July Strangies: Stewart 3, Leno 3, Fallon 3, Ferguson 3, Letterman 2, Kimmel 1

Friday, July 29
(Only Leno, Fallon & Ferguson live)

10. Jimmy Fallon: Thank you, quilted toilet paper, for being the North Face jacket of butt wipes.

9. Jimmy Fallon: Thank you, couscous, for being the perfect food for people who can't get enough cous.

8. Craig Ferguson: The producers of "The Black Swan" are producing a movie about the Chilean miners. I don't care if it's about 33 men stuck in a hole; it had better have a lesbian scene in it.

7. Jay Leno: On this day in 1907 Earl Tupper was born, the guy who created Tupperware. He died in 1983, and he's as fresh today ...

6. Jimmy Fallon: A restaurant in Sweden kicked out 3 customers because they didn't finish their meals. No word on where the customers were from, but I think we can rule out America.

5. Jay Leno: 33 Mexican soldiers have returned to Mexico after accidentally crossing over into the U.S. They said they just got swept up in the crowd.

4. Jay Leno: Crystal Harris said sex with Hugh Hefner only lasted two seconds. That can't be right. It takes longer than that for the nurse to cut up the Viagra tablet and mash it into the applesauce.

3. Jimmy Fallon: Sarah Palin is ready to announce her Presidential candidacy on Labor Day in Iowa. She says, "We have to do this as a team. Remember, there is no 'I' in 'Iowa.'"

2. Craig Ferguson: "Cowboys and Aliens" is out today. Are we talking about violent cowboys like in "The Unforgiven," or friendly cowboys like in "Brokeback Mountain?" Oh, please be the second one!

1. Craig Ferguson: "Cowboys and Aliens" is out today. Daniel Craig is a cowboy who fights the aliens with a hi-tech bracelet. He doesn't know how it got there. He just woke up one morning with a bracelet on his wrist. He's like a Wild West version of Lindsay Lohan.

The Autobiography of Mark Twain, 2010

Page 385 - I was always heedless. I was born heedless; and therefore I was constantly, and quite unconsciously, committing breaches of the minor proprieties, which brought upon me humiliations which ought to have humiliated me but didn't , because I didn't know anything had happened. But Livy [his wife] knew; and so the humiliations fell to her share, poor child, who had not earned them and did not deserve them. She always said I was the most difficult child she had.

387 - Then we set to work to arrange a system of signals to be delivered by her to me during dinner; signals which would indicate definitely which particular crime I was engaged in, so that I could change to another.  ... The blue card meant, "Let the lady on your right have a reprieve; destroy the one on your left."

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Thursday, July 28

10. Jimmy Fallon: A new study found it's healthier for women to drink two glasses of wine a day rather than one. I'm a little suspicious of the study's authors: Professors Kathie Lee and Hoda.

9. Conan O'Brien: This year kids are receiving an average of 40 cents less under their pillow when they lose a tooth. The economy's so bad even make-believe people are feeling the pinch.

8. David Letterman: It's so hot Regis Philbin burned his fingers when he bent over to pick up a penny.

7. David Letterman: Arnold Shwarzenegger had a birthday. He celebrated quietly with half his money.

6. Jay Leno: Alex Trebek snapped his Achilles tendon while chasing a female thief who had robbed him through a hotel corridor at 2:30 in the morning. And if Mrs. Trebek believes that story I'm fine with it.

5. David Letterman: Bill Gates, the guy who invented computers and internet porn, has designed a new toilet that uses no water whatsoever. I was going to get one, but my dog talked me out of it. In New York we call a toilet without water the subway.

4. Jay Leno: Scientists in Korea have developed a dog that glows in the dark. This will make candlelight dinners a lot easier.

3. David Letterman: Between now and Labor Day all New York lifeguards will perform gay marriages.

2. Conan O'Brien: Facebook has added "civil union" to its status updates. And next week they're adding "whatever Michele Bachmann and her husband are up to."

1. David Letterman: Borders and other bookstores are closing. The problem is, they never recovered from Snooki's memoir.

Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race by Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart explains Earth's history to the aliens who have discovered our ruins.

Page 72 - The birth control pill freed young women to focus exclusively on worrying about AIDS.

The college experience would cost either you or your parents $200,000, unless you were good at throwing an orange ball into a round hoop, in which case it was free.

Many college students participated in what was known as Greek life, after the ancient society whose intellectual legacy it shat upon.

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Wednesday, July 27

10. Conan O'Brien: Doctors say symptoms of PMS can be treated with marijuana. The news is a big relief to women and an even bigger relief to men.

9. David Letterman: The NYC subways are getting high-speed internet. How about high-speed subway trains? What's next, wi-fi in the potholes?

8. Jimmy Kimmel: Sarah Palin says nothing will happen on August 2. So take that Nobel-Prize-winning economists. Miss Alaska 2nd-runner-up says we'll be fine.

7. Craig Ferguson: A few years ago Rupert Murdoch was ready to buy Manchester United for less than he usually pays for a Prime Minister, but the fans rose up and stopped the deal.

6. David Letterman: Top 10 thoughts going through the head of a guy who got caught head-first in a manhole. #1. First I get fired from "Two and a Half Men," and now this!

5. Jay Leno: People are afraid if we default America will lose respect in the eyes of the world. That fight was lost when we sent the cast of "Jersey Shore" to Italy.

4. Craig Ferguson: Mila Kunis revealed she used a butt double in her nude scenes in "Friends with Benefits." And all I have to say is I needed the money.

3. Jimmy Kimmel: Today we're having a "Cowboys and Aliens" theme show, and already I'm more comfortable than in our first cowboy theme show with Jake Gyllenhaal.

2. Craig Ferguson: Manchester United are like the Yankees of soccer, except only half of Manchester United have slept with Madonna. But in every other respect ...

1. Jimmy Fallon guest Fran Lebowitz: Bipartisan politics is like anything else starting with "bi." That means you did it once.

The Late Shift: Letterman, Leno, and the Network Battle for the Night by Bill Carter, Hyperion 1994

Page 90- Jay and Jimmy Brogan, his writer and friend, talked a little while about the first show, the monologue they had planned. Brogan had one more suggestion. He said he thought it would be appropriate at some point early in the show to say something nice about Johnny [Carson].
Jay answered impassively: That decision was the executive producer's to make and Helen had decided not to do it.

91 - [Bob Wright, President of NBC, asks Helen to let Jay say something nice about Johnny on the first show. She says absolutely not.] As he hung up the phone in his Connecticut home, Wright turned to his wife and said, "This is the beginning of the end."

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Tuesday, July 26

10. Craig Ferguson: Humans and Neanderthals couldn't have a cigarette after sex because fire hadn't been harnessed yet. Those are mankind's three great inventions: harnessing fire, the wheel and porn.

9. Craig Ferguson: Scientists say DNA shows humans used to have sex with Neanderthals. Scientists don't call them cave men because they often lived other places. We've spent a lot of time looking for them in caves when they were actually living in million-dollar compounds in Pakistan.

8. Jimmy Kimmel: "Captain America" made $65 million over the weekend, which is about twice what actual America made.

7. Jay Leno: It's so hot, at the nude beaches ATTRACTIVE people are taking their clothes off.

6. Conan O'Brien: Scientists have produced a birth-control pill for men. It could replace the old birth-control product for men: Axe body spray.

5. Jimmy Fallon: A man in Iowa was arrested at his own wedding after he hit another guy who was dancing with his new wife. It completely ruined the father/daughter first dance.

4. Conan O'Brien: Kim Kardashian has been diagnosed with psoriasis. However, her doctor assured her it won't interfere with her ability to do nothing.

3. David Letterman: Mick Jagger is 68 today. Still out there touring. Though now it's more like wandering off.

2. David Letterman: Jeb Bush may run for President. Bush Presidencies are like "Caddyshack" movies. They should have stopped with one.

1. Jay Leno: A whole town in Oklahoma is for sale for $759,000. It has 12 acres, a saloon, a post office and 15 Starbucks.

I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett, Harper 2010

A wonderful story about young witch Tiffany Aching, who must destroy a horrible menace before it destroys her. Author Sir Terry Pratchett has sold over 65,000,000 books.

Page 167 - "Well, it's not quite as simple as that," said Eskarina, and looked slightly uncomfortable for a moment, much to Tiffany's surprise and, it has to be said, delight.

170 - Tiffany hung on to the broomstick, trying not to listen and also trying not to kick Feegles, who had no sense of danger, feeling as they always did that they were more dangerous than anything else.

