This is a little circuitous but you may enjoy it. The video below is a "roast" of Jack Benny that appeared on NBC — on The Kraft Music Hall for January 21, 1970. You can just watch it and see some of the greats of comedy from that era but you may want to dig deeper a bit. Join me on the other side of the video embed and I'll tell you how. You can watch the video before or after.

Okay now, here I am on the other side of the video embed. I remembered watching this episode for years after and I also remembered watching an episode of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson that was taped in the same building on the same evening…but which did not "star" Johnny Carson. He was off that night so he could tape The Kraft Music Hall and function as the Roastmaster. David Steinberg filled in for Carson on The Tonight Show that evening.

This weird memory of mine remembered watching both shows and in December of 2001 — more than thirty years later! — I wrote about it on this blog. Here's a link to that post. Take a moment, go read it, then come back here.

Okay, you back? Fine. Now, a few years later, my pal Paul Harris had David Steinberg as a guest on his radio program and, recalling what I had posted in the above-linked post, he asked Mr. Steinberg about that evening. This was 2015 and Steinberg was on to promote his TV series, Inside Comedy, which was running then. This is a link to that radio interview and you may want to listen to the first five minutes or so.

I was delighted that Steinberg — a comedian I've admired much over the years — remembered the incident and was glad that Paul had brought it up. A few weeks later, I was lunching in a restaurant with my friend Brinke Stevens and we noticed Mr. Steinberg sitting at a nearby table. I would usually never approach someone like that — someone I'd never met — but I couldn't resist. Brinke and I went over and I introduced myself and we talked about the interview on Paul's show. I thanked him for validating my recollection. He thanked me for having that recollection of a long lost — and as far as I know, lost forever — bit of TV history. If it ever does turn up, I hope it turns out to be as hilarious as we both recalled.

Inside Comedy, by the way, was a pretty good show. It was rerunning for a while on Paramount-Plus for a while but I don't think it's there anymore. Like everything else, it will probably turn up streaming somewhere sometime.

From Joe Frank, I have these two questions about Jack Kirby…

What was the last Marvel story Jack drew before heading over to DC in 1970? And with all the other Marvel books he had going, did Jack ever come close to missing a deadline on his 100+ issue Fantastic Four run?

I'm fairly sure that the last four comics Jack drew for Marvel before leaving for DC were, in this order: The story that ran in Silver Surfer #18, then the story that ran (with heavy alterations by others) in Fantastic Four #108, then the story that ran in Thor #179, then the story that ran in Fantastic Four #102. He put that last one in the mail to Marvel and then phoned Stan Lee to tell him that the issue of F.F. that was arriving momentarily was his last job for Marvel…which it was for several years.

And the reason I'm fairly sure? Because my then-partner Steve Sherman and I saw pages from the last three of these issues in Jack's studio that month. This was the month after he'd hired us and we knew that Jack was leaving Marvel but Marvel didn't know yet.

The comics Jack worked on back then went down this assembly line: There was some sort of plot conference with Stan, usually very short. Then Jack plotted and penciled the story — and I think "plotted" understates his contribution to the writing. Then Stan would do whatever he did that he felt justified the writing credit. Then you had someone inking the book, someone coloring the book and someone doing various editorial and production chores and sending it off to the engravers.

The process — and a similar one, sans Stan, when Jack went to DC — began each issue with someone deciding what Kirby should do next. Throughout that stint at Marvel, the person telling him "Do another issue of Thor" or "Do an issue of Captain America" was Stan. At DC, it was Carmine Infantino. Whatever they told him to do was completed in the expected time but in a few instances, there was a deadline crisis not of Jack's making.

For example, Stan had decided that a high priority was for Jack's Fantastic Four stories to always be inked by Joe Sinnott. So they might get Jack started on an issue of Thor and then realize that if they waited for Jack to finish that and then draw an F.F., the latter wouldn't be ready for Joe when Joe was ready to take on his next assignment for Marvel. Jack really, really, really hated for them to tell him to stop drawing Story A, and do Story B and then go back and finish Story A. So he might rush to finish Story A and then do Story B…and B would get in a little later than Marvel preferred.

In Kirby's last year or so on Fantastic Four, Joe Sinnott took a vacation and missed several issues of that book. The second choice to ink that comic then was Frank Giacoia but Giacoia had all sorts of other commitments, not all of them for Marvel. Thus, the schedule kept being changed on Jack to try and get pages to Giacoia earlier and earlier.

The day I met Jack in July of 1969, he had almost completed the art for Fantastic Four #97. There was a little skirmish which I did not fully understand at the time but I think it went something like this: Someone at Marvel — I don't know who — accused Jack of being late with that issue and Jack got pissed and said something like, "No, I'm not. You guys changed the schedule on me!"

Something similar happened at DC when Jack was doing Jimmy Olsen. Whenever Jack finished one issue of anything, he'd phone Infantino and say, "Okay, what do I do next?" and Carmine would consult a schedule he had and say, "Do another New Gods" or "Do another Forever People" or whatever. A problem arose though because due to its strong sales, DC had upped the frequency of Jimmy Olsen from eight-issues-a-year to monthly…and no one had updated Carmine's copy of the schedule.

Vince Colletta, who inked Jimmy Olsen, had a contract with DC that guaranteed him a certain quantity of work. When he handed in one story, he had to be immediately given another to start on. Someone in the DC Production Department suddenly noticed that in ten or so days — I don't know the precise date — Colletta would be ready for another assignment and there was nothing in the pipeline that they could give him or wanted to give him. Jack got a call from the head of the Production Department telling him he was late on his deadlines on Jimmy Olsen. But Jack wasn't late. He was just producing the stories in the order in which Infantino (the guy running the company) was telling him they were needed.

The issue that had to go to Colletta very shortly was issue #144. The plot of it — at least the portions in there about the Loch Ness Monster — were developed by Steve Sherman and Yours Truly. One Sunday, figuring he didn't have to start drawing it (and probably rewriting a lot of it) for a few weeks, Jack assigned us to write the script…and Steve and I did. The day after he sent us off to write it, Jack found out he had to have Jimmy Olsen #144 in the mail the following Friday…the day we were due to hand in our draft of the script.

This was before Federal Express or any kind of overnight mail so Jack went right to work using what he remembered of the plot we'd discussed. I don't know how long it actually took him to write and pencil the story but his wife Roz mailed it off for him via Special Delivery just before the post office closed on Friday. They received it in New York and had it lettered in time to give it to Colletta on the day they had to give work to Colletta.

And then on Saturday, Steve and I delivered the finished script. Jack paid us for it — out of his own pocket, by the way — and he liked it enough that he wanted to have us take over writing Jimmy Olsen from then on. It had by then become a pain-in-the-haunches chore for him and he wanted us to henceforth write it and then he'd try to squirm his way out of drawing it too. There's a long story about why that didn't happen but that's a tale for another time. It was funny though that we handed in the script and Jack had to apologize to us and say, "Sorry, men. I couldn't wait for you. I had to go ahead and do it myself!"

Less funny was that the gent in the DC Production Department — who didn't like Jack's work or the fact that Jack was editing comics for DC from the opposite coast — kept telling people that The Almighty Kirby (said sarcastically) had blown his deadline on that issue. There were a few other incidents of this sort but to the best of my knowledge, the only time Jack ever missed a deadline was when someone changed the deadline on him. And sometimes, he even made the changed deadline. He was a super-hero in a great many ways.

I haven't mentioned him here in a while but my buddy Frank Ferrante can still be found roaming the continent in his masterful Groucho show. This is the one in which he somehow turns himself into Guess Who for one of the most enjoyable shows I've ever seen — and it isn't just me who thinks that. I've received hundreds of e-mails from folks thanking me for recommending that they go see Frank. If you will or can be anywhere near Chicago on Wednesday, June 11, I recommend you go see this man. Here's how you get tickets.

Furthermore, he'll be in Westerly, Rhode Island for nine performances between July 30 and August 9. Details on that short residency can be found here and my same recommendation applies.

Glenn Kessler over at The Washington Post tracks how D. Trump has gone from "I'll settle the Russia/Ukraine War in 24 hours!" to "It's not my job, man!"

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claims Trump's tax and spending bill does not add to the deficit. Politifact explains why it most certainly does. I almost feel sorry for White House Press Secretaries and wonder why anyone with an iota of integrity would ever take that position. If the President — whoever it is — were to say, "Go out and announce that I am the incarnation of God the Son and the long-awaited messiah as prophesied in the Old Testament," you have to go out and say that as if it's an incontrovertible fact and probably bash The Press if they don't pass it on as true.

And Trump is offering up a video of "burial sites" (he says) for a thousand white farmers as proof of the genocide against their kind in South Africa. FactCheck.org says the video is of something else altogether, not what Donald says it is.

In 1972, Don Rickles starred (briefly) in a situation comedy called The Don Rickles Show.  CBS must not have liked the show much before it even aired because they gave it a certain-death time slot and very little promotion.  It was produced by Sheldon Leonard and he must not have been too wild about it because years later in his autobiography, he didn't mention it; not in the text and not even in a list of (supposedly) all the many shows with which he was involved.  It had a bit of the look-and-feel of The Dick Van Dyke Show but among its obvious flaws was that Don Rickles was not Dick Van Dyke.

I've mentioned it a few times on this blog because a bunch of my friends and I went to a filming of one episode and even from the crummy seats we had, we could feel how unhappy Mssrs. Leonard (who did the warm-up) and Rickles were that night.  According to Wikipedia, "The series aired on CBS from January 14 until May 26, 1972.  It ranked 56th out of 78 shows that season with an average 15.5 rating." Maybe Don should have tried dropping his pants and firing a rocket.

One of the thing someone did to try and promote it was to make Rickles the subject of an episode of Ralph Edwards' This Is Your Life, which was then in the midst of one of its several unsuccessful revivals.  But the half-hour is filled with comedians so here you are…

CNN, Politifact and Steve Benen are each tracking what Donald Whatshisname and his minions are saying about "genocide" against White farmers in South Africa. And they all conclude that what he says is happening ain't happening, at least not the way he frames it.

There's a vast industry out there of unscrupulous people who want to scam wanna-be writers out of their hopes, dreams and — most of all — money. I'm not sure if it's quite as large as the array of unscrupulous people who want to scam wanna-be performers out of the same three things but it's pretty large.

About once a week I get a call from someone who has found my name and contact info somewhere on the web linked to the name of some book that I worked on. The speech, which most of them read badly, extols the genius of that book…which they assume is a novel I wrote and own rather than, say, a collection of stories from Garfield comic books or a Shrek mini-series I wrote eons ago for Dark Horse. They say it's such a shame that "my" book did not sell in the zillions because it's so wonderful and would certainly dwarf that Rowling lady's sales if I'd had the right people advertising…

…which, ahem!, they are and they can elevate me to Best Seller Status supply for a price. Note that they're talking about me — not my publisher, not the copyright holder of the book but me — paying them money. I can also pay them to get anything I have that's unpublished published. There are other kinds of scam calls but these are the crooked offers I most often receive.

Now, I have this pal named Lee Goldberg who has written and published a very long list of successful books…the kind where the author gets paid, not the kind where the author pays some middle man. To me, these con jobs are an annoyance but to Lee, I think they're exciting adventures. They're also dishonest enterprises which he takes delight in exposing and warning others against. Here's a video of him talking to one of these scammers — a guy working the "pitch deck" swindle…

Glenn Kessler, the Fact-Checker on The Washington Post, was fact-checked by some Fact-Checkers on The New York Post and he's now fact-checking their fact-checking of him, mainly about the issue of how much Joe Biden's health decline was covered up.

Which raises the question: How many facts could a fact-checker check if a fact-checker could check facts?

Snopes verifies that Donald Trump Jr. did indeed post a message asking how Dr. Jill Biden could miss diagnosing her husband's cancer. Don Junior responds to those who pointed out the silliness of his post that "part of the mental disorder of leftism is an inability to understand sarcasm." I think that part of being really bad at comedy is blaming the audience when you don't get the reaction you want…especially when addressing a huge audience.

Finally for today: Trump is throwing around all sorts of huge numbers about investments he's allegedly arranged for other countries to make in ours. Fact-Check.org says the numbers don't add up, some of them were deals made by others, and many of them are quite "iffy."

Easiest casting decision in history: "Hey, we need a guy who's jovial, cheery, funny and adored by everyone who's ever met him!" "Okay, I'll call George Wendt!" Only met him briefly but long enough to know that's who he was. Wish it had been longer.

I have occasionally recommended (highly!) a show called Puppet Up! which is produced by the Henson Company. That's "Henson" as in "Jim Henson" and the operation and this show is run by his son, Brian — also a very brilliant worker of puppets. The show, which they do from time to time whenever the mood strikes them, is a largely-improvised presentation for adults and it features puppets who often say the "f" word and are not always decently clad. It's a lot of fun and since it's different every time, you can go again and again. They also replicate a few of the classic routines on which the First Generation of Muppets built their brand.

For several years now, the show has been presented in a soundstage on the Henson Studios Lot in Hollywood. The fact that that complex has been sold is probably the reason that they're moving. Tickets are either now on sale or about to go on sale for performances from Wednesday, July 16 through Sunday, July 20 at the Kirk Douglas Theater in Culver City. If you're going to be anywhere near there on those dates, go. You can find out more about the show here and order tickets here.

It's Randy Rainbow. Yes, it's Randy Rainbow…definitely Randy Rainbow…

Here's a really odd video…a 1994 roast of Morey Amsterdam — about two years before he passed away. It was taped at a place called The Ventura Club that was out in Sherman Oaks in a building that's now a Poquito Mas fast food joint and a Pilates studio. The video runs an hour and forty-seven minutes and I haven't watched all of it just as you won't watch all of it.

But one of my favorite stand-up comedians of a bygone era, Dave Barry, is one of the hosts and among the speakers are Gene Barry, Rose Marie, Paul Winchell and Foster Brooks. I don't want to cast any aspersions on the character of the departed but I have the feeling Foster Brooks had a few drinks. Rose Marie is probably the best one and her speech starts around an hour and seven minutes in.

Thanks to Brian Dreger for telling me about this. If you fast-forward and skip ahead a lot, you might enjoy some of this…

This is going back maybe twenty-five years. I did some work for a TV producer who was obsessed with specificity. I didn't do a lot for him because, like I said, he was obsessed with specificity. He judged everything I said to him and everything I wrote not based on whether it was clever or funny or exciting or anything like that. The only question he seemed to ask himself about anything was "Is it specific enough?" And almost nothing was.

The first time I encountered his odd demands came when we started talking about a then-recent special I'd done for Dick Clark. He asked "How many months did you work on it?" and I replied, "About six weeks," which you'd think was a perfectly responsive response, right? But in his eyes, I'd made two mistakes, the first being the "about" part. Not specific enough.

And you know what the other mistake was? "I asked you how many months, not weeks!"

The correct answer to his question was something like "1.35 months" — and that number had to be exact. After a couple of other matters like that, he lectured me, "People in this world are too vague. They say 'That brand of cheese is three dollars a pound' when the actual price is $2.98! I prefer to deal in precision."

I said, "I'll try to be more accurate" and I did but in everything I wrote for him, he kept asking questions and demanding that I insert more specificity into the script he was paying me to write. I no longer have my early drafts of that script and it never got past the development stage but I would write something like this…

Our hero BLAINE enters the bar just as the sun can be seen setting behind him. He stops in the doorway and gives the room the once-over, registering a bit of disgust with the motley patrons who are downing drinks and pretending not to notice him.

To make this producer happy, I would have to rewrite it more like this…

Our hero John Foster BLAINE enters Guido's Tavern at 6:45 PM just as the sun is setting behind him. Much CHATTER can be heard from the patrons within as Blaine — 6'2" and 35 years of age enters wearing a dark brown, wrinkled overcoat and a hat pulled partway down his piercing brown eyes. As he moves among the patrons, the chatter dissipates and ANNIE (45 years old and Caucasian with bleached blonde hair and a cheap green cocktail dress) turns away to avoid making eye contact as does her companion HARRY, a black 30-year-old off-duty U.P.S. driver still clad in his uniform and sitting there quaffing a beer with a thick head of foam that suggests Guido's in the kind of place that doesn't fill its drinks up all the way.

"You need to give anyone who reads the script a complete picture," the producer said to me.

I tried to give him what he wanted. Oh, how I tried to give him what he wanted but he'd read something like the above and complain, "You didn't describe the bartender. If it's a bar, there must be a bartender. And how attractive is Annie? And what's Harry's last name? Blaine is coming in from the sundown. Is he wearing tinted glasses?"

It went like that for a couple of drafts of a couple of scenes — forgive my lack of specificity as to how many of each — and I finally decided to ask off the project even if it meant not being paid a cent for what I'd done. Before I could, the producer called my agent and announced that he had lost his source of funding and would have to freeze the project for the time being. My agent said, "That's up to you but you still owe my client the full amount." They haggled a bit and argued but the producer finally agreed to pay me the full amount within thirty days.

The check arrived three-and-a-half months later and it was $150 short. Specificity, it turns out, has its limits.

Let's spend some time with Jasmine Amy Rogers, star of Boop! The Musical. She and it are still playing on Broadway and I hope they still are when next I'm in the vicinity…

Charles Strouse died on Wednesday…an important figure in the annals of musical comedy. He wrote the music for a great many shows including Bye Bye Birdie, Applause and Annie. He also wrote scores for motion pictures including one of my favorites — The Night They Raided Minsky's — and unmentioned in most of the obits was his work with his frequent lyricist Lee Adams on one of the best things that ever came out of the Hanna-Barbera studio.

I speak, of course, of the 1966 animated special, Alice in Wonderland (or What's a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This?) But obits like this one will tell you some of the other things he did, including the Superman Broadway musical and the opening theme for the TV show, All in the Family.

Here's a video from a few years back with Mr. Strouse (he's the one at the piano) talking with his collaborator Martin Charnin about Annie…