This is disturbing on at least seven levels.

1. Inherently disturbing: A nine-year-old is performing "Smack That." Alongside these lyrics:

Smack that, all on the floor
Smack that, give me some more
Smack that, till you get sore
Smack that, oh ooh

She "smacks" her buttocks, thrusts her hips, and shimmies her shoulders.
2. A crowd of young adults is cheering her on.
3. ...one of whom is her older sister, who may have suggested the song (0:30)
4. Given Miley's experience with sexualized-young-people controversy, does this sisterly interaction have a whiff of "victim working out her angst by victimizing others"?
5. Noah's outfit looks suspiciously like a Minnie Mouse dress. Since the Cyrus family juggernaut is a Disney creation, this is extra creepy.
6. This version of the video bears the logo of mileyworld.com, Miley Cyrus' official fan site, meaning there is a chance that the Cyrus family and/or their starmakers want Noah to be perceived this way.
7. Noah has been in absurd situations like this before and is a child actress, recording artist, and inheritor to a formidable family mantel. Is it even possible to save this child from the farcically oversexed wilderness of... Disney? Hollywood? America at large?

If you've ever even been slightly curious about Tim Burton, that ultimate disconsolate son of suburbia who's been inviting us into his gleefully bent movie worlds for 27 years now, rest assured your interest will be sated by the show dedicated to the director at the Museum of Modern Art. Opening on November 22nd, it is an almost ludicrously complete assemblage of Burtoniana.

Just about everything one could think of has been matted and framed, up to and including the nascent director's adolescent doodles and prize-winning poster ideas. The director gave the museum curators the full run of his house and assorted papers; they turned up such early gems as a hand-written high school paper titled "Humor In America" ("Types of jokes I've heard and seen: Pollock [sic] jokes (ethnic jokes), Knock-knock jokes, Insults, Stories, One liners, Elephant jokes, Puns...") and this anti-litter poster, which adorned garbage collection trucks in Burton's native Burbank, California, after he won a Keep Burbank Beautiful competition.

A lot of the drawings on display date from the time Burton spent working at Disney, just after attending CalArts. Apparently, while animating such projects as The Fox And The Hound, Burton found he needed a less treacly creative outlet, and badly: most of the sketches from this period betray a mordant sense of humor and the same dark view of humankind that he would later explore in his feature films. Strangely, these images whipsaw between the grim and the twee. Men and women are portrayed as gothic grotesques, or the drawings hinge on kind of sweet little visual puns: a stringy-haired, football-headed woman tugging a string between both ears gets the caption MENTAL FLOSS, for example. Another drawing features two bunny rabbits with baskets of eggs, one saying to the other, "We've been telling the kids the story of Christ all these years...Well, I think they're old enough now to know what Easter's really all about."

The gallery is crammed with material. (Evidently the excavations of Burton's home proved fruitful.) In addition to the sketches and the high school coursework, there are sculptures — seven of which, in the museum courtyard, Burton made specially for the show — movie props, costumes, posters, Polaroids, and assorted notes such as would please the most dedicated connoisseur of arcana. In one corner, Burton's 1983 adaptation of Hansel and Gretel — screened by the Disney channel exactly once — plays. In it, a Japanese brother and sister outsmart a wicked witch with candy cane rhinoplasty who lives in a house that looks like a quivering, pink tongue. There's also a gingerbread man character who talks to Hansel even as he eats him up. "If you think I'm tasty, and you want my body, come on take another bite," taunts the pastry, to the rhythm of "If You Think I'm Sexy."

Visitors enter the exhibit through an immense mouth that hangs, red carpet-tongue extended; in the black-and-white striped corridor behind, Burton's animated shorts play on flat screens. (At the other end, presumably somewhere in the gallery's stomach, is a room lit by UV light, where Burton's blacklight paintings on velvet are displayed.) It is a curatorial choice that seems to cleave to the crowd-pleasing side of things. It's anyone's guess why the curators thought Burton's work needed such a loud proclamation of its difference from typical museum fare as a jagged-tooth orifice; it looks like the sort of thing one might encounter at an amusement park ride.

The man himself described the process of having his work turned out for display as "surreal" and "an out-of-body experience." He remembered to thank the exhibition sponsor, the ridiculously renamed SyFy — "I'm a sci-fi kinda guy" — only at the very last second.

The exhibit includes a life-sized statue of Johnny Depp as Edward Scissorhands, as well as this sketch of the character.

Artifacts from Beetlejuice include this sculpture, a yellowed copy of The Afterlife newspaper ("ECTOPLASM LEAK AT PLANT NUMBER 9" "EXORCISM RATE SOARS"), and Burton's own hand-written notes about the project, which compare it to that other well-known "extreme four character conflict," Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf. In the nearby Mars Attacks section, there are latex severed heads and a gigantic painting of Martian anatomy. Sweeney Todd has a wooden box and an engraved set of cutthroat razors.

Batman is represented by various latex cowls, and Batman Returns merits the inclusion of Michelle Pfeiffer's whipstitched catsuit.

In a class composition Burton completed on September 27, 1974, at the age of 16, he imbued an ordinary trip to the doctor for a checkup and a tetanus shot with a sense of heavy foreboding. "There was a ghoulish smile on his face," wrote Burton, "like he enjoyed sticking the needle in my arm."

Tim Burton has stuck the needle in the moviegoing public's arm for nearly 30 years — by the looks of this show, thoroughly enjoying himself in the process. Long may he continue.

Tim Burton At MoMA [MoMA]

Suddenly the Universe is a very cold and empty place.

• Apparently we are not a nation of people waiting for Amanda Woodward to return to Melrose Place. Heather Locklear's trip back to the series did little to ease its struggles, lifting its gruesome ratings by a mere 15 percent to a 0.8 rating in the 18 - 45 demo. [Hollywood Reporter]

• Meanwhile, just as the world was sending its mocking obituaries to the printers, guess who's having a good week? Jay Leno is up five percent this week, "matching its highest ratings in six weeks." [Hollywood Reporter]

• With two and a half months to go, the Super Bowl's ad space is almost sold out. CBS reports a 90 percent sell-out rate thus far, meaning only six slots are still available. Like everything else these days, Super Bowl ad sales are being viewed as a barometer of the nation's economic health. [Ad Age]

• A Writers Guild report of diversity among its ranks finds "little if any improvement" for the prospects of women and minority writers. Variety writes that the report "found that women scribes remain stuck at 28% of TV employment and 18% in features while the minority share has been frozen at 6% since 1999." [Variety]

• Jennifer Hudson will play Winnie Mandela, the ex-wife of the ex-South African President Nelson Mandela in Winnie, a biopic to be directed by Darrell J. Roodt, maker of Cry the Beloved Country. [Variety]

• Roger Ebert may be off the airwaves, but his influence lives on, remarkably, as the online buzz king. A survey by Nielsen of which critics dominate the internet reveals that Ebert remains a goliath online, crushing all the competition combined. [thehotblog]

• Making 2012's grosses look like the change fallen under the cushions of your sofa, the video game Call of Duty : Modern Warfare 2 reported sales of more than $550 million in the first week of its release. The LA Times puts production costs on the game in the $40 - $50 million range (a fraction of 2012 or Avatar), putting its total budget including marketing somewhere around $200 million. Who's in the wrong business now, movie people? [LA Times]

• Lovely Bones director Peter Jackson told a reporter that, despite his PG-13 rating he had upped the violence in his upcoming film after early test screening audiences "were simply not satisfied" with the depiction of a character's death. [Hitfix]

• Nikki Finke reports that investor Carl Icahn has been snatching up MGM bonds like "A bat out of hell." [Deadline]

• The LA Times reports further on Disney's heroic decision to pull the plug on McG's attempt to America's memories of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea with his remake. The paper writes that execs saw the project, scripted by novelist Michael Chabon as "too dark" and that they will take another stab at it somewhere down the line. [LA Times]

• 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]

