Several of you have informed me that TV Land ran the "Turkeys Away" episode of WKRP in Cincinnati as part of their Friday night tribute to Gordon Jump. Let's all watch for it to be scheduled again.

For those of you interested in the matter of the show's soundtrack alterations, here's a link to a web article that explains it in greater detail than I did. As a few of you have noted, this has also been done with a few songs in sketches on Saturday Night Live reruns.

One of the great things about doing comic books (and I really do think it makes for better comics) is that you often collaborate with friends. Almost all of my happy experiences in the field have been when the artist was someone I could go to lunch with and have a good time, talking about all sorts of stuff. A perfect example is my pal, Will Meugniot (pronounced "Mineo") with whom I did a lot of comics, most notably The DNAgents. Here's a link to a recent interview with the guy.

Dave Sikula, a good friend of this site, sends the following about the late Donald O'Connor…

Just a note about Mr. O'Connor. I don't know if you saw Bring Back Birdie in its blessedly-brief run, but I was lucky enough to be at the first preview, when the actor's nightmare came true, and everything that could go wrong did. It was a horrifying spectacle, and I wouldn't trade the memory of that night for the world. (My favorite part, among many, was a punk number by a band called Filth. For 1981 Broadway, it was pretty hardcore punk. The number ended and was met with about ten people, out of a full house applauding, and one guy booing loudly. Ah, good times.)

Anyway, O'Connor's big number in the show was called "Middle-Aged Blues." In it, he lamented getting older, since he didn't feel all that much older. At one point in the number, he goes over to the proscenium and looks it up and down, feels it, and looks for all the world like he's going to try the run up the wall from Singin' in the Rain. The crowd, desperate for any entertainment by this point, goes bananas. O'Connor backs away, and goes on with the song. He sings the next verse and does the same thing; over to the proscenium, looks it over, sizes up the possibilities. Crowd goes even wilder.

Finally, he reaches what is obviously the climax of the song, starts over to the proscenium…and walks off stage. End of number.

That encapsulates Bring Back Birdie (along with the number about jogging, and Chita Rivera's big number than consisted of a guy pushing her around on a push broom) better than anything.

Never saw Bring Back Birdie, the short-lived sequel to Bye Bye, Birdie. I do recall a friend of mine calling me from a pay phone in the lobby during intermission of one performance. He said, "It's another one of those shows that is about one-fifth as entertaining as if they'd just let the stars do their nightclub acts." He felt that way about the revival of Hellzapoppin' with Jerry Lewis and a few others that don't come to mind at the moment.

Would you like to own the tuxedo or cocktail dress that some big TV star wore to the Emmys or Golden Globes? Would you just like to know their sizes? (Conan O'Brien takes a 42 long) Many are up for bids over on eBay.

Here's a link to a short piece over at the L.A. Times on the offering of the Silent Movie Theatre. (Thanks to about eleven of you who sent it.)

As you may be able to tell, we're installing a new design here at news from me. As my luck would have it, the new parts of the template are working just fine but some things have gone screwy with the parts I didn't change. For the next few days, this page may look a bit odd and be in a state of flux. Do not adjust your set.

Shelly Goldstein calls my attention to an ad in the real estate section of the Los Angeles Times — the paper version, not the online one. The Silent Movie Theatre on Fairfax is for sale. Again.

For those of you who don't know the history of the place, I refer you to this article. It takes the story up to the point where Laurence Austin, the man who reopened the place, was murdered.

The narrative after that involves Austin's male companion being found guilty of his murder, and a number of revelations about Mr. Austin that were none too flattering. There was a protracted battle over the property with many folks (including the murderer) claiming title until it was finally sold to a man named Charlie Lustman who did what seemed like a fine job refurbishing and reopening the place. But lately it's been closed more often than a healthy business is closed, and I guess Mr. Lustman has decided to bail. The Times piece says he's looking for "a buyer who wants a landmark, a historical responsibility."

Asking price: $2.9 million for the business and real estate. The package includes the renovated theater (first built in 1942) and 5,000 sq. ft lot; 1,600 sq ft. back patio; all furniture, fixtures and equipment; silent movie-star portraits, posters and lobby cards; and a film collection of more than 185 titles.

I hope someone takes him up on it but I have to admit I'm pessimistic. If he couldn't make a go of it, I'm not sure anyone can. Once upon a time, it was just about the only place you could go in Southern California and see a Buster Keaton film. Today, you can get most of them on DVD. In fact, the whole business of "revival houses" is withering away since you can purchase or rent the films, watch them at your leisure and not put up with faded, spliced prints. Maybe we have to accept that certain institutions that once brought us joy are not eternal; that time and technology makes some things obsolete.

For those of you watching Game Show Network's Black and White Overnight block: They just aired the last prime-time episode of To Tell the Truth. Tomorrow night, they begin running episodes from the daytime version of the show hosted by Bud Collyer, although the first one has Jack Clark sitting in as guest host. In a few weeks, the format of the block will change. Instead of airing three shows, allowing 40 minutes for each, they'll add back Password and run four shows in the two hour slot. This presumably means fewer commercials…or rather, they'll run the same eight commercials six times apiece instead of ten. The one with the lady demonstrating different kinds of scooters has now been aired more often than the grape-stomping episode of I Love Lucy.

E.J. Dionne explains why he liked the California Gubernatorial debate.

Like Karnak the Magnificent, we give the answers before the questions. As I was posting the previous message explaining about the music changes in the reruns of WKRP, Jim Lawless was sending the following question about one of the episodes TV Land aired this evening…

Toward the end of this episode, Carlson called Venus and asked him to play something for himself and the "little girl" he had in his office. In the original airing (and IIRC, early syndication) of this episode, Venus played "Thank Heaven For Little Girls." However, in all later broadcasts of this episode that I've seen, Venus plays "We've Only Just Begun." (You can still see him clutching the Gigi soundtrack album in both flavors of the episode, though.) Do you know why the original was altered?

Like I said. But this is a good example of the kind of change I was writing about. The cheapo music library probably didn't have "Thank Heaven…" so they picked something else. And of course, being a song about newlyweds, it's much less appropriate…to say nothing of the fact that Venus is holding the wrong record jacket. In some episodes, the alterations are even worse.

If you set your TiVo to tape the "Turkey" episode of WKRP in Cincinnati tonight, you instead got the episode where Mr. Carlson (Gordon Jump) assisted in the delivery of his child. In tribute to the late Mr. Jump, TV Land switched around the schedule to run four episodes that spotlighted his character, none of them the one we were hoping to see. Let's all keep an eye out for it.

By the way: If you think there's something different about those WKRP episodes from their original network runs, you're right. A lot of the songs being played on the radio station have been changed from genuine hits to generic knock-offs. It costs money to use an Elton John or Beatles record on a TV show but at the time WKRP was originally produced, ASCAP charged less for a taped show (like WKRP) than for a filmed show, so the producers spent the money. Some time in the mid-90's, the discount went away and whatever company then owned the show (it's changed hands a few times) decided the rates were now prohibitive. They went in and replaced the real rock records with fake ones from some inexpensive music library. Even worse, when a line of dialogue (like a disc jockey intro) referred to one of those songs, the dialogue was redubbed, often by someone imitating the original actor. There are a few places where this kills a joke or damages the storyline.

Apparently, some stations that have been continuously running the show in syndication have been able to keep using the old, unaltered tapes but the versions on TV Land or on home video are the changed versions. Alas.

I never met Donald O'Connor and have no anecdotes about him that I didn't pick up in books, but I always thought he was a class act in everything he did. The "Make 'Em Laugh" number in Singin' in the Rain may be my favorite movie musical number — and that's no small achievement, doing the best song-and-dance spot in a movie starring Gene Kelly. He also held his own when he played the title role in The Buster Keaton Story. It was a dreadful, appallingly-fictionalized version of Keaton's life but he probably "did" Keaton as well as anyone could who was not Buster Keaton.

There was just something so darned likeable about O'Connor, even in his weaker films. That was, unfortunately, most of them…but somehow, he was always good. Even when they didn't let him dance, even when they made him work with the Talking Mule. I guess that explains why the man worked for sixty years. Here's a link to a pretty good New York Times obit.

Tuesday night, one of David Letterman's guests is a gent named Ray Wold, who bills himself as a "pyrotechnician." This is a fancy term meaning that he sets himself on fire.

I first saw Ray Wold around 1993 when he was in a revue called "Hot Stuff" that played at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. I love variety acts — jugglers, magicians, folks who balance items and on each other, etc. Once in a while, those acts involve apparent danger to the performer and there's a certain fun in that because you know it's an act; that the performer has done it hundreds, maybe thousands of times, and that they're not likely to get hurt the evening you're there.

For example, at one point there were at least three magicians just in Vegas doing the "Houdini Water Torture" trick. That's the one where the magician is shackled and submerged in H2O, and the idea is that he has to get out in under three minutes because that's how long he can hold his breath. As traditionally performed, an assistant stands by with an ax to smash the tank and rescue the magician, just in case something goes wrong…and then something seems to go wrong. The clock ticks past three minutes without the magician emerging and his aides start to panic. Finally, someone yells, "Quick! Get him out!" and the guy with the ax rushes up and is just about to use it when the magician suddenly appears, dripping but alive, from some unexpected entry point. When performed with a little showmanship, it can be highly effective, even unsettling an audience that knows darn well that everyone is just pretending. The magician's life was not really in jeopardy, just as it will not be in jeopardy when the exact same thing happens at the 10:00 show later that evening.

That's how it works with most "dangerous" acts. I guess it works that way with Ray Wold, but it sure didn't seem that way.

I went to see "Hot Stuff" on the recommendation of a friend in another show. She said, "You like to see sexy dancers? Well, Anita Mann choreographed this new show over at the Sands." Anita Mann was and presumably still is one of the best choreographers in the business. She did Solid Gold, for instance, and the dancers in "Hot Stuff" were in that category. My friend further explained, "The show is not topless so they were able to get real dancers, and real good-looking dancers. Trust me. These ladies are sexier with their tops on than most Vegas dancers are with their tops off." That turned out to be a fair assessment.

But my recollection of the show was and is largely negative because of Ray Wold's spot. He came out with his hat and jacket on fire and throughout his time on stage, some part of him would always be engulfed in flames. He'd put one blaze out and another would start. Thanks to some combination of well-concealed insulation and clever manipulation, he seemed unharmed, even when he sat on a chair that was completely ablaze and sang a few bars of "Great Balls of Fire." At one point, he jumped rope with a rope that had been doused in fuel and set ablaze.

Entertaining? Not to me. Since he still seems to work regularly, I guess he's refined his act and found folks who enjoy it. But that night at the Sands, I have never seen an audience so unentertained and uncomfortable, especially those seated in the front row. Perhaps the act works better in a bigger room. The Sands had a tiny stage and when he was skipping rope, sparks and little pieces of burning something-or-other were flying around and some people got up and moved back. If I'd been sitting that close, I think I would have, too. He got some applause for his obvious courage and there was a big ovation at the end, which struck me (seriously) as audience delight that he had finished. A few people did walk out, never to return.

On the way out, I asked one of the Sands hosts if the fire act usually went over as poorly as it did that night. The man shook his head and said, "The show is called 'Hot Stuff' so I guess they figured they needed something like that. Every show, I worry." I'm not sure if he was worried about some high roller getting singed or about anyone in the place being burned. Either way, Wold had managed to convince even someone who saw the show at every performance that disaster was possible. I left, assuming that I would someday read either that he'd set a showroom on fire or that a member of his audience had been injured.

To the best of my knowledge, that has never happened so perhaps Mr. Wold is much more skilled than I thought, or maybe he's toned down what he does on stage. As I said, Letterman's having him on this week and I'm guessing Wold is the guy who occasionally appears on the program as "Man-on-Fire," just running across the stage with his back ablaze. (Paul Shaffer usually plays the old Arthur Brown song, "Fire," and probably will again, this time.) I can understand the entertainment appeal of a lot of things that don't amuse me personally, but I'm afraid this one just leaves me — the pun is unavoidable — cold.

