If the Spears Meltdown was looking to be missing any one thing, it was probably crossover appeal, an oversight quickly remedied when Dr. Phil's Tough Love Intervention Tour '08 made a surprise stop at her Cedars-Sinai hospital room. Little could he have known the outrage that such a selfless endeavor would elicit from the press (and admiration from Dr. Joyce Brothers), and after two straight days of pummeling, it turns out the Very Special Episode to Save Britney is being scrapped. Sadly, we'll never know for sure what transpired during that 15 minute conversation, but thanks to Defamer videographer Molly McAleer now you can watch how the butting of the famously bald heads might have gone down after the jump.

And you thought it was all James Toback's fault. Wrong-o. Back in 1977, someone with more money than brains gave a then eight-year old Brett Ratner a Panasonic camcorder, effectively launching his career (and irreparably harming the cinema as we knew it). We learned this spicy bit of trivia about the frisky fauxter when we tagged along with our geeky brothers at Gizmodo to a Panasonic "presser" at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas earlier today. Hold your breath, the worst is yet to come.

· Did you miss last night's premiere of Semi-celebrity Apprentice, Donald Trump and NBC's attempt to breathe new life into a moribund reality franchise by asking Gene Simmons, Big Pussy, a professional naked person, and a lesser Baldwin (there are other cast members, probably, but we can't think of them off the top of our head—oh, Omarosa's on it too!) to sell hot dogs? We did. But after watching this three-minute recap, we feel like we're all caught up and ready for next week's episode. (Spoilers ahead if you click the thumbnail to watch the vdieo.)
· Clearly, changing the title of Welcome to Valkenvania to Nothing But Trouble doomed the Chase/Aykroyd/Candy/Moore classic to failure.
· "I always wanted to be No. 1 at something, but I didn't think it would be something like this."
· Depending on the type of person you are, what you see at this site is either going to make or ruin your weekend.

For an early afternoon Britney palate cleanser, we thought we'd offer you this Tyra clip of South Carolinian Miss Teen U.S.A. 2007 candidate Caitlin Upton, who has secured herself a lasting place in the Annals of American Density for her now-legendary 91-word response to a question about the scourge of geographical ignorance currently plaguing our population.

CNN shouting-head Glenn Beck had mysterious surgery that went terribly awry and now he hates the American health care system. We have no clue what the surgery was for (anyone?), but things went bad. At a hospital that the President of GE goes to! We wish him a speedy recovery, obv, and are excited to see what his righteous, Raymond Chandlerian doctor-hatred will bring forth when he returns to the air. Also we are very seriously (or perhaps ghoulishly) curious as to what the hell this is all about. [TVNewser]

Bolting upright in bed after being tormented by nightmares induced by having to watch as much breaking news footage of last night's Unfortunate Britney Spears Incident as her tragedy-addled mind could handle, Defamer videographer Molly McAleer finally gave up on an unavoidably fitful sleep, deciding that the best way to deal with this difficult time was to retreat to the safety of her flickering computer screen. The above mash-up represents poor Molly's attempt at exorcising her demons by sharing with the world the series of dream-despoiling images—featuring Spears in potentially life-threatening situations both fanciful and all too real (where, may we ask, was "Everytime" hero Stephen Dorff when Britney needed him most?)—that may still haunt her the rest of her days.

Who exactly is getting sexually harassed here? Is it her (Tampa's Fox 13 anchor Anne Dwyer)? Is it him (Dwyer's co-anchor Russell Rhodes)? Is it us?

Just in case you get all your breaking national news from Gawker, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee—preacher, used to be fat, from a town called Hope, nutty super-Christian—won the Iowa caucuses. How should you feel about this? Videographer Alex Goldberg secretly videotaped his liberal (and Jewish and gay) roommate's reaction to Huckabee's victory last night. Let it serve as a surrogate reaction for all of us.

It turns out Britney Spears might not technically be nutso. She's actually just "under the influence of an unknown substance." Of course, that unknown substance could be a vial of pure 100% Crazy! For the amazing part of the world that is Southern California, this is like 9/11 and just like 9/11, the newscasters have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. Defamer has some pretty good videos too, in which one can hear a paparazzo salivate with glee at getting a clean shot of Britney's driveway. Yay, America!

Oh, what the hell: Defamer videographer Molly McAleer was up to capture the live feed, we're up to blog it—and this Fox News helicopter cameraman's voice has become our new best friend, helpfully pointing out where one of the Van Halenses lives, then trenchantly observing, "Look at this....look- look- look- look at that. That is insanity!" upon witnessing the swarm of paparazzi trailing the ambulance containing a Britney Under the Influence. OK, we really need some sleep before the cops show up to make us give up our two kids—and we don't even have any!

