World Exclusive! Elli Wohlgelernter on the Israel Baseball League: The manager who melted down

World-renowned journalist Elli Wohlgelernter-- known here as Our Man Elli In Israel-- is already causing shockwaves around the sportsworld with his exposé of the new Israel Baseball League. In this sidebar story, he explores one of the most embarrassing incidents of this first season: the outburst and ouster of one of the league's most high-profile figures, team manager and former Major League pitcher Ken Holtzman:

The Holtzman Affair

by ELLI WOHLGELERNTER

In an interview on July 20 with the Israeli Web portal Walla!, Petah Tikva manager and former Major Leaguer Ken Holtzman let loose with a sweeping broadside against the Israel Baseball League, sparing no one.

He criticized the baseball fields: “They would reach the level of high schools in our country”; the teams: “Chosen at random, and in a strange manner”; the Israeli players: “There are no good Israeli players”; the other players: “According to what I can see, none of the players can reach even semi-pro baseball in the United States… the really good player would never come here”; and the Israeli fan: “There is no chance that baseball will succeed in Israel. People here relate to baseball the way people in America relate to soccer. They see it as something very boring, and it will never catch on… you can't make a big impression because there is no culture of baseball, and the facilities are the worse possible.”

A season of frustration all came pouring out, and against league organizers as well.

“They wanted to make the league work very very quickly,” Holtzman said. “The main point to them was that there would be a league, that they could then go to Bud Selig, commissioner of Major League Baseball [and a member of the league’s advisory committee], to tell him that ‘we provided the goods,’ that there is also baseball in Israel. But they opened the league a year too soon. It makes no sense that they would sit in the Eastern United States doing publicity and creating the league, and at the same time, there is nobody here supervising. Look at this field,” he said, referring to Sportek Field in Tel Aviv. “The league opened, and this field still wasn't ready. They pushed off 25 games because of scandalous management. They should have waited.”

Holtzman said that the lack of care on the part of management was a detriment to the league’s success.

“They talked about a 1,000 fans a game? Here in Petah Tikva, we get a 100 in the best case. The players also complain about the lack of concern. It's not good, because when they go back to their homes, they will tell other players not to come. I also asked myself, what is the goal here? To create a major league, or just to give players a chance? This league will last a year, and in the best case, two years.”

Two weeks later, Holtzman left Israel, by mutual agreement with the league. Commissioner Dan Kurtzer, former U.S. ambassador to Israel, would not comment on the Holtzman affair.

“There were issues, and we had differences of view. The time had come when, mutually, we agreed that it was best for him to go home. We suggested to him that it would be best for everybody if this didn’t get all over the press. So far we haven’t heard that he has, so we haven’t talked about it either.”

Kurtzer did respond to the question of whether the league started a year too soon.

“No. I think if we had not started this year, whatever momentum we had built up in the states we would have-- not lose it, but it would have dissipated, and it would have been real hard. There’s a constant struggle we had between getting it going, and convincing people we were serious, and getting everything organized, and you’re balancing all the time.”

If the league was upset, the players more so, not so much over Holtzman’s criticism of the league-– much of which they agreed with-- but of his going public with it, and, first and foremost, the knocking of his own Pioneer players.

“To have a man do that, and just bash the team like that - it’s a team game, don’t throw your team under the bus like that,” said Steve Raab, of the Rana'ana Express. “It’s one thing to keep something like that contained within your team; if he wants to talk to his team like that, that’s his prerogative. But these are 23-year old kids that he’s telling couldn’t even make a high school baseball team?

“He didn’t even give it two months-- I don’t think he gave it a chance from when he got here. He saw how the team looked in practice, and that was it.”

How the team looked, and Holtzman’s criticism of his team being chosen at random, and in a strange manner, had some validity, according to someone in league management. He said that the lack of expertise by the person who drafted the Petah Tikva team made it obvious that the Pioneers were not going to be the same caliber as the rest of the league. “I knew that day that the team was in trouble,” said the executive, who was present on draft day.

