Deadspin

Live From Beijing: Two weeks ago, when soliciting your help in casting Olympian Michael Phelps (thereby sparing him a terrible Hollywood future), we predicted of the athlete, "There's bound to be an awkward SNL-hosting stint yet to come." Today, TV Guide announced, "The Summer Olympics' outstandingly golden boy, swimmer Michael Phelps, will dive into not-ready-for-primetime television as the guest host of Saturday Night Live's 33rd season premiere." Were we simply prescient, or is Lorne Michaels now culling ideas from the digital pages of Defamer? If Phelps appears in a Saved By The Bell skit, perhaps we'll have our answer. [TV Guide]

The iTunes Store has been restored to service in China—minus the compilation Songs for Tibet: The Art of Peace, thanks to its compilers' suggestions that a number of Olympic athletes had downloaded the album in protest. The Chinese government has not offered any comment. [Fact Magazine]

NBA Jerseys Are The New Imperialism

Hard to believe our nation's star athletes have time to go to the gym and practice jumpshots or whatever, what with all their marketing strategy meetings and reality shows and plotting to invade China like the second coming of opium. Sports stars and their sponsors have known for years that China is the market of the future—"If only 1% of Chinese buy our sneakers, that's $300 million more in revenue blah blah..." just like every other business in the world. But the Olympics have whet athletes' appetites even more. They want to rule China. The question is, why is China letting them do it?

Phelps Book Deal: $1.6 Million

"At least a half-dozen major publishers took a look before Dominick Anfuso, editorial director of Free Press, landed the deal... The narrative thread is expected to be the eight final swims of the 2008 games." You think? [Post]

Going for the Bronze: Though NBC's Olympic coverage provided the network with television's most watched event anywhere, ever, in the history of the universe, that massive audience hasn't translated into major spikes of interest for NBC's fall shows like Kath & Kim and My Own Worst Enemy. The network spent 65% of its promo time on returning shows (like Lipstick Jungle Lipstick Jungle Lipstick Jungle) but failed to perk awareness for anything but the 80's retread Knight Rider. Still, before NBC shoehorns Michael Phelps into Selma Blair's thong, they've got this bit of recent history to add perspective: the Athens Olympics were used to tout quickly flushed shows like Joey and LAX. Perhaps Kath & Kim will stand on its own merits — that is, as long as they didn't advertise it during the rebellion-inducing beach volleyball marathon. [Variety]

'Juno,' 'Bell,' and 'Lars' Rewarded For Their Dignity

· The Humanitas Prize has announced its short list: The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, Juno, and Lars and the Real Girl have all been singled out for having explored "the human condition in a way which affirms the dignity of the human person and reveals common humanity." We love those three movies so much, we wish we could just smush them together into one movie: The Diving Lars and the Junofly, a tender story about an alienated youth with "locked-in" syndrome who accidentally impregnates his teenage physical therapist, who's actually a Resusci Annie doll. OK, we'll stop now. [Variety]
· ABC has gone on a pickup feeding frenzy. Ordered to series: Castle, about a horror novelist who solves crimes, The Unusuals, an NYPD cop dramedy starring Amber Tamblyn, Cupid, and—we're sorry, did we just say "an NYPD cop dramedy starring Amber Tamblyn?" We believe we did! And we're damned if we know how we're supposed to feel about that. Oh, what the hell. We're jazzed! [THR]

135 Ways to Ruin the Olympics Using Technology

I received a downright insane number of entries for this week's Photoshop Contest. Apparently, you folks really had an itching to bastardize the precious Olympic Games. Nearly every event got its due, and we have some pretty amazing images. Hit the jump for your top three winners and then marvel at the humungous Gallery of Champions.

Why Can't High Schools Ban Catcher In The Rye Already?

Catcher in the Rye: Why is every teenager still reading it? So asks an English teacher in Good Magazine who claims its only merits are that it is short, full of cuss words and wholly lacking in references to other books high schoolers have not read. Well, yeah!. Plus there are other literary works that have more cuss words and "social currency" than Catcher in the Rye. Like the Gossip Girl books and Lindsay Lohan's MySpace blog! So why won't it go away?

The Accredited Leave, Sun Still Shines (Sort Of)

Matthew Mitcham and the Great Gay NBC Olympics Non-Conspiracy

I'm sure many of you remember Matthew Mitcham, the blonde, two-hand-waving Olympic platform diver who came out (heh) of nowhere to usurp the mighty Chinese team and win a gold medal. I "heh" because Mitcham was also the only publicly out athlete at the Beijing games—he hauled himself up into the stands to give his partner a kiss after he won, though we didn't see it. Mitcham's is actually a pretty interesting story, so, yeah, why didn't it air? Because of a vast conspiracy After Elton shrieks!

Rafael Nadal Latest Celeb To Regret Looking So Totally Hot In That Magazine

Newsbreak: Spanish tennis champion Rafael Nadal regrets posing topless for New York Magazine. Look, I didn't actually know who Rafael Nadal was before he posed topless for New York Magazine except that he is an Olympic athlete and now he has broken the record for shortest length of time between the appearance of said photo on newsstands and the supposed expression of dismay that said photo would ever appear on newsstands. “He is fine with being a sex symbol,” a "source" tells MSNBC gossip Courtney Hazlett. “but New York took it a bit further than he was comfortable with.”* Oh Jesus Christ.

Olympic pole vaulter Jenn Stuczynski isn't bothered by coach Rick Suhr chewing her out on camera after winning a silver medal, but she is upset by the public's reaction. On Saturday, Stuczynski defended her coach, explaining that the cameras didn't capture her asking Suhr what she'd done wrong, the fact that he was screaming over 91,000 fans, or their celebration afterwards. "I don’t ask for him to be a cheerleader,” Stuczynski said. “I don’t want him to carry pompoms and tell me I’m great when I’m not. That’s not the athlete I want to be. I don’t want the constant stroking of my ego. I want someone to be honest and fair. That wasn’t an attack, it wasn’t even criticism. It was the facts. That’s the way I took it." She added, "I’m 26 years old. I can think for myself. I’m a strong girl. My parents raised me to be strong and I was not even remotely sad that night." [The Buffalo News]

Fox Goes To School!

· Fox will stream the premieres of Fringe and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles on their website while the shows air on TV, but they'll only be accessible from college dorms. As an additional feature of their on-campus marketing efforts, if there's a Fox-branded sock on the doorknob, that means your roommate is getting busy with his girlfriend during an episode of House. [Variety]
· All 1.3 billion in China tuned in to the Olympics closing ceremony, and are now intimately familiar with E! pre-show host Ryan Seacrest, who they refer to as 树猴, or "the kind-eyed Golden Tree Monkey." [THR]
· Barack Obama continues to be underrepresented in the guy-with-a-talk-show sector, as the Committee for Late Night Monologue Political Parity released preliminary findings putting the Democratic nominee at 169 punchlines versus McCain's 322. [Variety]
· Paul McCartney has announced he'd play Tel Aviv on September 25. The performance comes 40 years after The Beatles were banned from Israel "over concerns the group's lyrics could corrupt Israeli youth." Translation: "What—you couldn't have said you were bigger than Moses? Get lost for 40 years, we'll be in touch." [Variety]
· Let's play One of These Things Just Doesn't Belong: Demoted Casting Edition! [THR]

Oh Fidel, You Crazy Nut

What happens when you take World's Fastest Man Usain Bolt, a selection of beloved movies that involve running or chasing, and modern imaging software? You get EW.com's 12 Movies Made Better by World's Fastest Man. While it's easy to fantasize about what the chest-thumping Puma-endorser would do for Chariots of Fire and Apocalypto, it's Run, Usain, Run—in which the super-athlete runs around the streets of Berlin to techno music in a red fright wig—that would really capitalize on his talents, making for another promising addition to our Gallery of Failed Olympian Crossovers. [EW]

Michael Phelps Making It Rain With Endorsement Loot

Matthew Mitcham Is Our Olympics MVP

Along with every other red-blooded homosexual on earth today, we're as proud as can be for the completely adorable gold medal-winning Aussie diver Matthew Mitcham: not only was he the only openly gay male athlete in the Olympics this year, but he also eschewed the rampant armpit shaving that was endemic among his aquatic colleagues. (And that cute little wave of his every time he passed a camera was just the icing on the cake!) Especially now that Michael Phelps' potential douchebaggery is a matter of public record, isn't it nice to have a hot Olympic champion we can call our very own? (smh.com.au + youtube.com + bestweekever.tv; pics via Flickr + fmforums.co.uk)

Conclusion Of Olympic Games Includes More Baffling Insanity