• You may want to just give up on life: Kristin Cavallari is getting $63,000 per episode to "play" a "villain" on The Hills. [PopCrunch]

• A hotel employee on Madonna's backup dancers: "Horrible." "Notoriously difficult… rude… presumptuous and cheap." [Page Six]
• Breaking: Uncle Jesse John Stamos is "conceptualizing" a Full House feature film! The Tanners' triumphant return! [Gatecrasher]
• David Carradine's death is still a mystery — he was found in a sitting position, but with a yellow rope attached to a closet bar around his neck. "We believe that Mr. David committed suicide but it is suspicious," says a police official in Bangkok. [People]
• Further details show that David Carradine may have died "from "auto-erotic accident." [Yahoo News via AFP]
• David Carradine will be seen on his Tuesday's episode of Mental. [E!]
• "Britney Jean Spears was not born into a stable home. She was born into a dysfunctional disordered one because of her father's alcoholic rages… She was on Prozac at 18… Britney was prescribed Prozac but she treated it like headache tablets, taking a pill only on the days she awoke depressed. This seemed to make her more manic…" [Mirror]
• While Britney's in London, she'd like to drop in on the Queen. [Mirror]
• Susan Boyle is out of the hospital and already has an offer to perform for Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher — for £30,000. Also, the portrayal of her as a crazy cat lady persists, since this paper claims she left the clinic because "she could no longer bear to be parted from her family, friends and beloved cat Pebbles." [Daily Mail]
• Krist Novoselic, former bassist for Nirvana, is running for clerk of Wahkiakum County in western Washington. Apparently he is running under the "Grange Party" banner, even though the Grange isn't a political party; it's a protest of the state's system that lets candidates say what party they prefer when running for office. [USA Today]
• The Slumdog kids are in Hong Kong today, where they will sing and dance (?) at a charity event. [AP]
• Lance Armstrong Tweeted in the voice of his new baby boy, writing: "Wassup, world? My name is Max Armstrong and I just arrived. My Mommy is healthy and so am I!" [E!]
• The woman who claims she was assaulted by Sacha Baron Cohen while he was filming Bruno says her injuries are "life-altering," as she suffered brain bleeds and sometimes requires assistance walking. [TMZ]
• Jennifer Lopez was "really nervous" before working on her new flick, the Back-Up Plan, because, she says, "What if I forgot how to act?" Or! What if you were never really good at it in the first place??? [National Enquirer]
• Jay-Z will release his Blueprint 3 album on Sept. 11. Interesting choice of date. [Billboard]
• Living on St. Lucia has had an affect on Amy Winehouse's sound and she is recording with "local musicians" who play traditional island instruments. Sounds… awesome? Whatever, just release some new music! [The Sun]
• Kelly Bensimon — seen here in a rather see-through dress — says of Real Housewives: "I think it was not exactly me just because I was incredibly guarded. I was a nervous wreck! Like after the show, Jill said to me, 'You're such a nice person, why weren't you like that on the show?' I felt badly too because I didn't get to see the real me." So you were being fake then? Interesting. Oh, she also says: "On Planet Kelly, everything is happy, the grass is really green, people are really really nice .... There's, like, fun everywhere and there's excitement and new opportunities all around. It's a really great place - you should come!" [NY Mag]
• Amanda Seyfried's latest film, Letters To Julliet, starts shooting soon, but her leading man hasn't been cast yet. Who would you like to see Amanda fall in love with? [Telegraph]
• Wait! Gael Garcia Bernal has signed on to star with Amanda Seyfried in Letters To Juliet. [Variety]
• Sienna Miller and some other celebs wrote a letter to Nobu restaurant in London which reads: "We feel strongly that blue fin tuna must be completely removed from your menu as it is an extremely endangered animal." [The Sun]
• Other celebs protesting the use of blue fin tuna: Woody Harrelson, Elle Macpherson, Sting, Trudie Styler, Charlize Theron, Stuart Townsend and Alicia Silverstone. [Page Six]
• "Agency Feeding Frenzy Over Ice Cube." The actor/rapper, not the unit of frozen water. [Deadline Hollywood]
• Kate Beckinsale was supposed to play Barbarella in the remake? But lost out to Rose McGowan? Hmm. We'd always heard it was Rose. [Daily Express]
