There's a line that I've quoted before on this blog and often in talking to friends.  It's from Alan Jay Lerner and he said, "There are some people in this world who are absolutely brilliant at playing the clarinet and nothing else." Mr. Lerner, by the way, showed his own brilliance with some (not all) of the musicals he wrote like My Fair Lady and Camelot. He demonstrated a notable lack of brilliance at matrimony and probably some other things as well.

A lot of people ask me for advice and when I comply, I usually use the joke/disclaimer that "Free advice is worth exactly what you pay for it." In other words, "Follow this at your own risk." In Blackjack, if you're dealt two eights, it is always wise to split them but that doesn't mean it will always work. Most good advice is advice that is right a majority of the time, not all the time.

I understand why folks ask me for advice about writing or creating comic books. I have some expertise in that area, maybe not as much as some other people but I have some. (I should add here: I have zero expertise in what some old comic book should sell for or the best way to sell it. You might just as well ask me the best way to perform a triple Coronary Artery Bypass Graft.)

But I know a little in a few areas. A few. It's a number that's way smaller than the number of topics on which I am asked for advice.

One topic which for some reason I am asked about lately is apartment rentals — how to locate them, what to look for, rent vs. lease, what to look for in a contract, etc. This is an area in which I have delved exactly once in my life and that was in 1975. There is no earthly reason to assume that I knew what I was doing back then, no reason to assume the process has not changed in 45 years, no reason to assume I even remember much about it.

You could get as much learned knowledge about apartment rentals by interrogating a mynah bird. What you get from me is "I don't know" and if I ask, "Why are you asking me?," they usually say something like, "Well, you seem like a smart guy." If you ever said that to me, thanks for the compliment but my rejoinder was probably "Yeah, maybe about cartoon voices or Laurel and Hardy movies or Jack Kirby." And then I probably laid the Alan Lerner quote on you along with a reminder that I don't play the clarinet, brilliantly or otherwise.

I'm a big believer in seeking out expertise…recognizing what you don't know much about and seeking out folks who have more experience and knowledge than you do. When I read biographies — auto or otherwise — of successful people, I am often struck by how often they got good results by doing that…

…and I don't mean that they asked someone for advice. I mean that they asked the right someone. If you're going to ask the wrong someone, you might just as well ask me how to perform that triple Coronary Artery Bypass Graft. Or play the clarinet. And for God's sake, don't ask me how to perform a triple Coronary Artery Bypass Graft while playing the clarinet.

I am fine. Please do not write or call to ask if I'm all right. I'm all right and I may not be too responsive to e-mails. I just have to deal with a matter that is more important than blogging because, you know, some matters are. Your toleration is appreciated.

P.S. Happy (Better) New Year!

I'm sitting here with a friend watching an advance screener I got the other day (like, three days in advance) of the new movie, The Prom. And here's what I want to know…

James Corden hosts a five-shows-a-week TV series on CBS. Where the hell does he find the time every year to appear in a major motion picture musical that gets horrible reviews but I think it's got a certain charm and is better than the critics say?

As if we need any more depressing news this year, the voice community has been saddened by news that one of its best, Tom Kane, has…well, here's part of the message that his daughter Sam posted on Facebook…

About two months ago, he had a left side stroke that gave him right sided weakness and damage to the speech center of his brain. This means right now he cannot efficiently communicate verbally, nor read or spell. He is still competent and very much himself, but can only get out a few words right now. As many of you might know about strokes, it is possible for him to gain these functions back and we have found him excellent care in Kansas City for speech, occupational, and physical therapy, but for now, we have been warned by his Neurologist that he may not do voiceovers again.

Tom is a great guy who's had the kind of bookings that other actors envy. You've heard him in countless commercials, he's announced the Academy Awards, he's heard on dozens of cartoon shows and as Variety notes, "During his career, Kane has lent his voice to Star Wars: The Clone Wars, delivering lines for numerous characters including Yoda, as well as the blockbuster film Star Wars: The Last Jedi, where he voiced Admiral Ackbar." Just take a look at the list of places you've heard him…and that list is far from complete.

And like I said: A great guy. You can get a certain amount of work in this business if you're sensational at the microphone and another if you're great to work with. You get both if you're as good at both as Tom Kane…as all hope he will be.

