Peter Graves died of a heart attack at his Los Angeles home today. He was an actor who seemed to do a little bit of everything, and where you know him from might depend on your age.

He was team leader Jim Phelps on 'Mission: Impossible' in the '60s and also had a memorable role as the pilot Captain Oveur in the first two 'Airplane' movies in the '80s. He was also the host of A&E's 'Biography' for ten years and appeared in several commercials ("I'm Peter Graves..."). You might even know him from voice work he did on 'American Dad.' He had a recurring role on '7th Heaven' and guest roles on 'Cold Case,' 'House,' 'Diagnosis: Murder,' 'The Love Boat,' 'Fantasy Island,' and other shows.

Graves wasn't happy about Phelps being the bad guy in the big-screen 'Mission: Impossible' movie but was actually going to film a cameo in the fourth film in the franchise.

Graves was the brother of another TV icon, 'Gunsmoke's' James Arness. After the jump, the opening to 'Mission: Impossible.'

We've all heard about the Northwest Airlines pilots that flew their plane full of passengers 150 miles past their destination. First they said they were arguing and not sleeping, then yesterday it came out that they were on their laptops. Probably on Facebook.

Last night, David Letterman had a list of the top ten excuses the pilots made.

[Watch clips and episodes of The Late Show at SlashControl.]

David Zucker, one of the men behind Airplane!, The Naked Gun, and, probably my favorite, Top Secret! created a hysterical campaign ad for the Republican party that features a faux Madeleine Albright making nicey-nice with evil dictators and terrorist while they continue to wreak havoc on the world. Drudge reports that the ad was rejected by the GOP for being too over the top. I find it hard to tell if the ad is really meant as a slam against Democrats, or his own satirical view of how Republicans see anyone who's opposed to them. Did Zucker really think this would be used, or was he just having some fun? I don't really know, I just sit back and enjoy it, because it is really funny. Check it out after the jump.

[via Best Week Ever]

On October 18 at 9 pm CNBC is airing the two-hour documentary Inside American Airlines: A Week in the Life. CNBC was allowed unprecedented access to most of the departments within American Airlines, the biggest airline in the world. A special like this would have been, at best, mildly interesting six years ago, but the change the industry has went through since 9/11 has me much more intrigued about how operations are handled on a daily basis. I rarely fly anywhere, but those who do will find out why the same seat cost more for one person than another, and why frequent flyer miles are so difficult to trade in. Peter Greenberg will serve as anchor for the documentary, which will be rebroadcast at midnight.

(S02E12) This is an early review.

Bob Balaban plays Tom's father in this episode, and I must say he was the perfect choice. He and Tim Heidecker, who plays Tom, have the same kind of soft-spoken, halted delivery, and it seems perfectly natural they would be father and son, even if Walt doesn't seem to care much for Tom.

The episode opens at the airport with Tom waiting for his father's flight to arrive. We assume he's visiting his son, but actually it's just an eleven minute layover (which is, funny enough, also the length of the episode). Tom doesn't let his father's lack of time keep him from making a minute by minute itinerary, which includes a father/son embrace (tentative). Tom's father sells fish coolers called "Coldinizers" and he doesn't want to miss his flight, else he lose all his sales on the Eastern seaboard. Tom insists they have time to do everything on the list, however.

I'm not sure how TMZ.com gets all these videos. I think they must have a reporter assigned to every celebrity in the world.

Here's video of America's Got Talent judge David Hasselhoff being wheeled around the Heathrow Airport. Supposedly, the Hoffster (Hoffmeister?) was drunk (witnesses say drunk, his publicist says "pain medication") when he showed up for a flight and was denied entry to the flight. There's no sound to the video, so it looks like it's video after the incident. All we see is Hasselhoff sitting on the little cart backwards, talking to reporters, holding his wrist. You can maybe add your own music to the video. I suggest something classical and light.

Didn't Hasselhoff say just the other day that he doesn't drink anymore? America's got intoxicated talent.

Holy hell! Clues to Lost are popping up on other networks! OK, it's not really a clue. It's more of a shout-out. But still, that's pretty cool. Sunday night's episode of The War at Home on FOX showed the feuding family flying to Florida in an Oceanic Airlines jet. As you can see from the screen grab, the actual Oceanic symbol was not on the plane, just the name.

If you're keeping track, I believe this makes the third non-ABC show that has given a nod to Lost. The numbers appeared in Veronica Mars on January 25th and Dwight on The Office mentioned The Others in the 'Boys and Girls' episode on February 3rd, and even blogged about his Lost theory. Of course, Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 was also mentioned in Alias way back during season one of Lost.

[Thanks, Doc!]

So I was all set to review The Loop last night, but for some reason I thought it was on FOX at 9:30 instead of 8:30 and I missed it. Yeah, I know, and this is coming from the guy who does the What's On Tonight posts every damn day.

Anything happen on the show last night? Did it suddenly become hysterical and brilliant? Was it canceled and replaced by reruns of Stacked?

Gather round children for a tale of holiday folly. Yesterday afternoon, our beloved Oprah and her boyfriend Stedman Graham (I'd pay money to have that name...) decided to fly to one of her extremely expensive private mansions/ islands/planets. However, their craft of choice ran into a problem after the plane took-off. It seems a tiny bird flew into the plane's windshield and the pilot made the game-time decision of grounding the plane because a crack formed in the glass. A fire department spokesman said this actually happens quite frequently. Now this is just me, but if I ever happen to one day accumulate more money than God, I too will buy a private jet. Or eight. But I'm also going to make sure that those things have windshields solid enough to plow through a flock of eagles and not take a dent.