Category Archives: Uncategorized

I think it was way back last Sunday that I posted an "unofficial" Blondie crossover strip that ran in Richard's Poor Almanac, a feature that has been running in The Washington Post for some seven years now. I must admit I was not familiar with the strip by one Richard Thompson as it is not generally available on the Internet and I, of course, don't bother with very many comics that exist only on the primitive medium of paper. In fact, I screwed up the name of the strip and have since gone back and fixed it. I have also come to enjoy it, thanks to a friend who e-mailed me a batch of scans. They were funny enough and clever enough that I'm going to take the extraordinary step of getting the book. Before I give you an Amazon link, here's a quick bio of the cartoonist, taken from a press release I received from his publisher…

Richard Thompson is a cartoonist and illustrator living in Virginia with his lovely wife and two daughters. His cartoon, Richard's Poor Almanac, appears weekly in The Washington Post, sometimes in color, but most often not. His work also illustrates Francis Heaney's Holy Tango of Literature, published by Emmis Humor, and is featured regularly in US News & World Report, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Geographic and many other publications. It has also found its way onto gallery walls, won coveted awards such as the Society of Illustrators Gold and Silver Funny Bones, and made enduring presents for his aforementioned lovely wife and two daughters. In 2004, Mr. Thompson took home the Milton F. "Sonny" Clogg Alumni of the Year Award from his alma mater, Montgomery College. (And did he even graduate? No!) Since breaking his toe in a dance-related accident nearly twelve years ago, Mr. Thompson has been forced to draw with his hands.

Funny bio, funny cartoonist. It always follows. Anyway, if you'd like to see more of his work, I'll bet you can get a whole bookful of it by clicking here.

If someone is compiling a list of folks who've said stupid things about the Katrina Disaster and/or tried to exploit it to push their personal crusades, make sure you include this name: Senator Richard Santorum (R-PA). Santorum takes campaign donations from private weather forecasting companies and then turns around and introduces legislation to try and hamper the National Weather Service. Last April, he introduced a bill that would have barred the N.W.S., which is paid for with our taxpayer bucks, from sharing its info with the American public. The rationale for this had something to do with "unfair competition" since the companies that donate to the Santorum campaign are trying to profit from selling weather data.

The other day, Senator Santorum declared that the problem down in the Gulf Coast was that the National Weather Service's forecasts on Katrina were "not sufficient." This is after already suggesting (and then "clarifying" to back off slightly on what he said) that maybe some of the victims needed to be penalized for not evacuating sooner. He's wrong about that and wrong about the N.W.S., which did a phenomenal job of tracking Katrina and forecasting pretty much where she'd go and what she'd do. Yes, it would have been wonderful if there had been earlier notice and if the course of the storm had been pinpointed more precisely. But, Senator, storms don't always follow precise routes that can be predicted days in advance. None of the private weather services that Santorum champions could have done a better job, none of them could have done anything without inputting the N.W.S. data…and do we really want something as vital as Hurricane Alerts to be turned over to the private sector and run for profit? Jeez.

This one comes to me from Joe Wilmont, who showed the good sense to sit through most of my panels at this year's Comic-Con International. Therefore, I can't argue too much with him when he writes…

I agree and disagree with your "rant." I think there has been a lack of accountability but there has also been a tendency to blame Republicans. I don't see the Democratic party as a party of ideas so much as one that sits back, waits for Republicans to screw up and then says, "That's wrong." Whatever that is, it's not leadership and it's not going to get us anywhere. I know you think George W. Bush has been a bad president. I would be interested in hearing why you think people are not attacking Democrats in equal number.

Far be it from me to defend the "Democratic leadership" — a term that is more and more becoming an oxymoron. I agree they don't lead. On the other hand, when you find yourself shut out from all three branches of government, there's not all that much you can do except to carp. (Although it looks like Joe Lieberman's going to rightly get some of the blame for the appointment of Michael Brown to head FEMA.)

A lot of people seem to think that "fairness" demands that you criticize one Democrat for every Republican you fault and that you go 50-50 down the line. That would work if (a) the Democrats had 50% of the power and (b) both parties were at all times equally incompetent. The second comes close to happening over the long run but not always in any given time period. I was once at a seminar on political humor with a band of comedians and comedy writers, and someone in the audience complained that lately, there had been a lot more Dan Quayle jokes in the media than, say, Ted Kennedy jokes. Someone had to point out to this person that in the preceding weeks, Dan Quayle had been more visible than Ted Kennedy and had said dumber things than Ted Kennedy. I got up and said, "Tomorrow, if a Republican goes out and makes a major speech with his fly open, there are going to be a ton of jokes about that Republican, and it has nothing to do with him being a Republican. Fairness in comedy doesn't mean zinging both sides in equal numbers. It just means zinging them both when they're zingable. Eventually, some Democrat — probably Ted Kennedy — will have his fly open."

