What do you get if you combine 64 Jay Leno monologues, 64 David Letterman monologues and 64 Conan O'Brien monologues? Answer: You get this. (Thanks to Andy Ihnatko for the tip.)

Terry Teachout, who covers theater for The Wall Street Journal, offers the opinion that the drop in audience attendance for The Producers represents the end of an era. Here's the whole article and here's a key excerpt…

What struck me about "The Producers" when I first saw it was how unabashedly old-fashioned it seemed, from the right-between-the-eyes overture to the Milton-Berlesque acting. It stands to reason that the show should be old-fashioned, its creator having been born in 1926, but it occurred to me that what I was witnessing was not so much a new musical as the last gasp of a dying comic language. Strip away the naughty words and self-consciously outré production numbers and "The Producers" is nothing more (or less) than a virtuoso reminiscence of the lapel-grabbing, kill-for-a-laugh shtickery on which so much of the stand-up comedy of my youth was based.

I disagree with most of the above. Some of the trappings of Jewish humor such as the accents and Yiddish asides may be dying out due to the passage of time. (Mel Brooks once predicted that some day, people would listen to his "2000 Year Old Man" albums just to hear a dialect that no longer existed.) But look at Comedy Central and what the up-and-coming stand-ups are doing and you'll hear endless dick and ass jokes. The fart jokes that once seemed like "kill-for-a-laugh shtickery" in Blazing Saddles are now showing up on NBC primetime. Comedy is getting no classier; it's just losing its accent.

I'm not knocking the change, understand; just pointing out that most popular comedy has always involved grabbing the audience by the lapels and killing for the laugh. The number one comedy film in the country at the moment is Scary Movie 3 and the number one comedy star is probably Adam Sandler. I see them as a natural evolution from Young Frankenstein and Jerry Lewis, not necessarily better but certainly, apart from the new gentility, working out of the same tool chest.

I think what happened with The Producers was that about three years' worth of audiences all wanted to go the first year so they could see Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. A certain percentage of theatergoing is built around the "event" nature of a show, and it's a bigger event with the bigger names. If you had a Broadway Time Machine, you'd want to go back and see Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady or Robert Preston in The Music Man, not the guys who followed them. That would in no way reflect on the content of the shows. Teachout notes that The Producers has only been playing at 69% capacity lately. Yes, but there are two big and obvious reasons, one being that Lewis J. Stadlen, who has been highly acclaimed in the role of Max Bialystock, left the show a few weeks back with a sudden hip injury. So recently, true unknowns and understudies have been carrying the proceedings, which will hurt any box office at any production. Secondly, it's been known for months that Lane and Broderick were probably returning. If you wanted to see a given Broadway show, would you go see unknown quantities in the leads or wait until you could maybe get in to see the original, well-reviewed stars?

Teachout predicts that the show won't last much longer than the second departure of Nathan and Matthew. I think it will depend wholly on who steps into those roles. Rumor has it that Jason Alexander and Martin Short, currently in the L.A. company, are unavailable for New York. But if they were, or if comparable names could be secured, I bet the show could keep running the way David Merrick kept Hello, Dolly open for several centuries, casting a succession of legendary performers. It's not that the style of comedy is outdated. It's that if people are going to pay $100 a seat, as they do for The Producers, they want the best they can get for their money, and think that means Big Stars.

By the way, I should mention that any day now, Teachout will probably have a chance to express the above opinion again. Jackie Mason is about to open a new musical in New York. For the last decade or so, Mason has been repackaging a very tired stand-up act and booking it into Broadway houses and regional theaters with steadily-decreasing returns. Throughout his career, every single thing he's touched — TV shows, films, other plays, everything except his pure stand-up — has been a spectacular flop. This new show is supposed to offer "cutting edge" and hip comedy complete with risqué jokes and nudity…just what the world wants from a former rabbi. If it goes the way of most of his projects, we'll probably hear that it represents the death of "Borscht Belt, in-your-face" humor. But it won't. It'll just represent another Jackie Mason failure.

I'm in no great hurry but I've decided to sell my fabled 1957 Thunderbird convertible — the same one driven by the heroes of my comic books, Crossfire and Hollywood Superstars. It's a wonderful car but I think I've wrung all possible fun out of it and I could use the garage space. Just how one sells something like this, I have no idea…so I thought I'd tell its story here and see if anyone has any suggestions.

