To Make a Long Story Short ... Sweeney Todd soars, Wayne Newton roars, and more!

• The LA Times' Tom O'Neil says Sweeney Todd is the movie to beat for 2007. Johnny Depp strikes again!

• SNL's Fred Armisen has had a long-running penpal relationship with John Waters that started when he was a kid. I thought he couldn't get any cooler than that brilliant Sam Waterson impression, but I was wrong.

• Someone's started a campaign to save Tucker Carlson's right-wing smugfest of a show? (Pause.) WAHAHAHAHAHA!

• I refuse to link directly to this hate group's website, but here's Towleroad's appropriately agog and thorough coverage of a new anti-gay marriage radio ad running in New Jersey. Lke the Garden State's reputation needs another hit?

• Brig. Gen. Keith Kerr was asked by CNN to explain his affiliations with Clinton's campaign and did so to a rather haughty John Roberts this morning. I like how Kerr thanks Roberts for "being so transparent" right at the end.

• Wayne Newton threatened to kick Johnny Carson's ass over gay jokes. You'd think the guy who sang "I'll be With You in Apple Blossom Time" would be more confident in his masculinity. Says Wayne:

Mr. Carson,' I said, 'I don't know what friend of yours I've killed, I don't know what child of yours I've hurt, I don't know what food I've taken out of your mouth... but these jokes about me will stop, and they'll stop now. Or I will kick your ass.'... Johnny Carson was a mean-spirited human being. There are people he has hurt that people will never know about. And, for some reason, at some point, he decided to turn that kind of negative attention toward me, and I refused to have it.