QUIET! As I mentioned, I am in L.A. this week with Jen and Lucy, and spent this afternoon in the library of the Museum of Television and Radio in beautiful downtown Beverly -- Hills, that is.

I watched a pair of What's My Line episodes with Woody Allen and Nichols & May as the mystery guests, plus a Nichols & May appearance on The Steve Allen Show -- witty, funny stuff from almost fifty years ago, before the three went onto mass fame on stage and screen.

But the highlight was being able to revisit Newhart Episode #184, a/k/a "The Last Newhart".

If you've seen it, you know how brilliant it all is, with the townspeople selling their homes to the Japanese, save Bob and his wife; the farewell "Anatevka" (from Fiddler on the Roof) by their goyische neighbors; then, "five years later", everyone comes back to visit Bob, and then there's a golf ball, and, yeah. If you've seen it, or even if you haven't, you know that the very ending is a piece of comic brilliance that may never have been topped by a sitcom finale (though the hall-of-bitterness Larry Sanders finale comes close.)

Two details worth noting, even for those who remember it well, both relating to brothers Larry, Darryl and (his other brother) Darryl. First is that (and I forgot this) the episode is the only time that Darryl & Darryl speak during the entire run of the series, yelling "QUIET!" at their five-years-in-the-future wives, three yapping yentas from Long Island, just a great little grace note/present for the audience. A great moment in a great episode.

But second is this note of trivia: who was that playing the middle wife, Sada, way back in 1990? Jeepers, was that Lisa Kudrow, in her second-ever tv role? Wow.

SHANTRAX: Our good friend Cosmo Macero Jr. of the Boston Herald blogged today about America's Next Top Model, and he has made his prediction:

I called the winner (Adrianne Curry) on the first installment of America's Next Top Model on the night of the FIRST EPISODE. And now it looks like I'm going to do it again. Shandi the ex-junkie Walgreens worker - with a B&E on her rap sheet - caught my eye almost immediately six weeks ago. . . . Sure enough, the skinny little vixen has made an incredible transformation and looks to be a juggernaut from here on in. It's Shandi's contest to lose.

First off, Cosmo, Isaac Spaceman is not a "guest blogger". Sure, he only posts about as often as it rains in Los Angeles (i.e., rarely, but pretty damn frequently this week), but he remains the Billy Baldwin to my Alec (Ozzie Canseco to my Jose?), and is a full member of this blog.

As to the prediction itself, it's not going to be Shandi -- I just think her lack of body control and grace, as exhibited since episode one's runway fiasco, is eventually going to bite her in her too-skinny ass.

I'm going with April, who just seems to have it all -- looks, moves, discipline, work effort and, increasingly, personality.

(In comparison: Camille's too much of a bitch; Mercedes is too street and not enough couture; Yoanna is too cold; and Shandi, ultimately, not adult enough.)

Your mileage, of course, may vary. Watch the damn show.

AND FOR DESSERT, YOU GET TO CARPOOL WITH NATE NEWTON: Adam has been plugging The Search for America's Next Top Model consistently, so hopefully you're already watching. If you're not, though, I put this question to you: has there ever been a reality TV reward challenge with a better prize than dinner with Big Baby Jesus and The RZA? By the way, Spaceman is rooting for Sara, the sleepy-eyed half-Persian Seattleite who lists "The Making of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue" as her favorite movie and "Hannity & Colmes" as her favorite TV show.

YES, TYRA, WE KNOW THEY GET THE IMG CONTRACT AND THE SEPHORA DEAL: It's uncanny how much the Star-Ledger's Alan Sepinwall uses his TiVo exactly how I do:

Bitter "ER" pill Abby Lockhart? Let's just say that on my "ER," there is no Abby Lockhart.

The excruciating "American Idol" Wednesday results show? It's now 90 seconds long, just as it should be. And blink and you'll miss Ryan Seacrest in my version of the Tuesday performance edition.

The regular interview segment on ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption"? History. The whole point of the show is to watch Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon yell at each other, not suck up to their "insiders."

There's even a more micro-level of PTI-tivoediting that I do: whenever there's a segment about hockey or college athletics, it's gone. I can run through an average PTI episode in twelve minutes.

(Side question: why is there not a pop culture version of PTI on VH-1 every day? Someone, make this happen.)

In other TV news, get ready for Mark Cuban is The Benefactor -- basically, The Apprentice without, um, effort? Or, it's the long-awaited The Will, only without the dead guy.

WERST IDEUH EVIR: What if spam could . . . you know . . . smell like Spam(tm)??

BETTER BE GOOD TO ME: You all know the story if you've seen What's Love Got To Do With It, and it has the benefit of being true.

Tina Turner, on tour with then-husband Ike in 1976, battered and bloodied, finally flees his hotel for the nearby Ramada. She says to the desk clerk, "My name is Tina Turner, and my husband and I have had an argument. I have 32 cents in my pocket. If you give me a room I promise you I will pay you back as soon as I can."

They give her the nicest suite in the hotel. To this day, Miss Turner will always stay in a Ramada, such is her loyalty to the company which helped her at a time of need.

I think we all have Ramadas in our life. A few years ago when in San Francisco for a friend's wedding, Jen and I got screwed by a rental car company. Having made our reservations online, we didn't realize that this lowest-price competitor was based in a motel about twenty minutes away from the airport (after waiting a half hour for them to pick us up), and to say that we were livid, forty-five minutes later, when they still couldn't find our reservation or an available car . . .well, that would be an understatement.

So we demanded that they take us back to the rental car central for the airport, where Avis was happy to help us -- quickly and, surprisingly, even more cheaply than our original reservation. Since then, Jen and I have been loyal Avis customers whenever possible.

The reasons for this loyalty were demonstrated again back in December when we travelled to Florida. Because we were travelling with Miss Lucy and some of Jen's family, we needed a minivan. Only Budget had one for the week, so we reserved it. Well, as it turns out, our "reservation" was meaningless -- they didn't actually have any minivans available when we got there, and didn't know when any would be coming in.

(After hours of waiting in line and waiting for frequently-disappearing supervisors, they did make it right to us, giving us two compact SUVs for the price of one, and cheaper than the minivan. But still. And the mofos never returned to us the CDs I left in the SUV, even though I called them within hours of our dropping it off to let them know we had left them there.)

So Avis is my Ramada -- even when its rates are more expensive, I will show it undue, perhaps even excessive loyalty, for its service on my behalf in a time of crisis.

What's your Ramada?

YOU FUNNY. THAT'S WHY I KILL YOU LAST: No, I haven't blogged in about a hundred years. Yes, I realize that there's a ban on politics on this page. I feel it is important, however, to report, verbatim, the response of California AG Bill Lockyer's spokeswoman to the Gubernator's "direction" to the AG to put an end to San Francisco's gay marriage marathon:

The governor cannot direct the attorney general . . . . He can direct the Highway Patrol. He can direct "Terminator 4." But he can't tell the attorney general what to do.

For what it's worth, the AG, apparently reluctantly, agrees with the governor. Via the L.A. Times.