Brett Hudson stuns, inspires crowd at Fest for Beatles Fans, announces plans for cancer film, foundation project

A routine question-and-answer session about the making of The Seventh Python turned into a newsmaking and emotional highlight of The NY Metro Fest for Beatles Fans this afternoon, when producer Brett Hudson broke from the script to deliver a broadside against the American medical establishment and a call to arms in the fight against cancer.

The Seventies pop star-turned-Hollywood writer and producer, who's been performing at the Fest with his brother Mark Hudson, has received international attention and kudos since it was revealed early last year that he was battling throat cancer and had succeeded against great odds thanks to state-of-the-art treatment not widely available in the United States. His advocacy of other cancer patients and the crucial importance of individual determination of treatment and a positive attitude, displayed on a widely-circulated blog, has attracted a worldwide following and given Hudson a new mission that he pushed to the forefont today.

Well-attended

Hudson had earlier introduced The Seventh Python with director Burt Kearns and star Neil Innes at a well-attended afternoon screening, and had rushed from an autograph session to join Kearns was onstage at the Crystal Ballroom to discuss the making of the film.


The discussion had led to future Frozen Pictures projects, including a Hudson Brothers reunion and a film about Sixties rocker Chris Montez, when Hudson stopped the session to bring up the project that has been foremost on the Frozen Pictures agenda.

"On August 27, 2007, I was diagnosed with Stage 4 throat cancer. My doctors told me to get my affairs in order and that I wouldn't survive six months. I proved them wrong.

"I was headed toward a morbid operation to remove my larynx when my dear friend Cher, whom I've known for 35 years, led me to a doctor in Germany, and today I don't have cancer.


"Bottom line: You go to Germany, they'll cure your cancer. You stay in America, they'll cure you if you survive the treatment."

Help!

The crowd, there to hear the dishy show business behind the scenes stories and scandals, wastransfixed as Hudson, wrapped in a scarf that many assumed was worn in homage to the skiing sequence in Help! but which he explained he wore to protect his radiation-scarred neck from sunlight, took them down a dark alley that each and every one could relate to. He explained that Frozen Pictures is already at work producing a nonfiction film called The Klinik, which uses his own experience as the jumping-off point for a larger-themed story about innovations and obstacles in cancer treatment.

"I don't care if you see the film or buy the DVD, but go to the website The Klinik Movie dot com, Klinik spelled 'k-l-i-n-i-k' and spread the word."

Farrah

Hudson then detailed some of the most intimate details of his illness, spoke movingly about others who've sought him out for help and amazed the crowd as he told of the state-of-the art treatments that removed 14 tumours from Farrah Fawcett's liver-- not to mention his own throat cancer.

After revealing that his treatment has cost him more than $400,000-- despite insurance-- he broke the big news:

Foundation

"I will take my fee for this film-- with the exception of the Writers Guild payment, because I need their insurance, which is great-- and I will use it to start a foundation. I'm not going to put my name on it, I don't need that. I'm going to use it to help people who can't afford to get treatment. The way it is now, if you've got the money you can live, if you don't have money, you don't have the choice. I want to pay for transportation to treatment centers, for medicine. I want people to have the same choices I have."

(clockwise from top: Greg Hawkes, Martin Lewis,

Earl Slick, Brett Hudson, Neil Innes, Mark Hudson)

SNL avoids the Obama blackface issue

Lorne Michaels’ Saturday Night Live has never displayed much worry about white castmembers playing “blackface” (think Darrell Hammond as Jesse Jackson). But in the case of Barack Obama, who made a cameo appearance in the last episode before the WGA strike, there was some hand-wringing in the media about the need for a regular, politically-correct Obama character, and, with young Kenan Thompson too fat for the role, rumours that a tall, lanky African-American Obama player was about to join the cast (instead, a chubby white girl was added to replace Maya Rudolph).

In the end, they used Fred Armisen. Any controversy was immediately deflected because the makeup was laugh-out-loud good. And they sidestepped the “blackface issue" on a couple of counts: Armisen didn't need more than a light bronzing, as both he and Obama are of mixed race heritage (Obama with a white mother and Kenyan father; Armisen is Venezuelan on his mother’s side and part Japanese).

By the way, last night's SNL episode was one for the time capsule: the first consistently- funny show since the fifth episode of the second season (and as a reminder, Steve Martin made an appearance). The sketches were tight and actually laugh-inducing, and with the exception of Carrie Underwood’s subpar performance (why do the musical acts always sound so bad on this show while there’s never a problem on Conan?) and Tina Fey’s desperate Hillary-flogging during the news segment, the show held up to the end! As it was the first fresh SNL since the start of the Writers Guild Strike, the solution to SNL's quality control problem is obvious (Ben Silverman take note): cut back Saturday Night Live to once every 16 weeks.

Insult Comic Dog addresses The Leno Issue

Comedy puppet Triumph The Insult Comic Dog, appearing at the WGA East Awards show in NYC Saturday night, took on an issue that will linger long after the Writers Guild Strike is ended officially: passive-aggressive late night host Jay Leno's casual and callous flaunting of the WGA rules by continuing to write and use written material in his show's monologues and sketches:

"Today we had a great victory... We have an agreement that we can pretend we’re happy with... We had to get an agreement today... There was too much public outcry. At the end of the day, we had to end the strike to get all the ugly writers off of YouTube.

"By the way, if you don’t like any of these jokes, I didn’t write them because of the strike. But fortunately Jay Leno was nice enough to give me some. How does he do it? He runs them by Mavis at 3 in the morning!

"...The strike rules, ha, prohibit all the writing, ho ho, by any guild member that would be performed on-air by that member, ah ha ha ha, including monologues! Oh ho ho! I can’t take it! It’s too funny! Oh ho ho ho! The strike rules!

"By the way, I want to say, you know, Jay Leno wasn’t the only one to make a mockery of these rules. All the talk show hosts did, except my man, Conan O’Brien! Conan O’Brien went out there with no material and sucked harder than ever before!

"Actually, he was pretty good, but if I say that Jeff Zucker will fire half the writing staff.

"Jimmy Kimmel also didn’t write. But Jimmy took it a step further: He didn’t write before the strike. That’s how loyal he is!"

How does Leno do it? With scab help, of course!

Well our Writers Guild of America strike may be coming to an end soon, but in its wake there will be niggling questions among us rank and file, like why the leadership got distracted trying to recruit reality television and animation writers in the middle of the action against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, and why late night hosts like Jay Leno and Jon Stewart were given a pass to defy their union blatantly and continue to write monologues and sketches by scabbing, and getting help from scabs.

Today’s New York Times touches on the latter subject with an odd article by Bill Carter, the chronicler of the late night wars and the one journo we'd expect to have the inside track on the late night show workings. The article about Jay Leno's ability to keep up his ratings and lead over Letterman despite the strike, leave sit a mystery as to how the host somehow manages to come up with something like two dozen fresh, topical jokes per night in his monologues:

"How does he do it?

"…Mr. Leno is performing the opening monologue, his show’s centerpiece, just as he always has, firing off joke after joke— 25 last Thursday alone for example. Many of the jokes were based on the Republican debate the night before. Others were more generic. But to most viewers they probably seemed indistinguishable from a monologue Mr. Leno might have given six months, or six years, ago.

"That has led to speculation about how he’s doing it. After all, the Writers Guild put out word that no new writing could be done during the strike. Mr. Leno met with the guild leadership before the strike and explained that he intended to perform a monologue he would write himself…

"That might not seem to account for 25 jokes a night, but Mr. Ludwin and others associated with the show say Mr. Leno’s three decades of work as a stand-up comic has been the biggest factor in those monologues.

"These associates say that Mr. Leno is pulling jokes from the deep pool of material he has used in his stand-up act, dropping in more generic — or just silly — jokes into his monologues... But he has also, the associates said, used his skills as a mechanic — Mr. Leno’s chief non-show-business passion is working on cars and motorcycles — to retool old jokes. One longtime writer said that Mr. Leno was taking lines he used about earlier politicians and refashioning them to involve contemporary figures.

"Some of Mr. Leno’s competitors still question how he is able to do this all by himself, night after night, especially while also darting off to stand-up gigs. Last Wednesday he flew to Phoenix for a Super Bowl-related performance after taping the show earlier that day…

We’d never have imagined that we’d have more sources in the late night world than Bill Carter, but from the start, we've been told by insiders that Leno is relying on the help of a few topnotch out-of-town jokewriters who fax, phone or email him gags every morning.

There are hundreds of these guys out there, pros who syndicate jokes to morning radio shows and late night show writing staffs alike (just do a Google search for “syndicated jokes” and you’ll get the idea)-- not mention comics on the road, stuck doing two nights at a HooHas in Cleveland, eager to win points from the Big Guy. Woody Allen got his start sending gags to Walter Winchell and Earl Wilson. Rodney Dangerfield would buy “no respect” one-liners for $25 to $100 each.

