Former Star Search host Ed McMahon is fighting foreclosure on his multimillion-dollar Beverly Hills home, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The six-bedroom, five-bath house located within a gated community called The Summit has reportedly been on the market for 2 years, listed at $6.25 million, but its proximity to Britney Spears' home has made it a tough sell.

"When we were trying to sell the house one time, there were about 100 paparazzi there," said Alex Davis, the real estate agent for the property.  read more »

Things Are Tough All Over: While today's Observer occupied itself with the discontent of magazine writers, The Los Angeles Times' Paul Cullum checked in with Daniel Waters, one very unhappy screenwriter. Waters, who wrote 1989's dark high school satire Heathers (as well as several other films he'll be glad we don't mention), gripes, "You kid yourself into thinking, 'I'm going to do one for them and one for me,' and then you realize they're all for them... So I came to this point where I realized I hadn't really written anything -- I don't even have that drawer full of Orson Welles projects that never got made. 'Sex and Death 101' came out of just wanting something in the drawer, so that when I'm dangling from a noose above it, there it is." (Let's hope Waters doesn't read Rex Reed's review!)

A Tale of Two Britneys: The Huffington Post's Danny Shea makes a good catch: OK!'s Britney Spears cover (Britney Lost 15 LBs In Just 4 Weeks!) features a Glamour photo from 5 years ago. (Jezebel caught it, too, in a post about magazines curbing rampant airbrushing.)

Reading is Fundamental: Nerve's Caitlin MacRae interviews Solitary Vice: Against Reading author Mikita Brottman who sees a softening of book-related snobbery. "I do think it's true now that people tend to judge one another less by their set of collective references than they used to. If I refer to a Shakespeare character and someone doesn't know what I'm talking about, I'm not going to count that as a strike against them... There are so many different cultural frames of reference that there's less elitism, less of a sense that one is superior to the other." Someone must've missed this week's Most Emailed Times story.

MONDAY

Don’t call it a comeback. Britney Spears dusts herself off and puts on some glasses (prop?) to play an amorous receptionist on How I Met Your Mother (CBS, 8:30 p.m.). Sadly, between her custody battles, mental breakdowns, and her ill-chosen affair with a paparazzo, the cameo amounts to the only good press the fallen pop star has received in some time. (With that kind of drama, it’s clear why she—and her people—chose for her to be on a sitcom.) Her appearance will likely boost the show’s already strong ratings—it had its second-strongest numbers ever last week for its first new episode after the strike-induced hiatus—introducing the show to a larger swath of America and perhaps finally making it a legitimate inheritor of the Friends mantle.  read more »

Britney Spears will appear as a "female Michael Cera" on CBS's comedy series How I Met Your Mother this season. E! Online's blog Watch With Kristin is reporting that the most likely role for Britney will be in the 14th episode as "Abby," a girl who works in Ted's doctor's office. She's described as "sweet and friendly and scattered and a little nerdy—a female Michael Cera." HIMYM star Neil Patrick Harris talked to ET about Ms. Spears's upcoming role: "What if she shows up on set and she is absolutely, totally normal and that whole thing has been a big ruse?" he joked. "She is smoking a cigarette and [says], 'Oh yes, it is all a big bit. I have a master plan.'" We wonder if she'll even show up for the taping, but if it happens, it will bring some well-deserved attention to one of the best shows on television, as Mark Lotto wrote last year in the Observer. More from Mr. Harris after the jump.  read more »

This clip features famous ex-husband Kevin Federline performing a scene from tonight’s episode of a show called One Tree Hill. During a screening of this preview footage, rapt heartbeats can’t help but quicken at Mr. Federline’s stagecraft—an almost Shakespearean ability to put the smack down on a female character he bills “retarded.”

[Enter, stage left: Oh, No He Didn’t!]

Yes, yes he did. But a savior alights in the afflicted girl’s loyal B.F.F., who promptly tells Mr. Federline’s character, Jason, a musician of some kind, that he’s just upset because “all the talent left his band.” In retaliation, like a razor so sharp to slice a wanton stare, he’s all like, “Not as upset as I am that you left your granny panties in my bed.”

[A choreographed tussle with the heroic Nathan ensues. Fade to black.]  read more »

Just as things were starting to look really bleak for Britney Spears (even the AP was drawing up her obit), a savior came down from on high to put the world’s fears at rest—once and for all.

“I think everything's going to be OK,” Paris Hilton said of Ms. Spears.

Ms. Hilton, who spent last weekend at the Sundance Film Festival, sent the singer some saving graces in the form of good old fashioned spin. “She's such a sweet girl when I'm alone with her; she's a completely different person than she's made out to be,” Ms. Hilton, 26, told Us whilst in the majestic climes of Utah's Rocky-Mountain high. But she didn’t stop there. It seems Ms. Hilton really cherishes her friendship with Ms. Spears, 26. “And I love her; I think she's very sweet and has a big heart. She's amazing,” she said, adding: “I just want her to be happy.”

Like the Saturday Night Live skit of ‘Tom Brokaw’ taping a tireless litany of possible deaths, the Associated Press has been preparing Britney Spears’ obituary over the past month.

“We are not wishing it, but if Britney passed away, it’s easily one of the biggest stories in a long time,” the AP’s entertainment editor, Jesse Washington, told Us. He also said that it would be difficult for anyone to argue convincingly that Spears has not been skating on thin ice recently.

“Of course, we would never wish any type of misfortune on anybody and hope that we would never have to use it until 50 years from now…but if something were to happen, we would have to be prepared,” Mr. Washington added. Apparently this practice is not entirely unusual for the media outlet, which has a “pretty extensive obituary operation.”  read more »

While Britney Spears was getting busy in court last fall, her ex-husband, Kevin Federline, was getting busy on the set of One Tree Hill.

We just received this picture, above, of Mr. Federline filming a scene for the CW show—which will feature the former backup dancer on a three-episode arc, beginning on Jan. 15, in which he plays a musician with a pension for super-worn jeans and wife-beaters. It also appears that Mr. Federline, 29, can moss a nasty Vin Diesel impression, if with slightly less-defined guns.

The following clip features the dancer-cum-rapper-cum-actor rockin’ out as the lead singer for a fake band. What does he sound like? Let’s just say we now know what it must be like to get water-boarded backstage at the Cornerstone Festival.  read more »

As Britney Spears was preparing to leave Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after her 72-hour lockdown yesterday, Phil McGraw (a.k.a. Dr. Phil) reportedly “blindsided” the pop star, who then rejected Mr. McGraw’s offer to help her. Since Mr. McGraw was unable to penetrate Ms. Spears’ protective shell, we called celebrity life coach Patrick Wanis, Ph.D., to find out what measures he would take to help the fallen idol.  read more »

Mere hours after Britney Spears was taken to the emergency room at Cedars-Sinai hospital last night, Kevin Federline’s lawyer, Mark Kaplan, requested an emergency custody meeting at L.A.’s Superior Court.

Because of the extraordinary nature of the circumstances, Mr. Kaplan will not be making a statement to press today, said a rep for the attorney. What is clear, however, is that Ms. Spears’ attorney, Tara Scott, was present in the courtroom this morning. According to an inside source who contacted US, Me. Kaplan has asked that all of the singer’s visitation rights be suspended while she is on 72-hour lockdown at the hospital.

Ms. Spears was admitted to the Cedars-Sinai as a “special needs” patient, which apparently indicates either an overdose or a suicide attempt. (L.A. police did say that Ms. Spears appeared to be under the influence of an “unknown substance.) A complete timeline of events surrounding Ms. Spears’ most recent breakdown can be found here.