After seven months of Bee Movie trailers, Jerry Seinfeld appearing on “Oprah,” “Larry King,” “The View,” and every other talk show in existence, a special tie-in appearance on “30 Rock”, a bunch of confusing, unfunny segments during every single commercial break during “The Office” for three weeks, and Seinfeld dressing up in a bee suit and descending on reporters from a zipline, “Bee Movie” was finally unleashed on theaters this weekend. However, when I went to Rottentomatoes this morning to see how Seinfeld’s legendarily whorish performance cashed in at the box office, I was rather surprised to see this:

American Gangster - $46.3 M
Bee Movie - $39.1 M

What did Seinfeld do wrong?? Surely the American moviegoing public couldn’t have simply preferred to see an engaging, beautifully acted period piece from two historically successful blockbuster directors than another CGI’d animal movie that we’re all going to catch on HBO some afternoon nine months from now and be pretty sure we already saw it? Right?

Maybe Seinfeld didn’t appear on enough talk shows? He could’ve done “Martha,” “The Early Show With Harry Smith,” “The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet,” “The Best Damn Sports Show Period,” G4’s “Attack of the Show”, Fox News’ “Half Hour News Hour,” or a special one-time revived episode of “The Chevy Chase Show.”

Maybe Seinfeld should have done a more extensive physical stunt? When he slid down the zipline, why didn’t he drop huge buckets of yellow and black paint on the people below, permanently making their clothes black and yellow and reminding them and their families about the movie every time they get dressed? Also, the paint buckets are full of bees.

Excuses aside, though, I feel like the reason for “Bee Movie’s” box office defeat was a lot more simple: “American Gangster” just had better TV Juniors.

• Katie Holmes ran in the NYC Marathon this past weekend, but was horrified to discover the 26-mile race ended right where it began, and Tom Cruise was still there waiting.
• Lance Armstrong also competed in the marathon, but disappointed crowds by not carrying Ashley Olsen on his shoulders the whole way.
• John Mayer has decided to photograph everything he eats and post it onto his blog. We’ll be looking forward to those pictures of Jessica Simpson, buddy!
• NBC Anchorman Brian Williams stunned the world by actually being a funny, talented actor this past weekend on SNL. Studio heads are already scrambling to get him a buddy comedy vehicle co-starring Ben Stiller - STAT!
• In an appearance on Larry King Live, Jerry Seinfeld angrily demands to know what’s the deal with Larry not fully grasping how famous and successful he is.

Today marks the end of an era. Since time remembered, Dreamworks has treated us all to a merciless, omnipresent publicity campaign harking the imminent arrival in theaters of Bee Movie, otherwise known as their annual CGI-animated flick in which quirky little insects who can talk go on a big adventure to save their kind while making some new friends and learning a few lessons in the process. We’ve seen trailers, billboards, posters, product tie-ins, favorite-show-ruining lower-screen graphics on NBC, Jerry Seinfeld flying around in a bee costume at the Cannes Film Festival, Jerry Seinfeld in unfunny and sometimes semi-racist (anyone catch that border-bagging spot?) extended TV commercials, Jerry Seinfeld asking what the deal is with things on every TV talk show in existence, and Jerry Seinfeld personally showing up at our doors and whining, “You’re gonna go see Bee Movie, right? Don’t forget - I was on Seinfeld!”

So now that the film has finally arrived in every theater in the country today, and every American child will instinctively force their parents to take them to see it (which mom & dad will happily do if they hope to sleep peacefully ever again), we must say a tearful good-bye to all the Bee Movie promotional efforts we’ve been so blissfully bombarded with for what seems like the greater part of the last decade. In order to help us better cope with this extraordinary loss, I thought I’d invite you all to share with everyone in the comments what were YOUR very favorite moments from our collective experience in overblown movie marketing. Was it seeing black and yellow literally everywhere you turned outside of your home? All those hilarious TV spots you TiVo’d right past during the commercial break between 30 Rock and The Office? Or was it finally coming to the conclusive realization that everything good and funny and not annoying about the Seinfeld sitcom clearly came from the Larry David side of the creative equation?

And don’t forget to go see Bee Movie this weekend, because if you don’t, we’ll have no Bee Movie 2 publicity extravaganza to look forward to next year. Also, anyone who fails to buy a ticket to see the film during its opening weekend will be personally punched in the face by Jerry Seinfeld.

Ladies and gentlemen, just when the new fall lineup has done its best to convince you that television brilliance is dead, HBO hangs in there and creates electronic brilliance. A new show, involving three of our favorite people in the universe: Former BWE panelist and current superstar Patton Oswalt, the unbelievably dreamy and hilarious Bradley Cooper, and former State castmember and current haute-director Michael Patrick Jan. Needless to say, the show sounds unbelieves:

HBO is developing “Intelligence,” a comedy series project starring Bradley Cooper and Patton Oswalt.

The project, created by Michael Patrick Jann, is a workplace comedy about an elite counter-intelligence unit hidden undercover as disgruntled civil servants. Jann, who recently helmed an episode of HBO’s offbeat comedy series “Flight of the Conchords,” will write “Intelligence” and is on board to direct. He will executive produce alongside Cooper and Oswalt.

You know who we feel sorta bad for? Wayne Knight. The ultimate mailman, and totally left out of a show dealing with civil servants! He never should’ve lost all that weight. In other news, we just programmed our invisi-tivos to record this in 2009!

• SWEET GESTURE: Hey… is that BWE panelist, ABC Caveman and hilarious man about village Nick Kroll giving us the finger outside of L.A. hotspot The Ivy? WTF Nick! We knew celebrity would get to your head eventually… just not this soon! (Crunk & Disorderly)
• WE CAN NEVER GET ENOUGH ROLANDO BOYCE: Finally, what you’ve all been waiting for… the OFFICIAL R. Kelly Trapped in the Closet Wiki! Thank God someone can finally explain to me the difference between Pimp Lucius and Reverend Mosley James Evans. (Trapped in the Closet Wiki)
• CASTING MUSE: Justin Timberlake has signed on with Mike Myers to co-star in the upcoming comedy The Love Guru. Though nothing can top the comedy that was Black Snake Moan. (People)
• COVET BY JEROME SEINFELD: Those of you wondering what to get me for Rosh Hashanah, have I got an idea for you… Sony Pictures is releasing every single season of Seinfeld in one huge DVD box set, along with a coffee table book that we’re guessing will turn into a coffee table. Which means we can finally watch it the other 18.5 hours a day it isn’t on TBS or Fox 5. Yay! (Yahoo!)
• BRING THE WAIN: David Wain continues to make the transition from Best Sketch Comedy Show Ever to Pretty Funny Internet Viral Videos with his latest installment of “Wainy Days.” (The Apiary)

On the left, Prince Frederick von Anhalt, husband of Zsa Zsa Gabor, photographed after he claims some women robbed him at gunpoint and handcuffed him to his steering wheel bare-ass naked. On the right, Dean Wooten, the 65-year-old Wal-Mart greeter fired after his bosses caught him showing the above picture as a way to welcome customers. It’s also possible that this post isn’t so much a “Simi-Lebrities” as it is a “Where Are They Now?”, since it’s very near possible that the Prince and Wooten are actually the same guy.

We’d like to end this post with a lengthy yet apropos Seinfeld quote from “The Letter” (regarding this painting) that best sums up the way the above two pictures make us feel:

Woman: I sense great vulnerability. A lost child crying out for love, an innocent orphan in the post-modern world.
Man: I see a parasite.
Woman: A sexually-depraved miscreant, who is seeking to gratify only his most basic and immediate urges.
Woman: He is struggled, he is man-struggled. He lifts my spirit!
Man: He is a loathsome, offensive brute, yet I can’t look away.
Woman: He transcends time and space.
Man: He sickens me.
Woman: I love it.
Man: Me too.

(Anhalt photo via TMZ)

• SPANX FOR THE MEMORIES: Looks like Kelly Osbourne has just recently discover two things that have been staples in our wardrobe rotation for years: Spanx & Photoshop. (The Daily Mail)
• AD SPOT: Former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev is the new face of Louis Vuitton. Now, if they would only ad his iconic birthmark to the standard LV vinyl pattern, maybe I’d be willing to shell out 8 million rubles for it. (The Blay Report)
• UNFUNNY RUMOR FROM AN UNFUNNY MAN: Ex-American Idol host Brian Dunkleman is trying to spread an unfunny rumor that Ryan Seacrest has AIDS. The only thing making Seacrest feel better? The fact that he’s not Brian Dunkleman. (TMZ)
• SEINFELDIAN SPONGES: They’re back. And not the kind you wipe the kitchen counter with. The kind you wipe your down under parts in order to prevent a baby from coming out of your body in 9 months. Huzzah! (NY Times)
• REMIXXX: This recutting of Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will either scar you for life or titillate you for roughly 2 minutes. Language NSFW! (Youtube)
• EQUATION: Oregon Trail + Cat = Best Childhoor Memories Summed Up In One Photo. (ICHC)

