Whoops! A couple of young Brits had a pretty horrible vacation after they were arrested in the Los Angeles and held for 12 hours. The reason? They had tweeted that they were coming to “destroy America.” The only problem is that they were actually just slangily talking about partying. Basically, it’s as if the police banned you from buying paint brushes after hearing you claim you were going to “paint the town red.”

On Monday night, Showbiz Tonight anchor A.J. Hammer was joined by Wendy Walsh, co-host of The Doctors, to talk about Family Guy‘s latest episode, “Screams of Silence: The Story of Brenda Q.” The episode dealt with Quagmire’s sister, Brenda, coming to town to help him recover from an auto-erotic asphyxiation accident and being constantly abused by her boyfriend, Jeff. “Like so many other people, I was just shocked by what I saw on Family Guy last night,” Hammer said of the explicit beatings administered by Jeff, and the sad reaction of Brenda. “It was really just a depressing half hour of television.”

Had you ever heard of a feud between Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane and Daily Show host Jon Stewart? Me neither, as I also generally try to avoid anything remotely Family Guy-related whenever possible. But CNN’s Piers Morgan did a little digging into his guest’s past and learned that Stewart had once placed a rather lengthy phone call to MacFarlane, apparently very upset over a Family Guy bit that had mocked the The Daily Show‘s decision to air a new episode amid the 2008 writers’ strike.

We reported Friday that the marriage pledge that GOP hopeful Michele Bachmann (R-MN) was first to sign contained a bit of not-so-fine print that made a stomach-churning comparison between the era of slavery and the presidency of Barack Obama. The group behind the pledge has since removed the reference (along with a “sorry you were offended” apology that doesn’t acknowledge the fact that their “research” was a lie), and Bachmann’s campaign delivered a statement with all the sensitivity of a burlap condom.

After a decade of bittersweet Tupac and Biggie jokes about the seemingly interminable release of Osama Bin Laden terror propaganda videos, today’s release of several new Bin Laden tapes by the Pentagon– particularly one deemed a “blooper reel” of Bin Laden flubbing his lines was a bit of a catharsis for the exhausted “War on Terror” news cycle. But for one group of comedians, the footage of a white-robed Bin Laden missing acting cues must look eerily familiar– take a look at Family Guy‘s Osama Blooper Reel from 2006?

Behind the scenes at the New York sports television network SNY, there are apparently some fans of the Fox comedy Family Guy. As the Mets players walked off the field after losing their opening day game, an audio clip from the funny cartoon mocking the Mets strangely played during the SNY broadcast.

With 24/7 cable news channels providing endless intellectual stimulation and enjoyment, who has time to squeeze in any non-news shows? To ring in the new year, check out a recommended list of the ten best entertainment programs of 2010 that are definitely worth your attention in 2011.

Rush Limbaugh made his much-anticipated guest turn on Family Guy tonight. As the saying goes, everything is better when set to music. “To quote a famous troublemaker,” sings Brian, “I have a dream…of a Republican town, where men to the right of the aisle don’t back down.” It’s a place, croons Rush, where “everyone prays to a Republican God” and there a no Republican Muslims (“too many tall buildings”). Watch the full number after the jump.

Rush Limbaugh will guest star as himself on this weekend’s episode of Family Guy, and as he does on just about everything, had something to say about it on his radio show today, including that he’ll bring his “usual bravado” to the performance…and that he can (gasp!) get along with a liberal.

A few months back, the animated show Family Guy fell onto the political radar when it featured a character with Down Syndrome whose mother was “the former governor of Alaska.” Now that episode’s soundtrack is up for an Emmy award. Bill O’Reilly asked guests Margaret Hoover and Gretchen Carlson to speculate on whether the motive for the nod was political, as an attack on Sarah Palin.

It’s not a secret that Family Guy is famous for its offensiveness and tendency to cross the politically correct line. That said, I suspect they may be called upon to issue some sort of apology after tonight’s episode (not that they will, but I don’t think this will go unnoticed).

Larry King had Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane on his show last night — one of the only people around who could give a good guess about the pressure that the creators of South ParkTrey Parker and Matt Stone must be facing, given the recent death threats from Islamic extremists over a recent episode. Unfortunately, King awkwardly avoided the questions that everyone wanted to here.

Chuck Todd, NBC News Chief White House Correspondent and host of MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown,” is immensely quotable, as it turns out.  Today, we go Inside the White House Press Corps for the rest of our interview, in which Chuck holds forth on the job of the White House reporter, the role of the Press Secretary, and the idea of media bias. He also tells us what he thinks of Fox’s Family Guy and 24

Americans can’t separate Sarah Palin‘s person from her politics– that is the conclusion The O’Reilly Factor came to on Friday after having Fox News’ resident pollster Dr. Frank Luntz survey Philadelphia voters on their reactions to the Trig Palin-inspired Family Guy episode. The polling showed that “Republicans” were much more repulsed by the program. “Democrats have a reputation of being more compassionate,” Luntz noted, “yet the Democrats didn’t find that offensive.” Watch the segment here.

Seth McFarlane was a guest on Real Time with Bill Maher and of course spoke about the recent controversy surrounding his alleged portrayal (satire?) of Sarah Palin’s child Trig (who has Down’s Syndrome.) McFarlane told host Bill Maher “I saved my Sarah Palin virginity for you” after Maher had shown a clip of Palin criticizing Family Guy. McFarlane and Maher laughed off the criticism and cited the actress who played the “retarded” character who had claimed that Palin “doesn’t have a sense of humor.” Video after the clip.

Andrea Fay Friedman, the actress who played the character with Down syndrome on this week’s much-talked about Family Guy, and who actually has Down syndrome in real life, has responded to Sarah Palin’s wrathful criticism of the show in an email to the New York Times. SNAP.

Fox News analyst Sarah Palin continued her tap-dance-like rationalization about who can and cannot use the word ‘retard’ last night on The O’Reilly Factor. “I want to give you a chance to clarify something I’ve been getting a lot of mail on,” said Bill O’Reilly. I’m not sure clarification is what he ended up getting; nevertheless, he apparently thinks Palin is ‘noble.’

Early this morning, Fox News contributor Sarah Palin blasted Fox Hollywood for the recent Family Guy episode that took a pretty hard-to-miss jab at her special needs son, Trig Palin (Family Guy son Chris Griffin was dating a girl with Down’s Syndrome…whose mother was the former governor of Alaska). On Facebook, naturally.

Um…did that really happen? And on Fox? Last night’s episode featured a “unique” story line where character Chris Griffin was dating a girl with Down’s Syndrome. A dangerous territory for comedy to be sure, that turned ugly, when Ellen (the character with Down’s Syndrome) revealed that her mother was the former governor of Alaska. Cue deserved outrage…now! (Video after the jump)

Viewers watching Sunday night’s new episode of Family Guy on FOX might have been surprised to see what looked like one of Adult Swim’s telltale white-font-on-black-background ads. Only it wasn’t during the commercial break: it was in the middle of the episode. And it plugged Adult Swim as “funnier” than Fox for not cutting out jokes. What gives? Video after the jump:

Family Guy took on Chris Matthews last night, in cartoon form. The voice acting for Chris Matthews was provided by … Chris Matthews. Watch as he has a big forehead, talks over Harry Reid, is opinionated, and, uh, has a big forehead:

Why is CNN trying to go viral in an ad campaign targeting Adult Swim viewers? It can’t be to sell their iPhone app – can it? For those too busy or important to click the link, the ad purports to be from two guys (pictured here) from Muncie, Indiana, whose iPhone app idea, Zap News, was stolen by CNN.

The news that YouTube is in talks with movie studios about setting up a paid movie rental service has hammered Blockbuster Inc.’s stock even further down. As YouTube’s traffic has exploded, Blockbuster’s health has gone from bad to worse.

Observe, in fancy graph form:

The FOX hit cartoon Family Guy has a long history of non-PC humor and taking sharp political jabs, almost exclusively aimed at conservatives and the GOP.

That’s about to change. The show is working on an episode that will include conservative heroes Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove – and from the look of Rove’s tweets about it, they are very invovled in the process of putting the episode together.