"Hulu," the name for NBC Universal and News Corp.'s new online-video site, means "butt" in Bahasa Indonesia, the language spoken in the southeast Asian archipelago. [Webster's Online Dictionary]

When the producers of critically acclaimed but struggling™ NBC drama Friday Night Lights needed to find a suitable replacement for Mexico for an upcoming episode set in our friendly, NAFTA-compliant neighbors to the south, they chose that of Brownsville, TX—a 91% Latino community bordering the Rio Grande. As reported by the Brownsville Herald, however, a casting call seeking Mexican-American extras turned up scant few hopefuls. It's a disappointment producers are blaming on the rain:

At last, the online-video joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp., long ridiculed for its lack of a name other than "NewCo," has an official moniker, and a website, Hulu. It also has a $100 million investment, besides the backing of its parent companies, from Providence Equity Partners; a CEO, former Amazon.com executive Jason Kilar; and fancy offices in Los Angeles. What it still lacks, of course, is a shot in hell at competing with YouTube.

Broadcast network NBC has inked promotional deals with almost every major Internet player to distribute the pilot episodes for its new fall lineup. Almost, that is, because it appears to be shunning Google's YouTube online-video site, as well as the News Corp.-owned MySpace. According to The Hollywood Reporter, episodes of new shows "Chuck," "Life," and "Journeyman" will be available for download on Amazon beginning September 10. If you'd prefer to download using Apple's iTunes software, sign up for the Apple Students group on social network Facebook. Members of that group get a one-week headstart on downloading the pilots. Prefer to stream your entertainment? Beginning in mid-September, you can catch "Life" on AOL, "Journeyman" on MSN, and "Chuck" on Yahoo. But it's the omissions that are really interesting.

The above-referenced alternative programming "zag," as you may already have figured out by watching the embedded clip, is NBC's just-announced plan to resurrect early 90s reality competition American Gladiators to caulk one of the inevitable cracks in its midseason schedule.

· Hollywood Out of Directors: "Dimension Films has set a November 26 start date for Comeback, an inspirational sports drama that Ice Cube will star in and produce. Fred Durst will direct." [Variety]
· 13.9 million viewers tuned in to watch The Hoff declare the guy with his hand up a turtle puppet's ass the Most Talented Man in America. [THR]
· FX greenlights Nip/Tuck creator Ryan Murphy's transsexual drama 4 oz., but since the pitch was bought in the room by president John Landegraf, the central tranny's vocation has been changed from sportswriter to gynecologist. (Was it originally too close to the story of the LAT's Mike Penner/Christine Daniels?) Murphy ambitiously envisions his protagonist's journey from male ladydoctor to lady ladydoctor to unfold over four seasons. [Variety]
· A study claims that people's internet-time is now rivaling their TV-time, a finding that the studios will do their best to ignore during their fight with the various guilds over online residuals. [THR]
· Joey Fatone is trying to become TV Guide Channel's budget-friendly answer to Ryan Seacrest. [Variety]

But could anyone better sum up the competition's 60-seat-Vegas-showroom essence than last night's winner, ventriloquist-impressionist hybrid Terry Fator? We think not. Now $1 million richer, Fator's twenty, long years traveling the bumpy show business backroads have finally paid off. (If you're skeptical of his celebrated talents, we invite you to marvel at Winston the Turtle channeling Roy Orbison above.) America's ventriloquists, so long the bottom-feeders of the post-Vaudeville entertainment world, can finally hold their heads up high, just as soon as they're done cursing the fact that the best impression they can muster sounds something like Robin Williams doing Jack Nicholson eating a sandwich.

According to Hollywood Today, NBC Universal has tossed Desperate Housewives from its primary soundstage on the Universal lot, which they plan to convert into a new theater and office building that may or may not eventually house The Tonight Show. Apparently, anointed Jay Leno successor Conan O'Brien was touring the potential facilities yesterday, trying to ignore the anguished wailing of Teri Hatcher, whom the Housewives had "mistakenly" left behind after she handcuffed herself to a catwalk in protest of the unwelcome move. Reports HT on the shuffle:

· 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]

NBC has relearned, at great cost, a valuable lesson. The Web is more than the Wild West. One doesn't profit by simply squatting on land; it actually has to be developed. Beth Comstock, NBC's president of integrated media, dazzled the Net with NBC's acquisition of women's health site iVillage. She boasted how the purchase gave NBC "scale and a profitable, established platform to expand [its] digital efforts." It would allow the company to connect "more deeply online, on mobile and on demand with key consumers throughout their various life stages." Now, Comstock admits she bet wrong, to the tune of $600 million.

· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Five Lions, Zero Ideas Edition: With Transformers breaking so many nonsequel box office records this summer, it was only a matter of time before someone put Voltron, the other 80s cartoon/toy series about robots that do cool, transforming-related stuff (no offense to Gobots)—into the adaptation pipeline.[Variety]
· In a tear-soaked promotion ceremony that begins with some lucky trainees tossing coffee in the faces of a new crop of mailroom clerks and ends with the official awarding of their golden shark fins, ICM elevates four staffers to agent status. Oh, happy day! [THR]
· Stardust director Matthew Vaughn will do the feature adaptation of Marvel comic book Thor, the musclebound deity with the nicest hair in all of Norse mythology. [Variety]
· NBC Universal might be trying to buy Oxygen, but Oprah and her group of investors might be turning up their nose at anything less than the $3 billion of "BET money" Viacom paid for that network. [THR]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Diddling Bruce Lee Edition: Warner Independent plans a noirish remake of Enter the Dragon. [Variety]

While NBC Universal and News Corp. struggle to launch (and name) their online-video venture, NBC has decided, on its own, to lay siege to YouTube from another angle. Demonstrating exactly how well old media understands new media, NBC's USA Network is launching an online-video destination site for... wait for it... advertising! It's a brilliant, sure-to-fail idea.

• Nut Shot Japanese Show [YouTube]

America's Got Talent and Last Comic Standing are renewed by NBC for third and sixth seasons, respectively, ensuring the summer 2008 TV landscape will be as barren and ventriloquist-filled as 2007. [THR/Reuters]

By now, we thought that former Grey's Anatomy star Isaiah Washington serial silence- breakings about the turbulent events of his recent career would be yielding diminishing returns, with nothing he could offer at this point possibly topping the virtuoso gay-conspiracy theories and McDreamy character assassinations to which we've been treated since his firing. But we were wrong. So very, very wrong. In an interview with EW.com meant to clarify the timeline of his controversial addition to the cast of Bionic Woman, Washington recounts the amazing speed with which newly installed NBC rock star Ben Silverman moved to adopt him into his network family once he discovered that the actor had been disowned by ABC. We pick up the narrative at the Chateau Marmont, where Ozwald "House of" Boateng, upon hearing that his buddy Isaiah needed a new job, set into motion the following series of completely fucking insane events:

· Just in case you missed yesterday afternoon's reports of the Steve McPherson/Ben Silverman "be a man" feud at the TCAs, here's Var's take on the "clueless or stupid" row. [Variety]
· A planned Heroes video game could hit store shelves by late 2008, satisfying fans' desire to take control of indestructible cheerleaders or strippers who have homicidal reflections. [THR]
· Guy Ritchie, whose film career once seemed entirely swallowed by the demands of being Mr. Madonna (constantly monitoring his wife's eBay orphan auctions is a pretty time-consuming responsibility), signs on to direct an adaptation of his Virgin comic The Gamekeeper for Warner Bros. [Variety]
· Eddie Izzard replaces Jeremy Piven in Weinstein Co. animated movie Igor, though no reason for the switch has been given. But good news: as CAA reps both, the agency will retain its commission. Everyone wins! [THR]
· Iron Man's billionaire industrialist alter-ego will be an Audi enthusiast. Suck it, BMW. And you too, VW.[Variety]

Now, the movie's producers are mulling their legal options, claiming NBC used the footage without their permission. We're hopeful both parties might find a workable solution, however, as the impressive work of the Feed The Bears players certainly deserves to be seen by a wider audience, and sits comfortably along such other Late Night niche fetish material as HornyManatee.com's "man-on-manatee" sex.

Since there's nothing like a burgeoning feud between two of the most powerful men in television to enliven a seemingly endless string of TCA-generated reports about the coming Fall season, we're delighted to note that ABC president Steve McPherson has come out swinging about newly appointed NBC co-chairman/chime-bearer/rock-star Ben Silverman, whom McPherson apparently felt was a little less than honest in discussing his high-profile adoption of Grey's Anatomy orphan Isaiah Washington and in the way he pleaded ignorance of the bloody execucide of predecessor Kevin Reilly that cleared the path for Silverman to take control of the Peacock. TVGuide.com relates McPherson's comments about the Isaiah situation:

Having survived the gauntlet of last week's Television Critics Association events where he introduced his network's lineup of exciting career-reclamation projects and rejuvenated franchises from which a few more starfucking dollars might be squeezed, newly appointed NBC ambassador to Fun Nation Ben Silverman was ready for a little break before getting back to the hard work of teaching the Peacock how to get its party on. Slate's Kim Masters writes that Silverman hopped a jet to Europe immediately after his TCA responsibilities were finished to enjoy a little Ben-time with some pals: