We've all been keeping up with the on-going Emma From Big Brother's Dad Died And No One Has Told Her Because It Was His Death Bed Wish The 'Experience' Not Be Spoiled situation, right? The show's producers are throwing their hands up in the air claiming they're just following the family's wishes, her brother wrote an open letter to the public explaining the perspective of Emma's kin, people are still pretty outraged, etc etc etc x a zillion?

Well, believe it or not - more has happened.

The producers of Big Brother narrowly avoided a public relations disaster on Monday night when a member of the live audience held up a sign in an attempt to inform housemate Emma Cornell that her father had passed away.

The show's co-executive producer Kris Noble yesterday told the Courier-Mail a man and his daughter were removed from the set after holding up a sign that read, "Emma, Your Dad Is Dead" during the nominations show.

"It was appalling," Noble said.

"But those people were thrown out and we got their names, because obviously we don't ever want people like that at the show again."

It is understood the pair were hoping Emma might catch a glimpse of the sign during one of the many live crosses between host Gretel Killeen and the housemates during the program.

The sign was not seen by any housemates and the offenders had their names recorded.

But the ghoulish stunt has reignited questions about how producers, along with Cornell's family, plan to break the news of Raymond Cornell's death to his daughter upon her eviction.

The first thing that jumped out at us was the fact a man and his daughter teamed up for this case of nominations night mischief. We haven't been so moved by such an example of parent-child bonding since Defamer Australia's daddy joined his favourite offspring for a midnight egging of Angela Bishop's digs.

Then we began to mentally congratulate the pair who, clearly believing it was wrong and cruel for Emma to have no knowledge of her father's death, decided the best way for her to find out the terrible news was not on the eviction stage, which would be simply insensitive!

No, much better to read it on a poorly painted cardboard sign covered in glitter, wedged between the "THOMUS UR HOTT!!" banner being gaily waved about by a thirteen year old girl, and the "DA INTERWEBZ MIS U JAMIE! LOL CU BAK IN DA WARHAMMER FORUMZ SOON D00D!" held semi-proudly by a pimply faced computer programmer in a Lord Of The Rings t-shirt who, being Gold Coast based, was nominated by the rest of the chatroom to represent Jamie's peeps in the Monday night audience.

Folks, we'd like you to relive Jackie McDonald's tearful farewell from Australian television institution Hey Hey It's Saturday back in 1989.

Thanks to reader John for the heads up!

For more, head over here.

Due to schedule conflicts (believe me, we're kicking ourselves), we haven't been able to catch any of the latest season of Australia's Next Top Model. We're assured it is quite brilliant, so we definitely feel as though we've missed out on something.

We do know someone who had contestant Alice unexpectedly turn up at their house though. From all reports, she was ten kinds of lovely but we presume this is because our dear chum steered the conversation away from all things Auschwitz related.

She's been the central figure in the ongoing skinny debate, but Australia's Next Top Model contender Alice Burdeu has been given the big fat thumbs up from judges and viewers of the series.

Producers of the Fox 8 reality show have been criticised for not enforcing stricter measures on Burdeu's slim situation, but the willowy redhead surged ahead in the contest last night when she was named as one of the two remaining finalists.

While Burdeu is the favourite to take out the catwalk crown over Stephanie Hart next Tuesday, the 19-year-old said she thought the backlash over her waif-like shape would work against her in the poll.

"Can you imagine reading that you look like you're from a concentration camp?" Burdeu said, referring to a concerned viewer's comment.

Hitting back at claims she suffered from an eating disorder, the 58kg, 185cm tall glamour girl said she had always been naturally thin.

"People can think what they want but I'm happy with the way I am," Burdeu said.

"My family and friends know that Idon't have a problem - if anything I eat too much chocolate."

Isn't it strange that it's always the scrawniest celebrities who claim to enjoy nothing better than eating whole lumps of fat... when they're not busy "not exercising".

Of course, we believe Alice is nothing like that. Because something tells us she's kinda scary and powerful, and we love her. Please don't beat us to death with a giant block of Cadbury's Diary Milk chocolate, you flaming piece of hotness!

It sounds like it could be the reality television show of the year. Australian tennis star Mark "The Poo" Philippoussis is looking for a partner, and he's planning on hunting down his true love through the magical modern Cupid that is a reality television dating show. It's called Age Of Love - although we would have called it Ace Of Love.

DO YOU SEE WHAT WE DID THERE?

According to reports...

In a slick new TV commercial in the US, Mark Philippoussis looks earnestly into the camera and proclaims: "When I do find the right person I will give everything to her".

Swoon.

The ad is the launching pad for US TV network NBC's slick promotional campaign for its new dating reality show, Age of Love, starring the Australian playboy and tennis star.

Philippoussis, 30, did not know it when he volunteered to sign up for the show, but the producers arranged for seven of the 13 desperately single American women competing for him to be aged over 40.

OVER FORTY? ARE YOU MAD, NBC? THOSE LADIES SHOULD BE IN A NURSING HOME, NOT FEELING UP OUR BELOVED SCUD! FIND HIM A MORE APPROPRIATELY AGED WOMAN (SIXTEEN TO NINETEEN) AT ONCE!

Philippoussis, who has always dated younger women, also has six hot bikini-clad babes aged in their 20s to choose from, but to make it tough, the producers, while the cameras were rolling, first introduced the man known as Scud to the more mature women.

He had just broken up with 19-year-old fiancee, Miami actress model-actress Alexis Barbara, so the older women came as a shock.

"I knew what he was walking into and he didn't," the show's producer, JD Roth, said today.

"It was difficult for me to look him in the eye knowing how sincere he is and how he really wants to fall in love.

"He walked up that first night and was introduced to women all aged over 40 years old.

"He handled it very well."

God bless The Poo, what a gentlemen. We are so very proud that he managed - for the sake of the show - to resist his natural and very reasonable urge to throw up upon making eye contact with the haggardly geriatrics.

We never thought we'd ever find ourselves using the words "Inspector Rex" and "threeway" in the same sentence, but sometimes life throws genuine surprises at you - and really, you don't have much of a choice but to simply put your head down and get on with it... and by get on with it, we mean blog about it.

SBS Television have said sorry after a viewer - just the one, it seems - complained about the broadcast of an episode of popular Austrian dog detective show Inspector Rex which featured a threeway.

Thankfully, said threeway didn't actually involve the star canine.

SBS Television has apologised for screening in the family viewing time of 7.30pm an episode of Inspector Rex which featured a man being murdered during a sexual encounter with a married couple.

A viewer complained about an episode broadcast on November 18, 2006 of the Austrian crime series which stars a German Shepherd police dog named Rex.

A report by the Australian Communications and Media Authority released today backed the finding and SBS' handling of the complaint about the episode entitled Death via the Internet.

"SBS apologised for any distress the misclassification may have caused in its response to the complaint dated 14 December 2006," the ACMA report said.

"SBS took additional steps to inform classification officers of the breach and reasons for the breach to ensure the breach does not occur again."

Imagine a world where you could flick the channel to SBS and catch a kinky sex scene!?

The ACMA investigation found the sexual activity depicted in the scene was "higher than mild" and therefore not appropriate for a program classified PG (Parental Guidance).

It found the impact of the scene was heightened by the man and woman breathing heavily while they embraced, sexual dialogue, shots of the wife's breasts and cut-away shots of another man watching pornography on a computer.

Everything in life is heightened by breathing heavily during embraces, breasts, and watching pornography on a computer.

Good news for Secret Life Of Us fans (and, more importantly, those like Defamer Australia who were right into the incessant ads on Channel Ten for the extremely moving telemovie After The Deluge) - after a thoroughly awful couple of years, Samuel Johnson will be returning to our screens!

The Secret Life of Us star has landed a plum job hosting a new Lonely Planet travel series called Bluelist Australia, which starts on SBS next week.

Johnson quit his job on Nova FM in Melbourne after his girlfriend Lainie Woodlands committed suicide early last year and has not been seen on the small screen since.

