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.

I feel like posting some photos and facts about Howard Morris over the next few days. Here's Howie in the 1962 movie, Boys' Night Out. It's one of those not-wonderful movies with a wonderful cast. The main thing it meant to Howie's life, apart from his near-encounter with Kim Novak, was that it convinced him his future was in Hollywood, not New York, and it prompted him to move out here. He immediately got busy with loads of TV work and animation voiceover jobs. His first Hanna-Barbera gig was playing interplanetary rock star Jet Screamer on an episode of The Jetsons, and he wound up in almost every H-B show for the next few years until the day he told Joe Barbera to perform an anatomically-impossible feat. Maybe I'll tell that story in the next few days.

In the sixties, Howie worked darn near every day, and turned down three jobs for every one he could squeeze in. Working on camera in his first three years in Hollywood, he did episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Ensign O'Toole, The Twilight Zone, Alcoa Premiere and The Dick Van Dyke Show, to name but a few. I'm told his Van Dyke Show ran this morning on TV Land. It's the one where Rob and Laura go to an auction, accidentally buy a painting by "Artanis" and then call in an art expert named Holldecker (Howie) to appraise it. He also directed several episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show, as well as directing and appearing on The Andy Griffith Show.

Howie also directed a number of episodes of Hogan's Heroes. He told me once that he originally got involved with the show when he was asked to audition for the role of Colonel Klink, which at that point was a somewhat different role than it became. The way Howie explained it, they wanted him to play Klink until Werner Klemperer came in to read for a different role. The producers decided to install Klemperer as Klink and Howie wound up directing instead, which he preferred. Now, I can't swear this story is true. At least, I don't think it's the way they recount it in the "official" histories of the show. But it's the way Howie said it was, and the one time I met Werner Klemperer, he seemed to think that's how it happened. He also added that as a director, Howie was invaluable in helping actors who needed to feign a German accent and he said that if you listen to the episodes Howie directed, you can hear some of the actors "doing" a Howard Morris dialect.

And not only that but didja know Howie directed the pilot of Get Smart? And that he was largely responsible for the casting of Ed Platt as The Chief in that series? I told this story back on this page.

I'll post more about Howie in the next few days…and don't think for a moment I'm doing it for your benefit. It's for me. I miss the guy.

Want to see what a brilliant comic actor Howard Morris was? Got seven minutes? Then go to this page and click where they tell you to click.

And then, if you want to see him in an even funnier sketch, go to this page and click where they tell you to click. This one's eleven minutes but they may be the funniest eleven minutes in the history of TV sketch comedy.

You'll need to have Real Player installed to view them. Navigate through the links where they try to get you to buy the pay version and find where you can download the free one. I know it's a pain but do it for Howie.

I don't know where the above photo of comedian and character actor Howard Morris is from. Perhaps it's a picture from when he was on Broadway in Call Me Mister or Finian's Rainbow. Perhaps it's from one of the many TV shows he did with Sid Caesar, starting in 1949 with the Admiral Broadway Revue. Caesar was the greatest, everyone agreed, and Howie was able to match him note for note, dialect for dialect, playing support and sidekick on several programs, including the legendary Your Show of Shows. It could even be a still from one of his early movie appearances…maybe Boys' Night Out, where he co-starred with James Garner, Tony Randall and Kim Novak. How many times did we, his friends, hear the story of how one weekend during the shooting, he chickened out on an invitation to spend quality time with Ms. Novak?

Most of us called him "Howie." He was a fiery, funny little man who got mad and married easily, sometimes both at once. He was very proud of a lifetime of acting but very insecure about everything he did…which was amazing because he did so many different things and did them so well.

He was a director of TV shows including The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Hogan's Heroes, Get Smart and Bewitched, and of feature films, including With Six You Get Eggroll, Don't Drink the Water and his favorite, Who's Minding the Mint? (But he actually made the real money helming commercials — hundreds of them, including many of the classics for McDonald's in the sixties. They made one of his many ex-wives very wealthy.)

He was a voiceover actor, speaking for many characters including Jet Screamer and other roles on The Jetsons, Beetle Bailey, Jughead on the Archie shows, Atom Ant, Mr. Peebles on the Magilla Gorilla show, Wade Duck on Garfield and Friends, and hundreds of others. (But he actually made the real money voicing commercials. Remember the little koala who said he hated Qantas Airlines? That was Howie, and the role made another of his many ex-wives very wealthy.)

He was an on-camera actor, with credits ranging from The Nutty Professor with Jerry Lewis to High Anxiety with Mel Brooks and Splash with Tom Hanks. (But the thing everyone remembers is Ernest T. Bass, the rock-tossing misfit on The Andy Griffith Show. Howie was only in five episodes but he made such an impression that everyone thinks he was on it all the time…a lucky circumstance. The last decade or so, Howie's main source of income was signing autographed photos and making personal appearances for fans of that classic series. And no ex-wife got much of that loot.)

Howie was just a gusher of Show Business History and to sit with him was always an amazing experience. He worked with everyone and near as I can tell, always had their respect. He worked with me, off and on for close to two decades, and always had mine. He was a brilliant, spontaneous actor who could read the same line of dialogue ten times and do it a minimum of eleven different ways. On Garfield and Friends, my big insight as a director came when I realized that the less Howie knew about what he was reading, the more likely he was to do something stunning. So I'd explain the script to all the other actors before we rolled tape, and I'd keep Howie largely in the dark. Often, on that first take when he was reading Line 1 without any idea of what he'd find in Line 2, he would do something that neither he nor any other actor could have devised in a thousand attempts.

Howie died yesterday at the age of 85. It was not a surprise — he'd been in poor health for some time — but it still hit me like a stone lobbed through the window of the Mayberry Sheriff's Station by Ernest T. There will be formal obits up in the next few days. I'll link to them and you'll see what else this man did, even beyond what I've mentioned here.

But what they might not tell you is how much we adored this man — "we" being those who were honored to be around him and to work with him. He was not an easy person to know but once you got past that fake abrasive exterior that represented perhaps his finest acting job, you encountered a wonderful interior, filled with passion and compassion and I'm sorry if this all isn't cleverer and pithier, but the more you loved the deceased, the harder these things are to write. I'll post more about Howie when it finally sinks in that I can't call him up for lunch, take him to Canter's and watch as he insults the waitresses, the busboys and everyone dining within earshot…and they all love it, every one of them. If I'd been an actor when he was, I'd have wanted to do everything he did, except I would have gotten married a few less times, and I wouldn't have said no to Kim Novak.

(Quick Aside: I just spoke to his terrific son David, who took such good care of him between and sometimes even during his many marriages. No funeral arrangements have been made yet. I'll let you know when I know something.)

Among the possible medical breakthroughs that (we're told) might flow from stem cell research is a cure for Parkinson's Disease. Michael Kinsley, the editor of the L.A. Times editorial page, suffers from this and so has more than a passing interest. [Registration may be required. Come on. Sign up. It's free.]

Frank Rich is a little late to the party with his views on the Newsweek mess but I think his comments are spot-on.

That's a New York Times link which, like most of the ones I post here, I've encoded in a way that enables you to read it without having to register. I don't know why people balk at registering for a free site but some do, so we gladly provide this service.

As some of you may have heard, the Times has announced that later this year, they'll begin charging $50 a year for access to certain sections of their website, including the editorial page. I'm not sure how this will go, especially considering that many newspapers have tried things like this and wound up going back to free. The Los Angeles Times just gave up charging for its entertainment section, f'rinstance. What I'm waiting to see is how thorough this will be. Many of the New York Times opinion columns are syndicated elsewhere and so may still be available on the 'net via other pages. Even if they aren't, I have a feeling they'll be bootlegged in enough venues that no one who wants to read Paul Krugman or David Brooks will have to look far to get them for free. Some of you will probably take that as bad news.

In case you haven't been following the case, a gent named David Rosen is currently on trial in Los Angeles, accused of misleading the Federal Election Commission about the cost of a campaign gala held in Hollywood back in 2000. Rosen was a fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton, and a lot of right-wing folks are hoping that a conviction of Rosen will somehow harm Ms. Clinton's future electoral prospects…and I guess there are left-wing folks who also would not be unhappy if she did not get the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, as well. I suspect both these groups will be disappointed. The prosecutor in the case is after Rosen, not Clinton, and even told the jury in his opening statement, "You will hear no evidence that Hillary Clinton was involved [in the alleged crimes] in any way, shape or form." The other day, the judge in the case indicated he would probably dismiss one of the three remaining charges next Tuesday, and some think he might throw the entire case out of court.

Even if Rosen is convicted of something, I doubt it will impact the future of Hillary Clinton. I don't think very many people in this country desert the candidate of their choice because of fund-raising violations. Most, I'm guessing, believe that everyone who runs for office is at least a little dirty in that regard, and that if you let that influence your ballot, you'll wind up with no one to vote for. People lose elections because their opponents define them as politically extreme, liars, cowards or on the wrong side of issues like abortion, guns or defense. But because one of their aides played fast and loose with campaign finance laws? I don't think so. That's the kind of reason you give for not voting for the person you weren't going to vote for, anyway.

What interests me about the trial is that the fund-raiser in question was arranged by Peter Paul, who was then the head of Stan Lee Media, a firm for which I was working at the time. I never really heard anything about the event while I was there, so I'm following the case as a spectator, albeit one who knew some of the folks involved. Peter has spent a lot of time lately behind bars and may soon be sentenced to his third spell in prison, this time for stock manipulation.

Stan Lee has pretty much avoided any of the legal nastiness that has lately surrounded Mr. Paul. But yesterday, Stan testified in the trial and said that he loaned Peter $225,000 to help put on the event and that he has yet to be repaid a dime of it. If I'd known he was that soft a touch, I'd have hit him up for a couple hundred grand.

Also of possible interest is that it would appear that the whole fund-raising gala cost $1.2 million instead of the $400,000 that was originally reported, and that it netted a whopping $57,820 for Ms. Clinton and another million or so for other Democratic causes — in other words, it brought in a little less than it cost. If so, that makes it a great example of what's wrong with politics in this country. And it kind of gives you a hint as to why Stan Lee Media didn't make any money, either.

Henry Corden, a veteran character actor best known as the second voice of Fred Flintstone, has died at the age of 85. He had been in poor health for some time, suffering from emphysema (and sometimes from failing vision that made it difficult to read scripts) and many of the recent recordings of Fred were performed by another actor, following Henry's decision to retire. Henry had a long career in front of the camera that started with a small role in the Danny Kaye movie, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and continued with numerous film and TV roles. For a time, he was part of Jack Webb's "stock company" of players on Dragnet, and people often stopped him on the street, recognizing him from his appearances on that show. But it was as a voiceover actor that Henry found his steadiest income, especially in the sixties and beyond.

Hanna-Barbera began using him as, for example, the voice of Paw Rugg on Hillbilly Bears (a segment in the 1965 series, Atom Ant) and playing bit parts on Jonny Quest and The Flintstones. Henry's voice had a natural similarity to that of Alan Reed (who played Fred Flintstone) so Henry became a kind of "back-up" Fred, doing the role on kids' records when Reed was unavailable, and doing the singing voice for Fred here and there because the folks at H-B felt he was a better singer than Reed. When Reed died in 1977, Henry took over the role in all aspects and did it for even longer. (Reed and Corden also shared another interesting role. Both were hired at different times to redub Jackie Gleason for screen appearances. In the TV version of Smokey and the Bandit, for instance, a lot of Gleason's dialogue was looped by Corden to eliminate cuss words. It sounds like Ralph Kramden is imitating Fred Flintstone instead of vice-versa.) And Henry did other roles in animation. He growled for Ookla the Mok on Thundarr the Barbarian, and guested often on Scooby Doo, The Smurfs and many other shows.

Henry was a charming, funny man who was just a joy to be around. I remember him telling me a long story about working with Bud and Lou in Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion. He played an Arab in the film — he played Arabs and sometimes Germans in an amazing percentage of his screen appearances — and apparently Lou kept forgetting that Henry wasn't of Arabian descent. "There would be some Middle Eastern name or word in the script and Costello would ask me, 'Hey, you're from there. How's this pronounced?' And I'd have to keep telling him, 'How the hell should I know? I'm from Montreal!'"

Here's a link to an obit that will tell you more about Henry. I just wanted to tell you how much some of us will miss him.

Jim Lampley writes about steroids in the sports world. My own feeling is that this is a bogus controversy that keeps popping up because it bothers a relatively small group of people. And every time it does, the folks in power arbitrarily humiliate and punish a few token offenders, pretend they've taken a good first step towards obliterating the problem…and then things quickly go right back to the way they were before.

Jason Czeskleba writes to ask…

On a message board I frequent, news about Mr. Gorshin's death has sparked a debate about whether the Batman TV show saved the Batman comics from cancellation. I'm not a participant in the debate, just an observer, but I'd never heard that claim before and now I'm curious if there's any truth to it. I was always under the impression that the Batman books may have been in danger of cancellation during Jack Schiff's tenure, but had recovered in sales after Julie Schwartz took over. Neither side in this debate I've been watching has been able to cite a definitive source for their claims. So I thought I'd ask you…

That's what I'm here for. Sales on Batman and Detective Comics slipped quite a bit in the 1960-1963 period under editor Jack Schiff and as this was a period when the Superman books were gaining, that was a cause for concern at DC. The numbers I've seen suggest that the bat-books weren't actually close to cancellation — many comics were selling less — but obviously, if sales on any book are dropping and nothing's done, that day will come. To ward it off, they did an editorial swap: Julius Schwartz took over those two books in '64 and Schiff got two of Schwartz's — Mystery in Space and Strange Adventures. The third title Schiff had been editing — World's Finest Comics — was shifted over to Superman editor Mort Weisinger.

Schwartz didn't turn his two books into best sellers but he did reverse the downward sales trend. Later, when the TV show came on, sales shot way up but by then, Batman and Detective were off the Endangered List. So no, the show didn't save the comic. The main effect, apart from a nice cash flow, was that the heat from the ABC series enhanced the value of DC Comics and led to its acquisition by a corporation, Kinney National Services. Nothing in the industry was quite the same after that.

By the way, I picked the above photo to run because it always struck me as funny. It's a good thing those folks are wearing masks because otherwise, someone might be able to recognize them. I have a hunch the one at right might be The Joker but of course, with the mask, who can tell?

This one's from someone who signs his message "Greg"…

Bill Maher is silly, is not that clever, and in the past has had some flat out offensive things to say. I hope he keeps revealing himself.

We don't go to war, or not go to war based on whether it's popular or not.

We don't have a draft. This president will not have a draft. I'll even predict (or be glad to make a wager!) that the the next administration won't have a draft, either.

Your friend — the one that didn't value the lives of certain people? He had, I'm sure you'd agree, an uncommonly stupid point of view. No one I know that supports what we're doing in the Middle East sees things that way. If anyone does see things that way, that kind of opinion is so ridiculous we shouldn't allow them into the discussion.

Our all-volunteer force has faced shortages before, and we'll be able to deal with it again.

We're going to be in Iraq for years to come, and I hope all of our troops do their jobs over there as best as they can.

This is not the kind of thing that people can really debate but I do find Bill Maher (generally) clever. I don't know which things he's said that you found offensive but I don't think it's possible these days to say anything of substance about important topics without offending someone. Some of the things for which he's been blasted were, I thought, unpleasant to hear but true. Which is not to say I agree with everything the guy says…but you'd be a pretty sorry topical comedian if you never get anyone upset. Either that or you're Mark Russell.

No, we don't enter into a war based on popularity polls but the will of the American people is never irrelevant to the workings of government, nor is it unrelated to the conduct of a war. If and when it's perceived that extending the war in Iraq will cause an elected official to not get re-elected, something will change.

Barring some unexpected world crisis, I don't think we're going to see the draft reinstated…but I suspect we are going to see a number of programs and laws that will pressure young men and women into military service. A friend of mine has been predicting that the Bush administration will soon invoke "ways to raise taxes that they can argue are not technically tax increases." I hope that's not so, and I hope we're not about to see ways they can press people into military service that they can argue do not constitute a draft. But I have the fear we are. We're already seeing soldiers having their tours of duty extended beyond what was planned, even if it keeps them in Iraq past the date they were scheduled to leave the Army. It's not exactly a draft but it is a move towards involuntary service. (Come to think of it, I wonder if the shortfall in recruiting has something to do with that. If I were thinking of signing up, the fact that they can just suddenly extend my tour of duty would make me think twice.)

I agree that we'll probably be able to increase volunteerism and I hope we do it, at least in part, by paying soldiers better, giving them better medical care, etc. It always struck me that we could improve our military by making some very minor cuts in what we spend for hardware (or even just trimming military pork) and diverting that money to the people who actually fly the planes, drive the tanks and so on. Someday, if I get a moment here, I'll tell the story of how, many moons ago, I expressed this view at a political seminar and it prompted an outburst of near-apoplexy on the part of Bob Dornan, who was one of the panelists.

Anyway, you're right: We're going to be in Iraq a long time. I'm pretty confident our troops will do the best job they possibly can. Wish I was as confident about the people giving them their marching orders.

One of the Gorshin obit photos that was moved by press services and featured on many websites today was the one at left from the Batman TV series. It shows Frank as The Riddler, menacing an actress named Susan Silo. As it happened, I had lunch today with Susan and she recalled Frank — as has everyone who knew him — as a gracious, talented man who smoked too much. They worked together a number of times over the years and she was always impressed with his skills. There was something about the guy — the way he commanded audience attention — that just set him apart from a lot of people who think they can do Brando. Some of their working together was in the voiceover category. One thing I should have mentioned about Gorshin was that he occasionally did v.o. work, including animation.

He was pretty good at it, though since his main career often took him out of town, he didn't do a lot in this area. In the last few years, he was one of those called upon to replicate Mel Blanc voices — Foghorn Leghorn in the 1997 short, "Pullet Surprise," for instance. I once asked him if he was ever hired to loop any of the actors he was famous for impersonating in his act — Lancaster or Douglas, perhaps? Frank chuckled and said, "Yeah, I'm in a couple of their movies but I did such a good job, I can't recognize me."

Bill Maher's HBO show is on hiatus 'til August but they went out with a terrific "New Rules" segment on the last episode. You can read the whole thing here but let me just post a couple of paragraphs from the middle where it really began to get good…

New Rule: The people in America who are most in favor of the Iraq war must now go there and fight it. The Army missed its recruiting goal by 42% last month. More people joined the Michael Jackson Fan Club. "We've done picked all the low-lying Lynndie England fruit." And now we need warm bodies. We need warm bodies like Paula Abdul needs…warm bodies!

Now, I know you're thinking, but, Bill, I already do my part with the "Support Our Troops" magnet I have on my Chevy Tahoe. How much more can one man give? Well, here's an intriguing economic indicator. It's been over a year since they graduated, but neither of the Bush twins has been able to find work. Why don't they sign up? Do they hate America or just freedom in general?

I don't think this is as silly as some might have it. I knew a lot of people who were utterly gung-ho for the Vietnam War until it touched their lives in some way. Before a loved one was drafted, it was the duty of Young Americans to go and fight and maybe die over there. Once there was even the chance that one of those Young Americans might not be a total stranger — maybe even (gasp) a family member — the war was wrong, sending men to maybe die in it was wrong, et cetera, et cetera…

I could absolutely respect a consistent pro-Vietnam War position and at one time, I had one. At least, I was for that war long enough to march for it a couple of times. My position changed…oddly enough, around the time I knew I would not be drafted. Still, after that, I did not think ill of many who were advancing arguments in which I had lost faith. They believed what they believed, regardless of the personal sacrifice that might be involved, and to the extent that there are "good wars" in this world, they flow from that premise. The people I couldn't respect were the ones whose positions seemed to shift solely because they suddenly stood to lose something or someone. There was a lot of talk then about not having reverence for our troops and I felt that a dandy way to not do that was to view them not as real human beings but as expendable drones. The pro-war acquaintance with whom I argued the most after my conversion seemed to think winning that war was worth any amount of lives as long as they were poor, mostly minority, and he didn't know the fallen by name.

Polls suggest that somewhere between 57% and 54% of Americans do not think this war is worth fighting, versus 41% to 44% who think it is. I wonder what that latter number would be if we were to reinstate The Draft and arrange it so that it was a pure lottery with no exemptions, no deferments and no way for Americans to be certain that they or their family members wouldn't have to go. I'm guessing something close to single digits.

Two important articles over on Slate. Fred Kaplan tells of a recent U.S. military assault in Iraq where, he says, we did a lot more harm than good. And Jacob Weisberg discusses the Newsweek flap and the Pot/Kettle Factor.