Another funny man has left us. Carl Ballantine, AKA "The Amazing Ballantine," passed away in his sleep this morning. Sources on the Internet will tell you he was born in 1922 but that's a lie. He was 92 years old.

They'll also tell you his fabled magic act was one of the most hilarious routines ever performed on a stage and they're right about that. Born Meyer Kessler in Chicago, Illinois, Carl started out as a real magician but soon discovered he was better at making audiences laugh than at dazzling them with trickery. So the tricks got deliberately lousier and he got more and more successful. He is said to have been the first performer ever to play Las Vegas with anything resembling a magic act.

It brought him fame, fortune and much acting work. He was one of those guys who worked, if not all the time, then as often as liked. He was best known for his role as Gruber on the TV series, McHale's Navy, and he logged hundreds of guest shots on television, in the movies and on stage. The first time I saw him perform live was in the 1971 revival (in Los Angeles, Chicago and on Broadway) of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in which he played Marcus Lycus opposite the star, Phil Silvers. I can't recall ever seeing two funnier men on a stage together.

Carl did hundreds of commercials, including a memorable one for California Raisins in which he supplied the voice for a Claymation™ character that looked like…Carl Ballantine. He also did cartoon shows, one of which was Garfield & Friends, where he had a recurring role on as a con-artist character named Mr. Swindler.

Funny story how I cast him in that. I wanted to have a Bilko-type villain who'd pop up from time to time and I cast another veteran comic actor to do the voice in what would have been the first episode to feature the guy. As it turned out, the actor was — to put it as nicely as I can — too old. He just didn't "have it" anymore and while the recording session turned out okay, it was obvious I couldn't keep bringing that actor back as that character. Right after he left the studio, I decided to create another con-man character and find the right performer to supply his voice. I was wondering who to get when I walked out into the waiting room at the recording studio…

…and there, waiting to record a McDonald's radio spot for someone else, was Carl "The Amazing" Ballantine.

I hired him on the spot, then ran home and wrote the episode that introduced Mr. Swindler. It was a joy because I knew Carl could and would make any silly thing I wrote sound good. Even better, I got to hang out with him, have lunch, join his table up at the Magic Castle and just enjoy the ongoing show that was Carl. He'd worked with everyone. He knew everyone. And everything he said was funny…everything. I'll probably post more about him over the next few days.

I wish I could link to a good video of Carl's magic act but the best one online isn't all that good. Still, maybe this will give you a tiny idea of the wonders of The Amazing Ballantine. All of us who knew the man are already missing him. Our condolences to his lovely daughter Sara, and our thanks for letting us play with him…

Don't call me first thing this morning. I'm going to bed…

Chris Christie, who's running for Governor of New Jersey, is in hot water…with Monty Python.

The Old Globe Theater in San Diego has announced what will be filling its stage for the next year or so. Almost every year, it includes one new musical that is being developed for eventual Broadway status…and this time, it's Robin and the 7 Hoods, based on the 1964 Rat Pack movie. Casey Nicholaw, who directed The Drowsy Chaperone and choreographed Spamalot will direct. Rupert Holmes is writing the book and the songs will be some of those penned by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen for the movie, plus other Cahn-Van Heusen tunes from other venues.

This strikes me as a very good, promising venture. It'll be there July 14 through August 22 next year and I may make time in or around my busy Comic-Con schedule to go see it. The Comic-Con is July 22-25.

Absent from the Old Globe schedule — and everywhere else, insofar as I can tell — is the long-heralded musical version of The Nutty Professor, to be directed by Jerry Lewis. It was/is to have a book and lyrics by the aforementioned Mr. Holmes and music by Marvin Hamlisch, and not long ago, Jerry was telling reporters it would debut at the Old Globe, then go directly to Broadway without passing Go or collecting $200. If it's happening, it ain't happening there.

Also: A Broadway revival of the Neil Simon play Brighton Beach Memoirs — though well-reviewed — closed in one week. A companion play by Simon, Broadway Bound, was to have debuted later and played in repertory but of course, that's off, as well. James C. Taylor of the L.A. Times explains what he thinks caused this and it sure sounds like he's right. It's been a while since Mr. Simon had a hit on Broadway without someone like Nathan Lane to draw in the masses. Presumably, the forthcoming revival of Promises, Promises has a stellar-enough cast to give it a fighting chance.

Talking Points Memo is really good at catching dumb mistakes by other news sources. So it's kinda fun to catch them in one, once in a while. (This is not only a mismatch of headline and story but it's also an old story that somehow found its way into today's news feed.)

Here's Jay Leno on the defensive. It's kind of an odd interview. The questioner tries eighty different ways to get Jay to admit to panic and worry about his situation, and he barely bites. I think Leno's right that if his 10 PM show goes away, that will not lead to NBC programming five hours of expensive dramas that will hire everyone who wishes they were on a series at that hour…just to more "reality" programs and Dateline. It will also not probably lead to five hit shows in that Monday-Friday slot.

Then again, you all know the joke about rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Jay isn't even rearranging furniture; he's just saying, "Hey, I've been on sinking ships before and I'm good at it." What I'm hearing out of NBC is that everyone's scurrying to come up with a Plan B and nobody has one yet.

