Hey, when Al Gore proposed eliminating oil-burning internal combustion engines, Republicans called him "Ozone Man" and a kook, and claimed that he wanted to take away everyone's car and make us all bicycle to work.  So what's this with George W. proposing hydrogen-powered automobiles?  I'm sure the same folks will rush to denounce him as an environmental wacko, right?

The internet is an amazing resource for gathering trivial info.  I posted the question below at 11:30 PM, my time.  At 11:54, Tom Stewart sent me this link to a matchbook for Al Lewis's restaurant.  It was Grampa's Belle Gente at 252 Bleecker Street.  This is a much more important use of the World Wide Web than discussing the State of the Union address.

"Grandpa" Al Lewis — best known for his roles on The Munsters and Car 54, Where Are You? — used to have a restaurant in Greenwich Village in New York.  It was called either Grandpa's or Grampa's and it's not there anymore.  But which was its name and what was its address?  I was by there once and I think it was on Bleecker, but for reasons too boring to explain, I'm trying to find its exact location for someone.

Jor-El has passed. Actor Robert Rockwell has died at the age of 82.  The newspaper obits (like this one) are noting that he was the second member of the cast of Our Miss Brooks to leave us in as many weeks, after Richard Crenna.  Rockwell played Mr. Boynton on that show, and performed countless other roles on other shows and on the stage.  But a lot of us remember that he was Superman's father, Jor-El, in the 1952 origin episode of the Superman TV show starring George Reeves.  It was probably only a forgotten day's work to an actor with such a prolific career.  But some of us will never forget it.

The overnight ratings for the first airing of Jimmy Kimmel Live! in its regular time slot did not give ABC much cause to party.  See for yourself…

Someone will probably be out spinning this as a good start, noting that many affiliates didn't clear the show, and saying the network has great confidence and will give it time to grow.  And some of that's probably true.  But Kimmel's show had every ounce of hype the network could muster and it got about the same numbers that Politically Incorrect received in that slot with none.

By the by: Don't bother coming back here tomorrow to check on tonight's numbers because I won't be posting a chart every day or maybe even ever again.  But I thought just this once was worth the effort.

Angelenos will be happy to know that the dulcet tones of Gary Owens can once again be heard on L.A. radio.  For twenty-some-odd years (some of which were very odd), Gary was the top-rated afternoon personality in town, holding court and his ear over on KMPC, 710 AM.  Now, he's on KLAC, 570 AM where the playlist spans Frank Sinatra to Rod Stewart, and he's on from 1 to 4 weekday afternoons.  This is enormously good news, as Gary is the best at what he does, and a helluva nice guy as well.

American Movie Classics used to be a great channel, filled as it was with vintage movies — including many rare treasures — aired uncut and with loving annotations by true film buffs.  Then something happened.  I don't know what but something.  They now have a much more limited library and the films air with commercial interruptions.  Someone there also doesn't seem to know much about the movies they're running, either.  This month, they're advertising the 1987 motion picture version of Dragnet.  They announced it, they put it in all the TV listings and today, their announcer said to stay tuned for "Dragnet, starring Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks."  But instead, they showed the 1966 Dragnet with Jack Webb and Harry Morgan.

It's interesting, but it's hardly an "American Movie Classic."  It's the TV-Movie/pilot that led into the 1967 series revival.  You might find it worth a look, especially if you like that odd delivery that star-producer Webb insisted on for all his actors.  (He wouldn't allow them to see a script in advance or memorize lines.  He wanted everyone reading off the TelePrompter so he could keep speeding it up after each take, thereby speeding up the actor.)  The TV-Movie also had a slightly higher budget than the series, which often looked like they were trying to see how little they could spend on a half-hour of network television.  Mr. Webb was said to be very happy when his profits were high.

At least, the AMC website knew which version they were airing, though they list the film as Dragnet 1966 and then give its date as 1969.  That's not wholly their mistake.  Most sources seem to have it wrong despite the fact that the real date is right there in the title.  We just want the facts, ma'am.

New York Magazine picks Mad Art as a "best bet" in its new issue and on its website.  Just thought I'd mention it.

I am amazed to find this morning no Internet consensus that the debut Jimmy Kimmel Live! was a train wreck.  Maybe there was something there that I missed.  I have the TiVo set for all episodes this week and thereafter, even though it means only catching the first half of Letterman.  I hope I can report that I'm enjoying Kimmel more because, as I've said, I think he's one of the freshest comedy talents to emerge in some time.

As I mentioned here, I still have the original costume that Deidre Hall wore when she played the senior member of ElectraWoman and DynaGirl.  I haven't decided what to do with it yet.  I might donate it to a TV museum if one seems appropriate.  I might give it to Ms. Hall if I ever meet her and she seems to want it.  I might do a number of things with it. However, I have decided that I will absolutely not give, rent or loan it to any drag queens who are just dying to see how they look in it.  So you can all stop writing me.

This week and next, I'm doing a whole mess of radio interviews to speak of the book that all the online booksellers fear, Mad Art.  I won't bother listing them all here but don't be surprised if you hear my stammering tones on your Bose.  And if you do and they're taking call-ins, call in and ask me anything.  Except whether you can wear the ElectraWoman suit.

In 1963, Jerry Lewis launched a two-hour live ABC talk show from the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood.  The first outing was a disaster with tech screw-ups, clumsily bleeped words, and a host who was nowhere near as funny as even his most fervent fans thought he would be.  With Jimmy Kimmel Live! — broadcast live on ABC from the El Capitan Theatre — history has repeated itself.

Okay, it isn't the same El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood.  Jerry's El Capitan was over on Vine.  But otherwise, Kimmel's first outing was the same kind of fiasco.  And I say that as someone who thinks Kimmel is usually very funny.

Is it fixable?  Of course.  And they may well fix it.  But the thing which has to have ABC officials removing large clumps of follicles from their executive scalps is that in no way did their star look like a star.  He did not take command of the proceedings.  He did not attempt to build anything out of the wreckage.  He did not even look like he belonged there.  (His co-host, Snoop Dogg, sure looked like he wished he wasn't, and the two of them could not have had less rapport.)  Conan O'Brien didn't look half that awkward his first night, and Conan had logged a lot fewer hours in front of TV cameras than Jimmy Kimmel has.

Ted Koppel had the best line of the evening.  He launched things by announcing, "There will be no special post-Super Bowl edition of Nightline tonight so that ABC may bring you the following piece of garbage."  If Jimmy Kimmel Live! is going to live, it's going to require a lot more comedy and a lot less attitude.

And, speaking of Jerry Lewis…

I was negligent not to note the recent passing of Norman Panama, the comedy writer-producer who racked up so many amazing credits working with Bob Hope, Danny Kaye, and just about everyone else who was funny in movies in the fifties and sixties.  Here's a link to an obit that recounts just a tiny bit of what he did, but we have to underscore one credit: He co-wrote the musical — on Broadway and the subsequent film version — of Li'l Abner.  We wrote about this here and here.

Interviewing Mr. Panama for those pieces was a sad, frustrating affair.  It had to be done over the phone since he was ill and "wasn't seeing anyone" and I was warned that his memory came and went, and that it might take four or five calls before I caught him at a moment when he even recalled doing the show.  It took around seven and even then, almost all he could do was to confirm and slightly expand on anecdotes I'd obtained elsewhere.

The one thing he did remember was getting Jerry Lewis to do a short, unbilled cameo in the film.  Panama told me what I reported in the article but what he didn't recall just then was that, probably apart from union scale, Jerry was paid a hefty $1.60 for his appearance.  There seems to be no way for me to link to the specific page but if you go to The Official Jerry Lewis Comedy Museum and Store and hunt about, you'll find a copy of the check (signed by Panama), the invoice, and a cover letter from Panama's collaborator, Melvin Frank.

Sorry to hear of Mr. Panama's passing, but I have the feeling it was a blessing in its way.  He truly had an impressive, superb career.

My spies inform me that, yes, Game Show Network is about to air the final network I've Got A Secret from 1967 (Friday night/Saturday morning) and that they will then go back to 1955 and rerun all the episodes they've run before.  That will involve again skipping over some episodes that do exist in their library but which would require heavy and costly editing before GSN would want to rebroadcast them. Mostly, this involves the removal of cigarette commercials that (I assume) are integrated into the show itself.  God knows we can't have America watching Winston ads at 4:00 in the morning.

I have no listings for what airs the two nights following the rerun of the last CBS show, but Monday night/Tuesday morn, they're scheduled to air the 12/2/53 show with special guest George Raft.  The next night, they run the 12/23/53 show with guest Paul Hartman, then that's followed by 10/13/54 with Boris Karloff and 2/2/55 with Ed Sullivan.  The debut episode was June 19, 1952 so they're only running about a half-dozen shows from the program's first three years.

Among those omitted is the episode where the celebrity guest was actor Monty Wooley, whose secret was "I sleep with my beard under the covers."  The panel failed to guess it and, when it was revealed, panelist Henry Morgan asked, "Now, Mr. Wooley, tell us.  Do you really sleep with your beard under the covers?"

Wooley replied — on live TV and referring to the producer of the show — "No, but some damn fool named Allan Sherman told me to say that."

I'm not trying to shove these Dick Van Dyke Show DVDs down your trachea but I thought someone out there would be interested to know that (as I just found out, watching it) Volume 1 contains an extra, unadvertised bonus.  It's the complete Head of the Family, the unsold pilot Carl Reiner did before The Dick Van Dyke Show.  He starred as Rob Petrie (pronounced with a long "e"), head writer of The Alan Sturdy Show.  The whole cast was different and the show wasn't very good.  It even has that kind of forgettable theme music that all unsold pilots of the sixties seemed to have.  Fortunately, the premise was later resurrected with Mr. Van Dyke assuming the role that Reiner had created for himself.  That worked out okay.

Stan Freberg had to move his Manhattan engagement from this coming week to May but someone apparently didn't get the message before arranging for a little "welcome."  He's 31 across in this morning's New York Times Magazine crossword puzzle.

Whether or not you agree with its point, you may enjoy this article by Monty Python's Terry Jones.  It's about Bush's policy towards Iraq.

I may be one day off on this but it seems like, early this coming Friday morn, Game Show Network's Black and White Overnight series will air the final network episode of I've Got A Secret.  The series took a big hit in the ratings when Garry Moore departed as host and was replaced by Steve Allen.  GSN has been airing shows in sequence (with occasional exceptions) and is nearing the end.  They still have I've Got A Secret listed indefinitely after that, so perhaps they're going back to the beginning and running those programs again.  Hope so.

Folks write me all the time to ask if I know where they can obtain videos of certain antique TV shows.  I write back and tell them to check out the website of my longtime (close to 35 years) friend, Bruce Simon.  If Bruce don't got it, no one got it.  Here's his banner ad, and you can order with confidence because he's an honest guy…

Several of you have written to inform me that Penn Jillette is not the first person on TV to call John "Crossing Over" Edward a douche.  Apparently, South Park has already made the point.  Okay, but it bears repeating.

I finally saw Mad Art in a bookstore.  The huge Bookstar over at La Cienega and Beverly Boulevards had a nice shelf-full.  They also had one in the window, right next to a sign announcing that this store is closing forever on January 30.  Maybe that's why Amazon is afraid to have copies.