Talk about striking while the iron’s still hot (or lukewarm, if we’re being honest): There’s already a new season of Jersey Shore heading to MTV, and it premieres on January 5. Judging from the newly-released trailer that we just spotted over on Vulture, the fifth season will attempt to shrug off that whole Florence trip like a bad dream, replacing the language barriers and discotheques that ruled more recent episodes with a return to form: ie, Snooki inexplicably dressed up in a bunny costume; Snooki popping a squat on the back porch; Snooki telling the camera without a hint of irony that this is the best time of her life. The only real storyline we see (other than more of Mike’s “secret crush” on Snooki) comes about midway through the clip, when Vinnie decides to leave the Seaside Heights house, and the search for a new roommate must begin. We’ve got but one hope going into this: please don’t let the whole “Hurricane Situation … heading right for Snooki Island” thing actually pan out. We’d be oddly devastated. Read More »

Over the weekend, MTV aired its much-discussed True Life episode, “I’m Occupying Wall Street.” The half-hour documentary follows two protesters, a 23-year-old punk named Bryan, a leader at Zuccotti Park, and Kait, a formerly apolitical 20-year-old college student radicalized by the mass arrests in early October. When the network released a preview two weeks ago, it seemed that the episode would portray the Occupy movement in a sympathetic light; the portraits that emerge, however, aren’t particularly flattering.

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1. In what many UK papers are calling “the real Slumdog Millionaire,” 27-year-old Sushil Kumar, a poor government clerk from Bihar, has become the first person to win 50 million rupees (worth over $1 million), on an Indian game show. [via Guardian]

2. Earlier in the week, Keith Richards and Johnny Depp played a cover of “Key to the Highway” at the after-party for Depp’s new film, The Rum Diary. Watch a clip of their impromptu performance here.

3. Reality TV star Tonya Cooley, who most recently appeared on The Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Ruins, is suing MTV, Bunim/Murray Productions, and her co-stars Kenny Santucci and Evan Starkman; according to her claims, the men sexually assaulted her with a toothbrush while she lay unconscious and the cameras remained rolling. [via TMZ]

4. Anger Management, the new sitcom based on the Adam Sandler comedy of the same name that Charlie Sheen has been shopping around since getting fired from Two and a Half Men, has finally found a home at FX. The network has ordered 10 episodes of the series, which it plans to premiere next summer. [via Vulture]

5. In case you’re as confused as we are by all of the recent changes, Gawker explains what Facebook’s new “trusted friend” category really means.

Bonus Buzz: Halloween Costumes No One Will Get But You

Prepare to step into a time warp, children of the ’90s, because tonight our favorite music-video critics — Beavis and Butt-Head – return to MTV. If the reviews we’ve read, and the preview clip we posted a few months ago, are any indication, the show looks and feels almost exactly like the original. The big difference, of course, is that the chuckling protagonists will be mocking reality TV shows (along with some music videos), due to both licensing and relevance concerns. So, does the new focus work? After the jump, we’ve picked out the highlights from a number of reviews that find critics debating whether a Beavis and Butt-Head who make fun of Jersey Shore are necessary in 2011.

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Now that the United States has a real, visible, broad-based youth movement for the first time in a couple of decades, everyone’s looking to cash in on — er, cover – it. So, when word spread last week that The Real World was seeking Occupy Wall Street protesters to audition for the show’s 27th season, we weren’t particularly surprised. We did, however, have trouble imagining how a reality series that has basically devolved into drunk people hooking up and shouting at each other would manage to incorporate a character whose main interests are of the political, as opposed to alcoholic, variety.

While there may turn out to be a vocal 99 percenter among the next crop of housemates, it looks like we’ll see MTV’s take on OWS well before The Real World starts shooting. MTV has announced that True Life: I’m Occupying Wall Street will air November 5th at 6pm ET and “profile a group of 20somethings who’ve pitched their tents amid the skyscrapers of Wall Street to see how they’re feeling about the event.” One featured participant, named Bryan, is a leader of OWS’s sanitation team, which nearly went head-to-head with the city over a demand that protesters temporarily vacate so Zuccotti Park’s owners could clean the space. If the snippet of his story that’s depicted in the True Life preview clip is any indication, it looks like Viacom’s cameras will be fairly sympathetic to protesters. Watch it and let us know what you think after the jump.

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1. Do Silicon Valley tech geeks have as much reality TV potential as the gorilla juice heads who inhabit the Jersey Shore? A casting call for a new show — which is rumored to be for MTV as well — suggests that someone out there thinks so. [via AolTV]

2. The Emily Haines-led Canadian band Metric is teaming up with Oscar-winning composer Howard Shore to score David Cronenberg’s film adaptation of Don DeLillo’s novel Cosmopolis, which tells the story of a 28-year-old multi-billionaire asset manager who will be played by Robert Pattinson. [via The Playlist]

3. Here’s a closer look at iPhone 4S’ new voice interface, Siri — including the really important stuff, like what happens when you tell her that you love her. [via Gizmodo]

4. We regret to inform you that Tom Hanks’ younger son Chet Hanks (a.k.a. Chet Haze) is back with another rap video. If you’re feeling brave, you can watch it here.

5. Beyoncé’s publicist says that the rumors that the pop star is faking her pregnancy — most recently sparked when her stomach “appeared to fold when she sat down” during an appearance on an Australian talk show — are “stupid, ridiculous and false.” [via Rolling Stone]

Bonus Buzz: Heterosexual Guys Who Like Glee

Children of the ’90s will remember MTV’s animated anthology series Liquid Television for gems like the avant sci-fi Æon Flux, early Beavis and Butthead, or even the show’s theme music composed by Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh. The oddball indie animated showcase was one giant bizarro world blending the strange and amusing works from names like Richard Sala, Charles Burns, and Peter Bagge. It looks like MTV is hosting a giant Liquid Television portal — a virtual treasure trove of these early works which pushed boundaries and in many ways helped revolutionize the art of animation. Check out MTV’s archive and hit the jump for a peek at a few of our faves from this out of print series. Play some “Frog Baseball,” dig into a little 1990′s infomercialism at its weirdest, experience an early live-action/comic book work from Charles Burns, and more below.

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For most of the decade, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been embarrassing Italy in the eyes of Americans (along with the rest of the world). Now, America has returned the favor by sending the Jersey Shore crew to Florence, to humiliate us in the eyes of the Italians. While they’re in Europe, we’ll be checking in with Snooki, The Situation, et al, regularly, in a series we’re calling “How Did the Jersey Shore Cast Embarrass Us in Italy This Week?” After a much-needed week off from our Mystery Science Theater 3000-esque coverage of the show, we return for our fourth installment — in which The Situation gives himself a head injury, Ron and Sam break up again, and Deena explains Italian fashion — is after the jump.

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Wavves’ Nathan Williams is totally down with big-business brand integration. Remember when he and girlfriend Best Coast recorded a duet for exclusive release on Target’s Christmas compilation? And how about his “Post Acid” video, created for Mountain Dew? Well, now Williams is lending his cred (such as it is, at this point) to MTV, which has hired him to score a new scripted series called I Just Want My Pants Back. The show is based on David J. Rosen’s novel of the same name, follows post-college types living in Brooklyn, and will feature around 20 original pieces by “guest composer” Williams, in addition to songs from his band’s upcoming EP, Life Sux. According to Joe Cuello, MTV’s senior VP of Creative Music Integration, Rosen’s book is “saturated with hipster music and how it relates to these people,” so it’s essential in telling “the story of the coolest crowd” to get “an affirmation from the people who provide the soundtrack.” If you’re interested to see how this works out for all involved, you can watch the pilot after MTV’s Video Music Awards Sunday. [via Billboard]

We have an unhealthy relationship with MTV’s Video Music Awards. While we’re never exactly what you’d call excited to sit down and watch the show each year, thanks to precious pop culture moments — like Michael Jackson smooching Lisa Marie Presley or Britney Spears dancing with a gigantic snake — we feel obligated to tune in. So you can only imagine how intrigued we were to read that MTV couldn’t find anyone to host this weekend’s ceremony. Maybe most comedians feel just as ambivalent about the VMAs as we do?

This will only be the third time that the VMAs have been host-free since launching back in 1984. Before making the decision, Amy Doyle, the awards show’s executive producer, told Billboard, “We feel we got it right by putting new talent on the stage like Chelsea [Handler] and Russell [Brand]. We’re really challenging ourselves to find the right person so that the show feels complete.” We wonder what happened with that. We’re also curious: Do you think it really matters? [via Vulture]