Warning. This post is about a purple dildo infomercial, so if you are offended by purple dildo infomercials, please stop reading at once.

It was on Oxygen Network earlier today, the purple dildo infomercial, according to a fellow blogger's post, which is worth a read if you want a good chuckle.



As of five minutes ago, Geraldine Laybourne's name and headshot are still on the Oxygen Web site. So are Oprah Winfrey's, even though Oxygen now belongs to NBC Universal. That was a recent transaction, so maybe the new management team hasn't made their changes to Oxygen yet.

That could explain the current dildo.

We will never forget our first impression of Oxygen's programming. It was January 2002. We were a weekend guest at the Ojai farm of Steve Fields and Sims Brannon. Steve had been senior vice president of programming at The Disney Channel during its Camelot years, the John Cooke years. Also there that weekend were Tom and Arlene Wszalek. Tom was The Disney Channel's senior vice president of marketing during its Camelot years, when The Disney Channel was likened to the Tiffany Network of cable television by Tom Shales of the Washington Post. If we were the Tiffany Network it had much to do with the programming of Steve Fields, the marketing of Tom Wszalek, and everything to do with the vision of John Cooke. "Loyalty is always rewarded," John used to say to us all the time, back when we were his communications chief.

It was after dinner. We had all repaired to the den for some television. Your Leprechaun Lexicon editor fell asleep on the couch. When we awoke we saw a woman on TV holding a dildo and talking about it.

"What's this?" we asked.

"Oxygen," came the reply.

That was our first impression of the programming on Oprah Winfrey's first cable television network, the one to become known as her doomed partnership with Geraldine Laybourne, which is, as you know, presently called Oxygen.

So yeah, our first glimpse of Oprah Winfrey's programming on Oxygen was of a dildo, so help us God, and we were in the presence of two other senior executives from The Disney Channel when we saw it.

Don't you love the irony?

Which brings us to now.

We're curious.

Enquiring minds need to know.

Whose Oxygen team did the dildo deal, the one presently airing in purple hues as an infomercial?

Mrs. Laybourne's?



Or the new guy's team, the one belonging to Jeffrey Zucker?



As you might imagine...

Our money is on you-know-who.

And you know why: