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Now: The two0 hottest television shows of this young summer television season, we reported Thursday, are `` So You Think You Can Dance'' and `` America's Got Talent.'' Any similarities between these shows and the hugely successful `` American Idol'' are purely intentional. This is the time of the summer sequel -- on small screen as well as big.

Then: Thirty years ago this week, we reported the death of William Edward Maguiness. Of course, the obituary headline used his much more familiar stage name -- Ted Mack.

All television seasons were young when Mack first went on the air with `` The Original Amateur Hour'' in 1947. Our AP story of July 13, 1976 declared that it was `` TV's first commercial program.''

So it's inviting to say that Mack was the pioneer for the amateur contests that continue today with `` Idol'' and its imitators. The problem with that is that Mack's program was an offshoot of `` Major Bowes' Amateur Hour,'' which had started on radio in 1934. Mack, a talent scout and director of the program, took over as host upon the death of Bowes in 1946.

Where Bowes had scored a major coup by introducing the public to Frank Sinatra, Mack's show is credited for starting the show business careers of Pat Boone, Gladys Knight, Teresa Brewer and others. Wildly successful in its first season, Mack's show made the rounds of all four networks between 1948 and 1970, but over the years dropped to the status of a Sunday afternoon filler before being taken off the air.

In between:

Mack's show bred at least a couple of imitators, including `` The Gong Show'' -- which employed a gong in the way Maj. Bowes had used it, though we're sure Bowes would have considered all the Gong Show acts bizarre -- and `` Star Search.''

But it was `` American Idol'' that came up with a better production idea at a better time. To rival Ted Mack's run for longevity, `` Idol'' -- which debuted in 2002 -- will have to run until 2025.

Why nine-tenths?

Our Dodgeville correspondent recently asked why the price of gasoline always ends in nine-tenths of a cent, wondering if there's truth to the story he had heard that it was because taxes on gasoline are set at tenths of a cent.

Surfing the Internet on this question we learned: (1) It's a question that gets asked a lot. (2) Nobody has the definitive answer. (3) Gas prices do NOT always end in nine-tenths of a cent. (Having never seen a pump price that didn't end .9, I'm taking this on faith, but there have apparently been instances where the price of a gallon of gasoline ended .3, .5 and .7.

The federal gas tax indeed is set in tenths -- currently 18.4 cents per gallon -- but the folks at the American Petroleum Institute say that fraction pricing was introduced by service stations in the 1930s to `` emphasize the discount.''

In other words, a gasoline price of 25.9 cents looked better to the consumer than 26 cents. Such a distinction is passe -- 285.9 or 286? Does the average driver care? -- but tradition has taken hold and those tenths of a cent add up for service station owner or petroleum supplier when hundreds, thousands and millions of gallons are involved.

Postscript Last week's column about fireworks brought this e-mail from a reader:

`` In 1988, my husband, two daughters and I were watching fireworks at a friend's house'85 One of the bottle rockets exploded on the ground before flying in the air. My husband was hit in the eye by one of the flying pieces. The drainage system in his eye was destroyed. He ended up in the hospital having several surgeries'85

`` About two years ago the lens started to fail. In November 2005, he had to have surgery again to put a second lens in. Unfortunately it didn't work very well and he has had to have a corneal transplant.

`` This could have all been avoided if we hadn't gone to an individual's home to watch amateur fireworks.

`` Advice to all, leave it to the professionals, I couldn't agree with you more!''