· 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]

After getting "hundreds" of complaints about NBC's Book of Daniel, in which the pill-poppingest Episcopal holy man in primetime navigates a complicated world with the help of a Cool Jesus only he can see, a station in Terre Haute, IN, has decided not to show the series' premiere on Friday. Reports Broadcasting & Cable:

· Looking back on the scorched earth of its primetime schedule, NBC has bravely embraced the new iTunes frontier, where its programming now "dominates." Soon, however, their momentum may stall when a misguided promotional plan is launched encouraging potential The Office and My Name Is Earl viewers only to buy the shows during a one-hour "Must Download TV" window on Thursday nights. [Variety]
· Oh, yeah: The Chronicles of Narnia knocked King Kong from atop the box office mountain over the weekend, although by a very slim margin. [THR]
· Woody Allen's recent love affair with London and Scarlett Johansson may already be over, as the director will shoot a film in Spain using international and Spanish actors. [Variety]
· EchoStar dumps Lifetime and Lifetime Movie Networks from its Dish Network satellite TV system, possibly sending the troubled channels into rebound relationships with initially alluring, but ultimately abusive, partners who will only exacerbate their already troubling eating disorders. [THR]
· Paramount Pictures hires The Office writers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky to write an Animal House/Fast Times at Ridgemont High/American Pie hybrid (the plot is top secret, apparently) for our pals at CollegeHumor.com. [Variety]

· J.Lo's wedding video is back in her hands, the $1 million ransoming thieves are safely behind bars, and the world can go on not caring about her anymore.
· Can't celebrity video thieves come up with a number besides $1 million? Even hoaxes like this one? I mean, come on! Use your imagination, Dr. Evil!
· How hard is this going to suck?
· But don't sweat it, NBC. We already have the concept for your next hit sitcom!
· Christian Brando is being sued for nearly killing his ex-wife. But did he kill Bonny Lee Bakley?
· The Reeler has gone and done something clever: a top ten of critics' top ten movie lists!
· Hmm, I wonder what's going on over by Cute Overload. Holy shit I just had a cute-induced brain aneurysm.

For those of you who care not to get crunk with Erik Paladino on the Paramount lot, nor does the thought sound appealing of watching Dick Clark pretend he didn't have a stroke as Ryan Seacrest, his frosted-haired, dwarf replacement, stands at his side, eager to snatch the Rockin' Eve baton from his now perma-clenched hands, there is a third New Year's Eve option. NBC's New Year's Eve with Carson Daly, Presented by Chevrolet, promises to be the best of all possible New Year's worlds: you get the arguably talent-free host, minus the awkward All About Eve political infighting, without ever having to leave the comfort of your home! And to sweeten the deal, we are including some exclusive script excerpts so you can read along at home with Carson. We don't think we're giving anything away when we tell you a big ball is dropped and everyone screams, but there still are some cliffhangers that even the script doesn't answer. For example: Will Megan and Peter fill in the required missing statistics in time? We'll just have to wait and see!

· Heads at the New New Paramount continue to roll! Veteran Paramount distribution president Wayne Lewellen, described as "part of the studio's old guard," (italics ours) is sensitively drop kicked in time for the new fiscal quarter and replaced with DreamWorks' Jim Tharp. [Variety]
· A noted lead actor on a TV comedy is making his feature film directing debut in a movie about "alienated youths in suburban New Jersey." No, this isn't a two-year-old story about Zach Braff and Garden State. It's Entourage's Kevin Connolly directing The Gardener of Eden, produced by his buddy Leonardo DiCaprio. [Variety]
· Oxygen network orders 10 episodes of The Janice Dickinson Project, a reality show about the self-anointed "first supermodel," in the hopes of netting the women's network the highly coveted 50-79 "nightmare bitch" demographic that is so attractive to advertisers. [Variety]
· VH1 will launch a new show called Web Junk 20 in January, a weekly top 20 featuring the hottest viral internet videos. So basically, by the time the Chronic(What)cles of Narnia goes from SNL, to the internet, then back to TV, it will surely be as hysterical as the first time you saw it. [THR]
· A conservative media watchdog group called The American Family Association is stepping up its campaign against NBC's upcoming series, Daniel, which their website claims is about a "drug-addicted Episcopal priest whose wife depends heavily on her midday martinis," or, as it was pitched in the room, "Thornbirds meets Will & Grace." [THR]

· Munich opens on 532 screens, grossing a respectable $5.7 million in four days. Jews kicking ass: We saw it, we loved it. No kidding. [Variety]
· Further details emerge about the yawn-inducing riveting Microsoft pullout of MSNBC: NBC Universal will own 82% and acquire full management control, MSNBC.com continues at a 50-50 split, and the public's interest level remains unchanged at a steady 0%. [Variety]
· CBS offers free video streaming of Two And A Half Men and How I Met Your Mother on Yahoo! this week. Finally, with the addition of Jon Cryer, the internet has become a vital and viable medium. [Variety]
· 25 films are added to the National Film Registry by the librarian of Congress, James H. Billington, including The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which leads us to believe the librarian of Congress could be hiding in those stacks, stoned and pulling on a pair of fishnets as we speak. [THR]
· The richest man in Australia, media mogul Kerry Packer (bet your heart skipped a Rupert Murdoch-length beat there for a second) has gone on to a better place. We'd make a sensitive joke, but we wouldn't want to see it splashed across tomorrow's Australian headlines as fact. [THR]

· The 50-50 split ownership of failed cable news experiment MSNBC is no longer, as Microsoft sells its controlling stake back to NBC Universal. Bill Gates remains cautiously optimistic until the happy day he sees the letters NBC lopped off his company's name forever. [Variety]
· Studios hold their breaths as seven movies go into wide release this weekend, including Rumor Has It and The Producers. Or if laughs is what you're looking for, there's always Munich. [THR]
· Narnia grosses $5 million on Wednesday, eking out a midweek victory over Kong, and leaving Universal wondering if perhaps they shouldn't have added an Aslan resurrection-like coda to their little monkey's depressing downfall. [Variety]
· In a "nudge to Oscar voters," Fox will screen the director's cut of Ridley's Scott's Kindgom of Heaven, featuring 45 extra minutes of footage, at the Laemmle Fairfax. For those of us who never intended on seeing any version of the film, this amounts to a gift of 45 minutes with which to do whatever we please. Thanks, Fox! [Variety]
· NBC orders more episodes of their new hit game show Deal or No Deal; Howie Mandel and that guy pretending to be the banker's agents go into overtime renegotiating fat paydays. (The models get scale. They're just lucky to be there.) [THR]

· Sony's last-gasp hope to end a disastrous year on a positive note, Fun With Dick and Jane, opens today against sequeltastic family pap Cheaper By The Dozen 2, as the two comedies compete for second place against King Kong. Indeed, this is news on the Wednesday before Christmas. [Variety]
· Against virtually no competition, NBC's Deal or No Deal steamed to a Tuesday night ratings win, prompting the network to erect a 50-foot-tall bronze statue honoring Howie Mandel. [THR]
· Despite the fact that the movie is opening in NY and LA for Christmas, director Terrence Malick is still cutting down The New World, preparing a 15-20 minute shorter version (Colin Farrell goes from John Smith to Explorer #3?) that may be used when the film goes into wide release. [Variety]
· Aspiring filmmakers: No matter how skillful your microbudgeted Star Wars fan film is, Hollywood is not impressed. [THR]
· The ongoing legal battle between actress Rosa "Strong Medicine" Blasi and her manager has Larger Implications For The Industry, as the courts try to decide if talent can fire their managers for getting them jobs, thereby violating the Catch-22-esque 1978 Talent Agencies Act.. [Variety]

