TVSquad

I was never big on clowns when I was a kid. Except for one that is, Bozo.

Larry Harmon wasn't the only person to play Bozo The Clown, but he is the person most identified with the role. A man named Pinto Colvig was the first Bozo The Clown in the mid-1940s on several children's records, and then Harmon was hired to play Bozo in the mid-50s and eventually got the licensing rights to the character and arranged for various people to play the clown on TV in different markets, including Willard Scott in Washington, D.C., Frank Avruch in Boston, and Bob Bell in Chicago. The last show aired on WGN in 2001, and Harmon was involved in a controversy in 2004 when the International Clown Hall of Fame took down Harmon's plaque and recognized Colvig as Bozo. But Harmon never claimed to have created the character, just that he made him what he became.

Harmon died of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles at age 83.

Here's who's on the late night shows tonight.

• Charlie Rose: Judith Jamison
• The Daily Show: Lara Logan (repeat)
• The Colbert Report: Jonathan Zittrain (repeat)
• The Late Show with David Letterman: Sarah Jessica Parker and The Republic Tigers (repeat)
• Jay Leno: Dustin Hoffman, Gordon Ramsay, and Flobots (repeat)
• Jimmy Kimmel Live: Charlize Theron, Guillermo del Toro, and We The Kings (repeat)
• Tavis Smiley: Larry Hagman and Lee A. Daniels
• Late Night with Conan O'Brien: Jeff Garlin, Dax Shepard, and The Kills (repeat)
• The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson: Virginia Madsen, Darin Strauss, and John Hiatt (repeat)
• Last Call with Carson Daly: Adam Carolla, Gary Cannon, and Cloud Cult (repeat)

• At 8, NBC has a new, two hour Last Comic Standing, then a new Fear Itself.
• FOX has a new Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? at 8, followed by a new So You Think You Can Dance.
• At 9, TBS has a new Bill Engvall Show, then a new My Boys.
• HGTV has a new Rate My Space at 9.
• At 10, ABC has a new Hopkins.
• CBS has a new Swingtown at 10.
• Sundance has a new Live From Abbey Road at 10, with David Gray and Suzanne Vega.
• Also at 10: Bravo has a new Kathy Griffin: My Life On The D-List.
• At 10:30, History Channel has a new Surviving History.
• Comedy Central has a new Reno 911 at 10:30.

Check your local TV listings for more.

I mentioned in my review of the first Mad Men episode that the show makes me want to start smoking and drinking a lot. Now I have another reason to take up smoking (or should I say return as I did smoke for one summer as a teen): I got the two new collectible lighters yesterday.

They're both pretty damn cool and look a lot like the limited edition, lighter-shaped DVD set for the first season of the show. The limited edition lighter features the full Mad Men logo (the title and the back of the man's head and arm) and is numbered (only 1000 were made). It comes in a nice black case. The regular lighter is metal and features the Mad Men title (without the pic of the man) on the bottom of the front.

AMC is spending $25 million to promote the second season of the show (commercials, print ads, promotional products, tie-ins, etc), which premieres on July 27, and I'm all for spending that kind of money if it gets me cool collectibles like this. Now I have to go get a few cartons of Lucky Strikes and a couple of really nice suits. (Check back on July 21 as we'll be giving away some Mad Men goodies like the DVDs and one of these lighters, so you can start smoking too.)

Richard told you earlier this year that The Weather Channel was for sale. Now it looks like recent rumors that NBC was going to be the one to buy the TV network are true. Reuters says that the deal should be closed in the next few days, and the reported price is between $3 billion and $4 billion.

If you haven't noticed, weather is the most important part of a newscast now. I was just talking to my roommate about this yesterday. Every single local newscast opens with news about the weather. Not just tornadoes and hurricanes, but bad rain storms that might pop up later in the day (wow, rainstorms in the summer - shocking!). Weather is the lead story (death, war, and the election can wait), the follow-up story, and the actual weather segment halfway through the show is given another good 7 or 8 minutes.

It's another holiday, and that means more TV marathons and specials! Here's a handy guide to the 4th (and the 5th and 6th).

July 4

• AMC has Planet of the Apes movies all morning, then the Jaws movies starting at 10:30am.
• At 6am, USA has a Walker, Texas Ranger marathon.
• TMC has episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (80s version) at 6, then Hitchcock movies all day.
• At 7, ESPN2 has coverage of Wimbledon Tennis.
• At 8, A&E has a marathon of Paranormal State.
• Biography has a City Confidential marathon starting at 8.
• There's a Twilight Zone marathon starting at 8 on Sci-Fi.
• At 9, TruTV has a Beach Patrol marathon.
• FX has a King of the Hill marathon at 9.
• At noon, NBC has more Wimbledon.
• At 2pm, TV Land has an I Love Lucy marathon.
• At 3, HGTV has a Design Star marathon.
• At 8, PBS has A Capitol Fourth.
• At 9, NBC has the Macy's 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular.
• At 10, CBS has the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular.

If you didn't see it the other night, a woman with gigantic breasts/jugs/hooters appeared on NBC's America's Got Talent. I'm not sure what they showed and didn't show on the broadcast, but the Peacock Network's site has the complete uncensored version of her, um, "act."

A woman named Busty Heart (I'm sure that's her birth name) came on the show and crushed things with her giant breasts. The three judges seem shocked and amazed, as does most of the audience. Wow, America does have talent! Now I know why Jerry Springer hosts this season.

The video of Busty's bust busting is after the jump. Needless to say, it's probably NSFW (though she thankfully remains covered with her shiny top). Next week: a man with a giant penis lassos Sharon Osbourne as she tries to flee the theater.

Update: Here's what aired.

Another day, another list of 10 semifinalists from the Emmys. This time, it's the Best Actor in a Drama.

There are a lot of the usual suspects on the list (which will be knocked down to five nominees in the next round), including actors from Dexter, Mad Men, Grey's Anatomy, Friday Night Lights, Breaking Bad, and House. One show that's not represented is Lost. I thought Matthew Fox did some great work this season, especially his drunk/screwed-up scenes.

After the jump, the list of the ten semifinalists (also check out those in contention for Best Actress - Comedy, Best Supporting Actor - Drama, Best Comedy, and Best Drama).

Here's who's on the late night shows tonight.

• Charlie Rose: Naguib Sawiris, and an appreciation of Clay Felker
• The Daily Show: Mike Myers (repeat)
• The Colbert Report: Kenneth R. Miller (repeat)
• The Late Show with David Letterman: Adam Sandler, Scott Dixon, and Donna Summer (repeat)
• Jay Leno: Mike Myers, Abigail Breslin, and David Cook (repeat)
• Jimmy Kimmel Live: Steve Carell and Jewel (repeat)
• Tavis Smiley: Holly Hunter
• Late Night with Conan O'Brien: Patrick Stewart, Oliver Hudson, and A.A. Bondy (repeat)
• The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson: John Cusack and Parminder Nagra (repeat)
• Last Call with Carson Daly: Maria Menounos, Benjamin Nugent, and Local H (repeat)

• At 8, FOX has a new So You Think You Can Dance.
• At 8:30, G4 has their Comic Con '08 Live Preview.
• At 9, NBC has a new Baby Borrowers, followed by a new Celebrity Circus.
• PBS has a new Nova scienceNOW at 9.
• Also at 9: Sundance Channel has a new On The Road In America.
• At 9:30, HGTV has a new Design on a Dime.
• At 10, TruTV has a new Black Gold.
• TBS has two new episodes of Tyler Perry's House of Payne at 10.
• Bravo has a new Shear Genius at 10.
• Also at 10: MTV has a new episode of The Real World.
• At 10:30, Comedy Central has a new Mind of Mencia.

Check your local TV listings for more.

While viewership continues to slip and all that "Katie is leaving after the election" talk still swirls, it looks like the industry actually likes her show.

The CBS Evening News won the Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Newscast from the Radio Television News Directors Association the other night. ABC won the most awards, including Best Overall, Documentary, Hard news, Spot News Coverage, and Videography. Not really sure what the difference is between Best Newscast and Best Overall, but maybe Best Overall combines all facets of a TV network's news division while Best Newscast just focuses on the 30 minute nightly show that the network does. Either way it's something I'm sure you're going to see in ads for The CBS Evening News.

CBS News also won for Best Web Site (I'd link to the full list of awards but the RTNDA site seems to be down right now.)

[via TV Newser]

Here are the weekly cable ratings, by number of viewers.

That's right, not only does Monday Night RAW retake the #1 spot on the cable ratings this week, it takes up three spots in the top 10. That doesn't seem fair, does it? I can hear the people at Disney asking, "why aren't the two hours of Camp Rock split into two different spots? Or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Fine, we'll just run Camp Rock every hour for the entire week and we'll see what the ratings are!"

(And yes, SpongeBob is on the list yet again. It's comforting to see him there almost every week.)

1. Monday Night RAW (USA)
2. BET Awards (BET)
3. Sprint Cup Racing - Loudon (TNT)
4. Monday Night RAW (USA)
5. In Plain Sight (USA)
6. Camp Rock (Disney)
7. Monday Night RAW (USA)
8. Law and Order: CI (USA)
9. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Disney)
10. SpongeBob SquarePants (Nickelodeon)

(S04E14) "My goal tonight is to make Chef Ramsay second guess the fact that he got rid of me." - Jen

Oh Jen, just when we had started to forget you, you come back with the nasty attitude and the chip on your shoulder. Like Mary Tyler Moore, you can turn the world on with your smile.

This is part one of the finale, where final contestants Petrozza and Christina design their restaurants and have to complete a service with some of the eliminated contestants. The returning players are Jen, Louross, Bobby, Corey, Matt, and Ben. Not sure why these contestants are the ones who return, other than they're the most controversial. They're not all the most recent rejects, because Roseann would be in the mix if that was the case and not Ben.

I have mixed feelings about these contestants coming back, which I'll explain after the jump.

Here are the weekly ratings, by number of viewers.

Yes, NBC had four shows in the top 20 this week, but it took the summer and reality and/or reality game shows to get there, including America's Got Talent, The Baby Borrowers, and Celebrity Family Feud. ABC's new game shows, Wipeout and I Survived A Japanese Game Show, both made the top ten.

I'm surprised Hell's Kitchen isn't higher. #14 is great, I just thought it would do better during the summer (though it does well on its night). 60 Minutes' repackaged repeat segments continue to do well too.

1. America's Got Talent (NBC)
2. Wipeout (ABC)
3. 60 Minutes (CBS)

Here's who's on the late night talk shows tonight.

• Charlie Rose: Bob Wise and Wendy Kopp
• The Daily Show: David Iglesias (repeat)
• The Colbert Report: Junot Diaz and Dr. Uma Mysorekar (repeat)
• The Late Show with David Letterman: Jack Black and Esperanza Spalding (repeat)
• Jay Leno: Will Smith, Pete Sampras, and Ed Harcourt (repeat)
• Jimmy Kimmel Live: Bill Cosby, John Leguizamo, Megan Good, and Secondhand Serenade (repeat)
• Tavis Smiley: Emily Procter and Senator Jim Webb (repeat)
• Late Night with Conan O'Brien: Sarah Jessica Parker, Aries Spears, and They Might Be Giants (repeat)
• The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson: Richard Lewis and Duffy (repeat)
• Last Call with Carson Daly: Kate Flannery and Moby