Also unsurprising: Kimmel was entirely uncritical of Thorton's behavior earlier this month, when the Oscar-winner went off on a well-meaning Canadian DJ for daring to mention Thornton's work as an actor and director. Kimmel told Thornton he completely understands his ire, because "it's rude" to mention a famous actor's acting career... or have a journalist dare say what he's "not supposed to say." Jimmy Kimmel: The Ari Fleischer of the celebrity industrial complex since 2007.

Related: How Dare You Call Billy Bob Thornton An Actor [Gawker]
How The Gawker Stalker Map Works: A Guide For Dummies, Outraged Famous People And Old Folk [Gawker]

Even outside this spot, Cruise and Kimmel have a stiff, awkward relationship. Witness the pair's somehow very wrong conversation on Kimmel's ABC late-night show this past December. It was the most awkward thing... well, since Kimmel had that one guest on and no one knew whether the couple were having sex with each other or not. Which was obviously a totally different situation from the Cruise thing. Entirely.

Now there's this, a bizarre ad that puts Cruise and Kimmel in a hot, handsy, intimate back and forth. Until the end, where Cruise decides the relationship is unnatural, and then kills Kimmel, like some kind of psychotic crazy person. Which, uh, must have required some strenuous acting. Especially because it's not like a male relationship would ever make Cruise just SNAP in some way.

We look forward to seeing this creepy role-playing game between the two men continue, until their relationship gets as odd and twisted as the Kimmell-Matt Damon bond, and we learn something new and vaguely unsettling about the ABC host.

For every admission that Kimmel thought — like pretty much everybody else — he'd be following Jay Leno when he presumably moved to ABC, there are a few less specific allusions to his place in the schema of late-night power brokerage. Kimmel backdoors his way into acknowledging that of course he wants to go up against Conan and Letterman (and hasn't ruled 11:30 out as an option at Fox), but at what cost? Being the guy that killed Nightline? If he doesn't do it, somebody else will, yet Kimmel's high-road holiday indicates he's got other things on his mind. Like toy metaphors:

The rumors have surfaced again lately that ABC's entertainment side is making a run at Nightline.

News always wants as much real estate as they can get, and so does entertainment. I don't know that I've ever met [ABC News chief] David Westin, to be honest with you. I just stay out of it. I'm the action figure in their playground, you know, in their bat cave. But it's weird to be part of this circle of gossip. Especially being a fan of late-night television. It's very surreal to be a character in this story.

So do you want 11:30? Would you do things differently?

Yeah I would [want 11:30], sure. Would I do anything different? Mostly thematic. I don't think the approach of the show would be much different. I'd like to have more staff. [...] There are a lot of boring things I could tell you about, but as far as big changes that would be about it. Maybe we'd need a bigger theater, a theater that looks bigger on camera. We're in a very old building.

So, for the record: Kimmel "stay[s] out of it," then in the next breath alludes to the ways Jimmy Kimmel Live has outgrown the confines of its 12:05 ghetto. Guests are improving but still trickling down to the El Capitan after earlier shows, if at all. In his own words, he's on the "very tail end of television as a big money-making business." A perfect time to stay out of it, Jimmy, no doubt. Now might be the time for that David Westin introduction, preferably with a few of your representatives. Unannounced. In a parking garage. After hours. That's where all the best deals are made. Make yours already.

• Q&A With Jimmy Kimmel [B&C]

After Kimmel ran a clip from the offending sketch, the actor—in a studied bit of business borrowed from any number of Scorsese-DeNiro collaborations—fastidiously plucked a stray thread off his dress shirt as he pledged to "crack [the Hot Rod star's] big fucking nose." The only thing better than a celebrity feud is a celebrity feud with lightly anti-Semitic undertones and the potential of skull fragmentation. Still, we think his tough-guy bark is worse than his bite, and Samberg needn't start truly panicking until Wahlberg pledges, in a clever twist on one of Samberg's greatest hits, to deliver the young comic his own nuts in a box.

• Jimmy Kimmel Live!

In this clip cut together by our very own Molly McAleer, you'll see two sides of the very same story coming together and then exploding before your very eyes. Here's a quick primer. You see, Mr. Don Draper himself, Jon Hamm, appeared on the Live With Regis And Kelly show on Thursday morning. Little did he know, both Regis and his wife are huge fans of the show Mad Men. They're such big fans, in fact, that the 77-year-old Regis thought it would be fun to spend a little time after the show with Hamm, going as far as to invite him over to the Philbin's apartment. Being the good sport that he is, Hamm agreed to hang with Reege and Joy for a few hours, posing for pictures and making small talk until other obligations rescued him from what was undoubtedly an awkward situation.

Up until this point, it was a win/win for all parties involved. Hamm endeared himself to a showbiz legend and Reege got to hang with an actor who likely reminds him of his 1960s glory days. (As you'll see in the clip above, Regis is still beaming four days later.) However, Hamm submarined himself by being unable to hold his tongue about how he really felt about spending time with the Philbins when he came on Kimmel's show on Friday night. Rather than save the story of Regis' wacky behavior for the afterparty in the green room of the El Capitan, he made the cardinal mistake of derisively referring to one of Hollywood's most endearing and popular fixtures as "an elfin force of nature" and a "crazy showbiz guy." Boo!

Jon, we know your intentions were in the right place. You were on your friend's show, you had a great story and you just wanted to make the audience laugh. However, poking fun at a beloved institution like Regis is miles apart from poking fun at a tired old windbag like, say, Larry King. Save the barbs about how "crazy" Regis is for when you're kicking back with a few beers at your buddy Kimmel's house, versus sitting on his chair with cameras trained on you and millions thousands of people watching. If you want your career to have legs, that's a lesson you'll want to learn sooner rather than later.

• Jimmy Kimmel Live! [ABC]
• Live With Regis And Kelly [Buena Vista]

She is absolutely NOT banging Jimmy Kimmel. She was promoted from assistant to staff writer, and then from staff writer to head writer. Where's the controversy there? That's kinda how it works in this biz.

Also, as a matter of interest, Molly has been with her boyfriend for 3 years, and believe it or not was in Africa ministering to orphans when this story broke (that's not sarcasm, I swear). The truth is that one of Jimmy's BFFs works as a writer on the show, and Molly and another writer tried to let him go. He complained to Jimmy, got his job reinstated, and then sought a little revenge via the interwebs. The sad thing is that this is tearing Molly up.

• Previously: 'Us Weekly' Liveblogs Sarah Silverman's Post-Jimmy Kimmel-Breakup Brunch Of Despair [Defamer]

"We're trying to resuscitate this franchise from the fucking cellar!"

We kid, we kid. We applaud Ed Norton for his willingness to poke fun at the public and industry perception of him (and also for not caving into the pressure to turn this into an unbearable "I'm Fucking The Hulk" sketch). And while we would've liked to have seen him add a bit of pseudo-intellectual heft to the normally inane talk show publicity circuit, it's worthwhile to note that he did hit the red carpet at the film's premiere and resisted the urge to heckle Liv Tyler when she botched Coldplay's name at the MTV Movie Awards. And while we doubt that the lack of Norton on Letterman made any real dent in Fanboy Nation's appetite to cream their purple jean shorts at the multiplex this weekend, there is one question that remains unanswered that would make for the journalistic score of the first-half of 2008: what does Ed Norton really think of the film?

• Jimmy Kimmel Live! [ABC]

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