Category Archives: Uncategorized

Few of them are visible but many changes have been made to this website.  They're mostly of a tech nature, enabling me to maintain things more efficiently here.  If anything looks weird or illegible to you, please heed the following steps…

If you have a very old browser — some antique version of Microsoft Explorer you've had since childhood — then upgrade your browser.  Don't do this for me.  Do it because the language of websites is evolving and, any day now, there will be plenty of sites that your passé software will be unable to parse.  So you might as well upgrade now. If you have a relatively-new browser and something still looks odd, do us a favor and drop an e-mail to our demon webmaster.

Thank you, as always, for your support.  We've been busy with some deadlines lately so this site has not been updated as often as we like.  We're still busy with those deadlines but several of you have donated via the PayPal button lately and we're feeling guilty about not putting anything new up here.  However, we're not too guilty to resist plugging our new book.  (Speaking of which, here's a link to a nice review we got…)

Filmmaker Doris Wishman was sort of the female Russ Meyer, cranking out low-budget films featuring ladies with gargantuan, oft-exposed breasts.  The main difference was that her films — like Deadly Weapons and Double Agent 73 — were less well known and a lot grimier.  (The title of the latter refers to its star, secret agent Chesty Morgan and her bust measurement.)  I made it through about half of two Wishman films back in my teen years and for a teenage boy to walk out on movies that feature naked women…well, those had to be pretty crummy movies.  They were…but I still admired her tenacity, banging out bad movies on a shoestring for more than a quarter-century.  Matter of fact, I find the details of her career more interesting than anything she committed to film.

I haven't seen it hit the wire services anywhere but Ms. Wishman passed away August 10 at the age of…well, she never told anyone how old she was but 85 is a good guess.  An episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien on which she guested is scheduled for a rerun on August 23.

Rumor has it we will soon have the chance to purchase a DVD set of the complete Dick Van Dyke Show.  The first release, which I assume will offer the first season, is supposed to occur in time for the Christmas.  If true, this is great news…though I have to admit that, thanks to TiVo and TV Land, I've lately overdosed on the reruns.  Still, though I haven't seen any dealer list this new DVD set yet, the minute I do, I'm ordering.  I can't name another situation comedy that I enjoyed as much as this one…and it wasn't just because of Mary Tyler Moore's capri pants.  Here's a link to the article I have posted here about my visit to a filming of my favorite series.

If you'd like a good overview of some of the legislation that made it possible for scams like Enron and Worldcom to happen, and what's being done to prevent it in the future, here's Molly Ivins with an explanation.

Below, I recommended a site whereupon you could learn what popular songs were being used in current commercials.  You can learn even more about current commercials (and even view many of them on-line) over at www.ads.com.  Thanks to Stuart Kaufman for the tip.

When I first delved into the world of comic book fanzines in the sixties, I discovered the work of Richard "Grass" Green.  A seasoned amateur, his work lacked polish and technical proficiency but he more than made up for that with total enthusiasm.  Even if you hadn't known he was whipping out all those cartoons and stories for free, you could have sensed that the guy loved what he did and did what he loved.  A few attempts to "go pro" did not work out but "Grass" never stopped drawing…not until around 5:00 PM yesterday when cancer claimed his life.  I only met the guy once and then, only for around five minutes.  But I liked him as much as I liked his work and I liked his work a lot.

A long piece reflecting on this year's Comic-Con International will probably turn up on this site before the week is out.  Many paying deadlines need to be met before this can happen.

On the original version of Saturday Night Live (with the original Not Ready for Primetime Players), there were two episodes that producer Lorne Michaels hated and would never allow to be rerun.  One was guest-hosted by Louise Lasser, who was reportedly going through personal problems (including a recent drug bust) and the other toplined Milton Berle, who apparently acted a lot like Milton Berle.  In Ms. Lasser's case, the story is that she freaked out just before the live broadcast, locked herself in her dressing room and refused to go on.  As Michaels pounded on the door, the cast began to improvise how to work around an absent guest host who was in almost every sketch.

The idea they came up with was that Chevy Chase would go on as Louise Lasser, wearing a wig with pigtails on it.  Chase's roles would be assumed by Bill Murray, who was not then a part of the program.  He was merely an actor who was under consideration for some future opening and he'd dropped by the studio to watch the show that evening.  Lasser was finally yanked from her dressing room and forced to perform but many of those involved in SNL later wished they'd had Chevy in the wig, instead.

So why am I telling you this?  Because Michaels eventually changed his mind about letting it rerun.  The Lasser episode was long absent from the SNL syndication package but was eventually added in.  The E! network is running a one-hour version of it tonight…at 4 PM and again at 10PM on my set.  No word on if and when the Berle episode may see the light of day…

The story of the Florida Recount won't go away.  Here's an important article that basically says that Bush and Cheney spent a ton of money (and used the facilities of naughty companies like Enron and Halliburton) to disrupt the vote counting.  The mass media isn't interested in stuff like this, in part because they can't quite explain why they didn't report it at the time.  But it'll all find its way into the history books.

And here's something interesting: A site that charts what popular records and songs are being used in commercials.  It's so when you see one and you wonder, "Where is that from?", you can look it up.  Here's that link.

I've never followed basketball. I'm not even sure how the game is played.  Still, my father watched the Lakers religiously and his life was sure brightened by the obviously-impeccable play-by-play descriptions of Chick Hearn.  Hearn was so good at it that, when I passed through the living room and a game was on, I sometimes found myself mesmerized by the mile-a-minute sound of his voice, rattling off every move of every player in a way that sure sounded interesting.  Maybe the games weren't always, but Chick sure was.

One time, I wrote an episode of Garfield and Friends and booked Chick Hearn to play a mouse who called a very silly basketball game played with groceries instead of a ball.  Chick was not altogether delighted to be there and he was utterly baffled by the words we expected him to read.  At one point, I had Garfield hurl a meat loaf down court, zoom down ahead of it and catch his own pass.  The dialogue said, "Garfield passes to Garfield" and Mr. Hearn kept stopping and moaning, "Hold it!  How can Garfield pass to Garfield?  And on the next page, you have the wrong number of points where he makes the free throw with the honeydew melon."  He also, we found, could not talk half as rapidly reading from a script as he could, ad-libbing it all while watching a game.  We finally convinced him he should just read the copy and not worry about the logic…which he did, without ever quite achieving the level of excitement and energy he had for even the most one-sided real game.

Still, when he did what he did best (i.e., real games, not cartoons) he was amazing.  And he sure made a lot of sports fans happy.

They ran out of badge holders!  You know those plastic things you slip the badge into and then you clip it on a pocket or something?  They ran out of them at the con and had to ask departing guests to turn theirs back for recycling.  There's a good indicator that attendance at this year's Comic-Con International was waaaay above anyone's expectations.  Rumor has it that at one point, the line for on-site registration was six blocks long.  (If you're thinking of registering on-site for next year's con, I'd leave now.)

I'm beat from the drive home so I'll just say that my panels today (tributes to Dan DeCarlo and Jack Kirby) went well, though I was a tad loopy by the second and babbled more than usual.  Fortunately, all the guests were great.  Heck, everything at the con was pretty great except, of course, for things like parking, concession stand prices, the sheer size of the hall and of the teeming mass of humanity that often made getting from Here to There a task of superhuman proportion.

Check back here in a day or so for more in-depth thoughts about the last four days…assuming, that is, I have any.

Staggering rumors abound of convention attendance topping any level-headed estimates.  God, was it crowded in the place today…though by the time the aisles were totally jammed, I was upstairs moderating panels, starting with the Trivia Competition between three comic book writers (Len Wein, Mark Waid and Kurt Busiek) and three reps from the Comedy Central game show, Beat the Geeks.  The Geeks battled nobly but you don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind, you don't pull the mask on the old Lone Ranger and you don't win a funnybook trivia contest against any team with Waid on it.  The final scores were pretty far apart but a good time was had by all.

Then it was over the Ray Bradbury/Julius Schwartz panel, the first half of which I moderated.  I was there to open the proceedings and to bring in a surprise guest…Al Feldstein, the editor-writer of Tales from the Crypt and other EC Comics.  Though EC adapted many of Bradbury's short stories, Feldstein — their editor-adapter — had never met Bradbury and we thought it was time he did.  A packed house went wild as Feldstein took the stage and, a half-century after that classic work was done, first shook hands.  Al actually choked up, describing the honor he felt in being allowed to compress Bradbury tales into comic book format.  It was one of those moments…

My day closed out with a Cartoon Voice Panel and another celebrating 20 years of Groo.  We had a nice little surprise at the latter, as some of the members of the Groop (the Internet-connected Groo Fan Club) had prepared giant birthday cards for Sergio and myself, and my wonderful friend Carolyn Kelly had baked Mulch Cookies for everyone in the room, "mulch" being an occasional running joke in the comic.  Carolyn has promised to write out the recipe she devised and I'll be sharing it on this site and in the comic.

A lovely dinner (thanks again, Paul) and lots of wonderful conversation rounded out the day.  What a wonderful time everyone seems to be having.  Good night.

I'd love to be able to report some vital, stirring news from the convention but all I have to write about is my day: Four panels and then the Eisner Awards.  The "50 Years of Mad Magazine" panel was fun.  But then, how could a "50 Years of Mad Magazine" panel not be fun?  Then came the Golden Age Panel which was also great, especially when veteran artist Nick Cardy and Bob Lubbers got to swapping stories of their mutual days drawing comics for Fiction House.  Irv Novick spoke briefly but eloquently about his longtime editor, the recently-departed Robert Kanigher.  William Woolfolk was not quite as flattering in recalling his longtime editor, Mort Weisinger.

Then came the Oddball Comics slide show with Scott Shaw! displaying some of the weirder comics to be edited by Julius Schwartz and Julie sitting there, trying to remember why he put such odd things on his covers.  (A lot of gorillas, most of them talking, and a lot of images of the Earth having weird things done to it.)  This was followed by our "Quick Draw" panel: Scott, Sergio Aragonés, Erik Larsen and John Romita, Jr. doing rapid-fire cartooning based on challenges from me and suggestions from the audience.  Folks loved it and I think we've got another one of those events that has to be done every year at the convention.

In the evening: I don't wish to disparage anyone's awards.  I think awards are fine for what they are, which is probably less than most recipients wish to believe.  I just can't sit through 2+ hours of clapping five times in each category — once for each nominee — then again for the winner and yet again for the winner's acceptance speech.  Multiply that by the number of awards (26), then toss in applause for all the Inkpot Awards, honorary trophies, presenters, special guests worthy of recognition, Hall of Fame inductees, obituaries, etc., and I'm sorry.  I just can't clap that much.

At one point in the Eisner ceremony, they gave out some sort of Retailer of the Year award for running the best comic book store.  There were, I think, seven nominees so we clapped for all of them.  Then they announced which three of them were finalists, so we clapped again for three of those stores.  Then they announced which store had won the award so we clapped a third time for that store and again for its owner's acceptance speech.  We also clapped for the award's presenter and for the award's various sponsors.  There are acts in Vegas that risk their lives, two shows nightly, and don't get as much applause.  Enough, already.

Anyway, lots of people won awards and you can probably find out who over at www.comicbookresources.com.  Busy day tomorrow.  Good night.

A few years ago, on the Internet, several discussion groups and my e-mailbox were filled with questions and vague recollections of one of the most memorable and odd novelty acts from fifties television.  It was a gent called The Banana Man, who appeared often on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Mickey Mouse Club, Howdy Doody and (most often) Captain Kangaroo.  The act basically consisted of this clownlike gent coming out on stage and taking things — mostly bananas — out of his pockets.  He'd pull an amazing number of items out of his baggy coat.  Sometimes, they'd be musical instruments which he'd "play," actually supplying the sound with his mouth.  Other times, they'd be odd props which he'd use in little routines, then dump them along with all the bananas and the occasional watermelon into a steamer-type trunk.

Throughout the act, he would constantly be changing his costume.  He'd wind up as a railroad engineer and he'd somehow turn the trunk into a small, multi-car choo-choo train which he'd ride off the stage.  It was a delightful, haunting little routine that some of us vividly recall.  (I can still "hear" his little la-la singing, which he'd punctuate with a loud "Wow" every time he found some new bit of paraphernalia in his wardrobe.)

Folks my age and older kept asking about him.  Apparently, video of him performing the act is hard to come by, and facts about him were even more elusive.  From an old book on vaudeville, it was known that his name was "A. Robins" (or maybe "Robbins") but that was about it.

Well, thank God, facts are finally emerging.  Apparently, one reason it was so hard to track down info about the guy was that he died after passing the act and name on to at least one other Banana Man.  But diligent fans have ferreted out a lot of data and more seems to be on the way.  Over at this site, Bruce Johnson (aka Charlie the Juggling Clown) has an impressive amount of biographical data.  And over at this site, a gent named Rhett Bryson is building a whole webpage full of photos and facts about the various Banana Men.  This is one of the many reasons we love the Internet.

Word around the con was that a horrendous traffic accident (including a load of dumped hot asphalt) closed the San Diego Freeway — and therefore, the most-traveled route to the con — for much of the day.  We were lucky to have driven here last night but some folks had terror tales of 6-7 hours doing an inch-a-minute down the 405.  Still, from the crowded hall, you wouldn't have guessed anyone had any trouble making their way to Comic-Con International

And the hall is not only crowded; it's larger than ever before, owing to a new expansion.  Just to walk from the DC display to Artists' Alley, you have to adjust your watch and bed down for the night.  I'm thinking of getting one of those motorized Rascal scooters to tool around the room.  The streets of San Diego are rampant with those little bicycle-driven pedal taxis to carry you from hotel to hotel.  It's only a matter of time before they have them in the convention hall.  ("Take me to the Dark Horse booth…and take the scenic route past Julie Strain's table…")

As for me: The book is out and, of course, we've already found one typo.  I did two panels today…wonderful chats first with Bob Oksner and then with Herb Trimpe.  If I weren't so tired, I'd post interesting summaries.  But I'm too tired.

Lastly, I have a friend who never attends these things but always asks me, "What was the mood of the convention?"  So far, I'd say the mood could be summarized by the phrase, "Can you believe how big this place is?"  We'll see if it's any smaller tomorrow…

I continue to enjoy the hoary reruns of I've Got A Secret on the Game Show Network and I keep noticing little things I never noticed while watching them as a child.  One is how amazingly sharp and clever panelist Bill Cullen was.  Cullen was a great game show host but he was even better as a player.  And I also didn't realize back then that you almost never saw him walking more than a step or two.  He had a bad limp due to childhood Polio and apparently asked the producers to avoid making it obvious.  So they staged the show so you either never saw the panel walk in or across stage or cut around Mr. Cullen walking.

It also meant that the other male panelist, Henry Morgan, handled any activity that required moving about much, and it explains why Morgan, not Cullen, usually guest-hosted when Garry Moore was away.  Too many of the Secret activities required the host to work on his feet.

I did notice, when I watched these shows in the sixties, that the questioning would often start with Betsy Palmer, who was often in the second chair.  I did not understand (but do now) that this was because Cullen was just too smart.  For certain secrets — especially those involving aviation or the military — he was likely to knock it off too rapidly.  Starting with Betsy meant that Bill would play last.

One of these days, panel shows like Secret and What's My Line? will make a big comeback.  The impediment (and I'm sure it's surmountable if anyone tries) may be that there aren't a lot of obvious contenders for panelists.  Back then, there were people like Cullen who'd logged thousands of hours of live TV experience and knew well how to play a game for real but still make it funny.  The recent, unsuccessful resurrection of To Tell the Truth featured a lot of panelists who never quite connected with each other, let alone the audience.  But with half the population of this country now more or less in show business, I can't believe they can't find a new Bill Cullen.