Monday, March 20, 2006

More What's My Line? Info

Looking ahead at GSN's reruns of ancient What's My Line? episodes: I just told you what's on Tuesday morning. Wednesday morning, the Mystery Guest is the legendary movie mogul Darryl F. Zanuck. Thursday morning, it's Gordon and Sheila MacRae and one of the contestants is a hot dog vendor named Mike Kilkenny. Mr. Kilkenny later stopped selling franks at ball parks and started playing...for the Detroit Tigers and a couple of other teams.

Friday morn, they should be airing an episode with Melina Mercouri as the Mystery Guest and Victor Borge on the panel. The episode was notable because at one point, an intruder walked out on the stage — this was live television, remember — and started delivering a commercial for a dating service. He was quickly removed and turned over to the police who reportedly had trouble figuring out what crime he could be prosecuted for. In his book about the show, producer Gil Fates noted that it was not against the law to deliver a commercial on television.

Saturday morning, the Mystery Guest is Joan Crawford. Sunday morning, it's Robert Ryan and Nanette Fabray. Next Monday morning, it's Tony Martin. And then next Tuesday morning — and I'm going this far into the future so I can mention this — it's Robert Goulet, but the show also features as Mystery Guests, the cast of Beyond the Fringe. Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller, Alan Bennett and Dudley Moore were then playing New York. So there's a nice bit of history.

• Posted at 10:31 PM · LINK

Last Minute Notice

The What's My Line? episode that airs on GSN tonight — actually, tomorrow morning — features among its contestants a woman named Joanna Lee. Ms. Lee was a writer of sitcoms beginning in the sixties and she was among the writers of The Flintstones. She wasn't the first woman to ever write for animation but she may have been the second. (The first may have been Barbara Chain, who wrote for Crusader Rabbit and Mr. Magoo.)

• Posted at 9:55 PM · LINK

Political Stuff

Paul Krugman writes about what he called "Bogus Bush Bashing," meaning erroneous criticisms of the guy in the White House. Those of you still on Bush's side won't like this column any more than the ones that just criticize the guy.

Before I forget: The other day, I asked for suggestions of sites that presented the history of the Iraq War with a "things are going well" viewpoint. I've only received three nominations, all of which were to subscription-only sites that I can't read, let alone link to. One person did offer the thought that I'd already linked to one with the Donald Rumsfeld article I recommended last Saturday. If nothing better comes along, that may have to do.

• Posted at 7:22 PM · LINK

Smile!

Greg Preston is a photographer and comics enthusiast I met several years ago. He was then travelling the country and taking photos of cartoonists, comic book illustrators and animators for a proposed book project which, I am happy to say, is finally happening. This summer, Dark Horse will release The Artist Within, a hardcover collection of Greg's photos, which are very, very good at capturing the personality of the subjects. In most cases, the subjects were photographed in their natural habitats — their studios — and the backgrounds themselves are full of fascinating details.

Amazon is taking advance orders for the book, which they say will be out at the end of August. I hear it'll be out in time for the Comic-Con International in July. Whenever it comes out, you'll want a copy of it.

• Posted at 1:13 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

This has been around the Internet for a while and I may even have linked to it long ago...but hey, there's gotta be someone visiting this site who hasn't seen it. I'm not a big fan of trained animal acts but sometimes, the animal seems to be enjoying it so much that that alone makes it fun to watch. The lady is named Carolyn Scott, the Golden Retriever is named Rookie and the clip runs a bit over two minutes...

• Posted at 12:58 AM · LINK

March 21, 2006 • Current • March 19, 2006