I hear Don Rickles was in fine form on this evening's Tonight Show with Jay Leno, which was just taped. There's a story about Sinatra in Vegas and a bit of Carson remembrance that are supposed to be wonderful. He does not, however, call anyone a hockey puck.

A few guests' names will be added to panels as they confirm but for now, you can get an idea of what you'll want to see at the Comic-Con International…

Even John Podhoretz is appalled at that new book about Hillary Clinton. If it's getting trashed by folks like him, it's gotta be pretty distasteful.

Paul Cassidy, who was among Joe Shuster's first assistants on the Superman comic books and strip, has passed away at the age of 94. Cassidy spent most of his career as an art teacher but from around 1938 to 1940, he worked in Cleveland for the Siegel and Shuster shop, helping Joe to produce an ever-growing volume of stories and covers featuring their new creation. Scholars have argued over which work from this period is Cassidy's and which is Shuster's, but it would appear that many stories were done as follows: Shuster would do a rough layout of the pages, then Cassidy would tighten up the pencil art on the main figures. Then Shuster would ink main figures or, at least, heads. Finally, the page would be completed by Cassidy. The two Action Comics covers shown above are believed to be all or mostly all Cassidy's work, and he is said to have contributed several enduring refinements to the famous Superman costume and design.

Later Shuster employees — and there were many — had to deal with the fact that Joe was losing his eyesight. But Cassidy was around when Joe could still draw, so he assisted more than he ghosted. He left the job in 1940 and never ventured back into comics. This article tells more about his career.

I'm sure I'm making more of this than the event was worth but, heck, that's what weblogs are for. Rick Scheckman sent me a batch of newspaper clippings about the John Daly/Mike Wallace tempest. It's interesting that in those days, it was permissible for John Daly to work all week as an exec in the ABC news department…then, some Sunday nights, he would put on his tuxedo and brave the puns of Bennett Cerf to host a game show on a competing network. (Wallace had his own game show connections. He hosted several, including the pilot of To Tell the Truth, and even turned up as a panelist on some of the imitations of What's My Line? produced by the same production company, Goodson-Todman.) Although the dispute was over the Mickey Cohen interview in particular, one does get the feeling that there was also a breach of styles fanning the flames. Mike Wallace was then a kind of in-your-face TV host who supposedly — it didn't happen as often as people later remembered — got someone in the guest chair and cross-examined them until they revealed something they might have preferred not reveal on television. Daly was an enormously polite man — What's My Line? was sometimes so thick with etiquette as to be laughable — and he clearly resented what others called "rude journalism." He didn't think it was journalism at all.

In another clipping Rick sent me but which is too big to post here, Daly defends his position by noting that What's My Line? was a live, ad-lib show. Therefore, he said, there was the chance that the Mickey Cohen interview might somehow come up in conversation, and Daly didn't want that.

Interesting to note that in the article, Mr. Cohen is referred to as an "ex-gangster." In 1957, there were those who would have quibbled with the "ex" part. Four years later, he was in Alcatraz, serving his second sentence for income tax evasion.

Jeff Boice was nice enough to send in this additional info about an item I posted here the other day…

You talked about the What's My Line? episode where John Charles Daly objected to having Mike Wallace appear as the Mystery Guest. The back story is this: Mike Wallace started the Mike Wallace Interviews show on ABC the previous month (4/28/1957). Wallace was hired by Leonard Goldenson over the objection of Daly, who was the head of ABC News at the time. Daly made it clear that he considered Wallace to be a "mere interviewer" and not a real journalist, and that ABC News would have nothing to do with him. He also warned Goldenson that the Mike Wallace Interviews show would end up getting ABC in lots of trouble

And that trouble occurred on the show which aired the week after Mother's Day, 1957. Wallace had as his guest the gangster Mickey Cohen, who made a number of slanderous comments about L.A. Police Chief William Parker. Parker sued ABC for $2,000,000 (it was settled out of court for $45,000 and an on-air apology). As Wallace notes in his book, Close Encounters, "In the aftermath of the Cohen experience, he (Daly) was able to say 'I told you so' — and did."

If your date for the What's My Line? show was correct, it was the week after the Mickey Cohen interview. Daly probably felt that appearing with Wallace would have been seen as a display of support for Wallace from both him and ABC News. Of course, he should have also known that refusing to appear in public with Wallace would also be newsworthy, and he should not have been so upset when it made the papers.

Someone here will have a suggestion. I need to record some interviews, and I also want to audio-record the panels I'll be moderating at this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego. (By the way, one panel has fallen through so I'm down from 15 to 14. I have no idea what I'm going to do with all that free time since there's nothing to see at the con and no one interesting to talk to.)

I want to find a small MP3 recorder with a great built-in microphone for this purpose…something that records to either a hard drive or a Compact Flash card. I have MP3 players that will record but I don't like the results I've gotten with them. Anyone have a nomination?

The national executive committee of the Screen Actors Guild has voted to reject the recent deal negotiated for voicing video games, so you can ignore most of this item. Here's the latest news. This sounds like a major rift in the union that will lead to much yelling and little solidarity.

In other Hollywood labor news, the Writers Guild is making a major effort to organize the folks who write reality shows. Actually, there's an aspect of this story that's not being mentioned, which is that writers on reality shows were routinely covered by the WGA, once upon a time. I worked on a reality show in the eighties that was fully covered by the Guild. What happened over the years was that reality show producers started to realize they could avoid paying WGA rates for writers by not calling the people who were writing their shows "writers." They began calling them "segment producers" or "researchers" or some other title but still expecting these folks to create a script.

A lot of writers protested to the WGA. Some turned down such work because they didn't want to write without getting full guild benefits and protection and, of course, a writing credit. Others, for economic necessity, took those jobs but went to the Guild and said, "Can't you do something about this?" The problem was that the Guild didn't address it when it was a matter of two or three shows. The WGA covers a field of different writers doing different kinds of writing, and there's a kind of short-sighted democracy that causes it to ignore the issues that don't immediately impact the majority of members. Most WGA members do sitcoms, one-hour dramatic series or features, so those are the areas that receive most of the attention, and the needs of the game show writers and soap opera writers and variety show writers (and so on) get neglected. The reality show scam wasn't addressed for a long time because it didn't affect a lot of people…and now that it does, it's a more difficult problem to handle. One of these days, if and when variety shows make a big comeback, we're going to be in similar trouble. For over a quarter-century, variety show writers have been pointing out abusive employment practices in their area but since there have been so few of them, their grievances never became a high priority. Someday, when rectifying them will be more difficult, they'll be a major issue.

Mark miscalculated. The episode of To Tell the Truth with Baby LeRoy doesn't air on GSN until Wednesday morning. Sorry.

The episode of What's My Line? which ran this morning (just now) on GSN had a bit of history to it. It was from 5/26/57 and had Errol Flynn, of all people, on the panel. A few hours before the live broadcast, host John Daly learned that the Mystery Guest would be Mike Wallace, who was then gaining a reputation as a hard-hitting TV interviewer. Mr. Daly had some sort of personal dislike of Mr. Wallace or maybe it was a feud between newsmen who also hosted game shows. Whatever the reason, Daly announced that if Wallace set foot on their stage that evening, he [Daly] would not. He could not be dissuaded from this ultimatum so the producers of What's My Line? cancelled out Wallace and hurriedly replaced him with Sammy Davis, who was then appearing at a New York nightclub.

The next day, a story appeared in one of the New York newspapers detailing the switch. Daly was embarrassed and angered by the leak and though the account was unsigned, he was certain it was the handiwork of What's My Line? panelist (and newswoman) Dorothy Kilgallen. He didn't speak to her, except as necessary for his on-camera hosting responsibilities, for months after.

By the by: If you're following GSN's late night reruns, you might like to know that the What's My Line? broadcast tomorrow morning will have Mystery Guest Eddie Cantor (plus his daughter). Thursday morning's has Johnny Ray. Friday morning's has Peggy Lee. Saturday morning's should be Gene Kelly. And Sunday morning is Sal Mineo.

The reruns of To Tell the Truth which air just before What's My Line? have had some interesting folks, too. The one yesterday had Barbara Hammer, who was identified as a "fur model turned comedy writer." Ms. Hammer wrote for Danny Thomas, Ray Bolger, Pinky Lee and others, but her big credit was that she was a writer for Mr. Magoo cartoons, including one Oscar winner. She was credited on at least six U.P.A. cartoons from 1954 and 1955 and, given her background, I'm assuming she's the same Barbara Hammer who wrote an unsuccessful TV sitcom pilot in 1962 called His Model Wife, all about a model turned homemaker.

Question to anyone who knows: The classic 1962 animated TV special, Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, was written by someone named Barbara Chain. Ms. Chain also was credited as a writer on the 1950 Crusader Rabbit cartoons and on the 1965 Three Stooges cartoons, and it sorta sounds like Barbara Chain and Barbara Hammer might be the same person. The Internet Movie Database credits Barbara Chain also with work on the 1970 series, Villa Allegre, and the 1985 animated series, MASK, but I'm thinking this may be a different Barbara Chain. In fact, I feel like I met the Barbara Chain who worked on MASK, and she wasn't born when Crusader Rabbit was on. Or maybe I'm confusing her with Barbara Hambly, who wrote on MASK and later went on to become a top writer of fantasy books and comics. Anyway, my question is whether anyone can sort out all these Barbaras and tell us which of them, if any, might qualify for the title of first female animation writer.

If I've figured correctly, tomorrow morning's To Tell the Truth should feature a spot with Melvin Purvis, the G-Man who nabbed many famous gangsters, including John Dillinger. It's from 9/24/57. And next Monday, one of the subjects is the grown-up actor who'd once worked under the name of Baby LeRoy, getting kicked and hassled by W.C. Fields.

I learned to read from comic books, mostly from Dell Comics published between around 1957 and 1960. I read most of them and I had a subscription — a birthday gift from some relative — to Walt Disney's Comics and Stories. The rest, I bought off the newsstand…or my father would say, "Pick out a couple," and I'd pick out a couple and he'd buy them for me. Also, every so often, we'd cruise by a second-hand bookstore where they had a pile of used comics for a nickel each, six for a quarter. I would, of course, get six.

Every so often, a Dell comic would carry a subscription ad on the back cover like the one above. (That's a reduced section. You can see the whole ad by clicking on it.) One day in 1959, on the rear of an issue of Looney Tunes, I came across the offer depicted. For one dollar, you could receive twelve issues of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies…so right there, you saved money and you also received the security of knowing you wouldn't miss an issue. But, like they say in bad infomercials these days, that's not all! You also got a handsome membership certificate in the Dell Comics Club and a Dell Comics Club Lucky Penny Pocket Piece.

How could I pass that up? Never mind scoring $1.20 worth of comic books for $1.00. I suddenly wanted to belong to the Dell Comics Club. I wanted to belong and to feel a kinship with my fellow Dell Comics Clubbers and, of course, flash my Dell Comics Club Lucky Penny Pocket Piece for any and all to see.

Joining was not a simple thing since they wanted you to cut the coupon off the back cover, and I wasn't about to deface a comic book that way. In fact, it occurred to me that maybe this was an initiation test trick. Anyone who would cut up their comic book was not worthy of belonging to the Dell Comics Club and would be summarily rejected. So I made my father take the issue of Looney Tunes to work with him the next day and, when no one was looking, make a copy of the back cover on the office thermofax machine. My father did a lot of silly things to make his son happy and this was one of the less painful. Then we filled out the copy and he wrote me a check for a dollar, made payable to "Dell Publishing Co., Inc." and we sent it off. I was crushed to see that the next day's mail did not include my first issue, membership certificate and Dell Comics Club Lucky Penny Pocket Piece. Impatiently, I went back to the ad to check for any fine print that might indicate how long it would take for my goodies to arrive…and that is when I made a horrifying discovery.

The comic with the offer was from 1954.

It was one of those old ones I'd picked up at a second-hand store…in such good condition that it had seemed like a current issue. I had ordered from a comic that was five years old. (My excuse: I was only seven years old.) Feeling a bit foolish, I decided to say nothing and to wait and see what I did receive. Maybe the Dell Comics Club was holding open its membership for me? Just maybe?

No such luck. A few weeks later, I received a different Dell premium — a couple of Huckleberry Hound posters which I saw advertised as a subscription bonus in current issues. No membership certificate. No Dell Comics Club Lucky Penny Pocket Piece. Adding insult to injury or maybe injury to insult, I also began receiving a monthly subscription to Tom and Jerry comics. Never understood that. I imagined some guy at the Dell company going, "Hey, you know that kid who ordered the Looney Tunes subscription? Well, he was stupid enough to order from an old issue so he doesn't deserve Looney Tunes. Send him Tom and Jerry, instead!"

But that's how I never joined the Dell Comics Club…and how I missed several issues of Looney Tunes. When I was in my thirties, I decided to rectify the second problem. I decided to fill out my collection of Looney Tunes and, by searching dealers' tables at comic conventions, I was able to do this. Got 'em all…and back when the prices were low enough to do it for a buck or three an issue. Since the Dell Comics Club was long defunct — I presumed, since by then the Dell Comics company sure was — there was no chance of rectifying my childhood trauma by joining.

However…

There's a reader of this site named Mark Thorson. He's one of several who won't let a typo sit on this site for more than about three minutes. If I spell a word wrong at 8:34, I have a message from Thorson at 8:37. Anyway, the other day he wrote not to correct a mistake but to ask me about an eBay auction for a lucky charm relating to Dell Comics. Could it be?

I hustled my mouse over to eBay, bid…and, yes, I am now the proud owner of a Dell Comics Club Lucky Penny Pocket Piece. Have a look…

And here's the other side…

Okay, so it's not exactly like being a member but it's close. It says I'm a member and, you know, it's not like someone can run a check and find out I'm not. In fact, I hereby declare myself President of the Dell Comics Club. And vice-president. And secretary-treasurer and everything else. Try and stop me. After all, I'm the guy with the Dell Comics Club Lucky Penny Pocket Piece.

And that's pretty much all there is to this story. I just wanted to show off my new acquisition and…oh, wait. I should mention that my Dell Comics Club Lucky Penny Pocket Piece also says I will have good luck. This will be nice…though I suppose it would have been nicer if it had commenced in 1957. I've missed out on 43 years of good luck. Heck, if I'd been lucky back then, I might have gotten my Looney Tunes subscription.

Here's a nice little piece on Groucho for those of you in the mood to read a nice little piece on Groucho. Thank you, Dan Gheno, for calling my attention to the nice little piece of Groucho.

No one will ever give me credit for it but I think, back in the pre-Internet days of electronic bulletin boards, I was the first person to ever make an important point in online discussions. My friends and I used to refer to Mark's Rule, which is that you're not allowed to compare anyone to Hitler or Nazis unless they're actually committing mass murder and genocide. I think this is better that the version now being floated about, which says that you're not allowed to compare anyone to Hitler at all. If someone is going around and killing thousands of people, or even hundreds, I think it's okay to make a Nazi analogy or two.

A lot of people are upset because an Illinois senator suggested that certain actions in U.S prison camps could be mistaken for Nazi S.O.P. This is not exactly saying the perpetrators are equal to Nazis but it's close enough, I guess.

Dick Durbin's detractors are calling his remarks "treason" and demanding that he be kicked out of the senate or at least censured. Personally, I don't think spoken words alone ever constitute treason, and the demands for his ouster are empty political threats. It's like when someone loses a public battle on some issue and says, "You haven't heard the last of this! We're going to pass a Constitutional Amendment to reverse this." That almost always means you have heard the last of it. What's the current batting average for threatened amendments to our Constitution? I think it's like one in five hundred million. The stats for getting senators tossed out of office for what they say are about the same.

Might they get him censured? They shouldn't. But never underestimate the power of the right-wing wackos to force Republicans in Congress to occasionally act on their hysterics. (The Terri Schiavo matter will stand for some time as the shining example but it's by no means the only. By the way, right-wing wackos should not be confused with left-wing wackos, who are just as wacko though somewhat less effectual.)

Was Durbin in the wrong? Yeah, if for no other reason than that the public discourse is now over his choice of analogy, rather than the actual issue he was trying to get people to do something about. He was raising a very serious matter and one suspects that at least some of the folks now hammering him for the Nazi reference are doing so because it's easier — and probably more fun — to do that that to address the main charge. Otherwise, I think I agree with Andrew Sullivan, and that must mean something since I so rarely agree with Andrew Sullivan. We need to address the issue instead of shooting messengers. That's probably all Senator Durbin was trying to make happen and it's unfortunate that he used a few words that have gotten things off-topic.

A couple of readers of this site have sent me links to sites that suggest the Downing Street Memos are forgeries or fakes. The "evidence" of this appears to be from reports in news items like this one that the copies circulating are not originals…

The eight memos all labeled "secret" or "confidential" were first obtained by British reporter Michael Smith, who has written about them in The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times. Smith told AP he protected the identity of the source he had obtained the documents from by typing copies of them on plain paper and destroying the originals. The AP obtained copies of six of the memos (the other two have circulated widely). A senior British official who reviewed the copies said their content appeared authentic. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secret nature of the material.

Okay, since that "senior British official" is anonymous, I wouldn't trust that endorsement, in and of itself. But as I understand it, these alleged memos are not, like the infamous Dan Rather letter, the work of one dead person who sent it to another dead person. In this case, the memos were written by and circulated among many folks who are very much alive and able to deny their authenticity. If the documents are fakes, one of the named recipients ought to get up and say so. My guess is that the "senior British official" is one of them responding when the AP reporter called up and said, "Hey, did you get copies of these?" It's hard to believe that they weren't asked before any newsperson risked embarrassment by reporting on them.

Dan Tobias does some sharp detective work on the photo posted in the previous item. One of the signs makes reference to "Wednesday,
November 27." In the sixties, Wednesday only fell on that date in 1963 and 1968, Dan notes. I'm pretty sure the Pzazz show wasn't open in '63 but was in '68, so that fixes the year for us. So does the fact that the sign advertised a boxing match with "Mac Foster." MacArthur Foster, a heavyweight boxer from California, turned pro in November of '66. Good work, Dan.