• This review of a recent Mandy Moore show claims that she was "strangely tentative onstage" until the last song, a "rootsy" cover of her pop hit, "Candy," which she "seemed to enjoy more than anything else in the set." [NY Times]
• Shannen Doherty is selling her Malibu home, which has interesting contemporary architecture and a pretty nice pool. Also dig the exposed beams in the living room. [CasaSugar]
• In other 90210 news, Jason Priestley will direct and online series called The Lake. [Reuters]
• Is Jennie Garth a Twihard? She makes husband Peter Facinelli dress up as his Dr. Cullen character all the time, he claims: "She says, 'Put the doctor's coat on!' I'm like, 'Again?'" [Gatecrasher]
• M.I.A. has a record label called N.E.E.T. and this track, "Bang!" is from Rye Rye, the first artist signed. Just the thing to get jumpstarted on a sleepy Friday. [ConcreteLoop]
• "Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neal planned to wed in Germany this spring but organisers couldn't arrange the big day in time." [Daily Express]
• Gene Simmons passed a kidney stone and promptly sold it on eBay — for charity. Charming! [Mirror]
• "Boris Becker goes wedding dress shopping with his fiancée Lilly Kerssenberg." She is awfully pretty. Together they certainly cut a figure. [Daily Mail]
• Phil Spector's 28-year-old wife denies she is a gold digger: "I don't take anything from my husband, and I never have. I'm a good person, but people don't see any of that or know how hard I work. I can weed whack. Rip out walls. Lay tile." Also, her pantsuit is 10 years old. "I've had this since high school." She does, however, wear a 9-carat diamond she and 69-year-old Spector "designed together." And now that he is in jail, she always has her hot pink BlackBerry with her: "I never know when he is going to be allowed to call. Whenever he calls, I answer." [LA Times]
• RIP Shih Kien, who played Bruce Lee's enemy in 1973's Enter the Dragon. [AP]
• "Being married is like being on a game show and you're always in the lightning round. I have a podium in my living room, and in the morning I hit the clicker button: 'I'll take Movies That I Think We Saw Together for 200.' The woman is always the returning champion from last week: 'I'll take Details of a 10-Minute Conversation We Had at 3 in the Morning Eight Years Ago...' " — Jerry Seinfeld. [E!]
• "I still can't believe we have a president who is mixed like me. It's one thing that we have a black president but for me it's even crazier because he's mixed. I feel like I come from a smaller off shoot of black people because I am mixed. People say I'm African American but that doesn't include the other half of me. I can't believe I'm living in a time where I feel proud of my president where I feel like things are actually positive and people feel good about where our country can be." — Maya Rudolph. [Women & Hollywood]
• "[Nurse Jackie] is physically low maintenance — that was a huge appeal. Very much like I am. I didn't want to spend a lot of time in makeup. On Sopranos, the nails, the hair, the makeup and the jewelry was very not who I am. It was fun, but after eight years I was ready to try something else." — Edie Falco. [Reuters]
• "All directors compare themselves to Orson Welles, who did his masterpiece at 26. So when you start and you're nearly 40, you're like, 'Oh god, I'm so behind.'" — Michel Gondry. [Independent]
• "I have a pretty amazing personality, and I'm pretty intelligent. Don't just write me off as a pinup" — Megan Fox to Elle. [Page Six]
• "A very smart person told me once what other people think of me is none of my business. ... I do not Google myself. I know that's only going to end badly." — Edie Falco. [Reuters]
• "We do not hang out." — Jill Zarin on the Real Housewives Of New Jersey. [Gatecrasher]
• "I don't know why that's either untapped or overlooked or not done well because there is really no excuse for it. This is a perfect example of it [being well done]. It's not as if women don't exist. I will say that in general there is a lot of crap in the world. It wasn't until I was thrown in the water on day 1 of Saturday Night Live where they said you write for yourself. That's what everyone does. I learned the enormous power of writing for yourself, especially now that people seem to be receptive to the fact that women can write." — Maya Rudolph, who stars in Away We Go, on why women are sometimes underwritten or ignored in Hollywood films. [Women & Hollywood]
• "I can't think of anything more horrible than sharing what I'm doing all day" — Renée Zellweger to Glamour on why she won't use Twitter. [Page Six]

Lesson 1: Ice Pops Are Not A Sufficient Meal
D.J. Tanner desperately wanted to look good in a bathing suit for dumb ol' Kimmy Gibbler's boy/girl pool party. Sadly, she decided to obtain the perfect body by subsisting on "ice pops" and working out too hard at the gym. After passing out during a somewhat creepy family fitness excursion (who goes to the gym with their dad, real uncle, and fake uncle, at the age of 13?) , D.J. learns an important lesson: crash diets don't work. Years later she will look back on this incident as the beginning of her seething hatred for the Gibbler. The Gibbler remains oblivious to said hatred and sends D.J. a Christmas card every year with "HOLA, TANNERITO!" written in hot pink marker across the front.


Lesson 2: It Is Important To Not Leave Your Mom's Side At The Grocery Store
The entire premise of Punky Brewster is built on the horrifying incident wherein Punky's mother just ups and ditches her at a grocery store. This terrified me throughout my childhood. If I lingered too long in the cereal aisle, trying to decide between Boo Berry and Count Chocula, and my mother had wandered along to the next aisle over, I had a full out panic attack and started truly believing that I would end up an orphan living with a curmudgeonly photographer. This show is the reason why I insisted upon riding in the cart until I was about 10 years old. Thanks, Punky.


Lesson 3: For The Love Of God, Take Off That Refrigerator Door Another lesson from the crew at Punky Brewster comes to us via Cherie Johnson, who decided to hide in an abandoned refrigerator, and ended up passing out due to lack of air. She was later rescued via CPR, but not by stupid Allen, who had neglected to pay attention in CPR class. Therefore, there are three lessons here: don't hide in a refrigerator, take the doors off of your old refrigerators, and pay attention in CPR class, lest you end up looking like a total tool, Allen-style.


Lesson 4: The Nerd Next Door Just Might Have A Magic Machine That Makes Him Cool
Have a Steve Urkel in your life who won't leave you alone? Perhaps you can take inspiration from Laura Winslow, who actually fell in love with the nerd after he "transformed" into Stefan Urquelle. Because being super shallow and falling in love with someone only after they give themselves a magical makeover and lower their voice a few octaves is just a classy thing to do.


Lesson 5: Just Don't Give A F&*k
If there's one thing we can learn from Kimmy Gibbler, it is to just be the most annoying, loud, ridiculous version of ourselves we can be. Because nobody stops the Gibbler. NOBODY. And if you cross the Gibbler, you'll be labeled a "geekburger with cheese" for the rest of your life. So watch yourself!


Lesson 6: There's No Hope With Dope, Caffeine Will Mess You Up, And Driving Drunk In A Toga Is Always A Bad Idea
Over the course of the series, the kids of Saved by the Bell showed us the dangers of smoking pot, popping pills, and drunk driving. Caffeine pills derail super feminist genius basketcase Jessie Spano's geometry midterm AND her pop group, Hot Sundae; a visit to a toga party results not only in a totaled car, but a totaled lack of trust between the kids and their parents after drunk driving is revealed as the cause; and smoking pot, according to the "Johnny Dakota" episode, results in turning you into a giant Hollywood douchebag with no hopes or dreams. The episode also provides us with Lisa Turtle's best line: "You know, when I wanted to talk to you, I couldn't. And now that I can? I don't want to." OH SNAP!


Lesson 7: You can't always get what you want
That's pretty much all we ever learn from Jan Brady. Life sucks sometimes, even for kids who have their own traveling singing group. And yes, I know she is technically a 70's sitcom heroine, but I grew up watching the reruns as a child. A middle child. A sad, doomed, brace face glasses wearing middle child. I'd tell you more, but I'm late for a date with George Glass.


Lesson 8: Be Your Own Designer!
Does your brother need an awesome designer shirt? Pull a Denise Huxtable and create your own Gordon Gartrelle rip-off. So what if it's slightly ill-fitting? That's what makes it unique.


Lesson 9: If You're A True Friend, Someone Will Thank You For It
Rose, Sophia, Blanche, and Dorothy taught us several things: namely, that women don't become sad sexless beings as the age, but instead live full lives with great friends and wacky adventures. The most important lesson of the Golden Girls, however, is that a good friend means more than anything in the world. And also that St. Olaf is a slightly bizarre place.


Lesson 10: Your Family Will Stand Up For You In The Most Awesome Way Possible
With Claire Huxtable or Julia Sugarbaker on your side, even the biggest jerks will be put in their place. Here, we learn that even if you and your sister don't always get along, she will shut down a hater in your name with love and sass:

What lessons did you learn from the ladies of the 80's? Feel free to post them in the comments.

