I feel sorry for Steve Harvey, a very talented comedian and — as you can see if you ever catch him on the current incarnation of Family Feud — a pretty good game show host. As you've probably heard, last night in emceeing the Miss Universe beauty pageant, he identified the wrong lady as the winner and then had to go out and correct the error in a very awkward, cringe-inducing moment.

To his credit, Mr. Harvey took full responsibility for the mix-up and displayed the card he'd been handed which had the names right. Some sources are saying today that what happened was this: The decision was both on the card and on a TelePrompter and it was wrong on the latter, which is where he read it from. Either way, it still looked awful — especially because Miss Colombia, who had just been erroneously crowned, was standing there looking stunned and hurt and baffled throughout. Someone came over, took the crown off her head and then placed it on the actual winner, Miss Philippines.

Everyone understands mistakes get made and it seems to me Harvey is taking the full rap when he's maybe more deserving of about half. The minute he said the wrong thing, others on the premises knew it and no one immediately stopped the celebration and crowning of the wrong woman.

I believe the Academy Awards telecast is always on guard for someone reading the wrong name and has a planned procedure to halt the proceedings before the wrong "winner" gets up to the stage and launches into their acceptance speech. In live TV, you can't be expected to anticipate everything that can go wrong but you can cover a few obvious possibilities, this being one of them.

Of course, what would have been wonderful is if Miss Colombia had not looked so hurt and had instead taken the crown off her own head, turned around and personally put it on Miss Philippines and congratulated her. Today, everyone would be saying that was the height of classiness and that Miss Colombia had won the night in that regard. But it was all so confusing and wrenching up on that stage, you can't fault the miscrowned runner-up for not thinking to do that. Some people think she should have crowned Steve Harvey.

And of course, people are saying that it all proves that pageants like Miss Universe are stupid and irrelevant — and while I believe they are, I don't think this proves that. The rest of the show probably proved that but this didn't. Alas, what the screw-up will prove to some people is that it's dangerous to do Live TV and that everything should be recorded in advance so editing is possible. I hope it doesn't convince anyone of that but it probably will.

Got an hour to listen to John Cleese? Here's a recent interview and one of the better ones…

My pal Kliph Nesteroff hand-delivered my copy of his new book, The Comedians, to my home to give me something to read while my knee was getting better. I love what I've read of it but I haven't finished it because I keep spending time to listening to great radio interviews he's giving. He was on recently with another pal, Paul Harris, for a 44-minute chat that you won't want to miss if you're anywhere near as interested in the history of comedy (especially stand-up comedy) as I am. Here's where you can hear it.

Jonathan Chait discusses how the arguments of the Climate Change deniers have had to change. It used to be they insisted the climate was not changing. Now, they kinda have to argue that it is changing but nothing human beings can do can stop it.

Here's my question: If nothing can be done to stop it, shouldn't we now be spending tons o' dough to relocate homes, build dams and levees, install new drain systems, etc.? Hurricane Katrina caused over $100 billion in damages. If you'd known it was coming, might it not have been prudent to prepare better for it?

A few loose ends before I disappear for the rest of the day. Yes, I have heard from many folks that George Lucas gets a credit or two on the new Star Wars movie. The point I hope I made clear is that Mr. Lucas negotiated his deal and the sale of his property and that he did so with what I assume is a real, vetted-by-lawyers contract. Someone like Bill Finger back in the early days of comics had a "deal" forced on him — a deal that was not set down on paper and which had its terms dictated by one side. There's a big difference there.

PBS is debuting a special on composer Richard Sherman later today and it reruns a few times over the next few days. I haven't seen it but I'd be very surprised if it wasn't well worth watching.

In a gesture of fairness, I didn't watch the Democratic debate either. What I saw in clips made me think Hillary Clinton has stopped running against Bernie Sanders and is now campaigning against whoever the Republican nominee will be. I still don't think it'll be Trump but I have a hard time imagining it being any of those other folks on stage.

Some of the G.O.P. contenders are trying to rally some support with promises to outlaw Gay Marriage…or at the very least to protect the "religious rights" of those who want to shun same-sex couples or not service them in stores or such. The folks saying they can ban it might just as well be vowing to single-handedly strangle every member of ISIS or abolish all taxes. As conservative pundit Rod Dreher writes, "As a socially conservative Christian, I may not like it, but same-sex marriage is here to stay. Our side lost this battle in the culture war." The latter goal — freeing folks to act on anti-gay sentiments — might be possible but it probably won't rally voters to support a Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio so G.O.P. leaders have little interest in it.

Thanks to all of you who took the occasion of this blog's 15th birthday to donate money to it. We don't do this for the loot (since there isn't much of it) but it's always nice to feel appreciated that way. Barring late-breaking news, I'll be back here tomorrow posting at the usual pace.

Here's the video of that Live From Lincoln Center special I mentioned in the previous message. Its full title is Sinatra: Voice for a Century, which is an odd name considering that I don't think Frank's voice is heard anywhere in it. But it has some nice musical numbers in it and yes, I won my bet. They do sing "New York, New York" in it — as a duet by Seth MacFarlane and Christina Aguilera. Give it a peek…

…and by the way, does anyone know how many Bernadette Peterses there have been? I figured out long ago that as soon as one of them starts showing signs of age, they quietly retire her and bring in a new one who's twenty years younger, but I've lost track of the number of times they've done this. The one in this show must be #4 or #5 at least…

You may have heard about the data breach of Democratic voter records and a lot of accusations between the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Bernie Sanders campaign. It seems to have all been resolved and Sanders apologized in last night's debate and reportedly fired one or more someones. If you want to know what actually happened, pay no attention to all the folks who didn't have a clue but wrote about it anyway. The one guy on the 'net who seems to understand it is David Atkins.

I'm watching a Live at Lincoln Center concert right now on my TiVo, recorded last night off PBS. It's called Sinatra and it's a tribute to the man on the 100th anniversary of his birth.

Now, they're telling a lot of stories about Sinatra's life and that's fine but most of the show is folks like Bernadette Peters, Sting, Sutton Foster and host Seth MacFarlane singing songs that Sinatra recorded. Seth, for example, just sang "I've Got the World on a String."

Am I the only person who's ever bothered by this kind of thing? It's like someone said, "Hey, let's pay tribute to Frank by having other people sing all his big hits!" Frank didn't write any of these songs so it's more like a showcase for the genius of Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn, as well as others who composed these tunes. There's little to no trace of Ol' Blue Eyes in any of these performances.

Imagine if you went to see something billed as "A Tribute to Rex Harrison" and the show consisted of doing My Fair Lady with someone else playing Henry Higgins in a different style. What a monument to the talent of Rex Harrison that would be.

Now, Sting is singing "Witchcraft," which was written by Carolyn Leigh and Cy Coleman. I guess you could argue that Frank gets credit for making the song famous in the first place. You could also argue that these songs endure quite well without Sinatra's participation so maybe he was just the lucky guy who got to sing them first. (Oh, wait. Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby recorded "I've Got the World on a String" before Sinatra did. And I've got twenty bucks that says somebody sings "New York, New York," which Frank also didn't introduce, before this show is over.)

I'm probably overthinking this. It's a fine show and the little stories about Sinatra between numbers speak of his contributions to the world. But it just seems odd to me that you honor a man like Sinatra by gathering up a bunch of songs he was once known for…and removing all the Sinatra from them.

Richard B. wrote to ask…

Thank you for reposting the Mel Tormé Xmas story. I enjoyed it very much and shared it with many friends. I can well believe it is the most popular thing you have posted on your blog but I have a question. What do you think has been the second-most popular thing you have posted on your blog?

Probably my story about Larry Hagman. Also, I got an unbelievable number of hits on several of the pieces I posted about Johnny Carson upon his death but that was because several huge news sites linked to them.

But I don't track this kind of thing very closely so I can't give you any sort of real breakdown. I think I'd rather not know that a given post was or was not very popular. That's another of the many reasons I don't take paid advertising. If you do, you have to pay attention to that sort of thing.

Daniel Larison explains how the Republican presidential candidates are woefully ignorant about foreign policy, criticizing Obama for things that were beyond his reach or which Bush did. There is much to criticize about the current administration's handling of some matters but instead of doing that, the candidates are making stuff up to fit the narrative of Obama as weak and blind to the dangers of jihadism.

In other news, Jeb Bush just said, "Donald Trump is a jerk!" But Bush is apparently still pledged to support Trump if the "jerk" wins the nomination. Okay. Bush also keeps saying that Trump can't "insult his way to the presidency." I'm waiting for him to add, "But I can!"

Dick Van Dyke was making the rounds last week celebrating his 90th birthday. I was going to say, "I hope I'm in half as good shape as that man when I'm 90" but I think I'd settle for being 50% as spry by this Christmas. Anyway, he was on with Conan O'Brien the other night and he brought along his singing group, The Vantastix, to perform this number along with Conan. Here it is as posted on YouTube…

Later in the show, there was a nice moment: The Brian Setzer Orchestra was on and in tribute to Dick, they played a nice "big band" rendition of the theme from The Dick Van Dyke Show. I originally embedded it in this spot but it was only available as a link to Conan's own site, which means it was loaded with advertising and didn't stop after that number but went on to play the rest of the show. Those embeds play havoc with some browsers so I took it out. If you want to see it, you can view it here.

I find most of the political articles over at Salon to be worth reading and generally on the mark. Even when I disagree with them, I at least feel the person writing the piece understands how politics works in general. This is not so with most of the pieces there about television, especially late night television.

Here's an exception. It's Sarah Burris writing about Stephen Colbert's disappointing ratings. She makes a number of sound points including the fact that while people say his liberal politics are alienating some viewers, equally-liberal politics aren't crashing some other shows. Me, I think Colbert's problem is that he hasn't yet figured out a way to make his show different enough.

It's kind of the same problem Leno had when he first took over The Tonight Show and it was like he was still guest-hosting for Johnny instead of doing his own program. It doesn't feel like Colbert's doing David Letterman's show but it also doesn't feel quite like he's doing his own yet.

That said, I still like his show — even some interviews with folks who'd be of no interest to me if someone else was interviewing them. I'm quite willing to wait until he finds himself and from what I'm hearing, so is CBS.

In the last few days, I've received a couple of versions of this question. This version is from Matthew Wecksell…

In light of your blog's coverage of Bill Finger's lack of credit for Batman, what does newsfromme think about the advertisements and posters for the new Star Wars not crediting George Lucas? There is no "Based on characters created by…" Or "Based on Star Wars created by" to be seen.

Perhaps the film itself will have a credit. Perhaps a billion dollars means you no longer need to get an on-screen credit.

Well, I only met Bill Finger for about five minutes but I have a feeling he would gladly have accepted a billion dollars or a fraction of that in lieu of a proper credit. As it happened, he got neither. Mr. Lucas received both. If he's being overlooked on the posters and ads — and has he indicated that he cares? — that would be a function of him not negotiating that credit when he sold his property.

I don't see the two situations as remotely similar. Lucas got his credit on the films and became world famous. Does anyone not know George Lucas is the man who gave us Star Wars? His name was on the movies, whereas I don't believe Bill Finger ever saw his name on a Batman comic book he authored.

The difference? Lucas negotiated to sell his rights from a position of strength (with lawyers and advisors aplenty, no doubt) in a mature industry. Finger didn't have the chance to negotiate. He was swept into an industry — take it or leave it — that then didn't treat most of its creators that well. I'm real, real happy to see Finger now receiving credit and I assume/hope his granddaughter is receving a little of the money he should have earned in his lifetime.

As for George Lucas, I know I've quoted my Uncle Aaron before here on situations like this. He once said, "Never feel sorry for anyone who makes more than a million dollars a year."

On a related topic, people keep asking me if I've seen the new Star Wars film yet and if so, what did I think of it. I think I haven't seen it and that there's no rush to go and stand in line for eleven hours because when I do get around to seeing it, it will be the exact same film and I'll probably get a better seat then.

Since today is this blog's birthday, I thought I'd repost what may be my favorite of all the videos to which I've linked. This is the great man of the stage, George S. Irving, re-creating a number he performed in a 1976 Broadway show that, alas, closed rapidly. It was called So Long, 174th Street but in hindsight, people took to calling it Enter Laughing, which was the name of the novel by Carl Reiner upon which it was based.

All you need to know is the show (and novel and movie) concerned David Kolowitz, a young man in 1938 who dreams of becoming a huge star in Hollywood. Robert Morse played the role on the stage. Mr. Irving played his butler in a fantasy sequence, imagining what that stardom might be like…

Here's a story that should please any decent American — especially Jon Stewart, who devoted a lot of time to fighting for this…

WASHINGTON — Lifetime health benefits for sickened 9/11 first responders won overwhelming approval Friday from Congress after a long and contentious battle. The House and the Senate both voted to extend the Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, giving coverage to those afflicted with Ground Zero-related health woes for the next 75 years. "It's a very good day," said Joseph Zadroga, whose firefighter son James died in January 2006 from health issues caused by his time in toxic Lower Manhattan after the World Trade Center attack.

I think I understand why this wasn't passed unanimously the first time it was mentioned. We have a toxic, divided atmosphere in Congress and no one wants to give up anything without seeing if they can't get something in return. Still, you'd think there should be a few things that are beyond that consideration. You'd also think there are things a Congressperson could vote for or against that would cause even his or her supporters to decide the Congressperson was scum who should be turned out of office for sheer inhumanity. But I guess that doesn't happen.

Hey, I have a question and I read a number of online articles and couldn't find an answer to this. Everyone said this bill applied to "first responders" who took ill from being around the World Trade Center rubble. But didn't a lot of second responders and third responders and workers who began there a week or two after 9/11 suffer the same problems? That was a massive, nasty clean-up job. Has "first responders" become a term for all who worked there? Doesn't this bill cover people who weren't actually on duty on 9/11 but still did a lot of dirty, unsafe work to dig bodies out of the debris there and mop up after the tragedy?