Next thing you know, Bart Simpson will be getting pulled over for DUI.
Keen-eyed viewers tuned in to "The Simpsons" season premiere Sunday night may have noticed a split-second sequence in which the show's producers flashed their partisan colors. In Bart's signature chalkboard scrawl during the opening, he writes, "I will not plant subliminal messagores."
"To be honest, the staff does lean toward Al Gore," the show's executive producer, Mike Scully, told TV Guide Online, "I don't want to speak for everyone who works for 'The Simpsons,' but there are many people on the writing staff who can't believe that this election is as close as it is."
Scully contends that the political jab at George W. Bush has nothing to do with the fact that Gore's daughter Kristin is a writer for Matt Groening's other show, "Futurama."
"It also has nothing to do with the fact that George Bush Sr. once blamed 'The Simpsons' for what's wrong with America," he says. "It has absolutely nothing to do with that."
Read his lips: Nothing.
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Lesbian, Letterman
"A lot of people think I must get recognized a lot, but I don't. Or if I am, they ask if I'm David Letterman's mother."
-- Betty DeGeneres, Ellen's mom, on famous momhood.
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Kathie Lee's harsh reception
You can't go home again. Or at least Kathie Lee Gifford can't.
Regis Philbin's former co-host is apparently not welcome back on the set of her old show -- and she's not allowed to advertise her new album on it either. The Kathie Lee ban apparently went down after Gifford guested on rival morning show "Today."
"We need to gain some physical and commercial separation from Kathie Lee during the search for her replacement," Tom Kane, president and general manager of WABC-TV in New York, which produces "Live With Regis," told the Associated Press.
Translation? And stay out!
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Uma, oucha ...
"I'm not a beard lady, I have to confess. I'm a smooth-shaved kind of girl."
-- Uma Thurman on her preference for clean-cheeked men.
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That man, Mr. Jackson
Macaulay Culkin, still home alone?
The actor says there is no truth -- none whatsoever -- to rumors that Michael Jackson is fixing to make a special trip to London to see him perform in the West End production of "Madame Melville."
"He is not coming over to London," Culkin told the London Daily Mail. "There have been calls all day about whether he was coming to watch the play -- and he is not planning on it."
Got that?
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What was he before?
"I felt I was becoming a caricature of myself."
-- David Hasselhoff on why he traded in the babes of "Baywatch" for the rigors of starring in a Broadway show, in Parade.
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Juicy bits
Too cute. Real-life couple Freddie Prinze Jr. and Sarah Michelle Gellar are in talks to costar as Fred and Daphne in the live-action, movie version of "Scooby Doo," according to the Hollywood Reporter. Raja Gosnell, the director behind Martin Lawrence's "Big Momma's House," will helm the film. No word yet on who will play Scoob.
Will and Jada Pinkett Smith are getting jiggy wid their brand-new baby daughter, born Tuesday. Willow Camille Reign Smith, who tipped the scales at 6 pounds, 10 ounces, joins the couple's 2-year-old son, Jaden Christopher Syre Smith, and the Fresh Prince's son from a previous marriage, Will Smith III (aka Trey).
And you better buy those blue booties in bulk: Celine Dion, who admits to having more than 1,000 pairs of shoes, is also having a boy. "I imagine he will have [her husband] Rene's smile, his eyes. I know I will be crazy about him," Dion wrote in her new book, "My Story, My Dream." "In a few months, I'll sing him a lullaby. Every day I say a little prayer for him to be good and happy." And well shod.
Is Billy Bob Thornton taking up the hemp cause where Woody Harrelson left off? Angelina Jolie's weirder half tells FHM magazine he doesn't see why pot shouldn't be legalized. "I've never heard of anybody smoking a joint and going on a rampage," he says. "It makes you lie around on the floor and look at the ceiling. What's wrong with that?" Um ... orange food munchies?
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