Five Things You Might Not Know

1. HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher rehearses its Friday show in front of a live audience on Thursday afternoons at CBS Television City (about eight miles from Atwater Village)
   
2. Bill Maher himself comes out - yesterday on the The Price Is Right stage (same stage as The Carol Burnett Show, Sonny & Cher, All in the Family) - to recite his monologue, conduct mock interviews where his writers sub for guests, and read an extended "New Rules" segment
   
3. Funniest line on tonight's new show: "Quid pro ho"
   
4. Bill Maher is not a large man. Neither tall nor fat
   
5. But some of the people who are available on weekday mid-afternoons to attend rehearsals are quite large. Or strange. Or lonely. Or all of the above