We’re parked at a red light on Pico, right outside Fox. Picketers are there. They chant. They march. And, when passing drivers honk in support, they jump.

From his perch in the back seat, our toddler considers this for a few seconds and then comes to this conclusion: “They jump when you honk! Honk again! Look! They jumped again!”

If that isn’t a metaphor for labor negotiations in Hollywood, we don’t know what is.

Our cell phone picture was lousy, so we stole this one from the NYT

The WGA strike impacts more than just those schmucks with laptops. FOX has cut overtime pay for executive assistants, according to this informant:

So this week they cut overtime at Fox for Assistants. I think that’s BULL FUCKING SHIT. They say it’s a cost cutting measure in anticipation of the strike. What I want to see is someone calling these assholes out on their totally stupid, cheap, excuse. Why should the only the assts have to suffer for something that may or may not happen a couple weeks from now? They didn’t curtail Executive Expense accounts here…I know my bosses routinely spend more than my entire salary per week on lunches and drinks etc. not to mention sending flowers or wine to people at $100 a pop. Anyway… Someone should do a special report on this strike business and how it affects us assistants…

Kicking And Screaming: Reporter Meg James writes “three people familiar with the situation,” told her that Jay Leno doesn’t want to leave when his Tonight Show contract expires in 2009. Our solution: Put the job offer in one of those brief cases, and make Leno and Conan O’Brien compete for it on Deal Or No Deal.

Greed Is Good: A new Fox network promises to make business news interesting. If it’s half as interesting as Fox News’ take on current events, it should be quite interesting, indeed.

Writers’ Strike Looking Inevitable: Or so says Channel Island’s Scott Collins. We hope he’s wrong.

The Sportsman Channel intros new shows:

Catfishing America Catfish lovers troll for wily bottom feeders.
Celebrity Anglers Celebrities, fishing, what’s not to love?

Hey! Why not combine these two shows? Celebrity Catfish Tourney!

Lifetime orders It’s My Party, top party planners throw extravagant parties. And they’ll cry when they want to. Also Matt Titus: Matchmaker, where gay and straight couples get paired off. But what about bi couples? Huh? Who helps them?

Fox goes for a put pilot of The Church of Reggie, about a guy who creates and preaches his own religion. Wanna take a free personality test?

TV Land launches The Big 40, and is looking for telegenic neurotics who want to have a big party, and mourn the loss of their youth.

Fox has a script commitment deal with Darren Star and Anthony Horowitz for Raffik (working title) – a fish out of water story about an Albanian police officer who moves to the US, and with some humor really gets into the American lifestyle.

Why? Because Borat was a really cool movie.

Bravo started production on a new docu-drama called Manhattan Moms which follows several rich socialites and their families as they contend with private schools, charity galas, running businesses and running off to the Hamptons to their summer homes.

Why? Because The Nanny Diaries was a lousy movie.

NBC bought Clash of the Choirs from BBC Worldwide. Five celebs return to the hometown, form a choir and sing out as viewers vote.

Why? Because singing celebrites and the people who hate them are fun to watch.

ABC has given a script commitment to Foobar, about a group of computer geeks all working together at the same software company, from Alice Wu.

Why? Because nothing is as compelling as watching people code.

Fox, Seacrest Pairing Plunges Emmy Ratings
It’s safe to say that Monday was a pretty bad day for Fox and Ryan Seacrest. Their tag-team on Sunday’s Emmy telecast was the second lowest rated show in the awards’ history, garnering just 13.1 million viewers, reports Variety. The tally was well below the 16.2 million that NBC snagged for the same show last year. And to make matters worse for Fox, the smallest Emmy aud is still the 1990 telecast which drew 12.3 million and also aired on Fox. Maybe they should stick to American Idol? Just a thought…

Casting News
Variety gives the skinny on a couple casting stories. First Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal are in negotiations to star in Jim Sheridan’s Brothers for Relativity Media, a remake of Susanne Bier’s Danish-language drama. Meanwhile, Oscar winner Jim Broadbent has signed on to join the next Harry Potter pic, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Broadbent will play a retired potion’s master.

HBO greenlights Gardens
Grey Gardens goes on and on! The documentary, which has already been translated to a Broadway show, will now get a big-screen redo thanks to HBO Films which has just greenlit the pic, THR reports. Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange will star and Michael Sucsy will direct.

Saldana On Board for Star Trek
J.J. Abrams continues to lock in crew members for his Star Trek installment with THR reporting that Zoe Saldana has joined the cast to play the chief communications officer on the USS Enterprise for Paramount Pictures.

- CHRIS GARDNER

Hey, You Try Lip-Synching With A Stretched Out Uterus: We hate sentences like these: “An out-of-shape, out-of-touch Britney Spears delivered what was destined to be the most talked about performance of the MTV Video Music Awards — but for all the wrong reasons.” We really do.

T-minus Sleaze And Counting: TMZ will debut tonight on Fox. It won’t be much longer before society crumbles into blackness, rioters take the street and we all begin throwing our feces at each other. Make sure to set your TiVo!

LAT Asks You To Decide Between Kanye and 50 Cent: Because a few of its readers may have even heard of one of them.

If you smell sulfur in the air on Monday, don’t fret. It’s just TMZ fluttering through the airwaves.

The site that broke the Mel Gibson arrest and the Michael Richards comedy-club bigotry will stick its heavy fist into the crowded hole of celebutainment television shows, debuting, of course, on Fox.

Harvey Levin, managing editor of TMZ.com will exec produce the nightly half=hour shows and host. Because he’s just that pretty.

Levin told the Associated Press:

“It doesn’t feel like the other shows … We’re not sucking up (to stars). We’re not doing junkets. We’re not doing red carpets,” Levin said.

To which his competition answered: Ha!

Bring it on, said TMZ’s rivals, including sibling Telepictures entry Extra, returning for its 14th season Monday.

“The way I look at it, we’re in the limo with the stars. They’re chasing the limo,” said Lisa Gregorisch-Dempsey, Extra senior executive producer (and Levin’s former colleague on Celebrity Justice). “It’s a completely different point of view.”

This probably would have a been a much kinder wrap-up had Fox PR bouncer Nicole Gonzales not shut us out of the Ryan Seacrest press conference Wednesday. But she did. So it’s not.

Ryan Will Get Shit-Faced: At least that’s the take-home message on one Web site.

Ryan Will Shuck His Duties: The Orlando Sentinel reports that Seacrest knows he’s not a stand-up comedian, and “predicted the laughs will come from such presenters as Ellen DeGeneres and Stephen Colbert.” So they’re paying him why?

Ryan Will Count On You Feeling Sorry For Him: Announcing that he “may or may not” participate in an opening musical number, Seacrest said, “I’m going to try to have a sense of humor about it, and I hope the people watching have a sense of humor, too.”

So far, we’re not laughing.

Courtesy of Mike Schneider at Franklin Ave. (and Variety):

Longtime KTLA Morning Show host Carlos Amezcua has hopped to rival KTTV, where he’ll co-anchor the Fox-owned station’s 10 p.m. newscast beginning Oct. 1.

Out in the anchor shuffle is longtime KTTV anchor John Beard, whose contract was set to expire. The 14-year KTTV vet — who before that had a long run at KNBC — will appear on Fox 11 for the last time on Sept. 28.