• Trump's getting confused. He pardoned a turkey for lying to the F.B.I. and announced that no one is going to eat Michael Flynn with stuffing and gravy.

I featured this song a long time ago on this blog but with different video links which have since expired…

In the late seventies, there was a hit song in Israel called "Hallelujah," written by composer Kobi Oshrat. It was written for and entered into something called the Eurovision Song Contest 1978, where it was rejected by the judging committee but accepted a year later for Eurovision Song Contest 1979. There, it was performed by singer Gail Atari and a group called Milk & Honey and it won a major award. Soon, it was released as a record that sold many, many copies in many, many countries in many, many languages. Here's Ms. Atari and the group singing it in, I think, Hebrew…

And here they are singing it in English…

And it was recorded in many other languages. Here they are doing it in German…

In America, it came to the attention of the singing married couple, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme. I know that for a lot of people, Steve and Eydie were too 'middle of the road" and way outta sync with the music of the sixties, seventies and beyond. They were on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson a lot, though in Johnny's later years, the network folks would complain that a lot of the musical acts being booked were "too Steve and Eydie." That meant a certain style of music, not specifically those two performers, but I liked them. I thought there was something very comforting about the way they handled a tune.

Steve and Eydie thought "Hallelujah" had a good shot at becoming a hit in this country so they recorded a single record of it under the names "Parker and Penny." Why the fake names? Well, I heard two stories, the less interesting of which is that they were under contract to one record company and wanted to do this one for another.

The more interesting reason — and it might even be true for all we know — is that they thought they might reach an audience that would automatically pass up a record by Steve and Eydie. At least, it might get played on radio stations that would pass on playing a record with their names on it.

The secret did not stay secret for long. Mr. Carson had them on a couple of times to sing it. I think they did it three times in about two months on his show. The first time, Steve came on solo, started to perform it and then Eydie popped in as surprise to join him in it. The second time, Eydie came on alone but Steve suddenly turned up in the middle of the song. The third time, they came on as a duo.

I may have the order wrong but I remember the unsurprising surprises. Each time, the number started on stage and then the two of them went out into the audience — Steve up one aisle, Eydie up the other — to sing as they shook hands with audience members. The song made it as high as #46 on the charts, probably because of The Tonight Show exposure. If you can stand it one more time, here they are performing it at a concert in France but in English. And I apologize if you're never able to get it out of your head…

I am unable to put myself in the frame-of-mind of those who are proudly hosting or attending large gatherings tomorrow. I kinda half-understand people who think COVID-19 is not as great a risk — especially to the young and healthy — as authorities say. To me though, "I'll never get COVID" or "If I get it, I'll beat it with ease" are gambles you'd be nuts to take, especially since if you lose, you could also cause a lot of pain and grief for others.

I do understand the eagerness some have to "normalize" their worlds but I don't think eating turkey with a big group would make my life feel very pre-pandemic. And of course, I don't understand those who think the disease was a hoax all along, particularly a hoax invented to embarrass and unseat Donald Trump. When politicians like Ted Cruz who said it was are up for re-election, I hope their opponents remind the voting public of some of the stupidest, most irresponsible statements ever made by folks holding public office.

Then again, that's right up there with "We have to go to war because Saddam definitely has those Weapons of Mass Destruction." Those claims didn't bother as many people as they should have.

I couldn't decide whether to put up a video of a kitten or of baby chicks. So in this one, you get both…

• Trump is about to release evidence proving the election was rigged. It'll be in a package with his tax forms, his health plan, the explanation of how Mexico will pay for the wall and all that devastating info his detectives dug up in Hawaii about Obama's birth certificate.

Tomorrow into Thursday, Turner Classic Movies is running a bunch of movies starring Sean Connery: Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, Marnie, The Hill and The Man Who Would Be King. Then Thursday into Friday, they go all Hitchcock on us: Rear Window, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Birds, Psycho, Rope, The Lady Vanishes, Strangers on a Train, Saboteur, Torn Curtain, Marnie again, The Trouble with Harry and Shadow of a Doubt. There's gotta be something in there you want to watch.

