Here's some exciting news for fans of the sadistic exploitation of shameless, fame-hungry minors: American Idol has been renewed well into the next decade! After a nail-biting "will he or will he?" episode involving a legal dispute, ill-fitting-muscle-shirt-wearer Simon Cowell has signed on for another five seasons, with no word yet on the involvement of the show's other standbys, narcotized, differently abled clapper Paula Abdul, "A'ight" aficionado Randy Jackson, or recently crowned Carnaval Queen/Idol host Ryan Seacrest.

We have some miraculous news for those of you who took the cancellation of The Simple Life particularly hard: you can put down your self-mutilation implements and rejoice! E! has answered your prayers, ordering ten episodes of the series and divising a plot hook that finds a way to use both of the series' now-feuding stars, without having Paris or Nicole ever set foot in the same room!

· Paramount rewards South Park's Trey Parker and Matt Stone for ridiculing their biggest movie star with a three-year production deal. The team has also formed their own company, Trunity, a Mediar company, a division of True Mediar, a Unity Corpbopoly. OK, we get it, you're wacky! [Variety]
· The OC continues to throw new characters at its third season story problems, this time signing up thirteen's Nikki Reed for a four episode arc. Still, should be a better addition than the Preppy Psychotic Statutory Rapist Dean. [THR]
· The ratings sweeps race is looking like a two-horse affair, with ABC and CBS battling for position "down the stretch." To further belabor the metaphor: NBC is still stuck at the gate, humping its dead steed with eyes squeezed shut, thinking of the Friends cast. [Variety]
· "Self-described hot-rod enthusiast" Jon Favreau will write and direct hot-rod drama Johnny Zero for Columbia. We hate to be so cynical, but why do we get the feeling that his assistant was printing out every Google result for "history of hot-rodding" the night before the studio meeting? [THR]
· Bernie Mac is developing an "All in the Family-like" sitcom for Fox. But this time, of course, the Archie Bunker character will be black instead of Michael Rappaport. [Variety]

Faced with the prospect that none of the shows that they're currently working on for their sweeps-yanked, reduced-order critical darling may ever air, the Arrested Development gang is coping by getting self-referential. Variety reports that an upcoming show (subtly named for the online campaign to rescue the series from cancellation) goes balls-out-of-the-bottom-of-Tobias'-Daisy-Dukes for the meta:

· Attorneys General in 32 states sign a letter asking studios to add anti-smoking message to DVD and video releases in which smoking is shown, hoping to prevent teens from looking really, really cool in the breezeway between Geography and Home Ec. [Variety]
· Will Ferrell, Jon Heder, Will Arnett and Amy Poehler are in talks to star in an ice skating comedy Blades of Glory for DreamWorks. But THR stresses that while these are serious talks, money and scheduling could deprive the public the joy of Ferrell and Heder playing figure-skating archrivals who are forced to become pairs partners. [Variety]
· Putting up your own money is the new putting up someone else's money: Producer Bobby Newmyer gambles his kids' education fund on financing Mo'Nique vehicle Phat Girlz, but Fox Searchlight picks up distribution rights, assuring that Newmyer will not be murdered by community college educated offspring. [Variety]
· Lost producers will shoot 20 mini-episodes of further show content for mobile phones, allowing viewers the exciting, cutting-edge opportunity to be very confused while squinting at a one-inch screen. [THR]
· Walden Media and New Line try to trick us into thinking Hollywood's not out of ideas by making a modern, 3-D version of Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. [Variety]

