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.”

First some caveats: no, this is not a typical Mediaite story, and yes, there are many in the world who will ridicule me for posting something that everyone has been talking about for days. It is, however, a late August newsday, and this clip seems to so perfectly reflect some major disconnect going on in the country right now. The story? NBA basketball player Kris Humphries (and recently betrothed husband to reality star Kim Kardashian) reveals that he was not aware of his wife’s previous marriage. Of course he didn’t! Why would he?

HLN’s Brooke Anderson is leaving the network’s Showbiz Tonight to take Lara Spencer‘s spot on The Insider.

The move comes as ABC’s Good Morning America has hired away Spencer as part of its push to close the gap on longtime number one network morning show TODAY.

Recently, former SNL cast member and Tea Party anthem singer Victoria Jackson was appalled that this week’s episode of Glee featured two gay characters locking lips. She took to the Internet, writing a blistering post on WorldNetDaily.com in which she called the kiss “sickening.” The folks at HLN read between the lines of that post and were able to translate it as “Someone please put me in front of television cameras right now!”

CNN spin off network HLN finds itself in a unique position: As news trickles out that the plant’s nuclear reactors are possibly being abandoned due to imminent danger and the threat of a nuclear catastrophe looms on the horizon, how does its celebrity gossip and entertainment news show, Showbiz Tonight, tout its coverage of Japan-related news and, say, Selena Gomez‘s Justin Bieber dating drama without seeming out of touch?

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.”

He’s the long-running co-host of “Television’s Most Provocative Entertainment News Show,” Showbiz Tonight, and he’s not leaving the show anytime soon. Sources confirm to Mediaite A. J. Hammer has just signed a new, “multi-year” contract with HLN to keep him in his post alongside Brooke Anderson.

Hammer, who’s been with the show for nearly seven years since its launch in February 2005, is the only host to have been with Showbiz since day one.

Carrie Prejean + Donald Trump = publicity-hungry awkwardness. Trump weighed in on the Prejean-Larry King interview and near-walk-off last night on HLN’s Showbiz Tonight.

Guess what – he made it sexual.