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· Not everyone in Hollywood is getting shitcanned this week: Fox renews studio co-chairmen Jim Gianopulos and Tom Rothman's contracts for another five years, names them both CEO, and, just because they were on a roll, gave them each a pony. Yay! [Variety]
· Amanda Peet will join Matthew Perry in the cast of Aaron "Any similiarties to SNL are completely incidental" Sorkin's NBC show, currently titled Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. More good news: Rob Corddry's hilarious little brother has also been cast. [THR]
· Studios announce their entries in the 2006 Christmas-season box office cockfight: On December 22, Universal will bring Evan Almighty and The Good Shepherd, Fox goes with Night at the Museum, and Paramount throws in Charlotte's Web. [Variety]
· Yes, Brandi, there is a God: CMT will run an eight-episode reality series about the Dallas Cowboy cheerleader tryouts. As if that weren't generous enough, they're also doing a series trying to crown the best Coyote Ugly dancer. Fuck you, Bravo, CMT now owns our hearts. [THR]
· Perhaps smelling Jamie Foxx/Joaquin Phoenix awards buzz potential, New Line acquires the Duke Ellington pitch The Jazz Ambassadors for Morgan Freeman. [Variety]

Clearly inspired by the endless parade of swishy, lunatic-costumed circus freaks who both torture and delight us at the start of every American Idol season, Simon Cowell has announced his newest reality show competition will be the search for the next Siegfried and Roy:

You've been in this situation countless times: You've just labored through a meeting with some blank-faced NBC development people who are convinced that your brilliant idea "doesn't smell like a show," and, pacing the cold streets of Burbank, you're surprised to see that the frustrating encounter has made you visibly aroused. Covering up your unexpected tumescence with a copy of that day's Variety, you wonder where you can go for for relief. Never again shall you beat off in frustration in the Peacock's parking garage:

A reader cringed at this unexpected overshare in today's Variety, nestled in a story about Shrek
director Victoria Jenson signing on to New Line's Four Christmases, a movie about a couple who must visit all four households of their divorced parents on one incredibly wacky Christmas Day:

Gratuity-dispensing, multi-platform superstar Jamie Foxx is back in LA, undoubtedly relieved that the Miami Vice hell shoot is finally over (albeit feeling somewhat lonesome for his voluptuously man-boobed co-star Colin Farrell). Still dateless for Hollywood's big prom night, Foxx spoke to Access Hollywood about what kind of arm-candy he prefers, smiling silently four feet behind him as he gives Ryan Seacrest some red carpet face time:

We never thought that the subject of Heather Locklear and Richie Sambora's impending divorce would come up again, expecting that they would quickly return to looking for a new role as Struggling Series Saving Bitch and drowning their relationship sorrows in groupies with sagging "Slippery When Wet" tattoos, respectively, and disappear from the celebrity newswire. Unfortunately, once the announcement that Locklear had filed divorce papers was made yesterday, someone forgot to tell Sambora that his marriage was over (on paper, at least):

· Usually, these side-by-side comparison things are a stretch. But this one is so on the nose that we're going back to Real Genius (Val Kilmer's finest moment, IMHO) to make sure SJP isn't actually in the credits.
· "But “Idol” made it look like last night’s Austin group sang for Simon, Paula and Randy right here in Austin — which they didn’t. The judges never came to Austin because of our influx of Katrina and Rita evacuees. Instead, the Austin auditioners were flown to San Francisco, where they sang for the star judges." A little upsetting, maybe, but we just hope they weren't lying to us about the girl who almost died on the plane to the audition.
· It's Austin Thursday in Short Ends, as Tara Reid teaches the kids on Sixth Street a thing or two about vomiting in front of bars.
· Mr T visits the Six Feet Under house.
· Mr, Eko delivers a prayer in the Hawaiian senate, beginning to heal the wounds inflicted on the state's roadways by a sloshed Michelle Rodriguez.

"Sultan of Sleaze" David Hans Schmidt, the go-to guy for shadily obtained naked celebrity photographs, is expanding into the memorabilia business. He's obtained—completely legally, we're sure—a storage locker full of Paris Hilton's belongings, which he'll be happy to sell to the first person who coughs up $20 million. Reports the LAT:

Not two days after news that Britney Spears would be appearing on an upcoming episode of Will & Grace playing a loony, bible-thumping TV host who "decides to do a cooking segment called 'Cruci-fixin s,'" loony, bible-thumping advocacy group The American Family Association has begun its protests:

· Music round-up: Jenny Lewis (of Rilo Kiley fame) and the Watson Twins at the Vista Theater; Collective Soul at The Roxy; Willie Nelson at the Canyon Club
· The now Oscar-nominated director of (the truly excellent) Capote, Bennett Miller, is turning up at the ArcLight for a Q&A after an AFI screening of the Best Picture hopeful. Catch him now before the studio system ruins him and he's wandering Hollywood in a dress, mumbling about some Vin Diesel project.
· Poet Susan Mitchell is featured in the latest installment of the Hammer Readings at the UCLA Hammer Museum. It's not a poetry slam, per se, but that shouldn't stop you from bringing your notebook full of verse and sharing it loudly with everyone in the lobby.

The world shifts in contorted, fidgety anticipation of the upcoming big screen adaptation of CHiPs, with the Venezuelan crown prince of messy starlet arm candy, Wilmer Valderrama, in the pivotal role of Francis "Ponch" Poncherello. But if all you see staring back out of those deep, brown eyes is the smug face of a lucky kid who managed to spin a throwaway sitcom part into the quintessential scene-whore Hollywood power trip, think again. Valderrama realizes it's all about the work:

Us Weekly is reporting the demise of the marriage of stopgap doomed TV series savior/crispy-haired-rocker groupie Heather Locklear and Richie Sambora, the guy who yelped "Wanted!" behind Jon Bon Jovi on the timeless cowboy-rock anthem "Wanted Dead or Alive":

But then we saw Chocolate Cake City's Brokeback To The Future, and all the others immediately fell away as we realized: This was the one. Watch in amazement as the Back to the Future trilogy is recast as a forbidden love affair between Marty McFly and Doc Brown. Time passes, and rewinds, and passes again, but nothing can tear them apart not even a whiny, jealous Mary Steenburgen. As is always the case with these things, the devil is in the details: Even though you know it's coming, we dare you not to laugh after the brief pause that finally brings the two movie's logos together.

An operative contributes this report for our continuing series tracking the caffeine intake of improbably pregnant Tom Cruise fiancée-for-a-billion-years Katie Holmes, who showed up last night for a fix of high-end jitter-juice close to the Paramount lot, where her contractual life-partner is shooting Mission: Impossible 3. Says the spy:

The hatchery over at the Gawker Media blog-farm has yielded yet another fluffy chick. Today marks the launch of Valleywag, a site dedicated to pursuing Silicon Valley like a roving band of search engine executives killed its family while it looked on in helplessness. Official home-office blurbage follows:

In the grand tradition of has-been (or never-were?) actresses forging new job opportunities for themselves by starring in cable TV series based around the very reasons they can't get work in the first place (think Kirstie Alley in Fat Actress) comes Tori Spelling in VH-1's so noTORIous, a show with a clever premise (Tori plays a spoiled, resented girl very much like herself) and an equally clever title to match (hint: look at the upper-case letters for a fun pun surprise!). But as Entertainment Tonight discovers, the show does stray from her life in one important area:

· Official word out of Paramount: The DreamWorks deal is complete, Black Wednesday layoffs included 50 people from DreamWorks and 25 from Paramount, and the expected personnel toll is 240, 120 from each side. Have a happy Thursday! [Variety]
· Japanese conglomerate Matsushita (owner of Panasonic) bails out of its ownership of Universal, wishing to get back to the core business of producing the increasingly tiny, ultra-portable electronics that make pirating Hollywood's intellectual property such a breeze. [THR]
· The "experimental" Weinstein Co. horror Dream Team project Grind, featuring a zombie story by Robert Rodriguez and a slasher flick by Quentin Tarantino, is close to beginning production. Tarantino seems preoccupied with making a trailer for the fake exploitation movie Cowgirls in Sweden (which will run in the intermission between the two director's tales), and is planning a special sex-tour through Scandinavia to get the details right. [Variety]
· Time to gape at the Idol numbers: About 30 million people tuned in to watch that pricky waiter brag about how much the ladies love him, then get voted through to Hollywood. [THR]
· Universal-based producers Scott Stuber and Mary Parent buy the rights to the memoir Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman with an eye towards turning it into a fictionalized look at the pharmaceutical industry calle, we hope, Boner Pill: The Movie. [Variety]

The LA Weekly's Nikki Finke returns from a long vacation with her annual slash-and-burn Oscar predictions. Perhaps fearing an arson conviction if she actually torched the Kodak Theater, Finke settles for kicking George Clooney in the balls, accusing conservative Academy members of fearing that Brokeback Mountain will give them a boner, calling Paul Giamatti a troglodyte (actually a point in his favor, she says), and, perhaps most sensationally, questioning Heath Ledger's taste in women:

A correction to a THR report on Elton John's ABC comedy pilot Him and Us has been winding its way around the Reuters wires: