There are two ways of looking at 20th Century Fox's decision not to air an ad for The Happening during the Super Bowl last night (Ed. Note: teaser trailer removed by the request of 20th Century Fox). The first is that the company made a financially savvy decision by choosing not to blow $2.7 million on a thirty-second advertisement (like all those other studios did). The other is that the studio is feeling a bit gunshy on the financial prospects of Night's first film since the unmitigated disaster that was Lady In The Water. And as for which theory we think holds more water? We're going with the latter.

So much for the death of television. 97.5 million people, a Super Bowl record, watched my beloved New England Patriots lose to the New York Giants, according to Fox. 107.5 million people watched the last half-hour of the game, besting the 106 million that watched the final episode of M.A.S.H. Television advertisers, who paid $2.7 million for each 30-second spot, definitely got their money's worth. Altogether, they spent $156 million on the five-hour game. It takes Google three days to make that much money.

Neocon NYT columnist Bill Kristol gets tongue-tied on Fox News Sunday in his zeal to explain some stuff about Hillary and the Dems: "White women are a problem, you know. That's something we all live with!" We assume he was attempting a joke about his wife maybe, but this should serve as a lesson to how humor can often go wrong when you're speaking in soundbites. (Really, though, "White women are the problem" is a perfectly acceptable shorthand behind the scenes for those who discuss politics and, as such, voting blocks for a living. "Blacks are a problem," "We've got to do something about the Jews," etc.) Kristol's mistake was not recognizing that he was actually on TV.

· According to Nielsen's preliminary overnight ratings, a record number of Super Bowl viewers tuned in to watch the Giants shock the world™ by upsetting the heavily favored, once-unbeatable-seeming Patriots, with 97.5 million people tuning in (and 105.9 million at its peak) for the game. The telecast may also finish as the second-most-watched event of all time, behind MASH's 1983 finale. [THR]
· Rewarding him for his ability to profitably resurrect the Rambo franchise, Nu Image/Millenium Films signs new international political icon Sylvester Stallone to write and direct two more action flicks; blogging convention dictates that we must identify these next projects as long-awaited sequels to films from his back catalog, like Cobras and Over the Top 2: Back Over the Top. [THR]

"Hollywood director Robert Greenwald" and the Daily News's Rush & Molloy made Bill O'Reilly very sad when they send some homeless vets over to Fox News's New York headquarters to deliver a petition to Bill O'Reilly about how they actually do exist. O'Reilly's ambush producer exclusively revealed that most of the picketing homeless vets don't even watch Fox. Then Bill played a clip from Xanadu. A Rush & Molloy stringer was also sort of abused, amusingly. Clip after the jump!

It's been nothing short of a whirlwind for STG Chris Bernheisel since the bubbly, bribe-bearing Kelly Clarkson interpretist was introduced to the world on Tuesday night's episode of American Idol: He already has appearances lined up on TV Guide Channel's Idol Chat (where he'll meet the King of Idol Casualties Justin Guarini), and Access Hollywood "plans to fly him to L.A. soon" to talk hair product with Billy Bush. Still, the brass ring of famewhoring STG appearances so far remains out of reach, despite haven't now sent 71 videos to Ellen DeGeneres begging to appear on her show. We humbly suggest she take him up on his offer, before the next package winds up containing something far more oozing and Iggy-head-shaped than a relatively harmless videotape. [Reality Blurred]

· After two high-rated (but Idol-boosted) episodes of The Moment of Truth, Fox picks up 13 more episodes of their lie-detecting semi-sensation. Evil mastermind Mike Darnell renews his promise to fix the show's pacing problems, and claims that even though these first two episodes have largely failed to shock, they've still been effective enough to induce a number of planned contestants to drop out. [THR]
· Sounding a characteristically gloomy note on the State of the Strike on Day 89, Var points out that even though the WGA and AMPTP have been engaged in informal talks, no date has been picked for the start of formal bargaining, say that "some" worry that the strike will drag on long enough for SAG to walk out in July and "stay out at least into the fall" with the scribes, and claim there's a "tacit deadline" to make some progress before CEOs storm out of negotiations again. Hear that, writers? Doomsday clocks are ticking everywhere, so better take whatever deal's on on the table, whether or not it's a good one! [Variety]

While American Idol positions itself as the greatest singing competition in the history of the world—and, let's face it...It is! It really is!—it also performs a crucial secondary service for which it too often goes uncredited: Introducing America to the Small Town Gay .

· Encouraged by the good-enough numbers generated by viewers lured to Celebrity Apprentice by the depressing lack of programming alternatives, NBC greenlights a second season of Donald Trump's salvaged franchise. Calls are already flooding in from other lesser-Baldwins, starving reality-show alumni, and aging supermodels hoping to fill out the next installment's roster of semi-recognizable names. [Variety]
· Though Fox, powered by American Idol and The Moment of Truth, is rolling along during a strike-affected early 2008, this week the top five broadcasters are down 21% in the 18-49 demographic compared to the same period from last year. [Variety]

The Advocate cornered Seth MacFarlane, the multi-talented creator of venerable envelope-nudging Fox animated hit The Family Guy, for an off-the-velvet-cuff conversation about how homosexuality figures into his own brand of flashback-reliant comedy. Despite an affection for musical numbers that would suggest otherwise, MacFarlane is straight. Still, he's had the opportunity to explore his same-sex-loving side through his voicing of Family favorite Stewie, who's evolved in recent seasons from a nefarious infant hellbent on world domination, into perhaps the only TV diaper-pooper grappling with his own sexual identity. Some highlights from the highly entertaining exchange follow, including a graphic proposition for frequently outraged Family-monitors, The Parents Television Council:

Though the 23 million or so viewers who stuck around after American Idol to check out the series premiere of The Moment of Truth surely provided all the validation he needed, Fox president of the Dark Alternative Programming Arts Mike Darnell has been reveling in the critical scorn heaped upon his lie-detecting masterwork, knowing from experience that such an outpouring of vitriol probably means he has a huge hit on his hands. Pausing briefly from the celebratory soak in his office's Cristal-filled Jacuzzi he'd been enjoying since the release of this morning's preliminary Nielsen numbers, Darnell spoke to TV Week about Truth, acknowledging complaints about the debut episode's sluggish pacing (they're working on it!), and pledging that future installments of the show will deliver all the deception-induced human misery a rubbernecking, TV-watching nation can handle:

Semi-network CNN Headline News actually won the Tuesday night 6 p.m. cable ratings war with its "Nothing At All But Heath Ledger" programming strategy. Number two Fox News, which included only a woefully insufficient dash of Ledger, trailed by more than 25%. Headline News staffers also found it 75% harder than usual to wash the filth off upon returning home from work and showering for two hours. (Except, notably, the crew at Nancy Grace.) [TVNewser]

· According to "an industry study conducted by informed sources" which Var was allowed to view on a "confidential basis" (we'll let you concoct your own theories about a trenchcoat-clad Nick Counter giving a sneak preview of the figures in a dark corner of the Beverly Center parking lot), the cost of the writers strike could reach $3 billion if it drags on for 60 to 90 more days. Also, in case you haven't heard: the national economy is headed down the shitter. [Variety]
· While NBC isn't canceling any of its current pilot scripts (unlike recent project-droppers CBS, Fox, and The CW), Jeff Zucker says that going forward, the company will cut back on traditional pilot development to focus its resources on ordering episodes of whatever Colombian telenovela or Dutch game-show Peacock programming-importation expert Ben Silverman thinks he can rush onto his primetime schedule without too much expensive tinkering. [Variety]
[After the jump: ast night's Idol numbers; CEOs and writers chatting; a Buffy reunion]

While last night's disappointing, agonizingly slow-paced The Moment of Truth ("That answer is...[pause for 30 seconds of cuts between the contestant and host Mark Wahlberg barely resisting the temptation to check his watch]...TRUE!") failed to make us feel as irredeemably filthy as we'd hoped it would, the ratings were, in a word, huge. Not only did the show retain 23 million of American Idol's viewers, it was the best-rated debut on any network since similarly highbrow Fox sibling Who Wants To Be Humiliated By A Not Particularly Bright Ten-Year-Old? bowed last year. We suppose we have to see how many of those eyeballs return next week for the resolution of Truth's "Did the guy with the hair plugs and gambling problem lose his son's college fund in a craps game?" cliffhanger. [TV Week]

Perhaps Mike Darnell, Fox's President Of Alternative Programming and Slowly Destroying the Fabric Of Our Society, slightly oversold his much-anticipated lie-detector show, The Moment of Truth, when he claimed back in November, "You're either going to love it, or think it's the end of Western civilization," as last night's premiere was maddeningly short on the kind of shamelessly exploitative moments we'd been hoping for; neither of the show's first two contestants, confronted with the possibility that their lives could unravel because of a nationally televised confrontation with The Truth, suffered the kind of debilitating stroke or heart attack teased during the pre-release hype.

You know what really cracks up Fox News host John Gibson? The untimely death of Heath Ledger! The one thing John Gibson knows about Heath Ledger is that Heath Ledger kissed a boy in a gay movie for gay gays, and therefore, he was probably a total gay himself, in real life. Therefore, his death is hilarious! On his radio program the other day, the hero journalist mocked Ledger's death something like half a dozen times, opening his show with a hilarious quip about Ledger quitting us and wondering if perhaps the actor killed himself after witnessing the poor performace of John Edwards in the last presidential debate. It's funny 'cause the authorities no longer suspect suicide! Even the guests joined in, with funnyman Tom Sullivan calling him "Keith Bledger" and the lady cohost whose name we didn't catch wondering, mockingly, if Keith was perhaps a "deep thinker." Can you believe that wacky morning zoo crew went there? They're saying what we're not really thinking, because what the fuck? Listen and sputter! [Think Progress, MSNBC, Previously]

· Whoopsies! The MPAA admits that a 2005 study "incorrectly concluded" that movie piracy by college students is responsible for 44 percent of the industry's domestic losses, claiming that a "data entry" error ever so slightly inflated the actual "key number" of 15 percent. [THR]
· Fox and The CW have joined CBS in announcing a more "targeted" approach to the strike-abbreviated pilot season, taking an opportunity to dump projects the networks either can't or don't want to make whenever the WGA and AMPTP reach a new deal. Additionally, ABC is threatening to lighten its script load by 30 percent. [Variety]
[After the jump: Idol crushes rivals (again); studio speciality divisions dominate Oscar noms; Jericho finds a basic cable home.]

You know, Hollywood has a dream, too: Seeing summer box office numbers in the dead of January. This weekend, that dream has finally come to pass, bringing movie executives of all stripes and luxury-car-driving-categories out of their offices and into the streets, to stand together and toss bushels of warm money into the air in a stirring showing of producerly love. The numbers:

· The DGA, as you undoubtedly heard just moments after puffs of white smoke were belched skyward from the chimney of AMPTP headquarters, reached a deal with the studios yesterday. While anxious WGA members are picking over the proposed contract to see if any writer-screwing provisions have been hidden in the fine print, a strike-weary industry reacts: "One thing that is very clear is that with all the bad blood between the WGA and studios, the writers can strike until the end of time and they will not do better than the directors did. It is time to stop this," said a "veteran agent" obviously eager to start earning commissions again. Check out the full story to read quotes carefully chosen to make the WGA look totally unreasonable if they don't fall hopelessly in love with the terms offered the directors! [Variety]
[After the jump: more deal reactions! Zac Efron hearts Orson Welles! Primetime TV may soon offer nothing but celebrity circus shows!]