We were wondering when DirecTV would begin carrying Sleuth, the new cable channel that just runs old detective shows and movies. Turns out the answer is later this year.

First one of the new year! For the benefit of those of you who can't remember all the way back to 2005, here's how it works: We give you five links to five alleged websites. Four of these actually exist out there in the way-out worldwide web, whereas the fifth is a despicable fraud being perpetrated on you by the untrustworthy operator of this unlikely-but-real weblog. What you need to do is figure out which of the five below ain't Kosher. As always, there are big cash prizes to be won…but not here. Okay, go to it…

• CelebHeights – Just how tall is your favorite movie star? You can find out at this site which is dedicated to listing celebrities and telling how they measure up.
• Guinea Pig Costumes – Is your guinea pig running around naked? Have you no shame? Dress your guinea pig in one of these stylish outfits.
• The Museum of Burnt Food – Left that piece of raisin bread in the toaster overnight? Well, you may have created a masterpiece.
• Ice Cream Maker Guy – He's the most obscure character in the entire Star Wars saga…and now, at last, there's a whole website devoted to him!
• The Shady Brady Lady – A criminal record in the past of actress Florence Henderson? Say it isn't so…but it is. This website has dug up the dirt, mug shot and all.

Real-but-unlikely websites suggested by Bill Stiteler, Joel O'Brien, Tony Isabella and Casey Roberson. If you folks want to see this game more often, send me some links to real websites that sound like I made them up.

Frank Rich asks if Jack Abramoff will turn out to be George W. Bush's Monica Lewinsky. In the meantime, I'm asking what I'm doing up at this hour.

Sorry to hear of the passing of Dennis Marks, a prolific writer, mostly of animation. Dennis was one of the main writers of the Beatles cartoon show and of many other successful programs, including Batfink, The Transformers, The Superman-Aquaman Hour and Josie and the Pussycats. He was the head writer of the 1981 Spider-Man cartoon series and the 1982 Incredible Hulk show and did occasional voices on both. In theatrical animation, he wrote the 1990 movie of The Jetsons and worked on Tom and Jerry: The Movie, which was released two years later. He also produced the childrens' TV series, Wonderama, for many years and wrote a few scripts for DC Comics in the sixties. I worked with Dennis on the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon show, which he co-created. He was a clever guy and very passionate about everything he did.

A memorial service will be held on Friday afternoon, January 20, at the Magic Castle in Hollywood. Dennis was a longtime fixture of the Castle. Every Friday lunchtime for years, he could be found on the same stool at the Owl Bar, nursing a straight-up martini and holding court about what was wrong with the world. Wherever he is now, he's giving them an earful.

I haven't seen it in any of the obits that are online so far but there's a great story about Shelley Winters that other actors tell. I must have heard it a dozen times just from Howard Morris.

It took place late in her career, about the time she hit age seventy. She had a string of auditions with directors and casting directors who looked like children to her and who, she felt, were not showing her the proper respect. She was, after all, Shelley Winters. So when her agent sent her to meet one particular gentleman who was casting a new feature film, she went prepared.

She sat down in the casting director's office, right in front of his desk. After some pleasantries, the man said to her, "Now, Ms. Winters…remind me what you've done."

Shelley Winters reached into a big bag she'd brought with her, pulled out an Academy Award statuette and slammed it down on the man's desk. "That was for The Diary of Anne Frank," she announced. Then she pulled out another Oscar and put it next to the first one. "And that one was for A Patch of Blue. Now, why don't you remind me what you've done?"

I don't know for sure that happened. But it should have.

I met Ms. Winters only once and only for a few minutes. Chuck McCann introduced us at a restaurant and I said something real geeky. I think it was, "You know how everyone who meets you tells you what a great actress you are. Well, I agree." And she really was great in just about everything she did, ranging from the films for which she won those statuettes to fluff like Bloody Mama and a guest villain role on the Batman TV show. I also admired the incredible candor she displayed in her books and talk show appearances. One time, she was telling Johnny Carson about how she'd go to a Hollywood spa every week and sit around the sauna, discussing the men of Hollywood with other actresses of all ages. Johnny asked, "What's the main topic?" And though NBC bleeped it, you could tell from the audience reaction and Mr. Carson's expression, she'd answered, "Penis size."