Weird middle-of-the-night Carson Daly got a lot of stick for seeking jokes from his pals; Leno is taking advantage of a Scab Nation, and just like any big corporation , he’s bringing in the scabs from out of town.

It’s unclear why Bill Carter is being coy, and odd that he left us to find the story between the lines.

Daily Show scab has a bolly good laugh at his union

Aasif Mandvi is one lucky comic actor. Born in Mumbai, India, he came to America and got his start in showbiz as part of the "Streetmosphere" (now, "Citizens of Hollywood") ensemble at Walt Disney World. Since 2006, he's been one of the "correspondents" on the left-wing, liberal nightly show, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Liebowitz-- the "correspondents" and writers who write and participate in written sketches every night, even though their union, the Writers Guild of America, is striking their show's parent conglomerate, has denied the show a free pass, and is in fact picketing their studios.

Aasif, who has been given much more than many other American working stiffs and WGA members, tells New York magazine why and how he and his "boss" get away with crossing their union, violating strike rules and scabbing unmolested:

“We just sit around a table all day, telling stories and not writing. Actually, you can write. But you can’t think,” he said. “Not many people know this, but it’s just the thinking and writing at the same time that they object to. You can put pen to paper as long as there is absolutely no coherent thought. You can draw pictures, you can write words, but it can’t make any sense to anyone who has a basic education.

“I don’t cross picket lines, because they don’t start picketing until, like, way in the afternoon, and I’m home by then.”

Ha ha ha. Now they're laughing in our faces!

Aascab Mandiscab!

Scab: 'Blue collar' Adam Carolla to cross WGA picket lines to pimp his awful radio show on Leno

If you haven't caught his radio show, here's a good enough reason to dislike Adam Carolla, the freeform monotonal "comedian" who's in his third year of attempting to create a listenable, if not successful, radio show in slots once occupied by the late Howard Stern in Los Angeles and a few other unfortunate cities: This morning, he's advertising his appearance tonight on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and offering up ten tickets to listeners who want to sit in the audience to see him go through the motions after crossing the Writers Guild of America picket line. (Remember the days when a ticket to The Tonight Show was a hot commodity? Those were the Carson days.)

Carolla's guest spot is a sign of Leno's difficulty in booking guests during the WGA strike, when most compassionate performers will not cross the line to pimp a product, not to mention Hollywood's disapproval of Leno's decision to continue to write monologues and somehow find scripts for videotaped bits despite his membership in the WGA.

It also indicates that Jimmy Kimmel had his own interests at heart when he created an alliance with Leno against the WGA strike limitations. Kimmel, of course, is Carolla's "rabbi," a CBS radio "comedy" consultant who has been instrumental in keeping Carolla on the air. Now the perennial also-ran is getting his friends and associates on a late night show that actually has some viewers.

As for Carolla? What a hypocrite. The supposed "working stiff," who mocks immigrants on his radio show, Carolla, who last month maneuvered the ouster of co-host Danny Bonaduce after Bonaduce brought the show new life and ratings, plods on toward cancellation with a dull cadre of followerss including the drab Teresa Strasser (who works for the whitewashed syndicated television show based on the corporate porn-pushing gossip site, TMZ.com) and a few other nonpro acolytes.

Shame on the lot of them.

Rats! Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences® blows it by snubbing the real Best Picture of 2007-- and one of the best movies ever made

It’s an off-year in more ways than one for the Academy Awards®. The 80th version of the show might be turned into an old fogey scab-ridden clipfest if the Writers Guild of America strike manages to stop the live televised ceremony from taking place, and even if the show does go on with awkward scab-writer Jon Stewart as host, the movies up for Best Picture (that Stewart is probably scab-writing jokes about as we type) constitute a bunch of real downers-- a pregnant 16 year-old, a maniacal killer, a British romance, two-hours-and-thirty eight minutes of Daniel Day-Lewis acting up a storm in the dust, and a serious, ignored George Clooney legal drama— it’s not exactly shaping up into a crowd-pleasing Titanic kind of show.

And the members of the Academy® could have turned things around with one small act of bravery and anti-elitism. All they needed to do was eke out Michael Clayton or Juno, which are nice, well-made movies that-- let’s be serious-- don’t deserve Best Picture at a Canadian film festival nor have a chance of winning the big prize— and slip into the Best Picture competition the film that was surely the Best Picture of 2007, and in fact, one of the Best Movies Ever Made®:

Ratatouille.

Ratatouille, the Pixar flick about the rat who dreams of becoming a world class chef, has been exiled to the “Best Animated Feature of The Year” category—- stuck behind the docos at the kid’s table, along with hipster grim Persopolis and the mundane Surf’s Up (were they thinking of the grimmish Happy Feet from 2006?)-- while its director, Brad Bird, was unjustly ignored in the Directing category (though he nabbed a very deserved nomination for Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen).

The last and only animated film to be nominated for Best Picture was Beauty & The Beast in 1991. And as good as the Broadway version was, it doesn’t hold a candle (no pun intended) to the wondrous animation and great script and performance of this landmark in animation and cinema.

Or as A.O. Scott wrote with much more elegance in the New York Times:

"Written and directed by Brad Bird and displaying the usual meticulousness associated with the Pixar brand, 'Ratatouille' is a nearly flawless piece of popular art, as well as one of the most persuasive portraits of an artist ever committed to film. It provides the kind of deep, transporting pleasure, at once simple and sophisticated, that movies at their best have always promised.

'Its sensibility… is both exuberantly democratic and unabashedly elitist, defending good taste and aesthetic accomplishment not as snobbish entitlements but as universal ideals. Like 'The Incredibles,' Mr. Bird’s earlier film for Pixar, 'Ratatouille' celebrates the passionate, sometimes aggressive pursuit of excellence, an impulse it also exemplifies.

'…Perhaps because animation, especially the modern computer-assisted variety, is the work of so many hands and the product of so much invested capital, we are used to identifying animated movies with their corporate authors: Disney, DreamWorks, Pixar and so on. But while the visual effects in 'Ratatouille' show a recognizable company stamp, the sensibility that governs the story is unmistakably Mr. Bird’s. A veteran of 'The Simpsons' and a journeyman writer for movies and television, he has emerged as an original and provocative voice in American filmmaking.

"He is also, at least implicitly, a severe critic of the laziness and mediocrity that characterize so much popular culture. He criticizes partly by example, by avoiding the usual kid-movie clichés and demonstrating that a clear, accessible story can also be thoughtful and unpredictable. 'Ratatouille' features no annoying sidekick and no obtrusive celebrity voice-work…

"Moreover, his basic moral conflict— between family obligation and individual ambition— is handled with unusual subtlety and complexity, so that the reassurances and resolutions of the movie’s end feel earned rather than predetermined.

"And while the film buzzes with eye-pleasing action and incident-- wild chases, hairbreadth escapes, the frenzied choreography of a busy kitchen— it does not try to overwhelm its audience with excessive noise and sensation. Instead Mr. Bird integrates story and spectacle with the light, sure touch that Vincente Minnelli brought to his best musicals and interweaves the tale… with beguiling subplots and curious characters..."

Ratatouille is one of the Best Movies Ever made. It even has Cloud 9 connections: Brad Garrett, the voice of Gusteau, appeared with Paul Rodriguez in The College of Comedy with Alan King; and James Remar, who voiced the character of Larousse, acted in the 1987 Burt Reynolds comedy, Rent-a-Cop-- and that’s just from a quick look…

Carrie Ann Inaba is topless, but Leno was naked

Yeah, it's fine to cross the Writers Guild picket lines to do your late night show and in defiance of your union rules and responsibilities, sit in a room and write your own monologue. The country needs it so we can be told that the people running for President are silly. That was the consensus from Bill Maher and Jay Leno, when strike-criticising late night host showed up as guest on the strike-defying host's show last night. When Maher's anti-strike quips proved the perfect set-up for a protester to begin a chant from the audience, he was ready to hit back with some scripted heckler rejoinders-- but Leno shit a brick and threw hastily to a commercial.

The flash of fear and panic on Leno's face was priceless-- a high point that nullified Maher's later praise for writing his own monologues (in defiance of his union-- and who's writing the taped bits?) --and matched only by the segment featuring Bruno and Carrie Ann from ABC's "writerless" Dancing with the Stars and its current spinoff. While Maher carried on a panto with Bruno, the Leno scabs ran a clip explaining, after three seasons of Dancing, who the hell is Carrie Ann Inaba-- she was the pole dancer from one of Madonna's tours-- the topless one with the shaved head.

Nikki Finke takes a break from writers' strike

With the strike by the Writers Guild of America, journalism dynamo and eccentric Nikki Finke found a story that put her website Deadline Hollywood Daily on the front line of entertainment reporting and her up-and-down, cantankerous career on an A-list trajectory. Swept away with enthusiasm, she's become the center of strike coverage, breaking news, pushing forward ideas, encouraging potential solutions and leaving competition like Defamer and that corporate porn-pushing gossip site to trivia and silliness.

But again, the pitbull talent has been shadowed by the eccentric and the human. At this crucial point in strike coverage, Nikki is citing her health as the reason she's taking a break of at least a week:

DHD Update: Back On January 22nd
I’m exhausted. I'm not feeling well. I'm overwhelmed. I need a week away from the emails and the comments and the phone calls and the rumors. Most of all, I just need to rest since I've been going, going, going, since the strike started. I look forward to coming back on January 22nd and finding it settled (?). In the meantime, stay out of crosswalks while I’m gone. And I promise to return refreshed.

It's rare and risky that an experienced journo would walk away amid such an important streak. We send our best to Nikki and wish her a speedy recovery. In the interim, we're happy to pick up the slack. Send your tips here.

Why is the WGA letting the late-night liberal golden boys get away with using written, scab material?

So why are the liberal golden boys of late night television getting a pass by the Writers Guild of America when they’re clearly doing scabwork and making liberal use of written material despite the strike? Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Bill Maher all flaunt their lefty, man-of-the-people, anti-Bush, anti-boss credentials, sentiments and shtik, and all returned to their shows amid the WGA strike with the expected words of solidarity toward the striking writers. Yet even a cursory viewing of their shows this week reveals that they’re using written material, in videotaped segments, monologues and other bits. And no one’s complaining.



Jay Leno has been the most egregious and blatant offender with his long scripted monologues and scripted video segments, but in his typical passive-aggressive fashion weaseled his way out of responsibility by claiming to have misinterpreted approval from the WGA. With NBC forcing him off the air next year and embarrassing him by running those repeats from the Nineties, he obviously doesn’t give a shit or feels he’s above it all, but as Leno spews out the written stuff regardless, he offers a fascinating view into a TV comedian’s insecurities, jealousies and neuroses, unseen since the days of Stanley Seigel, Shelley Berman or Jack Paar.

But these other guys? They’re only protecting their artificial images. We members of the Writers Guild of America gave ambitious Carson Scably a well-deserved heckling when he was caught soliciting scab material after he crossed the WGA picket line to resume his little-seen middle-of-the-night talk show. But he was easy pickings. Guys like Stewart, Colbert and Maher obviously believe their own hype, that they have something important to say, and it appears that their perceived political views are giving them tacit approval to rely on scabwork and be scabs themselves.

So far, only Conan O'Brien seems to have taken the strike and his responsibilities as a WGA member seriously and is giving his bosses a reason to get back to the negotiating table. Kimmel? We haven’t watched his show so you’ll have to let us know, but his public grousings are ill-advised for a lug who’s lucky to be on the air to begin with, and who’s in line for a dose of Hollywood reality next year when his new big buddy Leno makes a deal with ABC and takes his timeslot.

Leno & Kimmel's dangerous liaison

Passive-aggressive late night TV host Jay Leno and Sarah Silverman's boyfriend/Adam Carolla's mentor Jimmy Kimmel are both angry that David Letterman made a sidedeal with the Writers Guild of America that allowed his writers to go back to work. Both hosts, WGA members, crossed picket lines to return to work last week without writers. Leno, as we know, has been writing (or getting help writing) his nightly monologue in defiance of union rules. Kimmel, who mines the "working slug" "lucky to be on television" image, has raged publicly against the restrictions.

According to the New York Times, "in an unusual act of unity emerging from the screenwriters’ strike, two of television’s late-night hosts, Jay Leno of NBC and Jimmy Kimmel of ABC, will appear on each other’s shows on Thursday... The two hosts and their networks will announce the arrangement on Monday...

"Neither host has appeared on the other’s show, but in the course of meetings with the writers’ guild over what the hosts would be permitted to do and telephone discussions between the shows about mutual interests, Mr. Leno and Mr. Kimmel established a relationship..."

These guys know the rules and how the game is played. Whatever game they're playing behind the scenes is a move into dangerous territory.

If the LA Times is going to criticize reality television writers and producers, it should at least know the correct definition of "frankenbite"

Scott Collins has a piece in today’s Los Angeles Times Calendar section about the Writers Guild Strike and reality show writers and is in danger of creating a misleading factoid as he unfortunately gives the wrong definition for a production term that’s central to his thesis and occasionally "snarky" condemnation of the professionals who write and produce popular reality television shows:

…” Many of these programs are ‘written’ in the editing room by ‘story producers’ who string together hours of footage into some sort of recognizable narrative, frequently with little regard for, um, reality. Supposedly spontaneous events are staged or restaged, chronologies adjusted. Editors routinely use ‘frankenbites,’ out-of-context quotes that illustrate points the speakers never intended to make…

“…Don't count on the guild negotiators going to the mat for folks who frankenbite.”

Frankenbite. Collins and his editors got the definition of “Frankenbite” wrong.

A Frankenbite is not an out-of-context quote. It’s a line of audio that is cobbled, stitched and patched together with words and phrases from different unrelated sentences. Just as Frankenstein was assembled from parts of different bodies.

Like this:

“The newspaper (edit) needs to (edit) make a (edit) correction (edit) before its mistake (edit) spreads and (edit) be (edit) comes (edit) a factoid.”

While “out-of-context quotes that illustrate points the speakers never intended to make” are simply dishonest, the Frankenbite is an acceptable tool-- and its use is not restricted to those big bad “reality” shows. Frankenbites have been used for years in newsmagazines, news reports, documentaries, TV specials-- anywhere a producer, editor and an interview subject who couldn’t make a concise point can be found.

The LA Times fact checker could have Googled “frankenbite” to find entries like Kevin Arnovitz’s Virtual Dictionary at Slate:

Frankenbite (n): An edited reality show snippet, most often found in contestant testimonials, that splices together several disparate strands of an interview, or even multiple interviews, into a single clip.

Is Carolla being aced out?

So what's up with radio suck king Adam Carolla?

We reported back in October that the radio suck king might soon be walking away from his despoiled morning show gig, and now, after the actions of the past couple of days, his fans are fearing the prediction's come to pass. Sez one:

"I think Adam has left the show and some suit came up with this Adam is sick angle to keep the Carolla fans listeneing, while they slowly hand the reins over to Danny. I also got the feeling that Norm McDonald might be the new co-host. The Danny & Norm show in January 2008 is what I predict."

The monotonal, droning morning man who wound up in the unenviable position of taking over for the late Howard Stern and then spent the next two years soiling the spot beyond repair hasn't been showing up to work the past couple of days, even missing out on his Stern-imitating awards show for the oxymoronically "best" moments of his show.

After Carolla apparently took time to cross the Writers Guild picket lines to appear as a guest this morning on the strike-breaking Carson Scably TV show, rumours and speculation have been running wild on the Carolla fans message board, with some seeing signs that Carolla may be leaving the show after all, and that second banana Danny Bonaduce, forced onto the show earlier this year, after Carolla's handpicked team failed miserably in 2006, will get the slot to himself as Tabloid Baby and fans of good radio have petitioned.

But considering that Carolla's Scably appearance was taped days ago, it's more likely he skipped work and handed the show to Bonaduce to duck the inevitable prank calls from WGA members.

Or did he do it to take the unwelcome competitor out of the picture? Ironically, Bonaduce, the quick-witted, colorful and very human show business veteran-- and sole bright spot on the dreary show-- seems to have slipped into a despairing funk in wake of his divorce, bizarre public appearances like his violent actions at the Fox Channel Reality Awards Show and constant undermining by Carolla and his cowering female protege.

Some message board fans suspect Carolla is leaving Bonaduce hanging, to allow the volatile performer to hang himself.

We'll see. The Carolla show is headed into another long hiatus. The last New Year's hiatus contained the surprise massacre of Carolla's staff and the hiring of Bonaduce. So stay tuned. The morning nightmare for Los Angeles and several other western regions may soon give way to light.

Carson Scably

We ran a bunch of stories about poor, weird, weirdly emaciated Carson Daly and his timeslot-filling middle-of-the-night talk show on NBC when we were contributing news items to the TVgasm website. We left off around the time he was making some sad attempts to somehow win the Conan O'Brien's 12:35 am slot after Conan takes over Tonight Show from placeholder Jay Leno. Even after NBC signed the amateurish Jimmy Fallon to a holding deal and indicated he'd be getting the Late Night gig (NBC's math: Irish+boyish+SNL experience+no hosting experience+discomfort at doing interviews= the gig), Daly kept putting out announcements about how he was prepping for the semi bigtime, and wanted NBC suits to tune in to see how he'd pumped up his show with lame scripted comedy bits and an imitation monologue.

Now, Carson Daly is making the ultimate desperation ploy to appease his corporate bosses. While all the other late night shows have been sidelined by the Writers Guild strike, the desperate wannabe has announcemed that he's returning to work today. Daly's not a Writers Guild member, but he’s not only crossign the picket line, he's openly soliciting material from non-Guild "writers"-- meaning scabs-- and that makes him a scumbag wasting-disease scab, as well.

We're sure Jeff Zucker and the other NBC honchos have promised him at least a John Rivers fill-in role after Conan leaves Late Night, it's got more to do with Daly's aspirations to be a bigtime producer like Dick Clark or Ryan Seacrest.

Striking writers, remember Mel Tolkin

Fellow Writers, we have a martyr. Mel Tolkin (center, top row), the head of Sid Caesar’s celebrated television writing team, died today at his home in Century City, at 94, in this fourth week of the writers strike. It was on November 11th, five days into the strike, that we members of the Writers Guild of America -- more than 4,000 strong-- gathered for the biggest rally in WGA history in front of the Fox building on Avenue of the Stars in Century City, closing down the street between Pico and Santa Monica Boulevards.

On that day, on which speakers included Norman Lear (left), creator of the WGA series All In The Family-- of which many episodes were written by Mel Tolkin-- we offered an olive branch to the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers.

Tonight, we mourn the passing of one our most distinguished and respected members. And can you believe his son is Michael Tolkin, who wrote The Player and directed The Rapture?

(Mel Tolkin also wrote for the great TV series, Run Buddy Run, starring LA jazzman Jack Sheldon.)

Uh-oh... TMZ calls Chelsea Handler a "bigot"

Looks like the boys at the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com really stepped in it this time:

Chelsea Handler's New Gig: Bigot?
Posted Nov 25th 2007 2:00PM by TMZ StaffFiled under: Train Wrecks
Trying to joke about race can get you in a lot of trouble -- just ask Michael Richards. Last night outside of Koi, supposed comedian Chelsea Handler tried to the same thing and, like Kramer, failed miserably. She was approached by two cameramen -- one of whom was Chinese, the other (our guy) was African-American. Chelsea quipped that it was "crazy that you guys all travel together, Asians and blacks. That's amazing." And they can vote now, too!

Chelsea Handler a bigot? Those are strong words from the loose cannon weekend crew, trying too hard to whip up a scandal after one of its aggressive teams of amateur boys with home video cameras confronted another celebrity outside a restaurant in hopes of goading her into a fight. This time, it's the E! Entertainment Channel's boss's girlfriend and legs-akimbo, cocktail-swilling comedy show host who does her best to throw a few one liners.

The weekend editors try to paint her with the Michael Richard brush. Bigot? Doesn't seem fair. Looks like Chelsea was just trying to give the thugs what they wanted with a little schtik that's not even as shocking or incorrect as the mainstream "outrageousness" of Kathy Griffin, Sarah Silverman or Wanda Sykes dish out.

Bigot? She's a comedian doing a line that emcees might use on a table of comedy club customers. It's a long way from Michael Richards.

It's not just that the piss-fetish deviates at the Winchell-style bullying TMZ are pushing a hypocritical, fascistic political correctness that wound tend to force comedy and free speech to pre-Lenny Bruce standards. Remember, Chelsea's the boss's girlfriend. The corporate E! bosses could come down hard on the competition calling his girl a bigot.

We'd even bet that the story disappears from the site.

Not that we feel too sorry for Chelsea. She does a nightly comedy show on E! without writers. That's why she's not so smooth, and why her show carries on despite the Writers Guild strike. Everything on the E! channel, news shows and all, is made up on the spot. Without writers.

But the TMZ TV show is supposedly the ultimate union-buster, even making AFTRA's blacklist.

Anyway, we're getting bored writing about the corporate porn-pushing gossips. It's a lowlife, crude, deviant operation that's not funny or insightful and doesn't have the balls to admit they are what they are-- like yesterday, when they tried to distance themselves from the paparazzi swarm around Dennis Quaid and his wife as they deal with a medical emergency surrounding their newborns:

More than ten paps (not TMZ) have been on the Quaids, shouting out question after question.

Not TMZ? That's as much of a mystery as why the site ignored Owen Wilson's suicide attempt. Do they have a thing against breeders? We'll save that for the book.

Writers strike exclusive: THE SCAB FOUR

Not since Rosie O'Donnell has a beloved lesbian comedian-turned- daytime-talk-show-host seen her appeal nosedive as sharply as Ellen DeGeneres, whose downward spiral began with her cunningly yet backfiring televised blubbering breakdown over someone else's dog and went into hyperspeed when she decided to cross the Writers Guild picket line. Now, she is crossing Beatles Tribute fans:

This just in from Las Vegas:

The Scab Four
LAS VEGAS, NV

The recent taped appearance by Beatles tribute act The Fab Four that runs tonight (Monday Nov 19th) on Ellen DeGeneres’s TBS Special is causing a rift among the Las Vegas Beatle community and the Writers Guild of America.

It seems that one of the producers from the Ellen show actually caught the premier Las Vegas Beatles group Fab Forever at a summer show in New York. The producer was totally blown away by the group's amazing look and sound, and approached Fab Forever's producer Jerry Peluso, telling him she wanted to book the act for the Ellen show.

"It was a funny thing, I lost her contact and info and the same must have happened with her." says Peluso. "I was going to call the Ellen show and follow up, but the writer's strike hit." Peluso a TV producer and Writers Guild member, with 25 years of TV experience decided to take the high road and back his fellow WGA members. "I don't care how much national publicity it costs my group...I'm sticking by the Guild and the cast members of Fab Forever back me 100%. I think The Fab Four should have made the same consideration before taking the stage on the Ellen show.

Ironically, it was Peluso who steered the Fab Four to Las Vegas success befofe he left the group to crate the ultimate Beatles Tribute act. The Fab Forever, who've been named The Best Beatles tribute group in America," recently overcame the tragedy that stalled their rise to the toppermost, and are "revolution"-izing downtown Vegas with a new show that opened last Wednesday at the Canyon Club in the Four Queens hotel and casino).

(...and a tip of the Tabloid Baby hat to tabloid television legend George Ciccarone for the scoop..)

Amid the second week of the Writers Guild strike, Fox News showbiz correspondent Bill McCuddy tells Page Six a cute story about his past as a SCAB

Carson's Secret Deal

DURING the last writers' strike in 1988, Fox News entertainment guy Bill McCuddy wrote for Johnny Carson. The late-night king famously crossed the writers' picket lines saying he would pen his own material. But McCuddy and other comics sent Carson lines, through agents who secretly put out the word that non-union scribes could send in pithy punch lines. "He came out that first night and opened with my joke. It was one of the greatest moments of my life," McCuddy says. The line later recounted in Newsweek as a defining moment in Carson's return: "Hard to know what the writers want when they go on strike because the picket signs are blank." McCuddy went on to provide lines for Dennis Miller and a Top 10 List for Al Gore on David Letterman's show, but says the Carson monologue convinced him to abandon ad copywriting.

Assistant arrested in murder of Linda Stein

Police today arrested the personal assistant of murdered former Ramones manager Linda Stein in Virginia Beach, Va. Natavia Lowery was in Virginia visiting her boyfriend when NYPD cops slapped on the cuffs.

An NYPD spokesman says the 26-year-old "made statements implicating herself" in the killing.

Lowery is the suspect we told you about yesterday, the woman who apparently was the last person to speak with Stein before she was murdered. She's also the one who was arrested in December on a misdemeanor charge of identity theft. She wasaccused of stealing a high school buddy's identity and using it to open accounts at Target and T-Mobile, and used the money to buy furniture.

Sources say Stein hired Lowery in early summer after firing her previous personal assistant.

Now the latest chapter in the Ramones curse has been written, and as soon as the Writers Guild strike is over, so can the ripped-from-the-headlines episode of Law & Order.

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO! Michael Lohan's reality series

As we walk the picket line with our brothers and sisters of The Writers Guild West, we’ve found this pitch tape for one of the wildest reality television projects still waiting to be snatched up. The Michael Lohan Reality Project, aka “I Love Lindsay” -- has proven too edgy for some networks. The series follows Lindsay Lohan’s father Michael, and his attempts to rebuild his life— and his family, after prison and examines the effects of fame on a family while spotlighting the ones who cling to the edge of fame's spotlight.

This tape was made before Michael & Lindsay's reunion in Utah, but Frozen Pictures cameras have continued to roll, and the series promises a much more "real" (or "actual" as they say over at Tru TV) reality than his ex-wife Dina's series at E! Entertainment. But who's brave enough to go for the Anti-Dog? Our pals at Frozen Pictures say the religion aspect proved taboo for some of the development people out there, so they’re now looking to UK networks— or, ideally, a viewing of the pitch tape by Rupert Murdoch himself.

We say the most fun will be deciding if the guy's for real or not.