The AFI-award winner was "devastated" by the loss, which was followed by a bitter seven-month legal battle between her mother and father over possession of the 20-year-old's body.

She was eventually laid to rest while the case ended in the High Court in August.

The new project has been a blessing for Johnson, with producer Tony Jackson telling Confidential the Crackerjack star had thrown himself into the job, embracing such tasks as travelling across the country on the Ghan and whitewater rafting at Penrith.

"He was totally stoked," he said. "He's completely goofy and he brought that to the screen.

We once saw Samuel Johnson playing pool with the drunken locals in a Daylesford pub and he seemed very nice, so we welcome the return of his "goofy" face to the screen.

· A reader asks us, "This is fake, right?" Considering how Will Ferrell and his merry, viral pranksters at Funny or Die have burned us before, we have to say it is. But it's still fun watching George-Michael getting mouthy, to say nothing of imagining him impregnating Katherine Heigl.
· We barely had time to get to the other drug-and-alchohol-related starlet hospitalisation news. This truly was a Memorial Day weekend to remember.
· We don't know about you, but the sight of ripped, 60-year-old orange men in thongs never fails to awaken the beasts within us.
· Thank you, Odyssey! You're our one-stop destination for all our celebrity-sex-tape shopping needs - even the ones we forgot existed.
· Salma Hayek: Now more than ever, a series of massive, congruent orbs.
· And because today has been nothing but sadness, we leave you with a glimmer of hope: Elisabeth Hasselbeck is trying to patch things up with Rosie! We're going to climb into our inversion therapy Happy Bouncer™ and pray for their reconciliation.

There is perhaps no better example of exploitation television than Dateline NBC's ongoing To Catch a Predator series: It's voyeuristic humilitainment in its purest form, in which correspondent Chris Hansen (who wrote a book about his ongoing moral crusade, along with co-author, Deep Denial) ambushes adult men on camera who are lured to homes over the internet on the pretense of having sex with a minor. Producer Marsha Bartel, a 21-year NBC news veteran, claims she was unfairly terminated by the network after bringing up the many ethical and legal lapses involved in setting up the stings - particularly those committed by NBC's partner in the operation, shadowy "watchdog group" Perverted Justice, who are paid for their services. In a lawsuit brought against the network, Bartel outlines all the dirty tricks it takes to bring the public its primetime pedophiliac fun. From The Smoking Gun:

According to Bartel, by paying Perverted Justice, NBC has given the group a "financial incentive to lie to trick targets of its sting". The identities of the group's 50-plus volunteers were kept secret from her, Bartel says, adding that Perverted Justice does not provide "complete transcripts from its trolling operations", so network officials "cannot independently verify the accuracy" of the group's transcripts. In some instances, Bartel claims, sting targets are "led into additional acts of humiliation (such as being encouraged to remove their clothes) in order to enhance the comedic effect of the public exposure of these persons".

Read More »

And with one palate-cleansing Britney Spears post, we return to our regularly scheduled Lindsay Lohan Meltdown (May '07) coverage, which we shall divvy up in handy, bulleted fashion:
· In troubling times like these, there's nothing like a reassuring NY Post headline to put things into perspective. [NY Post]
· Fragments of the accident wreckage recovered from the scene have appeared on eBay, and currently have a top bid of $US800. Just to make it clear: You are bidding on pieces of her crashed Mercedes. The two items on the right aren't her ribs. [eBay]
· Leslie Sloane Zelnik's much-anticipated official statement on the matter is something of a letdown: "Lindsay admitted herself to an intensive medical rehabilitation facility on Memorial Day. Because this is a medical matter, it is our hope that the press will appreciate the seriousness of the situation and respect the privacy of Lindsay as well as the other patients receiving treatment at the facility." Sure, the press gets a light scolding, but it's woefully lacking in accusatory venom. [TMZ]
· Don't start dialing your local cable company of PPV ordering info for Lohan-Hilton: Caged Heat Extreme Fighting Championship just yet. Lindsay will most probably not end up doing any hard time for her crimes. [USA Today]
· Lohan's role opposite Shirley MacLaine in Poor Things is - surprise! - increasingly looking like it's not going to happen. [TMZ]

Lest we heap all of our attentions on the troubles of Promises' least promising newbie, let us not overlook the Malibu wellness facility's equally famous alumnus, Britney Spears. The singer has issued forth yet another Message of Hope on her placeholder website, BritneySpears.com, giving us some rare insights into what might have led the consummate performer to be temporarily derailed by extraneous crotch-exposing, club-hopping, and head-shaving pursuits following the dissolution of her marriage:

I saw Tyra Banks once get really upset and cry on her show because they made her look fat. We all want a certain image of ourselves out there, and at some point we all do really care what other people think or we wouldn't be here. [...]

Read More »

For those of you perhaps just stirring out of a three-day coma or recently trapped in a coal mine: Lindsay Lohan, gravel-voiced screen icon and role model for legions of America's wayward youth, hit a minor developmental stumbling block just a few months short of her 21st birthday (no longer, it just so happens, to be sponsored by Svedka Vodka): She was arrested, after law enforcement found a "usable amount" of cocaine - flavour indeterminate - in her abandoned, crashed vehicle. Unstoppable party juggernaut that she is, however, Lohan was photographed a day later being transported, nearly unconscious, out of Teddy's in one of their V.I.P. courtesy wheelbarrows, and dumped into an awaiting SUV piloted by D.J./confidante Samantha Ronson. Now In Touch Weekly is reporting that Lohan - who, after a year of AA meetings, has recently expressed leeriness in labelling herself an out-and-out "addict" - has checked herself into Promises' seaside facilities for another shot at rehab:

Lindsay Lohan is on her way back into rehab, In Touch can exclusively reveal. After a wild weekend that saw her arrested for DUI early Saturday morning - and out of it in a car just two days later - she's seeking treatment. (Hanging from the rear view mirror was one of her AA chips, reading '30 Days. One Day At A Time.'.)

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· The aptly named Still Rolling Prods. says principal photography on grannie heist movie Poor Things is to begin Wednesday as planned, which means either co-star Lindsay Lohan will be recast, or the script will be rewritten to incorporate an actual L.A. courthouse and Malibu detox facility. [Variety]
· Miss Universe takes a beating in the ratings, trampled by a Two and a Half Men rerun. Miss USA, meanwhile, takes a beating of her own, tripping during the evening gown competition and getting booed loudly by the Mexican audience during the interview portion. Terrible! Kind of funny, but just terrible! [THR]
· CBS greenlit six episodes of Do You Trust Me?, a game show that's betting audiences will show up to see if a player falling backwards will be caught by his co-contestants, or if they'll pull their arms away at the last moment, allowing him to be impaled on the Spikes of Death. [Variety]
· In keeping with recent trends of premiering major Hollywood releases abroad (hey - they know on which side of the Atlantic and/or Pacific their popcorn flick is buttered), Michael Bay's blowing-shit-uppingest movie in ages, Transformers, is to get its first public showing at Rome's Taormina Film Fest. [THR]
· As we mentioned earlier, there's a new Golden Boy at NBC: Jeff Zucker reconfigures the executive structure at the once great, now consistently fourth-place network, essentially drop-kicking Kevin Reilly and luring Ben Silverman away from his successful production company to take over West Coast operations. [Variety]

Because no seismic shift in the Hollywood power matrix feels fully complete without the requisite internal memo patting the ousted exec on his recently axed head for a job well done - but not quite well enough to warrant... Read More »

NBC head Kevin Reilly, who just weeks ago optimistically unveilled his network's fall slate to advertisers with the fighting, Muhammad-Aliesque couplet: "We've got the class and next season we're ready to add some mass," has been relieved of his... Read More »

As you settle back into your ergonomic seat after a well-deserved long weekend, contemplating how a Tuesday morning could feel more hopeless than any Monday ever did, consider stirring some box office numbers into your coffee instead of that... Read More »

We take a moment now to remember Charles Nelson Reilly, who passed away on Friday from complications due to pneumonia. Long before it became de rigeur for TV personalities to declare their gayness on the covers of celebrity weeklies,... Read More »