Hey, you think you know the lyrics to the song, "God Bless America"? Apparently not. At the "Values Voters" candidates' debate the other night — a gathering of super-right-wing folks — a choir sang a rewritten version. I don't know if Mr. Berlin would have been outraged at the message inserted into his song but I have a hunch he'd have been apoplectic that it was put there by someone who has no concept of meter or rhyme and who couldn't even do the amateur lyricist's trick of just counting syllables.

One can just imagine the outrage that this same group would have mustered if anyone else had changed so much as a note of that song. Here's a link to the lyrics and a video.

And let us have a moment of noise in memory of the great artist of pantomime, Marcel Marceau, who has left us at the age of 84. (Better get used to that joke…you'll be hearing it a lot in the days to come. In fact, we're probably also in for a lot of jokes about him dying because he called for help and no one heard him.) He taught or inspired countless other actors and also folks in related creative fields such as dance, painting and even cartooning. He was, as a friend of mine used to put it, the one mime people loved, not to be confused with all the rest, whom they hated.

Ordinarily here in one of my R.I.P. postings, I would insert some anecdote about meeting the deceased but I never had the pleasure — I assume it would have been a pleasure — of meeting Marceau. I did (I thought) harm one of his performances once as I recounted in an article elsewhere on this site. Here — I'll quote it to you. This occurred around 1965 or so…

…someone gave us tickets to The Red Skelton Show and we went over to CBS Television City, an austere black-and-white building not far from where I now live. We waited in line for what seemed like several weeks before being admitted to the stage and seated in the third row of the studio where they now do The Price is Right and where, decades later, I got to meet and work with Bob "Captain Kangaroo" Keeshan when I wrote for and he hosted CBS Storybreak.

That week's Skelton show was "A Concert in Pantomime" starring Red and his guest, the great French mime, Marcel Marceau. The taping began with a twenty-second sequence that merely called for Skelton and Marceau to walk to center stage and shake hands. They walked to center stage, shook hands, the Stage Manager yelled "Cut" and Skelton turned to the audience and said, "Wasn't that good?"

That may not sound like much here but, at the moment, it was hysterical. In fact, the audience was still chuckling as Mssr. Marceau took stage to begin taping several pantomime spots. He was in the middle of the fifth when my mind suddenly decided to be mean to me and replay Skelton's line.

Now, you have to imagine the scene: There is absolute silence in the room. On stage, one of the great artists of the world — the legendary Marcel Marceau — is miming some topic of dread seriousness and unbounded pathos. It was the moment of a baby duckling finding his mother dead from a hunter's rifle or something equally cheery. Not one person in the room is making a sound, but for the few fighting back tears at this moving, dramatic moment…

And I suddenly laughed. Out loud.

I tried not to. I held it in until it was leaking out my nostrils and ears but it escaped. I kept remembering Red Skelton going, "Wasn't that good?" and, finally, I couldn't hold it in any longer. I laughed right in the middle of Marcel Marceau's most dramatic, tragic stage moment.

As laughs go, it wasn't a loud one, actually…but it was loud enough for the illustrious Frenchman to hear. Ever the professional, he did not react to it with his body — but I could see the his eyes nail the third row with the slightest, tiniest gleam of "Who the hell is the idiot laughing at this?"

I looked around, as if I too was wondering who'd laughed. But I know I didn't fool him.

The look was so microscopic, I was the only one who saw it…but see it, I did. I saw it again, weeks later, when the show aired. My laugh wasn't heard and no one else in America saw Marceau throw that look, now past the third row and all the way to my home Zenith, just for me. But I saw it again. And every time since then — when I've seen Marceau on a movie screen or on TV — I've seen him subtly but carefully scanning the third row. Just in case I'm back.

Here's a link to an online obit. The man's achievement is perhaps best measured by the fact that everyone referred to him as "the world's greatest mime"…and almost no one could name a single other contender for that honor.

Here's a clip from Johnny Carson's 1973 anniversary show, which marked eleven whole years of him hosting The Tonight Show. If that seemed impressive at the time, one has to wonder how you describe the fact that he did it for another nineteen or so years after this.

What you'll see when you click is a surprise walk-on by Dean Martin. I suspect that in the entire history of talk shows, there have been less than five cases where a walk-on wasn't planned well in advance and the host didn't know about it. I only recalling it happening once with Johnny. The surprise walker-oner was Danny Thomas, and Mr. Carson did not seem pleased about it. Another time, a minor celeb got out of an audience seat, walked up onto stage and attempted to be a guest. Johnny (understandably) had them stop tape, remove the gent from the premises and then redo the segment to remove all trace of him.

In the following obviously-arranged surprise, note the fine bit of acting by Mr. Carson, making like the guy operating the boom microphone wasn't prepared to have it where Dean would be standing and making planned dialogue, like the "Welcome to the club" line seem ad-lib. (Odd how the band just happened to have Martin's theme song at the ready, isn't it?) Dino made a number of appearances on The Tonight Show — some billed in advance, some not — but after about 1970, his rule was that he would not sit. He figured that if he sat, he'd have to stay longer and he wanted to just come in, make the appearance and get the hell out.

You will also notice one of Johnny Carson's great skills failing him. He was usually very good about ending segments, knowing just when to cut things off so they could go out on a big laugh. Unfortunately, Dino was trying to get off the stage from about thirty seconds after his entrance so Carson had to pay more attention to keeping him there then getting him off, and the ending of spot is sloppy and not the high point. Johnny seems annoyed that Buddy Hackett (who was a billed guest on that episode, scheduled to appear later) walks in. One wonders if one of the producers, realizing Johnny was having trouble ending the spot, signaled Hackett to enter in the hope that it would trigger a big laugh…or if Hackett took it upon himself. No matter. It's still great to see the three of them.

Do you get the feeling that Rudy Giuliani and John McCain both wish they'd switched to the Democratic Party long enough ago to be able to now be running for that party's presidential nomination? It sure would be easier than moonwalking away from every position you have that differs from the G.O.P. base.

Thanks to the half-a-hundred people who volunteered scans of Silver Star #1 and Captain Glory #1. I have what I need there. Still need Fantastic Four #1 and Young Romance #1. And please write before you scan. Thanks.

You people are sometimes very helpful. Not long ago, I mentioned here that I'd bought a Blackberry. A total stranger — I don't even know his or her name, only a handle — wrote and told me the following…

If you bought it through A.T.& T., you probably want to take advantage of their rebate offer. I work in rebate fulfillment for a sister company and I should warn you about a trick. They don't do this with everyone but they do it with some people. The rebate offer requires that you send in the bar code on the box that your Blackberry came in. A certain amount of rebate applications get returned with a form letter that says you did not include the bar code even though you did. By the time they get this letter, a lot of people have already thrown away the box and they no longer have a copy of the bar code to send it. So save a copy of the bar code until you receive the rebate.

I didn't think it would be necessary but because of the e-mail, I saved a copy of the bar code. Guess what I got in the mail today…

We thank you for your interest in the A.T.& T. Los Angeles/Bakersfield VISA Rebate offer. We regret that we are unable to process because your request did not meet the following requirements:

No IMEI bar-code was submitted. Please submit an original or copy of the IMEI bar-code. The bar-code is located on the end of the wireless device box or can be found on the back of the wireless device by removing the battery.

If I hadn't saved the copy, I wouldn't be completely outta luck since I could open the device and take out the battery…and I'm not sure how the code inside would copy. But they sure don't make it easy to get your rebate, do they? Now, I just have to allow another ten weeks for processing.

Thanks to whoever sent me that good advice.

This is a remarkable clip. It's four minutes and you need to know the following. Jerry Sanders is the Mayor of San Diego. He's a Republican and in the last election, his platform included opposition to gay marriage. He was about to come down to the moment when he would be vetoing a city council resolution in support of same-sex wedlock. Then, as happens an amazing percentage of the time when a prominent Conservative takes a stance against homosexual rights, he found out a little something about his own family and friends…

George W. Bush wants another $200 billion for the Iraq War…and of course, he'll get it because Democrats are terrified of the 25% of America that still ostensibly backs this war and will blame Democrats for losing it.

Back when some members of the Bush Administration were saying how the war would pay for itself, I heard a caller on a talk radio show say, "This war is going to cost twice as much as the most pessimistic estimates." The host, who was for the war, called the guy an idiot and said it would be "chump change." As it turns out, it's going to be more like twenty times the highest estimates…so now we know who the chumps are.

Oh, well. Guess it's better than spending it on stupid things like health care for children. Hey, maybe we can pay more Blackwater contractors to fire indiscriminately and without provocation into crowds of civilians. That sure helps things.

I like Blackjack and I used to like watching Blackjack tournaments on TV. The new season of The Ultimate Blackjack Tour has just begun airing on CBS and I think it'll be airing without me watching. What we have here is almost a textbook example of how to gimmick a show up with fancy lights, music and editing to the point of making it unwatchable.

In any kind of sporting event, you need at least a reasonable sensation of a live game; like you're witnessing something actually occurring before your eyes and anything can happen. Blackjack tourneys on TV do away with that. On the UBT, a single match consists of thirty hands of Blackjack and to get that all in to an hour, they have to skip over a lot of hands, summarizing them in fast forward. Imagine a baseball game where you come back from commercial and the announcer says, "While you were gone, they played the third, fourth and fifth innings and here's what happened."

Of course, they wouldn't do that. They wouldn't even air a baseball game that had been taped weeks earlier. But if you're going to do that, you need to at least try to preserve the sense that it's a real contest with an outcome that's in doubt. The shows they're airing are so tricked up with music and lights and computer graphics and breakneck cutting that they lose all sense of a real event. At times, I can't even follow who's playing who's ahead…or care.

The one nice thing about the UBT broadcasts on CBS is that they're almost wholly sponsored by ClubUBT, an online gaming site. In fact, the shows are like a glorified infomercial for ClubUBT, which I like because one of their spokespersons is my old pal, Carl "The Amazing" Ballantine. It's always nice to see Carl, even when he isn't doing his legendary magic act.

Veteran comic actress Alice Ghostley is dead at the age of 81. Her film and television credits include just about everything.

That's almost not an exaggeration. Here's a link to her page at the Internet Movie Database and I doubt it's a tenth complete. She appeared in dozens of movies including The Graduate, Grease and To Kill a Mockingbird. She was a regular or semi-regular on more than two dozen TV series and guested on hundreds of others. Quite often, she was someone who was brought in when a show wasn't doing so well. One of my former writing partners used to refer to something he called The Alice Ghostley Rule. It was that you know a series is in trouble when they add Alice Ghostley to the cast.

That was no slam at her; quite the opposite. She was called in because she was guaranteed laughs and, they hoped, money in the bank. It usually didn't save the show but that was never her fault. She was always terrific.

And the I.M.D.B. listing doesn't even include her work on the stage. She won a Tony in 1965 and had been nominated before that. But somewhere in the I.M.D.B., they do mention a cartoon series where I directed her. Let me tell you — not that it'll do you any good now — how you "direct" Alice Ghostley. You hand Alice Ghostley the script and then you let her just be Alice Ghostley. It was always fine.

Alice was much-loved by her peers…and imitated. Paul Lynde used to freely admit that he copped much (sometimes, he said all) of his comic delivery from the lovely Ghostley. They both got famous appearing in the legendary revue, Leonard Sillman's New Faces of 1952. I had the best and easiest time working with her. She was just so good at being Alice Ghostley.

Here's a link to the L.A. Times obit and here's a link to the N.Y. Times obit.

This charming fella was out on the back porch about ten minutes ago, licking the last crumbs of Friskies Seafood Supreme out of the bottom the dish. About two seconds after I snapped this, an obnoxiously loud motorcyclist drove up my street and the noise sent the little possum scurrying for somewhere else.

Last time I posted one of these, my former insurance broker sent me an e-mail that said, "They look like giant rats." Two days later, I got an e-mail from the possum saying the same thing about insurance brokers.

Good night, Internet. I'm turning in early…for me, anyway.

If I've configured this properly — and I'd say there's about a one in ten chance of that — the player below will show you the entire documentary by Jonathan Ross, In Search of Steve Ditko. I enjoyed it, in part because Jonathan's perceptive and involved narrative is so irresistible. I'd quibble with a few facts and a lot of judgments…but that's to be expected and some of what's in here has caused me to reconsider some of my own views of the material and the folks who did it. That's always good, even if that consideration takes you back close to where you were before. I also admire the style via which Ross takes us on a quest to find Ditko…and then at the end, he "finds" Ditko (right where he could have found him at the outset) and basically keeps him for himself, informing us that he will respect Ditko's desire for privacy and not share what he learned. (Of course, he does tell us this right after a shot which gives away the address of Ditko's office…)

Anyway, I enjoyed it and will write more about it when I have more time. Here's your chance to enjoy it now…

UPDATE: A lot of folks seem to be puzzled so let me explain: The whole documentary runs 58 minutes and 56 seconds. It's been uploaded to YouTube by someone in chunks of under ten minutes because YouTube only allows longer clips in special circumstances. I've configured a player that should run one part after another in sequence if you click on the arrow at the center. The little arrows on the left and right of the screen will let you jump to the previous part or the following part. And if you place your cursor in the screen, it should show you a little menu of all the parts. But if you just want to watch the thing from start to finish, click the center arrow, sit back and watch for an hour.

I'm finishing up my book on Jack Kirby and I need a couple more things. One is to find someone who has (a) a good scanner and (b) a great condition copy of Fantastic Four #1. Oh, and it would also help if you knew how to use the scanner, had a willingness to help me with my book in exchange for a "thank you" in it, and didn't have your F.F. #1 sealed in a slab of plastic. Drop me an e-mail if this applies to you.

And while we're at it, I could also use decent scans of the covers of Silver Star #1, Captain Glory #1 and Young Romance #1. I either can't find my copies or they're not in perfect condition. But drop me a note before you spend any time scanning so I can tell you the specifications. Thanks.

Michael Kinsley writes about the silly fuss over the "General Betray Us" ad.

My pal Aaron Barnhart has a great story up on his TV Barn blog. In the time it would take me to summarize it here, you can just go read it.