Category Archives: To Be Filed

There's a Red Skelton movie called A Southern Yankee in which he plays a spy who goes back and forth between being a soldier for the North and a soldier for the South. At one point, he has to walk the battlefield between the warring factions and he gets cheers from both armies because he's wearing a uniform that is half-and-half — a Yankee costume on one side, a Rebel costume on the other, plus he's carrying a flag that is North on one side, South on the other. So each army sees him as a patriot for their team. It's a great joke, one that is often attributed to Buster Keaton, who was employed as a gagman on this and other Skelton films.

And I keep thinking of it as I hear Donald Trump attempting to walk the line on Immigration, trying to convince one side he'll throw "criminal illegal immigrants" outta the U.S. within an hour of being sworn in as prez but also trying to convince folks who are against mass deportations that he is, as well. It didn't work for Skelton and it won't work for Trump.

Here's a piece about just a few of the many, many TV shows that cannot be rerun today because someone didn't have the foresight to preserve the tapes or films. The one on this list that's really a shame is The Shari Lewis Show, which was on Saturday morn from 1960 'til 1963…and which I remember as a wonderful, clever program full of great stories and songs. Some of it has been preserved though. I wrote about it here and linked you to a few brief clips.

Jack Kirby would have been 99 years old today. I write and talk a lot about the man because I think a lot about the man and I get asked a lot about the man.

I like that people seem to be getting that while he was an extraordinary artist, the great drawing was an extension of something more remarkable about Jack: He was a great thinker. He had ideas and visions and insights on a whole different level from the way most of us have ideas and visions and insights. Jack's were vast and prescient and always about what he called The Big Picture.

A teacher I had back in high school used to say that the mark of a great writer was not fully evident when you read their work but rather when you re-read their work. Was there something there the second time you didn't get at first read? The third time? The tenth? Because, she said, a great writer sets you to thinking about the characters and the concepts…and as you think, you get more and more out of what's on the paper.

I was 17 when I met Jack. At the time, I admired how he drew. Just about everyone did. But working for him for a few years and knowing him for the rest of his life, I came to more admire how he thought. A fellow I knew back then — a devout Marvel fan — went out and paid a visit to the Kirbys, who were sometimes way too hospitable in terms of inviting strangers into their home. The fan had but one goal: He wanted a free, original sketch from Jack.

Didn't want to talk to him. Didn't want to ask him questions. He just wanted Jack to do him a drawing, preferably of all his favorite Marvel heroes in a big crowd scene.

He came away disappointed that he didn't get it. Jack did do a lot of free sketches for people over the years, largely because he liked pleasing people. But he cut way, way back on that in the seventies because of several incidents where he realized that all he was doing was giving someone something they could and would sell for a lot of money. His profession — writing and drawing comic books — did not pay him so well that he could indulge in that kind of philanthropy; not when he was constantly worried about being able to provide for his own family.

So instead of spending a half-hour drawing something magnificent for his visitor, Jack spent a couple of hours talking with the guy, telling him stories, etc. The fan left angry, unaware he'd been given something far more valuable than a pencil sketch of The Hulk.

You cannot go visit Jack since we lost him back in 1994. Still, a pretty high percentage of his work remains in print or is easy to find because it was recently in print and will soon be again. It has a wonderful endurance and an ability to speak to new generations, far more so than other concurrently-created work which was perhaps more celebrated at the time. I like reading Jack over and over and damned if there isn't something new there every time I revisit a story I read before. It's not as good as actually talking to him but it's still pretty good.

At the moment, I'm revisiting a lot of his staggering output because I'm trying to finish a long-promised book that will tell the world everything I know about Jack. When you see it, which I hope will be some time next year for his centennial, you will understand why it took so long. Some of that is because I had to keep stopping work on it to wait out certain legal matters. Most of it is because he is such an awesome subject that it takes a lot of pages and a lot of thinking to get anywhere near close to The Big Picture.

Happy 99, Kirby. I just started to write, "You left us too soon" but with someone like you, any time is too soon. I'm so glad we still have so much of you around — what you did and what you inspired.

This is a whole bunch of people in sequins performing "Up the Ladder to the Roof"…

Ol' pal Andy Ihnatko wrote in about the Marvin Kaplan Story I posted here the otherday…

What an amazing story you posted this morning! It left me with a couple of questions, though I imagine that they're unanswerable. I'm blown away that he tried the same trick twice, even after it cost his client a job the first time. Do agents of that ilk have terrible memories, or are they just that dumb?

