I'm watching (and really enjoying) Charlie Rose's interview last night with John Oliver about hosting The Daily Show. If you're on the west coast and there's an early evening rebroadcast of The Charlie Rose Show in your area, it might be this episode since most stations don't broadcast the "new" show until 10 PM or 11 PM. So you still may be able to TiVo or catch it. I think tomorrow, I'll be able to steer you to a Hulu link to watch it online.

Paul Mecurio's podcast this week features an interview with Stephen Colbert, out of character and talking like the real guy. He discusses all sorts of things including the recent Daft Punk cancellation that left him scrambling for a show. This runs close to an hour…

Richard Brody sorta reviews the clips of The Day the Clown Cried which have gone seriously viral on the 'net, the ones I featured here the other day. In an odd way, I feel sorry for Jerry Lewis and a tad guilty about adding to the film's notoriety. I'm pretty fierce about protecting my right to control my writing and to not have anyone — be they employer, close friend or lover — see anything I'm writing until I'm ready for it to leave me and go out into the world. Jerry Lewis has every right to declare his movie an unfinished work he does not want seen and to not be hectored by people (or bootleggers) who act like it belongs to The World and he has no right to withhold it.

I like and respect Harry Shearer but when he was quoted as saying he'd seen it and it was a horror, he simultaneously (a) ratcheted up the demand to see it and (b) according to a friend of mine who is in tight with Mr. Lewis, "guaranteed that Jerry would never allow it to be seen." I know this isn't a popular position but I think that if Jerry doesn't want it seen, it shouldn't be seen.

Our pal Bob Elisberg has an interesting story to tell you about 3-D television. I could summarize it for you but it might take you longer to read the summary than it would to just read the article.

My pal Alicyn Packard co-stars in this video. This is a parody but it won't be for long because people will actually start doing this…

I don't like phone solicitations at all. I do not like being called by strangers trying to sell me something and I will never, ever buy something this way. If someone phones outta the blue and offers me a new Maserati Grand Turismo Sport for a buck and a half, no strings attached, I will still tell him no and to stop pestering me. And what I really don't like are these calls that pretend we have a prior relationship. Yesterday, the following conversation was heard on my phone. I've changed the names but otherwise it went just like this…

ME: Hello?

HIM: Mr. Evanier? This is Shel Wackhammer of Shmidlap Furnace Company. I see here that we did some work on your heating system in March of 2005 so you're more than overdue for an inspection. As you may recall from last time, we provide those free so I'd like to schedule to get someone out there…

ME: You're lying. You never did work for me.

HIM: Yes, honest, we did. March of '05. I have it right here.

ME: Really? What kind of heating system do I have?

HIM: Uh, forced air?

ME: BZZZ! Wrong answer. Try again.

HIM: Oh, what am I saying? It's right here in front of me in your file. Radiant?

ME: BZZZ! That's two down and one to go. Your last guess?

HIM: Let me see…geothermal?

ME: BZZZ! No, sorry, it was a trick question. The correct answer is gravity heating but the house stays so warm without it that I haven't turned it on or had any work done on it since the eighties. But we have some lovely parting gifts for you and thanks for playing, "Name That Heating System!" Bye!

Then later in the day, a woman who's selling solar installations called to thank me for being so nice to her when she called on me last December. "You told me you'd be ready to buy in the summer so I thought I'd bring our experts by to determine exactly what you need." I told her what I needed was to not be called by liars. They're now even infiltrating my e-mail. I got this the other day, addressed to me and meant (I suppose) to make me think I'd accidentally gotten a terrific offer intended for someone else. I've removed the clickable links but otherwise, it read just like this…

Larry, I was calling to schedule delivery of your medical alert system. It's the fall and I can't get up type of system leasing on TV. Looks like the system's been recommended by thousands of hospitals and medical professionals. Let's see, says here that this is already been paid for. Looks like you're getting the system because you cared yourself a friend, family member. Maybe even some when you know experience stuff on the past. So again so already been paid for it. So there's no cost to you whatsoever. Also says here that the shipping has already been paid for it. So to schedule delivery of your virtually Medical Alert system press one. Now again to I have your system shipped out to you press one now, press 5, to client shipment of your system. If you already have a medical alert system, please disregard this message again. If you already have a medical alert system, please disregard this message.

