The Mystery Of The Gower Gulch Cavemen

Mark — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 18:17:06 EDT

A little while ago, a representative from ABC's program publicity department wrote in to let us know that the Cavemen-on-the-street shoot encountered by a pair of our readers (whom, by the way, we know not to be affiliated with ABC) at Hollywood's Gower Gulch shopping center yesterday afternoon was not connected with the network's series. Despite our utter confusion about why some guys in Neanderthal make-up and a camera crew not on the network payroll would be chatting up the series (weird!), we are happy to pass along this clarification about ABC's avowed non-involvement in whatever it was going on at the Gulch.

But, obviously, this raises some mind-melting questions: Who were these mysterious cavemen? Were they Geico's Cro-Magnons, bitter that their characters were being co-opted by primetime TV, having a little fun with passers-by? Were they auto-insurance-and-network-unaffiliated pranksters with a generous prosthetics budget, just trying to stir up trouble? (That one-episode-to-cancellation crack was harsh.) And more perplexing still: last night, another tipster sent in this photo showing cavemen who seem to match the description of the Gulch crew and a dude with a boom mic, claiming that they were "crashing the Ivy" around 1 p.m. yesterday (about an hour or so before the Gulch encounter), but that backdrop looks decidedly un-Ivy-like to us in its dinginess. Get out of our fucking heads, unevolved demons!

While we don't have any hard answers at the moment, only one thing is certain: We've just spent a lot of time thinking about how Cavemen, coming to ABC on Tuesdays nights this fall, has nothing to do with all that bizarre stuff we just wrote about. But we'll get to the bottom of this, we promise.

[Update: The mystery Cavemen were postivively identified outside The Ivy.]

Previously: Stumbling Into ABC's Cavemen-On-The-Street Promo [Defamer]

Phyllis Diller's Manager Assures Us Her Back Injury Is The Real Deal

Seth — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 18:01:46 EDT

We've run a number of short items over the past few days about a back injury sustained by Phyllis Diller (who turns 90 on Tuesday—happy birthday, Phyllis!), teasingly inferring the ruptured disk was in fact an excuse made up by the stand-up veteran to avoid having to follow through on a Tonight Show commitment. We realize, however, that some of our feeble attempts at humor can sometimes be misinterpreted as fact—who wouldn't, after all, consider faking an illness in order to avoid an onslaught of Jay Leno's stale Paris Hilton jokes—and so we'd like to now cede the floor to Ms. Diller's personal manager Milt Suchin, who sent us an e-mail clarifying the matter:

Several people have brought to my attention your piece that Phyllis Diller was fibbing about her broken back and that she wasn't too ill to do Letterman. In actuality she fractured a disc while practicing her material. She said "I was working on a bit for Jay Leno's Tonight Show. I twisted & lifted a very heavy joke book and popped a disc. All I want to do is crack up the audience not crack up me!"
She is resting comfortably as she heals. She has every intention to appear on Jay's show as soon as she is better. As a matter of fact she is making plans to appear on the show for her 91st birthday.

By the way in response to one of your readers' comments - Fang is alive and well and asleep on the couch.

Milt Suchin
Personal Manager to Ms. Phyllis Diller

We hope that clears up any confusion on the matter, reassuring any doubters of the purity of Ms. Diller's intentions and tireless commitment to her craft—for she did not just throw out her back, she threw it out lifting a gargantuan, prop Encyclopedia of Jokes, all in the name of a bit.

Gawker: defamer, defamer clarifications

The Mystery Of The Gower Gulch Cavemen

Phyllis Diller's Manager Assures Us Her Back Injury Is The Real Deal