Steve Carell will star in another sadsack man comedy. This one is called Dumped and is about a man who is... dumped. [Variety] Kevin Spacey will star in and produce a new indie comedy called Father of Invention, about a crazy inventor's fall from grace and subsequent comeback. A man whose biggest credit is directing a Larry the Cable Guy movie will helm. [Variety]

O.C. and Gossip Girl blunderkind Josh Schwartz will be making his directorial film debut with an adaptation of Jay McInerney's landmark 1984 novel Bright Lights, Big City. There was a Michael J. Fox movie based on the book made about twenty years ago, but... oh well. Schwartz's Lt. Riker, Stephanie Savage, will co-produce. [Variety] Pineapple Express buddies James Franco and Danny McBride will team up again for a new comedy, also to be directed by art-house auteur turned sly comedian, David Gordon Green. It's set in medieval times. Its title? Your Highness. Sigh. [Variety]

AMC, flush with successes Mad Men and Breaking Bad, is now turning itself into a regular old TV network. By developing reality programming! They've got a show called True West in the works. No, it's not about a production of the Sam Shepard play. It's about modern-day cowboys navigating the terrain as their industry fades. Sounds like a riot. [Variety] Fox, meanwhile, has rehired Wanda Sykes to host a Saturday night talk show. It'll sort of be a panel series, like the Bill Maher show. Hmm. [Variety]

SAG and AFTRA signed off on a three year commercials contract early this morning. The agreement includes a $36 million increase in wage rates and a $21 increase in contributions toward both guilds' health plans. [THR]

Kevin Rahm, who you'd recognize from a bunch of stuff, Rob Huebel, who you'd recognize from Human Giant, and Alison Brie, who you'd recognize as Pete's wife on Mad Men, have all landed TV pilots. Sadly, none of them sound good. [THR] Veteran CNN producer Kathy O'Hearn will be teaming up with veteran correspondent Christiane Amanpour for a new half-hour news program for the network. [THR]

And The Simpsons will be immortalized in postage stamp form, the Postal Service (the government thing, not the band) announced today. They'll be unveiled next week, timed well with the series' 20th anniversary. Sheesh. [THR]

OK, so there was a funny Peppermint Patty is a lesbian laff. But other than that, we sat through 22 minutes of jokes about irresponsible spending and borrowing, with images of furniture out on the front lawn, and homeless shelters full of horrible cots and crazy people. This being television, of course the family got their home back in the end—but only after enduring time spent as desperate squatters, evicted renters, and abusers of weird laws involving the elderly. Here's the whole thing if you missed it.

Forget what criticism you might have about the general state of television's Greatest Show of All Time. This particular episode just seemed tacky, cruel, and, most importantly, not funny. The millionaires who make the show haw-hawing at distressed people who suddenly find themselves homeless? Yikes. Or were they not laughing, rather trying to show that they relate? Either way it came across as condescending, poorly-timed and not what we were looking for to pick up the mood after spending an afternoon with the depressing Sunday New York Times.

Speaking of which, the always-deplorable Sunday Styles section has soared to new depths of hardy-har pandering to rich folks. Don't like your nanny? Fire her and blame it on the recession! Only making five hundred grand a year? Oh boo hoo for you! Lately they've been veering back to something that's less ridiculous but seems to be something of a farm league for the Nation section: this week, there was a profile of that 14-year-old Hannity-in-training and a look at the state of the pro-choice movement. Can we have our enraging entertainment back, please?

And, yes, this very website could be said to often mock the increasingly large pool of downtrodden and bewildered. The esteemed Time magazine finds our posts about the economic evaporation of the media to be "kick[ing] someone that's already dead." Maybe they're right. We'll cop to that.

But a highbrow newspaper section that makes rich people feel sorry for themselves is just boring and useless on its best days. It's pretty offensive on its worst. And a television mining the death of the middle class for humor, then protecting themselves from feeling too bad by putting a pretty bow at the end? Ugh. Sometimes, you just want something funny to watch on a Sunday night.

Considering The Simpsons will soon become the longest running scripted television series in history and Homer's "D'oh!" annoyed grunt is possibly the most famous of its myriad catchphrases, you'd think that the boobs at Fox News (part of the same family!) could at least say one damn syllable the way it's supposed to be said. But no, Gretchen doesn't watch the show (of course she doesn't, it's all Grey's Anatomy and gruesome torture porn for her, I'm sure) so she did some sad slide-whistle version and then the brave, strapping men rushed in to help her and stumbled like idiots too. Eat my slacks, everyone.

Thanks to video intern Ari Golub for the clip.

The Simpsons still has a ways to go before it can surpass the amount of episodes Gunsmoke produced; due to then-longer seasons, the western banked 635 episodes (whereas the current Simpsons renewal would bring it to 493). However, we have full faith that Fox will continue to keep The Simpsons on the air long enough to outlast even that record. How can we be so sure?

· The show still does all right in the ratings. Don't mistake us—The Simpsons is hitting all-time lows this season. Then again, so are many network shows this year. The difference is that The Simpsons is the 8 p.m. linchpin for a night of animation that helps anchor the higher-rated Family Guy, and Fox would never sacrifice such an ideal lead-in. Hell, even King of the Hill managed to stick around for thirteen seasons based on Fox's Sunday night strategy.

· The voice actors may eventually become expendable. In 1998, the show's six main voice actors threatened to quit if their pay wasn't upped from $30,000 per episode. In response, Fox immediately scheduled auditions to replace them, and a deal was reached (subsequent negotiations over the years raised their pay rate to the current $400,000 per episode). In this case, The Simpsons' decades-long ubiquity may work against it—if Fox wants to cut costs and fire the original cast, they'd surely be able to find new actors raised on the show who could closely replicate the voices (the genius comic timing would certainly suffer, but are fans still ardent enough to make a fuss?). The network already enacted such a move in 1999, when minor voice actor Maggie Roswell (who performed characters like Maude Flanders and Helen Lovejoy) was fired after asking for a pay raise, and only hired back after several years' absence. Did anyone notice?

· The Simpsons is a billion-dollar global franchise. Fox has become even more of a corporate behemoth since The Simpsons first premiered in 1989, and it's hard to imagine they'd ever devalue one of their few properties that can keep a comparatively enormous pace. At this point, it almost doesn't matter what ratings the flagship series gets—not when its merchandise continues to sell all over the world, or when a feature-length movie version produced well past the show's peak makes well over $500 million.

Someday, then, when NBC is running ten hours of Today (leading straight into a four-hour block of Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Fallon, and Howie Mandel), you can be certain that The Simpsons will keep on keepin' on. And this is where we would post our favorite Simpsons episode (the Gamblor one, natch), but Hulu has cruelly yanked every old episode off their service, keeping only the latest five instead. If only it aired constantly in syndication or something!

[via NeatoRama]

Once upon a time, we trusted Cartwright when she exhorted us to "do the Bartman," but now that this "Bartman" involves personality tests, invasive auditing, and insistent, late-night girl talk with Leah Remini, we've become a wee bit skeptical. Sure, we agree that Lisa is clearly an SP, but who knew it would come to this? Still, at least we have a definitive answer for why Bart Simpson is so yellow: it's all those niacin purification rituals! [YouTube]

Dexter, Friday Night Lights, Lost, Mad Men and The Wire occupy this year's dramatic category, with Lost filling in for 2008 retiree The Sopranos. (Dexter was the only one of the nominees to earn an episode nod as well.) In comedy, 30 Rock, Entourage, The Office, The Simpsons and Weeds earned nods, with the latter two filling in for HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm and Flight of the Conchords, which return to the network next year. Emmy surprise Breaking Bad drew three nominations, including one for Best New Series, for which it'll compete against Fringe, In Treatment, Life on Mars and True Blood.

Pretty much all the late-night shows that get nominated for everything else were recognized today as well, with Conan, Letterman, Real Time, SNL, The Colbert Report and The Daily Show vying for Best Comedy/Variety Series. The awards will be announced Feb. 7; the full listing is available at the WGA's site. Good luck to all, and enjoy it while you can, Weeds.

• 2009 Writers Guild Awards [WGA]

Kids have been sort of unimpressable for a while now, probably, but only recently has the idea of childhood become such a resoundingly cynical one. Markets are tested and groups are focused and everything's dangerous and sarcasm is now mistaken for cute, youthful willfulness. That 'meh' became the battle cry for this seen-it-all generation makes perfect sense; it's funny in its onomatopoeic nonsensicalness—it's like someone gave up halfway when trying to come up with a word. It's a bit sarcastic, just like kids like it, and it came from a pop culture touchstone. It worked its way up, in such a modern little cyber-organic way, through the school halls and internet chatting rooms and it's now in a big British book. It even beat out the über-popular Sex and the City term "frenemy," which was being considered too!

Maybe that means that a meh attitude isn't a path to slackerness and failure, but rather an alternative route to success! The meh sentiment demands a lot—impress me!, it yells. And maybe that's a good thing. Or, you know, whatever. Maybe not.

Who cares anyway.

(Probably the place that came up with this ingenious Kwik-E-Mart campaign, replete with a real live Comic Book Guy!) The Halloween episode scored the highest ratings in five years for the animated series. Unfortunately, the Mad Men parodying ended at the title sequence; as much as we wanted to hear Homer say, "It’s not called a wheel, it’s called a donut. Round and a round, and sprinkly delicious. Arhghghllll....dooonuttttt. To a place where we know we are loved," instead we got Homer on a bizarre celebrity killing spree that cost us Prince and George Clooney.

• 'Simpsons' has best night in 5 yrs. [Variety]

When he came out, he did not disappoint. I’m not sure if he got this dress from the rack in the Green Room (he wore black socks and brown shoes with it), or if it’s something he just carries around with him. It was a sleeveless number which revealed his guns, which were quite impressive for a man his age. He looked great - and happy. He had a sparkle in his eye, and we all felt he was truly excited to be here with us. Immediately, The Gute started complimenting Dave, telling him he was adorable. Chris made a comment along the lines of “he’s mine” and for a moment I fantasized about a fight breaking out on stage over Dave.

(So: This appears to be more successful drag than Jake Gyllenhaal's disastrously embarrassing performance of "And I Am Telling You" when he hosted Saturday Night Live. Shudder.)

In the end, good on The Gute, I guess? He's achieved reality star-level fame/derision without having been on a reality show! We just wonder how long he can sustain himself on a protracted hipster joke.

Maybe forever.

· A deal has yet to be signed with The Simpsons's cast, putting the 20th season in jeopardy. Right now, the superstar voice actors make $360,000 per episode; they're asking for $500,000. $11 million for working in sweeeatpannnts....arghghllhghllrlll...
· NBC has picked up Kings—an updated take on the David vs. Goliath story set in "a metropolis under siege," and starring Ian McShane. If it's a hit, expect a whole slew of updated-Bible-story ripoffs, including The CW's short-lived Sam's Son, starring Jesse Metcalfe as the long-tressed hero and Mischa Barton as his wicked seductress. [THR]

While it failed to evoke its majestic, sandy-maned namesake in anything but the most literal terms, the mention still gave us an ever-so-tiny taste of what it must feel like to make the leap from our blandly live-action coil into the glorious, bug-eyed bliss of the animated Springfield universe.

• The Simpsons

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