· Don Imus earns a multi-million dollar windfall for calling the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos." Nicely played, CBS! [Variety]
· Disney adds Bernie Mac to a magical Old Dogs cast that already includes John Travolta and Robin Williams; Mac will play the part of the take-no-shit character that glowers out from the one-sheet as his harried co-stars are run ragged by the 7-year-old twins they have no idea how to care for. [THR]
· Rosario Dawson hitches her wagon to Shia Labeouf's quickly rising star, signing on for the DreamWorks thriller Eagle Eye. [Variety]
· Fox's late-summer crap (the Hell's Kitchen finale and a new episode of So You Think You Can Dance) easily wins Monday night against other network's rerun garbage. [THR]
· NBC cordially invites the loyal viewers of Today to choke on a new, fourth hour of their beloved morning chatfest. [Variety]

· X-Men fans, take heart: Tsotsi's Gavin Hood, not X-Men 3: The Last Gasp of a Once Vital Franchise's Brett Ratner, has signed on to direct Wolverine. [Variety]
· It's official: NBC's Ben Silverman is the new Norman Lear. In producing two of the Emmy nominees for best comedy (The Office and Ugly Betty), Silverman has equalled a feat last acheived by his idol, who in 1973 earned sitcom nods for All in the Family and Maude. [THR]
· In other Emmy oddities, Fox's instantaneously premiered/canceled Drive makes history as the first-ever Primetime Emmy broadband nominee for a three-minute clip that streamed on Fox.com. [Variety]
· Upon learning of her Emmy nomination for her work on Brothers & Sisters, Sally Field was overwhelmed by a Meg-Ryan-in- When-Harry-Met-Sally-quality orgasm, a spasm of ecstasy so paralyzing she was unable to do her usual, "You like me, you really really like me!" schtick. [THR, THR]
· When John Travolta in drag and fake gay-married firefighters clash at the box office, no comedy fans will escape unscathed. [Variety]

• Lady Di's probably-son-with-what's-his-face Harry's girlfriend's nickname for him is "Big Ginger." Good to know when royalty is well-hung! [Page Six]
  

And with nothing more complicated than a casual choice of wardrobe, John Waters produced a level of outrageousness at his premiere party for Hairspray that Captivity couldn't generate with a club jam-packed with half-naked SuicideGirls being tortured by guys in butcher smocks. To be fair, Waters did ask John Travolta to strip down to his underwear and submit to a public paddling by Mink Stole, but realized such a stunt might seem a little desperate even before a surprisingly game, yet distressingly sweat-slicked, Travolta was able to completely wriggle out of his shirt.

· Rehab is easy; developing the upper body strength necessary to accurately portray a murdered stripper is hard.
· John Travolta would like you to know that there was nothing gay whatsoever about his dressing in drag for Hairspray, and even if it was a little gay, his incredibly tolerant religion would be OK with it.
· "Criss Angel's wife says the magic has gone from their marriage and she now wants to make him vanish from her life." Also, she is unhappy with her estranged husband's "repeated attempts to saw rumored new girlfriend Cameron Diaz in half with his penis."
· Hey, unicorns! On the JesusPhone!

W magazine profiles John Travolta in their current issue, naively noting how "at 53 [he] still has a good head of hair and wields his famous blue eyes to powerful effect." When the topic shifts to his upcoming turn as Hairspray's zaftig hausfrau Edna Turnblad, Travolta explains how he firmly told producers that he would only take on the gender-bending role if they promised to build him the kind of plus-size, womanly curves recently dubbed by the LAT as the "new look" of Hollywood:

In a shocking interview airing later tonight, Guantanamo-quality Extra interrogator Jerry "Dr. Answers" Penacoli inserts a series of bamboo shoots underneath Hairspray star John Travolta's exquisitely manicured fingernails until the enigmatic actor comes clean about his controversial bedtime, unexpectedly admitting under the duress of Penacoli's punishing, Geneva Convention-violating techniques that he is, in fact, a vampire: "I fly sometimes at night. I catch up on all sorts of business I have to do...I do my work out at night."

John Travolta confirms "rumors that he is nocturnal." [Extra]

· Remember that Tom Cruise guy? Black Book's Carice Van Houten will be starring opposite him in Valkyrie, Cruise's big Hitler-hunting comeback picture. [THR]
· A big day in Cruise news: Daniel Snyder, who famously hooked up Cruise with some rent money and a theme-park greeter job when the actor was down on his luck after his dumping by Paramount, has bought Dick Clark Productions, producers of the Golden Globes. Ownership of Dick Clark himself was not transferred in the deal. [Variety]
· Jack Black and director Todd Phillips are partnering for the Warner Bros. comedy Man-Witch, whose entire concept is encapsulated in those incredibly efficient hyphenated words. Also mistakenly purchased before the magic-related project were the rights to Manwich, the story of a average schlub's love of Sloppy Joe-style sandwiches, when the Warner Bros. development executive yelped "We're buying it if Jack Black is in it!" before allowing the writers to complete their pitch. [Variety]
· NBC scores with their Dateline interview of Princes William and Harry, but our new favorite summer show, Kittens Vs. Cougars: The Battle To Bone Mark Philippoussis, premiered unimpressively for the network. [THR]
· Disney signs Wild Hogs auteur Walt Becker to a first-look deal, where he will direct and produce a variety of John Travolta-starring comedy projects. [Variety]

Just a little over one month away is the moderately anticipated release of Hairspray, featuring, as far as we know, the first fully authorized recorded drag appearance of Hollywood's second favorite OT-VIII family man, John Travolta. For those of you who simply cannot wait, however, the MTV Movies Blog has an exclusive sneak preview clip. The scene prominently features Travolta's Edna Turnblad, delivering her dialogue in an utterly inscrutable Southern-ish accent (doesn't it take place in Baltimore?) in a register slightly deeper than Travolta's own, and with none of the actor's trademarked, hip-gyrating moves—possibly all the result of reluctant concessions made to Church officials, who voiced serious concerns over how a flouncy, cross-dressing turn from one of their most high-profile lieutenants might affect the bottom-line numbers of their summer/fall 2007 recruitment drive.

