You may recall that, back in December, Fox News ran a hysterical — in both the “funny” and “histrionic” senses — segment about how The Muppets is preaching class warfare. Titled “Are Liberals Trying to Brainwash Your Kids Against Capitalism?,” the clip found Eric Bolling positively flipping out about the way the movie treats poor, innocent oil magnates and one of his guests crowing that its bottom-line message is “that mankind is a virus on poor, old Mother Earth.”

Well, it’s taken a few months, but the Muppets have gone on record with a response. In the video below, Kermit and Miss Piggy discuss Bolling’s accusations at a press conference in advance of the movie’s UK premiere. “If we had a problem with oil companies, why would we have spent the entire film driving around in a gas-guzzling Rolls Royce?” asks Kermit. But it’s Piggy who gets in the real zinger, as usual: “It’s almost as laughable as accusing Fox News of, you know, being news.” Kermit predicts, “Boy, that’s gonna be all over the Internet.” And now, thank heavens, it is.

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Every Wednesday in December, Flavorwire will take a look back at the year in film — the stories, the performances, the movies that we were talking about in 2011. For this week, let’s revisit some of the year’s movie controversies, shall we?

We film folk can get worked up pretty easily, so while we found plenty of things to get all a-tizzy about in 2011, the assembled list of 2011′s film controversies doesn’t exactly read like end-of-the-world, stop-the-presses stuff. But these things are important to us! We’re easily excitable! Thus, ratings and posters and Oscars and Darth Vader’s scream were well worth talking about — then, and now. Join us after the jump to relive some of the year’s very big deals. Read More »

1. Old Ideas, the lovely Leonard Cohen’s first studio album in seven years, isn’t due out until January, but you can already stream one of the tracks called “Show Me The Place” here.

2. Julie Delpy has signed on to direct The Right Profile, a biopic about Clash frontman Joe Strummer that will focus on his later years, which were spent largely outside of the spotlight. [via CinemaBlend]

3. Stephen King, Haruki Murakami, James Frey, and Chris Adrian are among the authors on the shortlist for the 19th annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award, which is organized by the Literary Review. The lucky winner will be announced at a ceremony on December 6. [via Telegraph]

4. According to a new study in the UK, more successful male artists have more sexual partners than less successful artists. Oddly, the researchers’ findings did not hold true for female artists. [via Guardian]

5. While discussing last weekend’s pepper spray incident at UC Davis with Bill O’Reilly, Fox News host Megyn Kelly felt the need to point out that it is “a food product, essentially.” Meanwhile O’Reilly says, “I don’t think we have the right to Monday-morning quarterback the police, particularly at a place like UC Davis, which is a fairly liberal campus.” [via Gawker]

Bonus Buzz: Zoidberg Reimagined

Here’s one to file under “Mistakes That Will Get You Fired”: Yesterday, Fox News reported that Sarah Palin is “50-50″ on entering the 2012 presidential race. But the photo that aired with the story was of Tina Fey spoofing the likely candidate and Fox News contributor on Saturday Night Live. Now, this kind of error might pass with a smile and wink at a socialist stronghold like MSNBC, but it’s not flying at Fox. The gaffe resulted in an internal memo stating that “Mistakes by any member of the show team that end up on air may result in immediate disciplinary action against those who played significant roles in the ‘mistake chain,’ and those who supervise them.” Translation: Humiliate Caribou Barbie and it’s your head. [via Salon]

1. The Smoking Gun has unearthed Katy Perry’s 45-page concert rider, which in general is kind of boring (hates carnations, likes egg chairs), but also includes this misspelled gem for any of her drivers: “DO NOT STAIR AT THE BACKSEAT THRU THE REARVIEUW MIRROW.”

2. In case you missed last night’s Colbert Report, watch John Lithgow gives a dramatic reading of a ridiculous press release from the Newt Gingrich campaign here.

3. Amid all of his current personal drama, Arnold Schwarzenegger has announced that he’s putting his acting career on hold, which means we’re all going to have to wait that much longer to see Cry Macho. [via ArtsBeat]

4. Google has decided to ditch a project to scan newspapers for publication online because it would have been too expensive, and will instead focus on Google One Pass, “a platform that enables publishers to sell content and subscriptions directly from their own sites.” [via CNET]

5. Amazon is now selling more Kindle books than physical books, at a ratio of about 105 to 100. Says Jeff Bezos: “We had high hopes that this would happen eventually, but we never imagined it would happen this quickly. We’ve been selling print books for 15 years and Kindle books for less than four years.” [via TDW Geeks]

Bonus link: Watch Katie Couric Sign Off After Her Final CBS Evening News Broadcast

Editor’s note: Each Friday, our internet-savvy friends over at BuzzFeed curate a post for us that’s filled with links to some of their favorite items on the web that week. Enjoy!

Charlie Sheen’s stage tour got off to a rocky start in Detroit where the former Two and a Half Men star was booed off stage. But things got progressively better, with positive reviews in Chicago, and a standing ovation in Cleveland.

News of a possible government shutdown was one of the most talked about stories of the week, with Speaker of the House John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and President Obama failing to reach a budget deal. The Huffington Post spells out some of the possible side-effects.

Fox News has announced that Glenn Beck’s show is coming to an end. Unfortunately, Beck’s Mercury Radio Arts has announced that they will be producing several other television projects with Fox.

Archaeologists near Prague have uncovered what they believe might be the first known gay caveman. The copper age man was buried with artifacts normally reserved for women.

Desperate Housewife Eva Longoria dropped some jaws on Letterman Thursday, when her tuxedo top unexpectedly popped open.

This photo of an abandoned mineshaft went viral on Reddit this week, after being called The Ultimate Anti-Zombie Fortress. Reddit’s resident anti-zombie defense experts got to work suggesting design improvements, resulting in the most entertaining meme of the week.

Tonight, IFC premieres The Onion News Network, a weekly half-hour series in which the satirical newspaper and website tries its hand at “bringing truth to cable news.” Though the execution is timely (the series is full of Fox News-style whooshing graphics, barking pundits, and aggressive slogans like “news without mercy”), the notion of parody news goes back decades. Join us for a brief history of fake news in popular culture.

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1. Over 7,000 people in a photo taken at this year’s Glastonbury Festival in England have tagged themselves on Facebook, setting a Guinness World Record. [via Gizmodo]
2. Mel Gibson‘s reported cameo in The Hangover 2 has been canceled. According to director Todd Phillips, “I thought Mel would have been great in the movie, but I realize filmmaking is a collaborative effort, and this decision ultimately did not have the full support of my entire cast and crew.” [via People]
3. The New York Times now has more Twitter followers than they do print subscribers. [via Business Insider]
4. Check out a new Brian Eno track called “Emerald And Stone.” This sleepy piano piece is from his upcoming album, Small Craft On A Milk Sea, which is due out on November 2nd from Warp. [via Stereogum]
5. Netflix is refusing to stock copies of Harmony Korine’s film Trash Humpers (which we reviewed here), even though they carry all of his previous, and arguably, equally controversial, work. [via AV Club]

Bonus link: Listen to Alec Baldwin recreate his famous Glenglarry Glen Ross speech

On Sunday The New York Times Magazine ran a detailed story about this country’s most polarizing political nut job/hero-to-the-right, Glenn Beck.  Whatever you feel about the guy personally (and we assume, somehow, perhaps naively, that most Flavorwire readers are HUGE fans), you have to acknowledge that he’s got a huge portion of the country tucked into his pocket, hanging on to his every word. It seemed a good opportunity to point out some things we learned about Mr. Beck from the profile. The top ten factoids after the jump.

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Only Bill O’Reilly could look completely non-nonplussed about meeting his honorary Muppet counterpart, Spill O’Reilly. And then accuse the puppet of resembling Congressman Barney Frank. And then tell the puppet that he needs a new tie and jacket. Sherrie Westin, Executive VP of Sesame Workshop was obviously trying to smooth things over after Oscar the Grouch trashed Pox News by playing up the historical angle, but we’re not sure it worked.

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