Earlier this month, NBC's resident rock star Ben Silverman announced his plans to deliver a warm and cuddly hour of programming in NBC's 8-9pm block. But last week's triumphant return of 30 Rock and The Office was notably filled with "vulgarities" one doesn't normally associate with family fun. As Silverman promised during the heart-warming press conference, he intended on making sure the first hour of primetime was "about family, and it's about heroes, real and super. It's good endings and the good guys winning." But as the NY Times points out today, the "good guys" are more likely to get bleeped than share PG lessons with viewers, and "winning" is more likely to be associated with causing erections on MILF Island.

That "MILF Island" episode of 30 Rock everyone was talking about Friday? In which 20 hot moms square off in front of 50 eighth-grade boys at "Erection Cove?" It aired during NBC's "Family Hour," in which the whole family is supposed to be able to gather in front of the TV together. NBC executive Ben Silverman re-launched the concept just 10 days ago. Anyone who took the man at his word — and hopefully few people did — either had a very awkward night or has a very interesting family. Now NBC is trying to rewrite what it meant by "family hour." Here's network exec Mitch Metcalf in tomorrow's Times:

Spring 2008 hasn't been kind to Harvey Weinstein and his little production company. First, his close friend Anthony Minghella passed away (prompting a highly critical piece penned by New York Magazine film critic David Edelstein), then he butted heads with the Marley family over his planned biopic on the reggae singer, and now the portly producer finds himself at the center of NBC and Lifetime's battle for Project Runway. Moments after Lifetime announced their five-year $150 million deal with the Weinstein Co. to take over the helm of Bravo's signature show, Jeff Zucker and his peacocked lawyers immediately responded by suing Harvey and his goons for breach-of-contract. And insiders at NBC aren't keeping mum about their feelings towards the money-hungry Weinstein:

Can you believe it's been eight years since Mrs. Frank Gifford "left" her post as co-host of Regis & Kathie Lee? (Yes kids, before there was Kelly, there was Kathie Lee.) It seems like just yesterday that the former pageant queen was smothering us with her cackling chatter and inane stories. But that was yesterday; this is Today.

Last night's Office rerun brought a tear to our eye, and not because of the hilarious antics of that wacky Dwight Schrute. In case you missed it, at the end of the episode they showed an incredibly sweet video of a 15-year-old boy playing The Office theme on his piano, followed by an "In Memoriam" note. That boy was Nathan Alden Robinson, who died last month of complications from the flu.

Critically acclaimed but chronically low-rated jock opera Friday Night Lights managed to sneak in a third season thanks to a unique deal between NBC Universal and DirecTV. But the network has built an interesting window into the release — the episodes will premiere on DirecTV's "The 101" channel in October, but not air in prime time until February. The episodes also won't be available on Hulu until NBC airs them next year, which makes no sense at all.

NBC has a new show coming up this season called "Kings," which will be a joint-promotional deal with suicide-exploiting insurance company Liberty Mutual. They're the ones who promoted their shitty branding website by buying up Google Adwords like "Paul Tilley," the name of the ad exec who committed suicide in February. Classy! The show will be "a modern-day retelling of the David and Goliath story. The themes of the show are meant to be consistent with Liberty Mutual's "Responsibility Project," which promotes personal responsibility." Boycott this show responsibly, please. [NYT]

Wunderdouche Ben Silverman unveiled NBC's ambitious 65-week schedule to advertisers today in New York, covering this summer and all of next year with wall-to-wall Steve McPherson ass-kicking action. Included in the programming onslaught: a dreaded Office spin-off and four weeks of primetime Saturday Night Live, Variety reports.

NBC announced its "year-round" lineup today, and introduced new categorized programming blocks. Specifically, the 8-9pm "family hour," the 9pm "blockbuster hour," and the 10pm "adult themes" hour. Ooh adult themes! What scintillating, mature shows can we except to enjoy once those Biggest Loser-loving kids have tottered off to bed? Exciting, edgy shows like Law & Order and... uh, ER... and... oof... Lipstick Jungle. HBO this is not. Newer "adult" shows like The Philanthropist, with its Barry Levinson/Tom Fontana pedigree, could be interesting, but most of the programming looks mighty safe. Most notable about the announcment, perhaps, is the return of Friday Night Lights, which you self-righteous quality television-huggers ought to be happy about (as well as you self-satisfied TV critics). Also, did you know that Deal or No Deal and Medium are "blockbusters"? [THR] Full programming schedule after the jump.

· NBC is close to unveiling their very fantasy- and action-heavy 2008-09 lineup, including a pickup of Knight Rider, and Robinson Crusoe, an "'adrenaline-charged' update of the classic tale." Said Ben Silverman, "We just wanted to give audiences a viable alternative to all the really, really gay stuff Steve McPherson seems to love so much over at ABC." [Variety]
· The heirs of Superman creator Jerome Seigel have won a lawsuit against Warner Bros. that could cost the studio millions. This all comes courtesy of attorney Marc Toberoff, who's pursued similar claims against the studio on such other projects as Wild Wild West, Dukes of Hazzard, Smallville, and Get Smart, earning him the nickname "The Copyright Crusader," or, as WB execs refer to him, "Ass Tumor." [Variety]
· The first organized protests by a Fanboys fan group called the 501st are not likely to elicit any pants-soiling from Harvey Weinstein: "The 501st claims 14 members showed up in New York and, when confronted by two security guards, chose to go inside and pay to see 21 instead." They are now planning a 21 demonstration for later in the week, protesting the film's "lack of quality Kate Bosworth boobage." [THR]

Hollywood's highest-paid scab Jay Leno's recent solicitation of Ryan Phillippe's "gayest look" for his cameras, part of a longer, excruciatingly unfunny and offensive bit about the actor's role as TV's first gay teen on One Life To Live, has now spawned a website, called My Gayest Look For Jay Leno: It invites people to send in their gayest looks, which seem to involve a great deal of creative bird-flipping. The site was co-created by Avenue Q playwright Jeff Whitty, who previously penned an open letter beseeching The Tonight Show host to stop making homophobic jokes in his monologues. Leno apparently called him up for a half-hour talk about Whitty's concerns, but has since returned to his egregious ways. We fear it's time to call in Ross the Intern to mediate what is quickly growing into an ugly and contentious affair between Jay and the Gays.

The months-long anticipation we've experienced awaiting new episodes of NBC comedies has almost totally destabilized Defamer HQ, particularly in our speculations as to how the network would gently reintroduce us to programming like My Name is Earl. Would we see a brief sketch with Jason Lee agreeing to return to work on the condition of no more Paris Hilton cameos? Would the show go meta, with its cast treating its staff writers to a Earl-esque karma intervention? Or would NBC boss Jeff Zucker hijack the moment and squander yet another two minutes of viewer goodwill? Wait — did we just give it away?

Valleywag commenters hate the idea, but the New York Post's Page Six loves IT Girls, the proposed reality TV show with New York umtrepreneurs Julia Allison, Meghan Asha and Mary Rambin.

While the direct effects of the WGA Strike have been well-documented ($3.2 billion in economic impact, the cancellation of the Golden Globes, the greenlighting of Quarterlife), it's harder to quantify some of the strike's more indirect effects. For example, if the Writer's Strike had never happened, Heroes probably would not have gone on hiatus until the summer, which means that the world would likely never have been subjected to the latest nonsensical video ravings of Milo Ventimiglia's Divide Social Club. The group, which consists of the aforementioned Mr. Ventimiglia and two of his meathead buddies, was founded in March of 2006, but it wasn't until Milo found himself without steady employment a few months back that the group's work began to take off. And by take off, we really mean devolve to a level of inanity that makes Chris Crocker look like Daniel Webster. Take, for instance, the video clip above, which documents Milo and his pursuit to eat poolside nachos ... with sour cream.

Tina Fey, arguably the most powerful vagina-having joke force in the universe, has rarely minced words in the past when it comes to some of her lesser-abled collaborators, whether describing Paula Abdul as a "disaster" or Paris Hilton as "a disease-ridden fucktard" [Ed.note: Could we have an intern verify that?] But we never expected the 30 Rock star and showrunner to run off so freely at the mouth about her comedy giant equals, such as in the case of her surprisingly harsh assessment of Jon Stewart's more politically solicitous material:

· One Tree Hill celebrates its 100th episode with a very special one in which Chad Michael Murray slips into autopilot while secretly fantasizing to himself about how nice it would be to break free of The CW ghetto for the feature movie career he so richly deserves. [Variety]
· Peter Berg signs on to direct Dune for Paramount, presumably righting whatever wrongs were committed against the sacred source material by David Lynch's Sting-in-a-licorice-thong version. [Variety]
· McLovin works! The voice talents of Christopher Mintz-Plasse, along with Superbad buddy and child insult comic Jonah Hill, will be employed to thrilling effect in Dreamworks's computer-animated fantasy, How to Train Your Dragon. [THR]

The B-Side blog has uncovered something of note in NBC's short-lived, 1985 series Misfits of Science (starring a young Courteney Cox): The show is about "a group of young, attractive people with supernatural powers," and features the mantra, "Save Adele, save the world." Adding to the intrigue: Heroes creator Tim Kring was a writer on Misfits! This would have been highly scandalous in Season One, when that catchphrase was a little more timely. Now it's just interesting background trivia for hardcore indestructable-cheerleader fetishists, who'll all but certainly hop onto the internet to see if this Adele person looks as inviting in a pair of heavy-duty spanky pants. [B-Side Blog]

After Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California, Maria Shriver was in an awkward spot. Not only was she married to Arnold Schwarzenegger, but being the first lady of California was sort of a conflict of interest with her Dateline gig. So she left the show, with an option to return. Because of that option, NBC has only paid her a "fraction" of her salary during the past few years, instead of the full amount they'd have owed her had they fired her. And after Anna Nicole Smith died, Shriver decided that she wouldn't go back to broadcast journalism because, well, it's a little gauche. The gruesome coverage of Anna Nicole Smith ended up saving NBC millions of dollars. Is there anything this woman can't posthumously do?

We've never found much of what Josh Hartnett does particularly funny, with the possible exception of the scraggly 'stache that he's been sporting unironically for years. So how will the stiff-as-a-board actor fare when cast opposite the likes of Tina Fey and the rest of her comedically blessed cohorts on 30 Rock? OK! is reporting that Hartnett recently read for a part on the Emmy-winning laughfest as Fey's next love interest, a role that may last four to six episodes. And while this latest bit of stunt casting would be a major boost to Josh's embarrassing-of-late resume, the Emmy-winning show hardly needs a swarthy guest star to save it from sinking. So what does the much cleverer than us Tina Fey have up her sleeve?

Producing The Office is just not as profitable as building engine rings for billion-dollar bombers or constructing vast Superfund sites—that's the sad fact of being a huge corporate conglomerate. So it's been rumored that General Electric will sell NBC, possibly after the Olympics. But GE chairman Jeffrey Immelt, liberally employing exclamation points, told shareholders that he is planning no such thing: "Should we sell NBCU? The answer is no!" They're the only multinational defense contractor with an in-house propaganda wing and they're gonna keep it, dammit. [NYT]