Sideshow: Clark to mark 40th 'New Year's Rockin' Eve'

Dick Clark on Saturday will mark the 40th anniversary of his televised Times Square bash, Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve. "There have been many memorable moments," Clark tells USA Today. "The year of the Iran hostage crisis [in 1980], the ball almost didn't drop," he says. The owner of One Times Square wanted to cancel to protest Iran's detention of 52 Americans. "The most nerve-racking would have to be the first New Year's Eve after the 9/11 tragedy," Clark adds.

Clark says the popular show had its origins in Philly.

"Strangely enough, New Year's Rockin' Eve probably began on Dec. 31, 1959, when we broadcast a New Year's Eve version of American Bandstand from [local station] WFIL . . . on ABC," Clark says. "The actual first formal telecast was on NBC Dec. 31, 1972. It was hosted by Three Dog Night, with performances by Helen Reddy, Al Green, and Blood, Sweat and Tears." Clark and cohost Ryan Seacrest's party on Saturday will air on ABC.

Cheetah controversy runs amok!!!

Cheetah, the chimp who costarred with various Tarzans in the immensely popular Tarzan films in the 1930s, died on Christmas Eve, the Suncoast Primate Sanctuary in Palm Harbor, Fla., announced Wednesday. Cheetah, who had lived at the sanctuary since the 1960s, died of kidney failure at age 80.

"He was very outgoing," says the sanctuary's outreach coordinator, Debbie Cobb. "Loved women. Didn't care for men that much. Loved to finger paint."

. . . But wait!! Confusion reigns! Another primate joint in Palm Springs, Calif., says it has the real Cheetah, and he ain't dead. Others claim chimps can't get to be 80. And Mia Farrow, whose mom, Maureen O'Sullivan, acted with the original Cheetah in the Tarzan potboilers, suggests that that Cheetah, the Cheetah, died awhile back.

Is he alive? Dead? The whole thing makes us scratch our head and turn around three times. As far as we at SideShow are concerned, Cheetah's star burns immortal. He was a real swinger.

New playmate for Ashton Kutcher?

Love - or lust - is in the air for the newly single Ashton Kutcher, claims Us Weekly, which says Demi Moore's estranged baby husband spent the holidays frolicking in Italy with actor-turned-screenwriter Lorene Scafaria. Lorene recently extricated herself from a relationship with The O.C. actor Adam Brody. The duo took touristy pics and drove around in a Porsche. Romance? Nonsense, insists a Kutcher rep, who tells Us Weekly the duo are "just friends."

Steven Tyler to wed Erin Brady?