Via Yahoo! Movies came the exclusive news yesterday that NBA free agent superstar center Dwight Howard, formerly of the Orlando Magic and possibly the Los Angeles Lakers, has already made one decision about where he’ll be playing in the immediate future – a movie studio sound booth. The man who calls himself Superman but has a spine more qualified to play Reed Richards has signed on to voice a character in the upcoming animated film Free Birds.

Starring (the voices of) Woody Harrelson, Owen Wilson and Amy Poehler, Free Birds is a Thanksgiving-themed story about some turkeys who travel back in time to stop humans from turning them into the official birds of Thanksgiving. Howard would play “Cold Turkey” and I’m assuming that he’s going to be some sort of civil rights era, jive-talking bird that would put Michael Bay’s minstrel bots to shame.

Howard landed the role because he’s repped by Relativity Sports and Relativity is producing Free Birds along with Reel FX. In fact, the Relativity is quite proud to show off its talented flock of acting athletes, as evidenced in their “We Crush Acting” comedy video released earlier this week.

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"You go to hell, Kevin Arnold!"

On Saturday night, as we were doing the live chatty thing for UFC on FX 7, I noticed a few Tweets that SyFy was airing a new original movie, Tasmanian Devils. “Cool,” I thought, as I cooked another lobster for Brittney Palmer. Out of sheer curiosity, I checked out our friend Andrea’s preview of the network’s latest installment of Ridiculous Acting Theater only to learn that Tasmanian Devils is about the titular carnivorous marsupials getting… A TASTE FOR HUMAN BLOOD.

Much more importantly, the movie stars Danica McKellar, who is better known as Winnie Cooper from Wonder Years, or that girl everyone who grew up in the 1980s was in love with. But what really blew my mind is that Tasmanian Devils also stars gold medal speed skater Apolo Ohno, who may or may not be retired now, in case you come here for actual news. That means this movie has to be good.

Of course, this wasn’t Ohno’s first run in front of a camera. As I’m sure we all watched multiple times, Ohno made an Emmy-winning* cameo on the amazing** CBS drama Hawaii Five-0. And how could we ever forget Ohno’s amazing acting skills as he regularly convinces us that he eats at Subway? Alas, I have some rather bad news for Ohno’s fans, and it comes in spoiler form.

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On Tuesday night, UPROXX’s beloved clown prince and star of Community, Joel McHale, stopped by Conan to discuss how NBC might eventually air the final season of Community, as well as his brief and underwhelming stint on Sons of Anarchy. And I’m so relieved right now, because that opening sentence has so many of my favorite things that I never get to talk about here because Maske, Kurp and Danger get to have all the fun over at Warming Glow.

Of course, plenty of other sites picked up on McHale’s always-charming interview and one little nugget of information seemed to have caught a lot of bloggers and interwebbers by surprise – McHale played tight end for the Washington Huskies and even has a ring from U-Dub’s 1992 Rose Bowl victory over Michigan. And when I read all of the surprised, “Why I never!” reactions, I was like, “Hey, I knew that.”

I only knew it, though, because I remembered reading something on ESPN.com recently that I actually enjoyed. Back in August, ESPN’s Charles Curtis kicked off the series “How Good Was He?” which was a phenomenal idea that seemed to have died several weeks later with “How Good was 2 Chainz at Basketball?”, but I hope there will be more. In fact, let’s consider this short feature a little kick in the pants for ESPN’s Playbook to get back to these enjoyable interviews.

It turns out that a lot of famous actors actually have roots in football, and I’m not just talking about crossover legends like Alex Karras and Bubba Smith (rest their souls) or humiliating one-and-done guys like Howie Long and Brian Bosworth. You may read this and say, “Eh, nothing new” but several of these famous actors who used to play football actually surprised me.

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Out of habit, after I watched the season premiere of Saturday Night Live this past weekend, I called it awful, because it followed the same old formula of opening strong and slowly trailing off into laziness. But the episode had its moments, and for once I wasn’t shaking my fist at Seth MacFarlane and screaming bloody murder for FOX. Well, except for one bit in Weekend Update.

