2. Anderson Cooper loves that Gerard Depardieu urination story:

Look, we all think it’s hysterical that French actor Gerard Depardieu loves to pee on people on airplanes. But Anderson Cooper really just can’t hold it together on live TV when talking about the incident.  Maybe he needs to go back to journalism school.

(Just kidding, only a robot wouldn’t laugh at this story.)

3. The history of the vibrator, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal:

I’ve always been fascinated that vibrators were created by doctors to cure women of erratic behavior because doctors’ hands were getting too tired. Of course, putting attractive people in the cast of this new film about the subject (aptly titled “Hysteria”) is kind of a stretch: Even in olden times it was a truth universally acknowledged, that a single Hugh Dancy in possession of a good vibrator must service half the women in England.

4. A four letter word for “innuendo during crosswords”:

As it turns out, whenever people ask for help in crossword puzzles in TV or movies, what they are really asking is for social acceptance … and love.

5. “7 Minutes in Heaven” with Hoda:

If you haven’t been checking out Mike O’Brien’s “7 Minutes in Heaven” series, they are pretty genius. It’s not “Between Two Ferns” or anything, and Mike here seems way more like Kenneth from “30 Rock” than a mean-spirited interviewer trying to “punk” celebrities, but he’s very good at being funny anyway! I think it’s his natural instinct to let these performers do whatever the hell they want during the segment, which in Hoda Kotb’s case is definitely drinking red wine and talking crap about Kathie Lee.

1. What’s your profession, and how old are you? Where are you located? (The basics.)

I am a writer, comedian and artist living and working in New York City. I have performed my one-man comedy, “Outré Island,” in different venues around the city, where I portray many unusual characters in a lost civilization. I also do commissioned paintings and graphic design.

2. What inspired Tiny Confessions?

My wife and I adopted our dog, Willie, about a year ago. Being a comedian, I naturally began imagining his thoughts and dreams as we walked around. As I had been trying to figure out a way to combine my comedy writing with my art, this seemed to work perfectly together. I was really just trying to amuse myself and hope that others would follow along.

3. A lot of these themes have to revolve around guilt complexes … but I’m not sure if I’m supposed to feel sorry for these animals, or if these animals are feeling sorry for me.

For some reason I have always found guilty secrets to be funny. There’s a Woody Allen movie where he steals a woman’s purse, only to find that it contains chains and other crazy things. I like the idea that everyone has some hidden weirdness or eccentricity. That seems to be what my comedy is always about. For the most part, though, I try to keep them fairly positive and light. I don’t think anyone wants a print of a cat that says, “I once killed a man in Texas.”

4. What was your very first (or favorite?) Tiny Confession?

The first one was a Yorkshire terrier thinking, “I have no concept of how small I am.“ My poofy little bichon sometimes tries to get into it with Rottweilers and pit bulls. I also thought it was an inspiring message for shorter people like me and my wife. My favorite Tiny Confession is one that I can’t release just yet because of copyright infringement. It’s an image of Darth Vader thinking, “I was hoping that the other guy was my son.” Maybe one day Tiny Confessions will be so big that George Lucas will want to combine our empires together. Until then I’m trying to stay out of jail. 

5. You’ve done mostly animals, but have branched out to several human figures as well as a fortune cookie. Any plans on future Tiny Confessions?

Yes, I am constantly coming up with new subjects for these. So far I have done one “historical” figure in William Shakespeare. The silly thing about it is it’s really just me dressed as William Shakespeare. So I plan on doing a whole series of historical figures, but with me in costume. Again, trying to amuse myself.

View the slide show

You don’t need to talk to Bill Plympton to know he’s a man full of weird, conflicting ideas. All you need to do is take a look at some of his artwork, which is now handily available in a new compilation called “Independently Animated.” His latest film, “Idiots & Angels,” arrived on DVD this week. But what you won’t find in his work are his musings on cool culture, Pixar and “Portlandia.” For that, we had to get the artist himself on the phone.

I know that you are from Portland. Have you seen the IFC comedy show “Portlandia”? Do you think that you might have had a hand in contributing to the DIY hipster culture that the city has become known for?

Bill Plympton: I’ve never actually thought about it that way, but I guess I did. I would go out there every summer and hung out with a lot of the art crowd, the creative crowd. A lot of filmmakers and animators come from there. So I was definitely part of that culture. And I can definitely relate to the culture. In fact, I noticed (in “Portlandia”) that they had a sequence where they went to Wieden + Kennedy advertising agency, and I used to hang out there a lot.

