Recently in Inland Valley on TV Category

Tying in with today's column, here's the clip from YouTube of the "Late Late Show" host in Pomona...even if he thinks it's San Bernardino. Here's Ferguson reciting the Pledge in Pomona.

Here he is taking the citizenship test, in L.A. by the looks of it, and here's his take on why he loves America.

After deadline for my column, the Kristin Bell clip turned up on YouTube as well. The "circus grounds" comment comes up after the 9-minute mark.

When the downtown Pomona restaurant Lela's closed last summer, the fate of the "Kitchen Nightmares" reality show taped at the restaurant also seemed to be in question. After all, the premise is that brash TV chef Gordon Ramsay would visit a failing restaurant and try to turn it around. Lela's obviously wasn't going to be a success story. Would the episode air even though the restaurant was gone?

That question has been answered. The episode about Lela's is scheduled to air Wednesday. The synopsis, from the "Nightmares" website:

"Chef Ramsay tries to rev up business for Lela's, an upscale restaurant in desperate need of clientele. When Gordon gets in the kitchen and starts criticizing the menu items, the executive chef is less than thrilled and they have a showdown in front of the entire staff. Find out if the changes stick and if the owner Lela will withstand this type of behavior in her restaurant."

That's at 9 p.m. on Fox.

Some people think Huell Howser is too corny to be taken seriously, but I like him. His show Friday featured the Claremont Packing House, the subject of a column of mine a few weeks back when the place was rehabbed and reopened, so I tuned in with interest.

One historical tidbit: In the 1970s there was a commercial worm farm in the basement, only the worms reproduced faster than they could be sold. The rest of the story I knew, but it was fun to see Howser touring the place and interacting with Jerry and Nancy Tessier and Ginger Elliott, all of whom I had interviewed as well.

Howser is an enthusiast, you have to give him that. In fact he's sometimes more enthusiastic than the people actually invested in the subject. Marveling at the new College Heights sign out front, a nod to the original citrus association that packed lemons in the building, he exclaimed: "You're really reigniting an interest and a curiosity about the history of Claremont!"

Two favorite bits:

* The only "wow," a Huell Howser trademark, came at an unlikely moment.
Howser: "Did this place always have a second story?"
Jerry Tessier: "They actually added a second story about 1945."
Howser: "Wow."

* He listened to someone at the Claremont Forum's used bookstore talk about how book sales provide money to send paperbacks to prisoners. To clarify things for viewers, Howser (in jest) (I think) asked: "So you don't have to be a prisoner to shop here?"