I'm afraid I don't have the perfect Dawn Wells story to post here. I thought she was wonderful on Gilligan's Island, a series I followed more for the cast than the stories. They were all just fun people to watch, especially Jim Backus. I was twelve when the series went on and that's a good age to watch Gilligan's Island and to appreciate the two cute ladies on it. It's chic to say you favored Mary Ann over Ginger but the truth is that at twelve, both were starting to look real good to me. Since I was never going to have to choose between them for mating reasons, why choose at all?

My one encounter with Ms. Wells came when I was voice-casting a cartoon series. The network and studio were insisting I audition on tape, a large quantity of actors. Usually, the way it works is that I bring in three or four actors for each part, read them all, pick the one I want and then the network and studio okays my selections and we hire the person I picked. This time, I had to bring in ten for each lesser role and twenty for the main ones. Then I picked the ones I wanted, the network and studio okayed my selections and we hired the exact same actors we would have hired if I'd only brought in three or four per role.

So I spent a lot of time calling agents and asking each of them to send in several of their clients, mostly of my choice but you let each agent suggest a few you don't know. One agent insisted I read Dawn Wells for one of the smaller parts. I thought she was wrong for the role in question but sometimes, you get surprised. And I did have to audition ten actresses…

…so Dawn Wells came in. This was 1993 and she was 55 years old but if I hadn't known when Gilligan was on, I would have guessed 35. I was also instantly struck by a certain Star Quality. She had a beautiful smiling face, a charming manner and a certain aura of "special" about her. The word "radiant" comes to mind. At that moment, when it still didn't matter, I'd have picked Mary Ann over Ginger or almost anyone else.

As I'm sure I've written here, it's good form when you meet a movie or TV star to not ask them about the one credit that everyone asks them about, the one that makes them feel you think that's all they've ever done. That's especially true if it's a long-ago credit. When I met Robert Morse, I did not ask him about How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, when I met Ray Walston, I didn't bring up My Favorite Martian, etc. So I quickly racked my memory for something Dawn Wells had done besides Gilligan's Island…

…and I couldn't come up with anything. Looking now at her IMDB listing, I still can't come up with anything apart from some one-shot guest spots here and there. But I made the best of it and she gave a fine, professional reading that I'm afraid just wasn't what we wanted for the character. It wasn't that she wasn't good. Her agent had just sent her in for something she wasn't right for.

That happens all the time in show business. In fact, it happens a lot more often than they come in and they're perfect for the role. I had the feeling it happened way too often for Dawn Wells. I'm sure she was still terrific at playing Mary Ann parts but there aren't that many of them, plus she was too old to play them anymore, at least on camera.

You feel sorry for someone trapped in that situation. I do, anyway. But then I remember how many actors and wanna-be actors would sell their soul to be on even a three-season TV series that was rerun and rerun and rerun and rerun and rerun, ad infinitum. And while I'm sure her residuals ran out long ago and weren't that huge to begin with, she was well-known and loved by so many generations. Just look at the Internet yesterday and today and probably for the next few days. Everyone adored Mary Ann. You can work your whole life in the acting profession and not achieve that kind of loving immortality.

Here's Bert Lahr doing a sketch on The Ed Sullivan Show on April 23, 1967. I think the other guy in the skit is Danny Dayton.

If this wasn't Lahr's last performance on television, it was close to it. He passed away later that year while shooting the film, The Night They Raided Minsky's. Neil Simon once said among his greatest regrets was that he didn't write The Sunshine Boys ten years earlier when Bert Lahr was alive and active enough to star in it. It would have been great to see him working with great material instead of what he has to get by with in this sketch. But you can still see that once upon a time, he was a great comic actor…

Amazon has become so much a part of our lives that when you say the word, people think of the online retailer and not a warrior woman or river. I do not understand why they do some of the things they do but I do know a bargain when I see it.

Last August, Abrams ComicArts brought out this neat little boxed set of the six Marvel Mini-Books of the sixties, reprinted in larger, hardcover format and including a seventh book in which a Noted Expert explained the history of the original six. The Noted Expert was, of course, me. The set got great reviews and praise and Amazon is now playing games with its price.

It was originally thirty bucks and well worth that. Lately, they've been lowering the price and raising the price and lowering it and raising it and I have no idea why. It's like someone on The Price is Right playing The Clock Game: Higher! Lower! Higher! Lower!

The cost briefly got as low as $8.95 and as I write this, it's a tad under twelve dollars — still a great price. By the time this is posted and you click on this link, only God and Jeff Bezos know what it'll be and I'm not so sure about God on this one.

I was thinking of writing here, "If you've been considering purchasing one of these, it'll never be cheaper" but I'm not sure that's true. It might be free by now or they might be paying you to take one off their hands or one could cost thousands and thousands of dollars, none of them trickling down to the Noted Expert. I have no idea. Just thought I'd mention it is all. Thanks to the very talented Terry Beatty for taking time out from producing the Rex Morgan M.D. newspaper strip to keep me apprised of the latest price fluctuations.

I've been meaning to write a post about people who are always late; who say they'll meet you at 3:00 and show up around quarter-to-four, often with the lamest of excuses…or no apology at all. Embarrassingly, I find myself late in writing this post because my friend Ken Levine wrote it before I could.

Go read his…and by the way, you should know that Ken and I often meet for lunch — or at least, we did before the world stopped meeting for lunch. I am almost always on-time, especially if you give me a five minute grace period. And Ken is almost always there ahead of me.

I'll add that in my experience, two things cause people I know to be late. One is a complete inability to make an inconsequential decision like what to wear. I had a lady friend once who would spend twenty minutes deciding whether to wear the blue t-shirt or the green t-shirt. She looked just as adorable in one as the other — not a scintilla of difference — but each time it came time to decide between them, she spent more time deciding than I did deciding to buy my house. I am not exaggerating.

We missed airline flights, came in after the opening numbers of musicals, made awkward journeys to our seats fifteen minutes into plays…once, we weren't admitted at all to an event, nor would they refund what I'd paid for the tickets. That wasn't the only reason that relationship didn't last long but it was a contributing factor.

Second problem: In another relationship, she always had a couple of crises in her life and every time she was late — which she always was — it went like this: "Sorry. I was ready to leave on time but then the phone rang and it was that landlord of mine, the one I've been trying to reach for days, calling to do something about fixing the hot water…" One tries to be understanding but when it happens every single time, it's hard.

Anyway, I agree with Ken and I thank him for writing the piece I was going to write. Sorry I didn't get around to it earlier but just as I was about to, the phone rang and it was that landlord of mine, the one I've been trying to reach for days, calling to do something about fixing the hot water. And that's maddening, especially when you don't even have a landlord.

Well, for one thing, the reviews and word o' mouth on the Internet are pretty bad. My pal Ken Levine called it a "bloated piece of shit." My pal Leonard Maltin wrote that "the movie struggles to be relevant and serious, but in a superficial, cartoony way. It drones on for two and a half hours but it hasn't got a lot to say, and sputters whenever it's trying to convey a message." Which I guess is how a respected, professional film critic says something is a "bloated piece of shit."

I would never say that either way about a movie or TV show or book or any work of art. The worst thing I'd probably say about something I didn't like is that I didn't like it. And I would not assume that someone else wouldn't…or because they didn't, I couldn't.

I have a history of sometimes liking movies that others dislike — Cats would be a recent example — and not liking movies that friends adored. Stan & Ollie would be one. Before home video, when I was more inclined to go out to movies, I would sometimes make a special effort to catch a film before I'd seen any reviews or had friends tell me how good or bad it was.

No, I just find I'm not that interested in super-hero movies. My interest in super-hero comics is more about the characters that created them than the characters in them. I have friends who've read as many comics as I have who can talk for hours about Batman and Thor and Iron Man and each and every member of The Legion of Super-Heroes. I'm way more interested in Jack Kirby and Joe Simon and Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and more recent creators. I also have trouble relating to characters who are CGI much of the time unless the whole movie is CGI.

Yes, Gal Gadot looks sensational as Wonder Woman. I thought Christopher Reeve looked sensational as Superman but that wasn't enough to make me like those movies. The only thing I liked about the first one in 1978 was the credit for Siegel and Shuster. So I'm in no hurry.

GGersten sent some follow-up questions after my post on comic book coloring…

Your post caused me to look up when Tatjana Wood was, seemingly, the primary DC colorist. I did not know Tatjana Wood was married to Wally Wood. I recalled (then) Glynis Wein as a colorist at the time as well in the 1970s. Were these spousal connections common? Besides Ms. Severin, Wood and Wein were the colorists whose names I noticed or recalled.

I also recall reading that colorists at the time didn't color so much as indicate percentages of the printing colors — like mixing paint — which, to me, sounded a whole lot tougher than simply coloring in the pencils and inks.

My memory of the early 70s was that DC books seemed brighter and Marvel books were darker or even a bit muddy. Perhaps this was due to different printing processes?

Lastly, the Marvel Essentials and DC Showcase collections are not in color. Are they reprinting from the pencils/inks or is color being removed? This last question may be outside your knowledge.

Tatjana Wood (ex-wife of Wally) was a prolific DC colorist but I don't think she was ever the primary one. For a long time, Jack Adler was the main guy in that capacity and he colored most of the covers and a lot of insides. There was a long period there when Jerry Serpe colored more interiors than anyone else.

Nepotism was not uncommon in any corner of the comic book business but it was probably most visible in the coloring division. A lot of spouses and siblings and offspring colored comics and some of them were pretty good. Some older artists became colorists when their eyes or motor skills prevented them from penciling or inking.

Yes, once upon a time, colorists indicated codes and percentages on their pages. They were coloring stats but not to be used for direct reproduction. Printing was done on a four-color press — red, blue, yellow and black. The black plate was made off the black-and-white artwork but the other plates were hand-cut. So for instance for the red plate, someone would define the areas that should be 100% red, 50% red, etc. The coloring that was done by a Marie Severin or a Jerry Serpe would be a guide to the separator as to how the color areas should be placed and in what percentages. A certain green, for instance, might be achieved by printing 50% blue and 50% yellow over a given area. (I am obviously way oversimplifying here.)

During the seventies, DC and Marvel comics were separated and printed via the same outside companies. If you noticed a difference in the coloring between companies, that was probably just different approaches by the folks in charge. I thought the Marvel books usually looked more colorful.

Most comic book art starts with a black-line image and when they reprint comics, DC and Marvel go to their files for black-and-white stats or film and the process starts like that. The files are not complete and if a desired issue is missing, they may have to re-create the black-and-white art via one of several ways. Filtering the coloring out of a printed page is one way. (If the reprint is in color, they may scan a printed comic and tweak the colors.) Most of the pages in those Essentials and Showcase volumes are shot off stats or film of the artwork made at the time the material first went through production.

Anything else anybody wants to know about this? And keep in mind that since comics went from being colored and color-separated by hand to having all that done by computer, the whole process has changed a lot.

…you will want to read this article about some of the bad predictions made this past year by prominent people.

27 dancers from The American Dance Machine favor us with a COVID-safe rendition of "The Music and the Mirror" from A Chorus Line. If you enjoy this — and you will — it might be nice to donate some bucks to The American Dance Machine, which you can do by clicking on this link. And when you watch it, stick around for the credits and see the names of all these talented folks…

This is a 1970 episode of the game show To Tell the Truth that featured William M. Gaines, the publisher of MAD. I posted a link a long time ago to a video of this but it was taken down so I thought it was worth posting this new link to a different (but glitchy) video of the same episode.

Our pal Dick DeBartolo wrote for MAD for a length of time roughly equivalent to the lifespan of a Galapagos Tortoise. He sent me this e-mail a long time ago telling how it happened that Gaines appeared on this program…

I wrote The Match Game, but also worked on To Tell The Truth. One week, I got Gaines on as a central subject. (Gaines as in William M. Gaines, for those who might not know.) I'll never forget Bill's joy when it was Kitty Carlisle's turn to pick who she thought was the real publisher of MAD Magazine. She said it obviously wasn't #3 (Gaines.) When the host (can't remember if it was Garry or Joe G.) said "why not?" Kitty said: "Well, the publisher of MAD, a very successful magazine, must be an executive and…and…well, just look at #3. It can't be him!"

Gaines was thrilled not to look like an executive. God bless him. And Kitty, too. I hope they meet up there.

As you'll see, Dick's memory of what transpired and which chair Bill was in were a little off but Dick would not have worked for MAD for so long if he wasn't a little off.

Bill Gaines was an unusual man…a publisher who was very close to most (though not all) of his staff and freelancers. Wally Wood, who drew for MAD for a long time, had some beefs with Gaines but he said (approximately), "I worked for lots of publishers I never met. At DC or Marvel or almost any company, there was no way you could go in and talk to the head guy. It was forbidden at most houses. But when you worked for Gaines, you could walk right into his office, talk to him or pick up a check, which he'd make out to you on the spot for the job you'd just handed in. If you timed your visit right, he'd even take you out to lunch."

Gaines also had a lot of odd quirks which were reflected in the magazine. For instance, one of the reasons so many folks who worked for MAD were there for so long was that Bill didn't like strangers in his life. He liked having the same people around him. He also liked keeping the company small (and MAD at eight issues a year as opposed to monthly) because he didn't want to hire a larger staff.

An episode of To Tell the Truth featured two games and on this episode, Bill was in the second one. I have configured the embed below so it should start playing with Game Two. Notice the use of the word "should"…

As a frequent visitor to Las Vegas (at times), I'm intrigued by how the casino parts of that town are coping with The Pandemic. Not well, it would appear. Everything I've seen and everything I've read about it — buffets gone, shows and many restaurants closed, gaming areas rearranged with distancing and plexiglass shields, et al — makes it sound like a seriously un-fun place to be. I'm not straying too far or too often from home these days but if I did stray, Vegas seems like one of the last places I'd stray to.

If at any given time, you want to know what's going on in that city, the guy to listen to is Anthony Curtis. Mr. Curtis moved to Las Vegas in 1979 to see if he could make it as a professional gambler. For a time, he did but he did even better when he began publishing The Las Vegas Advisor, a newsletter that keeps you to date on what's happening there and it reviews hotels, places to eat, shows, etc. It is not — and this is a big deal — supported by advertising from the casinos and local businesses.

There are many alleged magazines you can pick up for free around Las Vegas that will tell you every hotel is a palace, every restaurant is five-star, every show is fabulous. These are not magazines. They're advertising circulars…and of course, they won't tell you the truth about the companies that advertise in them and crave your business. Especially now.

Curtis's Advisor lives mainly off subscribers and since I became one of them in the eighties, it has turned from a print publication into a website that also puts out a version on paper. Either way, it's honest and not there to shill for anyone. And there's plenty of great info available on the website if you don't subscribe.

Curtis is now hosting little "news update" videos to tell the world about the state of coronavegas. In this, his most recent report, he gives the same answer I give to the persistent question of when things will be back to normal: No one knows. But he'll also tell you about which casinos are closed and what things are like there…

Big rainstorm in L.A. last night and it's not over yet. It's been so dry here for so long, it's welcome but does it have to be so noisy?

Looks though like we'll have perfect parade weather on January 1. Now, if we only had a parade to go with it…

I have given up trying to guess what Trump is going to do next and I've given up reading the guesses of others. They can estimate the man's motives and the way he reacts when someone or something gets in the way of them…but not what he's actually going to do about the matters at hand and when.

In the same manner, I've decided to ignore anyone who isn't my personal physician when they guesstimate when a COVID vaccination will be available to folks like me, which one we'll get and any timetable about how quickly things will start returning to normal. Hell, I'm not even sure what "normal" is going to mean in a post-pandemic world.

And I really don't understand the people who when they tick off a list of negatives from the coronavirus — a list which includes people dying or being deathly ill, massive loss of employment, savings being wiped out, kids' educations being harmed and businesses closing — throw in as if it's as bad as any of them, "not being able to go eat in a restaurant."

In the twenty years I've been doing this blog, I have occasionally mentioned that my P.C. was having problems, as it is now. Invariably, I get one or more e-mails from someone who says, in essence, "Serves you right for not buying a MAC." And they go on and on about how the MAC is the most perfect invention in the history of mankind — far surpassing fire, the wheel and the Instant Pot™ — and that the P.C. is a piece of excrement that never works, is only purchased by idiots and should be outlawed.

"Throw it in the trash, buy a MAC and enter the enlightened era," someone wrote to me this time. Online sources tell me that MACs account for about 10% of all computer usage in this country, give or take 2%. I think if they were all some make them out to be, it would be a wee bit higher. Personal Computers are somewhere between 77% and 87.8%

To the MAC worshippers who wrote: Maybe you're right that your system is better…though among my friends, I hear as much cursing of Apple computers as I do of systems that operate on Microsoft Windows. But the point is I'm 68 years old, I've been using a P.C. for decades, I've invested in buying and learning P.C. software, I've become accustomed to programs that have no Apple alternative, etc. You might as well be trying to sell Hormel Bacon to an aged Orthodox Jew.

Speaking of which, I need to go make myself some breakfast. Bye for now.