I'm guessing this approach works. So many businesses are trying it that it must work…on someone. I'm guessing it's all the same people who think Obamacare sets up "Death Panels."

So…what's the sense most Americans have about whether the deficit is falling or growing? And what's the truth? Kevin Drum has a couple of charts.

The other day, we brought you Albert Brooks introducing his Home Comedians' Kit on The Tonight Show. Here from 1983 is his return visit…

So we have a "birther" Congressman who thinks the House could impeach Barack Obama on the grounds that he wasn't born in the U.S. and is therefore ineligible to be president.

Oh, please, please, please. That would be so funny. It's obvious that most Republicans in the House and Senate were long ago satisfied this was a nutcase charge; that Obama was born just where he says he was born and that all the evidence the birthers have to claim is "an obvious forgery" in order to believe otherwise is legit. What they won't do is say that out loud because they covet the support of the birthers and other loonies. A vote on this in the House would force Republican Congressfolks into a helluva choice…

1. They could say what they believe — that there's nothing to it — and earn the wrath of those who refuse to believe that Their Nation (and they think it's Theirs, not Ours) couldn't possibly have elected that Socialist Commie Nazi Gay Black Man. Whatever else you can say about the birthers, they create grief for all who oppose them, especially Republicans they think should be on their side. And they reliably cast votes that do not go to Democrats.
2. Or they can go with the birthers, which means they have to defend a position that makes very little sense and which they don't even believe. So, uh, how did those birth announcements get into the Hawaii newspapers at precisely the right moment in 1961? Ask a birther that and they'll change the subject or, more likely, argue that the other evidence is so strong it proves the fraud, then they'll say, "He had the power to have that arranged."

The Republican Congress has an approval rating of like 26%. If anything could get it down to single digits, it would be to tie up both houses with this nonsense. Please, guys: Go for it.

NBC has announced that Jay Leno's final Tonight Show will air February 6, 2014 though he and much of his staff will continue to be paid through September. There had previously been rumors that since the show's getting great ratings and they do have to pay all those folks 'til September, they might postpone the switchover for a while. Looks like they aren't going to do that. It might be because they're stubbornly insisting with sticking to the timetable they worked out before they knew how Jay's numbers would go. More likely, they want to put some distance between the date of Jay's last show on NBC and the first night he might do of some competing show elsewhere.

In interviews, NBC Entertainment chief Bob Greenblatt is stressing that the network wants to make some sort of deal to keep Leno in the "NBC family" after he's no longer part of Tonight. I doubt they're thinking, "We'd better keep him under contract in case we need to reinstall him at 11:35." More likely, they just don't want the competition that would cut into Jimmy Fallon's ratings…and maybe make NBC look foolish for letting Jay go.

That they haven't been able to announce a new relationship with Jay already suggests a number of things, starting with the fact that they may not have anything they can offer the guy that he'd want. Jay famously loves the idea of doing a nightly monologue before a big audience. That was the premise behind offering him a 10 PM show and later the half-hour one at 11:35. They aren't going to tender either one of those again…so where would they put him? If Jay had the slightest interest of doing occasional prime-time specials a la Bob Hope, they could have made that deal long ago.

More likely, Jay just wants to see what kind of offers he'll get. We don't know the details of his contract but most likely, he can't negotiate with other networks until X months before the end date of the pact. This is more or less standard in contracts. They want to lock you up for the specified period plus they have a preferential position for further negotiation. Six months is fairly common…but we don't know if Leno has a fairly common deal. At this point, he is doubtlessly getting approaches from other parties saying, "Hey, when you're free, we're real interested." Whether any of them will actually come up with acceptable offers is a lot less certain. When you're a hit in show business, your competition almost always says, "Hey, wish you were on our team. Let's talk when you're available."

