A little while ago, a representative from ABC's program publicity department wrote in to let us know that the Cavemen-on-the-street shoot encountered by a pair of our readers (whom, by the way, we know not to be affiliated with ABC) at Hollywood's Gower Gulch shopping center yesterday afternoon was not connected with the network's series. Despite our utter confusion about why some guys in Neanderthal make-up and a camera crew not on the network payroll would be chatting up the series (weird!), we are happy to pass along this clarification about ABC's avowed non-involvement in whatever it was going on at the Gulch.

We've run a number of short items over the past few days about a back injury sustained by Phyllis Diller (who turns 90 on Tuesday—happy birthday, Phyllis!), teasingly inferring the ruptured disk was in fact an excuse made up by the stand-up veteran to avoid having to follow through on a Tonight Show commitment. We realize, however, that some of our feeble attempts at humor can sometimes be misinterpreted as fact—who wouldn't, after all, consider faking an illness in order to avoid an onslaught of Jay Leno's stale Paris Hilton jokes—and so we'd like to now cede the floor to Ms. Diller's personal manager Milt Suchin, who sent us an e-mail clarifying the matter: