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Breaking news from Pittsburgh: The "f" word is back in The Producers.  A nation exhales.

To further my endorsement of the aforementioned production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, I've bought tickets to see it again before it closes.  And I should have said more about the terrific supporting cast.  There's a fellow named Scott Dreier playing Hero and somehow managing to be very funny but still sympathetic in one of the tougher roles.  A few years back, I saw Dreier playing Seymour in the same company's production of Little Shop of Horrors and he absolutely nailed the role.  And playing the ingenue is a lady named Misty Cotton who got laughs I've never seen anyone else get in that role.  Anyway, as you can tell, I really liked this show.

The Emmy Awards are tonight…another ceremony to which I think people attach way too much importance. I especially get dismayed when folks act like voting for "Best Performance" is some sort of exact science; like it's a crime against nature if the "right" guy doesn't win. When we vote for president or senator or congressperson, it's a much more refined procedure involving a far greater sampling of opinions…and, half the time (most of us would agree), the wrong guy comes out on top. I don't know why anyone expects the Emmy Awards — selected as they are by small panels of anonymous judges — to yield a higher degree of "right" choices. I especially love the after-the-fact, easy explanations for what a group of disparate strangers were trying to say.

I'll be watching for Conan O'Brien who is apparently good enough to host but not good enough to get nominated. But I'll bet you he'll be good…and I'll bet you that, next year, his show gets a nomination.

Jack Lemmon was filming his first movie, It Should Happen To You, co-starring Judy Holliday with direction by George Cukor. Things seemed to be going fine except that after each take, Cukor would say, "Fine, Jack…but let's do one more take and give me less." In other words, tone down the performance.

For days, it went like that. After every take, Cukor would say, "Great, but give me less. Less." Lemmon did as told but with an increasing resentment.

Finally, there came a scene where Lemmon felt he'd really nailed it. When Cukor yelled "Cut" and then asked the actor to do less, Lemmon exploded. "For Christ's sake," he yelled. "Are you telling me not to act?"

Cukor put his hands together in a pleading gesture and said, "Oh, please, dear God, yes."

Lemmon later called it, "The best lesson in acting I ever got."

A friend (whose name I won't mention since I'm about to tell him he's wrong) wrote with a thought about Mayo Kaan, the Superman impostor mentioned in this item here.  Might Mr. Kaan, he asks, have been the person who played Superman at the 1939-1940 New York World's Fair?  Answer: No.  DC Comics did a lot of promotion in accord with that expo, including "Superman Day," an event that involved an actor named Ray Middleton parading about in what was probably the first-ever Superman suit.  Being the first person to ever play the Man of Steel — that is, assuming Mayo's claim was bogus — was a great honor but it was by no means the greatest achievement of Ray Middleton.  He later had a pretty impressive career on Broadway.  He was the original Frank Butler in Annie, Get Your Gun, playing opposite Ethel Merman's Annie Oakley, and he can still be heard on the cast recording.  He had two roles in the original production of Man of La Mancha and was also in South Pacific, Love Life and Roberta, to name three of many others.  He made a few film appearances, including a role in our favorite, 1776, and did a lot of TV jobs, including a recurring role on Too Close for Comfort.  He passed away in 1984.

Rick Scheckman seems to know everything I don't…and man, is that a lot to know!  Anyway, he writes that the Fred Allen/Jerry Siegel spot posted earlier in the same item is from the 10/9/40 episode of Mr. Allen's radio program.  This installment is apparently among the sad number of shows which have been lost…i.e., there are no known copies of the entire program.  So by saving that clip for promotional use, someone saved a moment of history that would otherwise be gone for good.

In a posting here the other day, I responded to a newsgroup discussion in which my friend Pat O'Neill was advancing what I considered illogical theories of comic book marketing.  The discussion in that newsgroup continues and, in a subsequent message, someone else was discussing protests when your favorite comic book gets cancelled.  That person, Ron Saarna, wrote, "…fandom can make a difference to the bean-counters.  It just needs to be focused, or organized for those that have the desire."  I don't disagree with this but I wrote the following in response…

For whatever it's worth, I don't think it needs to be all that organized or focused. If your favorite comic book or TV show (or whatever) is cancelled, express your unhappiness via polite letters.  And I would add that I think one paper letter has the impact of 100 e-mailed letters and 1000 names on e-mailed petitions.

Someone has made the decision to cancel the comic or show.  It's possible that this is an overwhelming decision with which most of the involved parties concur. In this case, your letters will bring warmth and comfort to the folks who brought you the comic or show but it probably won't reverse the cancellation.

It's also possible that the cancellation is still at an arguable stage, and some folks within the organization are still debating it or aren't certain what to replace it with, yet. In this case, the letters give ammo to those arguing to reinstate, and they provide moral cover to those who would have to change their minds. If you advocate canceling a project and you're looking for a way to reverse your position without losing face, it can be helpful to be able to say, "We're bowing to an avalanche of mail."

To clarify the differences here: I believe that when Star Trek was cancelled by NBC after its second season, Paramount and Gene Roddenberry still wanted to keep it going, and NBC really didn't have anything to replace it about which they felt that confident. So in that case, a pile of mail helped the network to decide they might as well keep it around. (It also probably convinced them that the audience might be loyal enough to follow it to a rotten time slot.  The network had one that then needed filling.) After the third season however, I believe not only did NBC decide the show would never catch on but both Paramount and Roddenberry had decided it was a lost cause and that they should invest their time and deficit financing elsewhere. So in that case, all the protests in the world probably would not have made a difference.

Actually, I think the main reason people write letters is because it makes them feel less helpless. But that can also be a good reason.

For many years, the best-kept secret about theater in Los Angeles — apart from the fact that there is any — has been the Civic Light Opera of South Bay Cities.  This is a company that operates out of the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center for larger plays and the Hermosa Beach Playhouse for smaller ones.  (Redondo Beach and Hermosa Beach are both closer to L.A. than a lot of Angelenos think.  Folks who think nothing of going downtown to the Music Center to see a show might recoil at the notion of shlepping to Redondo Beach to see one…but, depending on where in L.A. they live, Redondo Beach might mean less travel time.)

The C.L.O.S.B.C. stages wonderful productions of mostly-classic plays for short runs that often surprise with their production value and professionalism.  I've seen more than a dozen shows in their larger venue and, while some aspects of a few seemed a bit community-college, they occasionally work miracles.  They achieve quality far beyond what one could reasonably expect from a revival that is mounted for less than two dozen performances, primarily for subscribers.

One of the reasons this happens — surely, the main one — is the company's Executive Director/Producer, a flamboyant, passionate gent named James Blackman.  And among the miracles he achieves is that he prefaces each performance with a little monologue that belies an old show biz adage.  That's the one that holds that when the boss comes out and makes a speech before the show, he can't help but get the evening off to a screaming stop.  Au contraire, Mr. Blackman is funny and friendly and you can't help but feel that a lot of attendees renew their subscriptions each year because they know James won't let them down, and don't want to let him down.  Another great thing is that he seems to be able to compensate for the short rehearsal times by securing directors and actors who have done the show (whatever show they're doing) before and know it inside and out.

Which brings us to their new production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, which I saw in previews last night.  It opens tonight and runs through October 6.  The book of Forum, by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart, is maybe the funniest thing ever written for the stage and the score by Stephen Sondheim is wonderful.  It's my favorite musical and I've seen at least 25 productions, ranging from the Phil Silvers revival and the one with Nathan Lane, all the way to a Vegas production with Alan Young to which they added tit jokes and Liberace references.  I've seen high school productions, college productions, even one (see here) in which the entire milieu was transformed from Roman to Polynesian.  The C.L.O.S.B.C. production would surely rank near the top of the list.

Much of this is due to its star, a gent named Bob Amaral who is absolutely terrific as Pseudolus.  In the recent Broadway revival of the show, he was the stand-by for its various stars — Nathan Lane, Whoopi Goldberg and David Alan Grier.  Reports were that he was at least as good as Lane and easily better than the other two.  I can well believe it.  But the rest of the cast down in Redondo Beach pretty much comes up to his standard, including Larry Raben as Hysterium, Kevin Cooney as Senex and especially Robert Towers as Erronius.  The production, by the way, was directed by Will MacKenzie and choreographed by Sha Newman.

Most of you reading this live too far from Redondo Beach to get down there before October 6.  Some of you who are local will think "Redondo Beach?  That's too far" and not go.  A select few of you will visit the C.L.O.S.B.C. website, procure tickets, and have a wonderful time.

The touring company of The Producers, starring Lewis J. Stadlen and Don Stephenson, has opened in Pittsburgh.  Being familiar with Mr. Stadlen's formidable comedic abilities, I am even more interested in this than in the announced Los Angeles company which will star Jason Alexander and Martin Short.  I'll probably catch them both…and I still have to get back to New York and see Brad Oscar and Steven Weber.  So I have a lot of probably-great Max Bialystocks still to see.

Here is a link to an opening night review of the new production.  And here's a link to another review, which does not seem to be based on opening night.  It is curious to note the report that the show has dropped the "f" word, heard in one number on Broadway and on the cast album.  Does someone think that audiences who come to see a show about a Nazi musical and a cross-dressing Hitler are going to be offended by that word?  In Pittsburgh?  Also, it seems that Lee Roy Reams, who has the showy role of the drag queen Fuhrer, missed opening night.  This is of interest because The Producers is, after all, about stars missing their opening night performances and life has already imitated art once with an understudy taking over for the star on a permanent basis.  Sure hope Mr. Reams is okay.

Several folks in e-mail are assuming that Jim Davis — with whom I have worked for more than ten years — had me in mind when he came up with a name in today's Garfield strip.  I'm assuming that, too.

Good article on Conan O'Brien over at The New York Observer.  Here's that linky-poo.

For those of you interested in the sordid saga of Stan Lee Media (a company for which I briefly labored), a publication called Insight Magazine has a cover story this month on Peter Paul, the financial mastermind of the operation.  I don't guarantee any of its facts but if you want to read it, here's your link.  Thanks to Jeff Elkins for the tip.

