I had originally planned to post the first tease of “Mad Men” Season 5 this morning, but that video was a load of crap: no new footage, just a list of accolades and the promise of its return in 2012. Screw that.

Instead, here’s the video for “Otis,” the first track off of Jay-Z and Kanye West’s collaboration Watch the Throne. The video (embedded below) was directed by Spike Jonze and features a brief but delightful cameo from Aziz Ansari of “Parks and Recreation.” Given that this week’s stock market tumble just guaranteed that my children will have to forego school to start working in factories at age 5, I suppose I could be offended by two extremely wealthy people rapping about having extra Mercedes and flying in private jets.

And yet… nope. I dig it all. I dig the Otis Redding sample; I dig the big American flag on the hangar; I dig the chopped up, flame-spurting Maybach (which will be auctioned for charity); I dig the white girls riding in it; and yeah, I dig Aziz — who seems to be in character as Tom Haverford — just kinda hanging out in the background and dancing through the video every now and then. I miss music videos being on television.

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MTV Networks, which owns both MTV and VH1, has announced that it has no plans to air Kanye West’s video for “Monster,” which features Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj, Rick Ross, Bon Iver, and imagery that offended a lot of people when it first leaked in December. Several groups objected to shots of eroticized female corpses and a woman’s severed head, although for my money the most disturbing image was a lingerie-clad she-werewolf with long white sideburns and chest hair. (In case you haven’t seen it yet, you can watch it here).

Of course, this isn’t exactly news, because MTV and VH1 don’t play ANY music videos, but the women’s blog Adios Barbie, which spearheaded a campaign against the video this winter, is calling this non-event “A Monster Success!”

We want to publicly acknowledge and applaud MTV Networks for choosing not to air “Monster.” We congratulate MTV for reinforcing the fact that violence against women, even if couched in a horror-film format, should never be used as a way to engage and entertain viewers, many of who are under the age of 18. We need you to let others know that MTV is acting as a leader by recognizing that eroticized violence in no way, shape, or form, is entertainment… Thanks to MTV, there aren’t many distribution options left for the video.

“Thank you, MTV, for not playing this music video, even though you haven’t played complete music videos in over a decade. This is a huge success for us. Now that this music video won’t be shown on a channel that doesn’t air music videos, there’s no way for people to watch the video. Except online, which is where most people watch videos.”

Break out the “Mission Accomplished” banner, ladies. You really knocked it out of the park with that one.

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While driving around yesterday, I heard my second favorite song from the Bad Boys II soundtrack on the radio, “Shake Ya Tailfeather” by Nelly, P. Diddy, and Murphy Lee. While that in itself isn’t much of a monumental event, I did hear something I never noticed before: Murphy Lee rapping, “Man, I’m that damn hungry/See I’m starving like Marvin, girl,” a reference to “South Park’s” classic “Starvin’ Marvin’” episode. Surprisingly, there aren’t many references to specific TV shows in popular music, but here are ten of the most memorable — some good, some Blessid Union of Souls-awful.

[EDIT: As many have so kindly pointed out, Murphy Lee likely wasn't referencing "South Park." Nonetheless, it's what planted the seed for this article, so just go with it.]

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"Yo Josh Groban, I'ma let you finish, but @KanyeJordan is the best Yeezy Twitter joke OF ALL TIME!"

Here’s a cool bit from Jimmy Kimmel’s show: Josh Groban sings selections from Kanye West’s Twitter account (video below). Or another way of looking at it: your mom’s favorite musician sings the tweets of your favorite musician.

You know, I’m not one to say nice things about Josh Groban, but I enjoyed this. Unlike his Christmas songs that kept popping up on my Pandora holiday channel. Goddammit, Pandora, I pressed THUMBS DOWN!

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The always reliable gossip site MediaTakeOut is running with the report that Kim Kardashian is pregnant and the father is none other than Kanye West. Actually, that’s poor phrasing. It could be any number of others, but the site is running with Kanye, per an anonymous source who isn’t even entirely certain a pregnancy exists.

Skeptical dog wishes you wouldn’t show him these things.

The insider, who asked to remain nameless told MediaTakeOut.com, “Kim has been seeing Kanye [West] off and on for years now. But this summer, they [hooked up] five or six times.” The insider continued, “Kanye told her that he didn’t want anything serious, but Kim really likes him.”

And now, according to the insider, she suspects that Kim Kardashian is PREGNANT. The insider explains, “Kim is being very secretive about everything. She calls [Kanye] almost non-stop and wants to know what she should do.” The insider reportedly OVERHEARD the conversation between Kanye and Kim, with her OWN EARS.

All right. The source only suspects a pregnancy is taking place because Kim is being secretive and has been heard conversing with Kanye, though it was over the phone and therefore one-sided and unverifiable. However, this secondhand, likely spurious information was gathered by her own ears. Not ear implants. Not an electronic recording, which might actually be useful. Nope. Real ears.