HOLLYWOOD -- There was probably more buzz about Michael Jackson's arraignment on the streets of Toronto yesterday than here in the heart of Tinsel Town.

All his fans were evidently bussed up to Santa Maria.

Minutes after Jackson entered a plea of not guilty to child molestation charges about 215 km up the coast, not one fan was standing by his star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame.

No vigils. No flowers. No buzz. Nobody.

No matter, it was a huge deal on TV -- as people around the world were glued to their sets watching the latest Wacko Jacko car crash.

MAGICALLY HEALED

If anyone has ever known how to make a spectacle out of himself, it's this clown-faced baby-dangler.

There he was, with his arm that was "severely injured" a few weeks ago by cops now magically healed, pulling himself up onto the roof of the SUV that he and his family were travelling in. He danced and pranced to the crowd.

Bet the judge -- already pissed that Jackson had arrived 21 minutes late -- loved that one, and all the other mayhem that took place outside his courthouse yesterday.

The prevailing buzz in and around L.A. is that this time Jackson will be found guilty. Whether or not that'll be the case, just about everybody has an opinion.

IDOL DOWNSIDE

Ironically, Jackson's legal circus was held the same day as the American Idol judges were meeting the press in Los Angeles. The Fox star-search series launches a new season Monday.

I asked judge Randy Jackson, no relation, if Michael Jackson didn't represent everything that could go wrong with being an American idol.

"Let me put it this way," Jackson said. "There's been no bigger name in music in the last year than

50 Cent -- and he's been in jail 10 times and shot nine.

"Elvis was the Day One American Idol and look at how he wound up. Being rich and famous doesn't take away all the problems."

And what of the kids such as Kelly Clarkson, Reuben Studdard and Clay Aiken that are being set up as the next pop idols? Are they equipped to handle the fame?

"That's what we don't know," Jackson said. "The jury's still out on that one."

As for judge Paula Abdul, a former choreographer who helped turn Jackson into a music video dance icon, questions about Jackson's arraignment were strictly off limits. "I just wish everything will be okay," she said.

Earlier, executive producers Tom Fontana and Barry Levinson (Homicide) -- whose latest project is the mid-season replacement drama The Jury -- spoke about Jackson's odds of getting a fair trial.

ALL MYSTERIES

"I think it is more difficult for Jackson to find 12 people who are not going to have an opinion about it," said Fontana, who has served on jury duty himself.

"Why does it engage us?" Levinson asked. "In a way, because (these celebrity trials) are all mysteries, in a sense."

Referring specifically to actor Robert Blake, who is on trial for the murder of his wife, Levinson said, "Did he or didn't he? We as a people have a curiosity."

Unlike the headline-ripping storylines on Law & Order, neither Fontana nor Levinson has any plans to mirror a Jackson-like celebrity trial in at least the first six episodes of The Jury, which debuts later this year on Fox.

Good thing. If yesterday's circus-like proceedings in Santa Maria are any indication, there isn't a screenwriter in Hollywood who would dare submit a trial story as outrageous as this one.

And it's only just begun.