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Hello from Super-Con in San Jose, where I spent the day Super-Conning, which mostly meant sitting next to Mark Waid in the exhibit hall and signing whatever comics he didn't write. There were one or two of them. Mark and I did a panel together and I also moderated a panel of Playboy cartoonists that consisted of Ray Lago, Russ Heath, Doug Sneyd and Dean Yeagle.

Nice to be at a comic book convention that's almost wholly devoted to comic books. There's nothing wrong with all the multimedia content that one now generally finds at something that is ostensibly a "comic book convention" but I'm happy the old-fashioned kind still exists.

This is my first time ever in San Jose and as with too many cities where I've attended conventions, I will go home having seen almost none of the town. When people ask me if I've ever been to, say, Houston, I'm not sure what to say. I was physically in Houston once for a convention…but all I saw of the place was the airport, a Marriott, a few restaurants near the Marriott and the freeways between the airport and the Marriott. Is that being in Houston? I guess so but if I say that, the next question is always either, "How'd you like it?" or they tick off a list of great places to visit that I didn't visit and ask me which ones I went to. (Answer: None.) This is true of perhaps a dozen other locales. I should try to stay an extra day or three in these cities and at least walk around but it never quite works with my schedule.

Years ago, there was some convention that kept inviting me and the dates never worked out. But once when I was considering making them work, I told the con organizer that I might want to stay an extra day or two and see some of the area. He said, "We were hoping you would. The day after the con, we're taking all our guests white-water rafting." If anyone ever asks you what activity you're least likely to catch Evanier doing, white-water rafting would be right up there between hang-gliding off Kilimanjaro and modern interpretative dance. I didn't even want to explain to the others why I wouldn't be joining them for the white-water rafting so I passed on that convention.

Some time later, one of the fellows who worked on that con was telling me it was great, that everyone had a good time, etc., and that I should have come and gone white-water rafting with them after the event. I said, "I notice you didn't take your guests white-water rafting before the convention," and he said, "Of course not. After the con, it's not as big a deal if someone gets hurt."

Dave Mackey, who probably qualifies as the world's ranking expert on Hal Seeger cartoons, if only by default, writes…

If you think the merchandising for The Milton The Monster Show was paltry, consider this: only one licensed item ever appeared for Batfink during his heyday — a Halloween costume.

I guess Seeger was too busy making cartoons to care about the licensing and such items that appeared for Milton were at the behest of ABC, who wanted to make their toy-maker sponsors happy with tie-in products.

Batfink was always a syndicated property. It was initially distributed by Screen Gems, though no "S-from-hell" (as the logo fanboys call it) ever appeared on the film prints.

I never met Hal Seeger, nor do I know a lot about him and his operation. However, I suspect he desperately wanted to generate merchandising of his characters and couldn't. You don't spend the bucks to make walk-around costumes of your characters unless you're trying hard to tell the toy industry, "Hey, how about us?" Matter of fact, at the Licensing Show in New York each year, it's almost a joke how these companies with properties that no one's ever heard of will parade around people dressed as their characters to try and drum up some interest.

Will Harris has a more important point to make about Milton the Monster…

All this talk of Milton the Monster and no Amazon link to the Shout! Factory set of the show that was released earlier this year.? Surely the massaging of people's memories would result in a few sales.and, therefore, a few cents here and there for newsfromme!

Gasp! What a horrible omission! Here's just such a link…and while you're at it, you can also pre-order the forthcoming Batfink DVD via this link. Thanks, Will. Can't imagine how I made such a foolish error.

Actually, this one's recommended only if you have a greater-than-normal interest in the conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of that Kennedy guy in '63. Ron Rosenbaum rambles a lot and discusses his own personal reasons for deciding, as I did, that all the conspiracy theorists were full of Bandini. But in there, I think he says some good things about why some people believe what they believe.

This week when Earl Kress and I were on Stu's Show (as discussed here), one of the many animation-related subjects that was touched upon was Hal Seeger. Mr. Seeger was a producer of TV cartoons from the late sixties through the early seventies, though he didn't produce a lot. On Stu's Show, we said that one of Seeger's shows, Batfink, was on NBC. This was probably wrong. It may have aired on some NBC stations but it was actually a syndicated show.

Hal Seeger Productions had but one network series. It was called Milton the Monster and it debuted on ABC in October of 1965. At the time, The Addams Family and The Munsters were hot shows in prime time and so was Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. So someone, perhaps Mr. Seeger himself, got the idea to do a show about a big, lovable Frankenstein-type monster who talked a lot like Gomer. Bob McFadden supplied the voice and the cast also included Dayton Allen and Larry Best. It was a fairly clever show, with scripts by Jack Mercer, Kin Platt and Woody Kling.

Each half hour of Milton the Monster featured adventures of Milton and his monstrous supporting players, plus various other series that appeared in rotation. The two main ones were Fearless Fly, an insect super-hero, and a character named Stuffy Derma, who was a hobo who'd inherited millions of dollars. As a kid, I could never quite make much sense of Stuffy Derma, starting with his name. (A Stuffed Derma is a rare delicatessen specialty — roasted chicken intestines stuffed with matzo meal and something like chicken fat. But I didn't know that then and I'd be surprised if most of you ever knew that. Or would ever eat one.)

We have two clips here. One is the opening of The Milton the Monster Show. Watch it and then I'll meet you on the other side to introduce the second clip…

Hello on the other side. This next clip is apparently a home movie from Hal Seeger's collection. This is Hal (I think that's him) taking two people to the New York Toy Fair…two people dressed in walkaround costumes as Milton the Monster and Fearless Fly. This was presumably something he invested in to try and drum up some licensing interest in his characters; to perhaps get toy manufacturers to buy the rights to put out Milton the Monster dolls and Fearless Fly action figures…or something. I don't know of enough Milton merchandise to think that this campaign was too successful. There was a Milton board game from (appropriately) Milton-Bradley, a plastic frame-tray puzzle, one issue of a Gold Key comic book…and not a whole lot more.

The title card on this clip, which runs two and a half minutes, says it's from 1968 but I doubt that. Milton the Monster was out of production and off ABC by then, and pretty much dead as a viable property. All the merchandise I mentioned above came out in 1966 and this footage is probably from early that year. Here it is…

Over on his weblog, Alex Ness asks a bunch of people (I'm one of them) about the legacy of Jack Kirby.

Michael Riedel has a nice article remembering Charles Nelson Reilly. A couple things it doesn't tell you about the man: Reilly was not only Dick Van Dyke's understudy in the original Broadway version of Bye Bye Birdie but Paul Lynde's, as well. In fact, he took over that part for a while when Mr. Lynde left the show, and it was one of those rare times when a replacement in a show generated a lot of buzz and many said he was better than the guy he replaced.

Reilly's audition for the role of Bud Frump in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying was an example of another thing that occurs from time to time in show business: The contrary casting notion. The way that works is that the folks casting the play or movie or TV show or whatever it is believe that the character is a fat brunette and they look and look at every fat brunette in the business and don't find what they want. Then a skinny blonde somehow gets an audition and is so wonderful that the producers and/or director decide the character is a skinny blonde. At the time Reilly auditioned, Bud Frump was supposed to be shorter than Robert Morse — which made the job hard to fill because Robert Morse was pretty short — and the character had other qualities that didn't correspond to Charles Nelson. But Morse got his friend Chuck the audition and Reilly was so funny that they changed the character to fit him. It's a tale often told by acting teachers in classes on How to Audition and the moral of it, which I'm not sure is always the best advice, is "Forget what they say they want. Just go out there and be wonderful."

Lastly, I'm also not sure I agree with Reilly's line about how once you do game shows, you can forget about a career in theater…and I'm not sure he meant it to be taken seriously. More often, the situation is that once an actor is making steady money off game shows, he or she doesn't want to do theater. If they do, the name recognition from the game shows will certainly help. It may not help on Broadway but a large part of Broadway is suspicious of anyone doing anything that isn't Broadway.

Thanks to James H. Burns for the link.

Okay, here's a treasure. Very few kinescopes exist of Tonight (it was not called The Tonight Show back then) from when it was hosted by Steve Allen. Here's a little less than a half hour from the Halloween show of 1954. That's Gene Rayburn doing the opening announce and then Steve, wearing a Halloween costume, welcomes the new audience.

I need to explain that. Back then, the show was in two parts. At 11:15 or 11:20 (it changed over the years), Allen would host something called either The Steve Allen Show or The Steve Allen Knickerbocker Show, Knickerbocker being a brand of beer that sponsored the program. This was an extension of the local show Allen had done in New York which led to him being signed by NBC to do Tonight on the full network. At 11:28 or so, that show would break for commercials and when it came back at 11:30, they'd continue the same show but now it would be Tonight with the whole network watching. It was like only New York got the first 10-15 minutes of the program. If you were watching there, you'd hear Rayburn open the show once at 11:15 or 11:20 and then he'd open the show again, but with a different name at 11:30.

The dual start times continued after Allen departed. Jack Paar's Tonight program started at 11:15 and then it started again at 11:30. It was called Tonight (later, Jack Paar Tonight and briefly, The Jack Paar Show) in both parts. Stations around the country had the option of joining it at either point, depending on whether their 11:00 news was fifteen minutes or thirty. It wasn't until a few years into the Carson era that this changed. Johnny got mad that only a small part of the country was seeing his opening monologue so he began getting what he called The Fifteen Minute Flu. At 11:15, he'd declare he was feeling poorly, so Ed McMahon and bandleader Skitch Henderson (who you'll also see in today's clip) would host the show until 11:30 when Johnny would be miraculously cured and would come out to do his monologue when the show restarted. Eventually, NBC took the hint and lined up all the stations to take the show at 11:30.

This chunk of Steve Allen's Tonight is in three parts and there are a few odd jumps and edits where things are missing. Still, it's a must-see. Here's Part One…

The second part contains a musical number performed by Steve Lawrence, Eydie Gorme, Andy Williams and Pat Marshall, plus appearances by Jayne Meadows, Faye Emerson, Gene Rayburn and Kim Novak…

Which brings us to Part Three. It starts with an overlap from Part Two and then they play some silly Halloween games. This is not indicative of everything that occurred on Tonight but it's also not that atypical. Some nights, it apparently was very much like this…

Cracked Magazine picks "The 20 Best 'That Guys' of All Time." Actually, it seems like a list of mainly current character actors who are known better for their faces than their names, but it's not a bad list. Go take a look.

Speaking of events where you'll find the likes of me: This weekend, I will be a guest-type person at the Super-Con in San Jose, California…a fact I have yet to mention to one person without hearing a "Do you know the way?" joke. I will be hosting a panel on the great Filipino comic artists with four of them and I'll be doing a two-man panel — actually, a two-Mark panel — with Mark Waid all about comic book writing. We will mainly be advancing the theory that you really can't write a decent comic if your name isn't Mark. And that's not my claim. I learned it from Mark Verheiden.

All the details on this spectacular event can be extracted from this website and if you can make it, please do. When I'm not doing panels, I'll be wandering around with the usual stupid look on my face, so if you see me or that look, feel free to say hello. Also while I'm there, I'm going to find some peace of mind in San Jose. Wo oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh ohhh…

The other day, I posted an item about an upcoming one-night-only tribute to Mort Sahl. Here's the website and as you can see, the roster of scheduled performers is truly impressive…

Larry King will be the host. This is only possible because I didn't kill him Tuesday evening…although I came close. (I still have the suspender prints on my bumpers.) The rest of the list consists of Albert Brooks, Jay Leno, Drew Carey, Bill Maher, Shelley Berman, David Steinberg, Richard Lewis, Paula Poundstone, Jonathan Winters, David Brenner, Kevin Nealon, Jack Riley and a taped appearance by Woody Allen. I'm told there will also be at least two other very special performers whose names cannot yet be mentioned…and I'm guessing that Mort's going to say a word or two, as well.

The event will not be televised. It will not even be recorded. So I'll be there.

Our friends over at the Old TV Tickets website have been enormously irresponsible lately, shirking their update duties. Finally though, they've gotten around to posting something new over there — some tickets from Here's Lucy, the third of Lucille Ball's four TV sitcoms. And it's about friggin' time.

I continue to be amazed how many folks in the news-gathering business can get caught making up "facts" and then think they can tough it out and save face without admitting error. Today's case in point: Lou Dobbs.

It's another one of those great commercials for Cap'n Crunch cereals, done back in the day they were produced by Jay Ward's studio and featured the voice of the brilliant Daws Butler as the salty cereal salesman.

Did you hear Earl Kress and me today on Stu's Show on Shokus Internet Radio? Well, if you did, you didn't hear much of us. Shortly after the show began, tech problems forced us off the air. Or off the web or whatever the correct term is for an Internet radio program.

We went ahead and recorded the show and it will air in full tomorrow at 4 PM Pacific/7 PM Eastern and then it repeats many more times in the coming week. Check out the schedule on this page.

If and when you tune in, you can hear Earl and me chat with host Stu Shostak about cartoons of the sixties and other related topics. Stu, by the way, failed to guess the identity of our Mystery Guest, who was Frank Buxton, voice of Batfink and the writer, producer and/or director of many fine unanimated shows like Happy Days and The Odd Couple. We had a short but sweet conversation by phone with Frank around the mid-point of the two-hour program.

To listen to Shokus Internet Radio, go to this page and select a browser. It's free and you might enjoy listening to whatever's on as you work at your computer. Even if what's on at the moment isn't Earl and me.

Everyone's trying to determine the precise odds of Al Gore becoming a candidate for the White House in '08. They're acting like Gore knows exactly what he's going to do and maybe, if you analyze his every word and also study his manner of dress and his body weight, you can get some clue as to what that plan is.

Why is it so inconceivable that Gore's "plan" is to stay out of it for now, study the situation as it exists in 4-6 months and then decide? I mean, isn't the likely truth that the guy intends to look at the polls and the competition and maybe some personal factors then and see how feasible it is? A lot of things just might change between now and then, and he's got plenty to do and ways to keep his name before the public without becoming an announced candidate.

I'm a big believer in Planning Ahead when it makes sense. It doesn't always. Right this minute, you can decide to have Chinese Food on August 9 but why? You don't know what kind of craving you may be having then…or if you'll find a better restaurant between now and then or if you'll wind up getting invited to a big Chinese dinner on August 8 or a thousand other scenarios which could alter things. I've suffered from not being prepared for certain decisions and not giving them sufficient consideration in advance. But I've also suffered from planning something before I knew all the circumstances of that decision. At the very least, I've wasted a lot of time deciding something…and then everything changed and I had to start deciding all over again.

I have no idea what's on Al Gore's mind. Maybe he is tentatively committed to a certain strategy, but it seems to me that if it were to definitely not run, he'd get that idea off the table more explicitly than he has. Because then, if he decided he did want to run in 2012, he wouldn't be thought of as a guy who lost in 2000 and lost again in '08. I think he's just waiting to see and that all this attempted mind-reading is a case of trying to gin up a news story where there isn't one…at least not yet.