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Monday's tribute was 4th in the ratings!

Monday's Tonight Show With Jay Leno on NBC, which was a tribute to Johnny Carson, yielded the fourth-highest ratings for that show since it began in 1992, according to numbers gathered from Nielsen's local markets. The broadcast featured highlights from Carson's Tonight show run, as well as appearances by Ed McMahon, Don Rickles and Bob Newhart. David Letterman's Late Show, which might have offered a tribute, was a repeat on Monday night. Unlike the overnight ratings for prime-time programs, the complete results for the Tonight show, including the number of viewers, will not be available until next week.

Just to think, Paris Hilton would have been on. For the life of me, I just don't understand how a hotel heiress gets her own show when she can't even act worth a darn. She's worse than Hilary Duff who can't even act at all. She only has one character that she portrays over and over. Advice to Hilary Duff: Improvisation!

Rolling Stone pays tribute to Johnny Carson. Park Overall remembers Johnny Carson. Johnny Carson was remembered at the Oscar nomination announcements.

"I want to say on behalf of all of us at the Academy, to the man who was our voice for so many years on the Academy Awards, Johnny Carson, goodnight and sleep well," said Frank Pierson, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Carson was ringleader of the Oscar broadcast repeatedly in the 1970s and 1980s, and along with the late Bob Hope, was considered one of the program's most capable hosts.

Bob Hope: Or as I calll it--Passover.

If you didn't think that Johnny Carson was generous, think again after reading this!

Carson gave back to Corning three years ago when kids there complained there was no place to play. Parents wrote Carson for help to build a new skate park, and they got it. "I had to look at the zeros. At first, I thought $7,500. No, it was $75,000. We were shocked, shocked to death, it was great," one parent remembers.

Thanks to Johnny Carson, Corning opened the Carnac Family Skatepark, named after Carson's famous Tonight Show character, "Carnac The Magnificent".

SNL is gearing up for a new anniversary show following Lorne Michael's contract extension.

NBC will celebrate “Saturday Night Live” with the two-hour special on “Live From New York: The First 5 Years of Saturday Night Live” on Feb. 20.

The special will look at the franchise’s nascent years and will feature new interviews with Michaels; original stars, including Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Laraine Newman and Garrett Morris; and the early hosts such as Candice Bergen, Elliot Gould, Buck Henry, Eric Idle, Steve Martin, Penny Marshall and Lily Tomlin.

NBC also plans to air classic shows from those first five years in the “All-Night” time slot after “SNL” on Sunday mornings.

The Blues are Back!?!

The classic-soul cover band the Blues Brothers, featuring Dan Aykroyd and Jim Belushi, will don their trademark sunglasses for a concert at 8:30 p.m. Saturday at Caesars in Atlantic City. The show is a benefit for the Positive Impact Foundation, devoted to using positive images to bolster self-esteem among New Jersey youths. PIF founder Joe Piscopo -- like Aykroyd and Belushi, a "Saturday Night Live" alumnus -- will host.

Piscopo created PIF in 1997, the same year that Belushi began co-fronting the Blues Brothers with Aykroyd (who originally partnered with Jim's late brother, John). In their original incarnation, the goofy R&B group had some unlikely hit singles (1979's "Soul Man") and persuaded stars like Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and James Brown to cameo in their boisterous 1980 movie, "The Blues Brothers."

Does Johnny Carson want his house sold on ebay?

Is Evan Bayh running for President?

Bayh's criticism of the war's handling suggests his interest in running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, said Thomas Mann, a political scientist at the Brookings Institution.

"Defending the Bush administration's record on Iraq is the kiss of death for a Democratic presidential candidate," Mann said.[...]

But Bayh said the mistakes in Iraq couldn't be ignored. In his view, they include not planning for the aftermath of the war, not having enough U.S. troops, disbanding the Iraqi army and disqualifying members of Saddam Hussein's political party from serving in the new government.

"This is no ordinary incompetence," Bayh said Tuesday on the Senate floor. "Men and women are dying as a result of these mistakes."

Johnny Carson DVD's are hitting the top of the charts. I might buy one myself as soon as I get the funding.

But the longtime host of NBC's The Tonight Show, who died Sunday at 79, remained a shrewd if conservative businessman, friends say, and even in retirement stayed active in one pet project. Between trips around the world, Carson supervised video and DVD compilations of his most memorable bits, designed to keep his legacy alive. On Monday one of those anthologies — The Ultimate Johnny Carson Collection — His Favorite Moments From The Tonight Show (Vols. 1-3) (1962-1992), originally released in 2000 — zoomed to No. 1 on the Amazon.com DVD sales ranking. Four other Carson compilations, representing a fraction of the more than 5,000 hours of existing “Tonight Show” tapes, spiked to top 10 positions on the chart.