If the 24-hour news cycle wasn’t a joke before, it certainly is now. Presumably desperate for SOME kind of story in the aftermath of the election, CNN’s Don Lemon, who I’d never heard of before today, yesterday tweeted “Said hi to @JonahHill in hotel. Think he thought i was bellman. Didn’t know his name til bellman told me. A lesson to always be kind.”

Yes, quite the lesson. Sometimes you go up to say hi to a guy, and he says hi back, but he doesn’t do it good enough and you’re like, “Whatever, jerk, I don’t even know your name!” Hey, Mother Goose! It’s your cousin, Marvin Goose! You know that new fable you’re looking for? Well listen to this!

Because CNN is an important hard news channel, they had Lemon on Soledad O’Brien’s morning show this morning to “set the record straight.” It’s a very important story, and I considered it my journalistic duty to transcribe the story exactly as Lemon told it:

“I was stuck in an airport in Cincinnati for six hours, because a cab driver wanted to take a picture with me. I missed the cutoff for my bag. Listen, Jonah Hill doesn’t owe me anything, and he may have been having a bad day, but he treated me like the help.

I basically just wanted to say ‘I like you, I think you’re funny.’ I didn’t remember his name, I was checking out of the hotel. And he walked by, and I said, and he just kinda just, kinda like… oh. Like I was the help. And so then he walked by, and so I was like ‘Maybe you misunderstood, I just wanted to tell you that I think you’re really funny.’ And he just kinda like gave me the wet handshake, kinda like ohh, and just, like ehhh, and then walked away.

And so I looked at the Bellman, and I said, what’s that guy’s name? And he said ‘Jonah Hill,’ and I went ‘Oh,’ and he went ‘ohhh. And he was like ‘…yeah. right.’

And so, it normally doesn’t bother me. But I was DONE, because I had been taught to always be kind to people.”

Let us not forget, this man is in charge of telling stories for a living. Can you imagine if Don Lemon been on the ground during one of history’s real crises? “That’s right, John. I was on the scene when the Shah addressed the protesters. The Shah kinda came up to them and was like, ‘hey, I just wanted to tell you you’re really treasonous,’ and then the students were just kinda like ‘ehh,’ and the Shah just sorta gave them a limp sorta wave, and they were like ‘ohh,’ and then I saw the Savak and the Savak and I looked at each other and they were just kinda like ‘…oh,’ and I was like ‘ahh, yeah… right.’ But I was DONE, because my great aunt June always taught me that having secret police was kind of like whatever. Also I was feeling really kind of pleh because I waited three hours at the falaffel restaurant that night. “

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So I just read a CNN story entitled “Sean played a role in hikers’ release from Iran.” Now I’m full of questions. Perhaps you can help. Take this ride with me.

Actor Sean Penn helped play a role in securing this week’s release of two U.S. hikers imprisoned in Iran for more than two years, his representative confirmed Friday.

His representative “confirmed?” That implies that someone else had previously suggested, or suspected, that Sean Penn helped play a role. Quit skipping steps, CNN, I’m lost.

The report was first published by the Reuters news agency, which cited a source close to the release process as saying that Penn flew to Venezuela months ago to speak about the hikers’ plight with President Hugo Chavez, an ally of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Mara Buxbaum, a rep for Penn, confirmed the Reuters report but declined to provide additional details.

Venezuelan state media reported Friday that Chavez was part of the mediation process that resulted in the release of Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer on Wednesday.

Okay, let’s break this down: Hugo Chavez took credit for getting the hikers released through state-owned Venezuelan media. Sean Penn went to see Hugo Chavez a few months earlier. Ergo, Sean Penn played a role in the hikers’ release. Because, after two years and a full court trial including conviction on espionage charges, “Hugo Chavez says that Sean Penn says that he vouches for these dudes and that they’re cool” was what finally got them realized.

I… I can’t tell if that story is retarded or the world is.

A few days ago on CNN, someone apparently thought it’d be a funny idea to air the clip of Jeff Daniels having explosive diarrhea from Dumb and Dumber with pretty much no context.  Go ahead, watch the clip.  One second the guy’s talking about riots in England and the latest news from congress, the next Jeff Daniels is performing the most important scene of his career.

People have suggested theories as to how CNN “mistakenly” aired the diarrhea footage, but I’m pretty sure you don’t just have your b-roll from congress sitting around next to your clips of Jeff Daniels taking a dump and Jason Biggs having sex with a pie.  The clip may have had something to do with an upcoming medical segment on the show about a guy with ulcerative colitis.  From CNN via Medialite:

Diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, nothing helped except high doses of steroids, which because of severe side effects, he could take only for limited periods of time. Soon, the patient became so sick he had to quit his job.
His gastroenterologist wanted to admit him to the hospital for an intravenous round of cyclosporine, a potentially helpful yet dangerous medicine that depresses the body’s immune system and can increase the risk for getting cancer later in life.

The story actually contains the subtitle: “Ten to 15 bloody bowel movements a day.”  Why they thought to illustrate this with a clip from Dumb and Dumber, I’m still not sure.  Maybe the anchor played it right before the interview and was like, “Haha, get it?  That’s you.” Total CNN move.

I brought you the Avatar-fanatics-are-depressed story last week, only to see the mainstream news people jump all over it this week.  Next thing you know, they’re all going to be wearing dog-fur-covered sweatpants, those style biters.  But I’m not mad, because it turns out their crappy coverage (“Joining me here in the studio is Cheryl Sugartits, an expert at reading a computer…”) is just as ripe for ridicule as the Avatards themselves.  Some of the highlights:

HOST MIKE GALANOS: “Is the 3D effect make it that much greater?  Make it that much more enticing and appealing?”

“EXPERT”: “Absolutely. I think you put on these glasses, and James Cameron’s CGI effects are so good, that you’re actually transported onto the planet Pandora. [Ed. note: not actually] And when people take off the glasses, there’s a disconnect, and that’s what’s making people more depressed.” [...] “A lot of these people are lonely to begin with.”

CALLER: “All I gotta say is, as a society, it comes down to where, if you see a movie, and after it’s over it’s gonna make you depressed or suicidal?  You need to re-evaluate what’s important in life to you.”

HOST:  “Hm.  Wow.  Straight talk from Mike in Missouri.”

Hm.  Yes.  Wow.  Powerful stuff.  And just when you thought the powerful straight talk couldn’t get powerfuller, POW!  It’s an info graphic full of irrelevant factlets, rendered in glorious misspellovision.

Ahh, they visited “rain forrests” for “reseach,” did they?  Tell us, HLN, did the Forrests speak of sideways rain?  Little bitty sting-ing rain?  Big ol’ fat rain?  I eagerly await your response. And please, deliver it in the form of a hologram.

“MacGruber” is a gimmick SNL sketch that was never more than mildly funny to begin with and survives only because it’s usually less than a minute long. Hey, perfect to make a movie about, right?  At least, that’s what Lorne Michaels said at today’s Peabody award ceremony. [Sidenote: the same place where this photo was taken.  Holy hell! Russian nesting dolls!].

Lorne Michaels said that now that the “SNL” season is over, his team will start looking at new people and new writers in the coming weeks. When the show returns in September, “there will be something interesting to do” with political specials and “Weekend Updates” given that the elections are done, he said when quizzed about the next step for the political sides of “SNL.” He didn’t provide specifics.

He also told THR that a “McGruber” film is still being looked at. “It would have to be in the summer because we are back in production in the fall,” he told THR when asked about the possible production timing. “We’re still in discussions” on details, he added. [THR]

I really wanted to make a joke about how awful an idea this is, but I just can’t stop thinking about this picture.  Somewhere John Madden is drooling on his hard on.