Category Archives: To Be Filed

I have this friend named Pat O'Neill.  We get along fine in person and on the phone.  Nice guy.  On various discussion forums on the Internet, however, I rarely agree with him and often strenuously disagree to the extent where people write me and say, "Boy, you must hate Pat O'Neill."  I don't.  I don't think I "hate" anyone in this world…but if I did, it would have to be for something a lot more offensive than posting things I utterly disagree with in newsgroups.

I mention this because I'm about to disagree with Pat again.  The other morning, over in the rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe newsgroup, he posted the following…

Most commonly on these groups any decision a publisher makes that cancels a "critically acclaimed" title whose sales are in the toilet is derided.  In general, these groups act as if publishers were in business to publish the GROUPS' favorite comics, as opposed to publishing the comics most likely to be profitable.

Pat is right and wrong about this…and I should add that I was, as well, since I used to say almost the exact same thing in fanzines when someone would start weeping that their favorite funnybook had been axed.  But I think I was at least partly incorrect for two reasons, one large and one small…

One is that, first of all, a fan has every right to complain when something he likes is taken from him.  Such passions ought to be balanced with a little pragmatism and awareness of how things have to work in the Real World, true.  But I think it's unfair and probably unwise to demean or attempt to change that passion.  You can't expect someone whose only relationship to a work is as Enthusiastic Audience to suddenly snap to the mindset of one of the bean-counters in the accounting department…nor should they.  What a cold, unenjoyable media it would be if we all had to hook our sympathies up to the financial end of things and to accept every decision as a calculated profit/loss reality.  If I love something, I shouldn't have that love trampled by the business department expecting me to view it through their eyes.

That's the small reason.  The larger is this: When a publisher cancels a "fan favorite" comic book due to poor sales, there's a very good chance that publisher is wrong…often in the long term and sometimes even in the short term.

An amazing number of times — too often to dismiss as flukes, I believe — a publisher has cancelled The Invincible Flurp and all the Flurp fans get up in arms and protest, and the publisher says, "Don't you [idiot] fans realize that this is a business?  That Flurp sales are in the crapper and we're losing money and that we're not in business to lose money?"  And in the long run, with hindsight, there is ample evidence that the publisher simply gave up too quickly on a comic that might have built a new and profitable audience had the company stayed with it longer or done a better job of marketing.  (It has also been the case, though some have denied it, that someone in the office simply misread the numbers and terminated a profitable title, or killed one deliberately because of personal issues with its makers.  I don't think anyone will ever admit that in print, at least about themselves, but almost anyone who's been in the business for any length of time will tell you it's happened.)

Throughout comic book history, publishers have often been way too short-sighted and timid and terrified of losing even a very modest amount of money on new product.  At times, the financial risk in publishing the established sellers becomes so non-existent that they cannot bear to assume even a microscopic risk to publish something new.  Something different comes along and they don't know how to sell it and are afraid to try.  Usually, it works like this: Super-hero books are selling decently and, in a moment of uncommon wisdom, someone says, "We need to expand the audience and reach folks who don't like super-hero comics," so they launch some non super-hero comics, often with great confidence and a determination to build and nurture another marketplace.

That's until the first sales figures come in on the non super-hero comics and they don't immediately yield the guaranteed profits of the super-hero books.  Then someone has a panic attack and, without waiting for the folks who don't like super-hero comics to have time to find the new, non super-hero books, the publisher says, "Wait a minute!  Why am I publishing these when I could sell more comics per month by replacing them with super-hero titles?"  That has happened way too many times, despite the fact that the potential loss, even if the new books never catch on, is not all that great.  It also happens despite the facts that…

A. There are dozens of cases where a new comic was declared a flop and then, for reasons other than the publisher believing in it, it was brought back or continued a little longer…and it became not just a hit but a huge hit.  Marvel Comics' two biggest properties — Spider-Man and the Hulk — were both initially and prematurely declared failures and were cancelled.  And had we been around then and protested those cancellations, someone at the company could have said precisely what Pat O'Neill said above.  Later on, the publisher declared the then-new Conan the Barbarian comic an utter failure and actually did say what Pat said when fans protested its probable cancellation.  But as with Spidey and Greenskin, the Barbarian stuck around long enough to develop and show a following.

B. Sometimes, the sales of the comic book itself are only part of the story.  All the major companies have published comics that were, going strictly by this month's sales, unprofitable…but because the property was licensed for a movie or toy deal, loads of cash rolled in.  There were many years where Wonder Woman was technically losing all kinds of money on the newsstand but that comic served as a very effective loss-leader for very lucrative merchandise.

C. There are also dozens of cases where, years later, a cancelled comic still has a loyal following.  No one can ever prove that Bat Lash (to pick one example of dozens) would or would not have found an audience had it run another year or so but, given the extent to which people still recall it fondly, you have to wonder.  More to the point, some abruptly-cancelled comics are probably analogous to a movie that is declared a flop at the time of its debut but which, in re-release, proves to be enormously popular and profitable.  DC, for instance, has made an awful lot of money reprinting the old Denny O'Neil/Neal Adams issues of Green Lantern-Green Arrow which, back in 1971, was declared a money-loser that had to go.  Some don't think it was unprofitable then but, even if it was, the foreign sales and reprints have since made it one of the more lucrative things DC published that year.  Had they kept it going, it would have been a very good investment.

This is not unique to comics.  TV networks are often too quick to cancel a show if its initial ratings do not soar.  Seinfeld, which may turn out to be the most profitable live-action TV show of all time, was — like Spider-Man or Hulk — an "immediate flop" that many of the business-types wanted to junk, and might have.  The TV version of M*A*S*H, which may be the current holder of the "most profitable of all time" medallion, was definitely in that category, as well.  (I once worked for a producer who kept on his wall, a framed memo from a high executive at Paramount.  Going by early ratings, the exec was declaring Cheers a bomb and asking if the studio's lawyers could extricate them from having to produce any more episodes.  Next to it was framed a then-recent statement of the show's grosses, which of course made the first memo look even stupider.)

Fact is — and I'll bet it's the same in almost any field — business decisions are not always firm, intractable judgments.  A creative field like comic books is probably especially subjective.  The folks who have to decide what to publish and what to cancel might like to pretend that they have no choice…that they're only going by the numbers and you can't argue with them.  But you can.  Like William Goldman says of the movie business, "Nobody knows anything."

If you love a comic book and the publisher kills it, don't let anyone tell you you're naïve to protest or lament its passing.  Worrying about the profit or loss of the company is the company's job, not yours.  And besides, there's a very good chance that even as a dollars-and-cents decision, they're wrong and you're right.

Here's another one of those "incredible coincidence" stories you won't believe.  But I have witnesses to this one, and am quite prepared to take a polygraph that it happened just the way I say it happened.

For much of a decade, I wrote and voice-directed a cartoon show called Garfield and Friends.  This was great fun because the Powers That Be (aka Jim Davis, creator of the lasagna-loving feline) allowed me to write pretty much whatever I wanted, and to cast whomever I felt suitable to do the guest voices.

One week, I penned an episode entitled, Lifestyles of the Fat and Furry, which burlesqued the then-popular TV series, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, hosted by Robin Leach.  The program chronicled the indulgent creature comforts of folks with vast amounts of fame and/or cash, usually both.  Teetering tenuously on the ledge of self-parody, the show drew much of its charm from the fustian, hyperkinetic narration of Mr. Leach.

Having written my parody of their parody, I set about to secure Robin Leach himself to do the voice of Robin Leach.  I figured he could handle the role.  About a week before we would be recording the voice track, I phoned his office in Los Angeles.  They told me to call his office in New York.

I called his office in New York.  They told me to call his office in Connecticut.

I called his office in Connecticut.  They told me to call his office in London.

I called his office in London.  They told me that Robin was on a six-week expedition down the Brahmaputra River, or somewhere equally remote.  Wherever it was, he wouldn't be back 'til long after our tape date.  So I shrugged and booked Frank Welker.

Frank Welker is the most gifted, amazing voice magician who has ever stood before a microphone in Hollywood.  Frank can sound like anyone or anything.  He is heard constantly in animated cartoons but also logs many hours doing voice matches and dubbing in live-action motion pictures.  You hear him often in movies without knowing you're hearing him.

I knew he did a mean Robin Leach so I arranged with his agent for Frank to come in and play the part.  I gave him a call time of 2:00.

Nine AM that morning, I walked into Buzzy's Recording Studio on Melrose Avenue for a full day of Garfield recording.  I asked Marie at the desk, as I always did, if we were in Studio A or Studio B.  She said — and I swear, I'm not making this up — "You're in Studio A.  Robin Leach is in B."

Robin Leach???

That was what the lady said.  I walked directly into Studio B and there — standing at a microphone, wearing a shirt imprinted with images of hundred dollar bills — was Robin Leach.  In person.

I explained to him what we were doing over in A, and how I'd attempted to contact him, and how I'd given up and hired an impressionist, and he couldn't have been nicer.  "Well, if the offer's still open, I'd be delighted to play me," he said.  About an hour later, after he finished the spots he was recording, he came over to our studio and played Robin Leach like he'd been doing it all his life.

In fact, he played himself with enormous good-humor and that same sense of show biz and self-mocking that had made his show a hit.  He exaggerated the vocal quirkiness of the Leach style more than I'd probably have allowed a mimic to do.

Robin was long gone by 2:00 when Frank Welker showed up.  "Well, I'm here to do that Robin Leach bit," Frank announced.  "I was warming up in the car on the way over."

"Uh, Frank," I said sheepishly.  "I'm sorry but there's been a change of plans.  I have a different role for you to play…not Robin Leach…"

Frank was puzzled.  "What happened to the Robin Leach role?"

"Well, I don't know how to tell you this but, uh, we found someone who does a better Robin Leach than you do…"

Frank is a wonderful, cooperative person but he seemed a bit affronted — like his honor had been besmirched.  He looked hurt so I added, "I'm sorry…I thought this other guy was a little better, Here — you can hear for yourself."  And I told Andy the Engineer to run a few seconds of the voice track we'd recorded earlier that morn.

As the mellifluous tones of R. Leach boomed through the speakers, I saw shock upon the face of the best impressionist in the business.  There, framed by stark horror, was the realization that someone had bested him in the category of Robin Leach impressions.

(I finally told him the truth.  I didn't have the heart…)

It isn't there now but there used to be a wonderful old movie house in Culver City called the Palms Theater.  It was a friendly place to see a film — not fancy but comfy, not plush but cheap.  The big, first-run movies went to the fancier theaters in Westwood, all of them affiliated with national chains.  The Palms, fiercely independent to its dying day, usually offered up two second-run pictures, with a few trailers and a cartoon sandwiched between.

The best thing about the Palms was its recorded announcement.  I don't know who recorded them but he always commenced with "Shalom, Bubala," and he was always hysterical.  My favorite, which I shall now attempt to re-create, came when they booked a double-feature of Walter Matthau pics.  It went very much like this, and it will probably be funnier if you read it aloud…

Shalom, Bubala.  This is the exotic Palms Theater on picturesque Motor Avenue in beautiful Culver City.  This week, we are featuring Plaza Suite, starring Walter Matthau and Lee Grant, Walter Matthau and Maureen Stapleton, and Walter Matthau and Barbara Harris.  We are also featuring A New Leaf, starring Walter Matthau and Elaine May.  In other words — Walter Matthau, ad nauseum.  Here's your chance to get so sick of Walter Matthau you'll never have to see another Walter Matthau movie as long as you live.

Drive up to the theater where our parking lot attendant, Walter Matthau, will show you where to park.  Then buy a ticket from our box office attendant, Walter Matthau, and have it torn in half by our ticket taker, Walter Matthau.  Visit our refreshment stand where our counterman Walter Matthau will gladly sell you a large, Walter Matthau-sized soft drink and a box of Jujubees, every one of them in the shape of Walter Matthau.  You will be seated by our usher, Walter Matthau, and then our projectionist (Walter Matthau) will start the program, commencing with a Walter Matthau cartoon, a Walter Matthau newsreel, and coming attractions of more than seventeen thousand Walter Matthau films.

Next week, we're featuring two more movies.  We don't know what they are yet but we can guarantee you that they won't have Walter Matthau in them.  In fact, we will give you a double-your-money-back No Walter Matthau guarantee.

If you read it the way the guy on the phone read it, it's hysterical.  (And here's an interesting example of how just the right word is important in comedy.  If you read the same speech with Jack Lemmon's name in there, it's only about half as funny.  Try it and see.)

I used to go to the Palms about once a month — sometimes with my parents, sometimes with a date — but I made a point of phoning each week to hear what the "Shalom, Bubala" guy had to say.  I wasn't the only one.  People who had no interest whatsoever in going to the Palms Theater used to call in sufficient quantity that the Palms had to install extra phone lines.

I can remember some of the movies I saw there — Airport, Paint Your Wagon, The Odd Couple…(This last was obviously before the "No Walter Matthau" policy went into effect).  I even remember the first time I took a date to the Palms.

It was Blue Water, White Death, a documentary about sharks that I'd have passed on, had it not been for Liz.  She wanted to see it and I was willing to take Liz anywhere, just as long as I could sneak my arm around her.

I was just buying two General Admissions at the Palms (not from Walter Matthau) when Liz said to me, "I feel I have to see this movie.  I have a terrible fear of sharks."

I stopped in the doorway, right by the non-Matthau usher.  "Why do you have to see this movie if you're afraid of sharks?" I asked.

"I'm hoping that if I confront my fear, I will get over it," she replied.

Well, it sounded good in theory but she spent the entire movie with her nails dug into my arm and/or thigh, and left the Palms so upset that she asked me to take her straight home.  This was not what I'd had in mind for the balance of the evening.  I haven't seen Liz since that night.  I have, however, seen her fingernail marks on my arm and thigh.

And I haven't seen the Palms Theater since shortly after that.  One day when I drove past, the marquee proclaimed, in lieu of movie titles, that it was "Closed until further notice."  The next time I cruised Motor Avenue, it said, "Closed forever."  And the next time, there was no marquee…or Palms Theater.

It looks like Walter had the last laugh.

The E! Network is rerunning the very first episode of Saturday Night Live on Monday.  Actually, it wasn't even called that on its first broadcast in October 11, 1975.  The now-forgotten Saturday Night Live With Howard Cosell had prior claim on the title so the new late night program was called NBC Saturday Night.  Didn't matter.  For some reason, everyone — fans, TV critics, everyone — just started calling it Saturday Night Live and a few months after the Cosell show evaporated, the SNL name went on the NBC show officially.  (I believe some prints of some of the reruns were altered to slap the name on them.)

What I find most interesting about that first NBC Saturday Night is that the idea seemed to be to throw everything at the wall and then see what stuck.  Today, we think of the show as 90 minutes of sketch comedy with one guest host and one musical act.  But when they started out, the sketch comedy was but one of many elements and not even the most important.  In addition to comedy sketches, the first episode featured…

• Stand-up comedy.  George Carlin hosted and he did three stand-up spots.  There was a monologue by Valri Bromfield and Andy Kaufman did his record pantomime to the theme from "Mighty Mouse."  (An additional stand-up spot didn't get in.  Just before airtime, a kid named Billy Crystal was told he'd have to trim his routine to the bone and at the advice of his managers, he walked.)
• Two musical acts: Janis Ian and Billy Preston performing two numbers apiece.
• "The Land of Gorch" featuring the Muppets.
• A film by Albert Brooks.
• A spot with Paul Simon plugging his appearance the following week.
• Five pre-recorded parody commercials.
• Weekend Update with Chevy Chase.

The Chevy Chase spot was probably the biggest hit.  The other sketches — the kind of material that would become the core of Saturday Night Live — were few in number and short in length.  There was the cold opening with Chase, Michael O'Donoghue, and John Belushi.  (Although he would not be counted as a member of the original cast, O'Donoghue had more to do in the first episode than some who were and was billed as one of the "Not Ready for Prime Time Players."  So was character actor George Coe, who quietly disappeared from the troupe soon after.)  There were a few other short skits, the longest of which — a courtroom scene — was an old routine that had been done almost precisely the same way on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.

Then the second week, Paul Simon hosted and the show was devoted primarily to music.  In addition to Simon, they had Art Garfunkel, Phoebe Snow, Randy Newman and the Jesse Dixon Singers.  Add in another Muppets spot and another film by Albert Brooks and there wasn't much time for sketches.

It wasn't until the third week, hosted by Rob Reiner, that sketch comedy had a significant chunk of the show.  Even then, the longest comedy segment was the Albert Brooks film, which was so long they had to insert a commercial break in the middle of it.

Producer Lorne Michaels was later quoted as saying something like, "I had the ingredients from the start but it took me a while to figure out how much of each to include."  If you watched the episodes in sequence, you'd see it take around four episodes (over five weeks) before they decided they had a sketch show, and a while longer before they began to subordinate everything else to that.  That was a quick discovery process.  Michaels had originally negotiated a deal with NBC that gave them 17 shows and with it, an understanding that they'd tinker with the format and probably not solidify things until around Show Ten.  Ordinarily, one of the great lies of network television is when they say, "We won't even look at the ratings for the first few weeks" but in this case, they seem to have at least been sincere about giving the show room to develop.

That would probably not happen today.  Despite the history of shows like SNL and Seinfeld that were given time to grow and which became insanely profitable, a TV show is now expected to debut in pretty much its finished form.  Not long ago, a producer sent the following to me in an e-mail.  It's from an article he was writing about a recent, unhappy experience…

What I learned was that nowadays, a show goes on the air and based on the ratings of the first one, it's declared a provisional success (if they're good) or a provisional flop (if not).  If you're a provisional flop and your ratings go up the second week, you might have a fighting chance at proving yourself.  If you're a provisional flop and you go down the second week, it's pretty much over.  You're a bomb and the smell of death rises into the air.  Your promotion disappears, your guest stars drift away, and advertisers write you off.  It's a premature verdict but it has a way of coming true from its own momentum.

Lorne Michaels' new show had some things going for it when it debuted.  For one thing, it had no competition.  For another, NBC was looking to open up that time slot for new programming and it would have been embarrassing and injurious to that effort not to stick with the new show for a time.  They also had nothing else to put on.

As it happens, the first Saturday Night did pretty well and it was hailed as something innovative.  Looking back on that first episode, it's hard to see why.  So much of the show was George Carlin's stand-up act…funny but hardly a major breakthrough in television programming.  Apart from Weekend Update, the freshest bit of material on the first broadcast was probably Andy Kaufman's "Mighty Mouse" routine…and he wasn't even a regular.

No matter.  The show appealed to a generally-neglected, younger audience.  It felt new, even if it wasn't, and in TV, that can be the hard part.  In a few more weeks, it would actually start to be innovative.  One can only wonder how many hastily-cancelled shows might have managed that if they'd had a few more weeks.

One of the gauges of America's pulse after 9/11 was the late night talk show.  Much was said and written about how Dave, Jay, Bill, Conan, Jon, Craig and Saturday Night Live dealt with the disasters, especially with regard to the first new broadcast each show had to do after that day.  At the time, I was touched by most of the entries and thought most of the hosts did a fine job in a difficult situation.  Recently though, I was given some tapes of all those "first broadcasts back" and I watched all of them at least partway through.  Most, including ones I really respected at the time, I now found unwatchable.

While I do not question the sincerity or grief of anyone, I found all the shows overly maudlin and mannered and, with the possible exception of Mr. Maher on Politically Incorrect, horribly simplistic.  Somehow, they all reminded me of those horrible moments on the news when some reporter asks the survivor of a tragedy, "How does it feel to lose your home and family?"  I always feel that pain is being paraded and emotions exploited for no good reason.

(One thing which kinda jolted me was how everyone kept talking about "more than five thousand dead."  The total has since been revised to more like 2819, which is still, of course, ample cause for all the sorrow we can muster.  Still, I find it odd that in the last year, this happy downgrade hasn't attracted much attention.)

I also, watching the tapes, was struck by how much importance was attached to the difficulty of resuming production on a comedy show…as if that was one of the significant tragedies of September 11.  And some of the tears — especially Dan Rather's on Letterman — now seemed horribly affected and mannered.  I don't think he said one thing that was insightful or informative that night.  It was all a matter of "look how upset I am, how upset we all are."  Those who enjoy the bully pulpit of a national audience ought to be offering something constructive and healing, as opposed to ratcheting up the despair.

I am not suggesting that any of the late night shows did bad jobs, or could have been expected to do better jobs.  They did what they had to do for those airings and I'm not sure that it matters much that some of it may seem inappropriate, nearly a year after the fact.

Still, I think it's interesting and not unhealthy to note how sensibilities have changed, largely for the better, since September 11.  The cliché of that week was "everything has changed" and I suspect most folks today would suggest that things have changed a lot less than we thought they would.  Some of us thought World War III was commencing and that at the very least, the attack would overshadow everything we did and everything we said for years to come.  It hasn't.  We are a far more resilient people than we thought at the time, as evidenced by the fact that people are finally starting to deal with problems of that day and asking some hard questions instead of moaning and sitting shiva.  Watching those late night talk shows, I saw a lot of crying and reverence and even the occasional bit of eloquence.  But I didn't see anyone talking about recovery or moving on or doing anything positive.

The anniversary of 9/11 is upon us and television is pulling out all stops to show respect for the dead and to celebrate our pain…and I'm sure Dave, Jay, Conan and the others will offer a respectful dose of all that.  But I wish one of them would remind us that not everything has changed and that we show respect for the departed by doing everything we can to prevent further disasters, not by wallowing in grief and airing endless montages of old news footage.  I suspect though that, in an industry where everyone is terrified of being accused of insensitivity and lack of patriotism, it's easier just to salute the flag, curse out Osama, and cry about our dead.

A few nights ago, Game Show Network ran a 1957 episode of To Tell the Truth in which one of the contestants was Jack Bothwell, a New Jersey restaurant host who said that, in his younger days, he'd played Freckles in the famous "Our Gang" comedies produced by Hal Roach.  As per usual for the program, Bothwell and two impostors answered questions from the panel whose mission was to identify the real Jack Bothwell.  In this case, their problem was a little more difficult because — as the show's producers obviously were unaware — all three men answering the questions were impostors.  You see, there was no character named Freckles in the "Our Gang" films and Jack Bothwell never appeared in any of them.

We are nearing the day when a great industry will draw to a close…people claiming falsely that they were kid actors in "Our Gang."  There have been a staggering number of them, some claiming to have played Spanky or Alfalfa or some other actual character; others bragging of a non-existent role like Freckles.  Not that long ago, the ABC news show, 20/20, did a whole profile of an older black man who, they said, played Buckwheat.  Some of these folks have published books or sold autographs.  Others just seem to want the stardom.

There are other explanations for some of the fakes.  There were several "Our Gang" imitations offered up by Roach's competitors and in later years, some of the grown-up kid actors who'd been in those knock-offs either got confused or, more likely, decided there was more prestige in saying they'd been in "Our Gang" than in, say, "The Kiddie Troupers."  There were also kids who played bit parts or extra roles in "Our Gang" who later decided they'd been regular featured players.

And there's one other interesting source of fake Our Gangers.  At the peak of the series' popularity, there was a gent touring the mid-west, working a "Harold Hill" style scam.  He'd breeze into some small town and give an interview to the local paper as Robert MacGowan, director of the famous "Our Gang" series.  That was the name of the actual director but this wasn't him.  The fake MacGowan would announce that he was interested in getting some rural, small town values into the shorts and that he was scouting for kids who could act.  Naturally, hundreds of parents would drag their offspring down to meet him and he would suggest to each that Junior would be a natural; that he could go directly to Hollywood and earn thousands a week if only he had a little more polish and seasoning.  The phony director — and there may have been more than one con artist working this line — would introduce an acting teacher (actually, his wife) who had just arrived to help his talent search and who, for a nice fee, could make the child camera-ready.  There were a number of variations on the scam, including some that involved actually using locals to film what the bogus director said was a genuine "Our Gang" comedy.  One can easily imagine a kid who was in one of them later believing (or choosing to believe) he was actually in an "Our Gang" movie.

None of this, by the way, seems to explain Jack Bothwell.  He appears to simply have been a fraud.

The other interesting thing about that spot on To Tell the Truth was that one of the fake Bothwells was a former police officer who had recently joined the staff of another game show.  His name was Barney Martin and he later became quite a successful actor.  Oddly enough, he got more answers correct than the "real" Jack Bothwell.  Asked where in Hollywood the Hal Roach Studio was located, Martin said it was in Culver City (correct) whereas Bothwell said he didn't know because his "Our Gang" movies had been shot on the East Coast.  In truth, no "Our Gang" films were made there.

Mr. Bothwell made the rounds of talk shows and did personal appearances before he passed away around 1967, complete with newspaper obits about his career in "Our Gang."  I don't know if anyone ever called him on his little fib but I do know he wasn't telling the truth on To Tell the Truth.

Gosh.  If you can't believe a 40+ year old game show, what can you believe?

I don't smoke.  I've never smoked.  Not a puff, at least not directly.  I have, however, ingested enough second-hand smoke to, in the opinion of a leading respiratory physician, do some serious damage to my nostrils.  But I, myself, have never smoked.

I've never smoked for pretty much the same reason I've never taken a ball peen hammer and hit myself repeatedly over the head.  Both seem like enormously unappealing, self-destructive things to do to one's self.  Logically, of course, I know that so many intelligent people have smoked and/or continue to smoke that it must have some positive reward but I just don't understand it.  Actually, most of the smokers I know seem to regret they ever started.

Anyway, the point is that I don't smoke and I hate being around smoke.  When people around me insist that they have the right to smoke around me, I used to insist that — in that case — I had the same right to vomit on them. One time, years ago, I actually did.  I have a hunch that, thereafter, that smoker was a little more prudent about where he lit up.

All of this said, I find myself in this curious conundrum: I more or less agree with those who oppose a ban on smoking in certain public places, such as restaurants.  Yesterday watching Crossfire, I found myself in general accord with Robert Novak and those who are arguing against New York's pending law that would forbid all smoking in eateries.  I don't want to be sitting in the Carnegie Deli, partaking of a side of Marlboro aroma along with my corned beef sandwich…but I feel the greater damage may lie in allowing government to get this deep into what could and should be a market-determined decision.

I think the law should be not that smoking is banned in restaurants (as it is in many cities) but that those that did allow it would have to post a conspicuous "Smoking Allowed" sign out front and perhaps mention it in all advertising larger than a certain size.  Folks who smoke could go to these places.  Folks like me could avoid them.  Eventually, as business thrived or suffered, restaurants would configure their policies to serve the public in proper proportion.  Surveys suggest that anywhere from 20% to 30% of Americans enjoy (if enjoyment, it be) the occasional smoke.  I suspect that if what I propose were to be enacted, most neighborhoods would wind up with 10% to 15% "Smoking Restaurants."  The reason the percentage would be lower would be because (a) even many smokers prefer not to eat around it and (b) when a non-smoker and a smoker dined together, it would have to be at a non-smoking establishment.

Now, I already know some of the objections and will attempt to answer them here…

It's unfair to waiters and other employees to make them inhale all that second-hand smoke.

Absolutely.  And I am not suggesting that a restaurant that is now non-smoking should be allowed to suddenly let everyone light up Marlboros.  I think the default would be non-smoking and that an establishment would have to give its patrons and employees ample notice before allowing it.  Since waiting tables is largely a transitory existence, that would give employees time to find employment elsewhere.  It's like if a vegan restaurant were to decide to start serving Prime Rib.  The staff in such places is usually anti-meat, and they have every right to be anti-meat.  They just shouldn't be able to prevent the owner from changing his cuisine.

This kind of thing has been tried with "smoking airlines" and other establishments that went bust, and even a non-smoking casino in Las Vegas that went bankrupt.

The casino was already in deep financial trouble before they tried that policy and the airlines that have tried it have been marginal, as well.  But even if every business that permits smoking goes broke and no "smoking" businesses remain, fine.  Let that be determined by market demand, not by government oversight.

Restaurants in some cities tried having smoking areas and it didn't work.  The smoke kept drifting into the non-smoking area.

That's not what I'm suggesting at all.  A restaurant would have to be one or the other and could not try splitting one business into two so they could have it both ways.  Hotels, let's note, seem to be doing okay with smoking rooms and non-smoking rooms on separate floors…and occasionally they convert one into the other, depending on what their customers seem to demand.  Why couldn't restaurants be one or the other?

If your favorite restaurant went smoking, you wouldn't be able to go to it.

True.  It would cease to be my favorite restaurant. It would also cease if it purged its menu of everything but cole slaw.  But so what?  They have the right to do that and I can find another favorite restaurant.  Should the government step in and insist they keep my favorite items on the menu?

But this is different.  This is about protecting the health of people.

Which people?  Non-smokers?  I'm all for protecting their health, especially since I am one.  But if we have clearly-labelled smoking restaurants and they go in, isn't that the same as if they go to a hotel and ask for a smoking room?  Should we be protecting them from that?  As for protecting the health of smokers, what difference does it make if they can smoke in a restaurant when they can go outside and smoke, smoke at home, smoke in their cars, etc.?

As I keep saying, I hate smoke.  But I think it's important to be consistent to one's principles and one of mine is that people have the right to do whatever they want to themselves as long as it doesn't harm others.  I think you have the right to ingest alcohol or drugs, so long as you don't go out and drive.  I think you have the right to kill yourself.  And I certainly think you have the right to smoke so we shouldn't enact unnecessary laws to make you a social pariah, especially when folks like me can avoid the smoke with minimal effort.  I really feel strongly about this.

On the other hand, any time I find myself agreeing with Robert Novak, I figure my opinion is at least a little suspect.

A piece I posted over on my News page about Bill Cullen brought an amazing amount of response, including this note from Rich Twoley…

I had never realized how on those quiz-panel shows, the producers were making an important decision when they decided who to start the questioning with.  Did that apply to all shows or just I've Got A Secret?

All shows.  But it was especially evident in the famed "Mystery Guest" segments on What's My Line?  People occasionally accused a show like that of being rigged…of giving the answers to the panel.  There was, of course, no reason why they should do that, since the show was most entertaining when the panel was lost and guessing wildly off the target.  In fact, on What's My Line? and a couple of other game shows (especially The Name's The Same, which Game Show Network occasionally resurrects), it's obvious they were sometimes giving panelists false leads so their questions would be funnier.

On What's My Line?, they had to prevent the panelists — especially Bennett Cerf and Dorothy Kilgallen, who were fierce competitors — from knocking off the Mystery Guest too quickly and prematurely ending the fun of the game.  This was difficult because the main source of Mystery Guests was folks who were either performing in New York at the time or making the rounds to promote a soon-to-open movie or other project.  If Bob Hope had a film opening in Manhattan any day now, there was a better-than-average chance he'd be the Mystery Guest.

Kilgallen was a reporter and before each broadcast, she'd go over the newspapers and press releases to make up a list of likely Mystery Guests.  Cerf went her one better: As the publisher of Random House books, he had a whole staff that dealt with publicists and book tours and who was in town for promotional purpose.  He'd have the staff make up a list for him and, before the show and during commercial breaks, he'd pull it out of his pocket and cram for the Mystery Guest spot.

To make it more difficult for him, the producer (Gil Fates) would usually have the questioning commence with Cerf.  If he didn't…if the person before Cerf asked, "Do you have a movie opening this week?" and the Mystery Guest said yes, the odds were that Bennett would nail it on his first question.  Having him ask the icebreaker question generally ensured that the game would at least last until each of the four panelists had asked a question.

The problem got worse in later years when they did the syndicated What's My Line?, which Game Show Network has just begun rerunning again.  Apart from occasional guest shots, Cerf had departed but Soupy Sales was on the panel, and Soupy was too good at guessing the Mystery Guest.  He knew every obscure show biz celebrity — and on the syndicated version, some of them were pretty damned obscure — and, no matter what the vocal disguise, he could recognize most voices.  Fates, who was still producer, appealed to Sales to go easy.  Not only was the entertainment value of the endgame suffering but the shows kept running short and it was necessary to pad with lame interviews.  The Soupman, however, wasn't about to miss a chance to win.  To try and cut down on his quick identifications, the producer instituted a new rule, which they called "Fates' Law."  It specified that if a panelist guessed a name and was wrong, the panelist had to remove their blindfold and sit out the rest of the game.  It slowed Soupy down, but only a little.

I mentioned in the Cullen piece that one obstacle to a new wave of panel-type game shows might be a lack of great panelists.  Another could be a paucity of experienced game show producers who know how to set up and run a contest for maximum entertainment value.  Guys like Gil Fates had done them for years in the formative days of television — and some even in radio.  They perfected the rules of their games and how to make them work.  In today's TV industry, where shows have to prove themselves quickly or get axed, they'd never have the chance.

I've figured out how to get very wealthy at the Comic-Con International: You just have to get everyone to give you one dollar when they gasp and say, "I don't believe how big this con is."  And to get very, very wealthy, collect a buck from everyone who wonders how it is that a comic book convention can attract more than 65,000 people but most comic books can't sell a fourth as many copies.

Actually, no official number has been announced.  65,000 is just one estimate that's floating around the Internet and I've also seen 75,000 and up.  One site is claiming 125,000 which is obviously way over but indicative of how overwhelming the whole con felt.  Whatever the total, it's obvious that a lot of us just attended the largest comic-oriented convention ever held on this continent…and, yes, it's still a comic book con, though just barely.

Among the many things I found amazing was that there was so much to do.  Fifty different attendees could have, in effect, experienced fifty different conventions.  I just read a message from someone who apparently never strayed far from Artists' Alley but was still busy for every moment of all four days.  Others spent their time getting autographs, buying comics, previewing upcoming movies, etc.  Whatever you wanted, it was there…somewhere.

Me, I spent the time moderating panels and having a wonderful time.  Yes, it was fatiguing but I wouldn't have missed any of the dozen events on which I got to interview fine folks.  One moment I will not soon forget is when I introduced Ray Bradbury to a packed house and perhaps as many as a thousand people jumped to their feet and gave him an ovation that is probably still reverberating throughout the convention center.  Alas, I had to leave that panel halfway-through in order to host another one but, from what I could see, Julius Schwartz took over the interviewing with terrific skill.

The game show was fun, interviewing Bob Oksner and Herb Trimpe was fun (and educational) and we seem to have a new annual event in the "Quick Draw" competition.  Four cartoonists — Scott Shaw!, Erik Larsen, John Romita Jr. and Sergio Whatzisname — drew instant silly pictures as I prodded and poked them and solicited suggestions from the audience.  All the program items went well and, sore feet and bad concession stands aside, I can't think of a single thing I didn't like about this convention.

Which is, in a way, amazing to me.  I've been attending comic book conventions since 1970.  I've been to all 32 San Diego gatherings and many others, and I'd started to get bored by them.  I was even reaching the point where, halfway through the second afternoon of a con, I'd go back to my room and get in a few hours at the laptop, rather than hang around, autographing issues of Groo and surveying boxes of old comics I already own.  But this year, this con, I really enjoyed myself.

I hope you were there.  If you were, you probably had as good a time as I did…even though you probably attended a completely different convention.

Two tiny controversies seem to be erupting with regard to The Late Show With David Letterman and its Emmy nominations this year, or lack thereof.  Both relate to Letterman's moving 9/17 broadcast, his first following the tragedies of 9/11, the one on which Dan Rather broke into tears.  The Late Show was nominated in the category of "Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series."  The way the process works, the nominated entries must submit a tape of an episode for the judges to view so they can determine who gets the Emmy.  As recounted here in The New York Observer, Letterman's show submitted the 9/17 broadcast and some folks think that's tacky or perhaps exploitive.  The other controversy appeared in a column by David Bianculli in The New York Daily News which I won't link to because they charge money to read it.  Basically, it complains that…

In the category of Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program, for the period June 1, 2001, to May 31, 2002, David Letterman was not nominated.  This is the man who gave television one of its most important entertainment hours of the entire season: his Sept. 17 "Late Show With David Letterman" on CBS, six days after the terrorist attacks on his adopted city and home base.

I think both issues are pretty frivolous and I wonder if everyone really understands the procedure by which Emmy Awards are nominated and awarded.  Basically, there are three stages to receiving an Emmy…

One is the submission.  The show or individual submits whatever they believe qualifies in a given category.  So if it's a category for Outstanding Performance By An Individual, David Letterman's people submit his name, in effect saying, "We think David should be considered in this category."  If it's a category for a series (i.e., "Outstanding Series"), they submit the name of the show.  If it's a category for an individual episode, they submit the episode number and the date.  A screening committee then rules on whether each submission qualifies in its category, eliminates those that don't, then compiles the nominating ballots.

That brings us to the second stage: The nomination.  Ballots go out.  Ads are purchased. A lot of us get tons of tapes and DVDs in the mail.  (This year, Everyone Loves Raymond sent every voter both a tape and a DVD of two episodes and F/X sent us a box of tapes that lit up with a ring of battery-powered lights when you opened it.)  Voters throughout the Academy vote on the list of all eligible entrants, checking off their choices.  The ballots are returned and tabulated, and the top vote-getters in each categories become the nominees.  So if someone or some show doesn't get a nomination, it means either that (a) it wasn't submitted or (b) it didn't get enough votes from members of the Academy.  I would guess that (b) is the case in well more than 99% of the glaring omissions.

The third stage is the final voting: The nominees are asked to submit tapes that can be screened by the Blue Ribbon judging committees.  If the nomination is for an individual, they're asked to send over tapes of what they consider their best performances.  If it's for a show, they send over a couple of their best episodes.  If it's for a specific episode, they send over tapes of that episode.

The judges vote and the Emmy gets awarded.  End of story.

Letterman's show was nominated in four categories: Writing, direction, technical direction and "Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series."  As mentioned, they've reportedly submitted Dave's September 17 show as an example in the last category and it's bothering some folks, who consider it the exploitation of something that shouldn't be exploited.  I don't know that I have an opinion on that but I'm guessing that it will work and it's not a big deal.

(By the way, because folks always wonder about this: Except when the Emmy is for a specific episode, the clips that are shown on the Emmy broadcast are not necessarily from the submitted episode.  So they may or may not show a clip from that episode on the awards show.)

Now then.  The piece in the Daily News makes what I consider a very silly statement about the fact that Letterman wasn't nominated as a performer…

The executive committee of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences should rethink the unfairness of the competition in this particular category.  But before that, they should look at themselves in the mirror and accept the guilt and shame that ought to come from allowing such a pivotal TV performance to go unrecognized.

This is silly because, even as the category is defined, Jon Stewart got a nomination.  Does anyone think that there's something wrong with a process that puts Jon Stewart and David Letterman in the same category?  No?  Well, that's the only thing that the executive committee can control…the way the categories are defined.  If the voters didn't vote for Letterman in sufficient number, it's hardly a sign of "guilt and shame" on behalf of the administrators of the awards.  (Or there's another possibility — that Letterman wasn't submitted — which wouldn't be the exec committee's fault, either.)

It is the perhaps-unfortunate nature of any kind of competition in which human beings vote that, sometimes, they don't vote the way you think they should.  This applies to award competitions but also to things like electing presidents, senators and governors…all of which involve a vastly more mature selection process and one which most voters probably approach with more consideration.  When someone moans that the Oscar or Emmy or Grammy went to the wrong person, I always want to ask, "Do you think the right person is always elected to public office?  If not, why would you expect that something as inconsequential as an entertainment award be decided by a flawless procedure?"

Yes, the Academy could have reconfigured the category rules in a manner that would have made it more likely…perhaps even guaranteed that Letterman would have been nominated.  But that would almost certainly have meant breaking two categories — male and female — into four, creating two more Emmy awards.

This is one of the problems that the Emmy Awards face: There are too damn many of them.  Every time someone doesn't get a nomination they think they deserve, they petition the Academy to break out some job description and lower the bar.  It's like if I don't get nominated so I run in and lobby to create a new category for "Outstanding script by a 6'3" half-Jewish kid who previously wrote Porky Pig comic books."  The funny thing is that, in the past, the Academy has occasionally given in and configured a new award that seems slanted to favor one potential winner…and when they've done this, someone else has popped up to win the first one.

None of this is very important.  Nothing about entertainment awards is very important.  But if we're going to have them, let's just play by the rules and not get bothered when that doesn't yield the result we think it should.  David Letterman has a shelf full of Emmy statuettes and will probably pick up another for Outstanding Series.  Somehow…call me reckless…I think the world can survive him not winning this year for Individual Performance.

Here's the way I always heard the story…

One day in the seventies, Paul Newman was having dinner with a friend of his, Ron Buck.  Buck was a writer, artist and entrepreneur who had, among other ventures, built the 9000 Sunset building, as well as a trendy West Hollywood discotheque known as The Factory.  He had worked without credit on several of Newman's films, and he and the actor would later share credit for the screenplay of the 1984 Harry and Son.  Buck was also great at cooking hamburgers on his backyard barbecue.

He had recently inherited an old house in which his mother had lived…on Highland Avenue in Hollywood, a few blocks south of Sunset.  The other dwellings on the block were now housing real estate offices and Buck was trying to decide if he should sell the property or lease it to some business or what.  Somehow, the suggestion arose that he open a gourmet burger restaurant there…a place where folks in the movie business who could afford better than Hamburger Hamlet could get one of Buck's specialties, served with a glass of expensive wine.

The story then gets a bit murkier.  Some say Newman put up the money and Buck put up the expertise and management.  Since Buck was pretty wealthy, this may not be true, or it may be partially true.  Some say Newman just agreed to be a frequent customer and to allow Buck to exploit that fact in publicity.  Either way, the house was remodeled into a restaurant, mostly by enclosing the backyard.  There was a wonderful, gnarled old tree in the middle of the yard and, rather than remove it, the renovators bricked in the ground around it and allowed the tree to remain, reaching up through an opening in the newly-installed roof.

The place was named Hamptons (no apostrophe) because it was to reflect the fun and leisure of vacationing in the Long Island community known as The Hamptons.  Various burgers were named for various friends and soon, it became a very "in" spot for folks who worked at nearby studios, such as Sunset-Gower or Paramount.  The place didn't do much of a dinner business but, at lunchtime, it provided a welcome alternative to the fast food emporiums and taco stands of the neighborhood.  At some point, it became so lucrative that Buck opened a branch on Riverside Drive in Toluca Lake.  Some say that after Newman had recouped his initial investment thrice over, he withdrew whatever financial interest he had And gave full ownership to Buck.  That is, if he even had any financial interest in it.

As you can see the story of Hamptons and Paul Newman's involvement is a bit fuzzy.  I vouch for none of the above, but for the fact that the two outlets of Hamptons became very popular.  Once upon a time, it was impossible to get a table at lunch without a long wait.  People loved the eighty varieties of burgers, including Stan's Fantasy (with sour cream and black caviar), The Nelly Burger (creamed horseradish and bacon) and The Foggy Bottom Burger (peanut butter and sour plum jam).  People also loved the little buffet that accompanied each burger, allowing you to further dress your sandwich and pile the plate with salads and side dishes.  The menu did not include french fries — odd for a burger joint — but if the German Potato Salad available in the buffet wasn't to your liking, you could order a platter of Potatoes Hamptons, which was basically hash-browns with sour cream.

I have dozens of memories of Hamptons, commencing when I worked at various studios up in Hollywood and we'd eat there once a week.  It was a great place to spot celebrities and/or talk about that new screenplay.  One friend of mine said it was the best place in Hollywood to meet out-of-work actresses who were waiting tables.

One time, I was lunching with the star of a TV special I was producing and we had a little trouble with a fellow at an adjoining table.  He was a bit drunk and he kept banging his chair into our table and acting like it was our fault.  Finally, my dining companion told him to knock it off, and the drunk stood up like he was ready to start brawling.  My friend stood up to face him and the inebriated gent suddenly realized he was staring at famed dirty wrestler, Roddy "Rowdy" Piper.  He immediately paid his check and left, and Roddy and I returned to our burgers.

This was in the mid-eighties.  As that decade ended, so did the popularity of a lot of restaurants in Hollywood.  An amazing percentage of them folded and Hamptons, while it managed to stay open, was rarely crowded.  It also wasn't very good.  I believe — again, this is fourth-hand info, maybe more — Buck passed away, as did the fellow he had managing the two eateries for him.  Whoever was running it tried a lot of different things, including the introduction of french fries, but it didn't help.  Around 1990, I had a meal there that was so lousy, I scratched Hamptons from my list of places to go.  I was not alone in this decision.

Then, just a few years later, the two outlets of Hamptons were put up for sale, and were quickly purchased.  One group of investors bought the one in Toluca Lake, completely renovated it and  since they didn't get custody of the name, reredubbed it "Mo's."  The original Hamptons on Highland became Hamptons Hollywood Cafe and the group that purchased it also did a lot of remodeling, bringing in a new chef and adding new items to the menu.  For some reason, they installed a "car phone" in the parking lot…a phone booth made out of an old Nash Metropolitan.  And they rounded up a number of investors, one of whom was me.

I never expected to make any money off my investment and, indeed, I didn't.  The whole point of it was to be able to say to friends, "Hey, let's have lunch at my restaurant."  Taken on that basis, it was a lot of fun.  The folks who actually operated the place had a lot of good ideas, some of which were quite amusing.  Since Hamptons had catered largely to an industry (show biz) crowd, they instituted an unusual pricing policy.  Members of the Screen Actors Guild, Writers Guild and Directors Guild paid 10% less, while agents had to pay 10% more.  The latter was meant as a joke but, amazingly, there were actually diners who said, "I'm an agent.  Do I really have to pay 10% more?"  A few of those who asked were told yes, and they did.

The quality of the new Hamptons varied a lot.  Sometimes, it was a great place to eat; sometimes, not.  I didn't have much to do with it except to (a) rewrite the menu to make it sillier, (b) make occasional suggestions and (c) add one menu item: The Groo Burger, based on the way my partner Sergio Aragonés likes his served…Grilled onions on top, then Mozzarella and Cheddar melted over the onions.  I also had the supreme honor of having the barbecued chicken sandwich named for me and so consumed many.

But business was never too good and, in the last year, it declined to an intolerable level.  The place was sold and, for several months, "closed for remodeling."  Last week, they tore down the house where Ron Buck's mother had once lived, and even uprooted and removed that grand, majestic tree.  As of yesterday, when I went by and took the above photo, all that remained of Hamptons was the Nash Metropolitan and half of one of the signs.  I'm not sure what the new owners plan to do with the land, though rumor has it they've decided on condominiums instead of another restaurant.

I already miss Hamptons, even though I stopped going in there about a year ago.  It's not my investment I miss.  I figure, I had enough fun and discounted chicken sandwiches to almost call it even on that count.  I just always found it to be a friendly place to lunch with real good burgers and a great crowd.  What more could you want?

In the above photo, the big guy on the right is Gene Moss, who for most of his career was a top comedy writer, often in tandem with a gent named Jim Thurman.  The little guy on the left is Shrimpenstein, the title character of a short-lived but well-remembered kids' show on Channel 9 in Los Angeles.  Shrimpenstein ran every Monday through Friday at 5:00 in the afternoon.  It was done live and a casual viewer might sometimes have gotten the notion that the managers of KHJ had gone out in the alley, found two drunks, bought them a few extra pints and sent them out to do a TV program, ostensibly for toddlers.

The station was going through a period where it was acting like its parents weren't home.  During this time, it also tried an afternoon dance party show called Groovy, which was broadcast live from Santa Monica Beach.  Fathers all across Los Angeles were racing to get home in time to watch the 15-year-old girls in bikinis flash the camera.  Some left work early so they could also catch Moss and Thurman's televised Happy Hour.

Shrimpenstein went on the air in January of '67.  At the time, almost every local TV station was trying to work a Soupy Sales knock-off, some of them amazingly close.  Channel 9 also offered up — briefly — a morning man named Bill Holly whose show was a precise clone of Soupy's: Pies in the face, guys at the door, dog puppet-gloves reaching into camera range, etc.  Same show but not as funny.  Shrimpenstein incorporated most of the same elements: One guy on camera, another working puppets just off-stage.  The difference was that this show was set in a kind of Transylvania castle with Moss playing Dr. Von Schtick, who was supposed to sound like Boris Karloff but who sounded more like Bobby "Boris" Pickett on the record, "Monster Mash."  Actually, late in the run (sometimes, late in any given episode), Moss would tire of the accent and announce, "I'm sick of this stupid voice" and just drop it.

His partner Jim Thurman was the unseen guy, playing various roles.  They had two "White Fang"-type hairy gloves.  One was Klaus, who was some kind of rude creature who, like Soupy's canines, reached into the scene from next to the camera.  The other came out of a box like "The Thing" on The Addams Family.  He was called Wilfred the Weiner Wolf because he was originally the spokeswolf for a brand of frankfurters that bought much of the commercial time on the program.  Then one day, Wilfred — who muttered everything under his breath so he sounded like an obscene phone caller — started explaining that their sponsor used only the finest ingredients, including live kitty cats.  Dr. Von Schtick gasped (this was apparently not in any script) and asked Wilfred, "You don't mean this fine product actually grinds up cats?"  Wilfred answered, "Yeah…they take people's kitty cats and throw them in the vats."  Following that broadcast, the hot dog company was no longer involved with Shrimpenstein and Wilfred was occasionally grumbling about having lost his weiner.

That was how it often went on Shrimpenstein.  It became one of those shows you were afraid to not watch for fear you'd miss Dr. Von Schtick exposing himself on the air or Wilfred saying the "f" word.  None of that occurred but there was forever a sense of danger.

One time, they were off the air because there had been a fire at the Channel 9 transmitter that had blacked out the entire station for much of one day.  The following afternoon, Dr. Von Schtick explained that he had been the cause of the blackout because one of his experiments had gone wrong.  There was a huge toggle-switch on the set — they called it "The Bull Switch" — which he would often throw to start a cartoon or something.  He walked over and, to demonstrate what he'd supposedly done the day before, threw the switch…and the station went to black again, this time intentionally but only for about thirty seconds.  That thirty seconds, however, was enough to panic the station managers who thought the transmitter had blown up once more.  One of them reportedly was on the phone screaming and firing technicians when he finally realized that it wasn't another disaster; just Moss and Thurman screwing around again.  (Around this time, the station also gave up on a micro-budgeted late night talk show hosted by Moss and Thurman, with Stan Worth as their bandleader.  For no visible reason, Gene and Jim were dressed as basketball referees and, going in and out of commercials, they would toss free throws through a hoop on the set or make their guests try.)

At times, Shrimpenstein was almost an average kids' show, as per the Soupy formula.  Soupy had his puppets, Pookie and Hippie, who would mime to records.  Shrimpenstein had The Tijuana Bats, who would dance to records that were played at double-speed, a la The Chipmunks.

Early on, they tried running the Marvel Super-Hero cartoons that had just been produced by the Grantray-Lawrence studio on the lowest of budgets.  Dr. Von Schtick would introduce each as, "Another Marvel mediocrity" or "Another one of those cartoons where nothing ever moves."  One time, he even suggested that kids switch over to Channel 11 and watch Roger Ramjet…a good cartoon.  Moss and Thurman had been the head writers, and had provided occasional voices for Roger Ramjet.  KHJ must have loved that.

And, of course, two or three times a week, Moss would get hit with a pie.  On the very last show, he dragged Thurman on-camera and pelted him with about ten of them.

Their last telecast came abruptly.  As I recall, they didn't say it was their last show, though they seem to have known.  The following Monday, Dr. Von Schtick and Wilfred and the Tijuana Bats were gone, and one of the station's newsmen was awkwardly working Shrimpenstein.  (Moss and Thurman hadn't had much more success with the dummy, which was built by famed puppet-maker Wah Chang.  First, Moss had tried supplying its voice but he was no ventriloquist.  Then, Thurman did the voice from off-camera while Moss clumsily moved the mouth, never remotely in sync.  Then, for a time, they just ignored their title character whenever possible.  I seem to remember one show where Dr. Von Schtick announced that Shrimpenstein would not be appearing that afternoon because "no one remembers where we left the stupid puppet.")  The show only lasted another week or two after their departure.

Soon after, there was a much-publicized rally in Griffith Park.  Billed as a campaign to get Shrimpenstein (the Moss-Thurman version) back on the air, it reportedly turned into Gene and Jim just doing all the material Channel 9 wouldn't let them do, angering some parents who'd brought their kids.  It was the last time I know of either performing anywhere.  For a time, they wrote for different TV shows, including a stint with Bob Hope, and operated a small company that produced humorous commercials.  At some point, they split and Moss worked for various shows and advertising agencies, while Thurman became a key writer for The Electric Company and, later, Sesame Street.

Thurman continues to work at such projects but Moss passed away last week, following a short bout with pancreatic cancer.  I never had the pleasure of meeting either gent in person (I spoke to Thurman a few times on the phone) but as a devout Shrimpenstein watcher, I feel like I've lost one of my childhood buddies.

(P.S. Thanks to Scott Shaw!, who shares my fond memories of the show, for pointing out an egregious error I made when I first posted this.  It has, of course, been fixed.)

Yes, I saw that Pink Lady and Jeff, a show I worked on long ago and far away, made TV Guide's list of the 50 Worst TV Shows of All Time.  It clocked in at #35 and I think I'm annoyed that it wasn't either higher or lower.  I never quite understand these lists.  It always seems like some of the listings are "bad" in a good way, others are "bad" in a bad or incompetent way and still others are "bad" in an offensive way.  I also wonder if some of the folks who voted in this one, whoever they are, even saw all the shows — like Turn-On or You're In the Picture — or if they're just going by reputations.  (I saw both of those one-night wonders, by the way.  Turn-On was by no means a bad show.  It was yanked after one airing because some of the more conservative ABC affiliates didn't like its politics, though ABC found it easier to say viewers disliked it.  You're In the Picture wasn't much worse than the average game show of its day but it earned its "fame" because the host, Jackie Gleason, went out the following week and spent the entire half hour apologizing for the first episode.)

By the way: The show I worked on was never actually called Pink Lady and Jeff.  That's what everyone on the show and at the network wanted to call it, and it slipped into some NBC promos and publicity that way.  But the company that owned the Pink Lady act was quite insistent that the name of the show be Pink Lady and no Jeff.  At one point, they were threatening to sue anyone who called it Pink Lady and Jeff, or even to withhold their stars' services.  The second threat caused a lot of us to say, "Oh, please, please," but they never made good on it.  (The two girls who comprised Pink Lady, Mie and Kei, couldn't have cared less.  They just wanted to get the six episodes over with and go back to Japan.)

The title was argued about for weeks before the show debuted.  More effort went into it than into the show.  Finally, someone high up at NBC — it may have been Fred Silverman — went to the lawyers for the Pink Lady company and said, "We must have Jeff Altman's name in the title of the show."  The lawyers came back and said, okay, fine.  They would consent to it only if the title were phrased so as to make clear that Pink Lady was/were the star(s) of the show, more so than Jeff.  They suggested the title be — and it actually was, for a couple of days there — Pink Lady Starring Mie and Kei With Jeff Altman.  Everyone finally gave in and the title became Pink Lady, with the "and Jeff" used unofficially and with occasional threats of legal action.  I still think that if we could have gotten rid of the Pink Lady part and gone with just Jeff, it would have been a darn good show.

E-mail buddy Cory Strode writes:

I was a huge [Dennis] Miller fan, and love most of what he does, but this year the show just hasn't been as good as in year's past. He's lost that sharp edge and was really harping on older topics…it's time to let O.J., Bill Clinton and the like go.  Sadly, the last two times I saw him perform here in Minneapolis (a year apart) he did pretty much the same stand-up…you have talked in columns past about how comedians have a "solid 45" of old material they know works and use it if they feel the act not doing as well as they would like.  Sadly, Miller did his solid 45 with very few variations, which is bad for a comedian who is best known for his quick wit and topical humor.

I pretty much agree with the above.  Dennis Miller has no greater admirer than Yours Truly.  He genuinely brought a fresh, witty approach to stand-up at a time when too many guys were up there asking, "What's the deal with these people who work at 7-Eleven stores?"  I've had people tell me Dennis Miller jokes without identifying the source and I said, "That sounds like something Dennis Miller would come up with."  How many other comics of his generation have a distinctive style not just of delivery but of writing?

But I agree, that style does not lend itself to much repetition.  I could (and did) hear Sam Kinison do the bit about world hunger a dozen times and always enjoy it…but when Miller repeats something, it just sounds like old material.  I saw him live only once.  It was at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas with Rita Rudner as his opening act.  This is maybe seven years ago.  She was very funny but when Mr. Miller took stage, the show was darn near over.  He didn't do one line that I hadn't heard from him before and, even if I hadn't known the jokes, most of them were about "current events" that had long since been retired as topics from most other comics' acts.  Worse, he did the whole set with an attitude that suggested he had the limo double-parked and couldn't wait to get his check and get the hell outta there.  I felt like yelling back to the stage, "Hey, Cha-Cha!  We didn't fork over half a C-note apiece for the ducats to see some clown whose energy level makes Perry Como look like Roberto Benigni on crack."

Still, you know what?  I like him so much, I was willing to write that one off as a bad night.

I'll even forgive him his last month or three of Dennis Miller Live, which have not been up to standard, making one suspect he knew the end was nigh.  There was a lot of crankiness there without a punch line attached.  Except when he's really, really liked his guest, he's been acting like the limo is triple-parked and blocking oncoming traffic…

And I still like the guy.  I'll miss that show and would love to see it land somewhere else because, when he was enjoying it, so was I…and I think it was the perfect vehicle for him.  Even if that show doesn't survive in some format, I'm sure he'll turn up in something else and be terrific in it.  At least, until he loses interest…

According to a press release I just received, NBC has purchased the right to rerun the 1962 Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol later this year.  Also according to that press release, June Foray is in the voice cast of that holiday special, which is not true.  But, assuming the rest of it's accurate, this is an interesting move.  The animated adaptation of Dickens' A Christmas Carol was always, I felt, one of the two most entertaining cartoon specials ever produced for TV, the other being A Charlie Brown Christmas.  The Magoo affair succeeds despite rather dreadful animation…poor even by the standards of limited television animation.  Matter of fact, the special's previous owner was at one point considering whether it might have more marketability if they went back and, using the exact same audio track, did all new design and animation.  He (the late Henry Saperstein) never did…but when he told me he was contemplating the cost-benefit ratio, I said, "You're not going to touch the script, voices or songs, I trust" and he said, "Oh, God, no.  You couldn't improve on any of that."

He was right.  Jim Backus, Jack Cassidy, Paul Frees and the others are terrific, even if none of them was June Foray.  And the score by Jule Styne (whose name is misspelled in that press release) and Bob Merrill is first-rate…one of the few times an animated TV special has thought to go out and engage top Broadway composers.

Someone at Classic Media (new proprietors of the nearsighted Quincy Magoo) pulled off a deft move in arranging this.  The special has been out on tape and rerun on low-profile cable channels for years, and you wouldn't think it would go back to network.  I'm guessing someone at NBC was a big fan on it as a kid, plus Classic Media was probably willing to give it to them cheap to get Magoo back in the public eye.  Even if they let NBC run it for nothing, it would be a wise deal for them and, of course, for NBC.

I don't think a lot of people realize how prime-time network animated specials have virtually gone the way of the passenger pigeon.  Disney does a few for ABC but they're mostly a matter of that company producing something they can market in many venues, one of which is ABC prime-time.  And there are a few more Peanuts specials in the pipeline, which ABC is doing because they think it's sound marketing to marry one of their Winnie the Pooh specials with a Charlie Brown show to fill an hour slot.  But there are very few specials of any kind being produced these days for ABC, NBC and CBS, and even fewer of the animated variety.

Few people seem to have noticed this.  Every few months, I'm approached by someone who has a property — a comic strip or a character from some other venue — they hope to adapt for animation.  They often speak of the weekly series they see as inevitable and then toss off, "And we might be willing to warm up by doing four animated specials a year for one of the major networks."  I'm not sure the major networks, collectively, are producing four new animated specials a year of all the available and proven properties put together…and even at the peak of such production, you had to have a helluva track record to get more than one a year.  Managing one for a new character would be an incredible achievement…though that could change.  The few that are airing have done pretty well and if Magoo continues the trend, that could bode well for more production.

One hopes we'll see Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol via a good, newly color-corrected print and that, assuming it's in an hour slot, the edits to allow more commercial time will be done more judiciously than has usually been the case.  The best Merrill-Styne song (the ballad, the name of which I do not know) usually hits the floor first, often followed by Magoo's opening "Broadway" song.  A friend of mine swears he once saw it with the one of the three ghosts eliminated, though I find that unlikely.

In any event, I think it's a terrific show.  It's also a pretty terrific adaptation of Mr. Dickens' story…in many ways, more faithful than some of the more serious, live-action attempts.