Just when the laugh died down, she added, "Your name came up the other day." Johnny quickly decided it was a good time for a commercial…and I'm not sure he had Shelley on his show again after that. He should have. She was one of the best.

After our recent notation of the birthday of Mr. Soupy Sales, several of you wrote to ask where on God's Green Earth it is possible to obtain copies of some of his old TV shows. Well, Amazon is now taking advance orders for Soupy Sales: The Whole Gang is Here, a boxed set of 3 DVDs that offers 190 minutes of Soupy and his friends. I have no idea what's in it or why a 3 DVD set sells for only eighteen dollars or why they can't get 190 minutes of material on one DVD. So let's announce this one with a warning flag and suggest you might want to wait until someone's actually seen the thing. If you feel like living dangerously though, here's a link to order it.

In the meantime, American Laurel and Hardy buffs have reason to rejoice. In the past, Stan and Ollie films have received a major, prestige DVD release in the United Kingdom but have only trickled with minor fanfare and cheap presentation into the U.S. market. Last March, for instance, Hallmark quietly issued a low-priced DVD with no special features and not the best prints of two of their features (Way Out West and Block-Heads) and one short (Chickens Come Home) You can order it here and again, caution is warranted.

This neglect of my favorite comedians begins to change in April with two offerings from different companies. Warner Home Video brings us a two-disc set under the Turner Classic Movies imprimatur. It features The Devil's Brother and Bonnie Scotland with commentary tracks by Leonard Maltin and Dick Bann along with trailers, clips and a documentary on short subjects. I am told the print quality is wonderful. You can advance order this set here if you like. The two films included aren't the absolute best of Stan and Ollie but they're way ahead of the films Fox Home Video is releasing at about the same time.

Fox has announced a Laurel and Hardy Giftset (that may not be the actual name) containing three later films — Great Guns, The Big Noise and Jitterbugs. By contrast to the Soupy Sales set above, this 3-disc offering contains three whole features, loads of trailers, audio commentary by Laurel & Hardy expert Randy Skretvedt, photo galleries and other material for a suggested retail price of $35. It all sounds like a first-rate packaging of three of Stan and Ollie's second-rate films. When The Boys (as we lovingly call them) moved from the Hal Roach Studio to Twentieth-Century Fox in 1941, a certain amount of their greatness did not make the transitition with them. Their later features are lesser works for the most part…or at least, that's my opinion and the opinion of most long-time scholars of their work. Recently within the Laurel and Hardy fan circles, a vocal minority has emerged to argue that the later films have been unfairly maligned, in part because viewers took their cue from Laurel's expressed dislike for them.

You can decide for yourself. Most in the "old school" of Laurel and Hardy fandom generally consider The Big Noise the poorest feature they made (I would argue for The Bullfighters, which is not on this set) while Jitterbugs is generally regarded as the best of the later crop. But nothing Stan and Oliver ever did was without interest or a few priceless moments. I don't have an Amazon link yet to offer you but one should be along soon. I'm sure gonna order it.

A great magazine cartoonist — whose style is familar to everyone who ever opened a Playboy and got past the breasts — has passed away at the age of 84. Eldon Dedini put in several years at Disney as a gagman (on Donald Duck shorts, Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Fun and Fancy Free and a few others) before he began selling cartoons to Esquire. They liked his work enough to not only fill their pages with his drawings but also to hire him to write gags for other artists. In 1959, he segued to Playboy and became one of their most prolific and valuable cartoonists. The National Cartoonists Society gave him their award for gag cartooning four times, which should give you some idea of how respected he was by his peers. Here's a link to the New York Times obit.

And just to make the day complete: While I was posting the previous message, my computer monitor breathed its last.

I had a whole batch of errands to run today…

Stop #1: My ATM. I complete the transaction and head for my car when I suddenly hear my name yelled. A woman I do not recognize runs up to me and begins hugging me and smothering me with kisses. Finally noticing my clueless expression (well, more clueless than usual), she informs me she is Kris, who worked as the second P.A. (i.e., the writers' secretary) on a show I wrote in 1982. She does not blame me for not knowing who she is because not only has so much time passed but she has also changed her hair color, lost sixty pounds and had her nose made smaller and her bustline made bigger. We have a nice conversation and Kris tells me that she hopes to see me again some day. She has more plastic surgery and another hair color adjustment planned so she says she'll make sure and tell me it's her.

Stop #2: Electronics Shop #1. I want to buy a pair of wireless headphones to plug into my new TV set so I stop at a store that should have some. They do not. The salesguy looks at me very strangely…as if there's something very odd about me wanting wireless headphones. I shall have to go elsewhere but before I do, lunch would be nice.

Stop #3: A Small Sandwich Stop. I go in and order a small sandwich. The lady behind the counter gives me the same kind of odd look and I think, "What is it with people today?" She says she'll bring my order to my table. Later, when she does, she summons up the courage to ask me, "Do you know you have lipstick all over your face?" Oh, so that's why the guy at the Electronics Shop looked at me that way.

Stop #4: The Men's Room of the Small Sandwich Shop. A look in the mirror confirms that I am streaked like an Apache in a bad western. Why do they make lipstick that doesn't stick to lips and why does Kris purchase it? She has every right to change her appearance but did she have to change mine? I seem to have also gotten a few big crimson streaks on my shirt so, figuring it's better to be wet than red, I remove the shirt, wash those parts of it, wash my face, put the shirt back on and depart.

Stop #5: A Sav-On Drug Store. I go in and purchase a few items. At the checkout line, the cashier gives me the same odd look. Since I know I don't have lipstick all over my face, I ask her what's so odd. She says, "Your shirt." I look down and realize that I have misbuttoned my shirt. The top button is in the second buttonhole from the top and all the others are off one. It is embarrassing to realize that I am 53 years old and apparently unable to dress myself.

Stop #6: The Men's Room of the Sav-On Drug Store. I discover it's worse than I thought because when I tucked my shirt in back in the Men's Room of the Small Sandwich Shop, I got the shirt tail caught in the zipper of my pants. I zip it down and the shirt gets further ensnarled and then I can't move the zipper up or down. I spend a good five minutes in a toilet stall straining and grunting before I finally disengage shirt from fly. During this, others are coming in to use the urinals outside the stall and I can only imagine what they think is going on in there.

Stop #7: Electronics Shop #2. I ask a salesguy if they carry wireless headphones. This salesguy gives me the same odd look as the salesguy at the first Electronics Shop. I ask this one why he's looking at me that way. He says, "Nobody uses wireless headphones any more." I think from now on, I stay home and order everything through Amazon. Including my small sandwiches.

It has now been one month since I notified the Internet Movie Database that they've given me a credit for something that my friend Earl Kress did. They still have me listed for it.

Glenn Greenwald writes a weblog post that nails what I think is wrong with defenses of the Bush administration's warrantless spying.

This e-mail came to me the other day and I get one very much like it about once a week lately. I thought I'd answer this one in public…

I'm a screenwriter and I've been developing a new science-fiction idea that has comic book overtones. Given that Hollywood seems interested in comic books these days, I thought what I ought to do is to sell my idea as a comic book first. That might make it more appealing to the studios and it would also enable me to copyright the material in my name before entering into negotiations with them, which would give me a more favorable position. Can you recommend any artists or publishers that I can contact to make a comic book come about? And does this sound like a good way to go about marketing my idea?

No, but bad ways sometimes succeed, too. By that I mean that Show Biz is full of flukes and unlikely turns — I call it the Conan O'Brien Rule — and it's possible to go about things via the illogical, unprecedented way and have it turn out well. It's also possible to strike oil if you go out in your back yard in spiked shoes and jump around but it might not be the best investment of your time and energy.

What's wrong with your plan? Well, first off, getting into comic books is not easy. There are a lot of good folks who are interested in doing comics not as loss leaders for movies but because they actually wish to make their careers in that field, and they haven't been able to swing it. For a novice, "breaking in" can be a heckuva lot of work. I'm not sure you want to expend that much effort to establish yourself in a field that you don't really want to be in for very long if you can help it.

Second point: Publishers these days are well aware of the financial benefits of selling a comic book to the movies — that's the only reason some of them are publishing at all — so you probably won't be able to get a deal where you totally control the movie rights. Most likely, getting your idea issued as a comic book will mean taking the publisher on as a partner, and some will not be content to be silent partners. Some, in fact, will insist on controlling those movie rights. That could wind up working for you but it doesn't seem to be what you're after here.

There are two possible exceptions to the above Second Point. One is if you walk into the publisher's office with fabulous credits and contacts in Hollywood. I mean, if Kevin Smith wanted to make the kind of deal you're talking about — and was willing to cut the publisher in on the potential bonanza in films and video games and such — he could swing it. His name would help sell the comic and his clout would help sell the movie. I'm assuming you don't have the rep of a Kevin Smith.

The other possibility is if you're willing and able to deliver a finished comic to the publisher with a very low advance and to take your main compensation as royalties and profits. Assuming the material seemed promising, some company might see a buck to be made (or at least, not lost) in just publishing with maybe a small share of any ancillary income. The problem with this option is that not only would you have to produce the comic for very little up front, you'd have to find an artist who would, too. Probably, you'd need more than one artist: A penciller, an inker, a letterer, a colorist, etc. The profits from most comics these days, if you're not a superstar creator or working on a superstar character, are not huge so it's tough to make the math work for everyone involved. It's doubtful you could offer your collaborators a high enough share to make their gamble seem worth it; not without working some sort of Max Bialystock scam.

All that said, there is something to your idea. A comic book can be a very good sales tool for a movie or TV project. Jack Kirby used to insist that any comic he'd done was a blueprint for a movie, and it's much easier to sell an idea when you can hand someone a blueprint. The trouble is that it's tough to get a good blueprint without being able to pay decent money for an architect.

Did you know that there are companies that sell your cell phone records? That someone can plunk down around a hundred dollars and get a record of every call you've recently made from your cell phone? Take a look.

Hey, guess what I get to do at the WonderCon in San Francisco in a couple of weeks! I get to interview Noel Neill, who played Lois Lane on the George Reeves Superman TV show. I'll be hosting a whole batch of panels and they'll all be fun and interesting, but I'm really looking forward to sitting down with Miss Lane Ms. Neill. (See? I get them confused.) There have been fancier adaptations of comic books, including others of The Man of Steel, with actual budgets. Still, there was something riveting about that series and it had to have been the acting. It certainly wasn't the special effects. Noel Neill was among the folks who made it all work, and I'll be talking to her about that and about her other roles in film and television.

Info on WonderCon can be found here. A full schedule of programming will appear there shortly and I'll be telling you here about the other ones I'm doing.

I tried to watch a little of the Alito confirmation hearing today, which just shows me that I'm not as smart as I think I am…or something like that. Hard to say which of the three was the most boring: The Democratic Senators giving long, pontificating preambles to hardball questions that Alito was not about to answer, the Republican Senators giving long, gushy prefaces to softball questions that he welcomed, or Alito saying nothing of interest in response to either. I always feel these things insult our intelligence by pretending there are open minds where none exist. The Senators all know how they're going to vote, which will be pretty much along party lines. (I saw Orrin Hatch on MSNBC. I think Alito could have confessed to strangling cocker spaniel puppies and Hatch would be saying what a fine, admirable man he was.)

And Alito knows how he's going to vote on most of the important issues that will come before him. I mean, come on. The guy's a judge. Even I have an opinion on Roe versus Wade and I write cartoon shows for a living.

Years ago in a bout of the same masochism that once caused me to eat at a Denny's Restaurant, I watched most of the Clarence Thomas hearings. I don't know why I did it…just hoping for a moment of honest candor that never came. Didn't hear it from the Senators of either party, didn't hear it from the nominee. I still don't know about Anita Hill but she wasn't aspiring to a lofty position in our government so she didn't matter as much. What I think I was waiting for was for some Democrat to say, when it was his time to speak, "Judge Thomas, all this crap about what you said to someone about privacy rights in a law lecture twelve years ago is irrelevant. The president nominated you for this position because he thinks you'll advance his Conservative agenda. I intend to vote against you for precisely that reason. Thank you. I'm done." Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden and all the rest could say that today to Alito but it wouldn't get them as much camera time.