable news network, Fox. During the campaign, Gibbs specialized in neutralizing and befuddling the dimmer bulbs of Fox, like Sean Hannity and the crew of buffoons at Fox & Friends. Want a preview of the theatrical arguments of 2009's White House press briefings? Click through for Gibbs in action. First, Gibbs spins circles around Steve Doocy and Fox's resident morons on the subject of EVIL BILL AYERS:

Guess who's here: Ralph Nader! The irritating old fool went completely around the bend this year, and now he's on Fox News calling Barack Obama an Uncle Tom. That's right! The formerly respectable lefty consumer advocate—seriously, we didn't even hate on him after 2000—now just says outrageous nonsense for attention, like when he did the thing with the parrot. He's pissed away his relevance and thus his hope of accomplishing any of his admirable goals and we're sick of him.In 2000, Nader got nearly 3 million votes, for 2.74 percent of the popular vote. In 2004, he didn't even get 500k. This year it looks like he managed to get half a percent of the vote, though, with 587,758 and counting, so good work, Ralph! He beat the Libertarian! And got just enough votes, it looks like, to put Missouri in the McCain camp! SPOILER!!! There was a time, 20 years ago, when Nader could've been in a Democratic president's cabinet. And, you know, then he could've actually helped working people and stuff! Now he just talks to parrots and says incredibly insulting things about Barack Obama, who everyone likes, unlike poor dumb Ralph Nader, who invented seat belts and then spent his last years annoying liberals.

Hope For The Hill? The recently canceled King of the Hill may yet live on, as a Fox rep has confirmed that "another network is interested" in the long-running and consistently solid (but terminally unbuzzworthy) series. The show is still averaging at about a 3.4 rating—the same numbers CBS's "breakout hit" The Mentalist is getting—and reached as high as a 4.3 after last Sunday's Simpsons Halloween special. Fun fact: Did you know Bobby is voiced by Pamela Adlon, aka Mrs. Louie from short-lived Louis C.K. sitcom Lucky Louie? [THR]

Last night's Treehouse of Horror episode of The Simpsons featured a direct homage to Mad Men—the familiar strings accompanying a silhouette of Homer tumbling down the side of a building on whatever Springfield's answer to Madison Avenue is.(Probably the place that came up with this ingenious Kwik-E-Mart campaign, replete with a real live Comic Book Guy!) The Halloween episode scored the highest ratings in five years for the animated series. Unfortunately, the Mad Men parodying ended at the title sequence; as much as we wanted to hear Homer say, "It’s not called a wheel, it’s called a donut. Round and a round, and sprinkly delicious. Arhghghllll....dooonuttttt. To a place where we know we are loved," instead we got Homer on a bizarre celebrity killing spree that cost us Prince and George Clooney.

Amber waves of grain, arthritis ointment application, an emotionally distant Sarah Silverman the morning after—The Barack Obama Show really offered something for everyone. And by "everyone" we'd include network heads, as preliminary Nielsen numbers show the 30-minute hope-infusion juiced ratings across the board. Even ABC's struggling Pushing Daisies benefited from a small counter-programming bump, though still only managed to squeak out a meager 2.2. From THR:

The two-hour premiere of the new season of 24 is about to hit the internet in advance of the show's premiere next month. A mere 16 month after the show's last season ended, 24's producers have tried to silence complaints about haphazard plotting and unbelievable Deus ex machinas by plotting out the show's entire season in advance for the first time. Bauer's ceaseless torturing of his enemies will get a new setting this season, and Republican fans of the show about to lose a president will still have Jack Bauer, the last remaining relic of the Bush years.At the beginning of the recently released second trailer, Jack's torturous methods are questioned in court by the dad from That '70s Show, for some reason. "Don't expect me to regret the decisions I made," Jack tells the judge. All you can think is: did the conservative leaning series really have to return after an 18 month layoff with an apologia for the Bush-Cheney administration?

This is a really subtle joke, right, Fox production team? Or is it just our birthday? [CityFile, Related]

Hooray for Judith Miller! After years in the wilderness, she's finally come home. The former star New York Times national security correspondent is heading to Fox News as an on-air analyst and general sad embarrassment. Miller became famous when she went to jail in a grandstanding stunt because she refused to admit that her secret source was Scooter Libby even though Libby had signed a waiver authorizing her to testify about their conversations and then there was some poetry exchanged and eventually she quit the Times in disgrace and they wrote a caged Editors Note about how she lied, incessantly, in the run-up to the war in Iraq, which was sold to Americans using bullshit planted in her articles by people from the office of the Vice President and then cited by Vice President Cheney. In other words, no one likes her. So now she's going to be on Fox in their new glorious Democrats-are-in-charge-again rebirth as the loyal opposition to the terrorists who will run the country in 2009. They are sooo lucky to have her! Since she left the Times she's been with the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think thank, because she's given up entirely on getting anyone to like her or take her seriously anymore. Also she endorsed Barack Obama because why not? She probably believes in abortion and socialism and progressive taxation just as much as she believed that Iraq was a dangerous threat based on the most specious and misleading of evidence. For a while all the "serious" media liberals had to acknowledge that Bush was more "serious" about National Security than those peacenik hippie Nation-reading commies, remember? No, no one remembers, or cares, whatever. Miller is of course either delusional or just doesn't give a shit:

God, John McCain is just sick of running for president. Even in the cozy environs of Fox News Sunday, questioned by the friendly Chris Wallace, he's absolutely unable to justify to himself the various hideous missteps of his miserable campaign. That Sarah Palin pick? Well, he half-heartedly argues, it'll piss off the feminists. What a great reason to make her your successor, John. And then he offers, on the subject of Governor Palin's selection, the type of "joke" that is utterly serious: "as a cold political calculation, I could not be more pleased." Ugh.

