Welcome to part three of S&R’s first annual year-end round-up. I’ll begin by apologizing for my colleagues, who have wasted a lot of their time (and yours) yammering about “important” issues. Of course, I admire their intellectual gravity, but let’s be honest – that sort of seriousness is really misplaced when the intended audience is the American public. As we have observed before, the US is not exactly a nation of thinkers.

So today 2007 in Review will be addressing the public interest. For those who have forgotten, the public interest is what the public is interested in. I salute my colleagues for trying so hard to raise the level of discourse – if ever there were a windmill worthy of the tilt, this is it – but in the meantime the reader is invited to reflect on what really mattered to Americans in 2007.

The Punchline Gang: AKA Britney, Lynne, Jamie Lynne, K-Fed and their known accomplices. Not since the Von Trapps have one family unit provided so many Americans with such unending entertainment. I hope everybody enjoyed 2007, because the only way they’ll top this year’s act is if they all spontaneously combust in the skies over Boston Harbor on the 4th of July.

>Celebrity of the Year – Britney Spears: Brit posted the most record-breaking year in the history of celebrity hijinks.

• At one point there was a rumor that the FBI was investigating her for trying to put a HIT on K-Fed. We were thinking that since she sucked at being a soprano maybe she was going to try her hand at being a Soprano. Regardless, if she were going to have him whacked, couldn’t she have done it before his last CD dropped?
• In July Britney announced that she was pregnant but didn’t know who the babydadddy was. I guess she wasn’t really pregnant after all. Or maybe she just misplaced the fetus on one of her late-nite party binges. In any case, this was about the point where we decided that Anna Nicole had more in common with Princess Di than she did with Brit.
• Then she shaved her head and attacked an SUV with an umbrella.
• She showed up at the VMAs fat, drunk and barely able to sing. At first we thought she was John Daly.
• The word on the street now is that she has a new strategy to get her kids back (since missing drugs tests, blowing off counseling and generally telling the judge to sod himself don’t seem to be working as well as hoped) – she’s going to see if Angelina can buy them for her.
• Let’s sum it all up by noting that her biggest accomplishment in 2007 was to make ex Kevin Federline look like Ward Cleaver.

> Jamie Lynne: Teen TV star apparently sees big sis as a role model. Gets knocked up by a nice boy she met at church. Best we can tell statutory rape had to be involved, although if JL is like Brit it might take an army of lawyers to sort out exactly which of the kids was the victim.

Oh sweet Jesus – we just had a horrid thought: you don’t suppose K-Fed will have to raise this one, too?

> Lynne: First daughter #1 does her Whore of Babylon act for the whole world to see. Then daughter #2 gets caught with her feet to the ceiling. What else could possibly go wrong? Ah, this:

A Christian publisher said on Wednesday it has called off a parenting book written by Lynne Spears — the mother of troubled pop star Britney Spears and her pregnant 16-year-old sister, Jamie Lynn.
…
The working title for the book was “Pop Culture Mom: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World.” Described by the publisher as “a parenting book that’s going to have faith elements to it,” it had been set for publication on Mother’s Day in May 2008.

You heard it right, folks – the matriarch of the Punchline Gang has written a book on parenting. Snark seems so inadequate in the face of the raw journalistic fact.

> K-Fed: You still suck as a rapper, but we unconditionally apologize for every other nasty thing we ever said about you. What’s it like being Cliff Huxtable?

Of course, the Spears Clan weren’t the only people out there acting in the public interest in 2007.

Paris Hilton: Pimped Brit’s beaver for every photographer in Hollywood (100 points from Slytherin). Got arrested for DUI. Went to jail. Found God. Stripped for canned champagne. Praise Jesus.

• By the way, I’m thinking of suing Paris, Britney and the photographer who took that famous up-skirt. Ever since I saw that my nards have crawled up into my body and won’t come out.
• Unfortunately, Paris wasn’t in prison long enough to produce a sex tape. Imagine what that would have fetched on eBay.

Nicole Richie: Got sent to jail just like her bud Paris. Anybody up for a season of The Simple Life: San Quentin?

Alec Baldwin: Uncorked a locker room rampage on his ungrateful pig of a daughter. Bitch, please – kids these days are such wusses. When I was a kid I got rougher treatment than that on Christmas morning.

Lindsey Lohan: The year started badly for Lo-Blow (which means good for America). For a while we thought she was going to give Britney and Paris a run for their money. But rehab seems to be working for her, which stinks. Now Hollywood is going to have to find a way to make Siena Miller seem interesting. Trust me, this is not in the public interest.

Marcia Marcia Marcia! In her new book, The Brady Bunch’s Maureen McCormick’s reveals she had a lesbian fling w/ Eve Plumb (Jan). Tragically, this happened decades before the invention of handcams and YouTube.

Rock of Love: Bret Michaels does a reality show on VH1. Man, chicks dig that AARP card, huh?

Ellen DeGeneres: Somehow manages to botch a dog adoption and get the pup repossessed by the H-wood gendarmerie. She wouldn’t have these kinds of problems if she’d forget the fuzzbutts and just go buy an African child like everybody else.

Miss Teen SC: No, we don’t think she could find The Iraq on a map, but she had a better year than most US Americans, signing for $25K/day with The Donald. Last we heard she was enrolled at Appalachian State University trying to decide between majoring in The Politics, map-making or rocket surgery.

Speaking of The Donald: He had a nasty smack-off with Rosie O’Donnell. Rosie said Trump was a pig. Trump said Rosie was fat. We say it’s inappropriate to make fun of people’s appearance, especially when you get your hair done by a taxidermist.

Amy Winehouse: Fabulous CD, deserving of every scrap of the hype it has received. Of course, now she’s been busted for witness tampering, so expect her next record – Amy Jailhouse: LIVE from San Quentin! – in early 2009. Seriously, we hope she doesn’t go all Janis Joplin on us. And we really hope she doesn’t let Pete Doherty touch her. So far there are no documented cases of syphillis leaping across a room to infect someone, but just the same, health officials are keeping a close eye on England’s Latest Clown.

Alicia Keys: No, those shorts you wore at the Grammies didn’t make your butt look big. Your butt makes your butt look big.

Kid Rock: Got busted in an early-morning brawl. Just as his lame new CD dropped, we should note. Would somebody please tell MC Gomer here that nobody ever became relevant in a Waffle House at 5 am?

Celebrity Prejudice: It turned out there was no truth to the rumor that Isaiah Washington, Mel Gibson + Michael “KKKramer” Richards were working on a WW2-era sitcom where they would star as three wacky concentration camp guards. A shame – would have been better than anything with John Stamos in it.

Elizabeth Hasselbeck: The View star got into it with Rosie – her point seemed to be that if you were opposed to the war you were a traitor. Sharon Osbourne then weighed in, saying Liz “needs a lobotomy.” Ummm, “needs one” or “already had one”? If she were any dumber she’d need watering.

Star Jones: Lost a lot of weight and wound up looking like Oprah’s librarian grandmother. We hope she’ll consider beefing back up.

Madonna: Elected to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Yes, we said Rock & Roll. Jann Wenner is apparently afraid that he, Rolling Stone and the Hall aren’t irrelevant enough. Look for next year’s roster of inductees to include Dick Cheney and Richard Simmons.

Graham Parker: Over 30 years after his five-star debut, he’s back with another ***** masterpiece and the first S&R interview. The final votes aren’t in, but Don’t Tell Columbus may be the critics’ choice for CD of the Year. Of course, this thoughtful commentary on the state of the nation is way too intelligent to be taken seriously by the average American consumer. Verdict: not in the public interest.

Avril Lavigne: Announced that she wants to do things other than music, like be an actress. Wait, back up – Avril did music?

OJ Simpson: Acting on a hot tip that the real killers had wrapped up their golf for the day and were chilling in a hotel room, OJ and some associates bust in waving heat around and get arrested. It’s like the police don’t want Nicole’s murder solved.

Phil Spector: Murder trial ended in a hung jury, and preparations are under way for a retrial. In Spector’s defense, if you can’t bust a cap in a bitch in your own home, where can you?

Porn Spam Headline of the Year: BARBRA STREISAND GOES BRA-LESS. Sweet Jesus, are these people even trying anymore? People didn’t even want to see that in the ’70s.

Greenpeace Faux Pas Extraordinaire: The global environmental organization was forced into an embarrassing apology after twice attempting to tow Jennifer Love Hewitt back out to sea. Let’s face it, folks – chicks with cellulite don’t deserve to be loved.

Anna Nicole Smith/Babydaddy Controversy: Or, custody battle royale in Dogpatch – and the winner is Larry Birkhead! Cousin Larry was one of several hundred men to claim paternity – oddly, Eddie Murphy is about the only person who didn’t sleep with Anna Nicole on the day of Dannielynn Hope Marshall Birkhead’s conception. Poor little girl – now that the jackpot has been claimed Larry will have her living under the staircase and serving her two ugly stepsisters.

Pamela Anderson: In October she married Paris Hilton’s ex between shows in Vegas. Then a few weeks later announced she wanted a divorce. Then a few minutes later announced that she was reconsidering. Thank god – the couple has barely been together long enough to produce a decent sex tape.

Hulk Hogan’s Wife Has Had Enough: In the proposed divorce settlement she’ll get the house and half the cash. He’ll get custody of Rowdy Roddy Piper.

And in conclusion – Dick Cheney Sex Tape!: Bet that woke your ass up, huh? Okay, Cheney isn’t a “celebrity,” exactly, but we’re going to take a couple cheap shots anyway.

• A rumor was floating around for a week or so that Cheney might be involved in the “DC Madame” scandal. Mercifully, it seems not to have been true, but for awhile there hospitals across the country were reporting a spike in cases of spontaneous blindness.
• An August poll showed that 83% of Americans would rather be shot in the face by VP Cheney than to see him naked. The other 17% didn’t understand the question.

Thanks for joining me, and I hope this review has you better informed about the events and personalities that shaped your world in 2007.

Join us again tomorrow when my colleagues will be back boring you to death with things that “really mattered.” Enlightenment has ever been a tedious undertaking…