Like a lot of you, there was a period there — 9/11 and for a month or three after — when I respected the hell out Rudy Giuliani. The respect ended faster and more thoroughly than my letdown over John McCain, a man who once either placed principles over politics or did a real good job of fooling me into thinking he did.

Giuliani went from being America's Mayor to being its screaming scold and there was a point there where he was pimping out his 9/11 cred as a spokesperson for anyone who'd pay him enough. In this past election, I don't think there was any vile rumor he would not spread about Hillary Clinton and so he did Donald Trump a big favor. Because of Giuliani, Trump wasn't the biggest, hysterical liar out there campaigning for Donald Trump.

There are reports that Giuliani went balls-out for Donald in an attempt to land the position of Secretary of State. Maybe so but it's now being reported that after initial reports that he was on a two-person short list, he's now out of consideration for that and apparently any cabinet post. He'd never make it through any confirmation hearing that examined his recent business dealings and the company he's kept, they say.

Why has he turned into what he's turned into? Michael Tomasky has a long profile/theory about Giuliani that sounds rather credible. You might want to give it a read.

A preview of The Dick Van Dyke Show in color…

• A Trump-loving pal refers to Hillary as "Wall Street's chosen candidate." I'm going to start calling Trump "Russia's chosen candidate."

As you may have heard, Sunday night CBS is running an hour special. Two of the best episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show have been edited into some sort of cohesive hour-long story and they've been colorized. A lot of folks seem to be upset about this but Carl Reiner, who created and produced the series, is solidly behind it so I'm not going to get too worked up over it.

I'm going to guess that Mr. Reiner so loves the idea of those shows being run in prime time and treated like classics, he's willing to overlook any qualms he might have about their alteration. He may have none but if he does, I don't think it's a bad trade-off.

He's also, by the way, cheerily overlooking the fact that though he wrote many of the best episodes of that show, the two being run Sunday night — which are kinda being singled out here as the two best — were both scripted by Bill Persky and Sam Denoff. He does however have the best scene in one of them. Here he is having that scene…

I remember when companies first started colorizing movies, there was loud outrage of the pitchforks-and-torches variety among film historians and those who loved classic flicks. And they had a point when they said that most of that enhancement wasn't done very well. The art — and it is an art — has improved a lot since then.

They were also horrified at the thought — and wrong — that the original black-and-white versions of things like Casablanca and It's a Wonderful Life would disappear forever. That was actually predicted and it has not happened. In fact, because of a lot of the same technology and techniques used in colorization, many great old movies — some originally filmed in black-and-white, some shot in color — have been restored and now look better than ever.

I never thought colorization was the tool of desecration that some said it was. At least, once a movie was colorized, it was usually presented in full without scratches, missing scenes, bad audio, the insertion of commercials, etc. That kind of damage, which was a lot more common, always bothered me more.

And when someone colorized the monochrome episodes of Gilligan's Island so they matched the color episodes, even the decriers of colorization had a hard time condemning that one. Someone please explain to me how the artistic cinematography and the director's vision were despoiled there. I'll wait. And while you're at it, tell me why in blessing what CBS is doing tomorrow night, Carl Reiner is defacing Carl Reiner's greatest work.

For the most part though, it comes down to the argument I keep hearing from people in my age bracket and above that it's awful that These Kids Today won't watch something that's in black-and-white. Well, okay — but let me make some points about that…

• It really isn't that it's in black-and-white. It's that it's old…and black-and-white is an instant warning signal that something is old.
• And there are a lot of old movies and TV shows that even I won't watch or that I wouldn't expect someone under the age of 40 or so to understand or care about. Not everything you and I loved at one time stands up today, even if it's in full, glorious color.
• Also, These Kids Today have tons and tons of media available to them, more than anyone can ever absorb. Just in terms of television — leaving aside movies and direct-to-DVD productions and videogames — they have all the channels I had growing up plus hundreds of others. Some of those channels produce some very fine programming and I doubt anyone today can keep up with all the current films and television that warrant attention.
• I sure can't. I've never even started on some of the acclaimed recent shows that I expect to like because (a) there aren't enough hours in the day and (b) the present methods of distribution and marketing kinda ensure that I can start watching Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones or any of them at some later date. Mad Men will be exactly the same when I finally get around to it.
• So if I can't find the time to watch Game of Thrones now, I can't very well fault one of These Kids Today for not seeking out some great TV show made before they were born.

And no, I'm sure The Dick Van Dyke Show is not any better in color…but you know what it is? It's being treated like a classic, like something very valuable. Putting it in prime time in its original greys would not be a special event.

The black-and-white versions of "Coast to Coast Big Mouth" and "That's My Boy" — the episodes CBS is running on Sunday — have aired hundreds of times sans color. Slapping some electronic Crayola™ on them is a stunt, true. But that's the kind of thing you have to do these days to get people to pay attention to something they may never heard of before.

I doubt it'll get a high rating, especially among folks who don't know the show. But those of us who do may tune in to pay our respects and to see what the show's like in this new special wrapping. I actually have a special, albeit adolescent reason.

At age 13, I attended a filming of The Dick Van Dyke Show. I remember many life-changing moments of that evening but a biggie was when Mary Tyler Moore was introduced and she walked out and stood six feet away from me. She was absolutely, breathtakingly beautiful. To this day, I can't recall enjoying looking at someone or something and enjoying it more — and as I think I said in this article, it wasn't just that it was the first time I'd seen her in person. It was the first time I'd seen her in color.

I've set the TiVo to snare tomorrow night's presentation because it's in color. No, it won't be as good as seeing her in the real flesh but I'll settle for a televised approximation. If it were in black-and-white…well, I'm not that eager to see those episodes for the eightieth time that way.

If I were, I have two different complete sets of the series on DVDs, plus the "best of" DVDs that were released before the first of the complete sets. So I have three copies of these two episodes on DVD plus until recently, they were both on YouTube and the show still runs on Hulu and Cozi TV.

What about viewers who don't know the show or don't have a thing for 1965 Laura Petrie? Well, I'm not sure I'd tune in to watch two episodes of a TV series I'd never seen before. But who knows? Maybe some of These Kids Today will tune in because it is a special event and maybe some will like what they see enough to seek it out in its natural state. That is, right after they catch up on The Walking Dead and about eighteen other current shows, none of which I've had the time to watch even once.

Hey, here's a medley of hits from one of my favorite recording artists, Roger Miller…

From Talking Points Memo…

Republican plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act without a replacement — which health care policy experts predict could cost 30 million people their health insurance — will also bring a major tax break for high-income Americans.

Beginning next January, everything done by the Executive and Legislative branches in Washington will include a major tax break for high-income Americans…and once they get Scalia's replacement seated, that'll be true of the Judicial branch, as well. If Congress votes to declare some date National Prune Day, there'll be a rider in there to make sure the folks who own WalMart and our President get another tax cut.

I don't know what some people thought they were getting when they voted in Trump and kept a Republican House and Senate but that's what they're gonna get.

Do "Coastal Elites" sneer openly at "Rural Folks?" Well, of course they do, just as they sneer at us. I'm amazed sometimes when I travel to hear the caricature that some people out there have of everyone who lives in or near my area code. It's about as accurate as the caricature of Southerners as folks who have missing teeth, live in trailer parks and marry within the family.

If you're interested in this discussion, read East Coast Elite Paul Krugman and then read West Coast Elite Kevin Drum. And then we can move on to the topic of how so many people of one religion sneer at those who are so foolish as to not be of that faith.

There's a biography out about the cartoonist who gave us Krazy Kat. It's called Krazy: George Herriman, a Life in Black and White and it's by Michael Tisserand

I haven't read it yet but you can do what I did, which was to order a copy of it here. Here's an article about the book.

I love Krazy Kat. My five favorite newspaper strips of all time would be — in no particular order — Peanuts, Pogo, Thimble Theater (aka Popeye by Segar), Li'l Abner (before about 1964) and Krazy Kat. This is not to say I completely understood Krazy Kat but I love as much of it as I've been able to understand. Maybe this book will help me understand its creator and that will translate into understanding more of the strip. Worth a try.

The annual Gypsy of the Year show had two performances in New York City earlier this week. It's a great event that raises money for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and the way it works is that every (or almost every) show on Broadway creates a performance piece. This year, the most talked-about one was this one from the company of Hamilton…

The polls suggest that Donald Trump is the least-popular newly-elected president in American history. Even a lot of folks who voted for him don't like the guy and I won't be surprised if it gets a lot worse. I don't see that he's done a single thing to win over the folks who didn't vote for him and the ones who did are starting to move away from him.

It's not just him, it's the company he's keeping. Before the election, those who found things to like about Trump — or maybe just things to dislike about his opponent — could excuse his embrace of white nationalists and conspiracy nutjobs because, well, that's the kind of thing you have to do get elected. But now he is elected and he won't distance himself from the racists or from guys like Alex Jones who insists Hillary Clinton has murdered children with her bare hands. His cabinet picks sure ain't an example of either "draining the swamp" or picking the most qualified candidate.

And this is before he starts signing bills that will give tax cuts to people like…well, like Donald Trump.

Readers of this blog know of my admiration for the late Stan Freberg, who was a great actor, a great voice actor, a great satirist, a great maker of funny commercials and a great person. I owe a large part of my sense of humor to this man.

Stan left us in April of 2015. When his widow Hunter (whom he adored) phones me now, the Caller I.D. tells me Stan Freberg is calling and for a fraction of a second, I get excited; not that I don't love talking to Hunter but…well, you know. Anyway, with Hunter's OK — and Stan was very much behind this in the months before he died — some vintage items are about to be auctioned off so that his fans can get their mitts on some wonderful Freberg artifacts. There are two auctions and the first is this Saturday. If you're in the Los Angeles area, there's a viewing tomorrow at the Heritage Auctions offices in Beverly Hills.

You can see the items going up for bid in this first batch over at this page. Among the goodies are Stan's original scripts for the best satiric Christmas record ever made (Green Chri$tma$) and the best satiric history record ever made (Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America, Volume 1). There's also the manuscript to his autobiography, some awards he won, his old typewriter, his passport (see above), his high school yearbook…well, just go browse them yourself.

Let me give you a tip: If you want to bid, read the instructions carefully and don't wait until Saturday morning to do that. The first few times I bid on things in online auctions, I lost out on great treasures I would have gotten if I'd understood the rules of bidding better. There's some really great stuff here and if you're a lover of Freberg, I'd like to see you get it. Unless, of course, you're bidding against me.

That bidding starts Saturday morning at 9 AM Pacific Time. Let the games begin!

Boy, I hope Paul Waldman is not prescient when he writes that Donald Trump is going to cause someone to be murdered. I don't know if that's going to happen but I know that if it does, it will be everybody's fault but his.

The last time I ran this little counter graphic, the total also stood at six but since then, I got one back and lost another so we're still at six. The one I got back has become greatly disillusioned with Mr. Trump since the election, mainly owing to (a) The Donald acting like he can just reverse himself on things he said on the campaign trail he'd do and (b) the indicators that Trump's greatest interest in the presidency is how much he can increase his personal fortune, conflicts of interest be damned.

This once and future friend hasn't reached the point where he wishes Hillary (you know: the one who got the most votes) was the one who'll be inaugurated but he's starting to believe things I told him that he'd once thought were dirty lies. He called and apologized and I told him we're fine. He wanted to meet for lunch but I told him I'm a little busy right now so we'll have to delay it 'til after the first of the year. By then, he'll probably wish he'd voted for Clinton.

That felt good. What didn't was divesting myself of the offsetting friend whose support for D.T. hasn't wavered but he's starting to go all Alex Jones on me.

Apparently, we're entering an era where whatever you don't want to believe can be dismissed as a lie along with everything that we once called proof. I think the premise is that any reality is as good as the real one; that you're entitled to believe two plus two equals eleven if it's what you know in your gut and all those people who insist it's four are conspirators — or at least dupes of the conspirators who conspire to force their math on others.

I do kind of understand how nice it must be to live in a world where you can just make whatever you don't like go away like that. I'm thinking of taking the position that Hillary was elected…in a landslide, no less. And people across America do not have to worry about a nutcase National Security Advisor getting us into another stupid war or about them losing their health insurance or civil rights or ozone layer or anything. If someone tells me next month that Trump was inaugurated, I'll just say, "Don't tell me you fell for that lie!"

That might be a good way to get through the next four years. That's assuming any of us get through the next four years.

Here's a vintage TV commercial…and a bit of a mystery. As you may know, Time for Beany was a wonderful puppet show that went on the air in Los Angeles in 1949. It was one of those rare kids' shows that adults loved just as much as the young'uns did. It aired live on TV in L.A. where it was done and later, kinescopes were syndicated to some other cities around the country.

For the first few years, the puppeteer-performers were the supremely-talented duo of Daws Butler and Stan Freberg. Daws played Beany and Cap'n Huffenpuff. Stan played Cecil and Dishonest John. Both played other supporting characters and every so often, one of them had to play the other's characters…which they could do because they were both great mimics.

Either late in 1952 or early in 1953, their contracts were up and both chose to leave, in part due to disputes with the show's owner and producer, Bob Clampett. There was some amount of bad blood there. They were replaced by Irv Shoemaker, Jim MacGeorge and Walker Edmiston. Shoemaker assumed Freberg's roles. MacGeorge played Cap'n Huffenpuff. Edmiston played Beany for a while, then left to do a new show Clampett had launched, whereupon MacGeorge began playing Beany. The show ended in either late 1954 or early 1955. You following all this? Fine.

In 1959, Clampett made a deal with Mattel Toys under which he would produce a new show with the characters for ABC, this time with animation instead of puppets. The show was originally Matty's Funday Funnies but later, when the cartoons made for it were rerun, it became known as Beany and Cecil. For this show, MacGeorge did the voices of Beany and the Cap'n, Shoemaker was Cecil and Dishonest John, and both did guest characters, as did some other actors.

Concurrent with the animated show, Mattel flooded the market with Beany and Cecil toys. Below is a commercial from back then promoting the talking Beany and Cecil dolls. That's the great Frank ("Yesssss?") Nelson doing the voiceover but who did the voices that came out of the Beany and Cecil dolls? Surprising answer: It was Daws Butler.

He was not the current voice of either character. He was not the voice of Cecil on the puppet show except for occasional emergencies. He was not even on speaking terms with Bob Clampett (although a few years later, I played peacemaker between them.) So why did Mattel hire Daws?

This was a mystery that bugged me since about 1962 when I noticed that the Beany toy sounded a little like Augie Doggie or Elroy Jetson and the Cecil toy sounded a little like Quick Draw McGraw. Daws, of course, was the voice of all those characters.

When I got to know him years later, it was one of the first questions I asked him: Why did they hire you for that? His answer: He didn't know. He told me he got a booking one day to record some lines for Mattel. He showed up at the studio and found out it was Beany and Cecil. "I thought Clampett would have nothing to do with me then," said he.

The best we could come up with, theory-wise, was that Mattel wanted to just pay one person to do both voices and they figured Daws was the most versatile of the guys who'd worked on either version of the show. (When I got to know Bob Clampett, I asked him. He didn't even know Daws had done it.)

So there's the mystery. Here's the commercial…

• The GOP will never win the White House again. Trump picked a Climate Change denier to run the EPA and that means no more Florida!