Sadly, the syndicated Steve Allen/Westinghouse shows of the early 60's that really inspired Letterman when he was a teenager are in copyright hell, and probably will never be seen again. At least most of Kovacs' work that survived is accessible.

Exactly. And I found the "correspondents" on Kilborn's show funnier than Stewart's.

Dave had a show on Showtime called "Dave's Old Porn" and hosted an unsuccessful reboot of "The Gong Show" for Comedy Central. He did do an HBO special called "Captain Miserable." and was doing a late late night show for Comedy Central. Sometimes, performers aren't able to translate one success into another.

I can imagine that this will be the last season of Inside Amy Schumer and Tosh.O. And the ladies of Broad City and guys from Workaholics can't be too far behind them in search of bigger paychecks elsewhere. Comedy Central is going to have to bring back "Pardon My Zinger!" in hopes of new revenue.

Tosh.O is still the highest rated weekly show on Comedy Central. It was recently renewed for another season, as I figure by this point even Tosh wants to move on. But with the smoking craters that have become The Daily & Nightly Shows, I figured they would toss Tosh one last freight train full o' cash to agree to a…

Daniel Tosh did a great rip on Maher on a "Web Redemption" awhile back, impersonating Maher with Andy Kindler as a member of "Bill's" panel, who ripped on him mercilessly with such lines as, "What's it like to be a 60 year old man who still wears Ed Hardy shirts?" and "If you and Jimmy Fallon had a baby, it would be…

Chris Rock had a great joke about Kevin Hart recently. "I've been doing this monologue for about 3 minutes, and during that time two Kevin Hart movies have been released!"

He became a true dick when he demanded that the girl who played his girlfriend on the show be fired as she had posed for Playboy prior to getting the Growing Pains gig. Her replacement? His real life Christian girlfriend. Even then, to me he was Michael J. Fox without the talent or charm.

As do I. I prefer his stand up, but I enjoy the cameos by fellow comedians ranging from Joel McHale to Gallagher and everyone else in between. I'm just surprised his renewal is only for one year. Especially with the smoking craters that are The Daily and Nightly Shows. My fearless prediction is that this will be…

I liked his work, though the general opinion that he was kind of a toolbag offstage. Shandling came from an affluent family that didn't like unions, and he crossed the picket line in the Comedy Store strike of the late 1970's, and never apologized for it, even though the strike was supported by Carson, Hope, Pryor,…

Rodney Dangerfield was a touchstone from comedians from the early 60's, such as Joan Rivers and Dick Cavett. I was reading an interview that Kliph Nesteroff did with Cavett, and he couldn't say enough nice things about Rodney, who he said was very helpful to young comics such as himself, though as Cavett said,…

I always thought the 4 solo albums should have been culled to make a good double album, with each artist getting a side. They might have been better remembered that way.

I've always heard that Richard Thompson's "Put It There Pal" is a burn on Mark Knopfler.

I remember when I first started at my job at an academic library in the late 80's, we had a closet full of these things. We wound up selling them off in our "Friends Of The Library" booksale, simply because the players had crapped out, and there was no technical support to fix the players. Our discs were in great…

If memory serves, the Lennon estate and McCartney receive a "Writer's Royalty" of 5% on the publishing income of the songs. I remember reading that the songs were earning around 17.5 Million dollars when the catalog was sold to Michael Jackson in the middle '80's, so I would figure that amount has probably doubled at…

I can't imagine de la Renta, Halston and Bill Blass being "Unknown" in the world of fashion, even in 1973.

The hard part with a deal with Presley would have been dealing with Colonel Parker, who turned cutting side deals into an art form. Towards the end of Elvis's life, in several of the deals that Parker had negotiated, he was making more money than Elvis. After Elvis died, the Colonel's gravy train came to a…

It's Presley, not Costello. Costello didn't turn up on the American music radar until late 1976-early 1977.

Christopher Buckley's leaving after he announced his support of Obama in the 2008 election, was the end of National Review as the bastion of a sane conservative site. I remember when they gave John Derbyshire and Ann Coulter the boot. I'm surprised that they haven't made a triumphant return.

Didn’t the really rich in New York City back in the day prefer to be driven around in big boat station wagons, such as Buick Electras, Ford Country Squires, and Chevy Caprices with the faux woodgrain trim, as to avoid attention? I remember watching a CNN show called “Pinnacle”, which used to profile big deal business…