"Harold & Kumar" Star High on "24"

A few tokes and a bag of tiny hamburgers and now...Kumar is thinking of waging jihad?

Fox announced Monday that Kal Penn, who played a stoned pre-med student in search of the perfect post-smoke munchies in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, has joined the cast of 24. Penn will play a man associated with the leader of an Islamic group that may or may not be plotting a terrorist attack.

Considering we're talking about 24, odds are someone's plotting a terrorist attack somewhere.

While Penn has more than 35 TV and movie credits to his name since hitting the Hollywood scene in 1998, including roles in Superman Returns, ER and NYPD Blue, his most memorable non-Kumar turn was playing Ryan Reynolds' timid, exchange-student assistant Taj Mahal Badalandabad in National Lampoon's Van Wilder.

Penn is set to reprise that role in Van Wilder 2: Rise of the Taj. The 29-year-old actor recently finished filming Mira Nair's historical drama The Namesake.

The sixth season of 24 hits the airwaves in January, giving us just enough time to digest our holiday dinners before we're once again caught up in Jack Bauer's world of traitors, terrorists and things that go boom. A feature film is in the works, as well, with shooting slated to begin next summer.

Meanwhile, Ally McBeal's Peter MacNicol will be punching the clock on 24 next season, playing a high-ranking government official. Veteran character actor Harry Lennix, who most recently played the White House chief of staff on Commander in Chief and Ray Charles' manager in Ray, will also appear in a recurring capacity. And Adoni Maropis and Steven Schub are among the latest group of bad guys.

To tide the fans of serialized, plot-twisty dramas over until then, Fox uncorks the second season of Prison Break Monday followed by Vanished, starring Ming-Na as an FBI agent and Rebecca Gayheart as an intrepid reporter, both investigating the disappearance of a senator's lovely young wife. And, wouldn't you know, there's a wider conspiracy at hand.

The mystery on Vanished is scheduled to be resolved by the time the 24 clock starts ticking in 2007.