Here's one I can't answer and it comes from Ira Matetsky… Here's an "Ask Me" question that I can welcome your answering if you think it would be of interest to the readers (and if you happen to know the answer). Beginning in the Golden Age (if not before), most if not all comic books […]
The great Stan Laurel passed away on February 23, 1965. A friend of his named Gene Lester felt that there ought to be a big hour-long TV special saluting and remembering the great comedian — and by obvious extension, his late partner Oliver Hardy. As I always heard the story, Lester had something serious and […]
J. Benedict asks me something… I've always been fascinated by your stories of sneaking into movie and TV studios when you were younger to watch rehearsals and tapings. Most of your sneaking seems to have been at NBC to watch Laugh-In or Johnny Carson but what other studios did you do this at? Not as […]
In 1968, The Turtles were so hot in the pop music marketplace that they could even put out a cynical parody of themselves and sell a lot of records. This was "Elenore," which I had on my mixtape not because I thought it was a good song but because I thought it was a stupid […]
Among the millions of panels I appeared on at the 2025 Comic-Con International was one hosted by Gary Sassaman, producer-writer-director of the "Tales From My Spinner Rack" YouTube series. The panel was a three-way discussion of Jack Kirby's covers for his initial run on Fantastic Four, with the other "way" provided by John Morrow, the […]
We here at newsfrome.com are always grateful for donations to keep this thing approximately breaking even. By "we," I mean me and by "this thing," I mean this blog which I have enjoyed producing — and continuing to produce — since December of 2000. I'm declaring our annual September blog-a-thon closed as we've (I've) received […]
Here's another episode of The Red Skelton Hour, this one from October 26, 1965. The musical guest is Johnny Mathis, an entertainer I've always kinda liked. I once saw him in Las Vegas and he put on a very good show — nothing flashy, nothing high-pressure. His opening act was Norm Crosby and then Mathis […]
In case you missed it, Jimmy Kimmel had Spinal Tap on his show the other night. This is the conversation part of it but they also performed a musical number at the end of which their drummer (for some reason) did not explode. You can watch the musical number here. […]
David Letterman just did an interview in which he talks about the current state of late night TV including the Colbert situation. Quite interesting. The chat is in conjunction with the new Letterman streaming channel which will only be available on Samsung TVs. I don't have a Samsung TV and since there's Dave aplenty on […]
Playbill has posted some news about the upcoming 100th birthday of my favorite performer and yours, Dick Van Dyke. They also have up some photos of Dick in the 1980 stage revival of The Music Man at the New York City Center and later in a national tour. The production was directed and choreographed by […]
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. keeps going before hearings and spouting lies and misinformation. The Associated Press runs down some of his latest whoppers. Here and here, FactCheck.org lists other recent bullshit from this man. Donald Trump keeps saying things about crime in Washington, D.C. that — according to Daniel Dale of CNN — simply ain't […]
We love flash mobs appearing out of nowhere in public places and performing. We also love the song "Bohemian Rhapsody." So here, from the streets of Paris… […]
Lying awake in bed this morning at 3 AM, I started watching videos on my iPhone from last night's late night shows. I found myself laughing out loud at several segments from Stephen Colbert's program…and by the way, I'll make one of my occasionally-right predictions. Colbert's ratings are up and he and his staff are […]
William Ray sent me a link to this real estate listing. Someone is selling 196 Furnace Dock Road in Cortlandt Manor, NY and they're asking $5.5 million for the place. What's so special about it? Well, apart from its unusual "space age" design, it was owned for a time by Jackie Gleason before he decided to […]
This year marks 75 years since Mort Walker's Beetle Bailey debuted on the comic strip pages and there's a new book out celebrating its long, long run. You can order that book here and while you're Amazoning, you can also place an advance order for the book that's coming out next month celebrating 75 years […]