I mentioned the other day here that starting tomorrow night, GSN would be running old episodes of I've Got a Secret and What's My Line? I should have mentioned, for the benefit of anyone who's season-passing those vintage game shows, that they're also running a couple of installments of To Tell the Truth. Actually, my TiVo (and probably yours if you have one) has What's My Line? mixed up with a fishing show. They all say…
What Is My Line
Pro bass angler Mike DelVisco looks at the only connection between you and your fish, your line. (CC, R)
…but I assume that's not what GSN is actually running. Oh, and I should mention that Christmas Eve, they're giving us a nice present — a 90 minute What's My Line? 25th anniversary retrospective special that aired but once in 1975.
It was a feature on ABC's Wide World of Entertainment, a late night show in what had been Dick Cavett's time slot. Some genius decided they could do better than Cavett's profitable but not Carson-destroying ratings so they came up with the idea of a "wheel." Instead of Cavett being on every week, he'd be on every fourth week. One of the other three weeks gave us the disappointing (very) return of Jack Paar to that time slot and the other two weeks were a mish-mash of low-budget specials, some of them quite odd. Not only did none of these elements do well, none of them — including Cavett's shows — matched the ratings of Cavett's show before the change.
What's My Line? at 25 was mostly just clips of the Mystery Guest segments from the show. I remember enjoying it…a long time ago. You might want to check it out.
Last Sunday morning, I attended the annual Christmas brunch of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Cartoonists Society. The photo above was taken there of the four guys who make that silly Groo comic book. Left to right, we are Stan Sakai, Tom Luth, Sergio Aragonés and me. It may appear that I was much closer to the camera than the other three guys but actually I am just a giant among men.
The first issue of the new twelve-issue Groo series — one per month for all of 2015 — comes out January 21. It's called Groo: Friends and Foes, and in each installment, Groo will encounter either a past friend (he has a few) or a past foe (he has more of them) and he will probably make their lives less happy or likely to continue. Keep an eye out for this series so you can purchase or avoid as is your wont.
Also present to brunch and talk cartooning at the N.C.S. Brunch were Russ Heath, Dan Piraro, Bill Morrison, June Foray, Stu Shostak and his new bride Jeanine Kasun, Stu's daughter Lisa, Tone Rodriguez, Bobby London, Scott Shaw!, Judith Shaw, Monte Wolverton, David Folkman, Michael Mallory and I shouldn't have started listing names because I'm leaving dozens of folks out. Sorry, dozens of folks. I'll mention you next time.