One of our favorite holiday animations is a promo that CBS did in 1966. It was designed by illustrator R.O. Blechman and animated by Willis Pyle. As you can see, it's part of The War on Christmas because it wishes everyone Season's Greetings…

So was that Dick Cavett doing the voiceover on that trailer for The Producers? My pal Steve Stoliar, who knows Mr. Cavett well and has worked for him, went to the source to get the answer for us. Here's the word from the man himself…

The "character" voice part fooled even me for a moment. The rest is, I'd think, unmistakable. How very odd. Wonder what I made.

Frankly, I think that in lieu of pay, they should have given him 50% of Springtime for Hitler. But at least this is settled.

Thanks, Steve. And if the rest of you want to thank Steve — and read one of the best books on Groucho Marx there is — here's a link to order a copy of Raised Eyebrows: My Years Inside Groucho's House. In it, Steve even tells the tale of how he became friends with Dick Cavett.

I just corrected a date in something I posted yesterday. NBC's rebroadcast of The Sound of Music Live is Saturday, December 14, not the date I gave. This one wasn't my fault. The site I got it from had it wrong. Thanks to all who wrote to let me know.

• The Mega Millions Jackpot is at $400 million. Good time to enter. Who the hell would even want to win it when it was at $300 mil?

WonderCon, which takes place in Anaheim April 18-20 next year, has announced its second wave of Special Guests…and lo and behold! I'm one of them! So is Sergio Aragonés, who missed the last few due to health problems. His health problems have all gone away and he is back among the WonderConning. To everyone's certain surprise, I will be hosting a number of panels at the convention and just hanging around for three fun days. I'm hoping my own health problems — knees that have developed hostile attitudes — will be over by then.

That's Easter Weekend, a time when a nearby place called Disneyland is a wee bit crowded. Yeah, like neither Chip nor Dale can squeeze in. Still, if you can navigate around the traffic jams, you could have a very good time at WonderCon. I always do…and mainly for the same reasons a non-guest would: So much to see, so much to do. If the Comic-Con International (which is run by the same people) seems foreboding to you — or worse, sold out — WonderCon offers a lot of the same joys in smaller, easier-to-swallow doses.

Matthew Yglesias on how some Republicans, looking to skirt their promises to Grover Norquist, believe it's okay to raise taxes as long as you call them "fees." Funny…I seem to recall many times when a Republican would accuse a Democrat he or she was running against of raising taxes when they raised fees. And is there one person in this country who cares if the three dollars more he pays for something is a tax or a fee?

I was never a big fan of The Sound of Music on stage or screen. With the possible exception of South Pacific, the Rodgers and Hammerstein shows always strike me as well-written shows about people whose lives don't much interest me. But I sure like the idea of network TV airing musical comedies so I recorded and have now watched The Sound of Music Live.  The broadcast did great in the ratings…probably much better than any expectations.  NBC has announced that they will rebroadcast it on December 14, displacing a previously-scheduled airing of It's a Wonderful Life, and that there will be more such live presentations.

I thought they did a nice job. Carrie Underwood sang the songs well enough…but the role of Maria is kind of a dull one and it calls for an actress who can add loads of personality to the dialogue. That does not, alas, describe Ms. Underwood but I liked her and cringe at some of the reviews she received, scolding her for daring to not be Julie Andrews. (The write-up in Time pretty much came down to bitching that the show wasn't just like the movie.)

Everyone else was fine…and I'll overlook inauthentic racial casting any time it gets us Audra McDonald. If they were ever doing 1776, I wouldn't even mind if they hired her to play Mrs. John Adams.

Folks are speculating what show will receive this treatment next. If it were up to me — as of course it isn't and never will be — I'd opt for one of the many great musicals that is crying out for a faithful recorded production because the movie wasn't one. Doing The Music Man, as the same producers did for cable a few years ago, struck me as a pointless endeavor. The film was fine 'n' faithful…and if there was an actor around who could make us forget Robert Preston for two hours, it wasn't Matthew Broderick. Doing Bye Bye Birdie with Jason Alexander, as others did, was a better idea…or would have been if the original book of Bye Bye Birdie was more worthy of restoration.

My nomination will come as no surprise to my friends: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum…and being a comedy, it would have to be done with a live audience. That was something I missed somewhat with The Sound of Music. It just sounds wrong for some of those songs to not end with applause.

Forum is a great musical and one that on TV could easily best the movie version just by actually doing the book Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart wrote and including all the songs Stephen Sondheim wrote. It's also cheap enough to stage and shoot — one set! — so more money could be spent to assemble an all-star cast. Nathan Lane is the natural choice to star but there are other options. (Martin Short or Matthew Broderick as Hysterium? Andrew Rannells as Hero? John Goodman and Tracey Ullman as Senex and Domina? Audra McDonald as Miles Gloriosus?)

But they won't do my nomination. They'll pick a show with more familiar songs, and one that's strong on family and/or romance like The King and I or Camelot or Guys and Dolls. Guys and Dolls is another case where it wouldn't be hard to top the movie…and I still think someone should remake Damn Yankees with Christopher Walken as The Devil.

Or they may decide that they want to promote the show they do, as they did this time, by making a big deal out of the casting of children. In that case, we might get Oliver! or Annie. Those are two cases where I doubt they could improve on the movie versions but, hey, I'll take what I can get.

One last thing about The Sound of Music before we go to the video: Stephen Sondheim, in a recent book of his lyrics and the accompanying appearances, called attention to one particular lyric line by his mentor, Oscar Hammerstein. It's the mention in the title song of "A lark who is learning to pray." As Sondheim notes, that's to differentiate that lark from one who hasn't learned how to pray. It is a very silly phrase but it didn't strike me as such until Mr. Hammerstein's protégé began mocking it. As a result, I can never hear it again without a little mental giggle. And they sung it a lot in The Sound of Music Live.

Here's the best number from the show…

A couple of folks have written me to ask, "Hey, wasn't that Dick Cavett doing the voiceover for that trailer for The Producers?" I don't think so but some of it sure sounds like him. Actually, the first part of the V.O. sounds to me like New York announcer Mel Brandt trying to sound like Dick Cavett and the second part sounds like Dick Cavett trying to sound like Mel Brandt…which is not to say I'd bet that it's either of them.

Let's kick this around for a moment. The Producers was released on March 18, 1968. Dick Cavett's first daily talk show debuted March 4 of that year. We don't know if the trailer in question was done prior to the movie's release or some time later but even if it was done before, Mr. Cavett was probably rather busy prepping his new show…too busy to hop over to a recording studio for an hour to do a job that a thousand other SAG members in Manhattan could have done.

Then again, Cavett had done a number of radio spots with Mel Brooks before this. Then again, that trailer sure doesn't give the impression that Mel Brooks was involved in its making.

So I dunno. Would the friend of Mr. Cavett's who studiously reads this site like to ask him?

Steve Benen, like a lot of people, is outraged that many Republican governors have refused the state Medicaid expansion that Obamacare offers. Why? Well, I sure haven't seen one come up with a credible reason other than that they don't want to be caught cooperating with an Obama-approved plan. That it would help many of their state's residents and maybe even save some of their lives is apparently not a reason that trumps scoring political points.

I enjoyed darn near all of Six by Sondheim, the new HBO documentary about you-know-who…with two reservations. Or maybe "hesitations" would be the right word. Anyway, they're small.

One was that new music video rendition of "I'm Still Here" by Jarvis Cocker. If Mr. Sondheim liked that — and I'm assuming he did or it wouldn't have happened — I would love to hear why. The disconnect between performer and lyric has never seemed greater to me in any performance of a Sondheim tune. Cocker has style and talent but what he doesn't have is any relevance to that song. James Lapine, who helmed the documentary, said the songs were chosen to "serve the storytelling" of Sondheim's own story, and Sondheim himself often speaks of the importance of his songs as being true to character. How, I wonder, does that apply to that particular staging, casting and interpretation?

Okay, tiny quibble. Here's a little larger one. I love and respect Stephen Sondheim and I'm starting to worry. A lesser man's ego would have long since exploded with all these tributes and honors and, in some cases, fawning so out of proportion you question its sincerity. I do, anyway. But even if it is all earnestly meant…is this, like, the farewell testimonial for a guy who's never going to write anything again? Sounds like it.

Sondheim is 83 and still seems sharp. I'd like to think he has another show or two in him…or maybe more songs, not necessarily in the context of a full Broadway musical. Maybe not…and if not, fine. He's earned his retirement. But the only times I ever see or hear of him these days are when someone's kissing his ring. That is, after getting him to tell the story of the afternoon when Oscar Hammerstein taught him everything…an anecdote of his which has now had more performances than Follies.

Now, I happen to think the guy really is that great but I wonder how healthy it is for everyone to keep saying it. I know a guy who wrote a couple of Broadway musicals that had reasonable success and if you praised him like Sondheim gets praised these days, this fellow would never write another song as long as he lived. He wouldn't dare because no matter how good it was, it could never possibly live up to this reputation he'd have achieved. Or if he did do something, it would only be because all the honors had convinced him he was infallible and anything he did was good enough. When you have that attitude, you can't help but go down in flames.

I guess this isn't so much about Sondheim — a man I don't really know except as someone I admire. We've spoken a grand total of once for about a minute and maybe — and I hope this is so — he's immune to this. But I've met talented people whose work was, I suspect, damaged by being elevated to godlike status.

Either their belief in their own abilities reached a self-destructive mass…or they were paralyzed by the compliments, unable to create much of anything. One even said to me once, "Everyone thinks I'm a genius. And I will be, as long as I don't do anything that disappoints anyone." That's a heavy burden for a creative talent to shoulder. It's certainly a great reason to not try anything new — to either imitate your past successes or, to play it really safe, do nothing.

Sondheim doesn't owe the world any more than he's given us but it would be nice to hear more. It's not likely that anyone could revolutionize the musical theater yet again at his age…but if anyone can, he's the guy. The documentary was great. I'd like to think he will still do something that will make it not the final word.

Here's some video of everyone praising it and him at the preview party…

Samantha Schiebe, the woman who wanted George Zimmerman arrested last month for pointing a gun at her, now not only wants to drop charges against him but, they say, wants to get back with him. She's recanting her story…

She placed some blame on police for her previous version of the domestic dispute. "When I was being questioned by police I felt very intimidated," she wrote. "I believe that the police misinterpreted me and that I may have misspoken about certain facts in my statement to police."

In her 911 call, she can be heard very clearly saying he'd stuck a gun in her face. How did the police misinterpret that? Or how do you misspeak about that? Apparently, this woman was "intimidated" by having to talk to police but not by having a gun aimed at her.

Most of all, how does a relationship resume after one person has had the other person arrested and charged with aggravated assault, a felony, as well as with battery and criminal mischief? Either he pointed a gun at her or she lied or both occurred. In the world I live in, any one of those things is more than sufficient grounds for one or more likely both to scream, "Get this crazy person out of my life!"

The other day here, we told you that jazz trumpeter Jack Sheldon was back playing after a stroke that left many thinking he'd never play again. Here's Doug McIntyre with a report on the man's comeback. Thanks to my cousin David Evanier for letting me know about this article.

The TV network GSN will be running some old episodes of What's My Line? and I've Got a Secret starting December 18. They do this every year for, I guess, some sort of contractual reasons. I dunno which episodes they'll be running or if it'll last more than a week…but it's something. I've set my TiVo and we'll see what I get.

This fascinates me. I think The Producers — the original one, the one with Zero Mostel — is one of the ten-or-so funniest movies ever made. This is a trailer from, I believe, its initial release…a trailer that would never in a million years make me want to see this film. Whoever made it didn't think to include a single funny moment. He didn't think to include a shot of Lee Meredith in her bikini. There's no trace of Kenneth Mars…no shot of the audience staring in horror at the play…no scene of any real interest. Oh, but there is that terrible library music at the beginning. No wonder this picture didn't do the kind of business it deserved when it came out…

Badge registration for Comic-Con 2014 has been postponed 'til some time "early next year." The online process is being upgraded and that's all I know about this at the moment. There's probably some joke I could make likening that procedure to signing up for Obamacare but it's Monday and nothing is funny on Monday.