BS SHOW BIZ BUZZ:
After several years off-air, cult TV show “Arrested Development” is set to film a new season for Netflix and the entire cast is confirmed to participate (a celebratory ‘chicken dance’ is clearly in order!) . . . Veteran actress Shirley MacLaine will join Season 3 of “Downton Abbey” (ITV/PBS), playing the mother of ‘Lady Grantham’ (Elizabeth McGovern) . . . Actress Courteney Cox is now on Twitter but basically is just using it to share pictures of her dog (a refreshing change from all those cats!) . . . Actress Rachel McAdams says she & actor-boyfriend Michael Sheen never spend more than 3 weeks apart (by Hollywood terms, that’s claustrophobic!) . . . Actress Mindy Kaling, who’s played ‘Kelly Kapoor’ on “The Office” since 2005, is shopping a new half-hour comedy to FOX-TV in which she’d play an OB/GYN (more evidence “The Office” is in its death throes) . . . Louis CK, who stars in his own FX show, is now co-writing an untitled comedy pilot for CBS-TV about an ensemble of young people trying to achieve their creative dreams (he’ll either have to tone it down or buy a bleeper) . . . The Kardashian sisters are going topless for a new campaign to promote – jeans (one classy move after another) . . . Actor George Clooney’s ex-girlfriend, Italian actress Elisabetta Canalis, is now dating – yikes! – former “Jackass” star Steve-O (downgrade alert!) . . . And one-time hot TV commodity Fran Drescher (“The Nanny”) is saying – seriously – that she believes she was abducted by aliens (ah, so that’s where she went!).

TODAY’S SHOW BIZ SKED:
• “Conan” (TBS/CTV) – Ringo Starr (“Ringo 2012”).
• “Ellen DeGeneres Show” (syndicated/CTV2) – Flo Rida (“Roots”).
• “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (ABC/CHCH) – Gotye (“Making Mirrors”).
• “Last Call With Carson Daly” (NBC) – We Were Promised Jetpacks (“In the Pit Of the Stomach”).
• “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” (NBC/CTV2) – All-American Rejects (“When the World Comes Down”).
• “Late Show With David Letterman” (CBS/NTV/Omni1) – Airborne Toxic Event (“All at Once”).
• “Live With Kelly” (syndicated/CTV) – Girls Generation (“Mr Taxi”).
• “Super Bowl’s Greatest Commercials” (CBS) – Viewer votes determine the greatest TV ads ever aired during Super Bowls.
• “Tonight Show With Jay Leno” (NBC/CTV2) – Evanescence (“Evanescence”).
• “The View” (ABC/CTV) – Kellie Pickler (“100 Proof”).

BS MUSIC NOTES:
• Beyoncé – There’s a project in the works to construct a statue of her in her hometown of Houston, Texas. The company behind the idea, Armdeonce Ventures, is looking for private donors. If all goes well, the unveiling will happen on her birthday, September 4th.
• Black Eyed Peas – The lengthy list of artists now collaborating with will.i.am on new music now includes Alicia Keys, Britney Spears, Busta Rhymes, LMFAO, Nicole Scherzinger, Shakira, Swedish House Mafia, and Swizz Beatz.
• Chemical Bros – Tonight their exclusive concert event, “The Chemical Brothers: Don’t Think”, plays in select movie theaters. The film was produced using 20 cameras at Japan’s “Fujirock Festival” in July 2011 before a crowd of 50,000.
• The Darkness – The UK retro-glam-rockers are officially making a comeback, with their first North American tour dates in years beginning tonight in Toronto.
• Madonna – March 26th has now been set as the official release date of her new album “MDNA”.
• Rascal Flatts – They’ve hinted on Twitter that a film about the band is coming. It’s said to be a performance/documentary-style movie with their individual stories intertwined.
• REM – In a new poll, “Everybody Hurts” (1993) has been voted the ‘Most Depressing Song of All-Time’, ahead of Elton John’s “Candle In the Wind”, and Mike & The Mechanics’ “The Living Years”.
• Sugarland – Jennifer Nettles has recorded Hank Williams’ “Your Cheatin’ Heart” for a 30-second TV ad for Pepsi MAX to debut Sunday during Super Bowl 46.
• Taylor Swift – Clips from her “Speak Now World Tour Live” DVD are spliced into a new video by Brazilian country star Paula Fernandes, who’s released a remixed version of the album track “Long Live” … in Portuguese. (Who would have thought there was country music in Brazil?)

BS CUTTING-EDGE VOCAB:
New terms leaking into our lingo …
✓ ‘Bashtag’ – The use of a corporation’s Twitter hashtag to bash the company’s products. For example, McDonald’s launched a Twitter campaign using the hashtag #McDStories. Instead of heart-warming stories about Happy Meals, it attracted snarky tweets about food quality.
✓ ‘FOMO’ – The ‘Fear of Missing Out’ on something or someone. It can lead to obsessive social networking, particularly using location-based services like Foursquare.
✓ ‘Zombie Debtor’ – An indebted consumer who is only able to pay the debt interest each month. (In mob parlance, this is called ‘paying the vig’.)

MEETING NOTES:
What happens in top-level executive meetings? A recent study breaks down the ‘activity’ of ‘participants’ …
• 47% admit they have stared off into space.
• 41% have doodled under the pretence of taking notes.
• 18% admit they have actually slept.
(Meetings are where minutes are taken but hours are lost.)
– “Know How”

WORLD’S LARGEST CITY:
Which is the biggest city in the world? If you search the Internet for ‘world’s largest city’, you’ll find various different candidates: Tokyo, Seoul, Chongqing, Shanghai. So why is it such a simple question proves so difficult to answer? Defining the borders of a city is no easy task, and there is no international standard to ensure consistency. In 2009, 3 researchers compared 8 different lists of top cities by population and found there are actually 30 ‘top 20 cities’ in total. (In 6-out-of-7 lists we checked, Tokyo is #1. But on the 7th list, it ranks 14th!)
– BBC News

CLOSE CALLS IN CASTING:
Famous film roles that were offered to, then turned down by Hollywood stars …
• Rather than Keanu Reeves, Will Smith was the first choice to play ‘Neo’ in “The Matrix” films.
• WC Fields turned down the role of ‘The Wizard’ in the 1939 classic “The Wizard of Oz”.
• Can you picture Cary Grant as ‘James Bond’? He said ‘no’, Sean Connery said ‘yes’.
• Speaking of Sean Connery, he was approached to play ‘Gandalf’ in the “Lord Of the Rings”.
• Bette Davis could have had the role of ‘Scarlett O’Hara’ in “Gone With the Wind”.
• Rather than Julia Roberts, Darryl Hannah was thought perfect for the lead in “Pretty Woman”.
• Had he agreed, Kevin Costner would have been ‘Bill’ in Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” films.
• John Cusack was wanted as ‘John Bender’ in “The Breakfast Club”. Judd Nelson was 2nd choice.
• Patrick Swayze filled in for Bruce Willis when he turned down the movie “Ghost”.
• It could have been Al Pacino instead of Harrison Ford who starred as ‘Han Solo’ in “Star Wars” movies.
– “Aftermath”

MUSIC HISTORY ONLINE:
Around 17,000 priceless recordings made by late folklorist Alan Lomax will be available online for free streaming by the end of February. Lomax is considered the leading musicologist of the 20th century, famous for his recordings of blues singers Jelly Roll Morton, Leadbelly, Muddy Waters, and folk singer Woody Guthrie. Bruce Springsteen’s new album “Wrecking Ball”, due out in March, uses samples from the archive on 2 tracks. Lomax dreamed of a ‘global jukebox’ to disseminate the material he’d collected during decades of fieldwork. Now, 10 years after his death at age 87, that’s about to happen. (Important original content available for free … isn’t this what the Internet should be about more often?)
– “New York Times”

HOW TO MIX THE PERFECT MARTINI:
In the movies, ‘James Bond’ insists on his martini being shaken, but scientists now claim preparing the perfect vodka martini requires stirring it with … a wooden spoon. A magazine survey of experts suggests you risk bruising the booze by shaking it over ice, and using a traditional long metal spoon to stir it warms up the drink too much because metal is a heat conductor. So, the experts claim, a thin piece of wood is the best tool for the job. (For a large party, you’ll need a canoe paddle.)
– NewScientist.com

DID YOU KNOW?
Just how rich is wannabe Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney? Add up the wealth of the last 8 presidents, from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama, then double that number. If elected, he would be among the richest presidents in American history, most likely in the top 4.
– Associated Press

BS CHRONOMETER 02.01.12