Sir Sean Connery has a website…and a very handsome one, I might add.

Here's a long but important article in the New York Times magazine section about the Bush administration's attempts and occasional successes to roll back environmental protection laws. Pretty scary stuff.

Bill Carter, who reports on TV for the New York Times and especially on late night, files this long piece on Conan O'Brien. The quick summary of it is that Conan wants to move up to a show at 11:30 and since Jay Leno ain't going anywhere, O'Brien may be going elsewhere.

Like several of Carter's past articles on late night teevee, this reads like someone's agents are about to open negotiations on their client's future and to put pressure on the network, someone said, "Let's plant a story with Bill Carter." The next probable step in Conan's situation is an auction with Fox, syndicators and maybe ABC or some of the cable networks offering huge sums to wrest Conan away from NBC…though NBC may hurriedly make some kind of mega-deal involving prime-time commitments to keep the guy right where he is. The odds are that's what will happen…but things could get interesting. (While we're at it, here's a link to Carter's recent article on Leno's new contract.)

While working this afternoon, I have some DVDs on the player, including the movie version of A Chorus Line. The best thing about this DVD is that it has a special feature, an interview with Marvin Hamlisch in which he discusses how the Broadway show came to be and says not one single word about the movie. It's hard to not assume this was because he didn't have much good to say about it…and neither did anyone else, as I recall. Given that about 80% of it follows the show precisely, it's amazing how the other 20% or so jerks things so far from what we saw on stage. I already wrote about this adaptation (here) but I felt like mentioning that repeated viewings — and this is may be my last — have not improved my view of it.

Oh, yeah…and here's an Amazon link in case you want to purchase it but trust me. You don't.

HBO and Showtime have this strange way of rotating shows where, for example, Real Time With Bill Maher does a batch of shows and then it goes off for a while and On the Record With Bob Costas returns for a spell. Showtime has just brought back the Penn & Teller program which I liked but with reservations. (I don't think a guy who claims that second-hand smoke can harm you is as deserving of contempt and exposure as a guy making millions claiming to talk with the dead.)

Anyway, I highly recommend the Costas program, which keeps moving farther and farther from its original concept as a sports show. The first new outing, which reruns several times before a new episode next Friday, features Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, Billy Bob Thornton, Josh Groban, and Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. Whether the topic is sports or show biz, Costas is one of the best interviewers ever on television.

William Saletan nails what I suspect is a key element in the debate over George W. Bush's leadership capabilities or the lack, thereof. An awful lot of folks, both Democrats and Republicans, have sided with Bush and come to regret it. Unfortunately for sane discourse, when they change their minds, the immediate accusation is that since they said one thing then and now say another, they can't be trusted.

While we're at it, The Center for American Progress, a liberal site, has posted this list of Bush "flip-flops." I have never bought the notion that if a politician changes his position, it is a sign of weakness or insincerity. In many cases, I see it as a sign of being open to new evidence and willing to change with the times. But those who cite it as a negative about John Kerry ought to be willing to admit that Bush has often taken both sides of an issue.

Things seem to be stablilizing in the Writers Guild. We haven't changed Presidents for two whole weeks.

My pal Carl Gottlieb has stepped in as Vice-President. Carl is a very intelligent man who knows more about negotiations and the Guild than any man alive. But I'm still skeptical that the current drive to increase writers' revenues from DVDs is going to get anywhere.

Let's discuss more upcoming DVDs you may want to purchase. On June 29, Twentieth-Century Fox will release the first in a series of Garfield goodies. Garfield as Himself will feature three of the prime-time specials: Here Comes Garfield, Garfield On The Town and Garfield Gets A Life. There will be more Garfield DVD releases before the year is out and I'll tell you about them and provide links soon.

Also on June 29, the complete first season of the Wonder Woman TV show (the one with Lynda Carter) will be available. Here's an Amazon link if you'd like to pre-order that one. And earlier that month, you'll be able to purchase a 6-disc set of the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon show. Here's an Amazon link to pre-order that one but I should warn you: One of those disks features a documentary on the making of the show and I'm in that documentary as an authority. That's right: You spent all that money on a DVD player and you have to look at me. There's still time to switch back to Beta.

Let us recall a key moment from The Producers (the movie). Max Bialystock and his co-conspirator Leo Bloom go to the apartment of Franz Liebkind, the Aryan author of "the worst play ever written," Springtime for Hitler. To obtain Liebkind's signature on a contract, they repair to his flat where he denounces Winston Churchill for his rotten painting and makes Bialystock and Bloom join him singing German songs. Eventually, he signs — but not before insisting that they join him in a secret ceremony and take something he calls the Siegfried Oath. He makes them don helmets and costumes suitable for a Wagnerian Opera and act out his silly ritual, eventually signing the contract in blood.

You may not recall this scene from the movie. That's because it never made it into the movie. When Brooks was trying to sell his idea to producers, he would act out much of the screenplay and he always convulsed his audience when he performed the Siegfried Oath. The scene was filmed with Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder and Kenneth Mars but excised in the editing process. The film's editor, Ralph Rosenblum, wrote about it in a book called When the Shooting Stops in which he describes how he cut (and from his viewpoint, usually saved) a number of movies. The way he tells it, he decided that the Siegfried Oath should be dumped. Mel, remembering the incredible laughs the scene received when he'd performed it in pitch meetings, refused. They fought and eventually Mel gave in and the material was excised. The only remnant in the finished film comes when Franz bursts into Bialystock's office late in the action and yells, "You haf broken the Siegfried Oath!" The first few times I saw the movie of The Producers, I didn't think anything of it. (I also thought he said, "secret oath.")

This is the way I've always understood things. However, my friend Marv Wolfman is sure that when he saw the movie — in New York, shortly after it opened — the Siegfried Oath was in there. Does anyone know if this is possible? Does this scene still exist and if so, how come it hasn't been an extra on some video release of The Producers? Yes, I know a version of the Siegfried Oath is performed in the Broadway musical but Marv says that's not what he's recalling. He says he saw it done by Mostel, Wilder and Mars in the movie. Did he?

Here are two more of these obscure Gold Key comic books based on popular TV shows of the day. The one-shot Barney Miller comic book was drawn by Dan Spiegle and is almost impossible to find these days due to the thriving interest in "Good Abe Vigoda art." (By the way, did you know that Abe Vigoda's brother Bill was a comic book artist? He worked mainly for the Archie books.) This issue features a book-length story in which Wojciehowicz arrests a man who turns out to be a prominent TV producer. While in the slammer, the producer "discovers" Fish and offers him a big part in an upcoming series. For a brief time, Fish has stars in his eyes but soon realizes it's a kind of bribe when the producer tells him, "Of course, if I go to jail, I won't be doing the show." The veteran cop's sense of civic duty overcomes his dreams of Hollywood, and he refuses to persuade the judge to go easy on the guy. A pretty good issue but we didn't see enough of Barney or the other squad room dwellers.

The Three's Company comic book lasted only two issues, both of which were released in 1978. A story that makes the rounds says that a third issue was prepared and sent to press but that when Suzanne Somers was abruptly dropped from the TV series, that third issue (which centered around her character of Chrissy) was hurriedly aborted. A quick check of the dates shows that this is obviously not so, since Ms. Somers' problems with the show occurred in 1980, long after the comic had ceased publication. Another spurious account says that the third issue was scrubbed because it featured the Ropers and they could not contractually appear in the comic book once they'd been spun off from Three's Company to their own series. The dates almost work out for that to be possible but given that they appeared for some time after on other Three's Company merchandise, this seems unlikely.

During this period, a lot of Gold Key's TV-based books (including the impossible-to-find one issue of The Waverly Wonders) were being cancelled so it's probable that the expiration of the Three's Company comic book was due to natural causes. This is a shame since it really was a fun comic, drawn out of Western Publishing's New York office by Jack Sparling. The first issue, pictured above, has Chrissy inheriting a mansion which (at first) is cause for jubilation among the roommates because they can finally move out of the apartment and away from the constant moaning of Mr. Roper. But then it turns out that the mansion is reportedly haunted and that a clause in the will of Chrissy's late Aunt Hortense says she will forfeit her inheritance if she does not spend one full night in the place. Jack and Janet go with her to help her through a rather chilling evening…made all the more difficult by a disgruntled relative, Cousin Frank, who stands to inherit the place if Chrissy doesn't stick it out until dawn. Cousin Frank happens to be a movie special effects artist and…well, you can figure the rest out from that.

Hey, I just listened to a great audio interview with one of my heroes, Paul Winchell. It's about 15 minutes and you have to have RealAudio installed on your computer. You'll find it on this page.

Did I ever tell you about one of the stupidest things I ever said in my life? I was directing the voices for a cartoon show and I cast Paul in two roles in one episode. Now usually, when you have actors doubling in a script, you try to assign the parts so that their characters don't talk a lot to each other…but in this case, it wasn't possible. So I actually turned to the world's greatest ventriloquist, Paul Winchell, and said, "I've got you talking to yourself here for about a page. You think you can handle it?"

The site with those Letterman clips was overwhelmed with hits. So they're now over here.

This is kinda funny. Monday night, David Letterman ran one of his almost-nightly clips that makes a prominent politician look bad. Most target Mr. Bush but there's the occasional shot at Kerry or Schwarzenegger. Anyway, after it ran, a lady on CNN said they they'd been informed by the White House that the clip was a phony and Mr. Letterman lashed back. CNN later said it was a simple error and that there had been no call from the White House, which makes you wonder just how the folks at CNN think the news is supposed to work. Anyway, this weblogger has captured both clips from the Letterman show and if you have a RealMedia video player on your computer, you'll be able to see them.

I keep having to post obits here for writers I knew. John Sack was a lovely gent who first came to prominence when as the war correspondent for Esquire Magazine in the Vietnam era, he authored the revelatory and definitive article on the My Lai massacre. Often named as one of the most important pieces of sixties journalism, it appeared under the cover blurb, "Oh, my God — we hit a little girl!" John called it (and his subsequent book which expanded on it), merely M. The full text of the article is currently posted over on this page of the Esquire website. It may not be there forever, so you might want to at least capture it now.

Better still, read it. It's a solid piece of journalism which, John always claimed, no one ever rebutted in any meaningful way. It's also an interesting adjunct to the newly-resurfaced discussions about alleged war crimes in 'Nam as reported by John Kerry.

Also on that website is an obit for John and another of his articles, this one a recent piece on Afghanistan. During his long career, he wrote for dozens of other magazines, authored ten books, produced and/or wrote TV documentaries and won an awful lot of respect. I worked with him for a time in the eighties and he never ceased to amaze me with little snippets about the places he'd been, the things he'd seen, the people he'd known. A few months ago, Game Show Network re-ran a sixties' To Tell the Truth on which he'd appeared, along with two other folks who pretended to be John Sack, the adventuring reporter. Thanks to TiVo, I snagged a copy and called him to see if he'd like a tape. He said yes, and that he'd take me to lunch the next time he was in Los Angeles and get the cassette. I'm sorry that never happened because I always enjoyed my encounters with John. Considering all he'd done, you just couldn't help but learn from the guy.