CBS says ABC’s ‘Glass House’ needs extreme makeover

People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

But what if people create a show for ABC called "The Glass House" and it's surprisingly like a show called "Big Brother" on CBS?

Can CBS throw stones? Can the network sue?

Attorneys for CBS have sent ABC executives a letter warning that "The Glass House" is "strikingly" similar to "Big Brother." CBS also notes that ABC may be benefiting from the fact that 18 former "Big Brother" staffers and executives are now working on the planned ABC show.

"Glass House" would feature contestants who are constantly filmed and eliminated from a home they share …

Hmmm, where have we heard that before?

… And viewers will be able to influence many of their actions, according to a description of the series.

"Big Brother," which has aired on CBS since 2000, has similar features.

Kind of like "American Idol," "The X Factor" and "The Voice."

Or "Kitchen Nightmares" and "Restaurant: Impossible."

One potential key difference: Attorneys for CBS noted that the former "Big Brother" staffers now working on the show, including "Glass House" executive producer Kenny Rosen, all signed nondisclosure agreements and are likely violating them by working on the new series.

"In the strongest possible terms, we must admonish ABC and anyone involved in the development or production of 'Glass House' that they will be acting at their own peril if they continue to proceed in this manner," says the letter that was sent to ABC and later obtained by the Associated Press and other news outlets.

ABC had no comment.

Les Moonves, meanwhile, is not letting Bob Iger anywhere near Julie Chen.

Look who's talking

Former CBS anchor Larry Mendte will once again be live on Philadelphia's airwaves.

Mendte told the Daily NewsSunday night that startingMonday he'll be on IQ 106.9 FM, a new radio station situated in an old Peco power station.

Mendte will be offering commentary four times an hour from 5 to 9 a.m. weekdays and taking phone calls on the news/talk station.

That'll be interesting, he said.

He'll continue to do commentaries for WPIX-TV in New York that air locally on WPHL newscasts.

Mendte says rehearsals for the show were going so well that the owners, Chicago-based Merlin Media, decided Friday to go live Monday.

One of the station's promotional tags goes "Broadcasting from the fortress of free speech from the bowels of a 100-year-old abandoned Peco power plant."

TATTBITS

Riccardo Muti will be conducting a concert in the Vatican in honor of Pope Benedict XVI.

He's the second big-name maestro to be conducting for the pianist pope this spring. La Scala opera house announced last week that Daniel Barenboim would conduct Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony" when the pope visits Milan on June 1.

According to a statement on his website Sunday, Muti will lead Rome's Teatro dell'Opera in selections from Vivaldi and Verdi in the Friday concert, which is being offered to the pope by Italy's president in honor of the seventh anniversary of his election to the pontificate.

A novel from Poland and a collection of Japanese poetry have received prizes for best translations.

Wieslaw Mysliwski's Stone Upon Stone was translated from Polish by Bill Johnson. It won in fiction for the Best Translated Book Award.

Kiwao Nomura's Spectacle & Pigsty" was translated by Kyoko Yoshida and Forrest Gander. It won for poetry.

Winning authors and translators will divide $20,000 in prize money donated by Amazon.com.

The awards were announced by Three Percent, an online resource for international literature based at the University of Rochester.

Following the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida by neighborhood-watch Captain George Zimmerman, the 20th Century Fox alien-invasion comedy "Neighborhood Watch" will now be known as just "The Watch."

Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn and a lot of special effects star. "The Watch" is set for release July 27.

Nadya "Octomom" Suleman has told TMZ.com that she wants to take the money she makes from her upcoming video of solo pleasuring and buy a "dungeon" where she can keep her 14 kids away from the prying eyes of the public.

"The only dream I have is to buy a safe home for my family," she said.

Nadya, you should probably stop calling it a "dungeon." Fourteen children in a dungeon is either a Daily News series by Barbara Laker and Wendy Ruderman or a "Law & Order: SVU" episode."

As it opens itself up to films from the West, China has agreed to theatrically screen "The Hunger Games."

Or as it's called in China, a documentary. n

—Staff writer Regina Medina and Daily News wire services contributed to this report.

Email gensleh@phillynews.com.