By now, we're all painfully aware of Katie Holmes' utter and total submission to Master Cruise. But in a bitch-you-so-did-NOT-just-do-that, yet inevitable, move, Holmes has terminated superflack Leslie Sloane-Zelnick and retained her captor's life-partner's publisister:

· By way of review, enjoy the trades' coverage of yesterday's Paramount Classics bloodletting. Optional: Chatter about Lions Gate's Tom Ortenberg redecorating an office on the Paramount lot. [Variety, THR]
· Not having had their fill of humiliation and abuse back in the good ol' days of Miramax, survivors Eric Roth and Barry Littman sign up for another tour of duty with the Weinsteins at the Weinstein Co. [Variety]
· Don Johnson unemployed: The WB cancels the this-should-really-be-about-a-jailbait-porn-publisher drama Just Legal. Also, Supernatural gets a full season pickup. [THR]
· Weinstein Survivor Update, Part II: Former Dimension guy Andrew Rona acquires his first project at Rogue Pictures (the "futuristic action thriller" Doomsday), resists the reflexive urge to pick up a phone to get chewed out by Bob Weinstein. [Variety]
· ABC buys a one-hour dramedy script inspired by the music of Diane Warren, about a songwriter who specializes in love songs but—get ready to have your neck snapped with surprise—has a messy love life. Yeah, we didn't see that one coming, either. [THR]

Passenger 57 star Wesley Snipes can breathe easier today, knowing that the system really does work—especially if one's accuser likes to hit the pipe:

An SEC filing reveals that Michael Eisner has resigned his seat on Disney's board of directors and "no longer provides any services" for the company, seemingly killing our crazy hope that he'd one day serve us a piping-hot churro outside the Haunted Mansion. Our Mouse ears are limp with grief, etc etc. The filing also discloses details of new CEO Bob Iger's compensation package; after paying out hundreds of millions of dollars in salary and bonuses to Eisner over his two decade tenure, it looks like the company wants Iger to earn his coming fuck-you money:

Mercifully, young Sean Preston Spears Federline will never know how cruel people can be; Britney and Kevin have already decided that they're not going to allow their son to become the first person in their family to learn to read.

· BREAKING! Filled with bloodlust and lacking anyone else exciting to fire, Paramount's Brad Grey shitcans himself! Actually, Grey dismissed the heads of Paramount Classics, news (we heard the chatter earlier today) we find somewhat unsatisfying.
· Despite earlier reports that a fire in Pasadena destroyed Wayne Manor in Pasadena, the Batman house was not harmed. Holy misidentified conflagrations, Batman, etc etc.
· How do you get Page Six to back off? Show up to their office and act cute and pouty.
· NBC Out of Ideas, Enough Already! Edition: In early November, The West Wing will beat the live-TV horse that Will & Grace killed last week.

· The secrets of fleece pullovers, revealed! Yvon Chouinard, author of Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman and founder of Patagonia, joins in conversation with a dean from USC's Mashall School of Business at the Central Library.
· Music sounds better on Thursday night: The Killers and British Sea Power at Long Beach Arena; Gillian Welch at Avalon; Blackalicious entices you to crowd into the vinyl section at Amoeba in Hollywood.
· Weed, Stand-Up, and Sarah Silverman: It's High Times Comedy Night at the Hollywood Improv. Who would've guessed that she's a pot enthusiast?

Don't worry, she was just browsing, not looking to take a tyke home. No competent international orphan broker would be foolish enough to let a kid go without first getting a bid from Angelina Jolie.

Prepare to have the blind item scales fall away from your gossip-loving eyes. Before moving on to your answers, smell the daisies of One Here-We-Go-Again Blind Vice:

One of the LA.comfidential blog's readers spotted semiretired tabloid trainwreck Joey Buttafuoco slinging ice cream cones on the Crossing Jordan set last week. It looks like Buttafuoco (even more fun to type than to say!) is crawling his way up the craft services chain, as one of our operatives has spotted him working his soft-serve magic on another Universal lot shoot:

Amanda Scheer Demme's anti-fabulosity defenses seem to have sagged to an all-time low. Recently, she was unable to stop Blues Traveler frontman John Popper from turning the Tropicana into his personal erotic amusement park, and was equally unsuccessful at preventing the dead from bellying up to the bar. Now she's allowing actresses with dead careers onto her once-formidable guest-list. Says a reader:

It's been nearly 24 hours since Tom Cruise's publisister Lee Anne DeVette shocked the world with the announcement that Katie Holmes' womb is overflowing with the alleged fruit of the couple's seemingly impossible premarital love. What better way to celebrate the arrival of Cruise's M:I 3 world premiere gift to himself than to gamble on the baby's name on the internet? Felt-fingering brother site Oddjack points us to some early naming action at Paddy Power, where no-brainers like "Katie" and "Thomas" are going at 8-1 odds, alongside IMDb-flavored longshots like "Pacey" and "Maverick." Our money's on "Acceptably Similar Dyslexic Caucasian Of Below Average Height Failsafe Sample B—CAUTION DO NOT THAW PREMATURELY." While a little unwieldy for the birth certificate and celebratory cigar bands, we think it's important to respect paternity.

· Details of the Viacom split emerge: Sumner Redstone will still control everything, the two companies will share some directors, and new CEOs Tom Freston and Les Moonves won't be able to hot oil-wrestle for the same properties. Which is probably good news for Freston, as Moonves has been secretly practicing his Warm Crisco Figure Four Leg Lock for months. [Variety]
· The reality TV boogeyman continues to gobble up jobs that could be going to SAG members. But look at the flip side: reality TV creates many exciting opportunities for non-union sweatshop writers. [THR]
· Sensing that the nerd audience might be more forgiving of his "quirky" decision to name his son Kal-el, Nic Cage will executive produce the pilot The Dresden Files for Sci-Fi network. [Variety]
· UPN picks up the back nine for Everybody Hates Chris; somewhere deep within his secret lair, Les Moonves plots how he can shift the show to CBS without looking like a liar. [THR]
· Disney will adapt the novel If You Could See Me Now into a musical vehicle for Hugh Jackman. We're only going to say it one more time: There's nothing suspicious about Hugh Jackman's obsession with musicals, OK? If you had Jackman's triple-threat skills, you'd just close your eyes, slip into your tight, gold pants and cheetah shirt, and dance, dance, dance, not caring what people were whispering about you. [Variety]

Wherein we invite our to readers tug at the bill of their caps, dig into the batter's box, and take their hacks at the blind item spitballs hurled by humpy E! gossip southpaw Ted Casablanca. This week, Ted peeks out into the October sun, sees his shadow, and retreats back into his gossip-hole, ensuring another six weeks of supposedly-straight-actors-are-actually-gay items. Adjust your package and have a go at One Here-We-Go-Again Blind Vice:

For roughly the ten-thousandth time in the last three months, dreamy-eyed Brokeback Mountain star Jake Gyllenhaal answers a question about what it was like to undergo the harrowing ordeal of an ostensibly straight actor pretending to give Heath Ledger a handjob. Gyllenhaal says his upbringing gave him the strength to spit in his palm and get down to his on-screen manual labor:

Hollywood's dueling celebrity-positive cults inclusionary spiritual inspiration societies may be locked in a high-stakes battle for Oprah Winfrey's eternal soul. While Scientology seems to have recently made a play for Winfrey's attention, everyone's favorite magic-water swillers/red-string models have brought out their big gun in hopes of beaming their Light™ directly into the minds of America's hausfraus:

This one's not for the blind item guessing game (don't worry, that will be along shortly), just for your personal delight. From Page Six:

· On any other day, i.e. one without Tom Cruise's fake baby, Lindsay Lohan's accident, and the Simpson-Lachey fiasco, rumors of a Britney Spears sex tape might get more traction. Today? Meh.
· Back in May, Conan's "If They Mated" bit projected a very scary product for the Cruise-Holmes union. Click at your own risk.
· Kittenpants uncovers Nic Cage's list of possible baby names. We think Francis Ford "The Hulk" Cage has a nice ring to it.
· On a day without the Cruise-Holmes Miracle Baby, Lindsay Lohan's fender-bender, and Nick N' Jessica's on-again, off-again separation, a video clip of a naked Janet Jackson rubbing her breasts and drumming on her ass might get some more play. Today? Next!
· Like most convicted stalkers, Pamela Anderson's alleged stalker is merely misunderstood.

· Learn how writer Neil Strauss' mastery of the powers of seduction backfired and landed him Courtney Love as a roommate as he signs The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists at Borders in Westwood.
· Zach Galifianakis and David Cross will gang up and kick the crap out of comedy at Largo, while Jeff Ross and others make funny for free at the Hollywood Improv.
· If you want to sit under the stars and listen to some dudes from Reykjavik lilt in Icelandic and an invented language, Sigur Ros has you covered at the Hollywood Bowl. In other music round-up news, the Fruit Bats are at Spaceland.

For every glossy cover story action, there is an equal and opposite publicist reaction: