Tattle: German TV accident halts Bieber gig

THIRTY-FIVE years ago,

Paddy Chayefsky

's "Network," a satiric look at television, seemed far-fetched. The recent best-seller, "The Hunger Games," offers a futuristic view of television that also seems far-fetched.

Go fetch.

In a TV landscape that drools over pregnant teenagers, divorced harridans, bug-eating money-grubbers and morbidly obese marathon runners, it's only a matter of time before some "Survivor" doesn't or an "Amazing Race-r" races right off a cliff.

In Germany on Saturday night, a live broadcast of the game show "Wetten Dass" ("Bet It"), was halted, pre-empting an appearance by Justin Bieber (hence its inclusion in Tattle), after a 23-year-old contestant was severely injured while trying to jump over a moving car . . . driven by his father.

Whatever happened to having a catch?

Bieber tweeted: "Please pray for Samuel Koch & his family as we wait and hope for his health and safety."

Koch's stunt may have gone terribly wrong because the special shoes he was wearing for the jump, featuring a suspension system, malfunctioned.

Broadcaster ZDF said Koch's accident prompted it to cancel the show's broadcast.

Koch, who suffered multiple back injuries and fractures, underwent surgery yesterday, and his condition was initially life-threatening, the German news agency DPAD quoted the Duesseldorf hospital's Dr. Wolfgang Raab as saying.

Bieber added on Twitter that he felt sorry for not being able to perform in Germany, but "some things are more important than putting on a show. We will be back I promise."

What the Dickens

It had to happen eventually, but Oprah has finally chosen a book Tattle has read - in high school.

Great Expectations.

The talk-show host and best-seller maker selected Pip's tale along with another Charles Dickens classic, A Tale of Two Cities. The two novels are being issued in a single-bound Penguin paperback edition, with a list price of $20.

Numerous editions, however, are available, because the copyright has long expired on the 19th-century novels.

Great Expectations can be downloaded for free on Amazon's Kindle, for instance, which must annoy Dickens to no end, since he once was paid by the word. A Tale of Two Cities costs 99 cents on Barnes & Noble's Nook.

Oprah is to announce her selection today. Dickens will not be on the show, but if anyone could make that happen, it's Oprah.

Tattbits

* It feels like a Michael Jackson sequined glove is auctioned off every month, but items from the late King of Pop's stage wardrobe, including one of his famous gloves, attracted furious bidding at an auction of celebrity memorabilia in Beverly Hills.

Julien's Auctions says that a lone glove worn by Jackson during the "Bad" tour in the late 1980s sold for $330,000 at the "Icons & Idols" auction Saturday night. A jacket signed by Michael took in $96,000, and a fedora he wore onstage went for $72,000.

Other highlights from the auction were an X-ray of Albert Einstein's brain, which brought $38,750, and a pair of Marilyn Monroe's empty prescription bottles sold for $18,750.

A military-style jacket worn by John Lennon for a 1966 Life magazine photo sold for $240,000.

* Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer," a story of a journalist hired to write the memoirs of a British prime minister, has won the prize for best film at the European Film Awards.

Polanski, who was awarded the Silver Bear for best director at the Berlin Film Festival, also took five other key prizes at the ceremony, held in the Estonian capital, Tallinn, late Saturday.

Nominated in seven categories, the movie won the best-director prize, best actor for Ewan McGregor, and best screenwriter went jointly to Robert Harris and Polanski.

Polanski made his acceptance speech via Skype from an unknown location.

As he was finishing the movie in September 2009, he was taken into custody at the Zurich airport by Swiss police at the request of U.S. authorities to face prosecution in a 1977 child-sex case. He had to finish editing the film while in Swiss prison before being released on house arrest.

Beats making license plates.

In July, Polanski was freed after the Swiss government declined to deport him to the United States. But he still faces an Interpol warrant in 188 countries, including Estonia, that have an extradition treaty with the U.S.

* The Massachusetts Attorney General's Office has ordered comic Dane Cook's half brother and sister-in-law to pay $12 million in restitution after they pleaded guilty to stealing from him.

Darryl and Erika McCauley were accused of embezzling millions from Cook while Darryl worked as his business manager.

A spokesman for Attorney General Martha Coakley told the Portsmouth Herald that the next step is for the court to tally the couple's assets. The couple bought a home in York Beach, Maine, and also invested in a hotel and restaurant there.

* The eight-bedroom Staten Island mansion used in the 1972 mobster epic "The Godfather" is for sale for $2.9 million.

Owner James Norton says that his mother kept many artifacts from the movie, including Marlon Brando's cue cards.

The house features two fireplaces, a basement pub, a four-car garage and an inground pool.

Upon closing, the new owners will be asked to say: "In my home! In my bedroom! Where my wife sleeps . . . and my children play with their toys."

Daily News wire services contributed to this

report.

E-mail gensleh@phillynews.com