Category Archives: Uncategorized

You want to do something really nasty to the Bumsteads? Take Dennis the Menace over to their house. Thanks to Jon B. Cooke and Mike Kuypers who e-mailed to let me know.

Speaking of Dennis: The folks over at Fantagraphics Books have issued the first in a series of volumes reprinting the strip from its inception. I'm going to have to pick up a copy because Hank Ketcham's little brat has long annoyed me. The feature was always well-drawn but there was something very condescending to me about its attitude towards children. Ketcham seemed to treat them like pets who hadn't been properly house-trained but you have to love them even when they soil the carpet. I liked the comic books (which Ketcham neither wrote nor drew) but I'm going to have to get this new book and see what there is to like about the newspaper panel. I'm hoping I'll "get" something I've been missing. Click here if you want to buy one, too.

Getting back to the Blondie crossovers for a sec: David Goehner noticed something that got right by me. Below are some panels from strips that appeared on August 23. The one on the left is from Mutts and the two on the right are from that day's Blondie…

As you can see, the search for the little pink sock begins in one strip and concludes in the other. I seem to recall that Johnny Hart did something like this once, setting up a gag in that day's B.C. and sorta paying it off in Wizard of Id (or vice-versa) but I can't recall any other day-specific crossovers on the funny pages. Naturally, since there are no two strips that only appear in the same papers, a connection couldn't be too obvious.

Political comedian Will Durst was playing New Orleans when You-Know-What occurred. Here's his tale of how he got out.

Missed the ones in Hagar the Horrible and The Born Loser. Thanks to Karl Wilcox for covering my back.

Here it is: The most important news on the Internet today. Blondie references can be found in B.C., Marvin, The Lockhorns, Curtis, Buckles and a hard-to-notice one in Luann. And of course, there's a crossover in today's Blondie. Thanks to Jeff Brown and Buzz Dixon for finding some of these before I had to go hunting.

I have a mess o' messages in my e-mailbox about the Gulf Coast tragedy. I also have a deadline this weekend so I've decided not to dwell on the sad (but getting better) situation down there…

…though before I refocus my attentions, I should mention this: Most of the mail seems to be arguing that there is racism aplenty involved in the rescuing or lack thereof. Many have forwarded me the example of two news photos, one of blacks carrying food and one of white people doing so. The latter was described as "finding" supplies and the former as "looting." If the same person had written both captions, I might agree it showed racism…though only of that caption-writer, not of the entire relief operation. But the photos seem to have come from different sources and anyway, it's a big leap from one insensitive reporter to the notion that someone heading up the rescue operation is saying, "Let's help the white people first."

Okay, I'm going to post today's Blondie update and then you may not hear from me for a while…

I try not to watch. It's not that I don't care…just the opposite. I care and I look at the news and I get angry and frustrated. There's nothing I can do and the people who can do something, who are supposed to do something, are just kinda getting around to it. Soon, we will hear two different death totals from Hurricane Katrina — the number of people killed by it and the number killed by slow response time.

I do not believe, or at least I choose not to believe, that there is anything racist in the choices being made of who receives assistance first. I am less sure that being poor does not enter into it, because poor people get the short end of just about everything. Why should being rescued from starvation and disease be any different? I think what we're seeing is simple ineptness coupled with the fact that someone thought that disaster preparation, like that war we're fighting overseas, could be done on the cheap. Especially disturbing are the reports that FEMA not only had its budget slashed but that unqualified cronies were appointed to high-level jobs there. If ever there was a job where you shouldn't install your old drinking buddy, just to do him a favor, that's it.

Newspeople who reported on the Iraq War with prim emotional detachment are breaking down and getting angry. Some have gone so far as to ask non-softball questions of the folks in charge, and Geraldo Rivera was even crying on Fox News, holding up babies and begging someone — anyone — to do something for them. This link will take you to a remarkable video clip over at crooksandliars.com. It has Shepard Smith along with Geraldo reporting from on the scene about how bad things are for Hannity and Colmes, and refusing to allow the hosts to minimize the crisis. I never thought much of either Smith or Rivera but they're stoking public anger, and that anger seems to be the main thing getting officials to do official things. So for once, those guys are actually useful.

As I said earlier, I quickly got sick (physically and emotionally) of seeing people crying and dying…then I got sick of politicians praising one another for doing something, especially when they weren't doing anything. Mostly though, I'm just sick of seeing how bad we are at something this important. If you want to know who the real incompetents are, there's an easy way to tell. They're the ones Bush will be giving medals to over the next few months.

The Navy has hired the Houston-based Halliburton Company to restore electric power, repair roofs and remove debris at three naval facilities in Mississippi damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Thank God. I was so worried they wouldn't make any money off this.

Before I left for an appointment, I started to write a post here but didn't finish it. On my car radio, I heard the following quote from Newt Gingrich, which is almost exactly what I wrote to begin that post…

I think it puts into question all of the Homeland Security and Northern Command planning for the last four years, because if we can't respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we're prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?

Something's wrong when I'm thinking like Newt Gingrich. Either he's changed, I've changed or — most likely — the truth is so self-evident that there's no possible alternate viewpoint.

Like a lot of you, I've long mocked the following spectacle: A hurricane hits and some poor (though probably well-compensated) reporter is set out to report live from the affected area. He's standing out there in the wind and the rain in his Eddie Bauer slicker, nearly getting swept off his feet and implying that he and his camera crew are braving death just to show us…well, to show us what it looks like to be too dumb to come in out of the rain, I guess. Makes you want to yell at the screen, "Okay, we get it. Hurricane-force winds can knock you over. Now, go back inside the Marriott and get something to eat!"

But I gotta tell ya: One of the reasons we know how bad it is down in the Gulf Coast — one of the reasons even George W. Bush may be finally figuring it out — is that there are some courageous reporters out there now, on the ground or in helicopters not far above the ground. While government officials are explaining how hard it is to get to some of the hardest-hit spots, some journalists and photographers are there. I've been especially taken by the on-scene reporting of Anderson Cooper over on CNN. Last night on Larry King Live, Larry asked him if he was angry and he replied…

I wouldn't say I'm angry, you know. I think I'm tired of hearing the politicians say that, you know, they understand the frustration of people down here. To me, you know, it's not frustration. It's not that people are frustrated. It's that people are dying. I mean there are people dying. They're drowning to death and they drown in their living rooms and their bodies are rotting where they drowned and there are corpses in the street being eaten by rats and this is the United States of America. It's not a question of me being angry. People down here are frustrated and angry and it goes beyond just frustration. It's, you know, there are a lot of people who listen to you on satellite radio who are down here who are able to, you know, get some radio and they're — you know they come up to me and they tell me if I hear them one more time, you know, congratulating each other and thanking each other for all their efforts, the politicians, you know. They would like them to come down here and roll up their sleeves and get in the tent and help out with some people because there's a lot of need here and there's not much help. I mean there are a lot of hardworking people here from FEMA and the national government and God bless them but I got to tell you there is a great need here, Larry, and it is shocking to see firsthand.

Don't you sense a connection between that kind of reporting and this morning's statement by Bush that relief efforts are "not acceptable?" Whatever's going to be done will surely fall into the category of Too Little/Too Late, but I'll bet you they'd be doing even less if Americans weren't getting outraged at the shoddy planning and the tepid disaster response. That outrage is made possible by aggressive reporting and by the fact that, unlike Iraq, no one's afraid of being accused of being unpatriotic and of not "supporting our troops" if they show us bad news.

Blondie references in The Lockhorns, Marvin, Curtis, Hagar the Horrible, and Buckles. And the Fat Broad's killing snakes in Blondie's house in Blondie. Lemme know if I missed anything.

The other day, I reached my fill of watching scenes of people in Louisiana and Mississippi looting and crying and begging for help and even dying. If I could go out and do something to help, it would be different. But sitting here, unable to do more than donate what I can donate, there is a limit to how much pain I can watch.

Today, I have reached my fill of seeing politicans complimenting each other on the splendid relief efforts. Clearly, the relief efforts are not splendid. They are not even close to adequate and I see no evidence that the people taking bows for this minimal help have done very much at all, except maybe to interrupt vacations. Attention, Senator Landrieu: People are dying in the streets of the state you represent. Can you do a little something beyond telling us what a great job state officials did preparing for the storm and how grateful you are to George W. Bush for his strong statements of support?

I have also reached and exceeded my tolerance level with people who think that the greatest tragedy here is that they may soon wind up paying four dollars a gallon for gas…but we can speak of this another time. I have to stop thinking about this for the rest of the day.

A public memorial service for Comedy Legend Pat McCormick will be held Wednesday, September 7 at the Writers Guild Theater on Doheny in Beverly Hills. It's scheduled to start at 7PM and I wouldn't hazard a guess at what time it will end since Pat had so many friends and they had so many stories. We could be there for days.

Pat died at the end of July and I wrote this piece (and this follow-up) about one of the field's truly great comedy minds.

It's going to be an interesting evening. At these events, one often hears stories that the speakers didn't want to tell while the subject was alive. Given the tales we did hear of Pat while he was alive, you wonder what they've been holding back.

It's in Marvin.

Blondie references today in Zits, Buckles, Hagar the Horrible and Curtis. So what did I miss?

And The Wizard of Id turns up in today's Blondie.

As I've written here in the past (here and also here), there's a wonderful little show every Wednesday night at the Acme Comedy Theater up in Hollywood. The venerable game show called What's My Line? comes back from the dead as a very much alive live show. Your host is J. Keith van Straaten who may not know as many polysyllabic words as John Daly but he's a lot funnier. He presides over a nice clone of the old series, including four celebrity panelists, three "guess my occupation" guests, a lovely hostess, a one-piece band, and the special feature of the program, the appearance of the Mystery Guest for which the panelists are always blindfolded.

A packed house had a great time last night, in part because the panel included two real heavyweight stars — Rip Taylor and Jayne Meadows. Mr. Taylor entered (you may find this hard to believe) in a shower of confetti. Ms. Meadows entered to a standing ovation in recognition of her standing as a genuine legend in the field of game shows. She and her late husband Steve Allen often adorned the panel of the original What's My Line?, though they could more often be found over on its sister show, I've Got a Secret. A bit later, when she posed Steve's famous question about a contestant's product ("Is it bigger than a breadbox?"), the audience broke into even more applause.

Also on the panel were Alison Arngrim, who's best known for her years on Little House on the Prairie, and comic actor J.P. Manoux, who's presently seen on The Disney Channel's Phil of the Future. They were both quite funny but I think they'd agree that the evening belonged to Jayne and Rip.

The first guest's occupation, which the panel had to guess, was "makes confetti." The questioning started with Rip Taylor…and ended with him, as well. He guessed what the producers were up to and nailed it in three or four quick questions. The next two contestants didn't go as rapidly.

Noted science-fiction author Richard Matheson signed in as "Mr. X" and the panel failed to guess him as a top novelist and writer for shows like The Twilight Zone and Star Trek. The third contestant was a man who eats light bulbs — an odd feat which he proceeded to demonstrate, much to the squeamish of some. Then came the Mystery Guest…Larry King.

There was an explosion of applause as The Iron Horse of Broadcasting entered and signed in, please. It took about ten questions before Jayne Meadows named him, and he was a charming guest in the post-game interview. Matter of fact, it was kind of funny. King is a little too used to being the host and not to answering the questions of others. But J. Keith rose to the occasion and at the end, Jayne Meadows remarked that Mr. van Straaten's quick wit reminded her of her late husband. If there's a better compliment you can pay a game show host, I can't imagine what it might be.

Some quick plugs: Ms. Meadows spoke proudly of a forthcoming book, Inventing Late Night: Steve Allen and the Original Tonight Show by Ben Alba. Sporting an intro by Jay Leno, it details the early days of that venerable television institution. You can advance order a copy here, which I have not done because Jaynie-Bird will be appearing in November at several Los Angeles bookstores to autograph it, and I think I'd rather wait and get one signed. I'll let you know the Where and When of the signings, or you might keep your eye on her website.

You might also keep an eye on Rip Taylor's website, especially to see when he'll next be doing his one-man autobiographical show. Rip has had an amazing career — done everything, worked with everyone — and he's a genuinely nice, funny man. His website is filled with reports of where he's been, who he's met, etc. Alison Arngrim has a nice website, too. And J.P. Manoux has maybe the best "actor's" website I've seen. Check it out and make sure you hit the page where you can play "Six Degrees of Separation" from him.

So it's a fun evening and one I recommend highly. The only downside is that the show is about to lose its incredible musician, Adam Chester. He's the guy in the back row, far right, in the photo above and he's off to the East Coast to play some gigs in Elton John's band. (Here's Adam's website, which plays some of his music.) I'm sure they'll have a decent replacement but Adam is darned good.

What's My Line? Live on Stage plays every Wednesday night at the Acme Theater through the middle of November. If you're not sick of links by now, visit J. Keith van Straaten's page for details on upcoming performances. I'd suggest phoning early for reservations as they sold out tonight and I have the feeling that's going to be the norm for the rest of the run.