Our previous post about a beehive outside MTV's Santa Monica headquarters, in which we voiced our concerns that the aggravated honeymakers might be a divine symbol meant to foreshadow the impending fires and brimstone to soon come hailing down upon our quaint, seaside community, was read by a Defamer operative, who was then instantly reminded of another such ominous foretelling at almost the exact same location—a power outtage at Lionsgate HQ next door, to be precise, which occurred on Halloween day. The video above, made by a Lionsgate employee during an investigation into the cause of the blackout and distributed to the entire company, reveals the horrifying and gruesome truth behind what happened that day. Watch it if you dare, and merely await the coming of the final sign—a pack of albino coyotes wandering in from the North Hollywood hills to wreak havoc on the Universal backlot—which shall mark the official beginning of the End of Hollywood Days.

Please be advised that there is a bee's nest in the tree on 26th street outside the main entrance at 2600. For those of you that are allergic please use extreme caution when walking from 2600 to 1633.

Thank you.

Yes, we know that we have a somewhat hysterical tendency to ascribe every out-of-the-ordinary occurrence at local entertainment industry outposts to some kind of Divine punishment for Hollywood's myriad sins, but consider the other signs we've been sent lately: an unseasonable, record-setting heat wave, the Evan Almighty conflagration, and perhaps most chillingly, Tom Cruise's new studio gig. With this latest, ominsouly timed swarm, He might really be trying to be tell us the end is nigh.

• Hollywood PlagueWatch: MTV's Bees [Defamer]
• Hollywood PlagueWatch: Fox's House Of Bees [Defamer]

· "Universal Stage 27, where they have been shooting Evan Almighty for the last few months, is on fire. They have four ladders up against the building and there are at least 15 firemen axing, chainsawing and extinguishing the barn doors. This is also the stage Tom Cruise always uses, and I'm sure there is some symbolism there but I am too smoke-logged to think of it."

· "I got out on the lot to find (on my count) seven fire truck clustered around Stages 22 and 28. The trucks were labeled LAFD, Burbank FD, and, in one case, FDNY. (Odd.) No one on the ground knew what was going on, though one guy said he saw them sprayed water with their hoses. Anyway, I found out eventually a welder on Stage 27 set off a fire and burned up an entire door."

Sure, a welder's unfortunate error is a completely plausible explanation for the conflagration, but we won't completely rule out the possibility that God Himself sparked the blaze, hoping that an unanticipated setback of this scale might help the producers of a movie inspired by one of His favorite Bible stories reach their goal of making The Most Expensive Comedy Story Ever Told.

As always, your updates and cameraphone photography of short-sighted studio personnel trying to extinguish the Creator's latest Hollywood Miracle are appreciated. Developing...

[Photo: TheStudioTour.com]

• Complete Plaguewatch Coverage [Defamer]

As part of our continuing mission to provide up-to-the-minute coverage of potential Apocalyptic disasters unfolding at the studios where your industry peers thanklessly toil, we pass along this photo and distress message just transmitted from a cameraphone over at Nickelodeon:

"Fog machine goes awry at nickeloedon... Not serious but building evacuated..."

We have no idea what the emergency medical protocol for fake fog inhalation is, but we're confident that Viacom will make sure its employees receive the appropriate level of care. As always, your reports from the scene and/or aftermath of these events are always welcome, with updates provided as soon as they're available. Be safe.

UPDATE: After the jump:

Our still-choking operative updates:

Enclosed is a pic of the culprit, a brand-new, brand-defective fog machine one of the crews was testing out for Halloween atmosphere. Note the melting. Since the offending calamity involved both smoke and fog, I imagine this is the first production that was evacuated because of smog engulfment. Happy Halloween.

More good news: So far, no fake-fog-related fatalities have been reported, a fact for which we can all be thankful.

• Hollywood Floodwatch: Hollywood Center Studios Threatened By Ominously Brown Water [Defamer]

A sewer pipe busted here at Hollywood Center Studios, and there are thousands of gallons of brown water torrenting down the streets and into studios and offices. Not sure yet if it's poowater or not.

We welcome updates from any souls brave enough to wade back through the potentially tainted floodwaters to their computers or offer their cameraphone photography of the scene. But should the raging waters not recede, we recommend that you seek higher ground until rescue parties and relief supplies arrive from nearby the nearby Paramount and Raleigh Studios lots.