Striking while the iron is still dull, I mean hot, the SNL team had MacFarlane imitate Olympic gold medalist Ryan Lochte, and it was okay. He played too heavy on the dullard part, but people mostly liked it. So of course the gossip webloids couldn’t wait to get a response from the aspiring actor and guy who wants to make out with a dozen desperate girls for ABC.

“Well I gotta admit that was a pretty harsh one, but it’s cool to have Seth parody me,” the swimming champ told Celebuzz. “I think he pegged me wrong, but when I heard he did a skit I knew I was in for it!”

But Lochte has no harsh feelings for MacFarlane. “It’s all in fun and of course if I’m talked about on SNL I know they are gonna get me ‘Go-od,’” he said, referencing faux Lochte’s mispronunciation of NBC show Go On as “goon.” (Via Celebuzz)

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, I see what you did there, you comedian. This guy’s got A-list written all over him. Lochte also told Extra that SNL was making fun of the old Ryan Lochte and that he’s totes better in front of the cameras now. That’s an interesting perspective. Let’s examine Lochte’s theory, shall we?

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"Let's keep putting Anthony Anderson on TV," said the head of the last place network.

I don’t remember when and how many times I’ve said it in the past, but Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s performance in Airplane! is probably my all-time favorite athlete-turned-actor moment. And to be fair, Bubba Smith in Police Academy is in the same ballpark. Then maybe Roy Hibbert on Parks and Rec, but that’s only because he was involved in the “Take me there” scene and that has a special place in TV lore. Where was I? Oh yeah, Kareem karapping all over his acting legacy.

NBC will debut Guys with Kids on Sept. 26 as part of its new So You Like CBS Wednesday lineup, and it stars Anthony Anderson as a guy who has the world’s greatest blackmail pictures of a network president. According to the show’s plot synopsis, though, it’s about so much more than that: “30-something dads struggle as parents because they are still children at heart.” Riveting.

Apparently NBC aired the show’s pilot last night, and I wouldn’t know because I was watching Tig’s meltdown on Sons of Anarchy for a second time, but our friends at Guyism checked it out and those poor bastards deserve a few beers for their effort. In the clip after the jump, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar stops by someone’s apartment and the guys demand that he dunk a baby. Trust me, it’s even more meh than it sounds.

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Damn it, Tina.

Back in 2008, NBC’s 30 Rock had an episode entitled “Believe in the Stars” that dealt with Kenneth learning that Olympic hero Tyler Brody was just a fake, because there was no such thing as Olympic tetherball, octuples tennis, or synchronized running. I and the other 2 million people who watch the show religiously laughed because it playfully mocked the fad of Olympic athlete hero worship and how NBC – and every network, for that matter – tries to strike while the iron (or gold, *rimshot*) is hot.

Now, though, the joke has come full circle, because 30 Rock will have a guest appearance by Olympic gold medal swimmer Ryan Lochte this season, and I’m sure that we have someone awesome that we can all thank for this.

Oh, and you can totally thank us, your E! friends, for making this cameo happen. (You are welcome, America!) Because the ultra-busy Lochte is in New York this week covering Fashion Week for E! News (weeknights at 7 p.m.), so he was able to squeeze in the 30 Rock gig.

“It was a long morning. We did a lot of takes, but, you know what, it was fun,” Lochte tells our own Cat Sadler. “Being with Alec Baldwin on set…he’s a great guy. Great actor. I enjoyed it. I had so much fun. And I can’t really tell you what it was about, but it was outrageous.”

Really, a lot of takes? It couldn’t be Lochte’s fault, because he’s a natural, gifted actor. He’s just exploding with personality and charisma. It must have been because one of those talentless hack “actors” couldn’t get his damn lines down. I’m looking at Scott Adsit, that amateur.

30 Rock doesn’t really get any credit for how many hilarious sports jokes it delivers each season – perhaps credit is coming sooner than we think – so maybe we can hope that the premise of Lochte’s cameo is self-aware. But I’ve got $5 on what Frank’s hat will read…

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