Comedian

My favorite Bob Hope story was told to me about a decade ago by Brandon Tartikoff, the late president of NBC Entertainment. One of Tartikoff's duties during the 1980s was to go to lunch once a year with Hope at the comedian's Toluca Lake home and plan Hope's annual NBC special. Hope was beyond an institution at the network; he had been with NBC continuously since 1938 when he signed his first radio contract. "Having a one-on-one lunch with Hope was intimidating in the early years of my tenure, but over time, I developed a kind of kinship with him," Tartikoff said.

Finally: Proof that Jerry Seinfeld is not all about nothing. Turns out he's about practicing hard and working the room and sweating the details and making it look a hundred times easier than it really is. Nothing, you'll recall, was the mantra of Seinfeld's eponymous NBC sitcom, a nine-year celebration of the off-kilter that was, in the oft-repeated words of its creator, all about nothing. But nothing was so funny. And Seinfeld - the comic and the series - made it look effortless. Nothing, it appeared, was easy.

WASHINGTON -- Waiting in the Green Room for his five-minute appearance on one of Fox News Channel's political chat shows, Bob Somerby glances up at the TV as it promotes his upcoming spot: "Al Gore's college friend says he's not a liar." "College friend?" Somerby mutters. He prefers the label "press critic." Oh well, he shrugs in resignation. He knows that's his cachet, his calling card, these days. Back at Harvard in the late '60s, back when they both had far more hair and spontaneity, Somerby and Gore were indeed friends -- suitemates, in fact, along with actor Tommy Lee Jones.

71 Don Everly Singer 66 Terry Jones Comedian 40 Lisa Marie Presley Singer 40 Pauly Shore Comedian 33 Big Boi Rapper

1987: "Star Trek: The Next Generation"1988: John Waters unleashes "Hairspray"1989: Comedian Lucille Ball dies

After finishing their college basketball careers at the University of Maryland in 1996, Exree Hipp and Johnny Rhodes took their hoop dreams to faraway places. Hipp went to Brazil, Rhodes to Taiwan and Italy. They continue to travel the world, and, as they were in College Park, they are teammates. Tonight will be a homecoming of sorts for the two former Terrapins when their current team, the Harlem Globetrotters, makes a visit to the Towson Center. "It's like being in college for us," Hipp said earlier this week by telephone from Wheeling, W. Va. Except they didn't play nearly 200 games a year at Maryland.

Critic's Pick -- The zany life of actress and comedian Carol Burnett is profiled in American Masters (9 p.m., MPT, Channels 22/67).