I purchased the car around 1982 from the legendary actor, Anthony Perkins, star of Psycho and many other movies. Mr. Perkins told me he was its original owner and that he'd driven the car in several of his movies, occasionally repainting it so it would better fit his "character." Since most of Mr. Perkins' films were black-and-white, I don't really understand why it had to be repainted. But sure enough, when I later had the body redone and all the old paint stripped, there were at least seven layers of sometimes-garish paint. Someone sent me this still of Perkins and a '57 Thunderbird (with New York plates) and while I can't swear it's mine, it seems possible.

Around 1970, Perkins decided to have it completely restored and he gave it to a gent who was famous for fixing cars for Italian movie and singing stars. The guy was so busy with Sergio Franchi's Porsche and Tony Bennett's Jaguar that he didn't finish Perkins' T-Bird until the early eighties. Part of the long restoration time was because Perkins had moved into a dwelling where he had no place to house the car and so was in no rush to get it back. When it was finally done, he decided he really didn't want it, nor did he want to pay the bill, which was about what the car was then worth. He told the mechanic to sell it for the cost of the restoration, which he did — to me.

This was in 1982 and at that point, the odometer said the car had around 10,000 miles on it. I have no idea if or how many times it had been rolled over or back but I've never touched it and it now shows a little over 14,000 miles. I've only driven it now and then, mostly on short trips for fun.

During those years, I repeatedly allowed it to sit undriven in the garage for long-enough spells that the battery went dead and I had to have it towed, serviced and detailed. I had planned to do all the servicing and repair work on it myself but I've never really had the time. The car has been fixed up by a succession of good mechanics but one after another, they all went out of business or moved or otherwise became unavailable. So the car occasionally sat in the garage for a year or two until I got around to finding someone who knew how to fix the thing. That is its current condition: The battery is dead and it needs servicing…but it ran fine the last time I started it, three years ago. Since I've lost interest in taking care of it, I figured it was time I passed it on to someone who would drive it and love it and pay the insurance bill on it.

I've had three major restorations done on it, including the major body job where we stripped off old paint, removed tons of Bondo and pounded out all the dents, and repainted it its original "baby blue" color. As far as I know, everything visible on the car is original equipment: Original radio, original hubcaps, original seat, etc. I have both tops — the hardtop and the soft — and have used neither. The hardtop is on a shelf in my garage. The softtop is folded down behind the seat and the canvas has probably gotten so brittle that it will need to be replaced. Under the hood, all original T-Bird parts were used in the restorations except for expendable items like the carburetor and the battery. I also installed a couple of fuses that weren't there in the original design. The last time I had it appraised, the expert said he'd never seen a '57 Thunderbird that was closer to its original state.

Right now, I'm looking for advice on the best way to sell it…maybe for someone local (Los Angeles) who knows a lot about old cars and would help me get it running and auctioned in exchange for a commission. I just don't have the time to run around with it, find a new mechanic, show it to dealers, etc. If you have interest or an idea, drop me a note.

About twelve hours ago, I mentioned that the recently-deceased Joanna Lee might have been the first-ever female animation writer. Dave Mackey reminds me that a lady named Barbara Hamner (about whom I know almost nothing) was credited for story on a number of UPA cartoons, some starring Mr. Magoo. There may have been one or two other ladies with that occupation, I suppose…but not many.

Last week, National Public Radio did a segment on Jim's Big Ego, which is a rock band fronted by a musician named Jim Infantino. During the piece, Jim mentioned that when he needed someone to draw a cover for his new CD, he called on his Uncle Carmine. That's right: Carmine Infantino, the acclaimed artist of umpteen comic book heroes, including The Flash, Adam Strange, Batman and his favorite, Detective Chimp. The CD, which is entitled They're Everywhere, also features a song called "The Ballad of Barry Allen," which is dedicated to Carmine. (For those of you who've forgotten: Barry Allen was the other identity of The Flash. And will be again, if there's a just and loving God in the heavens.)

You can order the CD over at the Jim's Big Ego website. You can also download an MP3 of any song from it for a buck, plus there's a link to listen to the NPR segment. (Thanks to Rob Means for calling my attention to this.)

The best thing I've seen on the Internet lately is Eric Idle's Greedy Bastard Tour Journal. Mr. Idle and a small troupe are traipsing about this continent for a series of one and two-night concerts, performing material from his days with Monty Python, plus other equally-smart songs and sketches. Throughout the ordeal, he has been posting a diary of his experiences, complete with flashbacks to other moments in his life. I expect all of this will be compiled into a book at some point but you can read it for free, one day at a time, by going to this page and scrolling about halfway down. If you start reading at the beginning and go forward, you will probably get hooked and not budge from your monitor for about the next hour. So don't click on that link until you've been to the toilet…unless, of course, that's where your computer is located. As Merv Griffin used to say of every single guest on his show less serious than Everett Dirksen, "He's a funny, funny man!" (Oh, yeah. There's also a tour schedule on that page, plus links to order tickets should The Greedy Bastard be roaming your way.)

