JAY: 'I WASN'T CLOSE TO JOHNNY'
Though he succeeded Johnny Carson as host of "The Tonight Show," Jay Leno admits he and Carson were not close.
Leno put his relationship with Carson in perspective yesterday on "The View." It was the first time Leno had talked about Carson in any public venue other than "The Tonight Show" since Carson's death Jan. 23.
"We were all very sad when we heard about Johnny Carson's death and you did this wonderful tribute," co-host Barbara Walters said to Leno, referring to the special "Tonight Show" Leno hosted Jan. 24, just one day after Carson died, that paid loving tribute to his legendary predecessor.
"You said you still feel like a guest in his house . . .," Walters said.
"Well, yeah, I think that's true," said Leno, who was on hand to help "The View" inaugurate a week of broadcasts from Los Angeles.
"Johnny built 'The Tonight Show' and made it what it is," Leno said, "and, you know, it's a very tricky situation to be in because I did not have a close relationship with Johnny.
"He was always very nice to me and very kind to me. And whenever we needed a piece of tape, I would call over to the office once in a while and say, 'Oh, we have Sally Fields [sic] on. Could we have a piece of tape from, like, 1974 when she was a kid?' And he was always very gracious to us.
"But I can't say that I was close to the man. I would have liked to have been, but I wasn't."
Leno was Carson's permanent guest host for about four years before he won the job as host of the show following Carson's retirement in May 1992.
DIRTY 'DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES'
'Desperate Housewives" creator Marc Cherry says the show's hotly anticipated DVD will include censored scenes too hot for ABC.
"Certain actresses [on the show] really don't like to wear bras," Cherry says. "We try to accommodate them as much as possible. We do a lot of blurring."
Cherry also says that one unaired scene, featuring "Housewives" star Nicollette Sheridan (Edie Britt) in her skivvies, could be included on the show's DVD version.
"We didn't realize how skimpy her underwear was," Cherry says in a report that appeared first on the TV industry website, jackmyers.com.
"Housewives," the season's highest-rated new show, has raised eyebrows with its racy content centered around the women of Wisteria Lane.
DVDs of TV shows have become a marketing bonanza, reaping huge profits for studios, stars and creators. And "extras" — like new scenes — often help sell the discs.
Nowadays, a DVD of a show's first season can be issued immediately after the show's inaugural season has wrapped — a likely scenario for "Housewives," which has generated the most attention this TV season and grabbed a raft of awards.
Cherry says other deleted "Housewives" content that could grace a DVD include an S&M sequence featuring Sharon Lawrence and Steven Culp, who plays Bree Van De Kamp's husband, Rex.
"Standards and practices went nuts," Cherry says, and the scene had to be cut.
And it won't just be naughty stuff that will find its way into the DVD, officials say.
"We've got a couple of plots that are going to make much more sense once you see what we've cut out," Cherry says.
Tame Super Bowl Still Draws FCC Complaints
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) In stark contrast to last year's wardrobe malfunction-dominated Super Bowl, viewers were apparently relatively comfortable with Sunday's (Feb. 6) football action and its surrounding entertainments and commercials. Through Monday, the Federal Communications Commission has reportedly only received 33 comments stemming from the game, including several complimenting the broadcast.
According to "Mediaweek," most of the complaints stem from the expensive commercials that aired during the game. The GoDaddy.com ad featuring a curvaceous brunette, received the bulk of the ire. Eight people wrote in about the spot, which FOX and the NFL refused to air a second time. Five more people took offense at the ad for erectile dysfunction drug Cialis, while one lone viewer was disgusted by a Pepsi spot featuring lusty "Queer Eye" star Carson Kressley.
Paul McCartney's halftime show generated four complaints, though two of them kvetched about how boring the former Beatle was. Two others took exception to the drug references in one of McCartney's songs.
At least one viewer, probably misjudging the FCC's power, asked that the regulatory agency have Joe Buck removed from the announcing crew.
While those isolated complainers may have had concerns about the Super Bowl content, the normally pugnacious Parents Television Council was entirely copasetic with the game and its surrounding festivities.
"The PTC commends FOX, the NFL and its advertisers for displaying a modicum of respect for the many viewers who voiced concern about last years Super Bowl broadcast," the PTC says in a statement. "The PTC also thanks each and every viewer who took the time to voice his or her concern for the wholly inappropriate content which Viacom arrogantly dumped into our living rooms."
The "Mediaweek" article notes that more complaints may still be coming. It seems highly unlikely, though, that Sunday's game will distort the entire media landscape in the same manner as last year's game.
Rock icons Cummings, Bachman among inductees to Songwriters Hall of Fame
TORONTO (CP) - They've been festooned with awards through the last few decades, but rock icons Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings agree their latest honour is the big enchilada - having their songs recognized as timeless pieces of Canadian history.
In a ceremony Tuesday night, the pair joined a list of inductees into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame that included Quebec artist Claude Leveillee and ragtime pioneer Shelton Brooks. "I have never been as proud to be a Canadian as this evening," Cummings said.
"To me this is right at the top of the list," Cummings said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
"You know gold records are beautiful and everything but they are (awarded) for sales. But the songwriting award itself, this is where it all starts."
Cummings and Bachman, who performed an extended version of The Guess Who hit No Sugar, were given their award by another music legend, Gordon Lightfoot, who said Cummings and Bachman "could be considered the foundation of the rock scene here in Canada."
In a joking tribute to his partner Tuesday night Bachman said of Cummings "he was born to be wild and I was born to be mild."
Earlier, Bachman, fresh from rehearsing The Guess Who song No Time with Cummings and a band consisting of stars Tom Cochrane and Jeff Healey, said: "Somebody told me way back when I was a teenager learning to play guitar... 'There's always going to be a younger, faster guitar player, but if you can write good songs... that song will come back and last forever.' "
A case in point is their famed hit American Woman, which has recently seen a revival in films such as the Oscar-winning American Beauty. Rocker Lenny Kravitz covered the song in the Austin Powers comedy The Spy Who Shagged Me, making it a hit again around the world, a fact some found curious since Kravitz is an American, singing a song perceived to be anti-U.S.
But Cummings reiterated what he has said in the past, that the song was not meant to be a political metaphor. Instead, he said, it really was about women.
"We had been touring the States incessantly and then we came back to Canada and as I looked out from the stage the girls just seemed to be younger and fresher (than Americans)," he explained.
"So my thought process was not American woman, stay away from me, but Canadian woman I prefer you to the American woman."
But he admits the lines about war machines and ghetto scenes could be construed to be political, yet he dismisses them as being largely "gobbledygook."
Nonetheless, Cummings and Bachman are happy about their success with the song.
This is the second year for the fledgling Hall of Fame.
It currently exists only as a website, but the stated aim of the non-profit organization is to honour the accomplishments of Canadian popular music songwriters. The Canadian Music Publishers Association and the Songwriters Association of Canada are also involved.
Buffy Sainte-Marie put in an appearance at the gala after flying in from her home in Hawaii to sing her antiwar anthem Universal Soldier.
That song was inducted into the Hall of Fame.
The show gave Bachman and Cummings yet another chance to relive their heyday.
But Cummings noted their songs are being kept very much alive as movies continue to assemble soundtracks using hits of yesteryear. Cummings joked about seeing 1999's American Beauty.
"I tell people this is why Kevin Spacey (news) got the Oscar, because when he gets in the car and lights up a big joint and starts driving away, he pushes the cassette deck in and American Woman comes on. I was sitting alone in a theatre and I floated about a foot off my seat," he said.
Chris Noth Has New 'Law & Order' Duty
LOS ANGELES - Chris Noth's guest appearance this weekend on "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" is the start of something big. Noth, who left the original "Law & Order" 10 years ago, will become a regular on the spinoff beginning next season, series spokeswoman Pam Ruben Golum said Tuesday.
He will split duties with current series lead Vincent D'Onofrio, who's continuing as police Detective Robert Goren. Each actor will appear in 11 episodes for the fifth season. The NBC series airs at 9 p.m. EST Sunday.
Noth's casting will ease the work load for D'Onofrio, who was hospitalized briefly last year for exhaustion.
"The hardest job in show business is being a single lead on an hour drama series," said "Law & Order" creator and executive producer Dick Wolf. "Vincent has done an unbelievable job for the last four seasons, but after 3 1/2 years, the grueling pace finally took its toll."
He called Noth's addition to the show an "ideal solution."
Noth, who was Sarah Jessica Parker's love interest, Mr. Big, on HBO's "Sex and the City," will again play police Detective Mike Logan, his character from 1990-95 on "Law & Order."