Quick Takes: ‘Friday’ tops YouTube list

Rebecca Black’s infamous “Friday” video has topped all other YouTube videos of 2011 with 180 million views.

The Google Inc. video-sharing site announced its most-viewed clips of the year Tuesday.

The 14-year-old Black was turned into a viral video celebrity after her parents paid a production company to make the music video for her. “Friday” became an unlikely, off-key global hit. Because of a legal dispute with Ark Music Factory, the video has had two YouTube incarnations, both of which were tabulated in the year-end count.

The second most popular video was “Ultimate Dog Tease,” in which an owner taunts a dog with food and voices its reactions. Third was the “Saturday Night Live” digital short featuring Michael Bolton as a rabid “Pirates of the Caribbean” fan.

—Associated Press

Large-scale museum thefts

Thieves have stolen a large bronze sculpture by one of Britain’s most important modern sculptors from a London park.

The sculpture by Barbara Hepworth, called “Two Forms (Divided Circle),” was discovered missing Tuesday morning after it was ripped from its plinth in south London’s Dulwich Park.

The theft came after Metropolitan Police on Monday dedicated a unit to tackle those who steal cables and car metal parts for scrap metal — a growing problem as prices for copper, lead and bronze soar.

Meanwhile, the BBC reported that a 33-foot-long model of an F-104 Starfighter jet was stolen from in front of the Deelen Airbase Museum near Arnhem, Holland. Museum officials said they hoped that New Year pranksters rather than metal thieves are to blame. A note left at the scene said, “Fly away. See you next year.”

—Associated Press

BP funds British arts institutions

BP, which last year caused the United States’ worst-ever oil spill, has pledged another $15.5 million to four British cultural institutions for the next five years.

The energy company’s money will help fund exhibitions at the British Museum, live big-screen telecasts at the Royal Opera House, a rehang of the permanent collection at Tate Britain and the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery.

Ed Vaizey, the British culture minister whose department announced arts funding cuts earlier this year, welcomed the news. But BP’s United Kingdom arts sponsorships have been the target of spectacular protests ever since the April 2010 explosion at BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico triggered an environmental disaster that took months to clear up.

—Bloomberg News

HBO cancels three comedies

Let out a deep breath, “Enlightened” fans. HBO has decided to renew the Laura Dern dramedy for a second season. But it nixed three half-hour comedies: “Hung,” “Bored to Death” and “How to Make It in America.”

The fate of “Enlightened,” about a woman (Dern) recovering from a nervous breakdown, had been uncertain given its low ratings. Still, critics have been supportive and the show, along with Dern, received Golden Globes nominations last week.

“Hung” nabbed a Golden Globe nod too but it wasn’t enough to earn the series a fourth season.

—Yvonne Villarreal

Archuleta puts career on hold

“American Idol” alum David Archuleta announced he is taking a break from music while he serves a two-year Mormon mission.

Archuleta, the Season 7 runner-up (and one of the show’s youngest contestants at 16), made the announcement while performing a Christmas concert Monday in downtown Salt Lake City.

“It’s not because someone told me I was supposed to do it and not because I no longer want to do music anymore,” the 20-year-old Miami native said. “It’s because it’s what I feel I need to do next in my life.”

—Yvonne Villarreal

Betty White gets a party for 90th

Mary Tyler Moore, Carol Burnett and Hugh Jackman will be among the celebrities paying tribute when NBC airs “Betty White’s 90th Birthday: A Tribute to America’s Golden Girl,” a 90-minute special on Jan. 16.

Cast members from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and White’s current comedy on TV Land, “Hot in Cleveland,” will be on hand too.

NBC’s motive is not entirely magnanimous: The show also will feature appearances by such network stars as Jay Leno, Amy Poehler and Joel McHale, and will be followed by a preview of the network’s new hidden-camera series, “Betty White’s Off Their Rockers.”

—Lee Margulies