Hey! Safety first! It's a special treat tonight. Putting away the Late Show Bear is the Late Show Dog. Animal vs. animal. The Late Show Bear appeared to take it easy on the pup as the battle wasn't quite as fierce as seen on prior nights. Perhaps the bear is moving out of its hyperphagia stage. Sponsoring the Putting Away of the Late Show Bear tonight: Michelin. Michelin - A Better Way Forward.

The buzz of excitement is still running high as we continue with the exciting experiment of broadcasting in High-Definition. The changes in viewing and reception have been amazing for the 6 people who own a high-definition TV. And we're not stopping here. We're hoping to go with an even wider image I the near future. That's right, even wider. We take a look at how that would look in letterbox. The picture squeezes to about 1-inch vertical across the monitor. Extremely large black bars grace the top and bottom of the screen.
And with High-Definition, you can notice detail you never noticed before. For instance, we have a clip of our stage manager Biff Henderson before, in old analog format. We see a happy Biff waving to the camera. And now we take a look at Biff in the new and exciting High-Definition. For the first time we notice that Biff has a mustache. Imagine that, after all these years, we learn Biff has a mustache. Gee, high-definition is really awesome.
Do the kids still say "awesome"? Or do they have a new word?

The change to the Late Show since it's gone high-definition is really remarkable. Back in our first year, we thought we were state of the art. "How could the picture possible be any better?" we thought. Looking at it now, it's obvious we were a bit naive. It's plain that 12 years ago was the dark ages when it comes to broadcasting. We take a look at a clip from Year One. We see black and white footage with film scratches of a chubby dancing. Wow, quite a before and after!

A LOOK BACK AT GEORGE W. BUSH'S VACATION - The President ended his five-week vacation this week.
Dave was impressed with the opening song to A Look Back at George W. Bush's Vacation. Paul says it was accompanied with choreography. Pray tell, please do it again. Paul and the band play it again and we enjoy the dance Paul provided. Dave describes the choreography as looking like there was "not enough tranquilizer in the dart."

DAY 1: Taunts local townspeople who don't get five weeks off a year.
DAY 4: For the 10,000th time in his Presidency, Bush says 'Dunno.'
DAY 10: President Bush passes legislation to change town's name from "Crawford" to "Margaritaville."
DAY 12: The President had a three hour CIA briefing on how to get in and out of a hammock.
DAY 13-19: Grand Theft Auto 3
DAY 20: Attends VMA's Party --- Dares Rumsfeld to shoot Suge Knight in the leg.
DAY 21: President loses twenty dollar bet when he can't say "Working vacation" with a straight face.
DAY 23: After weeks of excavating and drilling on his property, a disappointed Bush admits, "Nope, no oil here."
DAY 25: Laura Bush and a foreign dignitary tape a new video called "Girls Gone Mild."
DAY 27: Uses 7,000 gallons of fuel to fly home to deal with the oil crisis.

During the Look Back at Bush's Vacation, Dave imitated the bugling of an elk, a big elk, a huge elk, an elk in rut, and a speckled loon.

APE OR ARTIST? This is our 8th installment of "Ape or Artist?" Each time prior, the abstract piece of art was painted by an ape. Could it possibly again be done by an ape? The scrim rises and we observe and study the painting. What are we playing for? We're playing for $500,000 worth of gold! So, the painting . . . Ape? Artist? Dave tried to pry the answer from a staffer just before the show but staffer wouldn't divulge. Dave caused the staffer to turn red, but the staffer stuck to the secret. There is a lot of backstage gambling that goes on during Ape or Artist and tipping off the host to the right answer would create turmoil, suspicion, and cries of cheating from all levels of Worldwide Pant employees. I wouldn't be surprised if Lasally would have to be called in.
Paul guesses Ape. Dave guesses Artist. (I think) Alan? Alan announces, "Dave, it was painted by . . . . an ape! Born in Colorado in 1972, but housed at the Houston Zoo since 1993, Cheyenne is a hybrid of the two subspecies of orangutan, Bornean and Sumatran. A surrogate mother of two other great apes, she uses her fingers, a brush, and water blown through a straw to create her art. Other paintings by Cheyenne have sold for $50."

TOP TEN: Ways Osama bin Laden Can Boost His Popularity. - Iraqi insurgency leader Abu Mahab al-Zaqwarhi is reportedly now the most influential terrorist in the world, outpacing Osama.
#10. Release all videotaped messages in high-definition.
#9. Claim responsibility for terrorist attack on Suge Knight's leg.
#5. Guest star on an episode of "Will & Grace" as Jack's new hottie boyfriend, Todd.

RACHEL WEISZ: (pronounced 'Vice'): Paul and the CBS Orchestra play Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," which is a play on "In The Garden of Eden." Rachel is starring in the film, "The Constant Gardener." Garden of Eden --- The Constant Gardener.
Rachel is just coming off a bout with food poisoning, having eaten a bad squid. One thing I know about a bad squid . . . you can't tell by looking at it. Bad squid . . . good squid . . . both look icky to me.
Rachel recently had the pleasure of going for an excursion on a blimp over Brooklyn. Wasn't that a movie? "Blimp Over Brooklyn"? Anyway, her boyfriend is from Brooklyn and as many Brooklynders like to do, they like to view their borough from as many angles as they can. While circling the Borough of Churches while sailing, her boyfriend saw a Fuji Blimp fly overhead. "Hey, what about a blimp ride over Brooklyn" he thought. Phone calls were made and before she knew it, Rachel was riding in a blimp. Her boyfriend was phoning his Brooklyn friends down below telling them to look up in the sky. They then waved to each other. Dave, who has flown in a blimp before, believes our mayor Mike Bloomberg should introduce blimp rides to New York City.
Right about here, I leaned over and suggested to the Stangels that we get Rupert up in a blimp over New York.
You can see Rachel Weisz in her new film, "The Constant Gardener," which opened today (Wednesday). It was filmed and banned in Kenya.

TOM DREESEN: Tom enters and sits, wiping his shoes clean with his hand. What's the problem? Says Tom, "Somebody threw up squid backstage." I laughed out loud at that. I love jokes like that; simple, silly, obvious, a bit forced, but damn, I love the effort. I get such a kick out of Dreesen's visits to the show and am always thoroughly entertained. I find him pure show-biz, a big time professional. Always smiling, always with a joke, always with a story; the consummate pro. Yes, I know he's not for everyone, but he's for me.
Tom grew up in Chicago and tells a few stories about spending time with the Chicago Bears, throwing out the first ball at a Chicago Cubs game, singing "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" at Wrigley Field, and being the only white kid on a basketball and football team. Dave heard this story before and asks, "You had a nickname, didn't you?" Tom laughed a knowing laugh. He hadn't planned on saying his nickname but offered it up: "Spot. My nickname was 'Spot.'"
Tom will be performing at Camp LeJeune in North Carolina from September 29th through October 1st welcoming home the troops from Afghanistan.

ACT 5: Alan (enthusiastically):

"Guess what? It's time for the 'Late Show Kidz Korner!' Hey, kids!" (turning serious, angry) "What the hell are you doing up, you little bastards? It's after midnight. Get your asses to bed! Now! School starts soon and I'm tired of you pulling this crap! I'm serious!"
(enthusiastically) "This has been 'Late Show Kidz Korner.' Keep it real!"

And that was our show for Wednesday, August 31, 2005. Wahoo EXTRA!

Last week I rented "The Nutty Professor," the original one with Jerry Lewis, not the new one with Eddie Murphy. I want to expose my girls to some of the show business greats that came before Lindsay Lohan and Raven. Plus, I never saw it before and I used them as an excuse to watch it. "The Nutty Professor" --- I found it, "Ehhh." Jerry's nutty professor was over-the-top acting; his Buddy Love . . . well, I couldn't help but think Jerry wasn't acting at all here. Buddy is how I picture Jerry when he's working a room. I thought the Buddy Love character brought a lot more laughs than the nutty professor. Swarmy suave, Buddy Love.

I saw two things this week that caught my eye.
#1. In Sunday's Phil Mushnick column in the New York Post, he writes:

"WABC-AM radio has been running ads featuring John Madden and Tom Brady pitching Sirius satellite radio, which is not merely a competitor, but a predator, of AM and FM radio. If we ran an AM station, we'd accept commercials for bubonic plague before ads for satellite radio."

"Why does commercial radio allow Satellite radio to advertise on their stations? Can't they get a dollar from someone else?"
#2. A local politician here in Rockland County, New York wants to put a freeze on the gasoline sales tax. It was reported this way in my local newspaper, The Journal News: "Gromack sent letters yesterday to Clinton, Sen. Charles Schumer, Reps. Eliot Engel and Nita Lowey and state representatives asking that consumers pay state and federal taxes based on June 1 gas, diesel and home-heating oil prices.
With this new proposal, he asked that taxes remain the same, even if gas prices go up. 'We're not saying let's eliminate the tax completely,' Gromack said. 'Let's just freeze it.'"

"Here's something that I've been kicking around the last few weeks. Is the tax placed on gasoline based on the gallon or the dollar spent? If it's based on the dollar, then the government is also profiting from the price increase on gasoline. Politicians would then have more money to dicker with for their programs. They get more tax money but the oil companies get the blame. I would think that the pols would then be in no rush to stem the price increase. But if the tax is based on the gallon, then never mind."

And finally, this weekend I went to a garage sale and bought Mary Shelley's classic, "Frankenstein." Traveling to and from work this week by bus, I was offered the chance to read it. 100 pages in and I love it! I'm not one for fiction reading (it is fiction, isn't it?), but this "Frankenstein" is a great page turner. Then yesterday, a staffer came into my office and mentioned that over the break, she read the book, "Frankenstein." She loved it. And I bought the book this weekend and just started reading it! How about that! What a coincidence. And it offered me the opportunity to fill up space in the Wahoo writing about it. That's what I call a win-win.

Hey! When I e-mailed my Wahoo from home back to work, it didn't come with all those question marks in place of my quotes and dashes. Ahhh, life is good.