We're still having a hard time coming to grips with (spoiler alert!) the abrupt dismissal of Gene Simmons from NBC's Used-To-Be-Marginally-Famous Apprentice last week. While we concede that Gene got himself tossed because of his stubbon refusal to abide by the golden rule of new business pitches (that being, "the client is ALWAYS right"), we can't help but feel like the flaxen-haired Donald Trump made a grave mistake by ditching one of the few contestants on the show with any semblance of personality. From his shaky grasp of Greek mythology to his repeated attempts at fondling the long stemmed Ivanka Trump, Mean Gene provided this slumping nation of ours with at least 94 seconds of truly inspired reality television moments. Which, coincidentally, is the exact length of the moving video tribute that Intrepid Defamer Videographer™ Molly McAleer composed to honor the recently fired general of the KISS Army. Watch and enjoy, it's bound to be more fun than the now Simmons-less series.

At this very moment, Britney Spears and Kevin Federline (and Steve Carell, but let's not needlessly complicate things) are back at the L.A. County Courthouse for yet another custody hearing to determine what contingencies are to be placed on access to her own children. (You'll recall visitation rights were revoked following her recent Van Halen 5150-hold hospitalization incident.) Wait! A shocking development has played out in the time it took to type that last sentence:

Just when we'd successfully erased Diddy's home videos of himself urinating from our scarred memory, Diddy TV has made a rousing re-entrance to The Internets. But this time he's serious, yo! Standing awkwardly against a filthy window, Diddy has filmed his own introduction to the trailer for A Raisin in the Sun, a flick with the dubious honor of being the very first made-for-TV movie premiering at Sundance.

So how's The Dark Knight for goodbyes? Give us anything—Brokeback Mountain's heartache, Candy's cautionary tale of—gulp—heroin addiction, even Casanova (OK, not Casanova)—but not the The Dark Knight. Not that disfigured creep in the trenchcoat. Heath's last words to us can't be a menacingly growled, "It's all...part of the plan." His last note, not "Why so serious?" scrawled across a theatrical one-sheet in fingerpainted blood. Warner Bros. has issued this statement in response to his death:

Though the star of earlier not-so-great films like A Knight's Tale and The Order, Ledger redefined himself as an actor with the 2005 film Brokeback Mountain. Some other great work followed. After the jump, three clips from some of his higher-profile, crticially lauded movies (and a teaser for the film The Dark Knight, in which he plays the Joker.)

At ten minutes to 5pm here in New York, only a few news crews had reached the scene of the loft building at 421 Broome Street, where Heath Ledger was just found dead. Just a handful of passersby were gawking at the small police presence guarding his door. But by 5, a pack of 15 paparazzi had arrived, acting far calmer than the usual frenzied pap scene, respectfully obeying the NYPD's orders to stay back. Almost everyone there, reporters both on-air and from various print outlets, collectively believed that the actor committed suicide using sleeping pills; a bottle of prescribed sedatives were allegedly found next to his bed.

World's most famous blogger Perez Hilton is now trying his hand at comedy, via Funny Or Die. The video (after the jump) is basically a ribald premature birth joke, and also contains a very astute ejaculation sight gag. I know, I know. Too sexy! [BWE]

Just when you thought no one could possibly be having a worse winter than Tom Cruise, what with movie flops, creeptastic videos and that whole Nazi thing further ruining his already ruined image, here comes Harvey Levin to shed some light on how his "other" kids have it even rougher! Gone are the days when we were bombarded with one-big-happy pics of Tom and Katie at son Connor's soccer games, or shots of awkward-but-jolly daughter Isabella trailing behind Katie at the couple's nups in Italy. So where in the world have they been? Camping out with Alexa Ray Joel and Al Gore, Jr. in some sort of refuge for MIA celebrity kids? In this clip from TMZ, we get some answers.

• the parody video Tom Cruise WANTS you to see! [funnyordie]

Katherine Heigl's pantsless hubby Josh Kelley is kind of like the poor man's Chris Martin: he sings sad little wimpy songs, isn't the best-looking guy in the room and bores us to tears in interviews, but he somehow still managed to convince a gorgeous blonde actress to pay his rent. But hey! He writes songs for her! So all is forgiven. Well, besides the fact that he says things like "holla!" and "hot diggity dog!" with no shame. In this clip from Extra, we finally get some insight into how exactly he managed to score the insanely hot (yet terribly controlling) Katherine Heigl. Josh, you had her at...actually we still can't figure it out. Anyone?