♦ Last night's debate attracted more viewers than the first, but not as many as last week's debate. [MediaPost]
♦ Dan Rather will be covering the presidential elections for a French TV network. Does he speak French? [Variety]
♦ Fox's 24 will command the highest ad rates this season. [AdAge]
♦ PBS has decided not to air a documentary about Bush administration torture tactics until after the election. [NYT]
♦ Britney Spears is back in print to hype her latest fragrance line. [AdRants]
♦ Steve Carell will play a French soldier in Brigadier Gerard. [THR]

On the heels of the Tyler Perry's House of Payne labor controversy—in which WGA heads Patric Verrone and Michael Winship filed an angry grievance with the National Labor Relations Board, demanding restitution for "an abused writing staff forced to churn out sitcom dialogue with a pistol pressed to their temples by the world's wealthiest, union-busting grandma-with-a-dick,"—comes yet another fiery piece of rhetoric from the militant duo. This time, they target Fox's planned Osbourne family variety show, for which producer FremantleMedia is hoping they can get their snappy repartee wholesale. An excerpt from their letter:

Yet another foreign television show is being imported from a far-flung country to be smoothed over and spoiled for American audiences. Though it's not an obscure Israeli show like In Treatment, which was dulled-down for HBO. And it's not a cultish oddity like Australia's Kath & Kim, nabbed by NBC with apparent diminshed returns. No this is one of those big old British shows that actually aired on American television during its run: Absolutely Fabulous. Mm hmm. Ab Fab. For American TV. Set in Los Angeles:

♦ Now that Tina Fey is suddenly cool again, publishers are falling over themselves to sign her as an author. The bidding is up to $6 million. [NYP]
♦ Katie Couric: She's back! [AP]
♦ Footage of Elisabeth Hasselbeck feuding with the other View gals over Sarah Palin this morning. [MollyGood]
♦ Norman Lear is teaming up with HBO on a drama series about "the world of 1970s pro wrestling." [THR]
♦ NBC has picked up a remake of the Partridge Family. [THR]
♦ TV's fall lineup has been a ratings disappointment. [WSJ]
♦ Solid ratings for House and Fringe elevated Fox to No. 1 on Tuesday. [TV Decoder]
♦ Citizen journalism has its dangers. Just ask CBS! [AdAge]

You'd think Fox News would be thrilled with the idea of an Obama presidency! Though they made their most important mark as the propaganda arm of the post-9/11 Bush presidency, they began as a channel in opposition to the status quo. Remember Clinton? The one who was president? The modern conservative movement is built around aggrieved victimhood, and Obama in the White House should mean the return of great Fox television. But they seem more concerned, right now, about getting that John McCain guy (who they never even really liked!) elected. They're actually maybe scared that their moment is over? That Rachel Maddow really is the future? How else to explain dumb stunts like erasing an AP report on Sarah Palin from their website after it showed up in search engines. The story was on how prominent conservatives like Kathleen Parker are all terrified that the McCain is sending a genial idiot into the White House based purely on her attractiveness to the base. Not revolutionary stuff. But too hot for Fox, apparently. (Though they did report on Frank Luntz's focus group proclaiming an Obama victory in the debate. No one referenced the group's decision again that night, as far as we know, but the Fox website is still highlighting the video.) Click to view

The prospect of someday appearing on the World's Greatest Awards Show has proven quite the lure to big-screen stars in recent years, who've increasingly forgone the fool's errand of mainstream cinema for the more temperate waters of episodic television. A pair of stories making the rounds today, however, suggests the threshold between the two as a point of no return for those who dare to cross, starting with George Clooney, who yesterday turned down the prospect of a guest stint during ER's final season: "[H]e is not coming back," his publicist said. "It is something he has already done. He is busy making movies." Indeed, Men Who Stare at Goats just ruined your ER series finale. We apologize on his behalf. Meanwhile, Tim Roth is hoping the grass — or at least the money — is greener at Fox, where he's aboard Brian Grazer's Lie to Me, about a FBI-recruited scientist "with the innate ability to read whether people are telling the truth":

As Ben Smith points out, had a non-conservative non-lady said this, it would probably score almost as high on the outrage-meter than some cesspool blog gloating over identity theft. Still. Here's Bloomberg's Caroline Baum explaining that Hillary voters won't flock to Sarah Palin just because she has tits. Yes, she actually says tits. Then everyone giggles for like ten minutes and also a goofy sound effect is played. [Ben Smith/Politico]