The 24-hour news cycle on television and the internet creates opportunities to beat stories into the ground so ruthlessly, I’m not sure I will be able to survive it.

I hereby bestow the Lance Armstrong Celebrity Burnout Award to three lucky new recipients.

1.  Jon and Kate Gosselin. 

I don’t care about their divorce.  I don’t care about their children.  I don’t care about their finances.   I don’t care about their future plans.  I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANYTHING ELSE ABOUT THEM, EVER.  If I see one more headline about how Jon has decided to stop badmouthing Kate, I am going to do something desperate.

2.  Brett Favre

Why do I have to hear about this clown every day?  Who cares?  This guy peaked around the time he appeared as himself in There’s Something About Mary.  I am not interested in his feelings.  Or his plans.  Or how he’s doing on the team.  Or how he’s cut his hair.  Dear GOD.  I mean, this is a man who doesn’t even know how to pronounce his own name.

Two iconic pop culture figures from my childhood died yesterday.

Mary Travers was the female member of the legendary folk trio “Peter, Paul and Mary.”  They provided a bridge between the early pioneers of folk music like The Weavers and brought this soulful, activist sensibility to the masses.  They also helped cement the popularity of Bob Dylan by making huge hits of several of his songs.

Their songs, which include “If I Had a Hammer, ” “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”, “Puff the Magic Dragon” and “Blowin’ in the Wind” became part of the soundtrack of American life when I was growing up.

But it’s their non-political hit “Leavin’ on a Jet Plane” which has always been my favorite PP&M song.  This lovely lament, written by John Denver, was their only #1 hit song.

Henry Gibson became famous on “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In.”  His signature shtick was to recite a little poem, delivered with a stiff and formal style, while holding a stupidly huge fake flower. 

One of his pithy verses:

“Ostriches are not clumsy” by Henry Gibson

Ostriches, when they mate and such,
Frolic with a gentle touch,
They’re cautious when it comes to sex,
One false move, they’ll break their necks.
Imagine!

Though best known for “Laugh-In” and mountains of other television shows, Gibson was a superb actor and appeared in dozens of movies, including The Nutty Professor, Kiss Me Stupid, The Blues Brothers, and The Wedding Crashers. 

Perhaps his most notable film roles were as country singer Haven Hamilton in Robert Altman’s Nashville and as a faded barfly in Magnolia.

I’ll miss Mary and Henry.

[London]

When push came to shove, it turned out that fading pop superstar Michael Jackson simply couldn’t stomach the idea of competing with Forbidden Broadway.

Jackson had been in rehearsals for a series of comeback concerts in and around London later this summer.

However, another entertainment juggernaut, the Tony-Award-Winning theatrical spoof Forbidden Broadway, is also about to open in London.

Sources close to Jackson’s paedophilia defense attorneys confirmed early Friday that the idea of competing with the the other show simply left him petrified.

“Thriller” may have sold 26 million copies, ” Jackson reportedly said, during a recent conversation he had while wearing a NASA space suit while playing on a seesaw, “But Forbidden Broadway has been running all over the world since 1981. You can’t deny its power.”

Evidently, during recent weeks, Jackson had been missing rehearsals, and would often be found underneath his kitchen table, rocking, and softly singing the lyrics to “Liza One-Note, ” Forbidden Broadway‘s famous parody of Jackson’s friend Liza Minelli.

“In the end, it was just too much for him, ” Jackson’s talent-free informercial diva sister La Toya confirmed to investigators. “Yesterday he said to me, ‘Have you SEEN Alessandrini’s version of Les Miserables?! I’m just one man! I shouldn’t have to go up against that!'”

As to whether the end came through actual suicide or simple collapse, that is for the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office and the seven TMZ paparazzi reporters assigned to the case to decide.

Forbidden Broadway‘s creator, Gerard Alessandrini, and the London production’s director, Phil George, could not be reached for comment.

[New York]

Evidently there are some depths to which even Fox will not sink.

At a recent high-level programming meeting at the network, the following programs, all of which have been in development, were canceled.

Bricklaying With the Stars

Last Toddler Standing

So You Think You Can Masturbate

Boy Meets Goat

America’s Next Top Serial Rapist

America’s Got Botulism

American Midol

Who Wants To Marry a Death-Row Inmate?

Are You Smarter than an Evangelical Mississippi Housewife?

Congressional Bloopers and Practical Jokes

Organ Swap

Homo 911

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