Arianna Huffington makes some salient points about the attitude of George W. Bush and brother Jeb about drug use in America.  Here's that link.

I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere but I have it from a usually-reliable source that Mayo Kaan passed away in mid-July at the age of 88.  Now, who (you may be asking yourself) was Mayo Kaan?  That's what Jerry Siegel — co-creator of Superman — was asking when Mr. Kaan began publicizing himself as the model for the Man of Steel.  Around 1970, the Boston-based bodybuilder began selling photos like the one at left which he claimed were taken in 1936.  Siegel and his artist-partner Joe Shuster supposedly hired the gymnasium owner to model for the new comic character they'd just invented and they even worked with him to fashion a costume.  There were a few holes in Kaan's story, not the least of which was that neither Siegel nor Shuster had ever heard of him, nor had either traveled to Massachusetts anywhere near the time the alleged modeling was done.  (Another problem, noted by a Boston newspaper at the time, was that in one of the photos, Kaan was posing in front of a building which wasn't built until 1940, two years after Superman debuted.)

Kaan's claim upset Siegel and Shuster, and some of us did some phoning-of press services and reporters and pretty well debunked the whole story.  A few years later, the muscleman surfaced again with ads and p.r. materials about how he'd been the model for Superman, how you could now purchase a signed photo of him, etc.  Again, the forces of Truth, Justice and the American Way descended on the guy and he retreated…which is, of course, something the real Superman would never do.

There has been no funnier actor in the business than the late, great Hans Conried.  I only had the pleasure of meeting him twice.  Once was at a Tribute to Jay Ward.  Hans was there, of course, because of his memorable voice work as Snidely Whiplash in the Dudley Do-Right cartoons, and as Uncle Waldo on Hoppity Hooper, as well as his on-camera hosting of Fractured Flickers.  He was rightfully mobbed and when June Foray introduced us, I had just enough time to say, "It's an honor to meet one of my fav-" before someone dragged him off to be interviewed by a TV news crew.

I had a somewhat better allotment of quality time when I visited a writer-friend on the set of the TV show, Alice, and found that Mr. Conried was the guest star.  While the rest of the cast rehearsed a scene he was not in, I got to finish my sentence, and Hans launched into wonderful anecdotes about working with Jay, playing Captain Hook for Mr. Disney, portraying Danny Thomas's Uncle Tonoose, etc.  It was one of those "wish I'd had a tape recorder" moments.

At www.hansconried.com, a fan of this fine actor has set up a site full of photos and biographical material.  It's just getting started but it's already worth a visit.  If I can manage to recall some of the stories he told me, I'll try to post them here and offer them to that site, as well.

Okay, I got it wrong: The name of the coffee shop across the street from the Ed Sullivan Theater is Ferrara's, not Ficarra's.  I coulda sworn it was Ficarra's.  Oh, well.  At least, it isn't a Starbuck's.

The Daily Howler is a website that cannot be read for more than a few days without an enormous loss of confidence in our nation's press.  Its maker, Bob Somerby, does an amazing job of comparing news items and pointing out where a reporter has tap-danced past a lack of facts.  Today's installment does an especially good job of exposing all those reports about the faux terrorists discovered in Georgia last week.  But read through his archives and you'll find a lot more that will get you to wondering why more reporters aren't called on stories that don't stand up to even minimal scrutiny.

Comic strip characters are drinking less than they used to.  Or so says this article in the Washington Post.  (Thanx to Jerry Beck, lord of Cartoon Research, for the alert.)

If you've noticed weirdness on this site the last few days, it's because I made a coding error that caused bizarre formatting for those using certain screen settings.  I think everything's back to normal now…but I've been wrong before.

You may have noticed that I removed from this item the address of the hospital where our pal Denny O'Neil is convalescing and awaiting surgery.  The address was released by someone close to the situation but they've had second thoughts and would prefer that any actual mail be sent to the offices of DC Comics.  In case you don't have a copy of Batman handy, the address would be:

Denny O'Neil
c/o DC Comics, Inc.
1700 Broadway
New York, NY 10019

Or head over to www.oneilobserver.com and post on their message board.

By the way: This has nothing to do with Denny but I wonder how many people know that the above address (which also houses Mad Magazine) is directly across the street from the Ed Sullivan Theater, wherein David Letterman tapes.  And I mean right across the street.  You know that bit that Dave does on occasion where they try and see how many guys in bear suits they can fit into a coffee shop?  Well, the coffee shop they usually use is Ficarra's — no relation to Mad editor John Ficarra — and it's in the ground floor of the office building with DC Comics and Mad.  Just another bit of functionally-useless trivia to take your mind off a possible war with Iraq.

Several times a year, a group called the Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters pays an always-well-deserved tribute to some legend of early television and radio.  On Friday, September 27, they're having a luncheon to honor the incomparable June Foray and the dais will consist of a lot of people who belong in front of microphones, plus me.  I will probably have to follow folks like Stan Freberg and Gary Owens, and will feel like the guy who has to putt after Tiger Woods.  Nevertheless, I'll post a full report here.