There’s other TV news going on today, but I’ve had this video bookmarked for a while and we need to talk about it (the embedding is disabled, which is infuriating). It comes courtesy of delightfully-named commenter Mutant Turd, who brought it to my attention in last week’s post about Joel McHale’s appearance on “Sesame Street.” While the subject matter may be a little inside baseball for people who never lived in Seattle in the late 90s, the essence of McHale’s style is still there: biting sarcasm delivered with a mischievous smile. It’s like watching home video of LeBron James dunking in his driveway at age 15. But as cool as it is to see one of your favorite performers spreading his wings in an early local television appearance, that is not the story here. The story here is Joel McHale’s hair. Oh, honey. Oh, no.

While I’m very glad Joel has apparently since purchased the Jeremy Piven Hair Restoration System and acquired some sculpting goo, balding on top with hair down to your shoulders is not a good look. To be honest, I don’t even blame him. I blame the 90s. Fun fact: From 1989-1997, a grand total of six smart hair-related decisions were made in the entire world. We should hold barbers and hairdressers responsible for the things they let people do to their heads during that period the way we do bartenders who over-serve someone. I mean, I walked into a barbershop at age 12 and asked for a flat-top with lightning bolts shaved into each side of my head, and the barber JUST GAVE IT TO ME. LIKE I WAS A RAPPER OR SOMETHING. And there are pictures of this travesty prominently displayed in the homes of my relatives.

I’m filing a class action. Call me, Joel. We’ll make those bastards pay.

Back in December, “The League” featured an episode where Taco came up with the not-so-crazy idea of a Netflix type service for neck ties called “Neckflix.” The idea is simple: The service would send its customer a few ties each week in the mail, and then the customer could return them for a new set of ties the following week. This way, the customer could wear a different tie every day of the year without actually having to buy 365 new ties.

Genius, right?

David Powers, a lawyer at WilmerHale (Boo! BigLaw) thought so. He and Scott Tindle started their own Neckflix service.

TieTry.com is the brainchild of David Powers, who works for the firm WilmerHale, and Scott Tindle, who is based in Mobile, Ala., and they bill it as a kind of Netflix for your neck. For a monthly subscription charge, TieTry will send customers between one and five neckties to wear without having to buy. Ties are expensive, Powers says, so why plunk down a wad of cash and be stuck with it when you can loan one for a few days at a time.

Yup. That sounds exactly like Taco’s service. Powers claims that he got the idea from reality series “Shark Tank,” in which a group of venture capital investors hear pitches from aspiring entrepreneurs. But we know the truth. I expect that Mr. Powers will soon be hearing from Taco Corp. I don’t expect, however, that Taco Corp. will have a credible intellectual property claim — you can’t patent a business idea — but he could sue for egregious douchebaggery and failure to cite proper inspiration. Or he could just sic Bobbum Man on him.

(Source: AbovetheLaw with a Major Hat Tip to Douglas W. for the heads up)

Too much? Yeah, probably too much.

I’m introducing a new tag today: TOTALLY AWESOME LAWSUITS. I’ll be using it any time a former employee uses it to make outrageous claims of a former employer, claims that — whether true or not — make for an amazing story. For example, did you know that Steven Seagal employs sex slaves? It’s allegedly true, according to the civil lawsuit filed by former model Kayden Nguyen against Seagal.

When [Nguyen] arrived [in New Orleans, where Seagal films A&E's "Lawman"], the lawsuit says, she discovered that Seagal had been keeping two young female Russian “attendants” who were essentially on-call for sex — 24-seven.

On that first night, Nguyen was ushered to a secluded house where Seagal was staying with his wife and the two young women. He then proceeded to treat Nguyen as his “sex toy” despite her complaints, the lawsuit says, responding to her terror as he fondled and manhandled her by saying, “Relax, we won’t do anything special tonight … I’ll save that for another night.’”

She complained the following morning to some of the other employees, assuming that they would deliver the message to Seagal. Hours later, the lawsuit says he assaulted her again, this time forcing her to consume “illegal pills” and inflicting sexual acts on her until she sobbed…

I’m sorry, is that not normal?

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Yesterday, we heard all about Nicollette Sheridan’s massive $20M lawsuit against ABC and “Desperate Housewives” creator Marc Cherry. Sheridan alleged that Cherry hit her in the face on set, and then killed off her character because she complained. Another way of looking at it, if you’re not Nicollette Sheridan, might be that…

Cherry’s so-called “extremely abusive and aggressive manner” is grossly exaggerated. What happened is there was a scene in which Neal McDonough, who played Nicollette’s husband for the 5th season, was supposed to slap the actress. [According to one insider], during filming on September 24, 2008, Sheridan wasn’t reacting the right way. So Cherry was on the set supervising and in that context only he struck her. “He was showing her on set how it should be played. Ninety people on the set know what happened,” one insider explains. [Deadline]

Hmmm… so there’s a chance that a disgruntled former employee might be making an exaggerated claim in order to get money from a big corporation? That sounds too outlandish to be true. Especially in Hollywood. I thought people in the entertainment industry had a reputation for being honest and forthright.

Alicia Guastaferro, an 18-year-old beauty pageant contestant who was featured on ABC’s “Wife Swap” with her shallow parents, is suing the network for $100 million. In preposterous number form, that’s 100,000,000 American dollars. From the New York Daily News:

[Guastaferro] says she has panic attacks and suicidal tendencies because of her 2008 appearance, in which she memorably berated her mom and sniffed, “I do feel sorry for people that are not gorgeous people.” The suit accuses ABC and parent company Walt Disney of staging scenes to “maximize [Guastaferro's] public embarrassment.”

The show… made Guastaferro the object of ridicule among her western New York peers and forced her to transfer schools, the suit claims.

No, I think it’s safe to say Guastaferro made Guastaferro the ridicule of her peers. Keep reading for more ridiculousness, plus the jaw-dropping clip of the show that features her awful, awful family.

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