And that gets to the (a): At the time, Quayle was on the news more, trying to rehabilitate his image and convince America that he was presidential material. The guys in power — especially the ones who control the White House — are always going to be subject to more criticism than the guys who aren't. If Republicans are getting blamed more for things, maybe that's because they're in charge of more things. You know, it's like they say in Spider-Man: With great power comes great responsibility. When you control the government and the government screws up, who would you expect to get most of the criticism?

Earlier today, I browsed a batch of news and political websites. Since I was still full of anesthetic, it seemed like the ideal time.

As I think I've made clear, I have a pretty low opinion of George W. Bush as a president. This has never been that rare a viewpoint in our country and it's becoming more and more popular. Nevertheless, every time I express it here, even in the most gentle of manners, I get a couple of strident e-mails accusing me (a) of being a Bush-hater and/or (b) of parroting the Democratic National Committee "spin."

I can understand how someone might like the Bush agenda, at least as stated. I'm not sure they're getting the presidency they think they voted for…but then, I don't think the folks who voted for Reagan, Clinton or the other Bush got the presidencies they thought they were getting. I think we're always way too forgiving of "our guy" and unwilling to judge him by his actions. In any case, I don't think it's nuts to want all the things G.W.B. and Dick Cheney promised in those campaign speeches. What leaves me baffled is this desperation to dismiss any complaint about their administration as irrational or insincere. Any of their defenders will tell you that, at least in theory, no government official is flawless and everyone should be subject to criticism. But they also don't seem to think any specific complaint about this administration is fair or valid. (A favorite deflector lately seems to be to accuse the critic of being "shrill." In other words, "Let's not talk about the charge that Bush policies are getting people killed or driving them into poverty. Let's talk about what's really important — your tone of voice.")

Today, I received around a dozen e-mails objecting to my postings here about the mess down in the Gulf Coast. There are prominent Republicans saying most of what I'm saying but somehow, the new response is to dismiss all criticisms of the White House as Bush-bashing and as D.N.C. talking points. So say the people who think all criticism of Bush is "Bush-bashing" and who gladly regurgitate the R.N.C talking points. I also loved the guy who wrote, "This is no time to play the Blame Game" and then proceeded to explain how it was all the fault of the Democratic (his emphasis) mayor and governor down there.

It's sad that the process of helping hurricane victims has now been relegated to Job Two, Job One being the manipulation of public sentiments to try and gain immediate political advantage. I saw Nancy Pelosi give an interview today which was kind of the inverse: Let's not play the Blame Game and, by the way, make sure you only blame Republicans. I didn't much like what I was hearing from Ms. Pelosi. If I were her, I'd just say, "I'll tell you who was responsible for the failures. Everyone with a position of responsibility was responsible. The ones who did nothing should have done something. The ones who did something should have done more and done it sooner." If that means some Democrats get blamed, fine. Maybe it's time somebody was held accountable for something.

We have this real scary Cover Your Ass mentality now in Washington, and it's worse than it's ever been. They protect the top guy because he's the top guy, and they protect all the people under him because to blame them would be to admit things had gone wrong on his watch. No one was fired for whatever intelligence mistakes led up to 9/11. No one was fired for all the inaccurate reports about Saddam Hussein's weaponry. Our leaders grossly misunderestimated the cost of the Iraq War, the number of troops we'd need to fight it and how we'd be welcomed there. No one was fired. If anyone at FEMA or the Department of Homeland Security is sacked or even faulted, it will only be because they've reached some new, hitherto-unimaginable level of incompetence such that even their own party can't save them…or someone decides that they should take a bullet (and all the blame) for the team.

I once saw a kid who worked at a pizza stand get fired on the spot for screwing up a big order. If that kid grew up to work in government and his incompetence caused people to die, he'd not only keep his job, they'd probably give him a promotion. That's after they give him the medal.

So about an hour ago, I'm leaving my dentist's office with a temporary filling and a cheek so full of Novocaine, I must look like Dizzy Gillespie on that side. I get in one of the building's three elevators and press the button to take me to the Parking Level, which is one floor below the Lobby Level. The elevator takes me to the Lobby Level, then heads back up.

The elevator fills with other folks on its way up and down again, and though I have the Parking Level button pushed and lit, it again goes no farther down than Lobby Level before ascending again.

This time on the way down, I get off at said Lobby Level and change elevators…and this one, miraculously, actually goes down to the Parking Level. There is another bonus in that it also contains one of the most stunningly beautiful women I have ever seen in my life. She's in her early twenties, she's blonde and tan and has great posture, and her entire ensemble looks like it was crocheted out of the string from an old Duncan Yo-Yo. My mind races to think of something clever to say, just so I might see her smile in my direction…but I don't have time and, besides, I'm not sure I can speak without drooling all over myself. Not that she probably hasn't seen that before…and from males who haven't just spent two hours having their molars drilled.

Down on Parking Level, I attempt to explain the elevator problem to the one of the Valet Parking Guys so he can report it but there are two problems, one being that my mouth doesn't work so well. The other is that this Valet Parking Guy is vastly more interested in serving the gorgeous blonde lady. He is also interested in servicing her. As he delivers her car — a gleaming red Corvette — he declines a $2.00 tip and instead tells her, "I will gladly accept your phone number."

I wince at the clumsy come-on but to my surprise, the tan one rattles off what she says is her number. In fact, she repeats it twice so he can write it down. Then she announces — in language more appropriate for a brothel or even a Pat McCormick Memorial — that he is welcome to come by and they will perform the sexual act of his choice. For a moment, the valet believes he is about to receive the greatest gratuity in the history of parking lots and then she adds, "Bring cash. I'm not cheap."

She departs and the V.P.G. sadly brings me my car. I hand him a couple of bucks and tell him, since he knows I was standing there and heard it all, "You should probably always take the money."

He sighs and says, "It's just as well. We share tips here and I don't know how I could have divided her with the other guys."

Fred Patten is recovering from a brain stem stroke and an almost-as-serious lack of health insurance. For those of you who don't know Fred, he's been an active force for many decades in science-fiction and animation fandom as a historian and sometimes as an importer of foreign books and magazines. Back when comic book conventions started with DC and ended at Marvel, Fred was the guy with the table displaying beautiful comic albums and graphic novels from overseas, showing us all what else the medium could do besides Spider-Man. It's good to hear Fred is recovering but sad to hear he needs so much in the way of funds. I know you've probably all given whatever you could afford to give to the Gulf Coast relief efforts. But if you can give a little more, send a few bucks to one of the good guys. Details here.

When Fred Willard took the podium about halfway through last night's gathering in remembrance of Pat McCormick, he said — and this is not an exact quote but it's close — "Isn't it odd that these days, we have to go to a memorial service to find something to laugh at?" An audience full of Pat's friends, including some of the best comedians and writers in the business, clapped and nodded in agreement.

It was a very funny (and long) evening and as I'm just back from it, let me try and type out a list of all who spoke before things begin to fuzz. Jack Riley was the M.C. and did an amazing job, much-praised by all in the room. Speaking were — not in this order — Thom Sharp, Gary Owens, Chuck McCann, Jack Riley, George Carlin, Henry Gibson, Ronnie Schell, Buck Henry, Paul Mazursky, Jack Burns, Marty Ingels, Dick Gautier, Shelley Berman, Ron Clark, Ron Friedman, Howard Storm, Arnie Kogen, Peter and Bill Funt (the sons of Allen Funt of Candid Camera), Paul Williams, Fred Willard and I know I'm forgetting someone. In the house but not speaking were Carl Reiner, Tom Poston, Charlie Brill and Mitzi McCall, Shirley Jones, Jim MacGeorge, Pat Harrington, Billy Riback, Peter Marshall, Jo Anne Worley and an awful lot of other talented folks.

As you might imagine, it was a very long show but also a very funny show…and most of the laughs could be credited to Pat. His friends quoted his best lines and told stories of Pat saying and doing outrageous things, many of which I cannot quote without causing Google to tag this as a porn site. Chuck McCann assembled a wonderful montage of Pat's career and best material, concluding with a long segment from The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson interviewing Pat, who was dressed like an enormous turkey. I'm also not going to quote some of the clean (or cleaner) McCormick lines that were heard because I didn't take notes and Pat was quite fussy about how his jokes were phrased. Let's wait until I get a tape of the proceedings so I can translate and post some of them verbatim. I don't want to screw up the wording of the line about how Orson Welles' jockey shorts had a tag that said "One size fits Rumania" or the Amazing Karnak line to which the answer was "Manny, Moe and Jack." (The question was, "Name two Jews and a cheese.") So you'll just have to be patient.

To conclude the ceremony, a nurse who'd been taking care of Pat since his stroke several years ago took the stage (and received a standing ovation) and then Pat's son Ben spoke. Finally, trumpeter Jack Sheldon played "Taps" and all the male comedians present took to the stage and dropped their pants. Dropping trou was a McCormick trademark and one that had been often mentioned in the preceding anecdotes.

George Carlin was seated in the front row and he was a tremendous audience for the various speakers, staying to the very end and complimenting all those who did well as they passed him to depart the stage. (There were big hugs and kisses for his one-time partner, Jack Burns, both on the way to the podium and as he came off.) After the show, I was standing with him and heard him going on, partly about his affection for his old pal Pat but also about his admiration for McCormick's skill as a crafter of jokes. "I don't know where he came up with some of those ideas," Carlin said, and I could only think: There's quite an endorsement. George Carlin is pretty much the Gold Standard when it comes to thinking up funny lines. For him to be in awe of Pat that way is all the testimonial a comedy writer could ever need.

Okay, here we go, trying to link to video clips on the Comedy Central website. The opening segment of last night's Daily Show is there in two pieces. The first, entitled "Inarguable Failure" contains Jon Stewart's desk comments. I think this link should take you to it, and don't be surprised if you have to sit through a brief ad first. Then, you'll want to watch Ed Helms's report, which they call "Beleaguered Bush" and I think you can do that with this link and (again) sitting through an ad.

Linking to clips on the Comedy Central website is, as we all know, far from an exact science. So if my links don't make it happen for you, just go there and look around for the Daily Show clips with those titles. It's worth the trek.

Since I've been working at home and not travelling much lately, today was the first time I'd bought gas in several weeks. It was…uh, a bit of a jolt. When it came time to pay, I was tempted to say to the attendant, "How about if you just keep the car and we'll call it even?"

I paid $3.29.9 a gallon and you know the part that really bothered me? That ".9" bothered me. Who do they think they're kidding? When gas was 29.9, that trick made it feel like you weren't paying thirty cents a gallon. Now, no one even bothers to look that far past the first decimal point.

But I paid it. A few blocks away, I passed a station selling gas for $3.39.9 and I felt a little better about it. Next time I fill up, I'll probably be happy to pay that.

I can't recall another time when America was getting screwed so openly and totally, and everyone agreed we were getting screwed. And all we did was just bitch about it a little.

Tom Reynolds writes about what it's like to write so-called "reality shows." He's absolutely right. [Los Angeles Times, registration required]

Catch tonight's installment — the first since they came back from vacation — of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. The first segment is brilliant. Someone will post it on the web and I'll link to it when they do, but don't wait. Watch it on real TV.

A number of my friends who read this page are attending tomorrow evening's memorial for Pat McCormick at the Writers Guild Theater. I would like to remind them, first of all, that this is at the Writers Guild Theater, the one on Doheny just south of Wilshire in Beverly Hills. It is not at the Directors Guild Theater on Sunset, which is apparently where a lot of people think it's taking place.

Also, the current rundown calls for 25 speakers, all of them top comedians and comedy writers. Any one of these people could probably do an hour. A few of them may try to. So we could be there a very long time.

This one is only recommended either if you think everything was just peachy down in Louisiana and Mississippi with regard to rescue operations, or if you need something to renew your anger about all that wasn't done for the victims. Briefly, it's about a band of more than 1,000 trained firefighters who volunteered to help rescue people. What did FEMA want them to do? Assume community-relations jobs, stand behind George W. Bush in photo ops, and not talk to the press. Here's the link.

All the other obits for Bob Denver will probably show you a picture from Gilligan's Island and make passing mention of his earlier role as Maynard G. Krebs on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. And he was good on both shows, especially the latter. It was as the TV-scrubbed beatnik Krebs, who went into shock at sound of the word "work" that many of us first saw him and realized what a good actor he was.

But I decided to post a photo from his first post-Gilligan series, The Good Guys, a little-remembered gem that ran two seasons — went on in '68 and went off in early '70 — and has rarely been rerun since. It starred Denver as a cab driver who was life-long friends with the operator of a diner. The friend was played by Herb Edelman, a great character actor, and his wife was played by Joyce Van Patten. (The same year The Good Guys went on, Edelman filmed the movie version of The Odd Couple, re-creating the role of Murray the Cop he'd originated on Broadway. The one time I met him years later, he said he loved The Good Guys and his one regret about it, apart from its short run, was that it prevented him from playing Murray on the Odd Couple TV show with Klugman and Randall.)

Anyway, someone oughta rerun The Good Guys because it was a pretty good show. It was filmed in front of a live audience on Stage 2 at CBS Studio Center, which was the same stage that had previously held that island on which Gilligan was stranded. It had been converted to an audience stage (Gilligan was filmed without one) but Denver always told people he recognized it because there was still sand in every crevice. One hopes they got it all out by the time The Mary Tyler Moore Show took up residence in there. Here, courtesy of the management of the forthcoming website, oldtvtickets.com, is a ticket from The Good Guys…

Denver's career after that was a flurry of unsold pilots and short-lived shows (anyone remember Dusty's Trail?). The one time I met him was when he did the first of two unsuccessful attempts to revive the old Dobie Gillis show. In 1978, my then-employer Jimmie Komack got the job of producing Whatever Happened to Dobie Gillis?, which was one such pilot. The show's creator, Max Shulman, had written a very funny script in tandem with Eric Cohen and on the strength of it, most of the old cast committed…though Denver, we heard around the office, was an expensive participant. Working from the premise that the continued success of Gilligan's Island had made him a TV superstar — or maybe just from the idea that you couldn't revive Dobie without Maynard — he demanded and got star billing, even above Dwayne Hickman who played Dobie, and enough money that Komack spent the whole time stalking around the office, grousing that Denver had committed grand larceny. As I recall, Denver also insisted that he would not dye his white hair, and Jimmie thought that for what they were paying him, he should have been willing to tint it aquamarine and tie it in braids.

I had nothing to do with the pilot other than to be around and watch in horror as Komack decided he was going to "reinvent" the show, and that he was eminently qualified to do this because he had never been a fan of the old series. He got rid of Shulman and that script, commissioned a new one that contained none of the old charm, and produced a revamp that absolutely no one liked. Hickman was rightly furious that Dobie had been devalued. Denver was angry about that, plus the fact that his "return" to prime-time sitcoms was such a fiasco. About the change of scripts, he kept saying, "Bait and switch, bait and switch." He'd never have signed on, he said, if they'd offered him the script that he and the others ultimately had to perform.

I remember two conversations with him — one, before the troubles began, when he was genuinely thrilled to talk to someone who knew him as something other than Little Buddy on the Island. We talked about The Good Guys and about a recent stage production he'd starred in, which I wish I'd seen, playing the Woody Allen role in Play It Again, Sam. He had done some other plays, he said, and people seemed so surprised to see him depart as much as he often did from his TV personnas. An approximate quote would be, "After Dobie, people thought all I could play was Maynard. And after Gilligan, people thought all I could play was Gilligan. Maybe if this thing [the Dobie revival] goes, I'll be back to people only thinking I can be Maynard again." Later, after rehearsals commenced, he wasn't worried about that happening.

The other conversation was in the midst of the arguing and unhappiness. I was eating alone in the commissary and he came over with a tray and asked if he could sit with me…and did I realize what a disaster the new Dobie pilot was turning out to be? I told him I hadn't read it and had nothing to do with it, but that I thought tossing away a Max Shulman script for Dobie Gillis was like…well, I forget what I said. Make up an analogy. Anyway, he went on and on about how television had changed, how it was run by people who didn't know anything, and how it was no longer his game. I think he had already moved away from Hollywood to West Virginia but if he hadn't, this was one of the things that prompted the relocation. It certainly convinced him that his days in the mainstream of television were over.

Thereafter, it was all guest appearances, lectures and autograph shows for Bob, plus I always heard he was very happy doing a radio program from his home state. I was never a huge fan of Gilligan's Island but I think it's great that its ongoing popularity in syndication gave him a fame he could ride for the rest of his life. Because he was good on the screen and he sure seemed to me like a nice man…at least when he wasn't threatening to murder Jimmie Komack.

Another Blondie mention I missed: Monday's installment of The Duplex. Thanks to Alex Krislov for letting me know.

In other news: Today's Dilbert doesn't mention Blondie in either of its two versions. Apparently, the joke Scott Adams wanted to do was one that some editors might not want to run so the strip was distributed with two punchlines. Here's a link to one version and here's a link to the other. You can decide for yourself which is the more "sensitive" last panel.