Given his ratings, Jay will be in a great position. Given his age, he won't be. I know people in the business who are sure there'll be a feeding frenzy from Fox, various syndicators and other parties to give him a new late night show. I know others who think there's no way he'll get anything like that again. One says, "His career will begin to resemble Howie Mandel's — game shows, panels, etc." I have no idea what he'll be offered…and no idea what he'd accept. All I know is the guy ain't gonna retire…and I'm dying to see where he goes next.

In 1972, Jerry Lewis made most of a movie called The Day the Clown Cried, which may well be the most famous never-completed film of all time. Set in a Nazi concentration camp, its very premise — Jerry as a clown who entertains Jewish children before they're put to death — appalled some, especially because it was Jerry. The premise doesn't seem quite as impossible these days; not since Roberto Benigni's 1997 Life is Beautiful, which was about much the same thing, won critical acclaim and the Oscar as Best Foreign Film.

As I hear the story, Jerry's film was underfinanced from the start thanks to producers who didn't have the money they said they had. A week or three before shooting would have been finished, funds ran out. Jerry briefly tried to keep filming using his own money but his legal advisors stopped him. The ownership of the work was in question and he might well have poured a fortune into it, completed the picture and been unable to do anything with it. Filming shut down and for a time he hoped the attorneys could straighten things out so he could take the picture to some other studio and get the balance of the work financed and then have the whole thing distributed. None of that was possible. Joan O'Brien, who'd written the novel on which the movie was based, wanted the whole thing buried. The people who saw completed scenes thought they were dreadful. And the legal situation never did get resolved.

At some point, Jerry realized he had to give up on it. He couldn't get its ownership cleared up and even if he could, no one wanted the film. Too many articles had appeared about what a monstrosity it was. And eventually, he and a few other actors had aged enough that even if he did go back and shoot the additional scenes he felt were necessary, they wouldn't match.

So that was the end of that…but not really. The film attained legendary status in town, and a privileged few saw (and expressed unanimous horror at) a version Jerry had edited together of as much of the finished movie as he could muster. No, I was not among the few. Neither were a couple of my friends who were desperate to see this movie.

I witnessed this desperation first hand with one friend. One day back when we all had our video on VHS tapes, I was printing up fancy labels for some of my homemade recordings. The labels came on a sheet of twelve and I had eleven to print…so I was going to waste one label on the page. On a whim, I used the last one, printed THE DAY THE CLOWN CRIED on it and slapped it on an old cassette I was otherwise going to toss. I put the tape on my shelf of movies, spine out for all the world to see. I just wanted to see if anyone would notice.

No one did until a few months later. A friend came by and was waiting in my video room while I got ready so we could leave for a restaurant where we were meeting others. Suddenly, he saw the tape. He yanked it off the shelf, thrust it at me and yelled, "PUT THIS ON! I must see this movie!" I started to tell him he didn't but he interrupted and shouted, "NOW! I must see this movie NOW!!!"

Imagine if you will that some evil villain has tricked you into drinking a fast-acting poison. Imagine you're getting dizzy and your knees are buckling. Imagine that your only hope is an antidote and that the only clue as to where and what that antidote is is on a videotape. Imagine how you'd act in that situation, then triple the intensity and you have an approximation of how my friend acted at that moment. He was five seconds from knocking me to the floor and jamming the tape into my VCR himself.

I finally explained to him that it was a joke. He didn't believe me and I had to run a little of the tape to show him it was not what the label said. I thought he was going to cry.

No, our little Bonus Video Link here is not to the complete extant version of the Jerry Lewis non-masterpiece. But here's a little excerpt from a recent Q-and-A Jerry did where he actually spoke of the picture in humble terms. For a long time, he refused to discuss it at all…

And here's about seven minutes of random footage from the set that has surfaced. You can't judge the film's merits from this but it's all you're likely to ever see of the most famous movie that never quite existed…

Here's an obit of Eydie Gorme that Bob Thomas wrote for the Associated Press. I'm linking to it because it's a good overview of her career…and because I can't believe that Bob Thomas, age 91, is still writing sharp, fact-filled celebrity obits for the Associated Press.

Melissa Lattimore sent me this and I thought it was deserving of a wider readership…

Thank you so much for the the tribute to Stan Lynde (whose name I have apparently been mispronouncing for 50 years, sigh).

In the closet of my back bedroom I have a large wooden album of Sunday Rick O'Shay strips put together by my father, who died 30 years ago next month. Daddy was a huge fan of the strip and especially Lynde's attention to detail (he could tell from the art what gun Hipshot carried, for example) and eagerly looked forward to the strip in the Sunday paper (our local paper did not carry the weekday strips) to the extent that when the News-Messenger tried to drop it, he started a letter campaign to keep it — and succeeded. He was very disappointed when Lynde stopped drawing it! Later on when I moved to the Northwest and subscribed to the Seattle Times, it was carrying Latigo. So my Dad and I set up a trade: I cut out Latigo every day and sent them to him and he cut Prince Valiant out of the Dallas Morning News for me.

I guess I figured Lynde was long dead as well, as he is associated so closely with my father in my mind. Wish I had known he was still alive until this week, so I could have written him and let him know how much pleasure he brought my dad.

A lot of people were disappointed when Mr. Lynde stopped drawing Rick O'Shay. The Los Angeles Times, which was one of his major outlets, dropped it the minute it was no longer by him and printed up a notice that said something like, "Rick O'Shay will no longer appear. Stan Lynde no longer draws it." The way it was worded, it suggested the strip no longer existed…so my city never saw the ones written by Marian Dern and drawn by Alfredo Alcala, and didn't know it was continuing. If Lynde wasn't making enough money off it when he had the L.A. Times, I hate to think what Dern and Alcala must have made off it when they didn't have it. (The story of how they were selected to succeed Lynde is over here, by the way.)

After a while, Dern and Alcala were replaced by Mel Keefer and the L.A. Times immediately been running it again, commencing with the first of Keefer's dailies. I'm guessing Mel had a friend or a fan (more likely, the former) at the paper who reinstated it on the strength of Mel's name. A lot of Angelenos were surprised to see Rick back from the dead…but then after a while, Rick and Hipshot went away again. Those who missed them would be very pleased at what Lynde later did with them once he'd acquired full ownership.

From 1983: Albert Brooks teaches Johnny Carson how to do impressions…

And now folks are writing to tell me that the Joe's Pizza in Los Angeles is not connected to the Joe's Pizza in New York at Bleecker and Carmine.

The Joe's Pizza on Bleecker was founded by Joe Pozzuoli in 1975 as you can read on their website…which, I see, announced their first expansion — not to Los Angeles but to a new outlet on East 14th Street in New York.

The Joe's Pizza chain we have in L.A. was founded by Giuseppe (Joe) Vitale, who did operate a place called Joe's Pizza in New York…in Park Slope Brooklyn, not at Bleecker and Carmine. Different Joe.

I was confused because I was sure I remembered the L.A. Times saying the local chain was connected to the Bleecker one. I did some internetting and found this from 3/25/09…

Moving back to L.A. from Brooklyn can leave a (pizza-size) hole in one's heart, but an influx of Big Apple pizza has gained some momentum since Joe Vitale of Joe's Pizza in New York decided to open a Santa Monica outpost (no, despite what seems to have become urban legend, the dough isn't made with water from New York).

The link in that paragraph to Joe's Pizza links to "http://theguide.latimes.com/santa-monica/restaurants/joes-pizza-of-bleecker-street-venue" so as you can see, it was written to point to a piece on the Bleecker Street Joe's. But it no longer points to anything, perhaps because they discovered their error. You can't trust anything you read these days. Thanks to Tony Tower and others who wrote about this.