We now know that O’Brien has accepted the 30 million buy-out to vacate the Tonight Show. Hopefully he’ll use the money wisely and actually go to comedy school. Leno, who looks better behind a desk, gets the 11:30 slot and the sofa. Dave wasn’t really in the running and can continue to annoy all pretenders to his throne.

The whole embarrassing public spat highlighted the gulf between the real world of economic hardship and the pampered lives of overpaid entertainers.  And why should the Tonight Show be entitled to a perpetual life on TV. There were indeed hosts before Carson and each refined and developed the late night entertainment format. And while I certainly miss the charm and sophistication of Johnny, I also wish the “The Mary Tyler Moore” was still around.

Let’s hope that someday we actually find performers who know how to be funny and also act their age.

The man who created Noah’s Ark and Lights Out is simply a comedic genius.  Those routines made me a legend in altar boy circles at Holy Rosary School. Now, finally I was watching the act I had so painstakingly perfected 30 years earlier.

What startled me was that Bill had decided he could be just as funny sitting down as he’d been as a stand up comic.  The Tennessee stage was bare except for a comfortable chair and two small tables. An announcement was made and out ambled Cosby in his warm up sweater and sweat pants. Sitting, he then looked longingly stage right until a young woman delivered his coffee cup. Happily sipping the brew, he slowly began to speak to us with his characteristic comic insight of the human condition.

Yes he was funny and a bit caustic about how life could disappoint, depress and lack civility. It was vintage Bill and climaxed with that memorable routine about trying to hold a conversation with a dentist with his hand and drill in your mouth.

As he departed, explaining how the waiting car and private plane would whisk him into the night and back to California, I couldn’t quite describe what the show had meant to me.  Was I sad because my inspiration was a little tired of the act and needed a rest? Because I now performed, was his demeanor somehow not up to the standards I thought were required on stage? I mean I watched him on Ed Sullivan and there was no sitting around then.

I know I’m being a little hard on a man who brought me such joy when I was young.  He gave me a way to make light of the darkness we experience in the world. I’m sorry Bill! I’m going to encourage all my readers to see your show.

Is that all right?

Right!

The microphones were hidden
Under the tree with care
In hopes that St. Kissinger
Soon would appear

The operatives were nestled
Likes bugs in a rug
With vision of hippies
Dressed in their duds

And Agnew with his kickbacks
And I in my scotch
Had just settled in
It was 10 by my watch

When out in the parking lot
There arose such a clatter
I sprang from my armchair
To see what’s the matter.

Away to the mall
Like OJ I dashed
Gunning my Oldsmobile
Foot on the gas

The moon on the capitol
Silhouetted the eclipse
I followed the Potomac
The steering wheel tight in my grip

Well what in my headlights
Should suddenly appear
But a Cuban contingent
And old CIA gear

They made so much noise
Tapping the phone
I knew in a moment their
Covers were blown

Now Bernard, Now Barker
Now Gonzales, called Vergilio
On Sturgis, on McCord
And Martinez; he’s Eugenio

And then in a twinkle
The cops were soon near
I wanted to yell
Keep it down in there

But I spoke not a word
Or I’d be out of work
They rounded them up
Brother what jerks

But I heard them exclaim
As I drove out of sight
Our lips are sealed
If the price is right

Soon we are witnessing the This Is It audition sequence and again another legendary film, Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz, seems to be the inspiration.

When Michael arrives, the high energy of each musical number is carefully crafted under the watchful eyes of the director Anthony Ortega. Jackson seems completely at ease and in control as each of his musical hits is revived and brilliantly staged.

The cast of young dancers and singers complement Michael and seem to inspire him to give each number his signature style. At the same time, we are treated to the interplay of supporting musicians arrayed on each side of the stage.

Set designs range from the cabaret format used in the stage musical Cabaret to recreations of the Thriller MVT video.  There are also behind the scenes rehearsals for extensive film sequences.

Anyone who wishes a career in show business would do well to view this unique look at the creative process of a legendary performer.

But wait! Another gentleman rises from his theater chair and claims stage right.  He’s the Epilogue, cynic and no-nonsense interpreter of the action.  Like bookends these two narrators guide us into the play “Flu Season.”

The action takes place in a mental hospital with a staff that’s probably watched too many episodes of “Frasier.”  The nurse and doctor interrupt the patients, fill in the dead space, and generally reminisce about their own lost youth.  Two patients, a young man and woman, try haltingly to find words that have often failed them.  Playwright Will Enosa creates a strange and wonderful world where people struggle with uncertainty and almost comically collapse in each other’s arms.

The University of Tennessee Theater Department has assembled a superb cast whose verbal dexterity is on fine display.  Jonathan Vissor, Michael Moreno, Amy Elizabeth Mathews, Steve Fitchpatrick, and Matthew Bassett keep us laughing and almost crying throughout the evening.

Director Edward Morgan keeps everything right up there on a high wire.  You feel like the theater is turned upside down and out spills what make us all tick.

When the character Prologue, ever hopeful, tells us the play has ended, a shout from the rear by his counterpart Epilogue reminds us, nothing really ends.

An offhand remark from his agent about a company that stores souls looks like a solution to his angst. Soon he’s filling out forms in a slick stainless steel office in Manhattan. There’s even a sales tax break if his soul gets stored in New Jersey.

Once freed of his immortal spirit, Paul is soon finding Chekhov a riot much to the dismay of his cast and director. Retuning to the clinic he rents a Russian poet’s soul and the play is a success.

A Soviet subplot involving the selling of souls on the black market leads the actor to Moscow. Everything seems to turn out for the best with some fine support from a talented ensemble of actors.

One idea is that the soul originated with ancient Germanic tribes who believed the word was related to the sea where all the departed rested.  Turns out we might be able to put our precious immortality in a safe deposit box before we lose it.

Host Neil Patrick Harris, decked out in a white tuxedo and matching ivory colored lavaliere lapel microphone, gave the show tons of charm. His breezy tour of the sideways letter “S” set started off the evening like a segment of Better Homes and Gardens.

Presenters entered behind sliding screens of their images and soon the stars were collecting their prizes.  Glen Close, Alex Baldwin and Tina Fey all came forward to the acknowledgment of the crowd, again.  It would be better if recipients could win this thing once.  Let anonymous actors have a chance. Seriously, once they’ve given you Miss Emmy, you should leave television and go on the road reviving the once honorable tradition of dinner theater.  Where else do we once get to see stars in person?  And they always have a great buffet.

Did we have to see Tina Fey on the john? And what about that despicable cartoon sequence where that strange looking child beats the dog into a pulp in the bathroom? One actor called most of his roles plumbing jobs and he knew what he was talking about.

We seem to have gone from the comic to the crass in search of a laugh. And while there are certainly well done dramatic productions on the tube, the plethora of reality shows drown out the dramas.

When the award went to Mad Men, one of the accepters mentioned a bygone era of TV and how today what can be watched is just as good. Well to paraphrase Senator Lloyd Bentsen, I’ve seen the golden age of television and this isn’t it.

Later in his studio, a young woman, played by the stunning Vanessa Redgrave, tries to persuade him to give up the print. He only finds out later, as he methodically enlarges the negative, that there’s a body lying in the foreground.

Hemmings had roles in Camelot, Charge of the Light Brigade, and my favorite, Islands in the Stream with George C. Scott.

I worked with Hemmings when he directed me in three different series in Hawaii: Magnum P.I., Raven, and Marker.  In the first, he actually took me aside and coached me for the role of Moody. They’ve named a street in Knoxville after that character. There were a few fireworks for my next part as a rock star on Raven. I had suggested having an electric guitar as a prop while I tortured the Six Million Dollar Man Lee Majors. Hemmings and I disagreed on that one. Finally, the producers called me in to play an AID’s patient on Markers. I only had to agree to shave my head. My locks came off and I was in the opening shot.

Curiously Hemmings took up residence in my home state of Idaho. One summer while visiting, I saw that he was appearing in a production of Hamlet in Ketchum, Idaho right next to Sun Valley.

He finished up his career with small parts in Gladiator and The League of Extraordinary Gentleman.

The series only lasted a season but made a memorable impression on me as each week McGoohan tried to outwit his jailers and escape this Kafaka like existence.

You can watch original episodes at the AMC website as well as a preview of the new show.

I realized working in Gatlinburg at “Sweet Fanny Adams Theater” is like being a resident of the village. I get around just like them on my Penny Farthing bicycle.

Appearing on Larry King, the ex-president explained that he made his momentous decision after a comment made by Richard Nixon during their weekly poker game.  Nixon had apparently been insisting that Barrack Obama had not been born in the United States and Abe had heard enough. He threw down his cards and walked away.  This was particularly upsetting to Ulysses S. Grant who was holding a full house. Queen Elizabeth, Henry the VIII’s daughter, had already folded. “We should be thinking about a rebirth of freedom and not this nonsense,” said Lincoln.

Later this week Abe made a stop at David Letterman’s to do the Top Ten List: Why I Became a Democrat.

#10. Al Franken is my favorite comic.

#9.  I’m promised better seats at the theater.

#8.  I once owned a donkey.

#7.  The Democrats promised me a tryout with the Washington Wizards.

#6.  I get to be the only one who sleeps in the Lincoln bedroom.

#5.  Obama said I could hide behind the Lincoln Memorial and scare people.

#4.  Spielberg said I could play myself in his movie about me.

#3.  We go back to having a separate holiday for my birthday.

#2.  I can wear my hat inside the White House.

#1.  The Democrats don’t have a height limit.