175 - "... and I goes to the theater and the ballet." The broomstick wobbled a little. Tiffany had heard of ballet, and had even seen pictures in a book, but it was a word that somehow did not fit in any sentence that included the word "Feegle."
"Ballet?" she managed.
"Oh, aye, it's grand! Last week I saw 'Swan on a Hot Tin Lake.'"

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Monday, July 25

10. Conan O'Brien became a mime who announced what he was doing, thus a mime for the blind.

9. Stephen Colbert: Because of the gay weddings I retreated to my heterobunker. I don't know if it was the Manwiches or the fact that I left my truck idling, but I passed out from the fumes and woke up to find myself in the arms of a handsome firefighter. I bought a fireman calendar, out of appreciation and for no other reason, and, oh my, I hope we have a studio fire in November.

8. Jay Leno: A forklift dropped $1 million worth of fine wine. Kathie Lee and Hoda are inconsolable.

7. David Letterman: If you get yourself a homosexual and you get married, do you get a straight wedding planner? The first gay couple to get married in New York were two elderly homosexual gay women, so congratulations once again to Hoda and Kathie Lee.

6. Jay Leno guest Jim Norton at Comic-Con: Jim has his own perfume, Restraining Odor.

5. David Letterman: Our entire balcony is full of gay newlyweds. Now it's Michele Bachmann's husband who's having the migraines.

4. Jimmy Kimmel: This heat wave is going on longer than Zsa-Zsa Gabor's death. Too soon? Or not soon enough?

3. Jay Leno: It must drive the single women in New York crazy. Now all the best men are both gay AND married.

2. David Letterman: About now President Obama WISHES he was born in Kenya.

1. Jimmy Kimmel: With all the costumes, Comic-Con is like a gay parade for people with no sexual orientation.

Oscar Wilde and a Death of No Importance by Gyles Brandreth, Simon & Schuster, 2007

Oscar Wilde teams up with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to solve the murder of an angelic male prostitute.

Page 71 - Or did he believe -- as I did; as I do -- that you can love more than one person and keep faith with both?

110 - "To win back my youth," Oscar continued, unabashed, "there is nothing I would not do -- except, of course, take exercise, rise early, or give up alcohol."

113 - "I have read his poetry. I have reviewed it. He has nothing to say and says it."

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Friday, July 22
(Only Leno, Fallon & Ferguson live)

10. Jay Leno: The TSA will no longer use scanning machines that show the passengers' nude images. They will, however, keep the candles and soft music for the pat-downs.

9. Jay Leno: Paris Hilton stormed out of an interview with "Good Morning America." Can you believe that? People are still interviewing Paris Hilton? And don't underestimate her. When she walked out she was chewing gum at the same time.

8. Craig Ferguson: Captain America has a big shield with a target on it, like saying, "Point your guns here." I used to have a sign that said that, and they made me quit bringing it to the gym.

7. Jimmy Fallon: It was so hot today Al Roker walked 2 blocks and won a wet t-shirt contest.

6. Jimmy Fallon: Thank you, pamphlets, for being smaller versions of pamphs.

5. Craig Ferguson: A month ago I said I was tired of the platinum blond look, and yet today I had it done again. Downstairs I'm Billy Idol.

4. Jimmy Fallon: Thank you, pickles, for being like hot dogs that got really angry and turned into The Hulk.

3. Jay Leno: This heat wave is straining electrical capacity. On the East Coast they're having more rolling blackouts than David Hasselhoff. It was so hot in Washington Newt Gingrich went braless.

2. Jay Leno: The FAA has ordered a one-man helicopter charter operation to conduct surprise drug tests. And to make sure he doesn't cheat, he has to watch himself pee into a cup.

1. Jimmy Fallon: Thank you, libraries, for being a place to store all the old people we're not using anymore.

The Autobiography of Mark Twain, 2010

Page 369 - Mr. Burlingame gave me some advice, one day, which I have never forgotten, and which I have lived by for forty years. He said, in substance: "Avoid inferiors. Seek your comradeship among your superiors in intellect and character; always CLIMB."

378 - "Why, Mark, Mr. Sage, one of the best business men in America, says that you have quite extraordinary business talents."
Again I didn't deny it. I would not have had that superstition dissipated for anything. It supplied a long felt want. We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.

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Thursday, July 21

10. Jay Leno: "Cowboys & Aliens" is supposed to be the next big blockbuster. Doesn't that sound like a game Arnold Shwarzenegger would play with his maid?

9. Stephen Colbert: This is a dark time for America, partly because it's night.

8. David Letterman: In 1969 we put a man on the moon. Today the best we can do is x-ray Kim Kardashian's ass. And someday we'll celebrate the 40th anniversary of that.

7. Conan O'Brien: A study found that listening to the radio makes people happier than surfing the internet. The study was conducted by people who don't know there's porn on the internet.

6. Craig Ferguson: It's the first day of Comic-Con in San Digeo. My gay robot sidekick Geoff Peterson went last year and no one recognized him. They thought he was Keira Knightley.

5. Jimmy Fallon: A million square miles of the U.S. are under a heat dome. But don't worry; we have plenty of shade under our $14-trillion debt ceiling.

4. David Letterman: When you're a gay couple getting married, who gets the bachelor party? Who goes downstairs in the middle of the night to check on the noise? Who forgets the anniversary? Who refuses to stop and ask for directions? And which one of you will take forever to get ready?

3. Conan O'Brien: In the United Arab Emirates a wealthy sheik had his name carved so large in the sand it can be seen from space. The best part is that in even bigger letters someone added "HAS A TINY PENIS."

2. Jimmy Kimmel: TSA is no longer going to use that scanner that shows passengers in the nude. They made an executive decision yesterday after Aretha Franklin boarded a flight at LAX.

1. Jon Stewart: Of all my issues with Michele Bachmann's brain, migraines don't even make the top 20.

Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race by Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart explains Earth's history to the aliens who have discovered our ruins.

Page 71 - Coming of age rituals: These were elaborate ceremonies marking the passage from adolescence to adulthood. Depending on how advanced the culture was, these took the form of either tortuous physical trials or fun parties with cake.

At a quinceanera a Latin American girl exchanged her child's flat shoes for heels, symbolizing her entry into the world of tendonitis.

To gain wisdom, adolescents in New Guinea's Baruya tribe spend years ingesting the semen of their elders, whose wisdom was exemplified by their ability to get adolescents to give them free blowjobs.

Masturbation was the practice of tricking one's genitals into believing themselves popular. For both boys and girls, the adolescent discovery that intense physical gratification was literally an arm's length away marked the end of childhood and the beginning of an awful lot of masturbating. But the practice was almost universally discouraged by society, especially on the good couch.

You will stumble upon these vibrators in a million bedside tables. They functioned like penises, except they actually brought women to orgasm.  This porcupine and this rock are the only two things male adolescents never tried to fuck.

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Wednesday, July 20

10. Conan O'Brien: Sarah Palin's son Track and his wife are having a baby. They haven't picked a name yet, but they do know it will be a verb.

9. David Letterman: Michele O'Bachmann suffers from crippling migraine headaches. That's what happens when you don't get a little pornography every now and then.

8. Jimmy Kimmel: This heat wave is like Shark Week for the Weather Channel.

7. Jimmy Fallon: The creator of "CSI" has left CBS for ABC. WTF? I thought they were BFF.

6. Jay Leno: Daniel Craig is here tonight for his new movie "Cowboys and Aliens." It's what you find on most farms here in California.

5. Conan O'Brien: In Sweden a sperm-sniffing police dog is helping authorities solve cases. The first case was that of the perv who trained the sperm-sniffing police dog.

4. Jay Leno: The FAA has ordered a man who operates a one-man helicopter service to give himself random surprise drug tests. The only way you can do that is if you're on drugs.

3. Jimmy Fallon: A man says his iPhone survived a 13,000-foot fall when it dropped out of his pocket while he was skydiving. Well, the one thing the iPhone is good at is dropped calls.

2. Craig Ferguson: Today scientists discovered a Brazilian  woman with a nipple on her foot. What was her shoe width, double D? She has to wear nip-flops. I'm sure she's going to try to milk it for publicity.

1. Jay Leno: A 22-year-old woman has a third nipple on the bottom of her foot. Bet that makes it really tricky to buy a bra.

The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early & Television Went Crazy by Bill Carter, Viking 2010

Page 368 - [Dave invited Oprah and Jay to appear with him in a 15-second bit to be aired during the Super Bowl. Jay flew to New York and was smuggled into the Ed Sullivan Theater in disguise] It was the first time Dave and Jay had laid eyes on each other in person in eighteen years. ...

To Jay it seemed he was picking up with Dave exactly where he had left off in 1992.

