billy mays

'Lost' alum Mark Pellegrino lands one hell of a role, Missy Peregrym joins a new ABC cop drama, Lea Thompson returns to the small screen and more TV news.

News of someone's death always implants a little sadness in my brain, whether its the passing of a major celebrity or some innocent bystander who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Part of it is completely selfish. Someone's passing always reminds me of the frailty of human life and lets me know I'm always one less beer away from reaching the end of my time.

The other part is the projection of my own pain. We've all lost someone close to us and know what that pain feels like when our brain is scrambling to catch up with the reality of that loss. There is someone out there who has to deal with that same pain, whether the person who died was worthy of Catholic sainthood or the Bastard of the Year Award.

Famous (and loud) TV pitchman Billy Mays was found dead in his Florida home today. He was 50.

There's no cause of death yet (an autopsy will be performed tomorrow), but Mays was one of the passengers on a US Airways flight that had a bumpy landing in Tampa, FL yesterday.

I think most people would agree that this been a remarkably strange week for celebrity deaths. Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, then Michael Jackson. We thought those three celebs would be enough for one week (and celebrity deaths often come in threes, as the common wisdom goes). And now we have a guy who is still on our TVs all the time. It's not like he was old or he had retired or he wasn't doing much in public anymore. Commercials with May run all day long, every day. I saw several last night. He also has a weekly show with Anthony Sullivan on Discovery called Pitchmen. The pair were also on Conan's show last week. Video of that appearance is after the jump.

Isn't it funny how the best parts of Jay Leno's show are the parts that he has absolutely nothing to do with? Where the personalities of Letterman and Kimmel and O'Brien are all over their shows, shows that they make better by the stuff that they actually do and the way they react to things, the funny/great things on Leno's show are things like Headlines, stand-up comics, and the musical guests at the end of the show.

For example, the clip after the jump. It's a bit where Leno talks in his monologue about how President Obama is taking questions from just about anyone in his press conferences. This could be dangerous, though, because a very loud guy could suddenly jump up during the press conference and not only take over the whole event but also try to sell you various cleaning solutions, clothing repair kits, and portable grills.

I was going to type this entire post in all caps, the way Billy Mays talks, but I thought that might be a little annoying.

Everyone's favorite informercial pitch man is getting his own reality show on The Discovery Channel. It's called But Wait...There's More, and will follow Mays and Anthony Sullivan as they find new products and pitch them to you.

Discovery also has other new shows coming up, including Out of the Wild, which will have suburban-dwellers trying to rough it in Alaska, and Working on the Edge, a movie spinoff of the popular Deadliest Catch series. You'll follow the adventures of a fishing boat in the Bering Sea.

But wait...there's more! Act now and you'll also get Swamp Blogging, which is about a tree logger. I'm not even sure what the hell blogging has to do with logging. Maybe it's a typo?

If this is a success, maybe we'll see a show with ShamWow guy Vince as a private eye.