Heil-o to you too! (Fox 5)

Then he gave the Nazi salute and told the horrified hosts to "Say HEIL to all your colleagues at the other division."

Of course, the best part was his publicist's explanation.

http://youtu.be/giFFALUlPTo
In attempting to explain the whole Hitler thing, his publicist told TMZ that it was a "satirical gesture toward Fox News...whose ideology he is opposed to."

Yeah, no shit. This just makes us feel bad for the poor Good Day NY hosts, whose producers probably should have vetted Mr. Belzer--who frequently appears on Bill Maher and Howard Stern's programs--more thoroughly before letting him on a morning program.

"Pulling the lever for Obama was pretty amazing. And here we are in the Audubon Ballroom, where in February of 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated. And tonight we may celebrate a black President, so let the healing begin."

If Mr. Belzer is lucky enough to have a victory tonight, what does he expect from an Obama administration?

"I expect for him to be a quick learner. He's gonna be handed a lot of impossible situations. But I think he's the one candidate that will have tremendous reservoir of good will from all political persuasions to get through this. So, symbolically, realistically, he couldn't be more right for the moment."

"I think every black kid will tomorrow will be one inch taller when he goes to school. And I think everyone will be energized. And a lot of people who had given up hope in the last seven eight years are hopeful."

At the Friars Club roast of Pat Cooper, which was held last Friday, Oct. 19, in the main ballroom of the New York Hilton in midtown, Richard Belzer apparently had a severe cold, or something.

During his roast, the actor-cum-conspiracy theorist was repeatedly and loudly sniffing into the microphone, opening and closing his jaw in a circular motion and intermittently licking his chops as he delivered a slew of sassy bon mots directed mainly at Mr. Cooper, 78, and “Roastmaster” Lisa Lampanelli (a.k.a. ‘The Queen of Mean’). His behavior was so bizarre, it caused most of the people in the audience and on the dais to shift nervously in their seats.

Then, after Mr. Belzer finished his sniffle-peppered roast, the comedian Greg Fitzsimmons stood at the podium and broke the ice. “Richard Belzer, it’s great to see your success has parlayed into you still being able to afford an eight-ball before the Roast!” Hearing this, the actor pretended to do a line of cocaine off the table in front of him while the audience erupted into hysterics.

On November 5, Mr. Belzer will host the 10^th anniversary party for AboveTopSecrets.com, which bills itself as the “world’s leading website for 'alternative topics,' including conspiracy theories, aliens & UFO’s, government secrets, and paranormal phenomena.”

"Anyone can put potted plants on a terrace, but a pool-that's a bit more complicated," said Israeli-born developer Miki Naftali, president of Elad Properties.

Not that he's talking about Olympic-sized pools, or even tanks sized for a suburban backyard. Even the most sprawling Manhattan terraces couldn't accommodate those. These are rectangular pools that measure approximately seven by 14 feet, with motors that produce adjustable currents to swim against.

Granted, these kinds of pools have been around for a while, and a handful of Manhattan apartment owners may already have installed them at their own apartments. But because they're relatively difficult to install safely, condo boards have typically frowned upon letting individuals add them to already constructed units. Mr. Naftali, however, is skirting that problem by installing them during the building's construction. And for now, it seems he has the field to himself.

"I've never heard of or seen one of these things on a penthouse terrace," said Scott Durkin, the chief operating officer of the Corcoran Group.

Construction of Mr. Naftali's first such pool is underway on the terrace of a penthouse at 151 West 17th Street, one of two buildings-the second is a block away on 18th Street-known as the Campiello Collection. Elad completed construction on the Chelsea project about seven months ago, but this particular penthouse had been languishing on the market for almost all that time without any takers. The three-bedroom, three-bathroom unit, which was asking $2.5 million, has 2,300 square feet of interior space and a 2,000-square-foot roof deck.

"When the weather started warming up, I started thinking about introducing something to really show the outside," said Mr. Naftali.

Shortly thereafter, the building's marketing agents, Cantor Pecorella, put an ad for the penthouse in the Sunday New York Times -this time with mention of the pool. Two weeks later, they had a buyer.

"The pool was really like the cherry on the icing," said the apartment's soon-to-be owner, an investor from California. "I could have gone and looked at other apartments, but the pool 100 percent clinched it."

Mr. Naftali is so enamored with the idea that he now plans to offer these pools as optional features on as many of his new penthouse units as possible. Some of his projects currently under construction include luxury condominium buildings at 21 Astor Place, 49 East 21st Street and 355 Sixth Avenue.

Mr. Naftali said each installation will cost him approximately $125,000, but he won't jack up the asking price to recoup his costs.

"Not every $10,000 I spend do I try to compensate on the sale price," Mr. Naftali said.

And if that first sale is any indicator, he can do well enough without itemizing a mark-up for the pools.

The $125,000 price tag includes the steel beams needed to reinforce the terraces and the wood used to create a deck around the pool. In the case of the penthouse at 151 West 17th Street, Mr. Naftali is building the pool so that its top lies flush with the terrace's existing guardrail, giving the pool a so-called infinity edge. A clear glass railing will ring the deck as a safety precaution.

BELZER CHECKS OUT AT LINCOLN CENTER; HEADS TO SOUTH OF FRANCE WITH $838 K

Comedian and actor Richard Belzer has sold a two-bedroom condo near Lincoln Center. Mr. Belzer, who plays Detective John Munch on the NBC show Law & Order: Special Victims Unit -one of the few New York–based television shows that actually films in the city-sold the 1,200-square-foot unit for $837,500, according to city records.

He and his wife, actress and former Playboy model Harlee McBride, bought the apartment at 43 West 61st Street in 1998, about a year before filming began on Law & Order . Prior to that, he and Ms. McBride lived in Baltimore, where Mr. Belzer, playing the same character, filmed the NBC series Homicide , which was canceled in 1999.

Mr. Belzer and Ms. McBride are currently spending time at their home in the South of France and were unavailable for comment. Mr. Belzer paid for the house in France with the money he received from an out-of-court settlement with Hulk Hogan. The wrestler made Mr. Belzer another kind of special victim in 1985, when the comedian sustained injuries during Mr. Hogan's demonstration of a wrestling hold on live TV.

What real estate they might buy with the proceeds from their sale of the West 61st Street apartment-which has southern city and western river views, two bathrooms, a marble kitchen and marble whirlpool bath, and a separate dining area-isn't known. They sold the unit to a couple from Atlanta-Carol and Bob Nemo, who retired to New York after running several Ace hardware stores in Georgia for upward of 30 years.

Ms. Nemo said she didn't know why Mr. Belzer or his wife decided to sell the property.

"All I know is that they are in France for the summer," she said, "and I assume they're coming back."

UPPER WEST SIDE

320 Central Park West

One-bedroom, one-bathroom co-op.

Asking: $495,000. Selling: $480,000.

Maintenance: $983; 40 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: 68 days.

ARDSLEY WORTH THE TROUBLE This 1,000-square-foot one-bedroom managed to woo one young couple quickly. Very quickly. In fact, it was the first place they saw (in the midst of a midwinter snowstorm, no less) and the only place they put a bid on. They came to broker Jolanta Zonca at William B. May in the beginning of February with two conditions that seemed incompatible-a tight budget and a tight radius around Central Park. So Ms. Zonca was prepared for a long haul. But the first place they went to, listed by Eric Babon, another broker at William B. May, turned out to be just what they were looking for-good space, huge closets and the perfect locale. "They were asking me what I thought abut this neighborhood," Ms. Zonca said, noting that the couple didn't pass up on their 2 p.m. showing time despite the horrid weather. "I said, 'This area, this price-it's worth it to think about it.' Within two hours, they had called me back. They'd placed the offer by 5 p.m." The sellers were sad to see the place go, but with a third child on the way, they were moving up to Westchester so they could have more room. "After the first one, I told them it was time to move," said Mr. Babon jokingly. The building itself was also a good choice for the buyers-the famed prewar Ardsley satisfied their artistic impulses. "It's an Art Deco building," said Mr. Babon, adding that the 1930's touches are visible in the lobby and in the apartment as well. The apartment is in original condition, with Art Deco doorknobs, hinges, window handles and even a crystal mirror in the bathroom. The Ardsley is also the building where Barbra Streisand once lived, though she unloaded her $4 million penthouse there in April of 2002.

SUTTON PLACE

400 East 56th Street

Two-bedroom, two-bathroom co-op.

Asking: $925,000. Selling: $890,000.

Maintenance: $2,061.58; 48 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: three months.

YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE IT TO SEE IT Green tiles in the bathroom. Peeling wallpaper throughout-in the kitchen, it's a yellow-and-orange flower print, 70's-style. Dark wood furniture in the bedroom. Thick carpeting, described as "unlivable" by the listing broker. The bathroom and kitchen fixtures were so old, they were almost unusable. "It needed some sprucing up, to say the least," said Elyse Roberts at William B. May, who had the exclusive on the apartment. "The biggest thing was that we really needed a couple with a vision." So Ms. Roberts went "into full force" showing the apartment, in the hopes of finding that far-sighted buyer who could see through the apartment's dated look. She was helped by the fact that a two-bedroom on a high floor with a south-facing balcony in Sutton Place is no small find. Ms. Roberts did eventually find a couple of professionals, with grown children, moving to the city. "They really saw the space for what it is," said Ms. Roberts. A broker with Ashforth Warburg and Associates brought the buyer.

BOERUM HILL

144 Bond Street

Three-bedroom, two-bathroom prewar townhouse.

Asking: $950,000. Selling: $970,000.

Taxes: $2,700.

Time on the market: four months.

