The comedy genre “serious actor delivers dramatic reading of frivolous thing” has certainly expanded in volume of works in the past few years more than it had since William Shatner invented it with his reciting of “Rocket Man” (incidentally, he probably single-handedly revived it with the Sarah Palin tweet collection). And while it appears that the greatest work in the category of 2011 will forever be John Lithgow‘s performance of the Homeric Hymn to Newt Gingrich his spokesman wrote this summer, 2012 already has a very solid entry with “Gary Oldman Reads A Jersey Shore Recap.”

“You take a young Bill Maher and you take a young Ann Coulter, what really happens if they live together?” Doron Ofir, the casting directory behind Jersey Shore, wants to know the answer to this question. Ofir is currently casting for a reality show tentatively titled Party Politics, the premise of which is to gather a group of attractive young people to live in a house and… talk about politics?

Jersey Shore star Snooki took Anderson Cooper out to Beach Bum Tanning on Tuesday’s edition of Anderson, stripping the newsman down to his skivvies. “I had no idea that Mr. Anderstand (sic) had muscles,” Snooki remarked incredulously, “so when he took off his shirt, he had like a huge peanut muscle! Cool.”

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is having a bit of a rough time lately, though, unlike most politicians, through no fault of his own: Hurricane Irene hit parts of his state incredibly hard, and the President will be visiting the troubled areas tomorrow. Yesterday, however, the Governor managed to take a breather down the Jersey Shore, where he encouraged residents to support beach businesses and have a good time. To prove he wasn’t joking, he reminded the crowd of why he has repeatedly refused a run for the presidency himself: “why the hell would I ever want to leave Jersey?”

Florence, Italy – very obviously a city with no sense of culture – has decided to pull filming permits for the fourth season of MTV’s Jersey Shore. The show’s castmembers – a group of self-described “guidos” of at least partial Italian descent – were informed of the decision as they were heading to the airport for their flight to Italy. They decided to remain in the States until everything is sorted out.

This is the Anderson Cooper that we should get to see more often: doing accents, making facial expressions, and taking time out during AC360 to thank an overly tanned but heavily compensated reality star for “not sending juiceheads with bacne to beat me up.” Anderson (now to be known far and wide, Snooki style, as “Anderstand Cooper”), you make the “RidicuList” work.

And to think the world mocked Rutgers University for paying Jersey Shore “star” Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi $32,000 to give a campus talk last week–about ten thousand dollars more than the school’s paying universally regarded smart person Toni Morrisson to deliver the commencement address.

Jersey Shore caricature Snooki’s newfound academic superstardom has everyone intermittently giving up on life and cursing her existence, apparently even news anchors on live TV. Yesterday, Fox 5 morning anchors Greg Kelly and Rosanna Scotto fully vented their disdain for the tiny cultural item, calling her, among other things, “self-indulgent and obnoxious” and telling a behind-the-scenes anecdote about the time she showed up to their studio with alcohol in her bag.

Now Italians get to experience the Jersey Shore phenomenon for themselves: The show premiered in Italy today and the reaction so far has been… Well, it’s enough to deflate Snooki’s signature poof.

In what some are calling a publicity stunt for A&E’s reality series Lawman, actor Steven Seagal manned a tank during a ridealong with Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, his deputies, and a SWAT team earlier this month. Their quarry was unarmed suspected cockfighter Jesus Llovera, and the Sheriff’s Department said they were just “err(ing) on the side of caution.”

That’s good, because if two tanks, a SWAT team, and Steven Seagal is erring on the side of caution, I’d hate to see recklessness.

Oh, JWoww. In a delightfully bizarre interview with Showbiz Tonight co-host Brooke Anderson, the Jersey Shore star is asked about “these awful reports that (an ex-boyfriend) stole your hard drive and sold nude photos of you.” Anderson handles the question gracefully, but then she’s clearly stunned by JWoww’s answer: “And there’s video, I guess, so.”

No! It’s not just pictures, it’s video? Yep. But to be fair, JWoww wants you to know she “doesn’t recommend it.” As for how the video came to be, the reality star also wants to be clear: “it’s not like me posing, or like you know how like girls like do that?” Um. “These are like sleeping or like things like that.”

Politicians might think that Washington D.C. is the one place in the world where they are the celebrity, however star of Jersey Shore, Nicole “Snooki” Politzzi proved that entertainment figures will always draw a larger crowd than a politician. New York Democrat Senator Charles Schumer learned this after Snooki snubbed him at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. Yet in Snooki’s defense, she probably had no clue who he was, or for that matter, even what a “senator” does.

Will MTV’s Jersey Shore be good news for Italy–or Italian Americans? The hit show has announced its upcoming fourth season will be shot on location in Italy, and that has the president of an Italian American group says the news is “unfortunate.”

Joseph V. Del Raso, president of The National Italian American Foundation, has never liked Jersey Shore, describing it as a high-profile platform for compounding the worst possible stereotypes about Italians (full disclosure: my last name does, in fact, end in a vowel).

The sudden and hard-to-justify fame that comes to those unique products of American pop culture know as “reality stars” is a fascinating phenomenon to follow, yet impossible to explain. Take for example the cast of Jersey Shore and Snooki‘s inexplicable inclusion on the NY Times bestseller list this week. Another example was last night’s appearance on The Tonight Show by Mike Sorrentino, aka “The Situation,” who shared with host Jay Leno his dreams of appearing in movies, and yes, one day winning an Oscar for his work. God bless America!

Taking the risk in assuming people who watch reality series can also read, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, star of MTV’s Jersey Shore, has released a novel entitled A Shore Thing. While the book will eventually be required reading for all college literature classes (an entire week of discussions will be used to analyze just the pun in the title alone), right now, it just needs to sell. So, Snooki showed up to deliver the Top 10 on the Late Show last night, listing ten reasons why you should read her opus.

Ah, reality “stars.” We build them up, and then we tear them down. Can we get the tear-down started for Snooki now? Please?

As you may have heard–and quite possibly sighed over the news–Nicole Polizzi has added to her status as a star of television’s Jersey Shore by becoming a published author. The book, A Shore Thing, has apparently gone directly to her head.

For those of you who spent the final night of 2010 wondering “whither Snooki‘s ball?”, you should be monumentally ashamed. But you shall also have your answer: MTV’s proposed plan to drop Jersey Shore star Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi was rejected by Times Square in an uncharacteristic twist of good taste, but that didn’t deter MTV from going ahead and droppin’ balls anyway.

With family vacation budgets sliced and even the weekend trip to the movies suddenly seeming like a luxury, it’s perhaps no surprise that in 2010, Americans watched more TV.

According to viewership figures reported today by The New York Times, the average American watched 34 hours of television a week in 2010–the most ever.

Here is what Barbara Walters says at the beginning of the following clip: “I never got that big interview with Jacqueline Onassis or Greta Garbo—but now I have some consolation. Ladies and gentlemen, my interview with the cast of Jersey Shore.” Dear Lord.

Comedian and self-proclaimed “D-lister” Kathy Griffin hosted VH1 Divas Salute the Troops which was taped for an audience of servicemen at the Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar, California, and aired last night. The ribald and unconventional comedian set the tone for the night when she joked about Bristol Palin and her supposed weight gain while competing with Dancing With The Stars. But the joke fell flat, as the military men and woman in attendance lustily booed the host for taking a shot at Sarah Palin‘s daughter.

As she has done for the last 17 years, Barbara Walters has once again drafted her Ten Most Fascinating People of the Year list. And it’s quite a list: Sarah Palin made the cut, as did Justin Bieber, LeBron James, and the entire cast of Jersey Shore. And if that doesn’t sound… enticing enough, Walters is also keeping hidden the identities of two mystery guests, which she’ll disclose on when her special airs on Dec. 9th.

Just in time for the holiday shopping season, Gotham has released the perfect stocking stuffer: Here’s the Situation: A Guide to Creeping on Chicks, Avoiding Grenades, and Getting in Your GTL on the Jersey Shore.

Some Jersey Shore haters will say the show jumped the shark when it started, while others will say it should have stopped after season one.

For me, it sadly came in the middle of the final episode of season two, when Snooki appeared to inexplicably break character (we have the video evidence). It was a heart-breaking moment in a boring episode that could signal something disastrous about our favorite cast of juiced-up Jerseyans.

Regis Philbin is old. Super old. Like, “Jesus Christ was my camp counselor” old. So it’s no surprise that when Jersey Shore stars Jenni “JWoww” Farley and Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi
showed up on Live with Regis & Kelly this morning, Reeg didn’t quite know what to make of them.

The Situation was eliminated on Dancing With The Stars this week, and to make matters worse, this episode of Jersey Shore features him failing miserably with a girl from “Canadia.”

Snooki makes an incest joke, Vinny gets “pot-committed” and Pauly D comes to the realization his wingman is a total douchebag.