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Take the old Hanna-Barbera Super Friends cartoon show. Recast with Democrats as the super-heroes and Republicans as the super-villains and what do you have? You have The Challenge of the Super-Duper Friends.

Reader Bill Sinkins writes…

Thanks for sharing the e-mail from Dick DeBartolo. It reminded me of the 60 Minutes feature on MAD that aired many years ago. At that time, the parent company that owned MAD (I forget who it was) had a policy that required all senior management to get an annual physical. Supposedly, Gaines hated going to the doctor, so he sent a much younger staffer as a body double. They also related the story of Gaines flying to some remote place (Guam, perhaps?) along with several senior staff members to personally entreat their one subscriber there to renew his subscription. I haven't picked up MAD in years, maybe I should, for old time's sake…

It wasn't Guam. It was Haiti. And Gaines didn't fly there to get the one subscriber to renew. He'd decided to take the entire staff on a vacation — it was the first of the legendary MAD trips — and out of curiosity, he had someone look and see if MAD had any subscribers there. When it turned out they had one and his subscription had just expired, Gaines decided to pay the guy a visit. He loaded his entourage in five jeeps, drove over to the address and presented the fellow with a renewal card.

The funniest part of the story is probably that in spite of that, the reader didn't want to renew. But he agreed to accept a free subscription.

Gaines was a colorful guy. I think though that MAD has actually survived the loss of him. In my opinion as a MAD completist, the magazine is now better than it's been in a long time. It's gone up and down over the years but I think it's clearly on an "up" and you oughta pick up a copy, not for old time's sake — you won't recognize a lot of the credits — but because it's a pretty funny publication.

The Silent Movie Theatre over on Fairfax was an important part of my childhood. As I explained here, I spent many a Friday evening in its hard seats watching Laurel and Hardy or Chaplin or Douglas Fairbanks or some other star of legendary status, and I developed a casual friendship with the man who ran the place.

Recently, I was interviewed for a forthcoming documentary on the Silent Movie Theatre. A gentleman named Iain Kennedy just sent me the following brief summary of his project…

The documentary will look at the history of the theater through the personal recollections of those people who have worked there or who went there as members of the audience. Particular focus will be given to the owners of theater who made it an L.A. landmark and kept silent films running for audiences to re-discover and enjoy. We're very interested in hearing from people who went to the theater during the John and Dorothy Hampton "era" (approximately 1942 to 1979) and Lawrence Austin's tenure (1991 to 1997), as well as more recent years (Charlie Lustman's revival of the theater, 1999-2006).

If you are such a person, drop me a note and I'll forward it to Iain.

Ah, what has Mark found for us this morning on YouTube? Mark has found the title number of one of his favorite musicals, On the Twentieth Century, a show which had book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and music by Cy Coleman. The show opened in early 1978 and the original cast was toplined by John Cullum, Madeline Kahn, Imogene Coca, and Kevin Kline. Ms. Kahn left after just a few months, allegedly due to illness and with lots of other reasons rumored. Many years later when I worked with Ms. Coca, I asked her about the reason for Kahn's sudden departure and she just shook her head and said, "Poor girl…so talented and so many problems." Make of that what you will.

This number is from that year's Tony Awards broadcast in May, by which time Madeline Kahn was long gone and Judy Kaye, who you'll see in the clip, was in her place and being hailed as a major find. The show — briefly — is about a train ride from Chicago to New York, during which many things happen but most of them center around the attempts of an unscrupulous producer (the part played by Cullum) to woo back his greatest discovery, Lily Garland, who has gone on to stardom since she left him. Lily Garland is the role originated by Ms. Kahn and handed off to Ms. Kaye. And of course, you'll see Coca and Kline in there, as well. Apparently, you weren't allowed to be in this show unless your last name started with a "K" sound.

Here's that number, which includes a lot of lyrics that somehow didn't make it onto the cast album…

Scalping tickets to Broadway shows is illegal in New York…but it may not be for long. Read all about it.

Dahlia Lithwick on today's testimony by Alberto Gonzales. I think we're reaching the stage where the only thing keeping this guy in his job is his seeming ability to defy the law of inertia. It's like, "Yeah, he should quit. But he should have quit a month ago and he's still there. So maybe 'should quit' doesn't apply to him."

Dick DeBartolo, who's been writing funny stuff for MAD Magazine for centuries, worked for almost as long at the Goodson-Todman game show factory. He sends in the following…

I wrote The Match Game, but also worked on To Tell The Truth. One week, I got Gaines on as a central subject. (Gaines as in William M. Gaines, for those who might not know.) I'll never forget Bill's joy when it was Kitty Carlisle's turn to pick who she thought was the real publisher of MAD Magazine. She said it obviously wasn't #3 (Gaines.) When the host (can't remember if it was Garry or Joe G.) said "why not?" Kitty said: "Well, the publisher of MAD, a very successful magazine, must be an executive and…and…well, just look at #3. It can't be him!"

Gaines was thrilled not to look like an executive. God bless him. And Kitty, too. I hope they meet up there.

If they do, she'll probably think, "What would the guy who published Tales from the Crypt be doing up here?" But it's a nice thought.

newsfromme, your full service weblog, is about to do some of you a big favor. You may recall a recent post here where I discussed the new Hostess Cupcakes that come in 100 calorie packets. Lately, I've been trying almost every 100 calorie item I've spotted in my local markets. These come in handy for me. Since my Gastric Bypass Surgery, I don't have to worry much about my weight but I have to eat in certain rhythms. It usually comes down to two or three small meals a day and three or four smaller ones. The 100 calorie packets are usually perfect for the latter, not so much because of their calorie count but their size.

I've sampled the Chips Ahoy, Oreo, Lorna Doone, Planter's Peanut Cookies, Cheese Nips and Ritz Mix packets, all from Nabisco. The Ritz Mix, I found nearly inedible and since I bought a box of six packets, I forced the other five on company. The Oreos bothered me because they weren't Oreos. It was as if the Nabisco scientists said to the boss, "No way can we configure Oreos for 100 calorie packages," and the boss said, "I don't care…I want 100 calorie packets of something I can say are Oreos." So they came up with these air-filled chocolate wafers that they claim are Oreos but which have nothing to do with real Oreos. They're probably decent cookies but who can swallow a lie like that?

The other Nabisco products were okay. So were the 100 calorie packets of Cheetos that come from that company, and I've also tried 100 calorie Hershey dark chocolate bars, 100 calorie Thomas' English Muffins, 100 calorie Orville Redenbacher microwave popcorn and the aforementioned 100 calorie Hostess Cupcakes. They were all decent in that they were either tasty food or they reminded me of tasty food. But I'm here to tell you about my favorites, and some of you will thank me for this.

The Trader Joe's chain has gotten into the 100 calorie sweepstakes with several items, two of which I like a lot. One is their cheese crackers, which are shaped like little toucans. The other is their oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, which are shaped like oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. They taste pretty good, you get more product in each packet than you might expect, and the ingredients do not include too many unpronounceable chemical names.

Give 'em a try…and while you're there, you might want to sample some of Trader Joe's other 100 calorie products, just in case you like the cinnamon graham cracker toucans more than I did. They were all right but I liked the others better. The stores also have some multigrain cracker toucans that I didn't test. In my experience, Trader Joe's products are very hit and miss, and when I find a good one, I sometimes opt to not press my luck.

Craig Yoe has up some nice photos of Johnny Hart and Brant Parker, along with the first week of The Wizard of Id. Boy, that was a funny strip during its best years.

Another post about the new NBC series, Thank God You're Here. As I mentioned, last Saturday night I was with a group of people who excel at improv comedy and have studied it with the best teachers and co-improvisers in the world. There, the buzz on the new show was uniformly negative to the point of disgust. This article by Dan Kois sounds like a transcribed summary of those complaints.

I agree with everything in the article but I will add the following, not so much in defense of the show as explanation. Some of the press releases claim the show is "improv" but the producers themselves don't seem to be claiming that, and the folks using that term don't seem to mean "improv" in the classic tradition of Second City, Viola Spolin, The Groundlings, Del Close, Nichols and May, etc. In classic improv, the goal is to create a scene that is natural and organic and, if possible, funny. On Thank God, the goal seems to be to create an instant blooper reel where one player on stage (and only one) is in trouble and we can laugh at his predicament and perhaps applaud how he gets out of it.

There are some theater games in the classic tradition that revolve around one person not knowing who he is or what the scene is about…but even in those, as played at Second City, no one has any advance prep. So it's a challenge for the one naïve performer to guess what has been predetermined but it's also a challenge for the others in the scene to hint and convey that information for him. Everyone is improvising. The producers of Thank God seem to have decided that it's more fun to stack the deck against the one player. The improv vets who are criticizing the show know from past experience that the "real thing" would be more entertaining.

Jim Brochu is performing his one man show in Houston. This is the one I raved about here in which he channels/recreates Zero Mostel, right before your eyes. It's called Zero Hour and if you're anywhere near the Stages Repertory Theatre, get a ticket right away.

Bob Bergen is performing his one man show in Hollywood. This is the one I haven't seen yet but I know how good Bob is so I'm going to go and you should, too. It's called Not Just Another Pretty Voice and it's the story of — to use the oft-quoted line about Bob — a nice Jewish boy who grew up to be the voice of Porky Pig. It's at the Stella Adler Theatre every Wednesday through May beginning next Wednesday.

The Totally Looped show, which I've said good things about here in the past, is back in a new home…also in Hollywood. Beginning Saturday evening, April 28, they'll be appearing the last Saturday of every month at the iO West Comedy Theater, which is just a couple blocks from where Bergen's doing his show. They are great and well worth your attendance.

Finally: Recently here, I raved about the Spolin Players, a group that does genuine, 100% improv comedy in a classic tradition. Their next performance will be on Saturday, May 5 at the Westsideeclectic, which is situated on the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica. I'm going to try to get to this one, too.

The musical Fiddler on the Roof opened on Broadway on September 22, 1964. Since then, that show and that Fiddler have never stopped playing. It is always being produced somewhere. There are actors who have literally made their livings for decades by going from one production of Fiddler to another, playing whichever role they were then the right age for.

The show was a hit all over the world and the following anecdote has appeared in almost every article ever written about its popularity. The anecdote tells of how the show opened in Japan, translated into the language there and featuring a local cast. It was a big hit and someone involved in that production went to the folks who'd originated the show and asked, "Was this really a hit in America?"

The American producers were puzzled. "Of course," they replied. "Why wouldn't it be?"

The Tokyo producer responded, "Well, it's so Japanese."

A Japanese Fiddler on the Roof? What could that have been like?

GSN will salute the life of Kitty Carlisle Hart with two reruns of To Tell the Truth that will air late Sunday night, April 22. More correctly, they're on Monday morning — at 3 AM and 3:30 AM East Coast time. I'll get them here on the West Coast at Midnight and 12:30 AM via my satellite dish.

The first is the episode from March 5, 1957 which featured her first appearance as a panelist on that show. One of the segments involved the panel guessing which of three men was the real Alan Freed. That's the disc jockey Alan Freed, who was famous for bringing rock 'n' roll to the masses, as immortalized in the movie, American Hot Wax.

The other episode they're going to air is the one I mentioned in the previous item and it's from 1973, with her son Christopher in disguise. I don't know if they got the idea from what I posted here — probably not — but either way, I'm glad they're running that one.

A classy lady, Kitty Carlisle Hart, is dead at the age of 96. She did a lot of fine movies but when you're in A Night at the Opera with the Marx Brothers (as she was), it's understandable that people forget all the others.

She was Kitty Carlisle then. She became Kitty Carlisle Hart when she married playwright-director Moss Hart and became his partner in every sense, even to the extent of aiding him when he directed shows like My Fair Lady. After his death, she became the guardian of his legacy, making sure that the plays and his autobiography, Act One, were kept available and treated with the proper respect.

Many people probably know her best from the game show, To Tell the Truth, where she was a longtime panelist. She had a refreshing honesty and seemed to really enjoy what she did. If anyone from GSN (aka The Game Show Network) is reading this and thinking of running some episodes as a tribute, there was one — it was on the daytime version during, I believe, the Garry Moore era — where the impostors were all under heavy make-up. When they unmasked at the end, one turned out to be her son, Christopher, and she practically fell off her chair. If GSN can dig that one out of the vaults, I think people would love to see her wonderful reaction.

The last few years, despite being in her nineties, she performed occasionally in both New York and L.A. with a one-woman show where she sang songs and told anecdotes about her incredible life. Somehow, maddeningly, I never got the chance to see her, nor was I able to accept an invite to go have a meal with her in Manhattan. We did exchange notes once. She made a brief appearance in Woody Allen's Radio Days and I wrote her a note to let her know that at the Writers Guild screening, a roar of recognition and applause had greeted her appearance on the screen. She wrote back a cordial letter that said something like, "I would rather be applauded by a roomful of writers than all the other people on the planet." Indeed.

Here's a link to one of several obits on the 'net today.

Among the dozen-or-so political websites I hit every day are those in Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo empire. He has several and he's expanding not only in the number of sites but in what they do. Recently, he has begun producing little online webcast segments such as the one I thought you might like to watch.

It runs seven minutes and it's in two parts, both taped the other day when John Kerry went in to appear on The Colbert Report and Marshall and his cameraman got to ride along. The first part, recorded in the back of the limousine, is a fairly unremarkable interview with the senator about his new book on the environment. The most interesting thing about it is a "blogger" getting this kind of access to someone like Kerry. The interview is, of course, entirely benevolent…but I like the potential. Bloggers roaming about with video cameras and the ability to post their reports to the Internet could do a lot to make up for "real" journalists who don't ask hard questions.

The second part is backstage at The Colbert Report as Stephen C. greets Kerry and briefs him on how the interview will go. If you watch Mr. Colbert, you may be fascinated by what he tells his guest, which I'm guessing is pretty much what he tells all of them.