My pal Tony Tollin reports that he attended the funeral for Soupy Sales…and says it was a funeral, not a memorial service as I wrote. There will be another, longer memorial service at some point in the future.

Ed Golick reports that a 1962 edition of Pie In Your Eye: The Official Soupy Sales Fan Club Newsletter stated that Soupy's saving cream of choice for pie-making was Aero Shave. I don't think that's currently made…at least not in its old formula. When they did the syndicated show in the seventies, master pie-hurler Clyde Adler told me that they'd done a lot of experimentation with different brands of shaving cream and pie shells.

Ira B. Matetsky sent me this link to a nice essay in the New York Post about Soupy.

That's all for now. There will be more.

Speaking of memorial services, as I was: A lovely man deserves a lovely one, and Henry Gibson had one today. Henry left us in the middle of September and this afternoon, a group of his friends and family members gathered to say farewell to the Poet Laureate of television. The assemblage included many of his co-stars from Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, including Gary Owens, Arte Johnson, Joanne Worley and Jack Riley, as well as Dick Martin's widow, Dolly. There were many fine character actors and comedians, including Jackie Joseph, Charlie Brill and Mitzi McCall, Laura Summer, Charlie Adler and even Henry's recent co-star, Rob Schneider.

Fine food was served. Friends hugged friends. As one speaker after another told of acts of friendship and compassion by the late Mr. Gibson, no one was surprised in the least. We all knew what a great guy he was…and how funny he was and how steadfastly professional he was. Still, it was nice to hear the stories — and to spend a little more time thinking of Henry.

Over on this website, you can see a little video interview of folks who attended the recent memorial service for Soupy Sales. And wouldn't we all love to have Joe Franklin and Professor Irwin Corey at our memorial services?

One of the interviewees, Barry Mitchell, gets the recipe exactly right for Soupy's famous facial-pies. He used non-menthol shaving cream placed in a pie shell…and he was always experimenting with different brands of shaving cream and different brands of store-bought, pre-made pie shells. The shaving cream had to be of the right consistency (the cheapest brands are usually the best) and the pie shell needed to be properly thin and brittle. At times, he used a double shell, one inside the other, to give it the necessary heft and weight. You can't lob something that's too light.

Ignorant, foolish people make throwing-pies with straight supermarket whipped cream. It doesn't last long out of the can, especially under hot studio lights. It doesn't get as fluffy as shaving cream and some brands are oily or have other additives that make clean-up a bitch. Shaving cream easily wipes off the person and washes out of clothing, and Soupy's stage crew used to get rid of the excess on the set easily and quickly with a wet-dry vacuum cleaner. I won't even comment on someone who's so mind-numbingly ignorant that they attempt a pie-throw with custard or lemon meringue or any real pie filling. There are studio prop guys who've developed good recipes for throwing-pies made of edible substances, but they're not pies you'd really want to eat.

Also, you have to be brain-dead stupid to put your filling into a foil pie pan or paper plate. A foil pie pan or paper plate won't shatter when it hits the person like a baked shell will. They're usually too light to toss with any accuracy and half the time when you do hit your target, the foil or paper clings to the victim's face and hides it. I mean, Jesus Christ, people! What's the hell's the point of hitting someone in the face with a pie if you can't then see their face covered in cream?

Finally on the subject of pie-throwing, it's stunning how many people leave out the most important part of a pie-throw on television: The sound effect. You need a good, loud rifle shot ricochet sound effect, perfectly timed. That generally isn't necessary when you pie someone in person, like at a party. The sheer act of seeing it live (and the fact that live pies are usually a surprise to the recipient) will make up for the lack of sound effects punctuation. But on TV or in a movie, a pie-hit without the right sound effect is like Glenn Beck with a moment of sanity. Why even bother?

Inept pie-throwing repulses me, as it should sicken all of you. The other night, David Letterman — who you'd think would know a little about humor — did it all wrong on his show. They had pies in foil pie plates, first of all. Then, whatever they put in them — whipped cream, I think — had gotten flat and watery by the time they got around to the segment. Dave, Paul and Regis Philbin couldn't even throw the damn things; they just kind of poured the soupy (no pun intended) contents of the pie shells over each other. Someone should be extorting money from Letterman for not pointing out to the world that he claims to be a professional comedian but he doesn't even know how to hit someone in the face with a pie. Disgusting.

Erik Tarloff remembers Soupy Sales. He gets White Fang and Black Tooth confused but otherwise, it's a perceptive piece. Thanks to Tom Pardue for the link.

Aaron R. Davis, a reader of this site, writes to tell me Cartoon Network stuck one of our new Garfield episodes into its schedule today between showings of R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour and Mainframe Entertainment's Scary Godmother: The Revenge of Jimmy. So I guess they're airing our show. They're just not telling anyone.

I was just sitting here wondering if there was a video in this world of the Lennon Sisters dressed up as skeletons and singing "Dry Bones." And sure enough, I get an e-mail from Fred Rupnow telling me where to find one. What are the odds?