Jay Thomas, the TV and movie actor, died on Thursday after a battle with cancer. He was probably most famous for his role on Murphy Brown, for which he won two Emmys, and he was also on Cheers and other TV shows. But he is also remembered for going on The Late Show with David Letterman every Christmas season to tell his story about the Lone Ranger, back when he worked in radio in the early 1970s. Letterman had him tell it every year, he said, because "it's the best story I've ever heard." It goes like this:
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