Walter Cronkite is gone. Long live his legacy of great journalism.

I can't possibly describe what Cronkite meant to broadcasting and to American culture better than Brian Lowry has on his BLTV blog, so click right here for Brian's spot-on appreciation.

On a deeply personal level, this is one of those passings that really feels like a member of the family -- that was Cronkite's gift, after all. Another piece of the world as it was when I was a kid has died, and I cherish my idealized memories of that time enough to mourn for that reason alone.

"The CBS Evening News" was "the news" when I was growing up. To this day, my mom and dad are CBS News loyalists. They watch local KCBS-TV (KNXT to us old-timers) news in the late afternoon and on through the "CBS Evening News." Sure, they flip around to CNN and MSNBC now and then (Dad has crush on Rachel Maddow) but when it's time for them to watch "the news," they head on over to channel 2.

So that's a long-winded way of saying that Cronkite's voice was part of the soundtrack of my childhood. He came on right after dinner like clockwork. And his was the voice of the god of truth in current events as far as my family was concerned. If Cronkite reported it, it was the gospel.

When I first started working for UPI and learned that Cronkite had been a Unipresser (actually he worked for United Press, before it acquired the "I"), I was proud to be even remotely part of the same organization that schooled young Walter (that was before I'd worked there very long).

We knew his death was imminent -- last month Cronkite's family released a statement saying that he was gravely ill and unlikely to recuperate (reporting accurately and diligently to the end). But it was still a jolt when I heard the news break on the radio (a CBS-owned station) while driving with my daughter this evening.

I agree with George Clooney, who observed: "He was the most important voice in our lives for thirty years. And that voice made people reach for the stars. I hate the world without Walter Cronkite."

-30-

Here's a great vid of Walter Cronkite from his 1998 interview with the TV Acad's Archive of American Television

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.)

As a tribute to a great American, someone in TV land needs to get a hold of the kinescope of the 1956 "U.S. Steel Hour" production of "Bang the Drum Slowly" and showcase this gem starring Paul Newman, Albert Salmi and George Peppard. TCM, AMC, PBS, ESPN Classic, TV Land -- I'm talking to you.

In doing a little research, I noticed that "Bang the Drum" first aired on CBS on Sept. 26, 1956 -- 52 years to the day that Newman died of cancer at age 83. It was the first adaptation of Mark Harris' heart-tugging novel, published the same year, about a baseball player who is desperate to hide his terminal illness from his teammates.

Newman plays the team's star pitcher Henry Wiggens, narrator of the novel, who tries to help his friend Bruce Pierson (Salmi) hide his condition.

I saw this version of "Bang the Drum" once years ago -- it was either on PBS or TV Land (back when TV Land wasn't afraid of black and white programs) -- and I remember the famous opening with Newman addressing the aud on a dark stage.

The presentation had that extra bit of crackle and snap that comes with live dramatic TV, plus the retro-excitement of knowing that you're watching an important moment in the career ascent of a great actor. As an added bonus, the young twinkly-eyed Newman is breathtakingly handsome.

Who knew jokes about proctologists and urologists could be so charming? It's all in the delivery, and writer-producer Donna Kanter's docu short "Lunch" has the goods.

The pic documents a social phenomenon that has been taking place every other Wednesday for 40 years at the Valley Inn in Sherman Oaks. A small group of showbiz scribes, an actor, a comic and  sportscaster or two have been gathering there to break bread, swap stories and generally enjoy one another's company, and the hospitality of their longtime waitress, Valerie.

The group includes Shelley Berman, Rocky Kalish, Gary Owens, Paul Pumpian, John Rappaport, Gil Stratton and Kanter's dad, famed multihyphenate Hal Kanter. The 38-minute doc, which screens Friday night at the WGA Theater in BevHills, is a sweet tribute to these industry vets who still have plenty of good lines in them. (Hal and Donna Kanter pictured right)

The project grew out of a Directors Guild of America workshop that Donna Kanter attended with famed docu maker Chuck Workman. It was designed to be "a rewarding exercise...I didn't expect it to be more than an etude," she says.

"You can't trust people who haven't walked through kitchens."

That was a vintage Bernie Brillstein-ism, according to his longtime friend and client Lorne Michaels. Michaels translates the Bernie bon mot to mean that talent needs to be honed through hard work and experience, and for comics, that often means the grueling biz of working nightclubs. And in many nightclubs, you have to walk through the kitchen to get to the stage.

Having spent most of the day talking to people about Brillstein (pictured with his wife, Carrie), who died Thursday at 77, I think I can safely say that the single-most defining aspect of his character was his "love of the game," as so many of his friends put it. He enjoyed the shoe-leather work of going to see a comic, or a play, or reading a spec script, or bumping into a promising staff writer on the set of a flailing TV show.

The latter scenario is how he met Michaels, 40 years ago on a Burbank soundstage that was briefly home to "The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show." The show was anything but beautiful, but it did mark the first U.S. job of a young Canuck scribe who was destined to meet his manager and mentor while working on that NBC show (and the two of them were destined to link arms and muscle "Saturday Night Live" on the air seven years later).

"The first night (on 'Beautiful') the taping went to 2:30 in the morning. We all spent a lot of time in the halls waiting around. And there was this guy Bernie who was both funny and profane and smart in a way that I'd never really experienced before," Michaels remembered.

Michael Feinstein did a special rendition of "Of Thee I Sing," and everyone called her a "national treasure." And they meant it, and then some.

Thursday night's tribute to Betty White at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences on the occasion of her 60th year in television was Woodstock for Betty-philes.

(Hundreds were turned away at the door, causing some tense moments for security, but to my knowledge there were no reports of bad acid going around. Special thanks to ATAS staffers for hearing my pleas and letting me in a wee bit late -- infernal Hollywood Bowl traffic!)

It's no accident that everyone who came out on the stage, decked out with a living room sofa (the natural habitat of her fans), went on and on about how much they "adore" her. She is, in fact, adorable. Other superlatives that got a workout by longtime friends and coworkers trying to describe how much they love her Betty White-ness included: Kindness. Generosity. Joie de Vivre. Cheerful. Funny. Lively. Dedicated. A pro. Genuine. Spectacular. Animal savior. Always a lady. First Lady of Television.

The more than two-hour Betty bonanza included a reunion of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" cast. MTM, Valerie Harper, Cloris Leachman, Georgia Engel, Ed Asner and Gavin MacLeod -- the sight of them together again brought the sold-out crowd to its feet and a lump to my throat for sure. And it was telling about the spirit of that great MTM Prods. show that when "Mary Tyler Moore" co-creator Allan Burns was spotlighted in the audience, the cast got on its feet and gave him a standing o.

Betty's big night also commanded a rare public speaking appearance (and visit to the Valley) by "Golden Girls" co-creator Susan Harris. Harris announced that she'd downed a few tranquilizers for the occasion and instructed moderator Pete Hammond not to talk. (Ever the gracious host, Hammond kept quiet.)

Harris spoke of how Betty never failed to "lift everyone up" every day she was on the set during the seven seasons of "Golden Girls." She confessed that the writers got lazy writing scenes for Betty's Rose character because of her skill at making even mediocre material sing.

And then Harris drop a few Montana-sized hints about the one person on the set that didn't entirely care for Betty's "up-ness," and it wasn't Rue McClanahan, who sent in a vid message, and it wasn't Estelle Getty, who was remembered with a round of applause at Betty's instigation.

"No lie, I love her and I admire her," Betty said of Bea Arthur, without mentioning her by name.

"They don't know who we're talking about," Harris said. "The hell they do," Betty replied.

It's only fitting that it's been a busy news week -- Eliot Spitzer, Microsoft-Yahoo, Federal Reserve bailouts, Clinton-vs.-Obama, AOL-Bebo, Electronic Arts-Take-Two, and so on -- as the longest-running news broadcast in history marks its 70th birthday today.

CBS News Radio's "World News Roundup" bowed on March 13, 1938, marking the first time correspondents in various cities around the globe were brought together for a regularly skedded live broadcast. And the program's preem also marked the CBS debut of a newsman we've heard a lot about since, Edward R. Murrow.

Murrow was stationed in Vienna, CBS News pioneer Robert Trout held down the homefront in Gotham, another legendary Eye newsman, William L. Shirer was based in London and there were other correspondents weighing in from Paris, Rome and Berlin. Given the era, at the time the big story was the simmering tensions in Europe that would soon explode into World War II. (Click here for a link to hear the first "World News Roundup" broadcast and its 50th anniversary special. And click here for a link to the program's contempo podcast.)

Reflecting on those early days in a 1958 CBS broadcast, Murrow noted that those early "World News" broadcasts were as up to the minute as you could get, and mostly live without a net. (Today, CBS Radio reporters can report live from pretty much anywhere in the world using a palm-sized bit of wireless equipment.)

"In those days before and during most of the war, we were not permitted to use recordings. Everything was live and moved directly from the reporter's microphone into your home," Murrow observed. "One of the advantages in reporting through a medium as fast as radio is that you don't have the time or the inclination to look back."

Hmmm, sound familiar?

(Pictured above: Murrow at the mic, circa 1954. Pictured right, Robert Trout and Douglas Edwards at the "World News Roundup" 50th anniversary party.)

Rest in peace, Suzanne Pleshette. What a great actress, saucy but always kinda sweet, too. She was so good, she made anything she appeared in that much better. Pleshette, who died Saturday at the age of 70, was the only reason I watched more than 5 minutes of the forgettable NBC sitcom "Good Morning Miami" a few seasons ago. And she was a laugh riot a few months back at "The Bob Newhart Show" reunion held at the Paley Center for Media. (Click here for that post.)

Pleshette had been through a lot in the past year, with the death of her third husband, comedian-actor Tom Poston, and her own cancer treatments, but she was upbeat and funny, letting loose with that famous signature laugh of hers. They way those "Bob Newhart" cast members were gushing about one another that night in September, I know Bob Newhart, Bill Daily, Jack Riley, Marcia Wallace and probably every one else who worked on "Bob Newhart" are feeling a huge loss this ayem, as are Pleshette fans around the world.

It's hard to not feel a little melancholy when you're working on a year-end obit package.

Assembling a list of notables who died during a 12-month time span is like taking stock of how much the world you once knew is disappearing. Although I don't often admit it in the company of non-journos, I (usually) like working on obits. It's challenging work, usually against a tight deadline, and I feel a certain responsibility to do right by the person. I often hear Mrs. Loman's famous command in my head: "Attention must be paid."

In that spirit, here is an electronic chronicle of those who left their mark on the TV biz. 2007 saw the  passing of industry titans the likes of Jack Valenti, Merv Griffin, Tom Snyder  and Roger King; influential hyphenates including Sidney Sheldon, Mel Shavelson, Martin Manulis, Mel Tolkin and Bob Carroll, Jr.; and a local TV news icon in Hal Fishman.

It was a tough year for "Match Game" fans, with Charles Nelson Reilly and Brett Somers heading in to the blank hereafter. And no obit in the pages of Variety this year was more heartbreaking than that of Cartoon Network exec Jennifer Davidson, 38, who was a charter member of the cabler's staff and a mother of three.

(Here's the link to part one if you're just joining us.)

AUGUST

Hal Fishman, 75, news anchor who was a fixture of L.A.'s airwaves for 40 years, primarily on KTLA-TV. Fishman was known for his rat-tat-tat delivery style, his occasional conservative-leaning editorials and his interest in aviation. Here's the tribute to Fishman that ran on KTLA's 10 p.m. newscast on the day Fishman died, Aug. 7.

Merv Griffin, 82, multihyphenate who began as a band singer and died a billionaire real estate mogul. In between, Griffin hosted a popular syndicated talk show for more than 20 years and created two of the most successful shows in history in "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy." Merv, as he was known to all, was one of those ubiquitous entertainers who was seemingly everywhere when I was a kid, as I waxed on about in this remembrance. And here's a fun clip of Merv and Don Rickles going at it on "The Merv Griffin Show" in 1985.

Melville Shavelson, 90, prolific film and TV scribe whose credits include "The Danny Thomas Show." Also a three-time prexy of WGA West. Here's a link to part 1 of his nine-part Archive of American Television interview from 1999.

SEPTEMBER

Alice Ghostley, 81, actress, a Tony-winner best known for her nervous-housewife persona exemplified by her role as the ditsy Aunt Esmerelda on "Bewitched."

Martin Manulis, 92, producer, creative steward of CBS' "Playhouse 90" who was responsible for such landmark TV drama productions as "Requiem for a Heavyweight" and "The Miracle Worker." Manulis was a guy Rod Serling respected, and that's saying something. Here's a link to part one of his 11-part Archive of American Television interview.

