The L.A. Police Department has a section on their website for the Art Theft Detail. This is the division in charge of recovering lost paintings and drawings, and their jurisdiction extends to various collectibles. On their section of the L.A.P.D. site, they post pictures of items that have been stolen, ranging from Salvador Dali paintings to Peanuts cels. (Also on display and presumed stolen is an oil portrait of former L.A. mayor Sam Yorty…and you can only wonder what a thief would want with that. Maybe he's going to threaten the city: "Give me ten thousand dollars in cash or I return it!") Anyway, it seems like a good idea to me but I have to wonder about one thing: Over in the "collectibles" section, they have pictures of the covers of Action Comics #1, Detective Comics #1 and Detective Comics #27 which have been reported stolen.

In fact, I myself stole the pictures above of Action #1 and Detective Comics #27 from their site and this brings us to a couple of questions. Are those photos of the actual copies of those three stolen books? Did someone think we might be able to identify the stolen Action Comics #1 from the picture and distinguish it from any other copy of Action Comics #1 we might come across? How does someone prove that a given copy of Action Comics #1 is their copy of Action Comics #1? Did whoever put that photo up think, "Maybe someone will see this picture and remember it when they see a picture of Action Comics #1 for sale? Putting up the pic of the Dali picture makes sense since that's a one-of-a-kind item. What do they think the pictures of the comic books will accomplish?

Paul Dini says that the image I posted of Tex Avery's Riding Hood character was from Red Hot Riding Hood. Says Paul…

The tell-tale signs: Red appears shorter and cartoonier in that film, with a shaded nose and three fingers and a thumb in most shots, whereas she gained some stature and a fourth finger in the later shorts. And while her appearance in Little Rural Riding Hood is all reuse (except for the photo of her seen at the beginning of the cartoon) her dance footage is from Swingshift Cinderella, not Red Hot Riding Hood.

And since I mentioned Tex Avery, I should have mentioned Preston Blair, who brought Ms. Riding Hood to life when he executed some of the most memorable animation ever done.

Had a nice time last night at the Reprise! production of Babes in Arms. Richard Rodgers and Larry Hart wrote it in 1937 and the consensus was that it had a silly, lightweight plot but a lot of great songs. Every few decades since, someone takes a crack at rewriting the book and what they wind up with is a silly, lightweight plot but a lot of great songs. The great songs include "The Lady is a Tramp," "I Wish I Were In Love Again," "My Funny Valentine," "Johnny One-Note" and "Where or When." Some shows never have one number as memorable as any of those five.

The plot, such as it is, revolves around a group of talented, unpaid interns who work in a regional theater that's in trouble due to a string of rotten plays. The heroine, Bunny, is a part owner but is about to lose her share of the theater to a bad guy named Fleming who has mismanaged the place into near-bankruptcy. His latest offering is a dreadful thing called The Deep North, written by, directed by and starring an inept, egomaniacal Southern playwright. A great Broadway producer is coming to see it so the salvation of the theater (or at least of Bunny's share) depends on the kids getting the bad play cancelled prematurely — like, during the first act — and getting the opportunity to show the producer a revue they've been developing in their spare time. There are a number of romantic entanglements but basically, that's what it's about, at least in the version Reprise! is doing, which is a 1959 rewrite of the book by George Oppenheimer.

But the inane script can almost be forgiven because the songs are so good, the dancing in this version is so good, and the cast is first-rate. Jodi Benson is terrific as Bunny. All the publicity material reminds us that she was the voice of The Little Mermaid and all around us, you could hear people whispering, "She was the Little Mermaid." And she was — but she's also a terrific musical comedy performer with the kind of voice you have to have to sustain that one endless note in "Johnny One-Note." Also wonderful in the cast were Beth Malone, Jeffrey Schecter, former "New Kid on the Block" Joey McIntyre, Bets Malone, Steve Vinovich, Jenna Leigh Green, old pro Ruta Lee and, in the role of the jerk playwright, Tom Beyer.

As with all these Reprise! shows, there aren't many performances and my subscription is for late in the run because the later you go, the more experience the cast has had in their roles. So you probably won't be able to catch this one, which closes Sunday. But there still tickets for the next two Reprise! shows. They're doing Kismet in January and Company in May. Details at their website. Looking forward to both.

Do not click on this link.

Our pal Scott Shaw! brings you one of the oddest of the oddball comics today over at Oddball Comics. That's right: It's another issue of The Adventures of Manuel Pacifico, Tuna Fisherman. And no, they weren't kidding.

Last week, many newspapers in the U.S. declined to run a Doonesbury strip that mentioned masturbation. According to this article, those that did run it received almost no complaints.

Also: According to this piece, a great many newspapers buried or did not run the recent admission by George W. Bush that there is no evidence that Iraq was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks. This kind of "coverage" goes a long way to expain why so much of America thinks Hussein was connected to those awful deeds.

Here's an obit for Jay Morton, the one-time animation and comic book writer who is said to have coined the famous "More powerful than a locomotive…" tagline for Superman. This one says he wrote "about 25" of the early Superman cartoons but there were actually only 17 Superman cartoons in that series and Morton probably didn't work on the last few.

What did George W. Bush do on 9/11? Eric Alterman wonders.

What do Daisy Mae (in the '59 movie) and Red Hot Riding Hood have in common? Imogene Lynn. Imogene Lynn was a popular vocalist of the Big Band era, heard on records by Ray McKinley, Artie Shaw and others. Born in Trenton, Missouri, she began her professional career in 1940, singing with Emerson Gill and several "Society Bands," playing the national tour of hotel ballrooms and night spots. In 1942, she moved to Los Angeles along with her husband, musician Mahlon Clark, who had a pretty good career of his own playing the clarinet. There, she went to work for McKinley and sang lead vocals on "Big Boy" and "Who Wouldn't Love You" for Capitol Records, both top-selling tunes. Two years later, she went to work for Shaw where she sang on his million-selling rendition of "Accentuate the Positive" for RCA. She toured with Shaw for several years and later went on to be the female vocalist for the MerryMacs, then for the Starlighters.

From the mid-forties on though, her main career was as an anonymous studio singer and as a dubber of non-singing actresses. She sang for Mona Freeman in Mother Wore Tights and Isn't It Romantic?, for Loretta Young in Mother Was a Freshman and, yes, she dubbed Leslie Parrish when she played Daisy Mae in Li'l Abner. And that's her you hear as Little Red Riding Hood (aka Red Hot Riding Hood) in several Tex Avery cartoons. Ms. Lynn passed away in February of this year at age 80.

Shortly after U.S. forces secured Iraq, we heard reports that the Iraqi Museum in Baghdad had been looted of priceless, one-of-a-kind artifacts and treasures. The extent of the looting was argued by pro-war and anti-war Americans, with both sides apparently throwing out wholly fictitious statistics. For what seems like a more temperate, informed view of the situation, you might want to read this article.

Joshua Micah Marshall's Talking Points Memo weblog offers Part One of an exclusive interview with Ambassador Joseph Wilson on our situation in Iraq. If nothing else, read the first sentence of Wilson's first answer. It summarizes the position we're in with an eloquence and directness one does not often hear from those in a position to know.

Above and at left, you see a picture of Leslie Parrish in the role of Daisy Mae in the 1959 movie of Li'l Abner. At right, we see a shot of Little Red Riding Hood as she appeared in several cartoons directed by Tex Avery. Tex reused animation and models, but I believe this shot is from Little Rural Riding Hood, which was made in 1949. Apart from the fact that a lot of males got hot 'n' bothered over them, what do these two characters have in common? I'll post the answer later today. Don't bother writing me if you know the answer. There are no prizes. I can't afford any. I have raccoons to feed.

Some time ago, I launched a section called TV Tickets where I display tickets to TV and radio tapings and, wherever possible, provide little commentaries, anecdotes and historical notes inspired by said tickets. It's a lot of fun and it's inspired a lot of volunteerism. Folks have sent me literally hundreds of scans of old tickets. In a few cases, they even mailed me the actual tickets. Some of them are so fascinating that in response to no less than twenty suggestions, I'm going to assemble and shop around a book of them. (Hey, one of my books got a great review in The New York Times last Sunday. That oughta be worth something…)

Some day soon, I'll add another 40 or 50 tickets to the online gallery but in the meantime, I thought I'd share this ticket which came to me from a devout news from me reader named Jay Shull who attended the evening taping of Conan O'Brien's 10th anniversary special…

As is customary, they did the show twice, then edited together the best moments for airing. Jay reports the following…

The show as broadcast was essentially as performed, even down to the running time. There were a few definite differences, such as: some of the bumpers broadcast were not the ones we were shown that evening post show; and a very few lines were cut, mostly one-offs that got buried in the applause from the previous quip. It was amusing to see the big-screen-TV-as-teleprompter dubbed over with images of the show in the flying camera cut-aways when broadcast.

Robert Smigel was behind the podium hiding in wait for his Triumph bit when the Vomiting Kermit came by and soaked him with liquid. It was obvious that whoever was inside the Kermit cart wanted to get Smigel good as the cart stalled behind the podium and a markedly larger volume of "vomit" spewed forth. When the Triumph bit was through, and Smigel arose to take his bows, he was soaked from head to toe in "vomit."

A sad fate for one of the funniest men in television. I enjoyed the special, though I could have done with longer clips and less audience hysteria.

I really like Late Night With Conan O'Brien and have always been impressed with how solid it was from Day One. It's common to say that Conan was inept for the first year or so while he received his on-the-job training. In truth, I don't recall the show ever being as bad as some now say. He's gotten better but what I find interesting is that he seems to have known pretty much what kind of show he wanted to do from the start and since then, he and his crew have worked at doing that show. Even when rumors were swirling that O'Brien was out and that Greg Kinnear would be taking up occupancy in the time slot, there was no wholesale makeover of Late Night. They didn't start firing bandleaders, adding sidekicks and departments, trying markedly new stunts, replacing the whole staff, etc. They just kept doing the same show. I believe Conan did the "dumb ads" desk bit on his first or one of his first shows…and the routine is still in his repertoire.

By contrast, Letterman, Leno and even Carson retained very few of the ideas they tried in their first weeks. Dave, when he first started, had joke guests (and some too-serious ones) and little vignettes going in and out of commercials. He and his staff soon realized they didn't play and dumped them. Jay had comedy bits like "Celebrity in a Sack" and "The $25 Trapezoid" which were intended as regular routines. They didn't work and he got rid of them, along with his opening, theme song, set and bandleader. The exalted Johnny initially had a little stock company of comedy players for sketches, and a weekly department where he'd go out with a film crew and do some stunt like auto racing or skydiving. It took a few weeks before he jettisoned them and a number of his early departments and sketch characters. Every show goes through those kinds of shakedowns…but Conan's has probably changed less than any of them.

I miss Andy Richter and a few recurring bits have probably recurred too often. (Dave, Jay and Conan now all have running gags about their announcers being perverts and/or getting maimed. Enough, already.) Still, I think it's a terrific show — better than either of the 11:30 shows, as far as I'm concerned — and I'm delighted he got his little prime time victory lap. Hope there are more of them.

[UPDATE, Many Years Later: The TV Tickets section of this site has graduated into its own, separate website.  It's called Old TV Tickets.]

What do Brits do when they find their car has been clamped for illegal parking? Why, they pray for the swift action of Angle Grinder Man! (I gather a clamp over there is like when they put a "boot" on the tire of a car over here, meaning it cannot be moved.)

If only we had someone like that in this country, except he should go after crooked towing services! (Thanks to David Rutman for the tip.)

Senator John Edwards announced his candidacy for president on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. (The shocker was not that he's running but that he announced it there.) Here's a link to an online video clip which unfortunately cuts off in the middle of Stephen Colbert's very funny commentary that followed the announcement. (RealPlayer required, I think.)