We've been talking here about Comic-Con in years past and I mentioned the El Cortez Hotel in San Diego. Here's a brief TV news item about the con when it was at that hotel back in 1975. Shel Dorf is identified as the founder of the annual event and that's not exactly true. It's kind of a mistake that Shel encouraged and which no one bothered correcting very often in the con's earlier days.

In almost every news report back then about comic conventions, reporters fixated on one of two aspects or both: People dressing up as colorful characters and/or people paying then-outrageous sums for old comic books. You rarely saw anything about the contents of comic books or about the people who made them. This report is fairly typical. Jerry Siegel, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Will Eisner, Gil Kane and many more important figures in the industry were present at the '75 con but they go unmentioned.

If and when I post some news coverage of more recent conventions, you'll see a lot about people dressing up as colorful characters and/or the presence at cons of stars of smash hit movies and TV shows. And even this report talks about Star Trek…

A friend of mine in Las Vegas just e-mailed to tell me that work crews are removing the name "Bally's" on the outside of Bally's Las Vegas, the big hotel at the corner of South Las Vegas Boulevard and East Flamingo Road. The place started life in 1973 as the MGM Grand but in 1986, Bally's — a company that started by manufacturing pinball and slot machines — bought the casino-hotel and renamed it.

A new hotel called the MGM Grand opened farther down the strip in 1993. It is still there and still named the MGM Grand. I think.

The Bally's company was purchased in 1996 by Hilton Hotels and then in 1998, Hilton split off all its casino-type operations into a company called Park Place. In 2003, Park Place was renamed Caesars Entertainment since they owned Caesars Palace along with other hotels. Then in 2005, Caesars Entertainment was acquired by Harrah's Entertainment.

Thoroughly confused? Wait, it gets worse: In 2010, Harrah's Entertainment was renamed Caesars Entertainment Corporation.

And worse: Back in 2003, one of the oldest casino-hotels in Vegas, Binion's Horseshoe, got into a huge legal battle with the the Culinary Workers Union and the Bartenders Union. A messy situation ensued and when it was over, Binion's Horseshoe was acquired by Harrah's, back when it was still Harrah's, but they soon sold it off to a company called MTR Gaming. Harrah's retained the rights to the name "Horseshoe" and some other intellectual property so Binion's Horseshoe became Binion's Gambling Hall.

Caesars Entertainment Corporation has been using the name "Horseshoe" on some of its properties around the world so now Bally's is being renamed Horseshoe Las Vegas. That's why they're taking the name "Bally's" down.

Back when I was playing Blackjack and counting cards, my two best winning streaks occurred at the original MGM Grand on The Strip and at Binion's Horseshoe downtown. Counting those cards was tough but not nearly as tough as keeping track of what any of these places was named and who owned them at any given moment.

Well: My Spectrum TV guide says that MeTV Plus starts running Harry O episodes next Monday at 4 PM, commencing with Episode 1 of Season 1 and proceeding right through the list, Monday through Friday. (Spectrum supplies my cable TV and it actually sometimes works.) But the guide on my TiVo has no mention of Harry O and it says there's an episode of Streets of San Francisco in that slot on Monday. You would think that in this era of stunning scientific breakthroughs, everyone could get this kind of thing right but at least one of these sources is wrong.

The musical group Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds consisted of Dan Hamilton (lead vocals and guitar), Joe Frank Carollo (bass guitar) and Tom Reynolds (keyboards) and in 1971, they recorded "Don't Pull Your Love Out." The group was formed out of the remnants of a band called The T-Bones, whose biggest hit was "No Matter What Shape Your Stomach's In," an instrumental version of a song that had been heard in Alka-Seltzer commercials.

That was all I ever really knew about the group. This record came out in Spring of 1971 and it was everywhere for a few weeks. I don't have any personal stories about it other than that a friend of mine used to sing a rather dirty and amateurish parody version of it. You can probably guess what the title line was turned into…

This blog may not have the most readers but it has some of the most informative. I said in the previous message that it was unlikely any channel would be rerunning Harry O soon. Perhaps I was wrong. Several of you have informed me that MeTV Plus (not to be confused with MeTV) will be running them at 3 PM, Monday through Friday starting this Monday.

The advance listings on my TiVo know nothing about this — they have Police Woman reruns listed for that time slot — and the online MeTV Plus website listings are not very complete or current. So this may not be true but I have a feeling it is. If you see anything definitive online, lemme know.

MeTV Plus, in case you don't know, is a spin-off channel from MeTV. MeTV focuses more on comedy. MeTV Plus has more cop shows and dramas and is not in nearly enough markets yet.

Well, some of you are. They ran the 42 episodes of the 1974-1975 detective series Harry O on Decades this past weekend and quite a few of you wrote to thank me for alerting you it was there.

The show starring David Janssen debuted on ABC the day before NBC debuted its series about a private eye who lived on the beach, The Rockford Files. The latter was the bigger hit, running six seasons compared to two for Harry O but I thought Harry O was by far the better of the two. I liked The Rockford Files but I loved Harry O.

And three of you wrote to say you caught episode #10 of Harry O and noticed that its opening scenes, which saw a man being murdered in the streets of San Diego, were shot outside the El Cortez Hotel. In 1972, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1981, the El Cortez was the site of the San Diego Comic Convention. You can see that episode — not one of the series' best — on YouTube.

It'll probably be a while before any channel runs these shows again. In the meantime, you can order the two volumes of Harry O on DVD here and here but they ain't cheap. The price seems to fluctuate but it doesn't fluctuate far from around $42 each.

Right now, you can buy all six seasons (120 episodes) of The Rockford Files on 22 DVDs for thirty bucks. I already own the two Harry O DVDs but if I didn't, I'd still think they were the bigger bargain.

Here's David Seville with his Chipmunks selling Post cereals. You know, if you have kids and you feed them enough sugary cereal, they'll start sounding like Alvin, Simon and Theodore…

From Frank Antonides…

We were having a discussion on a comic board about how many Golden Age artists are still alive. I told folks about how I used to attend your Golden Age panel at SDCC and how they were typically videotaped. Many folks expressed an interest in seeing the recordings and I wondered if they have ever been made available for purchase? If they are I'd love to pass on the information on how to purchase them and if not will they ever be available?

Very few folks who wrote or drew comics in the so-called "Golden Age" are still alive and the few who survive are either unable or unwilling to travel to conventions these days. Even if COVID were not an issue, I don't think you'd see a lot more of 'em at cons.

Once upon a time, it was fairly easy for me to assemble a Golden Age Panel each year, especially with the aid of a gent named Dave Siegel who did a lot of the legwork to track down folks who'd worked in comics long ago but weren't in the then-current comic book community. But as you might imagine, it got tougher as the years went by. At one point, I quietly switched it to the Golden-and-Silver Age Panel so I could include people who worked in comics in later years but even those became impossible to fill.

I forget what year we did this but we then introduced something called "That 70's Panel" with comic book creators from that decade…and even that became a problem. There were still a lot of folks from that time period around but very few who wanted to attend Comic-Con. This year, because I knew quite a few who were not attending because of The Pandemic, I didn't even try. If COVID is not an issue next year, I may (may!) attempt to throw together a seventies panel but I'm not confident it can be done.

And yes, every year I still have some version of this conversation with at least one person who approaches me…

SOMEONE WHO APPROACHES ME: I love all these panels you do but why don't you do a Golden Age or Silver Age panel anymore?

ME: Okay, name three people at this con who are qualified to be on it.

THAT SAME SOMEONE: Uh…

And then their eyeballs disappear like Batman's when he puts on his mask and they stagger away, bumping into pillars and cosplayers.

The panels of the past were sometimes videotaped…not professionally but just as a record. There are dozens of problems that would need to be worked out before we could make them available in any form and I need to start dealing with those issues and talking with the other folks involved. I think those videos will be available some day in some place or some form but I can't tell you how or when or where. It's a more complex matter than you might imagine.

What's involved with raising the first baby panda born in Singapore?

Slowly but surely, life is drifting towards normal in a world where The Pandemic is of less and less concern. It's still out there. People are still catching it. People are still dying or being seriously hospitalized. Nothing in this post should suggest that masks aren't a good idea in some situations, hands should not be washed or COVID is no longer a concern. But if you're like me, you're now doing some things you refrained from doing before we all heard the word "coronavirus." I have gone to a party, gone to a movie, gone to a comic book convention.

I have not gone to Las Vegas and it may be a long time before I do.

Oh, wait. I misspelled a word in that previous paragraph. I should have written "lonnnnnnnngggggg." And this not so much because of disease but because I now have no reason to go there and plenty of reasons not to.

I used to go to Las Vegas a lot. There were a few months in the nineties when I was there as much as I was in my home in Los Angeles. Here are some of the reasons why I went there and why those reasons no longer apply…

• I got hooked on Blackjack and more specifically on counting cards in Blackjack.  It was not so much a money thing with me. I never tried to win that much. I just wanted to see how many times I could leave a Blackjack table with more money than I had when I sat down…and once I'd done that enough times, I decided to quit while I was ahead. Why does this reason no longer apply? Because I quit, because I have no reason to start again (it was hard work) and because I'd have to learn how to do it all over again. I've forgotten all the little formulas and a lot of rules have changed, like so many casinos now pay 6-to-5 on a natural, whereas they used to pay 3-to-2. (A "natural" is when the dealer deals you an ace plus a ten-value card.)
• I love "old show business" and in Vegas, I could go see and often meet comedians and variety acts who'd been at it for years. I got to hang out with Dave Barry and Pete Barbutti and Irv Benson and so many other comics I knew from television. There were also longtime hotel employees around with great stories about Vegas in the fifties and sixties. Why does this reason no longer apply? Such people are all either dead or retired.
• I liked going to buffets, not so much for the volume as the variety. When you have as many food allergies as I do, you tend not to be adventurous in your ordering. But at a buffet, I can see the food before I put it in my mouth and often get a sense of how risky it might be…and I can have one bite of it on my plate instead of a whole order. Why does this reason no longer apply? Because since I had gastric bypass surgery in 2006, it is physically impossible for me to consume enough food at any buffet to feel I got my money's worth. That's especially true because of what buffets in Vegas now cost but I'll get to that topic in a moment.
• For part of my Vegas visiting, I was dating a showgirl in a show at one of the casinos. Apart from liking her a lot, I liked hanging out backstage at the show, talking with all the performers and the stage crew and everyone. Why does this reason no longer apply? Because that show is no longer in Vegas and neither is she. In fact, they imploded the entire hotel and built a new one on that land, and the lady I was seeing is now in another state, happily married with several children.
• I was occasionally there on business, writing for some comedian who was playing there or meeting with someone about a TV project…or something. At least three times, I was there to help a producer "pitch" a proposal for a Vegas show which they would produce and I would write. Why does this reason no longer apply? The "pitched" shows were never bought and I haven't had any business there lately.
• After my father died, I took my mother to Vegas three times because she loved going there but needed someone to get her onto the plane, off the plane, through the airports, into her room, etc. Why does this reason no longer apply? Eventually, her health would not allow her even that luxury and even more eventually, she passed away.

And also, for much of the time I was commuting to Las Vegas, I had a lot of "comped" free rooms, some because of all that Blackjack I was playing. I don't get those anymore.

But maybe the biggest reason I'm not going to Vegas is this: It's become incredibly — almost insultingly — expensive.

I'm on a few message boards where people in the "business" end of Las Vegas discuss the business. During The Pandemic when the casinos were as dead as one of those corpses they keep finding in Lake Mead as the water level drops, this was the consensus: "When COVID ends, we're going to have to spread around a lot of comps and discounts to lure vacationers back to Vegas." That turned out to be a very bad prediction. When the hotels reopened, mobs stampeded back to fill them.

No incentives were necessary. Suddenly, everything was selling out and when they raised prices — which is what you do when you're selling out — people were still stampeding. The most popular buffet in town at the moment seems to be the Wednesday night Lobster Buffet at the Palms. Last time I looked, admission to it was $64.99 per person and waits of more than four hours have been reported. Every week or two, they raise the price some more and they still have four-hour waits to get in.

It's like that all over Vegas. The most expensive buffet is the Bacchanal Buffet at Caesars. That's $69.99 and there are several others in that price range. Shows are the same way. Here are the top and lowest prices of some of them…

A seat to Penn & Teller runs $106.47 to $239.48. Rod Stewart at Caesars Palace is $75.00 to $323.10. Shania Twain's new show will run you $99.21 to $1,259.79. The Michael Jackson-themed Cirque du Soleil® show at Mandalay Bay has seats from a low of $131.13 to a high of $283.73. Barry Manilow at the Westgate gets $94.42 up to a top of $422.98. And you don't want to know what it will cost to take in Adele's upcoming Vegas residency. Just sign your house over to her and that might (might!) get you into the rear balcony.

Some of those top prices include a meet-'n'-greet and/or souvenirs but the point is that good seats are not cheap these days. They're also not empty. It's like that all over the city and lately, all sorts of hidden fees are being added to hotel bills and restaurant checks. And yes, yes, I understand why they're doing it and frankly, if you and I had a business and we could double our prices without losing a single customer, we'd probably do the same thing. (Well, I might. You're much nicer than I am.)

But you get the point: I don't know how to go there without feeling like I'm Tourist-Trapped and being played for a sucker. I'm not going to say it's the principle, not the money, because frankly it's both. No matter how much wealth you have, there are moments when you just feel you're being treated like a pigeon and not an especially smart one at that. That city used to be so much fun.

Add in the fact that every time I see video or photos of present-day crowds downtown or on The Strip, I think, "Gee, if I was eager to catch COVID, that looks like a dandy place to catch it," and…well, it may be a long time before you see me there.

Downtown, a few blocks from The Fremont Street Experience, there's an alley into which I once blundered. It was full of homeless people, many of them practically sleeping on top of each other. Vegas has a large homeless population and it makes sense: It's warm most of the year, much of it's open 24/7, a lot of food gets thrown away or donated to missions, and big winners have been known to be generous with street folks who ask for spare change or Bitcoins.

But the folks in that alley were such a contrast to the opulence and riches you see elsewhere in that city. I sometimes think of them all sleeping in that alley and I just know that whoever owns that alley is now charging them a $39.95-per-night resort fee. Plus tax.

The other question put to me by Adam J. Elkhadem concerned Marvel's official, company-run fan club in the sixties, the Merry Marvel Marching Society…

I was absolutely awestruck to see you cited in Stan's Soapbox proposing the various M.M.M.S. acronyms in the pages of Fantastic Four. What a neat early claim to fame! How did you come up with these and what was it like to see your suggestion printed and later adopted?

I started writing a reply to Adam and experienced a wave of déjà vu. Suddenly, I was telling myself, "You've written this before" and I realized that, damn it, I had. I wrote about it here.

To it, I'll add that (a) I tend not to run into Stan Lee much these days and (b) that it was always a thrill to pick up a comic book at a store and find that a letter of mine had been accepted for publication. Obviously, it was a bit less of a thrill each time it happened but as I then had every intention of becoming a professional writer — or at least trying to become a professional writer — it was nice to feel I could at least get stuff I wrote published, sans pay.

And it was less of a thrill the few times — maybe more than a few — when what was published with my signature was not exactly what I'd written; when someone at DC or Marvel had decided my letter needed a rewrite to perhaps invert what I'd said or make a joke letter sound more like a serious statement. I finally stopped sending in letters for that reason.

And in hindsight, it was even less of a thrill than that. When I got into the business, I realized that it wasn't all that big a deal that some editor (more often, an assistant) had chosen my letter to be printed. I'd thought what I'd sent had stood out from a pile of a couple hundred submissions. Turned out, it was more like they needed eight letters to fill the page and they'd received twenty or so, half of them incoherent or saying next to nothing…and one or two in Crayola®. It was no great achievement to stand out from that stack.

So I guess I was thrilled at the time but I learned I shouldn't have been. And that included the ranks for the Merry Marvel Marching Society.

Singer-performer Helen Grayco died this morning at the age of 97. The last time I saw her, which was about ten years ago, she could have passed for 65. She was a beautiful lady, inside and out, and in her heyday a magnificent vocalist.

Talk about starting young. By the age of eight, Helen Greco — she later changed it — was already a singing star on radio in Tacoma, Washington — the city of her birth. A few years later, Bing Crosby discovered her and she relocated to Hollywood where she had small parts in a number of movies including A Night at the Opera. She toured with many of the top bands of the day including Red Nichols' and Stan Kenton's but is best remembered for her long association with Spike Jones. She performed on his records, tours, radio programs and TV shows…and they married in 1948.

She continued to perform, but not often, after Spike died in 1965 and pretty much gave it up after she married restaurateur Bill Rosen in 1968. While dating her niece, Kristine Greco, I got to visit with Helen a few times. She was lovely and charming and she had the kind of sense of humor that was probably mandatory to be married to Spike Jones.

Here she is performing on one of Spike's shows from 1955…

We haven't had a Barbershop Quartet number here in quite a while. Here's the U.S. Army Chorus singing one of my favorite Sondheim tunes…

I have a whole new flock of fund-raising e-mails from the Donald Trump campaign about the Mar-A-Lago incident. Reading them, you wonder if whenever there's what we might call "bad news" for the man, the first thought in his office isn't "Great! We can take in a lot of dough fund-raising off this!" Wouldn't it be interesting if at this point, Trump has decided he really doesn't want to be president again and all he cares about are (1) staying out of jail and/or paying fines and (2) raising money?

I keep hearing people ask of each Trump scandal and investigation, "Will this be the one that finishes him off?" I don't think any one matter will. I think the steady drumbeat — every week or so, a new possible crime — will finally cause enough Trump supporters to decide he's no longer electable…and maybe some will get sick of him letting them down. After Biden won, a number of them wrote me to say, "You'll see! Trump has solid proof that the election was rigged!" And of course, he never had any such proof.

Some of his supporters — the kind Jordan Klepper has a knack for locating at rallies — will never abandon him. But a lot of the less hypnotized ones have got to be sick of "their guy" never being able to back up his claims…and worried about the scandals or crime allegations that could come out after he's nominated. A major argument against Hillary when she ran against Trump was that she was always being investigated.

Here's a recently-compiled list of all the investigations and cases against Trump or involving him that are currently ongoing. And since that list was posted just a few days ago, the Chief Financial Officer of the Trump organization, Allen Weisselberg, has pleaded guilty to tax fraud.

If you think that list is the end of it, just remember: Not that long ago, you didn't know anything about the F.B.I. raiding Mar-A-Lago in search of top secret documents.

Longtime comic book artist Tom Palmer passed away yesterday at the age of 81. Born in New York in 1942, Palmer initially went down the path of realistic illustration and portraits but he was also a tremendous fan of comic books, especially the old EC books he'd devoured as a teenager. Working in advertising in the sixties, he chanced to meet Jack Kamen, who had drawn for EC, and began asking Kamen how one might go about getting into comics. Kamen was out of that world by then but he introduced Palmer to his fellow EC artist Wally Wood, who was still involved in that field.

Palmer assisted Wood briefly, then got a recommendation from him to see Sol Brodsky, who was then the guy at Marvel who took a look at new talent. Brodsky arranged for Palmer to pencil an issue of Doctor Strange, which Stan Lee thought was competent but unexciting so they assigned the next issue to Gene Colan to pencil. Palmer was disappointed to be "fired" after one issue but he accepted an offer to ink Colan's work…and when they saw what he did with it, he became a regular inker of Colan's work, there and then for a long run on the Tomb of Dracula comic. Fans also praised his work inking John Buscema on The Avengers (and elsewhere) and Neal Adams on The X-Men (and elsewhere).

In fact, Palmer was so popular as an inker that he was rarely given the chance to pencil a comic book — or better yet, pencil and ink. When he did, the results were so good, some of us wished he'd do more of that. He remained very much "in demand" for the rest of his career and his son, Tom Palmer Jr., followed him into the business as an editor. A very talented man.