Category Archives: To Be Filed

There were plans to expand the San Diego Convention Center, the place where Comic-Con International is held. Then the plans were off.

Is there a chance they could be on again? Well, it's not impossible but according to this, it's not looking likely.

I said here a week or three ago that I couldn't see why Jay Leno wouldn't accept the invite to appear on one of David Letterman's last shows. My thinking roughly paralleled this article from some time ago by Luke Epplin. I have also heard from many that Dave regrets how nasty their little "feud" got and that the two of them have had many friendly phone calls lately. I figured Jay would like the world to see that Dave no longer holds any grudges for real or imagined offenses.

Then yesterday afternoon, I had a phone conversation with a friend who knows Jay pretty well and he suggested a few reasons why Jay won't go on one of Dave's last shows and he convinced me to not expect it. He said, "If it were three or four years ago, even if Jay were still on opposite Dave, you'd be right. He would have shut his program down for a night and jumped on a plane to New York as he did when Dave wanted him in that Super Bowl commercial. But Jay has now moved past all that."

My friend went on to suggest a few reasons Jay wouldn't want to do it now and I'm not sure how many of them were his thinking and how many of them were what Jay's thinking but they convinced me not to expect that reunion.

So Dave's last three shows will probably be sans Leno. Everyone's assuming that he'll have Tom Hanks and Bill Murray plus Regis Philbin either as an announced guest or a surprise cameo. Sounds to me like there's room for one or two more big guests in there and I have no idea who they might be.

I know what I'd like to see but Dave will never in a thousand years okay this. I'd like to see him bring on a good interviewer like Bob Costas with the express mission of interviewing the host about how he feels about the show ending, what he's proudest of about it, what he can imagine for himself in the future, etc. But Dave won't give up that control of his own farewell.

A couple of folks have written me to ask, "Why are you asking about what Dave will do next? People do retire. Couldn't he just be retiring?" I don't think so. You can retire from selling plumbing fixtures and you don't get frequent offers to come back and sell one more toilet float or one more flush valve. Entertainers don't usually retire voluntarily, especially beloved entertainers. They just scale back and make occasional reappearances.

Yeah, Johnny Carson went away forever but he didn't really intend to. On his last telecast, he said he expected to come back with something. As it turned out, he never found that something. Everything presented to him either looked like an embarrassing comedown from his former heights or something that could flop and leave him looking like a failure as opposed to that guy who went out on top as a capital-L Legend.

I've been trying to figure out why I don't feel Dave will do what Johnny did. Johnny was 67 when he did his last Tonight Show and Dave is 68 so you could certainly make the argument that he's not too young to do what his idol did. I guess the reason it feels different to me is that Johnny always seemed like a part of the show business era that preceded him — Benny, Berle, Hope, Skelton, etc. He had seen plenty of those performers outlive the demand for their talents and appear, in some cases, somewhat pathetic as a result.

I don't think Letterman identifies with comedians who are older than him. Admires, yes; identifies, no. Just the way he talks, I think he feels like part of the generation that includes Jerry Seinfeld (age 61) and Steve Martin (69) and Martin Short (65) and Bill Murray (64) and yes, Jay Leno (65).  These are all guys who are still working, none of whom has trouble finding an audience or worthwhile projects.

If Dave gives up performing now, he takes himself out of their category and makes himself older than he has to be. A lot of folks around Carson — and if I've heard this, I'm sure Dave has — felt that once Johnny had no audiences in his future, he started gaining weight and getting out of shape and aged a lot. Dave has an eleven year old son. That's a pretty good reason to not want to descend into Old Man mode and to instead stay active and healthy. Also, Johnny grew up at a time when being almost seventy was a lot older than it is today.

Maybe this is wishful thinking on my part and I should stop trying to predict. One thing I do know about Dave Letterman with reasonable certainty is what I once heard one of his writers say about him. He said, "Dave's going to do what Dave's going to do." I just hope what he does is not what Johnny did.

As someone who never watches or cares about professional football, I have no real interest in this scandal involving Tom Brady and the New England Patriots and underinflated footballs. But even I thought Keith Olbermann's rant about it was pretty funny. I miss this guy covering politics…

Believe it or not, Preview Night at this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego starts in two months and two hours. I haven't even unpacked from WonderCon and they already have me working out my panel schedule…and this weekend, I'm writing a couple of tributes to departed folks to appear in the souvenir book. We're also close to announcing this year's recipients of the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Writing.

I have heard all the complaints. Okay, I'm exaggerating. There must be at least ten people who either go there, decide not to go there or want to go there and can't who do not e-mail me with their gripes…but I hear a lot of them, none of which I can do anything about and some of which I don't think anyone can do anything about. When you drive down the 5 Freeway to go there on a Saturday morning, you're not going to have the Car Pool Lane all to yourself and the price of gas is not going to be what you want it to be. Deal with it. Just deal with it.

Many of the complaints are things I wouldn't want anyone to do anything about and an awful lot of the grumblers are not unlike the acquaintance of mine who moaned about this: He went to the con one year with a list of 50 or so old comics he wanted to buy to complete his collection. He couldn't find 20 of them at all and of the remainder, well over half were priced too high for him to afford. Some old comics are scarce and expensive and somehow, that's the convention's fault.

This person should not be confused with the guy who used to come up to me every year and tell me the con sucks because some old-time comic artist he wanted to meet wasn't there. Often, the artist in question had been invited but had declined. In one case, the artist was deceased. This was probably the convention's fault, too.

To oft-dead ears, I told these belly-achers what I've told you here before. I love Comic-Con. I loved what it was back in the seventies and eighties, and I don't fault the current version of it for not being what it was back then. The comic book industry, for reasons good and bad, isn't what it was back then, either.

It is obviously possible to have a great time at Comic-Con. The thing wouldn't sell out each year in nine nano-seconds if it wasn't.

I sympathize with those who tried to get tickets but couldn't. That's an absolutely valid grievance and one which will always exist as long as 400,000 people (that's probably a low guess) want to attend a function that can at most accommodate 135,000 or so. The operators of the convention can't help that and even if they moved to larger quarters, more folks would probably want to attend and your odds of scoring a badge might not be much better.

(Important Note: I cannot help you get in. Don't ask. Don't even offer bribes…and, yes, I've had offers.)

But if you can get in, you can have a great time. You have to accept the fact that it's crowded and there'll be a lot of walking and you might not be able to get into every panel or event you want to attend…and the food, like the food in every convention center, will be overpriced and underedible. That's a useful new word I made up last time I tried one of their alleged pizzas.

You have to plan ahead. By now if you're attending, you should know how you're getting there, where you're going to stay if you're going to stay, some good places to eat, etc. If you're leaving these things for last-minute decisions, you're setting yourself up to have a bad time.

About two weeks before the convention, the Programming Schedule will be posted. Naturally, you're going to want to attend all the panels I moderate but there may be others. Check the schedule when it's available and mark down what you want to see and what you'll go see instead if you can't get into your first choice. Study the map of the hall and get a sense of where the exhibitors you want to check out will be located. (Hint: If you're not into video games, note where those exhibitors are and avoid that area at all costs. They like to make certain you can't hear and you can't move.)

Make sure you have shoes you can walk in for a long time and for long distances. And follow other tips I'll be posting here in the coming two months.

It really can be a wonderful experience if you work at it a little. If you stumble into it or give yourself unrealistic expectations, you'll wind up with a lot of complaints. For God's sake if you do, don't dump them on me. There's no point in both of us being miserable.

As any sane person realizes, all this talk about a military takeover of Texas is just well-fanned paranoia. It comes from the same place as those stories that George W. Bush and later Bill Clinton had plans to declare Martial Law on some pretext and remain in office past the completion of their second terms. The maddening part of it is that when it doesn't happen, none of the folks fearing it will say, "Gee, I guess we were dead wrong and were fed a lot of phony rumors and horse manure." They'll instead insist that because the plan was leaked and good, alert Americans like themselves raised a stink, it was called off.

CBS has announced David Letterman's guest list for next week…

Mo 5/11: Howard Stern, Don Rickles
Tu 5/12: Bill Clinton, Adam Sandler
We 5/13: Julia Roberts, Ryan Adams
Th 5/14: George Clooney, Tom Waits
Fr 5/15: Oprah Winfrey, Norm MacDonald

Pretty impressive lineup there. I lost my taste some time ago for Howard Stern's hysterical self-importance but everything there should keep Dave interested.

After this, there are three more shows. Presumably, we'll see Tom Hanks and Bill Murray on them — the two remaining names from the announced list of Dave's final guests. We do not yet see an announcement of Regis Philbin, Brian Williams or Jay Leno. Wednesday's show is also supposed to include "a special interview" with Paul Shaffer.

Jan's Restaurant was located on Beverly Boulevard just east of La Cienega. It billed itself as "L.A.'s Best Coffee Shop." One wonders how the folks at Astro's over on Fletcher Drive — owned by the same family and featuring almost the exact same cuisine — felt about that. But Jan's was pretty good. In the seventies, I lived a block from the place and was in there at least twice a week. Breakfasts were as good as any other option I had. For lunch and dinner, it wasn't the greatest but it was several notches above Denny's or Norms or any other big chain you could name.

I especially liked the Spaghetti Burger, which was not as many assumed a hamburger with spaghetti on it. It was a hamburger with a dish of spaghetti on the side.

Jan's was reasonably priced and had good service. It closed in mid-March after more than fifty years in business. We've lost too many of that kind of eatery.

You probably saw this but just in case, here's the song Nathan Lane sang the other night on David Letterman's show…

Julia Sweeney recalls her days on Saturday Night Live. I thought Ms. Sweeney was an underused talent on that show who was capable of doing a lot more than playing Pat in a series of sketches that would be fondly remembered if they'd stopped after about three of 'em. I saw her one-woman show a few years later and it was quite wonderful.

She's right about Victoria Jackson, by the way. I know Victoria — or did before she decided that people of my political positions were Unwitting Tools of Satan. The Victoria I knew was very sweet and very charming but, as Ms. Sweeney noted, lacking in any filter. She said exactly what was on her mind even if it was inappropriate or thoughtless. I'm sure she believes exactly what she says she believes and doubt that any force on this planet could ever persuade her it was wrong.

The Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas has closed and the company that purchased all its slot machines should have removed them from the premises by now. Other tangibles in the building are being sold off and soon, the aging structure itself will be razed and in its stead will rise an extension of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

I don't believe that in all my many trips to that city, I ever actually stayed at the Riv…but I gambled there and I saw shows there and I ate there and a lot of comedians that I knew played its comedy club so I was often hanging out there. I recall one time Bill Kirchenbauer was headlining in that room and we had to go through a little ritual. There was a gentleman who worked for the Riviera who was in charge of the comedy club, a large guy named Steve. Each evening between shows, Steve could and would arrange to "comp" dinner for the comedians. The comp was usually good for two — in this case, Bill and his wife — and Bill wanted to introduce me to Steve so the comp would be for three. "Just be friendly with the guy," Bill told me, "and joke with him a little."

I'm all for free meals so I went along with this. He introduced me to Steve, we chatted a little, I said something that made Steve laugh and he said to Bill, "Hey, Kirchenbauer. Your friend's funny so I'm making your comp for three tonight. Take him to dinner!" It was only a twenty dollar steak in the coffee shop but it was one of those times in Las Vegas when I really felt I'd won something. Then Steve told me, "Hey, next time you're coming to Vegas, give me a call and we'll set you up with a free room here."

I never took Steve up on the lodging portion of his generosity but I did see him again…when I watched The Sopranos. His full name was Steve Schirripa — casino employee turned actor.

That must have been twenty years ago and the Riviera was already getting shabby then. Other hotels of its era underwent zillion-dollar upgrades to remain competitive with new megaresorts. The Riviera occasionally put in new carpeting here and there. As its neighbors like the Stardust and the Sahara and the Frontier and the Desert Inn went away, it was only a matter of time.

In addition to seeing friends in its comedy club, I recall seeing Splash! there — a big, noisy show that at one point represented a modern, contemporary version of the classic Vegas revue. "Noisy" was its outstanding quality. The sexy showgirls and the promise of great acts would draw you in. The decibel level would cause you to leave before it was over…and it wouldn't surprise me if that was a deliberate effort to get you out of the showroom and back to the gaming tables and the slot machines sooner.

The buffet at the Riv was cheap, never crowded and pretty lousy except that the dessert table had an orange meringue cake that was among the best things I ever tasted back when I ate that kind of thing. And for a few years there, I found another, even better reason to go to it. Splash! did two shows a night. I don't recall how I figured this out but I realized that if I got to the buffet about fifteen minutes after the early show concluded, it would be full of showgirls grabbing a comped meal there between performances. They all had their stage makeup on with their eyes and lips painted to appear extra-large but they were otherwise in sweats and old clothes.

There was something very colorful and sexy about it and I almost always struck up a conversation with one of them and was invited to bring my tray and myself over to their table. When I was alone in town, I especially appreciated the conversation and the friendliness and once, one of the ladies took me backstage for the second show and we wound up going out afterwards. We are still friends, albeit now just of the Facebook variety.

Most reviewers thought the Riviera Buffet was the worst in town. That was probably true if you just went there to eat.

The casino was fine for gaming, though one time I got into a dispute with a Blackjack dealer. We "pushed," meaning we tied and I neither won nor lost my bet…but the guy wasn't paying attention and he collected my money anyway. I objected. "That was a push," I told him. He said, "No, you had seventeen and I had eighteen." I said, "No, I had eighteen. Look at the cards." Others at our table told him he was wrong but he insisted he was right and also said he wasn't allowed to look back into the pile of played cards. (I never heard of such a rule anywhere else and doubt there was one there.)  He then grabbed them all up and shuffled, destroying the evidence.

It was only five dollars at stake but if I'm going to lose five bucks, I want to really lose five bucks. I called over the Casino Host — the dealer's supervisor — and explained the situation. Others at the table backed me up. The Casino Host said the dealer was an experienced pro who wouldn't make such a mistake.  I said, "Yeah, well I'm highly experienced at adding ten and eight and getting eighteen."

Getting nowhere, the Host agreed to phone the "eye-in-the-sky" department and have someone check the tape. Play continued at the table while they rewound up there but I stepped away, refusing to go on at least until the matter was resolved.

About three minutes later, the folks upstairs called the Host back. He listened to what they had to say, then handed me a slip refunding my five dollars and said, "They say you were wrong but to be good sports, we're going to refund your money anyway." I said, "In other words, they said I was right but you're not supposed to admit your dealer made a mistake." He gave me a wink and muttered, "Something like that." I cashed in the slip and my remaining chips and I don't think I ever gambled at the Riviera again. It wasn't a matter of principle. It was just time to go to the buffet for a serving of orange meringue cake with a side of showgirls.

I'd say "I'm going to miss that hotel" but that cake and the show my friend was in were gone long ago…and the last few times I was there, it looked like a hotel that could have imploded if they'd just revived Splash! at the same volume. So I missed it a long time ago. If anything, I miss the era of Vegas that it represented.

I noted in this piece when it first ran here on April 19, 2002, 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." I think we're there. I haven't heard of one this century. Obviously, the passing of time ended that field of chicanery, as did the publication of couple of books that documented all the real members of that famed troupe and made it harder for frauds to get by…

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 have been laughing for much of the day over the concept of a TV crew taking Don Rickles to the zoo to insult the animals. Whether anyone ever does it or not, it's still funny.

Keith Olbermann was not overly fond of the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight last Saturday…

Abstinence Education — the idea that you can curb teen pregnancy just by lecturing kids to not have sex — continues to prove utterly ineffective. And those who advocate it continue to deny it doesn't work. They have to. The alternative would be to admit that kids are just plain going to have sex and we need to deal with that reality. Here's the latest from Texas, a state that could use a good dose of martial law.

The article also mentions a new law that would prohibit private insurers from covering abortion in all cases except for medical emergencies. Where does the government come off telling a private industry that they can't support a completely legal activity?

Hey, here's a great slideshow of locations in Southern California that have appeared in movies.