Larry King, the reigning champion of softball interviews, was apparently not soft enough for Ms. Prejean. King broaches the subject of the lawsuit Carrie settled with Miss California USA. (You know, the mediation where they screened her sex tape in front of her mom?) Then, Carrie complains that King is "being inappropriate," and after a full minute of wrangling, she removes her microphone and announces she is leaving—only to end up sitting there for another minute, grinning and playing the "I ca-a-an't he-e-ear y-o-o-ou" game until Larry cuts to commercial.

The ensuing commercial break was deeply suspenseful. Would Carrie be on set when we returned? I can only imagine what sort of harsh, frantically whispered words were spoken during these moments, because when the show returned, Carrie's microphone had miraculously been rewired and King apologized. (Apparently Prejean didn't want to take phone calls, and it was the caller, not Larry's questions, that so perturbed her?) A temporary rift in the time-space continuum healed and Larry King Live returned to being as heavy-hitting as a feather-stuffed cashmere pillow.

He talks about love, he talks about charity, he bares his soul and grapples with the meaning of redemption. But obviously, all anyone cares about is hearing about is hearing about his fake hair, and other humiliations. Here they are:

1. The Time He Was Afraid His Wig Would Fall Off at the French Open. In the early years of his male-pattern baldness, a rabidly narcissistic Agassi took to wearing a flamboyantly high-maintenance weave. As if it wasn't enough that the hair that made him famous was fake, Agassi admits that it was a crappy fake, too: At the 1990 French Open, Agassi's conditioner caused his weave to fall apart, forcing his brother to bobby pin it to his head and the horrified tennis diva to go all sweaty-palmed over whether his scalp pelt would go flying mid-match.

2. His Girlfriend, Brooke Shields, Convinced Him to Ditch the Pelt and Shave His Head. There is something tragic about the moment when a balding man realizes he can fluff and rearrange no longer, and that it's time to give up on hair entirely. It is even more tragic when said balding man is Andre Agassi, and his famously hot actress girlfriend is the one who has to tell him he's reached the point of no return.

3. Ruined His Career with a Meth Addiction. Couric rattles off members of the tennis community who have public distanced themselves from Agassi following the revelation that he was junked up on meth for "the better part of 1997," when his pro career began to plummet. Confronted with Martina Navratilova's accusation that he is "up there with Roger Clemens," Agassi blinks repeatedly and speaks through a strangled voice as he points out that using steroids to be good at baseball is really nothing like the self-destructive pattern of chronic methamphetamine use, and anyone who equates the two is sort of a jerk. "I had a problem. I would ask for some compassion."

4. He dumped Brooke Shields. This is only mildly humiliating for Agassi. (What kind of fool dumps Brooke Shields?!) The real humiliation is Brooke's, because she had some really embarrassing relationships in the '80s and '90s, and then, just when it seemed like she had snagged herself a real catch, turned out he was a deeply troubled, self-hating drug addict—and then he dumped her. Good thing Shields' love life worked itself out, because if things had gone differently, she could be deep into Jennifer Aniston territory by now.

The AdWords contextual advertising system on Google's flagship search engine is responsible for the majority of the company's $20 billion plus in annual revenue. Its key selling point: it is relevant, user-friendly — and unobtrusive, keeping people from defecting to other search engines or blocking the ads. Now, reports Ad Age, Schmidt is offering "a select group of entertainment advertisers" — i.e. the Hollywood studios — the chance to buy video ads that would run alongside search results, territory once reserved for text ads. Miramax has tested the system, but otherwise Google has been shunned by the top Tinseltown dogs, selling to the likes of the Travel Channel and videogame maker Electronic Arts.

Google is hardly the only geek dissed by the glitterati: Yahoo tried hard to become a media convergence hub and failed; scores of music startups have gone down in flames or languished for want of workable licensing deals; even Apple has had big problems dealing with Hollywood. Heck, America Online bought a bunch of studios when it acquired Time Warner, and it still couldn't win over the moguls.

Our advice to Google: Hire some serious Hollywood talent, since Southern->Northern California transitions tend to work better than those in the other direction. John Lasseter, the creative leader at Pixar, was a Disney vet who moved to Northern California to work for George Lucas and then Steve Jobs, returning to Disney only when Jobs sold the company. Judging from Jobs' success launching the iTunes Music Store, it would appear Hollywood appeal is contagious. Maybe even for a guy as nerdy as Eric Schmidt.

(Pic: Schmidt, then-Yahoo CEO Terry Semel and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, June 2007. Getty Images.)

How did Sarah Palin "know" about Johnston's sweaty teen sex with her daughter Bristol? Did they just straight leave the door open? And why did passive, mumbly Levi turn into, for a flash, the swaggering reincarnation of Elvis Presley when he said "all teens, or most of them, are sexually active?"

