As reported here and elsewhere, columnist Art Buchwald is in a hospice where he is expected to die before much more time has passed. He seems to be going with enormous courage and good humor, which I guess is how we all want to go as we approach the end credits of our lives. Last night, there was a nice little interview with him on Newshour With Jim Lehrer and you can view it on the 'net by going to this page. If you have the eleven minutes, you might find it somewhat inspiring.

I've taken down my Las Vegas Guide section so I oughta recommend The Las Vegas Advisor site as a source of tips and info on that fair city. The best part of the site is subscription-only but there's plenty of valuable info in the free portions, including a guide to every hotel and casino and its website, plus reader ratings of much of what they offer. The Advisor is just about the only entity that reports on what's happening in Vegas without accepting advertising revenue from the businesses on which they're reporting. They're totally impartial and honest, and if a show or hotel stinks, they'll tell you. They also have a strong sense of overview, taking a wide picture of how the business there is evolving.

In the "pay" section right now is an item of some interest. Each year, they track the increases in the ticket prices of Vegas shows, which have been going up and up at alarming rates. Currently, there are 77 different shows in town and the average admission fee is $62.02, which is a 15.58% increase from last year. That's 62 bucks per person. In July of '92 when they began this annual survey, the average price of a show was $27.05. What's more, there are now ten shows with a top ticket price of $100 or more — in many cases, the bottom ticket price is that much — plus two more that are only a buck or two under a hundred. Not figured into the survey is that there are also a number of headliners (Celine Dion, Barry Manilow, Elton John and Reba McEntire, to name four) for whom premium seating will run $200-$225 a seat.

There are probably — this is me talking now, not The Advisor — several reasons for the increase. One is that a number of the seedier hotels in Vegas have closed down to be replaced by fancier ones. This has meant many of the seedier shows have closed, as well, skewing the average upwards. Another is that there's been a trend towards four-walling, as discussed here. This means that the producers of a show are independent from the hotel and not as interested in using entertainment as a loss-leader to get you in to gamble. But the biggest reason is simply that people are willing to pay the new, higher prices. A number of shows simply decided, "Let's start inching ticket prices up and see how it affects business." The answer is that it hasn't affected it much. I'm told that one show went from around $50 a ticket to around $70 with no noticeable impact in the number of seats they were selling. If your business could get away with that, they would.

Fortunately, there are discounts available. There are two outlets in Vegas — Tix4Tonight and Tickets2Nite — which have what are usually half-price tickets for whatever isn't selling out. Once in a while (though not on Friday or Saturday nights), they even have a few ducats for the mega-shows. You cannot purchase tickets or even find out what they have by phone or on the web. You have to go to one of their outlets in the afternoon and see what they have for that evening. Another company, Goldstar Events, does do business online and in advance, and sometimes has nice discounts for Vegas shows and also for events in many other cities.

Going to the ticket outlets — which, depending on where you're staying, may not be conveniently located and which will probably always involve waiting in a line — is a pain and a waste of your vacation time. I suspect that we will soon see more discount outlets springing up across the city plus, to the extent the shows will allow it, services that will go get you half-price tickets for a small fee. In the meantime, it's a far cry from the day, not so long ago, when a bunch of my friends and I flew to Vegas one morning, saw three shows in one evening and caught a 1 AM flight home. Roundtrip airfare from LAX, which hasn't gone up that much since then, was $99 and the three shows plus cabfare and two meals (one of which was all-you-can-eat) collectively cost about another hundred per person. In fact, I won enough in twenty minutes of Blackjack to more than cover my expenses. Hard to do that these days.

Hey, is that Barry Newman — best known as the star of the TV series Petrocelli and for a recurring role on the current hit, O.C. — in the Adams Sour Gum commercial of today's Video Link? It doesn't look like him to me but six of you so far have written in to either ask if it's him or say you're certain. I don't suppose there's any easy way to verify this, nor is it that important. I think Mr. Newman used to live in my area as I used to see him around often. But I haven't spotted him in years and even if I did, I don't think I'd approach the guy to ask him that.

Let me direct you to a short but nice article on Howie Mandel in The Canadian Jewish News. Howie's one of the good guys in the business and if you've never seen him do stand-up, you're missing something. He improvises on stage more than any other comedian I've ever seen. What he does up there is not for kids and now that he has a hit with Deal or No Deal, he'll probably have the problem Redd Foxx had, which was people who came to see him, thinking he was going to be as clean and lovable as ol' Fred Sanford. Still, it's a small price to pay for fame and fortune.

I like Ben Stein on TV and in movies, dislike what he writes for the more rabid right-wing market, and once witnessed him be egregiously and pointlessly rude to a salesperson in the Good Guys store over on La Cienega. But this article makes me like him again, at least for a little while.

Richard Cohen used to write columns that argued against the premise that George W. Bush lied us into a war. Mr. Cohen has changed his mind.

Quite a few folks wrote today to say that they remember Otto Preminger's Skidoo and that it's even weirder than I said. Several more wrote to say they're dying to see it and one said, "I don't care if you did show us a trailer for the film. I refuse to believe a movie like that was ever made." I've seen the film and I'm inclined to agree with that last guy.

Several wrote to point out that Harry Nilsson (who was then just "Nilsson") is in the film and also that he performed on the soundtrack and in that trailer. Yes, he is and did — he even sang the credits — but we respect him, anyway. And Jerry Beck noticed something I hadn't: The cast includes Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin and Cesar Romero, the three main male villains from the Batman TV show. Mr. Preminger was also the villain in one episode of that series and George Raft, who's also in Skidoo, did one cameo. I don't know why that's significant but I just know it is.

I have it from two sources that Paramount Pictures has no rights to Skidoo and couldn't put it out on DVD if they wanted. The rights have reverted to the Preminger Estate, and apparently it was one of the movies Otto didn't want shown, lest it cost him his reputation. Easy to understand why.

One person wrote me that they hoped someone would put it out on DVD while a few of the cast members are still around to be interviewed for commentary tracks. Frankly, I'd be surprised if you could get those people to even admit they were in it.

The thing I'd love to find are the radio commercials that Mr. Preminger recorded for the film. They sounded like he knew he'd made a gobbler and was trying to order people into the theaters. His tone was angry and his accent was more Germanic than usual as he yelled, "GO SEE SKIDOO!" And he listed the cast members: "JACKIE GLEASON IN SKIDOO! GROUCHO MARX IN SKIDOO! PETER LAWFORD IN SKIDOO!" My friends and I used to do impressions of him and add remarks like, "GO SEE SKIDOO! YOU STILL HAVE FAMILY IN EUROPE!" Or "WE HAVE WAYS OF MAKING YOU SEE SKIDOO!"

Every website needs a cause and this one has three…

1. Get the Souplantation to add their Creamy Tomato Soup to their regular line-up.
2. Get the Cadbury Adams Gum Company to bring back Adams Sour Orange Gum. (We'll be discussing this with tomorrow morning's video link.)
3. Get Skidoo released on DVD.

I was thinking of adding something about stopping the War in Iraq or dealing with Global Warming but I prefer to avoid the easy, unimportant goals.

Gregg Easterbrook on the mess that is our space program. At one point, regarding the money we're pouring into the space shuttle and space station proposals, he writes…

At this point, the shuttle exists almost solely to service the space station, while the station exists almost solely to give the space shuttle a destination to fly to.

I think that's right. Not all that long ago, if you raised the question of why we were doing some of the things we were doing in space exploration, you got back the reply that you were mired in the past and didn't have a vision of the future. Maybe it's becoming a-okay to ask some of these questions now.

Is it possible to learn science from the Marvel Super-Heroes? Someone thinks it is. [L.A. Times, you might have to register.]

Hey, you know what movie isn't available on DVD and oughta be? Skidoo.

You heard me. Skidoo. The 1968 movie directed by Otto Preminger in a misguided attempt to connect with the youth/hippie movement.

Have you ever seen it? No? Well, it ought to be out on DVD so you can experience it at least once…and I won't even claim that it's good or bad. It's too weird to be good or bad. Depending on your mood, you might view it with the "Springtime for Hitler" look or just delight in the fact that Mr. Preminger was so totally out of control. I have this mental image of him giving orders on the set and sounding like that dictator in Woody Allen's Bananas who wants all underwear worn on the outside. You know…the one George W. Bush is starting to emulate.

Reportedly, in mid-shooting, Preminger realized things weren't going well so he called in several writers — including our old pal Stanley Ralph Ross, who worked on that Wonder Woman pilot I linked to here — to try and fix things. It was hopeless. In fact, Stanley later said that the attempt to course-correct in the middle of production probably made things less coherent. He also told me that he attended one screening where the projectionist got the reels in the wrong order and it really didn't make much of a difference.

There's an amazing cast that includes Peter Lawford, Mickey Rooney, Frank Gorshin, Frankie Avalon and Burgess Meredith. Jackie Gleason takes LSD and does a freak-out scene that would have been considered hokey on Dragnet. Groucho Marx was cast in the role of God and I guess he figured he could never top that so he never made another movie. I mean, there's something to be said for a film in which the most restrained, believable performance is given by Carol Channing.

Bootleg DVDs abound but there hasn't been an official release. So how's about it, Paramount Home Video? Your studio made Skidoo even if nobody there will admit it. You probably have the rights to put it out. If not, you can get them. It's not like anyone else will bid against you.

How can you resist a movie that brought in Sammy Davis Jr. and Dr. Timothy Leary just to appear in its trailer? And if you think I'm making any of this up or exaggerating, just click on the video link below.

Skidoo. It's time.

I mentioned here recently that I enjoy dining at Souplantation, which is a chain of soup 'n' salad restaurants. (In some states, the chain is called Sweet Tomatoes but it's pretty much the same place.) I especially like their Creamy Tomato Soup, which they've been featuring for the month of March. It's scheduled to leave the rotation this weekend so if you haven't tried it, you'd better hurry.

If you have tried it and you like it as much as I do, do us both a favor. Call the Sweet Tomatoes company and tell them. The toll-free phone number of their Customer Service department is (888) 374-8358 and there's supposed to be someone there to take your calls 24 hours, seven days a week.

Tell them you and everyone you know loves the Creamy Tomato Soup and will go back many times and spend much money at their establishments if only they will add it to their permanent line-up. Someone there will ask you which of their restaurants you went to and when, and they may ask for your name and phone number.

And if you like a good tomato soup, get to a Souplantation or Sweet Tomatoes soon. Officially, they change their non-permanent menu items every two weeks and the Classic Creamy Tomato is scheduled to go away on Friday. But many outlets won't start putting the new specials out until Monday so you might be able to get my fave on Saturday or Sunday. (Call first to ask and if they say they don't have it, say something like, "Then I'm never coming in your rotten business establishment again, you clod!" Maybe then they'll get the message.) Here's a page that shows you the fifteen states in which they're located. I was going to suggest that if you live outside the area, you plan a quick trip…but that would be really overselling this soup. On the other hand, I've crossed state lines for far sillier — though less moral — purposes.

Most politicians I like disappoint me sooner or later. The last year or so, John McCain has joined their ranks. Some of the reasons why (and why the man will have a hard time becoming president) are summarized in this article by E.J. Dionne.

While you're at it, read this weblog post about how McCain, who once denounced Jerry Falwell as a bigot, is now his bosom buddy. I don't think Falwell is the one who's changed.

Good news for us fans of Keith Olbermann.

There was also the 1982 prime-time animated series that Hanna-Barbera did for NBC called Jokebook…a show that almost no one saw. When I get finished with that script that's due, I'll write a little piece here about it. I didn't work on it but I was at H-B when it was done (the working title was Joe Barbera's Jokebook and they were serious about calling it that on the air) and it was a very sad project that could have been wonderful and wasn't.

And if I remember, I'll also write about the 1968 H-B series, The New Adventures of Huck Finn, which was a series with live actors running around an animated world. That was another show that nobody saw but I thought it was rather well done for what it was.

Back to the script…