The late, great Fatty Arbuckle was part of CBS' fantastic "Dancing on the Stars" press release.

I've been largely ignoring the legal battle between CBS and ABC over the premiere of the latter network's reality show "The Glass House," which the former network insists is a complete rip-off of "Big Brother," and sued to keep it off the air. After all, every successful TV show that's ever existed has been cloned a half dozen times over, and why should we get up in arms over "Big Brother," of all the shows being imitated? 

CBS lost the legal battle, but won the war when "Glass House" tanked in its Monday premiere, and now they've won the battle for the last — and certainly best — word with this press release, a marvel of snark and cattiness. Many press releases are easy to laugh at; this is one of the few I've ever seen that I heartily laughed with: 

CBS ANNOUNCES DEVELOPMENT OF “DANCING ON THE STARS,”
AN EXCITING AND COMPLETELY ORIGINAL REALITY PROGRAM THAT OWES ITS CONCEPT AND EXECUTION TO NOBODY AT ALL

        Los Angeles, June 21, 2012 – Subsequent to recent developments in the creative and legal community, CBS Television today felt it was appropriate to reveal the upcoming launch of an exciting, ground-breaking and completely original new reality program for the CBS Television Network.

        The dazzling new show, DANCING ON THE STARS, will be broadcast live from the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, and will feature moderately famous and sort of well-known people you almost recognize competing for big prizes by dancing on the graves of some of Hollywood’s most iconic and well-beloved stars of stage and screen.

        The cemetery, the first in Hollywood, was founded in 1899 and now houses the remains of Andrew “Fatty” Arbuckle, producer Cecil B. DeMille, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Paul Muni, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, George Harrison of the Beatles and Dee Dee Ramone of the Ramones, among many other great stars of stage, screen and the music business. The company noted that permission to broadcast from the location is pending, and that if efforts in that regard are unsuccessful, approaches will be made to Westwood Village Memorial Park, where equally scintillating luminaries are interred.

        “This very creative enterprise will bring a new sense of energy and fun that’s totally unlike anything anywhere else, honest,” said a CBS spokesperson, who also revealed that the Company has been working with a secret team for several months on the creation of the series, which was completely developed by the people at CBS independent of any other programming on the air. “Given the current creative and legal environment in the reality programming business, we’re sure nobody will have any problem with this title or our upcoming half-hour comedy for primetime, POSTMODERN FAMILY.”

        “After all,” the spokesperson added, “people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” 

Alan Sepinwall
Sr. Editor, What's Alan Watching

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Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com