Pepsi SmashShould I be embarrassed...

Pepsi Smash Should I be embarrassed that the only band in tonight's lineup (Yellowcard? Lloyd Banks? Christina Milian?) that I recognized was The Hives, a group that according to Ryan Seacrest wannabe Nick Zano is "the most influential Swedish import since Ikea"? Oh, really? What about ABBA? Or Ace of Base? Anyway, they do rock, although the lead singer looks like he could be the long-lost love child of Mick Jagger and Beck. (Not such a stretch if you really think about it.)

Come to Papa I'll admit it. I laughed tonight. Actually, it was just a single spontaneous "ha," but believe me, I'm as shocked as you are. I blame part of it on my subconscious — oh, who am I kidding? — make that my overwhelming relief that this was the last of four episodes ordered of this turd of a sitcom. The rest of the blame lies with Steve Carell, who when asked by Dan Lauria if the two of them were cool replied, "Crystal." Hey, I never said it was funny. I just said I laughed.

Larry King Live Former president Bill Clinton sat down with Larry King to discuss his recently published 900-plus-page memoir, My Life. And while it was obvious from the get-go that King was going to lob softball questions about politics and personal affairs, he did manage to sneak in one surprising query at the very end of the interview: King: Retiring White House pastry chef Roland Misnier reported that at the recent unveiling of your portraits, Chelsea asked if he'd make her favorite pastry dessert, a fruit cobbler, for her wedding. Misnier said in an interview, "She didn't give me a date, but something's in the air." What do you think of her boyfriend?
Clinton: I like him, but — I like him a lot. And I'm reluctant to say that because she had another one that I said I liked a lot and it didn't last long after I expressed an opinion.
King: Will she marry Ian Claus?
Clinton: If so, she hasn't said a word to me about it. And she was probably...
King: She was talking to the pastry chef [about getting married] and not her father?
Clinton: Yes, but she probably was asking Roland in generic terms like, when I get married some day would you make this? Because we gobbled down the fruit cobbler. [Grinning] I felt like a total horse there, because I was trying to be polite at the nice little reception the Bushes put on for us. And after we all took pictures I went in there and I thought, oh, my God, there's our fruit cobbler, which I hadn't seen in three and a half years. I tried to avoid at least grabbing it with my hands and I tried to be somewhat dignified, but Chelsea and I, even more than Hillary, we really loved that fruit cobbler.
And for those few fleeting moments, we got a glimpse of Clinton, not the politician or the adulterer, but the man and the father, becoming momentarily caught up in thoughts of his daughter's future. And fruit cobbler.

Primetime Thursday Tonight's hard-hitting lead story: "The Untold Story of Wilson Phillips." Next week: "Nelson: Exposed."

Celebrity Poker Showdown Did Jon Favreau leave the set in a huff after losing to Maura Tierney and tennis player James Blake? Maybe he was just edged out of the frame but he was nowhere to be found in the Losers Lounge when the show came back from commercial, and I didn't see him onstage congratulating Tierney after she won. As Favs' Swingers costar Vince Vaughan would say, "That is so not money, baby."

Graham Norton Effect As my mother would put it, wow, this new show is raunchy. Not racy, not randy, but raunchy. In fact, I'm not even sure how I'm going to describe the series premiere other than to say that if there's a sexual slant to a topic, Graham Norton will find it, expose it and exploit it. In fact, the tamest segment of the night came when Norton got 200 audience members to simultaneously brush their teeth for a foulmouthed teeth-brushing fetishist. Oddly enough, the same censors who didn't bat an eye at a mail-order sex doll's antics at a bar and the "Match the Partner" audience-participation game considered "lick" to be more offensive than a slang term for a part of the male anatomy attached to said bleeped verb.

Late Show with David Letterman In a skit spotlighting new and improved "summer products," Dave eats a charcoal briquet ("Tasty All by Themselves!"), washes it down with a swig of mouthwash ("Now with Gin") and ends up looking like one of the zombies from Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video.