Tonight is the last night of Hanukkah so there's still time to enjoy, in the proper season, this fine holiday tune by Tom Lehrer. Here's the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles…

Rudy Giuliani and other right-wing figures are blaming the recent murder of two New York policemen in part on Barack Obama's anti-cop rhetoric. Giuliani said, "We've had four months of propaganda, starting with the president, that everybody should hate the police." Trouble is, nobody can cite anything the president has said that fits that description.

The Washington Post fact-checker gave Giuliani's claims four Pinocchios, their highest lie rating. Politifact gave them a "Pants on Fire," their highest lie rating.

So what you have here is the old, sleazy trick. Something happens in the news that you think will upset people or can be used to upset them…and you run out and blame it on your political opponents in order to score points against them. There seems to be no tragedy that some people won't use for this purpose. Giuliani, of course, has exploited 9/11 so much that it's hard to remember that was a date on which he actually impressed people with his leadership.

We have something like 780,000 police officers in this country. My sense is that well over 95% of them are good men and women who follow procedures and do good for their communities. Still, everyone knows there are some bad ones who perhaps shouldn't be wearing the uniform. That's why every police force has an Internal Affairs division or some department that tries — without total success — to weed out the bad ones before they do real damage. [Insert some Jack Webb quote here.]

There ought to be some way to criticize the few bad ones without being accused of hating all police officers and spreading "anti-cop" hatred. But in this country, we always hide our positions behind sacred cows. It's very hard to criticize any U.S. military policy without being accused of hating the troops.

Personally, I think it's horrible when any police officer is killed. I also think it's horrible when any unarmed civilian is killed. Those two views are not mutually exclusive. The latter is probably unavoidable on some occasions but we do have a few recent instances where the necessity seems quite arguable and worthy of investigation and discussion.

And we have people trying to shut down those arguments under the guise of protecting our police. I don't think it does. I don't think anything breeds hostility between police officers and those they serve and protect more than the belief that the "fix" is always in; that cops can do any damn thing they want and not be held accountable if they exceed their authority. Too many people believe that and they have too many recent examples to prove it.

I had three requests for this one. I posted it here in August of 2009…the story of how one of my idols sorta threatened to sue me when I was barely in my teens. I don't think anything has changed since I first wrote this except that I've given up on my campaign to get a collection of Frank Jacobs' parody songs issued…

Okay, here's the Allan Sherman story I teased a week or so ago here. This took place in 1965. I was 13 years old and attending Ralph Waldo Emerson Junior High School in West Los Angeles. Sherman had a hit record out called "Crazy Downtown," which was a parody of the Petula Clark mega-hit, "Downtown."

Like Stan Freberg, MAD Magazine, Soupy Sales, Laurel and Hardy and a few others I could name, Allan Sherman was a huge influence on me. Even at that age, I was writing a lot of silly poems and song parodies…and I guess he was my second-favorite writer of the latter. (My fave was Frank Jacobs in MAD. Mr. Jacobs is the gent to whom we gave the Bill Finger Award this year at the Comic-Con International…and I'm currently lobbying to get someone to publish a book collecting Frank's fine work for that publication and to include a CD of gifted folks singing some of his better efforts.)

Anyway, what you need to know is that I was in Junior High and that Allan Sherman was kind of a hero. His son Robert was a classmate and while we weren't close friends, every now and then Robbie would tell me how his dad was going to be on some TV show or had a new album in the works. I couldn't believe that I was even that close to the guy who wrote and sang those funny records I played over and over and over.

So one month, a campus group called the Girls League decided to stage a talent show/benefit with various students and teachers performing to raise money for I-don't-recall-what-cause. The festivities were to commence with an elaborately-staged (elaborate for a show with zero budget) dance number to "Crazy Downtown." The school orchestra knew the tune and some male student who, sad to say, looked a lot like Allan Sherman would be singing the lyrics while everyone did the frug and the pony around him.

That was the plan until two days before the event. That was when Mr. Campbell, who was the school principal, received a call either from Allan Sherman or Allan Sherman's lawyer vowing to sue if Mr. Sherman's lyrics were used. The obvious assumption was that Robbie had told his father about it. Mr. Campbell explained that this was a pretty low-profile event; that the number was to be performed but twice (two shows) in a Junior High School auditorium before, collectively, less than a thousand people, and that the money was going to a worthy charity. This made no difference to the caller.

With a deep sigh, Mr. Campbell called in the organizers of the benefit and told them to drop the number. They said they couldn't drop the number. It was the opening of the show and there was no time to write and stage something else. "Well," Mr. Campbell suggested, "How about dropping the Allan Sherman lyrics and just singing the real lyrics of "Downtown?" The students argued that, creatively, the number they'd staged really cried out for silly lyrics. Mr. Campbell said, "I'm sorry but this is final. You can't use Allan Sherman's lyrics."

The students behind the show didn't want to use the real "Downtown" lyrics so one of them — a way-too-cute girl named Cady — came to me at lunchtime and said, "Hey, you're always writing funny poems and things and reading them in class. Can you write us a new set of funny lyrics to 'Downtown?'" If Cady had asked me to trisect angles, I probably would have been motivated to learn how but this request was in that small subset of things in this world that I think I can actually do. She took me over to a rehearsal for the show and I watched the number. Then the next morning, I handed her a set of parody lyrics to "Downtown" that used none of Allan Sherman's jokes or even rhymes. I no longer have a copy of what I wrote but I can recall the opening. It went…

I'm feeling low
'Cause every radio show
Keeps telling me to go…Downtown.
All of my friends
Say it's the newest of trends
The party never ends…Downtown.

And from there on, it was all about how the singer was such a terrible dancer that he didn't dare go downtown and attempt to join in the fun. I do remember being pretty proud that I rhymed "fugue" with "frug" and that I got in a reference to Mr. Campbell, whose name I happily decided rhymed with "gamble." But what I really remember were a couple of big tingles 'n' thrills, first when I heard my lyrics being sung on a stage in what seemed almost a semi-professional fashion (a first for me) and then getting some decent laughs at the actual performances (another first).

And then I remember the summons, a few days later, to the office of Mr. Campbell. I didn't know what it was about but I knew I couldn't possibly be in any real trouble. My entire time in school, I never got in any real trouble. This was about as close as I ever came.

Mr. Campbell had someone on the phone when I walked in. My memory is that it was Allan Sherman himself but as I think back, I'm wondering if it wasn't Sherman's attorney who, in turn, had his client in his office or on another line. In any case, Mr. Sherman had heard that most or all of his lyrics had been performed at the benefit and he was going to sue Emerson Junior High, win, tear the school down and put up a Von's Market on the site…or something like that. He was also going to sue all the students involved, including whoever it was who, he insisted, had just "changed a few words" of what he'd written, hoping he [Sherman] wouldn't catch on that his lyrics had been used. I guess that meant me.

Cady and some other Girls League officers were in the office already and they'd explained eleven times that I had written completely different lyrics that had not employed a syllable of Mr. Sherman's work. The person on the other end of the phone refused to believe that.

So it came down to me reciting my lyrics — which I remembered in full then even if I can't today — and Mr. Campbell repeating them, line by line to either Allan Sherman or to a lawyer who was, in turn, repeating them to Allan Sherman. They didn't sound particularly clever that way but eventually, my hero was convinced and he agreed to withdraw his threat. I wish I could report that he also said, "Hey, whoever wrote those may have a future in this business" but no such compliment was voiced.

That was pretty much the end of the story except that it took a while before I could listen to Allan Sherman without getting a tight feeling in my tummy. Years later, I met some of Sherman's associates and learned that I was in good company; that though generally a decent guy, Allan was known to threaten to sue waiters if his soup was lukewarm. Despite that, I still love his work and can probably sing 90% of everything he wrote from memory. That's right. I can remember his lyrics but not my own.

Incidentally: A few years later at University High School, I was called upon again to write last-minute lyrics for a talent show. Students in this one were performing a number of recent hits. The faculty advisor decided that some of the lyrics of these songs, which were played non-stop on the radio, were too "suggestive" to be sung by high school students. I had to "clean up" the lyrics to a number of tunes, including "Never My Love" (a hit of the day for The Association), "Young Girl" (Gary Puckett and the Union Gap) and even the Doors' immortal "Light My Fire." In the last of these, I had to take out the part about lighting the guy's fire.

I did, and the revised lyrics passed inspection by the faculty advisor so the show could go on. But during the actual performance, as all the singers had agreed among themselves, they abandoned my laundered versions and sang the real lyrics. This struck me as the proper thing to do.

We all kept waiting for the faculty advisor to stop the proceedings or haul all the singers out to be shot…but if she noticed, she decided to pretend she didn't. In later years, writing for TV shows, I often employed the same trick of feigned compliance…and you'd be amazed how often it worked. The things you learn in junior high school…

Steve Benen notes that during the 2012 presidential election, several G.O.P. candidates made promises and predictions about what they could do to help the U.S. economy — and Obama has bettered all they said they could do…

• The Romney Standard: Mitt Romney said during the 2012 campaign that if Americans elect him, he'd get the unemployment rate down to 6% by 2016. Obama won anyway and the unemployment rate dropped below 6% two years faster.
• The Gingrich Standard: Newt Gingrich said during the 2012 campaign that if Americans re-elected the president, gas prices would reach $10 per gallon, while Gingrich would push gas down to $2.50 a gallon. As of this morning, the national average at the pump is a little under $2.38.
• The Pawlenty Standard: Tim Pawlenty said trillions of dollars in tax breaks would boost economic growth to 5% GDP. Obama actually raised taxes on the wealthy and GDP growth reached 5% anyway.

In the meantime, Obama has done such a thorough job of turning America into a Socialist nation that the Dow has hit 18,000 for the first time in history. No, he doesn't deserve all the credit for that or the above gains. He probably deserves exactly as much credit for the good news as he'd get blame if the news was as bad as it is good. These days, that's more than enough.

We've been bringing you videos by Julien Neel and his other talented friends who make these a cappella videos. So at this time of year, we have to feature Julien's version of "The Chipmunk Song." Here you go…

My buddy Anthony Tollin writes…

You've devoted several blog entries to the final episode of The Colbert Report. Just curious: What did you think of Craig Ferguson's last episode?

I thought it was pretty good. Their musical opening was overshadowed by Colbert's but it really was quite wonderful on its own terms. I liked the conversation with Leno — two guys in the same line of work bantering with what seemed like genuine respect for each other, neither of them plugging anything.

I guessed Ferguson's twist ending in advance but I still liked it. They made a mistake, me thinks, not taping it in front of a live audience. It made it feel artificial…not a part of the actual show. And it meant they didn't have that big "Whoop!" audience reaction, which is what made the original version work so well on Newhart.

Most of all, I felt it had the proper scale. Colbert's last show, impressive as it was, had the feel of Stephen going away forever…not "Stephen's moving from this 11:30 show to another 11:30 show." You could argue that we were saying farewell to that character but that's not the same thing.

While I'm rummaging through the old e-mailbag here, I have a message I got last week, thought I'd posted and didn't. Steve Winer went to see the first "live" performance of one of my favorite animated specials as a stage production…

I thought you might like to hear from someone who was in the audience for last night's live production of Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. It was, as you hoped, "as wonderful as it should be."

They kept the show to one act. They added only some additional dialogue from the original story, some short dance sequences and an overture.

It was staged very like the Encores shows — with the orchestra on stage and some of the actors carrying books. Bits of animation and backgrounds from the original show were put on a screen for "scenery."

Douglas Sills played Magoo/Scrooge and, wisely I think, made no attempt to imitate Jim Backus's Magoo voice. But, unlike Backus, he can really sing and I realized this is actually the first time I could hear the full melodies for the Magoo numbers. Hearing all of the songs with talented Broadway singers in front of a full orchestra made it clear what a fine score Jule Styne and Bob Merrill wrote for that little show.

The audience loved the whole evening and responded with great enthusiasm. I wouldn't be surprised to see a production like this open next year at this time in a commercial theater. I think they might have a surprise hit on their hands. However, if they're really smart, they'll sell razzleberry dressing in the lobby.

That's all great to hear. I have a feeling we're going to see a lot of this next holiday season.

They've put up a plaque to honor Graham Chapman at his childhood home.

I had a couple of requests for this one, which was first seen here on November 14, 2010. It's about an incident from elementary school and you'll notice in it I mention the full names of several classmates, including Ricky Kamen. Well, not all that long ago, I heard from Ricky Kamen who found himself in this article. Isn't the Internet amazing? I hadn't spoken to Ricky in over forty years. We had a phone conversation and among other things, he informed he wasn't in that class. I don't think I thought he was. I was just plugging in random names from my school days.

It's so strange to hear from someone like that after so many years. Once upon a time, I talked with Rick Kamen every weekday, ate lunch with him, cared a hell of a lot about him thinking well of me, etc. He was for a time on the staff of a little underground magazine a bunch of us put out in junior high school called The Phinque, which was our version of MAD. Then one day, we graduated high school…and almost all those people totally disappeared from my life. I suppose this is not such a strange thing for kids who moved and had to jump from one school (and one group of friends) to another school (and a totally different group of friends) but it was jarring to me. Suddenly, none of those folks were in my life anymore…including many I was glad weren't in my life anymore. Rick was not among those I was pleased to lose.

I kept in touch with a few…mostly girls I'd liked in school but had been afraid to ask out then. I didn't like the idea that they could turn me down (or go out with me and have a rotten time) and then I'd have to see them every day after that in Algebra. But I went out with several of them after high school and kept in touch with a few of the guys. I'm still in contact with a few of them, in some cases because they found me on the Internet.

Rick wasn't in the class I put him in in this essay but I heard from Don Bassford, who was. He remembered Travis. He even remembered Travis grabbing the bread. He wrote me and speculated that Travis now has a lucrative career as a hedge fund manager. I wouldn't be at all surprised…

For some reason, I got to thinking recently about a kid named Travis who was in my third (I think) grade class at Westwood Elementary. Travis was one of those "me, me, me" guys who wanted what he wanted and he wanted it right away…and that was it. Nothing mattered in the world except what Travis wanted. He stole things from other kids. He lied left and right, often for no visible reason. He misbehaved constantly and blamed everyone else. But his finest hour came one morning when our teacher, Mrs. Reed, decided to show us how bread was baked.

There was a small stove in the Teachers Lounge and the whole class crammed in there to watch her break the eggs and sift the flour and such. Before long, the air was filled with the most wonderful smell of hot cinammon-infused bread and we were all salivating something awful. Mrs. Reed did a headcount. Including her and the student teachers, there were 40 of us…so she carefully cut the bread into forty pieces of equal size. One by one, we were to walk up to the table and each take our one piece. So Jeanette Bingle went up and took her one piece. And Ricky Kamen went up and took his one piece. And Cindy Segal walked up and took her one piece.

And then Travis walked up and grabbed about eight pieces.

Before anyone could stop him, he licked five of the pieces and crammed the other three in his mouth, thereby laying claim to them all. Mrs. Reed shrieked at him and all the students booed and yelled at him. His response? With his mouth full of cinnamon bread, he kept saying over and over, "I want it! I want it!" One of the student teachers scurried up and grabbed the rest of the bread away before he could get his hands on any more of it.

Travis was sent off to the principal's office while Mrs. Reed dealt with the reassignment of the remaining slices. I think she and her aides decided to forego their shares and a few other pieces were cut in half. I do remember getting half a slice.

Travis did not return to class that day. The following morning, Mrs. Reed asked me to go to the principal's office, not because I was in any trouble — my entire time in school, I was never in any trouble — but because I was needed there. I soon found myself in a meeting with Mrs. Kermoyan (the principal), Travis and the father of Travis, who'd come in at Mrs. Kermoyan's request. My initial impression was that I could have picked Travis's father out of a crowd with great ease. He looked exactly like his son but older and pudgier…and I would soon learn that selfishness is apparently hereditary, as well. The father was annoyed he'd had to take time off from work and come in.

I'd been brought in as a kind of witness. Since Mrs. Kermoyan hadn't been present for the incident, Mrs. Reed had sent her most trustworthy student to describe what happened. I felt a brief twinge that maybe I shouldn't "rat" on a fellow pupil…but it wasn't exactly a secret what had transpired. I was just saving Mrs. Reed from having to leave the class alone and come down to this meeting. And also of course, this was Travis, who'd been nothing but rotten to all of us and who certainly wouldn't have hesitated to speak ill of anyone else, even to the point of lying.

So I politely told what had occurred and underscored the fact that I'd been cheated out of half a slice of bread. When I finished, Mrs. Kermoyan asked Travis if my account was accurate. He agreed it was. Then she looked over at the father to await his comment…and when it came, I couldn't have been more surprised.

He didn't see what the problem was. In fact, he was rather proud of his boy.

"In this world," he said, "you have to grab for everything you can get. You have to knife the other guy before he can knife you…because he will." Then he turned to his son and said, "Good work."

I vividly recall the expression on Mrs. Kermoyan's face. I would not see that expression again for seven more years…not until the release of the movie, The Producers and the "Springtime for Hitler" number. She stammered as she told me I could go back to class and I left her there, pondering I suppose what she could do in this situation. She couldn't exactly punish Travis for being the lad his folks had raised him to be.

An hour or so later, Mrs. Kermoyan's assistant came in and cleared out Travis's desk. We never saw him again, which did not disturb anyone. I'm guessing he was transferred to some other school which was better equipped for dealing with "problem" students. Unfortunately, I don't think the L.A. Unified School District has ever had any schools equipped to dealing with problem parents.

I remember a lot about those days…but I probably recall the incident with Travis most vividly. It was my first real understanding that real people (i.e., those not on television) could be bad people…though in later years, I would substitute other, more nuanced adjectives for "bad." I'd like to think he outgrew that all-encompassing selfishness — a lot of kids I knew did an absolute one-eighty from what they were in school — but who knows? I do know I encounter people from time to time who remind me of Travis and I see an awful lot of them on news talk programs.

As alleged adults, they're usually a lot better at couching their general hoggishness in terms that suggest they're motivated by principles and concern for others. But it's still "me, me, me" all the time. As the economy in this country continues to suck and the job market recovers at about the speed of soil erosion, I see Travis everywhere and I hear echoes of his father, from whom I got a valuable lesson. I don't recall learning anything from Mrs. Reed in fourth grade but I sure learned I didn't want to be like, or even around people like Travis or his dad.

The legendary Time for Beany puppet show went on the air in 1949 and ended in 1955. My mother told me she watched it when she was pregnant with me — I was born in '52 — which led me to a strange theory. You know those stories of how an expectant mother will listen to great music hoping it will somehow seep into her womb and inspire the fetus to become the next Mozart? Well, if there's anything to that theory, I figure that listening to that show — which on and before my birthday starred Daws Butler and Stan Freberg — put me on the course of my silly career.

My mother says I watched the show every day after I was born but I have no memories of it. So maybe I didn't watch it. Maybe it was just on and I was in the room where it was on.

I do however have a very vivid memory of being taken to a fast food restaurant themed around the show. There were several and the one we went to was not the one in the film embedded below. We went to one on Washington Boulevard in Culver City next to a large automotive dealership where my father was pricing used cars. He priced and then he, my mother and I went over to Beany's and dined. That, I remember.

When I met Bob Clampett, who'd produced the TV show, I asked him about the restaurants. He couldn't place for me the precise year the last one closed but he recalled that a couple of them outlived the series by a year or two. He told me they were a rotten deal from his end. He'd gotten involved with some people he wished he'd turned down…and though he said the places were gorgeous and had pretty decent chow, they never made money, at least for him.

This is an eight-minute home movie taken at one that was located in Long Beach, California. From the video, we can see it was next door to the Circle Drive-In Movie and further research tells us the Circle was located at 1633 Ximeno. If you click this link, Google Maps will gladly show you what's there today. The drive-in opened in April of 1951 and closed in January of 1985. The marquee in the video tells us it was showing Assignment: Paris (which opened in September of '52) and Golden Hawk (released in October).

I don't think anyone in this film is anyone famous but the architecture is great and you might enjoy just looking at the cars — and at the 1952 price of a burger, fries and a shake…

The New York Times calls for the investigation and prosecution of U.S. officials who okayed and carried out a policy of illegal torture.

It'll never happen just as 99% of those who manipulated Wall Street to steal zillions will never see a barred window from the inside. But at least someone's bothered about it.

I'm oddly fascinated about bizarre pricing practices in business. I often notice in supermarkets that they're selling Friskies canned cat food for 50 cents a can or a box of 20 cans for eleven dollars. This is presumably known in the trade as a Reverse Quantity Discount.

Last evening, I went out on some errands and on a whim — and because I had a coupon — I decided to pop into a Subway sandwich shop. On the way in, a homeless gent asked me for spare change and I made a mental note to give him any I had on my way out.

As I mentioned here, I occasionally like Subway and when I do, I get either a meatball marinara sandwich or a tuna sandwich. The coupon I had said, "Buy ANY 6-inch sub with a 30 oz. drink and get ANY 6-inch sub of equal or lesser price FREE!" So I went in, figuring I'd get one of each — one meatball, one tuna — for the price of one of them.

The lady behind the counter said I couldn't do that. She pointed to fine print on the coupon that said, "Not valid on $2 subs or Flatzilla." And then she pointed to the big menu board where I could see that the meatball marinara sandwich was on sale for $2.00. "You can't get a $2.00 sandwich in the special," she explained.

I said, "I don't think that's the intention of the offer. They don't want me to get two sandwiches for $2.00 but they're fine if I get any two for $4.50." $4.50 was the list price of the tuna sandwich and most of the other ones on the menu board.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I don't make the rules and the $2.00 sandwiches cannot be purchased on the coupon deal."

I explained to her that I wanted to buy a tuna sandwich for $4.50 and also pay for a 30 oz. drink (and they could keep the drink since I don't ingest soda) and then get a meatball marinara sandwich for free since it was, as the coupon said, an "equal or lesser price."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I don't make the rules and the $2.00 sandwiches cannot be purchased on the coupon deal."

"No, no," I tried to explain. "You're telling me that if I buy the tuna sandwich for $4.50 and pay for a 30 oz. drink, I can have a $4.50 sandwich for free but not one that usually costs $4.50 and is on sale at the moment for $2.00!"

"Exactly," she said.

"Okay, let's try it this way. Let's say I come in and ask for a tuna sandwich and a coke. You make them up and then I show you the coupon. You say, 'Oh, for the same price, you're entitled to pick another sandwich for free!' Are you with me so far?"

She said yes.

"Fine. So I say I'd like the meatball marinara. Do you then say, 'I'm sorry, sir. For your free sandwich, you have to pick a more expensive one'?"

"That's right," she said. "Would you like to talk to the manager?" Just then, the manager walked in, probably returning from taking his dinner break at a better, saner restaurant. I explained the whole thing to him, concluding with: "So if I want two of your most expensive sandwiches, they'll run me $4.50 but if I want one of your most expensive sandwiches and one of your least expensive sandwiches, that'll be $6.50."

The manager said, "Yes, sir. Those are the rules."

By this point, I realized that they weren't the stupid ones here. The stupid one was the guy spending all this time arguing over two dollars…actually fifty cents since to get the deal, I was also going to buy a $1.50 soda I didn't want.

So I went out and asked the homeless guy what kind of sandwich and drink he wanted. He said, "Black Forest Ham on 9-Grain Wheat with plenty of mustard, and a Diet Coke." Then I went back in and used my coupon to get a Black Forest Ham on 9-Grain Wheat with plenty of mustard and a Diet Coke and as my free sandwich, I got tuna, plus I bought a $2.00 meatball sandwich. Then on the way out, I gave the ham sandwich and the drink to the homeless gent and went home with my meatball sandwich and my tuna sandwich.

Yes, it cost me way more than it should have but I got to use my goddamn coupon. Don't tell me I don't know how to save money.

I'm still accepting nominations of old posts from this site that are worthy of a reprise. This one is from March 3, 2004 and I chuckled when I read the line I'd written then about being a Marvel completist. Back in '66, you could be that for under two dollars a month. I haven't done the math but I suspect that even if one adjusts for inflation, to be that today would cost a few thousand percent more than it did then. One of the foundations of Marvel's success in the sixties was that they achieved a kind of brand loyalty that is not possible in this era.

Back around '66, I used to occasionally baby-sit for a family down the street. "Baby-sitting" is probably the wrong term. I was 14 and the kid in question was 10 and we often hung out together and played games and such. When the kid's parents went out for the evening, they'd pay me to play with him 'til it was his bedtime, then stick around downstairs until they got home. I made about six bucks for this but that was enough then to buy all the DCs and Marvels — and the output of a few other small companies — for an entire month. I could even "gamble" money away trying to get all the Marvel Mini-Books. Here's what I wrote about them in '04…

Long before comic books discovered the mini-series, there was the mini-comic. In 1966, Marvel issued six "comic books" that, depending on the size of your monitor, may have been even smaller than they appear in the above photo. They actually varied a tiny bit in size but were generally under 7/8" in height and a bit less than 1/4" thick with black-and-white interiors. Each was bound along the left ledge with the kind of rubbery glue used to bind a pad of writing paper and featured jokes and an occasional smidgen of story. I dunno who wrote them but some of the art was stats from the comic books and some of the new art was by Marie Severin.

I first heard about them in the Marvel Bullpen Bulletins page when they said…well, here. I'll let you read it for yourself:

Upon reading that, I immediately began checking out every vending machine I passed. As a more-or-less Marvel completist, I had to have them. For weeks, the search was fruitless but then one day, my father took us to a White Front department store down in the Crenshaw district…down where white folks never went in '66 unless they wanted to save money buying a washing machine or something of that size. While my parents priced portable room fans, I scoped out the vending machines and sure enough, there was one with with Marvel mini-books therein. Alas, it also had other stuff. You put in a quarter, turned the handle and you got a little plastic egg with a cheapo toy in it — a ring, a balloon, a little top, something of the sort. From what I could estimate as I peered in the glass, the odds seemed like about one in five that you'd get a Marvel mini-book.

I ran off and found a nice snack bar lady who changed three dollar bills (all I had) into twelve quarters. Then I ran back to the machine and began feeding in those quarters. By the time I'd used them all up, I'd scored mini-books of Sgt. Fury, The Hulk and Millie the Model as well as a lot of plastic whistles and other things I didn't want.

In later years in Vegas, I would see grown men and women look almost hypnotized as they pumped quarters and silver dollars into slot machines. I experienced some of that at the White Front that day. By the time my parents had made their purchase, I had squandered every quarter but I had half a set of the Marvel mini-books. To make matters worse, I could see some of the missing ones in their little plastic modules inside the glass dome of the vending machine. They were distributed across the top of the pile and the machine picked from the bottom, so what I was seeking was perhaps unattainable without injecting a few hundred more quarters.

"Let's go," my father called and I headed for the car, defeated. I knew full well I'd never see another vending machine that sold Marvel mini-books; that there would always be that aching void in my life…sigh, weep, moan. Fortunately for me (unfortunately for my parents), the room fan didn't work right so we had to go back a week or so later. I was well-armed with quarters this time and while they exchanged, I gambled some more. My luck wasn't quite as good. I think I went through $5.00 of quarters and got lotsa dupes but came away one mini-book short. I still needed a Captain America.

But sometimes things work out. A week or three later, a new kid showed up at our Saturday afternoon comic book club and he brought along his almost-complete Marvel Mini-Book collection. He had an extra Captain America but no Hulk. I had an extra Hulk but no Captain America. You didn't have to be Monty Hall to close that deal.

At the time, it seemed like I'd spent an awful lot of money to amass that complete set, especially when you compared the cost-per-mini-book to what it then cost to buy a full-sized real Marvel Comic but it was worth it, just to not have to feel unfulfilled and to scratch that all-consuming itch. And if you look at what those mini-books sell for today on the collector market, it wasn't that bad an investment.

Looking for last minute gift suggestions for yourself? Well, at this moment, Amazon has the complete Blu-ray set of The Dick Van Dyke Show (list price: $349.98) for $49.99. That's a great set of one of the best TV shows of all time for an incredibly low price. If you don't have it, get one.

I was watching a rerun of the TV series M*A*S*H the other day and I was just amazed at the awesome, almost mystical powers of Corporal Walter "Radar" O'Reilly, portrayed by Gary Burghoff. Not only could that character sense what others were thinking and when helicopters were about to arrive with wounded soldiers…but he could even, in the midst of the Korean War, read a comic book that wasn't published until November of 1968. Astounding.

We heard a number of different versions of what happened in Ferguson, MO when Michael Brown was killed. William Saletan looks at the case and notes that a lot of beliefs were unsupported by the evidence.

And of course, it's really odd that the chief prosecutor in this case — the one who convened the Grand Jury and in the view of some manipulated the process to achieve a desired outcome — now says he was well aware some of the witnesses were lying. Apparently, that's now okay in our legal process.