That's no entertainment!

Ellen adopts a cute
little ball of fur

By Roscoe Arbuckle
Entertainment Editor

LOS ANGELES, Calf. – Increasingly less adorable talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, acting decisively to recover from her on-camera meltdown caused by a busted dog adoption, told her TV audience she had brought home a new pet.

Ellen's friends couldn't wait to meet her new pet

Seeking to fill airtime with something else besides dancing in her sneakers, the beloved Lesbian boasted to her audience that her latest acquisition "was the cutest ever." However, to avoid the custody dispute that transpired after she gave away a mutt to her hairdresser in violation of shelter rules, this time the twinkly scab took a direct approach.

Instead of sending her driver down to the pound, Ellen selected her new pet herself from the Writers' Guild of America picket line outside the studio where she continues to tape her show.

"He's just the most adorable thing ever," gushed ['said' would do just as well – Copy Ed.] the former Anne Heche girl toy. "He's short and chubby and furry and full of fun." Ellen told her national audience, all 1.2 share of it, that her new pet answered to the name of "Howard Steinberg," a striking writer whose last gig had been on the much-lamented musical comedy TV series, "Viva Laughlin."

The perky Sapphist couldn't stop gushing [Once more and you're fired – Ed.] about her new pet, burning up so much airtime that she was unable to bring on her featured guests, the winners of the San Fernando Valley girls' Roller Derby tournament.

According to the host of the dreariest Oscar broadcast since Bob Hope bought the farm, she had fallen in love with Howard the minute she saw him on the WGA picket line. "The way he tried to juggle a picket sign, coffee and a jelly doughnut was just too cute for words. I knew I had to have [Surely, adopt? – Ed.] him," she said.

Her eyes began to tear as she described the horrors she had rescued Howard from. "He was living in a dumpster behind Les Moonves's house, barely able to survive on the full dinner plates Julie had dumped into the trash," she said. "All he had was this torn Viacom T-shirt and an old Compaq laptop."

After a commercial break, Ellen filled up another segment [Surely, delighted the viewers? – Ed.] by bringing Howard out to meet the studio audience, who greeted him with a chorus of "Awwws" and "Ain't he cute?"   Demonstrating how smart Howard was, Ellen showed how she had trained him to fetch coffee for her and her live-in girlfriend, the once-entertaining Portia di Rossi, from the Century City Starbucks in his very own Mini-Cooper.

Howard, who was as Ellen promised, short, rotund and furry, said he was pleased to have been adopted by a humanitarian like DeGeneres. "I mean, think what would have happened if I had been brought home by Tyra Banks," he said.

He reminded the viewing public that, while he had found a happy home with Ellen, hundreds of orphaned homeless writers still prowl the picket lines in Los Angeles and New York, hoping against hope that someone will rescue them from a life of misery begging for crumbs from the tables of Sumner Redstone and Rupert Murdoch.

Echoing Howard's thoughts, DeGeneres assured her audience that there are "plenty of adoptable writers just as cute as Howard waiting for happy homes in the Hollywood Hills."

And there are so many more just as cute who need good homes

Ellen then proceeded to kill airtime by inviting the audience to ask her and Howard about his new life. In response to questions, Ellen said that Howard sleeps in the pool house and is allowed to enter the main house whenever Ellen calls him on a cell phone Howard wears around his neck.

Ellen said that Howard liked to fetch toys for her and Portia, especially their electric –  [We are absolutely not going there – Ed.].

She said that Howard was friendly and liked petting and rough-housing. She also said that he was fully housebroken.

Asked if Howard liked to lick her, she said, "No, I let – [You're fired – Ed.]