The unpossible money dispute between The Simpsons voice actors and Rupert Murdoch's Fox Television is going to get uglier before it gets better. 20th Century Fox Television execs have been trying to force the show's six principal voice actors to dramatically reduce their reported $8 million salaries and even then won't promise the long-running show has more than this season to live. And what makes this wildly wealthy actors versus the man story even sadder is that at least one of them says they are fine taking a pay cut—if they can just get a tiny bit of loving from the show's still highly profitable back end. Today Harry Shearer, the voice of Mr. Burns and Ned Flanders (among many), came out to explain his (and not necessarily the rest of the cast's) position. more ›

As a child of Hollywood, Harry Shearer portrayed the original Eddie Haskell on Leave It To Beaver, appeared in Abbott & Costello Go To Mars, and after a stint at Harvard, eventually wound up on Saturday Night Live, where you can spot him in that legendary synchronized swimming sketch with Martin Short. Many know him as the bassist in Spinal Tap; others recognize his voice from The Simpsons, where he portrays characters such as Montgomery Burns, Ned Flanders, Kent Brockman and Otto. Since the '60s, Shearer has also hosted a popular music/comedy program called Le Show on Santa Monica's NPR-affiliated radio station. more ›

Bob Saget, Matt Stone and Arianna Huffington walk into a room...it sounds like the beginning of a joke. Oh but it's not. It's only part of the panel set up for tomorrow nights discussion at the 92nd St Y entitled "Punch Lines and Politics: A Seconding the First Forum". more ›

Though it was the Washington Post's biggest story, the NY media suckerpunched the Post by running the revelation that former FBI No. 2 man, Mark Felt, was Deep Throat, the shadowy informant who helped reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein reveal the Watergate scandal. Felt, now 91, confessed after the urging of his family, catching Woodward and Bernstein off-guard (Woodstein probably were probably planning a book to be published as soon at Felt died). Gothamist, who had been obsessed with wondering who Deep Throat was, thanks to American History classes and Alan Pakula's brilliant depiction of the Washington Post's investigation in All the President's Men, loves this story and has been reading all we can about it: Here's coverage from the Washington Post and the NY Times, plus the NY Post's and NY Daily News's excited coverage. more ›

Some fun Guest stuff for all you bastard people: A Fame Audit from Fametracker, an interview with Movie City News and Caryn James' feature on the retrospective in today's Times. It seems that Guest has always wanted to just do only three "mockumentaries" and that he doesn't really like TV except The Office. And Gothamist once shared an elevator with Guest when he was promoting Almost Heroes (Matthew Perry and Chris Farley as 18th century explorers - not being shown in the tribute). Guest asked us what we thought of his seersucker suit, and Gothamist couldn't help ourselves when the words "It's kinda Matlocky" came out. But we didn't mean Matlocky in a bad way! more ›

Of all of the reports about the stalled contract negotiations between Fox and the vocal talent of The Simpsons and current work stoppage, you have to hand it to Variety. Their article ended on this pearl of wisdon:

Homer Simpson, in 1995 episode "The PTA Disbands," gave Lisa this piece of advice on work stoppages: "If you don't like your job, you don't strike. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed. That's the American Way."