For some time the funniest "person" on TV has been Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, as performed by Bob Smigel for Late Night With Conan O'Brien. The other night at the MTV Music Video Awards, Triumph was attempting to interview music star Eminem when things got ugly. For some reason, Eminem didn't want to be interviewed by a snotty puppet and…well, I'm not sure what happened. But a friend who works on Mr. O'Brien's show says they're running the tape on tonight's show (the one that airs Thursday morn at 12:35 AM in most markets) and that it's the funniest thing he's ever seen. So you might want to see. If you miss it, it'll rerun the following day on Comedy Central.
Which reminds me: Video recorders, be they VHS or TiVo, have an option to record a show that airs Monday through Friday. When will someone include an option to record Tuesday through Saturday? Lots of shows that air in the early morning, like Conan O'Brien and Last Call and Craig Kilborn's program actually air Tuesday through Saturday, as will Jimmy Kimmel's forthcoming show. On the websites for these shows, they all list their upcoming broadcasts in terms of Monday through Friday but you can't program a VCR to believe that an airing that starts at 1:30 AM Tuesday is a Monday show.
The following is from the Bloomberg News Service. The Disney folks had a big meeting in New York to unveil the ABC schedule to advertisers. Jimmy Kimmel, who's taking over the late night slot after Nightline, took the stage…
"I could be the best thing to happen to this network since Mike Ovitz joined the Disney empire and took all your money," Kimmel said, referring to the $140 million severance pay Disney gave its former president after ousting him in 1996, 15 months into the job.
Disney Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Michael Eisner, 60, seated in the seventh row, stretched his long legs into the aisle and didn't crack a smile.