Not very long ago, some die hard fans of former Golden Girl Betty White put together a grassroots campaign through Facebook to get fans behind the idea of her hosting Saturday Night Live. The moderator put out a plea for people to protest and request NBC employees for her to get a chance to host. Practically over night, the fan group blew up, and is still running strong with over 430,000 members.

It was announced about a week ago that NBC is “this close” to booking White on the show, but she unfortunately comes with a caveat. From Entertainment Weekly:

White would not be hosting alone. Rather, I hear SNL is putting together a “Women of Comedy” episode that would team the former Rose Nylund with several of her younger contemporaries. Ex-SNL MVP Molly Shannon is on board, I hear, and feelers have also been put out to Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. (An NBC spokesperson insists no one has been confirmed at this time.)

While the prospect of White hosting all by her lonesome is kind of an awesome one, the thought of having a super show with names like Molly Shannon, Fey, and Pohler back is pretty cool too.

The show is on hiatus for the Olympics, but will return to a full schedule soon with Jennifer Lopez hosting and performing one week, and on of our favorite comedians, Zach Galifiniakis, hosting the following week.

This week on the radar we’ve got news on Steven Spielberg’s potential return to dinosaurs, the status of the third Mortal Kombat film, NBC gets a Gold in the ratings competition, and what comic book legend may show up on one of our favorite shows, The Big Bang Theory.

Let’s see what blips are on the radar this week.

Boba Fett, finally the deadliest action figure in a galaxy far, far away

If you’re like me, you grew up on the first generation of Star Wars toys and action figures. You know the ones, they had a massive (sarcasm) five points of articulation. Well, one figure that was sort of an urban legend was the missile-firing Boba Fett.  We all heard of it, but rarely saw it.  Well, now it can be yours with the purchase of five other figures!  Offer expires 3/31/2011, while supplies last, only valid in US and Canada…and a whole lot of other legal fine print I’m sure.

Tron: Legacy viral campaign starts to gear up

Disney teased everyone at last year’s Comic Con about a Tron viral campaign. With the highly anticipated film set to open this December online viral goodness have started to trickle out.  The first is a new site with a somewhat enigmatic theme to it.  Can you figure out what it is?  I don’t want to ruin it, but if you must know check this link out.

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If you haven’t heard by now Clerks and Cop Out director Kevin Smith was asked to leave a Southwest Airlines flight last weekend.  The reason, he was deemed a “safety risk”, or in Smith’s words, “too fat to fly.” That’s right, Southwest Airlines tossed “Silent Bob” off a flight. What has the world come to?

Smith has come out and said he wasn’t drinking, acting out-of-the-ordinary, or too fat to fit in the seat:

“Dear @SouthwestAir, I flew out in one seat, but right after issuing me a standby ticket, Oakland Southwest attendant Suzanne (wouldn’t give last name) told me Captain Leysath deemed me a “safety risk”. Again: I’m way fat… But I’m not THERE just yet. But if I am, why wait til my bag is up, and I’m seated WITH ARM RESTS DOWN. In front of a packed plane with a bunch of folks who’d already I.d.ed me as ‘Silent Bob.’”

Armrests securely down, he was all prepared to leave (with his bag stowed no less) when the Captain asked that he be removed. Granted, anything could have happened on that flight, but the fact Southwest Airlines tried to issue him a $100 voucher in response (which he refused) doesn’t help their case.

All that said, a number of people have come to Smith’s defense, including Marvel’s own Stan Lee.  Speaking via Twitter, Lee made a few remarks in support of Smith’s case:

@smilinstanlee: The only way Kevin could look really fat would be if he packed his pockets with cards bearing the names of each of his 1,600,000 followers!

@smilinstanlee: Maybe us thin guys who don’t take up the whole seat on a plane should ask for a discount! It ought’a work both ways!

While humorous, Lee’s remarks note one very important thing; Smith has over a million followers on Twitter.  Sure, there could be a lot of spam accounts in there but let’s assume even half (I’m sure there are more than that) are real people.  500,000 or so individuals following, listening and generally waiting for Smith to say something.

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During a special event today at Google Headquarters in Mountain View, CA, the search giant unveiled its new Google Buzz approach to sharing and several new features designed to enhance its Gmail service and bring it more in line with other mainstream social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Google Buzz, which works inside the Gmail interface, includes the following features:

• Auto-following. We didn’t want users to have to peck out a totally new social graph. There has always been a giant social network under Gmail.

• Rich, fast sharing experience. Same nice Gmail UI and keyboard shortcuts. Special attention to media.

• Public and private sharing. We want things Google can index, but also private messages.

• Inbox integration. The inbox is the center for communication.

• Just the good stuff. Some much social data, we need to filter the noise.

• Go to google.com on your iPhone or Android phone web browser.

• New application for Buzz.

• Update to Google Maps for mobiles. Android, Windows Mobile and Symbian today

According to Google, they will be rolling out the starting today so keep an eye out. One question to consider, though, is if Google’s answer to social networking will actually be successful or not? As someone who uses Twitter and Facebook daily but has less time for something like Friendfeed (which Buzz is similar to) I wonder if users will take to these new features or not.

Also, if you’re interested, there’s a video produced by Google that explains Buzz a bit more after the jump.

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There’s a lot of great writers in Hollywood and Aaron Sorkin is definitely one of them. Responsible for such great shows as Sports Night, The West Wing, and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip Sorkin has brought us some incredible television. While his last series, Studio 60 was unfortunately canceled in its first season it thankfully hasn’t deterred Sorkin from returning to television.

So what is Sorkin’s new series going to be about? Well, television seems like a natural choice, “It’s going to be what turns out to be the third in the trilogy of TV shows that take place behind the scenes of a TV show, but this will be a different kind of TV show. That’s all I can let out of the bag right now.”

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m fully on board for anything Sorkin is doing but do we need another behind the scenes television show? I say this only because I think part of the reason Studio 60 didn’t get any traction is because many TV viewers had a hard time relating to those involved in the entertainment industry. Even I, a Sorkin fanboy, found it difficult to care for actors who, while living a very indulgent lifestyle, waxed poetic about how hard their respective lives were. Furthermore, is Sorkin ready to go head-to-head against 30 Rock again, the show that ultimately beat out Studio 60 in the long run?

Alright, my little rant aside, there’s still some promise here. Sorkin himself states the show “will be different” so maybe he recognizes what went wrong with Studio 60 and will avoid those mistakes in the new show. Only time will tell given he didn’t provide any other details.

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You can’t always put stock in what people say on Twitter. Sometimes, people just like to say stuff that isn’t true just to get attention or boost their number of “followers.” However, when someone who is supposedly “in the know” like us or Entertainment Weekly’s Michael Ausielo tweets something, people tend to listen and take it seriously. And given his reputation and insider knowledge, they should.

Case in point is Ausiello’s Twitter post from last night saying that he is hearing from sources that Fox will put episodes of Dollhouse on hold during the important November sweeps and then bring the show back after and air back to back episodes. Here’s what he said exactly:

“Exclusive: Hearing FOX will bench DOLLHOUSE for November sweeps and air back-to-back eps on Friday night in December.”

If true, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Maybe Fox wants to keep the show alive and so is actually doing it a favor by not having it air during sweeps so its less-than-stellar ratings won’t be a factor? Or, maybe Ausiello’s source simply got it wrong? To be honest, I hope its Fox actually trying to do a good thing and still give the show some kind of chance. Although, as much as I might want that to be the truth, I sure won’t hold my breath for it.