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This morning, we're all reading about the heroism and skill of the pilot who landed (watered?) that U.S. Airways plane yesterday, and of his crew. And they seem to deserve praise and huzzahs and medals and such, and I don't mean to take away from any of that…but I have one question or maybe it's two. In the articles I've read, I don't see anyone discussing what happens to that airplane that's now at the bottom, I guess, of the Hudson River. I mean, the Hudson is said to be a foul place but I don't think even that water will dissolve an entire Airbus A320…not for at least a few months. Do they haul the thing out in pieces or bring in a big crane or what?

And just out of curiosity, is there any chance of the passengers ever seeing their checked luggage again? I have a suitcase that I suspect could be submerged in water for an extended time without its contents being destroyed, especially if it's in some sort of sealed compartment. Are divers going in to try and get the bags out? Or does this wait 'til they haul the whole plane out of the river or what? Someone reading this will know.

This should interest any comic fan who's going to be in or around Los Angeles between mid-February and August. The Skirball Cultural Center — a large, beautiful facility located near Westwood — will be playing host to two allied exhibitions. One is called, unfortunately, "ZAP! POW! BAM! The Superhero: The Golden Age of Comic Books, 1938–1950." Details of that one can be found here. The other is called "Lights, Camera, Action: Comic Book Heroes of Film and Television" and you can find out about that one here. Both run from February 19 through August 9 and both feature art and artifacts from superhero glories.

There will be several events in connection with these exhibitions. Not listed yet on the Skirball site is that on the evening of March 5, there'll be a program featuring Jerry Robinson, one of the great comic artists whose work is being exhibited. Mr. Robinson will be interviewed by that guy who hosts all the historical-type panels at the Comic-Con International each year…what's his name? Oh, that's right: Me. Jerry was also a Guest Curator of the exhibition and I hear it's quite wonderful. If you're going to be in L.A. while it's up, you might want to plan for a visit.

This just in…

Circuit City Stores Inc., the nation's second-biggest consumer electronics retailer, said Friday it had run out of options and will be forced to liquidate its 567 U.S. stores. The closures could send another 30,000 people into the ranks of the unemployed.

Let's hope someone notes that a pretty high percentage of those 30,000 people were folks who were hired, not because they knew anything about computers or electronics or any of the things Circuit City sells, but because they were willing to work cheaper than the ousted employees who did. This is the same thing that killed or wounded Egghead Software and The Good Guys and CompUSA or any other chain that was selling technology. The main reason people go into a store to get a computer instead of ordering it over the Internet is because they want to talk with someone who knows more about computers than they do.

Every time I ever went into a Circuit City or any of those other places, there was — at best — one person on the premises who did…and he/she was always swamped with questions not only from customers but from other salesfolks. At the one near me, the answer to every query was, "I'll have to ask Steve." Once upon a time, before they slashed salaries, those places had a lot more Steves.

It's kind of like a hospital saying, "Business is down…let's get rid of all those doctors and hire some kids who've watched E.R.!" Until companies learn what they're selling, we're in for a lot more liquidating and downsizing in the retail electronics business.

Sorry for giving you short notice (the puns are unavoidable) but Turner Classic Movies is running The Terror of Tiny Town tonight around 11 PM Pacific, 2 in the morning back east. And I know what you're thinking: "Oh, dear God, not another western movie cast entirely with midgets and dwarves!" Yeah, I'm sick of 'em, too…but this is kind of a classic. Made in 1938, it stars Billy Curtis and everyone else then in Hollywood who was shorter than Mickey Rooney. ('38 was a good year in this town for little people. Almost everyone in this movie also got work in The Wizard of Oz.)

It's not a good movie but it's too weird to ignore. Apparently, producer Jed Buell planned for this to be the first of a whole series of features (or maybe short subjects) like this. The next was to be Paul Bunyan, starring all the same actors as normal-sized people…and a normal-sized man as Paul. It was never made, probably because no one went to see this one. You might want to see it…or set your TiVo or VCR and see how long you can last.

And if you like bizarre, TCM is following it with The Unholy Three and Tod Browning's Freaks.

My friends in Los Angeles who haven't seen Spamalot may be interested in this. It's going to be the opening show of the Ahmanson's season in July, with John O'Hurley signed to play King Arthur.

The Ahmanson has some interesting offerings before then. There's Minsky's, the new Broadway-bound musical that's loosely adapted from one of my favorite movies, The Night They Raided Minsky's. Then there's Ain't Misbehavin', Frost/Nixon (with Stacy Keach as Nixon) and Dame Edna. I'm going to some or all of those.

Just sitting here, watching news coverage of today's extraordinary air crash. A U.S. Airways jet with 155 passengers aboard made an emergency landing in the Hudson River…and no one was killed. One person suffered a couple of broken legs but that was it. The pilot, they say, made a miraculous water touchdown when his plane was damaged by a collision with a flock of geese. Then that pilot, Chesley D. "Sully" Sullenberger, assisted in getting the passengers off and he and his co-pilot were the last to leave the plane.

I have no fear of flying. I'm afraid of some things but not flying. Nevertheless, from now on when I get on a jet, even if it isn't U.S. Airways, I'm telling myself it's Sully in the cockpit.

"Let's just pretend most things worked…"

My buddy Jerry Beck has a short piece up lamenting what he calls the "second class status" of animated features in Hollywood, as proven by the fact that they're such longshots for the Best Picture Oscar. Here…read a little of what Jerry has to say…

This is the reality: no matter how much money animation makes, or how many hits Pixar and Dreamworks churn out, animation is still a 2nd class citizen in Hollywood. I don't like it that way. It's not how I think — but it's the way it is. And nothing that happens seems to change that perception. Four of the top 10 movies of 2008 (in U.S. box office gross) were animated features — four — and the other six were blockbusters that had more than their fair share of CGI effects (Iron Man, Dark Knight, etc).

Or you can go here and read all of what he has to say and many comments. Here's mine: I think this is a bit of a misperception of Hollywood status. Actually, there are two kinds of status in this business — financial and critical. Financial status is very simple. The more you gross, the more you get. Money is utterly non-discriminatory in terms of animation versus live-action. So when Jerry brings up the issue of the top 10 movies in terms of box office gross…well, those are indeed the movies that achieved that kind of status. And in Hollywood, no one belittles financial success. Truth be told, most would rather have that than the other kind.

That other kind is the critical kind. It's somewhat irrelevant to what a movie grosses and it oughta be. If you think the box office oughta matter, then there's no point in having anyone vote for the Oscars. Just give the little bald gold man to whichever film made the most dollars. Since we don't do that, clearly the Academy Awards are about something else…and as sensibilities have evolved, that something else is generally (generally, now) about courage in filmmaking. It's about creating a movie that goes somewhere new, takes some risks and leaves audiences feeling they've experienced something more than a fun thing to watch while eating Raisinets in the dark.

Whether that's the best possible use of the Oscar, I dunno…but I think it's pretty much what the voters have in mind. They like movies about which no one at the studio said, "Don't worry…this can't possibly lose money because it has all these things in common with last year's big hits." That's not true of most animated features these days. It's not even true of most successful movies.

The Top 10 movies of 2008, as listed on the chart Jerry linked to, were The Dark Knight, Iron Man, the latest Indiana Jones film, Hancock, Wall-E, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, Twilight, the new James Bond film and Horton Hears a Who. None of those movies, with the occasional exception of The Dark Knight, are even being mentioned as possibles for Best Picture. It's not because some of them are animated. It's because all of them were very commercial pictures with proven selling points — cute aliens, superheroes, vampires, new characters backed by solid merchandising campaigns, sequels to past blockbuster hits,etc. Milk had none of those safe marketing attributes. Neither did Frost/Nixon. Neither did Slumdog Millionaire or Doubt or Benjamin Button, which is why those will probably be all or most of the five nominees.

I don't think there's a prejudice against animation. Beauty and the Beast was nominated for Best Picture. I have a hunch — we'll never know for sure — that The Incredibles would have been nominated if the Academy hadn't, bowing to demands within the animation community, added that Best Animated Feature category. That's probably made it less likely that a cartoon will be up for Best Picture because voters will figure that they're supposed to vote for great cartoons in that division and not the other. In a sense, by lobbying for that, cartoon buffs spread the notion that animated features weren't to be considered in the same competition as live-action films.

Someday, there'll be an animated feature so overpowering and different that it will bust out of that niche and score as Best Picture. Frankly, I don't see the point of trying to hasten that day…but if we want to, we should start lobbying to get rid of that Best Animated Feature category. That, more than anything else, tells the industry there's a place to honor Wall-E and it isn't as Best Picture.

On the other hand, I do have a personal anecdote about the fine actor, Ricardo Montalban, who has passed away at the age of 88.

In the early eighties, I was a writer on a short-lived comedy show exec-produced by Dick Clark called The Half-Hour Comedy Hour…not to be confused with at least two other shows that have appeared under that name. This was an ABC replacement series which, in format, was very much like Laugh-In. We even had as our producer Chris Beard, who'd been one of the main creative forces behind the original Laugh-In, and we taped on the same stage where that show had been produced. The cast included Arsenio Hall, Thom Sharp, Rod Hull, Peter Isacksen and, in their pre-Saturday Night Live days, Jan Hooks and Victoria Jackson.

Naturally, we had cameo guests. Mr. Montalban was then starring in Fantasy Island and they were about to replace Herve Villachieze in the role of Mr. Roarke's valet with Christopher Hewett. One day, the writing staff was informed about 11 AM that Mssrs. Montalban and Hewett would be there at 3 PM to tape something we would write in the next hour or so. One of the other writers came up with that something and Chris Beard approved it.

The way it worked with cameos was that the celeb would show up and the producers (in this case, a clever lady named Bonny Dore) would grab whatever writers were around to explain the script to them, perhaps acting it out and adjusting it, if need be. I was loitering on the set when Montalban and Hewett arrived and so was conscripted by Bonny for the occasion. Ricardo — he asked everyone to call him that — couldn't have been more charming. (Christopher Hewett was wonderful, too. I told the story of that encounter in this piece I posted when he left us.)

A couple of the other writers and I acted out the routine for our cameo guests. In it, a very attractive blonde lady with much cleavage thought he really was Mr. Roarke, granter of fantasies, and begged him to arrange her fondest longing, which was to have sexual relations with Ricardo Montalban. The punch line was something like, "I think we can work something out." You might think most actors, even the gay ones, would like that image — beautiful women lusting after him and all that — but to our surprise, Ricardo wasn't delighted.

He said, "Ah, that is a very funny routine you have written, gentlemen. Very funny, indeed. I am embarrassed to say I have a slight problem with it. You see, I have been married for close to forty years. My wife was a very famous actress and we have four children, and this is well known. For much of my life, I have attempted to counteract some of the more egregious stereotypes about Hispanics, including the image of the Latin Lover who sleeps with every woman who comes along…"

Now, ordinarily when an actor declines to perform a piece of material, you want to pull out a derringer and tell him, "Read the lines as written or I'll blow away your kneecaps." But Mr. Montalban was so gracious and he said what he said with so much charm…

And then he added this. He said, "I understand that to get a joke, you need to make fun of something about me and that is fine. Make fun of my age or my hair or my clothes or whatever you want. I trust you will make it funny."

Well, that sent us scurrying to make the man happy. "Give us ten minutes," we told him and then the other writers and I ran out into the hallway and huddled to come up with something else. We were constrained because we couldn't add props or actors or change wardrobe. We had to use the same set and the same blonde with the same set. Still, we came up with a joke we thought would work…a joke built on the premise (obviously not valid) that Ricardo Montalban was a man of extraordinary ego who thought he was the biggest star in the world.

Ricardo liked what we came up with and twenty minutes later, it was all taped and done. Before he left the stage, he made a special effort to seek out the writers and to thank us. I thanked him for being so cooperative and I said something like, "I guess we made you look a little vain in the sketch…"

"Oh no," he said. "That is not a problem. I just did not want people to think I would ever cheat on my wife. I don't mind if they think I am a conceited asshole but I would not want them to think I would ever cheat on my wife."

Later, I told the story to a friend who wrote for Fantasy Island. He said, "That's Ricardo. This would be such a wonderful business if all actors had even a third as much class." That's true. Ricardo Montalban was talented and handsome and gifted and a true gentleman. And he was definitely not a conceited asshole.

Bob Woodward is reporting — and since it involves a direct, on-the-record quote, it makes it hard to argue — that, yes, the United States does torture…

The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a "life-threatening condition."

"We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani," said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.

There are all sorts of arguments about torture. They include whether it's moral or whether it alienates useful allies or whether it ever yields useful information…or yields enough to offset the obvious downsides. I think all those questions lead to the conclusion that it's wrong in every sense of the word for us to engage in such practices. And that's without even adding to the pile that, as you'll note from the last sentence above, it removes our ability to prosecute folks who maybe oughta be prosecuted. Later in the same article, Crawford says, "He's a very dangerous man. What do you do with him now if you don't charge him and try him? I would be hesitant to say, 'Let him go.'"

So we can't prosecute him and we can't let him go. Wonderful.

Well, there's some sad news: Patrick McGoohan, star of The Prisoner and Secret Agent (aka Danger Man) is dead at the age of 80. Here's a link to one of many obits.

Nothing much to add. He was a good actor-writer who was responsible for a lot of good work. There's a remake of The Prisoner in the works — a big reason that those episodes are now available online — and it's sad he won't be around to cameo and to participate in any renewed attention in the original series.

Hollywood Reporter has updated its website this morning but hasn't changed its story on the SAG negotiations. So as of now, it's still reporting…

SAG ousting chief negotiator Doug Allen

Meanwhile, Variety — which had much the same headline up for a while yesterday — now has the following up…

SAG proceeds with status quo; Doug Allen keeps job after two-day session

And the piece over at the L.A. Times is toplined…

Drama dims chances of SAG strike; Moderates fail to oust hard-line negotiator Doug Allen but they do manage to undercut his authority over the actors union

We offer the above as a reminder that you should never get your news from any one source…and to suggest that things within the Screen Actors Guild are really, really uncertain. And likely to remain so for a while.

The big Screen Actors Guild exec board meeting finally adjourned after more than 30 hours, which means it lasted longer than half the shows on the NBC fall schedule. What was decided? Apparently, nothing. But the guild's head negotiator, Doug Allen, has not been fired…at least, not yet. Both Variety and Hollywood Reporter reported that he was terminated, and the Hollywood Reporter website still says so, more than seven hours after others who announced it began retracting. (By the way: If you read either of those papers' accounts of the local labor situation, keep in mind that they both operate from a premise that in any dispute, those with the most power, fame and money must be in the right. Variety especially seems to have this notion lately that if you run a studio, especially a studio that buys a lot of ads in Variety, you can do no wrong.)

So where does this leave us? In theory, SAG is still going to call for a strike authorization vote for its members but no one is saying when or betting that it won't be called off. Allen is still in his job but no one's betting that will continue unabated. My guess is they're trying to stitch together some sort of coalition negotiating team, with or without Allen, that can present a united front of two factions that have been galloping in opposite directions. There has to be some fear that if they can't manage that, this messy working-without-a-contract situation will never end…but the Screen Actors Guild might.

The big Hollywood Labor News at this hour is that there is no big Hollywood Labor News…but some could be along any minute. The 71-member board of the Screen Actors Guild has now been meeting since 9 AM Monday. That is not a typo. The meeting has gone on longer than 24 hours…presumably with some participants leaving and returning. They're trying to figure out what to do about the current negotiating mess. Rumors have leaked and been denied that the Chief Negotiator, Doug Allen, has been fired. Rumors have leaked and been denied that the Board has decided to cancel the planned Strike Authorization vote or maybe proceed with the planned Strike Authorization vote or maybe schedule a leg-wrestling contest instead of the planned Strike Authorization vote. No one seems to know.

But whatever's gonna happen, it's probably gonna happen soon.

Why does it scare me that George W. Bush is giving a farewell address on Thursday night? I'll tell you why: Because of the old government adage that if you have to release news that you don't want people to notice too much, you do it on Friday. I have the feeling that Bush has a pile of last-minute edicts and executive decrees and especially pardons that will outrage all decent Americans, and he wants to have his last, semi-dignified address before we get whacked by them. He couldn't very well sit there and talk about the integrity and lawfulness of his administration right after he'd signed pardons for himself and all his top officials, right?