And have you ever wanted to reach out to one of these clients about their rep's behavior? I have a book agent and I'd hate to learn at her funeral that I was the top pick to write George Lucas' official biography, but she insisted that I get cast as Darth Andy in a future film and made it a dealbreaker.

Your story reminded me of something that occurred to me while listening to an interview with the principal screenwriter of WALL*E. He talked about how everything clicked into place when he happened to listen to that song from Hello, Dolly and how intensely he and the rest of the team hoped Pixar/Disney could make a deal to use it. I immediately imagined a Broadway Danny Rose type of agent, fantasizing that he was back in the good old days when he routinely held the big boys' feet to the fire, smelled blood and an infinite checkbook in Disney…and ruined everything.

Ego is a terrible thing when aimed in the wrong direction, isn't it?

There are agents who harm clients' careers by being greedy. More often in Hollywood, I think that happens with managers who don't just want to get their clients a job but want to get one for themselves.

A friend of mine, a stand-up comic, was picked for a regular role on a new situation comedy. It was not the lead role, but it was a good one and the money offered was quite acceptable — or at least, it would have been had the offer reached my friend. When they called his manager to present it, he did not check with his client before demanding twice as much, plus he [the manager] had to be credited as Executive Producer and paid even more. The show said hell, no. The manager stood firm. The show hired someone else for the role.

That kind of thing happens a lot but I'll tell you what happens more often: The client and agent playing Good Cop/Bad Cop with the agent as Bad Cop. In the story I told, we don't know (and will never know) if it was the actor calling the shots, telling the agent what to demand. Sometimes, especially when the actor has a rep for being nice and easy-going, it's because he stays out of those battles, pretends he's totally uninvolved and lets his agent be the heavy.

The actor may have been unaware of what his agent was doing. Or maybe the actor told his agent, "I don't want to do any jobs for under X dollars." That's a perfectly ethical thing to say. Everyone has the right to set his or her own price. There are even offers in this world so low, I won't accept them.

The actor may have done that and the agent, wanting to earn a commission, may have been trying to manipulate me into an offer that his client would accept. Or maybe the actor was telling the agent, "Agree to it, then call them at the last minute and raise the money." There are people who do that. There was a famous stand-up comedian who was notorious for trying stunts like that. His agent would agree to, say, $1000 for the gig. Then the client would show up at the job, ask to confirm the fee and when told what it was, feign shock: "That's not possible! I don't work for that and my agent knows it! Either you pay me $2500 or I walk right out that door!" Occasionally, he got away with it, getting a small raise if not the whole thing.

Come to think of it, I had a comic book artist do that to me once back when I was editing funnybooks. He agreed on the rate and accepted the job…then he handed it in late and knowing I was desperate to get the material to press, told me we'd agreed on a different, higher fee. We argued and I told him I was paying what I said I was paying and he backed down. Later, he apologized and told me that one of his mentors — a rather famous comic artist — had told him to always try that.

While I was writing the above, this message came in from Jim Houghton…

The ethics-challenged agent for the unnamed actor may have been using these tricks with his client's full knowledge, but it seems like maybe not. Is there any ethical and/or socially acceptable way for you, as a producer, to check with the actor and let him know what happened? Obviously, a producer going around an agent to "talk" to an actor directly is potentially an ethical red flag. But if the guy was not that famous and maybe didn't have enough work, and if his agent was losing jobs the actor needed through the use of sleazy tactics, well, it sure feels like the actor is entitled to know. And of course, one can imagine what the agent might have said to his client: "Sorry, this Evanier guy cancelled your job at the last minute again!" So you may even have had a personal reason to let the guy know what really occurred.

I suspect I know the answer to my question — no, unless you run into the guy and he asks what happened, you can't reasonably take pro-active action. But this isn't like going out of your way to let a friend know their spouse is cheating on them (not necessarily a "favor"), and — if the agent had, say, asked for a kickback, I assume it would be your moral or even legal responsibility to let the actor know. Still, this wasn't fraud in the stricter sense. How does it work in this case?

