Henry Gibson, by the way, was active on Twitter. He also had a weblog which has but two entries on it.

Gary Owens tells me that no memorial service has yet been announced.

That's me at a party just a few months ago, posing with a lovely man named Henry Gibson. I am not quite as large as I seem in this photo. Henry was a very small man (but only physically) and every time I saw him, he seemed to get smaller. Had the shrinking not been due to age and illness, it would have just made him cuter. As it was, he was already a wonderful plaything.

Back when the original Laugh-In was on, I used to go over to NBC, sneak in and watch them tape. Henry was an unflappable pro who was always good, take after take, and you could tell he was much loved by the crew and his fellow cast members. Years later, there was a period in his acting career when he always seemed to be cast as a Nazi or a White Supremacist, and it really was a case of casting against type…because he was the nicest man you could ever want to meet.

In the eighties, I developed a cartoon series for Disney called The Wuzzles (based on a line of toys) and I had to figure out what to do with all these characters. There was one named Eleroo who was half-elephant, half-kangaroo, and since some of the other Wuzzles would be kinda obnoxious, I decided to just make Eleroo the sweetest, most likable character I could. I probably didn't give it a lot of thought — not that I ever give anything a lot of thought — but when I wrote the character breakdown for Eleroo, I wrote, "Let's get someone like Henry Gibson to do his voice. Better still, let's get Henry Gibson."

They got Henry Gibson and he was just a joy. He was such a good actor, crawling into every nuance of every line, wringing every possible drop of personality out of it and adding plenty of his own. Eleroo instantly became the most beloved Wuzzle of all those working on the show, and a script I wrote to spotlight him — it was called "Eleroo's Wishday" — was easily my favorite episode. Because of Henry.

No one disliked the man…or if you did, there was something wrong with you. The above photo was taken when he was telling me about an autobiography he was writing, asking me to jot down some thoughts about that show and mail them to him. I did…and got back a charming, unnecessary "thank you" note. I sure hope he finished the book and that it gets published because I'd like to spend a little more time with Henry Gibson. Here's a link to an obituary. He was 73 and the cause of death, yet again, was cancer.

The Kaiser Family Foundation, which does non-partisan analysis of health care in this country, has a report out on rising costs. Quick summary: The cost of health care is rising a lot faster than the average person's income. But you already knew that.

If the cost of health care continues to rise as fast as it has over the past five years, by 2019, your average American family will be paying $24,180 per year for their policy. If rates continue to rise as rapidly as they have over the past five years, you're looking at $30,803. The current number is $13,375.

So the best case scenario, if nothing's done to change the scenario, is an increase of close to 100% and it could be worse than that. Odds are most family incomes are not going to double in the next ten years.

When folks who resist change say, "I'm afraid that under a new plan, I won't be able to keep my present doctor," Democrats oughta tell them, "Under the old plan, you may not be able to keep your present doctor." You may not be able to keep any doctor…but obviously, even if you do have insurance, a lot of things are going to be different. Benefits are going to be cut. Allowable fees to doctors will be lowered. Many employers will stop offering insurance to their workers and many that continue to make it available will switch to cheaper companies or plans.

Something's gotta give.

Whoever makes up the schedules over at Turner Classic Movies is usually pretty good at "flow." That's what TV programmers call the art of sequencing what they air so that one show leads into another and is likely to retain some of the same audience. But every so often, you kinda wonder what (if anything) they had in mind. Friday night and early Saturday morning, we have the following list of films on TCM…

• Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! — A Russ Meyer film with tough women running around on a crime spree.
• Mudhoney — Another Russ Meyer film with rotten people doing rotten things to each other.
• Sons of the Desert — arguably, the best feature with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy
• The Outlaws is Coming — not the best feature with the Three Stooges but it does have Adam West in it as the romantic/heroic lead.

…and those are followed by a couple of chapters from a Dick Tracy serial. Go ahead. Explain to me about the flow here.

While we're talking TCM: Sunday morning, they're running A Thousand Clowns, which is one of those great movies that isn't currently out on DVD. And then Monday afternoon/evening, they're airing — in this order — two great Buster Keaton films (Sherlock, Jr. and Steamboat Bill, Jr.), On the Waterfront, then two great Stanley Kubrick films (Dr. Strangelove and 2001: A Space Odyssey). Some real good films there…some good reasons to set the TiVo.

Mr. Leno had 18.4 million viewers last night, which proves…uh, not very much. Tonight, he'll probably have less than half of that and by the end of next week, we should have a pretty good idea where the numbers are going to settle in, at least for a while. NBC is surely happy with the total viewership last night, though a little disappointed at the demographics, which skewed older. Oddly enough, Conan O'Brien's ratings were up due to older viewers but he finished lower than usual with the 18-34 audience.

