Phyllis Diller couldn't make it to PBS' panel for "Pioneers of Television," relaying the message that "it was not a bad hair day...but a very serious bad health day" that prevented her from being here.

No word yet on exactly what's ailing Diller, who'll be 90 next week, but the panel does include Dick Cavett, Tim Conway, Betty White, Ed McMahon -- and Tony Orlando. (Who's the youngster today, but still has his '70s hair.)

It's been a quietish afternoon, other than the duck sex, but notebooks and recorders are at the ready now, because of what happened at a previous "Pioneers" session that was memorably hijacked by Mickey Rooney.

Hard to imagine anyone here today topping that -- for one thing, they all appear to be in their right minds.

Cavett, though, is having some trouble with the P-word.

"Aren't there some other words in the thesaurus than pioneers?" asks the legendary talk-show host, who doesn't seem to have aged much, and probably wouldn't like the "legendary," either.

"I expected us all to enter in a covered wagon."