That said, big ups (do the kids still say that?) to the 4442-year-old Stacey Dash, who looks like she hasn't aged a day since Clueless (that's more than we can say for Alicia Silverstone). Sure, our sister blog Jezebel thinks that her can-do spirit in the face of broken ribs had more to do with money than competitive desire, after watching her bungee trapeze routine, we prefer to think of her as having the heart of a champion (not to mention the body of goddess). If we didn't have such strong opposition to yet another show filled with judges with questionable qualifications —who was that lispy yet flexible French woman, anyway?— we would tune in again next week to see how she does. Speaking of judges, if you're looking to find judges to sit alongside American Anthem himself, at least have them be named Barnum and/or Bailey. And one day, when we find ourselves turned away from the pearly gates for the nefarious actions that we have committed in the name of blogs, we fully expect to see NBC shill-for-hire Joey Fatone working as a maître d' in the Seventh Circle Of Hell's karoake bar. Nevermore, quoth the elephant trainer, nevermore!

• Celebrity Circus [NBC]

Jeremy Piven: Piven's sole endearing schtick may be his continuous decision to bring along his mother, acting coach Joyce Piven, as his date to all the big awards show. But considering his history of venomous counter-mom attacks, plus the fact that Joyce trained the far more accomplished John and Joan Cusack, Jeremy is in need of overcoming some very complex issues.

Ben Silverman: The Peacock Prince is, of course, overseeing the show itself, but who better to learn from Ryan how to untangle the apron strings? Despite all the self-love and a head so large we tend to confuse it with a pinata, our Ben has to deal with the fact that his TV exec mother Mary may be responsible for his seat atop the NBC throne. As a NY Magazine story once quoted Mary, "I came home from work one day, and Ben said 'You know what, Mom, [NBC] is my channel and I'm going to run it when I get big.'"

Justin Timberlake: So many issues to work on here! For one thing, Lynn Harless infamously harped on JT for dumping Britney back in the day, tsk tsking him for ruining their Mickey Mouse romance based solely around matching denim outfits. Secondly, like Piven, Timberlake is fond of producing Lynn as his awards show date, despite the fact that she insists on showing more cleavage than Dolly Parton. And after that recent Madonna diss on Ellen, in which Justin essentially bashed all women over 40, we'd like to see Seacrest help these two kiss and make up.

[Photo credits: Wireimage]

• NO ALPHA MALES [NY Post]

While still simmering about the Berg incident, Emmanuel [sic] arrived at the executive dining room at Universal, where he was to have lunch with film studio chairman Marc Shmuger. As fate would have it, Shmuger's boss—Universal Studios chief Ron Meyer—was meeting Silverman there that day. In fact, the two couples were in adjoining booths. When Emmanuel [sic] spied Silverman, he delivered a tongue-lashing, touching on Silverman's lifestyle and its impact on NBC-Universal's business. He didn't whisper. ...

At the lunch, the almost-always-affable Ron Meyer tried to keep out of the line of fire. But we're told that afterward he advised Silverman to mend fences with Emmanuel. [sic] Eventually, the two met and at least nominally made up.

Great! Now that that's resolved, it's on to Slate's copy editors. Here's hoping the resolution is as swift and serene, if perhaps more permanent; Masters also reports that Silverman was back to talking shit by the end of the day. Kids these days, seriously.

• Hugging It Out [Slate]

"[Broadcast] will also be where we launch our episodic storytelling vehicles, but they will be living and breathing everywhere," he said. [...]

"Around our new offerings there will literally be shows that end on air and the last scene will continue online," he said.

When asked about the reputation he has developed in his short time on the job as an entertainment chief who works closely with marketers, he said that's due to the new generation of showrunners who are "friends" of advertisers. [...]

"Tina Fey loves American Express. They have been inside '30 Rock,' in the show. They have supported her through the Tribeca Film Festival," he said. "[Heroes creator] Tim Kring enjoys his relationships with Nissan. He felt Nissan helped empower the growth of that show."

Indeed, so jazzed is Tina Fey about the encroachment of corporate interests upon the storytelling process, she personally championed an upcoming 30 Rock B-plot in which, apropos of nothing, a man in a Soy Joy costume is gang-raped by the writing staff, his dead-eyed, still-convulsing body then dumped off the roof of the show's titular address and gored on a hot dog cart's umbrella below. The product integration is virtually seamless!

• NBC's Silverman: Broadcast to Be Event-Driven [tvweek.com]

"Rock," which has been airing at 8:30 p.m., will now benefit from having the Peacock's red-hot laffer "The Office" as its lead-in. "Scrubs" will inherit "Rock's" earlier timeslot.

Slot switcheroo is a no-brainer. "Rock" has been renewed for next season and is a key part of NBC's sitcom strategy going forward. "Scrubs," meanwhile, will air its final NBC episode in a few weeks.

Despite the brain-free nature of this schedule switcheroonie, we suspect the move was due at least in part to the increasingly racy nature of 30 Rock's plots— a restrategization prompted when Silverman swung into the writers room to congratulate the team on strong debut ratings, and glimpsed a dry-erase board covered in a grid plotting the next 12 Rock episodes by character and illegal sex-act.

• NBC rolls '30 Rock' into hot time slot [Variety]

While all we did was laugh and giggle ourselves silly throughout NBC's Thursday night lineup, we have yet to watch primetime television alongside any rugrats. And even though Seinfeld had its Contest and Friends got their hands dirty towards the end with talk of Rachel's fictional tranny stump, NBC's legendary sitcoms of yore rarely spelled it all out for us, favoring subtle references to all the sexy stuff over blatant bleep-worthy mention. So what's totally awesome Ben's excuse? As his lapdog Mitch Metcalf explains, times, they are 'a changin': "Metcalf said that the family-hour designation should be seen as offering 'direction for program development...Those days and those audience expectations are gone.'" Ah, so parents should really just get with the times and start teaching their little ones about the fiscal benefits of airing shows starring "holy hot mamas." Well hey, if Ben wants to invite the kids to party on MILF Island's Erection Cove, party they will. Just don't hold your breath waiting for our RSVP.

• TWO NBC SITCOMS TEST BOUNDARIES OF TASTE [NYT]
• NBC STAKES OUT A FAMILY-FRIENDLY POSITION [NYT]

The Who Wants to Be a Millionaire-ization of The Office will begin with hourlong episodes of the U.S. original in September, followed by a very special post-Super Bowl airing and the premiere of the spin-off. The show will be joined in the fall by the currently titled SNL Thursday Night Live, which plans to steal some of that Daily Show Indecision '08 glow with four politically themed half-hour segments.

Four new series will debut in the fall: Christian Slater drama My Own Worst Enemy, comedy Kath & Kim, Knight Rider and Crusoe. Other new entries include dramas Merlin, The Philanthropist and Kings. Friday Night Lights will return in the winter (Tim Riggins, swoon), along with Life. And thank Marissa Cooper, Josh Schwartz will star competitive with sudden super-producer Rob Thomas with more Chuck.

• Full NBC schedule takes shape [Variety]

"It's very hard to find companies in the nonscripted space that are prolific creators and owners of content and whose last names don't begin with 'S' or 'B'."

Endemol will have a 51% interest in 51 Minds, which will remain independent, in Los Angeles, with its 200 person staff intact. The goal for both companies: expand their exploitation of people, both already famous and desirous of fame, to continued success. We all win in this one, people!

It's an innovative deal where NBC found a partner who will share costs and exhibition windows," an insider explained.

While Finke also reports that the network execs in Burbank definitely received scads of mini-footballs in a show of support from the show's loyal audience, there isn't any indication at press time that shattered lightbulbs made it any further than the mailroom. Either way, congratulations are due to all who fought for the show to survive. Don't get too excited, though, for all this news really means is that you've just bought yourselves another 365 days in which to start planning NEXT year's "Save Friday Night Lights" campaign. We'll see you then ... same bat time, same bat channel.

