Category Archives: Uncategorized

Very early the morning of July 20, 2004 — like in the middle of the night — I posted this here…

So about twenty minutes ago, I'm sitting here writing out notes for my Comic-Con programs when I hear (a) tires squealing, (b) the sound of something hitting something else and (c) a strange roaring sound. In that order. Out I run and I see that one block south of me, a car has smashed into the hedges around a neighbor's house. The roaring sound is water gushing because in the process, the car knocked over a fire hydrant. In fact, the rear end of the car is over the broken hydrant so rushing water is bubbling up under the car and out into the street.

I run back in, call 911 and report the above. "Was anyone injured?" a man asks me. I tell him I didn't get close enough to tell. He says they'll send someone and I run back out and hike down to the scene of the collision.

One other person is there — the driver of the car, apparently unhurt. He is smoking a cigarette and kind of half-chuckling about how his relatively-new auto is probably now a total write-off. He comes over and tells me that another driver, who was driving like crazy, ran him off the road and kept on going. I tell him what I heard and also that I reported the accident. He says, "Good, but I'm seriously drunk" — and it's somewhat obvious that he is. I am not certain I believe his story about another driver but I figure someone else gets paid to think about such things.

Three fire engines pull up. The first man off the first one asks me if I was driving the car. I say, "No, I'm the one who phoned it in. He was driving," and I point out the seriously drunk guy, who is standing there, lighting another cigarette. Firemen scramble into action, blocking off the road and then working to turn off the water. About three of them begin interrogating the driver as an ambulance arrives and I figure my work there is done. As I start for home, I run into a neighbor who says he was awakened by the crash so he threw on some clothes and came out to see what happened. I tell him as much as I know. He points out that the occupants of the house where the accident occurred are either away or very sound sleepers. There's no one outside except the driver, the firemen, the ambulance crew and two spectators (us). The neighbor and I both decide to head to our respective homes and I come in here and write this.

I just looked outside. The fire trucks are gone but two police cars are there, probably talking to the driver. The water is off. The car is still sticking out of the hedge. And I'm going to bed. Good night.

The other night, much the same thing happened. Same fire hydrant. Same gusher of thousands of gallons of water pouring out onto the boulevard. Different drunk driver, I assume. And this time, I wasn't the first one to phone it in. An awful lot of water was wasted in drought-stricken California before the fire department shut it down.

I wandered out there just as they were getting it turned off. I told a fireman that one had been sheared-off before…a little more than ten years ago. He told me, "Oh, no. I wasn't in this division ten years ago and this is at least the third time someone has knocked this one over. You must have been away or asleep the other times."

This happens a lot here but it also seems to happen everywhere. I mean, obviously hydrants are involved in accidents in about 90% of all the car chases staged for film or television but those geysers are pretty common in real life, too. I was wondering if anyone had invented a valve for these things that will shut off automatically…or can be closed by some bystander. Well, at least one person has. A quick Google search brought up the patent filing for US 6401745, the Fire Hydrant Automatic Shut-off Valve.

This looks like a great invention and if it isn't, there seem to be patents on a few other devices that do the same thing. Wonder how many times the hydrant one block south of me will get knocked over before they install an auto-shut-off device on it.

This was first posted here on 10/11/10. It's about airlines offering late night flights between LAX and Las Vegas or LAX and San Francisco. At the moment, near as I can tell, the last flight one can get from Las Vegas to Los Angeles leaves at 8:20 PM and the latest from S.F. to L.A. is 9:55 PM.

Several of you have written to me to second (or third or fourth or…) my endorsement of Southwest Airlines and most mentioned another nice thing I omitted: No baggage fees for your first two suitcases.

I was thinking the other day about how much simpler air travel used to be. I don't know how much of this was due to deregulation…which, by the way, people credit or blame Reagan for, though the idea of letting airlines do pretty much whatever they want started under Jimmy Carter. Reagan may just have allowed it to go too far. My sense is that deregulation helped in the short run and hurt in the long run. There was a time in eighties when it was a lot easier and cheaper to fly. My main route then was LAX-Las Vegas and it was like taking a taxi to and from Pasadena.

There had been a time — recent enough to impact my comings and goings — when one could not leave Las Vegas after about 10 PM at night. I think the airport there even closed around then…and the rumor was that the hotels insisted on it; that they didn't want you leaving town late. They wanted you to stay and pay for a hotel room and gamble all night. I think the last advertised flight left around 10 and for a brief time, there was one later, unadvertised flight.

This is a vague memory. I remember a casino host at the old Maxim telling me of a flight on one the airlines, Western I think, that left around Midnight or a bit later for Los Angeles but they weren't allowed to advertise it or list it on their schedule. Casino hosts could get you on it if it served the casino's interest to do that…say, if an entertainer was playing their showroom and had to be back in L.A. Or if some high-rolling whale could only squeeze in a Vegas jaunt if he could get back that night. And you could or I could call up and if we specifically asked for the flight by its number, the airline could book us on it. But if you called up and asked, "When's the last flight to Los Angeles?" they would say "10:10." I remember this and I think I even took it at least once.

Then in the mid-eighties, thanks (I guess) to all that deregulation, there were suddenly flights at all hours. My friend Paul Dini and I once went to Vegas for the day. We left my car at the airport, took a 10 AM flight there, lunched at Caesars Palace, gambled and sight-saw all afternoon, dined at the Riviera, went to see shows in the evening, hung out after with a friend of mine who was performing at the Tropicana…and we took a 1 AM flight back to L.A. and my car. You can't do that today. The last direct flight each night from LAS to LAX now leaves at 9:25.

Between that and the time it now takes to get through an airport, you can't even do what I did once — and I swear to you, I actually did this…

Shortly after my father passed away, I took my mother to Las Vegas for a three-night trip — going on Monday, coming back on Thursday afternoon. This would have been June or so of '91. After I'd booked the trip and Mom's heart was set, I was commanded to appear at a network meeting on Wednesday morning at 10 AM and couldn't get out of it. There was no solution but for me to commute.

Tuesday evening, fulfilling a wish of hers, I took my mother to see George Carlin perform at Bally's. Got us great seats, too. The opening act, Dennis Blair, started around 8:05 PM. Carlin took stage around 8:30 and at 9:30, he was still talking. I kissed my mother goodbye. I ran out and hopped in a cab to the airport. It took a bit of running (I mean actual running) but I managed to get on a 10:10 flight to Los Angeles which got in at 11 PM. I grabbed a cab for home and was at this desk, so help me, in time to see the opening of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson at 11:30: Two hours from ringside at Bally's in Vegas to my home in Los Angeles.

I slept here, got up in the morning, went to CBS and had the meeting — which of course was a complete waste of time. Then I took a cab to LAX and just got on the next flight (there was one every 30 minutes or so) to Vegas. I was back in my hotel room at the Rio — from which I had not checked out — by 2 PM and the trip resumed as if I'd never left.

Like I said, you couldn't do that today…not with fewer flights and having to get to the airport 90+ minutes in advance, plus it was then possible to get a cheap flight at the last minute. I also don't seem to be able to go to San Francisco for the day as I sometimes did back then.

I used to fly up for business and/or pleasure, and I could spend the evening dining with friends or seeing a show, then leave for the airport around 11 and easily get on a Midnight flight back to Los Angeles…or if I missed that one, there was another around 1 AM. Now, the last direct flight from SFO to LAX leaves at 10:35 and you need to be there 90 minutes early so I'd have to head out around 8:15. Which means I can't have much of an evening in S.F. and then fly back to Los Angeles.

I was going to write that with so many airlines losing money, you'd think they'd experiment with more late flights but I guess they've tried that or done marketing research and it's not cost-feasible. I also guess that due to 9/11, it's going to be a while before you can routinely go to an airport and just hop on a plane…so I guess I'm lamenting the passage of something that won't be coming back soon. But one of these days, someone will make it work. Someday.

I got another wrong number call for a certain art gallery the other day and it reminded me I wanted to rerun this post. This is from 9/21/11…

There's an art gallery in L.A. that has a phone number that's one digit different from mine. I just got a call from someone looking for them who'd misdialed.

I get one of those every year or so and it's no big deal. But some time ago, shortly after I moved into this house and got this number, I was getting a lot of them — one day, more than twenty. Several of the callers insisted they had the right number and I was wrong. They had an ad that they'd received and they read the phone number (mine) right off it.

