Category Archives: Uncategorized

I may just repost this every month or so. The world of original comic art collecting needs a big, neon CAVEAT EMPTOR sign flashing in the faces of all buyers. There's an awful lot of stuff on the market — and in online auctions, especially — that is either innocently misidentified or deviously forged. Right now over at America's Marketplace (eBay to you), someone is selling a page from the Hulk story in Tales to Astonish #73 (the panel above is from that story) and they say it was penciled by Jack Kirby and inked by Bob Powell.

No, it wasn't. The printed credits on that issue say that Jack did layouts, not pencils. Layouts are substantially less, as evidenced by the fact that Jack received 25% of the rate he'd get if he just drew the page in pencil. Then the published credits say "Art by Bob Powell," suggesting he penciled and inked…and even that's not right because the art was actually roughed out by Kirby, penciled by Powell and inked by Mike Esposito.

This one's an easy, blameless misidentification. Others aren't so innocent. There are a couple of artists whose work is habitually faked…and usually not even that well. Be especially wary of unpublished sketches, especially if they aren't signed to anyone. Charles Schulz never had much of a reason to sit down and do a great finished drawing of Snoopy in a classic pose unless it was a gift to somebody and thus signed to that person. He usually also managed to spell his own last name right.

So be skeptical and remember that just because someone sells original art doesn't mean they have the slightest ability to discern who actually did it. Some have good eyes for this kind of thing but some don't. And the ones in the "don't" category often have very strong motives to believe that a given piece of art is real and that it's by the guy whose work goes for the high price.

Jonathan Alter explains why the recent Congressional revision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is a destruction of the Fourth Amendment to that thing we used to call the U.S. Constitution. Everyone involved with this new legislation oughta be ashamed of themselves but especially the Democrats who knew exactly what it was and voted for it anyway.

I've never heard a bad story about Merv Griffin. I mean, I'm sure they're out there. You don't do that many shows and make that much money without having someone decide you screwed them over about something. It's just that Merv projected such a jolly, friendly image that I think the folks with the negative tales never got a lot of traction out of them. Or maybe everyone was just too busy spreading the stories of Merv and an array of "poolboys."

Merv was a humble guy on all fronts but two. He disparaged his own careers as a band singer and as an actor. He took pride in his years as an interviewer and talk show host, and he bragged nicely about his business acumen as a producer and entrepreneur. The Griffin talk shows are largely forgotten but in their day, they were phenomenal successes.

Well, two of them were. His first one — a daytime affair for NBC — was a quick failure. When the network signed Johnny Carson to take over The Tonight Show, they simultaneously signed Griffin for daytime to have him in the "on deck" position in case Carson failed. Instead, Merv failed…but that deal gave his production company some commitments to produce daytime game shows and led to Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. Those are two of the most profitable TV shows ever produced so Merv probably didn't have lasting regrets over doing that daytime talk show…especially since it led to his later, nighttime ones.

From the afternoon program, he went to a syndicated show for Group W. Local stations slotted it wherever they thought it would be most effective but most had it on in the evenings as an alternative to the network prime-time line-ups. It was a good show with good guests and it was quite successful. Merv might never had left it had CBS not come to him waving megabucks. In '69, that network decided to try a late night show to compete with Mr. Carson and they went after Merv. As the story is told, Griffin was quite happy with his Group W show so he told CBS, "I'll only do it if you pay me double whatever Johnny's making." CBS, to Merv's surprise, agreed.

Unfortunately, it wasn't just a matter of competing with Carson. There was also Joey Bishop on ABC and when they lost Griffin, Group W replaced his show with a David Frost program. Four competing talk shows carved the audience too thin and Merv did not get a large-enough slice. This obit by Bob Thomas says he went back to Group W but I think that's wrong. I think it was Metromedia. Whoever syndicated it, the new/old Merv Griffin Show was even more successful than any before it. It was like every time Merv was cancelled, he made more money. And then he made more money and more money and more money.

I only had a few brief encounters with the man. One of my more surreal evenings in the theater occurred when I went to see Dick Shawn's one man show in the early eighties. The play itself was bizarre (and brilliant) enough but my date and I were seated next to Merv and his date, Eva Gabor. During the first act, Eva sat next to me and obviously didn't understand one word of Shawn's odd stream of onstage consciousness. After intermission, they switched seats…and I sat next to a man who laughed harder than I've ever seen a human being laugh. And during the few moments when he wasn't convulsed, he was whispering to me and everyone around him, "Isn't this marvelous?" He sounded just like Rick Moranis doing Merv Griffin, except more unctuous.

After the play, Shawn did an extended chat with the audience that included introducing many celebrities in the audience. He pointed out Merv, who stood to great applause. Shawn asked him who he'd brought as his date and Merv got a huge laugh by gesturing absent-mindedly to me. I stood up, started to embrace him…and then acted hurt when he corrected himself and introduced Eva. On the way out, people were telling my lady friend, "He's better off with you" and I kept saying, "Yeah, but do you know how much money Merv has?"

I also saw Merv in action a few times when I was backstage at his talk show, accompanying some friend who was doing stand-up on the show. Merv had on almost every successful stand-up of that era and he often had them before Johnny. But there was something about the reps of the two shows that caused comedians to rarely mention their appearances with Merv. Even when they'd done his show before they did Carson, they'd refer to The Tonight Show as their television debuts.

The last time I saw Merv in person was when he tried to serve me soup. It was in Griff's, a buffet restaurant he operated in the Beverly Hilton, a hotel he owned. The diners were amazed (but the staff was not) to see Merv going around, suggesting everyone try the Pumpkin Soup that was, he said, his personal recipe. My lady friend — a different lady friend from the one who'd stolen me away from him at the play — told him it was delicious but that I couldn't have any due to a food allergy. Merv started calling for the servers to find some other kind of soup to bring me. I didn't particularly want soup — the buffet was so bountiful you didn't need soup — but that was Merv's first instinct: A customer wasn't getting everything possible and something had to be done. I managed to convince him it was quite okay that I didn't have soup…and I didn't mention that he'd once thrown me over for Eva Gabor.

In 1954, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy made their one-and-only real TV appearance, quite against their will. They were "surprised" (Laurel later said, "horrified") on the series, This Is Your Life. Each week, some unsuspecting celebrity would be pounced upon by host Ralph Edwards and dragged into his stage for a little surprise party/biography done on live television. The subject's family and friends would be in on the plot and would help arrange it…and the celeb would have to go along with it. Sid Caesar and his crew once famously parodied all this in what I think is either the funniest sketch ever done on television or darn close to it. In fact, before I go any further, let me embed that sketch. This window should play it and then move on to other things but you can stop it after the part you want to see…

Now then. The night This Is Your Life did Laurel and Hardy, the "surprise" was done at a hotel behind the El Capitan Theater, which is where the TV show was done. Then Edwards went to a commercial, during which Stan and Ollie were expected to walk from the hotel to the stage of the El Capitan. When the show resumed after the commercial, they hadn't arrived and Edwards was forced to nervously ad-lib and fill time until they showed.

Laurel was not happy about making his TV debut in this manner. He was a meticulous rehearser who didn't like appearing unprepared before all of America. He also resented something else. At the time, he and Hardy were very much available to make movies and no one was offering them any opportunities. Yet here he was, being tricked into making an appearance for either no money or scale pay. He was gracious during the half-hour telecast but you could tell he wasn't overjoyed. This plus the delay in their arrival led to the assumption by some that the delay was because Stan and Ollie were refusing to participate and had to be talked into going through with it. This is apparently not so. It was merely a long walk to the stage and the This Is Your Life people had misfigured the time.

Anyway, as you might imagine, our video link today is to a video of that show. It's not the greatest picture quality but you probably won't watch the whole thing, anyway…

Orson Bean is a wonderful actor and wit and game show host and I've really enjoyed his past books, especially an autobiography he penned called Too Much Is Not Enough. Good stuff.

Recently, he wrote a novel called Mikey with a spiritual theme to it. He has not been able to find a publisher for it because, he says, it's been deemed "too profane for a Christian publishing house and too Christian for a traditional house." That means it's about God and redemption but people in it cuss a lot and have a lot of sex.

Since no one's racing to publish it, Bean's agent suggested putting it up on the Internet. I haven't had the time yet to read Mikey and might not for a while. But it's Orson Bean and I figure that even if I don't like it, you might. So you can click here to read it — you'll need to have Adobe Something on your computer — and I'm not so much recommending it as telling you that it's there. Stan Sakai told me but I don't think he read it, either.

I keep seeing this TV commercial for a bladder control medicine called Enablex and it's been driving me nuts, trying to figure out who that is doing the voiceover.

Finally got it. It's Andrea Martin.

Before 9/11, I had a low opinion of Rudy Giuliani. After 9/11, I had a much higher opinion of Rudy Giuliani. Since then, it's dipped back below the pre-9/11 level…and he sure hasn't helped matters by wrapping himself in that awful day and trying to get so much Teflon out of it. Worse, he seems to have a candidacy that has nothing else going for it but his 9/11 credentials…which is why it's so sad to see this article by Wayne Barrett. It basically says that even the esteem for 9/11 is undeserved and that his actions relating to the attack reflect a lot of bad judgment and self-interest. If someone sees a good rebuttal to this, please let me know…but I fear it will be come to seen as accurate history.

The best part of the piece is a great caricature of Giuliani by an artist named John Kascht. I was unfamiliar with his work but I found his website and discovered he's always that good.

I haven't been to Philadelphia in many years but I have to get back there soon. Why? No, it's not to have a cheesesteak, although I will. It's because I yearn to visit the Stoogeum, the first — and I'm betting, for a time, the only ever — museum devoted to the life and times of The Three Stooges. This article will tell you all about the place and make you yearn to visit.

Leonard Maltin just sent me this piece by Garrison Keillor about what it was like for him to celebrate his most recent birthday.

One lovely Hollywood movie star morphs into another. And another and another and another and another and another…

Thanks to "chev elt," who sent me the link.

Todd Allen takes a look at the folks who are hired to dress up in costume at comic conventions to help promote a booth and/or product. This is becoming something of an industry unto itself.

While I'm near this topic: I keep getting e-mails from folks complaining about the crowded aisles at conventions. This is obviously a problem, especially when the resident Fire Marshall is ready to shut things down. But I think some of the complainers don't get that for the folks who operate those exhibits (and pay mightily for booth space), crowding the aisles is the goal. Just as at some of the panels that preview new films or DVD releases, they're delighted when people can't get in. If you're promoting a new movie or product that's coming out next year, one of the reasons you spend the bucks to go to Comic-Con — one of the reasons you drag your cast and director down there and give out free stuff — is so that you can announce, "Interest in this is so strong that at Comic-Con, people lined up six hours early for a panel and we turned thousands away."

If you're one of those thousands, it sucks. But from the standpoint of the promoter, it's a job well done.

I'm not saying this should always be tolerated or encouraged, or that the convention couldn't/shouldn't do more to minimize crowds and long lines for things like this. But let's recognize that sometimes, the con and the exhibitors are working at cross-purposes. If I get a little time later — this is a Big Deadline Weekend for some of us — I'll post an anecdote about Buffalo Bob Smith that illumines the point.

This website asks a lot of important questions about bottled water but there are two main ones: Does it really taste better than tap water? And what impact does the manufacture of those bottles and their transport, filling and disposal have on the environment?

To the first question, I have an easy, almost inarguable answer. Bottled water tastes much better than the water that comes out of my faucets. The H2O here is awful…so awful that I've twice had experts from the D.W.P. in because I couldn't believe that what was emanating from my taps was acceptable. They tested it and said it was not dangerous in any way…but both admitted that it sure tasted like something you shouldn't be swallowing. The last guy, a year or so ago, explained that some work had been done on pipes about a mile away and that had kicked up a lot of old sediment and sent harmless but foul-tasting elements into the local water supply. "It should settle down in a few months," he said but this has not happened.

So that's the answer to the first question. It annoys me a bit when people tell me tap water is indistinguishable from bottled water. Not around here, it isn't. The fact that they may be equally good in your home is irrelevant to my life. That's like me telling someone in Germany where it's currently flooding, "Don't be silly. It's 78 degrees and clear outside."

Oddly enough, that website doesn't seem to even believe itself on this point. In one section, they say…

In an interesting study conducted by Showtime television, the hosts found that 75% of tested New York City residents actually preferred tap water over bottled water in a blind taste test. While taste is certainly highly subjective, this study shows that bottled water essentially holds nothing over tap water. In many cases, bottled water is no purer than tap water, and it may not even taste better.

I think they're referring to a survey on the Penn & Teller Bullshit show…which is, again, irrelevant to my life. Every time I've been to Manhattan, the tap water has tasted pretty good, but I can't keep flying east when I need to take my vitamins. In any case, most of the same site is devoted to pushing the idea of installing water filters because, as they say…

Tap water is nowhere near free from dangerous contaminants.

So far, I haven't had much luck with water filters. Brita hasn't made the filter that can turn my water into a reasonable facsimile of Crystal Geyser Alpine Spring Water. I suspect you could put my water through a Brita filter and then pour that through an Aquapure filter and run the output of that through a Pur filter and then have it all treated by my friendly neighborhood Culligan man…and it still wouldn't be decent water. But I am doing some further investigation on this point. Maybe I'll find a filtration system that works.

As for the second question, that's a different matter. Are all those plastic bottles an ecological problem? I want to read up more on that because I go through an awful lot of them and if they're filling the landfills to capacity, that's a dandy reason to do something different. I'd also like to know about the effects of water filtration. (I have the feeling that the folks who put up that website to which I'm linking have something to do with that industry. In any case, they don't address that.)

I gave up carbonated beverages in February of '06 and most fruit juices after my surgery the following May. My consumption of bottled water has probably quintupled (at least!) since then. So maybe I'm overdue to get smarter about this stuff.

This is a clip from the Colgate Comedy Hour that aired live on November 13, 1955. It was one of the last times Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis hosted that show and it was a little over seven months before they made their last appearance as a team. So despite all the on-air buddy-buddy rhetoric, they were probably already close to splitting and weren't palling around a lot off-stage.

The song is "Two Lost Souls" and I'm not sure whether it's ironic or appropriate…or maybe both. But it was from the play Damn Yankees, which had debuted on Broadway six months earlier. Some lyrics, obviously, were changed for Dean and Jerry. A little less than forty years after this telecast, Jerry would make his Broadway debut in a revival of Damn Yankees…and he would sing "Two Lost Souls." Interesting? Kind of.

Daniel Gross explains why Rudy Giuliani's (and for that matter, George W. Bush's) health care proposal sucks. Actually, I will be very surprised if any health care plan proposed by a Republican in '08 won't suck. They'll all have to have one because the public will demand it of them. So the trick will be to come up with one like Giuliani's that either changes nothing or funnels more tax money into profits for private insurance firms and major pharmaceutical companies. Obviously, Iraq will be the big issue in the next election. But this one's shaping up as a close contender so a lot of what we're going to hear is candidates denouncing each others' proposals as unworkable and/or illusory.

Ultimately, what it may come down to is Republicans accusing Democrats of having no plan to fix Iraq, Democrats accusing Republicans of having no plan to fix health care…and both sides being right.

In the previous posting, I just fixed a minor factual error that was pointed out to me by Dan Kravetz. I mentioned buying the Sunday Herald-Express. Actually, if it was Sunday — and it was — the paper was called the Herald-Examiner.

Let me explain. Once upon a time, when newspapers were a real business, Los Angeles had more of them. We had the Times-Mirror company publishing a morning paper (The Los Angeles Times) and an afternoon paper (The Los Angeles Mirror), and then we had the Hearst Corporation publishing a morning paper (The Los Angeles Examiner) and an afternoon paper (The Los Angeles Herald-Express). These all came out Monday through Saturday.

On Sunday, each company published one Sunday paper that combined the regular features of its morning and afternoon papers. The Times-Mirror company put out the Sunday Los Angeles Times and it included some columnists and comic strips that were seen in the Mirror on weekdays. The Hearst folks called their Sunday paper The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner and it had features from both. In 1962, the two companies worked out some deal whereby each terminated one of its papers. The Times-Mirror people dropped the Mirror and some of its features went into the Los Angeles Times, which remained a morning paper. The Hearst folks dropped their morning paper and merged its contents into an afternoon paper called the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner. The Herald-Examiner continued until 1989.

For a time after the '62 changeover, the Herald-Examiner carried the comics pages of both newspapers in full and it was a glorious thing. Eventually though, they began tossing out strips and whittled it down to one page. The Times dropped a lot of strips immediately and just merged two funny pages into one. I don't recall the exact casualties list but I recall an awful lot of angry mail, including a letter I sent asking why we had to lose anything. A lot of people were happy that they had fewer newspapers to buy but they hadn't reckoned on losing their favorite comic strips.