William Shatner has produced another spoken word gem, this time a poetic reading of Sarah Palin’s resignation speech as governor of Alaska. Shatner was on “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” on NBC on Monday night, and he sat down on a stool with a conga drummer and a bass player in the background, injecting dramatic flair into a paragraph from Palin’s speech, which included the words: “It is as throughout all Alaska that big wild good life teeming along the road that is north to the future.” (Video below)

NBC scored big when “Saturday Night Live” veteran Tina Fey lampooned Palin last year during the presidential campaign, and the network stands to get a lot more clicks on its Web outlet Hulu.com with this latest comedy piece. Now that Palin has quit as governor of Alaska, maybe she can work on her Shatner impression. It’s not that hard to do.

(Writing and reporting by Laura Isensee)

Two presidents, a major general and a shaved head all played a part this week in comedian Stephen Colbert’s declared mission to bring attention to the 6 year-old war in Iraq and the troops still fighting abroad.

On Thursday, Colbert broadcast from Iraq the last of four episodes he starred in this week from the battle-torn country. On Thursday’s edition of “The Colbert Report,” a program which spoofs U.S. politics and culture on cable channel Comedy Central, the show featured a special shout-out to the troops by former President George W. Bush. It was one of several guest video spots that included politicians from right and left, from Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to President Barack Obama.

The political satirist went to the Middle East under the humorous title “Operation Iraqi Stephen: Going Commando,” but he seemed serious about his mission. This week he guest-edited Newsweek magazine, albeit as his fictional on-screen persona.

“I know what you’re thinking: ‘Isn’t the Iraq War over?’ That’s what I thought, too. I hadn’t seen it in the media for a while, and when I don’t see something, I assume it’s vanished forever, like in that terrifying game peekaboo. We stopped seeing much coverage of the Iraq War back in September when the economy tanked, and I just figured the insurgents were wiped out because they were heavily invested in Lehman Brothers,” Colbert wrote in Newsweek.

“Turns out there are still 135,000 troops in Iraq, which I don’t understand because we’ve already won the war,” he continued in his column.

Colbert, who is splashed on Newsweek’s front page this week, also helped select stories for the issue that focus on Iraq. But he didn’t drop his humor, also publishing fake letters that his character has sent to the magazine over the years.

Cynics could say the trip to Iraq was really about Stephen - and ratings. But others, including Los Angeles Times columnist James Rainey, believe that Colbert is serious and sincere.

Do viewers think Colbert was successful in his mission? Will his comedy show from Iraq spark more media attention to the war in today’s fast-paced news cycle? Is more coverage of the war and the troops needed? We thought Fan Fare readers might want to share what they would write in Colbert’s after-action report.

Talk show host David Letterman says he was “guilty of poor taste” after causing a stir with some sexually suggestive jokes about one of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s teenage daughters, admitting he confused 18-year-old intended target Bristol Palin with her 14-year-old sister, Willow. The comedian’s 7-minute-plus discussion of the controversy during his Wednesday show can be seen on the video link below:

Todd Palin, the governor’s husband, has accused Letterman of making a joke about someone “raping” his younger daughter. Neither girl was directly named in the original joke, which also namechecked New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez.

Letterman responded, “I would never, ever make jokes about raping or having sex of any description with a 14-year-old girl. I mean, look at my record. It has never happened.” The comedian also invited the governor to appear on his show, but suggested she leave Todd at home.

Here’s the update. On Friday, Palin was back on the attack against Letterman. She told Matt Lauer of the “Today” show on NBC that, “You and anybody else are extremely naive to believe that very convenient excuse of David Letterman’s the other day.” By that, Palin meant Letterman’s statement that he was joking about Palin’s 18 year-old daughter, whose pregnancy was widely commented on last year, and not her 14 year-old daughter, Willow. The full video link is below:

A publicist for Letterman’s show on Friday declined to comment on Palin’s latest criticism.

Also on Friday, New York Assemblyman Brian Kolb, a Republican, sent a letter to Leslie Moonves, the president and chief executive of CBS Corp, asking him to fire Letterman over the comments. “Mr. Moonves, as a proud father and husband yourself, I ask you to consider what sort of message is sent when an employee of the corporation you lead is allowed to make such disrespectful remarks about women?” Kolb wrote.

So the controversy continues. It’s not the first time that Letterman has had to eat his words. Last year, he apologized to celebrity heiress Paris Hilton, after he badgered her in a previous appearance with questions about her time in jail.

Lindsay Lohan’s breakup with celebrity DJ Samantha Ronson is good news for Eminem, who eloquently expresses his passion for the actress in his new video. 
    
The reclusive rapper took a swipe at the couple in “We Made You,” which was released on Tuesday, days after the women broke up.
    
In one scene, Eminem is driving a big rig while Lohan and Ronson lookalikes are making out next to him.
    
“He does not mean to lesbian offend, but Lindsay please come back to seeing men,” Eminem intones in his rapid clipped style. “Samantha’s a two, you’re practically a 10. I know you want me, girl. In fact I see you grin.”
    
Declaring that he’s “looking for more women to torture,” Eminem also claims he would be a better lover for actress Portia de Rossi than her wife Ellen DeGeneres. He also fantasizes about Sarah Palin, while a scantily clad lookalike of the former vice-presidential candidate poses seductively on her desk. 
    
Other targets of Eminem’s rapier wit include tabloid starlet Kim Kardashian, and singers Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson and Amy Winehouse.
    
“You think that’s bad. You should hear the rest of my album. Never has there been such finesse and nostalgia,” he promises in the video.
    
That album, “Relapse,” the follow-up to his 2004 release “Encore” is due in stores on May 19.

 It’s official!

Comedian Tina Fey has gotten her wish and will no longer play Alaska governor Sarah Palin on the comedy sketch show “Saturday Night Live” after the Republican contender for vice president lost out in Tuesday’s U.S. elections. 
    
Fey’s dead-on impersonations of Palin drew record ratings for “Saturday Night LIve” and became almost as talked about nationally as the maverick politician and hockey mom herself.

But Fey, who stars in the NBC show “30 Rock,” told the magazine Entertainment Weekly that she has no plans to play Palin again.  
    
“I have to retire just because I have to do my day job,” Fey told the magazine. 
     
Fey, 38, went the extra mile by suggesting a replacement if “Saturday Night Live” needs someone to play Palin again, suggesting that ”SNL” cast member Kristen Wiig should carry the torch from now on. 
“Maybe we could get a real torch,” Fey told Entertainment Weekly. “Or I could give Wiig the Palin wig.”
    
Before the election, Fey made clear she was hoping not to have to play Palin after November 4, saying she planned on “leaving Earth” if  the Republican was elected. 
(Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis)

So much has been made about the looks of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin that it’s a wonder nobody’s paid attention to that other, third-party presidential candidate – Paris Hilton.

That’s right, election watchers may forget that this past summer Paris declared herself a candidate for President in a video posted on comedy Web site, funnyordie.com. Well, Paris hasn’t forgotten and to reinvigorate her campaign, she is releasing a new video at swaghousemedia.com on Sunday, Oct. 26.

A brief clip can be seen at People.com. The video features her “Secret Service Dudes,” and in it she talks about being good at sipping a martini and being the best “Commander-in-Bikini”.

Somehow, we think we won’t see Sarah Palin the same way anytime soon, but with the Nov. 4 election nearing, you never know what any of the candidates will do to get votes.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis)

In one more sign that the current presidential election campaign has drawn increased interest among pop culture watchers, Entertainment Weekly magazine released a survey on Thursday showing respondents, ages 18-24, estimated spending one-third of their TV time watching election coverage.

Of those surveyed, 1-in-5 Americans is watching more election coverage because they are dissatisfied with reality TV.

Fully half of all Americans said they are tuning-in to fewer primetime shows due to the election coverage they are watching, and 6-in-10 think the presidential face-off between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain is entertaining.

When asked if they prefer vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin or comedian Tina Fey’s impression of Palin on the NBC show “Saturday Night Live,” 37.4 percent of respondents said they prefer Fey’s version of Palin, but a nearly equal 37 percent said they prefer Palin herself.

As for celebrity endorsements, 53 percent of respondents said those have some influence on the candidates’ appeal.

The survey involved a national OmniTel telephone poll by GfK Custom Research North America among 1,004 adults ages 18 and up on Oct. 17-19. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percent.

 The makers of the upcoming “W.” biopic about President George Bush say they put personal politics aside for the Oliver Stone-directed movie — and so far the early reviews seem to agree.  

 But that didn’t stop the cast and crew sounding off in a Beverly Hills press event this week about their personal feelings towards the U.S. president and his administration.  

 Screenplay writer Stanley Weiser told journalists he “had to park all my politics at the door. Before writing this I couldn’t even bear to listen to Bush. I had to turn it off.”

    Weiser went on to compare Bush with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, saying both men wanted the best for their people “but there is an absolute blind fundamentalism that develops” which makes Bush and Ahmadinejad believe they are 100 percent right about everything.

   Weiser added; “Sarah Palin (http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/sarahpalin)  is George W. Bush on steroids with less brains and much more dangerous.”

    Although the movie has many satirical moments, the actors  said they were not deliberately trying to mock Bush. 

“We weren’t trying to be funny. It was always about being authentic, but a lot of what these people said to each other, and did, was preposterous,” said Elizabeth Banks, who plays First Lady Laura Bush.

    Stone said it was difficult for people to have a movie made on their own life and he doubted Bush, who is not a movie buff,  would watch “W.”, when it is released on Oct 17.

But Stone said he hoped Bush “may enjoy it some day when he is wise enough to surrender himself to it.” 
        

No one could blame actress Tina Fey if she was privately hoping for a McCain-Palin victory in November.

The former “Saturday Night Live” star has been back on the show three times with her her dead-on, ratings-stoking spoofs of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

The latest skit on Palin’s debate with Democratic Rival Sen. Joe Biden poked fun at the Alaska governor for dodging specifics by repeating the Republican ticket’s “maverick” theme.

“We’re gonna ask ourselves what would a maverick do in this situation, and then ya’ know, we’ll do that,” Fey-as-Palin responded when pressed on how to deal with the financial crisis.

Palin dismissed climate change as ”this climate change, hoozie-what’s-it” and said she  wanted to talk about taxes instead: ”We are not afraid to get mavericky in there.”

The sharpest barb came when she was asked about benefits for same-sex couples: “I believe marriage is meant to be a sacred institution between two unwilling teenagers,” Palin replied, in a clear reference to her pregnant, teen-aged daughter who is due to marry the child’s father.

The SNL skit also ridiculed Biden, picking on his friendship with Republican candidate John McCain.

“Look, I love John McCain. He is one of my dearest friends. But at the same time, he’s also dangerously unbalanced … He’s bad at his job, and mentally unstable. As my mother would say, God love him, but he’s a raging maniac - and a dear, dear friend.”

Biden, played by Jason Sudeikis, said at the end that his goal was to not be seen like a “condescending, egomaniacal bully. And I’m gonna’ be honest. I think I nailed it.”

(Reporting by Chris Michaud)

Which lifeline will she use this time?

Tina Fey is expected to be back reprising her devastating impression of  Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live this weekend following the Alaska Governor’s performance in Thursday’s widely-watched vice presidential debate.

Actress and singer Queen Latifah has also been tapped to play journalist Gwen Ifill, who moderated the debate between Republican Palin and Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden, celebrity Web site TMZ.com reported on Friday.

It will be the third time that Fey has skewered the self-described hockey mom on SNL, which has seen its ratings soar thanks largely to the Emmy-award winning “30 Rock” actress’s uncanny resemblance to Palin.

Fey’s Palin skits have racked up more than five million viewings on the official SNL website alone, and hundreds of thousands more have watched on YouTube in the last three weeks.

After Fey/Palin asked last week whether she could “phone a friend” while struggling in her interview with journalist Katie Couric/Amy Poehler, which lifeline might Fey/Palin use this time?

Ask the audience, maybe?