That’s a real place? Do they actually have bouncy balls and parties everywhere?

They do. They are very successful, they do all the Nike ads. It’s one of the coolest agencies in the world.

I don’t see a lot of that hippie, free-range chicken vibe in your work though, which tends to be a lot darker, a lot more adult. You did stuff with MTV back in the ’90s with your show “The Edge,” but do you identify with today’s hipster counter-culture?

Well, I’ll tell you: I went to this year’s South by Southwest film festival, and I’ve never seen so many hipsters in my life. I was quite saddened, as I love the festival but it’s been taken over by all these hipster wannabes. They all want to be Mark Zuckerberg, Mark Zuckerman… whatever his name is. They’re all social media. It wasn’t about the films anymore; it wasn’t about great art. It was about cashing in on the new app.

I think that’s what’s going on in our culture today. People used to want to be filmmakers and animators, now they want to make apps.

You’ve said that you put together this new compilation book to help emerging artists — to show them how they can work outside big tech corporations, because as you say, it’s very cold, very technical. And you yourself have turned down jobs at Disney. So I have to ask… how can you possibly not like Pixar?

I love Pixar films, I think they’re the greatest filmmakers in the world. I love Disney films. “Tangled,” was great. I loved “How to Train Your Dragon,” the Dreamworks film. But it’s not for me. I don’t want to make a film for families, I want to make adult films. I don’t think about playing with dolls all day. I think about adult topics: sex, love, passion, jealousy… the seven deadly sins. So why should I make films about children playing with toys?

And I can’t compete with them anyway. They’re huge, they have huge marketing campaigns. So I’m happy doing my own little niche cartoons that deal with adult topics. I’ll be honest with you, I’m not as successful as Pixar or Dreamworks, and that is disappointing to me, because I think my films are as valid as a Pixar film. I think there’s an audience for my films. I know there’s a market for someone like Quentin Tarantino, who basically does adult cartoons in live action.

My fear is that distributors are afraid of animation for adults. Distributors don’t think there’s a market for that, and I disagree with them. People like you and me, we’d love to see a cartoon dealing with adult topics.

You have more success abroad?

I’m much better known in France and Germany and Spain than I am in the U.S. When I go to Russia, I get mobbed; I have groups of fans waiting for me out in the hotel lobby, waiting for me to come down off the elevator. In China, I almost got beat up because people were trying to get me to do a drawing for them.

You are like the Justin Bieber of Russia.

Ha! Yes. I mean, in America, people only know who I am from what they saw on MTV a long time ago. I have a hard time getting distribution here. I think the reason I’m so popular in China and Europe is piracy… all my films are available everywhere there because of piracy.

Interesting, so this is a pro-piracy stance from Bill Plympton?

Not at all, I don’t make any money when the films are on the Internet. I try to keep my stuff offline as much as possible, because we do sell films to different markets on the Internet. If it’s everywhere for free, I can’t sell my work.

I think outsider art is getting picked up in the United States and making money, but it’s happening very slowly. I think in a couple years, it will be very different. Everyone is very unsure: a lot of small film theaters are collapsing for lack of audience, and DVDs are being hurt. They say the paradigm is changing, so I think the potential for outsider art to make money is there, in Internet distribution. That’s what I’m betting on.

Are there any artists whose work you currently see as the successful model of what you want to do?

Definitely. Don Hertzfeldt is a giant on the Internet, and he’s selling an amazing number of DVDs on the web. So he’s bypassing the traditional distribution apparatus, and I think it’s very cool. He’s someone I look up to for guidance in order to make films as a true independent.

You’ve made videos recently for both Kanye West and Weird Al. So: who is easier to work with?

You know Kanye does hip-hop and rap, and I’m not a big hip-hop or rap guy. But I love working with him: he’s a genius, and certainly his music is brilliant. His last album, the one before the Jay-Z album I thought was really wonderful.

But Weird Al is much more down to earth, has a great sense of humor, and gives me a lot more freedom than Kanye does. He just gives me the song and lets me do what I want. And I love his music too, of course.

Follow Bill Plympton on Twitter, and his site Plymptoons.com.

3. “Gwyneth Paltrow saved my life on 9/11″ story of the day: Wait, really? I could almost forgive Paltrow for her multitude of sins if she acted heroically on Sept. 11. So let’s check it out:

“Clarke, then a 24-year-old account manager at Baseline Financial Services, was on her way to work shortly before 9 a.m. and about to jaywalk across the street to catch the 1/9 train in Tribeca when the Oscar winner abruptly cut her off in her silver Mercedes.”

Oh wait, so Paltrow almost ran over a woman, inadvertently making her late for work at the World Trade Center? Man, and here the firefighters got to take all the credit. 

4. Narrowly averted train wreck of the day: Disney has split with Jerry Bruckheimer on “The Lone Ranger” movie, apparently because the director’s insistence on adding werewolves and “Indian spirits like Obi-Wan Kenobi” to the plot was getting too expensive.

5. Must read of the day: Roger Ebert’s new memoir, of which he’s posted the first several pages on his blog. It begins, “I was born inside the movie of my life,” which might be the best opening line since that Dickens book people are always quoting when they want to reference a good opening line.

Armstrong’s lawyer, Ronald Richards, speaking to ABC, noted that: “These couples join these shows, and then they keep trying to outdo each other and they end up spending all their money trying to sustain a lifestyle that’s unrealistic and wasn’t there prior to the show,” said Richards. “The weekly social events, the dinners and all the BS, trying to pretend you have unlimited resources in Beverly Hills is tough.”

The couple clearly had issues. In an interview with People in July, Taylor Armstrong said that Russell had been physically abusive. Russell admitted pushing his wife. “It was during a time in our lives that was not characteristic of who we were,” he said. “This show has literally pushed us to the limit.”

So how complicit is the franchise so many people love to hate-watch? Can we ever look at it as mere train-wreck entertainment again? We went to the experts for answers, the people who get paid to recap “Real Housewives” for newspapers and websites.

Gabe Delahaye, the editor of Videogum.com, stopped his recaps last year but says that “reality TV in general has a real death problem.” The shows attract “miserable people who quickly learn that being on a reality show is not the solution to their problems.”

Does that make the audience complicit as well?

I don’t think there’s any guilt for the audience, I don’t buy that. I mean, you can make the long-range argument that we create the market for these shows, and that we are therefore complicit, but that feels really thin to me. We also create the market for “Inception” and “Avatar” and “The Wire” and “Game of Thrones.” The world is a big place and the market is fractured. People who like stupid stuff also like smart stuff, and vice versa.

I do think that the producers of the show can bear as much responsibility as we feel like dumping on them. I am willing to believe that the producers are good people, and that they genuinely care about their shows and the people on their shows. I am even willing to believe that they view them as real people with real feelings problems, even if that’s not how they end up portraying them on TV. But at the end of the day, they are also the ones creating this environment.

Lizzie Skurnick blogs about “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” for the L.A. Times, and writes frequently about the franchise. When asked if she thought Armstrong’s death would force the show to change its format, Skurnick answered, “Not at all.” In fact, she considers these relationship issues to be one of the driving forces of the show.

“The theme of problematic marriages has been a staple of the show since the beginning,” Skurnick tells me over the phone. “Vicki Gunvalson and her husband were having issues and broke up on the first ‘Housewives’ show: ‘The Real Housewives of Orange County.’ It began as interesting drama, but it’s mutated to the point where the show itself has affected relationships. Nene from ‘Atlanta’ is also getting a divorce. The Camille/Kelsey Grammer story from the ‘Beverly Hills’ show is fascinating because Kelsey reportedly urged Camille to do the show so she would stay in L.A. and he could go have an affair.”

Skurnick says that husbands often don’t understand what being a character on the show involves. Russell was portrayed as a distant and unaffectionate husband; their marital struggles were a theme of the first two seasons.

A lot of them made their money in real estate, in finance, and it’s not always something they want to shed a lot of light on. I think it’s possible that in a lot of these marriages, the wives are flailing and the husbands think, “Well, this is something to amuse my wife.” What they don’t realize is that they are becoming a character… and in the case of Russell, you start to hear these stories about spousal abuse. His portrayal on the show was very cold and distant, and I think that’s not something he was expecting, so he moved away from it, and away from Taylor. And with Armstrong, she is truly a ‘desperate’ housewife’: she will find a way to play up the death as it affects her, though it’s not clear that this will be something that is actually shown on the program.

Ben Mandelker, a screenwriter who runs the reality show-centric B-Side Blog, believes the show’s producers will find a way forward.

“As for Russell, that’s a tragic situation, but I’m not sure you can blame the show for that,” he said. “Taylor and Russell knew what they were getting into — the show had been around a few years at that point. It sounds like the demons that ultimately consumed Russell would have been there no matter what. Reality TV is the easy thing to blame, but c’mon, look at Andy Cohen. With that big goofy grin, do we really think he could push someone to their death? Hmmm … don’t answer that.”