I just realized that the last two items I posted here kind of go together. I hadn't heard about the death of Rickie Layne when I posted the link this morning to the video of Rod Hull but they were both great performers who manipulated very rude and funny puppets.

Just thought I'd mention the connection before dozens of you take the time to write in and make note of it.

Ventriloquist Rickie Layne, who made 38 appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show with his wooden friend Velvel, died Saturday at the age of 81. As this 2002 article in The Jewish Journal explains, Layne (born Richard Israel Cohen) owed his stardom to a recommendation from singer Nat King Cole.

Some additional details not in the article: The Sunset Strip nightclub mentioned in the piece was Ciro's, which was in the building where The Comedy Store is now housed. Cole's wife, Maria Cole, was playing there and her opening act, fresh from the Catskills and Miami hotel circuits, was Rickie Layne and Velvel. On October 23, 1955, Nat and Maria did the Sullivan show and told Ed about the wonderful Jewish comedian and his dummy with the Yiddish accent. Sullivan said he ordinarily liked to see an act before he booked it and that he wasn't travelling to the West Coast, where Layne was then working, for some time. Nat said, in effect, "Trust me on this one, Ed. Book the guy. If you don't love him, my next appearance with you is free."

Sullivan took the offer and Rickie Layne appeared on the January 1, 1956 episode of Ed's show, which was called Toast of the Town back then. Layne's lips moved more than Edgar Bergen's even but Velvel was hilarious and the act was immediately booked again, with many appearances to follow. Of all the acts that appeared on Sullivan's long-running variety series, only four others — Wayne & Shuster, Topo Gigio, Jack Carter and Myron Cohen — made more appearances than Rickie Layne and Velvel. He was one of Ed's main "go-to" guys when a given episode seemed in need of an extra comedy spot. (The Jewish Journal article says he made 48 appearances. It was actually 38.)

Alas, Layne's career did not much survive the end of the Sullivan program. He barely worked after the late seventies. His last public performance seems to have been in 1997 when there was a show/party at The Improv in Hollywood to celebrate the 100th birthday of the great Señor Wences. I should post an article I wrote at the time about that wonderful evening, but one of the things that made it special was the appearance of Velvel. Not long after, I was fortunate to attend a private party for Rickie Layne that celebrated his life and career, and to hear him tell wonderful tales of his years playing the Borscht Circuit. It was amazing how many hotel and showroom owners couldn't quite grasp the fact that the insults (and demands for better pay) that came out of Velvel's mouth actually were the views of Mr. Layne.

Oddly enough, the other day in the hospital, I watched an Ed Sullivan special on that in-house comedy TV channel I mentioned and saw a few seconds of Velvel in great form. I wish someone would assemble a special or a DVD of those acts presented in full. With so many people like this leaving us, those clips are all we have to remember the great art form represented by variety performers like Rickie Layne. And, oh yeah — Velvel, too.

One of the most-accessed articles I have on my site here is this one about the late Rod Hull, who performed an odd but hilarious act with his creation, Emu. Richard Schultz tips me off about this brief online clip of Rod in action — not the best example of the Hull technique but it may give you some idea of what he did.

There have probably been funnier moments on television than the opening of tonight's Daily Show with Jon Stewart, as they covered the story of Dick Cheney's hunting accident. But I sure can't think of one just now. They have a video clip up over at Crooks and Liars.

Those of you wishing to view episodes of The Bill Dana Show do not have to get yourself hospitalized to make this happen. A company called Corinth Films sells a DVD of six episodes. In fact, going by their website, Corinth Films sells nothing else. I have no idea what the quality of the video is…and $24.00 for a DVD of six half-hour TV shows seems steep to me but if you have to have 'em, there they be. The six episodes and the history of the show are described on the front end website, which is www.billdanaondvd.com. The installment I saw while in the hospital was, appropriately enough, the one on this DVD about Jose Jiminez (Dana) and Byron Glick (Don Adams) being afraid of donating to a blood drive. It featured a nice performance by Charles Lane, who always played a crotchety something, as a crotchety doctor and it amused me…but of course, I was full of antibiotics at the time.

The Los Angeles Times [registration might be required] joins the never-ending legion of those who write about Superman but are unable to correctly spell the names of both Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster at the same time.

And what a joy to be typing on a non-laptop keyboard sitting at my desk instead of with the computer balanced on a hospital table between my pitcher of water and a dish of mandarin orange segments left over from Friday breakfast.

Hello all. Thanks again for all the nice messages and I hope you enjoyed the hospital blogging, which did much to preserve my sanity. The staff at Cedars-Sinai (that's where I was) was uniformly efficient and helpful, but being in one little bed in one little room for four days…well, that's the most confined I've felt since I wrote Scooby Doo. My foot looks about like it did before the inflammation and I've switched from intravenous antibiotics to the oral variety. A few days of non-rigorous lifestyle and occasionally elevating said foot and all should be well.

Based on e-mails from several folks who've had Cellulitis, it looks like I had a minor case and managed to get it treated before it spread too far. Still, it's not an experience I would recommend to anyone.

I should tell you about Channel Six at Cedars-Sinai. Their TV offerings include all the local stations and most basic cable channels, plus a number of in-house channels, all but one of which feature documentaries on taking better care of one's health. The exception, Channel Six, is their "Board of Governors Comedy Channel," offering reruns of old TV shows. They have episodes of The Jack Benny Show, The Burns and Allen Show, The Bill Dana Show, The Andy Williams Show, and "best of" specials of Carol Burnett, the Smothers Brothers, Pat Paulsen, Johnny Carson. They kept rerunning a "Debbie Reynolds in Las Vegas" show and a special with Carol Channing and Pearl Bailey, and there were also David Copperfield magic specials, plus a very nice little magic special featuring one of my favorite sleight-of-hand artisans, Johnny "Ace" Palmer.

I hadn't seen a Bill Dana Show in years. I forgot how good it was, with Jonathan Harris and Don Adams stealing scene after scene from Mr. Dana, and how almost the entire production staff consisted of the same people working on The Dick Van Dyke Show that year. I'm told these shows are syndicated these days but not where I can see them; not without putting myself into the hospital again, which I have no intention of doing.

Yesterday, the entire in-house TV feed, including CBS, NBS, ABC, CNN, USA Network, etc., was about a second and a half out of sync. I imagined some poor guy in another room waking up from surgery, turning on his set and thinking, "Oh, no! What's happened to me?"

And that's about all I have in mind to write at the moment. Have to go put my foot up and enjoy my own bed for a while.

My doctor just came in, looked at my leg and ordered me to "enjoy the sumptuous breakfast here" — there's a risky prescription — and go home. Then he left because apparently the Emergency Room is full of people who've been accidentally shot by Dick Cheney.

I'm sure we're in for endless jokes about Dick Cheney joining Aaron Burr in the ranks of American Vice-Presidents Who've Shot Someone. But here's a question: Why is the man who's a heartbeat away from the presidency out hunting? The whole idea of hunting bothers me but leave that aside. Let's say it's a great, fun sport. Shouldn't the Secret Service still say, "Uh, Mr. Vice-President, we don't like you being around people with guns"? I mean, isn't there some unnecessary security risk in there? Even if everyone in the hunting party passes a rigid security clearance, the Secret Service is supposed to keep weapons away from the Veep. And if Cheney could accidentally shoot this poor guy, isn't there some danger of this poor guy accidentally shooting Cheney?

I always understood that when you run for public office of this magnitude, you agree to sacrifice a certain amount of privacy and freedom to the folks charged with protecting you. Anyone here remember Ronald Reagan claiming the reason he didn't attend church more often was because the Secret Service thought it was a security risk and asked him not to? I'm no fan of Mr. Cheney but couldn't he put off killing quail 'til he's out of office? There'll be quail then. There may not be a future for our economy but there'll be quail.

This blog post by Glenn Greenwald is already sparking feverish debate and is worth a read, no matter how you feel about George W. Bush. Watching Fox News here in my hospital bed the other day I was struck that it really isn't a Conservative news channel. It's an Everything-Bush-Does-Is-Right news channel. Clearly on many issues — the power of the Chief Exec, deficit spending and immigration, to name three — there's room for Conservatives to be unhappy with the guy in the Oval Office. But not on Fox, at least not while I was watching.

Dick Cheney with a gun.

It has just been pointed out to me that I titled the post before last "Sunday Morning Hotel Blogging." I thought I was typing "Sunday Morning Hospital Blogging." I don't know how my fingers made that mistake because this place is definitely not a hotel. At a hotel, they don't serve you rotten food, make you sleep in uncomfortable beds, have people screaming in the hallways in pain, or stick you with needles. Except in Vegas at the Imperial Palace.

A lady in the next room went hysterical early this morning. I don't know what it was about because the nursing staff had a shift change before I could ask anyone…not that it was really any of my business, anyway. From what I could hear, it was a relentless stream of bad news that got to her. One new nugget was delivered and it was one grief too many. She began crying and screaming and taking it out on the staff here, which of course is thoroughly professional and in no way responsible for any of the woes that have befallen this poor woman. I mean, I assume she was not wailing about the stingy servings of apple juice.

She yelled and cursed and at one point, she pushed my door open and tried to come into my room, thinking (I guess) that it was some sort of exit or way out of her misery. The nurses gently steered her back to her room and kept her there until someone arrived who had her relocated. Within an hour, her room had been cleaned and someone else was wheeled in. I mentioned to one of the women who come in periodically to jab pins into me that it was a rapid turnover and she said, "I'm surprised it took an hour. They're jammed up down in Emergency and they're out of beds. People are waiting six, seven hours then getting told to go somewhere else for treatment."

I said, "That's awful. Is there some sort of epidemic going on?"

"No," she said. "It's like that most of the time." Then she stuck a needle in me and left.

As I mentioned, being a patient in a hospital is altogether new for me. I've logged many hours in these buildings visiting friends or tending to parents. Apart from my appendectomy, this is my first time in the embarrassing gown and the uncomfortable adjustable bed.

I have a fair amount of memory of having my appendix out when I was a small lad. The event did not scare me but it scared my father, who was as compassionate and kind as any other man who was never up for sainthood. (If they gave Jews equal consideration, he'd be a shoo-in.) But he was a nervous man and the fact that he was nervous convinced me I was supposed to be. I remember that, I remember being wheeled into a big room and put to sleep and I remember waking up in a different place with the odd sensation that while closing my incision, the surgeon had absent-mindedly sewn me to the blankets and sheets.

This was, of course, a kids' wing of a hospital. There was a little playroom and as soon as I could walk, I was encouraged to go in there and play with the toys that were there, none of which interested me. That was until I found a small stash of 78 RPM records and a little parti-colored record player (remember record players?) on which to play them. They were all lame fairy tales except for one record, which was by Paul Winchell, who was already one of my five-or-so favorite people to watch on TV. On one side, he and Jerry Mahoney sang, "When You Come to the End of a Lollipop" and on the other, he and Knucklehead Smif warbled a little ditty called, "Run Little Rabbit, Run." For the next two days, until they let me go home, I played the hell out of that record. It wasn't so much that I liked the songs as that I liked the sound of Winchell. He made me feel like I was still in touch with my real world. I think the hospital may even have checked me out a bit prematurely because the nurses in that ward couldn't stand another chorus of "Run Little Rabbit, Run."

Where I am now, I'm in a private room. I have a TV with a pretty good array of channels but, alas, no TiVo. As much as I moan about the cuisine, right now if you gave me my choice of Dr. Hoggly-Woggly's ribs or the ability to pause, rewind and record shows for later viewing, I might opt for the latter. Spoiled by TiVo is what I am. Last night, I tried to watch A Fish Called Wanda on TCM but every time someone came in to take my blood pressure, check my blood sugar, check my oxygen, reinsert my I.V. needle, start a new I.V. drip, deliver the evening snack, etc., I had to turn the TV off for a few minutes and I finally gave up. I made it about as far as the scene where Kevin Kline dangles John Cleese out the window and that was it. When I get home, I'll haul out the DVD. I have watched a number of shows here I ordinarily do not watch and have been reminded why it is I never watch them. Exactly when was Bob Barker replaced with an audio-animatronic with one facial expression?

I also have my laptop here. That helps. And visitors.

I had an uncle once who wouldn't go near hospitals; not until they had to put him in them. He saw hospitals as negative places, buildings filled with pain and suffering and people with no hope. I see them as just the opposite: Places where everyone is committed to prolonging and saving lives. (Okay, have it your way: Everyone but the kitchen staff.) Somewhere on this weblog, I may have mentioned a friend who's an emergency room doctor at another hospital, the one to which I often take my mother. He's been there 20+ years and had many chances to be promoted out of the pace and messiness of the department. Which is exactly what he doesn't want. He thinks that job is what doctorin' is all about, dealing with an endless variety of real crisis situations and seeing some immediate good come out of his efforts. I lack a good 98.6% of the skills you need to be a doctor, starting with the ability to look at blood and injuries without diving for the vomitorium. The only three things I think I'd be good at would be bedside manner, taking Wednesdays off and billing. Whenever I'm around doctors and sense people going out in better shape than when they arrived, I think about how satisfying and blessed the job must be.

This afternoon at the WonderCon in San Francisco, someone went up to a friend of mine and said, "Have you heard anything about Mark? It says on his weblog that he's having major surgery." My friend panicked and raced to phone me. I assured him that I'm just in here with an infection which is being treated with intravenous antibiotics (I have an I.V. line in my arm as I'm typing this so it would be very insensitive to write in and point out typos). As you can see by scrolling down, I posted no such thing here but maybe I shouldn't be surprised. Almost every political posting here brings an e-mail from someone with the same level of reading comprehension.

Really, I'm doing well with this. The lower right leg is now almost the color of the old Crayola light orange crayons and we may see patches of flesh by morning. I'll write more about this stay when I'm not working on a laptop balanced on a tray over my thighs…but the hospital staff is terrific and the room is not depressing and, hey, dinner even tasted like one of the four basic food groups. I don't know which one but it was definitely one of them. Apart from the endless parade of women coming in to stick needles in me, it ain't that bad. I've worked on cartoon shows that were more unpleasant than this.