This is a whole bunch of people performing "Up the Ladder to the Roof"…

Well, it's sort of about Marvin. He's in it, anyway. But first, it's about the kind of agent who gives that profession the reputation of a Zika-carrying mosquito, only lower.

I used to write and voice direct the CBS Saturday morning animated series, Garfield and Friends. It was one of the best jobs I ever had, in part because once we started getting decent ratings, I was granted a lot of power and control. I had a great relationship with Jim Davis, creator and controller of The Cat. I also had a great relationship with the folks over at the network.

The second of these is the impressive one. Everyone who's worked with Jim for any length of time has had a good relationship with him. A good relationship with the execs at a major television network…ah, that's not so common. Basically though, I could write whatever I wanted — within reason. And I could cast any actor I wanted to have do voices — within budget. We had a set fee we paid our guest actors and only a few people I tried to hire were not fine with that amount.

This gave me the opportunity to engage actors whose work I'd always loved and many of those actors had appeared in my favorite movie, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Elsewhere on this blog, you will only find a few billion places where I express my fondness for this film. Among the thespians who appeared in Mad World and who also did at least one episode of Garfield and Friends were Jonathan Winters, Buddy Hackett, Stan Freberg, Arnold Stang, Don Knotts, Lennie Weinrib, Jesse White…and Marvin Kaplan. As our story begins, I had yet to hire Marvin, though I certainly intended to. I just hadn't gotten around yet to writing an episode with a Marvin Kaplan type character in it.

I had, however, just written a script with a role for another actor who had a small part in Mad World. For the purposes of this story, he shall remain nameless. I found out who his agent was, called the man, explained what we wanted and when we wanted him and what we paid. The agent tried to dicker with me over the money but I stopped him. I said, "This is what we pay for this kind of role and it's been fine with dozens of other actors over the years we've been on the air. I'm afraid it's Take It or Leave It. I'm not empowered to go any higher."

The agent called his client, then called me back and they accepted. Something seemed a bit odd to me about the agent's attitude so after we hung up, I faxed him a memo confirming our agreement. It stated the amount we'd be paying, the name of the studio where we were recording and its address, the call time, etc. We would be recording the following Tuesday.

I assumed everything was set. I assumed wrongly.

Monday evening at 6:05 PM, the agent called me and said, "I believe you wanted my client tomorrow at 9 AM. Let's firm up what you're paying him." I looked at the clock, saw what time it was and knew exactly what was happening.

I said, "We're paying him the amount you and I agreed upon, which is the same amount I put down in the fax I sent you shortly after our last phone conversation." The agent denied ever receiving a fax from me and denied that he'd agreed to any dollar figure. If we didn't settle on one now, his client was not showing up the next morning at nine.

If you haven't figured out the 6:05 part yet, allow me to explain: Agencies close at various times but most are closed by 6:00. He was hoping that it was too late for me to call another agency and book someone else. He was further hoping that not having someone to play that role at 9 AM would screw up my recording session and cause me enough problems that I'd agree there and then to a higher amount.

I told him what the job paid. He told me that amount was an insult to his client, who never worked for that kind of money. I named some actors who were much bigger stars than his client who'd been on the show working for that money. He told me his client was a much bigger star than any of them, which was not even close to true. He told me what I'd have to pay to have his client there the next morning. I told him I wasn't permitted to pay above the price I'd cited and I said, "If your client doesn't work for that kind of money, he doesn't work for that kind of money. I'll go find someone who does." End of call.

This was not all that gutsy on my part. I knew a dozen actors well enough that I could call them at home if I couldn't reach their agents just then. I could also rearrange the schedule for the next day's recording session and move the 9 AM episode to later in the day. That would give me time to call another agency in the morning and book someone else to be there in the afternoon.

But I didn't have to do that because I immediately phoned Paul Doherty, the man I considered the best, smartest voiceover agent in the business. It was 6:15 and Paul was still in his office. His secretary had left so he answered his phone himself. "An agent with a lot less ethics than you have just tried to pull the 6:05 PM trick on me," I told him. He knew exactly what I was talking about. "Who have you got who might not be working tomorrow morning?"

Paul read off a list of about ten names and I probably could have hired any of them…but when he got to Marvin Kaplan, I decided he was perfect. Paul knew what we paid and had the integrity to abide by an oral agreement…so when he said, "Great. I'll have Marvin there at nine," I knew Marvin would be there at nine. Actually, he was there at eight but I'll get to that. First, I have to tell you that at 6:25 PM that same evening, the agent for the other guy in Mad World — the one who didn't work for what we paid — called me back.

He said, "I've got to apologize. I looked next to the fax machine and I found the fax you sent the other day. It must've fallen out of the machine and behind the stand, and on it, you did specify the amount. My client never works for this kind of money but I just talked it over with him and we both feel that, since there was this confusion and part of it was my fault for not noticing the fax earlier and calling you, we should make an exception this one time."

I said, "That's very decent of you but you don't need to make that sacrifice. I've already booked someone else. Please tell your client I very much admire his work and I'm sorry we won't be working together." The agent did not sound happy.

Now as I mentioned in the obit on Marvin, he had a lot of trouble with his eyes. He showed up at the recording session an hour early, hoping that he could get his script and study it so that he wouldn't make too many mistakes. One of the marks of a true professional is that he or she does everything possible to not cause problems for their employers and co-workers, and Marvin was very much a professional. In fact, he was a professional with a big magnifying glass with which he hoped to go over the script we would give him.

The problem was that I wasn't there at 8 AM. No one was except our producer Bob Nesler who had piles of the nine scripts we'd be recording that day. Marvin asked him if he could have a copy of the script he was in…and since Bob didn't know which one that was, he gave Marvin a stack containing all nine. Marvin reportedly reacted in horror to all that paper. Then he scurried off and found an empty office in the studio and began reading them all, trying to find the Marvin Kaplan role.

A little before nine, I arrived for the session and all the other actors strolled in. By 9:05, we had everyone but Marvin. I knew he was a pro so I decided to wait for him, rather than start on some other script. When he hadn't shown at 9:15, I called his agency and a junior agent there told me he'd been given the proper call time and it was quite unlike Marvin to be late.

At 9:30, I told Nesler I'd decided to start on some other script since Marvin Kaplan was late. He said, "Oh, Marvin's not late. He was here at eight o'clock."

I quickly searched the studio and found Marvin sitting at a desk in an empty office, looking panicky as he paged through script after script with his magnifying glass, trying to learn every part that might have been his. I greeted him and showed him which role it was and he said, "Oh, I was afraid of that. That character has an awful lot of lines and I don't see very well and…"

I pulled out a script I'd printed out just for him. It had VERY LARGE TYPE and I asked him, "Will this help?"

He flipped through it, gave me a big grin and said, "Mr. DeMille…I'm ready for my close-up."

We recorded that script in the usual amount of time. Marvin took two or three takes for a few lines but not many. His first reading was almost always perfect and I was kinda glad that the other guy had uncast himself the way he did.

Hey, wanna see it? You'll have to hurry because I'm linking to an egregious copyright violation and at this very moment, lawyers are probably doing whatever it is one does to get something yanked from YouTube. But if it's still there, you can enjoy Marvin Kaplan in the title role of "Angel Puss"…

Wasn't he great? If his voice hadn't been so distinctive, I wouldn't have felt I had to wait a while before hiring him again to play a different character.

There's actually more to this story but it doesn't involve Marvin. A few days after the recording session, the agent for the actor who didn't work for what we paid called and told me his client would work for what we paid. "He really likes your show and wants to be a part of it," said the agent.

I didn't know if the client was complicit in the last minute extortion or if it was just the agent trying to up his commission money and show off for the actor. I decided to give the actor the benefit of the doubt. After all, he was good at what he did and he was in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. So I said, "I don't have anything now but the next time I write a role that I think suits him, I'll give you a call."

Some months later, I did. I called the agent, reminded him of the fee we paid and we made a verbal deal. I faxed him another memo and this time, he phoned me back to acknowledge receipt and to say his client would be in the proper place at the proper time. You can probably guess what happened when my phone rang at 6:05 PM — of all times! — the night before that recording session.

This time, it was: "There was some misunderstanding between my client and me. I know I agreed to the money and I thought he had…but I just called to remind him of the call time and he asked me what the job paid. When I told him, he said, 'I won't do it. That's less than I've ever gotten before!' and…well, I think I can get him to show up if you could just give me a little help in the money department here. Just a 50% bump, that's all. That's still way less than he got for a job last week…"

I said, "Let me put you on hold for a minute." I put him on hold, called Paul Doherty and asked him who he had who was available the next day. Paul said, "How about Buddy Hackett? He was in here a half-hour ago asking me to get him more animation work." I said I'd take him and then I went back to the non-ethical agent and told him, "Your client is off the hook. I just booked Buddy Hackett for the money your guy won't work for. You know Buddy Hackett. The guy who's on with Johnny Carson tonight and who's headlining at Caesars Palace in Vegas starting Friday? Bye!"

And of course, Buddy Hackett was fine. He was a very funny man and he even told me and the rest of the cast and crew a number of great dirty jokes. He was also a much bigger star than the sleazy agent's client, plus Buddy was one of the major stars of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, as opposed to the guy he replaced on our show, who was a bit player in the film. I think that alone makes the end of this whole story just about perfect.

Dear, sweet, funny Marvin Kaplan passed away in his sleep either early this morning or late last night. He was 89 and he was still acting and producing and writing, right up until either early this morning or late last night.

You might know him from his recurring role on the TV series, Alice. You might know him as the voice of many cartoon characters, including Choo Choo on Top Cat. You might know him from his roles in movies, including The Great Race, The Nutty Professor (the original), Wake Me When It's Over and so many more, including hundreds of guest roles on television and before that, radio.

You must know him from his role in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World as one of the two attendants — Arnold Stang was the other — who demolished an entire gas station brawling with Jonathan Winters. After Mickey Rooney passed, Marvin became the "person in that movie who was still alive and had the largest role." (I believe that honor now passes to Carl Reiner or if we count screen time instead of lines, Barrie Chase.) Marvin loved turning out for the many Mad World "reunion" panels at screenings and he was as funny at them as he was in the film.

Marvin was — like you couldn't guess from his accent — from Brooklyn where he graduated law school, decided he didn't want to be a lawyer and in 1947 moved out to Hollywood to try and get work writing for radio and perhaps break into playwriting. Acting was something he thought might be fun to try, also. He got a job as stage manager at the Circle Theater, which was mounting a play directed by Charlie Chaplin. Later, he got a small role in a play at the Circle and one night, Katharine Hepburn came to see it.

She recommended Marvin for a part in the movie she was then starting…and as a result, Marvin Kaplan made his screen debut in Adam's Rib, starring Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, directed by George Cukor. After that, there was no stopping him. He landed or was offered role after role, including a regular part on Meet Millie, which was a popular radio program from 1951 to 1954 and later a TV series. He was rarely out of acting work until late in life when he was confined to a wheelchair. And he was not all that unhappy about not acting much because it gave him time to write and direct plays and films.

I was so pleased to know Marvin and to direct him on a number of cartoon shows. You want to know how you directed Marvin Kaplan? You told him, as I did, "Try to sound like Marvin Kaplan." He'd usually respond, "I'll do my best" and he always did. The only difficulty we had — and he was well worth this minor accommodation — is that we had to print out a Large Type version of the script for him because his eyes were very poor. (We had to do that for Don Knotts, too.) Even with that handicap, he was great on darn near every take.

Marvin actually talked like that in real life and he was bursting with great anecdotes. He'd worked with everyone and remembered everything worth remembering. Though he played nebbishy characters on screen, that was not Marvin. He was a man of great passions and integrity, who was known to be quite militant about political causes and issues within the Screen Actors Guild.

He even occasionally played roles that were not what you'd think of as Marvin Kaplan roles. I once saw him portray a serious, outraged rabbi in a production of The Dybbuk by S. Ansky. You would never have known it was him without a glance at the Playbill — and even then, you would not have believed it.

You can learn more about him at his website or by reading Kliph Nesteroff's fine interviews with the man. Here's Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four.

Just a fine actor and a fine gentleman. If you never got to meet him, I'm sorry. You would have found him to be delightful. Absolutely delightful.

For my pal Steve Stoliar: This is a whole bunch of men performing "Up the Ladder to the Roof"…

Steve Stoliar sent me this link to a good piece on Woody Allen. I am intrigued by the notion that Mr. Allen might write his autobiography. Until he does, the best book about him is the one by my cousin David.

Steve also writes…

P.S. Are you familiar with a song called "Up the Ladder to the Roof"? I've been going positively nuts trying to find video of anyone singing it!!!!

Steve, my friend. I think I may be able to help you out…

Yesterday, I posted a message about something chilling that Robert Blake had said on a 1974 Tonight Show with Mr. Carson. Here's a message I got after that from Douglas McEwan…

I too watched that Carson show the other night, and posted remarks about his amazingly chilling remarks. However, your correspondent misquoted Blake's quote of Wally Cox's remark. When I was posting about it, I ran and reran the moment I was quoting to get the quote exactly right. Here is what Blake said: "You go ahead and you have your little caprice, have your little affair, and if the bed turns out to be a drag, you're lucky. You just walk away. And if it turns out to be terrific, you shoot her."

Note the important change is "You shoot her," not "You shoot your wife." In fact, in the full quote, it's not clear if Wally was referring to the wife or the girl friend, though it looks more to me like it meant the girl friend. Either way, it's a horrific "joke," especially when spoken by a future wife murderer, and seeing Johnny break up at it and hearing the studio audience laughing loudly at it was creepy icing on the creepy cake. Folks, HE MEANS IT!!!

On the show, Blake also said he'd worked with the Marx Brothers, though I'll be damned if I can find anything to back up that claim.

I met Blake back in 1972. And in 1973 he did me a solid without knowing it. He so pissed off Dick Whittington's then-radio-producer that said producer quit and the job became mine. So thanks Robert Blake. Your being a dick got me one of the best jobs I ever had.

I just ran the episode on my TiVo and Douglas quotes it accurately…and it sounds to me like Blake was saying (quoting Wally Cox) that if you cheat on your wife and you fall in love with the Other Woman, you shoot the Other Woman. Still, it's kind of an eerie foreshadowing.

For those who don't know: Dick Whittington was a Los Angeles radio personality from the sixties to the mid-nineties. He was very funny and very original and a lot of other radio guys were praised for things that "Sweet Dick" did first. He's retired now.

And I can't think of what Blake did with the Marx Brothers but I doubt he was lying. He also talked about working with Laurel and Hardy — which he did — and his account of that seemed accurate. He even remembered the name of the movie. Blake may have appeared with the Marxes in some live appearance or in some scene that got cut. He was certainly working on the MGM lot when they were. Thanks, Doug.

• Trump reversing past positions left and right. Next week, he rehires everyone he ever fired on The Apprentice. Except maybe Gary Busey.

This is three men and one woman performing "Up the Ladder to the Roof"…

So what's up with the next Stephen Sondheim musical? Alan Burnett sent me this link to an article that tells us what is presently known about it.

And today, the letter in the E-Mailbag is from Josh Pincus…

I know, from your blog, that you are a fan of the Antenna TV reruns of the Tonight Show, so I thought you would find this interesting.

A few nights ago, my wife and I were watching an episode that was originally broadcast on May 15, 1974. The evening's guests were Robert Blake, Fernando Lamas, Charles Fleischer and Victoria Principal.

Mr. Blake was the first guest and he and Johnny had a weirdly prophetic chat. First, he talked about fighting with his wife (who, at the time was Sondra) to the point of threatening divorce. Then, he talked about hiking with the late Wally Cox. Wally, he explained, gave him advice on cheating on his spouse. He said Wally told him, "If it works out and you want to stay with the woman you are cheating with, just shoot your wife." The audience laughed. My wife and I looked at each other. This was a full 27 years before Robert's second wife Bonnie Lee Bakley was shot and killed under mysterious circumstances, with Blake soon charged (then acquitted) of her murder.

Johnny mentioned that Wally Cox was good friends with Marlon Brando. Blake grimaced at the mention of Brando's name. He said he had met the actor and just didn't like him. Years later, when Blake met Bonnie Bakley, she was also in a relationship with Christian Brando, Marlon's son. When she became pregnant, it was disputed and debated as to who was the father — Blake or Christian Brando. She claimed it was Christian. DNA tests proved it was Blake's child. He married Bakley. It was his second marriage and Bakley's eleventh.

It was very strange listening to a hip, pre-Baretta Robert Blake discuss his long career and mention events that would parallel future events in his life.

Chilling. By the by, I always found Robert Blake's appearances with Johnny to be very odd. They struck me as two guys from different planets who somehow found a way to get along. If I weren't antsy about people doing long-distance psychology, I might even think Johnny — who was so measured in what little he revealed of his own feelings and insecurities, envied Blake's tendency to say just about anything without hesitation.

I'm still enjoying those reruns on Antenna TV so long as I can fast-forward through entire guests and I have been known to bail after the Act Two desk spot. It's too bad they have to avoid the episodes with great musical performances. There were some terrific ones on Mr. Carson's program.

Josh Marshall nails what's really, really wrong with the Trump candidacy: They're simultaneously trying to get black votes and the votes of those who believe blacks get too much consideration and favoritism. At some point, they seemed to have believed they could win the White House with just the latter but the polls show that ain't happening so now, someone thinks they can pivot. Or maybe pivot enough to get some of the black vote without losing whites who resent catering to blacks…or something. Whatever it is, it's not possible. Not after months of the first approach.

But I also think what Trump's after are white voters who are uncomfy with his more racist appeals. I think a lot of this is an attempt to soften his image and maybe pick up some of them. And I don't think that can possibly work either.

And there's one more thing that I think it working against Trump. His position on way too many issues is basically "Trust me. I'll come up with something great." What's his plan for health care if he does as he promises and kills Obamacare? He'll come up with something great. What's he going to do to stimulate the economy? He'll come up with something great. And now, what's he going to do to better the lives of black people? He's going to come up with something so great that when he runs for his second term, he'll get 95% of the black vote.

You can get away with that early in a campaign but as Election Day grows near, people want to hear a little bit about what that "something great" is.

This is a group of Asian men performing "Up the Ladder to the Roof"…

There are a lot of articles and quizzes online designed to tell you if you're a Libertarian and just don't know it. I'm not sure Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate for president, could pass any of them. He certainly doesn't strike me as anyone who should be president even though I agree with some of his positions. So do Clinton and Trump, by the way.

Here's a piece on where Johnson stands on the issues. Frankly, I see very little to recommend this man for the job. If you're a real Libertarian — as opposed to whatever he is — you might give him your vote to hope that the party will remain viable and might someday have a candidate with a chance. If you just want to cast a protest vote against the two main candidates…well, that doesn't sound like a good reason to me.

Lots of folks out there are speculating why Donald Trump won't release his taxes.  What the heck is in them that he doesn't want anyone to see?

I would like to speculate that there may not be a specific thing he's hiding.  He knows that the minute he makes them public, opposition research is going to go to work, scrutinizing every last item and trying to see if there's any way they can spin it as a negative for him.  He knows this because that's what everyone does, what his forces do with every bit of information they can get about Hillary Clinton.

During the Impeachment of Bill, that was a lot of what was going on.  Under the guise of investigating and demanding "transparency," a lot of Bill's enemies were saying, in effect, "Let us dig deeper into your files in search of stuff we can use against you!  Maybe we can find an actual crime in there…and even if we can't, there's probably something we can make sound like a crime!"  So it may just be that Trump doesn't want to make it easy for them to do that.

Then again, if this article is true, the thing Trump fears most is people believing he's not as rich as he claims to be.  You can make fun of his hair, his failed marriages, his failed businesses, his weight…you can even say he yearns to bang one of his daughters.  But don't you dare say he's not fabulously wealthy.  So maybe it's that.

This is four men performing "Up the Ladder to the Roof"…