Somehow I ended up with a lot of commercials for mid-season replacement shows today. Don't worry, I skipped the Jerry Seinfeld one, I'm not cruel. HBO has something called How To Make It In America, and it looks like all hot guys and the fashion industry. Oh, and I think they're all straight, so it must be the "fantasy genre."

NBC has a new game show called Minute To Win It that looks silly. Well, game shows other than Jeopardy are silly by definition, but this one is so low rent it uses toilet paper as a physical challenge. Classy.

Last night Jay Leno talked about the image rehab he did by appearing in the Super Bowl commercial for David Letterman's show. Jay is so decidedly nice that he's either a robot, or he eats nothing but puppies and kittens behind closed doors.

Info Meme

Because the Super Bowl isn’t really over until we’ve analyzed it to death, we’ve got about a week to go. But since I don’t care about the game itself, I’ll stick with pop culture. For example, here’s a detailed story of how the Leno/Oprah/Letterman commercial happened.

In other Super Bowl news, the broadcast was the most watched television program in the history of television programs. It even eclipsed the finale of M*A*S*H which had held the title since I was a kid, and the urban legend was that when it was over, the collective run to the bathroom caused flooding in some urban areas. It’s estimated that 106.5 million people tuned in.

There’s a really Lost-esque analysis of Willie Adama on Caprica over here. I’ve never paid close enough attention to any show to have noticed this stuff, but it’s logically consistent. I have gone out of my way to not explain it here, so if you go read it, no complaining about spoilers, and put spoiler warnings in any comments.

Presented with minimal comments, an Australian man has broken the world record by swallowing 18 swords at the same time. There’s video at the link. And does anybody have his number?

Bill Murray gave a rare interview in support of The Fantastic Mr. Fox, and I see why he doesn’t do interviews. He could be joking on the arrogant parts, but my gut says he’s not. The interesting part is that he says he’s told them he’ll come back for Ghostbusters III if they kill him off in the first reel and he gets to be a ghost. After reading the interview, I’ll kill him off now.

I don’t know why, but I love watching Christopher Lloyd onscreen. He does crazy really well, so the fact that he’s playing a therapist on Chuck later this year makes some sort of trippy sense. If you buy the oft-quoted wisdom that most shrinks are crazy. Or judge them all by Dr. Phil.

You know what makes me laugh? All this talk about Howard Stern replacing Simon Cowell on American Idol. It’s not the fact that he’d want $100 million a year, or that he has no music background. What’s funny is that anybody thinks Fox would put him on broadcast live, repeatedly, with that mouth of his. They’d run through seven-second delay guys like candy.

Uniformed staff at North West Ambulance Service in the UK have been banned from wearing novelty socks under threat of being sacked. I don’t know what’s more disturbing – that a supervisor would care about people wearing happy socks, or that there were enough people wearing novelty socks to be a problem.

Carrie Prejean is engaged to be opposite married to a quarterback. This will last until fans start heckling him on field like they did Tony Romo over Jessica Simpson. You have your assignment, homos. Make it happen!

Fresh on the news that the Captain America movie will have a musical aspect, we find out he’ll have a backing group of sorts. The Avengers don’t appear until a later movie, but Captain gets the Invaders covering his back for the second half of the movie as he battles Red Skull.

The Glee-ful podcast today reveals that Sandy, the predatory gay drug dealing, former show choir director, is coming back in episode 16. Naturally, we’re thrilled. See our smiles?

This week’s TV Guide Canada poll is about which soap star needs to release a sex tape. It’s an interesting mix of nominees that includes men and women, gay and straight character portrayals, and even Jeanne Cooper on The Young and the Restless, who’s 80 years old. Of particular interest here is the inclusion of Jake Silbermann (Noah, ATWT) and Brett Claywell (Kyle, OLTL). So go and vote for our boys so Jef doesn’t have to do it all by himself.

Today in Hollywood recycling, Gunsmoke is up for a movie treatment. Competing to step into the Marshall Matt Dillon role are heartthrobs from two generations – Brad Pitt and Ryan Reynolds. I’m torn here because I really think Ryan is too young for the part, but Brad has already done westerns, and the results weren’t always pretty. Anybody remember The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford? The name is two hours too long.

Did Harvard supply the costume, or did Justin have his own?

Following this assortment of carefully-selected news items, interested readers can find a refreshing pic of a hot man in underwear. Yes, we're serious.

Since I'm already at risk of having my toaster oven repossessed over today's The Morning Meme, I'm going to go out on a limb here and badmouth Jake Gyllenhaal. Or at least badmouth his accent in Prince of Persia, which really came to the fore in the Super Bowl promo that ran last night. Where is that accent from? Madonna's England?

Alice in Wonderland delivered some fresh dialog and action last night as well. But there is no way any line in this movie can ever top "I love a warm pig belly for my aching feet." I really should try that.

I've posted some parkour sequences before. I'm fascinated at anyone who can walk down a public sidewalk without tripping, so this just blows my mind. There are movies about this. There's even a sequel to movies about this. Even if you don't like parkour, if you're on AfterElton.com, there's a good chance you like hot athletic men. Depending on where you look, District B13: Ultimatum either opened this past Friday, or in two weeks. Here's the trailer.

And here's a French narrated action sequence from the same film.

Were they better than Snickers in 2007?

We meant to bring you the Super Bowl commercials with a gay flair (or fumble) in real time, but Hulu did not cooperate. Still, we have the worst and the best here for your viewing pleasure. As a bonus, you don't have to put up with all that football in between.

Info Meme

I’m actually the wrong type of gay to know how bad of an idea this is, but even from my nerdy perch, I have a feeling remaking A Star is Born with Russell Crowe and Beyonce is likely to start riots in WeHo, Dupont Circle, and the West Village. Thoughts?

Hasbro has been intent on making more toys into movies. Bad ideas currently underway have included Monopoly and Battleship, but one of the ideas I was into is Candyland. Now they’ve announced that Taylor Lautner is going to play Stretch Armstrong. I don’t know why I think I like this idea, but it could be that Stretch Armstrong was made to squeeze and grope, and I know Taylor is legal in three days.

When I was in first grade, my school got all new desks with brightly colored tops. Mine was red that year. But the old ones were classic wooden affairs, and generations of students had scribbled on the tops, leaving a piece of themselves at the school. But doing that today is evidently a reason for you to be handcuffed and marched out of school.

I always assumed that when a star went to a fashion show, it was because they wanted the designer to give them free clothes and to be photographed somewhere us mere mortals weren't allowed.  I had no idea that they were paid to show up. Rihanna gets $100k/show to sit in the front row and pretend to be interested. It’s a sliding scale from there, all the way down to Eliza Dushku who doesn’t actually get paid, but does get hair, makeup and airfare covered. I feel like I just saw mom putting out my Easter basket or something.

Where’s my airsick bag? Where’s Waldo is coming to a silver screen near you. As Kitty said when she tipped me to this, they keep destroying my childhood.

More than 2,000 people showed up to a scheduled snowball fight in in Washington D.C.'s Dupont Circle gayborhood this weekend. Insert joke about gay boys throwing like sissies if you want, but at least the cops didn’t draw their guns this time. And who schedules snowball fights, anyway?

Production values are higher on Wanda's reshoot

Saturday night the late night shows all delivered something of gay interest. I wish they'd stop doing that so I didn't have to watch and report.

The Wanda Sykes Show chose to take on ManCrunch.com and CBS. To her credit, Sykes showed the ManCruch.com ad in full. She then put her marketing degree to good use and told them how they could have gotten it on during the game. The biggest takeaway is that Wanda's show could throw together the ManCrunch.com commercial on a late night television budget and not lose any quality. In fact, Wanda's version was shot in high-def.

We'll feature some trailers in a separate post later, but a few things belong here. Alice in Wonderland continues to release mostly the same footage over and over, while tossing in the occasional new scene. This featurette does have the actors talking plot a little though. It's nice to know it has one, even if I'd go see it anyway.

Another day, another Super Bowl commercial. I can't really call this a trailer for Avatar: The Last Airbender because it's just a taste. I'm really, really, really concerned about this movie because I invested years watching the cartoon unfold on Nickelodeon and don't see how you can compress that arc into a two hour movie. Plus, M. Night Shyamalan is directing and Robot Chicken has had his style nailed for years - "What a twist!"

Info Meme

Bonham’s is auctioning off all sorts of genuine Dr. Who props and costumes, so if you’ve ever wanted a real Magma Beast, Cyberman or Dalek, you can head over and empty your wallet.

I’ve never watched any of The Fast and the Furious movies. I am aware they have some serious beefcake in them, from Vin Diesel to Paul Walker, who used to make me swoon a lot more than he does today. They not only make me swoon, they make cash registers ring, so Paul, Vin and the gang are back for a fifth installment.

DARPA is the funky, let’s-build-crazy-stuff branch of the Pentagon. They’re really good at burning money, and I once had a run in with them over a piece of software they spent a ton of money developing that I wrote for pocket change. Still, they like to dream, and recently put out a job listing for a project to build a new robot. But this robot is supposed to be able to hold a grenade in one hand and pull the pin with the other, without input from a human operator. Yep – we’re screwed.

I’m not one to boss you guys around (O.K., I totally am), but maybe you should go join the Facebook group petitioning Lorne Michaels to let Betty White host Saturday Night Live. She’s never done it, and frankly that’s a crime against comedy. Part of me is loathe to have Betty stoop to SNL, but the rest of me wants to watch really, really bad.

Do you know that White Castle restaurants take reservations for Valentine’s Day? The home of the slider dresses up for Cupid’s arrival, and you better book soon because they generally have to turn people away. Who doesn’t want something creative instead of the boring dress up dinner in the crowded restaurant?

I’ve been pitching different parts of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando for days in hopes they’ll cough up a vacation package for me to come and review the place, but it hasn’t worked yet. So I’m still trying, and here’s the interactive website with the map of the attraction complete with really annoying background music that you will want to switch off.

With the news that Warner was redoing Clash of the Titans in 3-D for April, most people thought the only casualty was that awful J-Lo film. Turns out it’s more complicated than that. Most movie screens in the U.S. are not 3-D capable, and that’s why we generally only have one showing at a time. But with Titans going 3-D, it’s possible that four 3-D movies will be fighting for space including Avatar which looks to be still going strong, plus the animated flick How to Train Your Dragon and Alice In Wonderland.  That’s too many. Oddly, in my tiny town, our one movie theater is brand new, and while I’ll never see A Single Man play here, all 14 screens here are 3-D THX masterpieces.

A nine-year-old boy was yanked out of his classroom and nearly suspended after he brought a 2” toy gun to school. Yes, we’re talking about something too small for a G.I. Joe.

Out designer Zac Posen is very image conscious, even if that image has a flare for the dramatic. He’s been known to wear a cape or two, and he’s rocked a beret which is no mean feat. But one way he wouldn’t appear? With  Count Von Count from Sesame Street.  Not even to be included in a Harper’s Bazaar fashion spread. Personally I’d kill to be photographed with a Muppet – even one that made me cry as a child.

Not only are Ewan McGregor and Jim Carrey smoochin' in France for I Love You Phillip Morris, they're also releasing a new international trailer, which unlike the first one we can show here. It's gay, gay, gay – which begs the question: What will the American trailer look like?

Dear John has a music video out for the Snow Patrol song "Set Fire to the Third Bar" and it wisely focuses on the best parts of the movie - Channing Tatum's shirtless body. The song is kind of "meh" but you can just watch on mute. It's now my screensaver!