This obituary for Joanna Lee notes that she was an actress who became a TV writer for shows including Gilligan's Island and The Waltons. And it notes that she became a producer and won awards for TV movies, including "Babe."

But it doesn't mention that she wrote over a dozen episodes of the original prime-time Flintstones series, starting in the show's third season. I'm hesitant to say that makes her the first-ever female writer of animation but at the moment, I can't think of an earlier contender for that title.

Here's a profile of Paul Levitz, who's the Head Honcho at DC Comics. As Richard Humm (who sent me this link) pointed out, there's one typo in there — the Legion of Super-Heroes is not set in the 13th century. But otherwise, it's a good little piece.

Walter Cronkite on why NASA and space exploration may be a luxury we can no longer afford.

While researching something else this evening on the Internet, I stumbled across the fact that Cliff Norton died in January of this year. It's odd how that one got past me because Norton was my favorite kind of actor: The guy who appeared in everything but most folks never knew his name. Stop and take a look at his listing in the Internet Movie Database…and I'm guessing this is about 25% of all he did in his long career.

For one thing, it doesn't mention a couple of shows that Mr. Norton did on KTLA, a local station in Los Angeles around '63. One which I recall vividly was a five minute program he did weeknights at 11:15 PM for a time. The KTLA local news was on from 11:00 to 11:15 and the syndicated Steve Allen Show started at 11:20. In-between, Norton did a weather forecast show that packed in more laughs than many hour programs…and told you if it was going to rain tomorrow, as well. He also had a daytime series in the style of Dave Garroway, for whom he once worked as second banana and comedy relief.

Norton was also a songwriter of sorts. His most wonderful composition was a very funny song called "No Shit" that he recorded with a full chorus and the Joseph Galicchio orchestra primarily as a Christmas gift for his friends. The tune had a long, healthy life of being performed at parties and in nightclub acts, and even made it onto a few "party" records. Just a few years ago, I went to see Jack Jones in Las Vegas and he sang it…magnificently, I might add. (If anyone reading this has Norton's version on MP3, drop me a line. I have it on an LP but I have no idea where.)

For the most part, Norton was just a familiar face that popped up in practically every TV show of the sixties and a whole mess of movies. (He's in the cast list of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World where he supposedly played a reporter. But as many times as I've seen the film, I've never spotted him.) The last time I saw him, a few years ago, was when I attended a live reading of a radio-style drama. True to form, he had a small part but he did as much with it as humanly possible. That was how Cliff Norton functioned throughout his entire career. No shit.

In all the discussions of the CBS mini-series, The Reagans, it struck me that both sides were bluffing to a great extent. Some claimed to have seen excerpts and/or read the entire script, and I have a hunch this was a fib by folks who didn't really care that much what was really in it. In any case, you can now read the script for yourself. Salon has posted it as an Acrobat PDF file, so I imagine it'll be all over the Internet by nightfall.

Reading a script and knowing what you're reading is not an exact science, and even some very experienced, highly-paid execs have okayed a screenplay and been quite surprised at the tone and message of the film that was then made from it. Years ago, I recall reading the screenplay for The Right Stuff before I saw the film and expecting a movie that was largely contemptuous of the original astronauts. The finished product was not that, even though it was directed by the same person who'd authored that screenplay. So you can imagine the variance possible when, as in the Reagans mini-series, the director is working from a script he didn't write.

Nevertheless, this release of the script will give the film's detractors a chance to be more specific as to what they felt is factually inaccurate. I expect they will, though it will mean holding this one mini-series to a standard that has rarely been applied to other works.

Bill Mantlo was a prolific writer for Marvel Comics from 1974 until the mid-eighties. During those years, he wrote for an awful lot of different comics but is probably best-remembered for long runs on The Hulk, Iron Man, The Micronauts, The Champions, The Human Fly, Cloak and Dagger, Rom and many others. I never really knew the guy but I admired his versatility and dedication.

When his work fell out of favor with the then-current editors, Bill turned his attention back into a planned career that had been interrupted to write Spider-Man, which was to be a lawyer. Alas, in 1992, that career was again interrupted, this time by a tragic accident. Bill was roller-blading (one of those things I will never do and here's why) when he was struck by a car and severely injured. He had what his family describes as a "closed-head, traumatic brain injury" which has left him severely diminished.

My friend Tony Isabella provides an update on Bill's condition (still not good) as well as an address to which his friends and fans can send good thoughts.

A lot of folks are writing to ask how I like my new Pioneer DVR-810H — the unit that combines a TiVo with a DVD burner. I've been burning DVDs for a day and a half…and so far, I'm very glad I bought the thing. Still, it is not without its downsides. Here are some thoughts…

• You record shows on the TiVo and then you burn them to blank DVDs. You can put multiple programs on a DVD up to the capacity of the disk, and the machine will build a little menu on the DVD for you. The main way to get a show onto the TiVo is to record it off the air. Last night, I set my new TiVo to record a movie off cable. Then this morning, after it was recorded, I had the machine copy it to a DVD. Then, I erased the movie from the TiVo to free up space.
• The other way to get something onto the TiVo is to input it through the analog connection. I have a lot of things on old 3/4" videotapes so I hooked the output of my 3/4" player to the TiVo input, copied the shows over and then used the TiVo to copy them onto DVD. The resultant DVD has a picture quality only a teensy fraction below the original tape. You could input the signal from a Betamax, a VCR, a video camera or even another DVD player as long as it wasn't playing a copy-protected DVD.
• A home DVD burner like this one can only burn so much info to a DVD. If you want the top video quality, that means an hour. The next quality level down (a slower speed) will give you two hours. The next level down is three and so on, down to six hours. If you record a two-hour show at the top quality, you have to save it to two disks, and the machine will prompt you when to insert the second one. The speed at which you record a show onto the TiVo is the speed at which you have to burn the DVD. For instance, the movie this morning was 1:47 so I recorded it at the second level speed, the one that gets two hours onto a blank DVD. I could not have changed my mind and burned the DVD at a different speed.
• Obviously, we like the top quality. This makes it frustrating when a show is 62 minutes long. You either have to put the last two minutes on a second DVD or do the entire show at the second level speed.
• As we've mentioned here before, networks have gotten very sloppy about starting shows on time. Some start early, some start late. Ordinarily, if something's on that you simply must record, you pad the beginning and the end to make sure you get it. But this TiVo/DVD unit has no editing capability so if you start your recording five minutes early, what you burn to the DVD will have all that extra stuff at the beginning. If you record a film from Turner Classic Movies, you can't cut off the Robert Osborne intro. Eventually, I'm sure I'll get the software and hardware to do editing on my computer but for now, what you TiVo is what you get.
• Some folks have asked about getting a standalone DVD recorder without TiVo capability and linking it to TiVo when necessary. The advantage of the Pioneer DVR-810H is that its TiVo capability records a show off the air in digital format so it remains digital as it's transferred to the DVD. If you record on a separate TiVo and feed the output into a separate DVD burner, you're going from digital to analog and back to digital, and there will be some loss of quality in there. The TiVo also lets you build little libraries of stuff to burn to DVD as many times as you like. Mine holds 80 hours but that's at the lowest-quality speed. At the best speed, that's about 14 hours.
• I've also been asked about the price. The DVR-810H lists for $1,199 but can be purchased for $750 to $800 if you shop around the Internet. (By the way, here's a link to Pioneer's website about the machine. As you'll see, there's also a higher-end model.) You will also need to pay for the TiVo service. The machine comes with what they call "TiVo Basic," which is a stripped-down, bare bones version that is so simple as to be near-useless. They also give you a free 45-day trial of what they call "TiVo Plus," which is the next level up of TiVo service. I don't see how you can really use this machine without it. This will cost you $12.95 a month or $299 for "lifetime service." This refers to the life of the machine and cannot be transferred to the next TiVo you purchase. If you want to hook your TiVo (or TiVos) into a home network and make use of even more features, that's another $99. The TiVo website will tell you more. Blank DVDs run from a buck to about three bucks each, depending on whether you buy in bulk.

That's about everything that comes to mind so far. I'm going to do some experimenting with different speeds and with dubbing Beta and VHS tapes, and I'll report here after I do. I ordered 100 blank DVDs but I have a feeling I'm going to go through that many in a week. I've got a lot of old tapes, and there a number of good movies on TV in the next week or two.

This is great. William Saletan over at Slate has devised a little game you can play to find your candidate for the next presidential election. You'll need the latest edition of Macromedia Flash installed on your computer but you can get that over there. Go play Whack-a-Pol…and don't be surprised if, like me, you wind up with no one to vote for.

I haven't made up my mind about the Terry Schiavo case, except that I know too much of the public debate is directed by folks who don't have a clue as to the true medical condition of Ms. Schiavo. For a passionate defense of those who would keep her alive, read this piece in The Village Voice by Nat Hentoff. I'm not convinced he's right but he makes some good points.