At a lovely luncheon this afternoon, the Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters paid tribute to Mickey Rooney…so this afternoon, I reached my fill of jokes about people being short and often-married. In what turned out to be a very nice event, The Mick was honored by a dozen or so of his friends including Ann Rutherford, Margaret O'Brien, Frank Gorshin, A.C. Lyles, Gene Reynolds, Fayard Nicholas (the surviving member of The Nicholas Brothers), Hal Kanter, Johnny Grant and Red Buttons. I keep seeing Red Buttons speak at local functions and parties and I am amazed how incredibly funny and even topical he is. I wish someone like Jay Leno or David Letterman had the guts to let an 83 year old man come out and do stand-up because the man is an absolute treasure and I think he'd score with all ages.

Mickey was pretty good, too. The last two times I've seen him speak, he was rambling and lacking in coherence and he seemed to be imitating the Dana Carvey parody of him. This afternoon, he was crisp and sincere and told a couple of lovely stories that might have been a wee bit exaggerated (like the one about Mr. Walt Disney naming a certain mouse after him) but they entertained a crowd that loved and respected him dearly. He spoke warmly of his friends and of his spouse, Jan, with whom he currently tours in a one-man/one-wife show. They're playing the Cinegrill in Hollywood in June — a fact that did not go unmentioned. I think it's terrific that at age 84, he's still performing, and that so many turned out to honor him.

Here's an e-mail that I thought was worth answering in public…

I've enjoyed your blog, and your other work, for some time and I just wanted to ask, how long ago was your article about how difficult things are in the comic book industry written? I ask, not because I'm a wannabe creator myself, but because I'm a wannabe consumer. I've been hearing for years about how bad things are in the industry and well, has there been any sign of recovery at all? And if not, is the day approaching when comics simply won't exist anymore? This is something to be frightened of. I know I should be more frightened about the War on Terror, but honestly, what are we fighting for?

Maybe we can get Halliburton into the comic book business. No, forget I said that. The answer to your question is that my piece was written a few years ago and the business is slowly recovering in some ways and not in others. I suspect that if tomorrow a law was passed that said comic books could not be made into movies or TV shows, about two-thirds of the business would go under because so much of comic book publishing is now in the nature of loss leaders for movie/TV deals. From my own perspective, I don't think I'll say the comic book publishing business is healthy until I see some actual profit in just publishing comic books..

I don't believe there's a danger of the form ceasing to exist. There will always be folks who want to create comics and those who want to read them, and those two groups will always find a way to get together. Certainly though, the "comic book industry" has changed and will continue to change. When you go to a comic book convention these days, there's usually a lot in that hall that has to do with movies and animation and gaming and other media. Comics have become less insular and the very definition of the word is changing. Once upon a time, comics were things that were printed on paper. Now, it's becoming a style of art and story in almost any medium, much as "manga" and "anime" have evolved into more expansive terms that denote a genre more than a specific product.

The old business model for comic book publishing has become obsolete, as all business models eventually do. It's evolving more into graphic novels and to conveying comic-book-style material in other media. In the future, I think most publishers of comic books will think of themselves as multi-media companies that market concepts and a style in a variety of formats, one of which will sometimes resemble what you and I now think of as a comic book. Some of them are already halfway there.

Max Boot, who is usually so conservative that he works for The Weekly Standard, says it's time for the right wing to accept Gay Marriage as inevitable. This is pretty much how I feel. They may be able to delay its formal legality. They may be able to make a lot of folks miserable in the process. They may even be able to raise a lot of campaign contributions from people who think they're going to stop it. But they cannot stop it.

I get a lot of e-mail from folks asking me how they can get a job writing comic books. Boy, do I get a lot of these inquiries. I get more of them than I get ads for non-prescription Vicodin, and I get a lot of ads for non-prescription Vicodin. I usually refer such folks to this article I wrote on the topic but I think I may start sending people to this article by my friend Steven Grant.

This is an old column, as evidenced by the fact that in it, Steven says the Comic-Con International in San Diego has an annual attendance in the 15,000-20,000 range. Today, it's more like 75,000 and the ratio of wanna-bes to available positions is about ten times worse and everything he says is at least as true as it was then, if not more so.

My old high school buddy Bruce Reznick (who wasn't drafted, either) sent me this link to a heartbreaking article about David L. Lander, who is best known to the public as Squiggy from Laverne and Shirley. Actually, it's also heartbreaking that the public knows Lander only from that since he was a very talented comic actor, as anyone who ever heard or saw The Credibility Gap (his old comedy troupe) is well aware. Being known only for one role is probably not as tragic as having Multiple Sclerosis but it still bothered me that his other performing successes weren't mentioned.

Here's a newspaper obit on writer-artist-editor Gill Fox, whose passing we reported here a few days ago.

Jon Stewart (of The Daily Show With…) graduated The College of William and Mary in 1984. Twenty years later, he returned there to deliver this commencement address.

Here's a message from Larry Boocker…

I can't help adding something to your recent views on the debate about the military draft. I was also of draftable age when the political debate was fought over whether to extend the draft. Naturally, I paid close attention. In my opinion, that debate was the high point for political discourse during my lifetime. As you said, draft supporters tended to be conservative and Republican while draft opponents tended to be liberal and Democrat. But to everybody's amazement, the leader of the fight against the draft was Barry Goldwater, the most conservative politician in Washington. The fight for the draft was led by Ted Kennedy, the extreme leftist. Each of these guys was willing to go against their constituents, their friends and their image because they believed in certain principles. Goldwater's conservatism was based on individual freedom which was in conflict with the draft. He believed that if young Americans were unwilling to fight for their country, we didn't deserve to continue as a nation. Kennedy's liberalism was based on egalitarianism. He believed that a volunteer army would consist mostly of the poor and disenfranchised. A draft was most likely to treat people equally. Nowadays, when politicians march in lockstep and never surprise us with independent thinking, it's hard to believe that courage and principle were once seen in Washington. It's been about 30 years and we may never see them again.

Barry Goldwater was a pretty amazing guy, at least after he lost the presidency. He was one of the few politicians I saw place principle over partisanship. One night, he went on Johnny Carson's show and launched into a surprising defense of gay rights, essentially saying that conservatives needed to work towards smaller, less obtrusive government and that this was inconsistent with encouraging the government to police sexual relations between consenting adults. It was quite a speech and the next day on some TV news talk show — it may have been Crossfire — it was quoted to a number of prominent Republicans for their reaction. They all mouthed respectful words about Goldwater's great past service to his country, then suggested that he had gone senile.

I did not recall Ted Kennedy being on that side of the debate but very little surprises me about Ted Kennedy. I certainly never viewed The Draft as being particularly democratic. If it weren't five in the morning — what the hell am I doing posting on a weblog at this hour? — I'd write about my own experiences in 1970, investigating draft deferments and other means of escape. I found, at least around U.C.L.A. where I was then going to school, that being white (which I was) was some help in avoiding conscription and being from a wealthy family (which I was not) was an even greater help. I am not proud that this was the case and I thought it was a horrible injustice, even though I benefited from it. I'll write more about this when I'm awake…

That stapler was here just a second ago. Did you take my stapler? I left it on my desk and then — oh, wait. Here it is!

I've been helping the publisher get my new book, Superheroes in My Pants, off to press so I've fallen way behind in answering e-mail and doing other things in my life. Please forgive me. You can order a copy of this wonderful book here. Just remember that your purchase will entitle you to ignore all the plugging and badgering that will appear on this page in the coming months.

Back in the sixties as I approached the age of eighteen, a much-discussed topic in this country was The Draft. I don't mean to suggest anyone was talking about it because of me…but with the war in Vietnam killing so many American soldiers, and with so many questions about whether the battle was worth it, the topic was inevitable. My recollection is that the debate generally (there were exceptions) broke down as follows: You had your right-wing, conservative, mostly-Republican faction arguing that The Draft was a good thing; that any young man should be proud and delighted to go off and fight wherever his nation's military advisers wanted him to fight. Some, including the father of one of my closest friends, suggested that there was something wrong — in a moral and character sense — with anyone who had the slightest hesitation about military service. Against this viewpoint, you had your left-wing, liberal, mostly-Democratic faction suggesting, often cautiously, that The Draft was immoral and perhaps unconstitutional, and that simply as a practical matter, we would be better off with an all-volunteer army. It would be composed of folks who actually wanted to fight and perhaps make a long-range career in the military instead of resenting how it was disrupting their lives.

I followed the debates with obvious self-interest. As I recall, many in the first (right-wing) group reacted to the notion of a Volunteer Army as if liberals had suggested unconditional surrender to the Commies. During the '68 election, Hubert Humphrey was asked about ending The Draft and he gave an evasive, non-response along the lines of, "Well, as president, I'll look into the practicality of that." He was immediately bludgeoned by the opposition — Spiro Agnew, mainly — arguing that to even raise that possibility was an act of treason that proved Humphrey was unfit for office. Later on, of course, the Nixon-Agnew administration presided over the dismantling of The Draft, thereby taking pride in what they had previously dismissed as an abomination. I thought at the time that if a President Humphrey had done that, Nixon and his mob would have called for impeachment and for everyone responsible to be shot at sunrise. But it was okay when they did it and it seemed to work fine. It has taken until now for there to be any serious talk in this country about reinstating The Draft.

One of the big arguments in the sixties against a Volunteer Army was its cost. Some suggested it was distasteful and unwise to try and pay soldiers enough to make the military an attractive career alternative. I remember a guest on the old Lou Gordon talk show actually arguing that a good soldier was there out of patriotism, not avarice, and that as pay scales went up, the character of the American Soldier would go down. Gordon asked him how he felt about draftees who didn't want to be there at all, and the guy fumbled out some double-talk about how no one really didn't want to go to Vietnam…that was a lie of the liberal press. When reality fails you, blame the media.

The thing that really struck me as odd at the time was that the same folks arguing that it was wrong to throw money at soldiers were the ones admonishing us to "support our troops" by not opposing the war. They were also the same folks who attacked politicians as "weak on defense" if they didn't throw enough money at Lockheed, McDonnell-Douglas, DuPont and other makers of military hardware. There was this idea that soldiers should accept low pay out of patriotism…but we shouldn't expect American Business to not make as much profit as possible off the war. We should not skimp on buying the most sophisticated, expensive planes in the world but we should not waste government money on the folks who fly them. Even today, politicians are attacked for opposing certain weapons systems…but it doesn't seem to be a sin for them to cut military pay or veterans' benefits.

I am no longer worried about The Draft destroying my life but I would hate to see it destroy anyone's. Our government is spending a ton of money on the war in Iraq (see here) and I don't think anyone doubts that a lot of it is either being spent foolishly or is just going into the pockets of suppliers and outside contractors. Before we bring involuntary conscription back to this country, I'd like to see us try to steer some of those Halliburton profits into the pockets of our fighting men and women. I think we should drop the hokey patriotic rhetoric that serving your country should be sufficient reward…and actually pay the military what it takes to have a first-rate, eager-to-serve army of sufficient size and morale. And I refuse to listen to any more admonitions to "support our military" from people who, when it comes to spending money, aren't willing to support our military.

When The Odd Couple first went on TV, I had a friend who had a connection to get us in to watch rehearsals. We'd go over to Paramount and sit in the bleachers and watch Tony Randall and Jack Klugman rehearse. What struck me about them was the thoroughness of two smart men who were both very committed to their craft. Actors who work on a sitcom know that the more days there are until the filming or taping, the more likely the script they're doing is going to be revised, often completely. On one show I worked on, none of the performers ever took the pages seriously until the day before…sometimes even the morning before the live audience arrived.

Not Tony and Jack. Even four days prior to filming, they took the script at face value, performing it as if that was the material they had to make work. It was fascinating to watch, especially when they'd pause and discuss each line and in an utterly selfless manner. I'm sure one of the things that made that show work — that made almost everything either man did work — was that they put the material ahead of their own stardom. Tony would suggest things to Jack and vice-versa and both would ask pointed questions: What did this line mean? What was the character's motivation for doing whatever he did? How could that information be conveyed via a different attitude or physical reaction? It was the first time — and one of the few times — I got to see dedicated, thinking actors think out loud and function as an ensemble. There is no doubt in my mind that each of them improved the other's performance.

Another key reason for that show's success was its fine crew of producers, writers and directors. One of them was my pal Frank Buxton and I awoke this morning to find this note from Frank in my e-mailbox…

I just wanted to make a huge acknowledgment of Tony Randall's life. His total dedication to our production of The Odd Couple was inspiring. He would work with us writers and directors all day and late into the night trying, as we all were, to make it the best we could possibly do. He was like a terrier. He'd grab hold of Felix Unger and shake him and bark at him and never let go until he was exactly right. He could be a pain in the ass, sure, but a great and productive pain in the ass as you can see from the results. I cherish my years on the show and having been a part of Tony's success.

It's often hard to say why someone has the career they have. But Tony Randall's was as long and successful as it was, in part because of that dedication. The obits I've read so far this morning all do a decent job of summarizing how expansive that career was, but fail to convey how many eras of show business and changing trends it spanned. He was always there and now he's not there…and I already miss him.

A number of people like those in this article are urging John Kerry to "go big" in his campaign. I'm not sure if they want this because they think it will win him more votes or if they just want him to put on a show. Either way, I tend to think it may be too early for what they suggest. We have a long way to go before Election Day. I am more inclined to agree with this weblog post by Joshua Micah Marshall and view it as a wise early strategy. Of course, I would like the guy I vote for to stand for a lot more than John Kerry seems to represent…but I think there's plenty of time for that. When your opponent is suffering a steady stream of self-inflicted wounds…that's a good time to keep your yap shut.

June 6, a group called Aid for AIDS is hosting a fund-raising Tony Awards Party in Los Angeles. While I'm sure it's a good cause, I'm a bit baffled by the sales pitch. A full-page ad that keeps appearing in Variety makes the same claim they make on their website: "The Only Place on the West Coast to See The Tony Awards Broadcast Live via Satellite from New York."

Uh, the only place not counting my house. Or the home of almost anyone in California, Oregon or Washington who owns a satellite dish.

Do they really think no one else can watch the broadcast live out here? Or am I missing some subtle nuance in their ad line?