UPDATE: An update from the lot momentarily puts our mind at ease: "A water main broke at HCS, and my staffers and I just went to investigate - it's mud and not feces folks! All is clear. Chill out and go get yourself a latte a the HCS cafe."

There you have it: Mudwater, not poowater. An environmental cataclysm may have been avoided.

• Previously: Breaking! Paramount Burning? [Defamer]
• Breaking! Paramount's Blackout: UPDATE [Defamer]

Bees on the Fox lot.

Bee swarm, Stage 14, House.

No witty internal memo regarding said pests to pass along, but a grip may have been allegedly stung.

We're grateful that this swarm seems to have appeared so late in the day, when most potential victims have probably headed home, but employees should exercise extra caution when they return to work tomorrow. No one wants to see their assistant go down in a hail of stings before they've safely completed the morning Starbucks run.

• Hollywood PlagueWatch: WBees [Defamer]

The fast-moving outbreak has killed 7 Namibians and paralyzed 33 more, and panicked citizens have deluged hospitals seeking immunization against polio. But there was very little vaccine in the country — only enough for routine vaccination of infants — so supplies quickly ran out and people were turned away. [...]

Namibia, a desert country of 2 million people on Africa's southwest coast, is rarely in the news, but it has seen intense coverage in gossip columns recently because Angelina Jolie gave birth there on May 27 to her daughter with Brad Pitt.

It was not clear yesterday whether Namibia's most famous newborn, Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, had been vaccinated against polio. The vaccine is not normally given until a child is two months old, but immunizations at birth are being done experimentally in parts of India where the disease is endemic, Dr. Heymann said.

We have no doubt the child's storied healing abilities ensure immunity for herself and her family, though their decision to high-tail it to a polio-free Malibu doesn't sound like the worst idea at the moment. Scribes of the New New Testament, meanwhile, are watching events closely, trying to figure out how so much preventable death and suffering could possibly accompany the arrival of the Chosen One.

• W.H.O. Judges Polio Outbreak as 'Highly Unusual' [NY Times]

• Namibia: Mystery Disease Kills Three [AllAFrica.com via Drudge]
• Hollywood PlagueWatch: The Return Of The Black Death [Defamer]

• Case of bubonic plague confirmed in L.A. [AP]

You can add Warner Bros. to the list of studios under attack. Swarms of bees have been positively identified on the Burbank lot. The nucleus of the attack seems to be the patio of the Without a Trace production office where a hive has unassumingly nestled in a potted plant, unbeknownst to the office production assistants who are forced to eat outside. File this one under "paying dues."

We hope that this report moves someone at Warner Bros. to immediately eliminate the hive, before Jerry Bruckheimer TV's practice of covering its PAs in honey when casting them outside to dine turns from good-natured hazing ritual to an unspeakable tragedy that might result in costly production delays.

From: [redacted] Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2006 3:32 PM To: M_MTVN_LA CC: [redacted] Subject: Bee's nest

Please be advised that there is a bee's nest in the tree on 26th streetoutside the main entrance at 2600. For those of you that are allergic please use extreme caution when walking from 2600 to 1633.
Thank you,
[redacted]

We trust that the threat has long been neutralized and that all MTV workers quickly returned to their day-to-day activities without fear of swarm-induced anaphylactic shock.

Tomorrow in Hollywood PlagueWatch: The Warner Bros. lot experiences intermittent showers of bloody frogs.

• Breaking: Killer Bees Attack Sony! [Defamer]

[A friend] just called from the Clark Gable building on the Sony Lot to inform me that a huge swarm of what appear to be Africanized bees have invaded. Their building has been sealed (with the workers trapped inside) while the fire department, etc. try to figure out what to do.

If anyone has any information about this sudden, Biblical-level plague, drop us a line. Especially if it turns out that the panic was a misunderstanding caused by sartorially exuberant studio head Amy Pascal golf-carting around the lot in a bee costume to drum up support for a reimagining of 1978's The Swarm.

UPDATE: A employee from the Gable building gives an update:

We weren't exactly trapped...they let us out through a back door, but the killer bee situation was problematic. We had someone come for an interview this afternoon and she didn't know about the entrance in the back of the building. She is allergic to bees, and described the terror of having to run through the swarm into the building.

It's all pretty ridiculous.

Having to exit through a back door does't quite have the pop of "trapped," but that can all be massaged in the editing room. We still think Sony Presents: Killer Swarm! smells like a hit.