I'm of the opinion that when people talk about the great comic talents of the previous century, they don't make nearly enough mention of Marty Feldman. We swoon over the madness that was Monty Python but the Feldman shows I've seen — sadly, not all or even most — often seem as clever and funny as anything the Python boys did. Don't go by that disappointing Beau Geste parody movie he made. See if you can find some of his British shows…and if so, let me know so I can get copies.

For now, I'll call your attention to a half-hour radio documentary that aired this morning on the BBC and which can still be heard online. In it, Gene Wilder narrates and other friends and co-workers remember the man with the unusual eyes. Here's the link and I don't think it'll be active forever so don't delay.

Feldman was a wonderful talent and, going by the one time I met him, a very nice man. I still haven't quite forgiven Sergio Aragonés for killing him.

More Spike Jones. This is his version of Khachaturian's "Sabre Dance" and he does a xylophone solo in there — complete with more cowbell — that reminds you what a good musician he was. One of the reasons his strange kind of music worked so well was that the guy really knew what he was doing. Here we go…

Once upon a time — to coin a phrase — Jack Hanrahan was one half of the hottest comedy-writing team in Hollywood. I knew the names of Phil Hahn and Jack Hanrahan from MAD Magazine and I believe before that, they were among the top writers of humorous greeting cards for Hallmark. They went from MAD to very successful careers writing for TV shows including Get Smart, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, Sonny and Cher and many others. They also wrote a lot of animation, including the 1967 Fantastic Four cartoon show, Birdman, The Banana Splits and whatever else Hanna-Barbera was producing around then. On his own, after he and Phil went their separate ways, Jack later wrote Inspector Gadget, Heathcliff, Beverly Hills Teens and dozens of other shows.

I knew Jack casually in the eighties. He was a lovely, funny man who told great stories about show business. There are some comedy writers who are among the unfunniest human beings on the planet and others who are as entertaining and flamboyant as anyone who performs their material. Jack was solidly in the latter category…and he even did occasional acting roles. A friend of mine once produced a quickie VHS tape called Video Psychiatrist, which consisted of an hour of a well-dressed man in an office welcoming you and asking you to sit down and tell him your problems. That was how it opened but the bulk of the tape was him sitting there going, "Uh-huh…well, how do you feel about that?" Jack played the psychiatrist. He was also in a movie called Up Your Alley in which he played an eccentric homeless guy.

In a tragic case of life imitating art, Jack Hanrahan is now an eccentric homeless guy. Several of you, starting with Tony Isabella, sent me this link to an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. [Warning: The site may ask you for some harmless personal data.] [Second Warning: This article is very depressing.] Jack came from Cleveland and now he's returned there to live on its streets. He is sick. He is penniless. He is in a very bad way.

Among other things, the article notes that Jack's Emmy Award is in hock. Let me tell you how Jack got that Emmy. It was for the 1967-1968 season of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. The writing staff that year consisted of Chris Beard, Phil Hahn, Jack Hanrahan, Coslough Johnson, Paul Keyes, Marc London, Allan Manings, David Panich, Hugh Wedlock and Digby Wolfe. Back then on the Emmy Awards telecast, all the names of nominees had to be read aloud and there were several separate nominations for the Laugh-In staff, which was essentially competing with itself for the trophy. So some presenter had to read that list several times and they stuck Don Rickles with the job of presenting, figuring he'd get rightly pissed-off and therefore funny.

Rickles was all that and every time he came to Jack Hanrahan's name, he stumbled over it, pronouncing it something like, "Harrahannahan." When the writers won, it seemed like half the audience went up to accept. Jack walked directly to the microphone and he was the first of the winners to speak. He said, "The name's Hanrahan, dummy!"

He got one of the biggest laughs I've ever heard on an award show. How does a guy like that wind up homeless?

If you have one and if your cable company or satellite dish gets the Boomerang channel, you might want to grab a season pass for Late Night Black & White, which used to be a treasure of Cartoon Network. Now it's on Boomerang every Saturday and Sunday night at 11 PM on my set. I'm sure these are reruns of the same episodes but, hey…it's a rare chance to see vintage WB and MGM cartoons that probably won't be turning up on DVD soon.

This coming Saturday night, they're running three "Captain and the Kids" cartoons, including one directed by Bill Hanna, sans Barbera. On Sunday night, we get three great WB black-and-white classics including We're in the Money, built around the Harry Warren tune. This is followed by two Goopy Geer shorts. You don't see a lot of Goopy Geer on TV these days so you have to take him wherever you can get him. He was an early, unsuccessful attempt by the Harman-Ising company (they produced the early Warner Brothers cartoons) to create a big cartoon star to rival Mr. Disney's mouse.

Cameo appearances aside, Goopy only starred in three cartoons so here's your chance to see two-thirds of the canon. Perhaps you'll be able to figure out why he never caught on…apart from the obvious fact that his name was Goopy Geer. If your name was Goopy Geer, no one would have heard of you, either.

I'm just a guy sitting here at my computer, blogging now and then when I need a break from my paying work. The Associated Press is a huge organization with offices all around the world, reporters, stringers, fancy equipment, etc.

I posted about the passing of Calvert DeForest last night here, shortly after Midnight, Pacific Time. How come it took the A.P. sixteen hours to get this news on the web?

