RawVegas.tv is a new Internet site that went online yesterday. As near as I can figure out, the idea behind it is that a crew of reporters run around Las Vegas and tape features about what's going on. There's not much up yet of interest but we're going to keep our eyes on this site.

Ron Carey was a very funny character actor who died Tuesday at the age of 71. Usually, he played the sidekick, the buddy, the little guy who aided and abetted the hero or villain. In Mel Brooks's Silent Movie, he was the aide to the treacherous Harold Gould.  In Mr. Brooks's High Anxiety, he was the chauffeur who drove Mel around.  And for his regular role on Barney Miller, he was the little guy everyone abused. He made a pretty decent living that way.

Ron was a stand-up comedian who started getting tapped for roles in commercials. He made so many of them that he largely abandoned stand-up and made the lateral move into acting. He was an enormously nice, funny man. I remember one time when — for reasons too boring to relate — I found myself on the set of a Barney Miller taping that had stretched to 4 AM, having started somewhere around dinner time. The producers and story editors were doing Rewrite #47 on the script and the cast members were alternately cursing and nodding off. All the energy on the set flowed from Ron Carey, who was scurrying about, telling jokes and keeping spirits up throughout what someone else (or maybe Ron) referred to as "The Bataan Death Sitcom." He only had a small role that week but his cheerleading did plenty to make it, as I recall, a pretty good episode.

I met him a few other times, often at meetings of Yarmy's Army, which is a local group of older comedians. I was a guest/outsider but Ron did an awful lot to make me feel welcome…and it wasn't just me. He was like that with everyone. Here's the L.A. Times obit. As you'll see from the man's list of credits, Mel Brooks tried to use him in every film he did. This was, of course, because Ron was very good on screen but I'm sure it was also because Ron was just great to have around.

Mitchell Anthony has a new "Creating Success" podcast up…an interview with The Movie Trailer Guy, Don LaFontaine. Those of you interested in voiceover work might want to give it a listen…

Okay, here's the idea: Tom Hanks as James Bond. You buy the premise, you buy the bit. Give it a click but be careful. This one is a little loud.

As mentioned in a recent link here, the White House Correspondents Association has selected Rich Little as the entertainer at their 2007 dinner. Here's part of this article about it…

Rich Little won't be mentioning Iraq or ratings when he addresses the White House Correspondents' Dinner April 21. Little said organizers of the event made it clear they don't want a repeat of last year's controversial appearance by Stephen Colbert, whose searing satire of President Bush and the White House press corps fell flat and apparently touched too many nerves. "They got a lot of letters," Little said Tuesday. "I won't even mention the word 'Iraq.'"

Little, who hasn't been to the White House since he was a favorite of the Reagan administration, said he'll stick with his usual schtick — the impersonations of the past six presidents. "They don't want anyone knocking the president. He's really over the coals right now, and he's worried about his legacy," added Little, a longtime Las Vegas resident.

I saw Little's "Presidents" routine a few years ago. As I recall, it skewed somewhat pro-Reagan but it was like a Bob Hope monologue: Nothing in there that could make any president the least bit uncomfortable. The jokes about the previous George Bush were about him not liking broccoli, as opposed to jokes about the Gulf War or Iran-Contra.

Booking him for the dinner sounds cowardly…but I think if I were the guy making the selection this year, I might play it safe. Something about this presidency is becoming downright unfunny. Bush had a low approval rating last April but he didn't have the air of gloominess and failure that now seems to hover over his administration and the war. Back then, he was down but he still looked like a guy who might turn it all around. Now, with members of his own party and other traditional supporters deserting him, he's lost a certain smugness and taken on the look of an injured animal. I'm not saying he doesn't deserve criticism and satire. I just think it'll be a lot harder for any comedian to come in and mock the man to his face. And by April 21 — after another three months of war and G.O.P. defections — it'll be harder, not easier.

Of course, if Rich Little has any guts at all, he'll get up there and say, "Thank you. I'd like to start with my newest impression…Stephen Colbert!" That would make for quite an evening.

The New York Times has up a video obit for Art Buchwald, complete with him announcing his own death in a segment that he filmed for that inevitable event. [CAUTION: Plays music as soon as the page loads.]

He also left a final column to be published after his death. You can read it here.

Buchwald was a very funny man…and very fair. I can't find the quote but he once said something like, "I can't afford to play favorites. When you have to fill as many columns as I do a year, you need to go after everyone." Indeed.

What you get as today's video link is a peek at another cheaply-produced animated show of the fifties. I was never particularly a fan of Colonel Bleep, a series of cartoons that Engineer Bill ran on Channel 9 here in L.A. when I was a kid. Other hosts in other cities also inflicted them on the young population.

There were 104 of these done in 1956 and 1957…reportedly the first made-for-TV cartoon series to be produced in color. It's probably not true, as industry legend has it, that they were made "in a garage in Miami" but they looked it…although I have to say that looking at them now, some of the graphics are surprisingly delightful. I remembered it looking much shoddier than the example below. I've seen worse looking shows produced by folks who probably had what, measured in constant dollars, would be five times the budget.

Can't say much for the storylines, though. Even when I was six or seven years old, I couldn't wrap my still-developing brain around the adventures of a frenetic little alien who hopped around, saving the galaxy with the help of his friends, a living-but-mute puppet and a numbskull caveman. At a time when we were periodically being scared at the prospect of nuclear annhilation in this country, some of the plots were a bit unsettling and the "all narration" style was a little distancing, as well.

They were done by a studio in Florida known as Soundac. The only thing I know about Soundac is that they primarily created commercial spots and that the operation came to an unglorious end around 1971. The company decided to move its offices to another location so they loaded the files, equipment and film library of their studio into a big van. Then, as the story is told, some stranger jumped behind the wheel, stole the van, and its contents — and therefore, Soundac — were never seen again. This is the tale that gets told when someone asks why many of the Colonel Bleep episodes no longer exist today…and I can't swear it's true. But it's so funny, you almost hope it's true.

Soundac also did a series of cartoons in the mid-sixties called The Mighty Mister Titan. I've never seen one and I'd be very surprised if you had, either.

You can buy an entire DVD of Colonel Bleep cartoons for eight bucks on this page. I'm betting you don't. In fact, I'd wager serious money that most of you don't watch the entire nine minutes of Bleep below — a four-minute intro and a five-minute adventure — even for free…

Richard Leung suggested I read this piece in The New Yorker because it might speak to some of the things that bothered me about the Borat movie. It does.

Sorry — shocked, even — to hear of the death of artist Leah Adezio at a much too early age. I really only knew her from occasional chats at conventions but she seemed like a nice, popular lady who was well-liked by her close friends. Some of those close friends have posted eloquent insights into her life, and you might want to start with Elayne Riggs and then go through some of the links she has up to what others are saying. Very sad.

Had an interesting experience last evening: A screening at the Writers Guild of the hit film, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. It was followed by an interview with two of the movie's writers — Peter Baynham and Anthony Hines — and its star, Sacha Baron Cohen.

First thing that must be said: The audience loved it. People around me, including several good friends, were laughing themselves sick…and I must say that I admired the skill and the cleverness and the overall guts it took to make the movie. Cohen is a brilliant and courageous performer, no doubt about it…

…but I don't think I laughed once.

Well, maybe I'm overstating the case. I laughed a few times…but only a few and not with much vigor. Why? Hard to say. It wasn't because of the frequent lapses into low comedy. I usually love low comedy. What I don't usually love is the kind of Candid Camera humor where we're expected to laugh at the humiliation of people who are being ambushed and filmed for our alleged amusement. It always feels like a rigged game to me…like the situations that are arranged make it impossible for the victims not to look at least a little foolish. And if by some miracle they don't, that footage gets tossed. That alone, however, doesn't explain my general indifference to the movie. Matter of fact, I felt that parts of the movie weren't as spontaneous as the p.r. would have us believe, and that some of the people caught on camera had to have been playing more clueless than they appeared.

I guess I didn't like Borat the Character much. Many of those he encountered on his shlep across America were jerks but he was usually a bigger jerk. Matter of fact, the jerks he encountered were often only jerks because his jerkiness was provoking them into it. So I guess I thought something like, "This is supposed to be the Comedy of Reality, but the reality is phony because his actions are creating it." Or something like that. I really can't explain my reactions very well. If I come up with a better understanding of them, I'll post it here.

For now, I'll just say that I appreciated the skill of Cohen and the filmmakers, and I enjoyed (and laughed at) the panel discussion which followed, which may or may not turn up on a forthcoming DVD release. Still, I was an oasis of non-laughter in a theater of people who were howling, sometimes in spite of themselves…and I can't quite explain why. (For another report on the event, here's Marv Wolfman, who was sitting next to me, laughing and sometimes making that little sigh that suggests you're almost sorry you laughed at something you just laughed at.)

On the way in, audience members were subjected to metal detector searches. No one seemed concerned that we might have weapons. The fear was of cell phones with cameras or other recording devices. Seemed as if at least half of those trekking into the Writers Guild Theater had to step out of line, go back to their cars and leave their cell phones. I heard someone ask one of the guys wielding the wands why and he said the studio was worried about someone filming the movie and putting it on the Internet…which, of course, is not the reason. The movie's playing in hundreds of theaters across the country where you can go and not be searched on the way in. And though I don't venture near the wickeder parts of the World Wide Web, I'll bet that horse is long since outta the barn; that somewhere online, one can find plenty of copies of Borat that are better and clearer than what anyone could capture on a cell phone camera.

No, more likely, this is the legacy of the Michael Richards incident, or at least of the rise of YouTube. The studio wanted to control what would get out, not of the movie but of the live panel discussion after…and I almost don't blame them. Just need to make a note to self to start leaving the cell phone in my car when I go to anything that might get interesting. Or to act like Borat would have acted, had those men with the wands waved them across his privates.

For those of you interested in this matter — and I'm almost embarrassed that I still am — Timothy Noah has a copy of the agreement O.J. Simpson signed to write that book that didn't come out. (I say "almost" embarrassed because as readers of Groo the Wanderer know, it takes a lot to embarrass me.)

We all get these. Perhaps you got this one. It arrived in my e-mailbox yesterday and I thought it was the most shameless, inept attempt I've seen yet to get me to send vital personal info to a stranger so they can clean out my checking account and/or engage in a little Identity Theft. I keep reading that people fall for these and it always amazes me. The spelling and grammar are unchanged.

My Dear,

We wish to inform you that your fund which you have been processing for some period of years is coming through a diplomatic means to your door steps in cash. We are a diplomatic attached to OCC (Oversees Credit Commission).

We advice you to forward to this department your home address where you want the consignment to be deliver and your telephone number, and also your International Passport or Driver's License for Identification.

As soon as we receive this information required the consignment briefcase will forwarded to you immediately and the date of our officer arriving will be also giving to you.

We wait your reply.

Dr. Fred Williams.
Diploma Director

I especially like the fact that Dr. Williams has been processing this matter for years regarding what is apparently a large sum of money that I am owed. But he doesn't seem to know my name.

He was a funny man. My condolences to those of you who had Fidel Castro in the pool.

There are people out there who are angry about what's happening in the world. Some of them gravitate to the Nutcase Left. Others find their way to the Wacko Right. There are serious dollars to be made — especially in talk radio and book publishing — by telling either of those groups exactly what they want to hear. It doesn't have to be fair. Matter of fact, the extremists would prefer it if you not be fair to the opposition because they don't think the opposition deserves fairness.

Your attack doesn't have to be accurate, either. They just want to hear — and will pay good money to be told — that their political opponents are neither right nor honest with any syllable they utter.

I haven't read the new book by Dinesh D'Souza that blames "the left" for 9/11 but I keep catching appearances on his book tour. Mr. D'Souza is obviously a smart enough guy to know that much of the promotional hype for his book is just indefensible red meat. You can see him struggling to sound reasonable, trying to back away from his own jacket copy and the claims of his publisher while still reaping the potential sales benefits from that line.

He wasn't smart enough, however, to know he shouldn't go on The Colbert Report. Last night, Stephen Colbert eviscerated the guy so thoroughly, I'm not even sure D'Souza realized he'd been fileted wide open and had his innards removed. It was such an amazing piece of surgery that I once again take my life in my hands by embedding not one but two video links from the functionally-insane Comedy Central website. I think this will show you the interview. If Colbert was just warming up for this week's reciprocal guest appearances with Bill O'Reilly, it's going to be brutal.

This site gets results. When people ask me why I do this thing, I tell them stories like this.

Yesterday, I posted a piece about the "longform" versions of the old Crusader Rabbit cartoon series and how I loved watching them when I was a wee lad. I described the opening titles — which I haven't seen in more than forty years — from memory and said I'd love to see those episodes again.

Ask and ye shall receive. Ron Kurer, who operates one of the best animation-related websites called ToonTracker, responded by posting the opening of one to YouTube. Here it is. Watch it and then we'll discuss it after the fold…

Just as I remembered it. And the best part was being able to read the credits. Let's point out a couple of those names…

"Story" is credited to Barbara Chain and Chris Bob Hayward. We wrote about Mr. Hayward here. Barbara Chain — referred to by some as the first woman animation "storyperson" — also wrote for UPA cartoons and has the teleplay credit on the immortal Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. "Story sketch" is by Jack Miller…and since someone will write and ask me, I oughta say that this is not the same Jack Miller who edited and wrote comic books for DC and also wrote some of the Filmation Superman cartoons…although this Jack Miller also wrote for Filmation (and Warner Brothers and DePatie-Freleng and other studios.)

Anyway, thanks to Ron of ToonTracker. You have no idea how much I enjoyed seeing that little bit of video again. (By the way, Ron says on this page that there were 260 episodes in this series and he has a list so I guess he knows what he's talking about.) I hope viewing this title sequence did something for someone else reading this, as well. Now, if I could only get copies of some of the complete hours…