Click to viewBoomp3.com The world’s ultimate cougar, Cloris Leachman believes she’s capable of carrying anything after carrying the popular ABC reality dance competition for the last few weeks. Leachman even carried her granddaughter a few blocks over to her car. Leachman said, “Put me on NBC and I’ll carry that network across the finish line, too.” [Photo Credit: Splash Pics] *A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

This past weekend's episode of Saturday Night Live continues to make news; first, everyone was talking about the Tina Fey-enhanced vice presidential debate sketch, then, praise trickled down to Andy Samberg's Mark Wahlberg imitation and Kristen Wiig's tiny, tiny hands. Over on the right-wing side of the blogosphere, however, the sketch that ignited conservative appreciation was a takeoff on the government bailout (spoofing Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, and Golden West Financial founders Herbert and Marion Sandler) where Jason Sudeikis as President Bush noted, "Wasn't it my administration that warned about the problem six years ago and it was Democrats who refused to listen?" The skit initially appeared on NBC's website but was abruptly yanked yesterday, causing a conservative furor. Now, NBC says a censored version will be reuploaded today. THR has the scoop:

· Steve Carell's new production shingle, Carousel Prods., will set up on the Warners lot, run by The Daily Show's Vance DeGeneres and college buddy Charlie Hartsock. "My idea was to partner with friends of mine, people I trusted, with whom I share a certain sensibility," Carell said, confident that employing his friends in these increasingly desperate times means he'll never want for a lift to the airport again. [Variety]
· Everyone's gaga for politics! On the eve of W's premiere, left wing and right wing releases are performing surprisingly well at the box office. (With the exception of An American Carol, as a distaste for unfunniness is the one true uniter.) [Variety]

♦ David Letterman is in talks with John McCain about rescheduling his appearance on the late night show. [NYP]
♦ Sarah Palin will make two appearances on Fox News this week. [Politico]
♦ If your copy of the Times looks a little bit different today, that's because the paper has been busy shuffling around its various sections. [E&P]
♦ The LA Times may lay off as many as 75 staffers this week. [Variety]
♦ How big banks are handing their ad campaigns during this turbulent time. [NYT]
♦ CBS has had a solid start to the fall season. NBC has not. [AdAge, THR]
♦ Anne Hathaway has signed on to appear in Alice in Wonderland, which Tim Burton is directing. [THR]
♦ Why is Jim Cramer employed? That's what we'd like to know. [Romenesko]

While much has been made of Tina Fey's return to SNL this season—starring as Sarah Palin in a series of pitch-perfect cold-opens that could well be the only things preventing a frayed America from tumbling off a flat Earth's edge—this week's episode also brought two other hilarious and viral-worthy sketches we thought we'd share. The first involves a Lawrence Welk Show-era sister act with a dark, attic-bound secret, played by Kristen Wiig. The second features Andy Samberg as Max Payne star Mark Wahlberg, in conversation with a variety of farm animals. Look—us explaining it is just delaying the funny. They're both after the jump.

This can't be real, can it? Since last week, a sporadically updated Tina Fey account on Twitter has seen more action, with more-frequent messages emanating from the supposed 30 Rock star and Saturday Night Live veteran. But whoever's updating it is far from clever enough to imitate Tina Fey. Unless this is actually Fey doing a bad impression of herself, thereby demonstrating how moronic most Twitter's users seem in the 140-character format the microblogging service limits them to. That's an idea actually funny enough to come from the mind of Tina Fey.

So Jay Leno must have said no to that primetime variety show NBC had in mind for him, because Defamer HQ opened for business this morning with flocks of winged monkeys dropping pamphlets promoting Rosie's Variety Show, Rosie O'Donnell's live, hour-long mash of song, dance, comedy and teeth-gritting celebrity cameos set for a Nov. 26 trial run before launching into a full season some time in 2009. The show comprises NBC's best laid plans and worst-kept secret in one handy bundle; O'Donnell has been in talks with the 'Cock at least since July, conjuring a catch-all talent show/musical comedy free-for-all just in case Leno defected to ABC. And while Leno's plans still aren't officially set, Rosie and her new network allies should encounter little trouble throwing together the hot, hodgepodgy mess in a month and a half. Behold what NBC brass is calling "the YouTube of variety shows":

♦ 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]

