John Cleese paid a visit to MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" on Friday. He had an appropriately wicked bit of verse to share, an ode to Bill O'Reilly. This one isn't quite as side-splittingly funny as his poem a few weeks ago about Sean Hannity, but it's a good distillation of O'Reilly's insanity.

(Keith presses Cleese on the definition of "berk," but doesn't really get an answer, as you can see in the clip posted below.)

Bill O'Reilly's No Spin Zone,
is rated highly by his own beloved mother,
but ... no other.
Except that Bill, for all his faults,
still has one skill, a skill of sorts.
He can amuse a true dumb ox,
the dullest crayon in the box,
the kind of ox that watches Fox.
And Bill will pander to this group,
with propaganda, right-wing poop,
knee-jerk views and censored news.
Thus Bill O'Reilly earns his crust,
behaving vilely as he must.
He will not shirk from Rupert's work.
He really is a perfect berk.

What a life, what a voice, what a legacy. Studs Terkel, who died Friday at age 96, was known for many things in his long career as a reporter, raconteur, documentarian, radio broadcaster, activist, social commentator and everything else you'd expect from a guy called Studs.

"Working," Terkel's opus on the invisible blue-collar superheroes around us, ought to be required reading for every high school senior in America. With the exception of Aaron Copland (and maybe Jimmy Breslin at his best), nobody ever wrote such a rousing fanfare for the common man.

A lesser known chapter of Terkel's working life is the TV series "Studs' Place," which ran in various forms from November 1949 to January 1952 on NBC and later ABC. The show is described as something like "Cheers" -- set in New York with Terkel playing an affable bartender with a bunch of colorful regulars -- but apparently the show was mostly improvised by Terkel and a cast that included folk singer Win Stracke and Beverly Younger (who brings an Audrey Meadows quality to the role of waitress Grace).

Although the show was set in New York it was produced out of NBC's studio in Terkel's home turf of Chicago (as Studs tells the audience after the end credits). I learned all of this thanks to a great website documenting the history of early TV in Chi maintained by a devoted son of the Windy City TV biz, Rich Samuels.

Here's a link to a streaming vid one of the few segs of "Studs Place" that still exist. There's barely a discernible plot to the half-hour that originally aired June 6, 1950, but the barroom banter about opera, jazz, short ribs and the state of American culture is to die for. (Thanks to Rich Samuels and his efforts for this link and for the still from "Studs' Place" at the top of this post.)

Here's also a link to the first of a three-part interview that Terkel did with the Archive of American Television, talking about his early days in radio and TV, including his appearances on another famed early Chi TV production, "Kukla, Fran and Ollie."

"As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."

Turkeys are a (mostly) flightless bird, and time flies like the wind. But 24 minutes of truly inspired TV comedy is an ageless wonder, the eternal sunshine of the mirthful mind. And so it is with great respect and appreciation that we pay tribute here to the 30th anniversary of one of the finest half hours in the history of television.

"Turkeys Away," the legendary "oh the humanity" seventh episode of the first season of "WKRP in Cincinnati," bowed on Oct. 30, 1978, at 8 p.m. on CBS. Jimmy Carter was in the White House, Debby Boone was atop the pop charts and I was officially allowed to stay up until 8:30 on Monday nights to enjoy what had quickly become one of my family's favorite shows of the 1978-79 season.

No kidding, to this day if I close my eyes and concentrate I can still feel scratchy yellow shag carpet under my feet, I can see the rainbow-colored horizontal hold jumping around until the Zenith warmed up and I can hear the howls of laughter that filled our den on the night this episode first aired. 

For the uninitiated, please, take 24 minutes and spin this episode, courtesy of Hulu.com. And then pick up this post after the jump for a visit with "WKRP" creator Hugh Wilson, who I tracked down in Charlottesville, Va.

Oh boy, here's the new "Lost" trailer. ABC hasn't officially set the preem date beyond "early 2009." Here's to hoping it's closer to mid-Jan.than early Feb. Still wondering what Sawyer and Juliet have been talking about all this time...

In preparation for the "Mad Men" finale, I watched the season opener, "For Those Who Think Young," again.

Kathy Lyford, Stuart Levine and I have consistently marveled at the intricate craftsmanship of this show in these weekly blog posts. But it really is amazing to look back at the 13 segs in their entirety and to consider the care and planning that went in to stringing the threads and revealing a little bit more of the puzzle week by week. Kudos to Matthew Weiner, Robin Veith and the rest of the "Mad Men" team. We owe you.

It struck me that a whole bunch of season two is described in this quote from the book "Meditations in an Emergency" that is featured as a voice-over from Don as he reads the book near the end of the season opener.

"Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again...and interesting... and modern."

This season began on Feb. 14, 1962, with a breathless Jackie Kennedy leading us on a tour of the White House via the small screen, and ended eight months later on the heels of her husband's famed Oct. 22 televised address warning the world that a nuclear attack could well be brewing. Enough drama for you?

Think of how much the world for the Sterling Cooper-ites changes in that time -- from the boundless promise of JFK's New Frontier to the Cold War chill, the confrontation of racism and the civil rights movement, the budding awakening of what will be dubbed "women's lib," and the underside of celebrity culture laid bare by Marilyn Monroe's self-destruction.

I can't wait to find out where we go from here. It's gonna be eight long months, presuming AMC sticks with its summer skedding pattern.

Before we say goodbye to season two, it's worth taking a look back at a highlights reel. I'd love to hear some comments/criticisms/suggestions from others who are as obsessed with this show as Littleton/Lyford/Levine, LLC.

To start, a shout-out to a few of the supporting players whose work hasn't been as heralded as much as the that of the core ensemble.

Kiernan Shipka -- Sally Draper had so much to play this year. This is one talented moppet.

Alison Brie -- She always does so much with Trudy Campbell's limited screen time.

Joel Murray -- We miss Freddy Rumsen already.

Melinda McGraw -- Oooh, did I hate Bobbie Barrett, to the credit of Ms. McGraw.

GREAT LINES:

"What did you bring me, daddy?" -- Peggy Olson (Episode 1, "For Those Who Think Young")

"It's so obvious why you're seeing her -- A supermarket checkout girl? The conversation must be stimulating. 'Lettuce costs a nickel...You, out there in your poor little rich boy apartment, in Newark or wherever...Walking around with your pipe and your beard. Falling in love with that girl just to show how interesting you are." -- Joan Holloway (Episode 2, "Flight 1")

"God, I miss the 50s" -- Roger Sterling (Episode 3, "The Benefactor")

"God, I miss the blacklist" -- CBS executive (Episode 3, "The Benefactor")

"My people are Nordic" -- Betty Draper (Episode 3, "The Benefactor")

Remember how Helen Bishop told Betty Draper a few episodes back that the hardest thing about being divorced was getting used to the idea that "you're in charge?"

In her own twisted way, Betty has taken charge of her life by the time we get to episode 13, "Meditations in an Emergency," the denouement of the awe-inspiring second season of "Mad Men."

Betty isn't the only one who's coming into her own in this seg, written by Matthew Weiner and Kater Gordon and helmed by Weiner. Peggy Olson is capping an incredible period of personal growth with what is quite possibly the most grown-up thing she's ever done in her 22 (maybe by now she's 23) years.

It all unfolds against the backdrop of what is arguably the most tense six-day span of the atomic age. And near the end of this episode (that you don't want to end) is one of those gems of dialogue that will bounce around in our heads for the next nine months until season three arrives next summer.

"If the world is still here on Monday, we can talk."

But to start, let's focus on Betty. Her her storyline has been nothing short of gut-wrenching all season and, in contrast to season one, Betty's saga has been vital to the storytelling and our continued discovery of Don Draper/Dick Whitman. (Cynthia's thoughts continue after the jump.)

Kathy Lyford's thoughts:

Sunday nights just aren't going to be the same. Sniff.

I'm pretty sure my take on the end of the season is not what Matthew Weiner and the writers had in mind when they wrote it but I'm going to throw it out there anyway.

To me, the final three episodes are almost a trilogy, and they stand together, apart from the first 10 season 2 eps.

They had a very Dickensian feel to them to me, wherein all the core characters, most particularly Don Draper, are confronted with ghosts of their past, their present and their future.

Don got a glimpse of what his future might hold in episode 11, "The Jet Set." If he continued on the path he was on, he was in real danger of becoming one of those emotionally bereft gypsies, like Joy and her crazy family.

In episode 12, "The Mountain King," Don returned to his past, to Anna, the one person who "gets" him. In so doing, he was able to regain his bearings and remember what is important to him. And in this finale, which is still reeling around in my head, he faces his present -- uncertain though it may be -- particularly with the Cuban Missile Crisis looming. Does his life still include Sterling Cooper? Betty? Will he have another child?

I don't know. And I don't want to. I want to go along for the ride as it all unfolds in season 3, in its typically tantalizing "Mad Men" way.

Stuart Levine's thoughts:

Talk about going out in a blaze of glory, that’s exactly what the folks at “Mad Men” did in this revelatory last episode of season two.

What I got out of this wonderfully crafted finale is there are crises all over the map here: In the Draper household and at the office, but none greater than the one that President Kennedy is facing in trying to make sure the United States isn’t on the receiving end of a nuclear strike.

Relationships are both on the mend — Don and Betty — while others, like Pete and Trudy’s, feel like they’re falling apart. In the big picture, however, it all means little if Manhattan is a target of the Russkies, so everything’s relative.

Following Don’s baptism and rebirth at the end of the previous episode, he returns home and fully realizes the sin of his ways. He meets Betty at the equestrian center and tells her, “I had to have time to think about things” and adds “I was not respectful to you.” (Stuart's thoughts continue after the jump.)

Who knew Don Draper had a sense of humor?

By all accounts, "Mad Men" star Jon Hamm did a swell job as host of "Saturday Night Live" last night, even if he sounded like he had a slight head cold. I'm not gonna name names but one "Mad Men" insider I spoke with recently described Hamm, very lovingly, as being a kind of "big 15-year-old" with a sense of humor to match. He flexed a lot of comedy chops last night and appeared to be having a good time.

Among the highlights of the "SNL" seg was this clip below, "Don Draper's Guide to Picking Up Women."

This skit featuring Hamm's "Mad Men" cohorts Elisabeth Moss and John Slattery probably could've been punchier, but Hamm saves it at the end with a spot-on spoof of the show's trademark Draper-closes-the-deal speeches.

"Life on Mars" deserves more than the 7.9 million viewers it pulled in last night.

I've fallen for ABC's redo of the Brit drama, which unfortunately is placing third in its Thursday 10 p.m. time slot. I like star Jason O'Mara more and more as I watch the show and I also like ensemble of supporting players -- Harvey Keitel (pictured at left with O'Mara in head lock), Michael Imperioli (pictured below), Gretchen Mol and Jonathan Murphy. The mystery element -- the whodunit on why our hero, NYPD detective Sam Tyler, was transported back in time to 1973 after getting hit by a car while chasing a perp in 2008 -- is unfolding slowly, with just enough intrigue to make you want to keep your eyes peeled for veiled clues.

