Alicia Silverstone appeared on 'The Oprah Winfrey Show' to promote her new book 'The Kind Diet,' which outlines the benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle, when talk turned for an uncomfortably long period of time to how meat- and dairy-free eating promotes easy bowel function.

"Your poop is fabulous when you do this," Winfrey said.

Watch the video after the jump.

Clearly, Sherri Shepherd eats to deal with grief.

In a supremely awkward moment from 'The View,' Shepherd asked Alicia Silverstone to share fond memories of Brittany Murphy, then proceeded to help herself to a plate of brownies while the actress told a story from 'Clueless.'

Watch the video after the jump.

It's been a heck of a season for How I Met Your Mother, between the writers' strike that everyone had to suffer through, blogs and other websites picking apart episodes in Lost-esque fashion, and the Britney Phenomenon that got the attention of fans and non-fans alike. But the end result is a good one: the show has been picked up by CBS for a fourth season, giving fans one more year to enjoy the chemistry among the five leads while trying to guess who the heck the "Mother" actually is.

Despite the strike, co-creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas have been able to get out 20 episodes for the third season. The finale will be broadcast on Monday, May 19 at 8:30. As he did before last year's finale, Bays and I got together by phone to discuss the season and the finale. Bays (who is on the right in the photo; Thomas, who is on the left, was on another call and couldn't make it) spoke about getting picked up, the finale, Sarah Chalke's role as Ted's new girlfriend Stella, how the show managed to pick up a mythology, and, of course, their very famous guest star. The interview is after the jump.

Funny lady Megan Mullally may be coming back to the small screen! The actress, better known for her role of neurotic Karen Walker on NBC's Will & Grace, will star as the mother in ABC's new series Bad Mother's Handbook.

This comedy is about a 32-year-old woman (portrayed by Alicia Silverstone) who takes care of her 16-year-old daughter (played by Arrested Development's Alia Shawkat) and her 48-year-old overbearing mother (Mullally).

The fates have decreed that Alicia Silverstone is meant to play a mother. Earlier this year, she was rumored to be the mother on How I Met Your Mother, but then opted out of that storyline entirely when Britney Spears was inserted in a guest role on the very same episode. The episode went on to do boffo Nielsen numbers, and Alicia's role was played by Sarah Chalke, who may or may not turn out to be mother. Probably not since she's still part of Scrubs, which is moving over to ABC.

Be that as it may, Alicia Silversone has now been officially cast on the pilot Bad Mother's Handbook. Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development) will also appear in the show as Alicia's daughter. This comedy project has been set up at ABC and previously announced in the rush of production greenlighted soon after the writers' strike.

The other day was actor James Roday's birthday; on April 4, he turned 32. For the Texas born star of Psych, life is quite nice right now. Psych is coming back for a third season on USA this summer, and starting the other night, episodes from season two will be showcased on NBC. Oh, and he's dating Maggie Lawson, a.k.a. O'Hara, his co-star on the show.

There's a fine line between charming and obnoxious, amusing and annoying, cute and cloying, funny and trying too hard. James Roday veers close to the line. He's a daredevil of a comic actor, daring to be almost too much to take. But like other actors of his ilk, he succeeds in flying close to the sun, but never burning his wings. Like Jim Carrey or Robin Williams, James Roday is willing to push the comic envelope. So far, he's proved to me that watching him is always interesting, arresting and fun. While he may never reach the box office glory of Carrey or cop an Oscar like Williams, he's definitely going to be a TV star for today, tomorrow and down the road.
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One thing I didn't enjoy much about NBC's comedy Will & Grace was the constant famous guest stars popping in almost on a weekly basis. At times, it felt like the episodes were written for those guest stars instead of writing the episodes first and then trying to find a famous person to fill in a role. Since the strike ended, I fear that How I Met Your Mother is heading towards that same path. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing guest stars here and there in a series but having them pop up week after week can get tiring. So I hope this is only a renewal stunt for the series and not something that will become the standard.

Unless you have been living under a rock, you know that Britney Spears guest starred in the March 24 episode of HIMYM. Alicia Silverstone was set to appear in a few episodes (some suspect her character would have turned out to be the mother) but bowed out when Spears was hired because Silverstone was worried that her performance would be over-shadowed by Britney's appearance.