The success or failure of The Jay Leno Show is going to be a difficult thing to assess, because it will not wholly be about the ratings on his show. NBC is going to have to look at what he's delivering in terms of lead-in to the local news broadcasts that follow him all over the country. If they take a plunge, that won't bode well for Jay even if his numbers are okay. Likewise, NBC won't be thrilled if Jay does well but Conan seems to be hurt. Someone's probably going to do some sort of polling and statistical analysis to determine if The Jay Leno Show at 10 PM prompts more folks to go to bed earlier.

Cancer has this nasty habit of taking away screenwriters whose work I respected greatly. Troy Kennedy Martin died today at the age of 77. This obit will tell you some of this credits, which included the movies Kelly's Heroes, Red Heat and Red Dust, as well as a wonderful British TV series called Reilly, Ace of Spies.

A very uncomfortable moment in my life came about because Mr. Martin was hired to adapt a comic book I'd co-created — The DNAgents — for a TV series. He was the second of about eighty thousand writers (it seemed) to tackle the property during the several times it was optioned by CBS, and I was at first jubilant because I'd admired so much of his work. But then it became apparent that what he wanted to do with the series was not what I wanted, nor did it please co-creator, Will Meugniot. It also did not please CBS so we went on to Pilot Writer #3 and Pilot Writer #4 and so on.

But the odd thing is that what Mr. Martin wrote was quite brilliant and might have made a wonderful one-time (with no possible sequels) R-rated feature film. It was just wildly over the budget (and restrictions of sex and violence) for what it was supposed to be, which was a weekly, ongoing TV series that would air at 8 PM. I came across my copy of his script again a few years later and was struck by how well-written it was, even if it was all wrong for the assignment at hand. I still feel bad about the meeting where he asked me point-blank what I thought of it and I had to tell him it wouldn't do…because he was a very nice man and very passionate about his work. If you saw some of the things he wrote that did get filmed, I think you could tell that. They were all quite impressive.

Well, the first weekend in October, you'll find me at the Mid-Ohio-Con in Columbus, Ohio. They invite me to this one almost every year and if I can make it, I say yes. It's one of the friendliest conventions around…and a perfect one for those of you think Big Conventions have gotten Too Big. This one's large enough that you'll have plenty to see and do and buy…but not so big that you'll have to change the time zone on your PDA as you cross from one end of the Dealers Room to the other. I'll be hosting some panels there (including at least one Death Panel) and will post the schedule as soon as there is one. That's October 3 and 4.

Then the next appearance I have scheduled is November 7. I'll be on some panels or speaking or doing something — I'm not sure what yet — at the Vegas Valley Book Festival in Las Vegas, Nevada. They're having a comic book event there and they're bringing me in to appear at the Clark County Library…and I'll tell you more about that when I know it.

Lastly for now, here's an announcement that may matter to some of you. The 2010 WonderCon in San Francisco will be held April 2-4 at the Moscone Center. As per usual, I'll be a guest and I'll be doing panels and this is also a convention to which I always say yes because I always have a good time at them. Make whatever plans you have to…but try to be there.

I thought Jay Leno's first prime time show was fine. Didn't care for the theme and the pace seemed a bit sluggish here and there…but he delivered a nice-enough hour. I suppose the most disappointing thing about it was that there was nothing particularly new. Then again, I can't recall the last comedic innovation I saw on any of the four major networks. Those who were predisposed to like Leno will like the new series…though there's some question as to whether they'll watch as often as they did when he was on at 11:35, and whether they'll be joined by sufficient numbers of the previously-uncommitted.

And I suppose if you never liked Jay, you're not about to start now. Some of the early reviews I'm seeing on the 'net appear bewildered that anyone could or would. There seems to be a lack of recognition in some that Jay Leno is as successful as he is…a lot of "Well, I don't like him so I can't believe anyone else does." I find the guy charming and candid and based on seeing him off-stage a few times and talking with him and closer associates, I believe he honestly enjoys his show and guests as much as he seems to. His chat with Jerry Seinfeld was nice because he didn't compete with the guy…he just sat there, enjoying how funny his buddy was, stepping in now and then to do the host thing and keep it all moving. That's harder than it looks.

I dunno how it'll all do but if I had to wager, I'd guess a big tune-in for the first night and incrementally smaller ratings from here on, with the occasional bounce when a superstar or big event comes along. At some point, I think America will start taking the thing for granted and the ratings won't be grand. But then later, when the opposition is all reruns and Jay's all new, you'll see some recovery. Will overall earnings be sufficient for NBC to keep things in place indefinitely? Beats the heck outta me. But they're certainly getting the show they bargained for.

I'm going to reprint this Timothy Noah piece from Slate in its entirety…

Somebody forgot to tell doctors how terribly unpopular the public option is. Sixty-three percent of them support it, according to a new survey conducted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, even though one of its chief purposes would be to pay doctors less. When Robert Pear wrote in the Sept. 12 New York Times that the public option "appears to be dying" partly because of "all-out opposition" by "much of the health care industry," he should have said, "except actual physicians."

Somebody forgot to tell the public, too. Fifty-five percent of them support it, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

What's the matter with 63% of doctors? Why do they want to destroy health care in this country?

Bernie Madoff's New York penthouse.