"Blue Bloods" picked up for 2nd season - or not?

On "The Early Show" Tuesday, co-anchor Chris Wragge revealed the hit Tom Selleck series "Blue Bloods" has been picked up for a second season.

But Tom Selleck, who plays Frank Reagan on the series, said he wasn't buying it until he's told officially by CBS.

Selleck told Wragge, "How do you know? I don't know. I'm knocking on wood until this afternoon, when they tell me. I hear they're telling me."

"We can tell you right now," Wragge said. "You're in."

"But you're not Les Moonves," Selleck said. "No offense."

Wragge said, "We've got a direct line to him. But congratulations."

Selleck said, "I'm still knocking on wood."

Official word that the show had been picked up for a second season came shortly after "The Early Show" aired.

Co-anchor Erica Hill remarked, "It's a great show to watch. Must be a fun show to do."

Selleck said, "It's fun playing the boss. It's also kind of nice for me to play a patriarch, play the father. I really like that. There's not enough good fathers around. I mean kind of -- no offense, but Homer Simpson's an idiot."

Wragge recalled, 'We had Donnie Wahlberg, and he said a number of times on- and-off camera, how you are a leader and how you have made the job so much easier for him being able to follow your leadership."

"Oh, I paid him for that," Selleck joked.

But you don't have to wait until the second season of "Blue Bloods" to see Selleck again. On Sunday night, the star returns as Jesse Stone in the seventh film of the highly popular series, "Jesse Stone: Innocents Lost."

Selleck is currently working on the eighth Jesse Stone movie.

How did he get so interested in this character?

"I read 'Stone Cold,' from the late Robert B. Parker. Bob was a pal, he passed away in January, and I just said, 'I got to play this guy,'" Selleck said.

One film turned into seven. Selleck said the cast members work together as a character-driven series, but can be seen individually and make sense. He's now off to film the eighth movie, called "Jesse Stone: Benefit of the Doubt" in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Selleck said, "I love Jesse and I love 'Blue Bloods.' Nice to be working. I got a mortgage, so this is good."

Wragge said, "Something tells me you got enough money socked away."

"I do not," Selleck said.

Selleck worked on the eighth Jesse movie script while filming "Blue Bloods."

He said, "(It) was hard, because I dearly love Frank Reagan. You don't completely become someone else when you're doing a role, but you're pretty much into that character, so it's very hard to switch gears But Jesse is also near and dear. It had to be gotten ready, so we could do it in my window off, and we got it done. I never thought of myself as a writer, even though my partner and I had written the last three Jesses, so staring at a blank page is kind of scary."

So how many Jesse Stone movies are on their way?

"We're doing 362 Jesses if I last that long," Selleck kidded. "No, I don't know. Every one is new. Every pickup is new. We have to audition each time. We're the last of the movies of the week on network television. We're more of an event now, I'm happy to say -- I'm proud to say. We're holding up the banner for one of television's, I think, great art forms, which is the movie of the week."

Wragge asked if it's "The Selleck Factor" that keeps audiences coming back to watch.

"I don't know what 'The Selleck Factor' is," Selleck said. "Oh, I just broke a rule, I referred to myself almost in the third person, which is the beginning of the end for you if you do that. I don't do that."

He continued, "I think it's the character. There's not enough character-driven stuff on TV except 'Blue Bloods,' and I just think Jesse is so flawed, and he's such a mess, and yet he's a good guy. I just think people root for him and he's funny. He doesn't feel sorry for himself."

Wragge asked if Selleck still has the most famous mustache on TV.

Selleck said he didn't know.

"Who is out there?" Selleck said. "People are going through puberty every day, so I could be replaced."

Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling and others, Wragge said, are giving Selleck full credit for the mustache trend.

"I was born without it, and -- I can handle it," Selleck said.

Wragge said, "It seems like you were born with i!."

"Actually, it's new all the time, because it grows and you have to cut it off and stuff," Selleck laughed."It's an affectation, and now I have my Jesse things so all eyes will go down to my chin."

Pictures: America's best mustaches

At the end of the interview, when congratulated by Wragge on the second season of "Blue Bloods," Selleck still refused to believe the show had been slated for a second year.

Selleck said, "And you say we're picked up (for a second season)."

Wragge responded, "Go with it. Buy that beach house, Tom."

Again, official word that the show had been picked up for a second season came shortly after "The Early Show" aired.

You can see "Jesse Stone: Innocents Lost" on Sunday night at 9/8c on CBS.