We have to admit, when we first heard that Britney Spears would guest star on the struggling How I Met Your Mother, we had our doubts. Would she really find enough sanity-laced moments during the day to play a Working Girl? Had all the gurney trips and 5150s left her sharp enough to memorize lines and interact with actual actors? Would the length of time required to remove all umbrellas from the Fox lot overlap with her scheduled appearance? But apparently our (and Neil Patrick Harris') worries were for naught. Britney has officially shown up, donned her costume, and put her acting skills to the test. Click through for the first shot taken of Brit playing secretary alongside fellow guest star Sarah Chalke:

Though we hope Britney had been called to a meeting with Mel to fill in the cast of his upcoming Under And Alone, which stars Gibson as an undercover agent infiltrating motorcycle gangs in Southern California, the film is already in production. Still, Spears would be a cameo natural; looking rougher than ever and sounding like she's come to embrace misery as a primary emotion, stepping in as some kind of abused, washed-up rider's girlfriend, all while dressed in ripped leather (and with no need for a knotty, tar-colored wig!) would be a better comeback choice than her infamous Lip Syncing On Valium appearance.

• UCLA Medical Center is in the process of firing at least 13 workers who snooped on Britney Spears' medical records around the time the singer was admitted to the hospital's psychiatric unit Jan. 31. Other workers face discipline, including six physicians who also snooped on the digital files. Most couldn't get near the juicy stuff because the psych records are sealed off more tightly than regular medical records. Which is nice, but this is the same university that lost national nuclear secrets at Los Alamos (and elsewhere). Glad to see the University of California has its priorities straight!

Like so many other celebrities, alcoholic anti-Semite Mel Gibson apparently thinks he can help Britney Spears. Mel had dinner with Britney at a Russian restaurant in L.A., and now TMZ is reporting that Gibson and his family have "very privately befriended Britney Spears." The Gibsons reportedly "reached out to Britney during her darkest days" and have been in touch with her ever since "to give her support." I'm sure Mel has lots of great advice and wisdom to offer Britney. It must be comforting and helpful for her to know that the Zionists are responsible for all of her career issues.

God I love audit trails. UCLA Medical Center is going to fire at least 13 staffers who poked around where they shouldn't in Britney Spears's medical records. Too bad alleged HIPAA violator Dr. Phil won't be hitting the bricks with them. (Photo by Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty Images)

With Nicole Richie playing house for the next five minutes or so, Kim Kardashian having moved on to mall clothing endorsements and her own show, and sister Nicky entrapped in a brand new anorexia scandal, Paris Hilton has no one to play with. Not even her hypersexual litter of puppies. So she's prepared to do what Britney and Jessica Simpson did before her: pay someone to be her friend. Teaming up with MTV and Ish Entertainment, Paris announced the debut of her next reality show, Paris Hilton's My New BFF, in which 20 lucky boys and girls will prove to Paris that they're capable of being loyal, trustworthy pals who won't try to feel her up or plan porny video attacks mid-party. As Paris herself put it, "[I am looking for] someone I can just trust, someone who's not gonna stab me in the back like has happened a lot in this town, someone I can have fun with." But what does the winner get in exchange?

Come April 4th, Juno Lynn Spears will finally turn one year older (and, we can only hope, wiser), at which point she'll finally be able to escape the nasty stigma of being Sweet 16 And Pregnant. But, sadly, she will never be able to escape the stigma of being Britney Spears' sister. At least, not technically. But based on photographs taken of the smiling Jamie Lynn in Louisiana yesterday, she may have figured out a way to distance herself from The Package using nothing but her wardrobe. While we are not necessarily advocating short shorts and visible bras as appropriate outerwear for pregnant teens, when you compare it to Britney's penchant for visible bellies and bikini tops worn as, well, tops, Jamie Lynn looks downright Victorian in comparison.

• Amy Winehouse's dad is trying to steal credit for some of his daughter's problems, but not the drug thing. Just the other ones. He was cheating on Winehouse's mom basically since the singer was born, then moved in with his mistress when she was 10, then married the mistress. Now Amy Winehouse makes songs like "What It Is About Men." [Us]

In its new issue with Britney Spears on the cover, the Atlantic featured some oh-so-intellectual analysis of celebrity worship within a profile of the the founders of paparazzi firm X17, which is now online. The magazine also posted a trashier Web-only sidebar, in which the paps riffed on a series of their own photographs. Along the way, they mentioned how actress Nicole Kidman "really does have a unpleasant, grandmother-ish look," how singer Britney Spears "is being pumped full of drugs and that can affect her weight" and how actor Tom Cruise and wife Katie Holmes are "living inside the Scientology Center." You really have to read it for yourself, but here are some choice bits:

After what feels like decades spent snorting wasabi and chugging live goldfish, time has finally clocked out on Jackass star Steve-O's sanity. Star reports that Nicole Richie's ex has been placed on the ever-popular 5150 hold popularized by fellow bipolar sufferer Britney Spears. Steve-O was sent to Thalians Mental Health Facility (the same place Owen Wilson once graced with his presence back in the Stallion's sick days) after emailing suicide notes to friends and allegedly putting cigarettes out on his body. But Steve-O has more than straitjackets and a daily rainbow of pills to look forward to; he's also been officially charged with cocaine possession, a charge dating back to when he assaulted a neighbor while high. We personally think Thalians should begin work on an annual yearbook, just so all these celebs who waltz in on one drug and out on another can KIT! and XOXO! each other after the misty water-colored memories fade. [Star]

