Lake Neuron

I don’t know how long in advance tonight’s “Saturday Night Live” rerun had been scheduled, but the cold open was sort of, well, timely, in a sarcastic way. Hillary Clinton (played by Amy Poehler) delivers a cheerily condescending monologue to her Democratic rivals about the inevitability of her nomination and how maybe one of them will get to spread his wings in 2016.

I’ve just gotten through watching the “Prisoner” DVD containing the two most atypical episodes in the series: “Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling,” in which Number 6’s mind is transpanted into a different body (so that Patrick McGoohan could go film “Ice Station Zebra”!), and “Living In Harmony,” which, without explanation, skips the opening credits and begins its action in the Old West.

Only three more episodes to go!

When Letterman announced that tonight’s “Late Show” would include Julianne Moore plus Morgan Spurlock plus the winner of the National Spelling Bee plus a performance by the cast of “South Pacific,” I thought, “well, that’s a pretty full show. No room for anything else.”

But about 15 minutes in, I was proven wrong. Some city slicker did a walk-on to promote the release of a new DVD edition of one of his most popular movies.

I love the way that Paul Shaffer sometimes plays “Thanks for the Memories” to accompany such surprise walk-ons, a joking reference to the days when Bob Hope would be taping one of his NBC specials and would turn up on the Carson show unannounced.

UPDATE: The announced guest list turned out to be a red herring: the spelling bee winner wasn’t the real spelling bee winner but a thirty-something actor doing a comedy bit.

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This week’s Late Show Rewind (the weekly highlight reel posted at the “Late Show” web site) starts with the hysterical “Jamba Juice” incident featuring Dave, Paul and eventually Kevin Spacey, and it also includes a great zinger from Harrison Ford, and Dave’s (bleeped) slip of the tongue pronouncing “Sex And The City.”

I ate out after layspeaking this morning, so I planned to have leftovers for dinner tonight. Unfortunately, I ended up watching a History Channel documentary about American fast food and the long segment on the history of pizza just drove me bananas.

I have complained here in the past that Domino’s lagged behind Papa John’s and Pizza Hut in online ordering. I like being able to sit in front of the computer, look at all the specials, and decide at my own pace what to order. Well, they’ve caught up. Not only do they have online ordering, they have a nifty gizmo called the “Pizza Tracker,” a web page timeline which shows when your order has been submitted, when the pizza is being prepared, when it’s being sliced and boxed, and when it’s being delivered (or, in my case, ready for pickup — I didn’t want to add a tip to what was already a splurge). There are even little individualized messages: “Jeanette put your pizza in the oven at 4:42 p.m.”

Online or not, it’s good.

“Say goodnight, Dick.”

“Goodnight, Dick.”

A summer blockbuster about which you may not have heard:

“Where am I?”
“In the Village.”
“What do you want?”
“Information.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“That would be telling. We want information. Information. Information!”
“You won’t get it.”
“By hook or by crook, we will!”
“Who are you?”
“I am Number Two.”
“Who is Number One?”
“You are Number Six.”
“I am not a number … I am a free man!”

In all honesty, I’d only seen a few individual episodes of “The Prisoner” before buying my complete series DVD mega-set. And I remember as a child seeing the big white balloon and being both fascinated and frightened by it. But I knew from everything I’d read and seen that I would enjoy it — and I am enjoying it.

I’m now passing the discs I’ve already watched along to my father, who was a fan of the show from the beginning.

It’s a great, creative idea, combined with good storytelling and a great lead performance by Patrick McGoohan. And all of the various people who play Number Two are great, including Leo McKern, who was so wonderful as “Rumpole of the Bailey.”

The episode of “Doctor Who” airing tonight here in the U.S. involves a product called Atmos, a sort of combination of OnStar with a miracle pollution-blocker. Unfortunately, it turns out to be part of a sinister plot. It’s sort of funny, because here in Shelbyville the primary source of natural gas is Dallas-based Atmos Energy. I’m guessing the British creators of “Doctor Who” just picked the name because it sounded good; here’s hoping the natural gas people have a sense of humor.

Hormel didn’t have a sense of humor a few years back, when “Muppet Treasure Island” had an ugly villain named Spa’am. They sued for trademark infringement, and lost the suit.

From Sylvania light bulbs, in Thailand. I’m not sure there’s anything I can add:

Hat tip: Best Week Ever.

I think I may have covered the topic before in this space, but I wanted to go back and explain my remark earlier that I won’t enjoy the game play of “Million Dollar Password.”

First, for any of you too young to remember any of the iterations of “Password,” I need to explain the game. It was played by two teams, each consisting of a contestant and a celebrity partner. The object of the game was for one partner to get the other to say a secret “password” by giving one-word clues. The teams would take turns working on the same password — first, the person giving the clues for what I’ll call team “A” would give his or her partner a clue, and the partner would give a response. If that response was wrong, team “B” would take a shot at it, and back and forth until one team or the other got it right. Obviously, each team is listening to the other team’s clues and can benefit from them when it’s their turn

The scoring was simple: guessing a password on the first clue was worth 10 points, on the second clue was worth 9 points, on the third clue 8 points, and so on. The first team to get to 25 points won the game and got to play a “speed round” for cash, guessing as many passwords as possible within 60 seconds.

The original rules of “Password” were simple and elegant. They were also strict. Only one-word passwords were used, and only one-word clues were allowed. There were no names or proper nouns or movie titles or anything like that; just words, from a dictionary. (Sometimes, a particular dictionary would be mentioned by name as part of a sponsorship agreement.) Each password stood on its own.

Later, at the bottom of the post, you can see a clip of this format.
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I don’t think I will like the game play of CBS’s new “Million Dollar Password,” a re-working of my all-time favorite game show. But Regis Philbin is an ideal host, and I am delighted to see that Betty White apparently makes an appearance. It wouldn’t be “Password” without Betty, who met “Password” host Allen Ludden when she was a celebrity panelist on the show and ended up marrying him. Ludden is still, for my money, the classiest game show host ever (possibly tied with Hugh Downs, who at one time hosted “Concentration.”)

Here is what my TV will look like in another week or two: