Sure have been a lot of them lately, haven't there? And there's an old saying that I just made up that says that when lots of people are going to jail for perjury and lying, there's something pretty serious being covered-up.

Hey, how many witches does a witch hunt have to catch before you can no longer dismiss it as just a witch hunt?

The New York Times has posted another chapter about the downfall of Les Moonves at CBS. It's a pretty ugly story that makes Moonves out to be a pretty horrible person…and you might get to wondering why someone with his money, power and charm would ever be involved in non-consensual sexual relations. People have asked that about Mr. Cosby and some others, as well.

Of note in this piece is the personal hell that one of the alleged victims of Mr. Moonves went through. At least, I think it's appropriate to say "alleged." There are still people who wonder, of certain reported rapes, "Why didn't she come forward sooner about this?" Maybe this article will help those who wonder to understand.

Cookie Monster as "The Lord of the Crumbs"…

"Gary in Buffalo," as he signs his message, wrote with this question…

I enjoy all the subjects you post about, but what really fascinates me are your remembrances of slipping into NBC in your youth to see tapings of various shows. As a TV-obsessed teenager in the golden era of Laugh-In, Dean Martin, etc., I think being able to watch shows live as you did would've been close to number one on my wish list. (Number one may have involved Joey Heatherton and/or Elizabeth Montgomery, but I digress.)

My question is, did seeing these live tapings adversely affect your enjoyment of the shows when viewing them later on TV? For instance did it take any of the magic away to see Laugh-In being shot tediously in pieces, rather than at the breakneck pace it had when edited for broadcast? I'm assuming there had to be a certain disappointment, in the same way learning how a magician does a trick is always a letdown. In my case I'm sure I would have been so starstruck that it wouldn't have mattered what the actors were doing on stage.

Anyway, any more details you could provide about being in the studios to see these shows created would be greatly appreciated!

No, it didn't take away any enjoyment…and actually, finding out how a magician does a trick is not always a letdown for some of us. I've been a member of the Magic Castle for more than half my life and just hanging around with magicians and (in my earlier days) doing a little of it myself, I've sometimes been more impressed to learn how a trick is done. Sometimes, they're a lot more difficult than you think. You kinda think it might be because the cards are marked or gimmicked but really, it's because the performer is doing a nearly-impossible sleight-o'-hand move that took years to master.

But no, no "magic" ever went away for me while attending tapings of TV shows. If anything, they seemed more magical. I never thought Laugh-In was done at that frenetic speed so being on that set was not disillusioning. Instead, you would have been struck by all the skill and devotion to craft that was involved in something that on your home TV appeared so effortless.

Also, some things are just funnier or prettier or better in person. I visited three rehearsals of The Dean Martin Show so I was there three more times than Dean was. I will confess that I was there in large part to ogle The Golddiggers with a vague fantasy motive of meeting one in particular. (Most of us have our little adolescent infatuations at that age…)

But I was also there once when Lou Jacobi was rehearsing a sketch with some other actors and Dean's stand-in. I have met some of the funniest human beings of the last century including Groucho Marx, George Carlin, Mel Brooks, Albert Brooks, Richard Pryor and Jonathan Winters. Lou Jacobi belongs on that list, too…and he was funnier in those rehearsals (and chatting during a break) than he even was on camera. Those Golddiggers were pretty darn adorable, too.

NBC was quite magical in those days. Not only were Laugh-In and Dean there but Bob Hope was sometimes taping a special and Johnny Carson, whose Tonight Show was then based in New York, was sometimes out in Burbank for a few weeks at a time. With all those programs taping there — plus Flip Wilson and Hollywood Squares and a few others — there was no telling who you'd run into in the halls. Or who'd be rehearsing on some stage or eating in the commissary.

Today, if there was a studio like that and if you wanted to get inside without a pass, you'd have to round up a team like in Oceans 11 and plan for months. Hell, even with a pass they sometimes put you through a strip search, a body cavity inspection and selective waterboarding. But back in the early seventies, if you carried a copy of Variety, acted like you knew where you were going and waved to the guards, you could waltz right in.

That was part of what made it seem like Wonderland. And it was a big moment for me years later when I walked into that building because I had an actual, scheduled meeting with a producer there who wanted me write for his show.

As William Saletan notes, Climate Change is already costing us many, many lives and many, many dollars. And what's our government going to do to stop it from getting a lot worse? Well, as long as Donald Trump has anything to say about it, nothing.

Dick Cheney used to say that if there's even a 1% chance that a rumored terrorist threat is true, we have to respond as if it's a certainty. Trump's position is that if he's decided the scientists are all wrong and he's right, he's right.

Wish I'd spotted this before Halloween…

As regular readers of this blog know, I get a lot of phone calls from contractors — or more likely, folks working on commission to solicit work for contractors — offering me free estimates on home repairs. Often, the pitch goes like this. Remember: This is a call from someone who has never spoken to me before, representing a company that has never had anyone call me before…

Mr. Ebner, this is So-and-So with Whatever Construction Company. I spoke to you last May about possible work on your home. You were very nice to me and you asked me to call back around now to discuss the work that you thought you'd be ready to do.

I mind all these calls but "Hi, I'm a contractor and do you have any work we could bid on?" bothers me less than the ones that start with a lie. Usually, I tell them it's a lie. In fact, I tell them it's the exact same lie from the same script as two other calls this morning and ten in the past week. If they don't hang up then, I tell them I'm not going to do business with someone who lies to me in their opening speech. That usually makes them go away.

Lately, I seem to have gotten on some list of folks who have Medicare so I'm getting these calls, most of which are from a company that's trying to sound like an official agency…

Mr. Eveenar, this is Somebody calling from Medicare Services with good news. Our doctors have examined your records and determined that you qualify for a free back-brace to alleviate the chronic pains you've been experiencing in your lower back.

I tell the person that I am experiencing no chronic pains in my lower back, and some of them sound very disappointed to hear that. One, thinking fast, decided to relocate my chronic pain. She said, "Oh, I'm sorry. I misread that. It's your knees. You're having chronic pains in your knees." Based on the principle that if she can lie to me, I can lie to her, I told her I was having no problems with my knees…whereupon she began ticking off body parts: "Feet? Wrists? Ankles?"

I said, "Spleen. Do you have a free brace for my spleen?"

She said, "I don't know what that is but I'll check and I bet we have a free spleen-brace we can send you!" (And bill my Medicare lots of money…)

From the early days of Sesame Street when our Monster of the Week was performed by Frank Oz…

I have no good reason for the lack of posting today. Just busy…and no particular topic is coming to mind. It might help if some of you would send some questions to my AskME address. And don't ask about politics or Stan Lee or how I can possibly not love cole slaw.

I could write about what a bad day it was for Trump but I suspect most of 'em are going to be like that from now on. I could also write about the insanity of rejecting a carefully-researched and vetted-by-experts report on Climate Change just because he disagrees with its conclusions. Why do we even have scientists if no one's going to listen to them?

Please stop writing and asking me what I think of the Stan & Ollie movie. What I think is that I haven't seen it yet. I will, I will…and I'm still trying to avoid watching clips or trailers or reading reviews. I don't like seeing movies before I see them.

I write with a Samsung monitor which has served me well for more computing hours than I would have imagined possible. Yesterday, the images on it began going intermittently yellow on me and I decided that either every website suddenly had jaundice or the ol' trusty Samsung was failing on me. Deciding the latter was more likely, I went to Google to begin doing some research on new models. On a whim though, I typed in "computer screen yellow" and was whisked to a website that reminded me, as I should have recalled, that a yellow screen can be a sign of a loose connection 'twixt computer and monitor. Ten seconds later, my monitor was live in living color.

I'll try and pick up the pace here over the next few days.

We're resuming Cookie Monster Week here on newsfromme.com. Here, the Champion of Chocolate Chip Chomping pays a visit to the popular vlog, Rocketboom…

Los Angeles International Airport has been undergoing some major renovations in terms of where to dine. Things seem to have settled down now and if you're flying into or outta the place, you may want to consult this list of what's now edible in each terminal. No more Pizza Hut, McDonald's, Burger King or Sbarro.

I'm not a Christian but I used to have a very strong respect for what they stood for. These days, given the support of many self-identified Christians for Trump and certain policies, I'm increasingly baffled as to what a lot of them stand for. It doesn't connect up with a lot of what I once thought were Christian values. William Saletan runs down some polling responses which have me further baffled along these lines.

The fellow above in David Letterman's guest chair is Steve Young, who for a long time — right up until the end of The Late Show with David Letterman — was one of Dave's best writers. One of Steve's lesser duties for a time was to assemble a recurring segment called "Dave's Record Collection" in which the host would play snippets of very bizarre record albums.

Steve diligently searched for odd albums. He even phoned me once but all the really strange ones in my collection were already in his. But he found lots of great material elsewhere and much of it was in the category of Industrial Musicals. What the heck is an industrial musical? Here's an explanation purloined from a website set up to promote Everything's Coming Up Profits, a book Steve co-authored on the subject…

Once upon a time, when American industry ruled the earth, business and Broadway had a baby. This mutant offspring, glimpsed only at conventions and sales meetings, was the industrial musical. Think Broadway show, except the audience is managers and salesmen, and the songs are about how great it is to be working at the company.

Through the rare souvenir record albums presented in Everything's Coming Up Profits, an alternate show-biz universe emerges: a universe in which musical theater can be about selling silicone products, or typewriters, or insurance, or bathtubs. Some of these improbable shows were hilariously lame. Some were pretty good. And some were flat-out fantastic.

The secret to the best industrial musicals seems to be that sometimes, the company would say "Spare no expense" and they'd splurge for (and pay well) directors, performers, writers, composers, designers, choreographers, etc. Some really good people worked on them — folks like John Kander and Fred Ebb or Sheldon Harnick, who went on to write huge Broadway hits — and sometimes, it would be people who didn't do much if any work on mainstream Broadway, in part because they were busy writing musicals about tractors or drill presses.

