Irwin Hasen isn't the only long-running newspaper strip artist we lost this week. Harold "Fred" Fredericks, who drew Mandrake the Magician from 1965 until 2013 also passed away. Mr. Fredericks took over as illustrator of Lee Falk's famous wizard when the strip's previous artist, Phil Davis died and slowly made it his own. Though a strip like that can easily be a full-time job, Fredericks occasionally found time to draw comics for Western Publishing (Bullwinkle, Twilight Zone) and Marvel (Defenders of the Earth, G.I. Joe) Also, he created the long-running feature Rebel for Scholastic Scope.

I'm afraid I don't have much to say about Mr. Fredericks other than that he sure did a lot of popular, good-looking comics. I never met him. I'll try and direct you to some websites that have information about him if I come across any.

A very short giant in the world of comics died this morning at 3:15 AM in New York. From 1955 to 1986, Irwin Hasen drew the Dondi newspaper strip. Before that, he was a key artist in the early days of comics, working mostly for DC. He worked on many of their comics in the forties including Green Lantern but is probably best remembered as the co-creator of the character, Wildcat. His work on that feature was singled out by many of his peers (including Alex Toth) as outstanding for its expert storytelling and simplicity.

Irwin was born July 8, 1918 so he was 96 today when we lost him. He grew up in New York, started drawing when he was six and used to joke, "I never stopped and I never grew." (His height topped out at 5'2".) By a lucky coincidence, his family lived across the street from the National Academy of Design and his mother, seeing her son's obsession with art, took him over one day and enrolled him. He was by his own admission not the best artist in the world but no one could beat him when it came to hustling his work to potential buyers. His longtime friend Joe Kubert used to say that if people didn't love his work, they loved Irwin enough to buy some of it. He eventually got to be pretty darn good.

Irwin's earliest work in comic books seems to have been in 1940 for the studio of Harry "A" Chesler, who produced material for a number of publishers. By 1941, he was working for Sheldon Mayer at All-American Comics, a firm which later merged into DC Comics. Apart from a stint in the Army (most of it spent at Fort Dix, running the post newspaper), Irwin did almost all his work for DC until 1952 when — as he told it…

I was told, "You're a nice guy and everything, and we'll give you a couple of covers to do. But we've got Carmine Infantino, we've got Joe Kubert, we've got Alex Toth…" I was not really a comic book artist like these other guys. In the back of my head, for all my life, I'd wanted to do a comic strip in the newspapers. My idols were Roy Crane, who did Wash Tubbs, and Milton Caniff, of course.

Fortunately, not long after that, he was offered the chance to draw Dondi, a strip created and initially written by his friend and fellow cartoonist, Gus Edson. Irwin loved the job and ran with it, becoming the driving force behind its sales and success, and managing it after Edson passed away in 1966.

The above quote from Irwin is from a long interview I conducted with him at the 1999 Comic-Con in San Diego. An abridged version of it is on this site and I urge you to read Part 1 and then Part 2 to spend some time with this remarkable man. I was very fortunate that I was able to, then and at other conventions.

Irwin was funny and Irwin was irrepressible. I had him on several panels and he always arrived with a great funny (and sometimes, not-so-clean) anecdote that he was going to tell in response to whatever question I asked him, regardless of its content. One time, I asked him something innocuous like what kind of brush he used and Irwin spent the next ten minutes telling a roomful of surprised but delighted comic fans how when he was 15, a gangster named Frankie Carbo took a liking to him and paid for him to go to a prostitute and lose his virginity.

He also loved to teach and did a lot of that in the latter day of Dondi and after the strip ended…and he didn't stop drawing then. He kept at it, even creating an autobiographical graphic novel around the time he reached his nineties. As long as his health would allow it, he was a superstar on the convention circuit.

Those who love comics of the forties are no doubt saddened today to hear that our tiny supply of veteran creators from that era has been diminished today. Those who knew Irwin (or just his work) are saddened that there's no more Irwin Hasen. He was an absolute original, a very lovely man and about as dedicated a cartoonist as the business has ever known.

Just noticed that the Season Pass on my TiVo for The Late, Late Show doesn't roll over when James Corden takes over. I had to cancel it out and take a new Season Pass for The Late, Late Show with James Corden. Which I have done. Let's see how long I keep it. At the moment, it's the only late night show I'm set to record every night unless you count The Daily Show and The Nightly Show.

And despite announcements, Corden does not start on Monday, March 23, at least in most time zones. The show goes on at 12:35 AM so the first one really airs on Tuesday, March 24. I seem to be the only person in this country who understands that a "daily" show which starts after Midnight does not air Monday through Friday. It airs Tuesday through Saturday.

By the way: The Daily Show and The Nightly Show only air four nights a week so they aren't daily or nightly. In defiance of its own name, @Midnight on Comedy Central does not air at Midnight in some time zones but it does at least air on Comedy Central.

• Rudy Giuliani says Obama should "say the kinds of things Bill Cosby used to say." Yes and he should also tap dance like Sammy Davis did.

I've received several suggestions as to who the mystery man behind the door was in the Emmy video. None convince me. I don't think it was Bob Barker and that they just put him in later because the dance number was choreographed and the lighting cues and camera moves were all prearranged. They had to have had someone behind each door when it was scheduled to be opened. I also don't think it was Peter Falk and they just moved him later, into Walter Cronkite's bit. The Cronkite/Falk moment was too perfect to have been an accident. And I don't think it was Jimmie Walker about to yell "Dy-no-mite" because he did that in one of the film clips.

I accidentally posted the next-to-final draft of my long reply to Johnny Achziger — who, by the way, is definitely one of the good guys. I have now replaced it with the final draft, which is slightly longer and contains fewer typos.

I got this the other day from Johnny Achziger. Capa-Alpha, by the way, was kind of a fanzine club and I should write about it here someday.

I've known you for some 40 years, we met at least a few times at San Diego Comic Cons back in the '70's, we were in Capa-Alpha together for awhile and we corresponded briefly. It doesn't matter if you remember me or not, but I am an avid reader of your blog. I especially enjoy the stories you post of your childhood, in fact it inspired me to do similar stories of my own childhood on Facebook.

Now and then you make comments about religious people coming to your door and trying to convert you. I assume you mean either Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons as I don't know of any others who go door to door with their religion. Maybe there are others in your area. I became one of Jehovah's Witnesses in 1979 (and I'm not going to preach to you here, so please read on — I'll keep it short), and have gone to 1000's of doors over the past 35 years.

If you want to make comments about such people, feel free (some of them are quite funny), but perhaps I can clarify a couple items (in 25 words or less). We never ask for money (though we may state that we accept donations), we don't believe in instant conversions (nobody becomes a Witness without months of personal study), and we don't tell people that they are going to hell (we don't believe in a literal burning hell), and we only come to your door because we truly believe that Armageddon is coming (believe me, I do not enjoy being cussed at and threatened with deadly violence).

Okay, that was more than 25 words, but I recognize you don't wish to be preached to and I respect that. I'm not asking you to do anything. I just wanted to briefly explain a couple things. I know how annoying it is to be interrupted when you're busy but they're basically good people.

Have a nice day and best wishes for your continued health and, again, I love your blog.

I do remember you, Johnny, and would be pleased to run into you again at a convention…or really anywhere except my doorstep. Part of what I object to here is unsolicited appearances on my property and the expectation that I will interrupt whatever I'm doing (once in a while, it's sleep because I work odd hours) and answer my door and just stand there and listen for as long as it takes to hear a rehearsed sales pitch, usually for a product or service that's of no conceivable interest to me.

I've never liked that and I've gotten less tolerant of it since I've been having trouble with my knees. I'm usually upstairs in my office so I have to trudge down, just in case it's a signature-required delivery or a neighbor with a problem. Years ago, I tried posting "No Solicitor" signs but discovered that people who are selling door-to-door never think those apply to them or they fib and go, "Oh, I didn't see that."

My annoyance applies to those who are peddling religion but it also applies to realtors who want to sell my house for me, Girl Scouts hawking cookies, kids who claim they can get through college if I'll subscribe to magazines which will probably never be delivered, political activists even when I agree with their politics, and vendors of small kitchen appliances. Frankly, I think that if my "product" was along the lines of an acceptance of Jesus Christ, I wouldn't want to trivialize it by selling it via the same business model people are using to sell aluminum siding.

The least annoying, by the way, are the realtors. At least, they leave you free memo pads and occasionally a pot holder with their name on it.

I have had Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses at my door and also a few others. Most of them never get far enough to identify their particular cause. You may be pleased to know I never cuss or threaten. I sometimes tell them that my spiritual life is fine and then I see either great disappointment or disbelief on their faces. It's apparently never occurred to some of them — or perhaps they just don't believe — that anyone could survive in this world without their particular religion. News flash: Billions do.

That's one of the things I don't like about most organized religions — the disrespect of other religions. I am also very suspicious of any order that sends its followers out to recruit and raise money. I'd be more impressed if they sent out their followers to help people in actual need and without proselytizing.

I'm afraid I don't see a whole heap o' difference between asking for donations and saying you accept them. I also don't see much difference between (a) telling people they're going to hell if they don't sign up or (b) warning them that they'd better enlist because Armageddon is coming soon to a planet near you.

You can mock me when it really occurs but I do not believe Armageddon is approaching…or if it is, that the people so prophesizing have any sort of inside track as to when. I think it's just something that religions have learned to say for the same reason that companies that sell Home Security Systems try to convince you that the burglary of your house is inevitable and imminent. The key difference is that some homes do get robbed, whereas the world does not end, no matter how often we are told it's about to.

You say they're good people. I don't doubt that most are and for me, that's part of the problem. It's much easier to slam the door on not-good people. I am less certain that the folks who send them out to go door-to-door are good people.

Johnny, I am not questioning your sincerity or good intentions. But the folks who come to my door on missions are questioning — actually, doubting — that I could possibly have my life and head together without what's in their pamphlets and books.

Three days ago at about this time, a band of them — all dressed as if attending an upper-scale church, of course — rang my bell about this time of day and forced me to trek needlessly downstairs on a knee that's full of cortizone and short on meniscus. The lead pitchman started in asking me if I'd accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior. I interrupted to tell him he wasn't selling Jesus Christ; he was selling his organization's particular marketing of that esteemed figure.

I live in a pretty nice neighborhood but for some reason, we have homeless people sleeping in nearby alleys. They're not hard to find. You just look for the shopping cart full of discards covered with old trash bags and a homeless person is usually sleeping right next to it. I asked the gent on my doorstep why he didn't go try to "save" that guy…because that guy's in a helluva lot more trouble than I am or will probably ever be. Every day is a potential Armageddon for that guy.

My visitor stopped and stammered and didn't know what to say…because I'd knocked him off his memorized speech and he was used to letting it do his thinking for him. So I gave him the answer: "It's because homeless people don't have any money to give you."

Now, I remember you as a bright guy and I'll bet you'd have had an answer. And I'll further bet that some of the doors you knock on are opened by people who are not unhappy to see you…maybe even some who buy what you're selling. The kids pushing the overpriced, bogus magazine subscriptions make a sale every now and then, too.

I used to be much nicer to these people. I thought it would be rude not to listen to the whole dog 'n' pony show before I told them I wasn't interested. Now I figure I'm doing them a favor to cut them off and let them get on to the next house because they absolutely, positively ain't going to make a sale at mine. The reason some (as you say) cuss at you and threaten deadly violence is because though from your point of view, you just bothered them the one time…from their point of view in their neighborhoods, it's an endless parade of salespeople who drag them away from more important matters. Going door-to-door is an ignoble, pestering way to sell what are sometimes scams and sales campaigns that, like those e-mails that tell you you've won millions, hope to luck into the really gullible and desperate. I don't think it speaks well of any cause — again, including political ones I otherwise support — that it chooses to go this route.

As I was typing the last sentence of the above paragraph, my doorbell rang and I thought, "Oh boy! I have a great finish for this piece! I can limp downstairs in pain, have a blunt exchange with some annoying religion vendors, then limp back up here and write how they inconvenienced me. As it turns out, it was my gardener wanting to be paid. But if I'd written this three days ago at this time, I would have had the perfect closer. That's another annoying thing about door-to-door salespeople: They always seem to show up at the most inconvenient moments.

Earlier this A.M., I posted links to two videos from the 1986 Emmy Awards. The first was a musical number in which various TV stars pop out of doors to say their signature lines (i.e., catch phrases) and as I noted, one star didn't get on. A dancer opened the wrong door or the timing was off or something…but one star was glimpsed only for a fraction of a second and wasn't able to say his line.

People are sending me guesses that I'm sure are wrong but what would be right? The moment occurs about 1:42 into the video. You see a smidgen of a slender, dark-haired man who may also be dark-skinned…but maybe not. Anyone got a theory as to who it is? I'm thinking Ricardo Montalban and the line he would have said was "Smiles, smiles, everyone." But I'm not confident of this, especially since they'd already had Hervé Villechaize from Fantasy Island and the rule of this production number seems to be one catch phrase per show. (And if they did have two, I think they'd have put them back-to-back. They did go from Jack Paar to the guy who always introduced Johnny Carson.)

Anyone have a better guess than Montalban?

You can read lots of articles on the "scandal" that proves Hillary Clinton's criminality and that will surely bring her down. You might want to read Gene Lyons reminding us that her political opponents and the press are always selling some revelation this way.

I'm not a big fan of Hillary. Whatever enthusiasm I have for her is mostly just a reaction to the likely Republican alternative. But I do think that Whitewater was a ginned-up phony scandal, Filegate was a ginned-up phony scandal, Travelgate was a ginned-up phony scandal, etc. In politics, you see a lot of this: I accuse you of some heinous crime. Investigation shows that there is no crime, no foul, nothing. So rather than admit I was wrong, I accuse you of creating the impression of impropriety…a charge which, of course, can only be made when there is no actual impropriety. In other words, you're guilty of making me think you'd committed a crime.

Hey, you like to see famous TV stars? If you're under thirty, don't bother with this post but if you're my age, give or take ten years, you probably loved the opening and closing of the 1986 Emmy Awards. Someone obviously turned to someone and said, "Hey, let's get as many TV stars as possible to do walk-ons." This was back in the day when you could get stars to participate in award shows when they hadn't been nominated. Now, if you ain't presenting or you ain't up for one, you ain't there.

Here's the opening of the show, which was a salute to great TV catch phrases. One poor star (I dunno who) didn't get on because a dancer opened the wrong door but there are plenty of other famous faces…

And here's the finale in which some under-rehearsed folks perform a song by Mr. S. Sondheim. You will notice that for some reason, Lamb Chop is wearing a microphone but Eve Arden isn't. The older gentleman next to Jackie Cooper who I couldn't recognize at first is, I believe, Bob Cummings. You should know everyone else…

• I wish there were so few real problems in the world that I could afford to get outraged because someone is remaking Dumbo.

This piece ran here more than ten years ago, on 6/11/05. I've rewritten the end of it so it leads into a YouTube clip that wasn't available when I first posted it. You can read the original post here if it matters to you, which it probably doesn't and shouldn't. It also includes a link to a book I wrote which is now out of print but findable from old book dealers.

So here's a piece about one of those songs that you hear now and then. You don't know just where and you don't know just when…

We all have certain silly tunes that linger in our memory but defy identification. You heard the song somewhere and it stayed with you…but you have no idea what it's called or who recorded it. If you did, you could maybe procure an actual copy and play it a few times and satisfy some trivial part of your brain and get it out of there forever. But you don't know what the heck it's called and when you try to hum it for your friends or (even more embarrassing) a clerk at a music shop, they don't know what the heck it is, either…and not just because you can't hum.

And then one day if you're fortunate, the mystery is solved. Here is one such story.

Years and years ago — we're talking late sixties/early seventies here — I heard this silly, catchy instrumental that went in my ear and stayed there for decades. I don't know where I first heard it but there's a brief snippet of it in the movie, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, and when I was once introduced to its maker, Russ Meyer, I immediately asked him about it. Mr. Meyer made it clear that he had no idea what song I was talking about, and that even if I could narrow it down for him, it still wouldn't do any good because he didn't know where any of the songs in his movies had come from and why the hell was I asking him about that instead of about the bustlines of his leading ladies, like everyone else did? I sighed and asked him about the only thing he then seemed interested in discussing.

I continued to hear The Song popping up on cheap videos and radio commercials, and I got the idea that it was from some music library. One can purchase for a modest fee, recordings of royalty-free (or low-royalty) music that can be used freely to score movies or commercials or whatever. The places I heard the song were the kind of venues that would use cheap music libraries…but even assuming I was right about his, there was still no way to identify it.

Then, a year or two ago, I was doing a flurry of radio interviews to promote a book I wrote called Mad Art. In case you're never done one of these, the way it works is that you're home on your own phone, available at the appropriate time. If the interview is at 9:00, someone phones you at 8:55 — usually the show's producer but sometimes it's the on-air host, calling during a commercial break. They greet you, check the pronunciation of your name, and then you're patched into the broadcast. You hear a minute or so of the radio show over the phone and then suddenly, the host is introducing you and asking you the first question and it's up to you to be witty and charming and to mention the book as many times as possible. The spot is always over sooner than you expect and then they thank you and hang up.

So one night, I agree to be on a late night radio show in some other city. I think the show started at 3 AM their time, which was Midnight my time. At 11:55, the producer called and I provided the usual pronunciation guide…and then she said, "We'll be to you in about three minutes. You'll hear us playing a short song to lead into the spot." I said fine and waited…and when the short song began, I couldn't believe it: They were playing me on with The Song! The very song I'd been trying to identify since 1971!

I resisted the temptation to answer the host's first question by saying, "Never mind my stupid book. What's the name of that song you just played and who recorded it and where can I get a copy?" But I didn't. I waited until the spot was over and asked the producer who replied, "I don't know. I'll check and call you back!" Thirty minutes later when she hadn't called back, I called her only to have her say, "I'm sorry…no one here knows. It's on a reel of stuff we use all the time but it's not labelled." I asked her if she could at least make a CD of it for me. She said she would but never did. So close and yet so far.

A few months later, I was telling the story to a friend in the radio business. He said, "You think it's early seventies library music? I have a lot of that stuff. I'll send you some CDs." The next day, he did. He sent me thirty CDs, each with 20-30 music cuts on it.

I got lucky. It was the fifth or sixth song on the first CD I checked. I played it about twenty-seven times and after that, I never had to think about it again.

Okay, so you probably want to know: What was this song and where can I hear it? It's called "Pop March" and it was recorded by Johnny Pearson, about whom I know nothing other than that he recorded a lot of songs of this kind. Here's the tune, which apparently has also been used on a lot of National Football League material that I never watched. Don't click and listen to it unless you're prepared to have it inhabit your head for a while…

Hello. I've been up writing all night…so between that and Daylight Saving Time, I have my body clock thoroughly confused. Here are a few topics I've been meaning to cover…

Writing about the recent Selma march the other day, I said that "…the chances of seeing an important Republican leader get into the main part of that historic photo might have doubled if, say, two of them had showed up." If we're going to be accurate, we should note that there were other elected Republicans there and depending on your definition of "important," some of them could qualify. Senators Rob Portman, Jeff Sessions and Tim Scott were in that crowd somewhere, as was House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and others of lesser stature.

I think the principle behind my statement still holds. The two most prominent Republican leaders are probably John Boehner and Mitch McConnell. They weren't there. The Republican who is most recognizable is probably John McCain. He wasn't there. No one who seems to be out to lead his party in 2016 was present. Rand Paul was back in his home state. Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rick Perry, Mike Huckabee, Lindsey Graham and Scott Walker were in Iowa for an Agricultural Summit. If they'd all been there, since they're all so recognizable, some of them would surely have been in that photo.

Changing Subjects: Tilt Araiza posted this on my Facebook page. He seems to know of what he writes…

Re:how the Monty Python "Choreographed Party Political Broadcast" sketch got removed. That episode of Monty Python was rerun in 1974 in the runup to a General Election (there were two that year thanks to the inherent kinkiness of the British Parliamentary system). The rules as what TV shows can say and do in the time when an election has been officially called are pretty strict and a sketch like that is exactly the kind of thing that gets cut (the sketch show Not The Nine O'Clock News had its first series cancelled after one episode in 1979 because an election was called). The BBC either wiped or maybe even carried out the edit on the original master.

Also on Facebook, Adel Khan asked if I'd ever had an encounter with Sam Simon, the popular TV writer-producer who passed away the other day following a long, gallantly-managed illness. Others have written to ask so here's what I told Adel…

I spoke to Sam on the phone a couple of times when he was working on cartoon shows at Filmation. He called me about something so inconsequential, I really don't remember it but it was long before he got into the sitcom world. That's all I remember. Everyone I know who knew him spoke highly of the man so I wish I'd gotten to meet him for real.

Here's what some people who did know him well had to say about the guy.

This little profile of Carl Reiner spells Sid Caesar's name wrong and makes the usual mistake of thinking Larry Gelbart was a writer on Your Show of Shows (which it calls Your Show of Show). But otherwise, it's pretty good.

Today on Stu's Show, Stu Shostak's guest is Animation Authority Jerry Beck, who'll be talking about what we have to look forward to in the way of new animation and also in the way of old animation being released on DVD. Doubtlessly, there will be much outrage from listeners and host over what's coming out and what's not, and there will also be Jerry's wise insights into the industry. Jerry's visits to Stu's Show are always interesting and informative so you won't want to miss this one.

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 way, way longer. Whenever a show ends, it's available soon after for downloading from the Archives on that site. Downloads are a measly 99 cents each and you can get four shows for the price of three. This, by the way, is Stu's Show #401. Jerry has been on 394 of them.

Our friends at the Criterion Collection — they're kind of the Tiffany's of home video — are having a sale but you'll have to act fast, Until Noon tomorrow Eastern Time (that's 9 AM out here) you can get 50% off whatever you order. That means you can order their DVD/Blu Ray set of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World for twenty bucks. You can order anything over there for half-price if you do it in time and enter the promo code SPRING when you checkout. I don't make a nickel off this but when Buzz Dixon alerted me, I knew I had to share it with you. Don't thank me. Thank Buzz. The direct link to order Mad World is here.