Paul Shaffer (Getty Images)

Canadian-born bandleader Paul Shaffer has broken his silence to TV Guide Canada about the possible end of David Letterman's CBS Late Show--or at least the end of his role in it. The TV star and "It's Rainin' Men" writer (yes, really) told the publication:

“We’ve been on 30 years so now we’ve got another two years… I’m going to be certainly ready to lie down after that, take a nap... But once again, life is nutty – anything can happen. I’ve been so lucky and blessed to be working this long in show business. And whatever happens now is just gravy to me.”

Should Mr. Shaffer hold to his word--and should Mr. Letterman, whose prickly personality might not mix with a new bandleader, follow suit--the stage is set for the next great late-night succession war! (We're still getting over 2010's NBC nightmare...)

Jon Hamm with a mustache. (YouTube)

— Mindy Kaling was spotted pleading with John Mayer to give his expert opinion on her love life at Koi in the Trump SoHo. We can only speculate that his answer involved calling her genitals racist.

— Jon Hamm plays Aimee Mann's director in her new music video for Labrador:
http://youtu.be/XA1cX-wgMdM

— A bevy of musical greats made a show last night in memorial of Broadway composer Marvin Hamlisch. Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, Aretha Franklin and Itzhak Perlman performed for VIPs including Mike Nichols, Nancy Pelosi, Regis Philbin, Susan Lucci, Sarah Jessica Parker, Alan Cumming, Sheldon Harnick, Mary Rodgers and Paul Shaffer.

— Eva Longoria and Mark Sanchez were spotted holding hands while leaving a romantic dinner at Daniel. You know, if you care about that kind of thing.

— And in chair-related news, Clint Eastwood feels bad about making fun of the president, and calls himself a Libertarian. Also he has no respect for tables.
http://youtu.be/7mIC8Nw7LqI

"Blondie like changed my life!" Ms. Momsen said, excitedly swaying back and forth at us. She was proudly wearing head-to-ankle vintage--a silver smock dress and gold bangles. Her shoes were something else, though--not vintage, she said, spinning around several times to find out exactly what they were. We noted that she looked a little Debbie-esque in general. She smiled.

Now: about Britney.

"I know! Her album comes out today! I haven't gotten it yet... But it's her birthday," Ms. Momsen said almost gravely. " I am definitely a Britney fan, I've grown up with her. Music's my first passion. She was kind of one of the first people that made me want to do that."

She added: "She had that cover of 'I Love Rock and Roll' and I was so obsessed with that song that I played it out, I wore it out. And my dad told me, 'Taylor, you have to hear the original' and then I became obsessed with Joan Jett and now it's taken on this whole..." She made circular motion with her hands. Then her publicist quickly whisked her away.

Their new two-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom spread has city and river views, hardwood floors and was finished in a modern style.

"It had spectacular Hudson River views overlooking New Jersey," exclusive broker Mika Sakamoto of Sotheby's International Realty said, though she declined to comment about the buyers' identity. She did say the new owners plan to combine the two units into a four-bedroom apartment.

Mr. Shaffer was unavailable for comment about his West Side purchase. According to Ms. Sakamoto, the seller was an overseas investor who had rented the property since the mid-1990's before recently selling to Mr. Shaffer.

The apartment, which is also listed with the address 160 West 66th Street, first hit the market in September 2003 for $1.59 million, before going to contract this spring for $1.42 million. In 1994, Mr. Shaffer and his wife purchased their current spread for just over $1 million, according to the listing system shared by brokers. The three-bedroom apartment covered 1,931 square feet and had three and a half bathrooms and full city and Central Park views.

The 60-story building between Broadway and Amsterdam is just steps from Juilliard, and was built in 1991. Along with 344 well-appointed individual apartments, the development has an underground parking garage, a health club with an indoor swimming pool and a sauna.

Mr. Shaffer's choice to spread his roots at 3 Lincoln Center may stem from the easy commute the building affords to the Ed Sullivan Theater at 51 West 52nd Street, where he and Mr. Letterman hold court. Originally from Ontario, Mr. Shaffer, 54, first landed on television in 1975 as part of the original band on Saturday Night Live . He made a foray into acting in 1977 when he appeared on the Norman Lear–produced CBS comedy series A Year at the Top , and has since appeared in Rob Reiner's This Is Spinal Tap and played alongside Bill Murray in Scrooged and John Travolta in Look Who's Talking Too . He has been with Mr. Letterman since 1982.

But Mr. Shaffer has never strayed far from his musical roots, having added the chart-topping dance number "It's Raining Men" to his credits, as well as being appointed musical director and producer for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria, and the musical director of the closing concert at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.

Susan Bloomberg, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's British-born ex-wife, has just gone to contract on her penthouse at 660 Park Avenue, a source close to the building said. Ms. Bloomberg had sought $9.5 million for the 13th-floor apartment that she had listed since April. The nine-room penthouse has a terrace, a library, a wood-burning fireplace and leaded glass windows. According to a source familiar with the transaction, Ms. Bloomberg achieved close to her desired sale price.

Beverly Goodwin, a senior vice president with Sotheby's International Realty who held the exclusive on Ms. Bloomberg's Park Avenue spread, didn't return calls for comment. Ms. Bloomberg couldn't be reached for comment about her two-bedroom penthouse.

Ms. Bloomberg first listed the spread at the end of April, when she delivered a letter to the board president of the exclusive Park Avenue co-op signaling her desire to sell the luxurious 3,500-square-foot penthouse. According to a real-estate source familiar with the building, Ms. Bloomberg purchased the apartment in 1999 for $4.21 million.

Even with the Upper East Side sale, Ms. Bloomberg retains a cache of luxurious real estate. Though she is divorced from the financial media mogul turned Mayor, Ms. Bloomberg remains close to her ex-husband and frequents the $3.65 million horse farm in rural North Salem that Mr. Bloomberg purchased in 2001, where she stays with her competitive-horse-riding daughter, Georgina.

Tepid laughter rose up from the Hilton's Grand Ballroom. He had his answer.

"Terrific. Great," Mr. Maron said. "I'm the first nobody to get up here and tank."

By the end of the evening, Mr. Maron could find some solace in the realization that though he was the first nobody to tank at the Friar's annual exhibition of comic bloodletting, he was certainly not the last. The potential for failure has always been a key component of the roast's heady appeal. "The mixture of some people being incredibly funny and some people bombing is part of the tension of roast," said Bill Hilary, executive vice president and general manager of Comedy Central, the cable network that for the last five years has been taping the events and airing an edited, expurgated version.

But this roast was decidedly different. Mr. Hilary, who was in the Hilton audience on Sept. 28, agreed that "some people bombed like I've never seen them bomb before." Indeed, though the roast had its moments of comic ingenuity, for the first time in a long time it was dominated by mediocrity and, at times, worse. In addition to Mr. Maron, Andy Kindler and Kevin Meaney landed with incredible thuds, and a number of other comedians-Greg Giraldo, Greg Fitzsimmons-were underwhelming at best.

If there was some greater meaning to be found among the groans, uncomfortable silences and flop sweat, it was this: the art of the roast-of eviscerating a man with a combination of comedy, anger and truth-was dying. A generational chasm had opened between the older comedians who had learned how to kill in the smoky nightclubs and private Friars Roasts of the 60's and 70's, and the younger generations who had grown up with therapy and cable channels, hungry for talent that maybe wasn't as sharp as it could be. And as Comedy Central's cameras rolled on Sept. 28, that dissonance had become evident.

But help is on the way. On Sept. 30, Friars dean Freddie Roman told The Observer that he was in the process of arranging for six seminars to be held over the course of the next year to teach the club's younger comedians "how to deal with the roast."

"I just want to teach them to go to the next level," said Mr. Roman, who added that he's going to approach such roastmasters as Buddy Hackett, Dick Capri, Jeffrey Ross and other killers to train the comic plebes. "Unfortunately, I'll have to be at most of them," he said.

Mr. Roman explained that the seminars will give the greenhorns "a little primer" on "how to prepare" for a roast, as well as "how not to be intimidated" up at the podium. Other pointers: "You have to know when to get off," he said. "Sometimes you're a big hit and you'll say, 'I'll stay another five minutes.' And then you're in the toilet."

And Mr. Maron, take note. One other rule that the Friars vets will be teaching, according to Mr. Roman: "You can't walk out to the audience and say, 'I'm going into the tank here.' You can't put that thought into the audience's mind."

On one hand, that gave the event a kind of ironic symmetry with its guest of honor. Mr. Chase's career had its moments of brilliance-most notably during his work on the inaugural season of Saturday Night Live in the mid-1970's-but it also has been dominated by mediocrity (roles in the movies Under the Rainbow , Oh, Heavenly Dog! and Memoirs of an Invisible Man ) and worse: his six-week-long stint as a Fox talk-show host.

On the other, it made the event often hard to sit through. As roaster Todd Barry said during his time at the podium: "It's just pretty sad when the most talented guy at the Chevy Chase roast is Chevy Chase."

And perhaps that's what Mr. Chase wanted. In the days following the roast, Friars members were grumbling that Mr. Chase was not the warmest or most cooperative of honorees, even though he's one of only two members-Milton Berle being the other-who have been roasted more than once.

"Chevy put a pall on everyone prior to the roast," said one high-ranking Friars member, who added that Mr. Chase's lack of warmth "intimidated" some of the younger comics who had little or no relationship with him.

But the disappointment of this year's roast suggests that Comedy Central and the Friars have come to a crossroads. The Friars dais this year was noticeably bereft of the great roast veterans. Friars Abbot Alan King was supposed to be there, but apparently missed his plane. Dick Capri, who has killed in previous years, was relegated to the audience. Jeffrey Ross, a young comedian who works in the old-school style and has been a hit at the last four consecutive roasts, was nowhere to be found. And Gilbert Gottfried, who had people coughing up bits of lung at last year's roast, simply sat on the dais like a slab of lox in a white tux.

Representation of the Friars old guard fell to one man, Friars Dean Freddie Roman, who had to bear the brunt of the prostate and steam-room jokes that inevitably get hurled at the veterans. The evening's roastmaster, Late Show with David Letterman bandleader Paul Shaffer, had a couple of good ones: "Freddie first gained notoriety when he and Icarus flew," he told the crowd, adding that Mr. Roman was "so old the Gallo Brothers are using his ass for a wine cellar."

Comedy Central's five-year-old agreement to cablecast the roasts has been a boon-financially and otherwise-to the Friars Club, but it has also come with a Mephistophelean catch: The cable channel's key demographic is 18-34, and as Mr. Hilary told The Observer , "We need that younger mix." Asked if the channel was no longer interested in the older comedians who know their way around a roast, Mr. Hilary first said: "Al Franken's not that young." Then, later in the interview, he added: "I'll be honest. I don't want the show to be irrelevant to our demographic."

But Mr. Hilary, who only needs to fill 40 minutes of time, said: "We've got a great show." That show will premiere on Comedy Central on Dec. 1.

Mr. Roman concurred: "It wasn't our worst roast ever and it wasn't our best. But because of the magic of television editing, the hour will look hilarious."

No one was thinking about tanking when the Friars roast of Mr. Chase began. The balding, graying Mr. Chase, looking a bit like Hunter S. Thompson in his tux and impenetrable sunglasses, was led to his big maroon Barcalounger. He was flanked by a massive dais that was populated by Oz creator Tom Fontana, Oz actors Chris Meloni and Dean Winters, tennis player John McEnroe, his wife, former rocker Patty Smyth, actor Tony Lo Bianco and what seemed like half the payroll at David Letterman's Worldwide Pants production company: Ed producer Rob Burnett, as well as two of the show's stars, Julie Bowen and Lesley Boone; Late Show producer Maria Pope, Late Show warm-up comedian Eddie Brill and the Late Show band. Besides Laraine Newman and Al Franken, no one from SNL showed up.

A spokesman for Worldwide Pants said the group had turned out to cheer on Mr. Shaffer. And just as he had done at a roast of Richard Belzer last year, Mr. Shaffer proved himself worthy of the job.

Mr. Shaffer, who's one of the Wallendas of showbiz parody, opened the evening accompanied by a bevy of chorus girls in skimpy red outfits with black fringe.

"A man gets the dais that he deserves / How sad the dais," Mr. Shaffer crooned.

"Ooooooooooooooh," went the chorus girls.

"You call this a show? / How can you roast a man when no one will go / And sit on the dais? / Jack-shit for a dais / How sad the dais / It blows!"

Then Mr. Shaffer took a little poke at himself. "I know what you're thinking / Who's Shaffer to talk? / This guy got his job / Sucking Letterman's cock."

But then, after dunning himself, Mr. Shaffer pretended to get angry. As the music still played, he delivered a faux screed of showbiz bitterness: "Yeah, well, fuck you-fuck all of you, at least I'm earning a check. I'm serious. You can all go fuck yourselves, until I say-" The chorus girls surrounded him and calmed him down.

"You'd think, though, Chevy would be doing better than he is," said Mr. Shaffer. He wore a black tux, an off-white tie and sunglasses. His clean-shaven head glimmered beneath the television lights. "After all, he is one of the few straight members of Hollywood's gay Mafia. The gay Mafia is just like the real Mafia except the phrase 'sleeps with the fishes' refers to Anne Heche's twat."

"What happened to Chevy's career?" Mr. Shaffer wondered, then replied: "I can answer that question in three grams."

"I gotta tell you it's too bad that Chevy isn't beloved in another country, like Jerry Lewis is in France," Mr. Shaffer said. "Think about this, even in Korea where they eat fucking dogs they still don't think he's funny. They think he's likable, they just don't think he's funny. Actually they don't even think he's likable."

Mr. Chase's poker face betrayed a grin.

"North or South," he asked Mr. Shaffer. It was the first of several interjections that Mr. Chase threw to derail his tormentors.

Mr. Shaffer shrugged him off then attacked the dais. He identified the Oz actors, Mr. Meloni and Mr. Winters, as "two guys who spend every Sunday night getting brutally ass-fucked in the shower, and then they go film the show." He also said he had "two words" for Food Network personality Bill Boggs: "Why?"

Then it was back to Mr. Chase. Mr. Shaffer said that his wife, Janey, was not in the room. "She's blowing Mike Myers so he'll give Chevy a job in his next picture. If everything goes well, Chevy could be driving that little midget back and forth to location."

When the laughter subsided, Mr. Shaffer dropped a beauty of a show-business insider's joke: "How about that new Saturday Night Live book," he said. "They were pretty rough on Chevy. I haven't seen anybody eat that much shit since the biography of Danny Thomas."

But, Mr. Shaffer added: "Tonight, it's all about the love."

The roastmaster then introduced Mr. Franken as a guy with "big balls. Unfortunately, they're on his chin and they belong to Cedric the Entertainer."

"I have to give Chevy credit," Mr. Franken said in his slow drawl. "Chevy Chase is in on the joke of having become a joke. [Joe] Piscopo, for example, doesn't get it."

"But I think a serious contribution that Chevy had made to our society is to show people how to deal with a chemical dependency problem," Mr. Franken said. "I'm talking, of course, about Chevy's heroic struggle against his addiction to back pills.

Because of Mr. Chase's honesty about his addiction to "back pills," Mr. Franken said: "I think there are a lot of kids out there, Chevy, who because of you are dealing with their backs through stretching, lifting with their knees and sleeping on a firmer mattress because they were scared straight after seeing the double feature of Under The Rainbow and Oh, Heavenly Dog! "

Noting the lack of big names on the dais, Mr. Franken said: "There's a reason for that. Which is that Chevy has always been an arrogant prick. Which Paul, Laraine, Beverly and I never held against him, unlike Steve Martin, Marty Short, Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin, Lorne Michaels, Goldie Hawn, Harold Ramis, Bill Murray, Rodney Dangerfield, Christie Brinkley, Randy Quaid and evidently his wife."

Mr. Franken said that when he sat down to write his roast speech, he thought: "Maybe roasting Chevy is almost too easy. I mean there's just a wealth of stuff to go after, the bad movies, the painfully embarrassing talk show, the drug addiction. The career down the tubes. But then I thought maybe it isn't too easy. Maybe this is going to actually be kind of tough. Because the basic premise of every roast is that underneath all the kidding, the cheap shots at the guy's career, the personal foibles …. Underneath all of that, there's always a subtext of real affection for the guy and I don't know anyone here who actually likes Chevy."

According to Mr. Shaffer, Ms. Newman was "due here at the Hilton anyway to blow a Shriner. And we're thrilled that she's performing double duty tonight."

Ms. Newman, looking like she'd had a bit of work since her SNL days, told the crowd that she had dug out her diary from her first seasons at the show. Her Dec. 2, 1975, entry read: "Dear Diary. The show is being plagued with bad luck. Danny had a psychotic break. Belushi's gone missing and Lorne had a polyp removed from his colon. The biopsy showed that the polyp was actually Chevy up Lorne's ass."

Mr. Shaffer liked that one. His baby's wail of a laugh cut through the white noise of the crowd.

From here, the roast took a nose-dive. If Todd Barry-"If I were a casting director for dinner theater in Wilmington, Del., I would have an erection right now"-did respectably then Mr. Meaney, star of the short-lived sitcom Uncle Buck , dropped the equivalent of Fat Man on the audience. Mr. Meaney said it was his first roast and there was no reason to doubt him. Inexplicably, he sang a rendition of "Winter Wonderland" to Mr. Chase alternating as Johnny Mathis and Ethel Merman. At one point, he told the crowd: "It's nice when you can individually thank people in the audience for laughing."

The confidence level returned to the room when Richard Belzer replaced Mr. Meaney. Mr. Shaffer introduced him by saying that on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit , Mr. Belzer plays "Detective Munch." Added Mr. Shaffer: "I don't have the end to this joke, it's just something, something, something Rosie O'Donnell."

Mr. Belzer countered that Mr. Shaffer looked "like he's been blowing Moby."

Mr. Belzer didn't exactly kill. His opening shot at Mr. Chase-"I knew Chevy when he was almost nice"-got a lukewarm response. But he also showed no fear toward the audience. "Don't give me fucking courtesy laughs because I'll go out in my limo and get a blowjob in five seconds," Mr. Belzer said when the joke sputtered. "I'm the kinda guy I don't have to get fuckin' laughs, so you better shape the fuck up right now." That earned him applause.

Mr. Belzer's second joke about Mr. Chase was better. "Chevy's dad told me that when Chevy was a little boy he used to masturbate a lot and one day his father caught him masturbating and said, you keep doing that, and someday you're going to be starring in Fletch Lives ."

Most of Mr. Belzer's parting shots were reserved for Mr. King, but since he didn't show, Mr. Belzer used them on Mr. Roman. "I don't want to say he's a bad comic, but Jack Ruby had a longer television career," Mr. Belzer said.

Mr. Chase's Vacation co-star Beverly D'Angelo was next. Mr. Shaffer told the crowd that the blond actress, who's looking a little zaftig since giving birth to twins, had "just sunk her teeth into one of the meatiest roles of her career. But enough about Al Pacino's cock."

Ms. D'Angelo proved she could dish it out as well as take it. She then sang a little song that if it had a title would be called "I Can't Fuck Without Falling in Love" which she said was the explanation she used to rebuff Mr. Chase's advances on the sets of all those Vacation movies. "I can't sit on a bone without wanting to pick up a phone/To say, Mama, I found Mr. Right!" went some of the lyrics. "I play the fool after I play with a tool," went some more.

Greg Giraldo told Mr. Roman it was "an honor to share a stage" with him. "Coincidentally, my two year old son is also sharing a stage with you," he added. "That stage where you refuse to wear your diaper but you can't stop shitting on yourself."

"My fucking luck, Alan King's plane was late," Mr. Roman said.

Stephen Colbert, correspondent of Comedy Central's Daily Show was up next and he offered a nuanced, ironic ribbing of Mr. Chase that sounded like something you might read in The New Yorker . He was definitely a member of a new breed.

"As far as drug use is concerned, so what I say," Mr. Colbert said. "A lot of performers, probably many on this dais here, have used drugs to relax them, to make them confident, to make them funny. And if there is a drug that can make Chevy Case funny, then I say that is a wonder drug. And a heaping bowl of whatever that drug is should be brought up to this dais and force-fed to Kevin Meaney."

Mr. Colbert concluded his segment by saying he'd like to offer "a little bit of warning to the rest of the people" who were going to roast Mr. Chase. "Before you attack him, think," he said. "There may come a day in your darkest hour when you are a shadow of your, albeit paper-thin self. And when that day comes, I hope that you are cheered up by something that Mr. Chase so famously said. He's Chevy Chase and you're not. If that doesn't cheer you up, then I don't know what will."

Mr. Colbert's schtick was about as far as you could get from the typical roast joke, and it was cleaner, but it was well-received-"That was great," Mr. Shaffer said when he was done.

But the old way was not dead either as stand-up Lisa Lampanelli bracingly demonstrated. "She's been called a cross between Don Rickles and Archie Bunker," Mr. Shaffer by way of introduction. "But in fairness ... she's got a much younger looking penis."

"True, I've got a big one. And I'll fuck you Paul," said Ms. Lampanelli who looked like someone had crossed Edie Falco with the Amazon race. "I will bang you like a dinner bell on the Ponderosa." Ms. Lampanelli then warned Mr. Shaffer that if they did mate, he'd get stuck "in the crack of my ass." She also told the roastmaster that "Everytime I see you on TV, it reminds me to clean my dildo."

Then Ms. Lampanelli said of Ms. D'Angelo: "Apparently, Al Pacino likes the scent of an old woman." Ms. Lampanelli returned to Ms. D'Angelo and her chemistry with Mr. Chase in the Vacation pictures. "I haven't seen chemistry like that since Rosie O'Donnell poked Tom Cruise with her strap-on. In fact, it's nice to see Rosie O'Donnell," she said, then added: "Oh, that's Freddie Roman." Ms. Lampanelli's follow-up on the Friars Dean: "Freddie Roman is here. His testicles will be here in 20 minutes.

And Ms. Lampanelli added that Vegas Vacation "sucked more than Pamela Anderson during a callback."

Then Ms. Lampanelli did what she called her "fake sincere ending."

"As my hero, Don Rickles would say, a comedian's humor is directed to have us laugh at ourselves. We made a lot of jokes, but you're truly immortal, if for nothing else than your role in Caddyshack alone. Right?" she said. There was applause in the audience.

Then Ms. Lampanelli demonstrated why she won't have to attend next month's roast primer. "Generation after generation, will always remember you as the guy we had to sit through to see Bill Murray."

"Boy," Mr. Chase said when it was all over. Mr. Shaffer laughed his laugh and then, as did most of the roasters, took their lumps. "In all sincerity Paul, I don't like you much more than David Letterman does," Mr. Chase said. "If I want to invite a bald, Jewish piano player up to the house, I'll call Madeline Albright."

But near the end Mr. Chase sounded a bit introspective-as introspective as a guy like Mr. Chase can be. "It did hurt," he said. "It did feel at times like stuff I really think about myself...I know it was all in quote good fun, but boy it's tough being me when you really do have some of those feelings. "On the other hand, you all came tonight," he said.

Then he looked at the rest of the dais. "And I don't think you came to see them."

Applause and a feral roar came back to Mr. Roman. The crowd sounded ready and willing for what was to transpire next: the public humiliation of comedian-actor Richard Belzer. But Mr. Roman seemed determined to leave no doubt about what was expected of the uninitiated and what they, in turn, should expect.

"To begin with, there should be no recording devices here. You're part of something very private and very special," Mr. Roman said. "We're counting on you to keep our secrets." And "anyone with rosary beads or muttering the Torah, I'd consider calling it a night." As for "the prudes in the audience," he added, "I'm giving you fair warning: You'll be plotzing–but you'll also be laughing your ass off." The crowd bellowed with anticipation. "And if you love Richard Belzer and have a soft spot in your heart for him, we're about to change all that."

The comment seemed more like a come-on than a warning. For some time now, the Friars have slowly been letting the secrets of their ancient tradition leak into the civilized world. What was once the province of shtarker male comedians is now a coed event that, for the last three years, has been cablecast, in edited form, on Comedy Central–and will be again, when Playboy founder Hugh Hefner is roasted on Sept. 29.

And on June 9, the Friars took things to another level. Even before the Comedy Central specials began, comedy fans have been praying that the organization would find a way to market unexpurgated versions of its hallowed roasts (pay-per-view is often mentioned), and the Town Hall event–New Yorkers are fans of comedy and evisceration, after all–seemed a safe step in that direction.

But those who came thinking they were about to see a comic bloodletting of the first order would have to think again. There were certainly plenty of choice comic moments at Town Hall, but there were also unfunny stand-ups ( Bill Maher! ) and cheesy showbiz-bigshot cameos ( Barry Levinson! ) in between. It was like going to the theater to see Braveheart and finding out that it had been chopped up and spliced together with What Women Want .

Fortunately, the thread tying together these two disparate halves of the Town Hall event was Roastmaster Paul Shaffer. Contrary to the vanilla ice-cream suit and white-framed glasses that he wore for the evening, Mr. Shaffer showed a darker side of himself rarely on view as the leader of David Letterman's Late Show band.

Usually it's the Friars Abbot, Alan King, who sets the filthy tone of the evening, but this time around, the usually laser-sharp Mr. King seemed unfocused. After getting a nice laugh by reducing Mr. Belzer's résumé to a single line–"He used to be funny, and he's been on a cop show for nine years"–Mr. King then proceeded to walk the audience, at length, through his own autobiography–from Major Bowes to the bar mitzvah in Teaneck, N.J., that he suddenly left to play.

Although, at its best, a roast is the confrontation of mortality through comedy–the roast victim's every shortcoming and failure is laid still quivering on the stage–Mr. King seemed preoccupied. "I'm aging. It's not good. It's not easy," he said at one point to the receptive but mystified crowd, before recalling what his mentor George Burns had said on his 90th birthday about his sex life. "It's like shooting pool with a rope," Mr. Burns had said–and that , Mr. King continued after the laughter died down and before leaving the stage, was "how I feel about our guest of honor."

"He's a legend. He's a survivor, really, more than a legend," Mr. Shaffer said of Mr. King once he had been given the floor. "The man survived the advent of the talkies, the death of radio, 93 appearances on the Sullivan show" and, he added, "third-degree burns on his hand from jerking off Topo Gigio."

Mr. Shaffer then said that the last time he'd been in Town Hall, "I was eating [the folk singer] Odetta." When the half of the audience that got the joke roared its approval, Mr. Shaffer, reacting with a kind of mock surprise at his own insouciance, told them: "I don't usually work blue. Uh, but tonight, at an event like this, it's compulsory. This is what I was told: You gotta work blue. It behooves me to do that. So I want to tell you–fair warning, especially the ladies–the nicest word you're likely to hear tonight is 'cunt.'"

The formalities out of the way, Mr. Shaffer got down to the task of roasting his longtime friend. "Richard Belzer is a man who made us laugh so much and then stopped around 1991," he said, noting that Mr. Belzer's last HBO comedy special had been about one of the roastee's favorite subjects: conspiracy theories. So Mr. Shaffer proposed a "Warren Commission to look into exactly how you died."

From there, Mr. Shaffer touched on what would be the major comic themes of the evening: Mr. Belzer's onetime dalliance with drugs, the testicle he lost to cancer, his tendency to recycle bits, his soft-core porn actress wife, Harley McBride and, of course, plenty of sexual deviance.

"I met him 27 years ago. That was when he still considered heroin one of the four basic food groups," Mr. Shaffer said, tracing Mr. Belzer's history to his current role as Detective Munch on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit .

"Detective Munch. Love that character," Mr. Shaffer said, sounding a bit like Sammy Davis Jr. and adding that, coincidentally, "Detective Munch is Ellen DeGeneres' party name."

"What makes a man the Belz?" Mr. Shaffer asked. "A lot of people know that his lovely wife Harley has made a few soft-core adult films many years ago," he said. How are these films different from hard-core porn? "In the soft-core," he said, "it just looks like the chick is sucking a black guy's ass."

But Mr. Shaffer added, "that's not what makes a man the Belz."

Next, Mr. Shaffer recalled the time Mr. Belzer landed the role of "Seth, the gay stage manager," in the Al Pacino film Author Author . "To prepare for the role," Mr. Belzer, he continued, "went on a strict cock diet for two months. But that's not what makes a man the Belz. I think it's staying on that diet for six months after the film– that ," the roastmaster said with utter conviction, "is what makes a man the Belz."

Anyone who watched Mr. Belzer during Mr. Shaffer's riff, and for the rest of the roast, would have been hard-pressed to think of a better candidate for the first man roasted in public. Though he was dressed in his trademark black and his eyes were masked by his omnipresent sunglasses, Mr. Belzer's face came alive with sheer joy every time a good punch line was launched his way. He looked like he was thoroughly enjoying his vivisection, and this was helped the crowd enjoy themselves. Then again, Mr. Belzer was surrounded by a contingent of friends on the dais that included actors Ice T, Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Walken, director Barry Levinson, Oz creator Tom Fontana, comic and author Al Franken, Politically Incorrect host Bill Maher and Catch a Rising Star founder Rick Newman.

Before turning to the live participants, Mr. Shaffer introduced a series of videotapes sent by various celebrities, including Jay Leno, Regis Philbin, Billy Crystal and The Daily Show anchor Jon Stewart. "What a tremendous honor–you're getting roasted at the Toyota Comedy Festival," Mr. Stewart said in his. "Boy, who knows more about comedy than the Japanese auto-makers?" "You had two series on NBC at the same time, which leads me to think one thing," Mr. Crystal said: "You have pictures of Bob Wright fucking a duck." Then Mr. Crystal held up a Zip-Loc bag that contained what looked like an orb of uncooked chicken. Mr. Crystal reported that he was happy to have retrieved Mr. Belzer's lost testicle. "I found it in Rick Newman's ass," he said.

"It was great of everybody to send those tapes," Mr. Shaffer said after the lights came up. "Jay Leno would have liked to have been here, but he's restoring an old rod. Enough about Regis' cock."

It was the last good laugh for a nice stretch. Robert Klein got up and did a bit in which the subtitle of Mr. Belzer's series, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit , became progressively more shabby. Then he inexplicably started thanking people on the dais until Mr. Roman yelled out: "I had to shave again!"

"You did a fair amount, too, you sonuvabitch," Mr. Klein replied.

Next up was Mr. Fontana, the creator of HBO's prison series, Oz . Mr. Fontana's series inspired a lot of anal-rape jokes over the course of the evening, but once more, the best part of his routine was Mr. Shaffer's introduction. "You know who should be on Oz ? Robert Downey Jr.!" Mr. Shaffer said, introducing Mr. Fontana. "You think he walks like Chaplin now!"

During Mr. Klein's lengthy set, Politically Incorrect' s Mr. Maher seemed to be squirming with boredom, and so when he took the podium, there was the sense that he would fire things up. "Some of the people up here so far really don't know you that well, and I think that's been reflected in their mediocre material," Mr. Maher said, adding that his soon-to-be-deployed material "may not be funny, but it's real. And it's very personal." Well, Mr. Maher was right. He was real, personal and not funny. Mr. Belzer, he said, "had a rough childhood. When his mother threw scraps on the table, the dog had to signal for a fair catch. And then his father killed himself."

"Whew!" someone could be heard saying in the audience. Indeed, one person who repaired to the Friars Club after the roast overheard Mr. Belzer saying that the remark about his father was the only joke of the evening that pissed him off. But at the end of the evening, Mr. Belzer told the crowd: "Bill's a great guy. The only time he has a funny bone in his body is when I fuck him in the ass."

Barry Levinson followed. He wasn't funny, either, but he got some nice laughs, for which he seemed grateful and relieved.

And then things got much better.

After Mr. Shaffer introduced comedian Jeffrey Ross as "the new kiss-ass king of the Friars," Mr. Ross thanked him for the nice intro. Then he said that Mr. Shaffer looked like "Doc Severinsen fucked a turtle."

Then Mr. Ross turned on the rest of the roasters, setting a precedent that would be repeated again and again. "This dais is lamer than Giuliani's cock," he said. Mr. Belzer looked "like Johnny Cash fucked a pockmark."

"When I see Richard Belzer, at least I think of Homicide . When I see Al Franken, I think of suicide," Mr. Ross continued. "Actually, all kidding aside, Al Franken gave me a copy of his new book, and I'm grateful because now I have something to give my maid's husband for Kwanzaa."

And spotting Mr. Roman, Mr. Ross said: "Freddie! Timothy McVeigh has a brighter future than you."

After a brief musical interlude by Jerry Orbach, in which he rhymed "Belzer" with "seltzer" to the tune of "Mona Lisa," Mr. Shaffer introduced Susie Essman by saying that she "recently starred Off-Broadway in The Vagina Monologues –playing the smell."

But Ms. Essman set things right when she got up to the podium. "I had no idea you were so funny," she told Mr. Shaffer. "And such a sharp tongue! That must really hurt David's ass.

"You know, I'm the only woman roasting tonight. And I feel like the belle of the ball," Ms. Essman said, "which I think is appropriate, because we're honoring the ball of the Belz."

Of Mr. Belzer, Ms. Essman said: "I know you love women–as opposed to these other cocksucking misogynists on the dais. The people like Bill Maher … Bill's the kind of guy who calls out his own name when he's coming." Then, referring to Ice T, Ms. Essman said, "I'm sure the word 'bitch' never crossed your lips."

Even Danny Aiello wasn't spared. "Apparently what happened is, a couple of months ago, Belz walked in on Danny screwing Harley," Ms. Essman said. "Belz said, 'Danny, what are you doing?' And Danny said, 'Well, I've got a movie coming out this fall, a miniseries …. '"

Mr. Shaffer introduced comedian Dom Irrera as hailing from Philadelphia, "the City of Brotherly Love, which explains why he likes sucking dick so much." Once again, Mr. Shaffer explained, "I don't do this kind of stuff, but it behooves me."

"Jerry Orbach did my fucking song!" Mr. Irrera said in a mock panic. "Now what am I going to do?" It didn't take him long to recover. "Anyway, I was fucking Belzer in the ass one day," Mr. Irrera said. "Not in a gay way–like a Viking. I had my hands on the horns of his metal helmet."

Mr. Franken scored with an ass joke, too. But first he had to be introduced by Mr. Shaffer. "As you know, Al had his own television show, which was entitled Lateline ," the roastmaster said. "Let me say in all candor, though, that I took a shit today that was darker, funnier and better constructed than that show. And more people saw it. I sold it to Lifetime."

Mr. Franken told Mr. Fontana: "I wish I had a piece of the syndication action on Oz . It's going to be very big on the soon-to-be-launched Ass-Fuck Channel."

Turning to Mr. Belzer, Mr. Franken said: "Richard is what I call the comedian's comedian. And it's not because he makes us laugh, which he does, it's that he almost never makes a real audience laugh." Mr. Franken chalked this up to the fact that Mr. Belzer hadn't written any new material in 20 years. "I mean, he's still doing the Dylan-as-an-old-Jew bit. It was funny–in 1973," he said. "Who knew he'd still be doing it after Dylan had actually become an old Jew?"

The high point of the evening came with Gilbert Gottfried's screaming, soaring performance.

"Well, I didn't have that much time to prepare tonight," Mr. Gottfried said, at a volume three times higher than his fellow roasters. But he explained that roasting was really about just telling a bunch of "really old dirty jokes" and personalizing them with the roastee's name. Mr. Gottfried explained that he didn't have time to take this last step, "so you'll just have to put the name into it."

"A man walks into his son's room," Mr. Gottfried said, beginning his roll. "He goes, 'Son, you could keep doing that, you'll go blind.' The son goes, 'I'm over here, Dad.'"

The crowd screamed louder than Mr. Gottfried.

"A little boy goes up to his father and goes, 'Dad, can I have $50 for blowjob?'" The father's reply, according to Mr. Gottfried: "Son, hang on–you any good?"

"You just put his name in there," Mr. Gottfried added.

And then: "A woman gets into a car accident. The husband rushes to the hospital. The doctor comes out and goes, 'Look, it's bad news. Your wife is crippled from the neck down. She can't speak. Her body is mangled. You'll have to take care of her 24 hours a day. And she has no control over her bowels or bladder. She can't feed herself.'"

Mr. Gottfried paused a millisecond. "The man starts crying. The doctor goes, 'I'm just fucking with ya. She's already dead!'"

As Mr. Gottfried left the podium, the crowd cheered wildly. They stopped and then they started up all over again.

There was nowhere to go but down. But Ice T did surprisingly well. "The last time I looked at a box like this," he said, looking back at the all-white dais, "I was on fucking trial for murder."

Then it was Mr. Shaffer's last chance. He got up to introduce Professor Irwin Corey, who would do, as he had been doing for decades, his great abstract mess of a speech that begins with "However!"

"He's here, but he doesn't know he's here," Mr. Shaffer said of the Friars veteran. "He thinks he's at the strip club on 52nd Street. How else would you explain the dollar bill stuck in Mariska Hargitay's snatch?" Ms. Hargitay looked a little flustered. Mr. Belzer's jaw was dropping in admiration. The Town Hall audience went wild one more time.

"It behooves me to do blue," Mr. Shaffer said.

Siegel Unleashed

ABC film critic and cultural reporter Joel Siegel may be known as the feel-good reviewer of the last 25 years, but he's not incapable of down-and-dirty criticism. And an invitation-only crowd got to see Mr. Siegel bare the fangs beneath his bushy mustache at the Museum of Television and Radio's tribute to him on June 6.

After a series of film clips showing Mr. Siegel noshing on Nathan's hot dogs in Brooklyn and calling actress Farrah Fawcett "a silly blonde whose brains have been baked in the sun," the slight rowdy crowd–an apparent fan club of media lifers that included Good Morning America newswoman Diane Sawyer, That Girl Marlo Thomas, WNBC movie critic Jeffrey Lyons, CNN host Jeff Greenfield, publicist Peggy Siegal, WABC anchor Roz Abrams and WCBS sports anchor Warner Wolf–began shooting questions at the critic.

"Ever have a movie you wanted to give a second chance?" Mr. Lyons asked. Yes, Mr. Siegel said: Amadeus , which he reviewed poorly and later learned to love.

When someone in the audience asked him to name his lousiest interview subject, Mr. Siegel didn't even blink. "Tommy Lee Jones. He's mean," he said. "He's just a mean drunk."

The crowd whooped and clapped. But Mr. Siegel didn't stop there. He blasted opera tenor Luciano Pavarotti for being "nasty and surly and someplace else–an angry Italian–until the [camera] light went on, and then he was kissing my hand." He also nailed classical conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, gleefully reminding the audience that the upper-crust conductor's grandfather had been named Tomashevsky and had been a star of the Yiddish theater.

The chuckles faded when one audience grumpus asked the $145 million question: What did Mr. Siegel, a Disney employee, have to say for himself after doling out one of the few glowing reviews given to his parent company's summer stinker , Pearl Harbor ? "You didn't give it a real review," complained the audience member.

"I did like Pearl Harbor !" Mr. Seigel said, noting that "every film critic works for someone else. Leonard Maltin, who gave Pearl Harbor a more positive review than I, works for Paramount!" Mr. Siegel insisted that he's never been pressured by Disney execs about what he should or shouldn't review. He claimed that working for Disney has actually kept him from doing stories that might be perceived as self-serving, like the one about how the American ecology movement wouldn't be what it is today if "four generations of kids had not grown up loving Bambi ."

–Rebecca Traister