Category Archives: To Be Filed

Jonathan Chait comments on a pro-Trump newspaper endorsement from a newspaper run by a Trump relative. Hey, how could that possibly be biased? Anyway, its message is that Trump must be the perfect person to be president because he has all those supporters he has. And he'd be a much better president than Barack Obama because…wait. Didn't Barack Obama have even more supporters in the last two elections?

Nate Silver crunches the numbers on the remaining Republican primaries and comes to the conclusion that it all comes down to California on June 7. Trump could come up with the necessary 1,237 delegates to lock up the nomination, he could fall slightly short but be able to make it up by persuading uncommitted delegates or he could fall short enough to make that real difficult. At the moment, the third option is looking likely. This brings us to some scrambling that Jonathan Chait (him again) writes about here.

I still don't believe the Republicans are going to nominate — or even come close to nominating — anyone other than Donald or Ted. I especially don't believe this alleged strategy of getting people to vote for Cruz in order to stop Trump, and then bait-and-switch them to some other guy — unnamed now since Ryan took himself out of it. Sounds like a plan to make sure every single member of the party is pissed-off that his pick won fair and square and then got cheated out of the nomination. The only way it would work is if the "some other guy" is Dick Van Dyke since everybody loves Dick Van Dyke.

Much to do today, not enough time to do it in. So, election-wise, what do we think it's going to be? All the Donald Trump supporters screaming that their guy won it fair and square and had it stolen by Ted Cruz? All the Bernie Sanders supporters yelling that their guy won it but it was stolen by Hillary Clinton? Both? I get the feeling someone's going to insist someone cheated.

Last night, I had a conversation with a Sanders supporter who thinks there's something terribly wrong with a system where Bernie can win the last seven caucuses and primaries and not be way ahead of Hillary. Sanders is probably the guy I most want to see win but I do recognize that he's trailing by a wide margin in delegates — and not that it's the determining factor — total votes as well.

There are a lot of folks out there talking about how the system is unfair and should be changed once their party's convention convenes. These people, of course, are all backing someone who's behind. No one in the lead ever thinks the system is flawed…or if they do, they keep it to themselves. So the question becomes which of the two is less fair: The system as it stands or changing it in mid-game because someone doesn't like the way it's going? I have no answer for this. I'm tempted to wish they'd just do whatever's going to get this election over with sooner.

Whoops! Look at the time! Gotta get ready to go somewhere. Hey, before I skedaddle: How come I can order something from Amazon and they have it here in what seems like twenty minutes…and if I don't like it, I can make like two clicks on their website and send it back for a refund in two minutes…but if they accidentally shorted me an item (I ordered three of something and they delivered two), that takes forever to rectify? And then they don't want to send me the missing item. They want to refund my money and let me order the missing item anew? Strange system. Gotta run. Another installment of "Rejected" tomorrow in this space.

From 1971, one of the most popular commercials ever produced…

My favorite stand-up comedian working today is probably Lewis Black and I really enjoy his TV series. What? You didn't know Lewis Black has a TV show? Well, he sort of does. It appears every time he does a stand-up date. He and his opening act John Bowman go to some city and they each do their acts. Then a video camera is turned on and Black does a 15-25 minute webcast that's broadcast live on the Internet. It's usually just him answering questions submitted from the audience in the theater and at home. Some nights, it's better than others but it's different every time he does it and I always find it worth watching.

If you want to watch live, you first of all have to find out when he's doing a stand-up appearance, which you can do on this page of his website…or better still, subscribe to his Twitter feed. On it, he or someone posts the approximate time each webcast will start. Then you can watch on this page.

But you don't have to watch live. On that page when he isn't webcasting, you can watch the last few shows. This is all free. If you pay to join his fan club, you can view all the past webcasts and also get better seats for his live appearances, plus other perks.

I've mentioned this before but I don't think I stressed how wonderful some of these videos are. Also, the web address has changed so I wanted to give you all the new one. When he's good, he's really good.

Back in the sixties, the makers of Contadina Tomato Paste claimed — in commercials created by the great Stan Freberg — that they "put eight great tomatoes in each little bitty can." This prompted MAD magazine to do a parody ad showing the hapless chef who had to do that.

But right now, we don't care about tomato paste or the ad. We care about the guy in the above photo. His goateed face should be familiar to everyone who read MAD back then because it was always turning up in photo features for the publication. As a kid reading MAD back then, I wondered who he was. Answer: He was Leonard Brenner, the Production Manager and later Art Director for MAD and someone who made an enormous contribution to it.

"The Beard" (that was his nickname) didn't write or draw articles in the same way as most MAD contributors you could name but he touched almost every page between 1958 when he joined the magazine and 1995 when he retired. Aside from publisher William M. Gaines, Lenny's name appeared on MAD's masthead more than anyone else's.

His sense of humor and painstaking attention to design and detail were often evident, especially when the staff had to replicate a piece of someone else's advertising or mimic the look and feel of another publication. He and his longtime colleague John Putnam made sure MAD always looked good and always got to press on time. He was also a delightful, funny gentleman, dearly loved by everyone else at MAD. He passed away last Saturday and those who knew him are really, really sad about that. If you ever met the man, you understand why.

Donald Trump might lock up the Republican nomination before the convention in Cleveland but it's looking a bit more likely that he won't. Harry Enten crunches some numbers to show us that Trump Is The Weakest GOP Front-Runner In The Modern Era and also notes that Trump Made A Mistake By Overlooking Colorado.

I have the feeling that this whole thing is going to come down to a fight over the interpretation and modification of party rules; that Trump will be arguing he's got it won and that Cruz and other opponents will be arguing that he hasn't. And both sides will be pushing to clarify and change rules that will make their position so.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Chait notes that Paul Ryan is positioning himself to represent a saner, more traditional Republican party as its spokesperson if not its nominee. But Ryan's platform is still pretty much to take from the poor, give to the rich and "We'll unveil a great Obamacare alternative any day." Ryan is among the many Republicans who've been promising that great Obamacare alternative "any day now" for six or seven years. They'll probably still be promising it "any day now" six or seven years from today.

Lastly for now: Last week, Paul Krugman penned a column arguing that Bernie Sanders is wrong when he says "Break up the big banks." Matt Taibbi has since written a piece that says Krugman is wrong and Sanders is right. I hope you know which of them is right because I sure don't.

Here's an article about Gary Johnson, who will probably wind up being the nominee of the Libertarian Party. I feel a kinship to Mr. Johnson because of one thing we share: I'm not going to be the next President of the United States either.

I am glad we have a Libertarian Party because I side with them on many issues. Four years ago though, I listened to a very long speech on CSPAN by Mr. Johnson outlining his entire platform. I liked much of what he said but felt there was a great disconnect with the reality of America's then-current problems. He even sounded like a guy who knew he was never going to have to put any of his positions into practice. I sometimes feel the party is like a dog chasing a car. If he ever caught it, he wouldn't know what to do with it.

In the article, Johnson suggests people take this online political test to see where their true values and opinions lie. He says most people will discover that though they may not know it, they're Libertarians. I only got 73% with him whereas I had 98% with Bernie Sanders and 96% with Hillary Clinton…so you can see why I don't care that much which Democrat wins. In case you care, I got 41% concurrence with Donald Trump…though for the life of me, I can't imagine how anyone could pretend to know where Trump stands on most issues. I got 57% with John Kasich and 19% with Ted Cruz. The 19% number surprised me by having two digits and no decimal point between them.

Hey, here's another Martin and Lewis film and it also has Eddie Mayehoff in it. This is The Stooge, a film Dean and Jerry made in early 1951 though it wasn't released until December 31, 1952. In-between, they made two other movies — Sailor Beware and Jumping Jacks — which were released ahead of The Stooge.

Why the delay? Reportedly, it had to do with the plot which cast Dean as an egomaniacal entertainer who splits up with his partner, who was played by Richard Erdman. (Richard Erdman, by the way, made his first movie in 1944 and he's still a working actor. How's that for a long career?) Dino's character doesn't do so well as a solo partner so he takes on a stooge in his act — a kid played by Jerry who is a lovable screw-up and comic foil and his participation in the act catapults it to great success. Dean's character doesn't appreciate what Jerry's character is contributing and treats him like dirt…but Jerry's character is so good-natured and sweet that he puts up with it.

Finally — SPOILER ALERT! — Dean's character — still determined to be thought of as a solo performer — dump's Jerry's character and, of course, the act bombs and Jerry's character comes to his rescue.

Jerry Lewis later said on many occasions that this was his favorite Martin-Lewis movie. Gee, I wonder why.

Anyway, when the film was completed, Paramount execs got worried that having Dean treat Jerry like that on the screen would harm the team's popularity so they shelved the film. There is some dispute among historians as to whether there was a real chance it would never be released or if they always decided to just hold it until the team got better established. (It would have been their third starring vehicle instead of their fifth. This is not counting the two My Friend Irma films in which they had supporting roles.)

It was pretty successful and a lot of folks agreed with Jerry. Here it is if you want to see how you feel about it…

Josh Marshall takes us back to the days of the Clinton Impeachment and reminds us that many of the Republicans expressing moral outrage at Bill's behavior were secretly doing the same thing…or worse.

This is one of the things about politics that makes me most cynical; that for so many politicians, moral outrage is not something you feel. It's something you express because you think it will help you politically. This applies to practitioners on both sides of the aisle…and it seems at times like the more sanctimonious a public figure is, the more likely it is that he or she is practicing the opposite of what is preached.

The Boston Globe shows us what its front page might look like a year from now if Donald Trump is elected president. It's a PDF file but your computer should know how to handle those.

The MeTV website recently posted this item about a so-called "lost" episode of the original Star Trek TV series, one that would have guest-starred Milton Berle. "Lost" may be overstating it since it was never filmed. What it was was a script that was commissioned from writer Norman Spinrad and then abandoned. I would guess that at least 90% of all scripted TV shows that commission individual scripts have a couple of those per season.

Several of you have written to ask what, if anything, I know about it. I don't know a thing about it and am a little puzzled as to how it might have come about. If Star Trek had been on the air a season or two earlier, the explanation would be simple. Berle was a huge star on NBC in his variety series which debuted in 1948 as The Texaco Star Theater. It was such a success that in 1951, they signed him to an unprecedented deal which they called a "lifetime contract."

This presumed that he would die at age 73 since it actually paid him to be exclusive to the network for thirty years…or until 1981. (He actually made it to age 93.) Berle sometimes claimed that the deal was for a million dollars a year but other sources say it was $200,000 — which was still a lot of money at the time.

In '51, TV was new and no one really imagined that the appeal of a weekly TV star might not be as enduring as the career of some weekly radio stars had been. In a lot less time than anyone imagined, the public tired of Berle's antics and his show was canceled in 1956. Thereafter, he was kind of "free talent" for NBC since they had to pay him anyway. He was assigned to different ventures, including a series he hosted called Jackpot Bowling, which was just what you'd expect from the title. When that was canceled, they kept giving him one-shot guest appearances but less and less of them each year.

The long periods of being off the air drove Berle crazy. He did movies (including It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World) and played Vegas and appeared in plays but he was a compulsive performer and had been since he first went on the stage at age five. He got seriously depressed when he went for any stretch of time without working and especially without working in front of an audience. The contract allowed him to make a limited number of appearances per year on other networks but not, for his satisfaction, enough. Whenever he found himself not being recognized sufficiently in public, he called his agents and begged them to find some way to get him back on TV in a series.

ABC was open to the idea of a new Berle show but NBC, which had him under that contract, wasn't. Finally though, what was then called the Peacock Network agreed (in late '65) to a reduced contract that paid him less — reportedly $120,000 per year instead of the old amount — and allowed him to appear wherever he wanted. ABC immediately offered him a five-year deal which essentially worked like this: He'd host their show The Hollywood Palace a number of times and if the ratings hit a specified level, he'd get a weekly variety series. If not or if it was canceled, they'd guarantee him a specified number of on-air appearances for the balance of the contract. His ratings at the Palace were strong enough that on Friday night, September 9, 1966, The Milton Berle Show debuted on ABC but it only lasted until 1/6/67, after which point ABC was now forced to find shows to put him in.

Norman Spinrad being asked to write an episode of Star Trek guesting Berle would have made sense in 1965 when NBC was still looking to place him in shows. But Star Trek debuted on Thursday night, September 8, 1966 — the day before Berle's new series. Star Trek, as we all know, ran for three seasons. Spinrad wrote one produced episode ("The Doomsday Machine") which aired in October of '67 in the show's second season. According to his telling, he was then asked to quickly write the episode for Berle…but this almost surely was when Berle was under contract to ABC. In October of '67. they had him playing Louie the Lilac, a guest villain on Batman. Why would anyone be trying to find him a spot on an NBC show then?

I can think of one answer and this is in the category of Wild Guesses. Star Trek was produced by Desilu Productions, which was then still largely owned by Lucille Ball. Legend has it that when NBC wanted to cancel the show after one season, Lucy had a lot to do with convincing the network to keep it on. Maybe Berle, panicked by his recent cancellation and contractually allowed to make some appearances not on ABC, went to her and begged her to get him something on one of her shows…and Lucy called Star Trek producer Gene Roddenberry and asked him to at least try to find a spot on his television show for Mr. Television.

Is that what happened? I dunno. Like I said, it's a Wild Guess. I just can't imagine NBC, which had probably gotten sick of finding places to use Berle, trying to inject him into Star Trek. Finding places for him was ABC's problem by then. Berle loved working in drag. I wonder if they ever considered having him replace Marlo Thomas as That Girl.

The acclaimed cellist Steven Isserlis is not only expert on his instrument but he knows all about Harpo Marx. There's a half-hour audio documentary over the BBC Radio website that you can listen to now and for the next seventeen days. I think it's a credit to the incredible, vivid imagery of Harpo that you can listen to audio clips from Marx Brothers films, as you will if you go over there, and still laugh at Harpo even when you can't see him. Go try it and see if you don't agree. And thanks to my buddy Greg Ehrbar for letting me know about this.

In addition to being in every issue of MAD since 1966, writer Dick DeBartolo has often been busy working on game shows, especially The Match Game. In the late sixties, he was working on that program when its host, Gene Rayburn, filled in for a week for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. That was not Rayburn's first time on the program. When Steve Allen hosted that program, his announcer was Gene Rayburn.

Dick made a brief appearance on one episode that Rayburn hosted. Here it is in its entirety…

How will the Republican contest for the presidential nomination end? Norm Ornstein lists what seem to be all the possibilities — though I can't help think something will happen which no one could have anticipated.

Here's a point of genuine suspense for me: The Republican Convention convenes in Cleveland on Monday, July 18. If everything were to go according to the usual schedule, they would be nominating their presidential and vice-presidential candidates and doing the big acceptance speeches on Thursday, July 21. But nothing in this election has gone according to custom and we may be talking about major floor fights over rules and multiple ballots and some people are even talking about the possibility (which I think is unlikely) of new candidates entering the fray.

I don't care about acceptance speeches and rallying. I can watch them later on my TiVo or YouTube if I watch them at all. But if there's going to be unscripted stuff happening, I wanna watch it live, preferably with a good Internet connection so I can read what everyone is saying and Tweeting. Problem: Comic-Con International starts on Thursday, July 21 and I always go down the day before so I can be there for the Wednesday Preview Night. It's hard to imagine that all the interesting stuff will be over before, say, 11 AM on Wednesday when I would usually start heading South. To me, the three most likely scenarios are, in no particular order…

1. Trump locks up the 1,237 delegates he needs to win on June 8.
2. Trump doesn't get them then but rounds up enough uncommitted delegates before Cleveland.
3. Trump loses on the first ballot and Cruz wins on the second.

I don't believe there will be a Paul Ryan movement; not unless there a lot of credible polls before then that shows Ryan would easily trounce the Democratic nominee…and I'm pretty sure there won't be. I don't believe Trump and Cruz will form a coalition ticket…though I would love to see the two of them mud-wrestle over who'd be at the top of it.

Of the remaining three: If Trump locks it up before the convention, the convention will be one big Donald Infomercial so it'll be of little interest, except maybe to stare with the "Springtime for Hitler" look at any Sarah Palin speech plus whatever Donald says. The other two options suggest lots of floor fights over rules. It's easy to imagine the #StopTrump forces challenging his claims over uncommitted delegates or fighting to not release the ones pledged to Rubio and other fallen candidates. That could all make for a lot of drama and a long convention. You may just hear me yelling at my TV, "Will you people hurry up and get this thing settled? I have to get to Comic-Con!"

We'll watch and link to any interview of Stephen Sondheim. Here's a recent one conducted on the stage of the National Theatre in London. It's all worth watching but the most interesting question to me was the final one in which Mr. Sondheim speaks of the difference between a musical on stage and on screen, and why he thinks West Side Story was not a good movie…