Side show

JED, BRING ME A LITTLE SOMETHIN' FROM THE STILL: Finally, you've thought. Reality TV can't get any worse than Anna Nicole Smith's weekly celebration of the dim and the classless.

You should know better.

CBS is turning The Beverly Hillbillies into a reality show.

The so-called Tiffany Network is ready to cast a weekly half-hour series that will follow what Variety says will be a rural, lower-middle-class family -- granny included -- as it is transplanted from its rural, lower-middle-class home to a Beverly Hills mansion.

The show is tentatively titled Real Beverly Hillbillies.

"Imagine the episode where they have to interview maids," says Glen Maynard, CBS's vice president of alternative programming.

The episode where they make possum stew should be much more exciting.

THE AMERICAN DREAM, ONE WAY OR ANOTHER: With American Idol down to the final two contestants, it's time again to say not to fear for the future of some of the losers.

Smooth-voiced Tamyra Gray, 23, who was voted out last week, is the first of the 10 finalists to be signed to a management contract by the company that has first dibs on the 10. She tells USA Today she hopes to have an album out next year.

Meanwhile, the runner-up in Britain's version of the show, Gareth Gates, has earned $6.9-million in the last year, Glamourmagazine.co.uk reports. That's money from the record deal he got and endorsements.

"I'm only 18 and able to treat my parents and three sisters to two weeks in Florida," he says. "That feels brilliant. Their faces were a picture when we walked into Disney World in Orlando."

GIVE US CHLOE, OR GIVE US THAT $12.97 KNOCKOFF: The latest trend in the fashion press is stories about how amazing it is that you can buy clothes at Wal-Mart that easily are mistaken for high-end designer stuff.

Checking in most recently is New York Times fashion writer Cathy Horyn. She writes that her purchases over the past five years have included shoes thought to be Gucci, a top that made an unnamed "big designer" think Marc Jacobs and jeans that reminded her of Dolce & Gabbana and Marni.

Horyn also says that a recent talk with three Wal-Mart executives about the chain's fashions -- they describe their customers as "the guts of this country" -- led her to this amazing reminder: "What matters in New York is not necessarily what matters to the rest of the country."

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