Players were divided over Holtzman’s comments.

"He had some very valid points," said pitcher Leon Feingold of the Netanya Tigers, a native New Yorker and a professional competitive eater who has been ranked as high as 12th in the world. "Obviously I don’t agree with the way that he did it. But as a major leaguer accustomed to a certain level of both treatment and infrastructure in organization, I can see why he was very surprised and disheartened by what he saw going on here."

Nate Fish, a league All-Star who lives in Brooklyn and is a student at the New School, said everyone tried to put his best foot forward when dealing with the press, and when dealing with people outside the league. "I think they did make an effort to keep it under wraps when things went wrong," Fish said. "But it's certainly brave of him, in a way, to be honest about what he thought, and not just give the cliché answers that everyone always gives. So I respect people who are honest, especially when they can shy away from speaking their mind. But at the same time, you have to have tact. It's in all of our best interest to promote the league, as opposed to ream it."

"I would disagree with the way he said it, but he wasn't wrong with the issues," said Aaron Levin, who was born in Los Angeles and now lives in San Luis Obispo . "I think he was a just a little frustrated, as everyone else is. He just expressed himself in a different way than I would have."

”I didn't bother to read Holtzman's comments," said Jacob Levy, who was born in Santa Monica and now lives in Los Angeles . "If Holtzman's assessment was that the league started a year too soon, I respectfully disagree. Baseball can never be played too soon. Could the fields have been better? Certainly. Perhaps if Israel 's tax rates were lower, the economy would readily offer the expertise and materials required to build excellent baseball fields usually developed first for other applications. As for the assertion that most of the players couldn't play professionally in the U.S., that holds true for all leagues save the professional leagues of the U. S. of A."

“He really doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” said Nat Ballenberg, 22, from Long Valley, New Jersey. “He knows pitching mechanics, but he doesn’t know how to run a team. The things he said about his players - that’s just totally unprofessional.”

“You assume a guy with five championship rings can conduct himself in a professional way,” said Travis Zier, a graduate of Haverford College outside Philadelphia, where he is second all-time in wins. “He shouldn’t have done it. He’s a professional baseball player? He can’t manage for s--t.”

Aimee Mann appears in The Seventh Python

Acclaimed singer-songwriter Aimee Mann filmed a segment today for The Seventh Python, the new Neil Innes documentary film from our pals at Frozen Pictures.


The Academy Award-nominated Aimee has known Neil Innes since she lived in England in the early Nineties, and featured his vocals on her album, I'm With Stupid, as well as on her classic recording of Harry Nilsson's "One," which was featured in PT Anderson's film, Magnolia (along with her song, Save Me that scored the nomination).


Aimee praised Innes as a songwriter, a satirist, and even remembers where she was-- "and what the room looked like" when she first saw The Rutles on TV. “I have to say that some of the Rutles songs are my favorites. I like them more than the Beatles songs. I think that I had more kind of hero worship and I had more of a crush on Ron Nasty than I ever had on John Lennon.”

Owen: What happened?

Sources close to Kate Hudson tell us she and the family deny that actor Owen Wilson's alleged suicide attempt had anything to do with Kate & Owen's recent break-up-- after he helped break up her marriage to rock singer Chris Robinson (who is having his name legally changed back to Chris Robinson from "Mr. Kate Hudson.")

Our pals at Frozen Pictures also deny that Owen's misadventure had anything to do with the fact that he had been offered, and passed on, the lead role in Frozen's beach volleyball comedy film, Cloud 9 (a role that had been written for Burt Reynolds, and which Reynolds made his own).

Tabloid Baby ankles TVgasm.com

For 46 weeks, the Tabloid Baby team has contributed exclusive TV news and commentary to the popular television fan site, Tvgasm. And for 46 weeks, TVgasm’s core readers have hated us! (Typical comment: “I think you're a useless piece of crap, TB.” —Tabby LavaLamp)

Now, Tabloid Baby and TVgasm have parted ways.