That's what I wanna know.

Let's hear another number from Spike Jones and the City Slickers. Here they are destroying "Yes Sir, That's My Baby" and even managing to get in a good, offensive Asian stereotype at the same time. That's Freddie Morgan doing the solo and once again, Spike is wearing a suit that I wish I owned.

Ronald Brownstein writes about the relationship between George W. Bush and the Republican side of Congress. Quick summary: The latter didn't police the former so the former got away with all sorts of things it shouldn't have gotten away with. I think I agree and I think a rising number of Republicans agree.

The new A380 airbus landed in New York on Monday and received great attention. Peter Greenberg, who's the Travel Editor for The Today Show, was on that flight and he filed this video report which is posted over on the MSNBC website. One of the other travellers interviewed in his report is my longtime pal, Joe Brancatelli, whose name comic fans may remember from fanzines of the seventies and a column he did for Warren magazines. I worked with Peter Greenberg years ago, too — on a TV pilot idea that no network had the guts/foolishness to pick up.

I mention this because I know an awful lot of people and I'm always amazed how they intersect. I'm always telling friends that eventually, everyone I've ever met will meet everyone else I've ever met. So it was not unusual but still odd to be watching Keith Olbermann last evening. Olbermann replayed Greenberg's report and there I saw someone I knew from one part of my life interviewing someone I knew from another part of my life. Joe and Peter are both in the business of travel reporting now but still…

Over in the David Letterman newsgroup, Letterman authority Don "Donz" Giller has reported the death of character actor Calvert DeForest, who was a fixture of Dave's TV shows, first as Larry "Bud" Melman on the NBC show and later under his own name on CBS. According to Giller's posting, DeForest died Monday night from a heart attack after contracting pneumonia.

DeForest was born in 1921 and did not intend to have a career in show business. His mother was an actress and discouraged it, but he told interviewers he needed no discouragement in that area. He did, however, appear in a student film that caught the attention of Mr. Letterman. To his surprise, DeForest (who was then working in a Social Services office) received an offer to be part of a sketch on Dave's show and that led to regular appearances as the character, Larry "Bud" Melman. Dave and the writers especially loved putting DeForest into sketches and situations where the hapless actor had no idea what he was doing. DeForest read everything off cue cards and could almost always be counted on to pause or stand in all the wrong places. Once after he showed a tiny bit of on-camera professionalism, Dave reportedly remarked, "If he ever gets good, he'll be of no use to us."

When Letterman moved to CBS in 1993, his production company lost the legal rights to the name of Larry "Bud" so DeForest began appearing under his own name…but not often. Advanced age and frequent illness kept him from being on the show as often as Letterman and the producers might have liked. According to Giller, DeForest's last appearance was on the April 30, 2003 show where he was introduced as Saddam Hussein.

A tribute to DeForest had been planned for last night's show but Dave took ill with a stomach flu and missed the broadcast, which was hosted instead by Adam Sandler. Tonight's episode was taped on Monday night and the Thursday and Friday shows are both scheduled reruns. So one presumes Dave will be back next Monday and will say something then.

Our video link today is a clip of Larry "Bud" Melman on an early (1983) episode of Late Night With David Letterman. They sent DeForest to the Port Authority Bus Depot in New York to welcome arriving passengers, armed with nothing more than a microphone (which he didn't know how to use) and a supply of hot towels. Here's what ensued…

Your chance to own a true artifact of The Lord.

In the last years of his life, Stan Laurel spent a lot of his time answering fan mail. This website is attempting to collect them all so that they can be shared with the world. Fascinating stuff.

Tom Spurgeon has a long, probably definitive obit up for Jay Kennedy, who died last Thursday on a vacation accident. Jay was a historian of underground comics and, more lucratively, an editor of newspaper comic strips for King Features Syndicate. I never met the man but he was well-respected by everyone who knew him and a lot of good people are still stunned at the loss.

Sit back, click and enjoy a great old vaudeville/burlesque sketch. Years ago, I met a professor-type who was trying to research the origin of this one. What he found was about nineteen different comedians had nineteen different stories about how they wrote it and how everyone stole it from them. At some point though, it became part of the more-or-less public domain repertoire that comedians working in revues then drew from. There were a lot of comics doing this material, often in their own, personalized versions — some of which they copyrighted — on stages the world over. Later on film and television, Abbott and Costello had their interpretation and the Three Stooges had theirs, and there were a couple of other folks who did it now and then, sometimes changing the "trigger word."

You'll understand what I mean when you see it…and you'll probably remember the bit. Here are the Stooges doing what they did best: Beating the crap out of one of their own…

George W. Bush gave a speech this morning on where we currently stand with Iraq. Fred Kaplan has the summary and it ain't pretty.

This morning, Presidential Press Secretary Tony Snow was asked about Alberto Gonzales and he said, "We hope he stays." Since all these guys serve at (to use the cliché) "the pleasure of the president," doesn't it come down to he stays if Bush wants him and he goes if Bush doesn't? Rarely does a presidential appointee depart over the objections of the Chief Exec and every single story ever written about Gonzales, incuding those written by his supporters, has stressed his unwavering loyalty to George W. Bush. So what is this nonsense about "hoping" he stays?