Dallas fans who couldn't wait to see John Travolta attempt to cram 20 gallons of bloated cranium into J.R. Ewing's 10-gallon hat are in for a crushing disappointment, as New Regency's movie adaptation has been shelved until the studio can figure out what the hell to do now that every member of the cast but Travolta (even J.Lo!) realized it's going to be a fiasco and went running for the hills. [Variety]
· Roger Ebert's Chicago Sun-Times review for The Queen is his first published since he checked into the hospital for salivary cancer treatment back in June. He hopes to return to his TV show at the beginning of the year, where he will retake his rightful place demonstrating what a pinhead Richard Roeper is on a weekly basis. [THR]
China suspends the premieres of Miami Vice, World Trade Center, and, potentially, Casino Royale to clear room for the propaganda films scheduled for—and we're not making this up—"October Golden Autumn Excellent Domestic Film Exhibition Month." [Variety]
Ted Harbert, president of E! Networks, has been promoted to president and CEO of Comcast Entertainment Group, which will add overseeing G4 to his responsibilities. We are as exactly as excited as you are about this thrilling announcement concerning the corporate streamlining of basic cable network operations. [THR]
Weinstein-owned Genius Products picks up the North American rights to Dirty Sanchez: The Movie—the Welsh version of Jackass, not the sex tape featuring Screech's last ditch attempt to salvage something of career by painting a scatstache on some poor escort's upper lip. [Variety]

As photographic evidence recently demonstrated, there is a universe of flabby difference separating the John Travolta of the Sweathogs from the John Travolta of Wild Hogs, the suburban-biker-dad comedy in which he co-stars with Martin Lawrence, Tim Allen, and William H. Macy. But in this photoset of the actors splashing around between takes of a skinnydipping sequence, Travolta demonstrates the time-honored practice of maximizing his gynecomastic assets by squeezing them together for maximum cleavage (1), a trick which proved less successful when he later tested it on other body regions (2). A more body-conscious Lawrence was only trying to help out resistant friend Allen with the ancient Chinese ritual of love-handle-binding (3), a technique that has always worked for him (4). Macy is no stranger to set nudity, and proudly displayed his taut buttocks, but ultimately chose to demure from baring it all with a junk-satchel (5). Nothing, however, could have prepared the boys for when Wild Hogs director Walt Becker came out from behind the cameras to join the fun, stripping down to reveal a jaw-dropping, megaphone-sized member the likes of which even Captain Travolta had never seen (6).

Every once in a while, a reader will send in something just interesting or odd enough to totally mesmerize us, something that we we feel oddly compelled to share despite our complete inability to find a blogworthy angle. If you need a context for the attached photo, it's merely a sign from San Diego's Little Italy neighborhood, one of a series celebrating various famous Americans of Italian extraction, sponsored by a local business called Precious Cheese. If you need a further reason to stare, feel free to impose your own meaning on the serendipitous pairing of sponsor and overly earnest, past-his-prime actor, and muse that "Precious Cheese" is Travolta's drag name or his term of endearment for his favorite private jet passenger. Either way, Precious Cheese will haunt our dreams tonight.

Remember when John Travolta got snapped kissing that dude in Canada? Well, there's a perfectly rational explanation. Let's have his attorney clear things up: "As a manner of customary greeting and saying farewell, Mr. Travolta kisses both women and men whom he considers to be extremely close friends. People who are close to Mr. Travolta are aware of his customary, non-romantic gesture."

For at least one moment in our shallow, judgmental, celebrity-obsessed lives, let us not jump to untoward conclusions about what this National Enquirer photograph of John Travolta touching lips with another man on the steps to his private jet might mean about his sexual preference. We see no hint of tongue, no groping fingers fumbling to unclasp a belt, nor even a nearby massage table upon which the star might suddenly flip over, cast a modesty towel aside, and inappropriately request their meeting conclude with a happy ending. There is none of that here, just an innocuous image of a famous, avowedly heterosexual male rising up upon the balls of one foot to offer a platonic, same-sex pal a fond, lip-to-lip greeting before takeoff. Quite frankly, we have no idea why the tabloid even bothered printing it.

· Don't even pretend to act surprised that Travolta doesn't look good with his shirt off. You saw Pulp Fiction at least a decade ago, didn't you?
If you're a news outlet wondering how to correctly cover Lance Bass's coming out party, these handy guidelines from the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association should put you on the right track.
If you've ever wondered what happens when you e-mail a picture of a cat in a t-shirt to the Craigslist blind date who stood you up, well, wonder no more.
Today's obligatory SoaP-related links: Snakes on a Flying Machine and the seemingly inevitable Snakes on a Train. [via The Hot Blog]
· No one laughed harder than Colin Farrell after Michael Mann told him he'd just swallowed five crack rocks for no good reason: "To heighten the movie's air of reality, the actors trained with weapons and worked with undercover cops. They acted out scenarios for drug buys, and Farrell even tagged along on a mishandled drug bust he thought was real."

The nationwide search for the girl to play Tracy Turnblad, the plump and perky lead in the big screen adaption of Hairspray: The Musical, is finally over. 17-year-old Nikki Blonsky was ambushed by Access Hollywood's cameras at her job at Coldstone Creamery, where she received the life-changing news that she had been plucked from obscurity to star opposite John Travolta in a muumuu:

TMZ reports on a Sunday incident in which one of Scientology's second-tier celebrity adherents fiercely lashed out at a man whose t-shirt glibly called into question the sexual preference of two of her religion's higher-profile champions:

How disappointingly ironic that John Travolta—a celebrity brand name associated the world over with the joy of song from his roles in such beloved musical movies as Saturday Night Fever, Grease, and his upcoming muumuu-clad turn in Hairspray—should be the subject of this NY Daily News item:

• Star Jones is allegedly out at the View — in fact, Rosie O'Donnell's arrival was conditional on Jones' departure, a demand Barbara Walters was all too happy to meet. We don't know whether to be happy or sad. On one hand, we won't have to look at Star's melting face anymore; on the other, now we'll never get to see her and Rosie wrestle in a pool of poop soup. [Page Six]
• Whenever he entered the Tribeca Grand Hotel last week, John Travolta demanded that the music be turned off, forcing a dramatic hush to fall over the room. Unfortunately, not even Scientology offers an explanation for this one. [R&M]
• Anthony Pellicano's associate Paul Barresi hands over notes detailing the identities of several tabloid sources, including Sly Stallone's mother and Cher's daughter Chastity Bono. Most interestingly, Oprah's niece Alisha had been selling her out. Guess someone's not getting a free car this year. [Lowdown]
• Is Tori Spelling growing a silicone fetus in her plastic womb? [Scoop]
• Bijou Phillips climbs back aboard the crazy train. Good thing — her acting "career" really hadn't been so entertaining. [Page Six]
• Until his single really takes off, Nick Lachey will never get over Jessica Simpson. [Access]

• John Travolta and Kelly Preston's son, Jett, may be autistic — but, as ardent Scientologist, they won't do a thing about it. And so poor Jett goes back to staring at 246 toothpicks. [R&M]
• An anonymous caller called the city's Child Services to make damaging and unsupported claims about View co-host Elizabeth Hasselbeck. Unfortunately, raising your child in a Republican household doesn't qualify as abuse. [Lowdown]
• Dropping your baby on his head is OK, too: Los Angeles' child services closes its investigation of Britney Spears and Kevin Federline. [IMDb]
• Good Charlotte rocker Benji Madden turns the normally idyllic Misshapes party into a violent hell, pounding the life out of a hipster in the process. We're so fucking proud of him, seriously. [Page Six]

Hollywood Out of Ideas, Part LXVII: As if news that Ice Cube is going to remake Welcome Back, Kotter wasn't troubling enough, try this on for size: J. Lo, Luke Wilson, John Travolta and Shirley MacLaine are all in various stages of the offer/negotiations process for a movie version of Dallas, with Travolta trying to pour his fifteen-gallon head into JR Ewing's ten-gallon hat. Someone please burn down this place immediately (Hollywood or Dallas, whatever works best). [Variety]
Universal vice chairman Marc Shmuger in in talks to take over the departed (for DreamWorks, not dead) Stacey Snider's job at the studio. Though he's silent on the matter, we assume he's not at all interested in taking Gail Berman's gig at Paramount. [THR]
But what I really want to do is create immersive, movie-inspired experiences for giant casinos: Director James Cameron will "executive produce" the iPort theme park for a Singapore gambling concern. [Variety]
The ratings numbers from Sunday night are in, and it appears that Desperate Housewives took a Nielsen baseball bat to the knees of HBO's The Sopranos. Not that you can really compare premium cable apples to network oranges, especially when our beloved mobsters come out looking not as good as we'd like, but there you have it. [THR]
The conservative watchdog kooks at the protest-happy American Family Association had no troubling following Las Vegas' move to Friday nights, urging its members to carpetbomb the FCC with more than 100,000 complaints about a strip club scene. [Variety]

As if a story about how the high command on the bridge of the Scientology mothership might not be too pleased that second-ranking celebrity Hubbardite John Travolta would be dressing in drag for his role in Hairspray wasn't already a brave enough move for Jeanette Walls of The Scoop, it includes the even more incredible act of courage of recasting everyone's favorite rageoholic mogul in the Broadway production. Once Harvey Weinstein finds out about this mistake and pictures himself in a housecoat, bouffant, and six pounds of makeup, the race will be on to see who can get their white vans full of goons into position in front of Walls' apartment first, the Scientologists or the Weinstein Co.

This morning MSNBC gossip Jeannette Walls considers the problem of notorious Scientologist John Travolta agreeing to play Edna Turnblad in the forthcoming movie of Hairspray, given that Scientology is pretty notoriously antigay:

· Pixar's stock price jumps on whispers of an imminent deal with Disney, but as of last night, Disney's people were mum about any progress. Such stalling can only mean one thing: Paramount is going to buy Pixar. [Variety]
· We hate to make snap judgments about a film project based on a few sentences in a trade paper story (OK, we don't hate it, that's what we do every day), but the pairing of John Travolta and Tim Allen in a sort-of City Slickers Meets The Hell's Angels flick sounds about as appealing as hitting oneself in the genitals with a red-hot monkey wrench. We have no idea why the wrench needs to be hot, other than a room-temperature tool didn't sound like it would do justice to the concept. [THR]
· Sharon Stone will be awarded the first Cinema for Peace Award for Social Responsibility during the Berlin Film Festival in February. We're not at all surprised. There was something in the way she masturbated in that bathtub in Sliver that let us know she'd one day be an important instrument for global change. [Variety]
· My Name is Earl does OK in its first Thursday showing, coming in third overall and second in the key demographic for its timeslot. The premiere of Four Kings wasn't a disaster, but the show should quickly settle into its role as the sacrificial lamb to the Must See sitcom gods so that Earl and The Office can continue to live on Thursdays. [THR]

Any time a hurricane strikes the Southeast (or fatigue strikes a crew member on a Tom Cruise set), the Church of Scientology dispatches an army of volunteers to help out. Perhaps realizing that the magnitude of the Katrina disaster required a high-profile relief effort, a team of underemployed celebrity ambassadors (we assume Cruise was too busy shooting Mission: Impossible 3 to personally—personally!—visit the site) was immediately dispatched to the scene: