If you haven't seen this, you need to see this. It's the interactive music video for Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone."

So…what's up with late night TV? Well, as he heads into his final months on the job, Mr. Leno is way out in front of Mr. Letterman or Mr. Kimmel in the ratings. Given that The Tonight Show will be packed with superstar guests from now 'til Jay's last show on February 6, everyone is more or less assuming that he'll bow out with monster audiences. Mr. Fallon is also doing great — his young adult numbers at 12:35 are topping David Letterman's young adult numbers at 11:35. That has to make the folks at NBC optimistic, though there's no way of telling how Fallon would be doing — and will be doing — without Jay as his lead-in.

I'm still fascinated by the situation Leno is in and eager to see what happens. He's under contract to NBC until some point in September of '14, at which point he's free to relocate. That is, unless he signs a new deal of some sort to keep him at NBC. I can't imagine what they could offer him that he'd want. Prime time specials? A weekly series? That doesn't sound like Leno to me. Neither does collecting a huge paycheck for months for, essentially, not being on television.

He might just decide to do nothing on TV on a regular basis…but they'll be after him. I can't think of anyone in TV history who's ever become a Free Agent with a track record of being #1 in his time slot for most of two decades. At some point, perhaps in March, he'll be contractually able to entertain offers.

Industry watchers I know were mud-wrestling over whether there's a chance one will be for a new late night show either in syndication or at Fox. Some are certain that isn't in the cards; that Jay is too old for anyone to want to invest in setting up a new franchise elsewhere. On the other hand, no one who wants to get into that arena will ever have a chance to sign a guy who's won that time slot as much as Jay has. Let's say you were the top guy at Fox and you dreamed of clearing the 11 PM-Midnight hour on all your stations for a late night show. What name besides Leno could you ever conceivably get who'd cause more of your stations to move their Seinfeld reruns and accept a network show on that choice piece of real estate?

And Arsenio ain't doing so well. How many stations that carry him would rather have a Jay Leno show there?

This may all be moot. Jay may just decide this is the time to complete his transformation into Bob Hope and spend the rest of his career not doing a regular series. And no, I don't think there's any chance of him coming back to The Tonight Show if Fallon crashes and burns. For good or ill, the next few years of NBC late night are in New York under the purview of Lorne Michaels. Friends I know who know Leno have no clue as to what he wants to do with his life. Maybe even he doesn't know 'til he hears some offers.

So, uh, what about Dave? As you may have heard, he and Jay have patched up their friendship to some unknown extent. The other night, Dave had Howard Stern in the guest chair, and Howard railed on about how he's keeping the Jay Leno Hate Campaign going on Dave's behalf and Dave is now undermining him by consorting with The Enemy. Letterman is hard to read, and he had to have expected that Stern was going to bring it up…but he sure didn't look thrilled by the topic. His face looked like he was thinking, "Oh, right! I forgot that when I have Howard on, he always raises some subject I'm uncomfortable talking about." Frankly, if I were Dave Letterman, I'd be embarrassed if America believed that with all my awards and honors and megabucks, I was still miserable about not getting Johnny's old job.

It makes sense that Dave and Jay are talking…and probably not just because Dave wants the ratings heat that will result when, as seems inevitable, Jay guests on his show. (And Dave'll probably never do it but if I were him, I'd go do Jay's show before 2/6/14. There's no way Dave wouldn't be hilarious — i.e., the old Dave — in that situation and a portion of Jay's audience may soon be in the market for something besides Fallon to watch at 11:35.) Dave and Jay shared a lot of history, starting at the Comedy Store at roughly the same time, advancing together, etc. Now, they share a certain amount of future challenges, namely how and when to exit late night TV when your network thinks you're too old. This could be the (re)start of a beautiful friendship.

Another "full" episode of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. I put in the quotes because some music cues have been edited out of this one — like Buddy Hackett's entrance music which I assume was "My Buddy." Still, there are many wonderful things here including Mr. Hackett's tales of touring Japan with Jack Paar. This is from November 24, 1977. It's interesting how much less hectic the pace was back then…

• I haven't heard of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford doing anything stupid or illegal for a couple of days now. I hope he's okay.

Hey, have you heard about that agreement with Iran? The one that will whittle down their nuclear program? Well, Fred Kaplan thinks it's a real good deal. And if it's good enough for Fred…

This is for folks in and around Los Angeles who'd like to spend the evening of Saturday, December 21 laughing themselves silly. There are many fine improv comedy groups around but the best (and the cheapest!) I've seen is Instaplay, featuring a whole bunch of friends of mine, most of whom are top comedy writers. They don't do this for the money or the exposure…and they don't do this very often. Mostly to keep in practice, they do one performance every month or two and they have one coming up on 12/21/13 in Culver City.

The theater is a tiny dive with folding chairs but the talent is first-rate. Before your very eyes, these superb players will improvise an entire musical comedy based on a title suggested by the audience. There are a lot of troupes that do this now but Instaplay, which has a long and glorious heritage, was the first I'd ever heard of doing it. I have seen dozens and dozens and I've never not had a great time. (I've also never seen them repeat anything, which is rare in the world of comedy improv.)

The tickets are seven bucks each. Seven dollars! (See what I mean about how they don't do this for the money?) You can order here and I'll bet you have a very good time. Just try not to sit in front of me.

Sarah Silverman has a new HBO special debuting tonight. I haven't seen it but Variety scribe Brian Lowry, who has, laments that she appears "…determined to prove she can be as dirty and distasteful as the boys." Shannon Kelley thinks there's something very wrong with Lowry holding women to a different set of rules than men. I usually like Lowry but I think Kelley's right.

Ms. Silverman is very clever and very funny. If she's not funny in this particular special, then that's the problem; not the topics she addresses or the words she uses. But I gather she is funny, at least to Lowry, or he'd be writing about that. I guess I'm just amazed in this day and age that anyone is still writing that a comedian is "too dirty." "Too dirty for a specific audience" might be a valid criticism. The venue and the audience more or less defines what's appropriate and if a comic misreads that (or doesn't care), okay, fine. They're inappropriate. But I don't know how any comedian, male or female, could be too dirty, at least verbally, for their own HBO stand-up special. Much of America has outgrown being horrified by the "f" word or any kind of speech. How long before we all recognize that?

On January 31, 1968, Johnny Carson devoted most of a 90-minute Tonight Show to New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison. Garrison was then making the news with a series of claims that he'd solved the Kennedy Assassination and that he would start by prosecuting a local businessman, Clay Shaw, for his role in a grand conspiracy. Later on, most reporters who covered Garrison would decide he was reckless, that he was throwing out charges with no basis whatsoever, and that he didn't have the slightest sliver of evidence against Shaw. A jury later acquitted Shaw in a matter of minutes…to the surprise of no one who followed the case.

Garrison was rehabilitated as a hero played by Kevin Costner in the Oliver Stone film, JFK. The movie was a mix of reality and fiction that seemed calculated to get audiences to accept the fiction as factual. I thought it was a terribly dishonest film and one scholar even issued a list of 100 errors of fact and judgment. There are a lot more than a hundred.

Johnny, it is said, later regretted having Garrison on, feeling he'd given a lot of airtime to a con artist. In this short clip, you can see how unhappy Johnny is, not just with what Garrison was saying but also with the fact that they hadn't prevented the D.A. from packing the audience with supporters…

Here's a nice little rundown on sugar substitutes. I lost most of my "sweet tooth" a few years ago but even when I had it, I didn't consider the safety of Aspartame, Sucralose, Saccharin or a couple of others that came and went. I didn't let them into my body because I thought they all tasted terrible. Now, I'm not even wild about sugar. I do use a protein powder that's flavored with Stevia and occasionally a lemonade mix.

My pal Kim "Howard" Johnson continues our back-'n'-forth about the looming Monty Python reassembly. And as predicted, he corrects the date of when I saw them at the Hollywood Bowl. He probably knows where my date and I had dinner that evening, too.