For all its success on paper, Saturday Night Live is essentially making its pop-culture bones these days with an ex-cast member imitating a woman who might be completely irrelevant in six weeks. But some phenomena never expire, and when you combine the enduring miracle of Alec Baldwin with the current, overriding stench of economic recession, one SNL highlight alone stands out today for its chemistry and prescience: Reliable Investments, featuring Baldwin as a broker with all the answers for Ana Gasteyer. But really, in a climate like this, how many answers do we really want? Just take Baldwin's word for it after the jump: It's a great day to invest! [NBC via Videogum]Click to view

♦ The TV Guide Channel is for sale if you happen to be looking for junky media properties to purchase this afternnon. [Variety]
♦ What's Tom Brokaw been up to? It seems he's been playing peacemaker with the McCain campaign on behalf of NBC News. [NYT]
♦ There are 336 magazines devoted to food and cooking, believe it or not. [WSJ]
♦ How People snagged its exclusive with Clay Aiken. [Jossip]
♦ Follow the money: Doubledown Media, which owns Trader, is launching a second title in Dubai. [WWD]
♦ Just three days after Ogilvy & Mather won the account for Wachovia, the bank went bust. [NYT]
♦ Some 52 million Americans watched the debate last Friday; ABC led the pack with 11.04 million viewers. [TV Week]

So Tom Brokaw is still chugging over at Meet the Press. The NBC Sunday morning institution has been hosted by the former nightly news anchor since the untimely and unexpected death of Tim Russert earlier this year. The network is probably going to permanently hand off the show to smart analyst Chuck Todd and serviceable anchor David Gregory, but Brokaw will remain at NBC News, by necessity, for a long time. Because he is now their resident grown-up. Which is why he's so irritating. As we all know, NBC news, because of MSNBC, has been taken over by lunatics. Left-wing fanatics like Keith Olbermann and, uh, Rachel Maddow, and just-plain-crazy people like Chris Matthews. The Olbermann-Matthews ticket briefly covered the conventions as if they were real newsanchors and not circus sideshows! This outraged everyone, because they are intemperate and say what they think too much (especially Matthews, who says literally every thought he has, out loud). And no one was more outraged than Brokaw, who politely pulled rank and made his bosses give the serious news back to the serious people. He had to! John McCain and the Republicans were in open revolt against NBC (and the rest of the media, as always, but "NBC" was what they chanted when they called for media blood). And Brokaw is friends with John McCain! Well, not "friends." It's complicated!

Appletinis for Everyone: He's known as a tomcatting party boy, but at Wednesday's Outfest Legacy Awards, NBC topper Ben Silverman told the audience he had a confession to make (after first confirming that industry gossip Nikki Finke was nowhere to be found). “I debated whether or not to say this, as I am a bit of a press target," he began tentatively, cradling the "Outtie" award he accepted on behalf of NBC Universal. The well-heeled gay audience craned forward; was Ryan Seacrest's best pal "Beijing Ben" about to come out of the closet? Might this explain all those suspiciously well-informed WeHo jokes Silverman had made on KISS-FM? “No, it’s not me,” he continued. “But my mother is gay.” Silverman then got back to work on his latest fall revamp: Kath & Kim & Gay Bubbe. [The Advocate]

Our country is self-destructing before our very eyes. Banks are collapsing, wars are raging, politicians are canceling their appearances on Letterman, but at least we can still rely on true love. That’s right, on last night’s hour-long season premiere of The Office, we finally got the satisfaction of seeing ... um, well, something that can only be described as an epic spoiler. Fans of The Office who dutifully tuned into NBC last night, please follow along after the jump to continue the conversation. Those of you who DVR'd it, well, you might want to continue along to another post.Where were we? Ah yes, we finally got to see ... Jim pop the question to Pam! And don’t let the fact that it happened on a dingy highway rest stop in the middle of a rainstorm fool you, it was totes romantic. Not quite as romantic as that Tim and Dawn kiss from the original British Office Christmas Special, but still, pretty good. Get your Kleenex ready and check it out.

Click to viewBoomTown's Kara Swisher paused in making ribald jokes about Joost's London office to report that the online-video purveyor will be offering six full seasons of NBC's former hit Friends. With this, Joost will reach an audience who prefers New York City when there's no black people, just like in dated sitcoms and Woody Allen movies. But I digress. NBC-backed Hulu only offers snippets of Friends episodes. Joost isn't exactly going to take off with syndicated reruns you can watch on dozens of cable channels. For those of you desperate to relive Ross and Rachel, the site will relaunch in mid-October — no plugin required.

♦ John McCain canceled his appearance on CBS's Late Show with David Letterman tonight; Keith Olbermann will fill in instead. [HuffPo]
♦ The best (and worst) fall TV show ads. [THR]
♦ The end of the Sun is drawing near; the last paper may be published on Monday. [Gawker]
♦ NBC's Nightly News gained viewers in 2007-08; ABC and CBS both experienced declines. [TV Decoder]
♦ Did Harper's Bazaar photoshop its October cover featuring Kirsten Dunst? [WWD]
♦ Oprah Winfrey will lend her voice to the upcoming Disney flick The Princess and the Frog. [THR]
♦ Ad spending declined by 1.6% in the first half of 2008. [AdAge]
♦ Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho is coming to Broadway. [Variety]
♦ Meet the oldest working reporter in the country. [E&P]

While controversy isn't something we'd normally associate with Conan O'Brien, apparently NBC's Los Angeles-area station disagrees. After performing last night's monologue on Late Night, O'Brien repaired to his desk to begin what sounded like an innocent joke about "celebrity douchebags" like Spencer Pratt and Dog the Bounty Hunter. That's when Channel 4 News abruptly cut in, with anchorwoman Colleen Williams warning the audience that "right now in New York," O'Brien was about to make a joke about colliding trains, and that KNBC found it inappropriate to air in light of the September 12 train collision that killed 24 people in Chatsworth. Williams then showed excerpts from John McCain's speech yesterday about the economy, which was funny, but not really ha-ha funny. Watch the weirdness happen up above. [NBC]

♦ The Emmy Awards will take place on Sunday evening; AMC's Mad Men is the "overwhelming favorite" to win for best drama series. [Reuters]
♦ What's happening with the New York Sun, which said it will shut down on September 29th without additional funding? It's a "very fluid situation," according to Ira Stoll. [Portfolio]
♦ Tina Fey's SNL imitation of Sarah Palin earned NBC its most-watched web clip in history. [THR]
♦ According to a new research study, Survivor is the most addictive show on TV. [NYP]
♦ MSNBC is expanding to India and Indonesia, among other places. [THR]
♦ The founders of Dreamworks have sealed their pact India's Reliance, a deal that will provide them with $1.2 billion to set up a new film company. [WSJ]

Perhaps we spoke too soon emphasizing Tina Fey's status as our go-to Sarah Palin doppelganger, but we never really spotted an alternative that signaled the same hair-up, hockey-mom charm radiated by the Alaska governor. Until today, that is, and how's this for context: According to NBC's Web site, its fall miniseries/video game adaptation XIII "begins dramatically as the first female U.S. President is shot dead by a sniper during her Veteran's Day speech." It was a classy-enough touch to anticipate Hillary Clinton's candidacy, we suppose, but casting Mimi Kuzyk as doomed Palin-lookalike Sally Sheridan was just prescience gone spectacularly wrong. The enlarged photo follows the jump.And it gets better: Stephen Dorff stars as the amnesiac could-be assassin, with Val Kilmer appearing as the mercenary pursuing him. They started filming way back in April, when Bristol Palin was still unseeded and Mike Huckabee was the biggest thorn in McCain's side. The Peacock has all the luck these days! Anyway, for now, XIII is still on for an unspecified date later this fall — much later.

Lately the internet has been "abuzz" with rumors that NBC wants to dump its golden boy chief programmer Ben Silverman. So of course NBC itself has been equally "abuzz" assuring everyone that it wants no such thing! Are they telling the truth? Oh boy, it's time to do some serious parsing of corporate spin: Among the reasons that NBC has to be pissed at Silverman: he hasn't resurrected the network's ratings; the upcoming season of shows has no clear breakout hit; he's a party boy who stays out all night and doesn't come into the office till 11; and he tapped his old friends for important positions they weren't qualified for, which resulted in NBC doing things like paying his deputy's boyfriend $1.75 million to take his stupid show pitch and go away. At a normal job, this would result in your boss hating you. But NBC chief Jeff Zucker couldn't be happier about how things are going!

As the CEO of a publicly traded company, Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes is, as he protested to Portfolio's Lloyd Grove, obligated to consider strategic acquisitions as they become available. So he had to say, when Grove asked, that he'd consider buying NBC Universal if GE decided to spin off the media company. But he didn't have to so mildly rebuke speculation he was "intrigued" by such a deal, or go on at such length about the possibility: