TVSquad

When you're hot, you're hot. Fox's Glee is hot. It's sizzling. The music is all over the charts. Their single, "Don't Stop Believin'" went gold. It seems like everything it going right for this Ryan Murphy show.

For the third game of the World Series on the night of Halloween, fate tried to rain on the Glee parade. Literally. It rained.

In Philadelphia where the game was being played, there was a rain delay of over an hour. If you were a Glee fan -- a Gleek -- tuning in just to see the troupe before the game, you had to be disappointed.

Hey, Brigitte here with TV Squad Daily. I'll be covering the TV stories I find interesting each day, Monday through Friday, in this video blog.

Today on TV Squad Daily:

• Eww! But for a goof cause: Stephen Colbert's cast goes on Ebay tonight.
  
• The contract that parents signed to allow their kids to participate in Kid Nation covers just about everything.
  
• Is Wayne Newton joining Dancing with the Stars?

The video's embedded below, or you can subscribe to this podcast via our feed. Plus, you can also download the file directly.

After tonight's episode of The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert will put his cast up for auction on eBay. Colbert broke his wrist in June while running around his set before the show began. The proceeds from the sale will go to the Yellow Ribbon Fund for injured military service members and their families as they recuperate at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Naval Medical Center.

The Yellow Ribbon Fund is a favorite of Colbert's. He has already used his cast to raise money for the injured soldiers and their families by selling 'WristStrong' bracelets, a spoof of Lance Armstrong (and Nike's) LiveStrong yellow bracelets that raise money for cancer research. By the way, if you can't afford Stephen's cast, you can probably still afford one of his 'WristStrong' bracelets, which are for sale on his website.

Colbert's cast is signed by a wide variety of political and news figures: Nancy Pelosi, Tony Snow, Katie Couric, Brian Williams, Tim Russert, Bill O'Reilly, and Michael Bloomberg.

Mad TV has added comedians Johnny Sanchez and Anjelah Nicole Johnson to the cast for the thirteenth season, though Johnson has only been cast for four episodes.

Sanchez voiced a character in the movie Happy Feet and has appeared on Comedy Central. I've placed a segment from his Comedy Central Presents below. Johnson is also a stand-up comedian. I've placed one of her bits below, too.

Apparently, Mad TV is still doing well, even though I don't know anyone who watches it. That's not a slam against the show, it's just not my cup of tea, but when my friends and I are discussing TV comedy, Mad TV never gets mentioned. Who are these mysterious people keeping this show on the air?

Gina Holden, last seen on the TV series Blood Ties, has joined the cast of SCI FI's upcoming adaptation of Flash Gordon as Dale Arden, the love interest of Flash Gordon (played by Eric Johnson). Holden also appeared in Fantastic Four and will also appear in the upcoming sequel to Alien Vs. Predator.

The series also recently cast actor Jody Racicot as Dr. Hans Zarkov, and John Ralston as the evil Ming. The series has already cast Giles Panton as Joe, Karen Cliché as Baylin, Panou as Nick, Jill Teed as Norah, Jonathan Walker as Rankol, Carmen Moore as Jolie and Anna van Hoft as Aura.

Flash Gordon began as a comic strip in the 1930s and eventually spawned a number of adaptations, including movie serials, TV shows and radio programs. The new Flash Gordon series kicks off sometime this August.

Matthew Fox of Lost has joined the cast of the upcoming Speed Racer movie as Racer X.

FOX joins previously cast Christina Ricci (Trixie); Emile Hirsch (Speed); and John Goodman and Susan Sarandon (Speed's parents). The new movie will be helmed by the Wachowski brothers (The Matrix), and will begin shooting this summer (while Lost is on break) for a May 2008 release.

I'll admit I don't pay as much attention to movie scuttlebutt as I do television, but based on the rumblings about this movie I've caught here and there, it sounds like it could be pretty cool: an amplified, effects-laden version of the '60s cartoon. I imagine that, not unlike the Matrix movies, it'll be something that needs to be seen on the bigscreen.

(S01E01/S01E02) To be honest, I was sold on this one long before we finally got a look at what the Drive team has been working on all this time. I count myself as a Tim Minear fan, so his involvement was enough to get me interested. Add in a cast including Nathan Fillion (Firefly), Melanie Lynskey (Two And A Half Men), Kevin Alejandro (Sleeper Cell), Kristin Lehman (Tilt), Dylan Baker (The Book Of Daniel), and Taryn Manning (Hustle & Flow), and you really have something.

On Stargate SG-1, actor Michael Shanks plays Dr. Daniel Jackson, who the Sci Fi channel's web site describes as an "anthropologist, linguist and expert in ancient and current cultures."

Maybe those skills will come in handy when he joins that cast of 24.

Michael Shanks Online, as well as a Stargate fan web site, are reporting that Shanks is joining 24 in a "recurring role" and is filming scenes this week.

No word on whether he'll be able to apply Dr. Jackson's linguistic and cultural expertise to help Chloe O'Brian with her social awkwardness issues.

The Nintendo Wii includes an editor that allows you to create your own avatar - called a "Mii" - to use while playing Wii games. As you might imagine, it took all of three seconds before people started creating celebrity Miis and uploading them to the internet. Search "mii" in flickr, and you'll find Amy Sedaris as Jerri Blank, Spike Lee and Borat. Kottee hosted a celebrity Mii contest back in December, which resulted in my favorite Mii to date - David Foster Wallace playing tennis.

It was just a matter of time before an Office fanatic had too much time on his hands and created Office Miis - the entire cast of the Emmy Award-winning show as Nintendo avatars. Jim, Dwight and Kevin look the best, but they're all little works of time-wasting, pop culture-inspired art. You can check them out on Flickr.

[Via Digg]

The planned movie remake of the hit '80s primetime soap Dallas has encountered numerous road blocks on its slow crawl to production. Jennifer Garner said no to role of Pam Ewing, then Jennifer Lopez, who was set to play Sue Ellen, dropped out of the project. Meg Ryan came in to take her place, but she has also left the project, along with Shirley MacLaine and Luke Wilson. That leaves John "JR Ewing" Travolta as the only one left out of the main cast. Apparently focus groups only liked the JR character, and director Gurinder Chadha was not happy with the casting choices. The abandoned roles will be recast, but it's not clear whether Chadha will stay with the project. Sounds to me like it might be time to put this particular dog to sleep for good and start working on a movie people really want to see: an animated version of Falcon Crest.

Take a good look at these people. They seem strong and content right now, but in a few months they're going to be dirty, emcaciated, irritable, and just a little bit evil. It's that time of year again, kids: meet the new cast of Survivor!

CBS.com has some details about the cast of the 13th (!) edition of the show, which will take place on the Cook Islands, but not many. Among the cast, we have a boxer/waitress, a volleyball instructor, a guitarist in a heavy metal band (can you identify him in the picture? It's hard, I know), a nail salon manager, and someone who is being called an "actress/rollergirl." The teams in this edition will be divided by race (I shit you not; read about it here), which has been generating some controversy, but there aren't too many more twists that Mark Burnett can come up with at this point. I might actually tune in for once, since I haven't watched the show since Richard Hatch won. How's he doing, by the way?

Cast members of the sitcom The Facts of Life will be reuniting on Today tomorrow morning to talk about, I assume, how much fun it was to work on the Diff'rent Strokes spinoff. I'm sure the DVD release of the first two seasons will be mentioned, as well. Cast members to appear include Nancy McKeon, Lisa Whelchel, Kim Fields, and Mindy Cohn. What? No George Clooney or Cloris Leachman? And what about Mackenzie Astin, brother of Sean? Is he really that busy these days? Well, actually I did see him on an episode of House recently, so  I guess he's still getting work. The segment will air during the second half of the program. Charlotte Rae, who played Mrs. Garrett, won't be making an appearance, either.

Right before Everybody Hates Chris hit the airwaves, the show was hyped like crazy. Eventually, the hype settled down, so if the show has slipped off your radar, no one can really blame you. However, if you haven't been tuning in on Thursday nights, you're missing one of the best new shows of the season, a perfect balance of real heart and gut-busting comedy. The show is also incredibly well-cast, especially Chris' mother, Rochelle, played by Tichina Arnold (she was "Pamela" on Martin and was also one of the three singers who popped up throughout Frank Oz's 1986 film version of Little Shop of Horrors). She did an interview with TV Filter recently where she confirmed that, yes, Everybody Hates Chris will be one of the shows to survive the move when UPN and the WB merge into The CW. I expected as much, but it was nice to hear it, nonetheless.

Despite the headline to this article which reads "JLo and Travolta set to do Dallas" neither of those actors are officially tied to the movie remake of the popular 1980s primetime soap opera. Director Robert Luketic has offered them roles, however, so it remains to be seen. Travolta would play JR Ewing, while Lopez would play Sue Ellen, his wife. Also in negotiations are Luke Wilson, who would play Bobby (he'd make a great Bobby, actually) and Shirley MacLaine, who would play Miss Ellie, the kind matriarch originally played by the late Barbara Bel Geddes. I'm mildly interested in the casting decisions for this movie, but it's diluted by the fact that this is yet another example of no one being able to come up with an original idea anymore.

But what the heck, let's have fun with it anyway. Who would you pick to play these roles?

Names like Regina King, Madeleine Stowe, Christine Taylor and Jonathan Silverman should add some clout to all sorts of dramas and comedies being planned by the networks for next fall.

Here is the latest casting news from The Hollywood Reporter: