PEOPLE

By Joel Stein

TRANSCRIPT:

On Friday's episode of Jeopardy! Alex Trebek is host to BILL MAHER, ANDREA MITCHELL and OLIVER NORTH. An excerpt:

North: I'll take "More Stupid Answers" for $100.

Trebek: The American Heritage Dictionary defines this as one that digs graves.

(Silence)

Maher: Bad panel, Alex.

Trebek: Bad panel, indeed. What is a gravedigger?

Mitchell: That's a stupid answer.

Trebek: Let me explain this category.

HEY, THAT'S MY WEDDING SONG

The greatest love of all is about to happen to a couple thousand Moonies. Followers of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon are spending the next few days sending out a lot of very similar wedding invitations for what they expect to be their biggest mass wedding yet, on Nov. 29 at Washington's R.F.K. Stadium, where they will be serenaded by WHITNEY HOUSTON. Using a line already made popular by Bill Cosby before her, Houston claims she simply had no idea that the seven-figure deal she signed for her 45-minute gig was for a Moonie event. When most people accept a million-plus offer, their lawyers check to see who it's coming from. Maybe not Whitney. Perhaps she just trusts too much.

MOTHER AND CHILD REUNION

It's kind of like Romeo and Juliet, only Juliet is a married teacher who gave birth to the daughter of Romeo, who was her student in a sixth-grade classroom. O.K., it's nothing like Romeo and Juliet, but it sure is weird. The attractive Seattle teacher, MARY KAY LETOURNEAU, 35, who gave birth to the burly pupil's daughter this year, had been claiming mutual, consensual love. But last week she tearfully apologized in court and was sentenced to six months in prison--instead of the maximum 7 1/2--after pleading guilty to two counts of second-degree child rape. LeTourneau has 80 days left to serve, and then it's off to three years of sex-offenders' treatment. The boy, who did not want her convicted, said he doesn't consider himself a victim and hopes he can reconcile with the mother of his child, who is being looked after by his mother.

NEW MATH

$100,000 per month allowance -

(1 kilo of cocaine per week X

$15,000 per kilo X

4 weeks per month) =

How much money does that leave Dodi to woo Di?

A: $40,000. Vanity Fair reports that DODI FAYED, who received a $100,000-a-month allowance from his father, bought a kilo of cocaine every week during the 1980s to share with his friends. His father Mohammed al Fayed denied the allegation.

Q & A

MIKE MYERS just filmed the drama 54, in which he plays Steve Rubell, the late co-owner of Studio 54.

Q: Would you have slept with Twiggy?

A: In a heartbeat.

Q: What does the 54 mean?

A: It was a club on 54th Street that used to be a TV studio.

Q: It wouldn't have caught on as Studio 55, right?

A: Absolutely not.

Q: Same with Studio 53?

A: Don't even start with 53.

Q: Would you have wanted to be famous back in the '70s?

A: It would have been interesting. The '60s said, "Make love, not war." In the '70s at Studio 54, they actually did that.

Q: And you would have been into that?

A: I like love. I hate war. Yeah, put a big yes by that.

Q: How come you show your butt in all your films?

A: There is a long tradition in Canadian and British comedy of partial male nudity. Who am I to thumb my nose at that tradition?

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE SPICE GIRLS, VOL. I

1. Booed lustily throughout a live performance in Spain.

2. Spiceworld, the Girls' new album that contains their Pepsi commercial, debuts meekly at No. 8, below the new Oasis release.

3. London's Daily Mirror asks readers, "Are you sick of the SPICE GIRLS? Is it now all over?"

4. They fire manager Simon Fuller, who is dating Baby Spice.

5. A British bookmaker stops taking money on which Spice Girl will quit, after being inundated with bets on Baby Spice.

FEUD OF THE WEEK

AARON "MODELS INC." SPELLING AGE: 70ish HEIGHT: 5 ft. 10 in. WEIGHT: 132 OCCUPATION: TV guy BEST PUNCH: Defending the firing of a pregnant Tylo from Melrose Place, a lawyer said, "Would Roseanne Barr be hired to play a dramatic role as Miss America?"

HUNTER "DEBORAH MOREHART" TYLO AGE: 34 HEIGHT: 5 ft. 6 in. WEIGHT: 110 OCCUPATION: Babe BEST PUNCH: When she showed up in court, Tylo was teary, winning and, despite being eight months' pregnant, as svelte as an Angel.

The winner: Tylo. Lisa Rinna, who got the part, is pregnant.

MOM ALWAYS SAID... Yeah, it's a story all right. A story of a boy named MIKE LOOKINLAND who, after playing Bobby Brady, had to learn to cope with both his strange, pseudo fame and a less-than-stellar emergence from puberty. Lookinland, 36--who on the short-lived 1990 dramatic series The Bradys played a race-car driver who was wheelchair-bound owing to an accident--was arrested after flipping his car twice in a drunken-driving incident in Utah. The ex-actor, who had three times Utah's legal blood-alcohol limit, was working as an assistant cameraman on the set of CBS's religious drama Promised Land.