An early commercial for Spaghettios. Spaghettios must be the easiest hot lunch in the entire world to prepare and yet for some reason, there are hundreds of homemade videos online wherein someone teaches you how to open the can, dump the contents into a bowl, put the bowl into a microwave for one minute, take it out and then eat the spaghettios with a spoon. I am not posting one of those. I'm posting this commercial because it has a voiceover by the great Paul Frees…

I don't think I know the language well enough to do it but I think someone should write the article that a right-wing pundit would write and the speech that a right-wing political office holder or candidate would write if it had turned out that Bill Clinton or Barack Obama had paid off porn stars to keep a relationship secret.

No, let me amend that last part: "…if it had turned out that there was this much evidence that Bill Clinton or Barack Obama had paid off porn stars to keep a relationship secret." It wouldn't have to proven without a scintilla of doubt for that article to be written or that speech to be given. Take the reports about Trump and porn stars, replace Trump's name with Clinton's or Obama's and tell us what Sean Hannity would have said.

I won't write it and I won't run it here but if someone does write it, I'll link to it.

Also, it turns out that the online news site Slate had this story about Trump and one of the porn ladies pretty much nailed down a few weeks before the election. They never ran it because they didn't have it absolutely nailed down but it's out now because The Wall Street Journal believed it had sufficient verification.

Slate is thought of as a largely left-wing site, though on most days you can point to an article or two there from the other side of the street. Right now, there are probably folks praising them for having high-enough standards that they didn't run it because it didn't yet meet a high-enough bar of proof. And there are probably folks out there vilifying them for sitting on a story that was a lot more verified than most of what was being hurled then at Hillary Clinton. Could it have swung the election the other way?

Maybe. I don't know how I feel about this. It's the old argument over whether it's foolish to play fair when your opponent is cheating and stands to get away with it.

While we all ponder that, let's watch as some Republican leaders express tepid outrage. It'll be wrong but not wrong enough to stop supporting a Republican president. The rest of them will probably try to pretend it never happened. I like the ones who try the ol' Climate Change Dodge. They'll say, "I'm going to reserve judgment until all the facts are in" and then they'll never agree that all the facts are in.

I was born in Santa Monica, which is a city in Los Angeles County. As Wikipedia notes, Santa Monica is surrounded on three sides by "the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades to the north, Brentwood on the northeast, West Los Angeles on the east, Mar Vista on the southeast, and Venice on the south." On the west is this place called the Pacific Ocean.

My folks and I lived in West Los Angeles but we were in Santa Monica all the time. My father's office for a long time was in Santa Monica. My high school was a few blocks from the border between the two cities. I went to college at first at U.C.L.A. and later at Santa Monica City College. And we often went to The Penguin.

The Penguin was a coffee shop at the corner of Olympic and Lincoln. It opened in 1959 (when I was seven) but it somehow felt like it had been there forever. When I was aged 17-23, I took dates to movies out on Third Street in Santa Monica and then we'd go to the Penguin for a late dinner and/or ice cream.

So I have happy memories of being there with my parents and perhaps my aunt or an uncle. And I have happy memories of being there later with my first girl friends. It was a lovely place in the "Googie" style with friendly serving personnel, plus it had cartoon penguins all over, even in the men's room. I've never had a hamburger that was better than the ones they served at the Penguin.

Some time in 1988, I read in the L.A. Times that the Penguin was soon to close its doors forever. I hadn't been out that way in years and I instantly decided I had to go there one last time before it went away forever. Easy to say, maybe not that easy to do. It was a busy period for me just then and I kept putting it off and putting it off until one day when I suddenly began worrying I was putting it off too long.

That evening, I was supposed to take my current lady friend, Angela, to a four-star steakhouse in Beverly Hills and I asked her if she'd indulge me: Could we instead go to this cheapo coffee shop out in Santa Monica? I don't think she understood why but she agreed and we wound up having a very nice dinner there.

Around the time the check came, she even asked me, "Can we come here again?" I asked the waitress when the place was shutting down and the answer to Angela's question turned out to be "No." It closed a day or three later and the building then sat empty for a few years.

Around '91, it amazingly became an outlet for Dr. Beauchamp, a local dentistry chain that advertised that even if you had rotten credit, they'd give you some sort of payment plan for getting your rotten teeth fixed. The insides of the Penguin were gutted but they kept the big neon aquatic flightless bird out front. I think the city may have insisted on it. Every time I drive past it, that sign reminds me of the aforementioned happy memories.

And now comes the word that the Mel's Drive-In chain has acquired the property and is repurposing it back into its original purpose. The tables will have phone charging stations and there will be a juice bar and organic offerings…but if the Penguin had stayed in business, it would have all those things by now. Since the standard Mel's menu ain't all that different from what was served at the Penguin, it may be a very effective restoration.

This article will tell you more about it and show you some pictures. When it's open again, I'll go there with, I hope, realistic expectations. I won't expect it to be 1960 again with me sitting there with my parents and my Uncle Nathan. I won't expect it to be 1972 again with me sitting there with Lynne after we'd just seen Slaughterhouse Five at the Criterion out on Third Street. I'll be happy if the burger's anywhere near as good.

This is a video from May 2009 of President Barack Obama going to a Five Guys to get some burgers to go. In a way, this was kind of a stunt. NBC was shooting a day in life of the Chief Exec — you'll notice him ordering for Brian Williams — but it was also a nice moment to see the Leader of the Free World mingling with ordinary folks. He was cordial and approachable and he talked to everyone he could, asking most of them about themselves and their occupations. He did this kind of thing from time to time.

Can we imagine Trump doing this? Sure, though he wouldn't be in shirt sleeves and the only conversation would be him telling everyone how successful he was. And then for days after, his speeches would be about how everyone told him what a great job he was doing.

Yes, I know a lot of Trump supporters are cheering the sorta-alleged "shithole" remark which he's sorta-denying. Some of them would love it even more if he'd come out and utter uncoded, Nazi-style racist tirades against anyone who isn't Caucasian and damned proud of it. But I still think a lot of his boosters are cringing that he's alienating allies and swing voters left and right (i.e., politically left and politically right) and hampering his own effectiveness to get things done.

If I wanted to see D.J.T. check off certain items on his "to do" list, I'd be moaning over each day's faux pas or divisive tweet and muttering, "This is not going to help." Right now, it's like he's out to give ammo to those arguing he's outta his skull and the nation needs to 25th Amendment the guy right out of the Oval Office before he presses that bigger button that he doesn't actually have on his desk.

Whatever his base wants to see him accomplish, it's not going to be any easier if/when Republicans lose one or both halves of Congress. Or before that could happen, more and more Republicans in Congress feel the need to distance themselves from the man.

Me, I'm fine with Trump's self-immolation. The more of it, the merrier. I just have this long-held belief that any public servant's approval rating is less than the pollsters say it is. We tell survey people we love Our Guy because he's Our Guy. But I don't think people who say they love Trump love Trump as much as they say, just as I didn't think those who said they loved Obama loved Obama as much as they said. The big difference is that Obama fans like myself were frustrated that he couldn't get more things past a Republican Congress, whereas Trump fans are frustrated that he can't get more things past a Republican Congress.

Okay, I give up. A million years ago on this blog, I tried out the theory that Donald Trump was not exactly a racist. It seemed to me that the "them" in his "them or us" was not black people or brown people so much as it was non-successful people. Even if there's some truth to that, it's becoming a distinction not worth making. Forget I ever mentioned it.

Of course, the other "them" in Trump's world is anyone of any color or financial status who doesn't serve the needs of Trump's greed and ego, genuflecting to him, going along with the delusion that he's accomplished more than any prior president in his first year, burying lyin' Hillary in the popular vote…and hey, how about those record crowds at his inauguration? And also, I see the guy who couldn't serve in the military because of bone spurs is now telling us what a great athlete he was in college.

Here's some other stuff that might interest you…

• Dylan Matthews reads Trump's interview with the Wall Street Journal so you don't have to.
• Matt Taibbi reads Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff so you don't have to.
• German Lopez lists some good reasons to believe Trump has always been some sort of racist.
• William Saletan looks at the talking points that Trump repeats over and over (there's been no colluson, there's been no collusion, there's been no colluson, there's been no collusion, there's been no colluson, there's been no collusion…and did I mention there's been no collusion?) and concludes that he doth protest too much.
• And Paul Krugman reminds us of some of the brilliant, rational things done so far by the Very Stable Genius.

A source tells me that Stephen Colbert's staff is working very hard to try and get Trump aide Stephen Miller on their show. If they aren't, they should be.

• It's like Donald Trump wakes up every morning and asks himself, "What can I do today to make my supporters a little more uncomfortable to be behind me?"

It's been a while since I've posted anything from my fave local band, Big Daddy. These are the guys who take recent hit songs (well, relatively recent) and redo them in the style of the fifties or early sixties. Here, they take "The Living Years" — a hit for Mike and the Mechanics back in 1985 — and ask the musical question, what would it sound like if it had been recorded by the group that did "Leader of the Pack" (1964) and "Dead Man's Curve" (also '64)? Well, it might sound something like this…

Did you like that? If so, you can find more of their work by using the search function on this sitefor "Big Daddy." But wait! Even better! If you live in or around Los Angeles, you can hear ans see them live on the evening of Sunday, January 21! They'll be out in Studio City at Upstairs at Vitello's where the tickets are cheap and the food is good. Click here to get some of those cheap tickets. These guys put on a real good show.

The Hollywood Museum is located a hop, trip and stumble from the intersection of Hollywood and Highland in — guess where! — Hollywood. It houses a lot of movie and TV memorabilia and is always worth a stroll-through but for the next two months or so, there's a special bat-reason. It's offering an exhibit saluting the 1966 Batman TV show — the one that starred Adam West and Burt Ward.

As I'll explain, I have mixed feelings about the series but there are many people who adore it and some who collect or re-create — often for vast sums of cash — props and costumes from that show. Most of the major collectors of such items have been persuaded to loan them out for the exhibition, which will be there through March 17. Here — read this…

The exhibit, which will consist of four popular sections (Wayne Manor, The Batcave, Gallery of Guest Super Villains, and The Collectibles of Batman '66), will pay tribute to the memory of Adam West and honor the other half of the Dynamic Duo, Burt Ward, and the iconic show, still seen today in the U.S. and around the world weekly.

The Batman 66 exhibit will feature original costumes and props from the show, which have not been seen since it originally broadcast from 1966-68. Dadigan says, "We have costumes and props that evoke one's childhood memories of the ever popular TV series, Batman. There is something for everyone — from the Batmobile and Batcycle to Burt and Adam's original costumes worn during the show's 120 episode run on ABC TV Network, as well as guest villains — and one of my favorites — the original Dr. Casandra costume worn by TV and film star Ida Lupino, that has never been seen publicly before.

"Dadigan" is President and Founder of the Hollywood Museum, Donelle Dadigan. As of this moment, there's nothing about the exhibit on the museum's website but you can get the address, directions and so forth there and I imagine more details of the bat-displays will appear there momentarily. I'm going to drop by one of these days but let me explain about the "mixed" part of my mixed feelings…

I liked Adam West, loved Julie Newmar and Yvonne Craig and Lee Meriwether, loved most of the guest villains in a different way and was somewhat fond of other components of the enterprise. I just didn't like the show's underlying disrespect for the source material…and in fact, for all comic books. This was something I suspected while I watched the program when it first aired and it was something I had confirmed when I met some of those who worked behind-the-scenes on it. They thought Batman was a stupid idea — stupid premise, stupid character, stupid stories, etc.

And before you write and remind me that, yeah, some versions of the characters and some runs of issues were, let me clarify: I don't mean that. What I got was that they thought the whole thing was to be ridiculed for reasons that would probably apply to everything ever done with the franchise, before or since.

I really got that from the folks I met and then when I first met Bob Kane in 1968…well, many things disappointed me about the man. One of them came when I told him how I wished the show wasn't making so much fun of what I then thought of as his "creation." What I got back from Mr. Kane was a pretty firm attitude of "Hey, as long as my credit's on it and the checks clear…"

That caused me to view the show in a bit of a different light. So did the show's endurance and more importantly, the character's durability. I now am fonder and more forgiving of the subtext of ridicule built into the series…and as I say, I like a lot of the performers and much of the art design and style, as well. I just don't think that's Batman or even a loving spoof. I was fourteen years old when it went on the air and so should have been the perfect audience for it. But I wasn't and I still have a hard time loving the show as much as some of my friends do.

Washing and drying an owl…

• Trump vows that libel laws will be amended so that when rich people don't like what's said about them, they will always have "meaningful recourse" against poorer people.

One of the reasons so many people hate lawyers is because they sign their names to frivolous, sure-to-be-tossed-outta-court lawsuits or letters threatening frivolous, sure-to-be-tossed-outta-court lawsuits. One assumes that when Donald Trump told his to sue Michael Wolff over the new book, the attorneys explained, "There's close to zero chance of this suit prevailing. All you're going to do is drive up sales on that book."

To which Trump responded, "I don't care. I want that bastard sued!" so they sent a letter threatening to sue. Trump has that "If someone hits me, I hit back" mentality and that — and the bully pulpit he's made out of his Twitter feed — are the only two ways he knows of hitting back. He may also have thought the threat of a lawsuit against the book would dissuade others from writing similar books and if he did, I'll bet he was wrong about that, too. I mean, we've all seen how Trump's suit against Bill Maher has stopped comedians from ridiculing Donald Trump.

Here is the letter sent by Trump's attorneys. The lawyers for Wolff and his publisher have responded to the threatening letter and you can read their reply here. I especially like how Trump's lawyers say he will sue in New York over "false light invasion of privacy" and Wolff's barristers point out that New York doesn't recognize lawsuits over that.

Just in case you didn't see it — or want to see it again — here's the monologue Seth Meyers did the other night at the Golden Globe Awards. I thought this was about as good as these things can ever be. He looked a little awkward standing since he is basically a sit-down comedian but the jokes were sharp, the audience liked him and he was in control every moment of the way…

The Playbill website has a list of Broadway musicals that are being turned into movies. In fact, I'll list the names of them here. Hello Again has just come out, Aladdin is in production and the following are "In Development"…

13, American Idiot, Bare: A Pop Opera, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, Cats, Come From Away, Finding Neverland, In the Heights, Jekyll & Hyde, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Lysistrata Jones, Matilda, Memphis, Miss Saigon, Pippin, Spring Awakening, Sunset Boulevard and Wicked, as well as remakes of Guys and Dolls, Gypsy, Little Shop of Horrors, Oliver!, South Pacific and West Side Story.

I could make a real good case that we don't need remakes of Guys and Dolls, Little Shop of Horrors, Oliver!, South Pacific and West Side Story. I'm torn about Gypsy since I love the show but don't much like the 1962 film adaptation.

And if it's remade soon, it's apparently going to be remade with Barbra Streisand as Mama Rose, which sounds to me like it would be good for the box office, bad for the property. Gypsy is about this woman, Mama Rose, who lacked the talent and charisma to be a star herself so she had to shove her daughters — first one, then the other — out onto the stage so she could live vicariously through their stardoms. I have a tough time imagining Ms. Streisand playing someone who couldn't be a star.

We may never find out if she could pull it off. On the Playbill list, note that the latest news about the project is from 8/3/2016 and what was current then was the film had lost its financial backing. A lot of these musicals will probably never make it to the screen.

Are you eager for the planned South Pacific redo with Hugh Jackman, Justin Timberlake and Michelle Williams? Well, don't start heading for the Cineplex just yet. The latest news on the Playbill site is from 5/10/2013. The latest news on Jekyll & Hyde is even older. The announcement of the film of Finding Neverland only goes back to August of 2016 but that announcement is from its producer, Harvey Weinstein. These days, about all Harvey's producing is contempt and outrage.

Anyway, the list is a good reminder that not every movie that is announced gets made. Let's check back one year from now and see how many of these have advanced any closer to reality. I'll be surprised if more than a third have.

Greta Thyssen, the one-time Miss Denmark who became a movie star, has passed away in New York at the age of 90.  She appeared in several movies including Accused of Murder (1956), The Beast of Budapest (1958), Catch Me If You Can (1959), Shawdows (1959), Terror Is a Man (1959), Three Blondes in His Life (1961) and Journey to the Seventh Planet (1962).

Like you, I've seen none of those movies.  So how do I know of Ms. Thyssen?  Because she also appeared in three Three Stooges shorts released in 1958 and 1959, all films with Joe Besser as the third Stooge.  She was lovely in all three, even with pastry all over her face — which occurred in two out of her three films.  If it is possible to be sexy with meringue all over your kisser, she managed it.

This obit will tell you more about her career.  She sure was pretty.