I posted this here on August 17, 2010 and I probably should post it every five years because so many people are fascinated by this story. And yes, it's true. Absolutely true…

As close friends of mine will attest, things happen to me…bizarre coincidences that defy common or even uncommon logic. Back in this post, I told a story about an amazing one that involved a wonderful friend of mine, Kristine Greco. Kristine figured into another incredible bit of impossible synchronicity in my life. I told the tale recently to a friend of mine who suggested it belonged on this blog so okay, here it is. If I didn't know me as well as I do, I might have a tough time buying it…

I started writing professionally in 1969…mostly magazine articles. The following year, I began writing comic books and in 1976, I broke into television work, teamed with a clever gent named Dennis Palumbo who I've mentioned here often. Our most lucrative gig was the one season we did as story editors of the TV series, Welcome Back, Kotter. It was an amazing experience — fun, educational, prestigious, even lucrative. (It was the last time I knew I was making more money than John Travolta.) It was also an exhausting job that merely consumed every waking moment of my life. For months, I could be found either at the ABC Studios or at Gabe Kaplan's house, getting home only long enough to sleep, shower and dash back to one of those two venues to write and rewrite and then rewrite the rewrites.

In the final weeks of that season, Dennis and I decided amicably to go in separate career directions and neither one of us wanted to go back and do another year of Kotter. It was pretty much the same reason that neither of us wanted to sit around in the hot sun all day breaking cinder blocks over our heads. I wasn't sure exactly what I did want to do but I knew it wasn't another season of that show, however beneficial the job had been.

Immediately following the taping of that season's final episode, there was a huge wrap party on the stage where, knowing I wouldn't be returning, I said my goodbyes to the cast and crew. Kristine was at the party since she had appeared several times in bit parts on the show and as an extra in Mr. Kotter's classroom. We had kept our relationship secret around the Kotter offices and stage because she didn't want anyone to think she'd gotten her job on the show by dating one of the writers. (In truth, that couldn't have been the case because she was hired on the show before I was.) We left the party around 2 AM and went back to my apartment.

The next morning, I woke up and realized something stunning: I was out of work. For the first time since I started writing for money, I had no assignment to write something for someone…and after my fatiguing year on Kotter, it felt good. I mentioned it to Kristine and she asked, "Well, if you could have any job in the world, what would it be?"

"That's too big a question to answer," I told her. "There are way too many possibilities."

"Then if you could get back any job you had in the past, what would it be?"

I thought for a few seconds and it was an easy answer. After all, at that point I hadn't had that many jobs. A few years earlier, I'd had a very brief-but-happy experience writing the Scooby Doo comic book for Gold Key Comics. The editor was a fine gentleman named Chase Craig, who was very nice to me and something of a mentor. The artist was one of my long-time favorites — also a fine gentleman — named Dan Spiegle. It was the first of many times Dan and I would be teamed up and every Scooby script I wrote for him was a challenge (for me) of the enjoyable kind. I had to figure out how to bring something different to that property and I had to write something that was reasonably close to worthy of being drawn by Dan Spiegle.

It was also the first time in my career I felt reasonably "in charge" of a comic. I'd written many by then but when I wrote Bugs Bunny, I was one of several guys writing Bugs Bunny, trying to roughly approximate the way everyone wrote Bugs Bunny. I was one of several guys writing Woody Woodpecker, etc. Even though I didn't consult with the others (or even know some of them) it felt highly collaborative. There's nothing wrong with collaborating on some projects but every so often, I get the urge to work alone; to create a finished product — at least, as "finished" as it gets at my end of the process — before others start discussing the joke on page eight or the plot twist on page eleven. Writing Bugs Bunny, as wonderful as the wabbit can be, I didn't feel free to interject my own sensibilites and to reshape the feature. But when I was writing Scooby Doo for Chase, I was the only person writing Scooby Doo for Chase. I'm not thrilled with those stories today but I sure enjoyed them then…and so I felt a great sense of loss when Gold Key decided not to renew their license with Hanna-Barbera, thereby ending the comic.

After all those months on Kotter — discussing every line with the producers, every line with the director, every line with the cast members, every line with the network — I guess I wanted that feeling again. So I told Kristine that what I would do if I had such a magic wish was to write Scooby Doo comics for Chase Craig to edit, Dan Spiegle to draw and Gold Key to publish. That would not be my choice today but it was on that morning. She said, "Well, why don't you call up and see if you can get that job back?"

"Would that I could," I told her…and I then explained that (a) Chase Craig had retired, so that let him out of the mix, and I didn't get along with his successor at Gold Key; (b) Dan Spiegle was now busily working for DC Comics; and (c) Gold Key no longer published any Hanna-Barbera comics. Another company, Charlton, now had the license and for a wide array of reasons, I didn't want to work for Charlton. So going back to that was simply not possible.

She shrugged and we went on to other topics. It was less than a half-hour later that my phone rang and there on the other end of the line was Chase…

"Hey, I've come out of retirement to edit a small line of comics for Hanna-Barbera. They've taken the license away from Charlton and we're doing them here out of the studio. One of the four books we're doing is Scooby Doo and I managed to get Spiegle to draw it. He asked if there was any way you could be persuaded to write it.  I know you're busy working in television now…"

I asked him what the other three comics were. He said they were The Flintstones, Yogi Bear and Dynomutt. I asked him who he had writing them. He replied, "Well, no one yet. I'm just getting started on this project."

I said, "I'll write Scooby Doo if I can write the other three, as well."

He said, "You got 'em. Hey, you free for lunch today?"

The above-quoted conversation with Kristine occurred around 9:45 AM. The call from Chase was around 10:10. I met him for lunch at 12:30. And by 3 PM, I was home writing Scooby Doo comics for Chase that would be drawn by Dan Spiegle.

I've never believed that if you wish for something hard enough, it will happen. Quite the opposite. I think you have to make things happen or they usually don't. I know people who expend a lot of effort wishing for a dream…and since they confuse that with actually doing something about it, the dream doesn't have much of a chance. But in this case — and admittedly, this was a pretty small dream — I didn't lift a finger to make it happen because I didn't think it could. And it not only happened, it happened right on cue. Literally, as I rolled out of bed, it was there waiting for me.

It turned out to be a very nice bit of employment. After a year or so, the H-B comic book output was increased — more comics for America but also comics to be printed overseas. We never (for instance) did a Jabberjaw comic book for this country because the show was no longer airing here. But it was on in France so we did Jabberjaw comics that were translated and printed in France. Chase, who didn't want to work that hard, had them hire me as the editor of everything he wasn't doing. Not long after, he decided to take his retirement back into full-time mode and suddenly, I was the editor of Hanna-Barbera's comic book division. I did that for about six years while writing other things for them and other studios. One of these days, I'll post some tales here about that chapter of my silly existence.

And I'll tell more stories about the odd coincidences that have dotted that existence. I don't understand why they happen, either. I briefly thought they had something to do with hanging about Kristine but then realized they started before that…and they've continued since we broke up late in the seventies. I know these occur in lives other than mine (no need to write and tell me yours) but I guess they just feel more amazing when they happen to you.

David Koenig is Stu Shostak's guest today (Wednesday) on Stu's Show, that great podcast on which you can hear folks in and around show business interrogated by Stu. David has written a book that may be of interest to many of you. It's called The People V. Disneyland: How Lawsuits & Lawyers Transformed the Magic. Quite simply, it's a book about all the times people have tried to sue Disneyland, usually to no good end. According to the blurbs for it, Koenig "chronicles 60 years of tumbles, attraction mishaps, ticket scams, attacks by security guards and costumed characters, disability disputes, and employees who turned on their employer. Sometimes the allegations convinced Disney to change its operations, usually secretly. Other times, they stuck by their guns, convinced the claims were bogus." Sounds like something I'd like to read and hear about. That's an Amazon link to order it that I just gave you.

Stu's Show can be heard live (almost) every Wednesday at the Stu's Show website and you can listen for free there. Webcasts start at 4 PM Pacific Time, 7 PM Eastern and other times in other climes. They run a minimum of two hours and sometimes go to three or beyond. Shortly after a show ends, it's available for downloading from the Archives on that site. Downloads are a measly 99 cents each and you can get four for the price of three.  And please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times.