· Sensing a chance to finally behead momentarily weakened New Year's Eve immortal Dick Clark, Fox recruits Regis Philbin to host a competing ball-dropping special to ring in 2006. [Variety]
· The Agent Dance, Dump The Sharks Edition: Gary Oldman flees CAA to cozy up with ICM. [THR]
· Disney crosses the international box office billion-dollar mark, making them the third studio (along with Fox and Warner Bros.) to do so this year. Please join us in celebrating the further enrichment of faceless multimedia conglomerates! Huzzah! [Variety]
· Penguins still red-hot, tragicomic bear-wranglers not so much: The Academy shortlists a record 15 documentaries for nomination, including March of the Penguins, but not Grizzly Man. [Variety]
· Because nothing says gravitas like the words "From the star of The Waterboy and the creative force behind The Mind of the Married Man," we can't imagine anyone else collaborating on a 9/11 drama but Adam Sandler and Mike Binder. [Variety]

Sad news: a producer of Fox's hit series Prison Break was found dead yesterday in his room at Chicago's Drake Hotel, from what appears to be a drug overdose:

· As far as we can tell, THR has the same details as yesterday's Var story about Arrested Development's reduced episode order, but goes the extra mile and declares the show canceled. Are the trades splitting hairs, or is the Deathwatch officially over? [THR]
· While News Corp. yearns to suckle profits from the internet's money-teat, earnings statements remind it that its old-timey talkies business is where Rupert Murdoch's bread is buttered. [Variety]
· Paramount continues its commitment to comedy, comedy, comedy, picking up SNL's Amy Poehler and Wedding Crashers' Isla Fisher's Groupies, a pitch about, um, groupies. [Variety]
· Scarlett Johansson is in negotiations to star in the movie adaptation of The Nanny Diaries. (Yes, as the nanny.) It's a bold, risky move by the Weinstein Co., who are ignoring The Island's producers' warnings that Johansson can't open a movie. [THR]
· No matter how many votive candles we light, rosaries we pray, or Sally Struthers-approved children we sponsor, Peter Berg continues to get work. [Variety]

Fox may not be killing Arrested Development, but it's stabbing it in the gut, rolling it out of the passenger side door, and leaving it for dead by the side of the road. Variety reports that Fox is pulling the show from the schedule during sweeps (along with Kitchen Confidential, but we doubt its fans will be sending any foam Hail Marys to save it), and has reduced its order from 22 to 13 episodes. We'd tearfully lament the fact that we live in a world where Fox flips pancakes for the re-launch of Stacked while plotting AD's demise, but a) as we all know by now, we're dead inside, and b) Stacked probably won't survive past December, either.

· Sensing that there might be a few more dollars to be squeezed from The Terminator franchise, Fox commits to a pilot for The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which will also have "a link" to a possible future big-screen trilogy. Would someone please travel back in time and kill us during the closing credits of Terminator 2? Thanks, we'd really appreciate that. Things were so much less cynical then. [Variety]
· Paramount finally makes a honest man out of unstoppable hugging machine John Lesher, officially announcing his hiring to run Paramount Classics. [THR]
· Universal backs up a dump-truck full of cash for a package of the film rights to Malcolm Gladwell's nonfiction bestseller Blink, a deal for Stephen Gaghan to direct and write, and one for Leonardo DiCaprio to star. The pitch was based on a single chapter from the book involving someone who's good at reading faces and body language, which in a quintessentially Hollywood way inspired Gaghan to exclaim, "That's a movie!" Probably while chomping on a cigar and being serviced by someone from the typing pool. [Variety]
· Those half-dozen letter writers from the Parents Television Council kept themselves very busy in the third quarter, as FCC indecency complaints jumped fourfold in that timeframe. [THR]
· Joey co-creator Shana Goldberg seeks to singlehandedly save the moribund sitcom with a groundbreaking pilot for ABC about two sisters, one raised rich, while the other was poor. Are we expected to believe she developed that concept all by herself? [Variety]

Attention all Fox employees unlucky enough to be at their desks at this ungodly hour: This is just a friendly reminder that your infinitely benevolent masters are once again offering you a very special treat at the Commissary and the News Cafe. That's right, Foxies, they're generously affording you the opportunity to purchase "Pam-Cakes," everyone's favorite promotional breakfast treat (with the possible exception of the Prison Break Shower Sausage) to celebrate tonight's special pre-cancellation presentation of Pamela Anderson's Stacked. Get yourself down to the mess hall before they're gone, but eaters beware: The flapjacks look fluffy and delicious on-camera, but up close, they're distressingly wrinkled and unappetizing.

· With an eye towards cleaning up at next year's holiday box office, Fox signs Ben Stiller for A Night at the Museum, in which Stiller will star as a security guard who "unwittingly unleashes a curse that brings to life the bugs and animals on display." Excuse us. Stiller will star as a twitchy, neurotic, and impotent-rage-prone security guard who "unwittingly unleashes a curse that brings to life the bugs and animals on display." [Variety]
· Despite CBS's killer hurricane and NBC's live debate on The West Wing/two-hour L&O:SVU counterprogramming Hail Marys, America still preferred to watch the creepy, gay-seeming pharmacist contemplate date-raping Marcia Cross on Desperate Housewives. [THR]
· Michael Douglas mercifully chooses a role which will probably not require any further restorative plastic surgery, signing up to play "an eccentric and manic-depressive father who becomes obsessed with his belief that there's buried treasure in the San Fernando Valley" in the Alexander Payne-produced King of California. [Variety]
· Now that an Everybody Loves Raymond spinoff looks like a longshot, Brad Garrett realizes that he might need someone to find him a job, hires William Morris to hunt down the appropriate sitcom second-banana roles and CBS MOWs. [THR]
· It's William Morris Signing Day! Catherine Zeta-Jones returns to the welcoming arms of longtime WMA agent George Freeman, whom she jilted for CAA two years ago. [Variety]

Margaret Cho is trying her hand at sitcoms again. We always felt her sponge-bath-administering character Gwen ("My name's Gwen and I'm here to warrrrsh your vagina!") could be the next Ally McBeal, but Cho has opted for the "ethnic, multigenerational family comedy" route that did her in the first time around:

This holiday season, the always family-friendly Fox network will help ease the burden on Santa Claus by answering some of the overworked Christmas icon's mail—on camera, of course. From the AP:

· Owen "The Butterscotch Stallion" Wilson shakes his glorious mane and gallops proudly away from Paramount's The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, possibly due to the studio's inability to find a female co-star meeting the Stallion's exacting standards. In a tragic downgrade, Zach Braff is now considered the frontrunner to take Wilson's place. [THR]
· Fox orders a pilot of the Jerry "All Your TV Are Belong To Me" Bruckheimer celebrity-lawyer procedural American Crime. Bored of merely recycling concepts, Bruckheimer mixes things up by reusing titles, as American Crime was the original name of CBS's Close to Home. [Variety]
· Jennifer Garner's Vandalia Films sets up erotic thriller Sabbatical at Touchstone as a starring vehicle for the actress, who bravely refuses to believe that marrying Ben Affleck has effectively ended her career. [THR]
· Touchstone TV rewards Grey's Anatomy showrunner Jim Parriott for his breakout, post-Housewives timeslot hit with a three year overall deal. [Variety]
· NBC ponders moving My Name is Earl to highly competitive (and lucrative) Thursday night, but Fox might be mulling a shift of juggernaut American Idol to that night as well, likely resulting in untold Must See TV ratings carnage. [THR]

An operative clued us into this heart-warming Fox press release:

· Studios fear that SAG's intramural executive bloodbath might indicate that the guild might not bend over so readily in future negotiations, perhaps even getting so uppity as to follow through on a work stoppage. The studios, however, will happily detonate a nuclear device and wipe out all of Hollywood before sharing any more DVD revenues, no matter how many people SAG replaces. [Variety]
· Tired of pussy-footing around their world domination ambitions with such society-destabilizing programs as Who's Your Daddy?, Fox announces its plans to Destroy All Humans. Rupert Murdoch will not stop until every last one of us is a smoldering pile of ash. [THR]
· MGM board member Harry Sloan is named new chariman and CEO of the studio, plans to focus on producing more original content if he can figure out how to fill out corporate parent Sony's utterly confusing paperwork. [Variety]
· Desperate NBC is so grateful to My Name is Earl star Jason Lee for starring in a bright spot in the desolation of their primetime schedule that they've agreed to let him develop shows of his own. [THR]
·ABC picks up a script and five script outlines of the reality TV parody America's Next Muppet, in which viewers may actually get the chance to choose a new felt star. The newest Muppet will immediately be written into a six-show arc as Nicolette Sherdian's latest love interest on Desperate Housewives. [Variety]

· "They've given me complete freedom," said lead-handed Crash director/screenwriter Paul Haggis, in reference to a pilot he's doing for NBC. Have more frightening words ever been spoken?
· This Dr. Phil clip made us taste bile, not chuckle, so officially we're still waiting The Showbiz Show to deliver its first laugh. There, we said it.
· Somewhere on the Fox lot, a series of high fives are being exchanged, as the network dominated the Parents Television Council's list of worst shows for primetime family viewing with The War at Home, Family Guy, American Dad, The OC, That 70s Show, and Arrested Development all meriting inclusion. Celebratory Fox News Cafe theme menu to follow—the I'm Terrified My Daughter Is Dating A Black Guy War at Home meatloaf is going to be delicious.
· We really hate to see Ari Emanuel confused. Maybe he shouldn't think so hard about politics and just take a little cat nap whenever he gets the urge to blog.
· Also, will someone help Michael Eisner find a job? It breaks our heart to think he's sitting around feeling unfulfilled, but we can't say we didn't see this coming.

· Fox commits to the Ashton Kutcher-produced pilot 30 Year Old Grandpa, in which a young guy marries a "mature" lady and winds up a stepdad to children close to his own age. How does the creative genius Kutcher come up with these wonderful ideas? Deal was reached after Kutcher's Katalyst Productions agreed to change the title from the edgier How I Boned Your Mother.* [Variety]
· SpongeBob Squarepants will soon debut in 120 million Chinese households, helping the government's desperate attempts at population control by attempting to turn an entire generation of children gay. [THR]
· Former King of Queens showrunners Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa are the latest writers trying to translate 24 into sitcom form with the pilot A Day in the Life (each season is one wacky day!) for ABC, who have apparently forgotten they tried to do it earlier this year with the original version of Jake in Progress. [Variety]
· Michael J. Fox will make a triumphant return to television as a guest star on Boston Legal, where he will play a character battling lung cancer, not Parkinson's disease.. [THR]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Yet Another Scary Movie Redo Edition: New Line buys the distribution rights to Hong Kong horror remake In-Utero, in which a pregnant woman who sees spirits and whatnot. [Variety]

· Warner Brothers throws money at a comedy pitch that sounds like the beginning of a very bad joke from the Wedding Crashers team of David Dobkin and Andrew Panay: "Story concerns three daughters who bring their boyfriends home — an Arab, a Jew and an African-American — to meet their hard-nosed Southern father during the holidays." As soon as the pair can remember the set-up for the one that ends with the duck telling the bartender to "just put it on my bill," Universal is expected to make a preemptive $5 million offer to the pair. [Variety]
· You already know about how you'll soon be able to squint through your favorite TV shows on the video iPod, but why not read the trade reports? [Variety, THR]
· Fox has kicked The Simple Life to the curb, but NBC and The WB might be interested in getting some sloppy seconds with Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. [Variety]
· CBS picks up the back nine for Ghost Whisperer, Criminal Minds, and How I Met Your Mother. Clearly, Jennifer Love Hewitt's ghost-detecting rack is good for at least nine more episodes. [THR]
· The Yankees are out of the playoffs, but unfortunately for Fox, they took all the Nielsen families with them. [Variety]