Jonathan's arch-nemesis Louis Green (John Hodgman) was back, and this time the two were booked on Dick Cavett's new talk show, which mean instant fun on 'Bored to Death' (Mon., 9PM ET on HBO). Louis and Jonathan are always brilliantly hilarious together.

Hodgman is so delightfully evil in this role, that it was a hoot watching him lose his mind when Jonathan's segment was going so well, Louis got bumped. In an attempt at revenge, he intends to drop the curtain, but winds up going much further.

Talk show hosts see a ton of people over the course of their careers. Venerable host Dick Cavett was a guest on 'The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson' (Weeknights, 12:37AM on CBS), and he talked about how it can start to get to you. More specifically, it can make you think you're losing your mind.

He shared with Ferguson a story of Johnny Carson, wherein the former 'Tonight Show' host confided in Cavett that he feared he was losing his mind. "Do you ever forget who you had on?" he'd asked Cavett one night when he was still hosting. Cavett had hosted his own show off and on for decades already to this point.

To ease Carson's mind, Cavett told a story of a slip of his own. "I came home one night after one of my one-person shows," he said, indicating he'd only had one guest. When someone asked him who he'd had on shortly after taping had wrapped, Cavett couldn't recall.

Did you know that October 23 is the day Johnny Carson was born? And that his birthday is used to celebrate TV Talk Show Hosts Day?

In honor of what would have been Johnny's 85th birthday, we've decided to present, as a tribute to the King of Late Night, the six best talk show hosts in the post-Carson era. So after sharing our take on the six most annoying talk show hosts recently, here's the other side of the coin.

But that's not all ... we're also celebrating Johnny's day with a special giveaway. The contest winner will receive the amazing DVD set, 'Tonight: 4 Decades of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.'

There are so many channels now, and so many celebrities. It seems like everyone will get a TV show at some point. But there are still some TV stars that no longer have TV shows but really should. For example, someone like Tom Selleck should have a weekly series again, and luckily he is going to return to TV in a new show on CBS.

If not for that recent announcement, Selleck would have been number one on the list that follows after the jump: five stars I'd like to see on a regular TV series again.

1. Nick Mancuso. Mancuso starred in one of my favorite TV shows, 'Stingray,' and he has had a rather interesting career since then. He's been in a couple of TV shows and a slew of movies (including the 'Under Seige' films), but these days it seems like he's very content focusing on his artwork, his writing (check out his blog), and doing the occasional role in a movie.

'The Dick Cavett Show' has long been a talk show of legend. It not only broke the traditional late night mold of jokey sketches and characters, but it also birthed a long list of interesting and historic television moments from the famous "Woodstock" show to his public support of John Lennon as he faced deportation that scored him a special mention on the Richard Nixon tapes.

One of the most infamous moments resurfaced on television when Cavett made a guest appearance on Jimmy Fallon's 'Late Night'. Cavett recalled one episode that the public never got to see because a guest, Dr. James Rodale, actually died on tape.

The episode has never seen the light of day even though the tape still reportedly exists in the network's vault, but Kathy Starcher of Bridgeport, Conn. sat in the audience for that show and recalled what it was like to watch a TV moment that only a few people have ever seen. Read our interview with Mrs. Starcher after the jump about her fleeting foray into TV history.

Dick Cavett should have a talk show again. We need someone on regularly who is a bit calmer, a bit more thoughtful/smart than what we have now. Charlie Rose is fine, but Cavett would be a welcome addition. Last night he was on 'Late Night' and Jimmy Fallon even recreated the set from his '70s talk show! After the interview (after the jump), Cavett does a magic trick.

Oh these wimpy late night hosts these days. They'll whine about the dumbest things. Contracts schmontracts. But have they ever had a guest DIE on their show?

Dick Cavett stopped by 'Late Night With Jimmy Fallon' (weeknights, 12:35AM ET on NBC) to talk about the experience. Not only that, but the guy was a health expert! Talk about boring a guy to death. (Hey, Cavett's words – sort of - not ours.)

Watch the video after the jump.

And another one bites the dust.

Tyra Banks had long been contemplating ways to forge an Oprah-style media empire well before the debut of her eponymous talk show in 2005. Setting aside her guest shots on 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' in the 1990s, Banks decided to establish her TV-Q as a host by successfully launching 'America's Next Top Model' in 2003. That gave her the clout to fashion 'The Tyra Banks Show' -- which she segued to just three months after leaving the runway -- into something that was part tabloid, part tasteful.

Now that Banks has announced she's ending her talk show this season -- she'll be focusing on her production company, Bankable Studios, among other projects -- we formally add 'The Tyra Banks Show' to the pantheon of great talk shows we wish hadn't bit the dust.

Don Lipp passed away last Thursday at age 70. No, I didn't recognize the name either, but as I was reading his obituary I had this incredible flashback to the mid-70s and one of the game shows he produced: The Moneymaze! (I've seen it spelled two ways - The Moneymaze and The Money Maze.)

I remember I was excited when it premiered, because it had this outrageously large, complex (and probably expensive) maze set. Couples would compete against other couples, and when it got to the maze part one spouse would guide the other through the maze on the way to a big money prize.

• At 8, ABC has a special Jimmy Kimmel Live, followed by the Lakers/Magic game.
• NBC has a new I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here at 8, followed by the series premiere of The Listener.
• TCM has a classic Dick Cavett interview with Ingmar Bergman at 8, followed by The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries.
• Also at 8: Versus has the Red Wings/Penguins game.
• At 9, FOX has a new So You Think You Can Dance.
• USA has the season premiere of Burn Notice at 9, then the series premiere of Royal Pains.
• TLC has a new American Chopper at 8, followed by a new Street Customs.
• At 10, Comedy Central has the series premiere of Tosh.0 at 10 (two episodes).
• Bravo has a new episode of The Fashion Show at 10.

Check your local TV listings for more.

After the jump, the late night talk shows.

What's going on at the other TV blogs via the internets.

• Wanna save Friday Night Lights? Send light bulbs to NBC!
• Are there cartoons where Sylvester the Cat actually wins in the end?
• Survivor got the lowest debut ratings in the show's history the other night.
• Conan O'Brien and an audience member ran through the MSNBC studios yesterday.
• Did you know Dick Cavett is keeping a blog at The New York Times site?
• Will the final episodes of Scrubs go straight to DVD?
• Jeopardy! champ Ken Jennings has a new book out.

Pioneers of Television (in stores today) is a pretty big title for a documentary series, especially one that lasts only four episodes. You wonder, what are they going to mention and what are they going to leave out? This PBS show isn't the most comprehensive look I've seen on each of its subjects, but for one miniseries in one package, it's actually well put together, and you're going to see some TV footage, photos, and interviews I bet you've never seen before.

I'm too young to have watched the Dick Cavett Show, thought I did enjoy his cameo in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3.

Anyway, thanks to YouTube and other such sites folks like me can finally see clips from some of these old TV shows, and I must say I'm glad I came across the one below with Jerry Lewis.

Lewis talks about his critics, and it's impressive, to me anyway, that he's willing to listen to a critic who doesn't like him if the critic is competent and has a clear love of film. He even claims to have written to critics and thanked them for negative reviews. Now that we have the blogosphere it's hard for me to imagine such an exchange taking place. If anything, I'd imagine an actor would respond to a negative review by posting something nasty about the reviewer on their own blog. And then I would write about that exchange on this blog.

The video is after the jump. After the commercial break is a brief Q&A with the audience, which isn't especially interesting or revealing.

Nye was a veteran stage, TV and movie actress. She died of lung cancer last Friday at her home in New York City.

Besides her long career on the Williamstown, MA and Broadyway stages (Half A Sixpence, Second String, The Man Who Came To Dinner, The Trojan Women, Real Inspector Hound, and others), she appeared in episodes of Hart to Hart, St. Elswhere, Hallmark Hall of Fame, and other shows, and had two different recurring roles on Guiding Light. One as Susan Piper in the mid 80s, and one as Carrie Carruthers in 2003, in one of the stupidest plot lines I ever saw on the show (please, don't get me started...).

Nye might be equally famous for who she was married to: talk show host and writer Dick Cavett.

This September, Turner Classic Movies will air a one-time, one-hour Dick Cavett Show special in which the famous TV talker will sit down with filmmaker and comedy legend Mel Brooks. The special will be filmed before a live audience on an updated version of the set of the original series. In addition to the new interview with Brooks, who is currently adapting his movie Young Frankenstein into a musical, TCM has also secured the rights to Cavett's "classic" interviews with the likes of Robert Mitchum, Bette Davis, Ingmar Bergman, Alfred Hitchcock, Woody Allen, Groucho Marx, and Katharine Hepburn. Those interviews will also air during the month of September. Now I just have to remind myself to remind my Tivo to record the Woody Allen, Alfred Hitchcock, and Groucho Marx episodes.