I started to write a post about where I was when Kennedy was shot and paused halfway through the first line to wonder, "Didn't I write this once?" A quick search reveals that I did, ten years ago today. I have nothing more to add to it other than that I think the consensus for "Oswald dunnit and he dunnit alone" is growing at about the pace that glaciers migrate…but it is growing. And as I read this piece now, I think I overstated my negativity towards J.F.K. It's not that I think he was a good or bad president; more like his grade should be "Incomplete." That may be one of the most tragic losses of Dallas; that maybe we lost him before he could become a truly great president.

Anyway, here's what I wrote ten years ago..

Today's the day when, I guess, we're all supposed to answer the musical question, "Where were you when you heard JFK had been shot?" I was in Mr. Totman's third period math class at Ralph Waldo Emerson Junior High in West Los Angeles. The principal, Mr. Campbell, came on the public address system and told us in very cautious, non-alarmist terms what was being reported on the news. For the rest of the day, there was no other topic and no grasping of the situation.

Mr. Totman was the kind of math teacher who was always looking for reasons to talk about things other than math. His mind wasn't on Algebra and he could tell ours weren't, either so we all sat around, pointlessly speculating on what it all meant. Fourth period for me was English and we also just sat around, pointlessly speculating on what it all meant. I recall that our English teacher, Mr. Cline, didn't have any more idea than we did. Then after fourth period was Lunch and again, a lot of sitting around, wondering what had happened and what would happen.

At the time, there was a rule at Emerson that students could not bring radios to school, and the officials had been enforcing the rule with great vigor, seizing radios and punishing their possessors. You would have had an easier time carrying heroin at my junior high school. But suddenly at lunchtime, several students were openly playing news broadcasts on their little transistors and not only was no one confiscating but teachers were among the many crowding around to listen. I went to Mr. Campbell's office and suggested they pipe the radio news coverage over the P.A. system and this was done.

There was a very real fear that the shooting of Kennedy was Step One in a dastardly plot that would lead to more assassinations, invasions, nuclear bombings, whatever. Imaginations ran rampant and even after it became apparent that other catastrophes were not on tap, imaginations continued to rampage about whodunnit. They still do.

For a time in the late sixties and early seventies, I joined the throng that believed in a conspiracy. I even attended a conference of "buffs" (as they sometimes call themselves) and found about 90% of them to have some sort of obsessive, emotional need to defend wacko theories to the death, even sometimes multiple wacko theories that contradicted each other. But around 10% made good, rational arguments against the Warren Commission and I have since seen those arguments grow ever less compelling.

I eventually came around to the opinion that the "lone nut" explanation made the most sense. Yes, there are anomalies and oddments but in this country, we decide murder trials by the standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt." We do not demand that every evidentiary point be nailed down because we acknowledge that almost every case does have anomalies and oddments; that if the defense digs hard enough, they can always find something that can be framed as a counter-argument. Reluctantly, for I love to see government lying and cover-ups exposed, I had to conclude that Oswald acted alone, that the single-bullet theory that I had once denounced as science-fiction was probably so, and that Jack Ruby was just a deranged night club owner.

I also concluded that it was pointless to try and convince anyone else of this; that those who had an opinion had already had it bronzed and placed on the mantel. Too many had too much invested in not believing "the official version," and as I have a certain admiration for skepticism, I don't know that this is a bad thing. So I am absolutely not attempting to get you to see it my way; just reporting that I moved from one viewpoint to another. Most people, I am well aware, do not believe it…but they also do not believe in any other particular theory. They believe "they" killed Kennedy without really identifying who "they" are. I'm afraid that is how it will forever be in the history books.

Lastly, I came to the conclusion that the death of John F. Kennedy did not mean the end of Camelot. The more I read about Kennedy, the less I think of him, except perhaps as a symbolic figure. If his assassination plunged America into a downward spiral, that was largely because we allowed it to…a mistake we sometimes seem to be making, though not as badly, regarding 9/11. I think the country is strong enough to survive the murder of one man or 3,000 men and women. Still, we sometimes forget that, and it is that forgetfulness that does the real damage.

Drew Carey himself posted this video of a day at The Price is Right. I used to watch that show often and not because I liked Bob Barker or even the games. I liked the pace…and I was fascinated by the skill of the production. Before that series went on, if you'd walked into a network and described that show in a pitch, the response would have been, "That's impossible. It would take hours and hours to tape one of those." Getting the pricing games on and off stage, getting the prizes in position, making sure the models were in the right place and the cameras were in the proper positions and that the music and announcer v.o. synced up…a logistical nightmare, even for the original, half-hour version. That they figured out how to do it at all was impressive and that they they made it an hour — well, it's now commonplace but I'm still impressed…

Yes, I know Walmart used to spell it "Wal-Mart" and that they changed a few years ago. Frankly, I think they laid off the hyphen to save money on its salary.

I am informed by my friend Jeff Abraham, who was in turn informed by our mutual friend Robert Bader, that Groucho's episode of Celebrity Billiards was shot on 7/19/68 at KTLA in Los Angeles. It first aired on 10/12/68 and was seen in syndication for a few years after that. Others have done research and informed me that the series debuted in September of '67. I seem to remember it popping up on local TV in Los Angeles at the darnedest hours, often without being in TV Guide. It was like the station always had a reel of it ready to go and if they couldn't find the film or tape they were supposed to air, they'd slap on an episode of Celebrity Billiards.

I didn't mention it but on Monday night/Tuesday morning, I had some problems with my knee — my other knee, not the one that was operated-upon several months ago. Both seem to be working okay now but when I get the chance, I will tell you what happened. You do not want to go through this…ever.

My pal Kim "Howard" Johnson is the go-to guy for all things Python. He works with the Monty Python guys and knows so much about them that they call him with questions about themselves. He's also a fine author and an expert on other nodes of comedy. Today on his blog, he writes about the upcoming Python Reunion…

Several people have also asked me about the Pythons getting up there "at their age" and doing their old sketches. My feeling is that is if a championship pole vaulter decided to make a comeback at age 70, he may be missing a step or two. But with comedy, particularly the Python style of comedy, they can perform as well as ever. I saw John Cleese perform a couple of months ago, and believe me, he hasn't lost his sense of timing, and the others are every bit as sharp. This is going to be fun.

I don't disagree with any of that…and by the way, I suspect the Pythons will take the opportunity to parody the occasion by having, say, Cleese come out to do the Silly Walks sketch with a walker…or doing a sketch that once featured Graham Chapman with his role played by a funereal urn.

The point I want to make though is that an event like this isn't really about comedy. It's about devout fans paying money to be there and cheer them and love them, and then to be able for the rest of their lives to say, "I saw John Cleese and Michael Palin do the Parrot Sketch!"

I saw all the Pythons perform together in 1981 (Kim will let me know if I have the year wrong) at the Hollywood Bowl. It was a great evening and it wasn't about comedy, either. Everyone in the audience knew 90% of the material as well as anyone on stage. In fact, a few times, Cleese or someone went up on a line and hundreds of voices rang out with the missing wordage. None of us cared if they were funny or not. We laughed at the fact that they were there, period. The biggest reaction most sketches got came when we realized which one they were doing: It's the Whizzo Chocolate sketch! It's The Argument Clinic! The first time a Gumby came on, he practically got a standing ovation.

I think it's great that these guys are doing this reunion show, which will apparently be in London, at least at first. They ought to tour everywhere they're known and loved, and give everyone a chance to go see them and cheer them and join them in a rousing chorus of "The Lumberjack Song." When Eric Idle gets up there and starts doing "Nudge, Nudge" (and he'd better), it'll be like Tony Bennett singing "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" or Sinatra doing "My Way." You don't go to a show like that for the entertainment. You go for the history.

If you are awaiting an opportunity to register for Comic-Con International in 2014, read this.