The most memorable scene from the Marx Brothers movie, At the Circus…

Here's a neat question. After she read this posting, Dina Wolfe wrote to ask…

In a recent post, you listed what must have been hundreds of names of people who were stars in the forties and who performed at the Hollywood Canteen. How many of them did you ever get to meet? And did any of them ever disappoint you? And do you have any tips about approaching or talking to stars like that?

Ooh. Well, I'll go over the list and use the loosest possible definition of "meet." I didn't introduce myself or shake hands with every one of these people but I did at least exchange a few words with them…

Bud Abbott, Eve Arden, Lucille Ball, Jack Benny, Milton Berle, Mel Blanc, George Burns, Cab Calloway, Adriana Caselotti, Bette Davis, Doris Day, Yvonne De Carlo, Dale Evans, Eva Gabor, Bob Hope, Gene Kelly, Pinky Lee, Harold Lloyd, June Lockhart, Fred MacMurray, Groucho Marx of the Marx Brothers, Roddy McDowall, Fayard Nicholas of the Nicholas Brothers, Margaret O'Brien, Vincent Price, Roy Rogers, Mickey Rooney, Phil Silvers, Red Skelton, Moe Howard and Larry Fine of The Three Stooges, Shelley Winters and Jane Withers.

I also met Joe Besser and Joe DeRita of the Stooges but they weren't Stooges in the forties.

But I should emphasize that some of those were real brief encounters. The one with Jack Benny (which I told here) was under thirty seconds. The one with Bud Abbott (which I told here) lasted about ninety seconds.

I was disappointed by the brevity of my encounter with Mr. Abbott. It was at the Motion Picture Country Home/Hospital, which a lot of people still refer to as "The Old Show Biz Folks' Home" and I was leaving after a long chat with Larry Fine. Back then, you could talk to Larry as long as you wanted and as long as you were willing to sit and hear the same nine anecdotes over and over and over. He had nothing else to do and he welcomed the company.

On my way out that day, a nurse mentioned to me that Bud Abbott was also there so I popped in to see him. Like Larry, he had nothing to do but I caught him in a foul mood and he did not welcome company at that moment or maybe ever. I was outta there faster than you could say "Susquehanna Hat Company."

I might have been disappointed that Mickey Rooney acted like a crazy person, ranting and yelling at one of those Hollywood Collectors Shows. But I already knew he could be like that so I was not surprised.

Everyone else on that list was at least civil and some of them — like Berle, Burns, Silvers and especially Harold Lloyd — were genuinely pleased that a kid my age knew as much about their careers as I did. Red Skelton didn't care that I wanted to talk about his films or TV shows. He just wanted an audience to listen to dirty jokes which was…well, okay, I guess.

Vincent Price was pleased that I asked him about work he'd done that was not in horror films. Gene Kelly liked that we talked about his work as a film director and not just as a dancer. You want a tip? Here's a tip…

If you ever get to meet someone you've admired who has had a long career, try to ask them about something they did that not everyone asks them about. When I was introduced to Robert Morse, he was so happy that I knew of things he'd done besides How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, including projects that were relatively recent. When I met Billy Wilder, he was pleased that I wanted to know about Ace in the Hole instead of Some Like It Hot.

I doubt one person on the above list could have told you my name a day later and at least two-thirds of them never heard it at all. The only person I can think of who performed at the Hollywood Canteen who I would call an actual friend was June Foray. She danced there on stage with other starlets who kicked up their heels for the soldiers but she wasn't on the list I posted. It was a list which, in case you couldn't guess, I cribbed off Wikipedia. I still find it a little hard to believe that anyone — let alone silly ol' me — could actually meet most of those folks.

In the stage version of the Little Shop of Horrors musical, the plant didn't have a solo. I'm going to guess that was because they didn't think it could; that the puppeteer operating that monster of a puppet wouldn't be able to keep up with the lip sync of a long number. I'm assuming — and I could certainly be wrong about this — that the makers of the show thought it would look shoddy and make the plant look like more of a puppet.

When it came time to do the movie, that wasn't a problem. The plant puppet they build for the film was capable of some pretty convincing lip sync. (And by the way: A lot of folks thought it was animated or it was stop-motion or CGI or something. It wasn't. It was a full-size, real puppet operated by a large team of puppeteers. What they did though was to slow down its vocal track so the puppeteers could keep up with it and then after filming, they sped up the film to the proper speed. In scenes where the plant interacted with Rick Moranis, Mr. Moranis had to do his actions extra-slow so they'd look normal when the film was sped.)

Anyway, they also (I'm sure) wanted to add a new musical number or two to the film because when a stage musical is adapted for the movies, songs from the stage are not eligible for the Oscar for Best Song but newly-added tunes are. That's why in the film of Guys and Dolls, Adelaide sings "Pet Me Poppa" instead of "A Bushel and a Peck," and in the movie of The Music Man, Marian the Librarian sings "Being In Love" instead of "My White Knight." So the Little Shop crew added "Mean Green Mother From Outer Space" for the plant, Audrey II.

And it worked to the extent that that number did get nominated for Best Song. It was beaten out by "Take My Breath Away" from Top Gun but "Mean Green Mother" did get performed on the Oscarcast, albeit with a few lyrics sanitized for our protection. Here's a nice unsanitized rendition of it performed by Cavin Cornwall, who appears on a lot on stages and who, among his many voiceover gigs, is heard all over the last few Star Wars films…

• I keep getting e-mails from Rudy and the Trump organization telling me they have tons of inarguable proof of massive voter fraud. Damn clever of them to wait until they lose every legal challenge and every state certifies its vote totals before they show it to anyone.

This is a scene from the 1944 movie, Hollywood Canteen. The Canteen was a club during war where soldiers could go to eat, drink and be entertained by some pretty big movie and radio stars and they made a movie about it.

Your admission ticket to the place was your uniform and you never knew who you were going to see performing there. The list included Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, Iris Adrian, Fred Allen, June Allyson, Brian Aherne, Don Ameche, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, The Andrews Sisters, Dana Andrews, Eve Arden, Louis Armstrong, Jean Arthur, Fred Astaire, Mary Astor, Roscoe Ates, Lauren Bacall, Lucille Ball, Tallulah Bankhead, Theda Bara, Lynn Bari, Jess Barker, Binnie Barnes, Diana Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Count Basie, Anne Baxter, Warner Baxter, Louise Beavers, Wallace Beery, William Bendix, Constance Bennett, Joan Bennett, Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen, Ingrid Bergman, Milton Berle, Julie Bishop, Mel Blanc, Joan Blondell, Ann Blyth, Humphrey Bogart, Mary Boland, Ray Bolger, Beulah Bondi, William Boyd, Charles Boyer, Clara Bow, Eddie Bracken, El Brendel, Walter Brennan, Fanny Brice, Joe E. Brown, Les Brown, Virginia Bruce, Billie Burke, George Burns & Gracie Allen, Spring Byington, James Cagney, Cab Calloway, Rod Cameron, Eddie Cantor, Judy Canova, Kitty Carlisle, Jack Carson, Adriana Caselotti, Charlie Chaplin, Marguerite Chapman, Cyd Charisse, Charles Coburn, Claudette Colbert, Jerry Colonna, Ronald Colman, Betty Compson, Perry Como, Chester Conklin, Gary Cooper, Joseph Cotten, Noël Coward, James Craig, Bing Crosby, Joan Crawford, George Cukor, Xavier Cugat, Cass Daley, Dorothy Dandridge, Linda Darnell, Harry Davenport, Bette Davis, Dennis Day, Doris Day, Yvonne De Carlo, Gloria DeHaven, Dolores del Río, William Demarest, Olivia de Havilland, Cecil B. DeMille, Andy Devine, Marlene Dietrich, Walt Disney, Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, Irene Dunne, Jimmy Durante, Deanna Durbin, Ann Dvorak, Nelson Eddy, Duke Ellington, Faye Emerson, Dale Evans, Jinx Falkenburg, Glenda Farrell, Alice Faye, Louise Fazenda, Stepin Fetchit, Gracie Fields, Barry Fitzgerald, Ella Fitzgerald, Errol Flynn, Kay Francis, Jane Frazee, Joan Fontaine, Susanna Foster, Eva Gabor, Ava Gardner, Judy Garland, Greer Garson, Lillian Gish, James Gleason, Betty Grable, Cary Grant, Kathryn Grayson, Sydney Greenstreet, Paulette Goddard, Samuel Goldwyn, Benny Goodman, Leo Gorcey, Virginia Grey, Jack Haley, Margaret Hamilton, Phil Harris, Moss Hart, Helen Hayes, Dick Haymes, Susan Hayward, Rita Hayworth, Sonja Henie, Paul Henreid, Katharine Hepburn, Portland Hoffa, Darla Hood, Bob Hope, Hedda Hopper, Lena Horne, Edward Everett Horton, Marsha Hunt, Ruth Hussey, Betty Hutton, Frieda Inescort, Jose Iturbi, Harry James, Gloria Jean, Anne Jeffreys, Allen Jenkins, Van Johnson, Al Jolson, Jennifer Jones, Marcia Mae Jones, Boris Karloff, Danny Kaye, Buster Keaton, Ruby Keeler, Gene Kelly, Evelyn Keyes, Guy Kibbee, Andrea King, Gene Krupa, Kay Kyser, Alan Ladd, Bert Lahr, Elsa Lanchester, Angela Lansbury, Veronica Lake, Hedy Lamarr, Dorothy Lamour, Carole Landis, Frances Langford, Charles Laughton, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, Peter Lawford, Gertrude Lawrence, Peggy Lee, Pinky Lee, Mervyn LeRoy, Vivien Leigh, Joan Leslie, Ted Lewis, Beatrice Lillie, Mary Livingston, Harold Lloyd, June Lockhart, Anita Loos, Peter Lorre, Myrna Loy, Keye Luke, Bela Lugosi, Ida Lupino, Diana Lynn, Marie McDonald, Jeanette MacDonald, Fred MacMurray, Marjorie Main, Irene Manning, Fredric March, The Marx Brothers, Herbert Marshall, Ilona Massey, Victor Mature, Elsa Maxwell, Louis B. Mayer, Hattie McDaniel, Roddy McDowall, Frank McHugh, Victor McLaglen, Butterfly McQueen, Lauritz Melchior, Adolphe Menjou, Una Merkel, Ray Milland, Ann Miller, Glenn Miller, Carmen Miranda, Robert Mitchum, Maria Montez, George Montgomery, Grace Moore, Jackie Moran, Dennis Morgan, Patricia Morison, Paul Muni, Ken Murray, The Nicholas Brothers, Ramon Novarro, Jack Oakie, Margaret O'Brien, Pat O'Brien, Virginia O'Brien, Donald O'Connor, Maureen O'Hara, Oona O'Neill, Maureen O'Sullivan, Merle Oberon, Eugene Pallette, Eleanor Parker, Harriet Parsons, Louella Parsons, John Payne, Gregory Peck, Nat Pendleton, Mary Pickford, Walter Pidgeon, Zasu Pitts, Cole Porter, Dick Powell, Eleanor Powell, Jane Powell, William Powell, Vincent Price, Anthony Quinn, George Raft, Claude Rains, Vera Ralston, Sally Rand, Basil Rathbone, Martha Raye, Donna Reed, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Edward G. Robinson, Ginger Rogers, Roy Rogers, Cesar Romero, Mickey Rooney, Jane Russell, Rosalind Russell, Ann Rutherford, Peggy Ryan, S.Z. Sakall, Olga San Juan, Ann Savage, David O. Selznick, Hazel Scott, Lizabeth Scott, Randolph Scott, Toni Seven, Norma Shearer, Ann Sheridan, Dinah Shore, Sylvia Sidney, Phil Silvers, Ginny Simms, Frank Sinatra, Red Skelton, Alexis Smith, Kate Smith, Ann Sothern, Jo Stafford, Barbara Stanwyck, Craig Stevens, Leopold Stokowski, Lewis Stone, Gloria Swanson, Elizabeth Taylor, Shirley Temple, Danny Thomas, The Three Stooges, Gene Tierney, Lawrence Tibbett, Martha Tilton, Claire Trevor, Sophie Tucker, Lana Turner, Spencer Tracy, Gloria Vanderbilt, Lupe Vélez, Beryl Wallace, Nancy Walker, Ethel Waters, John Wayne, Clifton Webb, Virginia Weidler, Johnny Weissmuller, Orson Welles, Mae West, Bert Wheeler, Alice White, Paul Whiteman, Margaret Whiting, Cornel Wilde, Esther Williams, Warren William, Chill Wills, Marie Wilson, Shelley Winters, Jane Withers, Teresa Wright, Anna May Wong, Constance Worth, Jane Wyman, Ed Wynn, Keenan Wynn, Rudy Vallee, Lupe Vélez, Loretta Young, Robert Young, Darryl F. Zanuck and Vera Zorina. Guess which one of these brought along his horse…

