Like a lot of you, I'm hooked on playing Wordle from the New York Times every day. It's getting to be just about the only thing dependable in the New York Times. Several weeks ago, I did something that you can only do through sheer dumb luck. I saved a screen image of it to put up here and then forgot to do so. Here it is now — and I swear to you, this is legit…
There's a new version of Hollywood Squares now on CBS and my first thought was that this show gets revived more often than any decent villain who dies in a DC or Marvel comic book. But then I looked it up and say that the original series hosted by Peter Marshall ran from 1966 to 1980, then it was part of the Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour from 1983 to 1984 with Jon Bauman hosting the Hollywood Squares half. A syndicated version hosted by John Davidson ran from 1986 to 1989 and another syndicated version — this one hosted by Tom Bergeron — ran from 1998 to 2004.
So this is only the fifth revival? Apparently so but it sure feels like it's on its ninety-eighth resurrection. That may be because of a few variations that have been tried like Nashville Squares on CMT and a music-oriented version on VH1.
This new one is hosted by Nate Burleson, who's fine but like everyone on this show, a little over-energized. Every putative celebrity seated in the big tic-tac-toe board is a superstar legend and everything they say is hilarious. This gets a bit grating when it's one of those celebrities you've never heard of, let alone celebrated. They all, of course, have a funny answer to each question Mr. Burleson puts to them but some of them aren't too good at pretending they came up with that funny answer — or even the non-funny answer they give after that.
Hollywood Squares has always supplied its Paul Lyndes with snappy "zingers" and decent fluff answers but their Paul Lyndes were, I guess, better at faking this kind of thing than most of their current Paul Lyndes.
And like most game shows these days, the program has the feeling of being edited and seriously sweetened. Once upon a time, game shows were live and you were watching actual, right-before-your-eyes competitions. As with most talk shows — and others that allegedly present real-time proceedings — as technological advances made it easier to edit, it became increasingly difficult for producers to resist tightening up these three seconds of Nothing Happening, cleaning up that bobble, etc. Sometimes, even when it's well done, it adds a subtle sense of unreality to the proceedings.
Drew Barrymore is the Center Square on this version and one of its producers. Henry Winkler was one of the producers of the Tom Bergeron incarnation so I guess the premise is that you need a celebrity as producer to help round up other celebrities…or something like that. I like that the show moves quickly and they haven't tried to reinvent it so as to award someone life-changing money. If someone could win a million dollars on it, it might not be as much fun as it is…because despite the above quibbling, I kinda liked it. The only big changes I'd make would be to stop editing it, stop gushing over its "stars" and to put a CGI Charley Weaver in the lower left square.
In 1974, Marlo Thomas and a bunch of her friends — some of them quite famous — put together Free To Be You And Me, a special which sought to break down antiquated stereotypes. Or at least, they were stereotypes that should have been antiquated, having to do with how boys should act and how girls should act. Basically, the premise was that one should not let their life be ruled and their possibilities limited by someone else's gender-related prejudices.
In the following years, we saw these prejudices become someone less potent. They haven't all gone away but a lot have and I'm at a loss to explain how this special might have advanced the changes, except that I think it had some impact. I also think we might need a new version of this special to knock down a lot of stupid beliefs about human beings who don't fit neatly into either descriptor in a society that recognizes only two options. I'm a big believer in the "None of my business" viewpoint about what consenting, informed adults can do with their bodies.
I also think that, deep down, most of the politicians and public figures who are all in a dither about these issues really don't care about them. They've just found that there's money and power to be attained from demonizing people who are just doing what they feel is right for themselves. Unfortunately, there's always money and power to be attained from crusading against minorities.
Here from 1974 is Free To Be You And Me…
Because none is needed for this…
Former RNC Chairwoman Lara Trump said hirings should be entirely merit-based during a stop by Fox News on Thursday. The one-time television producer and aspiring pop star, who landed her role as the head of the RNC with no political experience, had no answers for why someone other than the most qualified candidate should get a job during an interview on The Ingraham Angle.
"We oughtta base hirings off of competence and merit, and that's it," The president's daughter-in-law said. "When you are hiring someone for any other reason, then you are doing a disservice to the public."
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis debuted on CBS on September 29, 1959. Based on a popular book by Max Shulman, which had already been made into a movie, this new situation comedy starred Dwayne Hickman as Dobie and Bob Denver as his beatnik pal, Maynard G. Krebs. The series lasted four seasons and its name was quietly changed to just Dobie Gillis for a while, then it was Max Shulman's Dobie Gillis and I think it went back to The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis at some point. This is not something that I — or as far as I can tell, anyone — noticed at the time.
I remember liking it a lot back then and thinking it was very smart and very "hip" comedy. Then again, I was seven in 1959 and maybe not the best judge of what was smart or hip. I knew it was smarter and hipper than most other situation comedies back then but that wasn't hard to be. In later years, I remember liking the reruns but thinking they maybe weren't quite as wonderful as I recalled.
I also remember buying the Many Loves of Dobie Gillis comic book which DC launched not all that long after the show debuted. The first one hit the stands on 3/8/60 and it ran for 26 issues, actually lasting almost a year longer than the show did. Sales (obviously) declined when CBS took the program off. While it lasted, the comic did a pretty good job of replicating the show, I thought. There's a bit of a mystery though as to who did this very good job. There were credits only on the last few issues.
Bob Oksner was the main artist and he was ideally suited for the book as he was good at drawing likenesses of real people and real (italics for emphasis) good at drawing pretty ladies. In fact, Oksner was one of those artists — and he was not the only one of these — who didn't get much recognition for much of his career because he didn't spend most of it drawing super-heroes. About when he retired, which was in the mid-eighties, fans and students of comic art finally began to say, "Hey, this guy was terrific." I guess it takes time for some of them to notice a good artist and Oksner had only been drawing comic books and comic strips since 1940.
But he got a fair amount of help on those 26 issues of Dobie. Mike Roy did some of the penciling work here and there and Mort Drucker seems to have pitched in now and then. (Drucker also drew unrelated gag pages that ran in some issues.) Sam Burlockoff did some of the inking and there may have been a few other helpers. Oksner appears to have acted as a kind of Art Director for the book, occasionally retouching the work of others.
Who wrote the comic is more elusive. The last two or three issues were written by Arnold Drake but only the last two or three. Various names have been tossed about as to who wrote the rest and certainly a number of them were unofficially written by Oksner. Why he did this "unofficially" is an interesting story.
The editor of the comic up until #24 "officially" wrote some of them but it's been said — by Oksner and others — that this editor would coerce someone else into writing scripts for him for little or no money, then he would pocket the entire writer's fee himself. His modus operandi, as reported by others, was to tell someone like Bob, "I advanced some money to a writer who was in dire need of money and then he never handed in a script. The company may take legal action against him unless someone can write a script I can pass off as his and I don't have the time."
You might think a person would have to be pretty gullible to fall for this but back then, there were editors who extorted kickbacks from freelancers — "If you want work from me, you have to slip me some bucks." Some freelancers — and remember, these are mostly guys who grew up in The Great Depression — accepted this as a necessity in order to get steady work. This particular editor allegedly did this too, and Oksner admitted he sometimes paid kickbacks or wrote scripts without pay. He wrote some issues of Dobie Gillis though, try as he might, he couldn't identify which issues.
Some have guessed Cal Howard might have written at least a couple. Howard wrote a lot of DC's funnier comics including The Adventures of Bob Hope for the same editor around the same time but there's no evidence he wrote Dobie Gillis. In 2002, Oksner was an honored guest at Comic-Con and I got to interview this very nice, talented man who, alas, didn't recall much about back when he worked in this comic. When I asked him if Howard wrote any issues of Dobie Gillis, Bob replied, "Probably but I don't remember if he did." So make of that what you will. All I can say for sure is that I thought some of the scripts were pretty good.
Someone at DC in 1969 must have thought so too because that's when they brought it back — but not as Dobie Gillis. As I've written before here, I thought DC management from about '68 to '75 did a lot of things wrong. They did a lot of things right too but those included being too hasty to give up on some of those things they did right. DC then paid nothing to writers and artists when their past work was reprinted…not a cent. Nothing. Bupkis. And they tried a few times to repackage old material as new.
This, I thought, was one of the things they did wrong. They no longer had the license to make Dobie Gillis comics but there was apparently nothing stopping them from reprinting those old issues if they changed the names and faces…and while they were at it, Maynard got an upgrade (?) from beatnik to hippie. Oksner redrew the covers and they looked a little contemporary…but inside the book, someone who was not as skilled as he was retouched the hair styles and clothings and other identifying markings. They relettered some names, too. But here — rather than explain it further, let me just show you what they did…
See what they did there? They didn't change the stories. They didn't change the dialogue except to change Dobie to Willy, Maynard to Windy and other named characters to differently-named characters. Put 'em together and what have you got? Why, The Way-Out World of Windy and Willy. It lasted for one issue of Showcase and four issues of its own book. Nelson Bridwell, who was on staff then, told me it might have been the worst-selling book the company ever published.
And why wouldn't it be? America had changed a lot in those years and in '69, it was way outta step with what teenagers were doing and thinking and how they were talking. This practice of updating old stories and passing them off as contemporary to save money is probably what killed off the love comic genre; that and trying to do stories about dating (and by implication, sex) under the Comics Code.
Reprinting a classic comic intact as a historical piece can be very saleable, especially these days when reprints usually have better paper and reproduction than the original publications. But I can't think of many times that customers bought refried, clumsily-updated old material. Matter of fact, at the moment, I can't think of any…but I'm saying "many" just in case there are one or two.
I have a few more articles coming up here about things I think DC did wrong between 1968 and 1975. They include canceling a lot of very good comics too quickly…but they were sure wise to get rid of this one, a.s.a.p.
John Oliver returns with new shows on February 16…
I caught a little of the hearings today in which Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was quizzed about things that would matter if he is to be our secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. I got the feeling that all or most Republicans who get to vote on his nomination are thinking that the guy is an uninformed and dangerous idiot but they've got to vote for him because, you know, Donald Trump.
Politifact and FactCheck.org each list some of what the man got wrong or where he tried to have it both ways on an either/or issue.
Everyone seems to be talking about the price of eggs these days like (first of all) it's a crisis of epic proportions and (second of all) it's some sort of failure by either the Biden administration or the Trump administration, depending on which of the two you wish to view as utterly incompetent. But I dunno. I still seem to be able to order eggs for around thirty-five cents each from Costco (that's them above) and while that's higher than just a few years ago, the cost still doesn't seem to be that horrible.
I got two dozen from Costco last Sunday. The Ralphs Market near me seems to have them for between 75¢ and a buck an egg which leaves me to ponder a couple of questions. How is Costco getting their eggs at a price low enough for them to sell them for around a third of what Ralphs is charging? Before you answer that Costco is such a huge retailer that they can get deals that smaller markets can't, remember that Ralphs is part of the Kroger corporation and they're pretty danged big, too.
Are the people at Costco just nicer to not raise prices at this time? Or is this a loss-leader for them like all that cheap toilet paper in the rear of each Costco warehouse or the hot dogs in the food court?
Is the management of Ralphs taking advantage of a shortage to jack prices up more than necessary? I would imagine Costco customers wouldn't bitch too much if Costco did raise egg prices as long as they stayed well below chain stores like Ralphs.
And is it possible that the price of eggs, which seems to have a lot to do with the Bird Flu, is just one of those things that no President of the United States can do a whole lot about? I mean, it's not like this country has warehouses full of strategic egg reserves that the Chief Exec can release.
Still, people who thought COVID was a hoax or a minor inconvenience like the flu seem to be really upset at what it costs to make an omelet. I don't understand these priorities.
From a 1983 episode of Late Night with David Letterman, here's Larry "Bud" Melman performing stand-up comedy…or at least trying to. If you've never been to an Open Mike Night at a comedy club where anyone can get up to perform, trust me. You will see far worse than this…
"Early Bird" hotel bookings are now open for Comic-Con International, which takes place a mere 176 days from today in San Diego. And there's a coincidence: 176 is the exact number of panels I'll be moderating there.
