Last evening, the San Fernando Valley Chapter of The American Diabetes Association presented the Shirley Kayne Community Service Award to broadcasting legend Gary Owens. I know because my friend Carolyn and I were there to see it, attending a very nice dinner filled with folks from the A.D.A. (mostly doctors) and Gary's friends (mostly comedians). Among the latter were Jonathan Winters, Stan Freberg, Thom Sharp, Fred Willard, Shelley Berman, and Mr. Owens' Laugh-In constituents — Jo Anne Worley, Arte Johnson, Jack Riley, Alan Sues, Henry Gibson and George Schlatter. The stuffed chicken breast we were served seemed a little questionable but since the place was full of doctors, I figured it was safe to eat.

Mr. Winters was introduced and interviewed as a famous doctor, and it was wonderful to see him Jonathan in his natural habitat: Winging it, making up odd and brilliant answers to questions with no idea where he's going. It doesn't get any better than that.

I'm not exactly certain what Gary did to merit this award but I have no doubt he did plenty. Gary has always been so generous with his time it's hard to believe how many hours per week he spends in front of a microphone doing his radio show, recording promo announcements, voicing cartoons, etc. Still, whenever anyone calls with a worthy cause (or even an unworthy one), he's there. A fine, giving gentleman.

Speaking of honors: I forgot to mention that last Friday, some of the same folks gathered for a luncheon as the Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters staged a delightful salute of Joanne Worley. The dais included Hal Kanter, Peter Marshall, Tom Kennedy, Alan Sues, Billy Barnes, Mitzi McCall & Charlie Brill, Henry Gibson, Gary Owens, Jackie Joseph, George Schlatter, Fred Willard and Marcia Wallace, and in the audience one could spot Ruth Buzzi, Lily Tomlin, June Foray, Sally Struthers and many other familiar folks. I made a mental note at the time to remember certain funny lines so I could quote them here…and if I'd written this on Friday, I'd probably have remembered them long enough to do this.

A few days ago, a Congressman Bachus (R-Ala) took exception with a Bill Maher monologue — one I excerpted here — and said that a line in it "bordered on treason." Here's the whole news item.

And here is a response from Bill Maher. I agree with Mr. Maher.

Here's a press release that was just issued…

Jerry Siegel and Arnold Drake have been chosen as the first recipients of the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing. They were chosen by a blue-ribbon committee chaired by Jerry Robinson. The committee decided to give two awards, to honor both a deceased and a living writer who exemplify the award's criteria.

Jerry Siegel was, of course, the co-creator (with Joe Shuster) of Superman and Superboy and wrote the Superman comic books and comic strip from the character's first appearance in 1938 up through the late 1940s. He also co-created The Spectre (with Bernard Baily) for DC. After leaving DC (in a well-publicized dispute) in 1948, he continued to write comic books for a variety of companies and served as the comics art director at Ziff-Davis in the 1950s. He returned to DC in 1958, where he wrote uncredited Superman and other scripts through 1964. He died in 1996.

"There is a poetic sense of rightness that Jerry Siegel, co-creator of Superman, and Bill Finger, the unsung hero and writer of Batman, be symbolically united after three quarters of a century after their iconic characters' debuts," says Robinson. "Although both men led tragic lives, by launching the superhero genre and the Golden Age of comics, they left legacies that have enriched our culture."

Arnold Drake's comics writing career spanned the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. His credits include Doom Patrol (creator), Deadman (creator), Batman, Superman, Plastic Man, X-Men, Captain Marvel, Star Trek, Twilight Zone, Mighty Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Bullwinkle and Rocky, Stanley and His Monster (creator), Little Lulu, Space Ranger, House of Mystery, and Dark Shadows. His It Rhymes with Lust, with art by Matt Baker and Ray Osrin, published by St. John Publishing in 1950, was one of the very first graphic novels.

"Like Finger and Siegel, Drake is a consummate professional writer," says Robinson. "As the author of hundreds of stories from the Silver Age to the present, his credits demonstrate an amazing versatility, ranging from the superhero and adventure such as Doom Patrol to the wry humor of Little Lulu."

The other members of the Finger Awards jury were comics writer and historian Mark Evanier, cartoonist/screenwriter/playwright Jules Feiffer, comics writer/editor Denny O'Neil, and comics writer/editor/historian Roy Thomas.

The awards will be presented during the Eisner Awards ceremony at this summer's Comic-Con International: San Diego. Joanne Siegel will be present to accept the award for her late husband. Arnold Drake will be on hand to receive his award.

The Finger Award falls under the auspices of Comic-Con International and is administered by Jackie Estrada. The 2005 awards are being underwritten by DC Comics; sponsorship will be open to other companies in future years.

So that's who we picked. Like it says, Arnold Drake will be at the convention to accept his award, and we're going to take the opportunity to get him on a few panels. Matter of fact, we should have a terrific crop of veteran writers and artists for the "historical" programming items this year. I'm presently slated to moderate fourteen (!) panels, most of them about comic book history, and they're all goodies. I'll have a full list of them up in a week or two.

The Activision gaming people are staging a contest to tie-in with the release of the upcoming Fantastic Four movie — they're giving away a copy of Fantastic Four #1 autographed by Jack Kirby. You can enter here, or at least take note of the odd fact that their site seems to credit Jack as sole creator. I've seen Stan Lee get sole credit for these characters on many, many occasions but I can't recall seeing Jack mentioned like that unless it was done by a close friend or associate, which I'm assuming is not the case here.

The proper credit, of course, is that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created the Fantastic Four. And as I've just written for an article in an upcoming deluxe reprinting of F.F. #1, all indications are that it was a true collaboration and not a case of Stan writing and Jack only drawing. Sure hope the movie credits both.

Conan O'Brien on the future of television.

Here's the New York Times obit of Howard Morris. In it, you'll note, Mel Brooks tells the story of how he went along when Howie went down to the Hudson River to scatter the ashes of his recently-cremated father. It was a very funny tale when either of them told it…but the Times doesn't mention that Mel used the situation in his movie, Life Stinks, in which Howie had a nice role. In the film, it was the ashes of Howie's character that were being scattered. I have a feeling we're going to hear this anecdote at the funeral on Friday.

Howie, by the way, was in the just-mentioned "Ann-Margrock" episode of The Flintstones. He provided the voice of her agent.

Later this year — in time for Christmas, I believe — Warner Home Video will be bringing out the fourth season of The Flintstones on DVD. Today, my friends and fellow writers Earl Kress and Paul Dini recorded a commentary track for two of the episodes on it — "Ann-Margrock Presents" and "Little Bamm-Bamm." The second of these was the one that introduced the Rubbles' very strong adopted son into the series. The first of these was the season opener, guest-starring Ann-Margret, who was then quite a hot movie star, Bye Bye Birdie having come out a few months before. In case you're interested in the chronology here, Bye Bye Birdie came out in April of '63. The voice track for that Flintstones episode was recorded June 28 and then it aired September 19, which is a stunning lack of lead time — less than three months for a job that usually would have taken four or five.

It doesn't look it. By the standards of TV animation of the day, it looks pretty good, with some rather ambitious animation in the musical numbers.

So how did Ann-Margret wind up in a Hanna-Barbera cartoon? One assumes it had something to do with the fine film director, George Sidney. Mr. Sidney had a long history with H-B, going back to when Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera were directing Tom & Jerry cartoons for MGM. Sidney was directing the film Anchors Aweigh for that studio and someone came up with the idea of having its star, Gene Kelly, dance with an animated Mickey Mouse. Mr. Disney wasn't interested in the project so Sidney wound up going to MGM's division and having Bill and Joe and their unit supply the animation. Legend has it that after they thought they were finished, someone noticed that Kelly had done his part of the dancing on a shiny floor so when the images were composited, he had a reflection and his dance partner, Jerry, did not….so the animators had to go back and animate Jerry's reflection, too.

Sidney stayed in touch with Hanna and Barbera. When they started their own studio in the late fifties in partnership with Columbia Pictures, he was an investor and later a company officer. At the same time, he was directing movies for Columbia…like Bye Bye Birdie. If you watch the film some time, see how many "product placements" there are for Hanna-Barbera merchandise.

He was also interested in the career of Ann-Margret. He didn't exactly discover her — several others could claim that honor, including George Burns — but he got much of the credit for promoting her stardom. When Bye Bye Birdie was first previewed, it did not have the opening and closing in which A-M sang the title song. In fact, there was no title song. Sidney decided the movie needed more Ann-Margret so he put up his own money to have the composers of the Broadway show write a title song, and to film his new star performing it. Later, he directed two of her bigger films — Viva Las Vegas (with Elvis) and The Swinger.

He had a pretty good career with loads of acclaimed hit films. But for some of us, his greatest achievement will be that he was almost certainly responsible for Ann-Margrock. If you've never seen the episode, pick up the DVD set later this year. And make sure you enjoy the scintillating commentary tracks.

Michael Chabon writes about one of Jack Kirby's greatest creations, the beautiful but very strong Big Barda. And he's right that Jack modelled her fighting spirit (and protective qualities) on Mrs. Jack Kirby, better known as Rosalind. But the visual was inspired by the 1970 Playboy appearance of singer-actress Lainie Kazan.

Yesterday, a group of Senators assembled what everyone is describing as a "compromise" regarding the filibustering of judicial nominees. I have no particular opinion about this compromise, or about what might have happened if they hadn't reached this compromise.

What amuses me is browsing websites of various political stripes. Some on both sides are angry, some are doing victory dances…and almost none of them seem to grasp the concept that in a "compromise," neither side gets everything it wants.

The Los Angeles Times [gotta register] has a good obit on Howie Morris. As it says in there, the funeral is Friday morning at 11 AM over at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City.

The Associated Press has moved another obit of Howard Morris, this one by veteran entertainment writer, Bob Thomas. It's much better than the others but I am amazed Thomas made the following mistake…

He joined the cast of "Your Show of Shows" a year after it debuted in 1950, often playing the ambitious little guy whose grandiose plans go awry. The 90-minute show, with scripts written by such luminaries as Mel Brooks, Neil Simon and Woody Allen, was one of the most heralded of television's Golden Era.

Woody Allen did not write for Your Show of Shows. Neither did Larry Gelbart, who is often credited with that program by people who should know better. Your Show of Shows was written by Mel Tolkin, Mel Brooks, Lucille Kallen, Neil Simon and Danny Simon, with Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner and sometimes Howie as unofficial, uncredited writers.

After Your Show of Shows, Mr. Caesar starred in a show called Caesar's Hour, which was followed by one called Sid Caesar Invites You, which was followed by a raft of specials. Gelbart started on Caesar's Hour. Allen didn't start until the specials. I have heard that Mr. Allen is embarrassed to be wrongly credited in this regard since his contribution to the Caesar oeuvre was pretty minor and in no way comparable to the work of the Mels, the Simons and Ms. Kallen.

This is for those of you who tape or TiVo the Black and White Overnight bloc on Game Show Network. This morning, they bumped their usual parlay of To Tell the Truth and What's My Line? for a one-night Frank Gorshin tribute, consisting of one Password and one I've Got a Secret. Tomorrow, I am told, they go back to To Tell the Truth and What's My Line?

However, for some reason, most of the online guides have Password and Secret replacing those two shows for the whole week, or even for two weeks. My TiVo's program listings have Password and Secret every night and I think that's wrong. So I've set it to record whatever's on in that time slot.

GSN has an odd policy on preemptions. They've been running the primetime What's My Line? in sequence but Saturday, they dropped in an episode of the syndicated What's My Line? as a part of a rather limp "Salute to Star Wars." (The mystery guest was James Earl Jones.) You would assume that the next day, they would run the primetime episode they otherwise would have run on Saturday but no. They just skipped it. They're presumably skipping another rerun (an episode with Charlton Heston) to run the Frank Gorshin tribute. This means that the early Wednesday morning rerun should be one with Bea Lillie, and the Thursday A.M. entry will still be the one with Jerry Lewis and Walt Disney. I don't understand why they do this but they do this.

Jesus Christ, it's been a bad week or two for voice people.

Thurl Ravenscroft, best known as the voice of Tony the Tiger in the Kellogg's Frosted Flakes commercials, has died at the age of 91, the cause being reported as prostate cancer. His rich, bass voice was also known to audiences from his many years as a singer, plus you could hear him all over Disneyland. (That's Thurl singing, "Grim, Grinning Ghosts" in the Haunted Mansion, and one of the busts along that ride was fashioned to look like him.) He also sang "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" on the animated TV special, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and appeared on hundreds of records and radio shows and other cartoons over the years.

Thurl was, in a way, the oldest working cartoon voice actor in the business. During the thirties, he was heard on radio as part of several different singing groups that eventually came to be known as The Sportsmen and later, he was in The Mellomen. One of his groups recorded voice tracks for a couple of Warner Brothers cartoons, such as the 1939 Sioux Me. Soon after, he began appearing in shorts for Mr. Disney, such as The Nifty Nineties (1941) and Springtime for Pluto (1944). Walt evidently liked the Ravenscroft sound because not only was he heard throughout the theme parks but he was also a voice in Dumbo, Cinderella, Lady and the Tramp, Alice in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmatians, The Jungle Book, Mary Poppins and many more.

All of this was in addition to Thurl's many, many credits as a studio singer. His most famous hit may have been backing up Rosemary Clooney on "This Old House," but he was also heard in many records for Spike Jones (like "Wyatt Earp Makes Me Burp," a Dr. Demento fave) and The Andrews Sisters and Bing Crosby and even Elvis. He was also called upon often to dub singing voices for other actors. All throughout the 1958 movie of South Pacific, there's a handsome sailor with a rich, deep singing voice. The voice is that of Thurl Ravenscroft. In the seventies, he did a lot of work for arranger Johnny Mann and was featured often as "Pappy" on the TV show, Stand Up and Cheer.

I never had the honor of working with Thurl, as he was semi-retired by the time I was in a position to cast him…but I sure tried. We spoke on the phone a few times and he always politely, and with some expressed regret, declined. He was living in Orange County and even though I offered to send a limo for him, he said that it would be too tiring, plus he was having too much trouble walking. The only times he went out to record, he said, were "doing the tiger" and his many spots for religious groups close to his home. I was disappointed, but it sure was amazing to hear That Voice over the phone, especially when I'd mention one of his old songs and he'd wistfully rattle off a few bars, a cappella.

You can learn a lot about Thurl and even hear some of his songs and commercials over at his website. And here's a link to an obit in The Orange County Register. True to their name, they make you register.

The obituaries for Howard Morris are just now appearing in the press. I'm always a little amazed at what gets mentioned in these things and what's left out and what they get wrong and such. The Associated Press obit, for instance, includes this paragraph…

In the 1950s, he joined a comedy sketch group including Carl Reiner and Imogene Coca on several TV variety shows, including "Admiral Broadway Review," "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour."

Yeah, and I think that "comedy sketch group" was headed up by a guy named Sid Caesar, who was the star of those shows. You get the feeling the guy who wrote this piece didn't know who Sid Caesar was, or how those programs have been honored and recognized over the years? Then over here in a piece in The New York Sun, it says…

While his face was less known to later generations, Morris's voice popped up all over the airwaves. He could be heard in cartoons, as Fred Flintstone's boss, Mr. Slate…

Uh, no. As ten seconds over at Google would have shown, John Stephenson played Mr. Slate. Howie played a wide array of non-recurring supporting roles on The Flintstones.

And of course, both leave out darn near everything he did since the mid-sixties, plus things like The Dick Van Dyke Show and all the movies he appeared in and all his stage work. Maybe I'm quibbling but, hey, Howie sure would have bitched about it. One time, we were in the parking lot of Canter's Delicatessen on Fairfax and a man who was walking past noticed Howie and thought he recognized him. "Hey, you're that funny guy on that show," he said. And then the man mimed a short cigarette and said, "Verrrry interesting."

I had to stop Howie from killing him.

Nice article by Jonathan Yardley in The Washington Post about Walt Kelly's Pogo. You can see some nice samples of said newspaper strip over at The Official Pogo Website.