I'm on a lot of forums where folks discuss musical comedies and I hardly ever see anyone mention Barnum, which ran a not-unimpressive 854 performances on The Great White Way commencing in April of 1980. That's more than a lot of shows that people fondly remember. I didn't see it back there but I saw it at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood sometime between February 10, 1982 and April 4. Jim Dale — who played the title role in New York — came out here with a national touring company and he was replaced in N.Y. by Mike Burstyn.

During Mr. Dale's run on Broadway, he took one vacation and Tony Orlando filled in for a few weeks. That was not an easy thing to do because it's not a role into which just anyone could step. As the video below reveals, it took extensive physical training, along with things like acting and singing, to play Phineas Taylor Barnum.

Oh — and I should mention that the show had a book by Mark Bramble;, tunes by Cy Coleman and lyrics by Michael Stewart. Some of the lyrics were awfully clever.

I remember liking the show a lot — the songs especially but also the sheer radiant energy from the stage. Most of the performers also had to learn to do circus-style feats…or maybe some of them already knew how but had to learn to sing and dance. Whichever it was, they all deserved standing ovations just for being able to do the show at all, let alone eight shows a week. The basic story was slight but not uninteresting…and Dale's leading lady both in N.Y. and here was Glenn Close, who was sensational.

I can think of two reasons why the show is not revived more. One is that it takes a good-sized cast that can juggle, do balancing acts, turn cartwheels (etc.) and a leading man who can walk a tightrope and do other difficult stunts. Another is that circuses have fallen into some disfavor, especially due to their treatment of animals…and especially Barnum & Bailey Circuses.

Me, I always liked the idea and mystique of circuses but never cared for the few I actually attended. I remember them smelling bad and offering hideous, overpriced and over-iced refreshments. I remember that some of the acts were very short but had long, long introductions, trying to make you think you were about to see the most amazingly awesome thing you'd ever seen in your life. Then the actual performance would be brief and unremarkable, and it would be followed by the performers marching around and around, demanding five minutes of applause for the three-minute act.

And did I mention the smells? Yeah, I guess I did. They seemed impossible to get out of one's hair. I still apologize to people I'm near. I tell them, "That's not me. That's the elephants at the Ringling Brothers Circus when I was twelve."

But I did like Barnum…as a show but not as an infomercial for their brand of circuses.  Back in the nineties, I was briefly in discussions with a studio that wanted to make a feature film of it…an animated feature film which would add a parallel storyline featuring the animals in Mr. Barnum's circus.  It would basically have involved using most of the songs and some new ones telling a new story with some elements from the stage version.  It sounded like a good idea in several meetings but then…well, I'm not sure if they couldn't acquire the rights to do it or couldn't acquire the rights to change it.

All I know is that suddenly there were no more meetings.  That's how a lot of projects in Hollywood end without reaching the production phase.  Suddenly, there are no more meetings.

All of this is an intro to the video you may be about to view.  It's long but even a small segment of it will give you an idea of what the fine musical comedy performer Michael Crawford had to do to prepare to star in a London production of Barnum.  I'm not going to link to a video of the actual musical as it was recorded professionally at a performance but you shouldn't have to look hard online to locate one.  The show is very impressive and it's even more impressive what Mr. Crawford had to learn in order to play the title role and then what he had to do every night and twice on matinee days for audiences…

My buddy (and past collaborator) Will Meugniot came across this presentation of the theme song from the Batman TV show — the one with Adam West, the one with the theme it's hard to get out of your head. This rendition was done for a Japanese audience by "Johnny's with Jackey Yoshikawa & His Blue Comets" and it's perfect to do the Batusi to. You love it. You know you love it…

This is Part 7 and it follows Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and Part 6. There will be no Part 8, at least for now.

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One of the most-asked questions of my life — in person and via e-mail — is why at Comic-Con each year, I host or appear on so many panels. This past con, the number was 14 and no, that's not my record. In 2008, I did 17. Some folks think that's nuts and, of course, they're right. It is absolutely nuts. But the way I see it is that if you can't be nuts at Comic-Con, where can you be nuts?

The thing is: I like being at Comic-Con and I don't know what else I'd do with myself there if I didn't have some double-digit number of panels. In the previous part of this series, I listed a number of things that I was doing at Comic-Con that I was slowly deciding I didn't really enjoy doing.