“We were planning to do a solid 52 weeks— make it a year and then make an exit-- but the budget ran out before we could!" says Tabloid Baby editor Burt Kearns.

Tabloid Baby had been hired to give TVgasm a news presence after the TV recap site was bought last fall by Bunim Murray Productions, producers of MTV’s Real World and similar reality shows. Bunim Murray had hoped to expand the site into a major, interactive media site, but after the company's digital content chief left earlier this year, plans went into remission.

“It was never exactly the perfect fit," says Kearns.

"TVgasm attracts an audience of geeks and lonely housewives who think TV stars are their friends. It’s cute, naïve, unpolished and non-jaded, and they go for this thing called ‘snarkiness.’ Tabloid Baby isn't cute. We're jaded. Not naïve. And for some reason, that word 'snarky' makes us think of Mo Rocca!

"But it was fun. With TVgasm, we played it like we do on TV. Three or four television stories a day that we thought were important or interesting. And we did it differently than sites like TV Tattle or Defamer, which simply link to story sources. We broke news, did interviews, and added commentary and context. We also threw in a lot of curves, like history, satire and sidebar links. It was time-consuming, but it brought in a lot of new readers.

"But that original fan base kept up the attack. They accused us of being part of a corporate takeover. They only wanted recaps. They said we were mean! They’d get offended if we wrote that Kirstie Alley was fat or that Rachel Dratch was homely. Then they all retreated to the site forums, where the housewives and shut-ins flirt with the high school boys."

In an ironic twist, the first TVGasm news story in the post-Tabloid Baby era is a gossip item on a non-television subject— and pays tribute to the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ, of which Tabloid Baby is a leading critic.

It is cute, though.

"It’s funny, we got word (that Tabloid Baby had been cancelled) last week, days after we'd ventured into the forums to invite the crowd to take a look at what they’d been missing on the Newsgasm side. It turned into a hilarious argument. The geeks went on the attack, started playing mischief with our posts— it was chaos until the site moderator stepped in and foolishly, I think, appeased the group by announcing that ("pot stirrer") Tabloid Baby was leaving.

"Then, whoever had been fucking with us erased the thread and locked us out of the site before we could say goodbye and thank our real fans-- or fan!”

That’s the punchline. On Friday, NBC Universal sent us a copy of the deluxe seven-disc Heroes Season 1 DVD set. We’d intended to give it away as a parting gift.

So if you want the Heroes collection, email us here, with your answer to the question:

"What was the worst thing about Tabloid Baby’s work at TVGasm?”

We’ll post the answers and announce a winner.

EXCLUSIVE: HUDSON BROTHERS REUNION!

The legendary Hudson Brothers gathered hours ago to pose for their first group photo in twenty years. Mark, Bill and Brett Hudson made pop music and television history in the Seventies with their Hudson Brothers Comedy Hour and Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show-- both of which will soon be released in deluxe DVD packages.

The brothers are seen in Mark's famous Whatinthewhatthe recording studio in Santa Monica (where stars like Ringo Starr, Ozzy Osbourne, Alanis Morrisette, Sheryl Crow and Paul McCartney have recorded), where the brothers are working on the soundtrack and music post production for the Frozen Pictures musical documentary, The Seventh Python.

Watch this space for Hudson Brothers updates.

photos © Frozen Pictures

Mother of The Year

Let's get this straight: Lindsay Lohan is in drug and alcohol rehab. Her career is in ruins. She's just narrowly avoided prison for two drunk- and drug-driving crashes, and has issued a statement saying, “I am addicted to alcohol and drugs," the same day it's revealed that her 13-year-old sister Ali, whom her mother is also trying to turn into a star, snuck out of the family house with a 16-year-old boy and was involved in her own car crash last week.

So what does the mother, Dina Lohan, say?

“My children and I are in a wonderful place in our lives and people just want to make things up and see us fail.”

"My children and I are in a wonderful place in our lives."

Michael Lohan is beginning to make a lot of sense.

Ruehl, Daddy-O!

Yes, Tabloid Baby's pal and contributor, Dr. Franklin Ruehl had a starring extra role in tonight's episode of AMC's men-in-the-grey-flannel-suits drama, Mad Men, as a beatnik in a Greenwich Village nightclub.


What the doctor didn't tell us was he had a front row seat to a Beebo Brinker-style beat poetess stripping off her top before his very eyes!

Poor TMZ. Poor Harvey Levin.

Why is this man smiling? Two weeks before the premiere of the syndicated television version of the corporate porn-pushing gossip site, insiders tell us that it's chaos behind the scenes at TMZ TV, as the biggest stories in the TMZ gutterworld dry up before the series goes to air. Lindsay Lohan's plea deal on her drunk- and drug-driving charges and Nicole Richie's in-and-out jail sentence are only two biggies that have robbed the show of stories that producers had hoped to ride to some kind of ratings and make the new series more than a retread of the failed Celebrity Justice.

As for TMZ editor and self described "main on-air personality" Harvey Levin: judging from his recent morning show appearances on the Fox station that will air TMZ TV, he's been tucked, pumped, primped and buffed in anticipation of his planned TV resurrection, but still comes off less like a high-Q-scoring McGrath-Steines-Seacrest type than the creepy kind of Pat O'Brien older guy you might catch staring at you in a West Hollywood gym. "Harvey is on his own with this one, and his ego is getting in the way," says one spy. "In the past, he was always joined at the hip with Lisa Gregorisch (executive producer of Extra, who originally sent exiled-off-air Harvey to start up the website), but they had a falling out over control of the (TMZ) show and don't talk any more.

"While he's swaying in the breeze, Lisa's taken her new BFFs on a cruise-ship vacation."

Insiders tell us they're already counting the days to when Harvey's on-air second banana, the young leftist, "serious journalist" and Hollywood royalty scion Ben Mankiewicz rebels against the sleaze factor and walks off the show-- though third-banana Teresa Strasser, who once had serious TV dating-show aspirations, has been getting extra TMZ conditioning in her role on the crapulous Adam Carolla radio show this week, as the monotonal host and other staffers make constant reference to "T's V," meaning her vagina.

(Meanwhile, TMZ has again taken our advice by cleaning up their crass, dirty headlines in the past few days, and is even trying to upscale its image by including an item on Amy Sedaris! We bet Ben had a hand in that one.)

TV Alert! Dr. Ruehl on Mad Men tonight!

Dr. Franklin Ruehl, the television legend who's gotten a lot of exposure this year as a regular on Tom Green's Internet show, a corpse on Sunset Tan, polygamist poster boy for GSN's Without Prejudice and himself on NBC's Identity, does an actual acting job tonight on AMC's Mad Men.

"I am a beatnik at a 1960s night club, sitting in the front in this episode entitled 'Babylon,'" the good doctor tells us. "Because of my energy, the director placed me in the front to capture my reactions to the readings and band.

"However, it remains to be seen how much, if anything, will be retained and how much left on the cutting room floor!"

Dr. Ruehl's big break is not without incident...

"When I applied for the role, I mistakenly thought that the title, Mad Men, referred to a mental institution or Hitler's inner coterie. Instead, I learned that the title is an abbreviation for "Madison Avenue Men," advertising execs during the 1960s. We shot this at the Lacy Studios in L.A. where I had a chance to spend quality time with the studio cat, Lacey, who is 17 and lost an eye four years ago in an encounter with an opossum.

"This was actually the second episode filmed, but was moved back to No.5 (1.5), but appears now to be the fourth one to air. This mirrors the case with Star Trek. The first episode that aired was 'The Man Trap,' involving an alien metamorph who drained humans of their salt, yet it was the fourth episode filmed. Execs wanted to debut the series with a fascinating creature, opting for it over the first produced episode, 'Where No Man Has Gone Before,' which aired third.

"That episode featured Captain Kirk's tombstone reading, 'James R. Kirk.' Yet in subsequent episodes, we learned that his name was James T. Kirk, with the T representing 'Tiberius.'"

Dr. Ruehl, Mad Men, AMC, tonight, 10pm, 11pm, 2am.

Little People, Big Show

PR legend Wayne Bernath keeps us up-to-date and ahead of the curve when it comes to happenings in Las Vegas. This morning, he turns us on to Little Legends at the Harmon Theatre in Krave at the south side of Planet Hollywood. Host comedian Jeff Hobson keeps things mivng with Mini Elvis, Mini Britney, Mini Tina Turner, Mini Milli Vanilli, Mini Sonny and Tall Cher-- along with two Mini Michael Jacksons ("as if one isn't enough," says Wayne).

See The Spectacles play live!

Now's your chance to see The Spectacles and hear for yourself why these indie rock heroes are the talk of LA's underground music scene.

All summer, they've been huddled away recording a new album that's taking their signature sound into Brianwilsonesque levels of majesty in what we've called "the definitive rock music statement on LA's summer of 2007."

But Thursday night, they'll be in Hollywood, exposed to nightlight if not daylight when they perform at the legendary Molly Malone's Irish Pub on Fairfax. Molly Malone's is world-famous as a showcase for future stars including Lenny Kravitz, Joan Osborne, Michelle Shocked, Weezer & Flogging Molly.

And the joint is just a block or so away from CBS Television City on Fairfax & Beverly, where Craig Ferguson records his Late Late Show. The Scot's talent bookers could do worse than to get The Spectacles on the show before they break big and hop straight to Jay Leno.

That's Thursday, August 23rd. 8:30 pm. Molly Malone's.

575 S. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles. Details at 323.935.1577.

And expect a celeb or two among the crowd.

Keifer Sutherland is an early fan (seen left, at a Spectacles show). "We even gave him our first CD, Hey, Ice Cream, which he left in the bar, but then made a special trip back to get, and then thanked us emphatically," bass player Travis Fields tells us. "Also, (lead singer) Brent (Crowe) and I once picked up Alice N Chains star Jerry Cantrell on the side of Laurel Canyon one night after a Spectacles performance.

"I don't know how that ties in to anything, but I thought I'd mention it."

NSFTV? CBS takes hit for Survivor's nude wrestler

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Nude gal faces Christian gal on Survivor: China

Hey! Never mind the genocide and human rights issues connected to Survivor: China, which premieres next month. Announcing the 16 contestants for the 15th season this morning, producers revealed they’re adding some dirty spice to the repressive regime— as well as adding a morality battle royale by matching up a full-frontal nude WWE wrestling diva with a Christian radio hostess and former beauty queen.

Ashley Massaro (right) is a SmackDown! sweetie who won the 2005 RAW Diva Search 2005 and was on the cover of the April issue of Playboy.

Leslie Nease is a Christian radio deejay who says she was raped as a child, spent her teenage years as a drunk and kept drinking through four pregnancies before getting in shape, winning the 2001 Miss North Carolina pageant, auditioning for Kelly Ripa's gig on Live with Regis & Kelly when Kelly was on maternity leave and pouring all the booze down the drain-- giving her life over to Jesus along the way.

Actually, they should have a lot in common.

Read Leslie's inspirational story here.

See some of Ashley's inspirational, NSFW naked shots here.

Death reveals curse of All The Presidents' Movies

The death of Michael K. Deaver yesterday marked the third death in six months of a Presidential adviser who appeared in the documentary series All The Presidents' Movies and officially attaches a curse to the acclaimed three-part, three-hour project.

Presidents, narrated by Martin Sheen (The West Wing's President Bartlett) and produced by our pals at Frozen Pictures, told for the first time, the history of the White House screening room, showing how presidential movie tastes can reflect, and even influence, presidential decisions.

The film included interviews with Presidential advisers, friends, filmmakers and actors who were lucky enough to have their films screened in the White House theatre-- and presidents themselves.

But now, those three deaths in the past six months have cast a pall over the project and have already led to "All The Presidents Death Pools" in Hollywood and Washington, DC:


February 28th: Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Kennedy aide;


April 26th: Jack Valenti, Johnson aide and longtime head of the Motion Picture Association of America;

and now, August 18th: Michael Deaver.

...????

All The Presidents' Movies was first show on Bravo in August 2003 and is now playing in international markets including Japan and Israel. Though President Ronald Reagan died in 2004 and President Gerald Ford passed away in December 2006, the first intimations of a curse being attached to the project came in November 2005, when its DVD release date was postponed. Two ensuing Fourth of July release dates were also moved back because of problems with the distributor.

Sources tell us a new distributor is being sought and every effort is being made to get the DVD out while George Bush is still in office.

Merv Griffin was gay. And your point is?

"Merv Griffin was gay."

So says Ray Richmond, entertainment columnist for The Hollywood Reporter, in a controversial "outing" that in four words sticks it to the TMZ-type bottomfeeders before they have a chance to make the great man into a joke. They're four words that are causing debate around the world this morning. But coming from Ray Richmond, they're not sensational, not titillating. Just the decent thing to say.

Ray is no Michelangelo Signorile, who in decades past outed powerful closet cases as a way of stirring up gay pride and exposing hypocrisy.

He's one of the most straight-talking, hard-hitting, no-BS, Pulitzer-worthy journos in the business, an incisive voice of decency with a reputation as a conscience of the industry.

He also knew Merv well, having worked as a talent coordinator and segment producer on The Merv Griffin Show in the 1980s. "Around the office, the boss's being gay was merely a fact of life, understood but rarely discussed (and certainly never with him)," Ray writes matter-of-factly in THR and on his essential Past Deadline site in a post titled "Griffin never revealed the man behind the curtain" (nice Wizard of Oz imagery, by the way).

"As it was, I loved the guy," Ray adds. But not in that way!

"No gossip, no scandal, no snickering behind the back. Just reality. Why should that be so uncomfortable to contemplate? Why is it so difficult to write? Why are we still so jittery even about raising the issue in purportedly liberal-minded Hollywood, in 2007?

"We can refer to it casually in conversation without a second thought, but the mainstream media still somehow remains trapped in the Dark Ages as relates to the gay label. Even in the capital of entertainment-- in a business where homosexuality isn't exactly a rare phenomenon-- it's still spoken of in hushed tones or, more often, not at all.

"Maybe that helps explain why Griffin, who died Sunday at 82 from prostate cancer, stayed inside the closet throughout his life. Perhaps he figured it was preferable to remain the object of rumor and smug ridicule rather than live openly as 'one of them.' But how tremendously sad that a man of Merv's considerable gifts, of his gregarious nature and social dexterity, would feel compelled to endure such a stealthy double-life even as the gay community's clout, and its levels of acceptance and equality, rose steadily from the ashes of ignorance..."

We've been telling you about Ray Richmond. This article shows why he's so important.

Legends bang the drum for Tabloid Baby

What the f*** is this? No, they're not two more on-air personalities for Harvey Levin's TMZ TV series. It's none other than a summit of two of modern music's most influential drummers: bonafide punk rock legend Rat Scabies (left), he of The Damned, the first British punk rock band to release a single (New Rose) and whose first LP, Damned Damned Damned, was officially the first British punk album (hitting stores before Never Mind The Bollocks), and Daniel Brown, drummer for the futuristic New York City postpunkartjazzrockpsycheprog hipster trio, Hall of Fame.


The duo met for an historic Silver Lake supper last night with Bruce Burgess and Rene Barnett, director and producer respectively, of Bloodline, the explosive years-in-the-making upcoming documentary film that centers on the discovery of a tomb that may be that of Mary Magdalene and includes mysterious meetings with members of the Priory of Sion, the secret society that was the vasis for The DaVinci Code.

Why are these drummers beating around such a project. Senor Scabies, it seems is one of the world's leading authorities on the Priory, and is featured in the documentary.

Daniel Brown, who, conspiracy theories notwithstanding, is not the Dan Brown who wrote DaVinci, is the film's editor. This Dan Brown, besides being the Gene Palma of the Avid and Final Cut (we mean "Max Roach of the Avid and Final Cut" --ed.) is also editor of the forthcoming Frozen Pictures feature, The Seventh Python.

Meet Harvey Levin's TMZ TV costars

Get a load of these mugs!

These are the faces of the TMZ TV series. As expected, and as we reported, TMZ editor, former local TV news reporter, host search committee leader and TV show "executive producer" Harvey Levin has managed to insert himself into the on-air mix as "Main on-air personality." He's done a clever job by picking younger co-stars who are as plug-ugly as himself-- and with "newsy" backgrounds that distance the TV show from the sleazy corporate porn-pushing gossip site it will elevate.

But Ben Mankiewicz, Teresa Strasser and Katie Daryl, seen above, (along with "TMZ.com staffer" Michael Hundgen, whose work can be seen here) could also be trouble-- and not only because they're more suited to radio or cable than syndicated television. Harvey and the TMZ TV minds seem to be equating plain and non-flashy appearances with real tabloid authority. This group might look the part, but whether they bring any tabloid legitimacy to the table is another story altogether. In the end, there's no Arthel Neville, no Doug Bruckner-- no one who knows the territory, only younger faces that match the decor.

Ben's a leftie with intellectual pretensions, Teresa's an Adam Carolla strawlady with smartypants showbiz pretensions, and Katie-- well, we don't know who the hell Katie is, except they're pushing her role on an MTV politics special.

Ben is the kid brother of NBC Dateline's tabloid reporter Josh Mankiewicz, and the host of a liberal morning talk radio show on Air America.

He also hosts a cartoon show on the Turner Classic Movies channel-- and comes from a line of Hollywood royalty, being the grandson of famed screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz and great-nephew of screenwriter, producer and director Joseph L. Mankiewicz. How does the family of writers react to TMZ.com's cheap, smarmy way with words?

Teresa is one of the girls from the Jimmy Kimmel camp, inserted into the execrable Carolla radio show as the sexless "Jewish" (their word) newsreader who's rebelled by generating sparks with cohost and show stealer Danny Bonaduce. She soaks in the lunkhead lowbrow humour that TMZ and Carolla's show share, but fancies herself a wit.

And Katie (below)? Well, she looks like Harvey's idea of the sexy blonde. Get the 13-week clock ready.


(Meanwhile, Page Six reports that "after the co-executive producer Bryn Friedman was canned last week, rumors started swirling that the start-up program could be in trouble. 'Bryn was the scapegoat of a riff between the executive producers, Harvey Levin and Jim Paratore,' our spy said. 'They've been fighting because there is no show and no set and the launch is just weeks away. 'But Levin told us, "I don't know what you're talking about - the set is the newsroom and I love Jim, he's like my brother! And while I'm on the show, there is an ensemble cast. It is different than a traditional magazine show."' As for Friedman? 'I like Bryn. I'm not going to discuss (firing her).' Friedman... has been in touch with celebrity lawyer Marty Singer..."

(Losing a "mainstream," "straight news" veteran like Friedman (we told you a few days ago about her misgivings) is a real blow for Harvey's quest for credibility. And his lies about the circumstances surrounding the show's troubled start-up don't bode well for expectations of candor and legitimacy for TMZ TV. )