All the tube news that’s fit to surf …

– The Hollywood Reporter has exclusive clips from the table read of the Family Guy abortion episode that won’t air (but will be released on DVD). Reactions?

– More Family Guy news: Show creator Seth MacFarlane confirms matricidal baby Stewie is gay. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

– In honor of the show’s anniversary – South Park premiered on Comedy Central on August 13, 1997 – the show’s official Website is featuring the never-aired original pilot that led to the series. The “only all-construction-paper episode” of the show will be available at South Park Studios.com for 30 days.

– Bill Maher‘s bringing in the pretty boys for Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday: Brad Pitt and Ashton Kutcher are the guests.

– Next TV show headed to the big screen: Battlestar Galactica, with Superman helmer Bryan Singer leading the way.

– Twittering wasn’t such a great idea for Paula Abdul, but Man vs. Wild star Bear Grylls is using Twitter to line up guest stars for his show: He Tweeted an invite to Demi Moore to hit the great outdoors with him for an episode.

– TMZ reports that a Paula Abdul Dancing With the Stars judging gig ain’t gonna happen. Why? She and current judge Carrie Ann Inaba aren’t exactly BFFs, apparently …

– In answer to EW.com’s question “There’s no such thing as too much Jon Hamm … right?” the answer is, emphatically, right! Proof: Here’s Jon Hamm in Vanity Fair, Jon Hamm having lunch and chatting about season three of Mad Men with Chicago Tribune‘s Maureen Ryan and Jon Hamm in Huffington Post‘s collection of gratuitous Jon Hamm photos. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

– If this trailer is any indicator, FX has another big winner on its hands with the upcoming Timothy Olyphant “modern Western” Lawman.

– This one’s been rumored for a while, and it looks like the Tony Danza reality show – in which the Taxi and Who’s the Boss star becomes a high school English teacher in Philadelphia (no, really) – is gonna happen.

– Are you, or someone you know and would dare to nominate, the Worst Dressed American? Then you, or your frienemy, are just who TLC’s What Not to Wear is looking for. ‘Fess up to crimes against fashion at the TLC Website … the “winner” gets a makeover courtesy of WNtW‘s Clinton and Stacy.

– Fox has a now-and-then slideshow of the cast of Family Ties, one of my all-time fave sitcoms. Most of them look swell, except for poor little Andy, a.k.a. Brian Bonsall. He’s gone the all-too-familiar former child star route, and looks like he has fangs now. Which, actually, given how ubiquitous anything vampire-related is right now, should get him a gig.

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• Tags: Battlestar Galactica movie, Family Guy abortion episode, former child stars, Jon Hamm, Paula Abdul Dancing With the Stars, South Park pilot, Timothy Olyphant Lawman, Tony Danza high school teacher

All the tube news that’s fit to surf …

– AMC has landed the rights to produce a TV series based on The Walking Dead comic books. Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption) will write, direct and executive produce the series, which follows a group of survivors seeking a safe haven after a zombie apocalypse.

– The New York Times has a detailed breakdown of how the Paula Abdul/American Idol negotiations broke down.

– Abdul, by the way, may be signing on for a guest gig as a new temp on Ugly Betty. One bit of advice for Ms. Abdul: Stay off the Twitter until the contract is signed, m’kay?

– Add LaToya Jackson to the list of celebs reportedly among the contenders on the next season of Dancing With the Stars. Think she would even be considered if the Jackson fam wasn’t so prominently in the news right now? LaToya doesn’t even meet the show’s D-list minimum … Other celebs rumored to be in contention for the new season, which premieres on Sept. 21, include Donny Osmond, Vera Wang and Lou Ferrigno, though People.com‘s wish list line-up is a lot more fun.

– USA Today has a fun “where are they now?” feature on how successful the winners of career-related reality TV series have been after their shows.

– Heroes lost me after the first season, but things are looking up for season four, with a line-up of new cast members that includes Ray Park (he’ll always be Darth Maul to me), Prison Break‘s Robert Knepper and now, Oz‘s Ernie Hudson.

– Ratings for Comedy Central’s roast of Joan Rivers were down 32 percent from its last roast, of Larry the Cable Guy. Maybe viewers just felt like every joke that could be made about Rivers and her many plastic surgeries had already been made?

– Have you seen the cool new series of U.S. Postal Service stamps honoring classic TV shows? I’m hoping to get a You Bet Your Life Groucho in the mail.

– The Washington Post‘s Lisa de Moraes reports that Fox is screening that controversial abortion episode of Family Guy – the one the network is declining to air – for critics and members of the TV Academy tonight in Los Angeles. Have to say, the light-on-details description of the episode don’t make it sound so funny.

– Ashton Kutcher had to Tweet his embarrassing skeeball defeat at the hands of Jimmy Fallon on Fallon’s late-night NBC talk show.

