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I keep reading that “Yo Gabba Gabba!”, a colorful, music-themed show that is broadcast on Nickelodeon’s Nick Jr. channel, is intended for a preschool audience. How can this be? My wife and I, who as far as we know have nary a child between us, went to a “Yo Gabba Gabba!” concert at the Beacon Theater in November. We dancey-danced to songs like “Party in My Tummy” and “Get the Sillies Out.” We cheered when they brought out the special musical guests Dinosaur Jr. and Darryl (DMC) McDaniels of Run-DMC, and we squealed when balloons rained down from the theater’s ceiling (one of us did, anyway). We even sat next to Gilbert Gottfried! You’re telling me we weren’t the target audience for this show?

Now here’s the cast of “Yo Gabba Gabba!” – DJ Lance Rock, the robot, the cat-dragon thing, the flower thing, the fuzzy monster, the bumpy cyclops – on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon,” whose 12:35 a.m. time slot would seem to be prohibitive to young viewers. And they’re performing Kool and the Gang’s “Spirit of the Boogie” (not a song you’re likely to find on any Raffi album) with the Roots (a band whose tracks are not widely traded around the recess yard).

If you’re under the age of 6, would you please get your parent or guardian’s permission and explain why this is also entertaining to you?

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Months after his release from a federal prison the rapper T.I. was arrested Wednesday night with his wife in Los Angeles on drug charges, The Associated Press reported. T.I., whose given name is Clifford Harris, was arrested at a traffic stop in West Hollywood and accused of possession of a controlled substance. A representative for the Los Angeles sheriff’s department told The A.P., “Deputies smelled a strong odor of marijuana emitting from the vehicle,” adding that “a narcotics investigation ensued” that resulted in the arrest of T.I. and his wife, Tameka Cottle.

T.I., who currently appears in the action movie “Takers,” which was No. 1 at the box office last weekend, remains on probation for federal weapons charges stemming from a 2007 sting operation in which he was caught receiving three machine guns and two silencers that had been bought for him. After a guilty plea, T.I. performed more than 1,000 hours of community service and appeared on an MTV reality series, “T.I.’s Road to Redemption,” in which he warned teenagers about the dangers of guns and violence. He was released from an Arkansas prison in December and from a halfway house in March.

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All Artwork including Kaikai and Kiki (c)Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All rights reserved. A concept illustration of the Takashi Murakami characters Kaikai and Kiki that will appear as balloons in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

If familiar figures like Kermit the Frog and SpongeBob SquarePants are simply too jejune for you as their larger-than-life, helium-filled representations wind their way toward Herald Square on Thanksgiving morning, the organizers of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade have added two new entrants to the 2010 lineup that they hope will appeal to more erudite tastes. Kaikai and Kiki, two weirdly cute (or is that cutely weird?) characters created by Takashi Murakami, the Japanese pop artist, are being turned into into massive balloons that will mix it up with the traditional cartoon stars and corporate trademarks that will populate the parade’s 84th annual run on Nov. 25, the parade’s producers said on Thursday.

Kaikai, a childlike character in a rabbit costume, and Kiki, a companion with three eyes and sharp fangs, are examples of Mr. Murakami’s signature superflat style, but their balloon likenesses will be about 40 feet long when completed, and about three stories tall when filled with helium. Since the spring, Macy’s parade studio and Mr. Murakami and his Tokyo-based team have traded notes on two-dimensional sketches that were used to create clay models, which were then further refined and colored before the fabrication of the balloons (now underway).

Mr. Murakami will be the fourth contemporary artist in recent years to have his work translated to the Macy’s parade-balloon medium, following Tom Otterness (whose upside-down Humpty Dumpty made its parade debut in 2005), Jeff Koons (whose inflatable bunny followed in 2006) and Keith Haring (whose estate contributed to a figure-with-heart balloon in 2008).

Asked in a telephone interview if Mr. Murakami’s characters might be a tad unsettling for younger parade viewers, Robin Hall, the parade’s executive producer said: “Fangs are very hot right now, if you’ve missed this trend. This is an excellent year for Murakami. And these balloons are adorable. They have a charm to them.”

Takashi Murakami’s sketches for the Kaikai and Kiki balloons, as well as photographs of their clay models and Mr. Murakami’s work on them can be seen below:

All Artwork including Kaikai and Kiki (c)Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All rights reserved. All Artwork including Kaikai and Kiki (c)Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.All Artwork including Kaikai and Kiki (c)Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.All Artwork including Kaikai and Kiki (c)Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Michael Douglas said in an interview with David Letterman on Tuesday evening that he had started treatment for Stage IV throat cancer, and offered cautious optimism that he would recover from it.

Appearing on Mr. Letterman’s CBS “Late Show” to promote his coming film “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” Mr. Douglas said he was given the diagnosis earlier in the summer after seeing several doctors for a nagging sore throat. Asked by Mr. Letterman about the severity of his condition – a Stage IV cancer is defined as one that has spread to other parts of the body – Mr. Douglas replied: “The big thing you’re always worried about is it spreading, so I am head and neck. I am above the neck, so nothing’s gone down, and the expectations are good.”

Mr. Douglas said he had completed the first week of an eight-week chemotherapy regimen. When asked by Mr. Letterman if he smoked, he said he smoked and drank, adding, “This particular type of cancer is caused by alcohol and drinking.” When the host asked him about his chances for recovery, Mr. Douglas replied: “The percentages are very good. I would hate to say, but right now, it looks like it should be 80 percent, and with certain hospitals and everything, it does improve.”

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California lawmakers gave final approval Monday night to a bill that would extend the time period in which people can sue museums to try to recover what they believe are stolen works of art. A spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he had not decided whether to sign the bill, which would give people six years to file a claim, instead of the current three.

The legislation grew out of cases in which time became a factor in litigation involving art looted by the Nazis. California once had a law that set no time limit on such claims but it was struck down as unconstitutional earlier this year. Without that law, courts have generally held that the statute of limitations governing stolen art begins when the claimant discovers the whereabouts of the work, or should have discovered it with reasonable diligence (because the work, for example, was posted on a museum’s Web site or featured in an exhibition).

Under the new legislation, which governs claims against museums, galleries and auction houses, plaintiffs are freed from any reasonable diligence provision and the clock does not start until plaintiffs have gathered enough information to evaluate whether they have valid claims.

The California Association of Museums has described the bill as “unnecessary, unfair, unconstitutional, and disruptive” of property rights in a letter to a state assemblyman, Mike Feuer, one of the bill’s sponsors. The association said it believed the bill was intended to affect the results in two pending lawsuits, including one by a California man against a Madrid museum over ownership of a painting by Camille Pissarro, which he says the Nazis forced his grandmother to sell for a pittance in 1939.

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Peter Kramer/KRAPE, Via Associated Press Miranda Lambert is one of five nominees for the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year award.

Step aside, Taylor Swift: it looks like the Country Music Association has a new sweetheart of the rodeo. Miranda Lambert, who with Dierks Bentley helped to announce the nominations for the C.M.A. Awards Wednesday on “Good Morning America,” landed nine nominations in total, more than any other artist this year. Ms. Lambert, the former “Nashville Star” finalist, was nominated for female vocalist of the year and album of the year (for “Revolutions”), and picked up two nominations in the single of the year category, for “The House That Built Me” and “White Liar,” both of which were also nominated for music video of the year. Ms. Lambert is also a contender for the C.M.A.’s top prize, entertainer of the year, along with Lady Antebellum, Brad Paisley, Keith Urban and the Zac Brown Band. Lady Antebellum picked up five nominations total, including vocal group of the year, single of the year (for “Need You Now”) and album of the year. The awards ceremony will be shown Nov. 10 on ABC.

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Continuing to diminish expectations after his brief “Tonight Show” run lost the Emmy Award for best variety, music or comedy series to “The Daily Show” on Sunday night, Conan O’Brien revealed the modest title of his coming TBS program in a YouTube video posted at Vulture and Variety on Wednesday. After a lengthy set-up and an attempt at a drum roll that Mr. O’Brien acknowledged sounded more like a purring cat, he revealed that the show will be called “Conan.” Yes, “Conan.” That’s right, just “Conan.” Uh-huh.

In a Twitter message on Tuesday, Mr. O’Brien joked that he was prepared to announce the show’s title earlier “but my lawyers tell me ‘The Return of Nanny McPhee’ is taken.” “Conan” — really, just “Conan”? That’s it? — is scheduled to make its premiere Nov. 8 on TBS.

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Todd Heisler/The New York Times Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band played at Giants Stadium in 2009.