369 - The concept was the worst Super Bowl party ever. They arranged themselves in the stage couch: Dave far right, Oprah in the middle, Jay far left. It would start with a one-shot of Dave complaining about the party, expand to a two-shot to show Oprah, and then the big reveal with Jay at the other end of the couch. Jay's line: "Oh, he's just saying that 'cause I'm here." And Oprah would tell them both to be nice.

The circle who knew the secret was small and tight at both networks.  ... Then FTV Live posted news  of some kind of "secret taping" that had taken place at Letterman's studio. One of the writers on Jay's staff approached him at rehearsal with the rumor about the taping. "Why don't you try to find out more?" Jay said, enjoying the tease. ...

As soon as the spot appeared -- Dave, then Oprah, then ... Jay? -- phones began ringing and e-mails began flying. Jay was contacted by e-mail from the White House -- David Axelrod, the senior adviser, wanted to know, was that real? He had been watching with the president, and they all had instantly asked themselves: Could that possibly have been real?
So amazed were viewers that hordes on Web sites and chat rooms immediately speculated that Leno had somehow been "green-screened" into the picture. Surely these two guys who had so recently ripped each other with such abandon had not sat down together for a gag promo.

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Tuesday, July 19

10. Craig Ferguson: I don't think Rupert Murdoch was personally involved in hacking cell phones. He's 80. Old people don't even know how to use cell phones. They go down the street talking into an old slipper. "This call smells like feet!"

9. Jimmy Fallon: Two babies in an Australian hospital were mixed up and breast fed by the wrong mothers. Which explains one baby's comment: "Boom chicka waa waa!"

8. Jimmy Kimmel: I don't think Rupert Murdoch's guilty of phone hacking. He paid $580 million for Myspace. Obviously he knows nothing about technology.

7. Conan O'Brien: Daniel Radcliffe admitted he once had a drinking problem. Then he realized that with the kind of money he was making he could have a coke problem.

6. Jay Leno: It's so hot Australian tourists are starting to smell like French tourists. People were sweating like Jennifer Lopez trying to remember where she put the pre-nup.

5. Conan O'Brien: President Obama had a private meeting with the Dalai Lama. The President asked about the political situation in Tiber, and the Dalai Lama asked if it was too soon to bang Jennifer Lopez.

4. Jay Leno: The Governor of Texas says God wants him to run for President. Michele Bachmann says God wants her to run for President. If God's that indecisive he's probably for Mitt Romney.

3. David Letterman: Marc Anthony has no luck with women at all. First Cleopatra, and now Jennifer Lopez.

2. Conan O'Brien: NASA is considering replacing the space shuttle with a space taxi. It can do everything the shuttle can do, except pick you up if you're black.

1. David Letterman: Top 10 things going through Rupert Murdoch's mind during the pie attack: 2. Don't pie me, bro!

The Late Shift: Letterman, Leno, and the Network Battle for the Night by Bill Carter, Hyperion 1994

Page 87 - One star who was honored with one of the very last audiences with the king was David Letterman, who appeared on the "Tonight" show for the last time only one week before Carson's finale. On the show, Letterman told Carson, "Thanks for my career," and he meant it. He always gave Carson the most credit for his success.
Conspicuous by his absence on the list of farewell-tour invitees was Jay Leno. Jay had never been close to Johnny, had never even done very well as a guest with Johnny, and he certainly didn't owe the success of his career to sitting on the couch with Johnny Carson.
Still, Helen [Leno's ferocious manager] saw the Carson staff's decision to bypass Jay as an unforgivable snub. To Helen it was obvious they were sending a message by not booking Jay.

Helen had a plan for Carson's final act on his final show. She wanted Carson to leave his desk, take his microphone, walk to the adjacent studio where they were preparing for Jay's show, and hand over the microphone to Jay: "Passing the baton," she called it.
Riddiculous, Lassally called it. He told Helen that he absolutely would suggest no such thing to Johnny Carson.

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Monday, July 18

10. Jay Leno: In Russia a man who tried to rob a hair salon was tied up by the woman who owned it and used as a sex slave for 3 days. Well, I guess he learned his lesson.

9. David Letterman: It was so hot Presidential Candidate Michele O"Bachmann was fanning herself with pornography. So hot Charlie Sheen was snorting actual snow.

8. Conan O'Brien: Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka gave birth to a baby girl whose name is Trump Granddaughter and Casino.

