Jerry Lewis is famous for saying — in an annoying, high-pitched voice — "Hey, lay-dee!" Right? Of course. You've all heard him say it. So how come some friends of mine who need a clip of him saying this can't find one?

They're watching old Jerry Lewis movies and screening old Jerry Lewis TV shows and they haven't yet been able to find him saying, "Hey, lay-dee!" or even just "lay-dee!"

Do you know where they can find such a thing? Drop me a note if you do. This is for a rather important project.

I hereby withdraw my prediction that the Tony Awards might garner decent ratings on Sunday night. That was based in large part on the erroneous (it turns out) belief that nothing of note would be on opposite it. Now, I find out that Game 5 of the Lakers-Celtics match-up will be on ABC that evening. That's something of note.

My pal Bob Claster is outraged that while the Tony broadcast will include a lifetime achievement award for Stephen Sondheim, they apparently are not clearing the time to do a production number of Sondheim tunes. There will, however, be eleven musical numbers from current shows…including several productions that were shut out from the "Best Musical" nominations. Young Frankenstein, for example, will be represented by Megan Mullally performing the song, "Deep Love," which does not strike me as the kind of number that will cause stampedes to the box office.

I also think the Tonys are missing a bet to not bring on Mel Brooks to present something and complain about his show's paucity of nominations.

I'm not sure the question of who will win matters much to anyone who isn't a nominee, a relative of a nominee or someone whose income might be impacted by a win. Just in case you're in one of those categories: Everyone will be very surprised if Patti LuPone doesn't win for Best Actress in a Musical. She's doing Gypsy but the Tony for Best Revival of a Musical will probably go to South Pacific and its director, Bartlett Sher, will probably win in his category. I'd like to see Xanadu win for Best Musical because I saw it and liked it, but the buzz is favoring In the Heights, which I didn't see.

August: Osage County will win for Best Play, Boyd Gaines and Laura Benanti will win for Featured Actor and Actress (respectively) in a musical, and beyond these, I have no forecasts — although I'm guessing we can expect a couple of jokes about John McCain's age, Gay Marriage in California and fist bumps. Also, there'll be one along the lines of, "Patti LuPone just won for Best Actress but Hillary Clinton is still refusing to concede."

Enjoy the show. I'll be watching via TiVo so I can do a lot of fast-forwarding.

Several folks who watched that clip from The Secret World of Og have written to ask about (or compliment my E.S.P. about) the name of Lucy Lawless. In the clip from '83, one of the characters mentions her passion for Lucy Lawless novels…and of course, a decade or so later, an actress named Lucy Lawless became quite famous, particularly for playing the title role on the TV series, Xena: Warrior Princess.

I did not predict Lucy Lawless. Pierre Berton used the name in the 1961 book I adapted. I gather Lucy Lawless was supposed to be a mystery-solver in the grand tradition of Nancy Drew.

According to Wikipedia, which as we all know is never wrong, Lucille Ryan married Garth Lawless in 1988 and kept his surname after they divorced. So that's how she became Lucy Lawless. Just a co-inky-dink.

So after 41 minutes, the lady comes back on the line and tells me that she can find no record "in the system" of any appointment being scheduled for today. Why am I not surprised?

She says they'll send a technician out tomorrow between the hours of 10 AM and Noon to see what the problem is. I say, "You had a technician here yesterday for two and a half hours. Why couldn't he tell you what the problem is?"

She says, "I don't know but this is how we have to do it. If he is unable to get your phones working, he can request a supervisor to come in." I say, "The guy yesterday was unable to get my phones working and he said he'd request a supervisor to come in."

She says, "Yes, but he didn't so we have to send someone else out."

Okay, here's my prediction: The guy tomorrow can't make it work, he says he'll request a supervisor…and then either he won't or there won't be a supervisor available for more than a week. In these situations, anything less than total cynicism is way too optimistic.

We're still having trouble with our digital phones from Time-Warner Cable, trying to get another line installed. Yesterday, after twice rescheduling earlier appointments at the last minute, they finally sent an installer. He showed up at 3:00. Around 5:15, he informed me that he had successfully installed the line with one teensy problem: It wasn't connected to any of my phones.

The phone line is, he said, working properly insofar as reaching my house is concerned. He just can't get it into any of the phone jacks I have in my home. He spoke of this as if it were a minor technicality and told me that a specialist would come by today "after noon" and solve the problem.

Well, I'm waiting. At 2:30, I phoned Time-Warner and a man in Customer Service said he'd find out if and when my service call would be happening. He then put me on hold for fifteen minutes, at which time the call just disconnected on me.

Around 2:47, I called back and got a nice lady who listened to my tale of woe and swore she'd help me. She said that, unfortunately, she'd have to place my call on hold while she waited for a "supervisor" to step in and help her with this matter…but she swore that if I got disconnected, she'd call me back. I have now been on hold for 27 minutes and 30 seconds.

Nothing to say beyond the obvious, especially since we're in that awkward period where it would be distasteful to mention anything but the man's positives. He was expert at taking the personal nastiness out of politics and of reminding all that the job of the press is to challenge our leaders and those who aspire to be part of the leadership. I always found his reporting to be entertaining, even when I felt he did not interrogate his witnesses with sufficient vigor. Those are going to be some huge shoes that will need filling.

The Tax Policy Center has done an analysis of the tax proposals of Senators McCain and Obama. A lot of it is way too complicated for any of us to understand — and maybe for Senators McCain and Obama to understand, too — but here's the bottom line…

Although both candidates have at times stressed fiscal responsibility, their specific non-health tax proposals would reduce tax revenues by $3.7 trillion (McCain) and $2.7 trillion (Obama) over the next 10 years, or approximately 10 and 7 percent of the revenues scheduled for collection under current law, respectively. Furthermore, as in the case of President Bush's tax cuts, the true cost of McCain's policies may be masked by phase-ins and sunsets (scheduled expiration dates) that reduce the estimated revenue costs. If his policies were fully phased in and permanent, the ten-year cost would rise to $4.1 trillion, or about 11 percent of total revenues.

And here's the next-to-the-bottom-line…

The two candidates' plans would have sharply different distributional effects. Senator McCain's tax cuts would primarily benefit those with very high incomes, almost all of whom would receive large tax cuts that would, on average, raise their after-tax incomes by more than twice the average for all households. Many fewer households at the bottom of the income distribution would get tax cuts and those whose taxes fall would, on average, see their after-tax income rise much less. In marked contrast, Senator Obama offers much larger tax breaks to low- and middle-income taxpayers and would increase taxes on high-income taxpayers. The largest tax cuts, as a share of income, would go to those at the bottom of the income distribution, while taxpayers with the highest income would see their taxes rise.

There's a lot more to be read here, including a PDF of the entire report…but those are the money quotes. Anyone here surprised? The Tax Policy Center is somewhat partisan but I usually don't see many who disagree strongly with their projections on stuff like this. If you see another analysis that seems to, let me know.

Here's a pretty good article by John Horn and Nicole Loomis on how some big TV and movie stars get into financial trouble. It doesn't delve much into another aspect of the problem, which is bad investments…but the core problem is there either way. To be in Show Biz usually means having a highly unpredictable income and you can easily gear your spending to one level and then, suddenly and without warning, drop to a lower tier.

The examples in this article, like Ed McMahon and Lorenzo Lamas, may not be deserving of a lot of sympathy. I mean, maybe they should have seen that it could happen and bought smaller homes and used fewer limos. There are, however, people who don't spend lavishly — who acquire modest homes and cars and such — who find themselves in a similar financial pickle. I can think of a dozen cases just among my contacts where someone was on a series or in a successful movie…and while they made decent money, the sums were nowhere close to the astronomical numbers that everyone presumed.

I'm thinking of one guy who was a regular on a very popular TV show…but he'd made a bad deal going in, and he was earning a lot less money than you might have expected. He felt pressure to be a little lavish in his purchasing, not because he wanted to splurge but because he felt embarrassed to be seen flying Coach or driving an old car. He was getting a ton of fan mail and he felt he had to spend the money (and this was costlier than you'd imagine) to hire someone to answer it all and send out the requested autographed photos. And of course, acquaintances said and did things that made him feel he had to pick up checks, loan money, etc.

He lived on the financial edge, assured by agents that in his future would be some new series or movie role that would yield megabucks such that his means would catch up with him. But then his series was cancelled, no lucrative offers followed…and his spouse began having serious medical problems about the time his Screen Actors Guild insurance ran out.

Again, some may not have a lot of sympathy for the guy. After all, he did get to be a star there for a while, and a lot of people would gladly trade places, bankruptcy and all. Still, it's a side of the industry you don't read a lot about. Not everyone in TV lives in a huge mansion. Some live next door to a lady who waits tables at Chili's…and find out one day that they can't even afford that.

I just realized! It's been six months since we checked to see if Abe Vigoda is still alive!