How many innocent people reside in our nation's prisons? As this article notes, there's no way to answer this question but a reasonable reply might be, "More than you think and more than there should be." And I was especially intrigued by this line…

According to the Innocence Project, more than a quarter of DNA exonerations included a false confession or guilty plea. The plea bargaining process also induces innocent people to plead guilty to lesser crimes to avoid charges that carry longer prison terms.

In other words, someone was innocent but he figured the system was unlikely to exonerate him so he pled guilty to a crime he didn't commit. That's scary; that our judicial system forces people into that.

Number one in a series…

The Tony nominations are out…and what strikes me is that America may actually be interested in this year's telecast. Unlike some lists, this one has an awful lot of people on it that the vast television audience has heard of: Kelsey Grammer, Jude Law, Christopher Walken, Denzel Washington, Valerie Harper, Linda Lavin, Alfred Molina, David Alan Grier, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Scarlett Johansson, Sean Hayes, etc. Add in the annual Angela Lansbury nomination and the fact that though The Addams Family isn't up for much, there'll probably be a number on the show with Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth…and someone will probably think to pair Frasier and Lilith (Grammer and Neuwirth) as presenters, plus a performance with Kristin Chenoweth…

Well, it's an uncommon number of stars with TV and movie fame. Some years, the performer categories are filled with folks who, talented though they may be, just aren't known outside the Broadway community. Someone at CBS has to be thinking this'll help out the ratings when the broadcast airs June 13. As far as I know, they haven't announced yet who's hosting. Or is it just now kind of assumed that all televised award shows are hosted by Neil Patrick Harris?

Many years ago, I wrote the pilot script that sold a cartoon series called The Littles. I later removed my name from the show but that's another matter. What was interesting was that when I went to the meeting where ABC picked up the series, I was introduced to a rather energetic Israeli gentleman named Haim Saban.

They said, "Haim's going to do the music for the show" and I said something witty like, "Oh, great." Mr. Saban then explained that he would soon be doing the music for every show on Saturday morning, and I kinda smiled like, "Yeah, right." He never quite accomplished that goal but there were a few years there where he came darned close. Before long, he was not only doing the music for a good many cartoon shows, he was producing them, as well. Then came many other accomplishments and — heck, just read this article by Connie Bruck about this man's amazing journey. Today, his influence is everywhere — TV, movies, even world affairs. Remember that Carol Burnett-Tim Conway event I went to, last week? It was at the Saban Theater.

The offices of EC Comics (and therefore MAD magazine for its early years) were located at 225 Lafayette Street in New York. Here's a little peek at that famous address and a quick history of what occurred in that building. That's publisher William M. Gaines behind the desk in the photo above, presumably sitting in his office there.  The gent at right is Harvey Kurtzman, who was MAD's founding editor.

One minor quibble. It is often assumed that MAD made the change from a 10-cent color comic book to a black-and-white magazine priced at 25 cents (cheap) in order to avoid the Comics Code and the then-looming efforts to censor comic books. From the time frame, this would seem extremely logical but MAD has rarely been logical and that's not exactly what happened. Kurtzman was generally embarrassed that he worked in comic books. He loved the form but he hated the cheapness of the product and the bad image that dime comic books were getting.

One day, Harvey received an offer to go work at Pageant, a slick magazine of the day. Harvey longed to get out of comics and into the slicks and had, for some time, urged Gaines to turn MAD into a slick. For a long time, Gaines resisted the suggestion but when Kurtzman said he was leaving to go work at Pageant, Gaines relented. He was certain that MAD could not survive the loss of Kurtzman so he made the change not to avoid censorship — though that was a happy bonus — but to keep his indispensable editor on board.

Of course, after a few issues of the upgraded MAD, Kurtzman made a demand to own 51% of EC Publications and Gaines decided that his indispensable editor could be dispensed with. He got rid of Kurtzman and brought in Al Feldstein to edit MAD…to happy and prosperous results. Kurtzman went off to accept an offer to work with Hugh Hefner on an even slicker, more upscale publication. (The demand for controlling interest in Gaines' business was probably Harvey's way of getting fired so he could take Hef's offer.)

Anyway, this all took place at 225 Lafayette Street. When Kurtzman made his outrageous demand, Gaines phoned a business associate, Lyle Stuart, and asked for advice. Stuart replied, "Throw them out the window." Gaines did not literally do this but if you click over to the article, you can see a photo of the window that Stuart recommended Gaines throw Kurtzman out of.

As you probably heard, over the weekend New York police had to deal with an amateurish car bombing attempt when someone parked a Nissan Pathfinder full of explosives on West 45th Street just off Broadway. Like me, you probably find this kind of thing unbelievable…especially the part about someone finding a parking space on West 45th Street just off Broadway.

Fred Kaplan has some thoughts, including a brief discussion of the issue of your civil liberties when you're caught on a surveillance camera in a public place. Is anyone making the argument that you're entitled to privacy when you're on the street in Times Square?

My pal comic book artist-historian Jim Amash gives an independent endorsement of the wonders of Frank "Groucho" Ferrante…and also of the value of reading this blog.

For several years now, I've been hearing of the terrors of High-Fructose Corn Syrup…and it may well be as bad as they say. But according to this article, there are prominent scientist-doctor types who say it's no worse for us than sugar. I've cut my consumption of both way, way down but am still interested to see how all the studies turn out.

We interrupt this hiatus from the blog to bring you a quick commercial. As you no doubt know, the Reprise! organization in Los Angeles puts on wonderful productions of classic musicals for extremely limited runs. May 11 through 23, they're doing one of our faves, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. The big star name is probably John O'Hurley, who's playing Biggley (the Rudy Vallee part) but the whole cast looks terrific. Josh Gristetti is playing the lead, Finch. Nicole Parker is Rosemary.

There are two 2 PM Saturday matinees — one on the 15th, one on the 22nd. Each will be preceded at Noon by a free hour-or-so lecture on the history of the show by that noted theatrical authority, me. And I hope to have a member of the original cast at one or both to discuss what it was like to be part of that Broadway history. ("Free," by the way, means you don't have to stay for the show or buy a ticket.)

Speaking of buying tickets: You should probably do that soon since the theater ain't that big and the show ain't there for long. Seats are $60 apiece but newsfromme.com visitors are smart enough to never pay full price for anything. There are four performances where you can get in for 50% off if you enter the discount code, HOWTO. One of them is the 5/15 matinee so you can come early and hear me. Use this link for those four performances.

For all other performances, use this link and if you enter the code BOSS, you should be able to get 10% off.

And I'll give you one other money-saving tip: When you pick up your tickets at the box office, take a good look at the envelope. A lot of them have a coupon for $5.00 off at any Gelson's Market. Boy, we're helpful.

Hope you enjoy the show as much as I think you will. Come to think of it, I hope I enjoy the show as much as I think I will.

Lotsa scripts due. Back soon.

So…what happens at Disneyland after the last guest leaves for the night? Click here to find out.