1. Members of India’s Sikh community are outraged following a joke that Jay Leno made about Mitt Romney’s summer home; it turns out the building in the photo accompanying the bit was the Golden Temple, the holiest site in the Sikh religion. A formal complaint had been lodged with the State Department in Washington. [via AP]

2. Ben Stiller is working with Jonathan Safran Foer on a new comedy for HBO called All Talk; the show, which focuses on a Jewish family in Washington, DC, will reportedly be “politically, religiously, culturally, intellectually and sexually irreverent.” Alan Alda is in talks to star opposite Stiller, who is also planning to direct and executive produce the project. [via THR]

3. NBC just ordered up 10 new pilots (eight of them comedies), news that we find rather overwhelming so early in the morning. Luckily, Vulture has broken it all down for us.

4. The principal cast of The Book of Mormon — including recent Tony winner Nikki M. James — has extended their contracts through February 2013. If you haven’t seen this Broadway musical yet, consider this your cue to finally finagle some tickets to the perpetually sold-out show. [via EW]

5. Carnival Films, the UK film company behind Downton Abbey, are unhappy that PBS has launched a range of jewelery based on two of the show’s characters, Lady Mary Crawley and her sister, Lady Sybil. Apparently, these unauthorized products are a “must have for all ladies of quality.” [via The Guardian]

Bonus Buzz: 12 Cats And Dogs Wearing Top Hats

Barack Obama, leader of the free world and winner of a Nobel Peace Prize, can now add children’s book author to his resume: Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to my Daughters, a picture book penned by the President, hit bookstores yesterday. Written in 2008 after the election but before Obama took office, the book tells the story of 13 American heroes and heroines, including Albert Einstein, Jackie Robinson, Helen Keller, and Martin Luther King, Jr. But he’s hardly the first celebrity who has delved into kiddie lit. Here are 15 more children’s book authors you might know from elsewhere.

Read More »

Today at Flavorpill, we met the anthropologist-in-residence of the NYC Department of Sanitation. We took a video tour of an abandoned Six Flags in New Orleans. We watched Joel McHale explain to Kathie Lee and Hoda why their show is so ridiculous. We were excited to hear that The Daily Show‘s ratings had beaten both Leno and Letterman for the first time in the month of October. We looked at Haiti, ten months later. We learned 10 strange things about the universe. We found out that serial dating can be really expensive. We were glad to see that Tina Fey can still nail her Sarah Palin impression. We were shocked to hear that NYC’s black market grilled cheese maker is going legit. We were sad that none of the world’s cheapest taxis are located anywhere that we’ll be visiting in the near future. And finally, we found out what Carlton Banks has been up to lately. Spoiler alert: It’s not doing the Carlton Dance.

If you think the most recent late-night wars, between longtime Tonight Show host Jay Leno and his younger, funnier successor, Conan O’Brien, are over, you’ve got another think coming. While Leno may have his show back, Conan has amassed an army of fans, won the unconditional support of just about everyone on the Internet, launched a massively successful comedy tour, and is set to premiere a new series on TBS. With both careers still going strong, we don’t see this rivalry ending any time soon.

This weekend, both comedians made high-profile public appearances. While Leno addressed President Obama and the White House Correspondents Dinner, Conan opened up about the ordeal of losing his show on 60 Minutes. Who came out looking better? Watch video of both and check out our take after the jump.

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1. It was a bad weekend for older, beloved celebrities. Designing Women actress Dixie Carter died at 70, and Eddie Carroll, the voice of Jiminy Cricket, died at 76. [via USA Today; LAT]
2. So this isn’t shocking: Jay Leno has the oldest audience in all of late-night TV — about 10 years older than Conan’s. [via NYT]
3. That said, some local FOX affiliates would rather air reruns of Seinfeld and The Simpsons than Conan O’Brien‘s new talk show. [via THR]
4. Due to “creative reasons” Jenny Humphrey (aka Taylor Momsen) will be missing from several episodes at the beginning of next season of Gossip Girl. All will be revealed in this season’s finale. [via EW]
4. Ben Silverman is partnering with America Ferrera to produce Pedro and Maria, a Romeo and Juliet-style bilingual telenovela that will involve audience voting, for MTV. [via Variety]

1. Vampire Weekend, Julian Casablancas, and Beck will feature on Hear To Help, an upcoming Haiti benefit album from Filter Magazine and American Eagle. [via NME]
2. The Last Goodbye, a rock musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet featuring the songs of Jeff Buckley (including “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” and “Eternal Life”), will premiere during the 2010-11 season. Fun fact: It’s the first show authorized by the musician’s estate since his death in 1997. [via Variety]
3. Watch clips from New York socialite Tinsley Mortimer‘s new reality show on The CW, High Society. [via Gawker]
4. There are seven(!) plays and musicals about gay life opening in New York in the next several weeks — and what’s exciting is they’re more about love than politics. [via NYT]
5. Among the celebrities still willing to talk to Jay Leno when he steals back The Tonight Show on March 1: Sarah Palin, Lindsey Vonn, and the cast of Jersey Shore. [via ArtsBeat]

Bonus link of humiliation: Tufts University admission videos on YouTube

1. Thanks to a push from Kiefer Sutherland, FOX’s film and TV studios have finally agreed on a big-screen adaption of 24 which will take Jack Bauer to Europe. [via Variety]
2. Tonight will be the final installment of The Jay Leno Show with guests Ashton Kutcher and Gabourey Sidibe; Leno will return with The Tonight Show on March 1st. [via Deadline]
3. Speaking of the late night wars, did you see Stephen Colbert wrestle Jimmy Fallon in an elevator last night? [via Inside TV]
4. Contagion, Steven Soderbergh‘s new movie about a deadly disease could be adding Marion Cotillard and Kate Winslet to a cast that already includes Matt Damon and Jude Law. [via Variety]
5. A review of the new Dante’s Inferno-inspired game from Electronic Arts says it looks a lot like Sony‘s God of War. [via NYT]

Bonus link: The top 13 videos from MTV’s first day

1. David Goyer and Jonah Nolan have started working on a script for their follow up to The Dark Knight. [via The Playlist]
2. The story behind that Leno-Letterman-Oprah Super Bowl promo (In other news, The Late Show has hired its first female writer!) [via USA Today]
3. There’s a Mr. and Mrs. Smith reboot in the works, but it won’t feature Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie. [via Vulture]
4. Comic book god Neil Gaiman is writing an episode of Doctor Who which will air in 2011. [via BBC]
5. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has raised $250 million in just six months, largely to help expand their space for the massive Donald Fisher Collection. [via Unbeige]

Bonus Giveaway: We use Yahoo! Search to help find the top culture stories of the day. Now we’re giving you the chance to play editor, and you just might win a trip to Coachella.

Use Yahoo! Search to find an interesting link about The Dark Knight, and drop it below in the comments. Our favorite entry will receive The Dark Knight: Wide Screen Collector’s Edition (With 2-in-1 DC Comic Book and Two-Face Replica Collector Coin), and more importantly, be entered to win a VIP trip for two to Coachella. Topics will be changing throughout the week, so get your search on and keep playing to increase your chances of winning!

1. So this is fun: A bunch of shorts from the 2010 Sundance Film Festival are streaming on YouTube. [via @ebertchicago]
2. What happens when Jay Leno sits down with Oprah? You get a lot of odd metaphors. [via A.V. Club]
3. Neil Patrick Harris will host the US version of UK game show The Cube; people win money by completing simple tasks while inside a chamber that’s designed to induce stress. [via The Wrap]
4. Is “Seymour: An Introduction” — J.D. Salinger‘s last anthologized work — the best story he ever wrote? [via Slate]
5. LA’s Amoeba Music will launch a digital download store later this year that will focus on rare, out-of-print and deep catalog material. [via LAT]

Bonus link: Every episode of Lost is now on Hulu.

1. Jay Leno finally stopped making bad jokes and took a moment to seriously address the late night situation on his show last night. (video) [via Hulu]
2. Meanwhile, NBC honcho Dick Cheney Jeff Zucker told Charlie Rose that he’s been receiving death threats. [via Vulture]
3. If Lily Allen is leading the BRIT Awards 2010 nominations, do we really care who wins the awards? [via NME]
4. Bill Murray, Megan Fox, and Mickey Rourke will star in Passion Play, a romantic comedy about “a down-on-his-luck jazz trumpet player (Rourke) who forms a bond with a winged beauty (Fox) who’s now part of a sideshow attraction at a carnival.” Murray plays the gangster villain who’s trying to keep them apart. [via THR]
5. Rebecca Stead‘s When You Reach Me, a mystery novel set in 1970′s New York, won this year’s Newberry Medal, which is considered the most prestigious honor in children’s literature. [via NYT]

Bonus link: The evolution of Crayola colors