• Previously: The Top 10 TV Characters Men Want To Be Like And Women Want To Be With [Defamer]

Lorne Michaels (#58) not only ranked higher than stoner comedy overlord Judd Apatow (#61), but he also got a better writer to script his defense: his darling protege Tina Fey, rather than smushy-faced Garry Shandling, who begins his piece on Judd by saying, "I know Judd Apatow. And I know myself. And I am no Judd Apatow." Yes, Garry, we knew that already. Where've you been by the way? We kind of miss you. But as we said, we do take issue with several rankings. For example, Miley Cyrus (#59) beat out the Coen brothers (#62). While Cyrus and her Hannah Montana franchise may have generated billions of dollars, the Coens not only won four Oscars for adapting a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and created one of the most chilling villains in cinematic history, but No Country For Old Men happened to rake in more cash at the box office ($74mm) than Miley's 3-D concert flick ($65mm). Does a newbie shilling pop songs for Disney really deserve a higher ranking than a pair of filmmakers who've earned mounds of respect for their art? Truth be told, we'd have no issue with Miley beating out the Coens had this list been established post-Topless Scandal. Apparently nude 15 year-olds "influence" the masses like crazy.

[Photo credits: Time]

• COMPLETE LIST: THE TIME 100 [Time]

"[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]

WHAT'S NEW: Baby Mama and Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay will duel for the top spot, with the latter film predicted to ride its franchise basis all the way to No. 1. Its R-rating won't help against the PG-13 Tina Fey vehicle, however, which could lure its core female demographic to an opening take of $13 million. Harold and Kumar's estimates are all over the place — from $11 million to $16.6 million — so wager now for Monday morning bragging rights. Also opening: Errol Morris's Abu Ghraib doc Standard Operating Procedure; the Burt Reynolds gambling drama Deal; and French legend Claude Lelouch's suspenser Roman de Gare.

THE BIG LOSER: Talk about dump-and-run: A-listers Hugh Jackman, Ewan McGregor, and Michelle Williams are hiding in plain sight in the "thriller" Deception, which we didn't even know existed until Variety revealed Fox was throwing it on 2,000 screens this weekend. And the critics love it almost as much as last week's Pacino-Bomb 88 Minutes; with 6% favorable ratings currently at Rotten Tomatoes, the film "was made to be forgotten," writes Onion AV Clubber Scott Tobias.

THE UNDERDOG: We're of two minds about Helen Hunt's directorial debut Then She Found Me. Yes, the sex in the film is quite terrible, and yes, the story lapses perhaps too eagerly at times into rom-com convention. (First mistake: casting Colin Firth.) But! Hunt's story of an adopted, baby-craving New Yorker (Hunt) whose husband leaves just as her birth mother (Bette Midler) reenters her life has way more going for it than we'd thought — Midler, for starters, whose meddling, mendacious mommy is one of her most modulated performances in years. Paired with Hunt, their timing, vulnerability and overall chemistry are as worthy as any of the Fey/Poehler maternity schtick anchoring Baby Mama.

FOR SHUT-INS: You'd be crazy to stay indoors this weekend, but still: New DVD's include Cloverfield, Charlie Wilson's War, The Savages and the most heavily anticipated TV revival of at least the last seven days, Laverne & Shirley: The Complete Fourth Season.

So are you with Team H&K or Baby Mama in the Battle of the Middling Spring Comedies? Will you roll the dice on Deception? Will you trust us on Bette Midler? Go ahead: Now tell us how to spend our weekend.

Baby Mama as Tina Fey Vehicle:

Baby Mama as a film In Which Amy Poehler Steals The Show:

Baby Mama as something even dudes will like (note the use of 40 Year Old Virgin star Romany Malco):

"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]

Fey: That thing was edited kind of weird.

I was really talking about audiences and how audiences respond weirdly to things. When I was talking I said, 'Like you know, on Weekend Update or anything' and that kind of went away so it seemed like I was saying something bad about those guys. I think they know that I think their show is great and would actually never be disparaging on their show."

While that should be satisfactory for most, we'd still like to see some sort of symbolic gesture to finally put this ugly chapter behind us: Perhaps Fey can appear as a guest on The Daily Show, at one point shedding her brightly patterned sun-tunic and climbing onto a circular bed for a gauzy-lensed, multi-position lovemaking session with the mistakenly maligned host, to the rapturous clapter of the studio audience.

• 30 Rock's Tina Fey Clarifies Her Remark About The Daily Show [cinemablend.com]

COMEDY queen Tina Fey says that while she makes people laugh, political pundit Jon Stewart only makes them uncomfortable.

Fey tells Reader's Digest she prefers it when audience members laugh rather than applaud because, "You can prompt applause with a sign." She added, "My friend Seth Meyers coined the term 'clapter,' which is when you do a political joke and people go, 'Woo-hoo.' It means they sort of approve but didn't really like it that much. You hear a lot of that on [whispers] 'The Daily Show.' "

The ratio of topical jibes delivered weekly on both satirical newscasts, measuring at Weekend Update's 1 to the Daily Show's 1250, could explain the laughter discrepancy. Still, we think Fey is being ever so slightly dishonest in knocking the competition, as she knows better than anyone that Lorne Michaels had studio 8-H outfitted with flashing "WHOO," "BIG WHOO," "SNICKER," "CHUCKLE," "GUFFAW," and "INCONTINENCE" signs midway through Victoria Jackson's second season, ensuring he'd never again have to endure 90 minutes of dead silence response to the parade of not-quite-ready-for-primetime sketches that made it to air.

• TINA RIPS JON [NY Post]

While we don't have a winged woman sitting on our mantel, we do know one thing that Emmy winner Tina Fey knows: Hartnett is hot, no matter how humorous his facial hair. While SNL's Jason Sudeikis was suitably hunky in his guest starring spot as former Liz Lemon steady, he just can't compare in the looks department to our man Trip Fontaine. Which brings up something else we and Tina both know: the show's current cast features nary a bit of eye candy for the ladies. Katrina Bowden's short-skirted Cerie may help pull in the non-thinking male demo, but unless you've got a thing for walrus types, the pickings are slim for us girls. Which is why we applaud Tina Fey for looking out for the best interests of Liz Lemon and 30 Rock's female audience. Bonus points if he actually turns out to be good!

UPDATE: Nevermind!

• A PIECE OF THE 'ROCK' FOR JOSH? [OK!]

While Shia LaBeouf and Steve Carell are committed for May (to plug Indiana Jones and Get Smart, respectively), all the formerly committed winter guests are no longer available. The biggest loss of all was Amy Winehouse, who was set to appear on the episode right before the strike. However, chances aren't good that she will be rebooked; as Michaels ominously put it, "I don't think anyone can put that back together." As for the writers and how they're handling the pressure, Seth Meyers and his self-professed "wisecrack circle," are apparently in the best shape they've ever been in thanks to the writers strike and all that muscle-building picketing. Oh and "not having money for food."

'SNL' IS READY TO MAKE UP FOR LOST TIME [NY Times]

"I was pregnant [with daughter Alice] at the time and probably a little moody, but I remember thinking, 'She's a disaster! I gotta prop this lady up and get her on TV,'" Fey dished.

She said Abdul was "disastrous ... in the way she generally appears to be.

"It was an American Idol sketch, and she wanted to change parts. So Amy Poehler had to play her."

A year later, Fey recalled seeing Abdul on a flight.

"We both looked at each other like, 'Do I know that girl?'" she said. "And then we both had that moment of recognition, and she was like, 'uuuggh.' I saw it register on her face that she had had a terrible time with us."

As it turns out, the only usable amount of Abdul would include a brief appearance at the end of an Idol sketch, in which she was called upon to register her displeasure over Poehler's substandard characterization, the versatile Not Ready For Prime Time Player having apparently failed to capture Paula's trademarked stiff-armed clap or the Oxy-and-Stoli-flavored lilt in her voice. Thankfully, Abdul wasn't so disastrous that a nervous Lorne Michaels had to go through with his emergency Plan B—having Horatio Sanz leap off the balcony and tackle her, justifying the ambush as a surprise reunion with plus-sized AI contestant Scott Savol.

• Tina Fey Says Paula Abdul Was 'Awful' As SNL Guest Host [US]

· The contents of Judah Friedlander's two-word trucker hat quip revealed! "SHOWER SCENE." [HuffPo]
· The $20 ticket fee proceeds were funneled directly to the 30 Rock unemployed P.A. fund. Also, every major character was in attendance with the exception of Jack's loyal assistant Jonathan and that week's guest star, Edie Falco, for whom writer Paula Bell filled in. [Media Maven Musings]
· There were improvised commercial breaks, including one with Jack "Kenneth" Brayer, also of UCB Harold team Respecto Montelban, playing some one-on-one basketball in a spot selling tampons. [New York]
· New life was breathed into a bereft Baldwin ("I miss my make-up artist, Stacey Panepinto. I miss my hairstylist, Richard Esposito. I miss all of the 30 Rock cast and crew, who I don't see anymore because of this motherfucking, motherfucking, motherfucking strike..."), as well as the rest of the cast, who appeared to "legitimately enjoy working with one another. Not just in a like, 'Oh, everyone in the industry is so great' way, but for real." [And I Am Not Lying]
· For those of you dying to know how a tampon figures in to Liz Lemon's ongoing search for love while hashing it out in the wacky world of network TV sketch comedy, the episode airs in three weeks. [Phroofie Crede]

[Photo: And I Am Not Lying]

· Anna Paquin will take a second-tier awards show where she can booze it up over being nominated for its bigger-deal cousin at the boring age of 11 any day. [Variety]
· Somewhere in the soupy borders between where Kevin Dillon ends and self-promotional op-ed essayist Johnny Drama begins is one very happy nominee. Says Entourage creator Doug Ellin: "I told Kevin last year we have a goal, we have to get you an Emmy nomination. He was like oh, come on lets just do good work but I know he is excited." [Variety]
· Nominated for his turn as Pahrump, NV's salty and wise Judge Robert Bebe, John Goodman gives all of the credit to Studio 60 masterscribe, Aaron Sorkin : "I am overwhelmed and grateful. It was all in the writing." [USA Today]
· Heroes' creator Tim Kring falls back on a reliable, frosting-related cliché: "We set out to make a show that people would get hooked on. For the show to now have this kind of critical exposure is really the icing on the cake." [USA Today]

Tina Fey dissed archfoe Aaron Sorkin Sunday night at the Writers Guild Awards. The "30 Rock" star competes with Sorkin's "Studio 60": Both take place behind the scenes at a show like "Saturday Night Live," where Fey was head writer. Wiggling around the Hudson Theatre stage in a party frock with plunging decolletage, Fey told the crowd, "I hear Aaron Sorkin is in Los Angeles wearing the same dress - but longer, and not funny."

Once one gets the initial Oh, snap!-style sting of the remark, her joke seems patently unfair, as Sorkin's show is intentionally unfunny; in constructing a drama, the celebrated writer's mission is to take on weightier issues affecting sketch comedy shows, like the unexpected budget overruns that can cripple a production when a procession of antagonistic natural predators are lost beneath a busy sound stage. Still, the gibe undoubtedly wounds, as Sorkin had famously deflected the brickbats of amateurish, unemployed critics by citing the silence of accomplished professionals like Fey, who presumably were enjoying his dramatic deconstruction of the genre. Now that Fey has unexpectedly betrayed him, he'll have to hope that remaining, assumed "real comedy writer" supporters Stephen Colbert and SNL's Seth Myers will pass on any opportunities to take gratuitous pokes at him in front of an audience of the reliably employed peers whose opinions he cherishes.

• Side dish (sixth item) [Rush & Molloy]
• Previously: 'LAT' Gives Equal Time To Pro-Sorkin Voices [Defamer]

NBC is mulling broadcasting Friday night rehearsal sessions of "Saturday Night Live" on the Internet.

It's just one of the many scenarios the digital future could deliver, according to NBC Universal chief digital officer George Kliavkoff, who openly mused about the possibilities Wednesday at the Digital Entertainment Media & Marketing Excellence conference at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles.

"Sometimes it's a lot more interesting than the show," Kliavkoff joked, referring to the closed-circuit footage of "SNL's" Friday dry runs viewed at NBC headquarters. "It's something we watch on the cameras at 30 Rock."

We hope these are more than just the pie-in-the-sky musings of an NBC interactive executive: Beyond giving us valuable insights into emotional coping mechanisms employed by the show's young cast of performers to help them get through a dud sketch that will earn a smattering of mercy laughs, the "fly on the Studio 8H wall" effect of watching SNL rehearsals will also quickly weed out the able-bodied celebrity guest hosts—who can easily handle last minute dialogue changes for their hilarious, purse-shopping character Porsha—from the ones who panic and retreat into their shells, locking themselves into their dressing room to nervously yank out fistfulls of Barbie hair while chanting into a mirror, "You're still hot."

• "Saturday Night Live" rehearsals may be webcast [Reuters]

Tina said the hosts are usually great, but every couple of years you get a bad one - like Paris Hilton who was a "piece of shit"! Tina didn't hold back on how much she and the cast hated Paris. We transcribed some of her hilarious comments...

· She said Paris had "the hair of Fraggle", and left "nasty wads of Barbie hair on the floor" from her "cheap weave"!

· Tina caught Paris's giant man hands and said they were as long as her forearm.

· Paris actually takes herself seriously and "embraces her stupidity".

· She asked them to write a skit so she could play Jessica Simpson "because I hate her" "she's fat".

· Paris was so uninterested in anyone else the staff had a bet to see if she would ask anyone something personal (like "how are you")

Considering Fey is one of TV's most successful writers, we found her likening of the internationally regarded hotel heiress and fragrance mogul to a "piece of shit" to be somewhat prosaic, and a far cry, for example, from the lyrical heights of the anonymous internet wordsmith who once compared Hilton to a "fart in a mitten." Still, there's something refreshing in knowing that all those intimate asides shared during the show's closing credits aren't always friendly, and that what Rachel Dratch, the repertory's go-to player for prepubescent boy roles, was probably whispering into Hilton's ear under that sleepy saxophone solo was a sentiment along the lines of, "For the tenth time—I know Rachel is a girl's name, you fucking moron. I am a girl."

• Tina Fey on why Paris Hilton sucks [CityRag]

The answer, as it turns out, is probably yes, though "Studio 60," which is produced by Warner Brothers, is expected to be first out of the gate, with NBC having all but committed to put it on in the fall or risk paying a stiff financial penalty to its producers. At the least, Ms. Fey's show is expected to be added at midseason next year, though it, too, could go on as soon as the fall.

"This falls under the category of a high-class problem," Kevin Reilly, the president of NBC Entertainment, said in a telephone interview in which he was supportive of Ms. Fey's project while remaining noncommittal. "I just can't imagine the audience would look at both shows, choose one and cancel the other out. In some ways, why is it any different than when there have been three or four cop shows on any schedule, or 'Scrubs' and 'ER,' which are tonally very different?"

"Will people really be flummoxed by that?" he added.

We're not sure if the viewing public will find neurotic comedy writers as relatable as cops or doctors, but we kind of admire Reilly's "What, me worry?" attitude. When you're in charge of a last place network, there are a couple of ways to deal with these sticky problems: Squeeze your head into a blender and hunt out the nearest electrical outlet, knowing that your messy self-annihilation will speak volumes about the severity of your dilemma, or merely shrug them off, knowing that the worst outcome could be yet another wasted season and a lost job. If nothing else, Reilly's approach is more considerate to the janitorial staff.

• Tina Fey's Brash Bid for Prime Time [NY Times]
• Previously: Trade Round-Up: Baldwin Gives Up On All Non-SNL-Related Gigs [Defamer]