When "Harold & Kumar" star Kal Penn traded in his bong for a ranking post in the Barack Obama administration recently, most fans naturally concluded that the stoner comedy franchise conceived by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg had officially gone up in smoke. Penn may or may not be out, but that didn't stop Warner Bros from announcing today that "A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas" will hit theaters on November 5, 2010.

A title is all we have to go on for the moment, as the WB announcement made no mention of the film's plot or casting. As hard as it is to imagine anyone other than Penn and co-star John Cho -- who will be hard to miss as Hikaru Sulu in this weekend's "Star Trek" -- stepping into the shoes of the titular stoners, it's a distinct possibility given the public nature of Penn's new job in the White House Office of Public Liaison. Read more...

When last we saw our best buds Harold & Kumar, life was looking good. They had successfully escaped from Guantanamo Bay, reunited with the women they love, and were happily smoking and joking their way around Amsterdam. It seemed like a much more complete ending than in their first adventure - and you couldn't help but feel as if this generation's Cheech and Chong had made their last movie.

But then, "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay" made even more money than the first film. Which keeps us wondering: Will we ever see the uptight Asian and underachieving Indian in a third adventure?

"Yeah, I don’t know," admitted Kal Penn when we spoke to him recently, insisting that White Castle is closed for the forseeable future. "We get calls from our friends, John Cho and I, going 'I read on the internet, blah blah blah.'"

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