It isn't just rabid conservatives who can't turn loose of the notion that Hillary Clinton is running for president. Over on the Newsweek site, there's an article by Eleanor Clift that is headlined, "Why Hillary May Still Run For President." But if you actually read the article, Clift says…

I don't believe she'll run in 2004, and I'm sticking to my story. But she is leaving a crack open in the event President Bush's presidency collapses on a grander scale than we've seen so far, that Howard Dean implodes on his straight talk and that Clark with his quirky certitude turns out to be more Ross Perot than Dwight Eisenhower. Even then, Hillary would run into a buzz saw in New York because of her repeated pledge to serve out her full six years. Prematurely bolting for the presidency would play into the caricature of Hillary as a careerist and opportunist, more focused on her own ambition than what's good for her constituents.

So in all honesty, the headline should be almost the opposite: "Why Hillary Will Probably Not Run for President." But I guess that doesn't sound like as juicy a story.

Okay, I promised this story. But first, let me note that Gary DeJong did some research and unearthed the info that the first of the two Archie pilots done in 1976-1977 aired on December 19. 1976 and starred Audrey Landers as Betty, Hilary Thompson as Veronica, Mark Winkworth as Reggie, Derrel Maury as Jughead, Jane Lambert as Miss Grundy, Susan Blu as Midge, Jim Boelson as Moose, Whit Bissell as Mr. Lodge, Michelle Stacy as Little Jinx, Tifni Twitchell as Big Ethel and Amzie Strickland as Mrs. Lodge. Byron Webster played Mr. Weatherbee and Gordon Jump (whose passing started this discussion) played Archie's father. In other words, referencing the earlier anecdote, Gordon Jump came in to audition for Mr. Weatherbee and got the part…then, since the producers couldn't properly cast the role of Archie's father, they moved Jump to that slot and put their second-choice in as Mr. Weatherbee. As I recall, the role of Archie's father was much larger than the role of Mr. Weatherbee so that may explain the decision.

Who played the title role of Archie Andrews? Well, that's the story I wanted to tell. After extensive auditions and screen tests, they picked a young man with brilliant red hair but no real acting experience, at least on television. Somehow, things didn't work out. I never heard exactly what happened but suddenly, the role of Archie was being played by the producers' second choice, an actor named Dennis Bowen who had appeared a few times on Welcome Back, Kotter. (Kotter was produced by the same company. Dennis played the recurring role of Todd Ludlow, an honors student who sometimes heckled the Sweathogs.)

The Archie pilot was an odd mix of sitcom and variety show. It was an hour in length and there were blackouts and little, self-contained storylines of about ten minutes each. Between these, the focus would shift to a rather generic rock band that played bubble-gum style music. The whole thing was being targeted for the 7:00 Sunday evening slot and I recall a lot of argument over how many scenes there could be of Betty, Veronica and a number of good-looking female extras in swimwear and sleepwear. The writers had scripted a number of quick jokes at a swimming pool, and one of the short stories involved the boys crashing a slumber party that Veronica was throwing at the Lodge mansion. Both had been planned expressly to get the ladies into scanty outfits, which the ABC programming department encouraged. At the same time, their Standards and Practices folks ran around demanding less-revealing bikinis and nighties. Some of the best jokes in the show wound up being cut because the girls were showing a half-inch too much of their physiques.

The mix of sitcom and sketches didn't quite work. There was a second pilot with the same cast and pretty much the same idea and it didn't work, either. As I recall, the main change from the first one was that they replaced the generic rock band with one comprised of Archie, Betty, Jughead, etc. Danny "Neil's brother" Simon was the head writer on this try.

Anyway, the great story, the one I wanted to get to, was what happened because they replaced Archies in the first pilot. Somehow, the ABC publicity department never got the word and all the p.r. they issued for the show contained the name of the first actor, the one who was replaced during rehearsals. Poor Dennis Bowen had to endure publicity photos that displayed his face but identified him as the first guy. A few years ago when the Archie comic book folks published a book on the character's history, they said the first guy had played the role.

What happened to that first redheaded guy? Well, he eventually got a TV series, then he left it and made some movies. Now, he's back with another TV series. Can you guess who it is?