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.

As we all know, the Comic-Con International in San Diego is a joyous and wonderful event that occurs, this year, from July 22 through July 25. As we who have gone to them know, there is one thing wrong with the Comic-Con International in San Diego. It's that so many people attend that the parking lots and hotels are jammed for miles around. A few years ago, I actually had a guest on one of the panels I hosted not appear because he was driving around and around and could not find a place to park his car. Long past the start time of the panel, he gave up and drove home.

Well, you'll be utterly thrilled to know that this situation is going to get a whole lot worse. Next week, the San Diego Padres start their season in their new home, Petco Park — so named because it was underwritten by the company that sells kibble and catnip mice. Petco Park is just a few blocks from the San Diego Convention Center and expects to share most of the same transportation and parking resources. In fact, this website for Petco Park even suggests the parking lot at the Convention Center as among the good places to park when you're going to a Padres game.

Now, we may have a slight break this year since the Padres will not be playing at home from July 16 through July 25. That, however, does not mean this spanking, new state-of-the-art coliseum will be empty all that time. There may be a concert or some other athletic event booked in there while we're around. And even if it is unoccupied this year, that can't last. Next year or the year after, we'll wind up with 40,000 Padres fans flooding into the area the same nights we're all trying to get dinner at a nearby restaurant or just get from one place to another.

What I'm getting at is that if you're planning on attending this year's Comic-Con, you might want to do some extra planning and leave some extra time. And if you're going to the 2005 Comic-Con and expect to get a parking space, I'd leave now.

Listening to Al Franken, as I did intermittently today, I have to think: What is the appeal of Talk Radio? Admittedly, I've never been a huge fan of it, in part because so much of it seems theatrical, as opposed to political. The hosts I've sampled (and two I've met) have generally failed to convince me they really believed what they were saying…or that they'd believe it if they weren't getting rich and famous from their line of attack. To use another analogy to professional wrestling: When I did that show with Hulk Hogan and Roddy Piper and Cap'n Lou Albano, I heard a lot about that business and one overriding observation was that Reality tends to emulate Art. The scenario masters decide that Wrestler X is going to be a devout enemy of Wrestler Y, and they send them out to hate each other and threaten each other and to hit each other over the head with folding chairs and such. It starts as an act but eventually, as often as not, they find actual reasons to hate each other. On the show I produced, we could not have Hulk and "Rowdy" Roddy in the studio at the same time.

A lot of what I've heard on Talk Radio has struck me as the host just saying what he thinks will keep people tuned in. Those who agree will listen for the reinforcement, and the joy of hearing those they hate get bitch-slapped, and maybe so they can learn some arguments to use against their friends who see the world in a different manner. A friend once told me that every time the news is good for the Democrats, Rush Limbaugh's ratings go up as right-wingers tune in to be reassured and to hear the "spin" as to why the news, whatever it is, really isn't good for the Democrats. In the meantime, a certain amount of those who don't concur with the host will tune in out of a perverse desire to get mad and to hope, usually in vain, that some caller will take the guy down a peg. (It's in vain, of course, because it's close to impossible to lay a glove on someone who can cut off your microphone. Even when you're right and he's wrong. Most Talk Radio hosts do not fare well in a venue they can't control, which is why most avoid them or, like Bill O'Reilly on his book tours, manage to embarrass themselves.) Ultimately, the worst sin in Talk Radio is to be boring and the best way to not be that is to select someone as The Enemy and to do wholesale demonization of them. If one is to fill that many hours a week, one has to seize on every allegation and rumor, giving air time to a lot of bogus stories.

At some point, as with the wrestlers, a lot of Talk Radio hosts and extremist pundits start to believe their own bull. They're getting rich off it. They're getting famous from it. In public places, total strangers come up and thank them for saving America. We'd all like to think that wouldn't warp our thinking, and that we'd adhere to impartial truth and fairness, but a lot of us would get seduced by the finances and fame. We might privately recognize it was an act, or we might start to believe the extreme was the middle and that always seeing the worst in The Enemy was impartial truth and fairness. Either way, we'd realize that a certain amount of hysteria was necessary, just as a matter of showmanship. And if our ratings started to drop or our book sales started to slide, we'd probably panic and ratchet up the hysteria and demonization. If Liberals haven't done as much of that as Conservatives, it's only because they haven't had the economic incentives. I don't really buy the notion that the thing working against Liberal Radio is that lefties are nuanced and more reasonable. Off the radio, most are…just as most Conservatives aren't like Limbaugh or Liddy if they don't have a mike in front of them. What has worked against Liberal Radio is the same thing that's worked against westerns on variety shows on TV: Some day, Liberal Talk Radio may be all the rage but right now, there's no business model that shows anyone getting Limbaugh-style paychecks for doing it.

The new Air America Radio project has many handicaps, just as any new radio venture does…and unfortunately for it, its success or failure will probably be judged on immediate results, not on long-term impact. Most radio success stories are a matter of slow, long-range achievement, so I'm not optimistic. I'm also not likely to be listening. There are only so many hours in my day and I can't afford to devote many (sometimes, any) of them to either hearing someone blindly mock my political views or just as blindly reinforce them. I might make time if there was a real back-and-forth, with reasonable people trying to understand and deal with alternative opinions, rather than to just try and stomp them out of existence. But if a radio show did that, it probably wouldn't survive long in today's marketplace. There is a reason they don't hire or even interview a lot of people who have minds that could conceivably be changed. It's not Good Radio, just as it isn't Good Wrestling if we don't hate the bad guy.

I haven't decided yet if Al Franken's show is Good Radio or Bad Radio. The first one was pleasant enough if you don't get violently ill at hearing people criticize George W. Bush. I'm not sure it will please those who thrill to Bush-bashing the way a certain segment of the population liked to hear that Hillary was going to prison for Filegate, that Bill was going to be tossed outta office for Monicagate and that both would eventually be executed for the murder of Vince Foster. Even if Franken does wind up serving that audience, I'm not sure they're enough of them out there, or enough willing to tune in every day, to make a go of it. I only know that if he pleases them, he won't please me. And even if he doesn't please them, I may not find the time to listen, anyway.