Perhaps most of all, I love the way the show is lensed -- the look of 1973 Gotham has a hazy, almost sepia tone to it that adds to the mood of the show. We see it all as Sam does -- very surreal and dream-like. Keitel was a little over the top in the pilot but has since dialed it down. Imperioli has settled in to his mustache and sideburns. I hope "Mars" gets the time on air to tell its time-warp tale.

In preparation for Sunday's "Mad Men" season two finale, hop on over to Season Pass to read Kathy Lyford's fascinating Q&A with "Mad Men's" main man, Matthew Weiner.

Weiner loves nothing more than talking about his baby. In the excerpt below, he's responding to a question about how much of the Don Draper saga he had in his head eight years ago when he first wrote the spec script that was the crucible of this marvelous, Emmy-winning series.

"I told Jon (Hamm) the whole story before last year started. He was the only one I told, except for the producers, of course. And I told Jon about the brother and how the genealogy works and what kind of childhood it was and where he was from. There were a lot of these people. It’s an American story. You know mountain (folks), or whatever it is, coming to New York and shedding the whole thing. That’s the American dream on some level. Even though I didn’t finish the movie I did know where it was going. And I feel lucky to have that consistency and the audience can see that it’s not just being spun as it goes along."

Here's another interesting interview with Weiner that just came into my inbox. It's Weiner talking about the Jewish characters in the series, and it's just been posted as a podcast on Nextbook, a non-profit org dedicated to promoting "the discovery and discussion of Jewish literature, culture and ideas nationwide."

Posted by Jon Weisman

When I heard the name “Father John Gill” on "Mad Men" this season, I did a double-take. But once I realized that the show’s creator, Matthew Weiner, went to the same high school I did, it all made sense.

Father John Gill was a chaplain and teacher at what was then known as Harvard School in North Hollywood for roughly half a century, starting in 1941. He straddled the era that saw Harvard evolve from an Episcopalian military school to a non-military one that probably had about a 40-percent Jewish enrollment by the time Weiner and I were there in the early 1980s (graduating two years apart). The picture at right is from Weiner's senior year.

I didn’t know Weiner at Harvard (though I’ve since interviewed him for Variety), but it’s no surprise that Fr. Gill left an impression on him. He left an impression on everyone. In many ways, Fr. Gill was Harvard, embodying both the history of the school and the thirst for knowledge it encouraged. His religion, frankly, was the least of it for me, the unconverted, but he still was an endearing and engaging (if authoritative) man. His year-long elective, “History of World Wars I and II,” was one of the most popular classes at the school – a bonafide antidote to senioritis.

I have no idea whether there are any similarities between the younger days of the real Fr. Gill and the TV Fr. Gill. Not sure it even matters. (Given that it was at the time, sigh, an all-boys school, our Fr. Gill probably didn’t see very many Peggys.) I just wanted to note that I caught Weiner’s tribute, and I appreciated it. It’s a good excuse to remember a man who helped shepherd a bunch of us kids.

Lookie here, CBS is giving Jay Mohr's "Gary Unmarried" a test-drive in the post-"Two and a Half Men" slot next week.

When the Mohr show came out of nowhere as a hot pilot for CBS in the pre-upfront frenzy in May, I figured it had to be bound for the post-"Men" slot: Charlie Sheen, Mohr, guy's guy humor, etc. Just made sense. It was a surprise when "Worst Week" landed there after some hardball negotiating by producer Universal Media Studios after the pilot tested through the roof.

"Worst Week" has had trouble hanging on to "Men's" coattails, though the show has held steady in recent weeks at a 3.0-ish demo rating out of a 5.0-ish lead-in from "Men." But in that time slot, CBS' concern is always about the handicap that a squishy lead-in presents to 10 p.m.'s "CSI: Miami."

So, Jay Mohr, come on down. CBS will air a repeat of the "Gary" pilot behind a repeat of "Men," but it will still give the Eye's programmers a sense of whether "Gary" might be a better friend to "Men" and "Miami" in that slot. Stay tuned.

This pro-Barack Obama "call to action" spot from Ron Howard popped up today on FunnyOrDie.com. It features Andy Griffith and Henry Winkler -- you do the math.

Howard has always seemed to have a good sense of perspective -- and humor -- about his TV past, and it shows in this bit. Even as an Oscar winner, he's never gotten too big for Opie's britches to do the "Andy Griffith Show" reunions, etc.

OK, it's official: The supporting players on "Mad Men" are the new Rat Pack.

The "Night on the Town with 'Mad Men'" musical revue the thesps pulled off tonight under the direction of David Carbonara, the series' in-house composer, at the El Rey Theater was a rollicking and slightly risque good time. Best of all, the performers seemed to be having a blast, and it rubbed off on the crowd. It's telling that so many of the show's cast and crew members were in the aud and working the event, which was a fundraiser for the local chapter of the Recording Academy.

Joel Murray, aka Freddy Rumsen (pictured left), was an inspired choice as emcee.

"You look downright classy," he complimented the crowd (many of us went with the spirit of the show by dressing retro). Drink in hand, Murray got the night off on the right note with a jazzy rendition of "Scotch and Soda."

Apropos of the tune, Murray noted that the night was made possible through the kindness of "Mad Men" producer Lionsgate, plus a big check and many gallons of free booze provided by Chivas Regal. (Indeed, the band Carbonara led was dubbed the "Chivas 13.")

"So keep sipping the Chivas -- the more you sip, the smoother it'll go down," Murray advised. But he didn't need to. Of the eleven performers who took the stage -- plus special guest Inara George -- there wasn't a clinker on the bill. And the song selection was perfectly matched to their characters. The night was the brainchild of Carbonara, but he had a lot of help in pulling it together in a matter of weeks from "Mad Men" scribe Robin Veith and helmer Michael Uppendahl (pictured on far left of group shot above).

Mark Moses, aka Duck Phillips (pictured right), followed Murray with a swing-y rendition of "Ain't Love a Kick in the Head." He noted that he was wearing his "Duck-edo -- which comes smelling of booze and covered with ashes."

Thrush George came out to lend her sweet voice to an uptempo take on "Manhattan" -- no need to explain why, for this show.

Michael Gladis (pictured below) looked every inch Paul Kinsey as he strolled out wearing an acoustic guitar and a his tux shirt open with the bow tie dangling around his neck. He launched in to "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" -- and promptly stopped after about 15 seconds.

"I fucked up the lyrics," he admitted. The second time worked just fine (I always choke up a little at the line "I wish there was something you could do or say/to try and make me change my mind and stay," and this version was no exception.)

Murray intro'd Alison Brie, aka Trudy Campbell, as a girl who really "looks good in pajamas." She wasn't in a teddy but rather a silky white dress, sexy gloves and faux fur boa that she put to good use while delivering a sassy take on "Daddy" -- ("I want a brand new car, champagne, caviar") -- that would've made Sammy Kaye proud. Brie belted in a Broadway-ish way, but after the show she swore she'd never sung in front of an aud before.

Just in time to capitalize on "Frost/Nixon's" arrival in theaters, the real deal is being released on DVD.

Liberation Entertainment has cut a deal with David Frost's David Paradine Television banner for North American homevid rights to the 28 hours of interviews that Frost conducted with the former prez in 1977. The first volume, to be released Dec. 2 (three days before the Frank Langella/Michael Sheen pic opens), will focus on the meatiest Watergate-centric material. Hard to believe now but Frost had to cobble together an ad-hoc network of stations, syndication style, to carry the programs, and he had trouble recruiting advertisers at first....

...Ask and ye shall receive. I've been agitating in this space for someone to compile whatever remains of early TV's dramatic anthology series, so that these legendary programs and perfs can be appreciated by those of us who were born to late to catch them the first time around. The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation's Archive of American Television project has heard my plea.

The Archive has teamed with homevid distrib Koch Vision to release a DVD set next month featuring 17 digitally remastered "Studio One" episodes, including the famed 1954 production of Reginald Rose's "Twelve Angry Men" and all kinds of bonus retrospective features. The "Studio One" set will be the first release under the newly minted "Archive of American Television Presents" banner, which promises to deliver the goods for us TV geeks.

The "Studio One" set also includes two episodes penned by Rod Serling (1954's "The Strike" and 1956's "The Arena"), segs starring Art Carney (1953's "Confessions of a Nervous Man") and Jack Lemmon (1949's "June Moon"). Can't wait....

"The only thing keeping you from being happy is the belief that you are alone."

There were about a half-dozen lines in tonight's "Mad Men" seg, "The Mountain King," that reverberated around my living room and demanded to scratched down on my notepad. The quotation above is one of them. I've got whiplash from trying to keep pace with the plot developments and appreciate the craftsmanship of this stirring, wildly intriguing penultimate installment of "Mad Men's" sophomore season.

The themes and the visuals in "Mountain King" hark back to plot points and tidbits from earlier this season and in season one; it's no surprise the seg was written by Matthew Weiner and Robin Veith and helmed by Alan Taylor, the "Sopranos" alum who directed the "Mad Men" pilot.

We get a glimpse into how Dick Whitman crossed over into fully inhabiting the body, if not the soul, of one Korean War casualty, Don Draper. But of course, the glimpse only leaves us with a few million questions to fill in -- hello, season three.

Before trying to connect all those threads, it's worth a recap of what transpired in this action-packed seg for core "Mad Men" characters. (We'll leave Don for last.)

Peggy Olson: We are treated to the sight of Peggy Olson shedding her mousy I'm-not-worthy skin and sticking up for herself. She politely but firmly asks to be released from her banishment with the Xerox machine and to move into Freddy Rumsen's vacant office. It's appropriate, given that she's taken on so many of his duties.

We see her nail a new client in a heart-tugging pitch for Popsicles after she reaches back into her childhood for insights into how to sell those frozen treats as a year-round packaged good at the supermarket rather than a summertime treat bought off of an ice cream truck.
Peggy's flawless, supremely confident presentation to the Popsicle execs recalled Draper's killer pitch for Kodak's slide device in season one's closer "The Wheel" (also penned by Weiner and Veith). "Take it, break it, share it, love it." Sheesh, it almost sent me to the box of Popsicles in my freezer.

Peggy's haircut and wardrobe makeover that have been unfolding during the past few segs paved the way, but the last rocket-boost of confidence that got her the office upgrade stemmed from her score with Popsicle, and from the talking-to she receives from the Xerox repair guy. He's unwittingly prescient: "This is a sensitive piece of machinery. I you want it to work you have to treat it with respect."

The really beautifully shot, wordless scene of Peggy in the office alone after dark, stretching and rooting around in a secretary's desk for a cig (when did she start smoking, anyway?) signaled her ascent. She's a player now.

Sunday update-update:

The ratings are in and they are gi-normous. (Good grief, don't let this be an omen for Nov. 4.) Sarah Palin's appearance pushed "Saturday Night Live" to its highest numbers in 14 years, since the show was hosted by another telegenic brunette thrust into the national spotlight, Olympic figure skater Nancy Kerrigan, on March 12, 1994.

"SNL" pulled a 10.7 rating/24 share in Nielsen's 56 overnight metered markets, which cover more than 70% of U.S. TV households. To put it in perspective, that number is 161% higher than the show's average last October, and 47% higher than last week's seg. It's lofty enough to make "SNL" the No. 3 program of last week, behind ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" and CBS' "CSI," on a household rating basis. (Final national viewer tally and demographic breakdown won't be available until Thursday.)

As I said below, Palin may not be bound for the Beltway next year but she will undoubtedly be in the market for a good TV agent come Nov. 5.

Sunday update:

OK. Gotta give Sarah Palin a few points for having a sense of humor, though I couldn't help but think "desperation time" while watching her two appearances on last night's "Saturday Night Live" (posted below), in the cold open and in the "Weekend Update" seg. Lorne Michaels (did Palin call him "Lauren"? -- it sure sounded like that to me) and Alec Baldwin played their parts perfectly (with a cool cameo from Mark Wahlberg to boot). Watching Palin and Fey pass each other was definitely worth the price of admission. And for the record, I would like to see the "30 Rock" sketch that Palin wrote. (Michaels flexed some self-depricating -deprecating muscle of his own in telling her "not enough people know that show.")

Can anyone explain why there's a life-size prop of a cow, or some other farm animal, in the background and Michaels and Palin are talking backstage? Is it part of a running gag, or maybe just a political commentary from "SNL's" prop master? After all, the hind end was pointed squarely at Palin.

If the polls keep going the way they're going, and the endorsements, a la Colin Powell's big news this ayem, keep going the Obama-Biden camp's way, I'm thinking Palin still gets her national platform -- a show on Fox News Channel or some other outlet. No matter what you think of her politics, you can't deny that the woman is telegenic, and she's already got her on-air signature -- her kitten-ish wink -- down pat.

Posted Saturday:

Sarah Palin's visit to "Saturday Night Live" tonight should make for a must-see vid clip, no matter what transpires.

The folks at Hulu are so charged up about the GOP veep nominee's potential to deliver the Super Bowl of viral vid (remember those debate ratings?) that on Friday they emailed out a "placeholder" link to the clip on their site. It should become real thing around 2 a.m. PST Sunday, after "SNL" airs on the West Coast.

Those Internet types, they think of everything.

Here's more evidence that there's just not enough time in the day to watch everything that you should.

Readers of this blog know I'm a mega-fan of Craig Ferguson and of "The Big Bang Theory," and so I'm sorry to say that I'm just now catching up with the appearance by "Big Bang" co-star Jim Parsons (pictured right) on the Oct. 1 edition of CBS' "The Late Late Show."

It's Parsons' first-ever latenight TV appearance, as he notes right off the bat, getting the audience on his side (as if they could resist him anyway).

Parsons seems to go in and out of playing himself and his "Big Bang" geekster character Sheldon in this 10-minute seg, but no matter. It makes for engaging live (to tape) TV because you can see some genuine nervousness on Parsons' part, but his natural wit and charm carries him through just fine.

Ferguson isn't easy on him -- it's nothing like a typical plug-the-show/where-you-from chatshow interview (for one thing, a few coffee cups go flying) -- but the tangents he takes give Parsons more opportunities to score.

TV's Craig Ferguson has reason to be feeling a little feisty these days. He's enjoying a slight ratings bounce so far this season. "Late Late Show" won the week ended Oct. 10 and is essentially tied with NBC's "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" for season-to-date bragging rights in the 12:35-1:35 a.m. time slot.

Ferguson's uptick is fueled in part by CBS' solid momentum in primetime, and NBC's lack thereof. But I like to think that talent, as evidenced by the Parsons clip, has something to do with it too.

Sad to hear of the passing on Wednesday of Edie Adams, a great lady of the small screen, legit and movies.

I had the pleasure of meeting her a few times, and interviewing her once at length at her home (thank you, Henri Bollinger). She was bubbly and funny and full of anecdotes about working in the early days of television.

Adams was, of course, the widow of TV legend Ernie Kovacs, and anyone who could go toe to toe with him in on myriad TV programs in the 1950s and early '60s had to have mega talent, and that she did. A classically trained singer who graduated from Juilliard, Adams was a founding member of the Nairobi Trio. It doesn't get much cooler than that.

Adams fiercely protected Kovacs' legacy after his untimely death in 1962, and she famously toiled for years to pay off the debts left behind by her high-life-loving Hungarian genius (the daffy duo is pictured below).

She won a Tony for playing Daisy Mae in "Lil Abner," and in addition to working with Kovacs on his shows, she did tons of TV, from her own musical-variety show to a zillion guest shots. She was also a fixture in TV and print ads with comically sexy blurbs for Muriel cigars (Kovacs was a famous consumer of stogies).

In film, the movies that jump to mind are "The Best Man" (an underrated classic, IMHO, with Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson); "The Apartment" ("Mad Men" fanatics owe a debt of gratitude to that pic); and her brief but memorable turn in Cheech and Chong's "Up in Smoke."

Here's a great interview that the Archive of American Television did with Adams in 1998.

Interesting to see the networks getting more aggressive about reporting their DVR numbers.

ABC today is touting "Grey's Anatomy" (pictured above) retaining its crown as the most-DVR'd show of the season so far. The medical drama's Sept. 25 season preem numbers (18.5 million viewers, 7.4 in 18-49) don't look so soft when you add in 2.7 million viewers and 1.3 demo rating points from DVR playback viewing in the week after the premiere telecast. (The premiere ratings are based on the new industry standard of Live-Plus-Same Day, which means the aud for the initial telecast plus those that watched it on the same day of the preem.)

ABC also reports that "Desperate Housewives," "Boston Legal" and "Brothers and Sisters" added 1 million viewers or more to their preem numbers through DVR viewing. "Grey's," "Boston Legal," "Ugly Betty" and "Brothers and Sisters" registered gains of 10% or more in the demo derby too, according to ABC.

CBS also sent out a bunch of info on its premiere week DVR ratings. "CSI: Miami," "NCIS," "The Mentalist" (pictured right), "Without a Trace," "Criminal Minds" and "Two and a Half Men" all padded their opening-night numbers by 1 million or more viewers.

The lag time in getting the DVR numbers out seems so incongruous in this era of non-stop, insta-information. But it's also true that success breeds success. A show that performs poorly in the old-fashioned overnights is not likely to turn the corner when the DVR numbers are factored in. But strong shows look even stronger when the ratings yardstick is stretched out to include the DVR aud.

Am I the only one who's noticed that CBS' "The Big Bang Theory" is nowhere to be found on the Web, at least in full-episode mode.

It's not available via web streaming, nor are episodes from this season available on iTunes. I discovered this the hard way the other day when I missed its regular Monday 8 p.m. airing. I went to CBS.com thinking I could easily catch up online. There were plenty of clips but no full episodes. Last season, full-length "Big Bang" adventures were readily available via CBS.com; I spent plenty of time watching them late at night when I should've been working on stories.

"Big Bang" studio Warner Bros. TV confirms the online rights are being held back to sweeten future syndication deals with local stations. Warner Bros. did the same thing with "Two and a Half Men" -- local stations that paid big bucks for the off-net rights to the show also got the rights to stream segs on their station websites.

I understand the business logic of this approach, but in this era where viewers are accustomed to having on-demand access to top shows, it's pennywise and pound foolish to not allow at least limited streaming or paid download access to a few recent segs -- especially when so many other programs are so widely disbursed on the web.

When fans get the urge to hang with Sheldon and Leonard and the gang, you don't want to make them hard to find.

Heavenly shades of night -- this sounds like a blast. "Mad Men" cast members will host an old-fashioned, Rat Pack-style music and comedy revue next week at the El Rey Theater as a fundraiser for the L.A. chapter of the Recording Academy.

Lionsgate is calling it "a night of music, comedy and cocktails," and to facilitate the latter it has recruited Chivas Regal as a sponsor. Cast members set to appear include Bryan Batt (Salvatore Romano) pictured left; Michael Gladis (Paul Kinsey); Maggie Siff (Rachel Menken); Robert Morse (Bert Cooper); Mark Moses (Duck Phillips); Patrick Fischler (Jimmy Barrett); Melinda McGraw (Bobbi Barrett); Colin Hanks (Father Gill); Alison Brie (Trudy Campbell); Crista Flanagan (Lois Sadler); and Joel Murray (Freddy Rumsen). Also on tap are "Mad Men" scribe Robin Veith, director Michael Uppendahl, set designer Adam Rowe, set decorator Amy Wells and costume designer Janie Bryant.

"Mad Men" composer David Carbonara said he got the idea "A Night on the Town with 'Mad Men'" after hearing that BBC radio hosted a "Mad Men" night playing songs from the era. The fundraiser will benefit the local Recording Acad chapter's music education and professional development programs. (As an added bonus, the El Rey happens to be a stone's throw from Variety's office.)

"Since fans always say the show makes them want a cocktail, I thought the perfect way to quench that ‘Mad Men’ thirst would be to do a live, musical show featuring our actors and celebrating not just the music but the culture of the time," Carbonara said. "In the early 1960s these kind of shows were very popular; Ed Sullivan, Jackie Gleason and, of course, the Rat Pack loved to combine musical numbers with easy going banter and comedy – so why not bring back that format for all of us who watch the show and want to step into it for a night?”

Hey, I'm there.

Let's call this one "The Hobo Code," part II, in which our "Mad Men" hero Don Draper runs away from his problems in New York, runs away some more and then gets smacked in the face with Palm Springs heat and the reality of how his actions are likely to affect his kids.

Episode 11, "The Jet Set," is one of those intriguing hours of the show in which at first it doesn't seem like much is happening, but on reflection there's a whole lot of moving and shaking below the surface.

In this seg, penned by Matthew Weiner and helmed by Phil Abraham, we learn, to use Ken Cosgrove's shorthand, that "Kurt's a homo," and that Peggy Olson with her strict Catholic upbringing is a model of tolerance and respect for diversity (Can we enlist Peggy to help fight California's evil anti-same sex marriage initiative, Prop. 8?).

We learn that Duck Phillips really is an incredible schemer, with a few martinis in his belly, and it sure seems like he's been laying in wait for his attemped Sterling Cooper coup attempt for a while.

