The LAT's Channel Island TV blog has a preview of what you'll see if you tune in to tonight's Late Show, where Howard Stern escalates his public pissing match with generously betoothed CBS CEO Les Moonves by lighting a flaming bag of excrement right on Moonves' network doorstep:

A small plane accident has claimed the life of Peter Tomarken the wry, affable game show host who warned countless times not to Press Your Luck too far, lest you lose everything to those tiny, malicious red demons known as "Whammies":

Black and White Clooney, perhaps bitter about being shut out at the Oscars while showier twin Fat Clooney walked away with the Best Supporting Actor trophy and needing to feel a little more loved, today joined Arianna Huffington's stable of celebrity bloggers by proudly outing himself...as a liberal. [Ed.note—Gasp! But he looks so normal!] Writes the HuffPo's highest-profile Hollywood recruit:

A little trash talking and competition between celebrity UN spokespersons is nothing new who could forget that regrettable 1976 gala podium hair-pulling incident between Shirley Temple Black and Audrey Hepburn? but when UN Messenger of Peace Michael Douglas recently took a swat at UN Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie, he took things a step too far, dragging her innocent assortment of adopted orphans and their proud new dad into the ugliness:

· Monday night music: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Elefant at the Henry Fonda; The Living End at the Troubadour; The Divorce with Monday residents The Lashes at Spaceland.
· Three words: Three. Stooges. Festival. (At the New Beverly.)
· Pick one comedy show and lament the laughs you left on the table after your tough choice: Nick Swardson & Friends (including Todd Barry) at Largo, or Human Giant (with Aziz Ansari, Andy Kindler, and Matt Besser) at the UCB.

When it came to his role as Chef on South Park, Isaac Hayes could rarely have been accused of not being a good sport: If an episode called for him to sing of his "Chocolate Salty Balls," he'd launch into the lyrics with soulful abandon. But after a ninth season that featured some of the series' most blasphemous material including perhaps the single most scathing indictment of his own religion, Scientology, ever broadcast Hayes has reached his breaking point. He recently released a statement in which he demanded to be let out of his South Park contract:

A reader shares his weekend brush with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who apparently forgot to take a cat nap before trying to finally catch up on seeing all of the Best Picture nominees:

Not one to be outdone by Madonna's recently adopted habit of sporting a leotard-induced cameltoe wherever she goes, that other blond, pushing-50 icon of showbiz pertinaciousness, Sharon Stone, would like for the world to take a long, hard look at her rapidly degenerating ladyparts, too. Notes The Scoop:

Call it a radical image recalibration for one of Hollywood's most ubiquitous club monkeys, call it a seeker's spiritual journey through the subcontinent, or call it an opportunity to scam on some totally slammin' Indian chicks (voiceover for a Piven-grinding-on-the-dancefloor montage: "With 500 million female targets, you gotta love the odds."), whatever. All we know is that on concept alone, Jeremy Piven's Journey of a Lifetime has a chance to touch Taradise-level greatness, even if he never gets around to going drunk-parasailing with Cusack and some local talent.

Paul Haggis is in final negotiations to direct and produce the adaptation of counterterrorist adviser Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies for Columbia. Before you sigh with relief that Haggis isn't writing the project, take note: he's "supervising" writer James Vanderbilt, leaving plenty of opportunity for him to spin the tale of terrorists who blow things up because that's the only way they can truly connect with their fellow human beings. [Variety]
Even Alicia Silverstone gets another chance during pilot season: Silverstone joins ABC women-in-the-workplace comedy Pink Collar, Jennifer Coolidge signs up for Fox's comedy If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home Now (real title TBD, we'd guess), and Shawn Hatosy also goes for Fox comedy in Southern Comfort. [THR]
Variety Censorship Minute: The Stone in China, The Simpsons in the Middle East, Catholics vs The DaVinci Code, and more! [Variety]
· Everyone without access to The Sopranos premiere (or without friends with HBO) watched Grey's Anatomy last night, which pulled an even better number than fading lead-in Desperate Housewives. [THR]
Diddy, Ben Silverman, and NBC team up for television's latest foray into the hot Celebrities Performing Tasks For Which They're Ill-Suited genre for Celebrity Cooking Showdown, a mix of (do we even need to explain?) Iron Chef and Dancing with the Stars. The lineup of washed-up celebs willing to scald themselves in the name of programming fads has yet to be announced. [Variety]

Today's LAT takes a look at the seemingly inevitable, unholy marriage of two or more of the Big Five talent agencies, which may be forced to combine evil forces to adapt to the needs of a rapidly consolidating studio marketplace. Picking through some of the quiet personal relationships that may lube the painful path to a merger, they tell behind-the-scenes tales of secret tennis partners, former keg-tapping college buddies, and buried hatchets. Of course, official Agent Dance mascot and merger rumor-magnet Ari Emanuel of Endeavor must figure prominently in any discussion. Reports the LAT:

It should be a pretty fun day over at the New Paramount (motto: "Maintaining a Scandal-to-Release Ratio of 3:1 Since Early 2005"), where an examination of studio boss Brad Grey's connections to illegal wiretapper Anthony Pellicano (who was hired by Grey's Scary Hollywood Lawyer, Bert Fields) landed on page one of the NY Times today, the Hollywood equivalent of arriving to work on Monday morning and finding one's office full of dead hookers. The Times landed an interview with Linda Doucett, the Garry Shandling ex who found herself a victim of Pellicano wiretapping while caught in the middle of Shandling and Grey's ugly legal battle following the break-up of their professional partnership back in Grey's relatively carefree managing days. Doucett explains her cooperation with the NYT as an opportunity for the "little people" to stand up to better-funded and more famous Hollywood bullies. (And, apparently, to land a picture of her horse in the paper.) She tells the Times:

Like an unexpected gut-shot from an Alzheimer's-afflicted mobster uncle, the weekend box office numbers:

Oscars 2006:
· We liveblog the Oscars, which goes swingingly until, oh, about 8:23 p.m.
· Charlize Theron's black satin parrot has us transfixed.
· Next they're going to blame Brokeback's loss on some old, confused Jews in Palm Beach.
· Catherine Keener is preoccupied with cell phone five minutes into the ceremony. Turns out, she had a date with Karen O.
· Lip readers of the world rally to their new calling: Figuring out what Tom Hanks was cussing about.
· "Someone stop that former star of Young Doctors in Love!"
· It's her party, and she'll cry if she wants to.
· Put down the dictaphone and serve me the goddamn shrimp Gyoza with Ponzu dipping-sauce.
· And finally, happier times, when Jake Gyllenhaal didn't seem like a brainwashed TelePromTerzoid.
Elsewhere...
· Teri Hatcher's touched that you're touched that she was touched.
· "I mean c'mon. Do you blame me? She's got a rack worthy of the Trump name!"
· Callin' all large n' lovelies!
· Ladies and gentlemen, Harvey Weinstein, outspoken gay activist.
· Naughty Joans need love, too.

· Coming soon to the chest of a nervous studio exec near you: The Paramount t-shirt.
· Tabloid Baby takes a fun little tour through the sordid pasts of the cast of Disney's wholesome The Shaggy Dog remake, including Tim Allen and Robert Downey, Jr's criminal records, and Kristin Davis and Annabelle Gurwitch's onscreen nude work.
· If DC is truly Hollywood for ugly people, be glad they don't have their own glossy rags.
· Nikki Finke presents When High-Powered Media Execs Leave Whiny-Ass Voicemails.
· Low Culture's got the virallest video ever viralled. Viraltastic!

A reader just tipped us that a complete episode recap for this Sunday's The Sopranos premiere was mistakenly posted over the one for last year's season finale on HBO's web site. So if you're dying to know what happens in the first new Sopranos episode in about a year and a half and want to kill the crippling sense of anticpation that's been building since then, you can follow this link and throw yourself a little spoiler party—at least until HBO's web staff catches on and rips it down, which we estimate will take about 15 minutes.

Friday
· Comedians Jen Kirkman, Jarrett Grode, Ron Zimmerman, and others read heartbreaking works of staggering fake genius from their fictional autobiographies for A Million Gazillion Quadrillion Little Pieces at the UCB. Then stick around for the Kosher Karnival All Jew Revue with hilarious Chosen People like Jill Soloway and Andy Blitz.
· Detroit's Electric Six, authors of the greatest songs about disco fires and gay bars we can think of, plays the Key Club. Or if you're truly daring, there's the good-time phone-in-the-face rock n' roll stylings of Russell Crowe and the Ordinary Fear of God at the House of Blues.
Saturday
· Potpourri of music choices: Goldfrapp at The Wiltern; Twilight Singers at The Scene; Oneida at Spaceland; Flogging Molly at the HOB Sunset Strip.
· Aquanet your hair, butter up your thighs to squeeze into those old leather pants, and light your codpiece on fire in preparation for the hair-metal musical extravaganza of Rock of Ages at the Ren Mar Studios in Hollywood.
Sunday
· We're not exactly sure how to describe The California EAR Unit's VIDEOCTAVE chamber music/film/video show at ALOUD, so read about it yourself. [via Cheapskatin' LA]
· The Sunday Comedy show at Room 5 lures NY-based stand-ups Todd Barry and Aziz Ansari to our fine city, a trip for which the East Coasters have prepared themselves by viewing Crash several times in hopes of lessening the culture shock to follow.

Amazon.com is close to closing a deal with three major studios that will allow for iTunes-like downloads of feature length movies and TV programs:

Forbes has released its annual list of the world's billionaires, and while we can't really be bothered to care about the net worth of foreign industrialists or computer geeks, we find it pretty interesting to see some numbers attached to the money hordes DreamWorks founders David Geffen (#140 on the list) and Steven Spielberg (#245). As Forbes' charts clearly demonstrate (we Photoshopped a little clarification on to the somewhat inscrutable rings-around-the-ten-figure-phallus chart, where the lower the red ring, the greater fortune—get it? Neither do we, really.), Spielberg is only the second-richest billionaire at DW, a humiliating fact with which Geffen cruelly taunts the much poorer director during the monthly money-burning parties at his Malibu compound.

Dennis Quaid has hopped right onto Teri Hatcher's confessional bandwagon, telling a fitness magazine of his shameful struggle in the mid 90s with male anorexia, Page Six reports: