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I can't link you to Frank Rich's weekend column in The New York Times but I can quote the first paragraph…

Tomorrow night is the fourth anniversary of President Bush's prime-time address declaring the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. In the broad sweep of history, four years is a nanosecond, but in America, where memories are congenitally short, it's an eternity. That's why a revisionist history of the White House's rush to war, much of it written by its initial cheerleaders, has already taken hold. In this exonerating fictionalization of the story, nearly every politician and pundit in Washington was duped by the same "bad intelligence" before the war, and few imagined that the administration would so botch the invasion's aftermath or that the occupation would go on so long. "If only I had known then what I know now …" has been the persistent refrain of the war supporters who subsequently disowned the fiasco. But the embarrassing reality is that much of the damning truth about the administration's case for war and its hubristic expectations for a cakewalk were publicly available before the war, hiding in plain sight, to be seen by anyone who wanted to look.

The rest of the piece is a list of things prominent people have said about the war that now seem to be foolish, disingenuous, unrealistic or just plain lies. They're all the kinds of statements that no one can now argue were wise or valid, so they have to defend them as good faith judgments by people who through no fault of their own were misled or misinformed, and of course you can't fault someone for believing faulty information and acting on it. Even if the person is Dick Cheney and acting on that faulty info has tripled the value of Halliburton stock.

Lately, it seems to be all the rage to ask politicians if they think homosexuality is immoral. I'd like to see them all asked how they feel about people getting wealthy from a war that's killing people left and right, and driving the U.S. into a financial Grand Canyon. Anything about that make you at all uncomfortable?

The wise and sage Earl Kress announces, surely to the disappointment of many, that The Banana Splits Adventure Hour is off the list of old Hanna-Barbera shows that will be coming out on DVD in the near future. The source material, sez Earl, is simply in too bad a shape for a good DVD to be produced without a lot of time and moola. Better they yank it from the release schedule than put out an inferior product.

I was never a huge fan of that show. Liked the theme song, liked some of the blackouts, liked hearing Daws Butler and Paul Winchell and Allan Melvin doing voices. Never quite sparked to the individual features in the show, nor did I understand the mix of comedy and adventure. But some folks loved it and I think anything that some folks loved ought to be available on DVD…though they should wait 'til they can do it right.

Here's another Garfield cartoon I wrote. I called it, for reasons that will become obvious if you watch, "The Creature That Lived in the Refrigerator Behind the Mayonnaise, Next to the Ketchup and To The Left of the Cole Slaw."

As always in these, Lorenzo Music was the voice of Garfield, Thom Huge was the voice of Jon and Gregg Berger — whom you saw recently in a video clip here — was the voice of Odie. The Police Sergeant was also voiced by Gregg and there's an odd thing there. In the Ink and Paint Department at the studio, there was a lady who took it upon herself to make sure that we didn't have a show where a disproportionate percentage of the human beings were Caucasian. That was a commendable goal but she was kind of arbitrary about who she decided should get minority status. Every so often, she'd just decide to make some supporting character black even though the artist who designed that character hadn't had that in mind and the voice track had already been recorded with, say, an Irish accent…or at least a voice which certainly didn't suggest a non-white race. Sometimes, the producer or I caught it. Sometimes, we didn't. The Police Sergeant in this cartoon is an example of a "didn't." (She also sometimes missed noticing the other way and a character we intended as black came out about as Afro-American as Audrey Hepburn.)

The voice of the Police Sergeant's assistant Jones was done by Jim Davis, creator of Garfield. The voice of Shmidlap was done by Thom Huge, and the little girl's scream at the end was done by my friend, B-Movie Babe Jewel Shepard, who was helping me out in the studio that day. Jewel has screamed in a lot of movies, so I decided to have her scream in one of my cartoons. Here's that cartoon…

Are you following the latest twist in the O.J. Simpson book deal? It's kind of odd. A court has ruled that Simpson's rights in that If I Did It book must be auctioned off with the proceeds going to help pay down the $33.5 million judgment that the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown won against him. He's paid almost nothing on the amount which, with interest, is now more like $38 mill. The Goldman family, which adamantly opposed publication of the book when it was first announced, has now done a one-eighty and they want the book published.

I'm sure there are those who think the difference now is one of sheer greed, and I think that's unfair. Even if money is the primary reason for the change, the families are entitled to some compensation for all they've been through, and some bucks on a judgment that they won. But there's a big question here that's going unasked and unanswered. The other night on Larry King Live, Fred Goldman was asked what's changed and he answered as follows…

Well, I think what changed is very simply the fact that we know more about it now than we did then and we believe that there's perhaps good reason to see it back out in print. Everybody that's read it, my attorneys specifically, believe that it's tantamount to a confession.

And then King said that Judith Regan, who was involved in packaging the book, told him she believes it's the total truth. He then asked Goldman, "How do you react to that?" and Goldman replied…

Well, frankly, from the bits and pieces that I've heard about it, I would tend to agree. He never contradicted the timeline or any of the evidence in the criminal trial. If nothing else, he almost validated it all.

This was one of those moments that reminded me why I've pretty much given up watching Larry King. They happen often on that show. A guest says something that cries out for a follow-up query and King, because he does no research (not only does none but practically brags about it) doesn't ask the obvious question. In this case, it would have been something like…

Fred, all the reports from people who've read Simpson's account of the murders in his book say the same thing. They say the text talks of an accomplice named Charlie who was present when the killings were committed, who urged Simpson to stop and who may have disposed of the murder weapon and other evidence. Do you think there really was a Charlie? And if not, why do you agree that the book is the total truth and why would you then want it published?

…or words to that effect. I suspect Goldman would have said no, that's the one part he doesn't believe but he thinks the rest is a confession and that there's a value to having that portion in print. But it would have been nice if there'd been a real interviewer there to pose that question.

Well, I guess it's an honor. It's something.

The current issue of Mad, the one just coming out, is #476. The first MAD work by Sergio Aragonés appeared in #76, which was the January, 1963 issue. He missed one issue so this new one represents the 400th time his artistry has appeared in America's most popular humor magazine.

This is not the record. Mike Slaubaugh maintains lists of these things and if we consult the relevant tote board for this category, we see that Al Jaffee has had work in 427 issues. Tied for third are Dick DeBartolo and Mort Drucker, each of whom has been in 391 issues. Since Drucker is not in every issue lately and DeBartolo is, Dick will probably have third place to himself as of next month. (In fifth place, we see Dave Berg with 386 appearances but he's not likely to challenge anyone, having died in 2002.)

In the meantime, I am locked in about a ninety-way tie for 237th place, having contributed two pieces to the magazine. This is so much more impressive than that guy on Jeopardy! yesterday. He only managed to create a three-way tie.

On another list of his, Mike notes that DeBartolo holds the record for the most consecutive issues of MAD with 374, followed by Sergio with 365. Sergio had no work in MAD #111 because…well, his recollection is that the post office lost what he mailed in for that issue. Personally, I'd like to believe it was something more embarrassing so when people ask me, I always make up something that involves a morals charge, a stay in prison and maybe a couple of farm animals.

You may also be interested in this list of Mike's that charts circulation figures over the years. This looks pretty dreadful for MAD but there aren't a lot of other magazines where the list wouldn't tell a similar story.

Getting back to Sergio for a moment. His first appearance in MAD was with a batch of astronaut cartoons but he instantly became known for the tiny cartoons in the margins of the pages — the ones that look like this…

Before he came along, MAD had text gags in those spaces. They called the feature "Marginal Thinking" and the jokes sometimes took the form of a little lecture by a character named Marginal Marvin. The lines were written by the editorial staff and it was quite a drain on their time and creativity.

Sergio is, as we all know, an extremely fast cartoonist. He wanted to sell a lot of work to MAD but there was a limit as to how much they could buy from him without firing all their other artists. Since his English then was severely limited, he didn't get the text gags in the margins and thought that maybe he could replace them with his drawings, thereby creating more space for his work in the magazine. The editors liked the suggestion since it got them out of filling those spaces themselves, but they thought of it as a brief respite. Surely, they believed, the new kid from Mexico wouldn't be able to come up with gags like that for every issue and they'd have to go back to the text gags. Four hundred issues later, he's still filling those spots and Marginal Marvin still can't catch a break.

Even I'm tired of my posts on this topic. However, I felt I should link to a Live Journal posting by Scott Weiss, the gentleman whose wager on yesterday's Jeopardy! created its unprecedented three-way tie. Here's the whole post and here's the most relevant paragraph…

Oh, you want to know about the Final Jeopardy! wager? It was an intentional bet. I counted on Anders and Jamey betting rationally and wagering everything. I thought it would be really cool to be a part of Jeopardy history. I knew that meant I'd be playing seasoned opponents, but it didn't matter to me. I had already won a couple of games myself, and I thought it would be neat to share the money. (See my post about Jennifer from a couple of days; that's what the literary people call foreshadowing. :-)). Now there'll be a notation next to one of my games in the J! Archive. How cool is that?

Several folks who wrote me assumed that Weiss was trying to bring back two opponents he knew he could beat. Here, he suggests the opposite. In any case, congrats to him for doing what he intended to do…and no, it isn't all that logical, which may be why the Game Theory expert suggested it wouldn't happen again. And you know what else isn't going to happen again? Me posting about this episode. You're welcome.

I only have one tonight. A couple of folks have written to me to say that Scott, the contestant on Jeopardy! who caused the three-way tie, did so deliberately to make a little history and also, perhaps, because he figured he'd do better to bring back two contestants he figured he could beat, rather than face two unknown quantities the next time. Okay, fine. My point was that he wasn't playing to win.

Good night, Internet. See you in the morning.

Here's an appearance by the comedian, philosopher and juggler A. Whitney Brown on The Tonight Show around 1988. There are a couple of odd bleeps in there but it's a good spot, especially as an example of political humor of the time. Back when Brown did commentaries on Saturday Night Live, I thought he was one of the sharpest people on television and I'm sorry he doesn't seem to be performing much these days.

I think this makes 8,366 of them. My partner Sergio Aragonés was among those honored recently in the Comicdom 2000 Awards presented at the Comicdom Con in Athens, Greece. He won as Best Writer/Artist in the field of humor for Solo #11 and also for Best Short Story, "I Killed Marty Feldman" in that same issue. To celebrate, I bought him lunch today and even allowed him to Super-Size his fries.

Carol Burnett is suing The Family Guy. The big question here is whether trial should be broadcast on TV Land, Court TV or Cartoon Network.

Here's an example of why a lot of us lost the positive feelings we once had about John McCain. An interviewer asks him if it's true that the use of contraceptives helps stop the spread of HIV. There are twelve year olds in this country who could have told you they do. I would even have respected an answer that admitted it's so but wondered if the availability of condoms made people more likely to engage in sexual relations. I think that's nonsense but it's an aspect of the matter that's worth considering.

Instead, McCain dodges the question.

Bob and Ray. Nobody funnier.

I know we've been paying too much attention to this one Jeopardy! episode but I wanted to write one more post about how it's unlikely to happen again. The three-way tie was an anomaly in large part because one player didn't play the game to win. Going into Final Jeopardy!, here's how the totals stood…

• Scott: $13,400
• James: $8,000
• Anders: $8,000

So how much do you wager if you're one of those contestants? If you're James or Anders, you'd presume the following: That you can't win unless you're right and Scott is wrong. In theory, you could win the game with the wrong answer if Scott was also wrong and he wagered so much that his total dropped to below where you wound up, but you have to operate from the assumption that he's not dumb enough to do that.

James and Anders made the right wagers. Neither one could afford the risk that the other would bet more than he did. You'd also assume that the odds are that it's unlikely you will get the answer right and the other two will both get it wrong. That's possible but it's much more likely that it either stumps everyone or no one. So you'd wager as each of them did: The full eight thousand.

Now, let's say you're Scott. You'd assume from the above that at least one of the other two players — and probably both — is wagering $8,000. A person who does that will beat you unless you're also right and you wind up ahead of them. Therefore, the correct bet for you is at least $2,601. That way, one or both of them could wind up with $16,000 and you'd have $16,001. You'd also win if all three of you were wrong. The only way you could lose is if you're wrong and one or both of the others is right…but that's going to be true no matter what you bet. So at least $2,601 is the proper bet here. The trouble is that Scott didn't bet that way. I'm assuming the Game Theory expert opined that this wouldn't happen again because future players will recognize that Scott blew his chance to win and they won't make that mistake.

But is it really much of a mistake? If Scott had bet $2,601, he'd take home $16,001 and come back on Monday to play against two new opponents. Since he bet $2,600, he takes home $16,000 and comes back on Monday to play against the same two opponents again. Not much difference from his standpoint. Scott didn't really lose anything except being able to say he won.

A three-way tie. Each player wound up with $16,000 so they all come back on Monday.

As noted, there was a three-way tie before but it was a matter of everyone wiping out. This is, I guess, the first three-way tie where everyone won money. That's what all the fuss was about. And I guess the Game Theory person suggested that it would never happen again because now that the possibility of a three-way tie has entered into the way Jeopardy! contestants figure when they wager, they'll henceforth bet to make that less likely. Or something of the sort.

Okay, someone just e-mailed me with the secret of what happens on today's Jeopardy! I'll post it in a little while. The magic number is sixteen.