I didn’t go in depth with Fox’s upcoming dating show The Choice which is a mashup of The Voice and The Dating Game because I figured the only celebrity contestant they’d need was Jennifer Love Hewitt who’s been begging for a guy to go out with her for months. She even jerks a different dude off once a week in The Client List which I’m now convinced is an audition reel she’ll post on OK Cupid.

Well, I was wrong because Jennifer’s name is nowhere near the cast list that was released. First, a little about the show.

Five of the episodes will feature male celebrities; one episode puts women in the power seats. The contestants were unaware who the celebrities were until moments before they went on stage, but that didn’t stop the sparks. “The [female contestants] took it ridiculously seriously, like they were getting married,” Darnell says. “A couple of the setups really had chemistry.”

Though none of the celebrities bombed with the contestants, Jonas, Cain and Beckford were particularly sought after, as was Suburgatory actor Parker Young and, somewhat surprisingly, Dispirito. EW

EW put up a list of stars who’ll have the chance to date a normal.

MEN

Pauly D
Tyson Beckford
Joe Jonas
Dean Cain
Rob Kardashian
Rocco DiSpirito
Warren Sapp
Finesse Mitchell
Romeo
Jeremy Bloom
Jason Cook
Michael Catherwood
Seth Wescott
Parker Young
Ndamukong Suh
Dr. Robert Nettles
Taylor Hicks
Mike Sorrentino
Rob Gronkowski
Steven Lopez

WOMEN

Carmen Electra
Hope Dworaczyk
Rima Fakih
Sophie Monk

Not exactly the cream of the crop apart from Rima Fakih, Joe Jonas, Tyson Beckford and Dean Cain. I wonder who the least sought after “celebrity” was. I bet it was Warren Sapp. Every girl just knows they’re going to end up footing the bill for 5 t-bone steaks at the end of the night.

Congratulations, everyone. Your favorite husk of a show has been renewed for two more seasons. That’s two more years of telling people how good the previous seasons were.

Earlier, reports indicated that unless Fox and voice actors for The Simpsons could reach a new deal, which involved a large pay cut, this would have been the last season of the show. Fox wanted the actors to take a 45% cut. The actors countered with a 30% pay cut but wanted profits off the back-end.

On Sunday, Fox released a statement saying: “In the words of Homer Simpson, ‘Woo Hoo! I outlasted Andy Rooney!’” Negotiations were a success and they had renewed the series for two more seasons. While the actors won’t get back-end payments, they did get their 30% reduction in pay.

Now instead of $440,000 per episode, they’ll make $300,000. That amounts to $6 million per season or, in terms Ashton Kutcher can understand, ten times the amount he has to pay that girl he slept with to keep her mouth shut.

Conan O’Brien may or may not have found a new late night home on the Fox network. There have been no talks as of yet and the move all depends on whether it makes financial sense for the network who hasn’t had a late-night show since The Chevy Chase Show crashed and burned after just a few weeks in 1993.

There are also concerns about if Fox’s 205 affiliates would agree to switching out profitable local news programs for an untested late-night show starring Conan O’Brien who Leno replaced due to low ratings.

News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch said that if Fox did decide to move forward that “I’m sure we’ll have some difficult negotiations.”

If Fox is still anything like Fox back in the day when they ran In Living Color and Married With Children, Conan could do well not having to dumb down his material and can keep doing sketches that push boundaries like he did in his 12AM time slot on NBC. Which is great because things are a lot funnier when you don’t have to cater to the old people who don’t understand the inherent humor in a bear jacking itself off.

I’ll be taking a break from regular posting, but here are some quick hits.

There will be no third Narnia: Disney has decided to sever ties with Walden media effectively ending the Chronicles of Narnia series which it had hoped to be its own Harry Potter. At least until Walden can find someone else to co-finance and co-produce the film. This is a lot like high school when you asked a girl to prom but found out she didn’t put out so you dumped her at the last minute and went with someone uglier, but much sluttier. In this case, you’re Disney and Walden is the first girl. The slutty girl is any animation with a celebrity voiceover.

Watchmen still in trouble: A judge has ruled that Fox owns the rights to the Watchmen which is currently slated for release in March 2009 by Warner Bros. Fox seeks to stop the release of the film. Probably until they’re given a percentage of the profits. In other news, comic book nerds everywhere have fallen to their knees and screamed in agony to the heavens.

Michael Lohan says Lindsay is faking it: Yesterday, Lindsay Lohan blogged about her dad’s infidelity and illegitimate child. Today Michael denied those claims and said that there is a 99% chance that post was written by his arch-nemesis Samantha Ronson. Michael also insisted that the Illuminati were after him. After which he whispered, “Illuminati means minorities, right?”

Kim Kardashian denies it: Kim Kardashian has come to her brother Rob’s defense after the often incoherent Courtney Love made an accusatory post about him. Courtney claimed Rob punched her employee in the nose and shouted homophobic epithets at him. Kim says this never happened and Courtney will be hearing from her attorneys soon. Another thing Courtney will be hearing? The orderly pleading with her to take her meds.