I have the feeling that for the rest of our lives, we'll be running into Trump supporters who will insist that their guy obviously won the 2020 Presidential Election (and not by a narrow margin) and had it stolen from him. They will not be able to explain how Democrats — who they claim are idiots who can't accomplish anything — pulled it off, nor why the many Republican judges and other officials who had to be in on it were in on it. But they'll be sure it happened and maybe even that deep down, we know it did.

They will insist there was incontrovertible, inarguable evidence of the steal but they'll have a hard time explaining why Trump's lawyers put little or none of it before judges or even Tucker Carlson. Some of the cases — especially the big one that was just tossed outta court in Pennsylvania — were so feeble that someone will surely suggest, if they haven't already, that Trump's attorneys were paid to throw the fights.

Can't wait to see how Rudy Giuliani will respond to that. It won't be his hair dye that melts. It'll be his entire head.

---

The stores around are out of toilet paper. It was all bought up by people who heard that panic buying/hoarding of it was happening so they rushed to buy/hoard, thereby creating the panic they'd heard about.

When you think about it, it's the perfect commodity to be hoarded. It's pretty much a necessity and it never expires. No matter how much you buy, you'll eventually use it. The same is true of paper towels, tissues, McDonald's hamburgers and very few other things we need.

And here from the 1995 Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon, the cast of some production of the Disney Beauty and the Beast musical performs "Gaston"…

I love Comic-Con International and have naught but admiration and gratitude for the folks who run it every year…well, every year there isn't a deadly pandemic killing people.

But I'm a little puzzled about something, not about the con directly but about the Comic-Con Museum, which has struck me as a very confused work-in-progress since the parent organization acquired control of an empty museum building in Balboa Park in 2017.  The original idea of a Comic-Con museum — I thought — was for a place that would have presented and preserved the history of the convention and all the creativity and creators and wonderment associated with it.

That would have been in a much smaller building than the one they now have in Balboa Park. At some point, that premise morphed into a larger vision devoted not to the con but to all the art forms it embraces…another worthy idea.  Comics — in all the forms the annual convention celebrates — deserve a year-round brick-and-mortar monument to the importance of the art form and the men and women who have contributed to it.

My puzzlement flows from something the museum has established called the Comic-Con Museum Character Hall of Fame.  I guess I thought it would involve the creators at least as much as the creations. An art museum recognizes the artists, not the paintings…or at least makes the inseparable connection between the painting and the painter. The Comic-Con Museum Character Hall of Fame kicked off to coincide with the 2019 Comic-Con International and the first inductee was Batman. If you want to honor great characters, that's as fine a choice as any.

The Batman exhibition was…well, it was loud.  It was so loud I had to leave it due to a headache that kept going POW! and ZAP! on my Cerebral Cortex. It was loud enough to wake Cesar Romero and he's been dead since 1994.

But the whole experience was impressive as an exhibition of Batman toys and Batman props and Batman "pop art" and Batman memorabilia and there was an extremely noisy carnival-type machine outside where you could "fly" a little on air jets as Batman did in no appearance of his I've ever seen. Someone did a helluva job putting the thing together. I am only complaining about two things…

1. The Noise.  (Tijuana called three times to ask them to for God's sake, hold it down.)
2. That there wasn't more attention paid to Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Jerry Robinson, Sheldon Moldoff, Lew Sayre Schwartz, Gardner Fox, Dick Sprang, George Roussos, Neal Adams, Carmine Infantino, Denny O'Neil, Dick Giordano, Jim Aparo, Frank Miller, Jack Schiff, John Broome, Joe Giella, Frank Robbins, Jim Mooney, Irv Novick and at least eighty other talented folks I could name.  You know: The people without whom there would not have been so many comic books of our beloved Batman from which all that commerce could evolve.

But…okay.  Batman is great and Batman is important and there was artwork on display from comics written and drawn by a few of those folks and maybe if I could have stayed in that building for five more minutes, I would have found some real love shown for the guy we try to remember each year at the con by giving out The Bill Finger Award. I guess the event was a smashing success in many ways.

So now let's turn our focus to this year's Comic-Con Museum Character Hall of Fame and discuss which iconic creation is to be feted. I made up a little graphic of six of the many characters I think everyone would agree match up with their mission statement — and I quote — "To honor these timeless icons who have made a significant impact on popular culture." Here are the six…

Okay, I know what you're thinking: "Superman? Fine.  Bugs Bunny?  Fine.  Popeye?  Of course.  Snoopy?  No question.  Spider-Man?  Sure.  Pac-Man?  Uhhh…"

I understand your hesitation. Pac-Man has never been a property of any significance in comic books or comic strips. There was a Pac-Man cartoon show but whatever fame Pac-Man has does not flow from the characters in it. It was a fine video game and its impact on that industry is undeniable…but it's kind of a game, not a character.

It's the creation of a videogame designer, not a cartoonist or writer, and it was conceived not to tell clever, entertaining stories but to play a game. It's a great game, no question, but so is Monopoly™ and they wouldn't honor Rich Uncle Pennybags, the mustachioed gent on the box or the little metal dog that scampers around the board, passing "GO" and collecting $200 each time he does.

You're right. Pac-Man doesn't belong in that list. So why did I put Pac-Man in with the other six? Because Pac-Man is this year's honoree…

The Comic-Con Museum is thrilled to announce PAC-MAN™ as the second inductee into the Comic-Con Museum Character Hall of Fame.

Born in 1980 and widely considered the original digital game mascot, PAC-MAN™ made a profound impact on the video game industry, the role of storytelling in games, and popular culture as a whole.

For an entire generation, PAC-MAN™ ignited a love of video and arcade games. Those of us who were there for the start of PAC-MAN™ remember going to the arcade and lining up for a chance to play while our friends stood around and cheered on. We were able to connect with PAC-MAN™ on an emotional level in a way we hadn't with other video game characters.

True, it made a profound impact on the video game industry…and if this were the E3 Museum, that would make perfect sense. The role of storytelling in games? You chase the ghosts around until you die and then you put in another quarter. That's the story.

Popular culture as a whole? You could say that about The Beatles, Elvis, the Kardashians, Deep Throat, McDonald's, psychedelic drugs, Coca-Cola, cell phones and a thousand other things that we could all name. And yes, video games have a place at Comic-Con but that started when they began telling comic-book-type stories and introducing characters who were designed to look like they came out of comic books…characters with faces and voices and colorful costuming.

People are already writing me to suggest that Pac-Man must have been selected because the owners of the property made it rain quarters on that building in Balboa Park. I don't know if that's true or not. I don't even know if that would make the choice more or less logical. I just know I don't get this.

I really liked the Cathy Rigby version of Peter Pan. It toured America for years and I saw it several times. Here she is doing a number from it on the 2009 Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon. Mr. Lewis shows up at the end…