Fey + Palin

Original

Fey & Palin: Face-to-face on 'SNL'?

By EMILY GUENDELSBERGER guendee@phillynews.com

DAVID LETTERMAN followed up the excitement of John McCain's somewhat-tense guest spot Thursday (McCain stood the show up in late September, to Letterman's ire) with an appearance by McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin! No, wait . . .

Oops, SatTatt forgot that the campaign seems to have banned Palin from doing anything, especially talk shows, that might be fodder for "Saturday Night Live" writers. But, you ask, isn't Palin goin' on SNL this very evening?

Actually, SatTatt posits that SNL's probably the only place Palin's safe from SNL. It would be way too postmodern for SNL to parody a politician's guest spot on their own show. Postmodernism is rarely sketch-comedy gold.

The McCain campaign hasn't been forthcoming about what sketches Alaska's governor might appear in tonight, but Palin mentioned yesterday in an interview with syndicated radio host Neal Boortz that she likes the idea of playing Tina Fey.

"I just want to be there to show Americans that we will rise above the political shots that we take," said Palin.

Wait, what was SatTatt talking about? Oh, right! Letterman of course didn't actually manage to book Palin, but he got the closest thing this side of Wasilla: "30 Rock" star and Palin ringer Tina Fey, who spent a bit discussing her uncanny impersonations of the vice-presidential candidate on SNL over the last few weeks.

Fey was modest about her impression skills, which seem to have gotten as much media attention in the last few weeks as everything Joe Biden has done in the last few months put together. She said that nobody's had an easier job, accent-wise, since Billy Bob Thornton did "Sling Blade."

Fey broke Palin's accent down as "a little bit Fargo, a little bit Reese Witherspoon in 'Election' " with dashes of her friend Paula's grandmother and a love of the letter R thrown in.

Fey did seem a bit uncomfortable right after slipping into Palin's voice on request, as if realizing that she was going to be called on to chirp "I'll have to get back to ya!" for the next 10 years.

Barker leaves hospital

Four weeks to the day after surviving a plane crash, former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker was released from a L.A. burn center yesterday. He wrote in his blog yesterday morning that he was healing fast and would be out "b4 you know it," along with a picture of his hand, covered in tattoos and nasty-looking burns, flipping off the camera (to demonstrate what he thought of life in the hospital, although he later amended that the Sherman Oaks Burn Center was in fact very nice, he just didn't like being in any hospital).

DJ AM, the only other survivor of the crash that killed the other four people aboard the plane, also appears to be getting back to normal, appearing onstage with Jay-Z this week.*

Double trouble

Original

Double trouble

By EMILY GUENDELSBERGER
Philadelphia Daily News

HUGH HEFNER didn't shock the world at all earlier this month when he announced that two of his three girlfriends were moving on to do other things and he would likely be replacing them with a pair of twin sisters, Karissa and Kristina Shannon.

That's just how Hef rolls! He founded Playboy! He wears a smoking jacket! He has a grotto! He dates twins sometimes!

Unfortunately for Hef, now that his life and loves are documented in the reality show "The Girls Next Door," his pick of girlfriends has become a more public affair, to the point that he maybe should start vetting.

It came out earlier this week that Hef's new lady friends were arrested this past January in St. Petersburg, Fla., for allegedly assaulting a woman with whom the twins worked at a Hooters-ish establishment.

Two months prior, though, Karissa was arrested for allegedly assaulting her own sister, who was wearing only blue jeans at the time. From the police report, which is undoubtedly hanging framed on the wall of some Florida police-break room:

A neighbor ". . . was woken up by the commotion going on outside . . . he saw the victim on the ground, and her twin sister standing over her kicking her in the face. Although [the witness] could not identify which sister was which, he was able to identify the two fighting as the twin sisters that live on the second floor of the apartment."

That's the problem with hot twin-on-twin crime: Witnesses can't tell them apart.

The arrest report lists the birth dates of the twins, and they are not only younger than SatTatt, but younger than SatTatt's little sister.

So in honor of the high school that Hef's new girlfriends so recently attended, here's a SatTatt brainteaser (answer at end of column):

Hugh Hefner is dating twins. In two years, Hef will be twice as old as the sum of the twins' combined ages. Twelve years ago, Hef was 10 times as old as his girlfriends.

Q: How old is Hugh Hefner, how old are his girlfriends, and how much better would the SATs be if they let SatTatt write the questions?

A. 78, 23, so much better

B. 72, 21, a little better

C. 76, 20, sooooooooooo much better

D. 82, 19, so much better that I'd be solving SatTatt word problems in my spare time

High School Musical it isn't

Teen idol Zac Efron is reportedly trying to break out of the wholesome image established for him by Disney and "High School Musical" by following in the footsteps of Daniel Radcliffe. Radcliffe managed to banish the spectre of Harry Potter with his starring role in the Peter Shaffer play Equus, getting rave reviews for his performances in London and New York. The lead is a mentally ill young man who is nude onstage for a solid half-hour.

The rumor can be traced back to British tabloid the Sun, which quoted Efron as saying, "You know that Daniel Radcliffe role on Broadway . . . well, it's been mentioned," at the London premiere of "High School Musical 3" yesterday.

It's likely that Efron was joking; Disney tightly controls the images of its teen stars (remember the scandal over those Vanity Fair photos of Miley Cyrus?) and doing Equus probably would mess with his contract. But boy, it would guarantee another sold-out six months of the Broadway production for sure. *