Screenwriter Reed Fisher and his wife are touring this great land of ours with an easily-understandable goal: To photograph each and every Sizzler restaurant. Read all about it.

I can appreciate their affection for the chain and I used to be a fan of Sizzlers…and an admirer of how they'd shrewdly repositioned themselves in the marketplace. First time I went to one, it was a place to get a steak, a baked potato and not much else. But it was a darned good piece of meat for the price. I had worse steaks in places that charged three to five times as much.

Then there came a time in this land when the chug-a-lugging of beef became less fashionable…and with an uncanny sense of changing trends, the Sizzler folks reinvented themselves. Their eateries became places where you could get chicken or fish and/or graze at a rather good salad bar. They still had decent steaks but there were other things to eat and they were, again, quite acceptable, considering the price.

Since then, the Sizzler chain has filed for bankruptcy at least once (in 1996, they closed 140 of their 215 outlets) and changed management teams a number of times. Every time they bring in a new management, the quality of the meals goes down at least 25%, at least at the one near me. I've been checking in about once every two years on the gullible hope that they've reversed the downslide. So far, nope. In fact, the last try was so disappointing that I may not give it another try until late 2015. If I don't chicken out then, I'll let you know how it goes.

Several folks inform me that that Warner Archive project — the one putting out limited run DVDs of stuff from the Time-Warner vault — will soon issue a complete set of the Robert Benchley shorts. That will be a good thing to have. I'll let you know when it's available…or if you see it first, you let me know.

I also note that they've issued Penn & Teller Get Killed. You ever see that film? The first twenty minutes or so are pretty decent and then it just falls apart. I'm a big fan of those guys and I don't think I could bring myself to watch it again.

My pal Bob Claster offers some wonderful audio interviews on his site — chats he's had with the greats of the comedy profession. I've directed you to his page before but I'm going to direct you again because he's just added a conversation with Jonathan and Darlene Edwards. If you aren't familiar with them, you should be.

Okay, I'm going to bed. Good night, Internet and Mrs. Calabash…wherever you are.

The other day here, I mentioned that it was an urban legend in the Hanna-Barbera hallways that Woody Allen had once written a never-used script for The Flintstones. Well, it turns out that our pal Richard Bensam actually managed to find a copy of it.

A little while ago, I called Stan Freberg about something and I happened to ask him if he'd sold a lot of autographed books at the Hollywood Collectors Show over the weekend. He said yes, he had. Then the following exchange ensued…

ME: Too bad you can't go deposit all that money. Banks closed.

FREBERG: Oh? Why?

ME: Columbus Day!

FREBERG: Oh, yeah. We going out on that joke?

ME: No, we do reprise of song. That help but…

BOTH OF US: …not much!

If you don't get the reference, don't worry about it. But if you do, you know why I feel like Woody Allen's character at the end of Play It Again, Sam. I've waited my whole life to say it.

The next Comic-Con International in San Diego will be held Thursday, July 22, 2010 through Sunday, July 25, 2010. As usual, the Wednesday evening before is a Preview Night with most of the convention open as of 6 PM.

This time, the con is selling two different kinds of four-day passes — one with and one without Preview Night. The passes that include Preview Night are already sold out.

I shall repeat that: The passes that include Preview Night are already sold out. Some of us still haven't finished unpacking from the last Comic-Con International but Preview Night at the next one is sold out.

I have no inside info as to how fast the four-day passes without Preview Night are selling but their unavailability will surely come sooner than it usually does. If you're thinking of attending and you figure you can wait until next April to order a four-day pass, I suspect you're in for a surprise.

Consider yourself warned.

Interested in the rise and fall of presidential popularity? Here's your one-stop website for such data.

Here's a photo of two men who, between them, were responsible for about half the comedy records sold in this country before Vaughn Meader and many, many after Mr. Meader's career ended near a grassy knoll. That's Shelley Berman and Stan Freberg at the Hollywood Collectors Show in Burbank this past weekend.

My pal Earl Kress and I went out there on Saturday and had a fine time, walking around and talking to folks. The longest lines were for the two men above and for Jackie Cooper, who seemed to be autographing every single still, poster and DVD ever issued for any of the Superman movies he was in. I'm not sure some of the people in that line knew he'd ever done anything else.

Mickey Rooney and Debbie Reynolds were there. So were Sean Astin, Hank Garrett, Sally Kellerman, June Foray, Eddie Carroll, William Schallert, Alan Sues, Bill Mumy, Margot Kidder, Helen Slater, the ladies of Petticoat Junction, Jane Withers, Earl Holliman, Linda Gray, Patrick Duffy, Richard Anderson, Corbin Bernsen, Angela and Veronica Cartwright, Stephen Furst, Peter Mayhew, Skip E. Lowe and a lot of other famous folks. And there were at least as many celebs wandering the aisles as customers.

I don't have anything particularly interesting to report. I just wanted to say I was there and to run that great photo that Christopher Bay took.

Of course, there are other differences between David Letterman's "sex scandal" and most politicians' transgressions. Letterman is a comedian…not someone we expect to be making laws that define what's right and wrong. Also — and I suspect this was on his mind when he decided to go public with his situation — Dave comes off to a great extent like a victim in his case. This may or may not be how it all plays out but at the moment, the other guy looks like a sleazeball extortionist. Which, of course, makes Dave look better…makes you even feel sorry for him in a way.

The smart thing Dave accomplished by breaking the news himself was that he made it about David Letterman being blackmailed, rather than about Dave having sex with women on his staff. He even told the story that way on his show, telling the world that he was being shaken down for having done "creepy things" and then, at the end, finally revealing what those alleged creepy things were.

How it will all develop will depend, of course, on what else comes out. If some female Worldwide Pants employee comes forward with a tale that makes Dave sound like an aging Roman Polanski, that may do Letterman's rep some damage. The lawyer for the alleged blackmailer has been making it sound like he wants to put Dave on trial and to fill the courtroom with damaging revelations if his client doesn't get a generous plea bargain. Frankly, in the absence of some genuine crime on Letterman's part, I don't think America cares who's on his personal Top Ten list.

Not every movie produced by Albert Zugsmith was terrible. Touch of Evil was pretty good…though one suspects that the producer was largely irrelevant on a movie directed and written by Orson Welles. Other than that…

Back in the days of theatrical short comedies, there was a very popular series of one-reelers starring George O'Hanlon as a luckless gent named Joe McDoakes. Mr. O'Hanlon is now probably best known as the voice of George Jetson, and before that, he was one of the busiest character actors in film and early television. And between 1942 and 1956, he made 63 Joe McDoakes shorts with titles like So You Want To Give Up Smoking and So You Want To Be A Detective. Whatever it was the title said you wanted to have happen, you could bet that Joe McDoakes would show you why he couldn't do it.

Now's your chance to own all of them…all 63 on six DVDs for forty bucks. It's part of the Warner Archive program whereby they sell plain vanilla DVDs (no fancy menus, no special features) of rarities from the vaults. Here's the link. I don't make anything off these but if you're a big Joe McDoakes fan, don't let that stop you. I have a hunch it'll be a long time before we see these get a fancier release.

Also of possible interest: Warner Archive has brought out a set of the last 52 Our Gang comedies — the ones made at MGM after the Hal Roach Studio sold the franchise. During the run, familiar faces like Spanky, Alfalfa and Darla exited the series as they outgrew it and new kids came along…to generally diminishing results. Still, there's some fun in these rarely-seen films…which also will probably not be available in any other way for a long time.