My So-Called Cyborg

SPIDEY WATCH A lot of fans had trouble imagining Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man, but harder still is Neil Patrick Harris. Still, the artist formerly known as Doogie Howser will play the wall-crawler in MTV's computer-animated '''' series, launching later this year. Playing Mary Jane will be Lisa Loeb. Again, nothing against the bespectacled singer-songwriter, but does she have any acting experience? Also, changing Peter Parker from a photojournalist to a Web designer? We get the joke, but puh-leeze....

In conjunction with Friday's theatrical release of '','' some 2,000 comic book stores nationwide declared Saturday ''Free Comic Book Day'' and gave away 2 million issues, but one person apparently took the promotion way too literally. Police in New York say a man made off with $20,000 worth of rare comics in an armed robbery at Manhattan's Action Comics store on Saturday. At least the robber was polite, the store clerk told the Associated Press. ''He said, 'I'm sorry. I hate to have to do it this way, but I really need the money.''' No arrests have been made.

SOUND BITES. If you think Michael Jackson's material has been a little weak lately, you can help remedy the situation by entering a contest to write the lyrics for a song composed by Jackson, producer David Foster, and songwriter Carole Bayer Sager. The contest, sponsored by AOL and Tonos.com and running through June 10, invites listeners to submit a lyric to ''I Have This Dream.'' The winner gets to attend a recording session and watch Jackson tape the winning submission. The tune may appear on an upcoming Jacko album, and proceeds from the song will go to children's relief charities. Hey, by the way, did Jackson ever release his 9/11 charity single, ''What More Can I Give?'' And given the time that elapses between Jackson albums, will the winner have to wait more than five years before his or her tune makes it onto a CD?

TUBE TALK After seven years on ''Saturday Night Live,'' Will Ferrell is bushed. ''It's kind of like dog years,'' he tells the Los Angeles Times, by way of explaining why, after the season finale on May 18, he's leaving the show. The 35-year-old comic says he didn't want to be the guy who's long since graduated from high school but still hangs out in his van in the parking lot, hitting on girls. Except on the big screen, where he's co-starring in September's ''Old School'' with Luke Wilson and Vince Vaughn, playing three thirtysomething guys who start their own fraternity. No word yet on who will replace him on ''SNL'' as President George W. Bush....

It was inevitable: '','' Richard Blow's new biography of John F. Kennedy Jr., is going to be a CBS mini-series. The network has yet to commission a writer or hire a cast, but producers already know they want an unknown to play John-John. ''Ben Affleck in a JFK wig just wouldn't work,'' said producer Ed Gernon....

Early Nielsen numbers show NBC scoring a ratings victory for its 75th anniversary special on Sunday night. The three-hours-plus nostalgia fest drew a healthy 20.4 million viewers, many of them too young to have seen Sid Caesar do his foreign-gibberish routine back in the 1950s on ''Your Show of Shows,'' and many of them probably too tired to catch him bringing the routine out of mothballs after 11 p.m. Sunday as the show was running into Oscar-length. But clearly, everyone loved the live special, with the possible exception of midtown Manhattan residents who were spooked by the celebratory fireworks bursting above NBC's Rockefeller Center headquarters around midnight. Several neighbors called the police and the fire department. Eight months after Sept. 11, and just a couple weeks after another scary blast less than two miles downtown, maybe it wasn't such a bright idea to be setting off late-night explosions in the middle of Manhattan.

HEALTH WATCH For the first time, he says, Kid Rock postponed a show, citing health reasons. He rescheduled last Thurdsay's Knoxville, Tenn. show for June 12 due to laryngitis. He expects to be well enough to perform in Philadelphia this Thursday as scheduled.

LEGAL BRIEF Walter Matthau died two years ago at 79, but the executors of his estate are still grumpy men. The estate is suing Columbia Pictures for $1 million, saying the studio has cheated the actor out of profits Matthau was due on the three-decade-old movies ''Cactus Flower'' and ''California Suite.'' In papers filed in Los Angeles on Friday, the estate claims Columbia underreported the films' income from cable, home video, and other sources. ''We've been trying to resolve this since Walter's death,'' said executor Neil Papiano. Columbia has not commented on the suit.

PASSING NOTES Judy Toll a comedian and writer who helped make HBO funnier with occasional appearances on ''Curb Your Enthusiasm'' and script and producing work on ''Sex and the City,'' died Thursday at a Santa Monica hospital. She was 44 and was suffering from skin cancer.