And then there are Whoppers, whose pleasures we've long conflated with sweet spheres of chocolate-covered humanity but which Zinczenko et. al. have scared us straight into avoiding for the rest of our natural lives:

Whoppers (5 oz. box) 676 calories 24 g fat (20.3 g saturated) 88 g sugars How many malt balls does it take to run up a day's worth of saturated fat? About 70, the number in a theatre-sized box of Whoppers. This candy's a long-standing classic, but so are fat-guy comedians. You want to join that jowly double bill?

The folks at Hershey's are beside themselves, meanwhile, rallying to the defensive with a new slate of pre-movie commercials featuring Fat-Guy Comedy All-Stars like Jeff Garlin, Horatio Sanz and Frank Caliendo — the latter of whose spot reportedly features the rotund impressionist as Zinczenko, taking ill-timed breaks from his mani-pedi to obsessively wolf down a few smooth, life-affirming Whoppers. "This is what being a man is all about," he moans between chews, jowly all the way. OK, we're convinced.

• 6 Worst Things to Eat at the Movies [Yahoo! Health]

But then we were referred over to the blog belonging to Oregonian film critic Shawn Levy, a genuine authority who's neck deep in a Newman biography and recently offered vague confirmation of his own:

I have known for a while that Newman was very ill, probably with cancer, and today the Internet is flooded with the news that it's lung cancer and that it's not good; there aren't very good sources on any of these stories, and nobody has any shocking exclusives, but given what I know I find every word of them credible. ... He's 83, and his next birthday is in January, and we can only hope he'll make it. I suspect I'll be writing an obituary before I hold a copy of my book in my hand.

Well, Shawn, when you put it like that... Though we guess it's not like it could get any sadder, anyway.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

• Paul Newman Has Cancer: AP Stands By Story Despite Newman's Hedging [AP]
• Going, Gently or Otherwise, into That Good Night [Mad About Movies]

Which would all be well and good—there's more than one way to skin a once-famous cat who's lost everything to an expensive coke habit, after all—except that Pinsky has now publicly come out against Cruise. Not just his qualifications as a dependency counselor who has personally—personally!—helped hundreds of people get off drugs, but the man himself, throwing the megastar's very sanity into question in an upcoming Playboy interview. From Page Six:

In next month's Playboy, Dr. Drew Pinsky, host of VH1's "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew," says: "A lot of people in the public eye who behave strangely have mental illness we can learn from, and much of it is based on childhood trauma, without a doubt. Take a guy like Tom Cruise. Why would somebody be drawn into a cultish kind of environment like Scientology? To me, that's a function of a very deep emptiness and suggests serious neglect in childhood - maybe some abuse, but mostly neglect."

Cruise's lawyer, Bert Fields, told us: "This unqualified television performer who is obviously just looking for notoriety is so grotesquely unprofessional as to pretend to diagnose Tom and others without ever meeting them. He seems to be spewing the absurdity that all Scientologists are mentally ill. The last time we heard garbage like this was from Joseph Goebbels."

Certainly, Pinsky must have realized that by uttering these statements, he would be inviting a danger far greater than just a terse Scary Hollywood Lawyer statement likening him to a Nazi leader. (The very thing, it bears mentioning, his client hunts down in United Artists's upcoming historical-action-epic, Valkyrie!) It's at his own risk that he pay no mind in the coming weeks to any white vans idling outside the Pasadena Recovery Center, for it would take only seconds for the doctor to suddenly find himself staring at the inside of a pillowcase, only to wake up however many hours later shackled to the deck of the USS Asbestos somewhere on the Gulf of Mexico.

• TOM RIPS 'NAZI' DIAGNOSIS [Page Six]

The acclaimed actor is said to have been diagnosed at New York's Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where he is currently receiving outpatient treatment and is under a leading New York oncologist's care. One of the few to know about Newman's illness is his Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid costar and good pal, Robert Redford.

Meanwhile, neither the hospital nor Newman's rep has confirmed the reports. We'll hope for the best, shoot a round of 9-ball at lunch in his honor, and pass more word along as it comes in.

• Paul Newman is reportedly very ill with cancer [LAT]

A source close to Troyer, 39, says the actor was experiencing "flu-like symptoms."... Adds the source, "He's been working really hard on the film. They just wanted to hydrate him."

A rep for Troyer denied that he was treated for a drug-related problem. "Verne is fine and doing well and is back to work," the rep tells Us.

We wouldn't normally care to speculate about Troyer's potential for relapse here (he underwent treatment for alcoholism in 2006), but with Gilliam and Us Magazine both being who and what they are, we're not exactly choking on our grain of salt. Anyway, didn't new insurance regulations after Ledger's passing require all Gilliam principals to be under strict 24-hour supervision throughout production? And how much water does Verne Troyer really need in a day, anyway?

• 'Mini Me' Verne Troyer Hospitalized [Us]

Wolf declined comment, but we made a few more phone calls around the Swayze camp to see if a cease-and-desist order might be in the works to bring Swayze's likeness — and thus pretty much the entire site — off the Web. Another source close to the situation confirmed it's an option; the person would not say, however, if Swayze's reps had yet contacted the Loughman family, who launched the campaign this morning with a news conference in Indianapolis.

It's a delicate situation, to be sure, and we should know more tomorrow. You know where to find us if you hear anything in the meantime.

PREVIOUSLY: 'Cure Possible For Patrick Swayze' — According To A Fan In Indiana

An Indiana family is hoping for an Easter miracle - in the form of obtaining access to a revolutionary new treatment that holds the potential to cure both Hollywood legend, Patrick Swayze, and their beloved mother and wife from the ravages of pancreatic cancer - one of the most deadly forms of cancer.

On Monday, March 24, 2008 the Loughman family of Indianapolis, IN, will hold a news conference at which they will launch a public relations campaign asking the public to help them secure access of the revolutionary new treatment for pancreatic cancer, TNFerade, for patients including their mother/wife - Connie; Mr. Swayze; and others suffering from the disease. ... As part of their public campaign, the Loughman family has launched the website: CureConnieAndPatrick.com

• CureConnieAndPatrick.com

The malignancy was treated by freezing the cancerous tissue off with liquid nitrogen. Unfortunately for Eric, the actor had a severe reaction to a cream given to him for his lip after the treatment . "My skin is very sensitive," the actor most famous for playing Dr. Mark "McSteamy" Sloan, explains to OK!, "and my lip was traumatized by the procedure I had to go through."

His lip's overreaction to the medication created a painful scenario that made eating difficult, if not impossible. "I didn't eat very well for a couple of weeks and lost a bunch of weight," Eric explains, estimating that he dropped at least 10 pounds off his 6'1" frame while dealing with his cancer.

We shall keep our eyes trained on the supermarket checkout racks in weeks to come for status updates, and send Dane our heartfelt wishes for a speedy and lucrative recovery announcement in OK!. And again, we have to give thanks for life's little miracles: Not only for the work stoppage, which may have helped to save a hunky fake-doctor, but also for the absence of Isaiah Washington from the proceedings, who'd inevitably be threatened by his co-star's media coverage, eventually taking it out on him by loudly accusing Dane of being "a little mouth-cancery fa—ot" during a tense table read.

• Cover Story: Eric Dane's Fight Against Cancer [OK!]

"This is a classic case of vertigo," said Dr. Michael G. Stewart, chairman of otorhinolaryngology (ear, nose and throat medicine) at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weil Cornell Medical Center. "You can look around and feel like things are moving, when they aren't."

So why does the film style affect some viewers and not others?

"People have different levels of susceptibility, similar to how some people cannot ride on a small boat without getting sick," Stewart said. "It's just a natural variation."

So if you are itching to see "Cloverfield" but are worried you might get sick, experts recommend taking a dose of over-the-counter anti-vertigo medicine, sold under such brand names as Bonine and Dramamine II. "It might not protect you from all the symptoms, but it could, and it certainly can't hurt," Stewart said.

Another strain of the outbreak, which similarly causes dizziness, light-headedness, and violent vomiting, seems to be limited thus far only to the producers and stars of Mad Money. Doctors warn that the same motion sickness drugs used to combat the wider strain will do little for those symptoms, which are likely to relapse every time they consider how the Godzilla-sized release trampled their small comedy at the box office.

• Scary movie making viewers sick [CNN]

"None of it's true. I went in for a checkup. The doc gave me a clean bill of health." [...]

"I did go to the hospital ... to just get a checkup, get everything tested out so that I could go on this tour, and everything is fine," Brown said.

He must be afraid that if the public perceives him as having a bum ticker, they might start thinking he's a generally troubled individual. Don't worry, Bobby. We'd never think that about you. Whatever happens to your heart, that's your prerogative. And look on the bright side— at least you didn't have a dootie-bubble stuck in your butt.

• Bobby Brown Denies Having Heart Attack [Us Weekly]

• Pitt Makes Appearance Following Illness [AP]
• Breaking! Brad Pitt Leaves Hospital, Returns To Local Love Den! [Defamer]