Say what you will about Larry King and his celebrity-friendly though rarely hard-hitting interviews on CNN, but he’s an actual television icon, and the passing of Larry King Live into history is a moment worth watching. The last LKL–after 25 years–airs tonight at 9 p.m.

Nellie Andreeva, writing on Deadline Hollywood, may have best captured the mixed feelings many in the cable news biz have for the King:

Big news! Barack Obama‘s transformation to a moderate pragmatist now appears to be complete. And no, it’s not the capitulation compromise on the so-called “Bush Tax Cuts” that puts him in a more positive light amongst conservatives, nor is it a nuanced and delicate (weak?) approach to reforming Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. No, the clearest evidence to date that the Obama Administration is aiming to govern from the center is the following clip form The Larry King Show in which Barbra Streisand admits that she’s a little disappointed in Obama.<

Tonight Larry King interviews Conan O’Brien to learn what he really thinks about the other late night show hosts. Unfortunately, no juicy details are included in this preview clip, but we do learn he’s friends with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, but doesn’t speak to any other hosts. Especially not Jay Leno, since, according to Conan, there is nothing for the two of them to talk about.

The man who CNN hopes will become its next big star, Piers Morgan is being rolled out in a relentless promotional campaign ahead of his debut as Larry King‘s replacement. But back home in the U.K., Morgan’s being Twitter-bashed on a daily basis by the star of the British version of The Apprentice, Lord Sugar.

The U.K. newspaper The Guardian today called the Twitter battle “a remarkable…online feud,” noting that in a matter of days, Sugar–who’s known over there as “Britain’s most belligerent boss”–has been holding nothing back in delivering 140-character Piers-putdowns:

At a CNN launch party in London for the upcoming Piers Morgan Tonight, host Piers Morgan admitted he’s got “nerves” over replacing Larry King, who Morgan described as an “absolute institution.”

Repeating a phrase he’s used before, Morgan told guests at the celebrity-packed party at the Mandarin Oriental Ballroom he felt like “following Sinatra at Vegas. No one remembers that guy’s name.”

Morgan’s show debuts in January and is being relentlessly hyped by CNN, but Morgan got a dose of cold water from Bruce Forsyth, a British comedian who’s never quite made it in

•CNN’s departing interview king Larry King had a rough night Friday, finishing fourth with just 90,000 viewers 25-54–less than a quarter of the viewership of timeslot winner Sean Hannity on Fox News.

Cable news ratings, December 2, 2010:

•Times are good for Fox’s Bret Baier, whose Special Report was dominant in its time period, crushing its nearest competitor, Wolf Blitzer among viewers 25-54. Baier also continued to perform well among Fox hosts, beating Glenn Beck, Shepard Smith, and Greta Van Susteren.

CNN’s next big name, Piers Morgan, explained to Wolf Blitzer Thursday how he intends–in Blitzer’s words–to “fill Larry King’s suspenders.”

Can we move on? Morgan also explained what his idea of a great television interview is all about: key word? Dangerous.

Dangerous as in kissing famous actors during interviews–that kind of dangerous:

Cable news ratings, November 22, 2010:

•Another disturbingly poor performance from CNN’s Parker/Spitzer, which came in fourth among viewers 25-54 on Monday night, with less than half the audience of HLN’s Nancy Grace, and barely 15 percent of the audience of Bill O’Reilly on Fox.

It may be one of the most gripping–or disturbing–passages in George W. Bush‘s new memoir: the tale of a turning point in young Bush’s life. As the former president tells the story, when he was a teenager, his mother had a miscarriage and proceeded to show her son the fetus, which had been put in a jar to be taken to the hospital.

Dubya says seeing the fetus awoke a pro-life passion that he ultimately carried into politics

It seems no one is immune to former president Bill Clinton‘s Southern charm– even the couple who lost the White House to him. In today’s special Larry King exclusive with George H.W. and Barbara Bush, both the former President and First Lady heaped praise upon the Clinton clan, thankful for the easy transition of power and the “really good personal relationship” that developed between the families.

Cable news ratings, November 19, 2010:

•The usually underperforming Parker/Spitzer didn’t come anywhere near winning their 8 p.m. timeslot Friday, coming in fourth–but the show’s 140,000 viewers 25-54 was a bigger number than both Larry King Live, with 124,000 and Anderson Cooper 360 with 127,000.

Glenn Beck was not happy with Barbara Bush’s oh-so-thinly veiled attack on Sarah Palin from over the weekend. Although he says the former first lady is his “favorite Bush,” he called her comments “really insulting” and called her the “oatmeal box lady,” apparently comparing her to the man in the Quaker Oats logo (Who, it turns out, isn’t William Penn. Huh. You learn something new every day).

Former First Lady Barbara Bush is certainly not known for mincing words, though this may be one of the more subtle hints she’s thrown down in a while. Speaking alongside her husband, President George H. W. Bush, to Larry King in an exclusive interview, she delivered a doubled-edged critique of Sarah Palin– “She’s beautiful,” she tells King, but “she’s very happy in Alaska, and I hope she’ll stay there.”

Since the 2008 presidential campaign, rumors have swirled that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could take Vice President Joe Biden’s position, with Biden sliding into Clinton’s current role, despite denials from the White House. Tonight, Biden appeared on Larry King Live and attempted – again – to put that rumor to rest.

In a sneak peak of tonight’s Joy Behar Show, outgoing CNN host Larry King discusses with Behar an assortment of tangential topics. He starts off by asserting to Joy, “I made you.” With that out of the way, they talk Frank Sinatra, the differences between “a Jew and an Italian,” and why Joy Behar would never want to be a WASP.

Talking to CNN’s Larry King in an interview aired Wednesday night, Oksana Grigorieva said she recorded the infamous phone call with her ex, Mel Gibson, because she thought he was going to kill her, and she wanted to leave evidence behind for her mother, “to be able to prove that if I’m dead that this is who did it.”

At the recent Nevada Cancer Institute gala, CNN anchor Larry King, who leaves his long-running show in December, waxed nostalgic about newspaper and the old way of consuming news — and said that he doesn’t care much for Twitter, Facebook, or other social media. The Las Vegas Sun reports.

Ginny Thomas‘ olive-branch extension to Anita Hill regarding her decades-old sexual harassment allegations against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has brought the controversy back into the public eye. And wherever there’s controversy, there’s Larry King, who interviewed the Justice’s ex-girlfriend Lillian McEwen to discuss the matter. McEwen told King that even while she was dating Thomas, she assumed that he and and Ms. Hill were having “a sexual relationship.” She also said that Thomas would show her off to Hill, asking McEwen to “stand around in the office so that [Hill] would see and accept the fact that there was another woman in his life.”

What does it say about your reputation for taking a hard question when your interview confuses old clips of your behavior with live events? Temperamental Wikileaks founder Julian Assange had to bear being talked to in the third person for a few seconds tonight as Larry King mistakenly assumed that old footage of him walking out on CNN International’s Atika Shubert was live footage of Assange walking out on him.

After walking out on CNN International’s Atika Shubert when asked about his sexual molestation charges in Sweden, Wikileaks’ Julian Assange once again sat down with the network, this time with Larry King who, while initially seeming nearly sympathetic to the Wikileaks cause, held Assange accountable for the trivialization of his molestation charges more than any journalist had been able to yet.

Wow. Just wow. NMA has officially outdone themselves. In creating a video detailing the Rally to Restore Sanity, the Taiwanese darlings of the blogosphere have made something that looks like they just animated the inside of Glenn Beck’s head.

Jon Stewart went on Larry King Live last night to discuss several topics, among them Stewart’s upcoming rally, his new book, and Rick Sanchez‘ firing from CNN – in which, of course, Stewart accidentally played a part. Dis he think Sanchez deserved his fate? Well…not at all.

Jon Stewart continued his pre-Restore Sanity Rally press tour, with a stop on CNN last night.

Talking to Larry King, Stewart explained why his rally is not “Anti-Glenn Beck,” took aim at NPR for banning employees from attending…and made fun of CNN.

The story of the 33 Chilean miners who were rescued over the past 24 hours is indisputably inspiring and heartwarming. Michael Moore agrees with that assessment: “In a time when there’s not a lot of good news, for something like this to happen, I think, makes people feel really good,” he told Larry King last night. But Moore didn’t stop there.