It has come to my attention that I erred when I said the other day that there was only one episode of the original What's My Line? with a guest host. Actually, there were two episodes in 1958 where Clifton Fadiman filled in for John Daly. There was also one 1959 episode in which Eamonn Andrews, who hosted the British version of the show, sat in Daly's chair. Thanks to King Daevid MacKenzie (who e-mailed me this info) and Jim Newman (who came up to me in a restaurant yesterday). I hang my head in more shame than usual.

The Archive of American Television has posted their complete oral history interview with George Carlin. The entire chat, which runs around three hours, was conducted last December and in it, Carlin discusses his career in enormous depth and detail. I haven't watched all of it yet but I intend to. If you'd like to join me, go to this page and start with Part One.

You following the Coleman-Franken recount in Minnesota? The latest headlines say Coleman is ahead by 120 votes but if you read a little further, you realize that number is kinda meaningless because there are more than 3000 challenged ballots that haven't been figured into the total. No one knows how many of those will eventually yield countable votes…and those aren't even random ballots which one might assume would break roughly along the same ratio as the already-tallied ballots. These are ballots that the Coleman or Franken observers specifically had pulled out of the piles for later examination. There are also hundreds — perhaps thousands — of disqualified absentee ballots that have never been counted and some of those may wind up being tallied.

In some cases, it appears that the two campaigns are playing a little game here, trying to manipulate current news reports. The premise here is that if you can look like you're ahead (or gaining) for a while in the news, that will give you a certain legitimacy as the winner, above and beyond what the final totals say. If Coleman loses when the vote is ultimately certified, he'll be out there arguing that the results are a lie and saying, "I was ahead for weeks! Suddenly, at the last minute, they claim I lost!" But of course, he may be "ahead" right now because of which ballots have been removed from the count and put into that "challenged" pile or which absentee ballots simply have been wrongly disqualified and therefore uncounted. Franken's side is probably challenging ballots with something similar in mind — to win the daily press coverage, claiming that the gap is narrowing, as a means of winning the election.

There are a lot of statisticians out there, trying to predict the outcome. Nate Silver, who had a superb track record in forecasting the election, is seeing a Franken win by between 48 and 136 votes…but it seems to me that there are too many unknowns (including which ballots the judges will admit) for any prediction to have much gravity right now. And even Silver says his analysis could be off by "at least" 200 votes…which kinda means he thinks Franken will win unless the other guy does.

I don't think anyone knows as much about who will win as they think. All I think we can say is that Al Franken's in a good position. He's either going to get a Senate seat or a very interesting book out of all this.

Reader Jim Engel called the company that has released those Howdy Doody DVDs I plugged earlier today. They told him that the episodes on the shorter DVD are all included on the longer one. As I mentioned, Amazon is selling the two on a set so someone's going to be pissed.

I suggested back in this message that all the protests over Proposition 8 in California were a waste of time; that all the energy put into marching and yelling would be better diverted into prepping for a battle on the next ballot. I may have underestimated the power of protest. A recent poll by SurveyUSA asked if the demonstrations had changed the minds of many of those who voted for Proposition 8. They concluded not many had switched…

Of the adults who tell SurveyUSA they voted FOR Prop 8, 90% of them told us recent rallies held by "No on Prop 8" Protesters have not changed their minds about the issue. 8% say protesters have changed their minds.

Okay, so 90% are still against the notion of Gay Marriage. But 8% is significant. Proposition 8 passed 6,775,560 to 6,203,012…or a difference of 572,548 votes. If 8% of the "yes" voters have changed their minds, then — someone check my math on this — 542,044.8 voters now wish they'd voted the other way.

Before you get excited about this, remember that the poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3% and there's no data as to whether anyone who voted against Proposition 8 has changed their mind in the other direction. And of course, we don't believe any one poll that far about anything. Still, it bolsters my belief that the next time California voters get asked to vote about letting two people of the same sex be man and man (or wife and wife or however they describe it), it's going to pass and maybe pass by a wide margin. The momentum on this issue has only ever moved in one direction.

This is a little macabre but it's also Show Business History. Actor-comedians Albert Brooks and Bob ("Super Dave" Osborne) Einstein are the sons of a comic named Harry Einstein, who was big in radio playing a character named Parkyakarkus. Yes, that's right. Albert Brooks was named Albert Einstein before he changed it.

Sadly, one of the things Pa Einstein is remembered for these days is how he died. Fifty years ago yesterday, he appeared at a Friars Roast for Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in Beverly Hills. He gave what was later reported as a hilarious speech and then, as he returned to his seat, he collapsed from a heart attack and never recovered.

Half the great comics of Hollywood were present that evening and some later said things like, "When I have to go, that's how I'd like to go…with the audience still applauding how funny I'd just been." I've heard about this evening for years, including a too-graphic description from Milton Berle, who was the one who caught Einstein when he fell. (Berle was one of the comedians who said what I just said a lot of funny people said.)

The Los Angeles Times has a blog where they reprint old newspaper pages and headlines. They've posted the page from the morning after here. In case you're interested.

Here's a New York Times article about what went wrong in a box office sense with Young Frankenstein on Broadway. What it all comes down to is the sin of acting like you're a smash hit before you give audiences the chance to decide that.

One point I may not have made clear in yesterday's post about the Screen Actors Guild is that SAG will be asking its members for a Strike Authorization Vote, not a Strike Vote. The difference may turn out to be moot but maybe not. Essentially, the authorization is a show of solidarity, a way of saying, "If you keep refusing to negotiate, we will strike." In theory, if the Strike Authorization Vote is high enough, it will intimidate the AMPTP into improving the offer that's been on the table, largely unchanged, since July.

So before the ballots are due, SAG will make the following argument to its members: If enough of you vote to authorize a strike, that will scare the studios into bettering the deal…and a strike will not be necessary. Friends of mine in SAG seem unsure as to how effective that argument will be. Certainly, the AMPTP will presume that not everyone who votes for the Strike Authorization is willing to carry a picket sign for months or even weeks in lieu of working. But the AMPTP is also aware that any sort of labor stoppage by actors is going to cost the industry an awful lot of money.

The Strike Authorization Vote empowers the negotiators. It gives the SAG Board the ability to call a strike if the bargaining committee recommends it as necessary. Usually, alas, it is.

The AMPTP will, of course, say "This is a bad time to strike." During the '88 Writers Guild strike, I was present when the producers' chief negotiator, the aptly-named Nick Counter, said that. I couldn't help asking aloud, "Say, when would be a good time to strike?" Because to the bosses, any time is a terrible time for a strike. They're like Republicans saying, "This is a bad time to raise taxes." When I said what I said, Mr. Counter chuckled. A lot of what these guys say and do is to them, merely a matter of how the game is played and everyone knows it.

The studios will make the point that actors will lose X million dollars a week every week that they strike…and that's usually true to some extent. Strikes are generally only cost-effective when you factor in the loss you suffer if you lose the ability to say no to a really rotten deal. In this case though, SAG is being offered a really rotten deal. There's no way to really crunch the numbers because there's no way of knowing how many weeks of striking will equal what kind of better deal. The stakes are such that even leaving aside future rollbacks if the union collapses, this particular strike may well be cost-effective and to many, necessary.

I hope it doesn't come to a strike because we've had enough economic chaos in this town — blame for which I lay wholly at the feet of Mr. Counter and his minions — but it might. And if it does, I hope SAG has the fellowship and unity of purpose to not inflict a half-assed, half-hearted effort on itself and the industry. That union turned out in droves for the writers when we were out there with the cardboard signs, and I expect we'll all be out there for them. But I still don't have a good feeling about how all this is going to end.