Here's an appearance by the comedian, philosopher and juggler A. Whitney Brown on The Tonight Show around 1988. There are a couple of odd bleeps in there but it's a good spot, especially as an example of political humor of the time. Back when Brown did commentaries on Saturday Night Live, I thought he was one of the sharpest people on television and I'm sorry he doesn't seem to be performing much these days.

I think this makes 8,366 of them. My partner Sergio Aragonés was among those honored recently in the Comicdom 2000 Awards presented at the Comicdom Con in Athens, Greece. He won as Best Writer/Artist in the field of humor for Solo #11 and also for Best Short Story, "I Killed Marty Feldman" in that same issue. To celebrate, I bought him lunch today and even allowed him to Super-Size his fries.

Carol Burnett is suing The Family Guy. The big question here is whether trial should be broadcast on TV Land, Court TV or Cartoon Network.

Here's an example of why a lot of us lost the positive feelings we once had about John McCain. An interviewer asks him if it's true that the use of contraceptives helps stop the spread of HIV. There are twelve year olds in this country who could have told you they do. I would even have respected an answer that admitted it's so but wondered if the availability of condoms made people more likely to engage in sexual relations. I think that's nonsense but it's an aspect of the matter that's worth considering.

Instead, McCain dodges the question.

Bob and Ray. Nobody funnier.

I know we've been paying too much attention to this one Jeopardy! episode but I wanted to write one more post about how it's unlikely to happen again. The three-way tie was an anomaly in large part because one player didn't play the game to win. Going into Final Jeopardy!, here's how the totals stood…

• Scott: $13,400
• James: $8,000
• Anders: $8,000

So how much do you wager if you're one of those contestants? If you're James or Anders, you'd presume the following: That you can't win unless you're right and Scott is wrong. In theory, you could win the game with the wrong answer if Scott was also wrong and he wagered so much that his total dropped to below where you wound up, but you have to operate from the assumption that he's not dumb enough to do that.

James and Anders made the right wagers. Neither one could afford the risk that the other would bet more than he did. You'd also assume that the odds are that it's unlikely you will get the answer right and the other two will both get it wrong. That's possible but it's much more likely that it either stumps everyone or no one. So you'd wager as each of them did: The full eight thousand.

Now, let's say you're Scott. You'd assume from the above that at least one of the other two players — and probably both — is wagering $8,000. A person who does that will beat you unless you're also right and you wind up ahead of them. Therefore, the correct bet for you is at least $2,601. That way, one or both of them could wind up with $16,000 and you'd have $16,001. You'd also win if all three of you were wrong. The only way you could lose is if you're wrong and one or both of the others is right…but that's going to be true no matter what you bet. So at least $2,601 is the proper bet here. The trouble is that Scott didn't bet that way. I'm assuming the Game Theory expert opined that this wouldn't happen again because future players will recognize that Scott blew his chance to win and they won't make that mistake.

But is it really much of a mistake? If Scott had bet $2,601, he'd take home $16,001 and come back on Monday to play against two new opponents. Since he bet $2,600, he takes home $16,000 and comes back on Monday to play against the same two opponents again. Not much difference from his standpoint. Scott didn't really lose anything except being able to say he won.

A three-way tie. Each player wound up with $16,000 so they all come back on Monday.

As noted, there was a three-way tie before but it was a matter of everyone wiping out. This is, I guess, the first three-way tie where everyone won money. That's what all the fuss was about. And I guess the Game Theory person suggested that it would never happen again because now that the possibility of a three-way tie has entered into the way Jeopardy! contestants figure when they wager, they'll henceforth bet to make that less likely. Or something of the sort.

Okay, someone just e-mailed me with the secret of what happens on today's Jeopardy! I'll post it in a little while. The magic number is sixteen.

Oops. I did the math wrong — always a possibility when you let me fiddle with numbers. September 11, 1984 was 22 years, 6 months and 5 days ago. So the 9/11/84 Jeopardy! when they had a three-way zero tie was within the last twenty-three years. If that's what happened today on the show (and I'm now inclined to think it isn't) then they're fibbing to say it's never happened before in the last twenty-three years.

We'll see what it is in just a little while. I can catch the East Coast telecast on my satellite dish at 4:00 Pacific Time. Maybe it'll turn out that Alex Trebek admits that he plotted 9/11, fathered Anna Nicole's kid, fired all the U.S. attorneys, blew Valerie Plame's covert status and put the bomp in the bomp-she-bomp. Or has that happened before, too?

WARNING: Whenever I find out what it is, I'm going to post it here. So if you don't want to know until you see the broadcast, don't check back here 'til then.

For some reason, I haven't been watching Sit Down Comedy With David Steinberg, a little talk show on TV Land that is nothing more than Mr. Steinberg chatting with some prominent comedian. At the suggestion of Shelly Goldstein, I caught the one currently running, which is a back and forth with Jon Stewart. Very good. It's real conversation, as opposed to that time-limited, pre-planned stuff that Leno, Letterman, O'Brien and the others do. Steinberg and Stewart seem to really like each other, which is something you almost never get on the aforementioned hosts' programs these days.

The episode with Stewart runs four more times, the next being very early tomorrow morning. Next Wednesday evening, they debut an episode with Garry Shandling. I've set the TiVo for that, too.

Still speculating over what the big secret is about tonight's episode of Jeopardy!

Richard Leung points out to me that a three-way tie with all the players at zero has happened before. As noted at this site, it occurred on the show that aired on September 11, 1984. That was the second show of the Alex Trebek era.

But consider this. In that promo to which I linked (this one), they say, "In 23 years, it's never happened." That would seem to indicate that it never happened on the show…but a fast calculation shows that September 11, 1984 was 23 years, 1 month and 5 days ago. [Correction: No, it wasn't.] So the first time there was a three-way tie with zero scores was more than 23 years ago. It could still be that. And maybe it's significant that they said "In 23 years, it's never happened" instead of, "In the history of Jeopardy!, it's never happened." I think there were several ties, zero and otherwise, in the earlier version of the show hosted by Art Fleming.

Meanwhile, as has been noted on several message boards this morning, there's an interesting clue which may give it away or it may be something that a smart guy did to trick us. The address of that page with the promo announcement ends with "20070314_3wt.php." Note the "3wt" in there. One would assume it stands for "three way tie." That would seem to tip the surprise but, as Maxwell Smart would say, maybe that's what they want us to think.

We shall see, we shall see.

It's been a while since we've heard the chilling phrase, "Stan Lee Media." That was a dot-com company that was briefly a shining star of the Internet. It was said to be worth zillions even though during the brief time that I was a vice-president of the firm, no one there could explain to me just what it did that made money. Not long after I departed — no connection implied — the whole thing crashed and burned and people were convicted of various crimes that fell under the general category of Stock Fraud.

Well, Stan Lee Media is back in the news, at least for a day. It's been announced that the current owners are suing Marvel Entertainment for five billion smackers. Here's a story with more of the details. Basically, they're saying that Stan Lee assigned certain proprietary rights to Stan Lee Media and that despite the company's bankruptcy, it still exists and still owns those rights and that the stockholders are entitled to profit from them. They're further asserting that it all amounts to half-ownership of Spider-Man, The X-Men, Hulk and such.

I have no more information on this apart from what's on the Internet this morning and I ain't a lawyer. Those caveats noted, this sounds to me like a lawsuit of the kind that gets filed to try and panic someone into a quick settlement. There are legal actions of the sort that work because the company being sued is afraid that the lawsuit will interfere with their commerce and it's easier to pay off than to allow that to happen. I doubt that will be the case here but that's a view from afar since I haven't read the contracts.

Still, it sounds like a tough case to win. Stan Lee says he never had half-ownership of those characters. Stan Lee Media is saying he assigned half-ownership of those characters to Stan Lee Media. That's quite a speed bump. Moreover, though the current owners of Stan Lee Media are apparently all honest souls, they're trying to enforce a contract negotiated by a regime that has copped to various frauds and misrepresentations. It might be a little dicey to argue that it was all done in good faith and that it means what all those folks who went to prison might say it means. Are they going to be called in to testify on the intention of that deal and if so, who's going to believe them?

But hey, weird things sometimes happen in courtrooms. I can't recall the last time I heard someone say that the law always comes to the logical conclusion. It may have been O.J. Simpson after his first murder trial. If the Stan Lee Media people can get that jury, they might have a shot.

So I was lying awake in bed and my mind kept drifting back to wondering what the big deal is on tonight's Jeopardy! Shows you how great my fantasy life is, eh? Anyway, it dawned on me — and yes, I know I'm probably overthinking this — that the tip-off is that the press release said they'd consulted an expert in Game Theory. It did not say that they'd consulted a statistician or other expert in the science of chance and numbers. Game Theory experts deal in how people strategize; how they try to exploit their opportunities for maximum advantage.

So what is it in Jeopardy! that involves strategizing? Answer: How much you wager in Final Jeopardy! Everything else in the game is a function of (a) whether you know a given fact and (b) whether you get the button pushed at the proper moment. A Game Theory expert would have nothing to say about either of these matters. What he would be able to discuss is how the contestants wager. This suggests to me that they wagered in some manner as to yield an interesting finish…and it had to be a finish that was not desirable. (If it was a desirable outcome, then you wouldn't have the Game Theory expert saying it might never happen again.)

Anyway, what this all lead me to, lying in that dark room, was the deduction that they wound up with a three-way tie, probably with everyone having zero dollars because all each player bet his or her entire wad. And the Game Theory guru then said, "This will probably never happen again because after this, players will always make sure they don't bet everything and at least hold back a few bucks."

I got up to post this, checked e-mail and discovered that several of you guessed a three-way tie and one even guessed the zero part. We'll see if we're right.

One other thing: There are promos up (see one here) for this already saying that something amazing happens on the show. If the amazing thing was a new one-day total, the promos would suggest something about big money because they could do that without saying who won and therefore giving away the ending. But there's no way to hint at a three-way tie and not blow what happens. So it's gotta be something like that.

This is the second part of I-don't-know-how-many detailing the creation of the cartoon character, Scrappy Doo. If you haven't read the first part, you might want to study it before proceeding with this one. Which you can do over on this page.

Now then. When we last left me, I was lunching with Joe Barbera at the Villa Capri restaurant in Hollywood, being charged with my mission: To write a Scooby Doo script that would introduce the character of Scrappy Doo. I had to make Scrappy "work," at least on paper, so the good folks at ABC would invest in another season of the series. Mr. B. had sketches of Scrappy — mostly by Iwao Takamoto, I believe — and a rough idea of who the character was. As he told me what he had in mind, it sounded to me like he was trying to avoid saying two words. The two words were "Henery Hawk."

It is not uncommon for a new creation to start with what some might call a reference point or some element of inspiration. We all know about The Honeymooners turning into The Flintstones or Sgt. Bilko being a jumping-off point for Top Cat. Some are less obvious and there are also times in the development process when you start with one idea and by the time it reaches the air, it bears so little resemblance to that idea that it really qualifies as a new creation. The Scooby Doo show itself started out with the template of the old Dobie Gillis show and morphed into something altogether different.

There was at the time at ABC, a senior exec who (it was said) could best be sold a new series if he perceived some lineage to the classic Warner Brothers cartoons. Years later, I discussed this with the exec and became convinced his passion in this area was greatly exaggerated. But at the time, many of the folks whose livelihoods involved selling shows to him believed it, and so would laden their pitches with WB references — "This character is like Daffy Duck crossed with Wile E. Coyote" or somesuch gobbledygook. There was also a special sales magic to obtaining the services of Mel Blanc to voice a new character.

Not long before, H-B had tried to sell a series to ABC featuring a hero whose body was mostly mustache, a la Yosemite Sam. The network was only semi-interested so more sketches were done and the concept was changed a bit…and the character got hairier and hairier. At some point, he was so hirsute that they decided to make him into a caveman and that's when ABC bought the show. Soon after, he made his debut: Captain Caveman…with a voice provided by Mel Blanc.

I was startled when an H-B exec told me this. The two characters have zero in common apart from hair and Mel. It's one of those cases where Yosemite Sam was a jumping-off point but he jumped so far that he became a wholly new entity. Still, the WB connection (and Mel) were of some import in the sales of the series.

As Mr. Barbera told me how he saw Scrappy Doo, I kept thinking of Henery Hawk. Barbera never said that name and may not have even realized he was describing the pint-sized chicken hawk from several WB epics. But that's what it sounded like they wanted. So I went home and wrote a short scene, imagining Scrappy to have Henery Hawk's voice and swagger, and when Mr. B. read it, he called and said, "You've nailed it. That's exactly what I had in mind."

So that was Hurdle #1. The next hurdle was to come up with a ghost and mystery for the script. For this, I decided to steal from myself. I looked back over the issues of the Scooby Doo comic book I'd written a few years earlier, selected a couple of my favorite ideas and typed up short summaries. Someone at ABC picked the one they liked best and I went ahead and wrote the script in about a week. The hardest part of it was that every day, some Hanna-Barbera exec or agent (though never Joe) would call me and try to convince me how vital it was that the script be strong enough to convince ABC that Scrappy was viable. They all had a way of saying it as if they expected me to go, "What? You want it to be good? Well then, maybe I'd better take out all the recipes I'm putting in and insert some jokes instead!"

I handed the script in on a Friday and it was simultaneously distributed to all the important folks at H-B and sent to the folks over at the network. Over the weekend, Barbera called to say he was very happy with it. He had a few notes but not many and he thought we were in very good shape. Monday morning, I got a call from a rival producer, the one for whom I'd done another pilot that ABC was considering for that season. He "jokingly" told me that I did too good a job for Hanna-Barbera. He'd just heard that the show I'd developed for him wasn't going to make it because ABC liked my Scrappy script. (I put "jokingly" in quotes because the truth is that the guy was pissed.) Later that day, someone called from Hanna-Barbera to say that I was a hero and that Scooby Doo was being picked up for another season.

I was happy, of course. Little did I know my troubles were only starting.

Tune in one of these days — I'm not sure when but soon — for more of the story of how Scrappy Doo came to be.

Here's a great clip…Spike Jones and his City Slickers playing "Yankee Doodle Dandy," complete with a Jimmy Cagney impersonation by Billy Barty. The visual gag of Spike sitting on the piano with his feet playing the keys was devised for him by the great animation director, Tex Avery. Matter of fact, I have Tex's original sketches for this gag here someplace and if I can find them, I'll post 'em one of these days. In the meantime, here's my favorite bandleader and my old pal Billy making George M. Cohan spin in his crypt…