"Early Bird" hotel bookings are for hotels that aren't that close to the convention center but (a) they're usually cheaper, (b) all or most of them are on the shuttle line that will get you to the convention center and (c) they're available now. It's a few months until the stampede commences for the hotels closer to where the action is and you might find yourself wishing you'd booked one of those "Early Bird" opportunities. Find out more on this page.
After reading this post here, a reader (who prefers to remain anonymous) sent this to me…
Up until last November, I spent nearly a decade working for one of the big companies that provides TV listings for print, newspapers and cable guides. I edited listings for hundreds of stations, everything from small, local independents to Top 10 network flagships and I can assure you that the Big 4 networks all still produce a half-hour promo program in the fall, and for spring as well.
They are not aired as part of the network schedule, but are optional programs that we only listed if the local stations included them on their schedule. That varied from station to station, with some rarely or never airing them, many airing them only once and usually on a weekend timeslot that could be overnight but more often was in the afternoon on a slow sports day or in prime access. And some local channels will air them multiple times, either because the network or the local station is really excited about the new lineup, or more likely (just a guess) because the channel needs some filler programming.
These programs are part of optional programs all the major networks produce, which also includes religious specials (both holiday ones as you'd expect but usually one or two a year that stations always air on a Sunday morning, if they choose to air them at all) and sports specials that are optionally available virtually every week, especially during NFL season. In the system we used, these were called O (for Optional) channels and each network has one in the database. These are not actual channels but rather a place in the database that the data and metadata is stored as if they were real, and if a station listed an optional program from the network, that is where we would pull it from to add it to a specific station's listings as a one-time only (OTO) addition to regular programming.
That's all interesting but the promo stuff I worked (briefly) on wasn't formatted for that kind of broadcast…or at least, it wasn't when I worked on it. It also wasn't prepped, as some other e-mailers suggested, for the network upfronts to show to affiliates or potential advertisers. I suspect the material was for reporters who might be writing articles about the upcoming season but that's just a guess. Nobody told me exactly what I was doing. This is not an uncommon situation at TV networks.
About the only thing they told me — and this seemed to be true of all three networks at the time — was that the main thing they were selling was the concept of Family. Think of the network as part of your Family. Watch their network with your Family. If you believe in America and the concept of Family, you have to watch their network. But they had somehow resisted working the word "Family" into their slogan for that season. Instead, the slogan was "That Special Feeling" — which of course describes many a thing you can't do on television.
By the way: My old pal Pat O'Neill recognized the voice of the narrator of the ABC video. It was William Schallert, who at one time or another seemed to be on every TV series of the sixties but was best known as a professor on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis or the father on The Patty Duke Show. There may have been some sort of F.C.C. regulation requiring every show to hire him, Dabbs Greer and Burt Mustin at least once. Burt Mustin was probably especially good at giving you That Special Feeling.
I'm a few days tardy in noting the passing of Art Nichols, a very fine artist and a real good guy. The cause was cancer and he was 63. Comic book fans knew him from his work on, among many others, The Punisher, The New Mutants, Team Titans, Conan, Justice League of America and Magnus, Robot Fighter. He also assisted a great many artists (including at times, Neal Adams) on work that did not bear his name. I knew him as all that plus as a guy I liked to hang out with at Comic-Con, talking about just about everything but mainly comics.
Sorry to hear the bad news. Like I said: A very fine artist and a real good guy.
I don't know if they still do them but the three major TV networks used to preview each new season with a promo film about the newly-debuting programs. I worked briefly on the one for ABC's 1983 Fall Season and no one ever gave me a satisfactory answer to where these promo films were shown.
This is the one for ABC's 1969 season. You won't remember most of these shows but you may spot some people who later appeared on shows you do remember…
The "45 Years Ago Today" refers to when I first posted this blog item, which was on November 8, 2006. I was writing then of my memories of the Bel Air Fire of 1961. A reader of this blog called this post to my attention and thought it said some interesting things in light of all the fires that have occurred lately in Southern California. So here it is again — and don't bother clicking on the link near the end. It used to lead to, as I recall, a pretty good article posted by the Los Angeles Fire Department but it no longer leads anywhere…
45 years ago today, much of Bel Air was on fire. Bel Air is a loosely-defined area of Los Angeles nestled to the east of and below the Santa Monica Mountains. I don't know if this is still the case but years ago, a realtor told me there were no official boundaries for "Bel Air." You could advertise a trailer park home in the worst part of South Central L.A. as choice Bel Air property and not technically be guilty of false advertising. Nonetheless, everyone pretty much knows what area you're talking about when you mention Bel Air. It's a large community of twisting, hard-to-drive streets lined with fancy, expensive homes, surrounded by lush foliage.
In 1961, they had a terrible fire there that was made worse by all that foliage. I was nine at the time and it was the first time I was aware of a genuine disaster — one that involved people I knew. My family lived some distance from Bel Air but we were close enough to see flames on the hills and clouds of dense, red-black smoke that filled the Northern sky. There were kids in my class who lost their homes and others who told of agonizing days when they couldn't get into the area to find out if their houses were still there. A lot of famous people suffered as a result of the calamity, including Burt Lancaster, whose kids went to my school…and everyone wanted to help. My mother and I helped out for two days at a little command center to which people donated blankets and clothes and other necessities to aid all the victims. As a kid, you tend to think of property as something to be kept and owned and possessed and not given away…but here were cars pulling up, dropping off tons of useful items, some of which were purchased specifically to be donated. I thought it was a wonderful outpouring of compassion and selflessness.
As I recall, it was a one-two punch for the people of Bel Air. The fire was as bad as it was because we were under several years of drought conditions and the hills were covered with dry brush. Then — wouldn't you know it? — a few days after the fire, we had torrential rains. It arrived too late to help the fire fighters and of course, since the mountains above Bel Air were now devoid of plants, all that water rushed straight down the hillsides. Some of the houses that had escaped the fire didn't escape the floods.
The other memory I have of that week was the news coverage. All the stations went to non-stop news but it was a local outfit, KTLA Channel 5, that had everyone's attention. That was because they were the only TV station in town — maybe even in the country — with a helicopter equipped to transmit live video. It was stunning to see those images on television…and then I could go to the window, look out in the distance and see the fire, plus I could see the KTLA TeleCopter hovering over it, sending back the pictures.
Here's an article from the L.A. Fire Department telling of the Bel Air Fire. I suppose it's a tacky subject for nostalgia but I do recall it as the first time I was ever aware of how people need to band together in times of tragedy…and will. It was also the first time I think I was aware of the power of live television, particularly in terms of immediacy and the conveyance of useful, necessary information.
UPDATE, LATER ON 1/27/2025: I take back what I said above about the link to the L.A. Fire Department Report on the Bel Air Fire. Reader-of-this-site Ron Glasgow found its new location and now that link will lead you to it. Thanks, Ron!
I've mentioned Ed Bluestone a number of times on this blog — a very funny (I think) stand-up comedian who never quite got the attention and bookings I thought he deserved. Before he did stand-up, he worked for a time for the National Lampoon and reportedly was the guy who devised one of the most-imitated covers…the one with a photo of a cute dog and the threat, "If You Don't Buy This Magazine, We'll Kill This Dog."
I'm embarrassed that I completely missed the obits last year for Mr. Bluestone. They said he died from complications of a stroke on October 24 and that's depressing. He had a unique style and unless you hang out a lot at comedy clubs, you don't know how rare that is. So many guys who think they "have what it takes" turn up with mediocre imitations of whoever's hot at the moment and, too often, they crib their material from other comics who aren't as visible.
One night at the Improv, I heard a guy who was unknown and has rightly remained that way…but he had a couple of lines that made me think, "Hey those sound like Ed Bluestone jokes" and it turned out they were. Shamelessly stolen from Ed. But that's how special Ed Bluestone was. He had a way of thinking that was different from other comics and we always need more of that.
I'm sorry I missed the reports of his demise. I'm also sorry I can't find one of his best spots on the web to embed here. This one is the best I can do at the moment. It's pretty good but one of these days, I'll find and feature him at his best and you'll really understand why I liked him so much…