Tim Conway liked to tell this story about his frequent co-star, Don Knotts…

I am still fine but now I have no gall bladder.

People keep writing to ask how I am. I'm fine. Honest.

Glenn Kessler: "[Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F.] Kennedy says the percentage of Americans with chronic diseases has gone up 20 times in six decades. That makes no sense." Here's why it makes no sense.

And Politifact says the man doesn't know what he's talking about when he talks about autism. I think we've all known that for a long time but he wasn't in a position of power when he used to say it.

In June of 1993, David Letterman did his last episode of Late Night on NBC before decamping for a new deal and a new show on CBS. This is the final eighteen-or-so minutes from that last NBC telecast and it features a guest spot by Tom Hanks that oughta be high on anyone's list of All-Time Best Performances by Someone in the Guest Chair on a TV Talk Show. And the nice thing is that Dave contributes just the right amount of participation, not breaking his guest's rhythm, not stepping on any punch lines.

A lot of talk show hosts don't know how to do that…or just plain don't want to. Even Dave after a while on CBS, seemed to have that "the audience came to see and hear me" attitude — but not in this spot…

Fred Kaplan explains Donald Trump's plans for Ukraine. They basically consist of giving Putin every single thing he could possibly want including an endorsement of the fiction that Ukraine started the war. Trump's supposed to be this great deal-maker but if that's going to be the resolution of that conflict, any of us could have engineered that settlement.

Daniel Dale over at CNN says Trump has been lying about the price of eggs, the price of groceries and the price of gas. I'm more than a little curious as to how many of his supporters look at articles like this and think "CNN is lying," how many think "Trump is lying but I don't care" and how many just plain don't want to deal with the discrepancies like this.

Politifact says he's lying some more about Kilmar Armando Abrego García while FactCheck.org delves into the real meaning of "due process." Trump seems to be fighting mightily for his presumed right to deport anyone anywhere without the blessing of any court or judge.

I'm going to be kinda busy the next few days but I've got a great video for you to make up for it. My longtime friend Russell Myers draws this comic strip about a lady who's 1,500 years old and he's been doing it for about half her age. Or at least, it feels that way.

Russell is among the last of a certain breed of cartoonists. He does it on paper with pens and brushes…and he does it all himself and somehow manages to keep coming up with funny ideas. I don't know how he manages it. He is therefore quite worthy of a recent award he received from the National Cartoonists Society and the folks there made up this video which I highly recommend as worth your time…

If you're following the matter of Kilmar Abrego García, you're probably hearing a lot about tattoos he may or may not have which may or may not prove anything. Politifact sorts out what we know at the moment…which sure sounds to me like the people who are 100% certain he's an MS-13 gang member don't have enough actual evidence to be that certain.

Mention the name of Jimmy Dean to folks today and if they recognize it at all, they probably know him from his success in the sausage business. But there was a time when Mr. Dean was a top recording artist and a pretty big TV star. At one point in the late sixties when Johnny Carson was battling with NBC over a new contract, the network signed Jimmy Dean to guest host The Tonight Show in Carson's absence and to become its permanent host if they never managed to make a deal with Johnny. Which, of course, they finally did.

Our video today is a truncated video of the first episode of The Jimmy Dean Show, a series he did on ABC from 1963 until 1966. It's an interesting show because one of his guests is Fred Flintstone in (fittingly) a primitive attempt to combine live-action TV with animation. I remember seeing this when it first aired and there was a really nice musical number with Fred and Jimmy which has, alas, been edited from this video. The sequence with Fred starts around 12:19. A spot with Dick Shawn early in the show was also apparently cut but he reappears later with an unusual dance spot.

There's also a bit where our old friend Chuck McCann does the Little Orphan Annie characterization that made him very popular…and there's other stuff. Other episodes of this program also featured the dog Rowlf, the first major network exposure of The Muppets. It was a nice little series while it lasted.

The big stampede for hotel rooms for this year's Comic-Con International is happening day after tomorrow. It starts at 9 AM Pacific Daylight Time on April 24, 2025 and if things go like they have in past years, the room you want will be booked by someone else by 9:30.

I have no idea why they aren't doing this on a Saturday like they usually do. Matter of fact, I really don't know much about this at all so I'll just direct you to this page and wish you luck.

I always have a lot of e-mails asking me about Pryor's Place, a Saturday morn show I worked on back in 1984. It starred Richard Pryor and an amazing array of guest stars and it got great reviews, Emmy nominations and pretty darned good ratings. This recent article attempts to answer the oft-asked question, "Well then, how come it only lasted one season and thirteen episodes?"

My answer for that is pretty simple: Richard Pryor agreed to do the series and then suddenly had other things — especially a movie he directed, starred-in and co-wrote called Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling — that he decided he'd rather do. In fact, halfway through the production of the first and only season of Pryor's Place, Mr. Pryor suddenly made that decision and he had to be cajoled, begged and lightly-threatened to get him to finish the thirteen we did.

The above-linked article will tell you more about the series but it doesn't give enough credit to writer Lorne Frohman or any at all to writer-producer Carl Kleinschmitt, who was very much involved. I already wrote most of what I recall about the series here but if I remember anything else of interest, I may write more about it someday.

Politifact explains some (just some) of what Robert F. Kennedy doesn't understand about autism…

…while Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post explains how almost none of Trump's claims about income from tariffs — either under his administration or Joe Biden's — are real.

I get a lot of spam calls — wholly-unsolicited calls from folks wanting to sell me something I (a) don't need, (b) don't want and (c) if I did want or need it, I certainly wouldn't buy it from a total stranger cold-calling me from some list of numbers they acquired somewhere. An awful lot of them are phoning from "businesses" (I use the term loosely) that are trying to sound like they're affiliated either with Medicare or with some big-name pharmacy like CVS or Walgreen's.

Most of them are clearly from callers who are working on commission: If they don't find some sucker who'll say yes, they don't get paid. Some of the faux Medicare affiliates get positively hysterical when I tell them they're not with Medicare. Others are wise enough to instantly realize that there's no possible sale to me so they hang up quickly and dial the next, hopefully-more-gullible number on their list.

The newest racket seems to be Home Warranties. They have a prepared speech about potential disasters that could befall my home and outrageous (but perhaps accurate) estimates of what it could take to fix those disasters…so it would be prudent of me to buy a "policy" from these total strangers and then, if/when one of those disasters occurs, I can call them and they'll tell me what they can do for me.

I've received this kind of call so often, you have to think it works sometimes. If it didn't, these people would be calling trying to send me "free" back braces covered by Medicare. Or "final expense" packages that will cover all costs when I die. With someone working the latter scam, I recently had the following colloquy…

HIM: When the time comes, you don't want to burden your loved ones with the costs of embalming or burial.

ME: I have no loved ones.

HIM: Don't say that, sir. You might someday get some and if you're ever that fortunate, you don't want to burden them with the costs of embalming or burial.

I had to admit the guy had a point.

Here's the promo reel for the 1974-1975 season on CBS…a season that had some pretty good shows returning and debuting.  The announcer is Ernie Anderson who did this kind of thing for years for all three networks and everywhere else…