Hur hur hur hur hur hur hur hur hur hur hur hur hur hur. Cool. Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh hehehehe hmngh hehehehehehe. ‘Rules. Hur hur hur hur hur hur hur hur hur hur hur hur hur hur hur. Dumbass.

If you’re from the ’90s, then you’ll know that all articles concerning Beavis and Butthead must use the conjecture that they displayed in their excellent and often baffling MTV cartoon series.

This pair of slackers preceded the Jackass generation with a mixture of snotty rock, fondness for mindless destruction and laughing at stoopid shit. And now, they’re coming back to do it all over again.

MTV has announced that that the likeable-but-disgusting duo are coming back to the small screen in October 2011. Mike Judge, the show’s creator, has been confirmed to be writing new episodes as well as returning to voice the two characters.

Hopefully, he’ll push the show on a little, having been behind the magnificent King of the Hill.

And the new footage of the show looks like something of a return to form, with Beavis finding himself in terrible agony having a screw through his hand and… well… starting a religious cult by accident.

Of course, the pair are still hugely inept and sporting their grotty metal t-shirts. And still no parental supervision. Good. Just how we like it.

Instead of talking about it, shall we just watch it instead?

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or join our Facebook group or BUY ONE OF OUR STUPID T-SHIRTS!

The Fresh Prince of Bel Air was the platform that launched Will Smith’s career and introduced an entire generation to the high-top fade and the fashion miracle that is a blazer that’s been turned inside out.

The show ended 15 years ago (and has subsequently been repeated more times than Friends) but one of the shows former stars, Tatyana Ali, who played Will’s cousin Ashley Banks, has confirmed that the original cast are in talks about doing a reunion.

We can’t help but wonder which Aunt Viv they’ll bring back though.

Now that everyone is a bit older, the classic opening title sequence might not seem as relevant, so we here at hecklerspray have taken it upon ourselves to pen a new set of lyrics to the Fresh Prince theme.

Now this is a story all about how,
Will Smith’s movie career turned upside down,
And I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there,
We’ll use a cheap joke to tell you how he’s returning to Bel-Air.

In West Philadelphia born and raised,
In films like Ali was where Will spent most of his days,
Commanding massive box office, relaxing all cool,
Getting nominated for Oscars, he wasn’t no fool.

Then a couple of guys, thought it’d be a stitch,
To cast Big Willy in Hancock and Hitch,
The films bombed hard and his agent got scared,
And said, “we’re going to have to bring back the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”

The whole gang is back, despite all our fears,
That this is just an attempt to save their flagging careers,
If anything we think it just isn’t fair,
To ruin the memory of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

So pull up a chair, sit back and await,
For middle aged Will to shout, “Yo Homes, Smell ya later!”
Will Smith’s about to learn, to his despair,
That he will never escape the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

At least it’s better than the Wild Wild West theme.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or join our Facebook group or BUY ONE OF OUR STUPID T-SHIRTS!

Does anyone remember Charlie Sheen? We’ve not heard much from him since he starred in Hot Shots Part Deux. Is he alright? He’s not getting up to mischief is he? Of course he is. He’s currently the world’s most successful berk.

When Sheeno is not punching furniture, hoovering up bad drugs up his rapidly eroding nose holes, frightening women to tears in wardrobes and making outlandish claims about winning, he’s been the star of the very, very ordinary Two and a Half Men.

He got the chop from that after he called his old boss some lame names and everyone stared at him, effectively waiting for him to die while sandwiched between to listless porn actresses who were playing along with Sheen and enjoying the fleeting fame. And now, as the world yawns at each snippet of devalued gossip, it appears Charlie may be making a return to the sitcom.

That’s right! The in-no-way-tedious-news is that he could well be getting his Two And A Half Men job back, despite his increasingly forced odd behaviour and public slap fight with show executive Chuck Lorre.

Jeff Rossen of NBC News, who is obviously a man who knows absolutely everything (seriously, tweet him any question and he’ll answer it, no matter how ridiculous), reckons that Sheen will be offered his old job back by CBS who, presumably, are delighted at the amount of times the show’s name has been mention while everyone is on Sheen Deathwatch.

Writing at Twitter.com/jeffrossen:

“Sources close to Charlie Sheen tell NBC News, CBS has offered him his job back. Discussions ongoing. Not a done deal.”

“Per my sources: CBS is happy to to have Charlie Sheen back on show… if Warner Bros, Chuck Lorre and Sheen can settle differences.”

That’s an easy one to swing. Give him a suitcase full of coke, a machine to restart his heart and a couple of women with destroyed baby holes and he’ll sign up.

Betcha.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or join our Facebook group or BUY ONE OF OUR STUPID T-SHIRTS!

If you’re a fan of George Clooney and you miss the days when he used to cut people open so he could more accurately shift their innards around – have we got good news for you!

No, we’re not talking about every single girl he dated in the eighties and their wild accusations against him – if they exist at all. We’re talking about him making a bold return to ER – that Doogie Howser spin-off with an all grown-up cast.

You see, as we heard it he’s short on cash, and he became so right in the middle of a driveway repaving. That’s when ER execs swooped in with several individually wrapped dollar bills to impress him with.

Last time G. Clooney was in a hospital it was because he was trying to jump his girlfriend with a motorbike or something. He lost control, swerved into several hundred pigs, and then broke all his favourite ribs in the ensuing stampede.

All of our lives would be far more interesting were even a little of that true.

Next time he’s in a hospital, however, it’ll be on his terms. Also the hospital will be far more TV set-ish than an actual hospital – that’s because he’s returning to ER for a super crummy ‘remember when he was here’ episode. If E! Online is to be believed:

“Sources tell E! News that George Clooney will be shooting scenes this week for an upcoming episode of the hit medical series, which is in its 15th and final season on NBC. The network recently ordered up another three episodes of its stalwart Thursday-night drama, raising hopes that nabbing Clooney for a guest spot was one of the reasons for the extension.”

It’ll be interesting to see how they bring Clooney’s character back, seeing as how last time we saw him he was in the bottom of a Transylvanian death-pit thoroughly impaled on several large, wooden stakes.

Wait, is that true? We’ve no idea actually – we tend to remember things far more interesting than they actually were. For instance, did you know Obama ate his twin while still in the womb? Also, Greta Van Susteren once tore the jaws off of two teenage tigers and used them to scale a very tall glass building. It was during sweeps week.

We would have watched that 1000 times over.

Nobody’s quite sure when Clooney’s episodes will air, but we’re sure his mother is sitting eagerly in her barcalounger with a shaky finger hovering over the DVR record button just in case word comes.

If he was our son, we’d probably be doing the same.

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

ER, the hospital show that nobody watches any more, has produced some big stars in its time – you know who we’re talking about.

We’re talking about Mekhi Phifer, famous for his tiny bitpart in the Eminem movie 8 Mile. And Noah Wyle, who left ER and found fame as the lead in The Librarian: Quest for the Spear – the only film in history that nobody has ever even considered watching. Oh, and Anthony Edwards.

But although Anthony Edwards left ER six years ago when his character died of brain cancer, the good news is that he’s back! Anthony Edwards is making an impressive return to ER tonight to mark the final season of the show, in an episode we’ll presume is called Why Doesn’t George Clooney Return Our Calls Any More?

People say it was cancer, but we’re not so sure that’s what killed Michael Crichton. We think Michael Crichton died of a broken heart when he heard that his beloved ER was getting cancelled early next year. That’s what killed Michael Crichton. Although, you know, the cancer probably helped as well.

But even though he’s dead, that still doesn’t change the future of ER. Next February will mark ER‘s final episode after 15 seasons of untamed success. Or, to be more accurate, four years of untamed success, eight years of people only just remembering that it existed and three years of wanking in the dark.

However, even though ER is on the outs – killed by the success of Grey’s Anatomy, or ER for menstrual women – the show is determined to snuff it with a flourish. That’s why tonight ER welcomes back its biggest star.

Well, OK, not its biggest star. That would be George Clooney. And not its hunkiest star, either. That’d be Goran Visnjic. So let’s just say the bloke who became a star because he hung around ER until everyone else left. We’re talking, of course, about Anthony Edwards.

And, yes, you might think that Anthony Edwards returning to ER six years after his character Dr Mark Greene died of brain cancer sounds slightly incongruous, but it’s OK – rather than taking the obvious option of making it a zombie episode, it’ll all be done in flashback instead. And his fee is going to charity, too. San Jose Mercury News reports:

Edwards didn’t want pay for his guest shot. Instead, Warner Bros. donated $125,000 to the hospital. Steven Spielberg matched that money, and “ER” executive producer John Wells kicked in $50,000. “You’re given a great gift when you have success as an actor,” said Edwards, who is 46. “And the only way to pass it on is if it’s something you genuinely care about.”

It seems to us like everybody wins here. A 250-bed hospital will get built in Africa, Anthony Edwards gets to remember what being on television is like and the smattering of remaining ER fans get to see someone marginally famous help close the show instead of the girl from Bend It Like Beckham who isn’t Keira Knightley and Velma from Scooby Doo: Monsters Unleashed. What more could anyone ask for?

No, not George Clooney. Shut up.

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

OK, so it’s perfectly clear that Dancing With The Stars is a much more exciting proposition than Strictly Come Dancing.

On Strictly Come Dancing, what have we got? A middle-aged woman from a coffee advert and the woman off The One Show. But on Dancing With The Stars it’s a completely different matter. On Dancing With The Stars, people literally dance until their appendixes explode, and then they carry on dancing anyway.

That’s more or less what happened to Dancing With The Stars professional Julianne Hough, anyway – after being diagnosed with endometriosis last week, she’s having her appendectomy today and hopes to be back dancing within a week, a date that incidentally coincides with the debut of new ABC series Dancing With The Oh God My Stitches Are Coming Undone, Oh God, Oh Jesus No, My Guts Are Seeping Through My Dress. Stay tuned, kids.

Seriously though, how rubbish is Strictly Come Dancing compared to Dancing With The Stars? Not only does Dancing With The Stars now officially cure heart disease, but it’s also about a thousand times more dramatic.

Take last week, for instance. Professional dancers on both shows picked up injuries. On Dancing With The Stars, professional Julianne Hough discovered that uterine-lining tissue was growing outside the uterus on the surfaces of her appendix and if she didn’t get her appendix removed quickly, she’d probably die or something. Meanwhile on Strictly Come Dancing Brendan Cole hit his leg on an escalator and it really flipping hurt. It hardly compares, does it?

And, just to show how much of her life is dedicated to the art of twirling around in a dress that barely covers her bottom, Julianne Hough has decided that she isn’t going to let a little thing like a septic internal organ stop her from performing on Dancing With The Stars, as People reports:

Julianne Hough undergoes an appendectomy on Tuesday – and wants to hit the dance floor within days. “Everything’s okay,” the two-time Dancing With the Stars champ said on Monday night’s show, where she performed a samba with partner Cody Linley. “I’m going to hopefully be back, if everything goes as planned, next week.”

Even for cynics like us, Julianne Hough returning to Dancing With The Stars a week after a fairly major operation seems fairly remarkable. She’ll certainly be the centre of attention when she does make her comeback, as all of America eagerly awaits the debut of brand new dance moves like the Agonised Double Over, The Pallid Vomit and the Sudden Screaming Collapse.

Still, though, you have to feel a little bit sorry for Kim Kardashian, don’t you? Since she was kicked off Dancing With The Stars weeks ago, that means that she’s officially worse at dancing than an 82-year-old woman, a forgotten singer with a dicky ticker and now a woman who literally needs to be sliced open, possibly because it hurts so much when she shits. Nice going, Kim!

When Kim Kardashian was voted off Dancing With The Stars last week, the message was clear – Kim, your sex tapes are OK, but your dancing is bum.

However, there’s a sliver of a chance that we haven’t seen the last of Kim Kardashian on Dancing With The Stars yet, and it’s all down to Misty May-Treanor‘s knackered Achilles tendon. Now that May-Treanor’s out of Dancing With The Stars, Kim Kardashian is said to be awaiting her callback.

And quite right – Kim’s already been voted off Dancing With The Stars once, so her inevitably swift second elimination will just reaffirm how little America cares for her. But if she got a third call-up after that we’d worry – we get the feeling that only a marching band playing a tune called Nobody Likes You Kim and a firework display in the shape of a frown would make Kim Karadashian understand how people feel about her.

Ballroom dancing, let’s face it, is easy. All you need to do is fake a small amount of affection for your partner and then spin around for a bit pulling a face like there’s a disgusting dirty orphan pulling at your trouser leg asking for money. Anyone can do it. OK, anyone except for Gary Rhodes. And Misty-May-Treanor, for that matter.

Despite being a two-time Olympic beach volleyball champion – and therefore being in possession of as much athleticism as it takes to stand around on some sand playing an inscrutably complex game with a bit of string wedged between your arse – Misty May-Treanor was forced to quit Dancing With The Stars this week because she snapped her Achilles tendon, or something equally gruesome-sounding.

But, then, you know what they say – if participating in a lonely masturbation fantasy loosely disguised as a sport doesn’t get you, then participating in a lonely masturbation fantasy loosely disguised as a reality TV show will.

But, anyway, with Misty May-Treanor out of Dancing With The Stars, that leaves the show a dancer down. And who better to fill her spot than Kim Kardashian, a woman who’s already been judged to be worse than terrible at dancing?

And, really, Kim Kardashian is completely ready to return to Dancing With The Stars. Because, you know, otherwise she’d only spend her time having it off with men and filming it for the internet, and we all know how dull the results of that can be. So, speaking to Ryan Seacrest on his radio show, Kim Kardashian laid out her masterplan:

“If they ask me to, I’m available. I’m back home tomorrow. We’ll see!”

That seems to be a solid enough plan to us – 13 words of badly-defined, noncommittal murmuring. She’s in, folks!

Or, more likely, she’s not. If Dancing With The Stars let Kim Kardashian back, then it’d probably have to refund all the money to everyone who voted for her to be eliminated first time round. And, really, that’s a lot of money. Kim Kardashian was quite awful.

So expect a polite thanks but no thanks from Dancing With The Stars to Kim Kardashian’s offer. But another bitter rejection won’t destroy Kim’s love of dance – she’ll continue to dance in private.

Well, we say ‘in private’. Chances are she’ll film all the dancing and put it on the internet for her fans to download. And we say ‘dancing’ – we actually mean ‘having sex with men.’ Basically, Kim Kardashian’s going to have sex with some men and put it on the internet. That’s close enough, right?

Last year’s MTV VMAs marked the precise moment when Britney Spears’ life went from ‘amusingly wonky’ to ‘toe-curling and nightmarish’.

People still talk about Britney’s VMA performance of Gimme More with the glazed tremble of a war survivor. The bikini, the drawn-on stomach, the stumbling, the dire miming – as well as effectively ending Britney Spears’ career for good it also caused up to 300 unwitting viewers to completely lose their eyesight.

Clearly, then, Britney Spears would be stupid to ever return to the MTV VMAs. Worse than stupid, in fact – Britney Spears would be showing such a profound lack of self-awareness that she should be encased in ice and sent around schools as a warning to future generations of the negative effects of celebrity.

So what might Britney Spears do at this year’s MTV VMAs? That’s right. Oh, don’t look so surprised.

Over the last couple of years, Britney Spears’ life has descended into a kind of thick featureless bad news goo – like a traffic pile-up so vast you can’t even see the individual car wrecks any more, just a mottled ocean of twisted metal that stretches off to the horizon in all directions.

Despite this, though, a few moments still stick out as being particularly rubbish. There was the time that Britney Spears shaved all her hair off, for example – that was the horrible harbinger for everything to come. Then there was the time Britney went to a mental hospital and was diagnosed as Gravely Disabled, the closest Britney’s come so far to hitting rock bottom.

And then there was Britney Spears’ performance at the MTV VMAs last year.

It’s almost been a year since Britney Spears decided to open the MTV VMAs with a spectacular comeback performance of her then new song Gimme More. There were rumours that the routine was going to be a career-high showstopper designed to silence the critics, featuring magic and fireworks and explosions. That’s not what we got, though.

What we got was Britney Spears in rancid hair extensions, wearing the least flattering bikini in creation and abs airbrushed onto her stomach. Britney stumbled around cluelessly for three minutes, looking like she barely knew her own name, let alone the words to her song, and then ran offstage in tears knowing that she’d become a monumental global joke.

It was awful. So needless to say she might be doing it all over again in a couple of months. The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

Troubled pop star Britney Spears will have another chance to storm the MTV stage, after receiving a nomination for this year’s Video Music Awards. The star has been nominated by network bosses in the category of Best Female Video for her hit single “Piece of Me,” competing alongside a list of music’s top female rockers.

OK, so it’s just a nomination for now, but MTV bosses must want her to sing – a performance by Britney Spears would get them more publicity than anything else on Earth. And, you know what, it might not be such a bad idea. Here’s why:

1) Britney Spears has just done that tour video for Madonna. If that doesn’t set up a redo of their lesbian VMA kiss from five years ago, nothing will.

2) Britney can wear clothes properly now. That’s a start.

3) Now that she’s firmly under the care of her family, Britney Spears can concentrate fully on the performance without distraction.

4) Britney’s lost her kids forever. See above.

5) This is the most important one. No matter what Britney Spears does during her MTV VMA performance this year, it can never ever ever be as bad as last year. She can go round shitting into nuns’ eyes if she likes. No, no she can’t. She should.

The new Beverly Hills 90210 started shooting this week, and we're so excited that we literally can't breathe – literally, it's quite uncomfortable.

Actually we're just pulling your leg. We're not excited at all. We're old enough to remember what Beverly Hills 90210 was like last time around – a pastel-shaded faux-aspirational thump through the lives of several guffawing non-entities who all thought they were at the exact centre of the universe because their chinos were quite expensive. It was dreadful.

But don't worry if you can't remember what the original Beverly Hills 90210 was like, because the new Beverly Hills 90210 looks set to be exactly the same. Even down to the cast members – as well as the inevitable role for Tori Spelling, Shannen Doherty is rumoured to appear as well. And maybe Jason Priestley, too, so long as he can get someone to cover his shifts holding up that Golf Sale sign.

If you had to make a list of all the TV shows you didn't want to see get remade, chances are Beverly Hills 90210 would be near the top of the list, alongside Minipops and Highway To Heaven. But your god clearly hates you, because a Beverly Hills 90210 remake is what you're getting.

Apparently the new Beverly Hills 90210 is going to be based around… look, you don't want to know what the new Beverly Hills 90210 will be like, because you'll get depressed and fling yourself out of a window and we'll get blamed and it won't be nice for anyone. But, so as not to leave you too disappointed, here are three definite truths about the new Beverly Hills 90210:

1 - Hilary Duff isn't going to be in it.

2 - It'll be about a bunch of obnoxious rich kids, and every fifth episode will focus on an arbitrary social issue like drugs or anorexia and it'll hammer the audience over the head with a moral message so clunky that it'll make kids rush out and do the exact opposite.

3 - Everyone who appeared in the original Beverly Hills 90210 will be in it whether you like it or not.

Sadly, this isn't a lie. Tori Spelling from that horrible reality show is set to return as Donna Martin, Jennie Garth from no other shows ever is set to return as Kelly Taylor and now it looks as Shannen Doherty from a rubbish thing about dating and a solitary minor car crash is about to return as well. Variety reports:

Shannen Doherty is in talks to reprise her role as Brenda Walsh in the CW's upcoming spinoff series "90210," the network confirmed Doherty starred on the original "Beverly Hills, 90210" from 1990-1994, before she was let go from the show after a series of onset clashes. That skein, exec produced by Aaron Spelling and created by Darren Starr, ran on Fox from 1990-2000.

Clearly the inclusion of Shannen Doherty in the new Beverly Hills 90210 punts the show up from 'desperately unwatchable' to 'watchable only in clip form on the internet when it turns out to be awful'. But if Shannen Doherty is returning, who else will come back?

So far, nobody. That's because Beverly Hills 90210 catapulted them to the realms of such superstardom that they're now all too expensive to be invited them back. Or because the producers don't know if they're alive or dead any more and they're too lazy to find out. One or the other.

Mentally-wayward popstars appearing on desperately mediocre American sitcoms is a bit like buses, isn’t it.

You go years without seeing, say, Syd Barrett cameo on Home Improvement, and then suddenly Britney Spears decides to appear on How I Met Your Mother twice in quick succession, thus making her identical to a bus in that one unconvincing respect.

Yes, we know that we’ve hardly stopped yammering on about Britney Spears returning to How I Met Your Mother, but this time it’s official – a contract has been written and Britney Spears has either signed it or wiped a dirty finger along the bottom of it because she’s still not allowed near anything as sharp as a pen yet. Whichever one is true, the deal’s been done.

If you haven’t ever seen How I Met Your Mother – and we’d guess we’re speaking to the majority of you here – the show revolves around the conceit of an old man describing his youth to some children in flashback with the intent of explaining how he met their mother, and the audience has to slowly guess who their mother is as well. It’s a bit like The Jeremy Kyle Show, only slower and not as funny.

Anyway, the chances of Britney Spears being the mother have just doubled. It’s still a fairly unlikely proposition, though, because the children in the show can speak in full sentences, don’t exclusively eat Doritos and live in a house instead of a grotty trailer. It’s clues like this that you have to look out for.

Why have Britney Spears’ chances just doubled? Because she’s only officially signed up to make her big How I Met Your Mother return after weeks of speculation, as The Associated Press reports:

Britney Spears, who proved she’s worth a cool million viewers to “How I Met Your Mother,” is paying another visit to the CBS sitcom. Spears will reprise her role as bubbly secretary Abby in the May 12 episode, CBS said Monday. “We’re all so thrilled to have Britney joining us once again,” series executive producer and co-creator Craig Thomas said in a statement. “And just to head it off at the pass this time around: Yes, Mom, Britney’s very nice and no, I can’t get her autograph for you,” Thomas added, jokingly.

No wonder, really – last time Britney Spears appeared on How I Met Your Mother the show received its highest-ever ratings. True, having Britney Spears appearing on a sitcom a few weeks after she was taken to a psychiatric hospital reeks of opportunistic stunt-casting, but getting a few more viewers to watch a TV show is probably more important than a young woman’s mental health, all said.

One person who’ll either be thrilled or mortified about Britney’s return to How I Met Your Mother is Neil Patrick Harris, who recently seemed to say that having Britney on the show was a stupid idea.

He’s since backtracked like mad over the claims, but that hasn’t stopped Britney Spears from inserting a contractual obligation stating that one full third of her new How I Met Your Mother episode should involve her jabbing her nicotine and Cheezum-stinking tongue into Neil Patrick Harris’ mouth over and over again as a nasty lesson about dissing her in public. Probably.

Read more:

Spears reprises guest role on CBS’ ‘Mother’ – AP

Few moments are as iconic as when Tom Cruise jumped all over Oprah Winfrey’s couch in 2005 – and by ‘iconic’ we obviously mean ‘nightmarishly creepy’.

But, really, Tom Cruise’s appearance on Oprah left so many important questions unanswered. Questions like ‘What’s going on?’, ‘Does Tom Cruise honestly believe that this is good for his career?’, ‘Why am I watching Oprah?’, ‘What happened to my self-respect?’ and ‘I’m so alone. Why am I so very alone?’

Well now those questions are about to be answered, because Tom Cruise is about to spectacularly return to Oprah in a two-part special starting next week. It’s literally going to be the greatest television event starring two raging, power-crazed egotists ever broadcast exclusively to an audience of lazy housewives and housebound alcoholics. Ever.

When Tom Cruise spazzed about on Oprah dementedly declaring his love for Katie Holmes three years ago, it was quite a worrying sight. Not because we were watching a megastar’s mind unspooling in front our very eyes, but because he was getting all excited about Katie Holmes – a woman so dull that the most excited response she’d elicited from anyone in the past was a semi-convincing shrug.

It was weird, and it didn’t do either Tom Cruise or Oprah any good. The appearance put people off Tom Cruise to such an extent that he ended up getting sacked by Paramount because all women hate him so much, and without Tom Cruise stopping by regularly, Oprah Winfrey had nothing better to do than go to Africa and inadvertantly fund child abuse.

It even turned Tom Cruise and Oprah against each other, with Tom not even inviting Oprah to his wedding. But now it looks like the war is over, because – as the Associated Press reports – Tom Cruise is going back for more:

Friends and colleagues will surprise Cruise with taped messages honoring his work in movies, according to a statement Thursday from Harpo Productions. Winfrey will interview Cruise from his home in Telluride, Colo., for the first show on May 2, which will cover his “family, his life and the future,” Harpo said. Then on May 5, Cruise will appear in Winfrey’s Chicago studio.

Sounds like unmissable entertainment – although we’ll just hazard a guess that the ‘friends and colleagues’ will include John Travolta, Will Smith, Jennifer Lopez, Kirstie Alley and the woman from King of Queens for some reason or other – and we’re especially looking forward to the bit where Tom Cruise will discuss his future, because we all love watching grown men look fearful and quietly mouth ‘I don’t know’ six or seven times in a row, don’t we?

But why now? Why has Tom Cruise decided to make his return to Oprah next week, other than because it’s Sweeps week? Is it because he’s decided to celebrate the embarrassing rescheduling of his comeback movie? The rumours of impending divorce? No, it’s because Risky Business came out 25 years ago.

Great! If that’s the case we can’t wait to see what Tom Cruise does in 2015 to mark the 25th anniversary of Days Of Thunder - we expect it’ll involve mournfully drinking a can of White Lightning in a Matalan car park at 3am or something equally glamorous.

Read more:

Hold on to your couch: Cruise returning to ‘Oprah’ – AP

The all singing, all dancing, bald, umbrella-wielding straw-dog of the world’s media Britney Spears is all set to re-plaster her face across the ever-stretching, mind-sucking abyss of America’s TV screens.

You will once again get to look back at her and respond to what she says and does, as if she were actually in your front room with you!

Imagine that. All you need do is squint and someone as famous as Britney Spears will be hanging out with a dirty, little, scum-sucking prole like you – as if it were the most natural thing in the world!

You can lie back, close your eyes, get very, very sleepy and relax all your attention – all your being – toward her and vainly attempt to avoid orgasm as she washes you from head to toe with the benevolent waves of her acting ability and general mindset.

Britney Spears is returning to How I Met Your Mother.

A source tells People:

“The show is ecstatic and so is Britney. She had so much fun the first time around she really wanted to come back. It was a mutual decision to work together more.”

Britney Spears will do one episode, so the source says, but Fox studios would not confirm the appearance. They’re no doubt praying that they’ll get to confirm soon though, what with them being Fox – a TV network that actually managed to turn The Simpsons into the cheapest show on earth! The unparalleled bastards of ineptitude!

Cast member Jason Segel said:

“She was hilarious in the table-read, and I got to see her do the run-through as well, and she was great.”

That’s nice. But how about the other co-stars, such as Neil Patrick Harris, who will be disgusted by the news, as he is a man totally opposed to any form of ‘stunt casting’.

However, Neil Patrick Harris will no doubt be absolutely delighted by the news, a man totally in agreement with compromising the integrity of the show’s entire oeuvre in order to get better ratings. Hwa-tcsh! Dance piggy, dance!

Why not read a book instead, dear readers? Or scratch your bollocks for half hour? Or kill yourself (to death, perhaps)?

Anything else.

Read More – Britney Returning To How i Met Your Mother – People

Britney Spears made a huge impression on the set of How I Met Your Mother, and not just because she rubbed her vagina against a plywood set wall until she wore a hole in it.

In fact, since Britney Spears a) gave How I Met Your Mother its highest-ever ratings and b) managed to get through her entire cameo without puking directly into Doogie Houser's eyes, the show's producers have come up with a brainwave.

They want Britney Spears to be on How I Met Your Mother all the time. No joke.

How I Met Your Mother used to be just another mediocre, barely-watched sitcom. But now How I Met Your Mother is so much more than that – it's the mediocre, barely-watched sitcom that everyone watched that one episode of because Britney Spears was in it briefly.

And, let's be fair, Britney Spears delivered bigstyle in her role. Thanks to her stint in the mental hospital and the fact that she's still deemed too batshit to even see her own children, expectations were so low that when Britney Spears didn't break down in tears in the middle of a sentence or demand to play her character as a squawking British woman or smash up the set with an umbrella, people were actually quite impressed with her performance.

Not just that, but Britney Spears gave How I Met Your Mother its highest-ever audience. And a bigger audience means more advertisers. And more advertisers mean more money. And more money means that some people in the television business want How I Met Your Mother to become the Everyone Watch Britney Spears' Fragile Rehabilitation In Gut-Wrenching Close Up! Featuring The Ginger Girl From Buffy! show. Associated Press reports:

"We always said, 'You know, if her character pops, we'll bring her back,'" [executive producer] Carter Bays told The Associated Press on Thursday. "I thought she was great. I was very proud of that episode." On the following episode, which aired Monday, the show introduced a "mystery woman" who's been sabotaging Barney's usually successful attempts to pick up ladies. Asked if Spears might turn out to be the saboteur, Bays said: "Could be. There's no reason why not." He also suggested actress Sarah Chalke, who guest starred alongside Spears.

Sarah Chalke? Rubbish! She's just an actress! Who wants to watch that? Hey Sarah, come back when you've called yourself the devil and tried to hang yourself, OK sweetheart?

In all seriousness, though, a recurring role on a sitcom might be just what Britney Spears needs. The discipline and routine that goes with making a weekly TV show would be the perfect way to keep Britney Spears on the straight and narrow. It's fool-proof – just look at Britney Spears' own sister. She had her own sitcom and, um, well… never mind. Bad example.

But still, if How I Met Your Mother is famous for one thing – other than ridiculous stunt casting that exploits the mentally unwell – it that it gives people a second chance. People used to only know Alyson Hannigan as Buffy The Vampire Slayer's ginger lesbian mate until How I Met Your Mother, and the same goes for Neil Patrick Harris and Doogie Houser. Maybe How I Met Your Mother can do the same for Britney Spears. The show's weird transformative properties could mean that in the future we don't see Britney Spears as a dangerous unwell casualty of fame, but a a bitpart actress in a sitcom that nobody really watches.

We'd be OK with that.

Read more:

Will Britney Spears Return to 'Mother'? – Associated Press 

We can't overstate how selfish Eva Mendes is being at the moment – what sort of self-respecting celebrity quietly goes off to rehab instead of having a massive teary public breakdown?

And what's more, it turns out that Eva Mendes has left rehab without immediately trying to validate her stay by combing over every single tiny personal blip she's ever experienced to a number of glossy magazines. The bitch!

However, Eva Mendes isn't through with rehab yet – reports suggest that she's only left temporarily. But that doesn't answer any of our questions, like why Eva Mendes was even in rehab to begin with, or how long her break from rehab will last or if agreeing to star in Ghost Rider was a direct consequence of being hammered on a shitload of drugs. These are the big questions, people. 

Unless you're some sort of expert, you've probably lost count of exactly what the celebrity rehab situation is at the moment. So, just to get you up to speed, Kirsten Dunst is in rehab and Amy Winehouse is in rehab unless she's not. Britney Spears was in something a bit like rehab, but she's out now and Eva Mendes was in rehab but she's out as well but soon she'll go back. Happy?  

Anyway, this is about Eva Mendes, so let's focus on her. Apparently Eva Mendes had been in rehab in Utah for weeks before anyone found out last Friday, and now she's out already. Sort of. E! Online reports:

A rep for the actress confirmed Mendes has returned to Los Angeles but said she soon plans to head back to the facility where she is being treated. "Eva is attending to some personal business in Los Angeles and intends to return to complete her treatment shortly," publicist Brad Cafarelli said in a statement.

Of course, what stings most about all this is how secretively Eva Mendes is playing it. There was no messy build-up, no crying in public and no almost getting fired by a movie producer for being such a massive trainwreck at work. It's all come out of the blue, and we can only hope that when she's finished her course of rehab Eva Mendes will give a series of dignity-shredding interviews about all her problems just to make up for it.

But still, nobody seems to have learnt why Eva Mendes even went to rehab in the first place – does she have a real problem or is this one of those Isaiah Washingtony pretend rehab stints? – although the odd clue has emerged here and there. Some sources have suggested that Eva Mendes has a cocaine problem, while others have pointed the finger at 'body issues' – which probably means bulimia – and 'low self-esteem'.

That'll be the same Eva Mendes who opened her last film by ramming her fingers up her chuff. And that's her with body issues and low self-esteem? We hate to think what Eva Mendes would be like with no body issues and high self-esteem, in that case.

Lindsay Lohan, probably. Ugh.

Read more:

Eva Mendes on Break from Rehab - E! Online 

Since leaving EastEnders in 1999, Patsy Palmer has become one of the most famous human beings on Earth thanks to her red-raw, groundbreaking performances in Patsy Palmer's Ibiza Workout and that reality TV show about sad dogs.

But even though Patsy Palmer's workout DVD/ dog show-based career has seen her get deified by all of the world's religious leaders and effectively bring an end to the Middle East crisis by herself with an innovative mixture of three-legged dogs and full-arm squat-thrusts to copyright-free dance music, Patsy Palmer has decided to return to her roots with an announcement that she'll become an EastEnders cast-member again early next year.

Oh, you know, Patsy Palmer. The ginger one. Played Bianca. Shouted a lot. Google her or something.

No matter how you look at it, EastEnders hasn't had a vintage year. Its planned baby abduction storyline went awry when the whole Madeleine McCann thing happened, only for EastEnders to replace it at the last minute with a terrifying belly-slashing torture scene. The Vic is now run by hard-faced Terrahawk who looks like Alan Sugar. One episode genuinely revolved around sibling telepathy. Bobby Davro. But don't worry, because back to save the day is Patsy Palmer, the woman who won the nation's heart by being ginger and screaming the word "Rickaaaay!" four billion times an episode for six years solid like some sort of awful pikey rape alarm.

Patsy Palmer never really consolidated on the fame she found in EastEnders, with just a few stints on some short-lived TV shows, a couple of plays, the obligatory 'poor me, I took too many drugs' autobiography and a line of tanning products for ginger people to her name. But get ready to see Patsy Palmer on your screens again soon, because it's been announced that she's reprising her EastEnders role as Bianca Jackson as soon as January – and, at The Times reports, her first scene will involve her riding into Albert Square on a bright orange horse while playing circus music on a tuba:

According to the BBC the older Bianca will not be too different. She will still be having trouble with her love life and will arrive back in the East End with her son by Ricky, called Liam, and a string of children fathered by other men. The BBC said she will be "at rock bottom and struggling to survive". Palmer, who is originally from Bethnal Green in London, said: "I'm really excited about rejoining the cast and working with old friends again. I can't wait to explore what Bianca has been doing with her life and seeing what she is going to get up to next."

Maybe we invented that horse bit, in retrospect. But, still, it'll be good to see Patsy Palmer returning to EastEnders for what seems like an extended stay and not just for one confusing episode like when Phil Mitchell broke out of prison and spent 30 minutes kicking down doors and flushing Ian Beale's head down a toilet and then going back to prison at the end.

But, like Patsy Palmer, we can't wait to see what storylines the EastEnders team comes up with for Bianca. We're secretly hoping that she'll run off with Max Branning and conceive a baby so ginger that it generates electricity just by moving its arms, but that's just us.

Read more:

Patsy Palmer Rejoins EastEnders – The Times