The New York Times is doing away with "TimesSelect," its subscription-only section. We mentioned back here that it was going bye-bye and now they've made it official. The firewall goes away tomorrow night at midnight. So yet another Internet attempt to charge for non-porn content fails.

It hasn't hit the wire services yet but the website of actress and game show personality Brett Somers is reporting that she passed away on Saturday morning. At the moment, that's all it says so that's all we know.

Ms. Somers, who was born in 1924 in New Brunswick, Canada, was best known for her long run on The Match Game and for her marriage to actor Jack Klugman. She used to joke that the game show lasted longer than the marriage but in fact, they were wed from 1956 until 1974 and she did Match Game from 1974 until 1982. Still, it's what made her famous. If there's a place that game show panelists go after this life, she's probably already annoying Charles Nelson Reilly.

Thanks to Andy Rose for the tip-off. I would imagine it'll be on all the usual news venues shortly and that GSN will air a bunch of Match Game episodes in tribute.

Most of you probably come to this site only because you want to see if there's any further news about the almost non-existent chain of Love's Barbecue Restaurants. As you no doubt recall, I was once a big fan of them and have watched sadly as they've closed, one after another after another after another, etc. As of my last report, we were down to the alleged one in Jakarta, Indonesia. I say "alleged" because I always wondered if there really ever was one there. I suspect that, given what's happened lately in that part of the world, if there was one there, it ain't there no mo'.

In any case, all the Love's in the United States have closed. As I mentioned in August, there were still two former Love's that were operating and serving essentially the Love's menu. One was a place called Riley's in Brea, California. The other was The Great Rib Restaurant in Chula Vista, just outside of San Diego. Every year when I journey to the latter vicinity for the Comic-Con International, I toy with the idea of making a field trip to Chula Vista but I'm always too busy. A reader of this site named Mike Rossi was a patron of The Great Rib Restaurant though and he informs me that it's now closed, dark and not answering its phone. Guess we can scratch that one off, too.

Which seems to leave us with Riley's as the last standing remnant of the Love's chain. It's not a Love's but as you can see from the above photo, it has the same look and feel of one. That's the old Love's heart logo sign but with the name "Riley's" in place of "Love's." That's the same tag line that was on every Love's — "Wood Pit Barbecue Restaurant." And when I ate there in August of 2003, it was the old Love's cuisine, right down to the great beans.

Will I soon be journeying to Brea again for the near-Love's experience? Doubtful. Google Maps says it's 41.1 miles from me…about 49 minutes but adds (this is a new feature of Google Maps, apparently…a striving for honesty) that it can be "up to 2 hours, 10 mins in traffic." What are the chances of there not being traffic on the I-10 at any hour of the day when Riley's is open? If you're anywhere near there though, it's located at 720 N. Brea Blvd. in the city of Brea. Enjoy the ribs and think of me when you do.

You'll recognize this commercial for Tootsie Roll Pops. It's been running on television, off and on, since its debut in 1969. They've recut it and reanimated parts of it and it was even redone in CGI…but this seems to be the full, original, minute-long version.

Here's the rundown on the voices. The little boy is Buddy Foster, who was the older brother of Jodie Foster. The cow is Frank Nelson, who you may recall as the man on The Jack Benny Program who always said, "Yesssss?" The fox is Paul Frees, who was the voice of everything while he was alive. The turtle is Ralph James, an actor who is probably best known today for voicing Orson, the commander of Mork on Mork & Mindy. The owl is the great ventriloquist, Paul Winchell, and the announcer at the end is Herschel Bernardi. Mr. Bernardi, of course, was starring in a TV series called Arnie around the time this was done, and was best known as the voice of Charlie the Tuna.

And while we're at it, here's the 30-second CGI version. Does anyone not like the original better?

I just spent a little time — more than it deserved — watching The Yahoo Democratic Debate Mashup or whatever they're calling it. The word "debate" is in there and it shouldn't be because there's no debating whatsoever in it. It's just candidates being asked the same questions they've been asked many times, and then they're allowed to give their stock replies with an occasional follow-up softball from Charlie Rose. Some of the questions were posed by Bill Maher and the thing might have been interesting if Maher (or someone) had been able to ask real follow-ups…but of course, that never happens. Candidates like to sell us on the idea of how tough they are but when was the last time you saw one of them sit down for an hour of questioning by someone who was really prepared to challenge them on the issues? Rudy Giuliani wants us to think he's brave enough to take on Osama Bin Laden but he wouldn't even consent to an hour with Keith Olbermann.

We have often mentioned a voice actor named Dick Beals on this site. Here's a recent article about him. And while we're at it, here's an interview from not long ago.

Have you heard about the scandals in the Student Loan business? Michael Kinsley has.

As you all know by now, I feed a steady stream of cats, possums and raccoons in my backyard…but mostly cats. About an hour ago, I was downstairs and I heard a symphony of Friskies-crunching that told me not only was a raccoon out there but probably a herd of them. When I went to look though, I saw evidence that such a group had just been there — a lot of wet coonprints around a near-empty supper dish…but I saw no raccoons. I stepped outside to refill the dish and suddenly noticed a tree near the dish was swaying a bit.

I looked up and there, clinging to the highest branch of the tree (about twelve feet up) were four small raccoons…or maybe five. Guess they heard me coming and fled to up there. I ran in, grabbed the camera, snapped some pics, replenished the dish and then went back inside so they could climb down and eat. They looked pretty scared up there so I didn't take a lot of photos but this one, I thought, gave a good idea of the scene. I know how they feel. There have been days when I've felt like hiding up there.

Around 1960, a company called National Telepix acquired the rights to the silent Our Gang comedies and released them to television. These were the pre-Spanky and Alfalfa ones and the National Telepix folks sliced them all down — without a lot of care — into short segments to which they added funny music and sound effects and inane narration. They then sent these chopped-up, hoked-up comedies into the world under two series names. One, which was briefly on Los Angeles television, was called The Mischief Makers. The other one I don't recall ever seeing but it had the catchy title, Those Lovable Scallawags with Their Gangs. Both series also included some segments from an ancient series of short comedies called The Dippy Doo-Dads which featured monkeys in odd costuming.

The Mischief Makers at least had a catchy animated title sequence — created by the great animation director, Gene Deitch — and this is it. Or rather, this is one of them. I am quite certain there was another version of this opening in which they sang the same tune but the lyrics mentioned Our Gang. I vividly recall the kids chorus singing, "Skiddely, skiddely, bang bang bang / Don't forget to watch Our Gang."

And what occurs to me — and this is theory on my part — is that the films aired initially with that song and that whoever then owned the rights to Our Gang (M.G.M., I believe) made them change those lyrics to the ones in our clip today. What is certain though is that at one point, the 22 year body of work that was Our Gang was being marketed to television in four packages: National Telepix had the silents in their two series, Hal Roach's company was selling the 1927-1938 talkies under the title, The Little Rascals and M.G.M. was hawking the 1938-1944 films under the Our Gang title.

Here's the opening and closing to The Mischief Makers…

I will be a guest at The National, which is a big comic book convention being held at Penn Plaza Pavilion in the city of New York, November 16-18. Click on that link for more details and when we get closer to the date, I'll try to tell you here just what I'll be doing there.

And then the following weekend will find me in Columbus, Ohio for Roger Price's wonderful Mid-Ohio Con, a two-day extravaganza (November 24 and 25) at Battelle Hall in the Columbus Convention Center. Again, watch here for more details.

Unfortunately, it looks like Kirby: King of Comics, my book on Jack Kirby, will not be out in time for either con. We're still finding new treasures to include and it's now scheduled to come out in February of '08…I think. However, I expect to be signing it at Wondercon in San Francisco at the end of that month and I've tentatively accepted invites to a half-dozen other conventions next year. So I'll be around.

A little while ago, I posted an e-mail address here to submit letters for the letter column of Groo, the comic book I do with that guy with the fake mustache. I'm now hearing that letters sent to it have been bouncing. This is apparently because I just activated the domain it's on and the activation has yet to propagate to servers all across the Internet. I've taken down the item and will repost it in a day or two, at which time that address should work fine. If you sent a message, send it again when I post the address again. Sorry for the confusion.

Over on his weblog, my pal Doug Pratt links to a video of the opening credits of Spider-Man 2 and notes…

Spider-Man was not created solely by writer Stan Lee. As correctly credited in all three movies, artist Steve Ditko co-created the character.

Doug is a smart guy but he, like many, has missed a key distinction in those credits. They do not say "Spider-Man created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko," which is the form DC has used for Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster on the Superman movies, Bob Kane on the Batman movies and others. What it says on the Spider-Man movies is, "Based on the comic book by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko." Unless something has changed — and I don't think it has — Marvel's recent position is that Stan Lee created Spider-Man. What they are acknowledging with the credit is that Steve Ditko worked on issues of the comic from which the movie drew material.

Because things don't look quite bad enough for the Republican Party. Let's get him into the race so Ron Paul can stop being the weirdo candidate.

Bill Marx is an accomplished musician who — oh, by the way — is the son of a pretty famous musician named Harpo. Based on the few times I've been able to speak with Bill, I'd say he's also a pretty nice, sharp guy…and he has a keen understanding that, as the kid of someone like Harpo Marx, he should not only indulge folks' curiosities about his papa but enjoy sharing him with the world. To that end, he's recently authored a book about what it was like to grow up in that particular family. Harpo's autobiography was entitled Harpo Speaks so Bill's book is, fittingly, Son of Harpo Speaks.

I recommend this book. In fact, I'll tell you how much I recommend it. If you were to click this link, you could buy it from Amazon and I would get a small cut of the proceeds. I will suggest instead that you go to Bill's website, browse some of the wonderful online photos he has there of himself and his father, and then order the book from him and have him autograph it. That will cost you about eight bucks more (and cost me my commission) but hey, the money goes to the author and you'll get his signature on your copy.

However, I have an even better recommendation for those of you who live in or around Los Angeles. This coming Wednesday evening, September 19, Bill will be signing copies at the Barnes & Noble Shop in The Grove beginning at 7:30. The Grove is that big, trendy mall that they built onto the ass end of Farmers Market at 3rd Street and Fairfax, and it's really a great place to browse and eat and shop and see movies. (One of the places I like to eat there is a branch of Maggiano's, and they sometimes have Gregg Marx performing there. Gregg is the grandson of Gummo and a fine singer of romantic tunes.)

Anyway, see if you can get over there and meet Bill and buy a book. You'll enjoy both those things.

After 1,300 years, China is ending a policy of giving giant pandas to foreign countries as a way of improving international relations. Shucks. I was hoping to start my own nation and score a free panda.