If you want to look just as scarily skinny as the likes of Kate Hudson and Renee Zellweger, the solution is simple: eat nothing but boiled eggs and water, develop a healthy addiction to caffeine and cardio, and devote your evenings to chain-smoking and reading Us Weekly on the john. The latest "news" on celebrity diet secrets comes to us courtesy of the Daily Mail, who asked a handful of trainers and nutrition experts what's in between the lines of all those helpful How Kate/Jessica/Reese Got Slim stories. And even if some of the answers don't exactly whet your appetite, guessing which celebs the so-called experts are outing is almost as much fun as biting into a Double Double. Take this nugget for example:

Poor old Britney. Most likely scared off by the tepid reception to her "Gimme More" video, in which she did some sort of awkward stripper dance (and then her subsequent MTV VMA's performance of the song, of which "awkward stripper dance" would be a generous assessment), she's opted to disappear completely in her latest video (that we mentioned earlier). There are no choreographed dances or unfortunate wigs in "Break the Ice," just an anime video of a toned, buxom blond woman cavorting around in some sot of crime caper story. Oh, and it ends "To Be Continued..." which I thought we stopped doing about ten years ago when the whole mini-movie music video craze began to fade away. The respectable thing about the "Gimme More" video (which also featured a far superior song) was that she was at least, for lack of a better term, putting it out there. Here she's a just sad and far, far away. Though, I guess it did spare the world the lurching injustice of the crazy singer lady hoisting herself up off the couch, (maybe) putting on underpants, and not smoking cigarettes for an hour. "Break the Ice" video after the jump.

• You're making a music video for Britney Spears, who has been committed to a psychiatric ward twice in the last two months. How to best open your video and grab the viewer's attention? Depict Spears jumping off a building! [YouTube]

We teased you yesterday with just a few still frames from Britney Spears's new video for "Break The Ice," but we can now premiere the full version in all its uncut, Japanimation glory. (It premiered on something called the blackoutball.com, which you could only access with two secret words, and we would never tell you what those were even if they weren't "danger" and "victory." Oh, darn—we gave it away!) Directed by Robert Hales after Britney watched his Lovestoned clip for Justin Timberlake and specifically requested the director, we're informed that no Louis Vuitton proprietary Cherry Blossom patterns were harmed during production. It looks nothing like her, but it's kind of cool. Enjoy!

Meebo, the Web-based chat startup, is running chat rooms for the 3:30 p.m. debut of Britney Spears's latest video, the anime-inspired "Break the Ice." Great: A scalable real-time communications infrastructure allowing thousands of teenage girls to say, "OMG, Britney." Isn't that what text messages are for? [Blackout Ball]

This just in: A Defamer operative on the Fox lot sent in a sighting of How I Met Your Mother's heavily stunt-casted Britney Spears, which includes a Defamer! World! Britney! Sitcom! Walk-On! Exclusive! description of what she'll be wearing in the episode:

Great googly moogly. We all know that Britney Spears is a crazy person, but did you know that she owns and operates a secret shrine to ex-boyfriend (and current man who just might save the world) Justin Timberlake? Ahhhh yup. In a teeny tiny room in her enormous Cheetos and Twisted Tea-filled mansion is a collection of photographs and mementos that Britney attends to every week. I like to think that her ritual involves a slow, mournful version of the "Oops... I Did It Again" dance. Followed by a Tony Lucca bloodletting ceremony. [Showbiz Spy] After the jump, video of the pair in happier times.

• Marc Jacobs' threesome-friendly boyfriend Jason Preston is chivalrous and brave, if not literally ass-kicking. He saw a guy throw a drink on a girl, in a club, and told the dude to apologize. Unfortunately, the guy then whaled on Preston. Still, Bryanboy will be so totally proud. [P6]

· The first tantalizing images from Britney Spears's next music video have emerged, revealing that the director has devised a clever way to avoid missed call times and awkward wardrobe fittings: Animate her! Still, not all crises were averted, as a famished Cartoon Britney accidentally devoured the cast of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, who happened to be wandering by on their way to a shoot next door. [The Sun]
· Lede of the Day: "CNN said it shouldn't have used a former U.S. attorney who quit his job after allegedly biting a stripper as an analyst about New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's prostitution scandal." [AP]
· jPod, Canada's Quarterlife, has been canceled. Paging Rockstar Silverman. Paging Rockstar Ben Silverman: Hot foreign series concept in need of U.S. retooling! [The Vancouver Sun]
· The Photoshop Disasters blog wonders what it is about the solid bar between two skyscraper windows that fascinates The Dark Knight so. [Photoshop Disasters]
· Stoner Mary Ann is even cuter when her uncropped mugshot shows you how little she is! [Yahoo News]

After a decidedly skanky performance at the MTV video music awards, two trips to the bughouse, some Svengali hopping and a nipple flash, all since last fall, burned out singer Britney Spears decided it would be better if she was a Japanese anime character in her next music video instead of her flawed human self. Also in the video, she's a superhero instead of a wreck whose father runs her life by order of government authorities. The Sun claimed Spears "told label bosses" she wanted the video done this way, but more likely the record company remembered how difficult Spears can be at a photo shoot and realized she'd been to the psychiatric wing of the hospital twice in the first two months of the year, and decided to just hire some animators in Asia and be done with it. After the jump, a look at new clean cartoon Britney interspersed with shots of messy real life Britney.