Appearing in the flesh on Saturday Night Live is a time-honored ritual for many political names, including the three biggest of this past election cycle: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have both put in cold opening cameos, while John McCain actually hosted SNL in 2002. Still, for all the mileage that the show has wrung out of Sarah Palin's vice presidential candidacy, Palin herself has yet to appear on the show — though according to the Chicago Sun Times, that may change very soon. In fact, sources in the McCain camp say that they have a very specific idea in mind to help Palin avenge herself upon the fired, lifeless body of her nemesis, Tina Fey:

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With less than a month left to go in this presidential election, Saturday Night Live expands its resurgent political brand into special Thursday episodes starting this week, though it's hard to see how they could possibly outdo the trilogy of Tina Fey-as-Sarah Palin appearances that continued into last night's episode. Spoofing the mega-rated vice presidential debate, Fey joined Jason Sudeikis as Joe Biden and the previously-rumored Queen Latifah as moderator Gwen Ifill for a blockbuster, near-twelve minute sketch that left no participant unscathed. Still, despite the skit's jabs at Biden and Ifill, this was, as ever, Fey's moment, and she delivered her most cutting performance yet. Do we have video of the sketch after the jump? Doggone it, you betcha:

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Though pundits like Time's Mark Halperin are claiming that last night's vice presidential debate left Saturday Night Live little to parody (really?), it's hard to imagine that SNL would leave its ratings on the table by ignoring what was perhaps the most-anticipated Sarah Palin event of the entire election year. Now, according to EW's Michael Ausiello, SNL does indeed plan to cover the debate, which leaves it with one problem: the moderator, Gwen Ifill, was a black woman, and SNL still has none in its cast. It's the same problem the variety show has run into when covering Michelle Obama, and just as rumours flew that Lorne Michaels had approached Maya Rudolph about that role, SNL has its sights set on a very specific Ifill impersonator who's not a member of the actual cast:

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Upon hearing The National Enquirer's report that Jenny Craig fired Kirstie Alley because she is just too darn fat, we stopped picturing Jenny as a cute Southern mommy type who just wants us to be healthy and began suspecting she's more like that undermining ex-boyfriend of ours who just wanted us to be Angelina Jolie. Adding extra salt on the wound, Jenny Craig has reportedly replaced her with Queen Latifah, who's pledged to lose 25 pounds as soon as that pesky Pizza Hut contract expires. But the reasons behind the corporate ax may have had less to do with Kirstie's inability to shed pounds, and more to do with a little religion Tom Cruise likes to call Scientology.

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In case you missed it, yesterday was Katie Holmes's Big Night--an evening to celebrate the Katie of long ago, famous not for suspicious pregnancies and dead-eyed Cruisian servitude, but for the skillful way she was once able to memorize words in scripts, and then perform those words in front of cameras. In other words, it was the premiere of Holmes's new movie, Mad Money. Arriving with her extremely proud, extremely touchy, extremely ever-present husband, Extra was on hand to document every moment of the full-time mom's triumphant return to the silver screen:

Tom caressed her lower back and kissed her passionately on the cheek, but he soon left to sign autographs and let Katie bask in the glow of her first movie since having baby Suri. [...]

So what does Katie think about seeing her toddler grow into a mini version of herself?

"I see it and then see a lot of Tom, and then I think she's her own person," Katie said. [...]

Latifah told "Extra" that Tom was frequently on set, bringing little Suri along.

"Yeah, all the time," she said. "He's the daddy!"

Latifah let out a forced laugh as she swiftly surveyed the crowd, then turned deadly serious, gripping the Extra reporter's wrist and urgently whispering, "I mean all the time. Look carefully, you can see the shadow of his head poking out from the bottom of the living room window in a couple of the scenes. And he kept sneaking up behind me at the catering table and ambushing me with brochures that he said 'could really help me with my ongoing personal training problems.' Made my blood run cold, I tell you. Cold as ice," before abruptly reverting back to the sunny, confidant Latifah we know and love, and continuing along the press line. If she hadn't shot one last look of desperation midway through her interview with Access Hollywood's Tony Potts, the Extra reporter might have almost questioned whether the chilling exchange had ever happened at all.

• Tom Supports Katie at 'Mad Money' Premiere [Extra]

According to the helpful countdown clock on their website, the next People's Choice Awards is but 364 days and some-odd hours away, which hopefully will be enough time for them to find their balls again after being castrated behind the awards barn as a sacrifice to the writers strike gods. Still, the ceremony we've not entirely reverentially referred to in the past as Oscar's Chain-Smoking, Lupus-Afflicted Aunt with an Internet Gambling Problem limped its way into American living rooms in an odd, greatly compromised CBS telecast last night, bereft of a studio audience, live star appearances, and awkward acceptance speeches from recently dumped actresses wondering how they can be all of America's favorite if they can't even be Justin Timberlake's.

Instead, we got Queen Latifah introducing an interminable string of pre-taped acceptance speeches and answers to fan questions. The big winners included Favorite Movie Pirates of the Caribbean: The One We Didn't Bother Seeing, Favorite TV Comedy Two and a Half Men (beating out The King of Queens and My Name is Earl), and Favorite New TV Drama Moonlight, beating out a shortlist of every other series to premiere and die within weeks of the fall 2008 TV season. A full list of the winners is here.

• People's Choice
• People's Choice Winners List [CBS]

It seems the WGA strike has claimed its first awards season victim: according to a press release from Extra, the ceremony for The People's Choice Awards has been canceled; confusingly, "some form" of the event involving no red carpet and no media is still scheduled to air on January 8th, as CBS is apparently determined to fulfill its sacred duty as custodians of the public's statuette-granting will whether or not there's an actual "show" to broadcast. (Or picket.) We're told to stay tuned for more updates on what this all means, but our attention span on this matter has already been taxed to the limit by wondering how host Queen Latifah might be integrated into the modified proceedings in a way that doesn't tragically squander her talents. [ExtraTV.com]

Step aside, Lindsay, you're not the only rumoured lesbian jocking for headlines these days. Queen Latifah, best known for her hugely successful acting career among film fans, and best known for the song "U.N.I.T.Y." in the apartment where this blog post is being typed, will be the latest celebrity spokeswoman for Jenny Craig:

"We officially confirm that Queen Latifah will join the Jenny Craig program in January," Scott Parker, Jenny Craig's vice president of marketing, tells PEOPLE.

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Beloved multihyphenate talent and recent lesbian-wedding-rumour target Queen Latifah stopped by The View today to promote The Perfect Holiday, giving panel moderator Whoopi Goldberg the perfect opportunity to find out what would make for an ideal Latifah Christmas. Offering up the four tried-and-true holiday F's of "food, football, family, and fun," Sherri Shepherd added, "and a fine man wouldn't help!" Although she quickly corrects herself, we're wondering if the noted flat-Earther/Jesus-firster's Freudian slip wasn't perhaps a more accurate assessment of just how low a visit from Hunky Santa comes in on the Queen's wish-list this year.

• The View [ABC]

Having, like the rest of us, caught wind of a story circulating that Queen Latifah was finally going to make an honest woman out of her longtime personal-training companion, a Sun Times reporter at a junket for The Perfect Holiday gathered the nerve to ask the actress/torch singer/hip-hop architect whether the rumours were true:

I did ask Queen Latifah for reaction to recent tabloid gossip that she allegedly was going to wed her long-time female personal trainer.

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