Sideshow: Williams happy to pull a TV paycheck again

Once upon a time, there was a time before Wi-Fi - or even the Net.

They did have TVs back then. Even sitcoms. And sitcom stars.

Robin Williams, 62, was a TV star way back then, when there was no Internet.

This fall, he'll return to network TV in David E. Kelley's The Crazy Ones on CBS.

It's been so long, the Mork and Mindy alumnus says, "the last time I was on TV, wired meant a gram and a bottle of Jack Daniel's." (Williams famously battled substance abuse problems back then, in the olden times.)

The new show makes Williams happy because it'll allow him to improvise. Plus, it's a paycheck.

"I love it. It's great to have a steady gig after all this time," he tells USA Today. Kelley, known for his painstaking, precise writing, is tickled by Williams' improvisational approach.

"He says my words perfectly," says Kelley. "Then he uses his."

Oldboy auteur Spike Lee, 56, will take part in a panel discussion, "By Any Means Necessary: Producing Independent Film," Friday at 11 a.m. at International House in University City. The free event, which also will feature Nzinga Kadalie Kemp, Nekisa Cooper, and Lendl Tellington, is part of the Blackstar Film Festival, a four-day program of more than 70 short and feature-length films "by and about people of African descent." It starts Thursday and ends Sunday. Info: http://blackstarfest.org.

It's LiLo Time! Lindsay Lohan will be let loose on the world again Wednesday after a 90-day stint in rehab for substance abuse. TMZ says LiLo won't be able to LayLow for long. Her new film, the Bret Easton Ellis-penned, Paul Schrader-directed drama The Canyons, opens Friday, and she'll be doing plenty of P.R. work. She's already booked to guest-host Chelsea Handler's Chelsea Lately Monday, and she'll soon begin shooting her eight-part reality series for Oprah Winfrey's OWN network.

Mackenzie Rosman, 23, who played the youngest member of the family of the Rev. Eric Camden (Stephen Collins) on 7th Heaven, peels off most of her clothes for Maxim. . . . Prince Charles says his princely grandson, His Royal Highness Prince George of Cambridge, will be nicknamed Georgie. . . . Katy Perry announced her new LP, Prism, by having a huge, gold-colored tractor-trailer, emblazoned with the info, drive around Lalaland all day Monday. The CD is due Oct. 22. . . . Twilight alum Taylor Lautner, 21, and his Tracers costar Marie Avgeropoulos, 27, "have been spotted getting cozy around New York City," says USA Today. It's good to get cozy. More people should get cozy. Let's get cozy. . . . Cuban-American hip-hop artist Kat Dahlia (Katriana Huguet) was arrested on suspicion of DUI early Tuesday in Miami Beach, hours after celebrating her 23d b-day. She was being held on $2,000 bail. . . . Keyshia Cole's husband, basketballer Daniel "Boobie" Gibson, was arrested and booked in New Orleans on assault charges stemming from a July 8 fracas. . . . Taylor Swift has been sporting a 1940s-style high-waisted bikini that has the genders split. Ladies like it, lads less. . . . Miley Cyrus, testing the limits and boundaries and stuff, appears nude (but with all naughties covered) (dang) on a Marc Jacobs T-shirt for the "Protect the Skin You're In" melanoma awareness project. . . . Rihanna has been ducking having to be deposed in a lawsuit she filed against her former accounting firm. Now she's been fined $47,050 and ordered to sit down and talk on Aug. 28. . . . One Direction heartthrob Harry Styles, asked in a British GQ mag interview whether he is bisexual, boldly, categorically declares: "I don't think so. I'm pretty sure I'm not." . . . But we do respect Kristen Bell's oh-shut-up words in Redbook, about being slightly heavier post-baby: "I am not a woman whose self-worth comes from her dress size." For those of you with calculators, she gained 43 pounds and has lost 28 of them, so . . . she looks pretty great, OK?