Nicholas Kristof suggests this country save some money by eliminating five public welfare programs. But of course, they won't be eliminated…because they're welfare for the wealthy.

Here's a nice little profile of Carl Reiner and what he's up to these days. It makes the usual mistake of thinking Larry Gelbart worked on Your Show of Shows but we've all come to expect that by now.

Carl talks about the 1973 compilation movie, Ten From Your Show of Shows. The Cinefamily group here in Los Angeles, which shows interesting films at the old Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax, will be running Ten From Your Show of Shows on April 4 and 5 as a tribute to Sid Caesar. The April 4th screening, which will be hosted by Mel Brooks, is sold out. Seats seem to still be available for April 5th. I'll be at the April 4 event so I'll give you a full report…but I can tell you in advance that people will be laughing a lot and Mel will tell the story about Sid trying to pull the cab driver out through the little window of his taxi.

In January of 1965, on the day before Lyndon Johnson was sworn in for his full term as president, I saw a great special on TV. It was called Allan Sherman's Funnyland and it starred Allan Sherman and his guests Lorne Greene, Jack Gilford and Angie Dickinson. As I've written here, I loved Allan Sherman when I was a kid. I still do in many ways.

In that pre-VCR era, I recorded the audio of the show (which aired but once) on my reel-to-reel tape recorder and played it over and over and over. At some point, I lost that tape but it almost didn't matter: I had the show committed to memory. A few years ago, someone sent me a DVD of it so I could see and hear it again…and I still thought it was a pretty good special. Someone has posted a couple of chunks of it on YouTube and here's one. I'll post another one tomorrow…

Writer Lorenzo Semple Jr. has died at the age of 91. A lot of folks reading this will recognize him as the main writer behind the Batman TV show of the sixties…and he did many other things, as this obit will tell you. I was not a fan of that show (or what it did to the public image of comic books) but Mr. Semple had a splendid body of work and he deserves to be celebrated for it…and for things other than Batman.

Anthony Tollin sent me a link to the obit. And Anthony Fiske sent me a question to ask why Semple is being billed as the "creator of Batman" in some reports. Well actually, I think they say he was the creator of the TV series, which is also not the proper phraseology. The Writers Guild has changed the rules from time to time but generally now, the person who writes the bible and pilot for a new series based on pre-existing material — which is what Semple did for Batman — gets the credit, "Developed for television by…" It was a little less formalized back when the show went on.

We had a 5.1 earthquake here in Los Angeles earlier. Where I was, it felt weaker than the 4.4 we had eleven days ago, though it lasted a lot longer. No damage here.

The earthquake hit at 9:09 PM. It dawned on me that if it had hit between 7 PM and 8 PM, Bill Maher would have been on live doing his Real Time show…which would have been interesting. Maher would have probably yelled "Damn fracking" as he and his guests dove under the table.

And by the way: Every time one of these things hits while the news is on live, people make fun of the way the news folks reacted. Ever been on a live TV stage and seen how many lights and other equipment you have dangling over your head? It's not a place you want to be during a quake. I was once…and while none of the lights fell, a lot of dirt and other minor debris fell on us.

Time is running out to cast your ballot for this year's Will Eisner Comic Awards Hall of Fame. Like, you have until Monday. If you're a professional in the comic book industry — defined as writers, artists, colorists, letterers, editors, publishers, retailers, scholars and librarians — you're qualified to vote. Go here to do your duty.

One of the dumber controversies flaring today is one that concerns a bit Stephen Colbert did on his show last night about racial stereotypes. And the outraged folks — the ones pushing #CancelColbert as a Twitter hashtag — aren't even upset about the routine but about a Twitter excerpt from it. Here's Brittney Cooper making the case for the offended and Mary Elizabeth Williams making the case that the offended shouldn't be offended. I rarely agree with Ms. Williams' articles about the TV business but I'm with her on this one. And I would think the chances of Comedy Central canceling The Colbert Report are about the same as the chances of McDonald's dropping french fries from their menu.

This will probably amuse about six people but since I'm one of them and it's my blog, here it is. At first, it may not sound like a Tale From Costco but be patient. We'll get there.

We all have silly little words and phrases that inexplicably make us laugh. One of mine came from a comedy writer named Fred Rosenberg who, alas, is no longer with us. There are a number of Fred Rosenbergs alive and working in the entertainment industry but not the one who did the great impression of comedian Jack Carter.

It was a really dumb impression — that was kind of the point of it — but Fred did it every time I was around him and I always found it funny. He wouldn't replicate Carter's voice but he'd mimic the man's posture and frantic onstage manner. (For those of you who came in late to comedy: Jack Carter was a popular comic of the fifties and sixties, often seen on The Ed Sullivan Show and any other venue that booked stand-ups.)

So Fred would do this inane impression and it consisted of one line out of Carter's act. This is from around 1962…

These kids today with their dances! They do the Mashed Potato! They do the Baked Potato!

(And again, to translate for these kids today: The Mashed Potato was a dance somewhat like The Twist. There was probably a dance called the Baked Potato somewhere but Carter's joke was based on the assumption that there wasn't…and wasn't it absurd to think there might be? That's part of why Fred's impression was so funny to me, hauling out that silly line.)

Anyway, I laughed whenever Fred did the impression and to this day when I see mashed potatoes somewhere, I am often reminded of Fred's portrayal and I laugh. Yesterday afternoon, I was in Costco. I put a rotisserie chicken in my cart. I put a packaged Kosher-for-Passover turkey breast in my cart. I put four large bags of Arm & Hammer Baking Soda in my cart. I put a case of organic chicken broth in my cart. I put a case of canned cat food in my cart. I did not put either a large package of paper towels or toilet paper in my cart and I was wondering if they'd let me out of the building without one.

And then I spotted a big package of prepared mashed potatoes on display and it made me think of Fred Rosenberg's Jack Carter impression and I laughed. It's been more than twenty years since I last saw Fred but I heard his voice in my head and I laughed out loud. Other shoppers looked at me strangely but I didn't care.

One elderly gent who glared at me was driving around on one of those little scooters that Costco provides for shoppers who can't walk. He stared at me as if to say, "What's that idiot laughing about?" And I stared at him and thought, "Hey, I know who that is…" And I swear to God — it was Jack Carter.

Can you identify the 43 cartoon show themes in this video? I couldn't.

A reader of this site who asked to remain nameless sent the following…

I feel the need to thank you for your articles about your family and in particular about the loss of your father and mother. I am going through this right now. I am about your age I think and I do not know how long my mother will be with me. She is spending more time in the hospital than at home and I am at a loss as to what to do for her. If you have any advice, I would love to hear it. Perhaps you could post this on your site and answer it so I will not be the only one to benefit from it.

Well, I think the main thing to remember is that your mother needs an advocate and a pair of legs. If she's going to the hospital a lot, she needs someone to take care of her home and affairs. It's easy to neglect bills and such when you're being shuttled off to see doctors and reside in a hospital often. But she also needs you to be around to help her be in the hospital.

Between my father and my mother, I became an expert at coping with the Kaiser Hospital to which they both went. (My father died at Kaiser. My mother died at another hospital, a few blocks from the nursing home in which I placed her.) I learned my way around Kaiser. I learned which departments handled what services. I learned shortcuts and ways into restricted areas. I learned to understand to the extent humanly possible, the bureaucracy in the place — which person could overrule which person, which person could make things hurry up, etc. I learned where the vending machines were and how to get a prescription filled, a.s.a.p. instead of waiting hours.

One of the main things I did for my parents was to go in and make friends with everyone. I was never rude or unpleasant with any hospital employee but I learned the nice way to say that I thought they needed to do more or do it sooner. These people spend their lives getting yelled at by angry/terrified people who don't understand the reality of a hospital's organization or how each person has limits on what they are allowed to do. That nurse may not be authorized to give the patient a sedative, for instance, and it doesn't do a lick of good to shout at her or make threats or demands. They're very appreciative when you understand their problems and you say things like, "I know you aren't empowered to do this for my mother…can you point me in the direction of someone who is?"

I was familiar with some of the senior officials of the hospital and I was shameless in dropping their names. When lower-grade staffers took care of my mother, I wanted them to know that I knew their bosses. It would have been counter-productive to say something assholish like, "If you don't do such-and-such, I'm going straight to Dr. Wasserman and get you fired!" Hysterical Loved Ones do that all the time and it doesn't help. It really doesn't. It makes hospital employees want to avoid you, not extend themselves. So I didn't do that…but it sure didn't hurt to let them know I knew Dr. Wasserman and would at some point be speaking to him.

I learned to carry a notebook with me (later, my iPad) and to jot down the names and titles and direct phone lines of everyone I dealt with and everyone to whom I was referred. I had special business cards printed. My regular business card is kinda fancy and it has a caricature of me on it — a drawing done by the legendary Al Hirschfeld. I even have three NINAs in my hair. Cute card for business reasons…distracting in this context.

I had another, simpler one printed that just has my name, my phone number and my e-mail address in large, easy-to-read letters with no frills. When I took my mother into the hospital, I would pass the simpler one around to everyone who had contact with her and tell them, "Call me at any hour if I can do anything for her." And I'd leave a small pile of the cards next to my mother's bed. Those were of great help. Even when they never resulted in anyone calling me, they reminded all that the patient had someone keeping an eye on her…someone who might complain if she didn't get the best possible attention.

Another tip: Have one phone number. The number on my cards and all the forms I filled out at the hospital had my home number. When I was out, especially when my mother was in the hospital, I put my phone number on call-forwarding to my cell phone. So they could call the number I'd given them and always reach me.

It helped that they knew me. Often, a new nurse would come on duty, I'd go meet her and she'd say, "Oh, the nurse on the night shift told me you were so funny and helpful." Exactly the reaction I wanted! One time, my mother was taken in by ambulance without me being around. She phoned me from the hospital and told me where she was. I said, "I'll be right over." She said, "Good. You need to walk around and make all the nurses laugh and make them all think I'm someone special because I'm your mother." I laughed and I thought, "Yeah, I guess that's pretty much what I do."

My mother would help that along by telling every single Kaiser employee she encountered, "My son does the Garfield cartoons for TV." Actually, late in her life, she for some reason took to asking each nurse and orderly what their favorite cartoon show was…or if applicable, their kids' favorite cartoon show. And whatever they answered, she'd tell them, "Oh, my son writes that show." I walked in one time and a nurse said to me, "Oh, so you're the person who writes SpongeBob SquarePants."

I'd never seen the show but you can't make a liar out of your own mother…so I'd say, "Yeah, sure." The nurse then said to me, "I watch that show every day with my kids. Which is your favorite character to write?"

I said, "Uh…why, SpongeBob, of course!" When I was away from her a few minutes later, I hauled out my iPad, found the Wikipedia page on SpongeBob and learned some things about him in case I needed to engage in further bluffing. (Another nurse who found me charming had given me the password to the hospital's non-public — and therefore, much faster — Wi-Fi.)

Maybe you can't convince a SpongeBob fan that you write SpongeBob but you can find some reason they'll remember who you are. It could just be that you're unusually polite and congenial.

One time, I used my cartoon connections to get my mother a special consultation with a hospital ophthalmologist but I've told that story here already. I'll close this with one other incident though but first, let me summarize: You need to be there for your parent or other hospitalized person. You need to be around and to let the hospital staff know you'll be around and that you understand what they can and cannot do.

You need to cut through the Red Tape and navigate the infrastructure and hierarchy of the building. (I also learned where the employee parking lot was. More than once when I was having trouble reaching someone through official channels and I knew they were out to lunch, I'd get myself a sandwich, go down and wait in their parking space for them to return.) And you need to learn to do all this while still being a reasonable, friendly human being.

Now then. A final story…

One Sunday, my mother was ready to go home from the hospital. She was eager to get out of there and impatient that the paperwork to spring her had not been processed. "I want to be home in my own bed," she said over and over. I went to the nurse — who of course was on my side — and she said, "The only person who can expedite that is the Charge Nurse and she's not around at the moment." So I went in search of the elusive Charge Nurse. For an hour, I ran all over Kaiser Medical Center looking for her, being told, "Oh, she was here but she just went down to X-Ray" or "You just missed her…she went to the cafeteria to get some lunch." Inspector Javert did not pursue Jean Valjean with half the fervor of me searching for that damned Charge Nurse.

Finally, a nurse I'd made laugh several times phoned me on my cell and told me where to find the fugitive Charge Nurse. I rushed to that location with a sense of "Now I've got her" and a determination that I would not take no or even "in a little while" for an answer. I was relentless. I was unflinching. I was resolute.

And then I spotted the Charge Nurse. A lot of the nurses at Kaiser wore these colorful scrubs decorated with flowers or cartoon characters. The Charge Nurse was wearing one covered with pictures of Garfield. I did a drawing of Odie for the woman and had my mother out of that place in ten minutes.

Sometimes, it's just so easy.

Alex Pareene reveals how the Tea Party works: A lot of anger and fear is stoked, often with bogus charges. Angry and scared people donate large sums of moola to try and elect candidates who will correct these alleged outrages…and then the folks who collect this money spend little or none of it to help candidates and put some or all of it into their own pockets.

I think this kind of thing is a lot more common in politics than we think. I may have mentioned this but I have a special e-mail address that I only use when I have to sign up on a website that seems likely to bombard me with junk messages. A lot of what this address receives is extreme wacko political stuff because I have been known to explore those sites and most of it seeks to get me riled-up about someone or something with what is usually a fraudulent account of something. And of course, it all leads to a pitch to send them money.

We know that's what they're trying to do — get us mad so we'll give the bucks — but I don't think we realize how much of that money just goes to the folks doing the riling. I wonder how much outrage there would be in this country if there wasn't so much money in it.

Amazon is now taking pre-orders for the forthcoming boxed set of The Bob Newhart Show. All six seasons — 142 episodes — are in it for a grand total of 3,180 minutes on eighteen DVD discs. It will be out in May and include new interviews with many of the cast members, a 1991 retrospective special, a "bloopers" reel, a 40 page booklet and audio commentaries from Bob and several members of the cast. They're also including the original pilot, which was significantly altered (new scenes, a few different actors) before it was telecast. Could a fan of this show not be delighted?

Well, yes. Here's why some folks are upset. Beginning in 2005, Twentieth Century Fox's home video division issued single season sets. They put out Season One and all the lovers of this show bought it. Then they put out Season Two and all the lovers of this show bought it. Then Season Three and Season Four and then…nothing. Fox never put out Seasons Five and Six. Their license to issue this show expired and the good folks at Shout Factory have grabbed it up and they're putting this set out…but no individual sets of the last two seasons. If you want them, you have to buy the whole set.

Now, this is not quite as bad financially as it may sound. Originally, the season-by-season sets listed for $29.95 each. If you snatched them up then, you probably paid about $20 each for them. (They are now being closed-out at lower prices.) If you were prepared to pay that for the remaining two seasons, that's forty bucks…but right now, you can pre-order the entire set for $80 plus you get the new special features. Some of the special features are repeated but a few aren't. Also, of course, by buying the individual seasons, you got those shows for your viewing pleasure eight or nine years ago. You didn't have to wait until 2014 to have any of them.

I don't know that you should feel abused here…and if you were, don't blame Shout Factory. They're putting out what looks like a nice set and they aren't the reason you didn't get Seasons Five and Six from the previous company. It might be nice if they put out just those years for those collectors who already have two-thirds of these programs…but that's kind of how home video works. You buy it and then you buy a fancier version later. If you're pissed, just think how annoyed you'll be after you buy the complete set and they announce a Blu-ray edition with material that was never on home video before…so you have to buy that.

For now, if you want the Complete Bob Newhart Show, you can advance-order it at this link. Looks like a great price for a great set of a great show. Thanks to Sitcom Expert Vince Waldron for letting me know they were taking orders now. Vince contributed to that booklet that's included and he always does fine work.

Here is a very long (100+ minutes) interview with a very funny, bright man named Buck Henry. Buck was involved with TV shows (Get Smart, Quark, That Was the Week That Was, Captain Nice, Saturday Night Live) and movies (Catch 22, The Graduate, Heaven Can Wait) and anyone who aspires to write or understand those forms would do well to invest the 100+ minutes in this…

Wikipedia, which as we all know is never wrong about anything, defines a show tune thusly: "A show tune is a popular song originally written as part of the score of a show (or stage musical), especially if the piece in question has become a standard, more or less detached in most people's minds from the original context." I would like to suggest that's a rotten definition…or at least, an outdated one. It sure doesn't apply to a lot of what I hear on the Show Tunes music channel I hear on my TV or the Broadway channel on Sirius XM radio. To give just one example, both often play "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life," from Spamalot or "Springtime for Hitler" from The Producers. These were two big, show-stopping numbers in productions that won for Best Musical…

…but they don't fit that definition. They weren't written as part of the score of a stage musical. Both were written for movies.

The definition of a show tune on these audio channels seems to be anything that was performed on a Broadway stage. This makes the biggest hits of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons into show tunes. They were performed in Jersey Boys. All the Leiber and Stoller hits like "Jailhouse Rock" are show tunes because they were in Smokey Joe's Cafe. A lot of disco records from the seventies are show tunes because they were in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

I got to thinking about this a few weeks ago as I was flipping the dial on my Sirius XM radio. On the seventies channel, I heard ABBA performing "Mamma Mia." Then I switched over to the Broadway channel and there was the Broadway cast of Mamma Mia singing "Mamma Mia." I may have been confused but I think a few weeks later on the Broadway channel, I heard "Waterloo," which is also in the stage musical of Mamma Mia, but this time they were playing the ABBA original. (The rule seems to be that it's the song that makes it a show tune, not who sings it.)

What I'm getting at is that the line of demarcation is beyond fuzzy here. I guess it was always fuzzy because, for example, several songs the Gershwins wrote for movies were later used in stage productions. But with all these "jukebox" musicals built around the hits of earlier decades, the line is blurred beyond recognition. Now, I turn on my radio and I hear someone singing "Yesterday." Is this the sixties channel I'm on? Or the Broadway channel because that song was in Beatlemania? Beats me.

And speaking of Sid Caesar…

Today (Wednesday), Stu Shostak devotes his show to a tribute and discussion of the late, great comic genius.  Tune in and hear people who knew and worked with Sid discussing the incredible talent and the man who had that talent.  He was an interesting, sometimes troubled individual but no one ever did sketch comedy better.  You'll hear a few remarks from Sid's old co-star Carl Reiner and more from the fine comedienne Geri Jewell, the superb writing team of Rocky and Irma Kalish, and from me.  I think I'm on last.  We all worked with Sid and I suspect we have different perspectives on who he was, the nature of his special genius and the answer to that most painful question, "Why aren't you on TV more often?"  Oughta be a good 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 to three or beyond.  Betcha this one makes it to at least three.

Shortly after a show ends, it's available for downloading from the Archives on that site. Downloads are a paltry 99 cents each and you can get four for the price of three.