[Ed.note—Is there any way you could further illustrate her misery by ironically quoting the lyrics to one of her well-known songs? Get back to me ASAP. ] Realizing the audio fidelity of the video leaves much to be desired, The Derober blog has helpfully captioned the clip, an effort which should also assist those whose office computers have no speakers in fully appreciating the important crack-is-wack message The Sun is hoping to communicate through the widespread dissemnation of footage of Winehouse's latest rock-bottom moment.

During World War II, a man named Frederick Terman ran the Harvard Radio Research Lab. There, he and 800 other engineers developed systems that allowed Allied forces to get past German radar installations and more successfully bomb German cities. After the war, Terman came back to Stanford and brought the government's money with him. Then, as illustrated in this video clip from Steve Blank's recent talk at Google, Terman changed the rules at Stanford to encourage Stanford engineers and professors to work with private industry. And that's why we are the spawn of the military-industrial complex. I know, I know. You're still going to vote for Ron Paul anyway.

Tom Cruise has personally, PERSONALLY, been pwned. This weekend, an anonymous Internet group (named Anonymous — these are not masters of subtlety) started a war with the Church of Scientology by hammering the group's web site; Scientology.org is down after a brief traffic spike. This isn't the only group of Internet users unafraid of the intimidating cult; a whole range of sites has turned the Church into a mockery by doing what mainstream celebrity-coverage outlets wouldn't dare. Here's a guide to the war (and a creepy manifesto made by The Internet!).

Skanky bar sluts need love, too, and thus we find ourselves with Rock of Love 2: The Revenge Of Bret Michaels' Wig. Having eliminated four girls last week, the follicle-challenged Bret Michaels wasted no time in getting his hoochies to show their goodies in a way that even the stingiest basic cable censor would find acceptable ... a dance-off! Sure, you or I might call this wriggle-fest a thinly veiled, mostly clothed grindfest, but honestly, how sexy can any dance-off be when white people and the Funky Chicken and The Robot are involved? Yes, pathetic underbites, epileptic convulsions and self-conscious writhing abound.

Former bonafide heartthrob and current VH1 plaything Scott Baio has resorted to trash-talking every blonde he ever dated in the opening segments of his new preggers show. Whether he's outing meth addicts or calling Denise Richards's feet "flippers," Scotty is sounding less like a 45 year-old daddy-to-be and more like a 4 or 5 year-old rapist-to-be. This week's victim? Nicolette Sheridan, currently engaged to a balding crooner and seemingly happy in her role as one of America's Most Desperate Housewives. But in this video, Scott just can't erase the traumatic memory of an incident involving Nicolette, a nail file and a potential arrest for domestic violence out of his empty head.

Britney Spears dumped her paparazzi boyfriend, possibly destroying Finalpixx's business model. She's taken up instead with the entirety of rival agency X17. Spears' manager, enabler, adviser, and occasional romantic partner Sam Lufti engineered the breakup, the restraining order, and the obligatory meeting and all-night drinking session with an X17 photog. Then Spears bought the Amy Winehouse album. In the attached clip, Spears announces the official end of America's newest, briefest Camelot. [DailyMail]

With a whole new generation of TV watchers transfixed by such bread-and-Circus Maximus entertainments as Dancing with the Bespangled D-Listers and U.S. Gladiators, it really seemed a matter of time before networks would be falling all over themselves to remount Circus of the Stars. As we mentioned in today's trade round-up, several iterations of the late-70s primetime mainstay are currently being rushed into production, incorporating the basic Circus premise of showcasing celebrities hungry enough for screen time to take on death-defying big tent stunts, but not quite so beloved or famous that the showbiz world would stop spinning should they happen to perish in a tragic contorting accident.

On last night's episode of NBC's newest pulse-pounding series, Sorta-Celebrity Apprentice, Team Hydra and The Other Team found themselves suddenly plunged into the high stakes world of inkjet cartridge sales. Ask anyone who works at Staples, that shit is NO! JOKE! For real. Anyway, as we've learned through the course of the first three episodes, the real competition on this show has nothing to do with who wins a given challenge, it's all about which Not-Really-That-Famous-Anymore Celebrity has the most number of famous digits in their cellphone and is not afraid to use 'em. And last night, Stephen Baldwin raised the ante somethin' fierce by putting in a call to the most famous person that he knows. And no, it wasn't Billy Baldwin.

As part of our ongoing quest to guide you to some of the buzziest and most intriguing offerings at this year's Sundance Film Festival, we share with you now the trailer for official selection Goliath. (First screening: Monday night, 8:30 p.m.) We don't know much about it beyond the fact that it's about a missing cat, with a score inspired by non-missing-cat-movie Stomp The Yard. There's some more background about it here, and over at their official site, but we're confident once you watch the trailer, you won't need much more to be sold. 2008 is all about missing cats.