Baby hedgehogs adopted by a cat. That's right. I said "Baby hedgehogs adopted by a cat…"

Well, for some of us. I guess there are those who are cheering that Senator Al Franken is in trouble today…

A woman said Thursday that Minnesota Democratic Sen. Al Franken groped her and kissed her without her consent in 2006 while she was on a USO Tour overseas.

That he did this doesn't seem to be in dispute — there's a photo, after all — and he has issued a couple of apologies and asked to have a proper ethics investigation which was probably going to happen even if he hadn't asked for one. The woman in question, talk radio host Leeann Tweeden, seems to have accepted his apology and she said, "I'm not calling on him to step down" but that her opinion may change if other women come forward with similar allegations. How she feels will not matter to some.

I assume that if other women turned up with other credible accusations, Franken would certainly have to step down. If it's just this one, some people will still call for it but he might survive. Most of us can buy the idea that someone could do a really creepy, inappropriate thing — something well below the seriousness of physical violence — once as a boneheaded mistake. If they do it repeatedly, that's when it becomes indicative of who they are.

If I were Franken, I think I'd cooperate with the ethics investigation and if its findings indicate it's just the one offense but that he should resign, I'd say, "Fine. I'll quit just as soon as you do the ethics investigation of the guy in the White House with far more (and far more serious) accusations against him!" But I bet he won't do that.

If seems like this is an isolated incident, he might still might be out but he'll surely have to quit if a pattern emerges. That's when a lot of people will be saying, "What a sad ending to the Al Franken Decade." No matter what happens, I'm really disappointed in the man.

This is the press reel for the 1992 Broadway revival of Guys and Dolls, which starred Nathan Lane, Faith Prince, Peter Gallagher and Josie de Guzman. It's 22+ minutes of musical highlights from the show and don't be fooled. They have real short versions of most of the numbers, then they go through them all again with longer excerpts. So don't quit on this the first time there's a long pause of blank video. The stuff you want to see is after the fast run-through.

You may notice in the cast a balding gent in a magenta suit. That's J.K. Simmons back then. Of course, there's now a law that prohibits the making of a super-hero movie without giving a role to J.K. Simmons so he's not appearing much on Broadway these days.

I saw this production and thought it was terrific…

I'd like to expand on a thought I posted here last night, writing about sexual predators. I wrote, "Some abusers cannot be made to understand the wrongness of what they are doing to others. At best, you might be able to get them to understand what they're doing to themselves." I should have added that you also might be able to get them to understand what they're doing to their friends and loved ones.

Back before we were all living 24/7 on the Internet, some of us communicated via dial-in (by phone) computer bulletin boards. I ran one for a time for the Writers Guild. Writers would phone in by modem and post public and private messages to one another.

There was a writer I knew well. Many of my friends will know exactly who I'm talking about. I liked the guy…at times. He did some wonderful things for others, including me. He did some rotten things to others, including me. He is gone now and I suppose I look back on him with a gram of fondness because I have the kind of mind that over time, minimizes the rotten things and gravitates to the wonderful ones.

He was a ferocious salesman for his writing, never taking "no" for an answer. He sold, sold, sold like no one else I've ever encountered. There were studios that hired him merely because it was easier to do that than to fend off his constant onslaught…and sometimes, they were happy they did. He was not a terrible writer. I envied him some of the jobs he got but not how he got them. I kind of like the idea that people hire me because they like my work and maybe even me. He didn't care if every producer he harangued thought he was an asshole of limited ability — an understandable assumption, given his approach — just as long as one of them gave him an assignment.

He took a not-dissimilar approach towards women, propositioning them relentlessly wherever he went. At one point, he decided it would be a good idea to send a private message to half the women who used the Writers Guild Bulletin Board System. It was a simple, straightforward invitation to come over to his office sometime soon and perform oral sex on him. He didn't even offer to go to them. They were to come to him, though he was magnanimously willing to be available at any hour as long as no one else was outside waiting her turn.

These were not women who had ever indicated the slightest interest in doing this. Most were total strangers to him and a few were not even women. He just picked his recipients at random — anyone he thought was female — and a couple were male writers with androgynous first names like Pat and Chris. Why did he send this message to only half of the BBS roster? Because he thought the response might be so overwhelming that he wouldn't be able to accommodate all the eager volunteers. Eventually, he'd get around to e-mailing the rest, he figured.

You may be surprised to hear that there were no takers…and oddly enough, he really wasn't. He was used to rejection. He considered it just a part of a campaign that would eventually at some point succeed…and if it succeeded, then who cared how many times he got rejected or how much discomfort he caused to others? Maybe he could send the same offer over and over again to some of these women and a couple would finally come over and service him just to stop him from asking. After all, producers had hired him on pretty much that basis.

Strangely, women did not rush to accept. I think one guy named Casey might have been vaguely interested but no one of the targeted gender was. A few, to be fair, were amused and sent back fairly witty rejoinders. A number of them suggested he try self-service. A lot of them complained to the management of the Bulletin Board System.

And who was the management of the Bulletin Board System? Why, that was me, of course. I'd signed onto the job to set up computers and modems and software. You can imagine how thrilled I was to have to deal with this.

I'm not sure how any of today's social media outlets handle a situation like this even if they even handle it at all. Back then, there were no policies or precedents and when I inquired of a WGA lawyer as to what I should do, he said, "I have no idea. You'd have to figure it out." I decided to phone the writer and have it out with him.

It did no good to tell him how mad some women were. He didn't take their outrage seriously and so what? If even one of them came across, it was a winning strategy. He actually said to me, "If you buy a hundred lottery tickets and one wins, you don't regret buying the 99 that didn't."

It also did no good to point out to him that so far, not a single woman had called to ask him for directions and say, "I'll be right over." Just because a strategy hadn't succeeded yet didn't mean it wouldn't. There was still half the membership of the B.B.S. who hadn't received his generous offer. And even if it never succeeded, in his mind nothing was lost. "It didn't cost me anything to try," he told me. The shameless cannot be shamed.

What did work on him was when I said, "Think about all the trouble you're causing me. This has already taken hours of my time…and while you might not care if they're furious at you, I'm not thrilled that they're so mad at me for not doing something about what you did." A couple had talked about taking legal action, I pointed out, and that would surely cost me grief and time, along with endangering the future of the B.B.S.

It also worked to tell him that if this matter got any bigger, it was likely the whole town would hear about it. I said, "It's sure not going to help you get work…and by the way, some of the women who now think you're a creepy pervert have hiring power or will in the future."

That really got to him, though I think just understanding the position he'd put me in might have been enough. He didn't send the message out again. He phoned some of the women who were most upset and sent e-mailed apologies to others. I'm not sure how much of that repair work he did but I did hear from several ladies that they were satisfied and everyone seemed to think we should just drop it…and dropped, it was. I don't think anyone ever mentioned it to me again.

Obviously, as sexual misdeeds go, that was not a major offense. He never laid a finger on anyone or cost them a job but it was still wrong. Obviously too, a lot of people who do bad things will stop doing them when they realize how they're harming themselves…or could. We will never know how many predators stop preying because they see what's happening to the Harvey Weinsteins of the world and think, "If they can nail them, they can nail me," but I'm sure some of them will be less inclined to harass.

What I think needs to be said to some of them is this: If you're not going to stop because you're hurting the woman…and you're oblivious or uncaring about how you hurt yourself…

Stop because you're putting your friends and family in a very bad, very awkward position. Predators may think of women as interchangeable and disposable but they probably don't feel that way about everyone in their world. Even psychopaths with no sense of the harm they do to their victims usually care about somebody, someplace. It's not as valid as getting them to understand what they're doing to their victims but it's a good start and hey, whatever works.

The Voctave singers are back with another Disney medley, this one from Cinderella…

A person who shall remain anonymous here wrote…well, actually a couple of people have written to ask this but I'll quote this one and then respond…

With all this talk of Sexual Harassment going on, I'm seeing something about a DC editor who has done some inappropriate things and I have to ask. Is this kind of thing as prevalent in comics as it is in movies and TV?

First off, I don't believe I've ever even met that particular editor at DC. I know zero about that matter other than what's been published for all the world to see and I don't even know how accurate that may be. So let's put that group of accusations aside.

Does it happen in comics? Yes, absolutely. Is it as prevalent? No, I don't think it could be. Part of that is because most people in comics don't get as wealthy and therefore as powerful (and maybe power-mad) as the top people in film and television. Sex and money have this way of integrating. More of one leads to more of another.

Part of it also is that the comic book business is not as crowded with young and beautiful people seeking employment. There are some but obviously, if you're really, really good looking, you're more likely to look in a mirror and think, "I should be in the movies" as opposed to "I should be inking for Marvel."

Part of it also is that a lot of folks involved in comics are freelancers who do their work largely by mail. It's hard to grope someone via Federal Express, even if you use Priority Overnight.

And part of it is that in show biz, there's a bit more of a sex-charged environment since you have performers auditioning for and engaging in love scenes, nude scenes and other scenes based on physical appearance. When I was working on variety shows, we had dancer auditions and rehearsals that made you think about sex the way working at See's Candy would make you think of chocolate-covered anything. I also think all those stories of "the casting couch" lead to an environment where some simply expect that's part of the playing field.

There's probably sexual impropriety in every business and it certainly isn't confined to the truly beautiful being targeted. Plain people are victimized along with the stunning. Like guys in a singles bar just before closing, some men will hit on anyone who fulfills one basic requirement: She has to be there.

(There was a time when I might have said, "She has to be there and awake" but Mr. Cosby has lowered the bar even further.)

The comic book field definitely has its share and the incidents I know of are probably not all that different from what goes on in a lot of industries. No matter what field you work in, there are those with hiring power and those who need jobs. There are probably also those with sexual yearnings that are not appeased via their mates…if they even have mates. And everywhere you go in this world, there are people with bad manners, bizarre senses of humor and an utter misunderstanding of the opposite sex.

Yeah, I know several stories. I wish I didn't but I do and I was involved in a few attempts, at least once of which was successful, to get someone to cease that kind of behavior and apologize to the victim…which was all that particular victim wanted to have happen. The resolutions of some other situations were not as satisfactory. Some abusers cannot be made to understand the wrongness of what they are doing to others. At best, you might be able to get them to understand what they're doing to themselves.

I think there is more of it in the TV and movie industries than there is in comics but I say that with a couple of caveats. One is that any amount is intolerable and the fact that it's worse somewhere else doesn't mean there isn't a problem where you are. Also, the comic book business is slowly but certainly merging into the TV and movie industries so this whole distinction is becoming increasingly moot.

I'm back from the big premiere of the Justice League movie. Someone said they spent $300 million on this movie and it shows, especially if you figure $100 million for that after-party. I'm not going to review it because I think we're supposed to wait until it formally opens and also because I'm even more tired than if I'd been in the big fight scene. I also think it's one of those movies where the less you know going in, the more you'll enjoy it. So I'll just say "Wow" and go to bed. Wow.

• If they don't start this movie soon, the sequel will be out first.

• No one in L.A. will go see Justice League this weekend. The entire population is here at the premiere.

They each had one line in the original 1967 film of The Producers. Hank was the stagehand who got conked on the head by Ken Mars. Bill was the jury foreman who said, "We find the defendants incredibly guilty." Georgi Mihailov was the first of many readers who wrote in with the right answer but we have some lovely parting gifts for the rest of you.

Riley the Toucan struggles to grasp the concept behind the water faucet…

I have a lot of e-mail this morning about the documentary just mentioned, and it's being debated in many crannies of Ye Olde Internet. Of those who think it was biased or unfair, about half seem to think it bent too heavily in favor of Stan Lee and about half think it leaned too far towards Jack Kirby. I'm not even sure what I think but I was greatly amused by this. A person I don't know at all, and who I suspect is hiding behind a bogus handle, wrote me angrily that I was too critical of Stan Lee. Among other things, he wrote…

Nowhere in the show do you say Stan was important. Nowhere do you admit that without both Stan and Jack, the Marvel Universe would never have existed.

It's usually a waste of time with these people but just for the heck of it, I wrote him back and, first of all, reminded him that I was interviewed for, like, forty minutes. The producers picked out which six or seven sentences of mine would get on the air out of hundreds I said in front of their cameras. "You don't know what I said that they didn't use," I told him and then I pointed out —

Near the beginning of the show, you hear an unidentified voice say, "If you didn't have Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in the right place at the right time, we wouldn't be talking about Marvel Comics today." That's me.

They lifted the audio of something I said and put it over a photo of Stan and Jack, which is fine. I thought what I wrote would cause the guy to write back to me and say something like, "Oh, sorry." Instead, what I received was…

You criticized Stan for not defending Kirby more but you didn't have the guts to say that on camera.

I am reminded of a time one of my college professors was debating some point with a student who didn't want to listen and only wanted to insist over and over again that he was right and everybody else in the whole friggin' world was wrong. The prof said, "It's like arguing with a hamster."

AMC has just debuted a new series called Robert Kirkman's Secret History of Comics, a series of documentary-style looks at that field.  Tonight is Wonder Woman and the week after is Superman.  The first show, which debuted last night and which airs repeatedly this week and thereafter, is "The Mighty Misfits Who Made Marvel," a title I do not think applies at all but maybe that's just me.  It's basically a look at the early days of Marvel with special emphasis on the eternal question of who created the smash hit comics that were first produced by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

(I'll give you a hint: The correct answer — which Disney/Marvel now officially acknowledges and which I heard from every single person who was there including, at times, both Stan and Jack — is Stan and Jack.)

I am among those who was interviewed for it but I had nothing to do with the overall presentation or factual recital.  Winston Churchill supposedly once said "History is written by the survivors," though some say that's wrong and that what he actually said was "History is written by the victors."  I don't know which is right but I think it's hilarious that either the survivors or the victors got the history of what he said wrong.  Personally, I think in this day and age, history is written by the video editors under the supervision of the producers.

When I agreed to be a part of this project, I was unaware how much of it would be about Stan vs. Jack.  If I had been, I would have told the folks doing it that I don't think you can properly serve the Stan/Jack topic without explaining a lot more than can be squeezed into their time restraints. I'm pleased though that a video recounting of this story has finally noted that Jack Kirby was heavily involved in the writing of important comic books for which he was only paid and credited as artist. When I've said that in past documentaries, even when I've cited all the times Stan admitted it, that has always been the first thing to hit the cutting room floor.

I really, really don't like being in front of a camera and I know that however well I tell stories in print, I'm a whole lot worse on video. Still, I thank the filmmakers for including the part where I said Jack (and Steve Ditko) assumed creative control of the comics they were drawing. That was well worth my discomfort. It was also, indeed, a secret history of the comics…a poorly-kept secret, true, but it should not be a secret at all.

From April 18, 1986, here's David Letterman on Johnny Carson's show. How many of you think Dave is doing a good job of pretending he didn't know about this in advance?

Friday evening, I attended a screening of the new documentary, Gilbert, which is all about the noted comedian Gilbert Gottfried. I enjoyed the film tremendously, in part because I've always enjoyed Gilbert Gottfried tremendously. If you haven't…well, there's a chance this film will change your mind about him but I'd say it's only about a 10-20% chance.

The film has basically three themes which intersect in many ways. Theme One is that Gilbert was this shy loner who was very private and guarded about letting anyone into his life. His friends were all sure he'd die alone and unwed because he seemed to live in his own private little world and let no one in.

Then one day to the amazement of all, he was suddenly engaged to be married. Not only that but he was engaged to be married to a very lovely, intelligent woman who seemed to love him dearly. Not only that but he was engaged to a very lovely, intelligent woman who seemed to love him dearly and who was carrying what would turn out to be the first of their two (so far) children! That that relationship exists and that it's transformed this sullen loner into a good husband and father is amazing and that's basically Theme One.

Theme Two is Gilbert's relationship with his two sisters, especially Arlene who is a brilliant photographer. Actually, I should say "was" because she passed away after being interviewed for the documentary. There is a lot in it about Gilbert helping her cope with cancer and before that, with the loss of their mother. It's all very humanizing of a guy who doesn't always come off as that human on TV.

And then there's Theme Three which is about Gilbert's career as a teller of what some would call very dirty and often-offensive jokes. The film deals with the rise of his career and the intermittent fallout because of this joke or that one.

It also deglamorizes the life of a standup comedian on the road and there's a very funny sequence where Gilbert is booked into some venue where he can't help but intermingle with a convention of folks dressed in the garb of past wars including a lot of guys dressed as Nazi soldiers. One says he's a big, big fan and apologizes for the uniform. All of this makes for a very entertaining and surprisingly personal look at its subject.

The screening we attended was packed with people I knew and it included a Q-and-A hosted by Paul Provenza. Q'ed were Gilbert, his wife Dara and the filmmaker, Neil Berkeley. Mr. Berkeley shot this entire film with no distribution deal or even Gilbert's formal legal consent, though Gilbert gave him way more access and cooperation than anyone who knew G.G. would have expected. It's very nice to see that it's coming out and already getting so many good reviews and good reaction.

Gilbert seemed tired at the Q-and-A. He'd just come from another screening in Santa Monica where he was interviewed by Howie Mandel — and he didn't say as much as the audience might have liked. Asked about the Louis C.K. matter though, he did remark "I'm kind of an old-fashioned guy. I prefer to do my masturbation in private." Afterward, there was a lot of milling and meeting and Gilbert obliged about half the audience in posing for selfies.

There were two folks in the audience who were past guests on Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast, which I hope you all listen to as it's very funny. One of those past guests who were present was Hank Garrett, who is probably best known for his role on Car 54, Where Are You? and the other one was Bill Macy, who is probably best known for his role on Maude. I was probably the only person present who immediately realized what else they had in common. (Do you know what it is? I'll post the answer here later today.)

I am a future guest. We were supposed to record one of Gilbert's podcasts during my recent New York trip but he was called unexpectedly outta-town to do some publicity for this fine documentary so we're rescheduling. I'll let you know when that happens. I may need to brush up on my Cesar Romero and Danny Thomas anecdotes first.

Anyway, the documentary is called Gilbert and it drops, as they say, on iTunes on Tuesday. If you've ever liked its subject or want to take the 10-20% chance that this will cause you to like him, check it out.