You can watch the highlights reel at left and try to make sense of this bizarre, queasy-making scene for yourself.

Also, Levi said abstinence is stupid, Bristol is stuck up and he's going after the Palins, in court. Predictably. (The court thing was via his mom and/or sister, but whatever.)

In the end he came across as just kind of reluctant and overwhelmed and very ready for his 15 minutes, as the internet hecklers called it, to be up. (So he can get back to "sheep hunting." Heh.)

Translation: NBC scared the crap out of the independently-owned station by threatening to yank its network affiliation, and probably by explaining the likely fate of unaffiliated channels in the age of Hulu and Netflix and podcasting and iTunes.

Then Leno probably played the good cop with a friendly, awkward phone call to the owner, who told Broadcasting & Cable,

Jay is from Andover where I went to school. I enjoy his humor. We hope the new show is a big success.

Translation: We'll revisit this issue after the ratings implode, like we predicted. But here's to hoping against hope.

The same owner said previously the show would be "very adverse to our finances." So if Leno fails he could ruin this station, and humiliate his NBC bosses (especially Ben Silverman) to boot. No pressure, Jay!

[Broadcasting & Cable]

The affiliate is the Tonight Show host's hometown station, as Nikki Fincke points out. (Leno was born in New Rochelle, New York but grew up in Andover, Massachusetts, part of the Boston TV market.)

NBC's New York suits are threatening to stab the affiliate, WHDH, in the throat, i.e. to strip the station's network affiliation and to buy NBC's own slice of the Boston airwaves. The station, meanwhile, insists it has a clause in its affiliate contract allowing the move, and its owner told the Boston Globe Leno would be "very adverse to our finances."

The network needs to make an example of the station: According to Variety, several affiliates are nervous about Leno's new show.

Poor Jay. NBC colleague Conan O'Brien fumed at him; rival David Letterman mocked him and now a TV station is accusing him of trying to put it out of business, in a recession. On the bright side, for Leno at least, expectations couldn't be lower. As long as his show doesn't kill anyone, make anyone homeless or give anyone a disease in its first, say, month, it can be fairly called an unexpected success.

The biggest weakness on the show is relatively easy to fix: Crowd control. The rowdy studio audience was way too pumped up, interrupting Fallon to cheer their home states (why do late show audiences always do this?) and to ruin one of his jokes with a well-timed "yeaaaaah!"

Also, the audience microphones were up way too loud; TV viewers could clearly hear chatter and exhaling noises between Fallon's jokes.

Fallon also needs work on his interview skills. His sit-down with Robert DeNiro, for example, was pretty awful. DeNiro barely got a word in edgewise as Fallon defined "Tribeca," told a pointless story about another celebrity (Jack Nicholson), recounted a pedestrian joke DeNiro made on email and at one point said, "I don't know what I'm asking." (DeNiro's laconic manner was maybe part of a meta-joke about how he doesn't talk? It was still awkward.)

The skit "lick it for $10," in which studio audience members lick products made by (we're guessing) show sponsors was a total write-off even though it followed the first commercial break — a prime piece of show real estate.

Picking these sorts of nits is, again, too easy with a brand-new host. On the bright side:

• The news "slow jam," performed with The Roots, was inspired. It looks like Fallon plans to make heavy use of his excellent house band, which should keep the show interesting and lively.
• Fallon imitated DeNiro to his face. It wasn't a great impersonation, but being willing to make an utter fool out of yourself can come in handy for a late-night host.
  
• The monologue felt vaguely Weekend Update-y, which is good in the sense that there were at least two really solid jokes. Fallon just needs to slow down from the fast delivery customary at Saturday Night Live's fake news desk
• Pushing Justin Timberlake to make fun of other singers shows good instincts. Good luck trying to get other celebrities to play ball with that sort of concept.
• The opening skit with Conan O'Brien was great, but Fallon has to share credit with his predecessor.

Maybe it was a lack of preparation. Cultural insensitivity. Or maybe Seacrest is just getting tired of this sort of work. In any case, he was off his game. Examples:

Weird foreign kids who don't speak English confound poor Seacrest

What was Seacrest thinking? He was unprepared to read the names of some Indian kids from the cast of Slumdog Millionaire. The logical thing to do, then, would be to ask each child to quickly say his or her name. Instead, he briefly held an illegible piece of paper up to the camera. Then he asked the disappointed kids to all shout their names at once. They wisely ignored him.

There was some awkwardness over English, which some of the kids did not speak, and which Seacrest made them feel pretty much as terrible as possible about. (After we posted about this last night, commenters pointed us toward the other Seacrest flubs.)

Seacrest asks whether Slumdog cast real-live SLUM-DWELLERS

The host was fascinated that director Danny Boyle used actual slumdogs or whatever. Boyle reminded him that they try to think of the poor kids as normal human beings instead of total freaks. Then his eyes asked if Seacrest couldn't do the same.

Seacrest asks Marisa Tomei where she's been the past 15 years

Yes, she's made movies since My Cousin Vinny, Ryan. Dig the death stare at the end.

The red-carpet interviewer tried to get everyone to shout their foreign and strange and difficult long names at the same time, a futile effort. "That didn't go well," he said. Indeed! Nor did the next thing.

But then Seacrest was quiet for a little while and let the kids talk, to adorable effect, thus rescuing the moment. Clip above.

(NB to Seacrest: Next time an Indian film is widely favored to win Best Picture, maybe brush up on those tricky South Asian pronunciations.)

Citing anonymous sources, the Associated Press reports Samantha will be hired as senior director for multilateral affairs at the National Security Council. Power is a Harvard professor and former journalist who served as an Obama adviser until told the Scotsman how she felt about her candidate's rival in the Democratic primary:

"We f***** up in Ohio," she admitted. "In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it, because she knows Ohio's the only place they can win.


"She is a monster, too – that is off the record – she is stooping to anything," Ms Power said, hastily trying to withdraw her remark.

Power soon apologized, but also lashed out at Clinton for using her remarks in political attack ads.

The secret to getting back into the administration's good graces appears to be some sort of unspecified "gesture to bury the hatched" she made to Clinton just after the election, said to be well received. She then got included in the State Department transition team.

The lesson: An eloquent and sincere apology can undo nearly any regrettable insult. (Alternately: If someone really wants to hire you, he'll make your future boss promise to be nice to you, in exchange for her job.)

While appearing on last night's Tonight Show, a wary Duchovny did his damnedest to avoid any potentially tumescent lines of conversation, yet every time he backed away, he found himself stepping into a new pile of "that's what she said"-level innuendo. Of particular interest to Jay Leno (and Tea Leoni's lawyers) was the onetime designation of Duchovny as "head boy," a one-innocent schoolboy title that loses some of its rakish flavor each time a 48-year-old Duchovny uses it at the craft services table to open up a double entendre-filled conversation with a hot background extra named "Misty." [The Tonight Show]

Remnick hired a guy named Ari Zenelman to bludgeon the magazine's famously coddled staff contributors into doing more posts, according to the Observer. So basically all journalists everywhere have some kind of quota now, just like at Gawker! Just wait until they start breaking Web traffic down by writer, New Yorker people.

Anyway, the writers are clearly outside their comfort zones, or maybe just our comfort zones.

Television writer Nancy Franklin actually wrote the following in a post Tuesday she dubbed "Nancy's Fancies," about her top TV moments of 2008: "David [Letterman], this is between you and me. I loved you in 2008 as I have always loved you. You will be my favorite late-night talk-show host 4ever..." (Emphasis added, although it does jump off the page in the original.)

Also yesteday, the magazine's George Packer got totally snarky with actor Sean Penn, sarcastically calling him a "veteran foreign correspondent" and mocking his writing:

Travelling in the company of Douglas Brinkley, the noted actor, and Christopher Hitchens, the world-famous hedge-fund executive and philanthropist, Penn was the invited guest of President Hugo Chávez, of Venezuela, well-known as an advocate for the Social Gospel, and of Raúl Castro, Cuba’s humorous, wonky, and athletically gifted new chief executive. ...Good interviewers also know how to analyze the material they work so hard to elicit, and Penn treats his readers to gems such as “Inside, I’m wondering, Have I got a big story to break here? Or is this of little relevance?”

Then Packer writes that Penn should "stick to what you do well," acting, and stop attempting journalism, "which isn't his job."

Speaking of which: Stay in your lane, Packer. We'll take the bitchy media meta-commentary from here, thank you very much. (Although, in the meantime, our friend's sister's boyfriend heard some dirt on Penn that might make a good blind item; what's your "tips" email??)

Shain's been through this before, however. Here she is with some actor-sailors from Broadway's South Pacific, recreating the kiss just a bit less awkwardly:

Some things should just be left in history.

"Obama!" Bush exclaimed... "Come here and meet Laura. Laura, you remember Obama. We saw him on TV during election night. Beautiful family. And that wife of yours — that's one impressive lady."
The two men shook hands and then, according to Obama, Bush turned to an aide, "who squirted a big dollop of hand sanitizer in the president's hand."
Bush then offered some to Obama, who recalled: "Not wanting to seem unhygienic, I took a squirt."

Was this odd behavior a racist thing, a partisan thing or an insane president thing? Someone should put in a call to Condi Rice or Colin Powell, they could probably shed some light on the situation.

Bush then proceeded to tell Obama to "watch yourself" because everyone would be "gunnin'" for him around DC, including Bush himself. Way to make a guy feel welcome!

Fox News later asked the president about this passage, and naturally he got all pissy and defensive. We're still betting he doesn't bring out the good china for their big dinner.

Video above; full original here.