According to this article in The New York Times (which you may have to register to read), the end credits for The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King run 9 minutes and 33 seconds. They don't say how many names that involves but the previous Lord of the Rings movie (with apparently a shorter crawl) had 559 names.

This doesn't matter to a lot of people since they aren't going to sit through them, anyway. Theaters may even like it since it helps clear the place out and lets the crew get an early start at sweeping up the Raisinets boxes. But it raises a big issue for uncredited writers.

As you probably know, a lot of movies, especially action flicks and comedies, employ more writers than are listed on the screen. The first Flintstones movie allegedly had more than 30. A lot of folks who get hired to write movies now just automatically presume that someone, or perhaps many someones will follow them.

The Writers Guild of America has the sole power to determine the screen credits on a movie. (Quick aside: In my travels through the entertainment biz, I occasionally encounter someone who's involved in a potential movie in some capacity and though not a screenwriter, says they've been promised a writing credit or will demand one. They're not going to actually write in the accepted sense but they're going to make suggestions and they think they can negotiate a writing credit. If I have the energy, I explain to them that except on a non-Guild film, the studio cannot guarantee them a writing credit. The WGA can always arbitrate and award the credit to the person or persons they decide actually wrote the film. And while that arbitration process is flawed in some ways, it never awards screen credit to anyone who didn't actually produce a script.)

Back when the WGA won jurisdiction over screen credits, it became customary for them to attempt to limit them to two names or in extreme cases, three. The thinking was that (a) more names than that devalued the role of all screenwriters on a film and (b) keeping it down to two or three names might induce studios to keep it down to two or three writers, minimizing how often our work was rewritten by others. Obviously, the latter hasn't worked as intended and some writers are happy about this. They figure more writers being hired to rewrite means more writers being hired, period. But let's turn our attention to that first reason.

That it was more dignified for writers not to be part of a huge list was the thinking back when movie credits were 20 or 30 names. There was usually one credit for Make-Up and it went to the head of the department, not to the 25 folks who actually did the make-up. The head of the Special Effects division got the one credit for Special Effects, regardless of how many guys actually did the work. So it didn't seem that ignoble for someone to write a large chunk of a movie and not get his or her name on it. Most of the people who worked on the movie didn't get their names on it.

Today, most of them do…all 40 Make-Up people, all 348 guys who made the Special Effects happen, the caterer, the insurance broker, the insurance broker's secretary, the security guards, the guys who drove the Craft Services truck to the set, the people who loaded the crullers onto the Craft Services truck…

…but not the guy who wrote 20% of the movie. His name is nowhere to be seen.

Several times, I've been asked to serve on WGA committees that will explore how the credits guidelines might be revised. I would sooner put some vital body part in a drill press. Even opening the floor to discussion gets some writers so angry that flecks of foam begin appearing on their computer monitors and they accuse those who want to change things of being traitors and idiots and sell-outs and…you know, all those things Ann Coulter calls Democrats. I don't need that in my life. Still, I can't help but wonder aloud if now that credits credit almost everyone, it isn't far more ignoble to say that writing a large chunk of a movie still doesn't deserve even cursory recognition. Aren't we now saying that writing 20% of the movie is less important than doing 2% of the wardrobe handling?

The more I think about it, the more I think the whole concept of what screen credits mean has changed, and that it's nuts for the WGA to cling to the perspective of 1946. But I don't expect it to be changed. Not without some serious bloodshed within the Guild.

About the time O.J. Simpson was arrested, I made what was probably a brilliant decision. I make so few that I remember them all. I decided not to follow the case for a while. I could see that the scenario had the potential to be all-consuming, offering up an excess of entertainment and frustrating emotion, to the point of being a major impediment to my work. Later on, it became exactly that…but by joining it "in progress," I minimized the number of months of my life that it was a distraction. I am starting to feel I should do much the same thing regarding the upcoming presidential election.

One of my greatest criticisms of what we loosely call "The Media" is its need to fill hours and column inches even when they really don't have anything to say. The News has always been like this but now, with Internet and cable news channels competing as they do, it's really become a matter of how to take a one-minute news item, stretch it for a couple days, make it sound exciting, and bridge the days when there's nothing at all new to report. The last couple of weeks, most of what I've read about the Iowa Caucuses and Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich's pie charts has been in that category. It looks like news, it sounds like news…but it isn't news. News is about things that matter.

Here is a hunch based, like all good hunches, on just about nothing. One of my most vivid memories of those few years when I followed the Dodgers was when the trailing team would suddenly tie the score and Sportscaster Supreme Vin Scully would yell, "And it's a brand-new ball game!" The fact that one team was ahead or behind for the early innings had suddenly become irrelevant. It sometimes became irrelevant in the bottom of the ninth. All that had gone before has perhaps been entertaining but none of it had anything to do with which team would ultimately win the game. I have a feeling that the '04 presidential race is going to be like that; not that it will tie but that the real contest, the one that will determine who wins, will hinge on events and actions and economic indicators that have not yet occurred and cannot possibly be predicted. It will have nothing to do with what John Kerry said about Dick Gephardt at the Iowa Caucuses.

I expect to support the Democratic nominee unless it's Joe Lieberman, in which case I'll be too busy packing to move to Canada. I also expect that between now and Election Day, the news will be a roller coaster for all who insist on following it. Bush will be beatable. Then he will be unbeatable again. Then he will look highly beatable. Then we'll hear that he already has the ballot boxes stuffed and/or Osama squirreled away for a late October Surprise…and so on. That's what would be best for the newsfolks, so that's how the news will be. It's not that I don't care about the election. It's just that I have the feeling I could ignore it all, pick up the story a few weeks after the conventions and not miss much except that roller coaster.

I won't be able to do that, of course. I don't have the will power. But at least months from now, I'll be able to post a message linking back to this one and say, "I wish I'd listened to myself."

Back in '99, my pal Art Spiegelman wrote a good and important essay for The New Yorker on Jack Cole and his greatest creation, Plastic Man. It eventually evolved in a must-own book but if you don't own the book, you can still read the original article.

Here's Woody Allen writing about…well, does it really matter? It's Woody Allen.

The answer is: "A clever fellow who knew everything about everything, but who'd still e-mail or call folks like me to triple-check his facts because he turned game show question writing into a precision science."

The question is: "Who was Steve Dorfman?"

Daniel Gross explains how the Bush administration is plundering Social Security surpluses to mask the size of the deficit. In fairness, Mr. Clinton did a certain amount of this, as well. It was wrong then, it's wrong now.

Here's an add-on to the obit for sports cartoonist Ray Gotto. Bobb Decker informs me (and sure enough, he's right) that Gotto designed the famous logo for the New York Mets. There was a contest in 1961 and Gotto submitted the winning entry, which is still in use today. There's a little more about this over on the Mets website where they have neatly misspelled Gotto's name. It's a great logo and he deserves the credit for it.

George McGovern (yes, he's still alive) writes a piece that is nominally about Howard Dean but is mostly about George McGovern (yes, he's still alive). Some interesting viewpoints in there, and anecdotes from his own presidential bid. It's on the Playboy website so beware: Click in the wrong place and you might see a naked woman.

Here's a great example of why I love the Black and White Overnight reruns on Game Show Network. The other night, they ran a To Tell the Truth from the sixties with John Hampton as one of the contestants. John Hampton was the man who built and ran the Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax Avenue here in Los Angeles. As I explained in this column, I spent a few years of my childhood, not stealing hub caps or sneaking alcohol but watching old Ben Turpin films within Mr. Hampton's hallowed auditorium. I even helped him out around the place for a few days, watching in awe as he spliced together prints of old films he'd uncovered. I can't give you an exact number but I know that an awful lot of movies only exist today because Hampton, who was not at all a wealthy man, spent his own money to track down, purchase and restore disintegrating prints. His collection now resides in the UCLA Film and Television Archive.

If you're going to go read that column, read it now then come back to this page. It was written the day after the second owner of the Silent Movie Theater, Laurence Austin, was shot to death in what looked at first like a clumsy robbery attempt. Soon after, the gunman was apprehended and it turned out he'd been hired by the theater's projectionist, who was Austin's live-in lover. The projectionist and shooter are presently serving life sentences without the possibility of parole. The theater was again vacant for some time after the murder but was eventually acquired and reopened by a gent named Charlie Lustman. It is now open intermittently and we hear it's up for sale.

All of that was in the future when John Hampton appeared on the game show I just watched. It was great to see him again and it took me back to the evenings I described in the above-linked column. My friend Steve and I would get dropped off on Fairfax by one parent or another. We'd walk up and down the street talking about old movies and what our advance research had yielded with regard to the films we'd be seeing that evening. Fairfax then (this is the mid-sixties) was taken up by what they called "head shops" (selling posters and light drug paraphernalia) and delicatessens, so it was an odd mix of pedestrians…older Jewish people, some Orthodox, intermingling awkwardly with barefoot hippies. The aroma on the street was also strange…an amalgam of incense and gefilte fish. Steve and I would always stop in a little laundromat that had a coffee machine that dispensed really good hot chocolate and we'd each have one. Then we'd walk to the theater and wait out in front for it to open. As various other patrons lined up, we'd tell them all about Laurel and Hardy or Mabel Normand or Mack Sennett, whether they wanted to hear or not.

We'd sit through that evening's show and if the first few films were good, we might sit through the start of the second show, which reran the same films. When we'd had enough, I'd go out to the pay phone in the lobby and call my father to come pick us up. Then Steve and I would wait out front for him to arrive, and we'd spend that time discussing the films we'd just seen.

At around this time in the evening, Mr. Hampton would usually leave his post as projectionist and hustle outside to sweep up the front of his theater. He was always in a hurry (he had to get back and change reels) but if he saw us, he'd take a minute to chat. Almost every show had at least one truly rare film and we'd tell him how excited we were about it. He'd grin and act like he'd programmed it just to thrill us. Every so often, he'd whip out a free pass and say something like, "Make sure you're here next week. I just found an old Clyde Cook short directed by Stan Laurel." And before he could tell us more about it, he had to run back upstairs and start the next reel. Either that, or my father would pull up out front.

As the column mentions, Hampton died in 1990. I think of him like you'd recall a favorite teacher from your school years…one who you never really knew in a non-professional relationship but who had a big impact on your life. So at first, it gave me a little chill to see him on To Tell the Truth. But as he talked about old movies, it took me back to some very nice memories, including those I've just mentioned. Thank you, Game Show Network. And I really hope you keep these old shows around, just for moments like this.

Several people were responsible for the success of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, but a major contributor was Paul Keyes, who died last Friday. Keyes was a writer and later a producer and after he left, the show took such a downswing that Rowan and Martin finally threw down an ultimatum: They would not come back for another season unless Keyes was re-hired as producer and given vast amounts of control. This was done, and it helped. Keyes was a funny man who often said very funny things. He was also one of Hollywood's most active Republicans. Any time you heard something funny come out of the mouth of Richard Nixon, the odds were good that it was put there by Paul Keyes. In the '76 presidential race, recognizing his value, handlers for both Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter enlisted comedy writers to do for their guys what Keyes had done for Nixon.

Naturally, Keyes was responsible for arranging Nixon's famous Laugh-In cameo. He also did his buddy Dick a favor by keeping Laugh-In relatively free of the kind of Nixon jokes that might wound his boy. He claimed he'd put anything on the show if it was funny but he never found any joke at Nixon's expense funny. Jokes about Nixon's opponents were, however, all hysterical. Despite this, he was widely respected in the business. If you'd like to know more about his career, which included writing for Dean Martin, Jack Paar, Frank Sinatra and many others, here's a link to an obit.

Here, recommended to me by Alan Light, is a neat little site. It's called Let Them Sing It For You. Someone has excerpted what must be thousands of songs and selected individual words. You type in a line or lyric and then, assuming it find those words in its database, the program plays back what you typed. The first word might be from a Hendrix record, the second from the Beatles, the third from Sinatra and so on. You have to make the phrase simple but it does work.

Here's one of those facts guaranteed to make some of us feel ancient: Soupy Sales is 78 years old today. I don't believe it, either. My favorite teevee performer (at least when I was nine) was always the most energetic, vital guy around. You had to be energetic to do that many hours of television per week, much of it quasi-ad-libbed. You had to be vital to do that many dances, take that many falls and, of course, get hit with that many pie crusts full of shaving cream. A Soupy Sales TV show was always like some daring acrobatic feat, and not everything went right but for the viewer, that was a win/win situation. When it went right, it was funny. And when it didn't go right…well, that was funny, too.

In fact, seeing things collapse and watching Soupy dig himself out of the rubble was even more entertaining than watching when it all worked. I don't think all of the live or live-on-tape programs today collectively take as much risk as Soupy did in every broadcast. I posted this article I wrote about him, and it was included in Soupy's autobiography. (Alas, no one corrected one factual error I made: Soupy's 1978 TV series was directed by Lou Tedesco, not Lou Horvitz.) Anyway, last I heard, Soupy was home from the hospital and recuperating from some surgery relating to a nasty fall he took some years back. I don't think he's on the Internet but I have this theory which I cribbed from Peter Pan that if we all send out good thoughts, somehow they'll get to him. So Happy Birthday, Soupy. And sorry again about mixing up the Lous.

Also born on this day: Larry Storch, David Bowie, Graham Chapman, Ron Moody and some guy named Elvis Presley. At least one of those people must have worked with Lou Horvitz.

This article in the Washington Post can pretty much be boiled down to one sentence but read it anyway.

The one sentence is something like, "The reason we haven't found any Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq is that every bit of evidence says they were destroyed more than ten years ago." This is probably not big news to most folks but what's interesting is how even a lot of Bush's own guys have come to that conclusion. Even those trailers that G.W.B. tried to suggest were for the manufacture of chemical weapons are no longer deemed suspect.

Throughout all the warm obits for baseball great Tug McGraw, only a few (like this one) seem to recall that one of his many ancillary careers was to create and supposedly write a short-lived newspaper strip about a baseball player. It was called Scroogie and I don't know a whole lot about it other than that it started in 1975 and ended not long after, but still managed to get collected into a couple of paperback books. Mike Witte did the artwork, and I think I read somewhere that McGraw collected ideas and gags from other players he knew and then used them in the strip.

The title character, Scroogie, was a softball who (the promotional copy told us) "…threw a screwball and was one." He hurled for a team called the Pets, which seemed to be a cross between the Phillies and the Mets. Like many sports strips, the idea was to sell newspapers something that the editor of the sports section, as opposed to the comic strip page, would purchase. Well, one apparent reason that Scroogie struck out was that a lot of those editors had purchased Tank McNamara the year before and didn't think they needed two comic strips next to the Hockey scores, especially since Tank covered all sports, not just baseball. Too bad…because I just flipped through my paperbacks and recalled that Scroogie was not a bad strip at all. Even if he did sometimes rip off Ed Norton's best joke.

To no one's surprise, Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick have signed for the film version of the Broadway version of the movie of The Producers. Susan Stroman, who directed the Broadway show, will direct the movie. One hopes they will name it something other than The Producers but they probably won't. The movie version of the musical of Little Shop of Horrors was called Little Shop of Horrors, causing a goodly amount of confusion, especially in the home video market.

I'm guessing we'll see Mel Brooks and many of the surviving members of the movie's cast doing cameos. And there will be at least two new songs by Mel so that he has a shot at an Academy Award for Best Song.

And do we all know that Curb Your Enthusiasm is doing a storyline that involves Mel Brooks casting Larry David in a production of The Producers? And that after Nathan and Matthew get through with their current Broadway run, my pal Brad Oscar goes back in as Max with Martin Short as Leo? And that Bob Amaral, whom I raved about in a local production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is now playing Max in the touring company that is presently in Detroit? I'll bet he's terrific.

And one bit of Non-Bialystock News: Cathy Rigby has announced that she's going to tour again in Peter Pan, commencing in the Fall of this year. This is real good news since I saw her in her last two tours and thought she was superb in the role. If you've got a kid that you want to introduce to live theater, that's a great introductory show. You might even get a seat near me.