I sorta/kinda/more or less appeared on my first Comic-Con panel at the first Comic-Con in 1970. It was not on whatever schedule they had. There was a fellow named Mark Hanerfeld who sorta/kinda/more or less worked for DC Comics in New York. I'd met him in their offices a month earlier. He was sorta/kinda/more or less an intern there and was paid occasionally for writing a text page or letter column.

Mark loved comics, wanted to be a part of that world and had some income sources that made it possible for him to, in effect, work for free for DC. He later became a paid assistant editor there…and a comic book character. The host of the House of Secrets comic, a bearded gent named Abel.

That first Comic-Con in San Diego coincided with a trip Mark made to visit relatives in Los Angeles so he stopped in. Someone — I'm fairly sure it was Shel Dorf — quickly announced a panel in which Mark, as some sort of official representative of DC Comics, would talk about what the company had planned for the future. Mark had me join him on this impromptu panel before, as I recall, about twenty people.

In case I haven't made it clear, DC had not sent Mark to this con. He'd just decided to go and he paid his own way there. But when he got back to New York, he began telling everyone about the terrific convention he'd attended in San Diego. He had much to do with the fact that over the next few years, people in the New York industry began making the trek, often at their own expense, to what we now know as Comic-Con International.

I don't recall any panels at the second San Diego Con in 1971 but I have a fuzzy memory of another impromptu panel at the '72, which was the first of many held at the El Cortez Hotel in downtown San Diego. If I'm right, it wasn't even listed on the programming schedule but was thrown together at the last minute with a number of convention guests who didn't really have much in common with each other.

That was the problem with a lot of panels at the first comic conventions I attended — in San Diego or elsewhere. Someone thought that any random grouping of professionals could constitute an interesting panel. Well no, not if they worked in very different capacities and, as was occasionally the case, they'd never even heard of each other.

I am certain though that at the 1973 con, which was held at a Sheraton on Harbor Island, there was a Writers' Panel consisting of just my friend Mike Friedrich and me. For many years after, I was always on a Writers' Panel not just at San Diego conventions but at every con I attended. They were all pretty much the same panel in terms of what was said and I think Mike was on several of them with me.

For a long time, I was on two or three panels per year at what didn't become known as Comic-Con International until 1995. Sometimes, I was the moderator, sometimes not. Sometimes, they were fun, sometimes they were not. They were more fun later when I had more say in who was on those panels and what they'd be about. The number of panels with which I was involved slowly grew from year to year.

At one point, someone from the convention called and asked if I'd host the almost-annual spotlight panel on Ray Bradbury…and how could anyone turn that down? For several years, I got to ask questions of one of the greatest writers alive for 60 (once, I think, 90) minutes…and I also got to sit down. As I mentioned in the last part, I liked having a place to sit down at the con somewhere I didn't feel isolated from the rest of the convention or expected to sell things or sign books.

At the 1997 Comic-Con, Al Williamson approached me. Al, as I suspect you know, was one of the best artists who ever worked in comics but you may not know what a terrific guy he was. We'd met before but that year as I recall, he had seen me interviewing another great artist and guy, George Tuska, on a panel. Mr. Tuska was quite hard of hearing but I sat as close as possible to him and talked slowly and managed to get some good answers out of him.

Al loved Tuska as both an artist and a human being and he thanked me for the effort. Then he said, "The convention has me doing one of those 'spotlight panels' in an hour. I don't think they get that I'm an artist, not a talker. I wouldn't even know how to start such a thing but I really liked the way you interviewed George. Would you interview me like that for my spotlight?"

Of course I would. I got to talk with Al Williamson for an hour or so and get him talking about the things that were of interest to me. Al told other professionals to ask for me and then when the convention invited some older comic book writer or artist and that person was uneasy about speaking in front of an audience, they'd tell him, "We've got a guy here who can make it real easy for you."

I mention Al because I think he was the one who made me realize that I was being useful at the con and could be more so…by doing something I enjoyed. I think it was because of him that I went to whoever was then doing the programming for the con — Gary Sassaman, most likely — and said, "Assign me to as many panels as you want."

Understand please that I'm not saying I started doing panels at Comic-Con in 1997 because Al Williamson suggested it. I was doing panels before that. He was just the one who made me realize how much I enjoyed it and how I'd found the best way for me to "do" Comic-Con. This will probably cause some of you to scratch your collective heads and say something like…

Let me get this straight, Evanier. You just took seven whole posts on your blog to tell us that to "do" Comic-Con, we should figure out what we enjoy doing there and do more of it and also figure out what we don't enjoy there and to the extent possible, do less of it? Is that really what it took you seven parts to tell us?

Yes. Yes, it is. And call me stupid if you like but it took me more than twenty-five Comic-Cons to figure that out.

This is a photo of Sergio Aragonés and me, and since I don't have a mustache, he must be the guy on the right. Sergio is known the world over for his greatest accomplishment which is, of course, drawing the headers on this blog. Oh, once in a while his cartooning turns up elsewhere…like drawing for MAD magazine for sixty years or creating Groo the Wanderer and drawing it for forty years and I hear he's done other things and even won a number of the various awards for cartooning…that number being All of Them.

Today is his birthday and he is  AGE REDACTED .  I have redacted the number because I don't think anyone has told him how old he is.  He sure doesn't look it or act like it.  Because he's opted out of convention-going lately, a lot of folks keep asking me if he's okay.  He's okay.  In fact, he's probably in better health than anyone who's asked me if Sergio is okay.  He and I talk almost every day and every time we speak, he says, "I'm sitting here inking," which is like anyone else telling you they're breathing.

He's my Best Friend in the Male Division and you couldn't have a better Best Friend than Sergio.  We've never had an argument except that every time he tells people we've never had an argument, I raise my voice and yell, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE'VE NEVER HAD AN ARGUMENT!!!???" The fact that he always thinks that's funny is one of the reasons we've never had an argument. Another is that he never does anything to make me not love him…or at least, he hasn't since I met him in 1969. I sure hope he doesn't start being a bastard now because where would I ever find another Best Friend like that? Especially one who's  AGE REDACTED .

In case you haven't figured out, this blog is closed for a few days while I tend to matters that need tending-to and would be of no interest to anyone. I am fine. I am just busy and will be back to you before long. There are 31,122 other posts on this website so don't accuse me of goofing-off.

Here on newsfromme, we love a cappella singing and one of our favorite groups is VoicePlay. Here are they with a medley from The Little Mermaid…

Whenever Trump-prone acquaintances tried to convince me that there was "massive evidence" that the 2020 election was stolen, they'd cite those two black ladies in Georgia that Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump said had been caught stuffing or altering ballots. Well, Mr. Giuliani just lost a huge defamation suit that those two black ladies filed against him.

Best wishes to all whose lives are being affected by Hurricane Idalia. How many more unprecedented weather disasters do we have to have to convince some people this country needs to do more to combat Climate Change? And that even if we can't change the weather, we need to do more for disaster preparedness?

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My piece on Bob Barker brought two e-mails from folks who said, in effect, "He was very nice to me the one time I met him" and a number from folks who worked at CBS who did not like working around him. I was not suggesting that my brief encounter with the man — which lasted well under a minute — was evidence that he was always like that. You should never judge a person by a one or two-minute encounter unless, for example, they use that time to shoot someone.

An anecdote like mine may be just an anecdote and not an overview of an entire, complex human being. I know of prominent folks who I consider treacherous or just plain evil…but they can still be charming and polite for a minute or three, especially if you represent to them a gushing admirer who is in no way a threat to them. Pick whoever you think has to be the worst person who ever lived and insert their name into this sentence: "Even __________ could be a great guy (or gal) for 180 seconds." And of course, the inverse is also true.

I also heard from many who, like me, felt a certain insincerity in Mr. Barker's on-camera persona. That's fairer game for criticism. I just felt he had a little too much delight in himself and a tendency at times to treat contestants like they were fools placed on this Earth for the amusement of others. And I'm probably overreacting because all those folks who won refrigerators and other goodies on The Price is Right when he was hosting probably thought their moments onstage with him were the greatest moments of their lives.

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I have writing which must be completed before I sleep tonight. So there may not be much posting here until it's done.

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P.S. AFTERTHOUGHT, added after I posted the above: Yes, I understand that Giuliani didn't clearly admit that he had lied about the two ladies in Georgia. He tried at one point to simultaneously admit it and not admit it via some stipulation that the judge decided was gibberish. The point is that he forfeited the case rather than go to trial and defend his remarks. Now back to that deadline…

This is Your Life was a popular show broadcast on NBC radio from 1948 to 1952 and then it moved to NBC television where it ran until 1961 with several short-lived revivals here and there thereafter. Ralph Edwards was the host while it was on NBC and the producer of its later incarnations. Each week, the show would "surprise" a theoretically-unsuspecting celebrity and for a half-hour, the host would run down the celebrity's biography and bring out significant people from his or her past.