PICTURE-PERFECT DEAL Anne, a children's photographer, scanned the elegant three stories, four fireplaces and garden pergola of this 1866 townhouse in 15 minutes before flying off to Ohio; her husband, the editor of a business magazine, checked it out in under an hour before hastily jetting off to Colorado. But during their meager hour-and- 15-minute perusal, the young couple decided to end their on-and-off three-year search for a home with a confident bid $20,000 over the asking price. That must have provided some small comfort to the melancholy sellers, who were reluctantly leaving their residence of eight years after the husband's publishing company relocated to him to Mendem, N.J. But in a rare display of honor trumping money, they proved their very unfiduciary priorities by turning down a much higher offer made after the initial negotiations were already underway. "I rarely-almost never-see that in real estate," said the buyer's Corcoran broker and friend, Kim Soule. Linda Woolfe, the Corcoran broker who worked for the sellers, said that as a token of her appreciation, the photographer who bought the place took a picture of the sellers' daughter and dog posed prettily in front of the house-something to remember it by.

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."

Despite his enthusiasm for curing cancer-which took his wife, Raisa, in 1999-and despite the flashbulbs brightening his pate, Mr. Gorbachev, recently 71, looked sallow and unhappy. The spot on his head seemed dimmer than the burgundy splotch that stood for perestroika in the 1980's. With his apparatchik tummy and rumpled suit, Mr. Gorbachev looked more like Soviet interior minister Nikolai Shchelokov circa 1983 than the man who made glasnost chic in the Western capitals and in Leningrad.

Still, Mr. Gorbachev is much in demand in this city. When he got to the press room that night, Bob Wright, the chief executive of NBC, gave Mr. Gorbachev a hearty hello and a big SALT II handshake. Mr. Wright was there to accept his own award and memorialize Brandon Tartikoff, the vibrant, television-loving NBC president who died of Hodgkin's disease at 48 in 1997.

In spite of the somber events that brought them together, Mr. Wright's network was able to use the opportunity to get Mr. Gorbachev on Ron Insana's CNBC program that afternoon.

"I thought the interview was very good," Mr. Gorbachev said, through a translator. "The questions, they were very good."

"They're going to edit it and mix up all the words so it comes out poorly," Mr. Wright deadpanned.

"I know all about it," Mr. Gorbachev's interpreter replied.

Actually, Mr. Insana had given Mr. Gorbachev a pretty easy time. Introducing his guest, he said that when Mr. Gorbachev had "assumed the role of General Secretary"-of the Communist Party, in 1985-"he took control of a system wrought with corruption and scandal, and a country plagued by a stagnant economy. But by the time he left power and Yeltsin took control, he'd become one of the greatest reformers in Russian history." Mr. Insana credited Mr. Gorbachev with allowing "the citizens of the Soviet Union to feel more comfortable voicing their opposition to bureaucracy" as well as with reaching out to the West. He didn't mention the inglorious end of Mr. Gorbachev's reign, or how he kind of handed the country to the K.G.B. and the Russian mafia.

On the other hand, Mr. Gorbachev didn't bring up the Jack-Welch-at-the- Harvard-Business-Review affair.

In spite of the Pravda treatment he'd received, Mr. Gorbachev said he was embarrassed to see himself on TV. "When I looked at myself on the screen," he said, still through the interpreter, "the interviewer was a very slim young man. Then there was Gorbachev. Every day I look more and more like Churchill in terms of being enormous."

"No!" said Sue Herera, Mr. Insana's CNBC co-host, who was standing nearby. "Just an enormous presence."

Ha-ha-ha. Good one, comrade!

When the photographers were done setting up various tableaux of Mr. Gorbachev, Mr. Wright, comedian Richard Belzer and the CNBC gang, Mr. Gorbachev tried to steal away to the cocktail party below. "Just one more photo!" someone barked at him. "Stand there!" Since Mr. Gorbachev didn't seem to understand, these directions were underscored by flailing and pointing.

"Don't order me around!" Mr. Gorbachev said gravely, and kept walking. He then said something that was not translated and gave in. "I'll do it," said the former president. When he was finally allowed to leave, Mr. Gorbachev settled into a corner table at the cocktail party in the apparent hope of being left alone. When a mob of well-dressed well-wishers besieged him, Mr. Wright anxiously ran over to the event's organizers. "Gorbachev's in the corner!" he said. "You have to do something!"

He zoomed back into the party, where he met an NBC reporter.

"Gorbachev's in the corner!" he said. "He's being attacked! Someone has to do something!"

But there was nothing anyone could do. If the Soviet Union had still been up and running, perhaps. But as it was, Mr. Gorbachev had to sign autographs and exchange pleasantries for 20 minutes.

- Ian Blecher

Way Far East at Elaine's

David Spade was itching to get up and move around Elaine's on Sunday, March 24. He was seated three tables inside the door of the Upper East Side saloon, which was hosting its eighth annual Oscar party in conjunction with Entertainment Weekly . Mr. Spade had been bothered by a large blowup of the Entertainment Weekly Oscar cover, which was hung behind his head and prevented him from leaning back in his chair.

So he got up and entered the maw of the pre-broadcast cocktail party. Wearing a fitted button-down shirt that looked to be made of faux denim, Mr. Spade exuded some inner turmoil-at odds with each other, a macho four-day stubble covered his face while his elvish, flaxen locks hung below his ears.

"David!" shouted Law & Order SVU 's Richard Belzer (he's back! Reader, check out the previous item to see why many believe Mr. Belzer is at the core of a secret worldwide power conspiracy) from a table deeper in the room. Now Mr. Belzer sported sunglasses, and he didn't bother to stand up to shake Mr. Spade's hand .

"Yeah, y'know, I don't have time to talk. I'm in the middle of like 10 things," Mr. Spade said in his laugh-track drawl, pretending to shoulder off toward the men's room.

The regal Mr. Belzer, probably still thinking of his afternoon with Mr. Gorbachev, made as if he was cracking up.

"I've never been to Elaine's before," Mr. Spade shouted, as Sex and the City 's Chris Noth was shoved against his back in a crowd swell.

"Well, here it is in all its glory," said Law & Order SVU 's Dann Florek, seated next to Mr. Belzer, waving his hand at the mob. "And the food's worse!"

As on other Academy Awards evenings in New York, there was something slightly forlorn about the crowd huddled together for warmth at Elaine's-to extend the Russian motif of this column, almost like Romanoffs in Siberia, watching events in St. Petersburg from afar. Mr. Spade was perhaps the biggest star at Sunday night's party, but the place was spilling over, much like Uma Thurman's breasts, though there were more than two partygoers.

As the milling journalists, Time Inc. suits and Law & Order stars got increasingly lubed before dinner, feminist writer Nancy Friday searched for her seat. The very tall blonde jostled her way toward her table, and was so relieved to get there that she didn't blink when Variety reporter Charles Lyons asked whether she worked for Time Inc., which publishes Entertainment Weekly .

"I sleep with Time," said Ms. Friday with a grin.

"She does sleep with Time ," said her dark-haired companion, who had just made his way to her side. If this had been a sitcom, there would have been electronic applause at this line. He extended a hand toward Mr. Lyons.

"My name is Norman Pearlstine," he said.

Mr. Lyons looked perplexed by this information.

"He's the editor in chief," said Ms. Friday quickly.

Mr. Lyons, either in confusion, deafness or a passive-aggressive sense of mission, asked Mr. Pearlstine to spell his name.

"You know what?" Mr. Pearlstine said. "I'll spell if for you later, O.K.?" He headed off.

Fame and Obscurity author Gay Talese, wearing a red-and-white-striped shirt, yellow tie and blue suit jacket, was at a table with Mr. Pearlstine, Ms. Friday and erotic film star Candida Royale, waving a martini glass empty except for a stub of lemon.

"I've drunk 933,000 martinis in this place," said Mr. Talese. "I am the Cal Ripken of martinis."

Of Ms. Kaufman-who was circulating and, like Mr. Belzer, wearing sunglasses-he said: "She is the only restaurant owner in this city who has ever read a book!"

At the next table was Law & Order SVU cast member Mariska Hargitay, who corrected everyone who said hello with a smiling but firm "Mari sh ka." Ms. Hargitay, in a floral strappy sundress, was with her friend Katie Brown, host of Next Door with Katie Brown who, in a white cotton T-shirt, looked like a teeny version of MTV's ur- V.J. Martha Quinn.

"That's our girl," said Ms. Brown, pointing to the screen at actress Marisa Tomei, who was nominated for best supporting actress for In The Bedroom . Ms. Hargitay and Ms. Brown had vacationed in Italy with Ms. Tomei over the summer.

Ms. Brown shushed the table so that she could hear what her "husband" Owen Wilson said when he walked by the cameras.

"He is too much- look at him!" she shrieked.

Ms. Hargitay was still thinking about Ms. Tomei's competition, Jennifer Connelly, who had just swooshed past Joan Rivers and into the Kodak Theatre.

"Hi, I'm Jennifer Connelly, and I'm so beautiful that I can slick my hair back, not wash it for a week, and I'm still the prettiest girl in the whole room," Ms. Hargitay said in singsong.

"Meee-ow! Hssss !" came the call from a nearby male diner.

"What?" said an indignant Ms. Hargitay. "Was that not like the nicest thing I could have said about anyone? I think that was the nicest thing I've ever said in my life!"

At the front table, Knot's Landing star Michele Lee had let "nice" fall by the wayside and was busy taking Sissy Spacek's white outfit apart piece by piece in front of Ms. Kaufman and Alan King.

"What is she thinking ?" Ms. Lee hooted.

Dinner was served, and the crowd took to their seats.

Ms. Hargitay and Ms. Brown were carving into their enormous veal chops as the victorious Ms. Connelly finished her acceptance speech. The broadcast went to a commercial, and Ms. Hargitay swallowed some veal and stopped.

"So hold on, you guys," she said, "Marisa just lost!"

The trio left the party soon after.

Back at the table with Third Watch star Eddie Cibrian and his wife, Brandi, was the WB 11's morning anchor, Lynne White. Ms. White, clad in an extremely tight corset top with spaghetti straps, got a special kick out of Nathan Lane's trip to the stage.

Mr. Lane stepped to the mike and introduced himself as Fox News anchor and recent plastic surgery patient Greta Van Susteren after "a lot more work." Ms. White found this very funny. She whooped and clapped and threw a fist in the air. Her tablemates looked appalled but did not stop her.

Soon, Mr. and Mrs. Cibrian gathered their coats and stood to leave. When The Transom asked if they were headed to another party, Ms. Cibrian whispered, "We're going home. Now."

- Rebecca Traister

To Frances, the Birdie: Home Alone

"I didn't know if anyone was going to be able to find us out here," said actor Willem Dafoe, surveying the thumping crowd at 66 Water Street, a new two-story club hidden on an otherwise dilapidated block under the Manhattan Bridge in Brooklyn. "But it turns out that it really hasn't been a problem."

On Monday, March 25, Mr. Dafoe was celebrating the Wooster Group and its badminton-themed production of To You, the Birdie! (Phèdre) , in which he stars as a ripped and limber Theseus. The Wooster Group, founded and run by Mr. Dafoe's partner Liz LeCompte, staged To You, the Birdie! at St. Ann's Warehouse near the Brooklyn waterfront, and Monday night's after-party was just a few doors down.

The crowd included novelist Paul Auster, his poet-novelist wife Siri Hustvedt, actress Holly Hunter and D.J. Paul Sevigny. They had all braved a hail storm to see the show, which became a cult hit soon after its Feb. 17 opening and is sold out for the remaining week of its run.

The play's other star, Frances McDormand, was at the back of 66 Water Street, downing a drink and dancing happily. The sturdy Fargo actress has recently gone all femme-y and was sporting long blond hair and toned arms.

"I just have big arms," she said of her musculature. "And the bindings [that she wears for the performance] stretch the skin and make them look tight."

Ms. McDormand claimed her good mood had to do with having her Upper West Side apartment to herself for the first time in "ages."

"My boys are gone for the whole weekend on a strictly stag skiing vacation," Ms. McDormand said of her husband, Joel Coen, the co-writer and director of (most recently) The Man Who Wasn't There , and their son Pedro, who were both shushing in Colorado.

"Pedro has never been freaked to be separated from his mom," Ms. McDormand said with an uproarious laugh. "And I hate skiing. You have to learn when you're short."

Ms. McDormand said she preferred the athleticism of To You, the Birdie! , which incorporates not only strenuously coached badminton but modern dance. Ms. McDormand said the production has reawakened an interest in movement that she developed when she studied with a Martha Graham–trained movement coach in acting school.

"That was the first time I was in touch with my physical being," Ms. McDormand said. "And the first time I ever went below the neck, except for some random sex."

- R.T.

The Transom Also Hears …

… that the embattled National Arts Club will be auctioning a painting from its renowned collection of artwork, valued at almost $3 million, during an upcoming Old Masters sale at Sotheby's in May. The work, a painting called The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian and attributed to the school of 17th-century French painter Simon Vouet, is being appraised in the Old Masters department of the auction house and is believed to be worth between $40,000 and $60,000.

It's the first time in recent history that the club will be selling a work from its collection, and some club members voiced concern about the timing of the auction, coming several months after the district attorney's raid on the club's offices.

"What we believe is going on is they're beginning to sell paintings to pay for astronomical legal costs," one club member said.

Arnold Davis, co-chair of the club's curatorial committee, denied this. "It's the first time in my years at the club that we're selling a painting, and the only reason is because it's not our collection," he said. "It's not a painting that fits our collection. It's been in the club for I don't know how long, sitting in our storeroom."

Mr. Davis said the club's collection is mostly composed of 19th-century American painters, some of them club members who paid their dues with their paintings, whereas this work is, of course, older. The idea to sell the piece, Mr. Davis said, came from the club's restorer. "We told him we did not want to pay him to restore it," Mr. Davis said. "He did suggest we sell the painting and use the money for further restoration of our other artwork."

Money from the auction of the piece would "absolutely not" go to cover legal costs, he added.

Mr. Davis said it wasn't clear where the Vouet painting came from or if it was donated. The only trace of it he could find in his files was a 1986 report stating the work was badly in need of restoration. As for Sotheby's coming in and looking at more pieces, Mr. Davis said, "I don't think we're offering them any other works." Then he added, "We would not sell anything of the club's-we wouldn't sell furniture, statuaries or paintings. It's ridiculous. Why would you have that at a club dedicated to the arts and education? That's your whole concept."

And the work itself? "I basically enjoy paintings that are a little older, early 17th-century, 16th-century paintings," Mr. Davis said. "This is a little too French for me."

-Elisabeth Franck

Clarification:

In the March 18 item "Oscar Grouch," The Transom reported that publicist Bobby Zarem helped create the annual Oscar party that Entertainment Weekly holds at Elaine's (as reported on above). In fact, Mr. Zarem created the Elaine's party himself as part of a "New York, It Ain't Over" campaign. A year later, Mr. Zarem was asked to represent EW and bring his Oscar party to them as part of the package.

- R.T.

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

At the podium to the right of Mr. Reiner, Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog, swayed like a canine cobra, connected to the arm of Late Night with Conan O'Brien writer Robert Smigel. Mr. Reiner was the object of ridicule at this, the first Friars Club roast of the new millennium, but Triumph's first order of business was the dais of talent.

"You know, some people say the place is old and stuff, but I think the Friars Roast and the Friars Club is better than ever," Triumph said in his South American tough-guy accent, which elicited a loud cackle from dais-sitter Al Franken even before Mr. Smigel fed the puppet its trademark "For me to poop on!" punch line.

"I mean, come on, what the hell happened to this place anyway?" Triumph wondered. "You used to have Sinatra come by, now you've got these fucking old guys. You ever seen Alan King naked in the steam room? Normally, I have to eat grass when I want to puke." From his seat on the dais, Mr. King, the Abbot of the New York Friars, flashed a crocodile smile as the Comedy Central cameras rolled. "I'm telling you," Triumph continued, "Alan King–his nutsack hangs lower than Rin Tin Tin's."

Next, he zotzed Friars Dean Freddie Roman–"You look like a chew toy I used to play with"–before proceeding to everybody's favorite Friars doormat, actor Abe Vigoda–"Okay, Abe, play dead."

But then Triumph ran out of old guys. Sure, artist LeRoy Neiman was up there, as was actor Tony Lo Bianco, and last year's roastee, Jerry Stiller, and his wife Anne Meara; but when it came to the old comics, the guys who made the Friars Roasts into great, gory celebrations of bad toupees, the cathartic gut laughs and ego decimations were gone. Henny Youngman and Joey Adams had gone to the Great Green Room in the Sky. Dick Capri was missing in action, and Pat Cooper hadn't set foot in the Friars Club for over a year. "They're hypocrites and a bunch of phony bastards. Other than that, I like them very much," Mr. Cooper said by phone. "The Comedy Channel took it over, and they've turned around and destroyed an oil painting. There's no schtarkers in there. They're executives now, Alan King and Freddie Roman–drunken executives."

You knew the schtarkers because, when they smiled, they had blood on their teeth. Sometimes it was their own blood, because they could take it. They were warriors of comedy, and now they have been replaced by the stealth bombers: Harvard boys and the sons of schtarkers , like Mr. Reiner, whose father is the great Carl Reiner. This new cerebral-comedy meritocracy studied humor the way that former Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin studied economics. They had all enjoyed a measure of success. And this night, the dais was full of them: Billy Crystal, who had spoken first, then left for a Yankee game; Mr. Franken; This Is Spinal Tap actor Michael McKean.

They were very funny, but they were not schtarkers . Their humor was detached, a little academic, as though they were delivering the cloned sheep of Friars' jokes, lab-tested for Comedy Central. And if ever there was a symbol of that detachment, it was Late Night's Mr. Smigel. The schtarkers could look you in the eye, perform the equivalent of a prostate exam and make you laugh about it. Mr. Smigel delivered his put-downs via a puppet. Barry Dougherty, author of the New York Friars Club Book of Roasts , said it was the first time in memory a hand puppet has participated in a roast.

But though there were fewer of the kind of intestine-knotting laughs that the schtarkers were so good at producing, in the end the new guys were paid the ultimate compliment when Mr. King got up and said, "I think this is one of the best roasts I've ever been to."

At the beginning of the evening, Mr. King had performed his Abbot's duties of setting the tone. "The other day I was thinking about our guest of honor, Rob Reiner. I was getting a colonoscopy," Mr. King said, "and I realized that Rob would be going through a similar procedure. We're going to try to remove Rob's nose from Al Gore's ass."

Mr. King moved rapid-fire through a series of bald jokes. "His balls are bald," he said of Mr. Reiner. "Which gives lie to the old adage that grass never grows on a busy street." At this, the Comedy Central cameras projected a laughing Triumph on the big-ass video screen. That's right: Mr. Smigel spent virtually all of his dais time underneath the table, a distinction that not even Foster Brooks could claim. Mr. King then zeroed in on Mr. Reiner's career. When he was playing Meathead on All in The Family , he said, co-star Jean Stapleton caught him "jerking off" in his dressing room. "He won an Emmy for that role," Mr. King continued, then clarified: "No, not the jerking off." For that, Mr. King added, "he would have come in third."

As for Meg Ryan's famous fake-orgasm scene in Mr. Reiner's film When Harry Met Sally... , Mr. King said that Mr. Reiner had gotten the idea "from his first wife, Penny Marshall.… Now, Rob had to fake it, too."

It would not be the last joke about Mr. Reiner's schlumpy ex-wife. When comedian Jeffrey Ross took the podium, he admitted to being nervous. "I figured, how do you embarrass a guy that fuckin' married Penny Marshall?" Mr. Reiner seemed to wince at that one. But Mr. Ross kept them coming: "I wouldn't fuck Penny Marshall with Penny Marshall's dick. I'd rather fuck Peter Marshall. Apparently, Penny and Rob had a bitter divorce settlement. She got the talent. He got the tits."

On a night when most of the roasters confessed that they barely knew Mr. Reiner, it's understandable that jokes about Mr. Reiner's weight were plentiful. Mr. Crystal, who was first to the podium in what appeared to be this year's Oscar-telecast tuxedo, started the butterball rolling when he told Mr. Reiner: " Roast is such a perfect word for you, because you're a brisket in a suit." If Mr. Gore gets elected President, Mr. Crystal said, Mr. Reiner was going to get a Cabinet post: "Secretary of Sheet Cake."

Yessiree, Mr. Reiner was a man who loved to eat, Mr. Crystal said. "When his boxer shorts were declared federally protected wetlands," he had a bite to eat, Mr. Crystal said. That one made Mr. Reiner dissolve in a wet wheeze. Mr. Crystal continued: "To inspire Meg Ryan in the orgasm scene, he told her, Think about pancakes. His neck has love handles. His balls are fat."

"Do you have any more fat jokes?" Mr. Reiner piped up.

Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog, did. "You fat fuck! " he told Mr. Reiner in a raspy stage whisper. "Look at you! What happened? Did you swallow Carroll O'Connor?"

The crowd spat out lungfuls of carbon dioxide. "You're like Orson Welles without all that genius baggage," Triumph continued. Then the dog brought up Mr. Reiner's pet charity, I Am Your Child. "He actually got the name for that from one of his kids," said Triumph. "Of course, it was longer at the time. It was, 'I Am Your Child. Please Don't Eat Me!'"

As with any Friars roast, the dais-sitters were fair game, and perhaps that was why so many of Mr. Reiner's Hollywood friends had stayed away, save for actor Richard Dreyfuss. "Where's your Spielberg, where's your Hanks, where's Poppa?" Mr. Crystal had asked. "Where's Lieberman?" Mr. Crystal asked, referring to Senator Joe Lieberman. "Oh, it's Friday. If he really liked you, he would have walked."

In their absence, the Friars had assembled one of the more eclectic daises in recent memory. The old standbys such as Dr. Ruth Westheimer and Mr. Vigoda were there, but obviously someone at the Friars or Comedy Central had been trying to freshen up the demographics, for there, inexplicably, were Vanilla Ice, former New York Doll David Johansen, former Soprano Vincent Pastore, Patty Hearst, actor Miguel Ferrer and Four Blonde s author Candace Bushnell.

At a roast where not too many of the jokesters knew Mr. Reiner or wanted to risk the wrath of a big-shot movie director, this came in very handy. "What the fuck happened to you, Vaneela Ice?" Triumph wondered. "You disappeared faster than my cock in a St. Bernard." Dr. Ruth? "I sniffed her crotch once. It smells like the mummy's tomb." Mr. Neiman? "Nice paintings," Triumph said. "I haven't seen crap like that on paper since I was a puppy."

As one of the eldest members of the dais, Mr. Vigoda bore joke after joke about his mortality and, bless him, handled every one with trademark wide-eyed grace. "I love Abe. The man needs Viagra to keep his head up," Mr. Crystal told the crowd. "It's great he's out tonight. But at his age, there's a fine line between getting out for the evening and just wandering off."

But perhaps the person who took the most hits was comedienne Brett Butler, who was needled for her past dalliance with substance abuse. "She's the only person who's had her head in more toilets than me," Triumph said, adding, "Here's something we're both used to hearing: 'Roll over.'"

And newcomer Adam Ferrara said: "I kinda miss the old days, when Brett would let you touch her tits for a Valium." There were moments during this time-release haranguing that Ms. Butler seemed to be gritting her teeth. Mr. King seemed to sense it, too, because at the end of the roast he made a special point of saying: "And to Brett, I love you so much, with your big tits and your big ass. We're glad you're here–half of these guys wouldn't have anything to say."

During her turn at the podium, Ms. Butler said she didn't really know Mr. Reiner and, "when I met him that one time, he did most of the talkin'. It's really hard for me to say anything with my mouth full."

"It was fabulous!" Mr. Reiner interjected, perhaps happy that someone was turning the subject to sex instead of his weight.

And, oh, the sex that Mr. Reiner supposedly had? "You worshipped your father," Friar Stewie Stone told the director. "You did everything you could to follow in his footsteps. It wasn't easy fucking Rose Marie, but it was a show-business tradition."

Mr. Reiner blubbered with laughter. Mr. Stone pressed on. When Rose Marie asked Mr. Reiner to stop fucking her, he said he couldn't. So she said: "'At least wait for Morey Amsterdam to finish.'"

Actor Kevin Pollak, who starred in A Few Good Men , which Mr. Reiner directed, told the audience that Mr. Reiner was a "big fag. Not that that's a bad thing. Of course it isn't, unless you're me and, in order to get a role in A Few Good Men , you have to let this Jewish Paul Bunyan ride your rectum around the room like a Shetland pony."

"And you loved every second of it," Mr. Reiner said. Unlike most Friars roastees, who tend to sit quietly and take their punishment, Mr. Reiner, director that he is, kept up a dialogue with his roasters, often helping to set up their jokes. So much so that, at the end of the evening, Mr. Pollak told him breathlessly: "You were beyond a good sport–you were an enabler!"

Richard Belzer was one of the last comedians called up to the podium, and by then most of his jokes had already been used by those who had preceded him. But if there are any young schtarkers in this world, Mr. Belzer is one of them, and he turned his lack of material into an improvisational high point of the evening. When he got to the podium, Mr. Belzer found Triumph's cigars still laying there and displayed them to the crowd, saying, "Props, the enemy of wit."

"Forty fuckin' jokes down the goddamned drain," Mr. Belzer said before tearing up his notes. But when one of those jokes fell flat, Mr. Reiner said: "There's silence!"

"It's all right," Mr. Belzer replied. "I'm a dramatic actor on a big fucking series. I don't give a fuck about this fucking shit. This fucking place or any cocksucker and"– here Mr. Belzer's comments were drowned out by the laughter, but the crowd piped down in time to hear–"you and all your famous friends: Fuck you all." Suddenly, Mr. Belzer stopped and said: "Did I say that or was I just thinking it?"

Mr. Belzer had brought along a copy of Roger Ebert's review of Mr. Reiner's North , and he got Mr. Reiner to come up and read it. The review began: "I hated this movie. Hated, hated, hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering, stupid, vacant, audience-insulting moment of it."

When Mr. Belzer returned to his seat, the roastmaster, Mr. McKean said, "Belz, I loved you in The Vagina Monologues ."

"So did your wife," Mr. Belzer retorted.

Next-to-last on the list was a relatively unknown comic named Adam Ferrara. But by the end of his set, Mr. Ferrara had made his bones as roast-worthy, if only for his joke about Mr. Roman's genitals: "There's no delicate way of saying this," Mr. Ferrara said. "Freddie's dick looks like a button on a fur coat. "

Al Franken was the evening's anchor man. "About two years ago, we were at dinner at the White House; I was sitting next to Rob," Mr. Franken said. When the President came over, Mr. Franken asked him to sit down and talk to Mr. Reiner. Mr. Franken looked down at his pal from the podium: "Remember what the President said? He said, 'I'd rather have Ken Starr fuck me in the ass.'"

Mr. Franken told the crowd that Mr. Reiner's father, "frustrated with his career as a second banana to Mel Brooks," used "Baby Rob" as a "human piñata," which, Mr. Franken added, "led to the horrible failure of Ghosts of Mississippi ."

"How come you didn't go for North ?" Mr. Reiner asked.

"Exactly," Mr. Franken replied. "What POSSIBLY could explain North ?" Suddenly, this Mr.-Reiner-as-enabler act was starting to look a little too polished. But Mr. Franken forged on to detail Mr. Reiner's alleged sexual abuse at the hands of his father. "On a typical night, Carl would slip into Rob's bed, roll him over, swab him down and say something like, 'I'm thinking about hiring Morey Amsterdam to play Buddy Sorrell, what do you think?'

"Well, the success of The Dick Van Dyke Show changed things dramatically," Mr. Franken said, "but the abuse continued. Carl started inviting many of his famous friends to fuck his son. That list includes some of the greats in comedy: Paul Lynde, Dom DeLuise, Rip Taylor, Danny Kaye, Charles Nelson Reilly and Rock Hudson–whom," Mr. Franken added, "I frankly don't think is that funny."

They called Mr. Reiner up to the podium after that, and Mr. King and Mr. Roman gave him a translucent statuette of a flame-licked Friar. "Sophie Tucker used it as a vibrator," Mr. Roman said.

Mr. Reiner said the evening had reminded him of a moment that, he had been told, had occurred at another Friars Roast long ago involving the actor Pat Buttram, who was Gene Autry's sidekick, Mr. Haney on Green Acres and, apparently, a helluva roast participant.

"Alan, you might have been there," Mr. Reiner said, "but Milton Berle and Red Buttons and Joey Bishop and every comedian in the world was up and they were all getting hysterical laughs, and Pat Buttram, in his way, wandered up to the podium and he said"–here Mr. Reiner approximated Mr. Buttram's cornpone voice–"'I kinda dozed off … Has the subject of finger-fuckin' Kate Smith been taken?'"

Mr. Dreyfuss could be heard honking like a goose. "I just thought 'It's not going to get on television,'" Mr. Reiner said. And then, just in case it did, Mr. Reiner–not a schtarker , just a guy who appreciated them–said: "Joe Lieberman? I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Joe Lieberman. I'm supporting you. Don't take this out against me."