Hilarious. The phrase you are looking for is “shoe-sassination attempt.”

I hate to break this to all of you housewives who watch “Days of Our Lives” but it seems that the town of Salem just lost Marlena (aka “Doc”) and John. Yes, the show’s most popular actors, Deidre Hall and Drake Hogestyn, got the axe on Wednesday. Sources say it won’t be long before soaps disappear altogether.

This is rough news if you watch the show, I’m sure. Worse is that ironing your husband’s work shirts while chit-chatting on the telephone during afternoons will never be the same.

There is a reason why Sesame Street is still on the air. This is brilliant:

The Roots have been hired to be Jimmy Fallon’s new talk show house band. That is very bittersweet for me because I’m a fan of The Roots, and now they’ve just become a house band? I suppose it’s a steady gig, and they’ll still get to perform together for 15 seconds at a time as they play to bring on guests, but I feel like they’ve completely sold out.

To me, The Roots have always had the “real factor” going for them, and they’ve just mainstreamed themselves. My friends and I had a debate about this very situation last night and they’re comparing The Roots’ “houseband” situation to Max Weinbergs..but I think they have it all wrong. Max Weinberg hasn’t sold out because he’s simply playing a gig…you don’t see the whole E-street band as Conan’s house band (although that wouldn’t be such a bad idea). The Roots have simply given up in my eyes but at least I can say “I used to listen to them when…”

Barack Obama is inspiring change everywhere, it would seem, and the lag of this change into sitcom prime time apparently is minuscule. NBC announced today that it will begin production on “Making Friends With Black People”, a sitcom aimed at addressing race relations in America. Finally, a network is making a show that needs to be made. It’s almost sad to think that it took the first black president to give them the temerity to produce a comedy on this subject.

“From time to time, race bubbles up in the consciousness of the country and then dissipates,” said “Making Friends” author Nick Adams. “Now, with Obama, people are talking about race a lot more. We hope to capitalize on that and not let the dialogue die down. … It seemed like a good opportunity to strike while the iron is hot.”

This isn’t going to be another “Chappelle’s Show”, but hopefully Standards and Practices won’t over-muzzle it either.