Breaking news! A key former member of the Disney mutant army has already escaped and is running wild, schooling America's youth in a series of PSAs about tolerance. Here she is explaining to some girls how the phrase "that's so gay" is, for lack of a better term, a totally gay thing to say.

And then she insults their outfits some more. Because she is SASSY.

I appeciate the message of this video, but I don't even know what Hillary Duff does for a living anymore. I know her sister hosted that Legally Blonde show. I'm just saying, PSAs are a tough business, and you can't just stick anybody in them.

Plus, whether real celebrities are onboard or not, I believe the only PSAs that work are the ones that effectively scare the hell out of teenagers. That's why the best anti-smoking ads go with less obvious spokespeople, like throat-cancer guy and melted-face-from-the-lit-cigarette-that-burned-down-my-house lady. I'm not sure yet how that can apply in this situation (You're the professionals! I write a damn blog!) but I know teens are going to need the fear of immediate death drilled into them before they stop being homophobic. All this video gave me was a fear of Hillary Duff randomly showing up in my mall and liking my jeans.

Side note: Is there a reason she's carrying three purses? I'm asking honestly.

A little old, but the Onion News Network pulled some strings to profile the high-tech team of scientists behind Disney's creepy cyborg child stars. Check out this rare look at the budding stars of tomorrow, as the doctors perfect their singing, dancing, and exaggerated reaction shots. They look so real! Technology sure has come a long way since that animatronic President Lincoln.

By the way, I'm gonna go ahead and blame this video for the fact I cannot see Zac Efron as anything but a dead-in-the-eyes genetic freak, even now that his grown-up, Rob Lowe-looking jailbait mug is staring at me from the cover of Entertainment Weekly. Thanks a lot, ONN.

Of course any sci-fi geek can tell you that the first rule of messing with mother nature is everything you create will become sentient and kill you. In a weird case of synergy, The Soup on E! took the mutant-Disney-stars concept to the next level with this absolutely horrifying movie trailer.

You just had to play God and make High School Musical 3, didn't you, Disney? Look what your experiments have wrought!

Settle in, everyone, because I'm about to show you the most biting Obama/McCain satire I've seen all year. Is it from Saturday Night Live? Some savvy political blogger? Is it a three-minute, completely unaltered clip from a 1966 episode of Batman? THE ANSWER IS NUMBER THREE.

I... don't even know where to start. First of all, you are in fact watching Batman and the Penguin hold a debate, or rather the Penguin debating and Batman blinking at him in mute disbelief. I can assume it's a special teach-kids-about-the-corruption-of-politics episode, but that's as far as I can figure it out. Why is this happening?! What are they running for? Is this how Adam West got to be the mayor of the town on Family Guy?

Anyway, the Penguin's entire campaign platform seems to consist of (1) Who is Batman? (2) What's his story? and (3) How come he knows so many criminals? It all sounds like the attack style of a certain elderly POW candidate, even BEFORE the Penguin drops "my friends" on the audience. (Yeah, I had to run that part back and watch it again. If the Penguin started wandering aimlessly around the stage, I think my brain would've fallen out.) Memo to John McCain: I understand what you're doing now. May I suggest, if you're going to steal from a Burgess Meredith character, you might want to try the meat-punching Rocky one? Not the flippery mobster with the top hat and monocle? I'm just trying to help you.

Bonus advice for Obama: It's not that I'm worried exactly, but it would reassure me if you just explained to America that your only connection to reformed 1960s radicals was swinging into them with grappling hooks.

I was torn about this funny internet clip from Spike TV, the start of a new series from writer/director/husband-of-Jenna-Fischer James Gunn. The premise is spoofing the low-budget art of dirty movies, only without the sex. Pornos with bad dialogue and acting! That's a target that really needed to be knocked off its high horse, am I right?

Here's my dilemma. On the one hand, I won't give away the punchline (except that this video is less unsafe-for-work than it looks) but it gave me that feminist twitch of NOT FUNNY, YOU GUYS that I struggle daily to suppress.

On the other hand, Nathan Fillion. Just... Nathan Fillion. He is one of my favorite people, not least because he was last seen beating up Neil Patrick Harris in a superhero costume while SINGING. As such, I don't care how badly-lit and awkward he looks in this clip. I would climb him like an uncommonly sturdy tree, just for being so cool. He has the XXX line-reading nuances down perfectly, alternating between over-acting and under-acting his role as a horny construction worker. That alone is worth your time.

Tip of the hat to my old college buddy Maya, who pointed me toward this fanvid of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre (footage from a 2006 BBC adaptation), setting the Jane/Rochester relationship to a soft, dramatic cover of Britney Spears' "Toxic."

Yes, you heard me.



I sort of wish it was an American adaptation, because both Jane and Mr. Rochester would be about twenty degress hotter (literary accuracy be damned!) and justify the sexy song. But regardless, the heat! This is how they do it in the 19th century British highlands when the good girl falls for the bad boy with a heart of gold and messy hair. She's addicted to him and his giant, toxic, fiery Gothic house with the crazy wife in the attic. (Um, spoiler alert.)

Other pop song/classic novel combinations I'd like to see on YouTube:

* Wuthering Heights: "Since U Been Gone"

* Ethan Frome: "Don't Cha"

* Of Mice and Men: "Let's Get Retarded"

* The Great Gatsby: "Mo Money, Mo Problems"

* Moby Dick: "Umbrella"

* Pride & Prejudice: "Da Butt"

Get on it, book fandom.