· King Kong takes in a "respectable" $63.4 million at the international box office over the weekend, while the fourth Harry Potter seemingly mocks the ape by becoming the 20th film to cross the $700 million mark. [Variety]
· West Wing writers face a daunting task after John Spencer's sudden death, not helped by the fact that his character was featured in a flash-forward sequence taking place three years in the future earlier this season. (Correction: According to people who actually watch the show, Spencer's character didn't appear in the flash-forward, which apparently would've cause all manner of spoiler problems. We regret passing along faulty information.) [THR]
· Amazing! Even in limited release, Brokeback Mountain just might be succeeding with some non-gays! [Variety]
· Doomed third circle of development hell project Watchmen is picked up by Warner Bros, who likely will torture fans of the comic book with the prospect of production before ultimately stuffing it head-first into a hole with some disgraced popes. [THR]
· The Academy snubs Sin City in its visual FX nominations, which we believe was payback for Jessica Alba playing a stripper but showing nary a nipple. [Variety]

The sudden passing of West Wing actor John Spencer leaves the show's writers with the logistical problem of finishing the season without him. USA Today uses the occasion to compile an exhaustive chart chronicling how past TV productions dealt with the sudden, inconvenient removal of a cast member by the icy finger of the Reaper:

A heart attack has claimed the life of actor John Spencer, who was nominated for an Emmy five times, winning once, for his work on the West Wing. His character coincidentally also had a heart attack, but survived:

• Jann Wenner finally gets his reality TV show, and Mort Zuckerman won't let the de-Radaring interfere with his ski vacation. [WWD]
• NBC's tanking. Fire Jeff Zucker? No, promote him! [NYT]
• The good, bad, and ugly of medialand in 2005. [MW]
• After 148 years in Boston, The Atlantic boards the Metroliner and sets off for Washington. [Boston Phoenix]

· NBC Universal's Jeff Zucker manages to get a promotion despite NBC's declining primetime ratings, perhaps putting him in a position to suffocate boss Bob Wright with a couch pillow should the CEO ever make the mistake of taking a nap at work.
· Just in case you missed the comments on the last hyphen post: Hey, six-legged unicorn!
· This is how we were introduced to Cute Overload, the fastest we've bookmarked a site since the day Stuff On My Cat changed our lives forever.
· Supposed never-nude Rachel McAdams becomes the latest addition to Fleshbot's Celebrity NippleWatch pantheon with this rare double-reveal.
· A ban on search engines might be the only solution to this problem.

• Thanks to the Daily Show, American Apparel becomes the latest victim in the War on Christmas. There's a holiday lesson to be learned here: When you sodomize a reindeer, nobody wins. [American Apparel]
• Fox News's Roger Friedman seems a bit too excited at how gay the Oscars are shaping up to be. [Fox411]
• The best thing about rare color photographs from the Depression? You can see how hard black folk worked, and yet managed to keep their nails matching their bandanas. You can thank the Library of Congress for that one. [Flickr via Vitamin Castercat]
• Even social drinkers have a hard time putting down the bottle. Tell us about it. [LAT]
• Elton John de-Gays his performance a bit by including a video of Pamela Anderson pole-dancing, but it's a bit too hetero for NBC. Nothing's ever good enough for these people. [E! Online]
• Somewhere in Brooklyn, someone has created a brothel with life-size dolls. We're so horrified, we don't even have a joke. [Craigslist]

· Controversy-courting ABC TV movie exec Quinn Taylor defends their Mel Gibson-produced Holocaust project: "A lot of people don't know much about the Holocaust... Maybe Mel Gibson and (Con Artists') involvement will attract people who wouldn't otherwise watch." You know, like Gibson's Holocaust-denying dad! [Variety]
· Director James Cameron seeks acrobatic jailbait (think Dark Angel's Jessica Alba, but not safe to perv on) for Battle Angel, his huge post-Titanic project. [THR]
· Wily NBC quietly bides its time until the the lucrative sweeps period is over, senses an opening, then sprints past its complacent network competitors to a Tuesday night ratings win. [Variety]
· The government uncovers Hollywood's latest and most nefarious plan to destroy our Nation, this time by using adorable stars to turn America's children into junk-food craving, morbidly obese zombies. [THR]
· Having developed a taste for tiny men with gigantic egos from starring in Woody Allen's Match Point, Scarlett Johansson signs on to star in Napoleon-in-exile love story Napoleon and Betsy. [Variety]

· Sony throws Columbia Tri-Star worldwide marketing president Geoffrey Ammer into the mouth of a volcano to atone for year that saw the disastrous releases of Stealth, XXX: State of the Union, and Bewitched. Should the slump continue next year, his predecessor will have her throat cut ceremonially in an ancient Aztec temple. [Variety]
· NBC becomes the latest network to jump into bed with Apple, offering downloads of current (The Office, L&O, Leno) and library (did someone say Knight Rider?) shows at the iTunes online store, [THR]
· We know that Var has its cute little way of playing with language, but they should really spare us the unfortunate and inevitable image of pocket-sized DreamWorks Animation mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg "tapping" anyone. [Variety]
· The Weinsteins sign home video distribution agreements with a company called Genius Products just to sound more intelligent; we make largely irrelevant joke about a company name to mask (poorly) our utter lack of originality. [THR]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Recycled Directors Edition: Paramount and producer Steven Spielberg bring Stephen Sommers, who was originally attached to the movie but left to do another project, back to write and direct the When Worlds Collide remake. [Variety]

· The following is not a joke: CBS is developing a family sitcom for Rev. Al Sharpton. Better: It's called Al in the Family, but will likely not incorporate the wacky hijinks of the infamous Tawana Brawley case. [Variety]
· The November sweeps results are in, and CBS and ABC end the ratings-whoring period in a deeply unsatisfying tie in the 18-49 demographic. Unsurprisingly, ultracompetive CBS is touting its razor-thin 16,000 viewer edge in the demo, as well as a victory in total viewers. NBC, it should be noted, did not finish last, and Fox holds its breath, absorbing its loss knowing that soon it will release its American Idol Kracken and rise from the depths of Nielsen failure. [THR]
· Director Peter Berg has compromising pictures of Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx, "persuades" him to join the cast of his The Kingdom for Universal. [Variety]
· As noted yesterday, NBC blows up its Thursday night for January, moving Earl and The Office from Tuesday to new Must See spots. To make room on the schedule, they're knocking Joey on the head with a rolling pin, leaving him somewhere in the desert, and dealing with the problem only if he somehow finds his way home. [THR]
· Major cable companies announce rate hikes for 2006. Fuck you, major cable companies, we already pay too much as it is for 25 channels of Law & Order reruns. [THR]

· As previously discussed, now that American Idol is definitely staying on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the other networks scrub clean their soiled underthings and scramble to rearrange their schedules. [Variety]
· Amy Brenneman will join Al Pacino in the thriller 88 Minutes, in which Pacino learns that he's got only 88 minutes to sleepwalk through another performance before his character is killed. [THR]
· 20th Century Fox TV signs Nicole Richie to a talent holding deal, with the studio holding onto Richie until they can identify a talent that doesn't involve distressing weight-loss or hating Paris Hilton, then jam her into an appropriate, ill-fated project. [Variety]
· CBS rides Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to a Wednesday night win in total viewers, but ABC ekes out a 18-49 demo victory thanks to Lost. [THR]
· Senators Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman turn their political attention to the very serious problem of 15 year-olds being able to buy violent videogames without an annoyed parent present. [Variety]

Like a cat play-swatting at an injured bird, Fox has been taking its sweet time waffling over where to put American Idol on its midseason schedule, leaving a very flinchy NBC hanging and nervous. The trades report today that the network has made its mildly sadistic albeit hilariously satisfying decision: it wasn't changing a thing.