Brett Somers, 83, stage actress known for her long stint on "Match Game." She played Oscar Madison's ex on "The Odd Couple" and was Mrs. Jack Klugman for a time in real-life too. Here's a representative clip featuring Somers parrying with "Match Game" host Gene Rayburn.

OCTOBER

Joey Bishop, 89, the stone-faced, cool cat comic who was the last surviving member of the Rat Pack. Bishop made a number of stabs at TV, including a domestic comedy and a bid to challenge Johnny Carson's dominance of latenight with show that ran on ABC from 1967-69. Below are two great clips, and more Nehru jackets than you can shake your love beads at, from the latenight "Joey Bishop Show."

In the first, Sammy Davis Jr. tries to teach Joey to tap dance. The second is a nice long monologue clip that also features Bishop's sidekick, Regis Philbin.

Gary Franklin, 79, L.A. TV reporter and film reviewer for KABC-TV Los Angeles and KCBS-TV Los Angeles, who was known for rating films on his "Franklin scale of 1-10, 10 being best."

NOVEMBER

Mel Tolkin, 94, writer-producer who had the formidable job as head writer on Sid Caesar's "Your Show of Shows." He was a guy who could make Caesar laugh, and corral a room that featured such wits as Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Larry Gelbert, Lucille Kallen and Woody Allen. Here's a link to part one of his eight-party Archive of American Television interview from 1997.

Verity Lambert, 71, pioneering femme British TV exec and producer. Lambert was the first female and youngest exec to work for the BBC in the early 1960s. She also was the first producer of the worldwide cult fave "Dr. Who." Here's a fan video tribute that hits the highlights of her remarkable career.

DECEMBER

Jennifer Davidson, 38, who was one of the first 15 people hired at Cartoon Network in the early 1990w, rising to senior veep of programming and scheduling. She was part of the team that spearheaded the launch of Adult Swim in 2001. Here's a link to a story from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution featuring remembrances from family and friends.

Roger King, 63, leader of King World Prods. and one of the most successful entrepreneurs in TV history. King World prospered with enduring hits, "Wheel of Fortune," "Jeopardy" and "The Oprah Winfrey Show," that spurred the growth of the first-run syndie biz in the 1980s and '90s. As King World grew, so did Roger's reputation as a master salesman with an encyclopedic knowledge of TV stations and local markets. Here's a link to part one of his three-part Archive of American Television interview, and here are links to the remembrances posted here in the days after his death. 

Stu Nahan, 81, longtime broadcaster and sports reporter for various L.A. outlets who earned the nickname "Skipper Stu" after hosting a kidvid show of the same name early on in his career.

Floyd Red Crow Westerman, 71, actor and activist, Westerman was a passionate advocate of Native American causes and filmmakers and recognized for his work on "Dances with Wolves" and "Northern Exposure," among many other movies and TV skeins. Here's a video interview with Westerman from 2004 that illustrates the depth of his intelligence and dedication to advancing the cause of Native Americans in all fields.

"He was my partner in everything," Michael King said on Sunday morning, his voice catching every so often as he spoke of his older brother, Roger King, the industry titan who died unexpectedly on Saturday at age 63.

The brothers worked shoulder to shoulder for nearly 30 years to build King World Prods. into the preeminent syndie distrib of the 1980s and '90s as the home of power hitters "Wheel of Fortune," "Jeopardy" and "The Oprah Winfrey Show," and more recently "Dr. Phil" and "Rachael Ray."

Roger King knew just about everyone in the broadcasting biz, but Michael knew Roger in a way that only a brother and trusted business partner could. (Michael is pictured at right, Roger at left.)

"The King brothers always hung out together, before there was a King World, back when we lived on what was basically a farm on the Jersey shore. Our whole family always did fun stuff together, and we were always talking about the business we revered and how we were going to grow in it," Michael said.

As Roger was always quick to state, the King clan's success was rooted in the lessons they learned from their father, Charles King, who also worked in radio and TV sales. Charles preached integrity and honesty to his six kids (two other brothers, Robert and Richard, and two girls, Diana and Karen), and the importance of always looking out for the long-term relationship over the short-term gain. Charles' fortunes in showbiz never matched that of his sons, but he was "a great salesman. So entertaining. He had a big laugh," Michael recalls.

"My dad said, 'Make a deal that both parties can walk away from smiling, and then give 'em a little more. You will do business with them your whole career.' He said you have to remember that you come in to the room with your integrity and it's the only thing you leave with. Taking every dime off the table in a deal is bad business. It's really short-sighted. We learned from that."

His favorite song was "Rags to Riches." That sez a lot about Roger King, the sui generis TV exec who died Saturday at 63.

His death, coming a day after he suffered a stroke Friday morning at his home in Boca Raton, Fla., was a shock because of the sheer huge-ness of his husky 6-foot-4 presence and gravely, Rodney Dangerfield-esque baritone. He hadn't been ill of late, though he had lived with diabetes for years.

Remembering him on Saturday, friends and colleagues gently referenced that he'd live the high life and the hard life, and that was surely true. In Vegas and other gambling meccas, Roger would wager coin in $50,000 and $75,000 increments without blinking. (I almost threw up while observing this during a NATPE confab many moons ago.) His carousing in the mid 1980s and early 1990s landed him in mild legal trouble (an arrest for cocaine possession and for stealing, briefly, a taxi cab) and a stint in rehab.

But as much as he liked to play, Roger was at heart a businessman and a tireless worker. Long after he and his company King World Prods. had made billions and changed the landscape of the TV biz with hits like "Wheel of Fortune," "Jeopardy" and, of course, "The Oprah Winfrey Show," he stayed on the road making sales calls to TV stations in markets large, medium and small. People marveled that Roger spent so much time on the road, making personal calls on station owners in markets that had less overall ad coin than King World's annual revenues. Roger did it because he loved the game, the thrill of the hunt, and he had real affection for the broadcasting biz and the people in it.

He knew every TV station general manager from San Diego to Paducah, Ky., and all points in between, and he always blew away his sales targets with the depth of his knowledge of the competitive picture in each market. He prided himself on his mental Rolodex. He came in with a casual "Hi howya doin' attitude" and a slap on the back (which would often make the recipient airborne) and then launch into a relentless but sophisticated sales pitch with hurricane-force wind.

It's not for nothing that Merv Griffin was famously quoted as saying: "Roger King is without a doubt the greatest salesman in the history of anything, and I don't even limit him to just television. He could sell you anything."

"Playhouse 90" -- what a legacy. If Martin Manulis had only produced Rod Serling's "Requiem for a Heavyweight," he would forever have earned his place in TV history books.

But as the creator and chief steward of CBS' high-end dramatic anthology series, Manulis, who died last week at the age of 92, presided over many more great hours of television, most of them live, though "Playhouse 90" also ran "filmed presentations" about once a month. (Click here for Manulis' Variety obit.) Thanks to the Archive of American Television, click here for vid of a comprehensive 11-part interview of Manulis in 1997.

It's maddening that those of us born long after the skein ended its 1956-61 run have had scant opportunities to see these smallscreen gems. I've seen a kinescope of the original "Requiem," and it lived up to every inch of its advance billing. (With all due respect to Anthony Quinn and the 1962 feature version, once you've seen Jack Palance as the hard-luck boxer, you can't never go back.) I've also seen a beat-up copy of another breathtakingly good Rod Serling teleplay, "The Comedian," helmed by John Frankenheimer with a fearless perf from Mickey Rooney. And that's about it.

I'd love to see the original "Days of Wine and Roses" starring Cliff Robertson and Piper Laurie. I'd love to see Serling's "A Town Has Turned to Dust," with Rod Steiger and James Gregory. And I'd like to see at least some of the "Playhouse 90" segs that I've never heard a thing about. If I can turn on the tube any time day or night and find a repeat of the Ultimate-Fighting-Xtreme-Street-Skate'n'Spandex-Challenge semi-finals from 1997, why can't we have the Ultimate-Badass-TV-Dramatists-Showdown airing once a week or so on an artsy channel? Or how about a comprehensive, anotated DVD set? A "Playhouse 90" download-on-demand website?

(Pictured above: "Requiem" stars Keenan Wynn, Jack Palance and Ed Wynn. Pictured right: Manulis in 2004.)

There was a heartfelt "awwwww" at the breakfast table in my house this morning when we read the news of Alice Ghostley's passing. Ghostley was one of TV's great character-actress soldiers, known for being a regular on "Bewitched" -- her role as housekeeper and good witch Esmeralda on that show cemented her on-screen persona as the ditsy-nervous housefrau type -- and "Designing Women," plus a few thousand one-offs in which she always scored. (Peruse her IMDB listing right here, it's like a tour of TV from the early 1960s through the present day.)

Ghostley also did her share of supporting turns in movies, some of them classics including "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "The Graduate," and plenty of theater in the 1950s and '60s. (Click here for her AP obit.)

Whatever the forum, Ghostley was one of those actors who was just plain fun to watch, and listen to -- the distinctive nervous timbre of her voice was often a feature of her roles. (Even if you haven't caught a "Bewitched" rerun in 15 years, can't you just picture Esmeralda saying "Oooooohhhhhhh" and fiddling with her fingers?) R.I.P., Miss Ghostley, we'll miss you.

(Pictured: Alice Ghostley with her character-actor compadre Charles Nelson Reilly at a 1993 Friars Club event. Pic by Ron Galella/WireImage.)

I walked out of the Paley Center for Media in Bev Hills a tiny bit unsatisfied after taking in "The Bob Newhart Show" reunion tonight. The discussion among the core cast members (minus Peter Bonerz) was fun and funny, but low key. There were no jaw-dropping anecdotes or side-splitting stories of episodes gone wrong or saved in the clutch by a quick-witted crew member, etc. But it hit me by the time I got to my car. In all of its low-key-ness, it was the perfect tribute to "The Bob Newhart Show."

As discussed by Newhart and panelists Suzanne Pleshette, Marcia Wallace, Bill Daily, Jack Riley and helmer Dick Martin, "Bob Newhart" was a quiet ground-breaker in its 1972-78 run on CBS. While "Mary Tyler Moore," "All in the Family" and "MASH" soaked up the headlines for being convention-busting and envelope-pushing, Bob and Emily Hartley quietly shot scenes in bed together, with the emphasis on together. Newhart staked his claim to "Bob Newhart" being the first TV comedy to eschew twin beds for a more realistic queen-size mattress. And as fans of the show know, those talking-in-bed scenes are some of "Bob Newhart's" greatest moments.

Also unusual for the era was the concept that from the get-go, there were no kids in the picture for Bob and Emily, despite the fact that they obviously had the hots for each other; maybe Emily a little more so than Bob. As Pleshette put it in her trademark gravely-snarky voice, "If you listen quietly (in the bedroom scenes) you can hear me sticking my foot up his ass" to get her co-star going in the intimate setting.

Pictured above left: Suzanne Pleshette and Bob Newhart. Above right, clockwise from top, Marcia Wallace, Bill Daily, Jack Riley, Pleshette, Newhart and Dick Martin. Pics courtesy Paley Center/Kevin Parry Photography.

Come prepared to laugh. Variety's Army Archerd will host a tribute to multihyphenate Mel Shavelson, the industry vet who died earlier this month at the age of 90 (here's Variety's obit), on Aug. 28 at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills.

Shavelson (pictured at left from an Academy of Television Arts & Sciences event in June) was known for his long association as a writer-producer for Bob Hope and for his many feature screenplays -- including "Sorrowful Jones," "The Great Lover," "I'll See You in My Dreams," "April in Paris," "The Seven Little Foys" and "Yours, Mine and Ours" and a ton of other credits -- but he earned his place in TV history by penning the pilot for Danny Thomas' "Make Room for Daddy." (That show, which ran from 1953 to 1964 on ABC and later CBS, was the gift that kept on giving, through the magic of syndication and residuals, Shavelson was said to have often observed.)

Shavelson also served three terms as prexy of the Writers Guild of America West and generously donated a boatload of coin to establish the Writers Guild Foundation's Shavelson-Webb Library. By all accounts, Mel was an all-around standup guy and very funny man. I'm sure that sentiment will be shared on Aug. 28 with a lineup of speakers set to include fellow scribes Hal Kanter, Del Reisman, Mort Lachman, Sherwood Schwartz and thesp Angie Dickinson, who starred in the Shavelson-penned 1966 drama "Cast a Giant Shadow."

What a career. Band singer, actor, talkshow mogul, gameshow creator, hotel owner and general man about town. Merv Griffin, who died Sunday at 82, was sui generis, and will be missed. (For all the details about his impressive life and career, read the Variety.com obit.)

For those of us born before the Carter administration, Merv (he was always just "Merv") was one of those transcendent personalities that was always on TV in some form or another, either on his own show or as a guest on "The Tonight Show" or in the news for his business wheelings and dealings. The guy who first made his name singing "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts" made international headlines in 1986 in selling his Merv Griffin Enterprises, with its cash cows "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy!," to Coca-Cola (then owner of Columbia Pictures) for a whopping $250 million in 1986.

Merv genuinely loved television and had a knack for creating it. I remember having lunch with him and his longtime producing associate Ernie Chambers at the Beverly Hilton (or "Merverly Hilton," as Army Archerd cleverly dubbed it after Merv bought the hotel) and him assuring me that the his latest syndicated quiz show "Click" was going to be a huge hit, as was its host, young Ryan Seacrest. He had a great, all-encompassing laugh that could stop traffic. Hotel guests and sundry passersby kept coming up to our table to shake his hand and tell him how much they loved his show, etc. He had a warm smile and wink for every one of them.

One of the most sincere tributes to Merv place in the pop culture firmament came from "Seinfeld" in its final season, in "The Merv Griffin Show" seg where Kramer finds the talkshow's old set in a dumpster and decides to recreate it in his living room.

Thanks to YouTube, there's no shortage of clips of Merv at his best, behind the desk of his own talk show, which ran for nearly 25 years in one form or another, from the New Frontier era of 1962 through the mid-Reagan years. Below is a great representative clip of "The Merv Griffin Show" from 1981 featuring the Carpenters (Merv naturally gravitated to musical guests, and I chose the Carpenters from all the options available because I love them, even though Karen, sadly, doesn't look so good by this point). Below that is a glimpse of Merv's humble beginnings as a band singer for Freddy Martin and his signature tune. With that kind of charm, fabulous smile and 1000-watt twinkle in his eye, it's clear that this was a guy who was destined to go far.

Hal Fishman was old school. So much so that he sometimes came off as an anachronism in today's hyperbolic celeb-centric tabloid-y TV news environment. Hal was so much a part of the fabric of local news in the nation's second-largest TV market that we took him for granted. (For the details on his life and death Tuesday morning of colon cancer, read this very good obit by Variety's Michael Schneider.)

Hal was there every weeknight at 10 p.m. on KTLA-TV, the mighty channel 5, the local titan ("broadcasting from high atop Mt. Washington") that was known for its breaking news, local sports and event coverage, and of course, Gene Autry Show reruns first thing in the a.m. (It was always said that former owner Autry was an early riser and liked to watch himself first thing in morning.)

For most of my lifetime, Hal delivered the headlines, and shaped the 10 p.m. broadcast as managing editor, in a sober and sonorous style that was once the norm across the dial. The only time you saw Hal really get animated was, famously, when there was a big aviation story breaking. Not that he'd party on the news of a plane crash, but he was very good, in a manner befitting a former college professor, in explaining in lay terms what went wrong with an aircraft, or why a particular air-travel issue was important, etc.

When other newsmen of Hal's ilk passed on -- KCBS' (KNXT to some of us) Bill Stout and Ralph Story, KTLA's Larry McCormick and yes, even Jerry Dunphy -- I felt the loss a little more immediately (I still miss Bill Stout's furrowed brow.) I think Hal Fishman was the kind of industry stalwart that a lot of us never took the time to appreciate -- until he's replaced by a plunging neckline. In fairness, however, while KTLA's current management (and several regimes past) may have wrestled with a desire to segue to a younger-skewing lead anchor, they never did sack Hal. So here's to giving the brass the benefit of the doubt that Hal's successor will be someone (KTLA's long-serving morning anchor Carlos Amezcua has certainly earned it) who reflects at least most of the good-newsman qualities that Hal brought to the airwaves every night.

This sounds like a worthy undertaking. PBS and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation have teamed to produce what is described as a mammoth "History of Television" project targeted to bow on the pubcaster in spring 2009.

Plan, as unveiled by Acad Foundation prexy Steve Mosko (aka prexy of Sony Pictures TV) and PBS' Washington, D.C. outlet WETA-TV, is to kick off the series with a four-hour chronicle of the history of scripted TV and the characters we've come to know and love in our living rooms -- and between our toes, as Jack Paar used to describe people watching TV while lying in bed. (Pictured at left, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in the production offices at Desilu, romping through an "I Love Lucy" rehearsal. Below, Art Carney and Jackie Gleason at work on "The Honeymooners.")

Acad Foundation's formidable Archive of American Television oral history project, which has been doing the good work of collecting video interviews with TV pioneers and legends for more than a decade, will contribute plenty of interview footage. PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have kicked in a $2 million "challenge" grant, but for sure Acad Foundation will be knocking on the doors of every network, studio and well-heeled producer in town during the next few years in their bid to raise the rest of the coin to fund the production.

Let's all hoist a colortini toast tonight to Tom Snyder; may he rest in peace after what had to have been a tough battle with leukemia.

The man was born to be a broadcaster, born to talk on TV, without a net, without a script, and without needing much help from other people to tell him what to think. Snyder, who died Sunday in San Francisco at the age of 71, was smart, sharp, fast on his feet and funny, sometimes too funny with jokes that were an acquired taste. At least he had the brains and .... confidence to speak freely on live TV.

Or as Peter Lassally, who was exec producer of CBS' "The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder" and now exec produces the successor show with Craig Ferguson, put it:

"Tom was a true broadcaster, a rare thing. When he was on the air, he made the camera disappear. It was just you and him, in a room together, having a talk."

Snyder had a reputation for being cantankerous, or "prickly," as the AP put it in its obit, but he was way-way nicer than he needed to be during a down phase of his career when a green reporter called his production office one day to ask if she could sit in on a taping of his show.

POSTED BY STUART LEVINE

Bob Barker, you're priceless... and, it seems, irreplaceable.

That's the message CBS entertainment topper Nina Tassler was telling a roomful of critics, when one of them (yours truly) asked why it's taken so long for the network to find a replacement for Bob Barker as the host of classic gameshow "The Price Is Right."

Barker held the skinny mic at "Price" for an astonishing 35 years and retired over a month ago but gave notice in 2006. Granted, finding someone to fill those shoes is a tough assignment -- almost as difficult as winning a Showcase Showdown -- but there doesn't seem to be any sense of urgency over at the Eye to get a new guy (or gal) in place for the transition.

Drew Carey is currently the leading candidate but sources say they're stuck in contract negotiations.

Can't pass up an opportunity to post a great pic of Betty White. She's the subject of one of PBS' "Pioneers of Television" docus set to air in the winter and spring '08 on the pubcaster. I did a lengthy sit-down with Betty in 2000 when she was marking her 50th year in television, and I can confirm that she is as lovely, gracious, funny and sharp as you'd hope Betty White would be. She's only piled up about 25 credits since then, from voice-over work on "King of the Hill" to semi-regular stints on "That '70s Show" and "Boston Legal" and now the CBS soap "The Bold and the Beautiful." Once her career got going in the early-early 1950s, when she was on the air live for five hours on weekday mornings, spinning records, riffing on the day's news and generally shooting the breeze on KLAC-TV (better known today as KCOP-TV Los Angeles), Betty has never stopped. She's an inspiration; we should all be in such good shape if we're fortunate enough to see our 85th birthdays (as Betty did on Jan. 22). To me she's not just a pioneer of television, she's the reigning first lady of television.

I wanted to like the Mort Sahl 80th birthday tribute event Thursday night at the Wadsworth Theater much more than I did.

The biggest problem was that most of the comics who moved through the turnstile Thursday night didn't offer anything close to political humor in the spirit of Mort. And that really shouldn't have been a surprise -- it's not as if Drew Carey, Jay Leno, Kevin Nealon, Richard Lewis and Paula Poundstone are known for their incisive social commentary. Neither are Jonathan Winters, Norm Crosby or Shelley Berman, but at least they were funny, particularly Winters, who trotted out his Leland Buckhorn dumb-baseball-player persona.

Lewis' time on stage in particular felt like a small eternity of jokes all about himself -- parts of himself that I'm guessing no one in the room wanted to hear that much about. George Carlin was funny with his now-familiar buzzword-rap routine, and he brought along a great clip of himself doing a Mort Sahl imitation from a CBS variety show in 1962.

Bill Maher at least felt like he belonged at a Mort Sahl tribute, with a few good Bush-bashing lines and the observation that among the GOP presidential heat, the only contender who isn't on his second or third marriage is Mitt Romney, the Mormon. But Leno and his not-funny jokes about Africa and obesity, Mel Gibson and Michael Jackson just fell flat, as did Carey and his "Paris Travel Lodge" schtick. (Maybe that was the point, to highlight how vapid most of standup comedy has become since the days when Sahl was riffing on Nikita and Ike, the arms race, civil rights, voting rights, etc.)

For me, Albert Brooks delivered the all-around funniest performance with his "I was told Mort Sahl had died" routine, complete with a eulogy that he delivered anyway. Emcee Jack Riley (aka "The Bob Newhart Show's" Mr. Carlin), who subbed for Larry King, had a good line about needing to do the event "to get a credit from this century."

By the time, Sahl came up on stage for the obligatory "this has meant so much to me," even he was underwhelming, red sweater and all. His best bit was noting the causal connection between subpoenas being delivered to key Bush administration figures and Dick Cheney's visits to the D.C. area hospitals.

"They're reconstructing Cheney, a Halliburton corporation," Sahl quipped, "and they're overcharging!"

In closing, audience members -- a crowd that included Hugh Hefner, Tommy Chong, Rob Reiner, Larry Gelbart, George Schlatter, George Shapiro, Fred Willard and Dick Van Patten -- serenaded Mort with "Happy Birthday" (never mind that Sahl's 80th was seven weeks ago). Event raised more than $100,000 for the Heartland Comedy Foundation, which aids older comics who have hit hard times financially.

Pictured above, back row from left: Richard Lewis, Jay Leno, Norm Crosby, Kevin Nealon, Hugh Hefner, event organizer Ross Shafer, Drew Carey and Albert Brooks. Front row from left: Shelley Berman, Jonathan Winters, George Carlin, Mort Sahl and Harry Shearer.

Photo credit: Derek Goes/GOES PHOTOGRAPHY

Wow, this is a really good, well-rounded view of Rupert Murdoch -- the man, the mogul, the dealmaking machine, by Time magazine's Eric Pooley. It feels like an objective take on a guy who is unfairly demonized at times, overly lionized at others. It's clearly Rupe's PR antidote to the New York Times series that rean earlier this week, and it's surely a much more interesting read.

"We're very proud of what we do at all our papers," (Murdoch) says on another day, in another mood. "And we just feel insulted by the coverage. We've got more than 50,000 people [in News Corp.]." We're sitting in his New York City office on a June afternoon. "We make mistakes here and there. But there's nothing wrong with the Post — most people would prefer to read it before they go to the Times. There's such a thing as a popular newspaper and an unpopular élite newspaper. They play different roles. We have both kinds. Just like we have the Fox network with American Idol and 24, and we also have the National Geographic Channel. It's hard for outsiders to understand that."

POSTED BY ERIN MAXWELL, NEWS EDITOR EXTRAORDINAIRE OF VARIETY.COM.

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is dead and gone (several times if you count the number of times she perished on the 1997-2003 TV series) but her spirit lives on in many ways, most recently via "Buffy-oke."
Yes, it's just what it sounds like, karaoke, "Buffy" style, based largely on the "Once More with Feeling" musical extravaganza episode that ran during the show's sixth season.

Now touring the country, "Buffy-oke" is a "Rocky Horror"-esque sing-along features audience participation, hand puppets and a fair amount of Dawn-bashing to create a new reason for "Buffy" fans to cheer since their Tuesday nights are now free.

For those who need a recap, the episode features a hoofer-loving demon named Sweet who puts a spell over the beloved denizens of Sunnydale, forcing the Scoobies to sing their innermost thoughts and perform complicated dance numbers.
On June 27, the Los Angeles Film Festival brought the show to the Crest Theater in Westwood, where fans were treated to not only their favorite episode, but fan-made videos that paid tribute to Buffy mom Kristine Sutherland and boy-toy Riley, played by Marc Blucas. A bit of trivia and a two-minute recap of the entire series was thrown in for good measure.

The screening came with an instruction sheets and goodie bags that allowed the audience to fully partake in the showing, such as blow bubbles for Lawrence Welk-inspired ballet numbers and kazoos to help "Buffy" star Sarah Michelle Gellar with the high notes.

At the end of the screening, Marti "Parking Ticket Lady" Noxon (pictured right) took the stage to thank fans and introduced series creator and surprise guest Joss Whedon (pictured above, as if you didn't know that already). Whedon was overcome by the fan response to the episode he wrote and directed, and thanked the audience for the keeping the episode from disappearing into rerun oblivion. He also shared his thoughts on Buffy's younger sis: "Come on. Dawn isn't that bad." (Erin Maxwell)

To investigate "Buffy-oke" further just click right here on this link.

Now this outta be good, clean, liberal fun.

A strong lineup of good-hearted comics are set to deliver an 80th birthday tribute to Mort Sahl on Thursday at the Wadsworth Theater in Brentwood. Sahl turned 80 on May 11, and sadly, word in comedy circles is that he's hit some hard times financially. It's understood that Woody Allen, George Carlin, Dick Cavett, Robin Williams and others have opened their wallets to help out, and the Wadsworth Theater tribute is part of the fund-raising effort for Sahl, who resides in the Valley these days and at http://www.mortsahl.com/. There's no pension plan for pioneering, politically charged humorists who only did sporadic film and TV work, especially during the past few decades.

Comic Ross Shafer helped instigate Thursday's tribute at the Wadsworth, with everybody donating their time and services (including the venue). There was talk of trying to turn it into a TV special but as of now there were too many contractual conflicts among the roster of performers (a high-class problem indeed). Larry King is set to emcee, and performers lined up include Shelley Berman, Albert Brooks, Drew Carey, Jay Leno, Richard Lewis, Bill Maher, Keavin Nealon, David Steinberg and Jonathan Winters. Allen and Don Rickles have also contributed kudos on tape, plus there will be special guests, according to helmer Howard Storm, who gave publicist Warren Cowan a hand in getting the word out on the event Friday. Tickets are on sale to the public and can be bought half price at the Wadsworth box office by using the code "Mort 80."

Can't say I have first-hand memories of watching "Watch Mr. Wizard," but I do appreciate the role Don Herbert played as a TV pioneer and in introducing explosive baking-soda-and-vinegar science experiments to the youth of America. By all accounts, Herbert, who died Tuesday at the age of 89, was as nice a guy as he seemed on the air. He was famously one of the first guests on David Letterman's "Late Night" show in the early 1980s, and he was one of those guests who Dave seemed genuinely excited to meet. The vintage TV wonderland that is www.tvacres.com has a fantastic "Watch Mr. Wizard" page, including a full-page ad in Variety touting the NBC show airing on "118 stations of the NBC-TV Network" when it was still airing from Chicago prior to Herbert's move to New York.
You know that somewhere up in the Seattle area, Herbert's kindred spirit Bill Nye (the Science Guy) is feeling a little sad today...

It's only fitting that "Sopranos" creator David Chase would give his first post-finale remarks to TV scribe Alan Sepinwall of the Newark Star-Ledger. In a nutshell, Chase (pictured left) says he'd never say never regarding a "Sopranos" movie, but don't hold your breath. And as far as the clincher scene that has stirred such ire among some viewers, Chase offers: "I have no interest in explaining, defending, reinterpreting, or adding to what is there...No one was trying to be audacious, honest to God." Chase adds: "We did what we thought we had to do. No one was trying to blow people's minds or thinking, 'Wow, this'll (tick) them off.'"

Meanwhile, the numbers are in and Sunday's finale drew about 11.9 million viewers. A little surprising that the closer didn't generate a bigger bounce, given all the breathless anticipation leading up to it last week. But you can be sure that number will spike, if not double, after HBO runs the sprockets out of the finale during the next week or so.

Journey!?!

Not Tony Bennett? Not The Voice? Not Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons? Not Bruce Springsteen, or even Bon Jovi? Journey!?!

Oh well, maybe that was the point. Mundane. Typical. Pedestrian, even. Maybe it's just right that the series that was so often over-hyped as the best thing television has ever produced would go out on a this-could-be-anyone's-family-gathering-at-a-neighborhood-joint note.

David Chase clearly had fun messing with our minds in building all of the Hitchcock-ian tension into the final scene in the restaurant, as we waited for any one of the suspicious-looking characters that seemed to be circling Tony Soprano's nuclear family (remember what they looked like in season one, as pictured below) to erupt with violence or something that felt finale-ish and fate-sealing. But no, it was a typical family scene, typical, that is, if dad's a New Jersey crime boss on the downside of his career and mom's an overprotective but ruthless enabler. And let's face it, parallel parking is a bitch, no matter who your daddy is.

The instant chatter in the blogosphere on the (not so) fateful episode No. 86 of "The Sopranos" seemed to tilt toward the negative, with many remarking that the abruptly cut-to-black ending first made them think their cable/satellite had gone out just at the money-moment. But perhaps those who were angered or unhappy with the closer were just more motivated to run to their computers to blast away at David Chase, HBO, and anyone else they could think of. There was a lot of insta-speculation that the deliberately-vague ending was motivated by a greedy desire to tee up a "Sopranos" feature film down the road. (Some were even pegging the release date as spring 2009! Everybody wants to play Exhibitor Relations these days.) I've got to believe that David Chase has more creativity integrity than that. If not, somebody show him "The X-Files" feature, quick.

It may sound a stretch but perhaps Chase came to something like the same conclusion that Phil Rosenthal did two years ago with the "Everybody Loves Raymond" finale. The best way to honor a beloved series and the fans who made it so is not with pyrotechnics or gimmicks beyond belief but a tribute to the core character relationships that make or break any TV series. (Then again, there's the "Newhart" ending to beat all endings, which could be called gimmicky, but c'mon...) Appropriately enough, nobody has ever gotten "The Sopranos" better than Alan Sepinwall, the hard-working, hell-of-a-nice-guy TV critic from the Newark Star-Ledger, and he had a smart take on the finale posted barely an hour after it aired. Variety's Phil Gallo also did a good job of sizing up the finale, from a reasoned, not fanboy, perspective.

Furthermore, as On the Air's significant other astutely pointed out, it could have been a whole lot worse. David Chase was at the helm of "Northern Exposure" when that once-great series bowed out in mid-1995 with a finale episode, co-written by future "Sopranos" soldiers Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess (along with Jeff Melvoin). We'll never forgive any of them for the worst-plot-twist-ever in having Janine Turner's Maggie and John Corbett's Chris "suddenly" discover that they're soul mates and destined to be together....yeeecchh! (Having that happen is worse than the public-domain music NBC Universal has put in the modern-day DVD sets of NoEx seasons to save money on licensing.)

So aside from the use of "Don't Stop Believin'" in the closing moments, Chase redeemed himself tonight with this finale that he wrote and directed. Despite the level of over-praising that "The Sopranos" has endured during its eight-year run (give or take a few loooong hiatuses), there's no denying the impact it has had, on pop culture, on television, on writers and on what networks and studios are willing to accept in the way of anti-heroes, less than tidy endings, etc. etc. I'll never forget attending an HBO-sponsored screening of the first two episodes (either it was the first two segs or it was a two from early in the first season) at the DGA theater in Hollywood. When the screening was over and the DGA lobby filled with industry cognizati, the buzz was positively electric. People literally could not stop talking about how good -- how different -- the show was.

No one can claim more credit for this than David Chase, for sticking to his vision and his derring-do, and for assembling the company of talented scribes, directors, actors and producers he enlisted to tell his tales. There aren't enough adjectives in the dictionary to express how well James Gandolfini and Edie Falco (oh boy, did she shine this season?!) embodied their alter-egos in a way that ....well, again, not enough superlatives or time to give them their proper due....

By now, the story of how Chase struggled for years to get his baby on the air is well documented. But it bears repeating the names of a few of the suits and such who helped the show along before it found a welcoming home at HBO -- particularly one exec in particular who just faced his own real-life whacking (albeit with no lethal consequences), Kevin Reilly, late of NBC who was a "Sopranos" booster during his time as head of Brillstein-Grey Television. Lloyd Braun, late of ABC, Yahoo and now of NBC Universal-based BermanBraun, was also pivotal in the series' development during his tenure at Brillstein-Grey. Also meriting a shout-out are Robert Greenblatt and Danielle Gelber, now of Showtime but formerly with Fox Broadcasting Co. during "The Sopranos'" time in development-hell there, and of course, Peter Benedek, Chase's loyal rep at United Talent Agency.

Salute.

Now this is beach reading.

TV and film director John Rich tells tales of his adventures behind the camera in his recently published memoir "Warm Up the Snake: A Hollywood Memoir" (University of Michigan Press). With a career that stretches from "Our Miss Brooks" (Rich is flanked above by "Brooks" stars Eve Arden and Gale Gordon) to "The Dick Van Dyke Show" to "The Brady Bunch" to "All in the Family" to "MacGyver," he's got the stranger-than-fiction stories to make this a delightful and easy read for anyone with an interest in the biz. There are stories of bad (really bad) or curious behavior by actors, producers, executives, writers and the like that fall into the category of the-more-things-change-the-more-they-stay-the-same-in-this-town. And there are plenty of once-in-a-lifetime anecdotes like the time Rich had the high-class problem of having to choose between directing the pilot for "All in the Family" and the pilot for "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." (The calls from Norman Lear and Moore came on the same day.) "Snake" also offers Rich's personal perspective on how TV directors came into their own at once was once known as the Screen Directors Guild, in no small way thanks to Rich's rabble rousing, and other milestones in DGA history during the past half-century.

The Memorial Day weekend timing of the premiere of HBO’s “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” is entirely appropriate. The massacre of about 300 members of the Lakota Sioux tribe at a camp near the banks of Wounded Knee creek in South Dakota occurred on Dec. 29, 1890. Memorial Day is, of course, the federal holiday designated to honor the memory of our nation’s war dead. The men, women and children killed at Wounded Knee that day inhabited their own sovereign nation, but they are most definitely “our” war dead. They were slaughtered by U.S. Army soldiers, without direct provocation and without much in the way to defend themselves. They are war victims that we as a nation should never forget.

pictured above, "Wounded Knee" producer Dick Wolf, left, and actor August Schellenberg, who plays Sitting Bull.

This morning brings the bittersweet news that Tim Brooks, research maven extraordinaire and TV historian without peer, is prepping his retirement from Lifetime Television at the end of this year. If Tim had a nickel for every time someone in the biz consults his indispensable, brick-sized lifesaver, "The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present," he'd be richer than Murdoch, Redstone and Diller combined. He's a lovely man who always makes time for desperate journalists in need of insight or a quote from a respected, objective source of knowledge about all things television. Tim earned his research stripes at NBC, where he befriended fellow number-cruncher and "Complete Directory" co-author Earle Marsh, and then worked for ad firm NW Ayer, and then caught the cable wave at USA Network in the 1990s before segueing to Lifetime in 2000, where he'll retire as executive veepee, research.

Anybody who wrote for Jack Paar, Bob Hope, Danny Thomas and Sid Caesar in their heydays, palled around with Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner and lived to tell funny stories about it deserves all the kudos this biz has to offer. So good for the Humanitas org for giving its Kieser Award to Larry Gelbart. His resume includes everything from radio and Broadway shows to the small-screen adaptation of "MASH" to HBO's "Barbarians at the Gate," "Weapons of Mass Distraction," Showtime's "Mastergate" and another very funny HBO telepic from a few years back, "And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself." He's good at slaying pomposity and mendacity, without being mean or vulgar, and his work almost always has something deeper to say about whatever slice of the human condition he's examining at the time. One piece of Gelbart-ana that's ripe for DVD revival is "Mastergate," his 1992 parody of the Iran-Contra hearings (or more accurately a parody of TV coverage of Iran-Contra hearings). The 90-minute pic boasted a dynamite cast, including James Coburn, Tim Reid, Ed Begley Jr., Buck Henry, Hy Averback, Bruno Kirby, Ben Stein, Robert Guillaume, Pat Morita, Dennis Weaver, David Ogden Stiers, Jerry Orbach and Henry Jones. Variety at the time called the telepic's dialogue "priceless" and noted that "underneath this satire is the very serious point that Washington is engaged in an endless series of shenanigans followed by a pointless series of hearings to investigate the shenanigans." Sound familiar? Here's a clip, courtesy of YouTube.

So congrats to Larry, and let's hope he brings a good anecdote or two about his long, long career to this year's Humanitas awards luncheon on June 26.

Westerns don't get much better than "The Searchers" (pictured), John Ford's breathtakingly photographed 1956 film that gifted John Wayne one of the best roles of his long career. Starz's Encore Westerns channel is doing right by the Duke with a 100-hour marathon of his films starting on what would have been the actor's 100th birthday, Saturday, May 26. The list of flicks is a little slim on classics, save for "The Searchers" and 1947's "Angel and the Badman," but Wayne's charisma makes even the quickie 1930s and '40s oaters fun to watch. His was a face born to be on the big screen.