OK, so Paula Abdul, late of American Idol's crack judging panel, discovered current judge Kara DioGuardi. She even had KD move in with her. Best buds. Roommates. But tragedy struck. Turns out KD has a bizarre penchant for sleepwalking to the fridge and raiding same. Abdul told Fox: "I'd wake up in the morning, and I thought, 'Did my dog do this?' There was food on the ground. 'What the heck?' I thought. But she would have no recollection that she did it." Abdul asked Kara's pals about KD's somnolent scarf-fests. Abdul: "[O]ne of her best friends said, 'Oh, you think you had it bad? She ate mine and my husband's first-anniversary wedding cake . . . in her sleep.' So I didn't feel so bad." How bad could you have felt, Paula? "Oh, look at this food on my floor. I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!" DioGuardi has said she once battled eating disorders. Scientists report a link among somnambulism, nocturnal eating syndrome, and amnesia.

Royal family of pop on reality show

Michael Jackson's children will appear in an A&E reality show tentatively skedded for December - and the Jackson clan's at sixes and sevens about it. That's according to Us Weekly. Titled The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty, the show will star Prince, 12, Paris, 11, and Blanket, 7, among the total of 23 people named Jackson to appear. Janet Jackson is OK with it, and her mother, Katherine, also appears to be in tolerance, but not eldest sister, Rebbie, 59: She thinks MJ "would spin in his grave if he knew his kids would be on this show," a source says. Executive producer Jodi Gomes tells Us that the family has "done a great job opening up about losing a brother."

Uptown Girl, downloader guy, Part CXXI

SideShow lives for moments like those that followed the post-divorce hearing Tuesday between still-awesome supermodel Christie Brinkley, 55, and her ex, her fourth ex now (Billy Joel was her second ex already), architect Peter Cook, 50. Granted a divorce in June 2008, they've been having a world party of a dogfight ever since - lots of things, little and big, back and forth. Cook unzipped their marital bliss in 2006 when, for reasons we can only guess, he flew into the arms of Diana Bianchi, then 18 (about one-third CB's age!?*&%), had sex-based sexual sex with her at his office and at two of Brinkley's homes in the Hamptons, and paid her $300,000. To echo Jay Leno re: Hugh Grant: What the heck were you thinking, dude? He also evidently downloads mondo porn from the Web. Cook said afterward that "I respect my children's time with their mom, and all I ask is that she respect their time with me." Dude, she respects nothing 'bout you. Take your $2.1 million (granted in return for custody of their children) and get gone already! Brinkley, furiously wearing sunglasses, strode through reporters and said a court-appointed shrink had diagnosed Cook as a "narcissist who needed unending praise." And? Their most recent court agreement is said to lay their long fight to rest. Why do we not think so?

Desperate battle to be naked in public

Can You Spot the Segue? Dept.: Actress Tara Reid (The Big Lebowski, a couple of American Pies, etc.) is doing a photo shoot for the December ish of Playboy. Perhaps Peter Cook knows about this. But guess who else is shooting for the same issue. Kelly Bensimon of The Real Housewives of New York. Who gets the cover? Nobody knows! It's a race! A fight! Who Will Win??? Reid is 33, Bensimon 41; one is a mother, and one has had plastic surgery. Not that any of that matters. What will Playboy do with this excess of epidermal effulgence? Put both on the cover? Put one in the back? Do a gatefold? An alternating holographic combo? What was that last phrase? Did we say that?

Dozenth time a charmer for Madge

Speaking of covers, Madonna is on the cover of the new Rolling Stone. It's her 12th time. She has lots of fun things to say, acknowledging the crucial role of really bad fashion choices in her life, also a messy divorce from Guy Ritchie, and also that she feels "retarded" singing some of her poppier chestnuts. In case you think she's a workaholic, she says, um, roger: If she hadn't worked herself to a nub, she might "have thrown myself off a building."

Eat burgers! Make fun of fat girls!

On Sunday, on a Fox football broadcast, there was a Burger King commercial, a cartoon, in which some Dallas Cowboys make fun of singer Jessica Simpson's weight. She's the ex-snugglebumpkinhoneybunnybanana of Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo. "Man," says cartoon running-back Marion Barber, "I still can't believe Tony dated Jessica Simpson, even after she blew up bigger than Flozell Adams." (Note to world: Adams is a 338-pound offensive tackle for the Cowboys. In the cartoon, he takes offense.) Says a cartoon tight-end Jason Witten: "Unlike Tony, at least Jessica comes up big when it counts!" (What are they talking about here? Exactly what? It's puerile and brutal, and we love it, but what, exactly, is being said? And did any of the real-type people cartooned here know beforehand of this really classy commercial? Questions we hereby ask!) Cartoon coach Wade Phillips asks Romo: "Hey, Tony, is Jessica around? We could use a defensive tackle!" And everyone busts up! Isn't life in the enlightened 21st-century wonderful? Jess, as the galaxy knows, has been the object of scorn and derision since ballooning all the way up to, like, a size 6 recently. (She was looking just fine at an L.A. event Tuesday night.) Hey, why not throw in a few zingers about her coyote-kidnapped maltipoo, Daisy?

Bette Midler gets stimulated

The Divine Miss M, Bette Midler, turns out to be a pretty fair hand at philanthropy. She was able to bring down $2 million in stimulus funds for her nonprofit, the New York Restoration Project. It just opened an urban garden in the Bronx, its third in three years. . . . Megan Fox is everywhere, man! She now replaces Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham as the female face of Giorgio Armani's Emporio Armani Underwear and Armani Jeans. Mr. Victoria, we mean David Beckham, also moves on, being replaced by soccer god Cristiano Ronaldo. Beck will introduce his own personal line of men's skivvies.

Nasty column ends with nice item

Judy Hsu, morning news anchor at ABC7 in Chicago, was in labor pains at 3 a.m., being driven by hubby Tracy along Chicago's Eisenhower Expressway to the hospital, when Judy said, "OK, I think we better pull over and call 911." Hubby delivered their fourth child, Alexander James, right in the front seat. He even did that trick where you tie off the umbilical with shoestring. Where'd he learn that? On his wife's station. She says they'll nickname the baby Ike.

Contact "Side Show" at sideshow@phillynews.com. This column contains information from Inquirer wire services.