It can be dangerous to go see your friends in plays. I mean, what happens if the whole evening exudes the distinct aroma of fetid mackerel? What do you say to them when you see them after? Do you lie your butt off and say it's Tony Award material? Or do you try to get away with some non-committal statement that they'll (probably) eagerly infer is praise? In the past, I've gone the latter route and tried to get by with lines like…

• "It was an evening I'll never forget!"
• "Only you could have done this!"
• "You made such interesting choices!"
• "Words are inadequate to describe what I'm feeling at the moment!"
• (My favorite:) "Of all the evenings I've spent in the theater, this was certainly one of them!"

Fortunately, I needed no such dodges last night when I saw my pal Jim Brochu in his new one-man play, Zero Hour. Jim knew the late, great Zero Mostel and has now managed to magically — don't ask me how — turn himself into the guy. The play takes the form of a long interview with Zero, conducted in 1977, just before he was to begin rehearsals for a play called The Merchant. Unmentioned in Jim's text is that Mostel was stricken during those rehearsals and never got to open in that play.

During the two-or-so hours Zero discusses his life, his capricious stardom, the tragedy of blacklisting, the near-tragedy of a bus accident that almost cost him his leg, his marriage, his fatherhood, his major roles, his painting and most of all, his anger. The play is at times very, very funny and — at times — very, very sad. Best of all, Jim captures the basic absurdity of the way the man thought, rambling from topic to topic, going from non sequitur to non sequitur and having them somehow flow logically from one to the next. It's probably as close as you could ever come to spending time with the genuine article. Jim even re-creates Mostel's testimony before the Senate subcommittee and throws in a few choruses of "If I Were a Rich Man."

Should you be in or around Hollywood through mid-August, I suggest you go. It plays at the Egyptian Arena Theater, which is an annex to the famous Egyptian Theater movie palace up on Hollywood Boulevard. Details can be found here. And if you're not in this area, just wait. I have a feeling Jim is going to be doing this all over America before he's through.

From Dave Sikula comes an identification of the clip in the previous posting…

In re, the Gene Kelly/Woody Allen clip, based on the poster for Half a Sixpence (which ran from April 25, 1965 to July 16, 1966) in Shubert Alley, I'm guessing we're looking at a bit of Gene Kelly: New York, New York, which according to this site and the IMDb, aired on February 14, 1966 with Julie Andrews as the other guest star. "This is not available on video, however, if you visit New York City or Los Angeles you can view it at the Museum of Television and Radio." Weird to see the two of them together. Good catch.

That sounds like it. Thanks, Dave.

I'm not entirely sure where this is from. It seems to be a sketch from a Gene Kelly TV special of some sort with Woody Allen as a guest. I'm guessing 1968. Anyway, it's a little less than four minutes so give it a look…

Five.

…before this year's Comic-Con International kicks off in San Diego. In case you're interested, the long-range projections of the National Weather Service suggest mostly clear skies with highs around 75° and nighttime lows around 65°.

The convention folks have posted the schedules for Thursday Programming and Friday Programming with the other two days to be posted this weekend. But you don't care about that stuff. You care about the programs I'm hosting. Here's that schedule…

Notice that this year, we're doing not one but two big Cartoon Voice Actor panels — one on Saturday, one on Sunday. These are always a highlight of the con so you might want to make sure you catch one…or both. And of course, there'll be the annual Quick Draw! competition and the annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel and the Golden/Silver Age Panel and…well, just read the list. A lot of fun events. Hope to see you at some of them.

I'll post the answer later today.

A nice review of the Sergio Aragonés issue of Solo.

So one night on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, they had the Reverend Al Sharpton booked as a guest. This is in the early days of that fine program. They booked Sharpton but apparently no one told Sharpton. If he'd known, he'd have been there. No force in this universe can keep Al Sharpton from a TV camera. But there was a screw-up somewhere and when it came time to roll tape, he was nowhere to be found. So what did The Daily Show do? Click today's video link and see for yourself. (The beginning of the clip is washed out in green but it'll clear up in a sec.)

Fred Kaplan tells us what this Korean missile business is all about.

Let's all go peruse a good article from 2002 about the late Jan Murray. It starts with a small error when the writer says he watched Murray host Treasure Hunt in 1964. That show went off the air in 1959. But after that, it's well worth a read.

Here's a piece from the Washington Times about how Congressfolks feel about their appearances on The Colbert Report. What's odd about the response is that (a) some of the ones who've been made to look ridiculous seem pleased with the response and (b) this is the first time I can recall disagreeing with anything Barney Frank said.

Enron überthief Kenneth Lay died this morning. Matt Drudge, with his usual flair for accuracy, briefly had it up as a suicide, then switched to a heart attack.

Obviously, anyone's death is a tragedy. Obviously also, it's hard to get too emotional about Mr. Lay, who swindled so many people out of their retirement funds, health insurance and old age money. There's some sort of irony in there having to do with him not needing retirement funds now but I don't have time to phrase it properly.

When I read of the news this morning, I thought I'd post something here about how we're going to have to put up with conspiracy theories that someone — say, George W. Bush — had him murdered so he wouldn't rat on them. But I didn't get around to posting until now and I see they've already started. Let's hope this one doesn't reach Vince Foster proportions.

Jon Meacham on the American tradition of being united, rather than divided by religious differences.

I haven't gotten around to seeing the Broadway show, Avenue Q…but everyone I know who's seen it says it's wonderful. Here's a number from the 2004 Tony Awards telecast that would seem to bear this out…

Jane Mayer on the Bush administration's view of its own power…with special emphasis on Dick Cheney's interesting interpretations of our laws.