Ten words that are guaranteed to win any game of Scrabble® and which you'll never be able to make from the tiles on your rack.

Hey, remember that Stooge bargain I said you could score at Fry's Electronics? Well, they're now accepting orders for it on their website. If you don't have it and you care about the Stooges, this is probably the best price you're going to find for a terrific DVD set of their shorts. I don't make any commission on this but I'm recommending it anyway. 'Til 4/18, it's $34.99. Amazon currently has it for $53.60.

I can't think of too many funny men who are universally admired by those who do comedy for a living.  And it wasn't just that Jonathan Winters made his fellow practitioners laugh.  It's that they'd look at him and that awesome body of funny, shake their heads and envy someone who was just plain born that way.  Jonathan's humor seemed to come from someplace deep within him; not like a lot of guys who decide they could make it as a comic and then sit down and write an act.  Jonathan was his act and vice-versa.

People said he was "always on."  In my encounters with him, that was true as long as he had his finger on the "on" switch and didn't feel someone was manipulating him into providing free entertainment.  He would start doing bits in restaurants, bits in hallways, bits on the street.  For a time at Hanna-Barbera, he'd come in to do voices on some show and then spend hours after the session, working the corridors and performing for anyone willing to listen.  And of course, everyone was.  You couldn't go up to him and ask him to be funny but…well, here's how it worked.  A bunch of writers would be sitting with me in my office, plotting against Management.  I had a great office there, far better than I deserved…but a perfect room for Jonathan Winters to work.  So he'd poke his head in seeking an audience and I'd say, "Oh, are you here to fix the plumbing?"  And suddenly, it wouldn't be Jonathan Winters there.  Suddenly, it would be a plumber talking about how my sewers were backed up clear to Escondido.

I first discovered him on his records.  They were great records but what was wonderful about Jonathan was his spontaneity.  What really made me love him was when he appeared with Jack Paar and you could tell, as is never the case with today's talk show hosts, that Paar had no idea where Jonathan was going.  Jonathan probably didn't know either but when Paar introduced him, no one was sure who or what would walk out.  Then, I thought, he stole one of my favorite movies, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.   Given the competition on the screen, that was like winning the World Series of Comedy.

I'll probably have to write several posts about Jonathan, especially given that I should be getting ready for a lunch meeting instead of writing this.  I'll write about working with him.  I'll write about seeing what I believe may have been his last stage performance.  (I'm wondering if his last lengthy interview was his two-plus hour conversation with Stu Shostak on Stu's Show last September.)  There's just so much to say.  He was also a fine artist and one-time cartoonist and I'd half-talked him into doing the foreword for the next Pogo collection.  The other guy we were going after was Roger Ebert so let that be a warning to you if you're asked.

Remember what I wrote here the other day about how we're losing too many of the great comic book artists of the past?  Well, it would apply to comedians like Jonathan Winters but for the fact that there are no other comedians like Jonathan Winters.   There never have been and, alas, there never will be.

Steve Billnitzer suggests I share this with you. Through next Friday (4/19), the Fry's Electronics shops seem to be selling the 20-DVD Three Stooges: The Ultimate Collection for $34.99. That's in their stores only, not online. Steve got the info from this ad so you might want to verify before you scurry on over, just in case they don't have them in the one near you.

Think of it: You can get all 190 of the Stooges' Columbia shorts (plus selected Shemp, Joe Besser and Joe DeRita solo shorts) for thirty-five smackers. Leaving aside the solo films, that's like 18 and a half cents per short. That's four cents per poke-in-the-eyes, six cents per "Nyuk nyuk nyuk," nine cents for every piece of pottery broken over someone's head, a dime per crippling physical injury to Larry and exactly $5.83 per moment of human dignity.

For those of you who don't know Fry's, it's a chain of 34 stores in nine states that sell an odd array of low-priced electronics items amidst usually-odder decor. They carry some but not all of the major brands and then supplement them with cheap non-major brands. The ones I've been in all always have that "going out of business" feel like they hauled everything they had out of the warehouse and stuck it on the shelves, not always in the most logical arrangement, for the public to pick through. If you can find what you want there, you usually can't find it anywhere else for less. That is, assuming you don't get one of those items that looks like it was sold, returned, put up for sale again, sold, returned and put up for sale again.

I really like Fry's but I've never been able to figure out what, if anything, was on the mind of their interior decorator…and sometimes you need to go on a scavenger hunt there. Like, you go in to buy a cheap external hard drive and you find the display of cheap external hard drives in the cheap external hard drive section and you select a cheap external hard drive. But later, wandering the aisles, you also find another display of even cheaper external hard drives over in the section with the kitchen appliances, right between the cheap panini presses and the cheap hand blenders. For some reason, I like that. I also like the fact that, at least in every Fry's I've ever visited (maybe four of them), they have all this wonderful high-tech equipment and then the person who checks you out and takes your money is working with a cash register that's one step above an abacus.

The more I think about it, the more I think it's the perfect place to buy Three Stooges DVDs. Moe himself may even be there to wait on you.

Did you see — of course you did — Rand Paul out there trying to woo the black vote by arguing that once upon a time, in a land far away, the Republican Party was good to and for Afro-Americans? Talk about underestimating voters. There's not a person in this country who would ally with any political party based on what some who were nominally of that party did decades ago. No one. I'm sure even Senator Paul could name lots of things the G.O.P. did in the past that would drive him from the party if they were examples of its current policies. I don't think today's Republican Party is the same mob that elected Ronald Reagan, let alone the one that supported the Emancipation Proclamation. If that's the best argument they can make for themselves…

I'm going to keep a running list of Things Republicans Shouldn't Do. So far, I have…

1. Discuss rape, especially if they're male.
2. Attempt to lure black voters by going back to the previous century.

There will be more plus I may start one for the Democrats. The first item on it will probably be something about blaming the Iraq War solely on Republicans.

The memorial service for Roger Ebert was held yesterday in, appropriately enough, a movie theater in Chicago. At the moment, you can watch the three-hour ceremony online on this page. These kinds of things have a way of disappearing from the Internet before long so if you want to see it, go see it.

We keep hearing about big cuts in military spending. So what are they? According to Fred Kaplan, darn near nothing is on the cutting block.

The show we now know as Saturday Night Live was actually called NBC Saturday Night when it first debuted. As I explained here, they couldn't use the former name because there was then, in 1975, a prime-time ABC series called Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell. It was an attempt to replicate the appeal of The Ed Sullivan Show, turning the verbose sportscaster into a variety host — or trying to. Three things, I thought, went wrong with the program…

1. They didn't get very thrilling acts. Or at least they didn't seem thrilling in that context.
2. The show aired on the wrong night. Ed's show was perfect for Sunday evening when a lot of families gathered for dinner. After the dishes were cleared away, the whole clan could retire to the living room and watch The Ed Sullivan Show, configured as it was with performers for every age — a bear act for the kids, an old pro singer for the adults, Alan King and/or Myron Cohen for any Jews who might be watching, a teen heartthrob singer for the teens, etc. Families weren't congregating much in front of the TV together by '75 — that's a big reason why Ed went off in '71 — and they never did that on Saturday.
3. And Howard Cosell really only did two things well. He was a pretty decent sportscaster. He could be "the man you love to hate" with his obnoxious, snotty remarks and gin up controversy. This show called on him to do neither of those things he did well.

One of these days, I'll relate the tale of an encounter I had with Mr. Cosell. Right now, you just need to know that his Saturday Night Live went on in September of 1975 and it was gone before the end of the following January. This clip from it features one of my heroes…the master magician, Mark Wilson, performing here with his wife and son. A lot of guys my age got interested in magic in the sixties because Wilson made it seem to so cool. And even more got into it because they yearned for a wife/assistant who looked as good as the lovely Nani Darnell…

You know how sometimes you're standing in a line and it makes you feel oddly better if others come and line up behind you? You're just as far from the front as you'd be if they weren't there but somehow, it's comforting that you're no longer at the end. There are times when it's also comforting to have more people ahead of you.

I got into comic books in 1970, a date which seems like months ago — sometimes, weeks ago — to me. The musician Eubie Blake used to ask, "How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?" I think I'd be around 28…around enough to learn some stuff, including how much I didn't know…but still a kid with a long way to travel. I'm really 61 and unable to process the hard fact that I'm now almost ten years older than Jack Kirby was when I met him in 1969.

Last year at WonderCon, I stunned my friends Marv Wolfman and Len Wein with a realization. There were 40,000 people there and the three people who'd been in the comic book industry the longest were the three of us. As far as I know, no one who set foot in that hall that year had worked in comics before we did. This year, there were a few who had. Russ Heath was there. And Jim Steranko. And Neal Adams. And I heard Stan Lee slipped in for one panel…but I think that was it. This year, there'll be 130,000+ people at the Comic-Con International in San Diego. I'll be surprised if there are ten people in that convention center who were in comics before I was.

People keep asking me, "Why don't you have those great Golden Age Panels anymore?" Well, I didn't do the math on it last year but the year before, insofar as I could tell, there were only three people at the convention who'd been in comics before Kennedy was shot. They were Stan Lee, Ramona Fradon and Jerry Robinson. Jerry's since passed away and Stan won't do panels about "the old days." So that's why no Golden Age Panel. That year, we couldn't have done a Silver Age Panel, either.

Someone called and asked me the other day who's still with us who drew Superman in the forties. I think that would be Al Plastino, who started in 1948. In the history of the Man of Steel, the next person to draw him professionally who's still alive would probably be Neal Adams who started doing covers in 1967. For Batman? Well, with the passing of Carmine Infantino, I think the honor goes to Joe Giella, who began inking Infantino's Batman stories in 1964 and later pencilled the Batman newspaper strip and a few stories. Next in line is, again, Neal Adams.

Those of you who are around my age may remember Neal Adams as "the new guy in comics."

There are still people around who were in comics in the forties — by my count, about fifteen — but they don't get to conventions much. Happily, the guy I believe holds the record for the longest career in comics of anyone alive is still drawing the occasional comic book. That would be Sam Glanzman, who started in 1939 and recently did some new "U.S.S. Stevens" stories based on his World War II memories. He's one of the few people left in our field who has any.

I mention all this not to be morose. We need to be reminded to celebrate the ones we can while we can and I'm delighted to hear that Joe Sinnott will be out for San Diego. Joe began working in comics in 1950. If you make it to the con, don't miss the chance to tell him what his work has meant to us.

Stop e-mailing me to ask when my Larry Storch obit will be up. The man isn't dead. Yes, I know it's being reported on the Internet. As hard as this may be to believe, people on the Internet occasionally get things wrong. In fact, they get them so wrong that the friggin' National Enquirer has to correct them!

Here's a little number from one of the best Broadway-type voices out there today, Idina Menzel…

From a friend on the "inside"…

You're right that [Letterman's] not dancing a jig that Leno's going off next February. It puts the spotlight on him to now begin making a graceful exit or justify why he's staying on and not letting CBS which has been so good to him, begin breaking in a new and younger host. Also I don't think this is likely but what if he starts getting clobbered by the two Jimmys and has to go out in third place? He'll wish he'd left when Jay did.

Leno going off means Dave will never have the triumph of finally beating Leno once again. No one thought that was ever that likely but it was also far from impossible. Jay hasn't been beating him by that much.

As you said, Dave doesn't have anything professionally he wants to do after he leaves his current show. He likes appearing in front of an audience as long as every single aspect of the appearance is under his control. He's God up on that stage for an hour a night and that's the only way he's happy. I always thought he envied Leno's ability to go anywhere and be happy entertaining any audience on any stage. His big trouble with retirement is that he loves that office and that building and having a staff and being able to get away from his house for the day. To have all that, he needs to have a show.

[Les] Moonves remaining in charge at CBS is a pretty safe assumption but I'm not sure Dave can stay on as long as he wants. That was the deal for him being as cooperative as he's been all those years there. He must have a certain sympathy for Leno who was promised all sorts of things by NBC and then different men in suits came by and reneged on what their predecessors had promised. One of these days though even Moonves may have to tell him nicely it's time to start on an exit strategy.

I agree with you his replacement won't be Ferguson. Everyone seems to be saying it should be Colbert. That means it won't be. I read someone say NBC might try and grab Colbert for Fallon's old slot. That will never happen. I'm not sure it will be Seth Meyers but it will definitely be someone who owes their career to Lorne. Lorne doesn't like the whole idea of anyone achieving comedy stardom without owing their career to him and Colbert is already a star without that.

re: Leno on Fox. You're right it's possible but not likely. The argument for it is that if they're ever going to open up that time slot for a talk show, this is the only chance they'll ever have to launch it with someone with a 20 yr. track record of success in that area. The argument against is that it's an investment of years and years in a guy in his sixties and it means dumping the reruns that are working well as counterprogramming. Our mutual friend [name redacted] thinks that it would be a bad marriage because Leno would want to do jokes in his monologue slamming Republicans and positions that Rupert Murdoch is pushing. He'll overlook that from Bart Simpson but not from Leno.

We agree on Kimmel whose show is awful. He's the penalty that Dave and Jay are paying for letting their shows get so predictable and formula. There was room in that time slot for anyone with a whole new act. Fallon will do better than Kimmel for the same reason Leno did better than Letterman. Bedtime is an hour to spend with people you like and people just like Fallon a lot more than Kimmel.

I don't know about Conan. He's got to be wondering what would have happened if he'd taken the offer to do Tonight after a half hour of Leno. The main reason he said no was that he and his people were sure Leno would never leave again until they carried him out feet first.

I don't think they would have considered putting Conan back to 11:35. The most likely result of him being moved to 12:05 would have been being bumped later back to 12:35 or fired with a less lucrative settlement than he got…and then having less "heat" when he went looking for his next job. Fox was interested in him when he was the guy who walked off The Tonight Show and even then, they couldn't put that deal together. They'd have been a lot less interested in him after he'd been fired or demoted from that later slot.

It's impossible to predict what Leno will do, especially since we have no idea when he'll be contractually free to negotiate with suitors. That probably means he doesn't know and is waiting to see what kinds of offers he gets. Well, actually, we can predict one thing with great certainty: An awful lot of well-compensated stand-up bookings. That's what he always does when he has free time.

I get asked a lot what Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera were like. They were two fascinating men who — and I'm not saying this was good or bad because it was a little of each — were devoted to always working, always selling, always having new shows in production. This short interview done in 1990, just before the studio began to unravel somewhat, will show you a bit of the Bill and Joe I worked with, though both men had slowed down somewhat since my days in the studio — Joe, especially.

They rarely socialized and at work, they didn't have that much to do with each other. Joe was in charge of selling the shows and his part of the building took the process as far as writing the scripts and recording the voices. Bill was in charge of taking it from there and seeing that the shows got animated and painted and photographed and so on. Bill's office was about as far from Joe's as it could be and still be in the same structure. Joe usually talked to me about scripts and characters. Bill usually talked to me about schedules and budgets.

I have hundreds of opinions about them and what they did to and for the animation business and I've been known to argue with myself about many of them. I loved (and still love) their early shows. I didn't like a lot of the later ones, including some I worked on, but will at times insist that the system then in place was more to blame than the people. Then again, the people often gave in too quickly to the system. I was very glad that I worked for that studio and very glad that I got out when I did.

Here's that interview with Bill and Joe. Notice how they keep plugging what they have coming up next. That was the norm at H-B. The next show would always be the terrific one. And note their reactions when the interviewer asks them if The Flintstones was derived from The Honeymooners. This was not the first time they'd been asked that question…