– And tonight in primetime:

– America’s Got Talent on NBC (8PM ET)
– Lauren Conrad tries to win $50K for her fave charity on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (8PM, ABC)
– People continue to reveal incredibly embarrassing, sometimes life-ruining, personal details as the second season of Moment of Truth premieres (9PM, Fox)
– The Leverage team goes after a tabloid newscaster (9PM, TNT)
– Wipeout. 9PM. ABC. Big red balls
– Bear’s huntin’ wild reindeer in the Arctic on Man vs. Wild (9PM, Discovery)
– Bill wants to sell the house he and the missus renovated on Giuliana & Bill (9PM, Style Network)
– Criss Angel: Mindfreak opens season five with Criss getting buried alive in a clear coffin (10PM, A&E)
– The first season of The Philanthropist wraps on NBC (10PM)
– Season premiere of Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Cincinnati Bengals (10PM, HBO)
– Carter’s ticked off when the FBI interferes with the team’s mission to save a kidnapping victim on Dark Blue (10PM, TNT)
– The final four have to cook blindfolded on Top Chef: Masters (10PM, Bravo)
– Seventh season premiere of Dinner: Impossible on Food Network involves Chef Robert trying to feed 250 roller derby queens (10PM)
– Jasmine can’t handle her hooch on Real World: Cancun (10PM, MTV)
– The Verminators take on rats and bats (10PM, Discovery)
– Joan’s chatting with the nouveau wealthy on How’d You Get So Rich? (10PM, TV Land)
– Adam tries to down a six-pound burrito at the NASCAR Café n Vegas on Man v. Food (10PM, Travel Channel)
– It’s not just a Southern thang – the action on Toddlers & Tiaras moves to the East Coast tonight (10PM, TLC)
– And Michael & Michael Have Issues about a college gig (10:30PM, Comedy Central)

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• Tags: Dancing With the Stars rumors, Dancing With the Stars season 9, Family Guy abortion episode, Heroes Ernie Hudson, Heroes season 4, Paula Abdul Ugly Betty, TV postage stamps, Walking Dead TV series

All the tube news that’s fit to surf …

– The Los Angeles Times claims that Paula Abdul‘s demands for a $20 million salary – and the American Idol producers’ hardball stance to avoid giving it to her – have led her to drop her price to $12 million a season, which would still be triple her current salary. Meanwhile, Jennifer Lopez is denying rumors that she’s going to replace Abdul on the show.

– Simon Cowell, whose salary is expected to be juiced up to $45 million a season on AI, is planning a new AI-ish series that looks to find the next big band. Supermodel Kate Moss will be a judge … apparently, dating rock stars qualifies one as a worthy rock critic.

– And a sad bit of Idol news: Police have arrested a man in the hit-and-run death of two-time AI auditioner Alexis Cohen.

– The View co-host Whoopi Goldberg is producing a new Science Channel game show called Head Games, and the show is looking for contestants.

– There are women with mommy issues and then there’s Tori Spelling and her mom Candy, who’s taken to TMZ.com in her latest attempt to publicly humiliate her reality TV star daughter.

– It had been rumored for months, but now it’s official: Lost star Dominic Monaghan has joined the cast of ABC’s new fall drama Flash Forward, which premieres Sept. 24

– The Lipstick Jungle series didn’t work out, but Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell, who also penned the Jungle book, is writing another women-in-the-workplace series, The Boardroom, that will unfold online. The four-episode series will star 90210‘s Jennie Garth and Mad Men‘s Talia Balsam.

– Seth MacFarlane is producing an abortion-themed episode of his Emmy-nominated ‘toon Family Guy, but he says he thinks it will prove too controversial to air.

– The Octomom and her 14 kids will reportedly earn $250,000 for a new reality show.

– Newsweek asks, “Why is Katherine Heigl so annoying?” I’d answer, “She can’t seem to help herself.”

– The number one TV network for gay-friendly programming: HBO, according to GLAAD. Among the worst, says GLAAD: CBS and NBC.

– It’s a Partridge Family reunion: Shirley Jones will play the mom of her real-life stepsons David and Patrick Cassidy on ABC Family’s new hit Ruby & the Rockits.

– And tonight in primetime:

– Jillian chooses between Ed and Kiptyn in the season finale of The Bachelorette (8PM ET, ABC)
– A pie-eating contest is just one stop for the fams on Great American Road Trip (8M, NBC)
– Amy’s ticked when Ben plans a fab summer trip and she has to stay home and work on The Secret Life of the American Teenager (8PM, ABC Family)
– Charm School graduates its winner in the season three finale (9PM, VH1)
– Carter gets an ultimatum on Make It or Break It (9PM, ABC Family)
– A new Unwrapped installment (9PM), Food Network) covers diner classics like hotcakes and java
– NGC unveils the Secret Lives of Charles Lindbergh (9PM)
– Gino builds a new patio and a basketball court on King of Dirt (9:30PM, DIY)
– History Channel gets freaky with Sex in ’69: Sexual Revolution in America (9PM)
– A&E has new eps of Intervention (9PM) and Obsessed (10PM)
– Andy’s growing more fond of Dr. Kitson on Weeds (10PM, Showtime)
– P. Diddy/Puff Daddy/Sean Combs/What-ever puts together a band for his upcoming tour on the series premiere of Making His Band (10PM, MTV)
– The contestants shake their groove thangs to movie soundtrack tunes on Dance Your Ass Off (10PM, Oxygen)
– Kathy hangs with Drew Barrymore and Melissa Etheridge on Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List (10PM, Bravo)
– Tony’s back in America, with stops in Buffalo, Baltimore and Detroit on Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations (10PM, Travel Channel)
– Terrell heads to Buffalo to meet his new teammates on The T.O. Show (10PM, VH1)
– Buddy’s latest creation: a tiki torch cake with real fire on Cake Boss (10PM, TLC)
– ABC has a new ep of Dating in the Dark (10PM)
– And Jackie’s secret – two of them, actually – may be out on Nurse Jackie (10:30PM, Showtime)

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• Tags: Alexis Cohen American Idol, American Idol, Candace Bushnell The Boardroom, Candy Spelling TMZ letter, Dominic Monaghan, Family Guy abortion episode, Jennifer Lopez American Idol, Octomom reality show, Paula Abdul contract