Since Totally Pauly first terrorized audiences back in the 80's, looming over his entire career was the specter that this young man's style of stoner-goofy might have consequences far beyond just his own act. Pauly Shore came to prominence not just as a novelty act in his own right, but as the Prince Hal of comedy; son and heir to Mitzi Shore, owner of the the Sunset Strip's famed Comedy Store which has launched the career of decades of giants.

History however, will note the intervention of a benevolent god which saved the universe from this fate, in bestowing upon Mr. and Mrs. Shore a second son, Peter, who, as the suit reveals, has stood as a bulwark between Pauly and world comedy domination. The suit provides a fascinating glimpse into the strife and discord roiling the first family of hack comedy.

The Hollywood Reporter has details of the suit, filed by Pauly against his brother Peter, "alleging Pauly was improperly removed from the family company's board of directors and suggesting possible elder abuse of their ill mother, Mitzi Shore."

According to the report, Pauly, Peter and Mitzi jointly control the Comedy Store, with Peter serving as CEO. The suit however, alleges that Peter too advantage of Mitzi's ongoing ill-health (she suffers from Parkinson's) to win her vote to remove Pauly from the Store's Board of Directors, and subsequently denying to even fill Pauly in about the company's business. Pauly's suit seeks to overturn his removal from the board, thus restoring him to his rightful role at the forefront of hack comedy.

Future generations will never know the comedy magic they might have known had The Weasel been an only child and been able to remake the trade's most hallowed venue in his image. But to Peter Shore, lovers of comedy everywhere should send their eternal gratitude.

It's one of the ironies of Morgan's career that he's found bigger stardom as the star of a parody of Saturday Night Live than he ever did on the real thing. And in his upcoming book, I Am the New Black, he mentions who treated him like shit, namely then stars Chris Kattan and Cheri Oteri. Morgan writes, "All I have to say about that is, where's Chris Kattan now? Where's Cheri Oteri now? That bitch can't even get arrested."

But the grudge apparently runs even deeper, because when Morgan sat down to record the audio version (in the clip above) of that passage, he started ad-libbing, expanding on his earlier points: Morgan says he still counts Will Ferrell, Molly Shannon and Colin Quinn as friends, but as for Oteri and Kattan: "Fuck 'em."

Amazing. It's not everyday you hear Tracy Morgan acting like a demanding, slightly unhinged television star who feels underappreciated by his co-workers. It's more like every week.

We're told Mogan will be at the Union Square Barnes & Noble Thursday Oct. 22 at 7pm if you want to see if he'll curse more old colleagues.

Moore's press train began last week on Good Morning America, when he took some time to rail against the show's use of "permalancers," a group that's basically permanent, but don't get the benefits and, therefore, count as the underdog. It was all very amusing and true, and provided Moore with a great excuse when CBS "canceled" his appearance on tomorrow's Early Show. From a tweet Moore posted Sunday morning:

Backlash Begins: CBS has cancelled [sic] me on its Mon. morning show. After I criticized ABC/Disney on GMA, they didn't want me to do same to CBS.

While that could be true, CBS bookers tell media scallywag Rachel Sklar that they never booked him. Moore's people, though, tell a different story: they were negotiating a firm date with CBS, but then CBS got all diva about getting the sit-down after GMA already landed Moore:

I can accurately say that the bookers who book the show have definitely been in discussion with us to have him on the show. When we attempted to confirm the booking they said they didn't want to follow GMA.

Hmmm. So, Moore, we're assuming, knew CBS had said they didn't want to follow GMA, but tweeted that the network was scared of his inflammatory nature. Why are we not surprised?

Anyway, Moore's assertion, however valid, only brings the spotlight back to him, which is good when you're promoting a movie. And the movie's doing well, by the way: it opened with about $306,000 on four screens. That's the higher per-theater average for the year. Love him or hate him, Moore's a hit machine.

Did CBS Cancel Michael Moore? [Mediaite]

McCain, the Senatorial daughter who managed to become a media sensation by bucking conservative idiocy, used her ever-important Twitter today to raise hell against director Breck Eisner's remake of Creature from the Black Lagoon:

Is there a remake of "Creature From The Black Lagoon" coming out?!? Tell me hollywood isn't ruining my all time favorite movie...

Sorry to break it to you, Ms. McCain, but Hollywood has indeed honed its sights on your favorite movie. And it's coming out in 2011. Our condolences.

But, while McCain's all revved up and looking for celluloid blood, can we please direct her to Day of the Day of the Triffids? If there's one movie that should remain untouched, it's that. Oh, Triffids and The Tingler. Unless someone can exhume and reanimate Vincent Price, we're not interested.

Love posted a long, rambling, incoherent screed to MySpace last year that seemed to say Adams owed her money for production of his album Rock n Roll. Adams responded indirectly and cryptically at the time. But now Adams has decided to set the record straight, after Love last week posted another barrage on Twitter, writing, "anytime 'ole Ryan... wants to see his bills, he can, I'm right here" — and after we erroneously said Adams was Love's "ex-boyfriend" when we reported that barrage,

Adams' publicist sent us the following statement from the singer:

"I have never had any romantic, personal or financial involvement with Courtney Love. She is confusing me with her ex, who produced my Rock n Roll record, which was financed solely by Universal Music."

Courtney Love confused about her commitments and losing track of all her money? Do you really expect us to buy that?

(We've updated the original item.)

For those of you familiar with the Real Housewives of Atlanta series — and you should be — NeNe Leakes and Zolciak are enemies. Not total rivals, but they're definitely not friends. Anyway, their relationship has only been strained by "Tardy," a song quite popular with RuPaul's posse and the gays, as exhibited by this iTunes "also bought" tally:

Now, as the song spreads like an aural herpe, NeNe has spoken out to claim the track for her own.

"Tardy For The Party" was my song. Now she's doing "Tardy For The Party," and I'm not on it. I don't care if I'm not on it.

Um, she clearly does. Or should. Those of you who watch the show, mouths gaped in horror, know that the song started as a collaboration between the women, but then Kim recorded her own dance version. Later, after falling down at a party and taking advantage of the spotlight, Kim the cancer-faker played the hijacked track and took the credit. That's shitty.

So we implore all cross-dressers, kitsch lovers and other Kim "fans:" transfer that love to NeNe. She's not afraid to speak the truth in the face of the truck stop nightmare called Kim. Anderson Cooper, will you lead the way?

Pink's "Get This Party Started" accompanied Abdul's entrance and, considering the lyrics, — "I'm Coming Up" — makes us wonder whether Abdul was trying to intimate that Ellen has a big ego. Plus, "I'm coming up" sounds like "coming out," which could be a dig at Ellen's lesbian ways. Then, looking back earlier in the day, Abdul said that American Idol would be a "different show" with Ellen in the judge's seat.

If you ask us, that sounds like a backhanded compliment from a woman whose love of money cost her a position in America's biggest spotlight. Now she's forced to make a spectacle of herself while dressed as the woman who replaced her.

But, have to admit: Abdul does do a knock-out job mimicking Ellen's mannerisms.

An army of record companies filed a lawsuit against Ellen's eponymous talk show for using their beloved, popular and oh-so-profitable songs without paying the price. Motown, Atlantic, Virgin and a host of other companies claim Ellen and her producers used their products in the talk show host's "dance over" segment, which involves the comedienne dancing toward her daily guest. It's all very fun, but, according to the record companies, also illegal. And Ellen knew that!

As sophisticated consumers of music, Defendants knew full well that, regardless of the way they rolled, under the Copyright Act, and under state law for the pre-1972 recordings, they needed a license to use the sound recordings lawfully.

Humph. Here we thought the music industry was about bringing happiness into an otherwise dismal existence. Now we learn they're only about profits. The horror!

For their part, Ellen's producers apparently responded to the lawsuit by claiming they don't look into licenses because they don't "roll that way." Fair enough.

Demi says he pushes kiddie porn. Perez says she's a bad mother and he's gonna sue her. All the fuss is over some pictures that Perez linked to some pictures on his Twitter account of Tallulah Willis (also daughter of actor, Bruce) partying in a very revealing blouse. If you really need to see it, it's here.

Demi opened with a salvo that failed to explain just what her 15-year-old daughter was doing at a Cobrasnake-documented party in the first place:

Clearly Perez Hilton isn't taking violating child pornography laws very seriously. He might not but there are alot of people who do!...Anyone who advertises follows or supports Perez supports violating child pornography laws!...Let me ask all of you, what is it called when someone is telling people to look and focus on a child's "boobs & ass" while providing photos?

Perez responded by taking the moral highground, a dubious tactic for a fellow who made a name for himself by drawing cum on celebrity pictures:

And thanks for drawing MORE attention to your daughter's behavior and your parenting skills (or lack thereof). U r real smart!...Still waiting for you to retract your incorrect, libelous and defamatory statements...I would not let my 15 year old daughter dress like that under ANY context. You are delusional and slightly senile!

Yes, it was in bad taste to post them, Perez, but it's hard to take Demi's sanctimonious claims seriously (her last tweet reads, "This is not a game . Children should not be exploited. They must be protected.") when she allowed her daughter to go to the party in the first place. And Perez just keeps baiting her. Even moral compass Heidi Montag has weighed in! So, why don't you two put down the smart phones, pick up some common sense, and give it a rest. You're making Tallulah look like the sane one here!

The Late Shift, a 1996 HBO movie based on a book by the New York Times' Bill Carter, chronicled the infamous struggle between David Letterman and Jay Leno to replace Johnny Carson as the host of the Tonight Show after his retirement. Higgins, in an interview with Starpulse's Mike Ryan, said that he knew at the time he was offered the role that the film would be controversial and that he risked facing a backlash within the notoriously petty industry for taking the role, but at the time he was a struggling actor who desperately needed $300 to fix his broken-down car.

They had a hard time casting it for that reason. And he was very powerful — and is. He didn't like the project from the beginning and didn't make it easy for me — or for anyone doing that project. It was (pauses) it was hard. I took it because I needed to fix the steering column on my Subaru is why I took it. I needed $300 or I wouldn't have a steering wheel. So, I ended up making more than $300 but in the end it's one of those jobs you just can't... I could not turn it down. I may be able to turn it down now, but I couldn't at the time. It would just be completely crazy and irresponsible.

You know, it was scary. I was scared of it. No question. Actually, doing the job itself was a tricky acting challenge but I had had harder acting challenges onstage. That part wasn't so bad, it was the appendant hoopla which was difficult for me to navigate and I didn't do it that well because I was so inexperienced. There was a lot of press, there was a lot of interviews and comparing me. And [Letterman] was saying things about me on his television program. It was difficult. I didn't know what I was doing.

I had a lot of help from HBO's publicity department who was holding my hand through it because I suddenly was in a rather glaring spotlight. Mostly not because of the project, which was good, but it wouldn't have gotten all that press. It was mostly because of the nature of the project. An inside, big Hollywood story where people were actually getting represented on the screen. People who are alive and well.

It was a great opportunity and it was really daunting and scary. It was like, "Should I do this? This could end it all. This could start and end the whole thing." Thankfully, it didn't.

Higgins also said that Letterman has refused to speak to him in the years that have passed since, though he was booked to appear on Letterman's show, only to get bumped without explanation.

There was a famous incident where he invited me to the show and I got bumped off the show. Everyone sort of tried to figure out what happened there ... it's odd though, it's an interesting job. It's really interesting to industry people. To still be talking about a job I was in 12 years ago is very unusual.

Back in February, Letterman invited the mother of the late comedian Bill Hicks onto his show so he could apologize publicly for a slight he perpetrated upon Hicks back in 1993. Maybe one day Letterman can invite John Michael Higgins to join him on the air to talk about The Late Shift and put all of the animosity to rest. We think it's be a tremendously nice gesture, not to mention something that would make for very compelling television, don't you think?

John Michael Higgins Talks [Mike Ryan/Starpulse]

"It does not appear that she's going to be back on 'Idol,'" says Paula's manager David Sonenberg. He's tried and tried to get some sort of deal from producers FremantleMedia and 19 Entertainment, but well... we all know what it means when Hollywood doesn't return calls. Blame new judge Kara DioGuardi. Paula's status as Queen of AI felt rocky as soon as there was a new girl in town. We smell a catfight!

Ryan Gay/Straight/Gay Seacrest, meanwhile, sits pretty and overly tanned with his three-year, $45 million deal. Oh, Paula, we love you, because you're cra-ay-ay-azy! [EW]

He was a gay equality advocate on Miss USA, but then he was calling Will.I.Am "gay" like it was an insult in a nightclub. He did so to get under the singer's skin, but then when he did, successfully, get under his skin he got very upset at the results, even though he had thought the man a "thug" before pushing his buttons so he had to imagine it might get physical.

Now Hilton's trying to figure out if he's sorry or not. At the moment, the answer is, "Um, sort of:"

I wanted to hurt him with the word I chose, not anyone else. Unfortunately, the one who got hurt was me and, subsequently, a lot of other people. I wish none of it had happened.

I can't take it back. I did what I thought was best at the moment to stand up for myself in a non-violent yet still assertive way. Clearly, I am not homophobic... I will continue to say things that upset both gay people and straight people... I've come to terms with all my incongruities and am proud of who I am and what I do.

In closing, words can hurt. But words should not provoke someone to violence.

Hilton goes on, since the words "in closing" came less than halfway through his post. In closing, Perez Hilton makes no sense, and all efforts to make sense of him are futile.

The blurry footage doesn't allow you to really see the gossip blogger getting hit in the face, but the strike isn't dramatic enough to rise above the drunken din. Which of course will not keep people from blogging endlessly about it, for months.

UPDATE: Comments enabled.

There's already been an arrested in connection with the incident. Toronto police have charged 36-year-old American Molina Liborio with assault in the case. This sounds like Will.I.Am's manager, known as "Polo Molina," who Hilton had fingered as the man who punched him and who had previously turned himself in to Toronto cops, according to TMZ.

The attack occurred shortly after Will.I.Am repeatedly demanded Hilton stop writing about him and Hilton, by his own account, called him "gay" and a "faggot" to get under his skin.

Which, honestly, is the sort of over-the-top hissy fit anyone would expect from the Perez Hilton, Scourge of the Internet. That Perez Hilton is so shameless his brand is practically bulletproof; he runs sex pictures of a beloved gay icon and people barely bat an eyelash.

But Hilton's been trying to overhaul his image and turn more nice and advertiser-friendly. Which makes it unfortunate, for him, that he's talking defensively about his own meanness in the widely-viewed video (above) about this incident, which he also documented on Twitter (below).

Although Hilton's demolished his image rehabilitation, he can take solace that nothing he ever does will ever destroy his brand as the web's most shameless gossip. Still, Will.I.Am still looks worse here, for managing to underline Hilton's (shudder) clout as a music critic and writer with an angry confrontation. Can we somehow conjure sympathy for the guy who called someone else "gay" and "a fag" in a tawdry nightclub fight? Yes, apparently, we can.

In the second segment of his show, Dave opens with a gag about the digital TV conversion and then has one of his writers pretending to be a fake protester march out behind him. This leads into his Top Ten, the subject being "The Top Ten Things Overhead at the 'Fire David Letterman' Rally," the highlight of which was number three—"When does Cheney get here with the waterboarding equipment?" And then "Lyle the Intern" shows up to mock Letterman's recent public embarrassment.

Meanwhile, we anxiously await Dave going after Palin regularly with both barrels blazing. He just has to do it, right?

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By apologizing again, not only is Letterman giving legitimacy to Palin's ridiculous claims that his "perverted" jokes inspire sexual mistreatment of women, but it also breathes new life into an issue that had sort of fizzled out of the news cycle over the weekend. Besides, does he really think that Palin will ever accept any apology from him? Of course not! This will just give the media another opportunity to stick cameras and microphones in Palin's face so she can continue to bray on and on and on about "ole David Letterman" being a dirty old man. He'd have been much better off ignoring it and letting all of this fade away, as it was already beginning to do, but instead he winds up essentially vindicating Palin's unwarranted indignation instead.

Regardless, here's what Letterman said at the taping of his show today, which is set to air later tonight:

"All right, here - I've been thinking about this situation with Governor Palin and her family now for about a week - it was a week ago tonight, and maybe you know about it, maybe you don't know about it. But there was a joke that I told, and I thought I was telling it about the older daughter being at Yankee Stadium. And it was kind of a coarse joke. There's no getting around it, but I never thought it was anybody other than the older daughter, and before the show, I checked to make sure in fact that she is of legal age, 18. Yeah. But the joke really, in and of itself, can't be defended. The next day, people are outraged. They're angry at me because they said, 'How could you make a lousy joke like that about the 14-year-old girl who was at the ball game?' And I had, honestly, no idea that the 14-year-old girl, I had no idea that anybody was at the ball game except the Governor and I was told at the time she was there with Rudy Giuliani...And I really should have made the joke about Rudy..." (audience applauds) "But I didn't, and now people are getting angry and they're saying, 'Well, how can you say something like that about a 14-year-old girl, and does that make you feel good to make those horrible jokes about a kid who's completely innocent, minding her own business,' and, turns out, she was at the ball game. I had no idea she was there. So she's now at the ball game and people think that I made the joke about her. And, but still, I'm wondering, 'Well, what can I do to help people understand that I would never make a joke like this?' I've never made jokes like this as long as we've been on the air, 30 long years, and you can't really be doing jokes like that. And I understand, of course, why people are upset. I would be upset myself.

"And then I was watching the Jim Lehrer 'Newshour' - this commentator, the columnist Mark Shields, was talking about how I had made this indefensible joke about the 14-year-old girl, and I thought, 'Oh, boy, now I'm beginning to understand what the problem is here. It's the perception rather than the intent.' It doesn't make any difference what my intent was, it's the perception. And, as they say about jokes, if you have to explain the joke, it's not a very good joke. And I'm certainly - " (audience applause) "- thank you. Well, my responsibility - I take full blame for that. I told a bad joke. I told a joke that was beyond flawed, and my intent is completely meaningless compared to the perception. And since it was a joke I told, I feel that I need to do the right thing here and apologize for having told that joke. It's not your fault that it was misunderstood, it's my fault. That it was misunderstood." (audience applauds) "Thank you. So I would like to apologize, especially to the two daughters involved, Bristol and Willow, and also to the Governor and her family and everybody else who was outraged by the joke. I'm sorry about it and I'll try to do better in the future. Thank you very much." (audience applause)

Meanwhile, a very Drudge-esque "Fire David Letterman" website has sprung up on the internets, with a protest planned outside of his studio for tomorrow. Do you think the leaders of the "Fire Letterman" movement are going to back off in light of this apology? Of course not! The site was created by Palin documentarian John Ziegler, a Los Angeles-based talk radio host who Palin says tipped her off to Letterman's jokes last week, so you can bet that this is all being planned and coordinated by Sarah Palin and her cronies.

Rather than settle an fading issue with a gentlemanly apology, we believe that David Letterman may have just opened up another can of worms for himself.

UPDATE:Here's the video of Letterman's apology:

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David Letterman's Apology [TV Week]

Letterman, who has taken over the ratings lead in late night television, read Palin's rambling statement in its totality and did offer a sort-of apology, but also expressed some annoyance over the fact that the Palins were making a big deal out of what he's been doing every night for 30 years—Making jokes about people in the news.

Finally, Letterman invited the Palins to come on the show as guests and admitted to being guilty of "poor taste" with some of his jokes. But come on, let's be real here—The joke about Palin looking like a slutty flight attendant was funny because it's true!

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John Koblin did his heroic best to explain What It All Means: The accelerating decline of Variety, the rise of celebrity Twitters; the enduring but increasingly preposterous hope of the Los Angeles Times, the swagger of self-made blog bigfoot Nikki Finke; the "clubby" world of pre-internet Tinseltown reporting, the ambitions of upstart blogger Sharon Waxm—

"I do think it's kind of surprising that Sharon Waxman even has a blog," [former LA/NY Times reporter Anita] Busch told us. "I think she's even one of the worst journalists I've ever encountered."

Uhhh...

"Her site is getting no traffic and is inaccurate and boring..." Finke said.

OK, well, maybe we could get back to a constructive dialog about how the economic misfortunes of movie studios have maybe accelerated the decline of printed med...

[Variety's Brian] Lowry, in a blog post singling out [LA Times' Patrick] Goldstein, calls him lazy, petulant and a weak reporter. "Now you have this blog, ‘The Big Picture,' so I'm thrilled to see... you squeeze out more than 800 words a week," wrote Mr. Lowry.

Right. We'll skip right over the discussion of economic viability amid the decimation of advertising revenue in the print-to-online transition, then, and just ask if anyone else want to hurl some fecal m...

"The way [Finke] twists things and the way she always manages to bend the facts-and I put facts in quotes-is in a way that suits her..." Ms. Waxman... added. "People around Hollywood are terrified of her."

Alright, fine, bottom line: In case the example of New York wasn't clear enough, Los Angeles media also illustrate how technology and fragmentation are reviving the old tradition of feuding. As longtime Variety kingpin Peter Bart explains to Koblin, we're going back to the 1930s, when Louella Parsons competed ruthlessly with former friend Hedda Hopper to dominate Hollywood gossip. Everyone is at one another's throats.

No, the Waxman-Finke rivalry isn't exactly hot news, but the point is that more of these little squabbles are erupting all the time, if only because there are so many would-be media alpha dogs in this period of flux, before the inevitable consolidations and shakeouts that make life boring again.

Seeking a final bit of illumination on that, we excitedly emailed Koblin's piece to a media source who quickly replied, "I thought only Hollywood bloggers cared about feuds created entirely to bait traffic, but I totally forgot about the New York Observer!"

Oh, my.

Then again, what did we expect? Welcome to the future. It's kinda bitchy!

[NY Observer]

(Illustration via)

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.