• Taylor Swift applied the final throttle to her death-grip hold over entertainment last night, sweeping the Country Music Association Awards. According to The Envelope awards site, at 19, Swift became the youngest person in history to take home the Entertainer of the Year trophy (actually the full name for the award is Coveted Entertainer of the Year Trophy.) She is also only the sixth female in history to take that top prize. While she was at it, Swift grabbed the Female Vocalist, Album of the Year and Music Video of the Year prizes. With her goliath of an album still selling, positive buzz from SNL appearance and the lingering sympathy from her Kayne debacle, entertainment stands at a crossroads from where Swift will either become the only star in show business, or be destroyed by a vicious backlash, no doubt led by cheer captains fed up with this bleacher-sitting, t-shirt wearing nerd thinking she owns this place. Paris Hilton, are you still out there? [The Envelope]

• We have a new video game overlord. The latest Call of Duty (Call of Duty 2: Modern Warfare) sold 4.7 million games on its first day out. That would be $310 million dollars in sales. In one day. Take that James Cameron. [Hollywood Reporter]

• The NFL has declared itself happy with its current line-up of TV deals, with Giants owner Steve Tisch saying at a media conference, "Right now, we feel DirecTV as the exclusive partner is really in the consumers' best interest." [Hollywood Reporter]

• Show biz's most hallowed name MGM, is headed for a fire sale. After a catastrophic few years, the company's debt holders have reportedly demanded it be auctioned off to the highest bidder. [Variety]

• Taking the next step forward in Robert Iger's full-on shake up of the entire Disney studio operation, newly installed Chairman Rich Ross announced a re-org of his team, making the various department heads report directly to him. Still to come: the much anticipated announcement of a new marketing chief. [Variety]

• Like it or not, more Fockers are heading your way. Harvey Keitel has joined the cast of the latest installment of the Meet the Parents cycle, hilariously titled Little Fockers. [Hollywood Reporter]

The state of things was made clear today with the announcement that Miramax President Daniel Battsek would be stepping down. His decision came after news in recent weeks that Miramax headquarters would be moved from NYC to LA and that the company would scale back its annual release slate to three pictures, which is to say the functional equivalent of no pictures.

The shake-up ends the recent decades of dabbling all over the map for Disney and now leaves the independent film world decimated down to its core, with Fox Searchlight, Focus and Sony Classics the only major specialty units still moving at full steam following the departures or diminishments of New Line and , Paramount Vantage.

NOTE: A previous version of this mistakenly item listed Focus Features in the diminished list. We are delighted to learn that Focus is alive and well.

After hearing the news of Cook's departure on September 18, Depp said that his participation in the fourth film, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides—which is tentatively scheduled for 2011 and will make more booty for the studio than J.Lo has when she's retaining water weight—hinged on the quality of the script and his passion for the project. ""There's a fissure, a crack in my enthusiasm at the moment. [The franchise] was all born in [Dick Cook's] office," he told the L.A. Times, hinting that he would not return now that Cook was gone.

Well, Depp is already back walking the plank. A spokesperson from Disney said that Captain Jack Sparrow will not be recast for the movie.

So, guess that goes to show you just how long taking a stand lasts in Hollywood: ten days, give or take. But you have to cut them a break here. I mean, we're all for taking stands, but not expecting a man not to make a fourth Pirates movie — we can't all be Mohandas Gandhi!

And Hollywood hates surprises.

The genial Cook who began his Mouse career as a Disneyland ride operator gave little reason for his decision, merely saying "I have been contemplating this for some time now and feel it's the right time for me to move on to new adventures … and in the words of one of my baseball heroes, Yogi Berra, 'If you come to a fork in the road, take it.'" But Friday night, the town and the internet were abuzz with speculation focusing on Disney Boss Robert Iger's unhappiness with the studio's recent lackluster performance.

Variety's quasi-official rendition noted, "The studio's most recent movies, like "Race to Witch Mountain," "Bedtime Stories" and "Confessions of a Shopaholic" have been disappointments and CEO Bob Iger expressed unhappiness with the studio's slate in a conference call with Wall Street analysts in May."

The LA Times repeated this theme adding, "Internally, Iger was growing increasingly frustrated with Cook's management style, people familiar with the situation said, citing Cook's tendency to play his cards close to the vest."