You answered your own question: Unless you run into the guy and he asks what happened, you do nothing. The actor has a right to designate the person who is going to negotiate on his behalf. If he picked wrong — if the agent is not representing his interests the way he wants them represented — it's his problem, not mine. It's not ethical to go around the agent (or lawyer or manager) to the client and it isn't like a child who is disciplined by Mommy rushing to Daddy to see if he can get better treatment. It's trying to change the rules of the negotiation. You shouldn't do that.

Now, if the actor had contacted me directly and asked, "Could you tell me why I didn't get that job?"…well, that's different. I should also have mentioned that I believe this agent had represented this actor for quite a long time. That led me to believe that the actor knew he was setting his price higher than the market might suggest, even if he didn't know about the last-minute extortion attempts. There are actors who would rather do two or three high-paying jobs a year than twenty jobs for scale that would collectively pay a lot more.

If I had to guess, that's what I'd guess…but like so many things in life, we'll never know for sure.

It must be tough to be a Trump backer these days. There are a few polls like this one that show him neck 'n' neck with Hillary or even a point up…but clearly he and his campaign are behaving like they believe the vast majority of surveys. I don't think there are any sites tracking the state polls that don't show Clinton with at least a near-lock on the Electoral College and there are many that say she's got it with 10+ point advantages in enough states.

It's also getting tougher to define what it is that he stands for and to say with a straight face that he's a straight talker. I thought the one issue on which he'd never budge or backpedal was immigration…and I don't think anyone is clear as to what his position is on that at the moment. It seems to vary from hour to hour depending on which audience he's addressing.

The other day when Trump was addressing the imaginary black voters who will swing to him en masse and boost him from 2% black support to — oh, I dunno, maybe 3%? — he was shouting at them, "What the hell do you have to lose?" I keep thinking that that's his new mantra for campaigning. No matter what insane, groundless accusation someone can invent about Hillary Clinton, he might as well hurl it because what the hell does he have to lose?

It looks like despite some waffling, he'll be in the debates after all because, you know, what the hell does he have to lose?

This is a whole bunch of people performing "Up the Ladder to the Roof"…

Well, it's sort of about Marvin. He's in it, anyway. But first, it's about the kind of agent who gives that profession the reputation of a Zika-carrying mosquito, only lower.

I used to write and voice direct the CBS Saturday morning animated series, Garfield and Friends. It was one of the best jobs I ever had, in part because once we started getting decent ratings, I was granted a lot of power and control. I had a great relationship with Jim Davis, creator and controller of The Cat. I also had a great relationship with the folks over at the network.

The second of these is the impressive one. Everyone who's worked with Jim for any length of time has had a good relationship with him. A good relationship with the execs at a major television network…ah, that's not so common. Basically though, I could write whatever I wanted — within reason. And I could cast any actor I wanted to have do voices — within budget. We had a set fee we paid our guest actors and only a few people I tried to hire were not fine with that amount.

This gave me the opportunity to engage actors whose work I'd always loved and many of those actors had appeared in my favorite movie, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Elsewhere on this blog, you will only find a few billion places where I express my fondness for this film. Among the thespians who appeared in Mad World and who also did at least one episode of Garfield and Friends were Jonathan Winters, Buddy Hackett, Stan Freberg, Arnold Stang, Don Knotts, Lennie Weinrib, Jesse White…and Marvin Kaplan. As our story begins, I had yet to hire Marvin, though I certainly intended to. I just hadn't gotten around yet to writing an episode with a Marvin Kaplan type character in it.

I had, however, just written a script with a role for another actor who had a small part in Mad World. For the purposes of this story, he shall remain nameless. I found out who his agent was, called the man, explained what we wanted and when we wanted him and what we paid. The agent tried to dicker with me over the money but I stopped him. I said, "This is what we pay for this kind of role and it's been fine with dozens of other actors over the years we've been on the air. I'm afraid it's Take It or Leave It. I'm not empowered to go any higher."

The agent called his client, then called me back and they accepted. Something seemed a bit odd to me about the agent's attitude so after we hung up, I faxed him a memo confirming our agreement. It stated the amount we'd be paying, the name of the studio where we were recording and its address, the call time, etc. We would be recording the following Tuesday.

I assumed everything was set. I assumed wrongly.

Monday evening at 6:05 PM, the agent called me and said, "I believe you wanted my client tomorrow at 9 AM. Let's firm up what you're paying him." I looked at the clock, saw what time it was and knew exactly what was happening.

I said, "We're paying him the amount you and I agreed upon, which is the same amount I put down in the fax I sent you shortly after our last phone conversation." The agent denied ever receiving a fax from me and denied that he'd agreed to any dollar figure. If we didn't settle on one now, his client was not showing up the next morning at nine.

If you haven't figured out the 6:05 part yet, allow me to explain: Agencies close at various times but most are closed by 6:00. He was hoping that it was too late for me to call another agency and book someone else. He was further hoping that not having someone to play that role at 9 AM would screw up my recording session and cause me enough problems that I'd agree there and then to a higher amount.

I told him what the job paid. He told me that amount was an insult to his client, who never worked for that kind of money. I named some actors who were much bigger stars than his client who'd been on the show working for that money. He told me his client was a much bigger star than any of them, which was not even close to true. He told me what I'd have to pay to have his client there the next morning. I told him I wasn't permitted to pay above the price I'd cited and I said, "If your client doesn't work for that kind of money, he doesn't work for that kind of money. I'll go find someone who does." End of call.

This was not all that gutsy on my part. I knew a dozen actors well enough that I could call them at home if I couldn't reach their agents just then. I could also rearrange the schedule for the next day's recording session and move the 9 AM episode to later in the day. That would give me time to call another agency in the morning and book someone else to be there in the afternoon.

But I didn't have to do that because I immediately phoned Paul Doherty, the man I considered the best, smartest voiceover agent in the business. It was 6:15 and Paul was still in his office. His secretary had left so he answered his phone himself. "An agent with a lot less ethics than you have just tried to pull the 6:05 PM trick on me," I told him. He knew exactly what I was talking about. "Who have you got who might not be working tomorrow morning?"

Paul read off a list of about ten names and I probably could have hired any of them…but when he got to Marvin Kaplan, I decided he was perfect. Paul knew what we paid and had the integrity to abide by an oral agreement…so when he said, "Great. I'll have Marvin there at nine," I knew Marvin would be there at nine. Actually, he was there at eight but I'll get to that. First, I have to tell you that at 6:25 PM that same evening, the agent for the other guy in Mad World — the one who didn't work for what we paid — called me back.

He said, "I've got to apologize. I looked next to the fax machine and I found the fax you sent the other day. It must've fallen out of the machine and behind the stand, and on it, you did specify the amount. My client never works for this kind of money but I just talked it over with him and we both feel that, since there was this confusion and part of it was my fault for not noticing the fax earlier and calling you, we should make an exception this one time."

I said, "That's very decent of you but you don't need to make that sacrifice. I've already booked someone else. Please tell your client I very much admire his work and I'm sorry we won't be working together." The agent did not sound happy.

Now as I mentioned in the obit on Marvin, he had a lot of trouble with his eyes. He showed up at the recording session an hour early, hoping that he could get his script and study it so that he wouldn't make too many mistakes. One of the marks of a true professional is that he or she does everything possible to not cause problems for their employers and co-workers, and Marvin was very much a professional. In fact, he was a professional with a big magnifying glass with which he hoped to go over the script we would give him.

The problem was that I wasn't there at 8 AM. No one was except our producer Bob Nesler who had piles of the nine scripts we'd be recording that day. Marvin asked him if he could have a copy of the script he was in…and since Bob didn't know which one that was, he gave Marvin a stack containing all nine. Marvin reportedly reacted in horror to all that paper. Then he scurried off and found an empty office in the studio and began reading them all, trying to find the Marvin Kaplan role.

A little before nine, I arrived for the session and all the other actors strolled in. By 9:05, we had everyone but Marvin. I knew he was a pro so I decided to wait for him, rather than start on some other script. When he hadn't shown at 9:15, I called his agency and a junior agent there told me he'd been given the proper call time and it was quite unlike Marvin to be late.

At 9:30, I told Nesler I'd decided to start on some other script since Marvin Kaplan was late. He said, "Oh, Marvin's not late. He was here at eight o'clock."

I quickly searched the studio and found Marvin sitting at a desk in an empty office, looking panicky as he paged through script after script with his magnifying glass, trying to learn every part that might have been his. I greeted him and showed him which role it was and he said, "Oh, I was afraid of that. That character has an awful lot of lines and I don't see very well and…"

I pulled out a script I'd printed out just for him. It had VERY LARGE TYPE and I asked him, "Will this help?"