• EXCLUSIVE: NBC Picking Up 'Friday Night Lights' After Partnering With DirecTV [DHD]

· More guild award results: The 10th annual Costume Designers Guild Awards gave Blades of Glory (contemporary), Sweeney Todd (period), and The Golden Compass (fantasy) their top honors, with the Platinum Codpiece awarded to Sacha Baron Cohen for excellence in the package-stuffing arts. [THR]
· Monk is back for a seventh season. Yay! Who doesn't love a little more Monk? We're definitely going to get around to watching an episode this go-around. [Variety]

[Photo: Flickr]

Tortured metaphors aside, selling off the company should free Silverman from some of the annoying conflict-of-interest questions that lingered even after he officially ceded control of Reveille upon being anointed Peacock Emperor last year, allowing him to focus his energy fully on the wall of huge flat-screens in his office that display feeds of high-rated international series from which he can select his next wildly successful adaptation. (Our guess: a nighttime soap about a Panamanian schoolteacher who secretly moonlights as stripper to pay for a hymen-restoration procedure.) And once the check clears, expect the bitchingest celebration this town has ever seen, as the party-loving executive rents out the entire Chateau Marmont for a week-long bash, where Silverman and the army of genetically engineered Silverman clones he can now easily afford can throw down together while surrounded by a few thousand of their best Hollywood friends.

• Company Behind Many TV Hits Is Sold [NY Times]

· Behind one of the lowest-rated Grammys of all time (which managed a meager average of 17.5 million viewers—not even the red-hot Andy Williams, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard could save them!), CBS manages a Sunday night Nielsen win. [Variety]
· The Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. estimates that the strike cost the local economy $2 billion, about four times more than the 1998 walkout that lasted six weeks longer. [THR]
· The Visual Effects Society rewards the genius of Michael Bay's Giant Fucking Robots vision, handing Transformers (and the Industrial Light & Magic team who put those creepily realistic lips on Optimus Prime) four awards. [Variety]

Yes, that's right, much like Jericho and Roswell before it, Best Week Ever is encouraging fans of Friday Night Lights to show their support for the series by making use of the USPS. However, unlike sending packages filled with peanuts and Tabasco, Best Week Ever is not encouraging fans to appease the hungry suits in Burbank by sending them foodstuffs. Rather, they would like fans to mail in light bulbs with the words "Lights On" written on them. Sounds like those poor souls who man the NBC mailroom might want to invest in some thick work gloves, as we're fairly certain that a good number of those bulbs will break in transit. No matter what the end product looks like when it arrives on Ben Silverman's desk, we're just happy that his mailbox will soon be full of something other than little love notes to himself. Good luck, kids!

• Save Friday Night Lights [BWE.tv]

· The ongoing, informal talks between the WGA and the studios will reportedly feature cameos by News Corp's Peter Chernin, Disney's Bob Iger, and one or two other exciting "mystery moguls." Fingers crossed for a Moonves sighting! [THR]
· The obligatory, morning-after "American Idol crushes all comers" blurb: 26.8 million viewers tune in Wednesday night, Fox romps to an easy ratings victory, network rivals rend their flesh in helpless frustration, etc etc.[THR]
· Mark your calendars and prepare your Sarah Michelle Gellar headshots, Buffy fans: a cast reunion is planned for the upcoming William S. Plaey Television Festival; even more exciting (to us, anyway): A Very Special Night of Mad Men. [Variety]

With Mr. Silverman seemingly on the verge of uncharacteristic self-abasement, I asked if he were an outsider who had read all of his comments this past year, would he like himself? What would he think of that bragging, partying executive in the press?

But Silverman is always Silverman.

"I'd think: 'I want to go hang out with that guy!'" he said. "'I think that person is real.'"

Struck by this unexpected realization of his own awesomeness, Silverman produced his ever-present BlackBerry and began furiously tapping away at the keys, telling his inquisitor, "In fact, I totally want to party with Ben tonight. I'm texting him right now. We'll chill at the Chateau and talk about what a genius idea bringing Gladiators back was—I mean, look at the ratings! It's the same fucking show as it was, like, twenty years ago! So good!—and kick around Steve McPherson a little bit, it'll be so epic. Damn, I hope he's around. Last time we tried to get together he blew me off because he said I was acting too clingy and desperate. Whatever! Full of yourself much? But still love that guy."

• 12 to Watch: Ben Silverman [TV Week]
• Previously: NBC's Ben Silverman Blames 'Mean, Ugly' WGA Nerds For Ruining His Golden Globes Prom [Defamer]

· In other NBC-related news, Selma Blair is in negotiations to join Molly Shannon in cast of the sitcom pilot Kath & Kim, another adaptation of one of those pre-approved foreign hits Silverman loves so dearly. [THR]
· In what could be the most optimistic words written about the WGA/AMPTP war in weeks, Var welcomes the beginning of informal, post-DGA-deal talks between the studios and Guild thusly: "Today could be the beginning of the end of the three-month writers strike." [Variety]
· NBC's block of Must See Screaming At Briefcases And Failed Pro Bodybuilders Shooting Tennis Balls At Part-Time Personal Trainers TV (i.e., Deal or No Deal and Gladiators) romps to Nielsen victory on Monday night. [THR]

Reilly, who memorably joined the Fox family following the Memorial Day Massacre, is now the one who gets to make his rivals cling to such crazy hopes as his weapon of mass primetime destruction lays waste to everything in its timeslot path, though he can't have been happy to discover that last night's Idol offering was the juggernaut's lowest-rated premiere in four years and down 11 percent from the 2007 debut. Still, that's barely a fart in the Nielsen hurricane considering that it (preliminarily) drew an average of 33.2 million freakshow-hungry viewers (we attribute any loss of eyeballs entirely to the network's misguided decision to hold back Paula Abdul from her critically acclaimed, nap-riddled What The Hell Is She On Today? promotional tour), and more than enough for Reilly to carry through on any potential, revenge-motivated plans to strike back at his Peacock usurper by scheduling a series of "American Idol Presents A Musical Fuck You To Ben Silverman" specials wherever the NBC perfect storm chooses to run his beloved new episodes of American Gladiators.

• 'American Idol' Premiere Lowest Rated in Four Years [TV Week]

6:59pm: This back-alley broadcast came to an end about 58 minutes or so too late. Billy Bush, who we're convinced just may be both the resurrection and the light, has deemed to bring Entertainment Weekly coozehound Dave Kriger to the forefront to tell the nation which film HE thinks should be awarded with the Best Drama prize. The EW scribe thinks it should be Michael Clayton, but Billy Bush apparently doesn't agree and demands another pick from Kriger, lest he be smoted with a tax audit and reassignment to Highlights. The stuffy Britpic Atonement ends up taking the prize, and America yawns. Hey, don't yawn yet ... this means more dripping wet Kiera Knightley ads for us all! They need our consideration, let's make them work for it.

6:58pm: Oh Golden Globes producers, you missed a PRIME opportunity to launch "I drink your milkshake!" into the national lexicon.

6:56pm: Julie Christie wins for Best Actress, besting the A-List likes of Angie Jolie and Cate Blanchett. She deserved it, but now we know for a fact that NBC got lucky not having to actually air this whole ceremony. Can you imagine how many folks in The Heartland would've tuned off by now, having the likes of Marion Cotillard, Ricky Gervais and Julie Christie are walking away winners?

6:54pm: Nancy O'Dell and her luscious, well-displayed rack will not stand (WILL NOT STAND!) to let a clip of a then 23 year-old dripping wet Angelina Jolie frolicking in a pool with an Access Hollywood producer go without commenting that he the reason why we, the viewing public, are seeing it is that her producers are sexist pigs. Hey Miss O'Dell, hope you enjoy the next six minutes of the Golden Globes broadcast 'cause you'll never host another one again.

6:52: Whoa Mad Men! Bet HBO is kicking themselves something fierce right now for letting Matthew Weiner's show slip off to AMC. Which reminds us, John From Cincinnati was really putrid wasn't it?

6:49pm: Sweeney Todd? Best Comedy? Really? We saw it, but it was no Brothers Solomon. But then again, if Billy Bush approves, we must've missed something the first time around; he likens Depp and creative lifepartner Tim Burton the Scorsese and DeNiro. By the way, we are so bored. Where's Kathy Griffin when you need her?

6:46pm: Johnny Depp's win for Best Actor of the Musical and/or Comedy variety bodes well for his chances to march triumphantly onstage at the Kodak Theater next month. Think he'll pull a Brando? He should.

6:42pm: Don't worry, Stevie Spielberg. You'll get your sloppy 20 minute hummer from the HFPA and the rest of your underlings NEXT January. And now that Julian Schnabel has gone himself and won a Best Director Golden Globe, we're betting his evening will end by telling a politically inclined brunette, "Let's go home so I can Diving Bell the Butterfly out of you."

6:36pm: And come on, we know that Extras is good, but is is NO 30 Rock. Or even Pushing Daisies. With all these big name nominees and all these (relative) no names winning awards, we're betting that Ben Silverman is laughing maniacally in his Burbank office, glad as hell that he was able to convince people to watch this nonsense without having to spend any real money on the party itself.

6:35pm: The all-seeing, all-knowing Billy Bush has just bestowed Ricky Gervais with his Bush Stamp of Appeal for his work guiding the series Extras. Howevs, judging by the stunned look that he had on his face, we're pretty sure he thinks that Extras is the show hosted by his dreaded rival, Mark McGrath.

6:31pm: It's only been 31 minutes? It feels like 31 hours. Especially because they just handed an award to David Duchovny for his work in Californication over heavyweight favorites like Alec Baldwin and Steve Carell. Thankfully, our Host and Father Billy Bush feels the same way we do, and uses the microphone behind his pulpit to blast the HFPA for daring call Californication a comedy. We must concur, as it never makes us laugh, either.

6:25pm:We're not sure exactly what role Entertainment Weekly Senior Writer Dave Kriger is supposed to be playing on this special. After all, with Billy Bush and Nancy O'Dell as the Play-By-Play and Color Commentators (respectively), does this make Dave Kriger the Tony Siragusa of the special? We digress. No matter what role he is supposed to be playing, he is using this opportunity as an open audition to be Marion Cotillard's he-bitch ("she's spectacularly beautiful, 32 years old. Looks nothing like the older woman she plays in the movie.") Glad to hear you want to bone her, Dave ... join the list.

6:23pm: The recent crest of Juno-mania failed to catapault Ellen Page to victory over the frog princess Marion Cotillard's performance as Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose. The Academy might as well engrave that Best Actress Oscar for Marion now.

6:19pm: We're still bored. Not even the fact that Jon Hamm won for his magnificently powerful performance as adman par excellence Don Draper is breaking these duldrums.

6:13pm: You know, we're trying to manufacture enthuasiasm for this ceremony, we really are. But as we lie here in the first commercial break, we find ourselves missing watching guys like Joaquin Phoenix fight the urge to shotgun a few beers. We miss the fact that Jack won't be able to inappropriately put his hands on Juno's homeskillets. Sobriety on this Sunday night is no fun.

6:07pm: Jeremy Piven is not just a member, he's the president of the Entourage Club For Men. Perhaps more importantly than the Globe he just picked up, he earns the laudits of Future PUSA Billy Bush ("Some characters just break through, and Ari Gold is just one of those characters"). Piven can sleep tight knowing that Billy Bush approves of his work.

6:05pm: Cate Blanchett just won a Golden Globe for I'm Not There. She basked in the glow for all of five second's before Billy Bush, renowned film historian and master of ceremonies, called her out for not being as good as Amy Ryan.

6:02pm: Wait a minute, the Globes got cancelled? We must have missed the news. First impressions ... we've never seen a press conference like this. This is like the Palms Casino of press conferences.

5:51pm: We have got to admit, we're not exactly sure what is about to go down when the Golden Globes "press conference" airs on NBC (and Telemundo!) in roughly 10 American minutes. Either way, we'll be here, watching, observing and, should the mood strike or the situation warrant it, posting...

• Ben Silverman's Fighting Cocks T-Shirt [Strike Swag]

• Dear Ben Silverman: Prom Is Not Canceled [United Hollywood]

Earlier Monday, NBC Entertainment cochief Ben Silverman told E! News anchor Ryan Seacrest that the network was "obviously trying to find a solution to satisfy fans of these great movies and all the incredible stars who have worked so hard all year and got this incredible opportunity.

"Sadly, it feels like the nerdiest, ugliest, meanest kids in the high school are trying to cancel the prom. But NBC wants to try to keep that prom alive."

Our heart goes out to Silverman as he continues to work through the grieving process following the cancellation of his first dance as head of NBC. Hopefully, by the time Sunday night's awards announcement event rolls around, he'll have come to terms with the crushing letdown to the point where he doesn't feel the need to numb the pain of his loss by consuming the contents of his limo's mini-bar as it idles outside the Beverly Hilton, then crash the press conference with his bitchy-hot prom-queen date in tow to bitterly declare, "Those fucking nerds can't ruin my night! Who wants to party with the cool kids back at my place? My parents are totally out of town for the weekend and I have the key to the liquor cabinet!" a shockingly immature invitation punctuated by Silverman's dousing of Hollywood Foreign Press Association president Jorge Camara with an entire bottle of Cristal.

• NBC Can't Spin New-Look Globes [E! Online]

Why did Omarosa agree to come back?

"I did it for redemption," she told reporters.

Vincent Pastore (aka "Big Pussy" from "The Sopranos") was also instantly recognizable.

So was Stephen Baldwin, who explained his participation by noting he already had "done a bunch of reality ... I thought it would be fun to play the game."

Likewise Gene Simmons of Kiss, star of his own reality series and unabashed self-marketer.

[O]thers on hand did need a bit of introduction. [...]

Like Nely Galan, former entertainment president of the Telemundo network and executive producer (and "life coach") of "The Swan," an extreme makeover program that aired on Fox a few years back.

Or the vaguely familiar-looking woman introduced as Marilu Henner, best-known from the sitcom "Taxi" a quarter-century ago. [...]

Actress-model Carol Alt acknowledged some initial nervousness.

Other cast members include country music star Trace Adkins, Olympic gymnastics gold medalist Nadia Comaneci, Playboy Playmate of the Year Tiffany Fallon, Olympic softball gold medalist Jennie Finch, heavyweight boxing champ Lennox Lewis, "America's Got Talent" judge Piers Morgan and Ultimate Fighting Champion Tito Ortiz.

It remains to be seen how the teams will be divvied up, but we have no doubt producer Mark Burnett and Ben "Perfect Storm" Silverman have more than a few tricks up their sleeves, possibly pitting Peak Corp.'s "celebrities who peaked in the 70s-early 80s" against Pinnacle Enterprises' "celebrities you have never seen nor heard of." We'll go out on a limb and call Simmons's early ouster for his tendency to skip challenges to put the moves on fake receptionist Robin, and advise competitors to keep their eyes trained on Nely Galan, who would clearly stop at nothing to get what she wants, having previously orchestrated the butchering of dozens of vulnerable, middle-aged American women on two seasons of plastic surgery snuff-porn classic The Swan.

• `Celebrity Apprentice' Stars Announced [breitbart.com]

· The Producers Guild announces the nominees for their TV portion of the 2008 PGA Awards, with HBO and ABC leading the field with four nods each. [THR]
· The Golden Globes will present Steven Spielberg with its Cecil B. DeMille award, a statuette he'll toss on the steadily growing pile of honorary hardware he keeps in his basement—at this point in his life, only the Oscars make the mantle. [Variety]

· Fox is trying to retain the services of Mark Wahlberg for a feature adaptation of the video game Max Payne, hoping that the star will be able to out-act his grizzled digital counterpart. [Variety]
· In a fun bit of trivia, new Fox/Bernie Mac project Starting Under was the final TV pilot deal made before the strike began on Monday, slipping in under the wire late Friday. Where we you when the Last Pilot Ever was purchased? [Variety]

"The industry hasn't seen an executive like me in a long time," Silverman says. "Traditionally, development executives rise through a specific subsection of the TV business — prime time, network, scripted programming. They're basically D-girls," he says, using the derogatory industry slang for cute young development execs with little power. "That's what [ABC Entertainment president] Steve McPherson is, that's what [Fox Entertainment president] Kevin Reilly is. That's bad vernacular, but they're all D-girls."

Questions have also been raised about Silverman's treatment of Kevin Reilly, who, two years after significantly boosting Reveille's profile by saving The Office, lost his job in what some believe was a coup. "We were friends," Silverman says of Reilly. "But he's been shockingly lacking grace. Everyone knows that somebody doesn't show up and say, 'Hey, I want that job.' That's not how it works. You get pursued." Though Silverman isn't shy about questioning some of Reilly's decisions. "The more I'm inside it," he says, "the more I recognize how things could have been done better. Like, how can you order a Studio 60 and a 30 Rock? How could you ever order two shows about the same subject matter and put numbers in their titles? That's so transparently flawed to me. And why would you put on Martha Stewart and Donald Trump at the same time under the same brand [The Apprentice] twice a week? I would never have done that." [...]

"He's a moron," Silverman says of McPherson, his voice raising. "I delivered him a huge hit that he didn't want: Ugly Betty. He hated the show, he didn't want America Ferrera, he didn't understand why I pitched it to him seventeen times and wouldn't stop. Then it delivered despite that. And every time we would do well, he'd try to find some issue with it. I think he wishes he had been a producer. He's a sad man, like a miserable guy stuck operating as an executive. And it probably makes him nuts that this kid who's five years younger than him is producing hit shows and then goes and gets his job in an end run — and a much bigger job than he has." (McPherson and Reilly declined to respond; an ABC spokeswoman says Silverman's Ugly Betty story is inaccurate and distorts the way the pitch process works.)

Let's hope that everyone's not too busy with trying to keep their strike-hampered networks afloat for these latest tensions to really fester, for this could be the beginning of a deeply satisfying, entertaining feud. Perhaps the next volley will be fired jointly by Reilly and McPherson, who can commission an enormous cake (it always comes back to that cake) depicting the now-infamous Silverman/Peacock chimera being disembowelled by coyotes bearing the Fox and ABC logos, a gift featuring a level of gruesome detail so disturbing (how did Silverman's Blackberry wind up jammed into the sensitive area beneath his colorful tail feathers?) that the spooked executive will never travel outside of the safety of NBC without muscle borrowed from the set of his American Gladiators remake.

• It's Ten O'Clock. Do You Know Where Your Network President Is? [Esquire]
• Previously: NBC's Ben Silverman Handicaps The Fall TV Season [Defamer]

Sonnenfeld quickly set the tone Tuesday by opening with a story about the size of his penis.

He followed up by asking such off-the-cuff questions as "Do you get more sex as an independent producer or an executive, and has sex changed?" (to NBC's Ben Silverman); "Do you agree that Peter Liguori is so handsome, you have to punch him in the face?" (to Fox's Kevin Reilly); "Has Les Moonves ever threatened to kill one of you?" (to CBS' Nina Tassler and the CW's Dawn Ostroff); and, to all of them, "If death was not an option, who would you rather drive in a car with cross country — Les Moonves in a really bad mood or Steve McPherson?"

While Sonnenfeld kept much of the attention on himself with his lighthearted dick jokes and fun, hypothetical questions about potentially fatal road trips with TV's deadliest personalities, at least one panelist managed to make a trade paper's highlights list, as TV Week chooses its top "Oh no you di'int, Mr. Sassy Programming Executive!" moment:

Even by softball HRTS standards, Sonnenfeld seemed mainly interested in his own personal musings — such as asking why his pitch meetings take so long, and how many hours executives spend reading scripts instead of spending time at home.

Actually, that latter question did prompt one exchange that for some was worth the price of admission. Silverman tried to gamely poke fun at his partygoer image by saying that, instead of spending time with his family like the other network executives, he's busy "dating their kids." Reilly leaned over and said, "I have two boys," and the audience hooted.

Now twice-shamed by the barbs of his network rivals in a public forum, an atypically dejected Silverman was later overheard quietly muttering into his BlackBerry, hinting to an NBC underling that he'd be "totally psyched" if when he returned to the office following the panel, everyone "surprised" him with a party where he and his staff would share pieces of a delicious cake depicting him ripping out Kevin Reilly's small intestines with his razor-sharp peacock claws, "you know, just if we have one of those laying around somewhere."

[Photo: Getty Images]

• Sonnenfeld steals show at HRTS panel [THR]
• HRTS Smackdown: Network Chiefs on Best Behavior [TV Week]