TVSquad

When I wrote about Jimmy Kimmel's emergency appendectomy last week, a large number of well-wishing comments came in from an unusual source: Clay Aiken fans. Apparently, a link to the post showed up on an Aiken fan site and Claymaniacs from all over decided to show their love for Kimmel, who apparently has gotten awfully "close" to the singer when he appears on Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Well, the Claymaniacs and the rest of Jimmy's fans can rest easy; Kimmel is returning to his late-night talk show starting tonight, less than a week after the surgery. "I feel much better now and am delighted to announce that Brad and Angelina may choose to adopt my appendix and give it a loving home," he joked in a statement. Will Jimmy be hooked up to an IV tonight? I guess we'll have to tune in to find out.

Just when you think the Denny Debacle was over...

Mike Ausiello over at TVGuide.com is reporting that Jeffrey Dean Morgan is returning to Grey's Anatomy as Denny Duquette; he'll appear in an episode later this season. Of course, Grey's fans know Denny, since he was an integral part of the season-ending plotline last year. You remember... Izzie falls in love with the prostrate Denny, they get engaged, then she cuts his LVAD lines to help him move up the heart transplant list. We also know that Denny croaked and left Izzie with a bundle of money.

How do you bring a dead character back? Dream sequences, silly! Either that or a flashback will be in order. Ausiello has his ideas, though, including bringing Morgan back as an ET, a ghost, or Denny's twin brother Kenny. Yeah, I'm laughing on the inside, too.

[via Pop Candy]

Hey, folks. I'm in Pasadena, at the Television Critics Association winter press tour. Thanks to Kevin Kelly for doing Friday's session as I was flying in from New Jersey. After a night's sleep and a tour of "beautiful" Hollywood (including a stop at legendary hot dog haven Pink's, where I waited for an hour in 45 degree cold to get a chili dog. Yes, I'm one of those guys), I'm refreshed and ready to go.

Anyway, today was the first of the broadcast network presentations, and we started with an announcement: the new season of Dancing with the Stars will be start on Monday, March 19th. Why Monday instead of the previous season's Tuesday timeslot? Two words, according to network president Steve McPherson: American Idol.

Peter Gammons has been off the air since suffering a brain aneurysm last June, and boy do I miss him. Don't get me wrong; Gammons' substitutes on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball have done a good job. But he was one of the few people on that program and on Baseball Tonight that you could trust to give insightful analysis and insider information that wasn't full of bluster, catch-phrases, and smugness.

So this is good news: According to ESPN, Gammons will return to the channel on a part-time basis, starting Wednesday night. He'll appear from Fenway Park for both the 6 PM SportsCenter and the 7 PM edition of Baseball Tonight. He will be scheduled for further appearances as he becomes more comfortable. Good to see Peter back, especially considering it's been less than three months since his surgery.

[Thanks to Tim UF for the tip.]

Most fans of Last Comic Standing (I think there are one or two left) are aware that, while Jay Mohr is labeled as the show's "executive producer," the ex-host hasn't been involved with the show this year. He had a falling out with NBC over how Season Three was handled; NBC rushed a "Season 1 vs. Season 2" contest on the air, then cancelled the show right before the finale and never showed it, eventually shuttling that episode off to Comedy Central. So, because of the rift, LCS fans have had to put up with the shaky hands and zombie-like stare of host Anthony Clark all season.

But it looks like there has been a thaw in the frigid relations. According to Zap2It.com, Mohr will perform a stand-up set during the season finale on Wednesday, Aug. 9 (Now I realize how they're going to do this: They'll go from three to two on Tuesday, then announce the winner on Wednesday). The filler-tastic 90-minute finale will not only feature Mohr, but also sets by previous LCS winners Alonzo Bodden, John Heffron, and (gulp) Dat Phan. Hopefully, this will be a sign that Mohr will replace Clark for next summer's edition. That alone will improve upon what has turned out to be a sub-par season for the show.

I watch pretty everything these days via Tivo, which is nice, although sometimes when I'm skipping over the "bumps" that make up the time between shows on Adult Swim I often miss important messages about the network and upcoming shows. This morning while zapping through those bumps, I caught one that said FLCL would be returning to the lineup on August 5. Of course, FLCL has been in and out of the lineup for  a long time, so this isn't  a huge surprise, but I thought fans would be interested. All six episodes will be shown, so set your DVRs. Oh yeah, and to my fellow Tivo users, the show is listed in the guide as "Fooly Cooly." It took me forever to figure that one out. While I don't think I watch enough anime to really consider myself a fan, I loved FLCL. I think their may be a deeper meaning to the show, but I just dig the great music and all the weird things that explode from Naota's head.

A new season of Tom Goes to the Mayor kicks off on June 4 at 12:30 a.m. on Adult Swim. The series, if you haven't seen it, focuses on Tom Peters, a tenacious newcomer to the town of Jefferton who pitches lame ideas to a mentally-unbalanced mayor who always thinks the ideas are brilliant. The show, which uses minimal animation and some live action, pokes fun at small town politics and the kind of low-rent ideas which sometimes spawn from it. It is by far one of my favorite Adult Swim shows, and I think its humor is far removed, and light years ahead, from anything else out there right now. Of course, some people think the show is pretty lousy, but that's how this crazy dirtball keeps a-spinnin'. Hells yeah.

Buried within this press release about an episode of a show no one cares about, The War At Home, FOX casually mentions that a show at least some people care about, American Dad, is coming back on April 23.  I'm actually looking forward to it; the show's been steadily improving since it first premiered last year, and it's a funny prelude to my Sunday at 10 viewing choice, Grey's Anatomy. Good to see it back.

Oh, and just on a side note: I hope they bring back Patrick Stewart more often as Stan's boss. Just hearing his voice cracks me up for some reason.

[via The Futon Critc]

I've always noticed that other countries seem to appreciate Matt Groening's humor more than we do here. Sure, The Simpsons is a long-running hit here, and has a huge fan base, but it seems like it's damn near revered in England, for instance, to the point where you hear more Brits quoting Homer Simpson than quote Monty Python. So it's no surprise to see that Australia's The Syndey Morning Herald has the scoop about a possible return of Groening's other great series, Futurama.  According to Groening and writer David X. Cohen, DVD sales of old episodes and the return of Family Guy under similar circumstances has bouyed their hopes that the show will return soon.

"Three months ago, I would have said we were going to start tomorrow," says Cohen in the article. "And one month ago I would also have said we were going to start tomorrow. So... my current estimate is that we're starting tomorrow."