Presidential Sweet

RATINGS ALERT Comedy Central's new presidential sitcom ''That's My Bush!'' debuted Wednesday to a 3.0 cable household rating, the highest rating for a series premiere on the cable network. The first live-action comedy series from Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of ''South Park,'' ''Bush!'' premiered immediately after the hit animated show. The White House satire, which is modeled on a formulaic sitcom in which Timothy Bottoms plays President George W. Bush as a doltish oaf and Carrie Quinn Dolin plays First Lady Laura Bush as the ''straight man,'' is the only Comedy Central series to ever build on the ''South Park'' audience. ''Park'' earned a 2.7 cable rating Wednesday night. And who said reality programming was dead?

TRACK RECORD British musician Robbie Williams has teamed with the surviving members of Queen to record a new version of their 1977 hit ''We Are the Champions'' for the soundtrack to this May's Heath Ledger starring adventure ''A Knight's Tale'' (tagline: ''He Will Rock You''). According to Reuters, a spokesman for Williams stressed that the song is a onetime collaboration. The song was recorded by Williams with Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon, who were recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Queen's lead singer Freddie Mercury died of AIDS in 1991. Williams' spokesman told Reuters: ''There are no plans to release it as a single here or in the U.S. It's for a film, so it will just be part of a soundtrack.''

CASTING Jennifer Lopez and Robert De Niro are in talks to star in and produce a remake of the 1955 Doris Day - James Cagney musical ''Love Me or Leave Me.'' The updated Warner Bros. version will be a classic love triangle set in the music industry, but it will not be based on the true story of 1930s torch singer Ruth Etting, as was the original. There is no start date yet, and both actors are expected to take on other film projects before ''Love Me.'' The original follows Etting (Day) and her relationship with a mobbed-up Chicago swindler (Cagney) who discovers her and then uses his showbiz connections to help her career. Eventually she falls in love with another musician.

REEL DEAL Camryn Manheim (''The Practice'') has signed a deal to produce and star in a movie she is developing about her own experiences as a struggling movie actress. The deal between Manheim and filmmaker Bill Mechanic's Pandemonium production company could earn the Emmy winning actress a seven figure salary, Reuters reports. The project, titled ''The Extra'' marks Manheim's debut as a producer.

LEGAL BRIEF Steven Bochco has settled a 19-month long dispute with Twentieth Century Fox. The television producer claimed Fox had underpaid him for reruns of his police drama ''NYPD Blue,'' which aired on FX, a Fox owned cable station. According to Variety, the two parties settled the $61 million lawsuit Bochco filed in September 1999, on Friday night, three days before the case was scheduled to go to trial in Los Angeles Superior Court. Although the settlement was sealed, Variety reports that the deal allows Bochco to shop the series to other cable networks starting this fall. Attorneys for Bochco could not be reached for comment, but Variety quotes a statement from Fox saying the issue had been ''amicably resolved to the mutual benefit of all parties'' and that Bochco would join them in a statement later this week.

TUBE NEWS NBC has renewed its Thursday night comedy ''Just Shoot Me,'' starring David Spade and Laura San Giacomo, for two more years, through its seventh season, the network announced on Friday. According to Variety, a source familiar with the renewal deal said NBC will pay the series' producers, Universal Studios, nearly $2 million per episode starting this fall. At $2 million per episode, ''Just Shoot Me'' is one of the more expensive sitcoms on prime time but is bargain basement compared to fellow network hits ''Frasier'' and ''Friends,'' which cost the Peacock somewhere between $5 million and $6 million per episode, not to mention the chart-topping drama ''ER,'' for which NBC pays $10 million an episode.

PILOT WATCH Judith Light has signed on to join the cast of ABC's sitcom pilot ''Born in Brooklyn.'' The former ''Who's the Boss'' star will once again play a boss. This time her employee is Maria Bello (''Coyote Ugly''), who stars in the show with Edward Atterton (''The Man in the Iron Mask'') as New York marrieds about to have their first child.

STRAIGHT TO CABLE After the critical success of ''For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story,'' Andy Garcia will take on another Cuban themed HBO movie. Garcia, who is currently costarring in ''Oceans Eleven'' with everyone else in Hollywood, will exec produce the story based on Dr. Pedro Jose Greer's 1999 memoir, ''Waking Up in America: How One Doctor Brings Hope to Those Who Need It Most.'' Greer founded the Camillus Health Concern, a clinic that serves the poor and homeless community of Miami. Pulitzer Prize winning Miami Herald columnist Liz Balmaseda, who cowrote the book with Greer, will also cowrite the script. Balmaseda also worked with Garcia on the Sandoval biopic. So far, Variety reports, Garcia hasn't decided whether he will play Greer.

BOOK NOTES Flushing's pride and joy Fran Drescher, best known as the Barbra Streisand adoring star of ''The Nanny,'' has sold a memoir about her recent battle with cancer to Warner Books for $1 million. Drescher's last memoir, ''Enter Whining,'' was a New York Times bestseller. The book deal was perfectly timed, since Drescher is the cover girl of the just published first issue of Rosie. In the article, Drescher, who was diagnosed with uterine cancer last year, talks about her experiences overcoming the illness.