• Reminder: Monday is Paris Hilton Goes To Jail Day! [R&M]
  

We'd completely forgotten that our favorite former Disney CEO had a cute little chat show over on CNBC (we'll have to do some research and figure out if we get that channel), until a helpful tipster forwarded us this clip from an upcoming episode of Conversations with Michael Eisner, reminding us of all the fun we've been missing out on by excluding it from our TiVo season pass list. We have no idea about what other delights are in store for us if we tune in on Monday night, but we imagine nothing that happens can top burgeoning trading card mogul Eisner and old buddy John sharing a laugh—and a stick of decades-old gum—over the actor's Barbarino rookie card. Don't eat it, Michael! It tastes like the 70s!

· No, sillies! His name is Gay! LOL! CMT would never hire a real Gay! [Variety]
· We thought that Disney could never top itself after casting John Travolta, Tim Allen, and Martin Lawrence together in Wild Hogs, but they've just officially blown our minds by getting Travolta and Robin Williams into Old Dogs, the story of "two best friends and business partners whose lives are turned upside down when they find themselves in the care of 7-year-old twins." This one could do $300 million, easy. [THR]
· With no more female-friendly MOW worlds to conquer after landing both Jennie Garth and Lacey Chabert for upcoming projects, Lifetime president/CEO Betty Cohen "steps down" barely 24 hours after the network's upfront presentations. [Variety]
· Following yesterday's (possibly premature) reports that Spiderman: 3 may have already been pirated in Beijing, enraged MPAA head Dan Glickman stops just short of announcing an immediate Hollywood-led nuclear strike against China. [THR]
· In happier MPAA news, pirate-hunter emeritus Jack Valenti is out of the hospital after a recent stroke, but could suffer a setback should he be updated on this troubling China/Spider-Man situation. [Variety]

Until today, our only glimpses of Hairspray—a worthy follow-up to The Producers in the category of "good movies turned hit Broadway shows turned crappy, likely-to-flop Hollywood musicals"—have been sparse. There was this promotional still of John Travolta suffering from what appeared to be an advanced case of steroid-induced facial-bloat, another unsettling snapshot of a bare-legged and bewigged Christopher Walken, and a 50-second "teaser," if you consider an announcer rattling off an endless list of names you didnt know and/or care about a tease. But with the release of the movie's full-length trailer on the internets, many of our curiosities about the movie are finally satisfied. Questions like: "Does this movie want to be the next Grease?" (Yes!) "Do we want to see it?" (No.) And, "How does Travolta look in a foundation garment?" (We torched out eyes with a cigarette lighter and a bottle of Aquanet.)

· Local Cleveland newsbimbo mauled by vicious housepet!
· Amazingly, TV networks aren't anxious to run this Casey Affleck PETA ad graphically showing the torture of the delicious animals served at the eating establishments of their other sponsors.
· Angelina Jolie AdoptionTracker: the thank-you note! (Which may or may not have been pinned to a bag containing a two million dollars "donation".)
· In the next Scriptland column: Frustrated screenwriters who turn to violence.
· John Travolta considers petitioning Scientology elders for permission to use the still-experimental baby-fabricating technology responsible for Suri Cruise to impregnate his 44-year-old wife.

It's time once again to soothe the festering wounds of the weekend by slathering ourselves in the miraculous, healing unguent of the box office numbers:

Thank God that John Travolta was on Ellen to let the world know what his upcoming Wild Hogs is really about; without the admirable honesty of this promotional appearance, potential ticket-buyers might have been fooled by conservative Disney's ad campaign marketing the film as just another slapsticky, City Slickers rip-off breeder-bonding comedy, but now they know that it's actually the story of four leather daddies' musical romp through the country's wildest S&M bars.

· Helen Mirren, distressingly chaste during her Oscar acceptance speech, saved the sexytime talk for Oprah. Oh, to be one of her breast-cupping seraphim!
· You know what might have been the most exciting thing about these brain-smoothingly boring Oscars? This guy.
· Critics are sharply divided over whether Ellen DeGeneres was dull or unfunny.
· We always had it feeling that it would be Titanic director James Cameron who first presented us with physical evidence of the historical Jesus Christ. He never lets us down.
· Travolta's hair stylist sought inspiration in a somewhat unorthodox place, but one really can't argue with the stunning results.
· Breaking: Britney Spears might have a substance abuse problem.

Open All Night has pictures of John Travolta at a G'Day L.A. event, featuring the Wild Hogs star sporting a dense, healthy head of amber locks that serve to accentuate his trademark widow's peak. But take the unforgiving eye of a professional camera lens, and pair it with an online editor's itchy zoom finger, and the honeycomb-nylon-mesh signs begin to tell another story: that of an actor in over his balding head, beholden to a shadowy organization who drains him of financial resources in exchange for the promise of never divulging the deeply personal and potentially embarrassing information they keep on file. Yes, joining the Hair Club for Men is easy; it's getting out that can prove to be damn near impossible.

• Departing Washington Post political writer backs down from hubristic statements made to NYO. [Romenesko]