This is from June of 2005 on this site. It's the story of the Dell Comics Club, a promotion by the folks at Dell Comics. I should have mentioned that as a kid, I had real bad luck ordering things through the mail. Things I ordered out of comic books rarely came…or if they did, they were months late and/or not as advertised. It was a valuable lesson and I'm more than half-serious when I suggest that every kid oughta get screwed out of a few bucks early in life. It may help that person avoid being screwed when they get older and more money is on the line.

Some folks wrote in after this ran to suggest I hadn't noted a significant bit of irony: I was unable to join the Dell Comics Club but years later, I managed to join the company, writing many of the same comic books I read as a lad. Well, not exactly. I'm not sure if it would qualify as irony if I did do that but I actually never worked for Dell. I worked for Western Publishing Company, which was the firm that not only printed the comics for Dell but which created the comic books they published. This arrangement confuses so many people that years ago, I wrote this page to explain the confusing relationship 'twixt Dell and Western. Now, here's the story of my Lucky Penny Pocket Piece, which sets by the very computer keyboard on which I am now typing…

I learned to read from comic books, mostly from Dell Comics published between around 1957 and 1960. I read most of them and I had a subscription — a birthday gift from some relative — to Walt Disney's Comics and Stories. The rest, I bought off the newsstand…or my father would say, "Pick out a couple," and I'd pick out a couple and he'd buy them for me. Also, every so often, we'd cruise by a second-hand bookstore where they had a pile of used comics for a nickel each, six for a quarter. I would, of course, get six.

Every so often, a Dell comic would carry a subscription ad on the back cover like the one below. (That's a reduced section. You can see the whole ad by clicking on it.) One day in 1959, on the rear of an issue of Looney Tunes, I came across the offer depicted. For one dollar, you could receive twelve issues of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies…so right there, you saved money and you also received the security of knowing you wouldn't miss an issue. But, like they say in bad infomercials these days, that's not all! You also got a handsome membership certificate in the Dell Comics Club and a Dell Comics Club Lucky Penny Pocket Piece.

How could I pass that up? Never mind scoring $1.20 worth of comic books for $1.00. I suddenly wanted to belong to the Dell Comics Club. I wanted to belong and to feel a kinship with my fellow Dell Comics Clubbers and, of course, flash my Dell Comics Club Lucky Penny Pocket Piece for any and all to see.

Joining was not a simple thing since they wanted you to cut the coupon off the back cover, and I wasn't about to deface a comic book that way. In fact, it occurred to me that maybe this was an initiation test trick. Anyone who would cut up their comic book was not worthy of belonging to the Dell Comics Club and would be summarily rejected. So I made my father take the issue of Looney Tunes to work with him the next day and, when no one was looking, make a copy of the back cover on the office thermofax machine. My father did a lot of silly things to make his son happy and this was one of the less painful. Then we filled out the copy and he wrote me a check for a dollar, made payable to "Dell Publishing Co., Inc." and we sent it off. I was crushed to see that the next day's mail did not include my first issue, membership certificate and Dell Comics Club Lucky Penny Pocket Piece. Impatiently, I went back to the ad to check for any fine print that might indicate how long it would take for my goodies to arrive…and that is when I made a horrifying discovery.

The comic with the offer was from 1954.

It was one of those old ones I'd picked up at a second-hand store…in such good condition that it had seemed like a current issue. I had ordered from a comic that was five years old. (My excuse: I was only seven years old.) Feeling a bit foolish, I decided to say nothing and to wait and see what I did receive. Maybe the Dell Comics Club was holding open its membership for me? Just maybe?

No such luck. A few weeks later, I received a different Dell premium — a couple of Huckleberry Hound posters which I saw advertised as a subscription bonus in current issues. No membership certificate. No Dell Comics Club Lucky Penny Pocket Piece. Adding insult to injury or maybe injury to insult, I also began receiving a monthly subscription to Tom and Jerry comics. Never understood that. I imagined some guy at the Dell company going, "Hey, you know that kid who ordered the Looney Tunes subscription? Well, he was stupid enough to order from an old issue so he doesn't deserve Looney Tunes. Send him Tom and Jerry, instead!"

But that's how I never joined the Dell Comics Club…and how I missed several issues of Looney Tunes. When I was in my thirties, I decided to rectify the second problem. I decided to fill out my collection of Looney Tunes and, by searching dealers' tables at comic conventions, I was able to do this. Got 'em all…and back when the prices were low enough to do it for a buck or three an issue. Since the Dell Comics Club was long defunct — I presumed, since by then the Dell Comics company sure was — there was no chance of rectifying my childhood trauma by joining.

However…

There's a reader of this site named Mark Thorson. He's one of several who won't let a typo sit on this site for more than about three minutes. If I spell a word wrong at 8:34, I have a message from Thorson at 8:37. Anyway, the other day he wrote not to correct a mistake but to ask me about an eBay auction for a lucky charm relating to Dell Comics. Could it be?

I hustled my mouse over to eBay, bid…and, yes, I am now the proud owner of a Dell Comics Club Lucky Penny Pocket Piece. Have a look…

And here's the other side…

Okay, so it's not exactly like being a member but it's close. It says I'm a member and, you know, it's not like someone can run a check and find out I'm not. In fact, I hereby declare myself President of the Dell Comics Club. And vice-president. And secretary-treasurer and everything else. Try and stop me. After all, I'm the guy with the Dell Comics Club Lucky Penny Pocket Piece.

And that's pretty much all there is to this story. I just wanted to show off my new acquisition and…oh, wait. I should mention that my Dell Comics Club Lucky Penny Pocket Piece also says I will have good luck. This will be nice…though I suppose it would have been nicer if it had commenced in 1957. I've missed out on 43 years of good luck. Heck, if I'd been lucky back then, I might have gotten my Looney Tunes subscription.

The film version of Into the Woods which was released today was not the first attempt to turn the Broadway musical into a movie. In the early nineties, Jim Henson's company had a go at it, apparently not long after Mr. Henson's untimely passing. Here's an article about that effort…which frankly doesn't sound bad to me. (I'm assuming neither of the two different casts from two different readings would have been the final cast of the film).

• I wonder how many people paying to watch The Interview online realize they're giving their credit card information to Sony.

From John Cleese's recent book tour, here he is in conversation with Adam Savage of Mythbusters…

Last night on my way home from a Christmas party, I drove past a theater showing The Interview. The film was over and a fleet of TV camera trucks was outside, interviewing everyone in sight. There were no reports of terrorist activities. Sony seems to be doing good business with the movie today. Whatever concerns anyone had about the First Amendment being crumpled by the temporary unavailability of this one movie seem to be calmed. Am I the only one who thinks this whole matter — which only days ago seemed to be threatening the American Way of Life — was much ado about very little? And doesn't something smell a little fishy about the claim that the whole Sony hacking was North Korea's retaliation against a film that maligned their beloved leader and glorified the idea of murdering him?

No, I'm not suggesting Sony staged anything to promote this movie. And I'm certainly not suggesting the corporation hasn't been damaged and many of its employees embarrassed and inconvenienced by the hacking of their computer network. I'm just thinking this is a more pedestrian (and perhaps non-Korean) crime that took an odd turn when it became all about the movie.

I awoke this morn to messages telling me of a nice review of my new book, The Art of the Simon & Kirby Studio. Read the review here, then order the book here.

And that's about it from here. Hope you all have a fine day today. Which is not to suggest you can't also have a fine day tomorrow and the day after and the day after and…

This is from Christmas Day of 2009. Nothing has changed since then except that my mother is no longer around. We didn't do much Christmas celebrating the last few years…just took her out for dinner somewhere. Her last Christmas was spent in the hospital so it was even less of a special day. One good thing about minimizing Christmas in our lives was that it wasn't as sad a day for her to have to spend it in a hospital room.

When I first posted this, some people thought it was sad. Most though seemed to think it was a great way to view the holiday. That's how I always viewed it…

Christmas was never that big deal in our house, at least not after I hit age 10 or so. This was not because we were mostly Jewish. We observed every holiday we could find. If we'd known what it was, we would have celebrated Kwanzaa…but like all our holidays, with great restraint. We just never made that much fuss about any day.

My Uncle Aaron had been in the business of manufacturing store window displays and he gave us crates of leftover Christmas ornaments. So each year when I was a kid, we bought and decorated a tree, in part because we had twenty cases of decorations in the garage and it seemed like a shame to not put some of them to use. Eventually though, it began to feel more like an annual obligation than a pleasure…so we gave all the balls and snowflakes and garlands to a local charity and I'm sure the holiday baubles thereafter yielded more joy for more people than they'd ever given us. By the time I hit my teen years, we'd managed to whittle Christmas down to a family dinner and a brief exchange of presents.

I had friends who somehow managed to devote most of every December to Christmas…and often, it required a running start commencing shortly after Halloween. For them, the yuletide seemed to come with great excitement but also with all manner of stress factors relating to buying gifts, decorating homes, throwing parties and consorting with relatives who fell into the category of "People You'd Avoid At All Costs If They Weren't Family." So all the merriment was accompanied by a lot of angst and expense. A classmate once told me his father had found it necessary to arrange a bank loan that year just so he could afford a proper Christmas. That didn't sound like a holly jolly time to me.

We had none of that. No one felt pressure. No one went into debt. Everyone would somehow convey a few suggestions as to what they might like as a gift, and always an affordable one. That meant no one had to agonize too much to decide what to buy…and no one wasted their money on something the recipient didn't want or would never use or wear.

It all worked well but for a long time, I saw the huge productions that others made of Christmas and felt like I was missing out on something. Christmas was a special day but it wasn't as special to us as it seemed to be to others. I was well into my twenties when I figured out what was going on there. I was then going with a lady who dragged me into her family Christmas arrangements that year. Hours…days…whole weeks were spent planning the parties, the dinners, the gatherings. She spent cash she didn't have to buy gifts and purchase a new party-going outfit for herself…and the decorating took twice as long as Michelangelo spent painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

It seemed to me more like a chore than a celebration, and one night I asked her why she went to so much trouble. She said, "Christmas is important. When I was a kid, It was the one time of the year when we all got along…or came close to getting along."

There it was. She'd come from a large and dysfunctional family. Siblings were forever fighting. Parents drank and split up and got back together and screamed a lot and separated again. There was much yelling and occasional violence…

…but not as much at Christmas. Christmas was when they managed to put most of that aside. Christmas was when they generally managed to act the way they should have acted all year. That was why, when it came around, they made so much of it.

We never had to declare a holiday cease-fire in my family. We always got along. There was very little arguing between my parents or between them and me, and what little occurred never lasted long. I never had fights with brothers or sisters because I never had brothers or sisters. And my folks and I were known to give each other gifts for no special occasion and to occasionally get the whole (small) local family together for a big meal. So Christmas wasn't that much different from the way we lived all year.

A year or two ago, I told a friend all of the above and his reaction was on the order of, "Gee, too bad for you." Because in his household, Christmas was wondrous and festive and the source of most of his happy childhood memories. I never saw it that way. I have loads of happy childhood memories. They were just no more likely to occur around Christmas than at any other time…and I liked it that way. I mean, you can have Christmas once a year or you can have it 365 times a year. Peace on Earth, good will towards men doesn't have to stop later tonight.

Tomorrow night, Turner Classic Movies is running four Mel Brooks movies and then At the Circus with the Brothers Marx. On New Year's Eve, they're playing a lot of great rock n' roll flicks — Elvis on Tour, A Hard Day's Night, Gimme Shelter, Tommy and Jimi Hendrix and then on New Year's Day, they have six more Marx Brothers films. This info should please the three of my readers who don't already own multiple copies of all the Marx Brothers movies.

Their Neil Simon film fest kicks off the next day (January 1) with The Odd Couple (excellent), The Out-of-Towners (okay) and Come Blow Your Horn (avoid), hosted by our pal Ken Levine. Actually, don't avoid Come Blow Your Horn. Watch just to see how Ken finesses the fact that Norman Lear and Frank Sinatra ruined a perfectly good Neil Simon comedy.

MeTV starts running The Abbott & Costello Show in the wee small hours of the morning, beginning New Year's Day. I actually find those shows funnier than all but about six of the movies Bud and Lou made…and anything else they did in the fifties. You get all their best burlesque routines in pretty much their natural state without being shoehorned into a big, pointless plotline with a romantic sub-plot. It's just Bud and Lou plus the able support of Sid Fields, Joe Besser and a few other good folks.

The Late Late Show on CBS continues with Craig Ferguson reruns next week, then there will be guest hosts until James Corden takes over as host in March. All the announcements said that would happen on March 9 but when Corden was on last week with Craig, he said March 23 so I guess it's now March 23. He oughta know. In the meantime, Drew Carey hosts the week of January 5 and then the week of January 12, it's the ladies of the CBS daytime series, The Talk.

CNN is running Life Itself, the documentary on the life of film critic Roger Ebert, twice the evening of January 4. It's 6 PM and 8 PM on my set. That is all for now.

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.