OK, Gumshoes, time to get off your magnifying asses and solve this case. Michael “Kramer” Richards has left the country of America, following his en-ger debacle last year, for the greener pastures of another land, a smaller land. When he’s not probably sleeping with their abundance of prostitutes, perhaps he’s reapplying a little Khmer Rouge, or making incendiary jokes about the “Pol Pot calling the kettle black.” So… Where in the World Is Michael Richards?

He’s in Cambodia, of course! Doing — what else? — some spiritual healing with his fiancée. The LA Times reports that Richards quit stand-up comedy (thanks God), and has sort-of half-joined a religious sect known as the Nithyanandas, named after a 29-year-old Hindu monk who some have nicknamed a “modern mystic.” The same thing people used to say about Jerry Seinfeld! Maybe Krames is onto something. Let’s just hope he doesn’t roll onto the steps of the country’s most famous temple and make an “Angkor ‘N-gga’ Wat!” joke.

If you guys are as big a Seinfeld fan as myself (cut to me, typing on a 1994 Apple computer in Gap reverse fit jeans and white Reeboks), it won’t take you more than a second to recognize the Elf in the following Passions clip as Mickey Abbott, Kramer’s buddy who sometimes “lifts.” Well, it seems like actor Danny Woodburn of Mickey fame has fallen on some hard times, going from possibly the funniest sitcom of all-time to a daytime soap opera dressed like a Christmas Elf, eating a block of ham, rapping, and setting fire to things. On second thought, Danny Woodburn might be the luckiest actor in Hollywood right now. Endless comedic talent! We love him.

It is an important day for creepy old man countdown clockers round the world, as today The Olsen Twins turn 21 years of age. Which is all well and good, especially because now they can legally use cocaine, but more importantly… something dawned on us today. WE HAVE NEVER SEEN THE OLSEN TWINS’ PARENTS! Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen have been famous for nearly as many years as they’ve been alive, and billionaires for almost as many. Yet, no matter where the paparazzi catch them, no matter what Barrista they may be harassing for “skimmer” milk, they are always sans guardians. We decided to investigate, and here’s what (little) we learned. According to Wikipedia:

Born in Sherman Oaks, California to David Olsen (b. 1953) and Jarnette (Jarnie) Fuller (b. 1954), Mary-Kate and Ashley Fuller Olsen started their acting careers on the television series Full House in 1987. They were hired at the age of six months, and filming began when they were nine months old.

So, first of all, it sort of amazes the mind that the internet features barely any pictures of Jarnie and David. In fact of the few I could find, only two were large enough to even figure out what these two billionaires-by-default looked like. Both taken from when the girls were little:

The rest of the pictures were barely identifiable thumbnails, seen in montage here:

So the real question is, with all the money these girls have between them — in the billions — did they just decide at around age, we don’t know, six, that they don’t need Mom and Dad anymore? Or maybe, just maybe, we finally have a case of Hollywood parents who aren’t addicted to the spotlight like some peopleDinaLohan? We refuse to believe this last theory, as any family that pushed their daughters into acting at 6 months old has got to have Gypsy Rose Lee intentions. Maychance they’re just perma-wading in their gold coin pool, a la Scrooge McDuck.

But seriously (cue Seinfeld voice) WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? And where are they? Your insights are truly apprecaited.

I gotta give Jerry Seinfeld props, he doesn’t need to be doing this. He’s got enough money and fame, he didn’t need to make a CGI-movie. He certainly doesn’t need to promote the film, called Bee Movie, by potentially embarrassing himself and dressing up in a giant bee costume then taking a zipline ride off an eight-story building. I mean he’s Jerry Seinfeld. The movie’s going to get tons of publicity as it is. But there he was in Cannes, screening footage from the film, donning his bee suit and dealing with foreign reporters making bad puns.

If all this coverage makes you curious about what the film’s actually about, check out the new trailer below. (Or for an HD version, click here.) There have been earlier teasers featuring Jerry in the aforementioned bee getup, but this is the first to include actual footage from the film. My opinion: There are definitely some amusing parts (like the final bit with the window) but it’s nothing amazing. Frankly, I’m having more fun watching Jerry do things like zipline off a hotel in a ridiculous costume…

Michael Richards‘ racist “en-ger” rant has certainly made the rounds, bringing to light that the man either hates black people, has anger issues, and/or might be completely ess-aitch-eye-tee eating crazy (censors, folks.) Well according to this blurb over at Radio Ink, the man formerly loved as Kramer:

Simpsons producer Sam Simon told Howard Stern that Richards’ racist rant at an LA comedy club was a public demonstration of what TV insiders have known for years – that Richards is prone to bizarre, temperamental behavior.

Richards, according to Simon, threatened the life of Spike Feresten, creator of The Michael Richards Show. Simon said that Richards told Feresten, “I have a gun. I’m going to kill you, and I’ll do the time.” …And Richards was once found, according to Simon, in a corner of a soundstage, weeping uncontrollably.

Threatening the life of our most beloved (only) late night Fox talk show host/former Seinfeld writer Spike Feresten?!?! Now we know that bastard’s innn-SANE (spoken like Elaine Benes). At least it hasn’t affected sales of the Season 7 DVD!

After the jump, check out Kramer’s younger, kinder days, which were limited to stalking a flaxen-haired Ed Begley Jr.…

Read the rest of this entry »

• NOISY BOB: Clerks director Kevin Smith is apparently a little miffed that Apple wasn’t interested in running his rambling drivel hilarious insights on Anthrax and Sinead O’Connor for their “Celebrity Playlist” section. (Kevin Smith’s Diary)
• BLACK POWER: Jesse Jackson is calling for a boycott against the latest Seinfeld DVDs, teaching that unemployed actor guy who played Elaine’s dumb boyfriend a really unfortunate lesson about racial sensitivity. (TV Squad)
• LOST JUNKIE METHADONE FIX: This list of 50 Loose Ends From Lost doesn’t answer any questions and only makes you want to see the next episode even more. Just like the show! (IGN TV)
• LIMBLAHBLAHBLAH: “Let’s Just Have The Civil Wars…Just Blow The Place Up”, Rush Limbaugh, on Iraq, right as always. (HuffPo)
• AWESOME WEBSITE: Now when you’re going on a date with that fugly person you met on MySpace, you don’t have to count on your drunken roommate to bail you out with the mid-meal fake phone call. (Mobile Alibi)
• HOLIDAY BARGAIN BLOW-OUT: Since your dad still loves those topical Brokeback Mountain jokes, get him one of the hilarious t-shirts from our online store for cheap! (BWE.tv Store)

• FAT LOL: Ruben Studdard has turned vegetarian… and 2,200 turkeys wipe the sweat off their combs in relief. (US Magazine)
• DIVORCE COSTS ARM AND LEG: Heather Mills claims that she would rather lose the rest of her limbs than go through her divorce with Paul McCartney again. We kind of wish she would’ve lost her larynx instead of that leg. (BBC News)
• SECOND SEINFELD TRAGEDY: First Michael Richards, now Jerry Seinfeld’s ex-girlfriend Tawny Kitaen has been arrested for felony drug possession after police found cocaine in her house. We know her other ex-boyfriend O.J. Simpson is connected to this somehow, but we’ll give Seinfeld a small Thanksgiving break. (Yahoo News)
• PURSE-ECUTION: First daughter Barbara Bush had her purse stolen last week while dining out in Argentina. We wouldn’t be surprised if President Bush launched “Daddy’s Payback War” and sent 10,000 troops into Buenos Aires tonight. (CBS News)
• NSFWWWWW!!!!!!!: Someone is brave enough to review the Screech Sex Tape. We nearly didn’t link to this, as it’s a holiday weekend, but maybe you’ll put down that second helping of Grandma’s Fudge Pie after reading it. See, we’re helping you help you! (Have we mentioned it’s Not Safe For Work?) (Fleshbot)
• EYE CLEANSE: We can’t end on that Screech tape, so here’s a little Thanksgiving Brain Cleanse, from us to you! (Thanksgiving Cats and Thanksgiving Dog)

We’ll be enjoying the long weekend, and will return on Monday, November 27. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!