Does Piers getting the boot mean another life for Larry?

I never saw Piers Morgan's show on CNN. I was aware that he had replaced Larry King a few years back, but I had never watched Larry's show either.

I didn't need to see his replacement.

You see, I think it's possible to trace much of the decline and fall of media over the last 40 years simply by looking at King.

Larry King and Katie Couric

His career actually started in Miami in the late '50s, but in 1978 he moved to Arlington, Va., and did a national overnight show on the Mutual Broadcasting System from midnight to 5:30 a.m. The show was something of a hoot. He always started with a guest, but for the last 2-3 hours he took calls from anyone who wanted to talk to him.

He was a one-man show, without even a call screener. He would tell people to just let their phone ring and ring and ring and eventually he would answer and talk to them. What was hilarious about it was the way he would deal with the goofiest callers.

"You're drunk, sir. Sleep it off."

"You're an idiot. Stop calling me."

He went to CNN in 1985 and eventually became an international television star. His interview show on CNN at 9 p.m. most nights brought him some of the biggest names in the world. And people watched.

His ventures into print journalism were inadvertently hilarious. He wrote a column for USA Today for nearly 20 years, a column that consisted of little items like, "If you're having pie, invite me over" and "If you look in the dictionary under thriller writer, you'll see Tom Clancy's picture."

I've got to think the editors knew people were laughing at him, not with him.

Another column he wrote was even worse, so much so that I couldn't even find it on Google. For six months or so, sometime in the '80s, King wrote a weekly column for The Sporting News. In it, he consistently did something no other sportswriter in the country would do.

When he interviewed a player or coach and asked them a question, here's how they always responded:

"Well, Larry ..."

Truly awful. His CNN television show eventually slid into self-parody, and no one got it better than comedian Kathleen Madigan.



I've told the story before of how I punked Larry King in April 1992 in the press box at Dodger Stadium, but since the whole deal on this Website is things I find interesting, I'll tell it again in a slightly condensed version.

On an ESPN Sunday Night Baseball game, I found myself sitting next to King -- actually two seats apart -- and we talked about the new Camden Yards park in Baltimore. Then in the seventh inning, King got up to leave.

I was ready.

"Gee, Mr. King, I am so glad you're not one of those East Coast types always ragging on us here in L.A. for leaving games early."

He got this horrified look on his face.

"Oh, I never leave games early. I just have an appointment."

I just smiled and nodded. Heck, I know how busy Sunday nights can be in Los Angeles.

So now Piers Morgan is leaving, and who knows what CNN will do with the coveted time slot.

I know one thing they'd better not do.

When he heard the news about Morgan, King pounced.

"If they want me to, I could come back."

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!