The Perpetual Gossip Headline Machine is still working just fine at Bravo, where two different confrontations on two different “Real Housewives” franchises occurred over the weekend. First up, it’s the wine-throwing housewives of Orange County:

A wild brawl broke out at the wrap party for the Real Housewives of Orange County on Saturday night, with Tamra Barney [hottie in the middle -Ed.] and Jeana Keough [fatty on the right] throwing wine at each other and the encounter turning physical…

“Jeana said to Tamra, ‘Youre’ [sic]a b*tch and I’m gonna throw you’re [sic] a** in the pool,’” the eyewitness told us. “Then she pushed Tamra, as if she was trying to throw her in the pool.” Tamra started to fall backward, and fell into someone behind her. Still on her feet, Tamra responded by throwing a glass of wine in Jeana’s face!

The eyewitness [said] that Tamra then walked away and as she did Jeana tried to throw HER wine at Tamra. But Jeana missed Tamra and her wine hit another woman – who was wearing white and furious after being splattered. That woman then stormed Jeana, grabbed her and pushed her up against a wall! [Radar]

Golly, I can’t wait for Bravo to take this 15 seconds of footage and replay it 35 times from different angles over the course of an entire hour. But wait, there’s East Coast “Housewife” drama, too!

Because of a recent history of bad blood between the two siblings, a verbal argument ignited between Teresa [Giudice] and her brother. And when Joe Giudice got involved a physical altercation broke out between him and Teresa’s brother Joey.

“There were punches, vulgarity. It was like a scene out of a movie,” another source said of the fight. [Radar]

I doubt that very much. Movies tend to have some kind of plot, or at least sympathetic characters.

Last night’s “South Park” provided a cathartic backlash to the prominent New Jersey stereotypes currently overpopulating our TVs. In the episode (titled “It’s a Jersey Thing”), New Jersey has taken over the Eastern half of the United States, and the only town that’s willing to fight back the spread of Guidos is South Park. Eventually, Randy calls on Al Qaeda to help vanquish the Guidos, but not before savaging “Jersey Shore,” “Real Housewives of Jersey” (they even recreated the table-flipping scene), and especially Snooki, who was depicted as a Gollum-like troll.

“South Park” generally works best when it paints in broad strokes; subtlety and nuance are for cartoons that are willing to substitute expediency for quality animation. In that regard, “Jersey Shore” made a perfect target for Trey Parker and Matt Stone: the “South Park” spoofs of the Guidos aren’t demonstrably different than how they’re presented on MTV and Bravo. Well, except Snooki. I think the animators went a little overboard with the ankle fat.

Short clip below; watch the whole episode here.

Real Unmarried Housewife of New Jersey Danielle Staub — prostitute, coke dealer, kidnapper, snitch, and horrific breast augmentation enthusiast — performed her song “Close to Me” live on PIX11 in New York this morning. You know, I didn’t realize she was trying her hand at a music career. But then, Neville Chamberlain didn’t realize that Hitler was out to conquer the world and create a master Aryan race. We’re all susceptible to ignoring evil.

I’m sorry, it’s unfair to compare this video to the Holocaust. Unfair to the Holocaust.

Yep, my ears are bleeding. Let’s cleanse the aural palate with a different “Close to Me.”

[BuzzFeed]

Here’s a nice picture of some happy dogs who would love to get a big hug (full version here, thanks to Jordan for sharing). They’re the pleasant part of this post, because the image that goes with this story is Not Safe For Eyes. The fact that part of the image below is blurred actually makes it worse: it gives your brain a little bit of free reign to imagine just how terrible it might be.

Okay, let’s do this. So: you know Danielle Staub? Unmarried woman who’s a “Real Housewife of New Jersey”? Former prostitute and coke dealer? Leaked NSFW pictures of an alleged sex tape? Right. Well, it may surprise you to know that she’s had three breast augmentation surgeries (I know, right? I thought she was 100% natural). And on the last episode of ‘Real Housewives,” Danielle went in to get her tits fixed, because they look like…

(Are you sure you’re ready? Don’t keep reading if you haven’t steeled yourself.)

The Hollywood Gossip recounts the details of this horror:

She’s had three previous “augmentations” (I hate that word), none of which turned out well.  Evidently she also got a staph infection in one of her boobs and now it’s all lopsided and hard…

Danielle meets with a plastic surgeon in his office in a strip mall. Evidently Franklin Lakes is one never ending strip mall. Of the freak boob she explains, “It’s hard, it’s cold, it doesn’t get the body temperature like my body.” She goes on, “I do suffer because of the breast implants. It causes a lot of pain for me. Every day, every minute of every hour of every day.” [...]

Later, Danielle heads in to get her breast surgery. We are treated to another look of Danielle’s blurred-out boobs and we gag and cover our eyes. She wants us to know that she is a natural girl at heart who normally shuns such vain cosmeticprocedures. We look upon her freakishly high eyebrows, protruding cheekbones, and overly plumped lips and we totally believe her.

“Nature’s been very good to me so far,” says Danielle. “Getting my breasts done is really out of necessity. It wasn’t for aesthetic reasons. Umm, I want to be very clear about that.”

Once in the operating room, we get to enjoy even more blurred-out boob action. Her doctor tells those assembled around Danielle’s naked torso, “She has one of the biggest deformities ever. It’s depressed.”

Ugh, so is my penis after all of that. I’m gonna need to watch a lot of porn to remind myself that breast implants can be a good thing.

Best Week Ever uncovered a YouTube account consisting of nothing but squiggly animated spoofs of retarded Bravo reality shows. A couple more are posted after the jump.

The time I spent watching these clips represents more time than I’ve committed watching all of these actual shows combined, so I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the parody, but they’re pretty funny and obviously mean-spirited, so that’s good enough for me. They don’t make me any more likely to watch any of these shows, but they do make me yearn for the days when Dr. Katz used to air at least 14 times a day on Comedy Central. Ah, early years of Comedy Central, how I miss your unbroken hours of content featuring an almost complete lack of original programming.

Real Housewives of New Jersey

Real Housewives of New York

Millionaire Matchmaker

I watched about a minute of last night’s “Real Housewives of New Jersey” reunion — long enough to see that the curly-haired table-flipper is now pregnant (Yay, they’re reproducing!).  But I had to turn it off after several cuts to Danielle Staub, because her plastic face and bad boob job were more than my eyes could handle.  However, I will give her credit for basically being the slutty version of a character from Goodfellas.  While we’ve gotten some details of her sordid past before, The Smoking Gun goes over the top with a history of Staub’s criminal activity.  It’s a long read, but every word is delicious.

Staub, once known as Beverly Ann Merrill, was arrested by FBI agents in June 1986 for her role in a kidnapping plot that grew out of a cocaine deal gone bad. According to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Miami, Merrill and Daniel Aguilar, who distributed narcotics for a Colombian drug family, sought to extort a $25,000 ransom from a man whose son they were holding. The captive, Carmen Centolella, was blamed by Merrill and Aguilar for the botched drug deal, which cost them a kilo of cocaine worth about $24,000, according to the below criminal complaint. Merrill and Aguilar were arrested after federal agents traced ransom calls they placed to Centolella’s father. Merrill was busted in a Miami apartment in which agents discovered six kilos of cocaine and about $16,000 in cash. In a subsequent indictment, Merrill was charged with eight felonies, including extortion, cocaine possession, and narcotics conspiracy.

Prosecutors allege that Merrill placed the first call to Centolella’s father and “threatened injury or death” to his son “unless a sum of money was paid.” Facing the possibility of decades in prison, Merrill quickly opted to flip. In August 1986, she copped to a single felony count and signed a plea agreement pledging to “provide full and complete cooperation” with federal prosecutors and FBI agents. Merrill’s plea, the agreement noted, exposed her to a maximum of 20 years in prison. Merrill’s decision to snitch out her cohorts resulted in threats allegedly directed at her by Aguilar and his family, prosecutors contended in one motion. Merrill, who at the time used the alias “Angela Minelli,” received one phone call warning, “Angela, your life is at an end, honey,” and another from a male caller noting, “I saw you walking your dog–I wouldn’t take that kind of risk.” The government motion further described Merrill’s role in the botched cocaine deal, noting that she “took one of the kilos from Aguilar to Centolella’s apartment for testing.” There, she was accosted by four armed men who robbed her of the cocaine.

According to an FBI report, when Aguilar was interviewed by agents following his arrest, he stated that “Angela” was the “common link” that put him together with Centolella, the prospective cocaine buyer. Centolella, he said, knew that “Angela had sources that could provide a kilo of cocaine.” He later described “Angela” as a friend whose last name he did not know. “She also uses cocaine,” he told agents. During a court hearing, FBI Agent Robert Favie testified that Merrill met Aguilar while she was working for an escort service (Aguilar was a customer). Asked by Aguilar’s attorney if he had checked into Merrill’s background as a prostitute, Favie replied, “I know that she has told me that she has worked for an escort service, yes.”

Get Martin Scorcese on the phone.  I’m telling you right now: this story will become a movie.  And I’m excited.  I can’t wait for it to star a hot chick.

When we last checked in on “The Real Divorcees and Single Women of New Jersey,” news had broken that black AmEx-toting Danielle Staub was actually a coke-whoring ex-stripper with a sizable criminal record.  Whoops!  Since then, I’ve gone back to pretending this show doesn’t exist, but last night’s season finale — in which the women and their families gathered around for an orchestrated dinner.  From what I understand, Danielle blamed someone for bringing her past to light, then there were some counter-accusations, then Teresa was all, “WHORE! AND OTHER NAMES!” and flipped a table over.  I dunno, whatever.  Read a recap of it here.

In case you can’t get the video to work for you, no worries: Bravo will air a special hour-long “director’s cut” of the dinner fight tomorrow night.  Oh, and Danielle’s two-decades-younger ex-boyfriend says she’s a sex maniac who needs it in public all the time, and he’s considering releasing one or more of their alleged sex tapes.  Thanks buddy, but I prefer to be turned on by watching people have sex.

Danielle Staub has made her mark on “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” by being the lone single housewife (huh?) and bragging about having a black American Express Card since, like, forever ago.  More interestingly, she may very well have a shady past of drugs, stripping, and criminal behavior.  RAWR!

In the out-of-print memoir Cop without a Badge, felon-turned-informant Kevin Maher writes about Beverly Merrill, a stripper who was out on bail when they met at a Miami drug party — a woman who just happens to look like Danielle might have looked 20 years ago.  Get yourself comfortable, because here comes a heaping serving of Awesome:

Let’s meet Bev: “She was brunette. Long, perfectly shaped legs poked out of her leather hot pants just as provocatively as her braless breasts strained against her low-cut blouse.” And no, she wasn’t wearing any underwear. After she and Maher have “explosive sex,” he thinks to himself, “This is a good person. She has no morals, but she’s a good person.” [...]

Unfortunately, Beverly turns out to be a “coke whore.” That’s okay at first, because Maher likes coke too. But he really doesn’t like her sleeping with other guys. So Maher confronts another one of her boyfriends at the Bennigan’s in Saddle Brook, sticks a gun in his crotch, and makes him confess. By this time, Beverly Merrill is now dancing at various North Jersey establishments under the name Danielle. Maher, deciding he wants to have a kid but that Beverly isn’t “mother material,” eventually splits up with her. According to the epilogue, Maher last saw her in 1992 dancing at a club called Shakers in Carlstadt. [NJ.com]

Holy crap, this show just got 800,000 percent better.  If Bravo’s going to keep making “Real Housewives” shows, this should be a stipulation of every new installment: at least one of the characters has to have a shady past.  Preferably drugs and stripping.  That’s the best kind of shady past.

Real Housewives of New Jersey (Bravo) — Been craving a fourth installment of this series?  You and me neither.

Fringe (Fox) — Season finale; Leonard Nimoy guest-stars.  Okay, okay, we get it: J.J. Abrams has a hard-on for the original Spock.  Now stop trying to make him relevant.

American Idol (Fox) — Only two more weeks, people, and then we’re safe for a couple of months.  By the way, it’s the 300th episode of the show tonight.  They add up fast when it’s on the air twice a week.

90210 (CW) — It’s an episode about prom.  I hate episodes about prom.

Rescue Me (FX) — Tommy takes Genevieve on a tour of Ground Zero.  Good luck fighting through all the tourists, bub.

Deadliest Catch (Discovery) — I’m only watching if this is Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus.

NBA Playoffs (TNT) — A pair of Game 5s in what have been close series: Magic-Celtics in Boston followed by Rockets-Lakers in L.A.  Come for the basketball, stay for the endless Charles Barkley T-Mobile commercials.

The newest cast of Housewives is close-knit and includes friends, a pair of sisters — who married brothers! — and their sister-in-law. The show is set to premiere May 12 (11 p.m. ET) on Bravo.

I’d also like to include some random sentences from the descriptions of the newest Housewives:

A former cosmetologist, she is now a stay-at-home mom, but still loves to pamper herself… her husband Joe owns a successful construction company… she also loves to shop, get spa treatments and spend time at her beach house on the Jersey Shore… “You either love me or you hate me, there is no in between,” says the single mom [again: NOT a housewife -Ed.] of two daughters. She prides herself as one of the first female American Express Black card members in New Jersey.

Stay tuned for “The Real Housewives of Cape Girardeau, Missouri.”  A mother of six, Barb enjoys going to church, funnel cakes, vacationing in the Ozarks, and weekend trips to Branson. Stereotypes make for great TV!