So I've been thinking of getting one of those cellular cards for your laptop that will allow you to access the Internet from everywhere, even when you're nowhere near a T-Mobile Hot Spot. I asked here about them.

I was still thinking about it when I came across an interesting news item. According to this piece in today's L.A. Times, "Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa today pledged to blanket all of Los Angeles with free or very cheap wireless Internet service by 2009." Hmm…maybe I oughta wait and…

Hold on! What am I thinking? What that means is we might (might!) have something that will sorta, kinda work but not well by 2113. Forget I said anything.

And this won't matter to most of you but could they have made a bigger mess of Santa Monica Boulevard between around Wilshire and the 405? I go there now and I feel like I'm driving through a friggin' M.C. Escher print with little roads off to the side that lead to larger but still little roads that you have to get onto and get off of to go anywhere there, except that getting off them means merging back into the big road at points where no one will ever let you in…

Hope they're not putting the guy who designed that in charge of the city-wide Wi-Fi Service. If you think getting on a wireless network is difficult, go down to Santa Monica Blvd. and Ensley and try to get to Johnnie's Pizzeria. That's difficult.

Fred Kaplan explains the agreement that the Bush administration just made with North Korea to roll back its nuclear capability. Rough summary: After years of decrying the pact that Bill Clinton and his representatives negotiated, the Bush folks finally went out and made the same deal.

Judging from that most accurate barometer of the American mood — my e-mail — I'm not the only fan of the obscure comedy team of Olsen and Johnson. Many of you are hankering for their movies to become more legally available on DVD in this country and many of you possess and enjoy bootlegs or imports. Some of you have region-free DVD players and so have ordered the new British release of Hellzapoppin', the cover of which is seen above left. A few of you even own the local, obscure VHS release depicted next to it.

As Joe Dante and others have reminded me, some of their films have more complicated legal situations than the norm because they were based, as least nominally, on their Broadway shows. Often, when studios acquired the underlying rights in the days before TV exhibition, the contracts were for limited periods that expired. That was the thing that kept the Marx Brothers movie, Animal Crackers, unavailable for years. It was based on a play and Paramount had only purchased the rights to the play — or maybe it was to the songs in the play — for a few decades, not in perpetuity. A whole new deal had to be worked out to liberate the film from the estates and the lawyers, which meant that someone had to think there was enough of a demand to make it worth the expense.

In the case of Hellzapoppin', there seems to have been an added complication because of the 1977 stage revival. The legendary producer Alexander Cohen thought Broadway would welcome a new version and purchased the rights to mount one, even though just about all he was purchasing was the title. He then signed the legendary Jerry Lewis to star in it and the result was one of the legendary troubled productions that toured but never made it to the Great White Way. (A "troubled production" is hard to define but when the producer and star are making daily death threats towards one another, you have one.) Anyway, the deal Cohen made apparently kept the film off American TV for some time.

But such details are renegotiated all the time, especially now when there's a buck to be made on home video. Someone's made a deal to put some of the Olsen-Johnson body o' work out in some forms and venues. They can and probably will make one to put out DVDs in the Land of the Free here. One of these days.

I'll link to anything with the great voice actor Daws Butler in it. He was such a wonderful performer and such a wonderful man. I used to have a little late night ritual for whenever I was sitting here at the computer, trying to break away from work and go beddy-bye. This was only for the nights when no lady would be joining me. I'd begin flipping around the TV dial and the rule was that I wouldn't turn in until I'd heard Daws.

I started doing it a few years after he passed away, which was in 1988. At one point, there were three channels that programmed old cartoons, mostly Hanna-Barbera, for much of the night so it rarely took long. I'd catch him playing Huckleberry Hound or Quick Draw McGraw or Elroy Jetson or Mr. Jinks…or sometimes, it would be a Jay Ward cartoon or even something older — from MGM or Warner Brothers. After I heard him for a minute or two, I'd say, "Good night, Daws" and turn off the TV and leave my office and go to sleep.

I couldn't do that when I had a date over. She'd think it was just too weird. I don't know why I'm telling you this. You probably think it's just too weird. But there was something so comforting about his sound. It always reminded me of a good time (when I was a kid watching cartoons and listening to the records he did with Stan Freberg) and a good friend (later, when I got to know him).

This is a commercial in which he plays Snagglepuss. The other voice in there is from his frequent co-star, June Foray, who reminds me of the same two things but is still happily with us.

Daws actually gets a screen credit at the end of some of these Cocoa Krispies ads…the result of a legal action that Bert Lahr took or perhaps just threatened. Snagglepuss didn't actually sound that much like Lahr. It was one of Daws's many "inspired" voices, meaning that the voice was inspired by a celeb but was not an actual impersonation. Hokey Wolf didn't sound like Phil Silvers. Hokey sounded like what people think Phil Silvers sounded like. Same with Yogi Bear and Art Carney or Peter Potamus and Joe E. Brown or many others. Anyway, some folks apparently thought it was Bert Lahr doing these commercials or Mr. Lahr was afraid they would, so he called a lawyer. I don't know if he got money but Daws got a credit. It was kind of a reverse disclaimer — a way of proclaiming, at least to those who could read fast, that it was not Bert Lahr.

I knew it was not Bert Lahr when I was ten but I guess they had to do that for the grown-ups who didn't know about important stuff…like who was the voice of Snagglepuss. Anyway, here's Snag selling the cereal that then had him on the box. And now that I've heard that voice, I can exit stage left and go to bed. Good night, Daws.

I'm getting e-mails from bird lovers and experts responding to my message of earlier this morning about how the crows in my neighborhood are getting frighteningly large. Several folks want to know if maybe these are ravens, instead.

No, they are crows. Huge crows. Crows of awesome, worrisome height and girth. Crows that if they get much larger will be able to grab up a full-sized man in their beaks and snap him in two like a Rold-Gold pretzel stick. Crows that could crush the roof of your car if they were to merely alight on it. I don't even want to think about what might happen if you parked under a crow that big. One good dump and they'd have to send in St. Bernards to find you.

And every time I see the crows, they're bigger than they were the last time I saw them. Soon, they will be the size of Graf Zeppelins and then, by God, maybe you people will listen to me.

I am not a paranoid person. I don't spend much time worrying about natural disasters or the economy or terrorism or even the adminstration of George W. Bush, who's making all those things worse by the moment. I rarely imagine doom lies ahead. Just look at some of the jobs I've taken voluntarily when a more apprehensive man might have imagined what could happen.

But I tell you: I'm deeply, deeply worried about the crows. And also by the fact that people love Dancing With the Stars. Somehow, that threatens our well-being, too.

This will probably be all over the Internet by morning but here's where you can see it at the moment. Last December in a sky-diving session over New Zealand, 24-year-old Michael Holmes plunged two miles when his chute failed…but landed in a blueberry patch with only an injured ankle. There are two videos of this incredible occurrence — one shot from Holmes's helmet camera and one from the helmet cam of another diver who was jumping with Holmes and who wound up finding him on the ground.

Here's the link to see the two videos, one after the other. You may have to click the little button to turn the audio on. The videos are scary, they're amazing and — maybe this is an awful thing to say — my first reaction, until I realized how many news organizations have vetted the story — was to suspect fakery. Let's say I'm assuming it's all true but would not be shocked to find out otherwise.

Great minds think alike and so do Jerry Beck's and mine. Last Saturday, I wrote this item recalling a great cartoon special that Bill "Jose Jiminez" Dana wrote and appeared in. Right after I'd posted it but before he'd seen it, Jerry phoned to get some info for a posting he was readying for his fine blog, Cartoon Brew, about another Jose Jiminez cartoon. An odd synchronicity.

Jerry's post is now up on his blog (which has a spiffy new design, by the way) and it includes a link to a video of a 1966 Jose cartoon made but barely released by the Paramount cartoon studio in its dying throes. As I've mentioned in the past here several times, I'm a big fan of Mr. Dana's but it's easy to see why this short didn't prompt a demand for more.

Still, you might wind it worth a peek…and as I mentioned, Dana's big collaboration with Hanna-Barbera — Alice in Wonderland or What's a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This? — runs on Boomerang later this month. So I think Jerry's right to hail Jose Jiminez as a Forgotten Cartoon Legend. He's also a Forgotten Legend of the Space Program. You almost never hear him mentioned when they talk about the great astronauts.

I'm up at an ungodly hour, concluding a lonnnnng day of working on the Jack Kirby book I announced back here. Before I hit the linens, I wanted to put out a public appeal. We're looking for interesting and special Kirby art to include in the book. This may be the nicest reproduction of Jack's work we'll ever see and I'd like to feature some pieces that especially deserve that treatment. Several collectors are loaning me originals — and even unframing framed pieces so they can be scanned at a high resolution.

I'm most interested in pieces that are either historic or early. I have access to hundreds of…well, I wouldn't say "common" since nothing Jack drew was "common." But pages that were common for Jack from the mid-sixties onward. But I'd like to locate the original art to some early pieces and especially to things that weren't done for Marvel, or were done for DC in the forties or fifties. I'm also trying to find intricate pencil pieces and one or two really spectacular pages from the Fourth World material. Art does not have to leave your hands if you can get it to a place that does high-rez scans, and we'll pay for expenses incurred and give proper thanks and such.

Please drop me a line if you have something you think oughta be in this book and you're willing to share it with the Kirby fans of the world. (If this explanation seems a little vague, it's probably because I am at the moment. Good time to go to bed. Good night.)

A lady named Alicia wrote to ask if I still have little furry creatures coming to my back door in search of a meal. Yes, I do. In fact, about two hours ago, the above fella (gal?) came around to nibble on the Friskies buffet. I put a dish or two out every evening. When they're empty before dawn, it usually means at least one and maybe several raccoons have wandered by. You can also tell that there have been raccoons because they not only clean the plate, they fling it around the yard, overturn the water dish and leave wet raccoon prints behind. The cat and possums, on the other hand, just eat a few mouthfuls and leave.

I also throw peanuts out every morning for the squirrels and bluebirds. I suspect the reason the peanuts don't get eaten is that some mornings, my back yard is patrolled by crows the size of SUVs and while they peck at everything on the ground, they don't seem to like peanuts. In fact, the way they avoid them, you'd think they're afraid of anaphylactic shock or something.

And hey, what is it with these huge crows, people? Is this a symptom of Global Warming that Al Gore didn't warn us about? I don't recall the crows of my childhood being this large. Two more years of growth and they'll be carrying off dogs and small children. I'll try to get some photos of them one of these days but take my word for it. These are big damn crows. Since I got skinnier, I'm starting to get worried. The birds in your yard should not weigh more than you do.

Not long ago — in this item — we linked to the opening minutes of the Olsen and Johnson comedy, Hellzapoppin', which is not widely available in the U.S. these days. Today, we have the trailer for another film they made, Crazy House, which is an even weirder movie. I don't know why someone hasn't released these in this country on DVD since, with a little drumbeat, they'd probably do quite well. Hellzapoppin' is out on DVD in other nations, including what I hear is a lovely new edition in England. So what's the deal? Is our money not good? Are they all pissed at us over Gitmo?

Crazy House actually came out in America on VHS some years ago…but even though I would have snatched it up if I'd known about it, I didn't. Never saw an ad, never saw it in stores, nothing. General rule of thumb: If there's a weird comedy movie out on home video and I don't know about it, the releasing company has done their best to keep it a secret. I'd hate to think someone is looking at the sales of that, ignoring the non-existent promotional campaign and saying, "Guess there's no interest in Olsen and Johnson movies in America." Of course there isn't…just as there'd be no interest in Three Stooges films if they'd been kept that well-hidden. (Wait'll you see the Stooges DVD sets that are in the works. The complete works of Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein will never get such loving treatment. Of course, he wasn't as funny as Curly.)

Matter of fact, one of the ways the big studios could make better use of the Internet and services like YouTube is to circulate teaser clips like the one we're offering you today. I bet that if there was a link at the end of this where you could click and order the whole DVD from Amazon for a reasonable price, a lot of you would click. The film only gets sillier after this excerpt.

So here it is…and yes, speaking of the Stooges, that is indeed Shemp Howard in the film. He plays a guy who's always trying to sell Olsen and Johnson everything that isn't nailed down and being persistent about it. The folks at Universal's home video company could learn a thing from that man.

Retired General William E. Odom offers about as pessimistic an assessment of the Iraq situation as you're going to find. Pay special attention to this paragraph in which he addresses the argument, "We must continue the war to prevent the terrible aftermath that will occur if our forces are withdrawn soon."

Reflect on the double-think of this formulation. We are now fighting to prevent what our invasion made inevitable! Undoubtedly we will leave a mess — the mess we created, which has become worse each year we have remained. Lawmakers gravely proclaim their opposition to the war, but in the next breath express fear that quitting it will leave a blood bath, a civil war, a terrorist haven, a "failed state," or some other horror. But this "aftermath" is already upon us; a prolonged U.S. occupation cannot prevent what already exists.

This is the Bush administration. They create a situation where no course of action will make things better, then lambaste their opponents for not putting forth a plan that will solve matters. Odom's piece, by the way, is entitled "Victory Is Not an Option."

Regarding the Chaz Chase short that was this morning's video link: Jerry Beck confirms my hunch that the musical track on it is not an original from 1928. For one thing, "Merrily We Roll Along" wasn't written until 1934 or thereabouts, and "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" wasn't written until 1937. Jerry sez the track on the Chase short we watched was lifted from a 1946 short, and he knows this stuff.

But that was basically Chaz Chase's act: He came out and ate things, including his own clothes. In his full act as I remember seeing it, he ate a whole pack of lit cigarettes and matches, then belched smoke for about five minutes. I have no idea how he did this.

I remember that Johnny Carson had him on at least once and a quick search of the incomplete database of Carson guests shows that Chaz Chase was on The Tonight Show on May 17, 1974. The other guests that night were Vincent Price, Bert Convy and Joan Rivers. I recall Mr. Carson being quite thrilled to have him on and making some remarks about how even Chaz wouldn't eat at the NBC Commissary.

Christopher Cook informs me that the show I asked about — Hanna-Barbera's Alice In Wonderland (or What's A Nice Kid Like You Doing In A Place Like This?) — will be on Boomerang on Sunday afternoon, February 25. I'll try and remind you when we get closer to the date in case you want to watch it, too. I haven't seen it since it first aired in 1966 but I remember thinking it was pretty good. It'll be interesting to see if I still think that because I don't with everything I liked back then.

Time for another unusual vaudeville act. This is Chaz Chase in a film from 1928 with what may be the original soundtrack. It sounds too clean to be the original but this was an early "talkie" and its soundtrack was recently restored. If it's the real thing, it's especially intresting because both songs that were later used as the themes for Warner Brothers cartoons — "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" and "Merrily We Roll Along" — turn up in it, one right after the other.

Mr. Chase did this act his entire life, right up until he died in 1983. A year before, he had been performing it on Broadway in the musical revue, Sugar Babies. He first did it on Broadway in The Ziegfeld Follies of 1925. The act did not change much over the years.

So what's unusual about Chaz Chase's act? You'll see. This runs four minutes.

Dahlia Lithwick says that support for the Death Penalty is ebbing away across America…but not necessarily in the Supreme Court.