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In what is obviously today's biggest news story, fun-having NBC wunderkind Ben Silverman has inexplicably neglected to attend a party. Vulture buddy Nikki Finke reports that Silverman was scheduled to appear at General Electric's corporate inauguration event in Washington, D.C. at 11 a.m. yesterday, but he never showed, prompting worry and surprise from co-workers unaccustomed to seeing his face without a lampshade on it.

GE CEO Jeff Immelt was purportedly overheard asking NBC Universal, "Did your boy show?" To which NBC Universal president Zucker allegedly responded, "No... Classic Ben." But is it Classic Ben? Sure, the party may have taken place at 11 a.m., and Silverman's first order of business as NBC co-chairman was to cancel all morning meetings, but a party's a party, right? And yesterday was the third day in a three-day weekend — shouldn't he have still been awake and out from the previous night? Finke claims (and a WireImage search confirms) that he was at Sundance on Sunday, but he's never been one to let an NBC-subsidized airplane journey stand between him and a good time. Is he okay? Was he mauled by a tiger during the pre-party in his hotel suite? Until we hear otherwise, we'll just assume he was at the NBC inauguration party, but in a VIP section that Zucker and Immelt didn't know about.

Ben Silverman No-Shows GE Obama Party [Deadline Hollywood Daily]