ANNA NICOLE STILL DEAD!

You know, at a time when ordinary people become Reality TV stars and Britney Spears gets more ink for stepping out of a limo than making music, maybe Anna Nicole Smith really is the Marilyn Monroe of our time. She was a cartoony bombshell, she slurred, she mixed booze and pills, she died mysteriously-- though, if she really did choke on her own vomit (as opposed to someone else's), she could be our Jimi Hendrix.

Anyway, with the autopsy underway as we write (Inside Anna Nicole?), the fun's only beginning. Splash News brokered the sale of a videotape showing the futile efforts to revive the dead beauty. Someone paid more than $500,000 for it, even though, according to a producer who apparently passed on it, "You cannot see her face, you cannot see hair flowing out from underneath the mask... If someone didn't tell me this was Anna Nicole Smith, I totally would not have known it. You can't even tell it's a woman." See for yourself. At least part of the video surfaced in the above news report. Look for the cameo from Adam Carolla. Translations welcome.

And there's more on the way...ABC's 20/20, a tabloid TV series disguised as a serious network newsmagazine (many of its producers are "tabloid babies") has slapped together an Anna Nicole commemorative tonight at 10. (Look for them to address, then brush off our "Who Killed Anna Nicole" theory). And the prestigious Biography Channel dusts off an Anna Nicole story tomorow night at 8.

We haven't heard of plans for an E! Entertainment marathon of The Anna Nicole Show, but were in touch with folks over there yesterday, and they were really broken up over the news.