The latest addition to the HIMYM guest star list: Dawson's Creek's James Van Der Beek! Slight spoilers about the role and episode ahead!

(S03E12) How I Met Your Mother has been making a lot of news lately, with its timeslot change, its constant bubble status, the hiring of Alicia Silverstone, the subsequent hiring of a certain young woman named Britney, and the resulting departure of Silverstone and arrival of Sarah Chalke.

But what we haven't seen were actual episodes, thanks to the writers' strike. Thankfully, the strike is over and Bays and Thomas managed to be one of the first to get new episodes on the air, just in time for St. Patrick's Day. And, while HIMYM's returned with only a slightly-above-average episode, we inched ever so closer to finding out the solution to the show's main mystery. That's the least the guys could do after three months off.
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Ooooh... juicy gossip! Michael Ausiello over at TV Guide.com has some good dish about How I Met Your Mother that he swears is true.

Apparently Alicia Silverstone has canceled her guest appearance on the show due to Britney Spears' upcoming cameo. As Joel recently reported, Spears pitched the idea herself. She will play a wacky receptionist in a doctor's office--the doctor was supposed to be played by Silverstone, and she was to appear in a "multi-episode arc". According to Ausiello, Silverstone quit the gig because she was worried that her performance would be over-shadowed by Britney's appearance. OK, that's a legitimate concern. She's probably right. Although, I think Britney was only going to be on one episode and Silverstone was slated for several.

Sarah Chalke, who plays Dr. Eliot Reed on Scrubs, will take Silverstone's place. The episode in question is the third new episode after the writers' strike. HIMYM begins new episodes on Monday, but an air date for the Britney episode is not yet confirmed.

Update: E! Online is reporting the same information.

Michael Ausiello at TVGuide.com has been playing with his calculator, or maybe it was an abacus. Anyway, Mike has used some oh-so-creative math to add two and two together to get a major revelation on a CBS sitcom. Okay, here's the scoop. Mr. Ausiello has gotten an exclusive casting tidbit from How I Met Your Mother.

Alicia Silverstone, star of Clueless on the big screen, Miss Match on the small, has been signed for a series of episodes, a mini-arc.

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals were all set to unveil their new ad starring Alicia Silverstone when the city of Houston decided that the spot was too hot for the Texas airwaves.

The spot features Silverstone skinny-dipping in a pool and extolls the virtues of a vegetarian lifestyle by showing off the body that her meatless choices have given her.

According to PETA, Houston is one of the highest-ranked cities in terms of bad eating habits. Comcast cable stated that the brief nudity was the reason for pulling the ad, even though it had already been bought and paid for.

Hey, Brigitte here with TV Squad Daily. I'll be covering the TV stories I find interesting each day, Monday through Friday, in this video blog.

Today: on TV Squad Daily:

• Flat vs. round! The ladies on The View even argue about the shape of the earth.
  
• Anyone who's anyone loves nerds this fall.
  
• Alicia Silverstone's new naked commercial about being a vegetarian is already banned in Houston.
  

The video's embedded below, or you can subscribe to this podcast via our feed. Plus, you can also download the file directly.

After some rocky negotiations, Alicia Silverstone has agreed to play a role in a mid-season NBC comedy, The Singles Table. The series is about a group of people who bond when they keep getting put at wedding reception tables with each other because they're all dateless. Silverstone will play a doctor who realizes she has no social life.

This is actually Silverstone's third attempt at series television. You may remember she starred in the short-lived NBC series Miss Match in 2003 and she didn't make it on to television earlier this year with a failed pilot for ABC called Pink Collar. This time, however, we can expect to see her on television as NBC has already committed to airing the comedy at mid-season.

Related:
More casting news: Silverstone, Coolidge, Dale join pilots

Alicia Silverstone agreed to play the lead role in an ABC comedy, Pink Collar, which is about women's relationships in the workplace. Silverstone was last on television during the short-lived Miss Match on NBC in 2003, unless you count the constant reruns of Clueless on cable. Silverstone had seemed to drop off the face of the earth until she popped up again this year in, of all things, Beauty Shop.

Further proof that Joey won't be returning next fall, Jennifer Coolidge, who plays the agent on Joey (and is wickedly funny), has been cast in the FOX comedy pilot, If You Lived Here, You'd be Home by Now. It's about a bunch of people living in temporary housing in L.A. Let's hope it gets a new name.

Other casting news: