Don Kemp wrote me about this post about people being "banned" from TV shows…

I have a book called Live From New York, an oral history of SNL written by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales. It covers the history of the show from its inception through 2014-2015 or so. In it, the topic of "people that will never be back" is discussed and Berle is covered. You're technically correct, he wasn't banned, but he made it to a list of people they knew who would not be asked back. He felt free to give advice to anyone at anytime about how he thought the show should go that week.

He also proudly assumed his reputation preceded him and he felt entirely free to unzip and plop on the table the Berle "anaconda," as one writer called it, if any poor soul admitted before thinking that they had never seen it before. The final straw for Berle though was he arranged to have his own standing ovation at the end of the show. He was singing "September Song" and in the balcony ten people, the amount of seats he was given, stood up and cheered. Lorne Michaels made certain the camera never cut to them. Michaels dislikes the Berle show so much it has never made it to repeats.

For what it's worth, Louise Lasser is briefly mentioned in the book, too. Her drug use was too much, even for them. One former staffer recalls her on her hands and knees coming into an office looking for pot. Why she was crawling no one knew. On show day she demanded a sketch be cut and refused to go on until it was. Aykroyd was all for going on without her and had a plan to do the entire show without a host.

Louise Lasser had three things working against her that prevented her from being asked back: She was difficult to work with, she wasn't very good and she stopped being a star of any note. Either of the first two might rule her out but the last one was the killer.

I've read the book you mentioned. It does say in it that Lorne Michaels would never allow the Berle-hosted episode to be rerun but he has since relented. You can pay to download it here and it's on DVDs and in the syndication package. I agree it's a pretty poor episode for Berle-related reasons but I also think it's one of those "you shoulda known when you asked him" deals. Mr. Berle was quite notorious in the industry for doing that kind of thing. It's like inviting Donald Trump to debate and being surprised when he starts interrupting everyone.

My point — and it's much simpler than some of my correspondents thought — is that on every TV show that brings in guest stars, the producer or producers say/says, "Let's not have that person on again." They say that a lot. The musical guest on the Berle episode was Ornette Coleman, who never appeared on Saturday Night Live again. Was he "banned" from the show? Two weeks before Berle, Margot Kidder hosted for her one and only time. Was she "banned?"

That season, the following people were among the hosts of Saturday Night Live: Fred Willard, Carrie Fisher, Walter Matthau, Cicely Tyson, Rick Nelson, Kate Jackson, Gary Busey and Maureen Stapleton. Now, Lorne Michaels might not have made a public vow not to have them back on but the fact remains that each of them hosted the show the same number of times Milton Berle and Louise Lasser did…which, by the way, was only one more time than you and I did. I would guess that in the thirty years Johnny Carson helmed The Tonight Show, there were several thousand times he and/or his producer declined to ask a guest back for a second visit.

And like I said in the previous piece, you don't get "banned" by a studio. You just don't get hired because the guy in charge decides not to hire you. Carson did not have Joan Rivers on again after she went off to compete with him and Jay Leno didn't invite her onto The Tonight Show either. Jimmy Fallon did. That's how it works.

My buddy Charlie Frye can do things you can't do. You can't do this, for example…

I knew this would happen: Once I started paying closer attention to The Election, it would be impossible (or nearly-so) to stop. I'd hoped to hold off that moment until a week or so before Election Day but in very short order, Trump's taxes came out, he self-destructed in The Debate and he caught The Virus. How could you not pay attention to that? It would be like if an African bush elephant took a major dump in your dining room and you sat there having supper, doing your best Sgt. Schulz impression and saying, "Nothing…I see nothing…"

I can't seem to talk to another human being without it coming up, either. For that reason, I have decided to suspend my webcasting until well after the election is settled — which, the way some folks talk, could be about the time the 2024 political conventions are held. If you marked your calendar to make sure to catch my Conversation with Floyd Norman tomorrow night, unmark it. We ain't doing it. In fact, last night when I called Floyd to discuss the postponement, we got to talking about Trump.

And I also talked to an "Acquaintance" of mine — by mutual consent, we have downgraded from being "Friends" — who's still rooting for D.J.T. He has pretty much abandoned hope that Trump can legitimately get more votes of either the popular or electoral variety. He's hoping that Trump can somehow cheat his way into four more years…and that would be okay with him. It is, after all, all about winning and you do what you have to do. It didn't used to be that way in America.

In other news: There is no other news.

I'm going to spend the day with the TV off and my Writer hat on. There is work to be done, to be done…

Some people think you haven't made it as a stage actor until you play Broadway. That's not a bad criteria but a better one would be this: You're nobody in the theater until you're friends with Jim Brochu.

And I guess I am. I've yet to play Hamlet or Tevye or even Dolly Levi (yet) but I do know Jim. We've been friends since around the time Jimmy Carter was President of the United States and if I've learned one thing about Jim, it's that he knows everyone who's ever been on or around Broadway. If I know two things about Jim, it's that he's ricocheted between being a playwright and a director and a performer, all with great success. If I know three things about him, it's that he has more trophies and award certificates in his living room than you'd find in six pawn shops.

Come to think of it, I know a lot of things about Jim but I didn't know as many as I thought until I read his new book, Watching From the Wings, which is crammed to the margins with anecdotes about the great, the near-great, the sorta-great and even a few not-great stars and all the ways in which Jim and they have interacted.  If you saw my webcast interview of Jim, you already know he's a great storyteller.  He's equally good in print as you'll see if you get a copy of said book, which you can do here.  Because if there's four things I know about Jim, it's that he's written a book you'll enjoy.

Hey, it's the finale from the 2016 TV special, Hairspray Live! With Maddie Baillio as Tracy Turnblad and (among others) Kristin Chenoweth, Harvey Fierstein, Ariana Grande, Derek Hough, Jennifer Hudson and Martin Short…

Pesho Karivanov writes to ask…

My question is have studios that have vowed to never work with any specific writer, actor, camera operator, etc, ever changed their minds? If so, then what is the rate of that happening and what are the circumstances? What has been your experience with this form of "Blacklist?"

Well, as I've written before here, I think "blacklist" is entirely the wrong word to use when someone can't get the job they want where they want. In show business, well over 99% of people who want a certain job can't get it. I think the term "blacklist" should be saved for the situation — and I don't know of any actual examples of this in a long time — where competitors (multiple studios or multiple networks or multiple employers) agree among themselves not to hire certain people.

As far as I can tell, studios don't decide not to hire people. People decide not to hire people. If some producer decides I'm a crummy writer — or even just that he can think of better ones to call on — he's not going to hire me. That's how it works everywhere. If that guy runs the whole studio and he tells everyone there he thinks I'm lousy, I probably won't be working for them…

…until he's replaced. If he's fired or dies or retires or gets hired away to another studio, then I might get a call. Or at least, I'd be as likely to get a call as anyone. The number one reason you don't get hired in show business or publishing is that the people doing the hiring haven't heard of you or seen your work.

In my own experiences…well, during my years working for Hanna-Barbera, I was told on several occasions that I'd "never work for the studio again." These were business disputes (I had this bad habit of asking for money) and each time, the person who told me that was (a) soon overruled by someone higher in the company, usually Joe Barbera and (b) not working for Hanna-Barbera six months later. In fact, one of the guys who told me I'd never work for H-B again soon after went to another studio where he immediately tried to hire me.

Usually though, if you are the kind of freelancer most of us are, you go from place to place and some people think the association was beneficial and want to hire you again…or they don't and they try someone else. I've never felt "blacklisted" when someone didn't want to work with me again. In some cases, I've been pleased.

I get annoyed by these articles you see like "Every celebrity that has been banned from Saturday Night Live." They haven't been banned. The folks in charge of the show at the moment simply don't want them back on now or maybe ever.

The article includes Andy Kaufman, whose name they misspell…

Kauffman had been a long standing feature artist for the show and had been a part of as many as nine different episodes in his career since the show began in 1975. But in 1983, the show held a poll to determine whether or not Kauffman was allowed to make more appearances on the show. The votes came in and Kauffman lost out. The vote, split between "Dump Andy" and "Keep Andy," saw a mammoth amount of entries and the ballots split 195,544 to 169.186 respectively. The show, never a series to avoid public demand, bowed to the votes and Kauffman never returned to the show.

The vote was on November 20, 1982 (not '83) when Dick Ebersol was Executive Producer of SNL. Kaufman appeared in a pre-taped segment a few weeks later but was otherwise never on SNL again. Soon after, Kaufman got sick and he was probably in no condition to return to the show in the months before he died on May 16, 1984. Who's to say he might not have returned later on, especially after Ebersol left at the end of the 1985 season and Lorne Michaels returned?

And yeah, they never had Louise Lasser or Milton Berle back on to host. Michaels was quoted as saying he didn't want them back but hundreds of people have hosted SNL once and never again. Were they all "banned?"

Let's not over-dramatize the natural ebb and flow of associations in the entertainment world with words like "banned" and "blacklist." I suppose you could argue that certain bouts of sexism or racism or ageism have prevented some people from getting hired across the industry. That's a much more serious situation than some producer deciding not to work with a certain writer, actor, director (etc.) again.

It's not surprising that we don't know much about what's up with Donald Trump's health. It's a little surprising that the various folks authorized to discuss it don't seem to be talking about the same patient. I flipped by all the news channels this morning and on each, I saw the news channel's medical authority speaking about confusing and contradictory information as if that was not to be expected of this administration.

We're also getting very good poll numbers for Biden this morning including the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll which has the Biden-Harris parlay fourteen (that's 14) points ahead of Trump-Pence. This is a poll taken after the September 29 debate — the one Trump insists he "won easily" — but before the COVID news about the president and the first lady.

A friend of mine who lives in terror of four more years of Trump is still nervous and keeps saying, "Hillary was ahead and look what happened." Until the vote is finalized and unquestioned, which could be some time, he's going to be trembling on the window ledge despite me reminding him that she wasn't ahead by anywhere near this much and also that people weren't already voting in such numbers this far before the 2016 election.

But I know why he frets. We have not had four years of Normal in this country and right now, there's a wholly-unexpected turn of events every two or three days. So far, none of them seem to have impacted the voting margins but they are getting weirder and weirder. I think I'd like to see Joe Biden make a commercial that went something like this…

I'm promising you something Donald Trump can never give you. I'm promising you we'll work towards normality. You haven't seen much of it under Trump. Every few days, you find that some part of your life is missing. Your freedom to go out and socialize with your friends is gone. The place where you work is closed. A friend or loved one is deathly ill. The security of your health insurance is in jeopardy. Your kids can't go to school. If you have investments, they're going up and down like they were on Space Mountain at Disneyland — a place which, by the way, is also closed. Even if you like some of what Donald Trump claims he wants to do to this country, you have to be sick of it not happening and all these unexpected things taking its place. Elect me and while I can't make it happen right away, there will come a morning when you won't have to wake up and ask, "What the hell has happened today?"

Well, something like that. I'd sure like it like that.

So…what has Lewis Black been doing during The Pandemic? This…

Read this piece by Kevin Drum about the wearing of masks during this Pandemic. Just read it. You may already have figured this out (took me a while) but Donald Trump does not have COVID-19 because he refused to wear a mask but because he didn't want anyone around him to wear a mask.

Everyone on the news right now is asking how Donald Trump is doing and what he's doing. Well, I can tell you what he's doing. He's going over donor lists searching for my name…

Mark,

We just went over the list of supporters who helped us CRUSH our September End-of-Quarter Goal and we noticed that YOUR NAME was MISSING from the donor list.

SEPTEMBER END-OF-QUARTER DONOR FILE
SUPPORTER: [ADDRESS REDACTED]
END-OF-QUARTER DONATION: $0

You have always been a steadfast supporter of President Trump and Vice President Pence, so we were surprised to see that you neglected to help us reach our goal. We can't waste another day, Mark. The entire future of our nation hangs in the balance. It's either a nation destroyed by Joe's radical socialism or a country that flourishes and returns to AMERICAN GREATNESS.

President Trump really needs you to step up, Mark, so he's doing something he rarely does in the hope that you'll join us on the right side of history. For the NEXT HOUR, all gifts will receive an 800%-MATCH OFFER.

This offer is available to you for ONE HOUR, so don't wait. Please contribute ANY AMOUNT in the NEXT HOUR and your gift will automatically be 800%-MATCHED.

President Trump is counting on YOU, Mark, to take advantage of this exclusive offer so that we can maintain our strong lead over Slow Joe and Phony Kamala heading into the FINAL MONTH of the race. He will be reviewing the list of 800%-MATCH Donors TONIGHT and we know he'll be looking for your name.

I still don't get how this "match" thing works. I understand there are donors who will say, "For every hundred dollars you raise, I'll match that amount." But how does Trump just decide to have an 800% match? If that bonus money was coming out of his pocket, okay, that would make sense. But you know he isn't lying there in a hospital bed thinking, "Boy, I wish that longtime steadfast supporter of mine, Mark Evanier, would donate a thousand dollars to my campaign so I can donate eight thousand dollars to it."

If I didn't know better, I'd assume the folks sending out these e-mails to me — often several in one day — think that all potential Trump donors are really, really dumb. Did you miss that part about "maintain our strong lead?"

You can find articles aplenty online today about how boneheaded stupid Trump and his followers were about refusing to wear masks and mocking those who did. Harder to locate are pieces like this one by Matthew Yglesias. It's about the actual details of Joe Biden's agenda, not to be confused by right-wing distortions and misrepesentations of it. Here's an excerpt…

Biden is a mainstream Democrat, and as the Democratic Party has grown broadly more progressive in recent years, he is now running on arguably the most progressive policy platform of any Democratic nominee in history.

It's a detailed and aggressive agenda that includes doubling the minimum wage and tripling funding for schools with low-income students. He is proposing the most sweeping overhaul of immigration policy in a generation, the biggest pro-union push in three generations, and the most ambitious environmental agenda of all time.

You may not be on board with everything but if you're one of the eleven people in the country who can't make up their mind how to vote, you should at least know what Biden wants to do, rather than what Tucker Carlson says Biden wants to do.

The Fabulous Chickies are eleven ladies who all have extraordinary voices and other talents of the musical stage. All have extensive credits in musicals and cabarets and other places where they sing their ever-lovin' hearts out and they're doing an online concert tomorrow evening. That's Saturday, October Three starting at 5 PM Pacific Time. A couple of them are friends I've mentioned before on this blog. All of them are worthy of your time and attention and maybe even a donation to the Actors Fund, which is the reason they're assembling to raise their uvulas in song.

The Actors Fund helps a lot of folks — and not just actors. With so much of show business shut down, many folks are hurting and could more of a hand than just clapping your mitts together for them. Anyone in the industry may receive much-needed aid and here's a fun way to motivate giving.

Watch the show here or in the box below. The price of your ticket is whatever you can spare…

I've been trying all day to write…something. At first, it was going to be my views on the situation with Trump and the First Lady and The Virus but I surfed a few other sites and discovered that others were saying everything — E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G — I was going to say so what was the point?

So then I tried writing something for this blog that had nothing to do with Trump or The Virus or Washington or The Election and that didn't work. My mind kept drifting back to Trump or The Virus or Washington or The Election or that kind of stuff. And incidentally, I had the news on for a while and realized it was one of those days we have so often where they feel they have to keep talking about one subject incessantly but they only have about twelve minutes of actual news about it…

…so you're waiting and waiting for some new information and there isn't any. It's the same information over and over, tweaked this way and that way, with gaping shovelfuls of speculation about things that either have happened before (so the speculation yields obvious answers) or hasn't (so the speculation in no way relates to reality).

Could we add something to the Hippocratic Oath so it says "first, do no harm" and then that's followed by "second, when on television do not diagnose a patient you've never been in the same room with, especially if you haven't even seen the notes of a doctor who has"?

Then I tried writing something not for this blog…something for a current assignment of the kind that results in me at some point getting a check…and I didn't get very far with that. I kept thinking things like how Mike Pence is standing by with a 9 iron and a list of childish insults in case he needs to assume the president's duties.

I've been saying all along on the blog that between now (whenever "now" was when I said it) and Election Day (whenever Election Day effectively is), we were going to see a lot of sudden, outta-nowhere events that no one could anticipate and which would completely change things. I just didn't think there'd be so many of them and they'd come so close together.

There's too much news. There's just too much news. Please…less news.

Carroll Pratt was one of those guys who adds laugh tracks to TV shows. Here, he's asked about the longest real laugh he ever "saw"…