7. David Letterman: Top 10 pieces of wisdom from Dave's Mom on her 90th birthday:
10. Paying taxes is for losers.
5. Always tip the dealer.
4. No one cares how YOU feel.
3. There's big money in black-market cigarettes.
1. Tell your son his show is great, even if you prefer Leno, Kimmel, Fallon, Ferguson, Stewart, Colbert, Conan and Lopez.

6. Conan O'Brien: We were off for 2 weeks. Andy and I took time to reconnect with our families, and then we fixed the 405 freeway.

5. Conan O'Brien: Everyone stayed home during carmageddon. The only people who left their homes were police, emergency workers and Marc Anthony.

4. Conan O'Brien: This weekend was the first time in their lives "Harry Potter" fans experienced a climax.

3. Jimmy Kimmel: This weekend in L.A. they closed the whole 405 freeway down so Oprah could go for a jog.

2. Stephen Colbert: Thank you to the Japanese Women's Soccer Team for rescuing America from the brink of caring about soccer.

1. Craig Ferguson: It was so hot in Washington they had to put a fan on the debt ceiling.

I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett, Harper 2010

A wonderful story about young witch Tiffany Aching, who must destroy a horrible menace before it destroys her. Author Sir Terry Pratchett has sold over 65,000,000 books.

Page 165 - A horse's skull always looks scary, even if someone has put lipstick on it.

166 - Tiffany's mouth sprang open. "You're her, aren't you? You're Eskarina Smith, right? The only woman who ever became a wizard!"
"Somewhere inside, I suppose so, yes, but it seems such a long time ago, and you know, I never really felt like a wizard, so I never really worried about what anyone said. And anyway, I had the staff, and no one could take that away from me." Eskarina hesitated for a moment and then went on. "That's what I learned at university: to be me, just what I am, and not worry about it. That knowledge is an invisible magical staff, all by itself."

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Friday, July 15
(Only Leno, Fallon and Ferguson live)

10. Jimmy Fallon: Lindsay Lohan is mad she wasn't cast in the movie "Black Swan," though she may be cast in the sequel "Gray Goose."

9. Jimmy Fallon: Thank you, spoilers on the backs of cars. Spoiler alert: You're a jackass.

8. Jimmy Fallon: Mexican officials discovered a 300-acre marijuana farm this week. It's the only farm where the roosters are, "It's 4:20 p.m. Wake and bake! Cockadoodle-doo or cockadoodle-don't. I don't care, man."

7. Craig Ferguson: There's a theater showing "Harry Potter" right next to us, and in the line there are all these people dressed like Harry Potter. At our own theater one night there were people dressed like me, but they turned out to be just a couple of lesbians.

6. Jay Leno: There's a move to divide California into two states. The trouble is finding a new name for Southern California since New Mexico is already taken.

5. Jimmy Fallon: Two Delta planes collided on the runway in Boston. The passengers are all OK, except for Delta's $50 collision fee. The air traffic controllers were just glad they weren't awake to see the collision.

4. Jimmy Fallon: Pauly D from "Jersey Shore" posted an ad on Craigslist for an intern. It's the only internship where you can actually lose college credits.

3. Jimmy Fallon: Thank you, Skecher Shape-Ups, for being the perfect shoe for people who care way too much, yet somehow not enough, about how they look.

2. Jay Leno: Air Canada had to pay $12,000 to a passenger for not speaking to him in his native French. You know, I think I may have a case against the car wash across the street.

1. Jimmy Fallon: Thank you, Arnold Schwarzenegger for starring in an upcoming western "The Last Stand." It'll probably be good for you to shoot some blanks for awhile.

Oscar Wilde and a Death of No Importance by Gyles Brandreth, Simon & Schuster, 2007

Oscar Wilde teams up with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to solve the murder of an angelic male prostitute.

Page 54 - Oscar was not discomfited. "I am the prince of procrastination," he said. "It is my besetting sin. I never put off till tomorrow what I can possibly do -- the day after."

59 - "Cigarette smoking is the perfect type of perfect pleasure, is it not? It is exquisite and leaves one unsatisfied."

63 - "Oscar Wilde masquerading as Sherlock Holmes -- why not? A mask tells us so much more than a face ..."

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Thursday, July 14
(O'Brien, Handler & Kimmel in reruns)

11. David Letterman guest Tim Harmston: Friends say if I don't have children, who's going to take care of me when I get really old. And I say, the super-hot Swedish nurse I hire with the money I save by not having children. "But she's not going to love you the way your own child will." I go, "I know. That's why it's so expensive."

10. Jay Leno: Catherine Becker, the Pecker Wrecker, cut off her husband's penis and ran it through the garbage disposal. You thought your wife put you through the grinder. Today the guy updated his Facebook status to "separated."

9. Jimmy Fallon: Ohio Congressman Bill Johnson said his Twitter account was hacked yesterday after an image of a naked man was posted on his page. When the Lord taketh a Weiner he giveth a Johnson.

8. David Letterman: In France, today is Bastille Day, the day Paul Revere rode through Paris warning the French.

7. David Letterman: This is the last Harry Potter movie. Next it becomes a disastrous Broadway musical. This movie has poltergeists, sorcerers, elves ... No, wait, those are the Republican Presidential candidates.

6. Jimmy Fallon: Spain's running of the bulls is not nearly as scary as the U.S. event, the running of Sarah Palin.

5. David Letterman: We're starting to repay our debt to China. Last week we sent back Yao Ming. And what about his brother Wyo Ming.

4. Jon Stewart: Correspondent John Oliver on the last space shuttle: What could be more appropriate than for me to go to Florida to watch something die?

3. David Letterman: New York has legalized gay marriage, and if you brought a gift for Paul and myself, just leave it in the lobby. Utah will never approve gay marriage, but they do allow a man to marry a woman with a slight mustache.

2. Jay Leno: Jim Norton at ESPY Awards: This is Brian Wilson of the San Francisco Giants. They call him The Beard, which is also what people call my girlfriend.

1. Jon Stewart: If Social Security checks don't go out on August 3 it'll just be old people, and they'd just blow it on medicine and hips.

The Autobiography of Mark Twain, 2010

Page 357 - No schemes that I could contrive seemed likely to deceive. They did not even deceive ME, and when a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.

364 - The gospel left behind by Jay Gould is doing giant work in our days. Its message is "Get money. Get it quickly. Get it in abundance Get it in prodigious abundance. Get it dishonestly if you can, honestly if you must."

365 - John D. Rockefeller is quite evidently a sincere man. Satan, twaddling sentimental sillinesses to a Sunday school, could be no burlesque upon John D. Rockefeller and his performances in his Cleveland Sunday school. When John D. is employed in that way he strikes the utmost limit of grotesqueness. He can't be burlesqued -- he is himself a burlesque. I know Mr. Rockefeller pretty well, and I am convinced that he is a sincere man.

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Wednesday, July 13
(O'Brien, Handler & Kimmel in reruns)

10. Stephen Colbert: Debt Becomes Us: Will we default on our debt, and will Canada let us crash on their couch for awhile?

9. Jay Leno: The U.S. Women's Soccer team advanced to the finals by beating the French. This match was a lot hairier than the one against the Brazilians.

8. Jay Leno: You know the woman in Texas who gave birth to a 16-pound baby boy? Turns out if was a hoax. It wasn't a baby at all. It was a Mexican trying to sneak into the country.

7. Jimmy Fallon: Saks Fifth Avenue is planning a new store in Kazakhstan, or as it will be known there, Saks Dirt Road. "Very nice country. We have an Olive Garden, a Target. That's a real target. Don't go there. We have a Bed Bath & Behead."

6. Jay Leno" Japanese scientists have found a species of snails that migrate by letting themselves be eaten by birds and then defecated out. And it's still more pleasant than flying Southwest.

5. Jon Stewart was overwhelmed by the seeming gayness of Michele Bachmann's anti-gay husband: He's so gay he calls "Top Gun" "that volleyball movie." Jerry Seinfeld, Comedy Repression Therapist: Of course I'd like to say Dr. Marcus Bachmann buys Brawny paper towels just for the packaging, or he's so gay Richard Simmons tells him to tone it down, but I have to leave. Don Rickles is expecting a pizza delivery by a man who's half Puerto Rican and half Jewish.

4. David Letterman: Earl Drucker's wife cut off his penis. He said, "I can't complain. It's the first time she's touched it in 15 years."

3. Jay Leno: Scientists say life on Earth is wiped out every 27 million years, and we have 16 million years left. So we're all going to die just when we finally get our debt paid off.

2. Craig Ferguson: Roller coasters are one of the 2 places where I feel comfortable throwing my arms in the air and screaming. The other place is shoe sales at 9 West. The steepest roller coaster in the world has just opened in Japan, It goes 80 miles an hour and flips upside down 7 times. It's like car-pooling with Mel Gibson.

1. Craig Ferguson: On a roller coaster I love the way the wind whips through my hair. That's why I never wear pants.

Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race by Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart explains Earth's history to the aliens who have discovered our ruins.

Page 70 - Adolescence: Somewhere between the ages of 10 and 13 (depending on how hormone-enhanced their beef was) children entered adolescence, a.k.a. "the de-cutening." Our bodies grew taller and hormonal changes introduced secondary sex characteristics. It was a period marked by turbulent emotions, excruciating self-consciousness and a level of masturbation so furiously excessive it tested the human body's resistance to friction-induced combustion.

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Tuesday, July 12
(O'Brien, Handler & Kimmel in reruns)

10. Jimmy Fallon: Kathie Lee and Hoda are taking their show to Montreal next week. They're so excited they've already started slurring in French.

9. Jay Leno: A company is selling a $20 copy of the engagement ring Prince William gave Kate. It has simulated sapphire and simulated diamonds, and it comes with a certificate of authenticity. If the diamonds turn out to be real, you get your money back.

8. Craig Ferguson: In Chicago the Joffrey Ballet is being locked out. We have to send "Footloose's" Kevin Bacon to Chicago to restore their faith in the power of the loose foot. That's not dancing, Kevin Bacon; that's Restless Leg Syndrome.

7. Craig Ferguson: Arnold Schwarzenegger announced today he's going back to the thing he does best. No, not that thing; the other thing. He's going to star in a new Western. I think it's called "Butch Cassiday and the Illegitimate Kid." "Somebody has to clean up this town. Who's going to clean it up? Where's the maid?"

6. Jimmy Fallon: The Astronauts are testing a device that turns urine into a drink. At least that's what they're all telling the rookie everybody hates.

5. Jay Leno: Michele Bachmann and her husband run this institution where they try to "pray away the gay." They want gay guys to think outside the bun.

4. Jon Stewart: We're 3 weeks from having to park our car down the street so China can't find it, and Congress is refighting fluorescent v. incandescent light bulbs.

3. David Letterman: It's 95 and miserable today, like Rupert Murdoch. I think you folks should know the air conditioning is hooked up to the applause sign.

2. Jon Stewart: Wyatt Cenac as Republican cutting social programs: Am I my brother's keeper?
Jon: But that was what Cain said when he was trying to get away with murdering his brother.
Wyatt: You call it murder. I call it the market regulating the brother supply.

1. Jon Stewart: Wyatt Cenac, Senior Debt Correspondent: Republicans are job creationists. We know the rich create jobs. Democrats believe that jobs just EVOLVE from millions of years of stimulus packages.

Oscar Wilde and a Death of No Importance by Gyles Brandreth, Simon & Schuster, 2007

A murder mystery by an eminent Wilde scholar.

Page 5 - As Oscar liked to say, "Life is the nightmare that prevents one from sleeping."

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Monday, July 11
(O'Brien, Handler & Kimmel in reruns)

10. (No more good jokes)

9. Jimmy Fallon: A woman in Texas gave birth to a 16-pound boy. The doctor looking at the sonogram had said, "I don't know if it's a boy or a girl, but it's definitely an American."

8. Jimmy Fallon: The U.S. is in serious danger of defaulting on our foreign loans, which explains why China showed up today and broke the Statue of Liberty's kneecaps.

7. Jay Leno: Prince William and Kate really immersed themselves in our culture. By the time they left they were $2 trillion in debt.

6. Stephen Colbert: Skeptic Tank: Our guest tonight is the editor of "Skeptic Magazine." Or is he?

5. David Letterman: It's hot on New York, but for an extra 50 bucks you can get an oscillating hooker.

4. Jimmy Fallon: A man in Virginia was arrested for breaking into a sex shop and using a blow-up doll. He was charged with breaking and entering and entering.

3. Craig Ferguson: CBS has CSI everything. CSI Give Up.

2. Jay Leno: The Ugliest Dog Contest was held over the weekend. The winner was so ugly the other dogs were sniffing its face.

1. Jay Leno: Our Women's Soccer Team waxed the Brazilians in the World Cup.