A Very Special Episode [SanFranciscoChronicle]
Earlier: 10 Cheesy TV Show Opening Credits

1.) Full House, obvs. What didn't make the list was Taradise — Tara Reid's now defunct travel show — but that's only because I scoured the internet for it and it's NOWHERE to be found. Anyway, here's the rest of the list.

2.) Here's Blossom, and her face.

3.) Bridget's Sexiest Beaches has maybe the worst/best song.

4.) I cannot even wrap my mind around the intro for the latest installment of The Real World/Road Rules Challenge. I don't know if I should mock them, or applaud them for keeping straight faces during their performances.

5.) Remember when Oprah sang her own theme song with Patti LaBelle? I tried to find the actual opening sequence used for the show, but Oprah controls the world and internet now, so we'll have to do with this.

6.) I genuinely like the theme song for the canceled soap Passions, but it gives no indication that this show involves sorcery and dolls who come to life as little people.

7.) I love to hate staged opening credits that feature cast members doing things, and then stopping and looking at the camera. Case in point: Family Matters

9.) I find Night Court to be guilty of this as well.

10.) Even though Ray Charles was obviously still alive when this Designing Women theme was filmed, it looks like they're all hanging out with him in heaven.

Bonus:I don't know why I loved Zoobilee Zoo so much as a child, because really, I should have been terrified.

• Actress Tara Reid has checked herself into Promises Treatment Center for unspecified reasons. "She checked in herself – it was her decision," says a friend. [People]

• Phylicia Rashad, who is perhaps best known for her role as Claire Huxtable on The Cosby Show, has signed on to be the next Jenny Craig spokeswoman. [People]

• Amy Winehouse has reportedly been serving meals to fellow patients during her stay at a London hospital "in a bid to avoid being kicked out."[TheSun]

• Is Scarlett Johansson the new face of Dolce & Gabbana? [StyleFile]

• Want to see a video of 9-year-old Britney Spears? Eh? Maybe? Click here. [People]

• Jennifer Hudson has cancelled a music video shoot for her next single. "The video was set up before the tragedy and she felt like she should finish what she started," says a source, "but she's realized that she's not ready to go back to work."[US Magazine]

• Hugh Hefner's sons are split on the idea of multiple girlfriends; his 18 year old, Marsten, isn't into it, but his 17 year old, Cooper, says: "I can imagine doing that. I don't think it's an odd thing to do. You date around to try to find a connection with some girl." [US Magazine]

• It's official: Hugh Jackman will be your Oscar host. [E!]

• Joel Madden won't be buying Nicole Richie diamonds for Christmas this year: ""She appreciates more of the creative rather than something like a diamond," Madden says, "She's not really into diamonds."[E!]

• Tommy Hilfiger and Dee Ocleppo were married in a top-secret ceremony in Greenwich, CT last night; the bride, groom, and the Justice of the Peace who married them were the only people in attendance. [PageSix]

• Billboard has named Chris Brown 2008's Artist of the Year. [NYTimes]

• The recession is so bad that even American Idol doesn't have any cash to spare: the program's "Idol Gives Back" episode has been cancelled for this upcoming season. [NYPost]

• How rude! The Full House spinoff is a no-go after all. A source claims it's "completely dead." [E!]

• Sad news: 40's hearthrob Van Johnson has died at the age of 92. [NYTimes]

• Ouch: CNN calls The Day The Earth Stood Still a "a preachy, draggy blockbuster that espouses a radical message of Luddite technophobia at the same time as it conspicuously plugs Honda and LG Electronics, and dresses up its half-baked thinking in blinding (but not that brilliant) CGI wizardry." That was way harsh, CNN. [CNN]

• Brad Pitt must have read your comments about his creepy pornstache: "It's fashion. Who am I without creative facial hair? I consider it very brave." Yeah, well, that doesn't explain the bloody hats. [People]

Rumor has it that Uncle Jesse Cochran Katsopolis himself, John Stamos, is working on a "semi-remake" of the syrupy series that would center around D.J. and Stephanie Tanner, those two kids who shared the spotlight with the bazillionaire Olsen twins, back in their pre-verbal celebrity days. Candace Cameron Bure, who has recently returned to acting after some time off, and Jodie Sweetin, who has recently made headlines with her meth addiction, subsequent recovery, marriage, and subsequent divorce, have been in talks with Stamos to get the series off the ground. As for the plot? "We would revive our characters, but today as young women," Cameron Bure says.

Part of me really, really wants this show to happen, purely out of curiosity. Will D.J. Tanner go by Donna Jo? Does Stephanie still say, "How rude?" Are these two women a bit messed up from being raised by an obsessive-compulsive father, one uncle who constantly wore a talking woodchuck puppet on his hand and another who was 88% convinced that he was reincarnation of Elvis? And did Aunt Becky finally realize how insane it was that she agreed to raise her family in an attic? And, perhaps most importantly, what of Kimmy Gibler?!

But the more dominant feeling I had, upon reading this article, was this: with every reincarnation of a childhood favorite, there comes a sense of ickiness, a realization that you are no longer 9, and these characters are no longer interesting, or funny, or real. They are scenery from a trip you can't take again, weird ghosts from a you that no longer exists, and much like watching Indiana Jones chasing bloody aliens, you begin to view the stars of your childhood memories through a lens of "perhaps I should have just lived with the memories." Because honestly, when you see a child star of your youth all grown up, you have no choice but to recognize that you're grown up, too. Indiana Jones suddenly looks like your dad. Adult D.J. Tanner looks like a woman you work with. And Transformers, even with all their special effects, just look like robots in disguise courtesy of some really awesome technical tricks.

It's also a bit strange, I imagine, to be in Cameron Bure or Sweetin's shoes: our nostalgia, in a way, is also theirs, and who can blame them for wanting to go back to a period in their lives where they were beloved by audiences everywhere? At the same time, however: does anyone really want to see Jodie Sweetin dive back into the role that set her on that Child Star Downfall path? And if Candace Cameron and Jodie Sweetin have to return to the roles that made them famous in order for us to pay attention to them, or to care, what does that say about the options they have? Or the options that we, as viewers, are willing to give them? Is rejecting the idea of a Full House return a way of saying, "You were only worth watching as an adorable child star," or is it, in a form, a way of saying, "We grew up with you, but it's time for all of us to move on to new things."

Still: if they gave Kimmy Gibler her own talk show, I would totally watch it. You know she'd call someone a "double geekburger with cheese" and all hell would break loose. How rude!

A Full House Remake, Original Recipe? [NYPost] via [TV Tattle]

"They keep their boyfriends warm at night??" I remember whining at my dad (who did something like roll his eyes and say, "Maureen, no one took the Beach Boys seriously until 'Pet Sounds'," as if that was something I should have known.)

But anyway, in the spirit of nostalgia and slow news days, I started trying to remember other things that used to get me, like, RAGING mad on behalf of womanity. The Good Earth. (Meanwhile, the Good Earth movie, which was full of white actors, was offensive on numerous other levels pertaining to civil rights, but that's another story.) The year our monsignor fired all the female altar servers. My mom ranting about how she never should have taken my dad's fucked up surname. Oh my god, and all old movies. Below, a clip from a 1961 movie musical that STILL TOTALLY STILL MAKES ME WANT TO KILL MYSELF, even as it is also almost hard to look away and years later I ended up using this movie to appease girls I babysat. In Rodgers' & Hammerstein's defense, Nancy Kwan is, at least, legitimately Asian:

• Harry Potter! Yup, we pre-ordered our copy of the last-ever Harry Potter book. And we get to pick it up at 12:01 am tonight. We're super nervous about what's going to happen, too. We think that Snape isn't evil though. But we have a sneaking suspicion Harry is going to die. And we will be reading it all weekend to find out. No judgments, please.
  
• So, President Bush has banned torture. Wow took him long enough, huh? Also, we have about as much faith in this executive order as, oh, Paris saying she's never done drugs. [BBC]
  
• Bush is also getting a colonoscopy tomorrow. We just hope that Cheney doesn't go and revoke that executive order during that one hour when he's the acting president while Bush has a lighted tube shoved up his ass. [MSNBC]
  
• And if either Bush or Cheney cared at all about justice, they would do something to free Genarlow Wilson. [CNN]
  
• Wait, what?! David Beckham isn't even sure when he's going to feel up to playing soccer? Make it stop. Please. [E!]

• Former Full House-er / meth addict Jodie Sweetin gets hitched! Aw, there's hope for all of us now, isn't there?! [Yahoo!]
• Ok so blah blah blah Kim Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker finally kissed and made up and now the Sex and the City movie is going to happen, right? Um, not so much. Chris Noth (aka Mr. Big) hasn't agreed to participate. Cry, Daily Candy-ites, cry. [Extra]
• 2 U.S. casualties and 1 missing sailor identified. [DoD]