“The Daily Show’s” mix-up of Barack Obama and “The Lion King.” Great stuff!

In honor of the DNC I have a special “Knowledge Helps” for you this week.

In an odd turn of events, Micheal Phelps is opening the season premeire of “SNL” on September 13th. I guess he can’t be any worse then those quarterbacks they get to host every year after the Superbowl.

I blame The WB for creating my addiction to TV so I am pleasantly pleased to see that it has been revived on the web and is now streaming episodes of awesome shows like “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” “Gilmore Girls” “Veronica Mars” “Everwood” “The O.C.” and tons other.

Want to be in Spider-Man 4 (a movie that hasn’t even been greenlit) then buy a part on ebay. Apparently, the auction is actually sponsored by Sony.

“Reign of Madness” the fake documentary about filming the film within “Tropic Thunder” is now on iTunes for free. It’s 30 minutes and if you liked the movie then you’ll laugh a few times while watching this.

Lots of set photos of Shia Labeouf beat up in”Transformers 2″ can be found here. It’s so nasty that he’s a smoker.

I didn’t even realize it, but they are currently in production for “Crank 2: High Voltage.”  Apparently Chev Chelios survives the first movie because they replace his heart with an artificial one. Then the premises of the sequel is that Chinese mobsters steal his artificial heart and he has to chase them all over L.A. to get it back. Of course to stay alive he occationally has to shock himself with high voltage… who the hell writes this crap?!

Ewwww… this mini-poster shipped with the screener of the first four episodes of “Gossip Girl.”

This week is the first week of classes and today is first day of my only class (doing two independent studies). Unfortunately I’m going to miss class because I’m out of town. What a shame. I’m sooooo looking forward to doing a “teaching seminar” where they teach you how to teach and it’s full of busy work and required if I’m going to get my M.F.A. …instead I’m spending the day making phone calls and doing PR crap. FUN!

Encase you missed it, James Jean announced that he will no longer be designing covers for “Fable.”

But for the past year or so, I’ve stopped working for magazines, books, and advertising as I tried to make the transition towards my personal work . . . until now, Fables has represented the last vestige of my illustration career. Now it’s onto personal projects full-time.

Jean’s last issue will be 81. Though in all honesty, just how time consuming is doing a single cover a month? Would it really get in that much way of “personal projects?”

You know that “Watchmen” lawsuit that fanboys are worried about stalling the movie’s release? Well the NY Times does it’s best to try and explain it…

According to the court filings, Fox had declared its willingness to part with the project under certain terms in 1991. In any case, Fox says, Mr. Gordon was supposed to resubmit “Watchmen” to Fox every time he came up with a changed element. There certainly were changes. At one point, Terry Gilliam (“Brazil”) was supposed to direct it, at another, Darren Aronofsky (“The Fountain”), and at still another, Paul Greengrass (“The Bourne Ultimatum”). Writers have included Sam Hamm (“Batman”), David Hayter (“X-Men”) and Alex Tse (“Sucker Free City”), among others.

So the news broke that Virgin Comics shut down it’s NY Office, but is anyone really shocked? Since the day the company was formed it had a Cross Gen vibe and clearly their primary goal was trying to create properties that could be optioned. They completely catered to the Hollywood crowd tapping directors and actors and dubing them “comic creators.” It doesn’t matter how good/bad their books were because in the end the books were just a means to end: A Movie Check. So am I sorry to see them go? Heck no. It’s their own fault for not putting storytelling, the characters, and the medium first.

The biggest game rumor going around town is that “Halo 4″ will launch the next gen Xbox (a year and a half away at the earliest), but what’s shocking is that the game is being developed by Gamebox and not Bungie! How could microsoft dump Bungie?!

A Brazilian magazine has a four”Watchmen” covers (click to enlarge). Nobody else has said it yet, so I will: The Hype-Monster is here. Beware!