In 1929, Harold Lloyd was the number one comedy star in America…and determined to remain that way. He had made a silent comedy feature called Welcome Danger and was readying it for release when he became aware of a seismic shift in his business: Talking pictures. Suddenly, that's what the public craved and Lloyd wanted to be at the forefront of talkies.

So at considerable personal expense (he financed his own films), he decided to scrap the silent version of Welcome Danger and to immediately remake it with sound. He recast the actors who couldn't talk well with actors who could and rushed right back to what were mostly the same sets to redo the feature.

It may or may not have been worth the expense. Lloyd was never as good nor as popular once films began to talk. The sound version of Welcome Danger was a decent film but far from his best. The following year, he made Feet First, which was another one of those films in which he dangled on window ledges…to much less comedic impact than when he'd done the same kind of material silent. Demand for Harold Lloyd movies decreased from that moment on and he only made a few more films before his last picture, The Sin of Harold Diddlebock, in 1947.

Technically, that was the last Harold Lloyd movie to be released apart from some compilation films. But next month, that changes. On September 15, the silent version of Welcome Danger will be rescued from the vault and screened (with musical accompaniment) at the Motion Picture Academy in Beverly Hills. Only a few film scholars have seen it so it is, in effect, a "new" release. If it gets a few more screenings before the end of the year, it might even be eligible for an Oscar…not that I'd bet real money on its winning one.

I'm looking forward to it, if only for the comparison with the talking version. And also because it's been something like thirty years since I saw a Harold Lloyd movie I hadn't seen before. I also think it's funny that the man has been dead since 1971 and he has more new movies coming out than Chevy Chase.

This runs a little under eight minutes. It's a segment from The Soupy Sales Show featuring Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis and Trini Lopez and disc jockey William B. Williams. The annoying kid is played by Frank Nastasi, who was Soupy's sidekick-puppeteer on his New York shows. This originally aired September 10, 1965.

Earl Kress writes about the strike currently being staged by the writers of America's Next Top Model — one of many TV shows that employs writers but calls them something else in order to avoid paying them Writers Guild minimums. (There's actually a secondary, non-monetary reason. Some of these "reality" shows don't want to have a credit that says "Written by" because they don't want to call attention to how much of the show is carefully scripted.)

You can guess where my sentiments lie. I'm going to try to get time to go by and join the picket line. The Guild has allowed this kind of thing to go on for way too long.

Matt Yglesias says that the original Bush administration estimates of the cost of the Iraq War — which ranged from $200 million to nothing at all — were waaaaay wrong. The total cost is going to be over one trillion dollars. How many businesses would just shrug and not get upset if some cost estimator was off by that many jillion percent? And if so much of the overage had just gone into contractors' pockets without work being properly completed?

Heading to Vegas soon? I might go, just so I can see one of my favorite comedians, Pete Barbutti. Pete's set up shop at the Four Queens downtown with singer King Errisson in a show called "Back to Back." Sounds like a winning parlay to me.

Pete holds the world's record for more appearances on The Tonight Show with Mr. J. Carson than any other comedian. There's a reason for this. He's awfully funny in front of an audience. Matter of fact, a few years ago, I got to hang out backstage with Pete a few times and he was even funnier back there, telling stories about Vegas and other performers and working for sleazy club owners. Someone is missing a bet by not grabbing guys like that (and alas, there aren't many guys like that left) and doing a cable show where they could share their anecdotes. In the meantime though, get thee to Sin City and see Pete Barbutti live and in person. You won't regret it.

Stephen Colbert causes trouble.

Here is a very important article in Vanity Fair about what happened the morning of 9/11, complete with audio excerpts from tapes made in the NORAD control room. Among other things, the piece demonstrates that a lot of what is commonly believed about the government's actions on that dreadful morning has been misreported.

With temperatures like that, how could they not be killing each other in the streets?

A beer commercial from 1958 starring one of the funniest men who ever lived.

Larry Gelbart writes about…oh, just go read it. You'll understand what it's about.

Every poll says that Americans overwhemingly favor raising the minimum wage in this country…and it isn't just Democrats or Liberals who feel this way. In the latest Gallup Poll, Democrats are in favor 94% to 5% but even Republicans approve of the idea by a margin of 75% to 22% or more than three-to-one. So why don't Republicans just pass the thing and make everyone except Walmart executives happy?

Along with his cohort Chet Stover, W. Watts "Buck" Biggers was one of the founders of Total Television, the company that brought us Underdog, Tennessee Tuxedo, Go Go Gophers, King Leonardo and his Short Subjects, The World of Commander McBragg and a number of other popular cartoons of the sixties. Mr. Biggers will be appearing on Sunday, September 10 at the one-day Los Angeles Comic Book and Science Fiction Convention down at the Shrine Auditorium. There, he will sign copies of his new book, How Underdog was Born, as well as an exclusive Special Collectors Certificate that comes with the purchase of the new Underdog Vinyl Figure from Dark Horse Entertainment. He'l be there from 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM and I plan to get down there and buy a book because I've never met the man and would like to. If you'd like to do likewise, check out the details at this website.

AP has a story out headlined "Experts Say Gibson's Apology Too Late." Who are these experts? They're described in the story as "celebrity crisis management experts" but there's really no such animal. What they are is publicists — folks whose main line of work is getting their clients mentioned in the press and onto magazine covers.

There are no experts in celebrity crisis management because there's no science there. Every celebrity is a little different in his or her public image and every scandal is different from every other scandal. Moreover, the playing field is constantly changing. What was shocking five years ago might not trigger a raised eyebrow today. Not all that long ago, if it came out that a major male star had openly used marijuana, participated in public group sex and groped unwilling women in the workplace, that star's name would have been mud. When all that came out about Arnold Schwarzenegger, people shrugged and his name became Governor. That may or may not be a proper response on the part of the public but what "expert" would have predicted it?

Expertise is based on precedents and there's no recent case of a star of Mel Gibson's magnitude getting caught making anti-Semetic remarks. And even if there were, it's different with Gibson because he's the guy who gave us The Passion of the Christ, about which many people had strong feelings, and it's well-known that his father is a Holocaust denier. Also, he made his remarks while drunk and some people — I'm not one of them — think you aren't responsible for what you say or do when intoxicated. Add to that that given what's going on overseas, this is a touchy time to be out there raising the idea that Jews are responsible for all wars and we're really in uncharted territory.

So will people forgive Mel Gibson? Some certainly will because some people don't think there's anything all that wrong with what he said. But no one knows how others will react. My guess is that there will be protests and boycotts of his next project or two and that he'll lose a few deals as some sectors of Hollywood distance themselves from the guy. At some point though, he'll make a big apology tour. He'll swear sobriety and denounce religious bigotry and surround himself with Jewish leaders who will praise his atonement and all the projects he will be doing for them and their people. All that plus his considerable personal charm will cause most of the anger to blow over.

Then it will just be a matter of whether he's making movies that people want to see…which is all that usually matters in his line of work. If he makes movies like Lethal Weapon and Braveheart, he'll remain a movie star and some people will say that the public was too quick to forgive an anti-Semite. If he makes crummy movies, his career will be over…but then if you make bad films, your career ends even if you don't get busted for drunk-driving and start talking like a Klansman. People will blame the arrest but it will really be the movies that destroy his career.

At least, this is my guess…and I emphasize that it's just a guess. All I know is that no one knows what's going to happen to the guy's stardom, not even those "experts." Because like I say, they aren't experts. They're just publicists trying to get some publicity for themselves.

It's one of the first commercials for Captain Crunch, done back when they were produced by Jay Ward's studio and supervised by Bill Scott. Bill is the voice of the pirate, Paul Frees is the announcer at the end and the Good Captain is performed by one of the greatest voice actors of all the time, the immortal Daws Butler. It's almost enough to make you want to eat the cereal.

My pal Bob Elisberg (who owes me a lunch or vice-versa) has some common sense points about the Republican love of playing Reverse Robin Hood, transferring financial burdens from the wealthy to the poor. I still think the desire to eliminate the estate tax is nothing more than a desire on the part of some of the wealthiest Americans to pay zero in taxes and to see the cost of running the country they profess to love shouldered by the lowest-paid.