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The fire that injured NY1 anchor Dean Meminger’s dad was not sparked by crack pipe.

Tim Allen steps behind the camera for the first time to direct and star in the hilarious comedy ‘Crazy on the Outside,’ in theaters January 8, and the new dad is about to embark on a multi-city comedy tour to introduce the film to audiences – and his first stop left our own Mary Hart in stitches!

"You’ll laugh from top to bottom; you haven’t seen that in a movie for a long time," says Tim about the romp which co-stars Sigourney Weaver, Ray Liotta, Kelsey Grammer, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Julie Bowen and J.K. Simmons. "It’s been a passion for me for two years. It’s just a big comedy. It’s not like ‘The Passion of the Christ’ or anything like that."

The film follows Tim’s character who, just released from jail, finds that reuniting with his crazy family may prove even tougher to survive than a three-year stint behind bars.

Soap opera star Susan Lucci ushered in the holiday season as Grand Marshal of "The 2009 Hollywood Christmas Parade." The jolly stars, joined by Santa Claus, traveled down the famed Hollywood Boulevard, waving to fans on either side of the street.

Lucci told ET, "This is such an incredible welcome gesture from the City of Los Angeles to me, but also to ‘All My Children’ because we’re moving here very shortly, right after the New Year." She said that the show’s relocation will allow the plots to be "more expansive in our storytelling."

"The Inside Dish"’s Ross Mathews admitted, "I am a holly jolly mess…and I’m all about the holidays." He divulged how he wanted to ride down the parade route: "I have a dream that it’s some sort of old convertible because…in my weird dream I was also wearing a long, chiffon scarf, but that’s not going to happen."

Hi everyone! We really want you to tell us what you think about the tour! Send us your pictures and reviews of the shows you have been to! 

Even some of the broadsheets can’t resist the car-crash/affair/police avoiding story. His driving difficulties, and Iran’s threat to carry on a nuclear program, are the big stories today.

If you’re in the Iranian government you can’t do anything without it being a defiant vow, apparently. As endless nuclear threats begin to sound hollow, expect to see ‘defiant Iranian minister vows to get parking validated,’ or ‘Iranian official defiantly vows that if his salad box can be held shut, he has not overfilled it’ on the front pages. Tiger Woods must have been hoping for a bigger story to save his bacon and allow his scandal to slip under the radar. Sadly for him, Michael Jackson died already.

The other top stories of the day:

• The New York Times investigates a high-fashion alligator skin conspiracy.
• The Washington Post says the Republican party knows it doesn’t like Obama, but is a bit confused apart from that.
• The Wall Street Journal takes a hard-hitting look inside the agony of bagel injuries.
• And the Post and News duke it out over the Woods story. Spare a thought for the reporters from each paper sat in a car somewhere outside the homes of everyone even tangentially related to the scandal.

Disclosure: I freelance write and report for newspapers that are included in this roundup. Where there is a direct conflict of interest I will make it clear.

The New York Times: reassures investors in Dubai with a story about the United Arab Emirates offer to shore up banks that operate there. It’s not all good news for rich people though — there is scandal in the world of high-fashion alligator skins. The paper either follow up the story last week on swamps in Indonesia releasing lots of carbon dioxide, or they got scooped and decided to repurpose the reporting. The Washington reporters have been busy finding out more about Obama’s speech on Afghanistan strategy tomorrow and Iran’s threats to build more nuclear plants. The Metro desk meanwhile, have been talking to a lot of angry public school teachers about the growth of charter schools. Also, tiny at the bottom of the page, is a gossipy plug for a Tiger Woods story. You know you’re in trouble when the Times can’t resist an A1 mention.

The Washington Post: has risen above mentioning the Tiger Woods scandal. It leads with a poll that seeks to find the soul of the Republican party — and instead finds that the two most representative leaders are still Sarah Palin and John McCain. If that groundswell continues they can at least recycle the 2008 posters for 2012. The paper look at the imminent Afghanistan announcement with a story on Pakistan’s role in the conflict, and also report Iran’s ‘vow’ to continue a nuclear program. There’s a piece on the cost of the healthcare bill and the news that cunning students are opting to start at community college then transfer to prestigious private schools to save money.

The LA Times: by dint of geographic proximity, the LAT leads with the shooting of four police officers in Seattle. They have the biggest broadsheet story about Tiger Woods, and also run pieces on Afghanistan and on Iran’s latest threat. Monday is apparently college news day, as there’s a story here about UC Irvine offering a video games course. Today’s poetic feature effort comes from Egypt — I read about 500 words but the journalist was too busy waxing lyrical to bother saying what it was about.

The Wall Street Journal: leads with the news on efforts to shore up Dubai’s struggling economy. Iran makes the front here too. The paper also report the latest corporate strategy for survival in this economy, and the rise of bagel-related injuries.

The New York Post: does it! They finally get a great pun on the front.

The Daily News: parses Woods’ statement yesterday and comes up with a sort-of admission of guilt. Inside there’s also news that his alleged mistress has sought legal advice from celeb lawyer Gloria Allred. Which doesn’t look suspicious at all.

Tampa Bay Times: surely this is a little dramatic? It’s kind of a local story for them, but still.

Townsville Bulletin (Australia): adds to news of the woes of crocodile and alligator professionals.

“There are too many styles around, and they keep mutating too fast to assume that kind of dominance.” The doddering old limey continued: “The idea that something is uncool because it’s old or foreign has left the collective consciousness.” [Prospect]

The man behind clubplanet.com wants to buy Maxim for $40m and is convinced he can turn the ailing magazine around using the internets. If the owners don’t sell, says Andrew Fox, they will DIE.

He means in a business sense, obviously. Page Six report that Fox has been talking with Cerberus Management, the private equity firm that owns most of the magazine, since August, but they keep stalling. Fox feels very strongly about Maxim apparently, and this upsets him.

My vision is to make Maxim the must-have again, using event production, Web site development, e-commerce and digital marketing and online programming. I am trying to take a strong brand and give it legs for the future. I would take the magazine and all its digital properties and make it into a $300 million business again.

Revolutionary. He would not comment on whether he plans to kill the print version and go fully online. Which means he probably plans to kill the print version and go fully online. If Cerberus’ new interim CEO Paul Miller does not meet him, says Fox, he predicts the magazine will be dead by March.

Your favorite “Dancing with the Stars” celebs and pros got jittery and could not wait until next season to return to the dance floor. On Sunday night, dancers, judges, and hosts from “DWTS” and “So You Think You Can Dance” attended a benefit for Dizzy Feet Foundation at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles. The crowd enjoyed encore performances of memorable routines from past seasons of “DWTS,” plus the Ballas Hough Band rocked out. ‘Step Up’ star Jenna Dewan popped and locked to the beat.

Founded in 2009 by “SYTYCD”’s Nigel Lythgoe and director Adam Shankman, along with “DWTS”‘ Carrie Ann Inaba and actress Katie Holmes, Dizzy Feet Foundation helps underprivileged aspiring dancers pursue their dreams of studying the art form.

New photos suggest the White House party crashers were seasoned social climbers and chronic liars; Reese and Jake deny a break-up rumor; Tila Tequila’s “energy secret” is not an illegal substance. Monday gossip, here we come.

• The White House party crashers met Barack Obama before, as part of a surreal coterie at last year’s America’s Polo Cup. Polo networking site PoloContacts.com shows the Salahis posing with Obama, Randy Jackson, “Black Eyed Peas Rock Band,” and “rock band JOURNEY.” Michaele is identified as “former Miss USA and SuperModel.” According to Wikipedia, nobody named Michaele has ever won the Miss USA contest, but I like the idea of her real name being something plain and Midwestern like Wendy or Martha or Gretchen. She posed for pictures with beauty queens, too. [PoloContacts] [PoloContacts]
• 
• Next question: Is Michaele Salahi a compulsive liar, or is she actually delusional? On the day of the infamous State Dinner, Michaele got help from her hairstylist fixing her sari, and said she called the White House personally to ask whether her ensemble would offend the Indian delegation. Her friends asked to see the invite, but, oh my, looks like she has misplaced it, must’ve left it “in the limo,” alas. [People]
• On Sunday at 2:45, “a source close to” Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal told People the pair had broken up, prompting a thousand teenage screams of despair (that the golden couple had broken up) and elation (that Jake was back on the market). But then at 5:00, their reps said it wasn’t true, ad a temporary rift in the teen-scream-iverse healed. [Tiger Woods mistress Rachel Uchitel knows exactly where this mess is going, and has hired Gloria Allred, high-profile lawyer to scandal-marred female tabloid victims, from Clinton harassee Paula Jones to the family of Nicole Brown Simpson. [NYDN]
• Jamie Foxx is on Team Jacob. At the New Moon premiere, Foxx asked werewolf portrayer Taylor Lautner to pose with him for a photograph because “my daughter is a huge fan, and I’m a huge fan.” If I had to hazard a guess, that last part probably wasn’t true, but it’s cute that Taylor got excited. Before we turn them into leathery wizened celebubots, teen stars can be so sweet. [Gatecrasher]
• “Tila Tequila’s Energy Secret” is an infinite stream of Red Bull parceled into 20-can tables, which is part of her rider when she strips at high-end clubs. She also won’t allow herself to be photographed smoking, for hers is a sterling reputation that must not be sullied. [P6]
• Tinsley and Topper Mortimer have reinvented romance. The hedge fund baron is so in love with his ex, he’ll do anything—even fake be in love! “Topper is still into Tinsley. They talk three times a day. He has even offered to show up [on her show] if she has a date in public with another man, to help ratings. They may even get back together for ratings.” It is impossible to tell where the snake’s mouth ends and its tail begins. [P6]
• Padma Lakshmi is hot and she knows it, and it’s not vanity because she once dated Salmon Rushdie and knows all about metaphor: “I like me better naked. I don’t mean that in a vain way… Clothes are adjectives, they are indicators. When you don’t have any clothes on, it’s just you, raw, and you can’t hide.” [P6]
• New details about Anthony Michael Hall’s alleged domestic assaullt of girlfriend Diana Falzone: Police say he “pushed, shoved, and spit” and “bit his girlfriend’s forehead,” the latter of which is somewhat baffling. [P6]

Images via Polo Contacts Worldwide

Alligator farmers in Florida are struggling, and it’s not just because of the economy or even, you know, the vicious predators they farm. An evil luxury fashion brand is hoarding skins and distorting the market.

Hermes, say the New York Times, has its own tannery. They buy up alligator skins for processing and are now stockpiling them, allegedly to push the price up and make the finished skins too expensive for other brands like Manolo Blahnik.

This Mugatu-esque move means that the farmers themselves are fucked and going out of business. Let’s take a moment to examine the process of alligator farming. The farmers fight off mother alligators with a pole to collect eggs. They then raise the little critters at great expense. When they’re big enough:

Stolid men wade into shallow tanks and pull the alligators out by hand. Biting happens. After the gators are killed with a stab to the brain, they are skinned and sorted: heads and claws for the French Quarter souvenir shops, meat for the Cajun restaurants, guts for turtles, dogs or anything else whose tastes run that way.

A spokesperson for Hermes, a woman named Caroline Schwartz-Mailhe who you can bet is not wrestling no reptiles, said the brand’s stockpiling was “to support them [farmers] in these difficult times and to respond to Hermès’ increasing development in alligator skins.” They are also breeding their own crocodiles in Australia, say Reuters. So they genuinely seem to be starting an evil reptile empire.

If this offends you the upside is that you’ll find an Hermes boycott is really, really easy to stick to.

Those Somali pirates just never rest.

After tweeting his good-byes and threatening to leap to his death off the Brooklyn Bridge, Michael Lohan’s purported Twitter account abruptly went dead early Monday morning. What just happened? (Updated)

Adrian and I briefly contemplated dropping everything and rushing to the bridge for the first-ever Gawker night editor suicide intervention to save Michael, but transport to the Brooklyn Bridge from our respective apartments is sort of a bitch, and while we were haggling, @TheMichaelLohan’s tweets all disappeared. Here it is before the mass tweletion, from an Allie Is Wired screengrab:

And after:

Twitter hack? Drunk texting? Honest-to-god near-death microblog experience? A few initial points of inquiry:

• 1. If he was en route to the bridge, why did he send the tweets “from Web,” suggesting he was seated at his computer, as opposed to on his Blackberry in a car?
• 2. Why would he only say good-bye to Lindsay?
• 3. Can a user delete all their tweets at once without deleting their user page? Their simultaneous disappearance of all of Michael’s tweets suggests something more drastic than individual deletions.
• 4. Tweeting a suicidal cry for help must be the most tragic use of 140 characters in the history of human literacy, a floundering grasp at the lonely nothingness that is the artificial comfort of virtual communities. That’s not an inquiry, just a point to be made with a sigh.

Were you on the Brooklyn Bridge a little after 2AM? Are you the pipsqueak who hacked Papa Lohan’s account? Tell us what you saw or know.

UPDATE: Shabooty says it’s not true, and that @TheMichaelLohan is in fact an impostor. Here’s the email Lohan sent them:

This is not not not me. I do not have and never had a twitter and twitter’s corporate office confirms that. My lawyers are investigating.

[AllieIsWired] [TheMichaelLohan] [Shabooty]

Kate Walsh and Jeremy Piven will co-star in ‘Waska,’ according to The Hollywood Reporter. The "Entourage" star and "Private Practice" actress will share the screen with Mira Sorvino, Thomas Dekker, Lynn Collins, Elizabeth McGovern, and Joseph Morgan.

Based on the novel "Angels Crest" by Leslie Schwartz, ‘Waska’ is about a young father (Dekker) who loses his three-year-old son. This devastating event affects the whole community, putting it in a state of disarray during Waska, the first snowfall of the season, reports Variety.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Piven plays the prosecutor who goes after the father. ‘Waska’ is filming in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Poor, beleaguered Roman Polanski is being held in the most inhumane of conditions, a luxury ski chalet with a breathtaking view in a posh Swiss town beneath an endless sky bound only by rainbows.

The admitted child rapist is scheduled to arrive today at his mountain home in Gstaad, one of the most expensive ski resort towns in the world and home to annual tennis and polo tournaments. Old-school glitterati including Liz Taylor, Roger Moore, and David Niven used to frequent it. Martha Stewart, eat your house arrest heart out.

Polanski used the $1.6 million manse as collateral for bail. At the chalet, he’ll be sporting a fetching electronic ankle bracelet, and will not have his passport.

Known as the “Milky Way,” the chalet’s walls will be the bounds of Polanski’s physical universe—but he’ll have complete freedom within it.

Polanski will be able to go outside to check the mail or entertain guests in the garden and will be able to telephone and send e-mails, work on his films and have parties. Phone conversations will not be monitored.

“He will have no prison regime,” said Justice Ministry spokesman Falco Galli. “He is completely free to determine his daily schedule. It’s also up to him to get in food and other supplies.”

[AP]

This picture is so picturesque it makes me want to vomit. Roman Polanski’s new prison literally has rainbows.

A juxtaposition more appropriate than a rainbow is this dog’s rear end.

Naturally, journalists and paparazzi have flooded the town.

No special police protection will be provided, either to make sure Polanski remains or to keep spectators and others away, Galli said. He said Polanski could call the local police or a security firm if he feels threatened.

[AP]

Look how cute and Swiss these shutters are! Quaint prison bars, really.