I called the manager of the gallery and informed him. He checked a copy of the ad and said, "Oh…so that's why it hasn't increased our business any." He was most apologetic and then he added, "I'm afraid it's going to get worse for you. The ad runs this Saturday in the L.A. Times and it's the same ad with the same typo in the phone number."

I asked, "Is there any way you can stop it?"

He said, "I'll check and call you back. Let me have your number."

I said, "You have my number. And all your customers have my number, too."

"Oh, that's right," the man said. "I'll call the Times and see if there's any way to pull or change that ad."

A few minutes later, he called back and said, "They said they'd rerun it next week with the corrected phone number for a reduced rate. They're very nice about this kind of thing."

I asked, "Does that mean it will run this weekend with my phone number?"

He said, "Well, they said that to get it pulled out now, we'd have to pay a large fee."

I said, "I think you should pay that fee."

He said, "Look, I'd really rather not. Do you think you could put up with these calls a little longer? I could maybe pay you a little something to make it up to you. You could tell callers the right number…"

I said, "I think you should pay the fee to get the ad pulled from this Saturday's edition. It's really to your advantage."

He said, "Well, I know we'll lose out on the business but if you could just give them the correct number…"

I said, "No, I mean it's to your advantage to get the ad pulled because from now on, every time someone calls me looking for your art gallery, I'm going to tell them to come in and see our current exhibition of pro-Nazi lithographs."

He said, "You wouldn't."

I said, "Yep. I'm going to tell each caller, 'We've selected the finest works from around the world emphasizing why we must exterminate the inferior races and pledge our souls to the memory of Der Fuhrer. Oh, but you'd better hurry. The exhibit is only up for two weeks and then we have our annual showing of Child Porn.'"

He said, "Look, we can work something out…"

Just then, I got a Call Waiting beep and I said, "Excuse me a second. I have another call" and I put him on hold. When I came back, I told him, "That was someone who wants to attend your exhibit. I informed him the gallery had just been shut down by the police for trafficking in heroin and selling fake Picassos."

He said, "Okay, you win. I'll pay the large fee on one condition. You're still going to get some calls for us for a while. Would you please not tell them that kind of thing? Would you please just give them the right number?"

I said, "You have a deal."

Fifteen minutes later, the phone rang again with someone looking for that gallery. I could tell by the caller's badly-disguised voice (and the Caller ID) that it was the gent from the gallery calling to see what I was telling people who thought they'd reached his place of business. I politely told him the correct number and then just before I hung up, I told him that if my number was in the L.A. Times this weekend, I was going to tell people that they'd reached his gallery and that we had a sale going: With every purchase, a free kick in the groin and a mandatory enema.

The ad was changed. Sometimes, wrong numbers can be such fun.

Here's a piece from 2010 which prompted as many e-mails as it answered. I never did get together with the Movie Magic Screenwriter people but otherwise I think this is still what I would write today…

At least once a week, I get an e-mail asking me, "How do you write comic books?" About half want to know how you do it — format, craft, approach, etc. — and the other half want to know how you get a job or sell your work. To the latter, there isn't a lot I can say. I do have a stock line which I think is very good advice. It's to not try to become a Comic Book Writer. It's to become a Writer who writes many things, one of which is comic books. That's a distinction that I think is as important to one's creative mental health as it is to one's marketability.

Beyond that, there's not a lot I can tell the job seekers. The business is what the business is and I'm not in touch with large chunks of it these days. It seems to have bifurcated into two categories: The one where people hire you to work on their properties and projects and the one where you invent a new book and new characters and find a publisher. Some publishing houses embrace both and some creators do both but the rules of play and entry are very different and it's important to be aware of that. The kind of gigs where you get hired to write Spider-Man or Green Lantern or Star Wars are very hard to come by and if you aspire to that, be aware that you'll be battling many, many others for the opportunity. Concocting your own gig may actually be easier but it will require more investment of time and spec work…and if you aren't an artist, it'll probably mean finding an artist and forging a partnership. And right now, that's about all I have the energy to write about that kind of endeavor.

How to actually write a comic book is a simpler chore if you'll accept this answer: However it works best for you and your collaborators. Since I got into the biz, I have railed against the notion that there is one correct way to write a comic book. There isn't. I've seen dozens of different script formats in terms of margins, spacing, columns, tabs, etc. Last year, I was talking with the folks who make Movie Magic Screenwriter, which is the software I use for writing TV and movie scripts, about them doing a template for the way I most often format a comic book script. If and when we do that, I will somehow manage to append a note that says even I only use it for about half my projects. That's because how you work needs to be dictated by (a) the needs of a given piece of material and (b) the particular skills of the parties involved. If I'm supposed to do a funny comic with Sergio Aragonés, it's a very different challenge from when I'm supposed to do a grim 'n' gritty project with someone else.

At one point in the eighties, I was simultaneously writing three comic books a month for three different publishers, working with three different artists on three different kinds of material. For DC Comics, I was writing (and eventually editing) Blackhawk, a war comic. For Eclipse, I was writing (and I think editing, though we never made it clear) DNAgents, a super-hero comic. And for whatever publisher hadn't gone out of business publishing it so far, I was doing whatever I do on Groo the Wanderer, a silly comic. The comics all looked entirely different from one another and so did their scripts. My collaborators all had different skill sets and in some cases, a lot of input into the stories. In some cases, not. When they did, I adjusted what I did to be able to best embrace what they did.

On two of those, the dialogue and copy were usually written after the artist drew the book. On the other, the words came before but might be revised later. On one, I was more likely to sketch out suggested layouts. On another, the artist sketched out suggested layouts and then I sometimes erased his and placed balloons where I wanted them, then he would redesign his panel compositions to put the characters under the balloons I had placed. On one, there were times when I had an editor. Then, I not only had to do my end of things in a way that would convey what I wanted to the artist but to the editor, as well.

If it sounds like I'm trying to be confusing…in a way, I am. I'm trying to disabuse anyone of the notion that there's one right way to do this. I not only want beginners to know this but I think some longtime professionals could stand to be more open to different breakdowns of collaboration. Too often, I think, they have a great working relationship with Artist A and that becomes the way they want to work with everyone. Artist B comes along and they force him to work like Artist A even though B may, for example, be better at breaking down an action into a panel-to-panel flow and worse at interpreting the emotional content of a scene. I would especially like longtime pros to stop telling beginners that their way is the way.

This is all I have time to write about this today but I intend to return to this topic over the next few weeks. This is an exciting time in comics in that creators are bringing forth a wider range of styles and genres and viewpoints than I have ever seen. When I broke in, you kind of had to do Marvel Comics to work for Marvel, DC Comics to work for DC, etc. The publishers had much narrower vistas as to what readers would buy from them and there weren't that many publishers. Now, there are more publishers and they're all open to a wider range of looks and feels. Some of them don't even want a book that looks like anything they've published before. Since we have more places to go, I think we need to look at a wider range of routes you can take to get to them.

Here's two more of those Gold Key comics that never actually existed. The stuff about Abe Vigoda's brother drawing for Archie is true. Just about nothing else here is…

Here are two more of these obscure Gold Key comic books based on popular TV shows of the day. The one-shot Barney Miller comic book was drawn by Dan Spiegle and is almost impossible to find these days due to the thriving interest in "Good Abe Vigoda art." (By the way, did you know that Abe Vigoda's brother Bill was a comic book artist? He worked mainly for the Archie books.) This issue features a book-length story in which Wojciehowicz arrests a man who turns out to be a prominent TV producer. While in the slammer, the producer "discovers" Fish and offers him a big part in an upcoming series. For a brief time, Fish has stars in his eyes but soon realizes it's a kind of bribe when the producer tells him, "Of course, if I go to jail, I won't be doing the show." The veteran cop's sense of civic duty overcomes his dreams of Hollywood, and he refuses to persuade the judge to go easy on the guy. A pretty good issue but we didn't see enough of Barney or the other squad room dwellers.

The Three's Company comic book lasted only two issues, both of which were released in 1978. A story that makes the rounds says that a third issue was prepared and sent to press but that when Suzanne Somers was abruptly dropped from the TV series, that third issue (which centered around her character of Chrissy) was hurriedly aborted. A quick check of the dates shows that this is obviously not so, since Ms. Somers' problems with the show occurred in 1980, long after the comic had ceased publication. Another spurious account says that the third issue was scrubbed because it featured the Ropers and they could not contractually appear in the comic book once they'd been spun off from Three's Company to their own series. The dates almost work out for that to be possible but given that they appeared for some time after on other Three's Company merchandise, this seems unlikely.