We learn that Jane Siegel really shouldn't be writing poetry. We learn that Pete Campbell is just not a West Coast kind of guy. And in the most tantalizing tidbit, we learn there's someone out there somewhere that Dick Whitman, not Don Draper, wants to see -- "soon."

There's lots more to digest.

As a fan of all things Cloris Leachman, I was very happy to see the news about her selection as grand marshal of the 2009 Rose Parade cross the wire on Friday. After the week this country has endured, America needs a little Leachman.

How can you not love a performer who always seems to enjoy -- no, revel -- in what she's doing, whether the material is worthy of her talent or not.

And she doesn't seem to have taken a day off since she started working steady in television some 60 years ago. It's been quite a ride for this daughter of Des Moines, from her secretarial days on "Charlie Wild, Private Detective" (which ran variously on CBS, ABC and DuMont from 1950-52) to strutting her stuff on "Dancing With the Stars."

As an added bonus, Leachman is a good friend of Betty White. What's not to like?

This really made me laugh.

It's "I've come for an argument"/"How to walk silly"/"This parrot has ceased to be" funny. It's a poem about a certain TV journo, penned by John Cleese and delivered with aplomb by Keith Olbermann on tonight's edition of MSNBC's "Countdown."

(As usual, my husband, who was a "Countdown" fan before "Countdown" was cool, deserves a finder's fee.)

Ode to Sean Hannity

Aping urbanity,
oozing with vanity,
plump as a manatee,
faking humanity.
Journalistic calamity,
intellectual inanity,
Fox Noise insanity.
You're a profanity, Hannity.

Listen up, "Ugly Betty" fans. Variety's Season Pass blog has a Mode-errific interview with showrunner Silvio Horta, the scribe with the brightest smile in Hollywood (as evidenced at left).

Horta touches on a little bit of everything about the show in the Q&A conducted by Kathy Lyford from questions submitted by fans. Among the topics he touches is how the relationship between Betty and Gio, played by Freddy Rodriguez, developed.

As Horta explains:

I've always known Freddy Rodriguez to be an outstanding actor, but even so, I never expected the chemistry that he brought — it was simply incredible. Obviously, we saw this chemistry immediately and that did affect certain details of Betty and Gio's relationship. In other words, we utilized the chemistry America and Freddy brought to the show by writing scenes with that same chemistry in mind.

To: John McCain

Re: Your mailbox is full

You have exceeded (after the first hour of tonight's debate) the storage capacity of the "American people" for accepting "my friends," and its singular counterpart "my friend," as a folksy term of endearment. You do not have sufficient friends in the United States to continue using this expression ad nauseum in nationally televised live events.

Please contact your campaign administrator for further instructions on how to delete this phrase from your hard drive.

Thank you,

On the Air IT department

There's lots of chatter on the web tonight about political comedy conspiracies and NBC's motivation for yanking a biting "Saturday Night Live" sketch from this past weekend that needles a few prominent liberal billionaires.

Los Angeles Times scribe Mary McNamara gets to the heart of the whole thing in an interview with "SNL" boss Lorne Michaels that was posted on the Times' Show Tracker blog Tuesday evening.

Michaels explains that the major issue with the sketch, which depicted a news conference to tubthump the plan held by Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank, was that he thought that two of the people portrayed in the sketch were fictional characters. In fact Herb and Marion Sandler are very real, and very rich from selling their subprime mortgage-pumping bank, Golden West Financial, to Wachovia for a cool $24 billion not so long ago.

Michaels told McNamara that he spoke to the Sandlers, and then made the call to pull the vid of the sketch off NBC.com, snip out some of the harshest (and probably legally actionable) comments out, and and then repost the kinder, gentler version.

Michaels sounds a little humbled by the experience. For the exec producer of "SNL," that's saying something.

First of all, I pleaded incompetence (when speaking to the Sandlers), which is not a thing I do often, and the fact that I did not know they were real is 100% my responsibility... I understand the Sandlers’ complaint. I think it’s not insignificant to read ‘People who should be shot’ underneath your name.

Michaels' comments are unlikely to quiet the conspiracy buffs who note that the Sandlers are big supporters of liberal causes, as is another public figure skewered in the sketch, George Soros.

Today's dust up over the sketch is likely to boost "SNL's" already soaring ratings. Why, it's almost as if the government, and the men and woman who would be our next prexy and veep, have staged their own bailout for this august American institution at the outset of its 34th season.

It's not often that I can impress my almost-8-year-old daughter and my husband at the same time.

Getting us tickets to Miley Cyrus' private 16th birthday party at Disneyland on Sunday, however, qualified as extremely cool in both of their books.

"Miley's Sweet 16" was a party of epic proportions that took over most of Frontierland and New Orleans square. It also marked an invasion of pre-teen, tween and teenage girls hopped up on adrenaline, Beatlemania-level fandemonium (based on the decibel-level of screaming our ears absorbed tonight) and the cupcakes with two inches of lavender icing on the cupcakes that were handed out to each guest in honor of the occasion.

The event included all kinds of Miley-themed special installations for the night, of course. The Golden Horseshoe was transformed into the site of the "Hannah Montana Dance Party." The courtyard adjacent to the Haunted Mansion (which has just lifted the veil on its annual "Nightmare Before Christmas" holiday-themed makeover as Haunted Mansion Holiday) turned into the "Miley Game Zone" full of vidgame installations, plus there were other crowd-pleasing amusements like a photo booth and "Hannah Montana Makeover Zone" offering girls the rock-star hair and makeup treatment.

Miley and her dad, Billy Ray Cyrus, performed a mini-concert on a stage set up on Tom Sawyer Island, which made for great visuals (projecting over the Rivers of America) for the crowd that gathered in New Orleans Square for the show. The event also doubled as a promotional booster for non-profit org Youth Service America, which aims to encourage volunteerism among the "Hannah Montana" demo. Disney head honcho Robert Iger came out between Miley tunes to deliver a $1 million donation from Disney to Youth Service America. ("Isn't this something," Iger said of the scene when we ran into him later.)

POSTED BY STUART LEVINE (Cynthia's thoughts below)

In this "Mad Men" episode titled “The Inheritance,” it isn’t so much the money that’s been left from generation to generation, but the mental trauma and screwed up parenting that leaves a lasting legacy.

For the first time, To start we get a very revealing glimpse of Betty’s family as her father, Gene, has suffered a second stroke — though, it turns out, Betty didn’t even know about the earlier one. Upon hearing the news in a latenight phone conversation, Don convinces Betty to be with her when she visits her family, but once they arrive it’s obvious why they would never come to visit on a regular basis.

While Betty’s mother died a while back, her stepmom is a cold, emotionless fish who doesn’t even attempt to have a relationship with her stepkids. Don looks at this family and finds it hard to imagine how someone could’ve grown up in a house so sterile and without feeling, though her mom was probably much more nurturing. It forces Don to have a better sense of who Betty is and how’s she gotten there.

Oh, to be in Nashville on Sunday.

CBS News' Bob Schieffer will be taking the stage at the Grand Ole Opry for the first time with his band, Honky Tonk Confidential. The Opry is hosting a special show Sunday evening in honor of the presidential debate to be held Tuesday at Nashville's Belmont U. That one will be moderated by NBC News' Tom Brokaw.

Schieffer gets his turn as a debate moderator on the third and final encounter between Barack Obama and John McCain on Oct. 15 at Hofstra U. in Hempstead, N.Y. On Sunday, Schieffer will be in good company on the Opry stage. He's landed the 8:10-8:15 p.m. slot, sandwiched between perfs by Tricia Yearwood and Brad Paisley.

Meanwhile, McCain and Obama will have their hands full trying to match the perf of their No. 2s last night. The Joe Biden-Sarah Palin debate drew a whopping 70 million viewers across the Big Four, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, Fox News, BBC America and Telemundo. It also out-drew the first McCain-Obama match (52.4 million) by nearly 20 million.

The Biden-Palin aud included 35.7 million femmes and 30.4 million men of voting age, according to Nielsen. (Among the Big Three, ABC grabbed the most with 13.1 million, followed by 12.8 million on NBC and 11.1 million on CBS. Fox News registered its most-watched telecast ever with 11.1 million.)

The Biden-Palin bout easily out-rated the previous most-watched veep debate, Geraldine Ferraro-George Bush in 1984 (56.7 million), and the 2004 contest between John Edwards and Dick Cheney (43.6 million).

Only a been-there/greenlit-that showbizzer like Leonard Goldberg could bring together the motley crew of Sumner Redstone, Michael Eisner, Leslie Moonves, Jerry Weintraub, Bill Blinn, Harry Sloan, Jonathan Dolgen, Arnold Kopelson, Ed Zwick and Peter Bart on a night when there was a compelling boxing match on TV.

But the Paley Center for Media months ago dated Thursday night for its salute to Goldberg's long career in film and TV, and his friends and longtime colleagues weren't about to let him down, not even for the spectacle of Biden vs. Palin.

It is a testament to Goldberg's legacy as an innovator and successful producer that the conversation was much more a lively discussion about television's present and future than it was a rose-colored nostalgia trip back into the past.

"The problem is, it's nobody's money," Goldberg opined when the conversation turned to the ever-spiraling costs of TV production.

During the years of his very fruitful producing partnership with Aaron Spelling in the 1970s and '80s (count the hits: "The Rookies," "SWAT," "Starsky & Hutch," "Family," "Charlie's Angels," "Fantasy Island," "Hart to Hart"), Goldberg recalled, "if we went over budget, it was our money. We decided when we would (need to) go over budget, because it was our money...If more people were given the opportunity to independently produce (today), I think you'd see people figure out ways to do it for less."

Variety boss Bart moderated spirited debate about the state of the biz, then and now, among Goldberg, Eisner (his former underling at ABC), writer Blinn (who penned "Brian's Song" and "Starsky and Hutch" for Goldberg) and multihyphenate Zwick (who cut his teeth in his 20s on "Family").

(Pictured above, from left, Eisner, Goldberg and Bart.)

Happy to see that CBS had traction again on Tuesday with "The Mentalist."

No question about it, the show is holding fast to its "NCIS" lead-in and it was very competitive in the 9 p.m. hour with ABC's "Dancing With the Stars." In its second outing, "Mentalist" matched its opening week numbers with an average of 15.3 million viewers and 3.5 rating/9 share in the adults 18-49 demo, per prelim Nielsens. Variety's ratings guru Rick Kissell has all the details on Tuesday night right here.

"Mentalist" is shaping up to be a win for the good guys. People who work with Simon Baker always rave about what a good guy he is (not to mention being easy on the eyes), and I'm told that "Mentalist" creator/exec producer Bruno Heller is getting great reviews as a showrunner from CBS, Warner Bros. TV and, perhaps most importantly, his staff.