We have seen rather a lot of Kirk Douglas recently, as grumpy old Uncle Joe in Greedy, and military hero General David Marcus in Cast A Giant Shadow on Tuesday. And tonight, if you listen carefully, you will hear Douglas guest-starring in The Simpsons episode, The Day Violence Died (World, 7pm).
At this point in his career, Douglas seems happy to sit back and let his sons carry on the film-making tradition, but once in a while he steps into a studio, purely, it seems, for fun. That must be why he agreed to play Chester, an old man who had his one and only creation, The Itchy and Scratchy Show, stolen from him.
The Itchy and Scratchy Show is now a hugely popular cartoon, in fact it is Bart and Lisa's favourite TV show after Krusty the Clown, and when they meet Chester they try to help him get back some of the royalties he has been cheated out of. Well, rather a lot of the royalties actually, a multi-million dollar figure that has the studio executives so angry they kick Chester out of the office.
They are reduced to hiring Lionel Hutz, the flashy lawyer from hell prepared to take on any suit, however trivial. It all ends more or less happily but not without Bart and Lisa having to endure a brief period when there is no Itchy and Scratchy Show at all.
Muppets Tonight (World, 8pm) regularly features special guests too, and expects them to be good sports. And all of them are, no matter what indignities Clifford comes up with in the name of entertainment.
Tonight, for example, rapper Coolio is forced to try on all kinds of absurd outfits, which he does, to his credit, without complaining.
Coolio has a sense of humour then, but not much sense of shopping etiquette, according to reports last week that he had allegedly tried to leave a sportswear shop in Frankfurt, Germany, with 3,500 marks (HK$15,500) worth of goods, without paying for them.