During this period, a lot of Gold Key's TV-based books (including the impossible-to-find one issue of The Waverly Wonders) were being cancelled so it's probable that the expiration of the Three's Company comic book was due to natural causes. This is a shame since it really was a fun comic, drawn out of Western Publishing's New York office by Jack Sparling. The first issue, pictured above, has Chrissy inheriting a mansion which (at first) is cause for jubilation among the roommates because they can finally move out of the apartment and away from the constant moaning of Mr. Roper. But then it turns out that the mansion is reportedly haunted and that a clause in the will of Chrissy's late Aunt Hortense says she will forfeit her inheritance if she does not spend one full night in the place. Jack and Janet go with her to help her through a rather chilling evening…made all the more difficult by a disgruntled relative, Cousin Frank, who stands to inherit the place if Chrissy doesn't stick it out until dawn. Cousin Frank happens to be a movie special effects artist and…well, you can figure the rest out from that.

Here's a blast from the past — from March 20, 2004, to be precise. I heard from a lot of people who remembered owning these comics when they first came out. One bragged that reading about Felix Unger inspired him to keep his comic book collection very neat and tidy…

A few months ago, this site presented a stirring history of the little-known comic book version of The Dick Van Dyke Show published in the sixties by Gold Key Comics. Some of you have written in to ask me about some of the other comics Gold Key did based on popular TV shows so in the coming weeks, I'll try to present some of them here. The two featured above all lasted one issue apiece.

In the case of Gilligan's Island, this was probably due to the show being cancelled. The last episode of the TV program (before it achieved eternal life in syndication) aired in August of 1967. The comic book came out the previous June…so I'm guessing Gold Key purchased the rights late the previous year, put an issue into work around February and then heard that the show would not be getting a fourth season, so they aborted the comic book. The story inside ("The Castaway Cookbook") was about Mr. Howell getting bored with the food on the island. In the tale, he announced a contest — one million dollars to whichever of the others could cook up the best dish. Naturally, they all went scampering to win. Gilligan found some tasty plants on the far side of the island and whipped up a stew…without realizing that the plants were a rare breed that had very odd side effects, transforming everyone the way Red Kryptonite used to change Superman. The story was silly but then so was the TV show, and the comic was nicely drawn by Warren Tufts, who was best known for his work on the newspaper strip, Casey Ruggles. (He later drew the Gomer Pyle comic book for Gold Key, which I'll feature here in a few days.)

The one issue of The Odd Couple was prepared out of Gold Key's New York office. There is no official record of the writer but the artwork was obviously done by Sal Trapani, who earlier had done the Get Smart and Hogan's Heroes comics for Dell. The story was very clever but apparently when Neil Simon heard about this, he had his lawyers inform Paramount Television that they did not have the right to turn Oscar and Felix into comic book characters. Kind of a shame, really. The story in this issue — "Murray's Manhunt" — was a good one. The Odd Couple's pal, Murray the Cop, hasn't arrested a real criminal in something like ten years and a new Sergeant orders him to make a bust or get into a new line of work. Oscar and Felix try to help him but one investigation after another goes wrong. Finally, he manages to break up a bookmaking ring and arrests his first actual criminal in quite some time…Oscar Madison!

That's it for this time. In the future, I'll be showcasing more obscure Gold Key comic book versions of great TV shows. If you have any requests, send 'em in.

This went up on this site on March 26, 2009 to answer a question often put to me in private messages. My answer has not changed so when people now ask me, I refer them to this message…

As some of you may know, I had Gastric Bypass Surgery in May of '06 and lost, depending on how one scores, between 100 and 135 pounds. I have not for one second regretted having the operation. All sorts of complications and problems are possible with this kind of surgery…with any kind of surgery, actually. I have experienced none of them. One of my many doctors said he'd never seen a better experience than I had.

So…to what do I attribute this? Two things. One is that my physician steered me to a surgeon who apparently was (and I guess still is) among the best in the business. Said my doc, "There are many people out there now performing this procedure, since it's becoming quite a fad. An awful lot of them shouldn't be doing it." The one he recommended was very good and very thorough. Before a surgeon can commence bypassing your gastric, you have to have a lot of tests and examinations, and this surgeon required more than most. Due to quirks of my health insurance, I think I spent more money qualifying for the surgery than I did for the surgery.

I was examined inside and outside, backwards and forwards, upside-down and rightside-up. It was even required that I undergo a psychiatric evaluation — the first time I've ever gone near a "shrink" in a professional context. I went to his office, sat down and he asked me if I'd ever thought of killing myself. I said, "Not for one second," and he said "Fine," and I'd passed. We spent the next half hour or so talking about cartoons and then I left and he sent me a bill that made me think of killing myself.

I also had heart tests and gastroenterology probes and stress tests and just about every kind of exam my wallet and I could possibly have endured…and it turned out that, weight aside, I was in excellent health. Which was the other reason I had such an easy time of the surgery. (One nice benefit from all those tests: I visited perhaps fifteen different doctors to get them. Every one asked, "Who's operating on you?" and when I told them, every one said, "Oh, he's the best." I'm not sure why I had absolutely no fear of the operation but those reactions might have had a little something to do with it.)

Since the surgery, I've had a lot of people — friends and total strangers — ask me if I recommend it. Answer: No. I recommend researching it and considering it…but it seems obvious to me that it's possible to do a lot of damage to one's self, especially if one does not have the right surgeon and the right physical situation. I've met or heard from a few folks whose experiences prove this. What worked for me with one surgeon might not work for you with another or even the same one.

I think about this often lately because Los Angeles is being blanketed with billboards touting the lap-band surgical procedure, which is a less extreme version of what I had. The signs are everywhere…often near businesses, the continued patronage of which might cause you to become one of those folks who needs to lose 100+ pounds. Here's an example…

I have no idea how expert the company that put up those ads is at what they offer. They could be fabulous for all I know. But the signs strike me as wrong for this reason. If you do decide to have a procedure like this done, you should do it via a diagnosis and referral from a doctor you trust, not because you spotted an "800" number on your way home from KFC. George Carlin used to say, "Somewhere, there's a worst doctor in the world…and someone has an appointment with him tomorrow." George may even have been going to him, for all we know.

Well, somewhere there's a worst licensed Gastric Bypass Surgeon…and there's not a thing stopping him from getting an "800" number and buying billboards and ads. There are also people who because of their anatomy and its problems, are just not good candidates for this surgery…but there's someone who, for the fee, will attempt it.

I've not blogged a lot about my surgery because it's been so uneventful and also because I don't want to encourage anyone. It's your body and your decision and what was right for me may be wrong for you. I've done plenty of things in my life you shouldn't do. More than you can possibly imagine.

This ran here on 8/15/10. It's another one of those posts I should probably rerun every few years…

For a few months now, I've been in private correspondence with a gent who's fairly new to the art 'n' craft of writing comic books. He's sold a number of things and seen them published…and he'd hoped that by this time, his career would have picked up some momentum and he wouldn't still be scrounging for assignments like an absolute beginner. That has not happened. His old credits have not led to new ones and his dream — to give up his non-writing day job and become a full-time professional author — appears more remote than ever.

Many e-mails have been exchanged and we got to talk for a bit at San Diego. He suggested I quote here, so all could read them, some things I wrote to him in recent messages. I edited hunks of a few messages together and made a few changes so it makes more sense yanked out of the context of our back-and-forth…and here 'tis, for whatever it may be worth to someone. This is me writing advice to a friend who's having career trouble…

Your problem, pure and simple, is that you were late with your work. It is all well and good to rationalize, "Well, it's more important that I deliver a good script than that I deliver it according to some editor's schedule"…and yes, there are times when a deadline is utterly arbitrary and they tell you they need it in June when they aren't going to do a damn thing with it until August. But not all deadlines are like that and to let a real one go by unattended is a luxury that we rarely have in the writing game, especially when in a new relationship. There are times even then when they can give you an extra two weeks. There are also times when they can't…or when to give you that two weeks means taking it away from your collaborators; i.e., the artist is going to have to draw the comic in three weeks instead of the five he expected to have.

You may also have harmed his income. He expected to have that script next Tuesday. He planned his life and maybe turned down other work so he could start drawing your script then, plus he counted on being paid for it by the time his next mortgage payment is due. But because of you, he has nothing to draw next week and no way to make money on the days he cleared to draw your script…and he may have to turn down the assignment he was going to do after he finished your script because he's now not going to be done with it when he expected to be. Ask anyone who's worked in comics for a few years and they'll gladly unload a tirade of anecdotes about how someone else's lateness screwed up their lives and maybe even prevented them from doing their best work.

There is nothing noble about being late, nothing that suggests your work is better because you fussed longer with it and did that extra draft. Creative folks can meet deadlines and still be creative. Laurence Olivier somehow managed to be on stage when the curtain went up at 8 PM. He didn't tell them to have the audience come back at 9:30 because he needed more prep time to give the best possible performance. You can do good work and get it in when it's supposed to be in…or reasonably close to it. (When I write here of being late, I'm not talking about being a day or so late or even of skirting phantom deadlines. I'm talking about being late on a real deadline such that it causes problems.)

In San Diego, you went on and on about how [name of his editor on a recent project] had screwed you up by not answering questions or getting you certain reference materials you needed or…well, I'm sorry but my brain tuned-out after a certain amount of that. But let's say you're right. Let's say he is a bloody incompetent who couldn't handle his end of things. That does not give you special dispensation to be late. It's not like "He did these things wrong so I'm allowed to do some things wrong." If his actions made it impossible for you to meet the agreed-upon deadline then you should have told him that at the time and worked out a new, realistic deadline. (One thing I've learned to do: If someone hires me to write something that I can't start until they send me a piece of reference, I don't agree to deliver by a specific date. I agree to deliver X days after I receive the reference material. The clock starts ticking when I can start, not when they hire me to start. It minimizes the problem you had.)

If you don't renegotiate the deadline, you should still meet it. Why? Because it's professional and because it gives you standing. I'm going to tell you something I've learned in more than four decades of professional writing for a pretty wide array of media and editors and producers: On any project, you should never expect to win an argument about anything unless your work is more-or-less on-time. If you're late to the point of creating production problems, you lose some or all of your rights even if it's someone else's fault. If the work is on time, you have standing to complain about what others do to your script, you can debate changes that the boss wants to make, etc. If the work is late, you lose a large chunk of the moral authority to say, "This needs to be fixed."

Two other things about being on time. When you're late, it's the easiest thing in the world to have a good reason why it isn't your fault. I know writers who are often tardy and they always have a good reason. Always. There's a power failure or a sick mother or a dental emergency — and they aren't fibbing. I used to say of one writer I worked with, "His greatest skill is in having disasters occur when a deadline is looming."

Eventually, I thought of a clearer way to look at it. Disasters can and do happen to everyone — I've certainly had them interfere with my writing — but some folks make those situations more destructive to the schedule than necessary. I'm talking about the kind of person who, deep down, is always looking for reasons not to work. So if Mom gets sick or the computer's on the fritz, they immediately let that stop them. It doesn't always have to. There's a famous story they used to tell around the Marvel offices about the great New York blackout of 1965 when power was off everywhere for about twelve hours one evening. Most everyone showed up at the Marvel office the next morning without their homework, figuring they couldn't be expected to write or draw by candlelight. Stan Lee, however, came in with all his pages done, having labored by candlelight. And the point of the story was that Stan was amazed that everyone else hadn't done that. It had simply not occurred to him not to write even though he had a perfect excuse. Which is one of the reasons he's Stan Lee and you and I are not.

Disasters are also more likely to stop you if you're the kind of writer who puts things off 'til the last minute. If you have all of November to write a script and you don't start 'til the day after Thanksgiving, you're gambling. That guy I said was really good at having disasters occur when a deadline was looming…I think that was his problem. He wasn't to blame when that car hit him two days before the script was due. But he was to blame for not starting on the script until three days before it was due.

The other thing I need to say is this: Don't get mad at other people because you're late. Don't get mad at people who may have contributed to your being late and especially don't get mad at people who didn't. I did this a lot when I was starting out. Secretly, I was angry at myself for screwing up but I couldn't cope with that so I found ways to direct that anger at others — at my editor, at my collaborators, at innocent bystanders even. Far better to be mad at them than mad at me. But I learned…and while I still occasionally still make that mistake, I don't make it for very long. Ultimately, it's a much easier problem to correct if you're clear on who's responsible for it.

You made a bad mistake being late with your first few jobs. I tell beginning writers, "Never get a reputation for unreliability. You will never lose it," which is an exaggeration but only a slight one. What you need to do now is cultivate the opposite rep and maybe, just maybe, the new one will trump the old one. If not…well, you just may have to look for another career. I'd check into jobs at United Airlines. Based on my last few flights with them, I'd venture you can make a good living there if you're always late.

I first posted this here on March 22, 2006. It's all about the 1966 movie Penelope starring…well, I tell you below who starred in it. For your information, it runs tomorrow (Monday) afternoon on Turner Classic Movies but before you rush to set your TiVo or whatever device you have, read what I wrote about it and then there'll be a follow-up after I quote the old posting…

In 1966, my father and I went to a movie at the Crest Theater, which was on Westwood Boulevard just south of Wilshire. I forget what the movie was but the trailer was for a film called Penelope starring Natalie Wood, Dick Shawn, Peter Falk and Jonathan Winters. I, of course, instantly noticed that it was a reunion of three of the leads from It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. What interested my father was that Jonathan Winters was in it. (He may also have been interested in the scenes in the trailer that had Ms. Wood running around in her underwear. Come to think of it, so was his son. I was fourteen and I was interested in any woman running around in her underwear. If it was Natalie Wood, so much the better. But when you're fourteen, you're not that fussy.)

My father thought Jonathan Winters was the funniest human being on the planet — a not-uncommon opinion, then or now. "We'll have to see that," he said to me. A week or two later, we were back at the Crest seeing that. My recollection is that, underwear scenes aside, neither one of us liked the movie much. You got the feeling that a lot more thought had gone into Natalie Wood's wardrobe — she seemed to go through about ninety-seven outfits in 97 minutes — than into the script.

We especially disliked the paucity of Mr. Winters. Though billed as a star, he was in the film for what seemed like about two minutes. It was probably more than that but I'll bet it wasn't a lot more than that. Four minutes, tops. It was certainly not an appearance commensurate with his billing. His name on the marquee of the Crest was just as large as Natalie's. What's more, about half of his performance was obviously done by a stuntman…and most of it had been in that trailer. If you'd seen the Coming Attractions, you'd pretty much seen Jonathan's contribution to Penelope.

On the way out that evening, my father felt swindled and it wasn't because the movie wasn't very good. It was because he felt it had been misrepresented. A man who I guess was the manager of the Crest said to us at the door, "Hope you'll come back soon," and my father blurted out his dissatisfaction. He pointed to the marquee and said, "We came to see Jonathan Winters. You shouldn't have his name up there if he's only in the movie for three minutes."

Immediately, the manager whipped out four free passes, almost like he'd had them ready for us. "Please accept these with my sincere apologies," he said. Then he turned to an employee and said, "Go get the letters for the front and the ladder. I want to change something." Sure enough, the next day when we happened to drive down Westwood, the name of Jonathan Winters was no longer on the Crest marquee. Dick Shawn's was in its place.

I'm sure this all sounds trivial today but I remember the incident vividly. It was the first time I was ever acutely aware that you ought to speak up when things aren't right…and not just because you might get something (like free passes) out of it. You do it because few things that oughta be fixed ever get fixed if no one says anything.

It is, of course, possible to overdo this. I broke up with one lady friend because she seemed to go through life, finding fault everywhere and demanding that the world be corrected to her liking. It got very tiresome, especially when I found myself fixing things that really didn't need to be fixed, just so she'd stop telling me they did. A lot of people criticize because they like the attention it gives them and the feeling of power to make others jump through hoops to please them. There have been times in my life when my biggest complaint has been people with complaints. Still, it's just as wrong, if not more so, to suffer in silence.

So that's the memory I associate with the movie Penelope, which I haven't seen since '66. In fact, I can't recall ever seeing that it was running on TV or available on home video…but it's on Turner Classic Movies this Friday evening and I'm setting a TiVo. This is not a recommendation that you do likewise since I barely remember anything about it except for how quickly Jonathan Winters disappeared and that I didn't like anything except Ms. Wood's undies. Then again, how bad can a movie with Dick Shawn, Peter Falk and (briefly) Jonathan Winters be? Plus, it also has Lou Jacobi and Carl Ballantine…so right there, you have five of my favorite comic actors.

Still, tape or TiVo it at your own risk, especially if you want to see what Ms. Wood is and isn't wearing in it. I'm just watching to see if it's any better than I remember…and also, I want to run a stopwatch on Jonathan Winters's screen time. I have the feeling you could use it to time a boiled egg.

---

Okay, this is me in the present-day again. Three days later, I posted this follow-up…

The other day here, I noted that I would soon be watching the 1966 movie Penelope for the first time since 1966. I said that I remembered it not being very good and that my father and I felt cheated because Jonathan Winters, though billed among its stars, was only on the screen for — and I quote myself: "…what seemed like about two minutes. It was probably more than that but I'll bet it wasn't a lot more than that. Four minutes, tops."

I have now seen Penelope for the first time in forty years. By an odd coincidence, I won't be watching this movie again for another forty years. What a non-entertaining piece of celluloid. The single interesting thing about it is Peter Falk, playing a cop and apparently warming up to play Lt. Columbo many years later.

As it turns out, I was wrong about the length of the appearance of Jonathan Winters in the film. Leonard Maltin says in his indispensable Leonard Maltin's 2006 Movie Guide that Winters is on screen "less than three minutes." That's correct but Leonard, you may want to change that line in your next edition. In fact, I insist upon it. The actual, measured-by-a-stopwatch length of time from when we first see Jonathan Winters to when we last see Jonathan Winters is one minute and thirty-one seconds. Exactly.

If by some chance you doubt me — if you can't believe a major motion picture studio would give star billing to someone who was only in a movie for 91 seconds, watch it tomorrow afternoon on Turner Classic Movies. Or if you don't want to wait, get out whatever watch or app you time things with and time the scene in this. This clip contains every moment of the movie in which Jonathan Winters appears. This is apparently sped slightly from when it was on TCM because in here, it comes out to 87 seconds.

And while you're at it, you might consider how a scene of a college professor trying to rape one of his students — even a student who clearly is way over college age — somehow isn't quite as funny as it was in 1966. Not that it was a laugh riot then…

March 30, 2009 on this site, I told you this story that you won't believe. It was not long after my amazing friend Kristine passed away…and one of the amazing things about Kristine was that when you were around her, amazing things happened — things like this…

Okay, I'm going to tell you a story here that will cause some of you to think my brain has gone condo and I'm suffering from severe delusions. The following, however, actually occurred. If you're skeptical, drop an e-mail to anyone who knows me well. They'll tell you these kinds of things always happen to me. I don't know why but they do. This involves my friend Kristine Greco, a lovely lady who passed away last week at a way-too-early age.

I have a mammoth collection of comedy records. Always have. Some time in the sixties, I began actively collecting the work of the great bandleader, Spike Jones. I've amassed just about everything he ever recorded — that's a lot of 78s and 45s and LPs — and the stuff I don't have on original discs, I have on tapes or (more recently) MP3s. If you're familiar with his wonderful, wacky work, no explanation is necessary as to why I was drawn to it.I never met Mr. Jones (he died in 1965) but in the seventies, I found myself working with a number of his former associates. Lennie Weinrib and Billy Barty were on several of the shows I wrote for Sid and Marty Krofft. A couple of his former musicians had become film editors and were working down in the basement at Hanna-Barbera. One of his former writers, Eddie Brandt, had worked at H-B before I got there but left to open a nostalgia store, selling old books and old records, and I sometimes shopped there and chatted with him. There were a few others. At the time, no one had done a book about Spike Jones and I started to think I might be in a good position to write one. I put the notion to a friend who was an editor at the kind of publishing house that might handle such a thing.

He promptly threw chilly water on the idea. Said he, "A couple of people have thought of writing a book on Spike Jones but they all gave it up. They couldn't find enough material. Now, if you could approach his family and they'd agree to cooperate, maybe…"

That kind of discouraged me. I didn't know any relatives of Spike Jones. Or so I thought.

As I mentioned here a few days ago when I was saying goodbye to her, I met this wonderful lady named Kristine Greco when we were both working on Welcome Back, Kotter — she as an actress, me as a story editor. A year or two after that, we were going back to her place after a movie…and for some reason, I still remember what it was. It was Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands. We were walking into her apartment and I was somehow talking about things I was working on. I said, "I've been thinking of doing a book about a man named Spike Jones. He was a great bandleader back in the —"Kristine interrupted me and asked, "You mean, Uncle Spike?"

That's what she said. That's what the lady said: Uncle Spike. I gasped, "What do you mean, 'Uncle Spike?'"

She said, "Spike Jones was my uncle. I thought you knew that."

"I didn't know that," I replied. His name had never come up in our conversations and I wasn't in the habit of asking women if they were Spike Jones's niece. (I should have started. I later found out that another actress I worked with, Judy Strangis, was also a niece of Spike's. In fact, Judy's the one who called me the other day to tell me about Kristine.)

It turned out Kristine not only was a niece of Spike Jones but when she was around six, she'd even sung on one of his records. Spike was married to a singer named Helen Grayco. Helen Grayco was born Helen Greco and she "Americanized" her surname early in her career.

Standing there in Kristine Greco's apartment that night, I felt like I'd made a wrong turn at the Twilight Zone and wandered into a Hitchcock flick…but it got weirder. I asked her, "Where are all of Spike Jones's personal papers and such?"

She said, "Well, a lot of them are in my garage. Remember those boxes you just parked your car next to?"

I'd been parking next to those boxes for a year or so when I visited her. We went out to the garage, opened up the top box and right there we found a bunch of animation-style storyboard drawings. Back when he was doing one of his TV shows in the fifties, Jones sometimes employed cartoonists to create visual gags which he and his band used. There were about two dozen of these drawings and many were by the great cartoon director, Tex Avery, some of them even signed. Here's one from a series of gags which had Spike sitting on a piano playing the trombone while his "feet" (actually someone else's hands) played the piano…

The others weren't signed but appeared to be by two other artists. Both had familiar styles and one looked like it just might be the legendary magazine cartoonist, Virgil "VIP" Partch.

"You can have them if you like," she said…and she also loaded me down with old sheet music and programs and Spike souvenirs. One treasure I keep on my desk here looks like a gold-plated railroad spike but it's also a can opener…and it says "Spike Jones" on the side of it.

At the time, I was working at Hanna-Barbera. The following Monday, I took the storyboard drawings in and showed them to my office roommate. My office roommate at the time was Tex Avery.

He was sitting there with an older gent…a visitor I didn't recognize. When I showed Tex the drawings, he did one of those "takes" that the Wolf in his cartoons did when he found Droopy where he didn't expect him. "My God," he gasped. "We were just talking about Spike. I loved writing gags for him."

I asked him if he could identify the drawings done by others. He said most of them were by Roy Williams. Roy was the Disney storyman who appeared on The Mickey Mouse Club as the Big Mooseketeer. "What about this one?" I asked, showing him the one I thought might be by Virgil Partch.

"Oh, that's one of his," Tex said, pointing to the gentleman in his guest chair. "This is Virgil Partch."

That, fortunately, is about where the incredible coincidences end. I wound up going to lunch that day with Tex and Vip — they drank and talked, I ate and listened — and we had a very nice time. Kristine soon introduced me to Spike's son, Spike Jr., who was (and still is) a very successful producer. We lunched and talked about me writing a book and also about other projects, but nothing ever came of any of it. I was too busy to tackle the book or anything else just then. A few years later, I heard that a fine historian-author named Jordan Young was doing a Spike Jones bio so I gave him all the material I'd amassed and he produced a much better book than I would have. You can order a copy of it here.

That's the story.  I told you you wouldn't believe it.

This is a reprint but it's also a correction. A few years ago, I switched the software on which this blog runs from Movable Type to WordPress. That was a lot more difficult than you might think and a lot of errors that you find here are a result of that conversion, including — of course — every single prediction I made that seems to have not come true.

Actually, some mistakes did result. A number of posts got corrupted and large chunks of them disappeared. I thought I'd fixed them all but this one — which originally ran here on April 21, 2009 — has had a big section missing since the switchover. I have managed to restore it in both its old location and here for the flashback…

In the summer of 1959 when I was seven, my mother took me on a trip east — to New York, Hartford and Boston in that order. The idea was to sight-see and introduce me to relatives. I guess she thought I was old enough to see just what kind of family I was a part of.

The week in New York, we stayed at the Taft Hotel on Seventh Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets and did touristy things like riding the Staten Island Ferry and visiting the Statue of Liberty. One morning, my mother announced we were going to go to Rockefeller Center, walk around for a while, then take in a matinee of the movie that was playing at Radio City Music Hall. It was The Nun's Story starring Audrey Hepburn. If you ever decide your seven-year-old deserves a good beating but wish to avoid corporal punishment, make him sit through The Nun's Story, instead. Whatever it was he did, he'll never do it again.

Before we got to that, as we wandered through Rockefeller Center, a polite man approached us. He explained that he was recruiting audiences and that he could arrange for us to get a free tour of the NBC Studios, see one of our favorite game shows done live and (he emphasized the "and") take home a prize. All it would take was about two hours of our time. My mother motioned to me and said, "I thought you had to be a certain age to be in the audience for a TV show."

I guess they were desperate for warm bodies that day. He looked me over and said, "Yes, well, usually but he seems like a well-behaved lad. I can arrange for special tickets so he'll get in." My mother decided we could catch a later show of The Nun's Story and asked if we could see them do Treasure Hunt, which was then a popular NBC game show starring Jan Murray. The gent scanned his clipboard and said, "I'm not sure if there are any special tickets left for Treasure Hunt. They'd have to tell you upstairs."

He was probably lying to us. He probably knew darn well there were no tickets of any kind left for Treasure Hunt. His mission was to get us upstairs where we could be diverted into some other show that was hard-up for seat-fillers.

The next thing we knew, we were getting a quick mini-tour of NBC, conducted by a cheery tour guide who showed us almost nothing but kept encouraging us to ask questions. I did and she couldn't answer a one of them. Then we were at a high desk — these are images I remember — where another cheery person informed us that they couldn't get us into Treasure Hunt but we could see Concentration. We liked that show too…and what the heck? We were already there and it was free and that show gave out prizes to the audience, too. So we were handed tickets and directed to a line of other folks who'd been conscripted from the street.

There, we waited for what seemed like days. Minutes you spend waiting seem like days when you're seven. I was bored silly until, suddenly and without warning, Jan Murray came by. He was wearing a loud checked sport coat and I think he was out there to apologize to people who'd been waiting in another line to see Treasure Hunt and didn't get in. But then he came over and shook some hands in our line and I got to meet him.

I had met TV stars before. The lady who lived next door to us back home was on an ABC series then but this was different. She was like family and Jan Murray was a person who, insofar as I was concerned, existed only on television. He was also male and funny and charming and he made a big impression on me. I never wanted to be on TV but I do vaguely recall a little wish-dream that struck me at that moment. It had to do with people being as happy to see me as everyone was that day to see Jan Murray.

Then Mr. Murray did something amazing…even magical.  Now, you have to remember that this show was done live.  As he did it on stage, it was broadcast simultaneously to much of the country.  There could be no delays in starting.

The stage manager came out into the hall to fetch him and to say, "Jan, three minutes," meaning, "Get your ass in there, fella.  The show's about to start!"  Jan nodded and continued greeting people in line and signing autographs.

Then it was "Jan, two minutes."  Jan acknowledged the time and went right on signing his name on whatever scraps of paper people could come up with.

Before you knew it, the stage manager was saying — with great desperation in his voice — "Jan, please…one minute!" Jan told him not to worry, he'd be fine…and went on signing and shaking hands.

There was a black-and-white TV monitor on a stand in the hall. Suddenly, it was showing the opening of Treasure Hunt, the opening that America was watching. The announcer was about to introduce Jan Murray and Jan Murray was still in the hallway signing autographs for tourists! The stage manager was pleading but Jan, with no ruffled feathers, merely told him to relax. Then he thanked us all again for coming, turned and walked into the studio —

— and five seconds later, walked out onto live television!

I saw this. I saw this with my own young eyes. A human being in full-color who was three feet from me turned, walked through a portal and emerged on live, black-and-white television.

It still gives me a little chill to recall it. That, folks, is magic.

I had not quite gotten over it when, maybe fifteen minutes later, we were herded into the studio where Concentration was done and seated in bleacher-type seats. Ours were way over on the end and from where they stuck me, I could see absolutely nothing of the area where the host and players would be. I could see about a third of the big Concentration game board and that was about it. This was not because of my lack of height back then. It was because of all the lights and cameras and equipment in the way. Kareem Abdul Jabbar would not have been able to see anything from where they put me. I ended up watching the whole show on one of the monitors and thinking, "Gee, I could have seen exactly the same thing at home without waiting in that line, plus I could be eating cookies."

To further diminish the experience, the show's regular host Hugh Downs was off that day and someone else (I don't recall who) was filling in. Because he made his entrance after we sat down and exited before we left, I never saw him except on the monitor.

We'd been promised prizes and usually in the world of game shows, the word "prize" suggests large amounts of cash, household appliances and vacations. In this case, it suggested one tiny, travel-size tube of the white Vaseline® brand petroleum jelly. As we filed out, an NBC page handed one to each of us and even the adults were audibly disappointed. The next day, I saw them for sale in a pharmacy and they were 39 cents, which wasn't much of a prize even in 1959. I'd been expecting a new Chevrolet and a case of Turtle Wax…although come to think of it, maybe Turtle Wax is the white Vaseline® brand petroleum jelly.

All in all, it was not the most memorable part of that trip to New York. I think the most memorable part, not counting Jan Murray ascending into the airwaves before my very eyes, was after The Nun's Story when my mother, partly by way of apology, took me to the famous Automat restaurant. I liked that. That place was kind of magical too, even if no human beings walked from reality right onto a TV screen.

Just before Christmas of 2008, some friends took me to a play that will linger forever in my memory as the biggest disaster I ever saw on a stage. What follows is the review I posted here on December 23 of that year and it was one of the most-read things I ever put up there. Why? Because the Los Angeles Times in its review of the show linked to this as a kind of independent corroboration of what they said. Amazingly, the producer of this show tried to mount another production of A Christmas Carol in another city the following year with a different all-star cast but it never opened because, among other reasons, some of the stars he advertised hadn't agreed to be in it. Here's what resulted when he tried it in '08…

There are evenings in the theater and there are evenings in the theater. Last night, I had an evening in the theater. My friends Paul Dini and Misty Lee had an extra ticket for the opening of a new production of Mr. Dickens's A Christmas Carol at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood — the same venue where the Academy Awards are held. It was to star Christopher Lloyd as Scrooge, supported by John Goodman, Jane Leeves and Jane Seymour with "A Special Appearance by" Gene Wilder. Unmentioned in most of the advertising was that Mr. Wilder would not be there; that his performance would be handled by a pre-recorded hologram.

Several years ago, some actors I knew wrote a play about a play where everything that could go wrong on stage went wrong on stage. It was called Footlight Frenzy and it was quite hilarious. Alas, in one of those coincidences that haunt the entertainment business, it came out almost simultaneously with another play about a play where everything that could go wrong on stage went wrong on stage. It was called Noises Off, and it was a bigger hit to the point where few people saw Footlight Frenzy…a shame since it was the funnier of the two screw-up plays.

It's now in second place with Noises Off in third. Opening night of A Christmas Carol at the Kodak, so many things went wrong that the audience couldn't keep from laughing and ultimately, neither could the actors.

Our first inkling that things would be far from perfect came when we sat down in the theater and opened our program books. Out tumbled one of those little slips that told you there'd be a cast substitution. This one was unusually chatty and I quote it in full…

The role of Christmas Past is now played by Jane Noseworthy.

Jane Seymour had to withdraw from the play after contracting a severe bronchial inflection. She felt that she wouldn't be able to perform to the best of her abilities and be able to give the audiences 100% while suffering this illness. The producers and Jane agreed that it would be in the best interest of all parties for her not to continue with the production.

We all sighed and remarked on how the producers had done a good job of more or less keeping this a secret until we were inside and seated. (Ms. Seymour's name was still on all the posters all over the Kodak Theater.) We also noted the irony of an actress named Jane withdrawing because of a respiratory problem and being replaced by an actress named Jane Noseworthy.

Under the first announcement, on the same slip of paper, we also learned…

The role of Marley is now played by Barry Cutler.

Gene Wilder was to have appeared as a special effect using a hologram; the producers decided that it would not be effective in the production.

This was probably the first time much of the audience learned that Gene Wilder was never going to be on the stage at the Kodak at all…and now, even his hologram wasn't going to be there. In light of what happened later, it's pretty obvious of the reason: They simply couldn't make the hologram work.

Another ominous sign: A Christmas Carol is set in the Victorian era. Someone might have kept that in mind when they picked out the music being played before the play commenced. It was "Santa Baby" by Eartha Kitt. (During intermission, we got "The Most Wonderful Time" by Andy Williams.)

Then the show started and so did the problems. Most of them were the fault of the tech crew. A pre-recorded narration, using passages from Dickens, was supposed to cover each scene change but they were rarely able to get the sets placed during the allotted time. Time after time, the curtain came down on a scene, the voiceover would play…and then it would finish and we'd sit there staring at a curtain for a minute or two while the crew raced to get a set set up. Finally, the curtain would rise…and sometimes it would then come down again because the stagehands were still out there arranging things. Or sometimes, they'd dart off the stage.

One time, they started playing the narration while Christopher Lloyd and the Ghost of Christmas Past were still on stage with another minute of dialogue to go before the scene change. Twice, they brought in the wrong backdrop…and only brought it in halfway. Some scene pieces were in the wrong place and you could see actors scrambling to get on and off stage because entrances and exits weren't where they were supposed to be.

In the first act, there's a scene where Scrooge returns to his home and he's supposed to see an image of his deceased partner, Jacob Marley, on the knocker on the front door. I guess this was going to be done via some sort of projection but we never saw it. When the stage crew set the scene, they left the front door wide open.

There was a long wait and you could hear whispering in the wings, which I guess was because they were trying to figure out what to do about this. The decision was to press ahead, so Mr. Lloyd entered and muttered some incomprehensible ad-lib dialogue about Marley, then entered the house. Apparently thinking his microphone was now off (it wasn't), he began to complain to someone backstage, "The door was open!"

And on it went. Things began to get a little better in the second act. John Goodman made his entrance as the Ghost of Christmas Present and got a tremendous ovation. Through sheer energy, he began to elevate the proceedings…but then we had a series of missed cues and some forgotten lines and we were back into a live Bloopers show. Christopher Lloyd did a magnificent job of pretending all was normal and carrying on but by the last few scenes, even he couldn't deny the obvious.

After the ghosts renovate Scrooge's soul, there's a moment when he needs to get out of his nightshirt and into his street clothes hurriedly. Lloyd dashed behind a screen to change and suddenly, there came the loud and unmistakable sound of modern-day Velcro® and a burst of laughter from the audience. You could hear Christopher Lloyd giggling and also struggling with the costume change…and finally, he announced, "If I didn't know better, I'd think the spirits were screwing with my clothes!"

For the rest of the play, everyone was snickering and Mr. Lloyd — sounding less and less like Ebenezer Scrooge and more and more like the Right Reverend Jim Ignatowski — was doing body language and gestures that said to the audience, "Yeah, I know…let's just get through it." There was much laughter in places that should not have evoked laughter. At the end, he and the cast got a tremendous standing ovation for sheer persistence and courage under fire. Lesser performers would have walked off the stage in mid-performance, headed across the promenade to the food court and applied for jobs at Hot-Dog-on-a-Stick.

This was the first of fourteen performances through January 4 and I assume things will get better. They'd pretty much have to. Christopher Lloyd is a fine actor and if he'd had half a chance to be as even half as good as he could be, he'd probably have been quite good…right up there with great Scrooges of the past like Alastair Sim and Quincy Magoo.

There could even be a memorable performance in this production. As it was, the first night was memorable but not in the way that was intended. As we exited, the audience was still chuckling and itemizing the errors. I overheard one gent ask his companion, "Was there anyone who didn't screw up?" The answer was, "Yes…Jane Seymour."

November 17, 2008 is when this first appeared here. Not much to add to it except to note that Vito's still has the best pizza in Los Angeles…

I often cruise restaurant review boards, not so much for the food info as the sheer drama of the arguments. It's fun to see people debate something as inconsequential as where to get the best veal marsala…and it can give you insight into the illogical ways in which some people bicker. You can observe the same silly tricks of evasion and myopia that they then apply on other forums to mud-wrestle over important stuff like abortion, guns, Iraq or Best Episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show.

People really like to argue food. Someone once told me, and I think it's true, that the best way to get information on a restaurant chat board is not to ask a question but to start a brawl. Let us say you'll be travelling to Jerkwater, Alabama and you want to know where to get great ribs. You will learn little if you just post a query that says, "Hey, could someone suggest some good places to get ribs in Jerkwater?" Instead, you should do the following. Google "Jerkwater AND ribs" and get the name of any rib joint in the area. Let's say it's Murray's BBQ. Then under some anonymous handle, you post, "Had dinner the other night at Murray's. Boy, that's the best 'Q within a hundred miles of Jerkwater and anyone who'd eat ribs anywhere else is an idiot with no taste."

That will get you plenty of insults but it'll also get you plenty of recommendations.

Another thing that amuses me is that there is little recognition that restaurants can vary from day to day, meal to meal, even hamburger to hamburger. If you write from the heart, "Rosie's Cafe is great. I had the best hamburger of my life there," someone will feel the need to debate this. It will be like, "That's ridiculous. I had a hot turkey sandwich three years ago at Rosie's that was terrible." People like to believe that their favorites are consistently good and that once a restaurant has done wrong, it cannot possibly do right.

A subset of that is something I call The Latke Rule. It flows from the widespread belief among us Jews that the way your mother made potato pancakes is the only correct way to make potato pancakes, and that all future potato pancakes you encounter are to be judged not on their own merits but as to how much or how little they deviate from The Way Mom Made Them. In truth, you can apply this to any kind of food, even when your mother was a lousy cook. But her goal was always correct…so if she put American Cheese atop your tuna noodle casserole, then a tuna noodle casserole with, say, Cheddar is just wrong.

Lastly, one thing that has always fascinated me about restaurant discussions is that while people can debate anything edible, there are seven categories that seem to draw blood. Those seven are…

1. Hamburgers
2. Pizza
3. Chinese Food
4. Barbecue (ribs, especially)
5. Philly Steak Sandwiches
6. Hot Dogs
7. Clam Chowder

People do quarrel over where to get the best Prime Rib or Tostadas but they do so in a civil and calm manner. These seven seem to bring out the shrill and vituperative disagreements.

Sometimes, pronouncements are geographic — the only decent pizza is in New York, you can't get a good hot dog outside Chicago, etc. Debates about Philly Steak Sandwiches usually start with the understanding that the best are in Philadelphia and then they diverge into sub-topics (Where in Philly? Anywhere outside of Philly worth a mention? And what about Cheez Whiz?) Just outside Los Angeles, there's a community called Monterey Park that is famous for a cluster of superior and authentic Chinese Restaurants. There are Angelenos who will karate-chop you if you suggest that any Chinese Food from anywhere in California but Monterey Park is fit for human consumption.

The Great Clam Chowder Controversy is probably the most interesting one. I have seen death threats hurled over the question of white versus red, let alone where one might procure the finest of either. Years after we finally bury the issue of race in this country, foodies will still be wrestling with that color question.

I was going to end this by posting my list of places I like in L.A. for the above seven but I got enough hate mail during the recent election. So let us all live in peace. Let us link hands, respect our divergences of opinion and recognize that just as people are different, tastes are different and there is no right or wrong answer to any of this. And then let's go beat the crap out of anyone who thinks Vito's on La Cienega doesn't make the best pizza in Los Angeles. Thank you.

We leap back to March 7, 2008 for this reprise. Nothing much has changed. I'm still in touch with Betty Lynn, who now lives back in Mt. Airy, North Carolina — a city that has modeled a lot of itself on Mayberry. As one of the few cast members who's still alive — and the only one in residence — she is a local celebrity, present at every important event. I keep waiting for a comic book convention in that area to invite me as a guest so I can go see her. Here's the story you'll like…

I recently found an old photo in my files and I thought you might enjoy hearing the tale behind it.  That's not it up above.  We'll get to it.

Around 1958 at the tender age of six, I came down with Scarlet Fever, a nasty little disease that had me confined to bed for several months. Most of this was spent reading — my obsession with comic books became especially acute during this period — and my father borrowed a little black-and-white TV from someone and set it up in my room so I could watch my favorite shows. He did this when he wasn't scurrying out to buy me more comic books or more comic books or more comic books. Did I ever tell you what a terrific father I had? Nicest man in the world and that's not just my opinion. They had a big vote and he won in a landslide.

One program that I watched often was Disneyland, the Walt Disney extravaganza that was then on ABC, and I especially watched it the weeks they featured a recurring western series called Texas John Slaughter. Every third or fourth week, the show would be given over to the adventures of the pioneer/cowboy hero, who was played by a handsome actor named Tom Tryon. More importantly, his wife was played by a wonderful actress named Betty Lynn. Betty has had a splendid career in films and television, working with practically everyone since the days she was a child star under contract to Twentieth-Century Fox, but if you know of her, it's probably for one role in particular. After Mr. Disney stopped making episodes of Texas John Slaughter, she went over and took the role of Thelma Lou, lady friend of Barney Fife (Don Knotts) on The Andy Griffith Show.

Why was I so interested in Betty Lynn? Easy. She lived next door to us. Betty was like my surrogate aunt. I still talk to her all the time and treat her as one would treat a close relative. A lovely woman…and she was not only our neighbor, not only a TV and movie star…she was even, in a Dell comic book drawn by my future collaborator Dan Spiegle, a comic book character!

One day, Tom Tryon was visiting her. Mr. Tryon later got out of acting and became a very successful author, but this was back when he was not only acting but Texas John Slaughter was a hit series and he was a pretty big star. Before they left for wherever they were going, Betty happened to mention to him that the little boy who lived next door was quite ill. Tryon instantly said, "Well, let me go visit him," and they came over…

…and you want to know what I remember of that visit? Absolutely nothing. Because I slept through it.

I'd been given some sort of medication that knocked me out and my parents were unable to wake me up to meet Tom "Texas John Slaughter" Tryon. They finally gave up and it was only later that evening, when I finally did come out of my drug-induced coma, that they told me he'd been there.

So that's the story of how I didn't meet a then-famous TV star…though I do have a souvenir of his visit. Look at what he left me!

We journey back to 2/26/07 for this Horrible Childhood Memory. Actually, this is a two-for-one encore because it will be immediately followed by a follow-up…

Above, courtesy of our dear friends over at OldTVTickets.com, we have a ticket for a local, Los Angeles show called Bill Stulla's Parlor Party. The date on this ticket, as you can see, is September 9. I believe the year was 1952.

Bill Stulla was a fixture for years of L.A. broadcasting. His Parlor Party started life on radio and segued to TV…in what year, I do not know. The premise of the show was that it was an on-air birthday party. It was done live, of course, and each day they'd have on a batch of individuals who'd been born on that day. They'd entertain them and play games with them and interview them and serve cake and award prizes. I have a vague idea that at one point in the program's existence, the birthday celebrants covered a wide range of ages. But on the day I made my television debut on the program, the premise was that it was all kids, aged ten or younger. In my case, it was much younger.

I am describing to you one of my earliest memories. I remember being taken to the TV studio — I don't recall where but it was probably Sunset and Vine like the ticket says. KNBH was then the local NBC television affiliate. (In 1954, it became KRCA and in 1960, it was renamed KNBC.) I remember being dressed up, which I never liked. I remember being backstage and my mother furiously combing my hair (which I also never liked) and dealing with the fact that I didn't want to be there and do whatever I was supposed to do. I remember being told that my relatives and neighbors were all watching so I had to go through with it.

I had seen the show. Mr. Stulla, a genial man with glasses, welcomed his young guests as they came in through the door of a little storybook-type house on the stage. I remember being backstage without my mother, waiting on the other side of that door for someone to tell me to go through it and onto live television. Back there, it didn't look like a storybook house. It was all fake and that seemed odd and scary. Everything backstage was odd and scary.

Then someone shoved me out onto the stage. I remember blinding lights and Mr. Stulla sticking a microphone in my face and asking me my name. If he had waited for an answer, we'd still be there today.

I was absolutely terrified. I'm not sure of what but I was absolutely terrified. I mumbled something. I don't know what it was but it wasn't my name. Someone off-camera told it to him. Mr. Stulla, who'd done this before, attempted gamely to get me to speak up and answer his questions: How old was I? Did I have any brothers and sisters? Did I have any pets? (There's not a lot you can ask a kid that age.) But it didn't matter what he asked. I wasn't answering. In a very short span of time, he decided I was just one of those children who wasn't going to cooperate and he passed me over to the party area and brought the next toddler out through the phony door.

In the party area, I sat with complete strangers, awaiting cake that would celebrate our mutual birthday. I didn't see the point of that, either. There was a cake waiting for me at home. As I sat there, I went from really, really not wanting to be there to really, really, really not wanting to be there. Well before it was time to bring out the cake and have about a dozen of us make a group effort to blow out the candles, I wandered off the stage, found my parents in the audience and made them get me the hell out of there.

So what year was I on that show? That's what I'm trying to figure out. (In case it's not clear, the above ticket has nothing to do with my being on the program. It's just the only visual evidence I've ever come across that the series even existed.)

I was born in March of 1952. I once thought I was three or four when I made my inauspicious television debut. My mother doesn't remember but one time when I asked her about it, she did recall that my going on the show was at the urging of my Aunt Dot, who thought it would be the greatest thing in the world to see her adorable nephew on the television machine. Parents apparently wrote away in advance and if their kid was selected, they were told to bring him or her down to the studio on the day in question at such-and-such a time. They were also sent some number of tickets to dispense to friends and relatives to come down and watch the festivities.

Research suggests that Bill Stulla's Parlor Party was off the air before my third birthday. All the history I've seen says that in 1954, Mr. Stulla went to work on KHJ, Channel 9 here in Los Angeles, hosting what always seemed like the worst cartoons available. He was the guy who ran Colonel Bleep, for God's sake. He adopted a train motif for his show, called it Cartoon Express and became Engineer Bill. I'll bet a lot of people reading this who grew up in L.A. remember Engineer Bill. He did that series, Monday through Friday, until 1964.

If he stopped Parlor Partying on Channel 4 when he began Engineer Billing on Channel 9, that would mean I must have been two when I made my traumatic appearance. That seems too young to me. A few years ago when I met Mr. Stulla (he's still around, by the way), I asked him what year Bill Stulla's Parlor Party ended and if there was an overlap with his KHJ job. He told me it was probably '52. I told him it couldn't possibly have been '52 because I was on the show on my birthday and I was born in '52. He said in that case, he didn't remember the year but was sure it was "long" before he became Engineer Bill. It couldn't have been too long.

I'll be 55 years old this Friday. Up until I was around 40, I hated being in front of a TV camera. Twice in my earlier career, I was asked to play on-camera roles in shows I was writing. Once on Welcome Back, Kotter, they needed a tall guy to hover over Arnold Horshack and threaten to beat the crap out of him. I was asked to be that guy and I refused. I was willing to beat the crap out of Arnold Horshack but not to go on camera. Later on Pink Lady, they used the whole writing staff as extras (dancing, no less) in a sketch and I couldn't get out of that one. I did it but disliked every second of the experience. In fact, if my parents had been there, I think I would have walked off the stage, found them and forced them to take me home for cake.

I still don't love being on the business end of a lens but I can do it now without fleeing in terror. I do not think, by the way, that when I recoiled from it in my adult life, it was because it reminded me of my bad experience on Bill Stulla's Parlor Party. I think I was born hating to be on television and that like acne, my Snagglepuss t-shirt and thinking fart jokes were funny, I eventually outgrew it.

This has been the first in a series of my Horrible Childhood Memories. I'm not sure if and when I'll post another because I had a great childhood and don't have many horrible memories. But one of these days, I may post another one. (I still can't believe I was two when this one happened…)

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Okay, this is now me back in 2015. Not long after I posted the above — on May 14, 2008 — I posted an update.  Here's an edited version of it…

If you actually read [my earlier piece], then you know that as a small tot, I made my TV debut on a local Los Angeles TV show called Bill Stulla's Parlor Party. I remembered how much I disliked it but I was unable to place exactly how old I was at the time…two, three, older? You can ignore all the sterling detective work that I did in that post because most of it was wrong. I appeared on the show on March 1, 1955, one day shy of my third birthday.

And above, we have incontrovertible evidence. I've recently been having my hard-working assistant Tyler scan all the old family photos my mother could find and in one box, I came across my "passport to the Castle of Dreams" for that traumatic day. (On the back of it, in my mother's handwriting, there's a list of relatives and neighbors I'm supposed to say hello to. As I recall, I mentioned not a one of them. By the way, the Castle of Dreams was a really badly-painted scene flat.)

That's about all I have to say about this. Just thought I'd finish the story and share this nifty little relic.