Today, ESPN rolled out yet another hilarious commercial and the Worldwide Leader was gracious enough to put it on YouTube and Facebook before it premieres on the network tonight.

According to ESPN’s YouTube description, “Roll Tide” is a universal expression among ‘Bama Nation, versatile and applicable in nearly every situation as a greeting, farewell or standard cheer or praise.”

After seeing this, I think it clearly works best in drunken best man speeches

Props to the ad firm that cooked this up for ESPN. And check out this ESPN Facebook thread of college rally cries.

‪ESPN Alabama Roll Tide Commercial‬

Mike Fratello and Marv Albert were excited to have Steve back as well. So excited that The Czar had an afghan made – he sure didn’t sew it himself – for Steve with his and Marv’s faces stitched on it.

Check out the video of Fratello presenting this to Kerr on his website. It’s fantastically awkward.

Apparently Marilyn Manson, actor, has gone method – kind of. According to Interview, he’s been walking around dressed like Kenny Powers, being rude to people a la Kenny, and wants to kidnap Danny McBride.

I’m not entirely sure what that last bit has to do with Manson, as Kenny would say, wanting to be me, but the point is his next on-screen appearance will not be in Eastbound (as some might assume), but a slasher film called Splatter Sisters where he plays a metal band leader named Lars.

I guess he felt he did enough method-preparation for the role of Lars in the 90′s.

Here’s what director Adam Bhala Lough, the man behind Splatter Sisters, told Interview:

“Whenever I see Manson, he’s repeating entire chunks of dialogue and dressed like Kenny,” says Lough. ”He just walks around dressed like this and fucks with people on the street. If a waiter or valet tells him, ‘Have a nice day,” he’ll respond, ‘Don’t tell me what to do.’ Stuff like that.”

It’s all very insane, but, at the same time great promotion – again, kind of. Great promotion for the upcoming second season of Eastbound &  Down; I guess he felt Manson as Lars in Splatter Sisters sells itself.

Marilyn Manson’s Mullet (Interview)

Soccer Star Thierry Henry Takes Shots on Jimmy

I didn’t watch the ESPYs last night for fear that Brian Kownacki and Fordham baseball would lose out for Best Play – they did, to frickin’ Favre. However, I appreciate the effort put forth by the following players who (it seems like, at least) made the broadcast a success:

• Chris Johnson, who succeeding in thanking god, Twitter, Ustream (I believe in that order)

• Steve Carrell and Paul Rudd who succeeded in mocking The Decision (check that off the list)

• Brooklyn Decker, who succeeded in appearing mesmerizing

I’m thoroughly enjoying Treme. By no large stretch of the imagination is this because of familiar key players involved: David Simon, Eric Overmyer, David Mills (R.I.P.), Clarke Peters, Wendell Pierce, George Pelecanos – to name a handful. Each one of these people were involved in The Wire, a show which I devoured in it’s five season entirety in roughly eight months.

Last night’s fourth episode, At the Foot of Canal Street, was written by Wire producer/writer mainstay George Pelecanos. He was responsible – at least as much that he wrote the episode – for penning the The Wire terminology Hamsterdam, which got a call-out in last night’s episode of Treme.

Before I go too far down the The Wire nerd-hole, let me just stop and say that Pelecanos is seriously good at writing television drama. Those that want to continue to search for correlations between the two show, let me redirect you to today’s AV Club’s Stray Observations about Treme.

Pelecanos is also an accomplished author. He’s published a slew of novels, all in the genre of gritty detective fiction. All his books are set in Washington, D.C. – interesting b/c the T.V. shows he’s worked on – counting The Wire and Treme – only deal with the capital city on an ancillary level.

Personally, I’m interested in checking out what Pelecanos has to offer via lexicon. A little cursory research suggests if you’re going to read one, read King Suckerman. The Library Journal called it “Cheech and Chong meet Pulp Fiction in a retro novel of Seventies drug culture.” Plus, I think Puff Daddy tried to make it into a movie in the late-90′s (when he was called Puff Daddy).

Anyone familiar with Pelecanos’ literature, feel free to offer and alternative or words of encouragement to check out King Suckerman. Judging by my current acquaintance with his work, I’m going to like whatever it is.

Wait, isn’t the episode with Justin Bieber supposed to air soon?

For everyone not in know (cool people), it’s the next new episode of SNL, airing April 10.

The smart money says this story won’t outlast the news cycle, but here’s hoping that John Malkovich’s retribution demands directed at the Madoff camp spurn Bill Hader as Malkovich on Weekend Update next Saturday. There’s certainly a better chance of that than Malkovich taking back the full $2 million that was sheisted from his trust.

Here’s a look at Hader’s brilliant work to date as Malkovich on SNL (via Hulu)

Really? You found a seminal Rock n’ Roll band with a twenty-year old body of work less entertaining than the voice of Lemony in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events? Really?

Really.

There’s probably someone out there willing to crucify me for saying – not to mention the karmic payback it sets up when I vie for P.J. tickets this week – but I found Jude Law’s performance last night on Saturday Night Live to be mildly amusing, and Pearl Jam’s mildly underwhelming. Chicago RedEye posted the exact opposite earlier today.

Still, let me make it abundantly clear, there is a 100% greater chance of me buying Pearl Jam tickets this week, than of me paying to see Repo Men, ever.

Here’s Law in the Secret Word skit last night, followed by Pearl Jam performing ‘Unthought Known’ (c/o Hulu).

Couldn’t someone have told Mike McCready: Stop jumping, Rick Springfield!

The following is an actual (read: completely made up) transcript of a conversation between writer/producers of the 82nd Annual Academy Awards from Sunday night:

Producer: The show is only 3 hours long. How do we make people want to go to bed before the Best Picture is announced and shortchange the winner-to-be’s acceptance speech due to time constraints?

Writer: Another musical number with Neil Patrick Harris?

Producer: Nah, people enjoy him. Might give them a second wind. We want people to go to SLEEP.

Writer: What if we unnecessarily put five actors on stage before both the Best Actor & Best Actress nominees are unveiled…Yeah, Five actors who….who….Who have previous relationships with the nominees and….and….

Producer: Yes….yes…GO on….you’re getting there…

Writer: …who have previous relationships with the nominees and who each ramble for 5 minutes about what great people the nominees are and include a bunch of inside jokes? That’ll make the show AT LEAST 30 minutes longer than necessary, right?!

Producer: Brilliant. Simply brilliant. Say you remember the first time you and I were working on the Academy Awards five years ago? It was your first time doing it and you said to me….

(Five Minutes later)

Producer (cont’d): …and I’ll never forget the fact that you pimp slapped an intern. That really stuck with me. Congratulations on your success, Writer.

Editor’s Note: I’ll give you one guess as to what my only gripe was with Sunday night’s Oscar ceremony. Of course if they really wanted to trim down speeches and time, maybe they should have heightened security…