• The attacks so far on Bernie Sanders all seemed based on the assumption that very few Americans know what the word "socialist" means.

Tom Moore, one of the artists for the Archie comic books, died Monday morning at the age of 86. Moore, a native of El Paso in Texas, got his start in cartooning during the Korean War while he was serving in the Navy, drawing for military publications. He later studied under Burne Hogarth and others at the Cartoonist and Illustrator School in New York and soon got part-time work, like many students there, assisting artist Tom Gill who also taught at the school.

Before long, Moore got a job drawing Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead and the rest of the gang. That was in 1953 and he drew them, with occasional time away, until the late eighties. A lot of his early work for the company was on Archie's Joke Book, where he wrote gags as well as illustrating them. He continued assisting Gill and working occasionally for other companies (he reportedly did some Mutt & Jeff comics for Western Publishing in the late fifties) but Archie was his main account. He also for a time worked on the Barney Google and Snuffy Smith newspaper strip.

Archie fans loved Moore's renditions of the characters and mourn his loss. So do his many students in El Paso, where he had been teaching art in recent years. He was quite the cartoonist.

Donald Trump did his now-infamous trashing of John McCain's military service at a rally staged by the the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa. According to Byron York, those remarks were the lesser of two things Trump said there that troubled the attendees.

York says the greater problem for Trump was that he failed to sound like a born-again Christian with a deep, personal relationship with God. That's what a lot of those voters came to hear. A large part of the G.O.P. base doesn't care a lot what a candidate would do in office. They care about him being properly religious their way, and presume that if he is, he'll do what's right.

That's yet another reason Trump will never be their nominee. Can you imagine him crediting all his success to anyone but himself? He'll probably try it in some manner but he sure won't convince anyone he means it.

Two years ago on this blog, I linked to a clip of a short comedy and introduced it this way…

When you think of great comedy teams, certain names come to mind: Laurel & Hardy. Abbott & Costello. The Three Stooges. Nixon & Agnew. And of course, Biffle & Shooster.

Most of you are familiar with Biffle & Shooster but just in case there's someone reading this who isn't: Benny Biffle and Sam Shooster were a popular vaudeville comedy team and they starred in approximately twenty two-reel comedy shorts in the thirties, ending with the classic, It's a Frame-Up. That last one was once thought to be a "lost" treasure but the noted film producer-historian Michael Schlesinger located and, at great personal expense, restored the film and it is now available for viewing. In fact, Mike may have done too good a job of restoration…

The print is so good that folks unfamiliar with movie history think it was shot recently; that Biffle & Shooster weren't classic comedians of the thirties but that Mike wrote, produced and directed a film in that style. And it's true that Biffle looks somewhat like the current-day comic actor Nick Santa Maria and Shooster bears more than a passing resemblance to my pal, Will Ryan. But I also know Mike and know that he has way too much integrity to phony-up a film in the classic tradition and try to pass it off as an older masterpiece…and besides, he wouldn't get away with it.

Amazingly, Mike has continued to uncover lost Biffle & Shuster comedies — so many that he's now assembling an entire program of them. Here's a preview of this fine compilation that I hope will be playing soon at a theater near you. Their comedy is so fresh, you'd think these films were shot in the last two years…

A lot of people are outraged at Donald Trump's belittling of John McCain's military service. As Joe Conason notes, some of those who are outraged have had no problem with attacks on the military records of their political opponents.

Keith Olbermann is leaving ESPN. Rumor has it he may be back on MSNBC. I dunno if I believe that…or other rumors that he'll be paired, back-to-back, with a show starring Brian Williams.

Either one might cause me to watch that channel again. I haven't for a long, long time…and neither has almost anyone else.

For some reason, I didn't warm to the 1989 film version of Alfred Uhry's play, Driving Miss Daisy. It won a ton of awards including the Oscar for Best Picture but when I saw it in a theater, it felt very talky and predictable to me. The folks on the screen seemed like actors performing a script and the emotional turns they were making seemed obvious and uninteresting.

This was obviously a minority viewpoint…but I have those about a number of acclaimed films. Sometimes, I say so out loud and sometimes, I keep my opinion to myself because it really upsets some people if you don't love that which they love. (You should see some of the outraged mail I've gotten from people who love cole slaw and apparently think I will someday get it banned so they cannot enjoy it anymore. I mean, they're right. I will. But they're just so nasty about it.)

Because I do like Angela Lansbury and James Earl Jones, I made a point of TiVoing and watching the new PBS Great Performances production of the play and I did like that. I'm not suggesting Lansbury and Jones are better actors than Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman from the movie — seeing the show staged as a play before a live audience may have been the key difference for me — but I felt more chemistry and more interest in Miss Daisy and Hoke Colburn. Your mileage, as they say in automotive ads and strip clubs, may vary.

I especially liked watching James Earl Jones, an actor I've always liked — which is not to say I've ever disliked anything about Ms. Lansbury. But I thought Jones was just so good.

He's a nice person, too. One day at a Garfield voice recording session, he was working in the adjoining studio and we got to talking in the area where they have refreshments and snacks. That man has one of the greatest laughs I've ever heard — deep and rich and from the heart and belly. I kept trying to think of funny things I could say to him just so I could hear that laugh.

Then, to my surprise, he asked if we ever had a role in Garfield that he could do. I think I offered to let him play anything he wanted, even if it meant firing Lorenzo Music…but, well aware he was one of the highest-paid announcer-types in the business, I warned him we only paid scale to guest stars. He said, "That doesn't matter. You just all seem like you're having so much fun in there, I want to be a part of it." He was in town the next three weeks and if we were recording again during that time — and we were — he would be glad to come in and play any part I wrote. Guess what I wrote the next day.

What a delight. The other actors were, of course, thrilled. And I remember him being very respectful to them all and even a bit timid, since he was aware they were all more experienced at this particular type of acting than he was. Someplace in there is one explanation as to why he's such a fine actor.

So I'm recommending the PBS version of Driving Miss Daisy, which reruns several times on most PBS channels (check your listing) in the next week or three. You may have to search for Great Performances to find it…and believe me, it lives up to that name.

Oh, hell. I'll make it even easier for those of you who have good Internet connections. I'll embed the video here so you can enjoy it. I did…

Forty-one years ago at U.C.L.A., a student there named Steve Stoliar launched a drive to get Universal Studios to re-release the then-unavailable Marx Brothers movie, Animal Crackers. Today, the school newspaper recalls that campaign and explains what happened as a result of it.

I'm always intrigued how fate directs our lives. Steve started all this very shortly after I quit U.C.L.A. so I could spend all my time writing comic books and other things. Had I stuck around, I'm sure I would have joined his movement and we probably would have become good friends then instead of forty years later.

I have a few friends who are worried about the fact that Donald Trump is at or near the top of the polling for the G.O.P. nomination. Every election cycle, we have this concern: Yeah, you'd kinda like the opposition to nominate the candidate who'd make the worst president because he'll be the easiest to beat…but what if the worst guy wins?

These friends all seem to forget how long we have before the primaries, let alone the actual election. Voters now have the luxury of saying they back the guy who puts on the best show in the press and on the news and, in Trump's case, have the best name recognition. Who the hell even knows who George Pataki is these days?

(Funny Typo: I just typed "Michael Pataki," then went back and corrected it. Michael Pataki was a character actor. George Pataki is the former governor of New York. Even I forgot who he is.)

As Daniel McCarthy notes over at the American Conservative site, Trump is leading a very weak pack and if you look at the actual numbers, ain't doing so good. If anything, he's an indicator that Republican voters don't know who most of the folks running are or don't see any reason to favor one over the other. Eventually, they'll have to get serious about picking a candidate but they have a long time to window shop before that moment.

In the meantime, it's kind of fun watching Trump piss off one group after another. But right now, it's not about becoming President of the United States. It's the same strategy he employs in the business world: Making sure his name is all over the place. It takes a lot more than that to win an election.

I've checked in at a few websites that had previously defended Bill Cosby. I wanted to see if recent revelations — that he'd admitted under oath he'd obtained quaaludes to prep at least one woman for "sex" — had changed any minds. Some folks have given up their defense of the man while the others have doubled down or even bet the house. (The New York Times has even more from his deposition.)

And by the way, I put "sex" in quotes because when one party doesn't consent, it isn't sex. It's rape or molestation or some term that doesn't imply any sort of love.

Some folks now admit they backed a loser and I don't think that necessarily speaks ill of them. To me, there were more than enough accusations — and enough of them with no visible motive to lie attached — to conclude he was guilty of at least some of them. But erring on the side of demanding more evidence or sticking by a person who's been good to you…well, that's not the worst trait in this world.

Sticking by him in light of this and practically declaring that no evidence ever will change your mind, as a few have, is something else. And it's a something else that has little to do with the facts of the case. To repurpose a line I've used here before about politicians: Some people think that never admitting you're wrong is the same thing as always being right. Not if you live in the real world, it isn't.

It's all such a shame because I used to love Bill Cosby as a performer. One of the greatest evenings I ever spent in an audience was watching him do stand-up (sitting down, actually) at Harrah's in Reno. He amused me on TV and records but seeing him live doing about an hour…that was amazing. Five minutes in, you understood why he had the stature he had. Without doing anything you could really classify as a "joke," he had us laughing and hanging on his every word from the moment he took stage to the moment he exited.

I remember that evening and I absolutely understand why people didn't want to believe the stories…why they still went to see him performing live even after the Tales of Rape began coming out. I might even understand why his wife (since 1964!) is sticking by him, denying that which seems undeniable.

I may have mentioned this before here but years ago, I worked for a TV producer who cheated relentlessly on his wife…and she knew it. He wasn't, insofar as I know, consorting with anyone who did not gleefully consent but he was cheating constantly. He had his own apartment just for such activities and would spend two or three nights a week in it. The other nights, he spent in the huge mansion he shared with his wife where he was, trysts aside, an absolutely wonderful husband.

He cared for her. He loved her. He gave her everything she might have wanted except for fidelity. If she called him at work with a problem, he dropped everything and ran home to take care of her.

Now that I think of it, does the word "cheating" apply if she knows and agrees, as this wife did, to go along with it? She did because she decided the alternative was worse. She was at an age where she didn't want to be alone in life and didn't want to start dating…and like I said, he was apparently a great partner in her life in so many ways. Divorcing him, she decided, would be worse for her than putting up with the adultery. A friend who knew them better than I did told me, "She figures that sooner or later, he's going to lose his sex drive and that stuff will go away. Plus, she really loves him."

I don't pretend to know what's going on in the Cosby marriage. I cringe at all the theories from people who've never met either one but know exactly how it must be. Maybe it's like what went on with this producer I knew…but maybe it's not. My point — and I really have one — is that relationships come in all kinds and what works for some couples may make zero sense to other couples. We don't know…and that part of the story is really none of our business.

What is our business is that we're seeing a great comedian destroy himself and his legacy. Others aren't doing it to him. He's the one who slipped the quaaludes into the drinks — an action, as I think I once pointed out here, that is despicable even if no molestation follows it.

At one point, I thought he might be able to ride it out…disappear for a while, then ease his way back into the public eye. No way. Too much proof has now come out. He might dodge the civil suits but he'll never escape public wrath and I think that's a good thing and not just because he deserves it. It's a good thing because a lot of people need to be reminded every now and then that rape is not a harmless prank.

Also, there are a lot of very famous, rich people out there who think they're untouchable; that they can do equally loathsome deeds and their money and celebrity will protect them. They need to be reminded that if Cosby can get caught, anyone can get caught.

Anthony Tollin tells me that Alan Kupperberg's first job in comics wasn't in 1974 at Continuity Associates. I got that from a copy of Alan's own bio but Tony says "Alan was Jack Adler's assistant before Rick Bryant, who held the position before Steve Mitchell, who was succeeded by Carl Gafford as Assistant Production Manager in July 1974, followed by me in 1976. I believe Alan was on staff at DC circa 1972." I think Tony may be right.

He also sent me a note about the weather today in San Diego, where thunderstorms struck with street flooding and more than 500 lightning strikes. As of 3:30 PM today, 1.03 inches of rain had fallen, shattering the old July record which was set in 1902. One can only speculate what would have happened if Comic-Con had been this weekend instead of last weekend.

In July of 1932, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy went on an ocean voyage to England. On their way there, they stopped off in New York and wound up in a newsreel film…