You may or may not have ever seen an episode of the program but you've probably seen the spoof that was done of it on Your Show of Shows in 1954. Carl Reiner played Ralph Edwards' part, Sid Caesar played the ambushed celebrity and Howard Morris stole the whole damn skit as Uncle Goopy. I've posted this before here and I'll post it again. It really was one of the funniest sketches ever done on television.

At Howie's funeral in 2005 — has it been that long?  I guess it has — they opened the proceedings by showing this sketch.  Everyone in the room was hysterical with laughter and the man seated directly in front of me was laughing so hard he was crying.  The man seated directly in front of me was Carl Reiner…

Not long after this sketch first aired, Your Show of Shows was carved up into a couple of different programs. Sid Caesar went off to do Caesar's Hour from later in '54 until 1957 and Reiner went with him. When that show went off, Carl went over to become head writer and frequent on-camera guest on The Dinah Shore Chevy Show. As you will see in the video below, in one episode he joked about how he wanted to be a "principal subject" (as Ralph Edwards called them) on This is Your Life and a week or so after — on March 23, 1960 — that happened when Carl was so surprised…

…except that he wasn't. As you watch the video of that episode, know that Reiner later admitted that he knew in advance about it and only feigned shock and surprise. I've always been skeptical that all those celebrities were really and truly unaware that they were suddenly going to be dragged into an unagreed-to appearance on live television that would include meeting up with folks from their past. Edwards always maintained that with one admitted exception, they never informed the principal subject in advance….and that's probably true.

But I think they counted on the subject's agent and/or family telling the person…at least some of the time. The alleged surprise couldn't have been arranged without their involvement and some celebrities might not have wanted to do it at all. In one of the later revivals, Angie Dickinson flatly refused to participate and the whole taping — for which folks in her past had flown to Hollywood — was called off. Since it was a taping, as was by then standard, it could be called-off…but what if that had happened in the fifties when the show was done on live television?

And some of the stars who did want to go through with it might have wanted to make sure certain acquaintances from their past weren't brought on or that certain facts of their lives weren't mentioned. They might have wanted to be prepped and ready for the appearance. Not everyone in this world likes surprises. It also wouldn't surprise me to learn that some stars told their agents, "Try to arrange for me to be 'surprised' on This is Your Life" or "If This is Your Life ever wants to do me, you'd better tell me in advance."

I don't remember exactly how Carl Reiner found out…and the bit you'll see of him on Dinah's show the week before sure looks like he was trying to encourage it. But as you watch this if you watch it, keep in mind that he knew. Also: If you're a fan of The Dick Van Dyke Show, you'll notice some names of people and places that later turned up on the Van Dyke program. One of Carl's close friends who appears was named Joe Coogan and a few years later, Laura Petrie had an old boy friend named Joe Coogan who had turned to the priesthood…

Joe Frank sent me this today…

Do you really get comments that too much of your blog is Kirby-oriented? To me, you don't "talk about Jack constantly" enough.

I got to chat with him in his later years but that, while a privilege, has a downside. I wasn't smart enough, when he was around, to inquire how he'd have tied up New Gods, OMAC and The Eternals. I was too laser-focused on the Fantastic Four.

That brings me to my question. You were around him for almost a quarter century. Were their any questions that now, in retrospect, you wish you'd have asked him?

Well, I wasn't around him for quarter of a century. From the time I met him until we lost him was 25 years but in the last decade or so, I saw him a couple times a year. I wish it had been more often because it was always educational and enlightening…and even if Jack got off a conversational journey that didn't interest me at first, it always did before long. I didn't feel this way when I was younger but now that I'm older, I wish we'd talked less about comics and more about his view of the entire world.

A lot of my views came not because I was accepting or rejecting some conclusion Jack had reached but because he asked questions and tossed out possibilities, thereby allowing the listener to make up his or her own mind. He just had ways of looking at people and at circumstances in a unique way…a way that no one else could have come up with. There were also things that Jack said to me that I didn't understand at the time and I think — note the emphasis indicating I'm not 100% certain — I understand now but I'd like to make sure.

But no, I can't think of anything I wish I'd asked him about comics. And if I'd asked him how he'd have tied up New Gods, OMAC and The Eternals, that might not have told me how any of those would have happened. I'm sure Jack would have given me answers but then when he got around to doing those issues, even if he'd done them the next day, he might have done something altogether different. That was one of the mind-boggling things about the man — the way he created story and art as a single act and was always revising what he did to replace good ideas with better ones.

He had an amazing brain and I'm glad I got to tap into it as much as I did. It would be sheer greed to long for more.

I believe I am the only person alive — and one of the few who ever lived — who worked for both Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. I liked both of them but I was sometimes disappointed in Stan for, to put it bluntly, taking credit for things that others did. Jack never disappointed me in any way and I believe he was the major creative force behind the Lee-Kirby creations. Even Stan would sometimes admit that, though not in print or anywhere it could be heard by those who might keep him employed or negotiate his future contracts.

Jack, who was born this day in 1917, was the greatest creative force in comic books…or at least the kind of comic books he did. And the kind of comic books he did turned out to be the kind of comic books most people did, following the influence of Jack and often working on characters and concepts that began with him. That influence was not just confined to super-heroes. When I walk around a comic book convention these days, I see Kirby everywhere — not just books he started or the way he drew anatomy but his whole approach to design and storytelling and infusing energy into any kind of creative work.

He was also an amazingly nice and ethical man as well as being the hardest worker I've ever known. He could have made way more money in comics if he'd spent less time drawing a page and less time thinking about what could appear on that page that would thrill readers and boost sales for his publishers. He was not always paid or credited for that extra effort but "knocking it out" would not have taken comics to the next level and that's what Jack was all about: Taking things to the next level. When I hear someone say, "Well, I liked the way Someone Else drew the Silver Surfer better," I think, "This person is missing the whole point of Jack Kirby." Jack didn't just draw the Silver Surfer.

If it sounds to some of you like I talk about Jack constantly, that might be because I do. I certainly think about him every day. He had that kind of impact on my life as he did on so many others, including many who never had the honor of meeting him. But the work sure endures. Even comics he did that were proclaimed failures at the time are in their umpteenth printing, often with the kind of fancy reproduction and binding that Jack predicted would happen. He really was an extraordinary man.

Simone Biles — doing what she does best…

"Don't Kill Your Friends" is a 1943 Navy training film starring Huntz Hall. Not killing your friends can be very good advice depending, of course, on who your friends are.

In 1943, Huntz Hall had stopped appearing in Dead End Kids comedies and had begun appearing in East Side Kids comedies. He was a pretty reliable comedy talent who appeared in an awful lot of films and TV shows during a career that stretched from 1937 to 1993.

The Internet Movie Database and the fellow who uploaded this video to YouTube identify the uncredited narrator of this film as Daws Butler, the great cartoon voice actor and one of the nicest men it was ever my pleasure to know. They're wrong. I dunno who the narrator was but it ain't Daws, who didn't really get started in voiceover until he moved to Hollywood in 1948.

In '43 when this film was made, Daws was in the Navy but like I said, that ain't him. I've had very little luck correcting the IMDB over the years but if some reader of this site is better at it than I am, please let them know…

Here is the problem I have with so many people who quote The Bible in support of some political cause: They often aren't quoting The Bible. At best, they're finding some phrase they can spin as inarguable support of their beliefs and if you disagree with that spin…why, you're arguing with God, for God's sake!

And sometimes, they just fabricate the line they wish was in The Bible. The book says nothing about abortion and there are no lines that can be quoted to say it's forbidden. That, however, doesn't stop men like Mike Pence from making one up.

I'm fascinated by how the phrase "fake electors" is even being used by those who are claiming no laws were broken. This is from the Fox News website…

Fake electors met in Wisconsin and six other battleground states where Trump was defeated in 2020, attempting to cast ballots for the former president even though he lost. Republicans who participated in Wisconsin said they were trying to preserve Trump's legal standing in case courts overturned his defeat.

How could someone be a "fake elector" without breaking some law? You could be an "alternate elector," I suppose though in this case, there doesn't seem to have been any formal, official way of becoming one. Each of the seven states designated a slate of real electors. A "fake elector" is by definition "fake."