The LA Times also captured the despair of Johnny Depp, star of Disney's Pirates films. In the item, Depp "said his enthusiasm for a fourth Pirates movie has waned with the news of Cook's exit." Hard to imagine that anyone's enthusiasm for the tiredest mess of a franchise currently afloat could ever wane, but without the right man in the front office, somehow the fun of robbing hundreds of millions of film fans of their popcorn money loses its luster.

Nikki Finke, just "out of the hospital" claims the story as an "exclusive." And indeed her item is timestamped 5:03, so if the stamp is accurate, it was posted a good five minutes before five minutes before Variety's and a full 14 minutes before the LA Times' piece. So for five minutes, Nikki Finke readers were the only people in America who knew about Cook's departure, and presumably the executive who will be named his replacement used that critical window to maneuver brilliantly, sending Robert Iger a fruit basket and a card telling him how much he loves Willow's Huff Post Living Now section, while the Variety reading executives sat at their desks clearing off another game of mine sweeper.

Nikki adds the news that Cook was "blindsided" by the firing, and morally outraged that it would come on Rosh Hashanah. She also adds Steven Speilberg, who just moved his production company to Disney, to the list of people who are very, very upset. Nikki says the news is "playing very badly" on the Disney lot. And you know what happens to news that plays badly on the Disney lot...Well, nothing actually.

The Wrap assures us that Oren Aviv, President of Buena Vista will not be Cook's replacement, and speculates that either Pixar Chief John Lasseter may be positioned for another step up the ladder.

Hoping to become more of a superhero power player in Hollywood, Warner Bros. has been quietly reorganizing its comic arm, DC Comics, to focus its energies on blockbuster hits. They claim they've been working on this for months, but Disney's announcement that it was buying Marvel accelerated things a bit.

Warner had intended to announce details about its plans for DC Comics in January, as it begins a 75th anniversary celebration of the DC brand, Barry Meyer, chairman and chief executive of Warner, said in an interview.

But the Disney announcement resulted in so many questions about the possibly heightened competition "that it would have been disingenuous for us to suggest that we had not been thinking about it." He added that the Marvel-Disney announcement "reconfirmed in us our strong belief in how valuable DC really is."

That remains to be seen. While, yes, DC has the strong Batman franchise and, to a far lesser degree, a burgeoning Superman series, it's also unleashed a slew of stinkers, like Catwoman and Watchmen, which failed to live up to its potential. Marvel, meanwhile, had the X-Men trilogy, keeps rolling out Spider-Man flicks, made three Blade movies, Iron Man and will no doubt make a splash with the forthcoming Thor, Avengers and Wolverine 2 big screen adventures.

DC will have to look mighty hard for characters who can stand up to Marvel's icons. Our suggestion? Neil Gaiman's Sandman. Why, oh why, has that not been adapted?

Image via Madolan's flickr.

More important than printing comics (which, they actually still do!), Marvel is valuable for the merchandising and movie rights to all its characters—over 5,000—many of which have become the massive film franchises that are the lifeblood of the movie studios. The only two studios that aren't dependent on Marvel for summer tentpoles are Disney and Warner Bros. (which bought out DC Comics and its stable of characters including Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman). Paramount has Iron Man, Sony's long been living off Spider-Man, 20th Century Fox lives and dies by how many X-Men,Wolverine, or Fantastic Four films it can spin out and Universal would like you to like The Hulk.

All of a sudden, those studios have just discovered that Disney may be in control of their summer fates. Welcome to your new groveling life, studio executives.

The happy happening will go down at the massive, 800,000 square foot Anaheim Convention Center and will feature all things Disney, including much lauding of Tim Burton's highly anticipated — we can't wait! - Alice and Wonderland. While that's all well and good, Disney president and chief executive Robert Iger hopes the event will help persuade "very ardent" fans to flock to the company's wide-ranging products:

We live in a world where digital communication enables people to express their opinions about things to a much broader set of people. We call it the combustion of digital world of mouth... Their ability to communicate with others is unlike anything we've seen at any time before.

Translation: "We want to make sure the little buggers don't use twitter against us, as they have others." Yes, the D23 Expo may sound simply like a company-specific Comic-Con, but it's far more than that: it's so much more than that. Disney crazed masses can also join "a high-end, elite-level access" fan club.

So, what does membership cost you? $75-a-year. Now, tell us: who on this green planet of ours, in this recession of ours, would shell out that kind of money simply to get into a glorified trade show that doesn't feature comics?

[Image via Getty]

Replacing Lyons and Mankiewicz as hosts of the long-running show, formerly hosted by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, will be A.O. Scott of the New York Times and Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune, two men widely respected in the world of film criticism who have both served as fill-ins on the show in the past.

As the LA Times Patrick Goldstein notes, Ben Mankiewicz wasn't all that bad, but it appears as though he was brought down by the tremendous weight of Lyons' Herculean suckage.

To be fair, Mankiewicz, the scion of a fabled Hollywood family who hosts Turner Classic Movies presentations, was clearly more knowledgeable than his counterpart. As my colleague Chris Lee reported last December, Lyons, son of film critic Jeffrey Lyons, was held in such low esteem in the critical fraternity that others in the profession were lining up, happy to be quoted by name ridiculing his work, with Chicago-based film critic Erik Childress saying of Lyons: "He has no taste. Everyone thinks he's a joke."

So how awful was Ben Lyons? This awful:

You know what hurts a movie like Max Payne is the success of the Batman franchise. That obviously is about story and character so they think for all films of the genre it's gotta be about story and character and this whole backstory of him losing his wife. I don't care about that. I wanna see Max Payne shoot people. That's all I want from a movie like this.

Film lovers of the America rejoice — your own personal long national nightmare is finally over! But what will now become of the "Stop Ben Lyons" blog?

Plus ABC Family! So, phew, you can finally catch up on Greek. (No, really, you should.)

This also makes CBS the only major network to not host any content on the site, because they have a deal with TV.com and old people are bewildered by the internet anyway.

Hulu still comes in third in video site viewership, behind MySpace and YouTube, but in quality, it's so totally the best. And we're not even shilling! We actually enjoy it and use it. Go figure.

[TheWrap]

Oh good for you Carrie, girl! Chris Noth aka Mr. Big aka John James Preston has signed on to be in the next Sex and the City movie. So I guess that means he and Carrie have stayed together. Do I hear the pitter-patter of little Manolo-clad feet? (Hm, sort of!) [Variety]

Disney has picked up the comedy Boss about a dad whose 21-year-old son somehow becomes his, um, boss. Wasn't this movie already sorta made with Topher Grace and Dennis Quaid? Ah well. Expect some sadsack like Tim Allen to get involved and then some shitty little shit to play the little shit. [Variety]

Because disease is very dangerous in spaceships, Star Trek has delayed its Mexican release date due to the swine flu outbreak. [Variety]

Slow and steady actor Danny Huston has signed on to play Poseidon, god of the sea, in the new Clash of the Titans remake. Scottish actor Kevin McKidd is also playing Poseidon soon, this time for the Chris Columbus directed comedy Percy Jackson. It's reported that in both movies there's a volcano that erupts and then a meteor hits earth while Truman Capote looks on bemusedly. [THR]

Jeffery Katzenberg announced the strongest first quarter ever for his DreamWorks Animation, and that he'd be staying on as CEO for another four years. Hits at DreamWorks have included Monsters vs. Aliens, Bee Movie, and the Madagascar franchise. You know, all the not-Pixar ones. [THR]

That's why we at Defamer are always eager to pass along cost-efficient, stress-reducing services geared towards Hollywood's hardworking and high-powered men (and sometimes women, but not today, sorry girls). Look no further, pent-up-eroonies!

NOONER b/j !!!!!!!!!!!!! - 49 (bURBANK)
Reply to: redacted
Date: 2009-02-10, 11:49AM PST

Any Warner Brothers or Disney Execs
up for an AWESOME blow job this afternoon!?!?!?
I am on my knees to please sirs.
lets do it!!!!!!!!!!!!
You deserve it NOW!

Perhaps this could be the perfect opportunity to commemorate the DreamWorks/Disney distribution deal, with representatives from each studio—one in mouse ears, the other holding a fishing rod—availing themselves simultaneously of the Craigslist poster's services in a symbolic coming together as one.

• NOONER b/j !!!!!!!!!!!!! - 49 (bURBANK) [Craigslist]

—The announcement arrived this morning, with Disney slotting six 'Works films per year, as per its usual. The first will arrive next year under the Touchstone banner, and Disney has committed to fronting P&A costs that provided one of several sticking points in the ongoing negotiations with its previous suitors at Universal.

—Regarding that relationship, Kim Masters's Daily Beast survey notes swaths of scorched earth trailing Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider after months of failed negotiations with Uni boss Ron Meyer. Aside from the outstanding $250 million loan that DreamWorks needed to close the deal (which GE offered it after first denying it) and the dearth of HBO slots for DreamWorks films (which Universal had withheld throughout the process before finally offering two of its annual six), there was Meyer's unhappy discovery that the 'Works had in fact been secretly dealing with Disney:

When [Meyer] found out that DreamWorks was in fact talking to Disney, he got on the phone with DreamWorks chief executive Stacey Snider and said she and Spielberg had behaved "like pigs" (as has been reported elsewhere). Other words, like "despicable and deplorable," have also been used.

—Who even cares about Meyer at this point, asks David Poland: "If that's DreamWorks' biggest problem in the next years, they will be dancing in the streets." And anyway, maybe Universal — which already has Brian Grazer's four films per year — is better off standing alone without having to tend to DreamWorks' release slate as well. Cheer up, Ron!

—Plus there's still the matter of DreamWorks Animation, whose industrial traction is improving along with its stock price. The NYT today has both long and short views, neither of which come close to hinting where it might end up in a climate where desperate studios need the soundest cash machine they can get their hands on. And last we checked, Pixar wasn't going anywhere at Disney.

—And just our own nagging question around Defamer HQ: Does DreamWorks' entrance at Disney mean Miramax's eventual exit? And if so, who gets Scott Rudin? We be happy to temporarily set him up here if necessary; the basement cubicles are actually pretty spacious. Just let us know.

Disney recently issued this release for all those female NHL fans who might be in the market for a hot new romcom and the ultimate public humilation"

CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC Ice Block Challenge

WHO: New Jersey Devils' female fans

WHEN: Saturday, February 7, 2009
5:30PM-6:30PM (Pre-Game)

WHAT: With only a high heel shoe as their tool, two women will each try to break through a block of ice to win a $102 gift card to Mandee.

Poor, poor Isla.

• 'Confession of a Shopaholic' Ice Block Challenge [Reuters PR Wire]

As you see, it's eggs. With Disney characters stamped on the shells. Possibly selling at a markup. Is this some kind of tie-in to a movie, or further proof of the evils of agribusiness and the coming apocalypse? And while marketers obviously want to trick kids into believing that the plain old eggs are going to come out magically Mickey-shaped, we want to know: 1. Do the eggs come with the mold? 2. How much does said mold cost? 3. Does egg actually seep out from under edges of said mold, rendering shape unrecognizable, as has been the case in all our experiments with whimsical egg-shapery? The only way I can see this strangely low-fi "new product" swaying any egg-hater is if you give them something shell-on, ie hard-boiled or soft-cooked. Even then, any kid is quickly going to get wise to the fact that it's just a plain old egg, but a prancing Donald Duck might buy you a reluctant bite or two.

Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 10:21 AM
Subject: Business Update

Team:

After months of making hard decisions across our businesses to help us adjust to a weakening economy, we’re now faced with the harsh reality of having to eliminate jobs in some areas.

This was not an easy decision, nor one made lightly. The people affected today are our friends and colleagues, and we are doing all we can for them and their families during what we know will be a difficult transition.

Change is never easy, and becomes even harder to embrace during times of turbulence and uncertainty. With that in mind, I’ve asked each business leader to reach out to their group with more information on this announcement as soon as possible.

I realize this is an extremely difficult day for everyone in our group. But despite the challenges before us, I remain confident and optimistic about our future, because you really are the best team in the business.

Anne

• Disney-ABC TV to cut 400 jobs [Variety]