A New Jersey judge has dismissed a lawsuit by the state attorney general against two companies that resold tickets to three Bruce Springsteen concerts at Giants Stadium last year, The Associated Press reported. In the suit the attorney general, Anne Milgram, accused Orbitz Worldwide and TicketNetwork of fraud for offering scalped tickets before the Springsteen shows (on Sept. 30, Oct. 2 and Oct. 3) had gone on sale to the general public, and because some of those tickets did not correspond to real seat locations in the stadium.

In her ruling last week, which was mailed to the parties, Judge Patricia K. Costello of Superior Court in Newark said that Orbitz and TicketNetwork were protected by a 1996 federal law, the Communications Decency Act, which says that a provider of an Internet service is not liable for third-party information on its site. Orbitz and TicketNetwork operate online marketplaces where brokers sell scalped tickets, but the two companies do not own the tickets being sold. The Star-Ledger of Newark said two other resellers named in the lawsuit settled for $5,000 each, and the status of a third, Select-a-Ticket, was not known.

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Josh Haner/The New York Times Katy Perry

It took cotton candy-scented CDs (and a couple of hit songs and a skin-baring video), but Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” (Capitol) handily bumped Eminem’s “Recovery” (Aftermath/Interscope) from No. 1 on the Billboard album chart. “Teenage Dream” sold 192,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, taking Ms. Perry to the top of the chart for the first time. Fantasia, who won “American Idol” six years ago, opened at No. 2 with her third album, “Back to Me” (J), which sold 117,000, and Eminem fell two spots to No. 3 with 98,000, the first time in its 10 weeks of release that the album’s sales have dipped below 100,000.

Usher’s mini-album “Versus” (Jive) bows at No. 4 with 46,000 sales, and his full-length “Raymond vs. Raymond” (Jive), which was released in March and reissued last week in a package that included “Versus,” jumped 12 spots to No. 19 with 20,000 sales. The country group Little Big Town opened at No. 5 with 42,000 sales of its new album “The Reason Why” (Capitol Nashville).

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2:51 p.m. | Updated Few calendar dates are more important to Broadway power brokers than the eligibility cut-off for the Tony Awards, the date by which all shows need to have opened to be considered for that season’s highest theater honors. Heading into 2010-11, however, the Tonys remain without a cut-off date — and maybe because it’s an otherwise slow theater week, that is causing consternation.

The specific source of concern is an e-mail sent on Tuesday afternoon by Charlotte St. Martin, executive director of the Broadway League, saying that the cut-off date would be either April 21 or April 28. Usually the cut-off is at the end of April (it was April 29 this year) and, given the way Broadway tends to work, an April 21 cut-off could complicate plans for those bringing in springtime shows.

Producers like to have as much of April as possible for rehearsals and preview performances to get shows in the best possible shape. That final week of Tony eligibility is typically a traffic jam of opening nights, with producers stampeding to put their shows into the running for Tonys. So far, only three shows have announced April opening nights: Roundabout Theater Company’s revival of “Anything Goes,” on April 7, Lincoln Center Theater’s production of “War Horse,” on April 14, and a new musical called “Wonderland” on April 17.

The Broadway League is the trade association for theater producers and owners. Here is the text of Ms. St. Martin’s e-mail:

It has come to my attention that there are many rumors surrounding the official Tony eligibility cut-off date.

I realize that you were told that we’d have a definitive answer by end of August, but due to unusual circumstances beyond our control, we are still in the midst of determining whether the cut-off date will be April 21 or April 28, 2011.

Please know that we will let you know immediately, as soon as the date has been determined.

A copy of the e-mail was provided to the Times on Wednesday by a recipient who works on Broadway, and who asked not to be identified because the person’s office had not authorized the e-mail’s release. Calls and e-mail to a few producers and publicists yielded no comments on the record, but frustrated sighs off the record.

Asked about the e-mail’s reference to “unusual circumstances,” Ms. St. Martin said on Wednesday via a spokeswoman: “As always, the moment the official Tony eligibility cut-off date is determined, the press agents are informed immediately. We promised an answer by end of August, because that’s usually when we confirm the date of the Tony Awards. As everyone knows, we are currently in the process of selecting a new site for this year’s Tony Awards. Until the venue is confirmed, the dates are still to be determined.”

The Tonys are usually held at Radio City Music Hall, but they are moving to a new venue in 2011 because of a major Cirque du Soleil booking at Radio City. Among the more interesting contenders is the United Palace Theater, a 3,000-seat venue at 175th Street and Broadway also known as “the Rev. Ike’s church” since it was bought in 1969 by the Rev. Frederick J. Eikerenkoetter II and is still used for church services.

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