He flipped through it, gave me a big grin and said, "Mr. DeMille…I'm ready for my close-up."

We recorded that script in the usual amount of time. Marvin took two or three takes for a few lines but not many. His first reading was almost always perfect and I was kinda glad that the other guy had uncast himself the way he did.

Hey, wanna see it? You'll have to hurry because I'm linking to an egregious copyright violation and at this very moment, lawyers are probably doing whatever it is one does to get something yanked from YouTube. But if it's still there, you can enjoy Marvin Kaplan in the title role of "Angel Puss"…

Wasn't he great? If his voice hadn't been so distinctive, I wouldn't have felt I had to wait a while before hiring him again to play a different character.

There's actually more to this story but it doesn't involve Marvin. A few days after the recording session, the agent for the actor who didn't work for what we paid called and told me his client would work for what we paid. "He really likes your show and wants to be a part of it," said the agent.

I didn't know if the client was complicit in the last minute extortion or if it was just the agent trying to up his commission money and show off for the actor. I decided to give the actor the benefit of the doubt. After all, he was good at what he did and he was in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. So I said, "I don't have anything now but the next time I write a role that I think suits him, I'll give you a call."

Some months later, I did. I called the agent, reminded him of the fee we paid and we made a verbal deal. I faxed him another memo and this time, he phoned me back to acknowledge receipt and to say his client would be in the proper place at the proper time. You can probably guess what happened when my phone rang at 6:05 PM — of all times! — the night before that recording session.

This time, it was: "There was some misunderstanding between my client and me. I know I agreed to the money and I thought he had…but I just called to remind him of the call time and he asked me what the job paid. When I told him, he said, 'I won't do it. That's less than I've ever gotten before!' and…well, I think I can get him to show up if you could just give me a little help in the money department here. Just a 50% bump, that's all. That's still way less than he got for a job last week…"

I said, "Let me put you on hold for a minute." I put him on hold, called Paul Doherty and asked him who he had who was available the next day. Paul said, "How about Buddy Hackett? He was in here a half-hour ago asking me to get him more animation work." I said I'd take him and then I went back to the non-ethical agent and told him, "Your client is off the hook. I just booked Buddy Hackett for the money your guy won't work for. You know Buddy Hackett. The guy who's on with Johnny Carson tonight and who's headlining at Caesars Palace in Vegas starting Friday? Bye!"

And of course, Buddy Hackett was fine. He was a very funny man and he even told me and the rest of the cast and crew a number of great dirty jokes. He was also a much bigger star than the sleazy agent's client, plus Buddy was one of the major stars of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, as opposed to the guy he replaced on our show, who was a bit player in the film. I think that alone makes the end of this whole story just about perfect.

Dear, sweet, funny Marvin Kaplan passed away in his sleep either early this morning or late last night. He was 89 and he was still acting and producing and writing, right up until either early this morning or late last night.

You might know him from his recurring role on the TV series, Alice. You might know him as the voice of many cartoon characters, including Choo Choo on Top Cat. You might know him from his roles in movies, including The Great Race, The Nutty Professor (the original), Wake Me When It's Over and so many more, including hundreds of guest roles on television and before that, radio.

You must know him from his role in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World as one of the two attendants — Arnold Stang was the other — who demolished an entire gas station brawling with Jonathan Winters. After Mickey Rooney passed, Marvin became the "person in that movie who was still alive and had the largest role." (I believe that honor now passes to Carl Reiner or if we count screen time instead of lines, Barrie Chase.) Marvin loved turning out for the many Mad World "reunion" panels at screenings and he was as funny at them as he was in the film.

Marvin was — like you couldn't guess from his accent — from Brooklyn where he graduated law school, decided he didn't want to be a lawyer and in 1947 moved out to Hollywood to try and get work writing for radio and perhaps break into playwriting. Acting was something he thought might be fun to try, also. He got a job as stage manager at the Circle Theater, which was mounting a play directed by Charlie Chaplin. Later, he got a small role in a play at the Circle and one night, Katharine Hepburn came to see it.

She recommended Marvin for a part in the movie she was then starting…and as a result, Marvin Kaplan made his screen debut in Adam's Rib, starring Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, directed by George Cukor. After that, there was no stopping him. He landed or was offered role after role, including a regular part on Meet Millie, which was a popular radio program from 1951 to 1954 and later a TV series. He was rarely out of acting work until late in life when he was confined to a wheelchair. And he was not all that unhappy about not acting much because it gave him time to write and direct plays and films.

I was so pleased to know Marvin and to direct him on a number of cartoon shows. You want to know how you directed Marvin Kaplan? You told him, as I did, "Try to sound like Marvin Kaplan." He'd usually respond, "I'll do my best" and he always did. The only difficulty we had — and he was well worth this minor accommodation — is that we had to print out a Large Type version of the script for him because his eyes were very poor. (We had to do that for Don Knotts, too.) Even with that handicap, he was great on darn near every take.

Marvin actually talked like that in real life and he was bursting with great anecdotes. He'd worked with everyone and remembered everything worth remembering. Though he played nebbishy characters on screen, that was not Marvin. He was a man of great passions and integrity, who was known to be quite militant about political causes and issues within the Screen Actors Guild.

He even occasionally played roles that were not what you'd think of as Marvin Kaplan roles. I once saw him portray a serious, outraged rabbi in a production of The Dybbuk by S. Ansky. You would never have known it was him without a glance at the Playbill — and even then, you would not have believed it.

You can learn more about him at his website or by reading Kliph Nesteroff's fine interviews with the man. Here's Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four.

Just a fine actor and a fine gentleman. If you never got to meet him, I'm sorry. You would have found him to be delightful. Absolutely delightful.

For my pal Steve Stoliar: This is a whole bunch of men performing "Up the Ladder to the Roof"…

Steve Stoliar sent me this link to a good piece on Woody Allen. I am intrigued by the notion that Mr. Allen might write his autobiography. Until he does, the best book about him is the one by my cousin David.

Steve also writes…

P.S. Are you familiar with a song called "Up the Ladder to the Roof"? I've been going positively nuts trying to find video of anyone singing it!!!!

Steve, my friend. I think I may be able to help you out…

Yesterday, I posted a message about something chilling that Robert Blake had said on a 1974 Tonight Show with Mr. Carson. Here's a message I got after that from Douglas McEwan…

I too watched that Carson show the other night, and posted remarks about his amazingly chilling remarks. However, your correspondent misquoted Blake's quote of Wally Cox's remark. When I was posting about it, I ran and reran the moment I was quoting to get the quote exactly right. Here is what Blake said: "You go ahead and you have your little caprice, have your little affair, and if the bed turns out to be a drag, you're lucky. You just walk away. And if it turns out to be terrific, you shoot her."

Note the important change is "You shoot her," not "You shoot your wife." In fact, in the full quote, it's not clear if Wally was referring to the wife or the girl friend, though it looks more to me like it meant the girl friend. Either way, it's a horrific "joke," especially when spoken by a future wife murderer, and seeing Johnny break up at it and hearing the studio audience laughing loudly at it was creepy icing on the creepy cake. Folks, HE MEANS IT!!!

On the show, Blake also said he'd worked with the Marx Brothers, though I'll be damned if I can find anything to back up that claim.

I met Blake back in 1972. And in 1973 he did me a solid without knowing it. He so pissed off Dick Whittington's then-radio-producer that said producer quit and the job became mine. So thanks Robert Blake. Your being a dick got me one of the best jobs I ever had.

I just ran the episode on my TiVo and Douglas quotes it accurately…and it sounds to me like Blake was saying (quoting Wally Cox) that if you cheat on your wife and you fall in love with the Other Woman, you shoot the Other Woman. Still, it's kind of an eerie foreshadowing.

For those who don't know: Dick Whittington was a Los Angeles radio personality from the sixties to the mid-nineties. He was very funny and very original and a lot of other radio guys were praised for things that "Sweet Dick" did first. He's retired now.

And I can't think of what Blake did with the Marx Brothers but I doubt he was lying. He also talked about working with Laurel and Hardy — which he did — and his account of that seemed accurate. He even remembered the name of the movie. Blake may have appeared with the Marxes in some live appearance or in some scene that got cut. He was certainly working on the MGM lot when they were. Thanks, Doug.

• Trump reversing past positions left and right. Next week, he rehires everyone he ever fired on The Apprentice. Except maybe Gary Busey.

This is three men and one woman performing "Up the Ladder to the Roof"…

So what's up with the next Stephen Sondheim musical? Alan Burnett sent me this link to an article that tells us what is presently known about it.