• Each year, surveying Oscar's Best Actress pool sets off a bout of hand wringing over the absence of serious parts for serious female actresses, but this year the low may actually be below the bottom of the pool. After a very short list of sure things (Meryl, Carey Mulligan in An Education and Gabourey Sidibe for Precious) the field becomes a wide open wasteland with almost no true attention getting roles leaping out. It's gotten so bad, writes the Hollywood Reporter, that "some are talking about Sandra Bullock." [Hollywood Reporter]

• As if answering the question raised by the item above...On the strength of 2012, This Is It, Angels and Demons and Terminator:Salvation Sony Pictures is having its best year at the international box office in its history with grosses currently at $1.63 billion. Fox, however, holds the international top slot this year with $1.79 billion in receipts and counting [Variety]

•Kent Alterman will be your next man to blame for why Comedy Central isn't funnier. The former New Line exec was named head of programming for the network. [Variety]

• The first plug pulled at the new Less Is Less Miramax — Richard Linklater's Liars (A To E), a romantic comedy that was to have starred Kat Dennings and Rebecca Hall. [Movieline]

• Disney has put in dry dock/beached/torpedoed/depth charged/recalled to submarine base/(insert your preferred nautical analogy here) a remake of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea set to be helmed by McG. Cheated of his chance to ruin the submarine genre forever, the great director will instead focus his attentions on the thriller Dead Spy Running. [Variety]

• As long as there are film studios, there will be some executive who will have the bright idea to let Robin Williams star in yet another surefire failure of a comedy. Anna Faris is currently in talks to play Williams' daughter in Wedding Banned for Touchstone. [Hollywood Reporter]

• MTV has acquired the exclusive rights to air This Is It, the Michael Jackson concert rehearsal documentary. [Hollywood Reporter]

In what is believed to be a first for a scripted series, "Michael & Michael" will feature live commercials during six of its seven episodes, as Messrs. Black and Showalter humorously wax poetic about the virtues of products including Unilever's Klondike, Dunkin' Donuts, Mike's Hard Lemonade and Palm Pre.

So, that will be weird. To "criticize" this sort of arrangement would be unforgivably un-meta, since it's all being done ironically/ for real, which is even more ironic than just doing it ironically. Comedy Central's ad guy says that the Michaels "know the economic realities of television, so they know want to play ball."

What would you do for a Klondike bar, Michael Ian Black? Would you play ball? I think you would.
[Ad Age]

This is a clip from Daniel Tosh's new show on Comedy Central, in which he smokes salvia and then eats cinnamon and saltines and chops coconuts, presumably because those things have some internet "significance." We have no idea if the show will be good or not; the important thing is that the mainstream media is once again paying attention to salvia, and its potential for wackiness. American idiots, recommence with your YouTube one-hitting and falling down. The world is watching!

We can't say we're familiar with Tosh. A comedy-world buddy says he's "alright," has been doing stand-up basically since he was a fetus and is "funnier than Nick Thune," at least. A quick YouTube sampling turned up some pedestrian regional humor (midwesterners are fat and vaguely sad, LOL!); the most popular clip is embedded above.

But even if Tosh is everything Viacom suits say he is ("biting, hilarious and so quick"), it remains to be seen if there's room for a dedicated internet humor show amid the fast-proliferating geek jokes on mainstream programs like the Daily Show, 30 Rock and Jimmy Fallon's nerdy iteration of Late Night.

No need to tune in to find out: if "Tosh.0" is halfway decent, its video will be embedded all over the place online.

Namely those big old honking gay folks at Comedy Central's sister network, Logo. The curious little series, featuring comedian Silverman, her sister Laura, and whole cast of wacky characters, looked like it was going to peter out and die when Comedy Central had to—because of the economy and all—slash the show's budget by 20%. Not exactly chuffed by this idea, the producers threatened to leave. The network wanted to keep the show running, but they just couldn't hammer out an acceptable budget agreement.

Then, in swept Logo, sabers a' brandish, capes fluttering in the breeze. With the two forces combined, the show will have an even higher budget than the previous $1.1 million per episode (TV is expensive). Plus, Logo can cash in on Silverman's big fag (und hag) appeal, as well as the fact that there is a hetero-acting (sorta) gay couple on the show. Everybody wins! Especially Logo viewers (hi, you two!) who previously only had the abysmal Big Gay Sketch Show to turn to for laughs on the network, which has consistently failed to be as sexy as here! or as splashy and original as Bravo.

[THR]

Instead, Stewart went forward with a few good-natured jibes at his corporate cousin's $150 million Oscar behemoth The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button — if you can call two narcolepsy jokes and extended plot mockery "good-natured." Worse yet, it came while introducing Slumdog's Dev Patel, who was welcomed shortly afterward as the equivalent of Oscar 2009's homecoming king. Worse yet, Stewart's smirking laughter at his own jokes led both his live and viewing audiences to believe they are actually fresher, funnier and/or more influential than they actually are.

So! That does it, right? 0-for-13? Watch your nuts, Jon; Brad Grey just stepped out for lunch. [The Daily Show via LAT]

Viacom wanted TW to pay higher fees to get stations like Nickelodeon, VH1, MTV, and Comedy Central. TW was like "no, we'll just take your stations off the air starting January 1, so there." Of course there was no chance that this would last any real length of time, because Viacom really needs all that sweet Time Warner cash and Time Warner is not about to listen to the millions of you who would be placing angry calls to their customer support line whining about Jon Stewart and Spongebob and the visible holes their absence leaves in our sad, media simulacra of lives. So of course they have now caved and come to an agreement without any interruption of these particular stations of flickering pictures.

All is well. [Pic via]

1. John Davidson, A Solid Gold Christmas (1982) — It was the year Davidson was in the early downswing of his raconteurial powers. And who could fault him? With That's Incredible, a running guest spot on Hollywood Squares and two of his own Christmas specials behind him, among the few milestones left to check off was "Completely KILL on the Solid Gold Christmas show." And kill he did, bringing a never-before-told tale of wintertime glee and his silky baritone to a riveted TV audience. Colbert's own style seems to have already borrowed a bit from this clip, but if he really wants to own the holidays like Davidson, he's going to have to lose the irony. And fast.

2. Kristy McNicol, A Carpenters Christmas (1977) — Leave it to the era's most famous TV tomboy to upstage her own honey-voiced host, but Karen Carpenter was just a fraction of McNicol's competition in the climactic ensemble number "My New Year's Resolution." Harvey Korman? Puppets? The infamously precise Carpenters band? Amateurs all! If Colbert doesn't revive this number, then we're not watching.

3. Bea Arthur, The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978) — It may not be George Lucas's most reviled piece of work, but it's the only misstep he's disavowed. Traces remain online, of course, epitomized by saloonkeeper Bea Arthur's desperate plea to clear the Mos Eisley Cantina of its drunken intergalactic riff-raff. Colbert would do well to learn the mistakes of the past lest he be condemned to repeat them; no one has 30 years to wait for his show to be funny, unintentionally or otherwise.

4. Jerry Lawler and Nick Gulas, WHBQ Christmas Special (1976) — The Memphis UHF channel hosted its own wrestling-themed holiday show in 1976, welcoming legend Jerry Lawler and skeevy promoter Nick Gulas to the air to thank the city's fans for the previous year's support. And what a reward! If you don't cry at the pure spirit of giving here — particularly in Lawler's segment — then you're a Grinch. This kind of microtargeting will make huge strides in the Colbert-averse heartland.

5. Bing Crosby and David Bowie, Bing Crosby Christmas Special (1977) — The most awkward intergenerational pairing in the history of holiday TV, Crobsy/Bowie is beyond imitation — but not beyond homage. May we suggest some earnest, sexually ambiguous harmonizing with David Archuleta?

Comedy Central Insider puts this crisis in perspective:

First of all, expecting us to laugh at politics less in an Obama administration is like expecting us to have sex less in an Obama administration. Fun things are fun to do, no matter who's President, dummy. If we're hungry for a Whopper, but we're at McDonald's, we will not starve to death. (You see, George Bush is a Whopper and Barack Obama is a Big Mac and I'll show myself to the euthenasia clinic.)

That's comedic! And the Daily Show is doing fine. They've enlisted the services of a Black Correspondent:

[To be fair, Pareene knew how to make fun of Obama way back in July.]

Yes, according to the Hollywood Reporter, Mr. Burnham is currently in “negotiations with Universal to write and create the music for a comedy that Judd Apatow will produce. Burnham also could star in the project. The film is being described as a sort of anti-High School Musical, though it is not a parody.”

Ugh. Burnham may be a talented guy, but we need to nip this trend in the bud pronto, people. If we don’t, soon we’re gonna hear that the Chocolate Rain guy will star in a Spike Lee “joint,” or that Chris Crocker will be the subject of a new Gus Van Sant bio pic. And if you find out that the Dramatic Prairie Dog scored a first look deal with Paramount, then you officially have my permission to kill yourself.

[Photo Credit: boburnham.com]

• Singing Comic Joins Apatow Clan [Hollywood Reporter]

Because they've been doing this story since September 2000.

Alexis Boehmler is a junior studying English at Davidson College. At 20, she is bright and well versed, with strong views on the abortion issue and other political matters. Occasionally, friends tease her about her passion for literature; she recalls with some embarrassment speaking in class once about Don DeLillo's novel "White Noise" and being moved nearly to tears. Her opinions do not betray a hint of apathy or intellectual lethargy, and she has every intention of voting in November. And her primary news source — often, her only news source — is "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," a parody.

Just to make sure the story still holds up, we put a call into Alexis, who now works at BOMB Magazine. Turns out she still gets her news from the Daily Show. "Maybe because he covers a variety of topics and personalities, as opposed to the same thing over and over," she said.

Is Jon Stewart The Most Trusted Man In America? [NYT]
Much, much earlier: The Stiff Guy Vs. The Dumb Guy [NYT]
Related: Colbert, Stewart Viewers More Well-Informed Than Those Watching O'Reilly, Dobbs [ThinkProgress]
Which also isn't exactly news: Daily Show Viewers Smarter Than O'Reilly Viewers [BoingBoing, 2004]

• The Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget [Comedy Central]