Last night, my friend Tracy Abbott insisted I go with her, her husband Charlie and her son Jack to the Writers Guild screening of Bathtubs Over Broadway, a new documentary about industrial musicals and about Steve Young's obsession with them. Tracy has known Steve since she too was a writer for Letterman. (Quick Aside: There have been a number of articles complaining about how few female writers Dave employed. Every single one I've seen has omitted any mention of Tracy, which is a strange error to make when you're complaining about female writers being disrespected. Tracy later wrote for Jay Leno, thereby becoming the first female writer to work for any incarnation of The Tonight Show. And she doesn't get mentioned in articles complaining about how few there were on that show, either.)

Anyway, we had a great time. The film was directed and co-written by Dava Whisenant and co-written by Ozzy Inguanzo, who sat for a Q-and-A afterwards. They explained how they didn't set out to make the film as much about Steve but that was the direction in which things just naturally went. It's about Steve in the final days of his long career with David Letterman and about Steve's quest to track down recordings of industrial musicals and also folks who worked on them. (Letterman, by the way, appears briefly and unbearded in the film, and is credited as an Executive Producer.)

Steve locates and becomes friends with Sol Siegel and Hank Beebe, who were kind of like the Jerome Robbins and Irving Berlin of industrial musicals. But imagine if you will, spending months writing a musical but instead of doing it for (you hope) a long, long run on Broadway, touring companies and maybe a movie deal, you're doing it for one or two performances in a hotel ballroom somewhere. There is no visible chance of it ever being more than that.

Most Broadway composers have nightmares about the reviewers panning their work and then the show closes in one night as a humiliating flop. Industrial musicals don't get reviewed and most are supposed to close in one night. It's quite a different world, though with just enough similarities to the mainstream one…and of course, a lot of the stuff is hilarious because of its subject matter and commercial messages. You can hear some songs from industrial musicals on this page. I'd recommend "My Bathroom," which is heard throughout Bathtubs Over Broadway.

Better still, I'd recommend going to see Bathtubs Over Broadway, which is opening in selected theaters (that means "not very many") next week. You'll be intrigued about the world it introduces you to. You'll find Steve Young charming and funny. And you'll love meeting some of the people who worked on these lost musicals and hearing and seeing selections from them. Thank you, Tracy, for taking me to see this movie. It's an awful lot of fun.

On July 4, 2004 on this blog, I asked in a post if anyone out there had a spare copy of Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants. That was a made-for-cable special starring one of the great magicians who was also a great scholar of magic. About fifteen minutes after I posted it, I got a message that said, "Yeah, I have one. Send me your address and I'll mail you a copy." It was from Ricky Jay.

We exchanged a few e-mails and he was nice enough to not only send me the copy but at my request, to autograph it too. I was a big fan of his magic, which was not only superb but very, very smart. So was he, as I learned not only from his appearances on TV but in the few times I ran into him somewhere and we spoke for a while. The last time I saw him was about a year ago at a performance of The Black Version, an improv show that I plug here often. He didn't look well…and now they say he has died "of natural causes" at the age of 72.

He was a very talented guy and he did a lot to advance the art of card magic (and throwing) as well as the history of swindles, cheats and other skillful card handlers. We will not see his like again…but we'll see (we already see) an awful lot of card manipulators who learned from Ricky Jay.

One hundred years ago, the first installment of the Gasoline Alley newspaper strip appeared in newspapers. It isn't in a lot of papers today but it is still running.

The strip was created by Frank King, who wrote and drew it — with the increasing help of assistants — until 1959. One of those assistants, Bill Perry, took over full responsibility for the Sunday page in 1951 and another assistant, Dick Moores, officially took over the daily strips in 1959, though he'd been doing most of the work on them a few years before that. In 1975, Perry retired and Moores took over the Sunday pages along with the dailies. When Moores died in 1986, his assistant Jim Scancarelli took over the strip and is still drawing it today. So the amazing feat or creating a comic strip every day for a century has been done essentially by four men.

And you know…it's been a pretty good strip. It's not loud or controversial or shiny and there's been very little merchandising of it over its hundred years. It's a quiet, gentle story about a couple of generations of a family that has the same problems and challenges as most families. Now and then, the characters in it aged and then they'd become frozen in time. I think the lead character, Walt Wallet, must be pushing 115 by now.

I don't follow it regularly but every now and then, I'll click over to this page on Go Comics and read me a month or two. It always feels very comfortable…like an old neighborhood landmark that you're glad is still there. The page has a link which says that if you click on it, you can Read Gasoline Alley from the Beginning but alas, it's a lie. It only takes you back to April of 2001. Someday when I have nothing better to do and if it's available, I'd like to try reading it from the actual beginning. Maybe when I'm pushing 115…