Here's a riveting turn of events in the ongoing Spears-Federline custody saga that's all but certain to push the name Jamie Lynn to the tabloid sidelines for a minimum of two publishing cycles: The "Gimme More" singer's stubborn refusal to hand over her two children to K-Fed's custody led to a four-hour police showdown at her home tonight, requiring the presence of several squad cars, firetrucks, a helicopter and an ambulance—the last of which carted her off on a gurney to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. (Footage courtesy of myfoxla.com, accompanied by running commentary from a cameraman whose gripes of having to "follow this frickin' thing to the hospital" suggest he may not have been entirely aware his audio was being broadcast throughout the internets.)

He's fighting for himself ... It's dishonest and it's wrong. Facebook has a right to earn money. You agree to give them your data. Everybody knew about it going in, and that's not good enough for Robert, because he thinks ... he's above another company's terms of service ... For Robert to wrap it up under the guise of "I'm a freedom fighter for your data" is just completely dishonest.

YouTube's only watchable dude-at-a-desk show is What the Buck, a daily on celeb gossip. In the latest episode, catty host Michael Buckley here thanks Satan for providing dirty photos of Hannah "underage in every state" Montana.

Though we've already awarded victory in last night's Return of Late Night TV talk-show wars to Conan O'Brien, whose downy Strike Beard simultaneously displayed solidarity with his absent writing staff and offered comfort to millions of fans anxious about how Hollywood's labor unrest affects the Masturbating Bear's ability to release the painful tension in his ursine nether-regions, we think it's important that everyone be provided with an opportunity to make up their own minds about whether the jokes scripted by Guild scribes were actually more successful than ones delivered by hosts forced to generate their own material. To that end, Gawker Media video operative Richard Blakeley whipped up this montage (click the above thumbnail to view) allowing you to compare their parallel efforts at entertaining America. Enjoy.

Last night, America's late night talk show hosts went to back to work. Letterman and the Scottish Guy had their writing staff, as Letterman's production company worked out a deal with the WGA. Leno and Conan, stuck with the less liberal negatiators of NBC, were unable to work out a deal and went on writer-less. Conan filled the time with close-ups of his strike beard and a thrilling segment in which he spun his wedding ring on his desk for 36 seconds. Leno, though, delivered a monologue that was more or less indistinguishable in its bland hackiness from any other Tonight Show monologue of the last dozen years. Because, as he admitted part-way through, he wrote it himself. In advance. In specific violation of WGA rules! (Leno—like Letterman, like Conan, and unlike Kimmel Carson Daly [whoops]—is a WGA member.) We caught this when we flipped over to Leno for a sec during Letterman's punchier, Made In America By Union Labor monologue, and Nikki Finke confirms its odd interpretation of WGA guidelines. [Deadline Hollywood Daily]

After a temporary reprieve from the unfunniness of Jay Leno, the big-chinned talk show host is back and with him presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee. Huckabee talks about being a fat kid, lays down some funky almost Clintonian licks and, at the end, weirdly endorses Barack Obama.

Our obsessive (and, quite frankly, exhausting) documentation of The Return of Late Night is finally complete with this clip of Conan O'Brien's monologue (click the thumbnail above to watch it), one that was easily the most successful of tonight's offerings. Not only did O'Brien express his unequivocal solidarity with his absent writers' cause (not a picketing-related gripe here, ahem) and give them much-deserved credit for the comedy miracle that is the Masturbating Bear, he debuted a Strike Beard even more impressive than Letterman's; whereas Dave's new facial hair broadcasts grizzled, "I choked a drifter to death just to watch him die" menace, Conan's—the first of his life, he claims—is all Rankin-and-Bass-inspired auburn magic.

Thanks to the deal that David Letterman's Worldwide Pants production company struck with WGA, The Late Late Show's Craig "He'll Always Be Drew Carey's Boss To Us" Ferguson also had the benefit of his full writing staff. Displaying a refreshing magnanimity, the host promised that even though his picket-line-free program could now easily get him access to a higher quality of guest than he could have attracted before the strike, he'll still welcome the D-listers who stood by him during his lean times. (Kathy Griffin is, of course, touchingly namechecked as a beneficiary of his offer.) Bonus points have been awarded to Ferguson's scribes for supplying him with the "I fucked Paul Shaffer" jokes we'd secretly hoped that the newly bearish Letterman would use to break the sexual tension of his long-awaited reunion with his trusty bandleader.