Recently, when Howard Morris passed away, I directed you to this video link to watch what some have called the funniest sketch ever done on television — The Sid Caesar take-off of This is Your Life. If you remember the sketch (or go watch it now), you'll note that before Carl Reiner "surprises" Sid in the audience, he briefly hovers over a slim gentleman seated in an aisle seat. That man was David Tebet, who was then the publicist for Mr. Caesar's program.

Not long after, Mr. Tebet was hired by NBC where he quickly became Vice-President in Charge of Talent. He was the guy in charge of luring Big Stars to the network and keeping them happy once they were there. His job involved stroking large egos, fielding complaints, distributing compliments and keeping out of the ugly side of negotiations. Rumor had it he was empowered to bestow an endless array of gifts whenever he thought appropriate, and RCA products were the most frequent present. Johnny Carson once joked that at his funeral, the graveside services would be interrupted as a truck pulled up and delivered a Color TV from Dave Tebet. As far as I know, this did not happen.

Tebet was often credited with being the guy who suggested Carson for the Tonight Show post. Others claimed it as well, but Tebet seemed to have the strongest claim. In the seventies, when Johnny negotiated for ownership of that show (for the length of his tenure) and set up his own production company, he hired Tebet away from NBC to help him run it. The network, it was said, suffered for the loss. When a star was irate about something, they no longer had Dave Tebet to go in and smooth things out. This especially applied to disputes with Mr. Carson.

Dave Tebet died on Tuesday at the age of 91. If Carson were still around, he'd probably send a Color TV to the funeral.

Nice to hear that Bob Costas will be an occasional substitute host for Larry King. Costas is one of the best interviewers in the field and I'd love to see him graduate to a regular daily show where he could get the kind of guests that Mr. King is able to get. Maybe that's what this will lead to.

Andrew Barkus writes to ask…

That is, indeed, an interesting statistic about GWB's approval rating. Could you cite a source for the stat? Friends that I have mentioned it to seem to think it is a bit far-fetched.

Sure. In fact, I said Bush's approval rating was 20 points lower than Clinton's was on the day he was impeached. It could actually be said to be more like 25. Bush's current approval rating is at 48% according to both the ABC News/Washington Post Poll and the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll. Some polls, as you can see on this page, have him even lower.

As you can see here, right after Bill Clinton was impeached, his approval rating was at 73% in the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll. (There were other polls that had it more like 68%, which is where the 20 point gap comes from.)

By the way: I don't think approval polls tell the whole story, especially at only one moment in time. There were certainly points where Clinton's ratings were lower than 68% and Bush's have been higher than they are now, and may well go up again. I don't think though that Clinton ever got below around 55% in the major polls. Here's a rundown of Clinton approval numbers.

This morning, GSN reran another episode of the 1990 To Tell the Truth. One of the segments was about a priest who gave up the priesthood to marry a nun. One of the impostors who were impersonating the ex-priest was a young entertainment lawyer named Tom Mesereau. What is Mr. Mesereau doing these days? Well, today he's waiting for a verdict on his client, Michael Jackson.

Speaking of the National Cartoonists Society shindig: Scott Shaw! provides a thorough and accurate report on the proceedings.

Yes, it's another photo from the National Cartoonists Society gathering in Scottsdale, Arizona. On the right is Lalo Alcaraz, who does a very funny newspaper strip called La Cucaracha. On the left is Sergio Aragonés, proving once again that anyone can look good if they have a tux.

I mentioned in my Tony Awards review that with the exception of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, none of the musical numbers presented on the broadcast made me want to see the shows. I dunno if this is proof but it comes close: La Cage aux Folles, which won the Tony last Sunday night for Best Revival of a Musical, has just announced it will close later this month. Obviously, there was no stampede to the box office in the last few days.

(On the other hand, this article says that ticket buying for Spelling Bee, Light in the Piazza, Doubt and Spamalot were up. It's just odd to see a show win Best Revival and then close.)

So how were the ratings for the Tony telecast? It depends who you ask…

• "If last year's Tony Awards slumped among viewers 18-49, Sunday night's show positively bombed. It was down 7 percent from last year's already anemic 1.5 adults 18-49 average to a 1.4 for CBS, according to Nielsen overnights." (Media Life Magazine)
• "The bad news for last night's Tony broadcast on CBS was that ratings did not increase from 2004. The good news was that they didn't really shrink either." (BroadwayWorld.com)
• "CBS, which broadcast the three-hour show, was cheered Monday by the overnight ratings, which climbed a bit, attracting 6.62 million viewers, up from 6.46 million last year." (Chicago Tribune)

So they were down, they were unchanged, they were up. However you score it, they still got beaten by a lot of reruns of cop shows.

The prevailing theory about the Watergate break-in seems to be that Nixon and his men were paranoid/worried (pick one) about revelations involving Howard Hughes. Nixon had been embarrassed before about his connections with the eccentric billionaire, most notably in the 1962 California gubernatorial election. So, the assumption goes, the Watergate burglars were dispatched to wiretap the phones of Democratic honcho Larry O'Brien, who was a former Hughes aide and was therefore in a position to know a lot of Hughes-Nixon dirt.

I've never completely bought this bit of conventional wisdom. Maybe it's true but it seems to me that Richard Nixon didn't need a specific reason to spy on his enemies. The mere fact that they were his enemies was reason enough. In any case, one of the major articles on his relationship with Hughes and how it may have figured into Watergate ran in Playboy magazine in 1976 and it's available, probably for a limited time, on that publication's website. Here's the link and remember that if you click in the wrong place, you might catch a glimpse of a naked woman.

If you own a TiVo, this page may be of interest to you.

It's five weeks until this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego. Remember how jammed everything was last year with 87,000+ people in attendance? Well, every year has had a bigger turnout than the year before…so what does that tell you?

I don't want to scare anyone but last year, the streets and parking lots and restaurants were jammed…and that was with nearby Petco Park standing empty. This year, the San Diego Padres are playing the Arizona Diamondbacks there Thursday evening, Friday evening, Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon, and I wouldn't count on a low turnout. Those two teams are currently neck-and-neck for the championship in the National League West. So if you're a Padres fan, that's the match-up you want to see.

If you're going to need a parking space at the con, I'd start looking now.

You're going to want to get there early so you can see all or most of the fifteen panels I'm moderating. (Fifteen panels? In four days? Is this man crazy?) I'll try to get the schedule up here soon but know that the Golden/Silver Age Panel will focus on DC Comics from 1940 to 1970 and will feature Gene Colan, Arnold Drake, Sy Barry, Ramona Fradon, Nick Cardy and Murphy Anderson. We'll have our annual Cartoon Voice Actor panel, including a number of folks who've never been there before — Charlie Adler and E.G. Daily, f'rinstance. There'll be a game of Quick Draw!, a couple of tributes to the late Will Eisner, a panel on Comic Book Weblogs, one-on-one interviews with a number of veteran comic creators, a 40th Anniversary look at A Charlie Brown Christmas, a Jack Kirby Tribute Panel that will make news, a spotlight on Gary Owens, and a number of other fun events. If you want to have the best possible time at the San Diego Con, just follow me around.

Do not ask me about procuring a hotel room in town during the convention. There may still be some but I don't know where.

I'll post some tips in the next few weeks. It's going to be terrific. Crowded but terrific.

George W. Bush's approval rating is now a full twenty points lower than Bill Clinton's was on the day he was impeached.

A rushed day, running around to doctors with my mother…who's doing much better, thank you. Here are a few loose ends and updates…

Thanks to all those who sent donations after my little appeal the other day. When I get some time (ha!), I'm going to try and set up a little private "extra" area on this site for folks who've contributed to its upkeep, and all of you will be included.

I am told that Chita Rivera did cuss (the "s" word) on the Tony Awards when she accidentally killed John Kander. I assumed she hadn't because there was no audience reaction, but I guess Broadway audiences don't really care much. Also, several folks have written me that Nathan Lane's shaven dome was because of the recently-shot prison sequence for the end of the movie of The Producers. (And boy, I wish they wouldn't call it that. It'll just confuse people. I don't know how many times I've seen some home video ad or purchase that mixed up the non-musical version of Little Shop of Horrors and the musical one directed by Frank Oz. If I were the guy in charge, the movie version of the musical of The Producers would be called Springtime for Hitler with "The Producers" in a sub-title.

I have, alas, confirmed the death of comic book writer and cartoonist John Albano. I'll try to post a more formal obit later today.

And I'm sorry to hear of the passing of a very classy lady named Anne Bancroft. I can't say that I knew her well but the few times I was around her, she seemed just as delightful in person as you'd expect. And she and Mel sure made a fine, loving couple.

For years, I've told my pal Earl Kress that the best steak house in America is Peter Luger's in Brooklyn. Don't think it isn't, just because it didn't make the list of The Original Great Steak Houses of North America or The Top 10 U.S.D.A. Prime Steakhouses or any of those other bogus surveys that they put together for the in-flight magazines. Every time I fly, I stow my laptop, buckle my seat belt and then immediately check the magazine to see if by some fluke of honesty, they've put Peter Luger's in its rightful position atop the lists. That it is nowhere in evidence proves that the lists are just advertising scams and that the listed eateries paid their way onto those rosters. The way I see it, Peter Luger's is so good, they don't have to pay to have someone say so.

Earl has heard me say this so often that on his current trip to New York (this week), he decided he had to try it for himself. For a moment there, I thought my bluff had been called and that I'd so oversold the place that it could only disappoint. I imagined Earl calling me in a fury, yelling that he'd shlepped all the way out to Brooklyn on my say-so and discovered that it was not a life-affirming, deeply-moving and multi-orgasmic experience; that it was just steak.

Last night, when he got back to the hotel, Earl phoned and said, "I've just had the best meal of my life." I feel as proud as if I'd picked out the Porterhouse and cooked the meat myself.

At this moment on Court TV, the discussion topic is if Michael Jackson goes to prison and if the rumors are true that a portion of his nose is a prosthetic piece, will he be allowed to have it in his cell or will they take his nose away?

And if that eBay auction doesn't satisfy your urge to browse Spider-Man collectibles, here's an even bigger collection. Thanks to Paul Merolle for telling me about it.