Monthly Archives: August 2005

Over the next few days, I'm going to preview some upcoming DVD releases. I'm kind of amazed that they're releasing A Guide for the Married Man since ever since I first got a satellite dish, there have been few moments when it wasn't playing on some station. For a time there, I thought DirecTV had added the All-A Guide for the Married Man-Channel to my lineup, somewhere between the channel that's all M*A*S*H reruns and the one that seems to alternate between showing Hello, Dolly and the equally-entertaining Ron Popeil infomercial for the steak knives. Guide is an odd film. Everyone in it's great, especially Walter Matthau and Robert Morse. There are cameos (briefer than the advertising would have you believe) from Jack Benny, Phil Silvers, Carl Reiner, Sid Caesar and others in that category of performer that is becoming sadly extinct. There are great looking women. There's a bouncy theme song by The Turtles. The film even has a scene where Joey Bishop is very funny, and how often does that happen?

So what's wrong with it? Well, it's one of those sixties' comedies built on the premise that cheating on one's mate is a fun, acceptable and even (in this case) noble thing for one to do. Even if you buy that philosophy, that aspect of the film seems so shallow and sitcom-silly that it's hard to enjoy. If you can get past that, you might. (Two other interesting things about the film: It was directed by Gene Kelly, and you can hear his voice pop up occasionally on a TV set or otherwise off-camera. And he originally wanted to have Matthau and Morse play each other's parts. Matthau kept declining the project until one day when he was telling Billy Wilder about this film he'd been turning down, and Wilder said, "Hey, that would work if you guys switched parts." Matthau decided he was right and said he'd do the picture if they swapped, and the studio agreed.)

Those who live in Los Angeles may get an extra jolly in that the movie was shot all over 1967 Los Angeles, but especially around Century City. Art Carney plays a construction worker…and the structure his crew is putting up soon became that big office building on the southwest corner of Avenue of the Stars and Santa Monica Boulevards. The scenes in the supermarket were filmed in what is now the Gelson's in what is now the Westfield Century City Mall, and there are scenes around the mall itself as it then looked. There are even moments in a tiny amusement park called Ponyland which was then located at the corner of Beverly Boulevard and La Cienega. It was a little rat-trap with cotton candy that seemed to exist only for divorced fathers to have a place to take their kids on the weekend when they had custody. Around 1980, it and some surrounding oil wells were torn down, and the Beverly Center was built on that land. Anyway, if you buy this film and you're bored by what the actors are saying and doing, keep an eye on the backgrounds.

I'm pleased to see someone is bringing out Penn and Teller's Magic and Mystery Tour, which was a series of three specials they did for some cable channel a few years ago. The idea was a sort of culture-exchange program among magicians. Penn and Teller did some of their tricks and watched the local magicians demonstrate theirs. I don't think these shows got a lot of attention but I enjoyed them tremendously.

Also, we will soon see what's being billed as Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: The Complete Third Season. It isn't, exactly, but it is the third volume of what was arguably (but don't argue with me) the funniest cartoon show ever produced for television. We're not sure yet exactly what's in this volume but it will probably include the famous Kurward Derby sequence — the one over which TV personality Durward Kirby threatened to sue over the pun on his name and Bullwinkle producer Jay Ward responded by offering to pay Kirby's legal fees if he would. We may also see the "Rue Britannia" storyline where a tattoo on Bullwinkle's foot identifies him as the heir to an estate in England. But it really doesn't matter which episodes are on this set. They're all good.

These are all coming out in the next few months. If you click on the names above, you can advance order via Amazon. While you're there, buy a lot of other stuff. We get a small cut of anything you purchase from Amazon if you arrive there through one of our links. But we recommend all of the above (with slight qualifications in the case of the first) even if you don't get them via some method that throws money our way.

Any day now, there will be an announcement that a company (Time-Life, I believe) will begin releasing all the episodes of Get Smart on DVD sets. Almost every long-running TV series, and even some short-term ones, will be out on DVD in the next few years, with the exception of a few where there are contractual problems. And even most of those will be solved before long.

The old Adam West Batman series is currently the subject of some sort of argument I won't pretend I understand, though it may be a simple rights squabble between Twentieth-Century Fox (which produced the show) and Warner (which now owns the characters). Get Smart has taken this long because, I'm told, the various parties who were interested were having trouble sorting out the chain of title. The shows were sold to one company, which was acquired by another, which sold portions of its library to someone else…or something of the sort. For a long time, no one was all too sure who owned them. Certain other old TV shows aren't yet out on DVD because they employ a lot of music, and music clearances for DVDs can sometimes be costly and time-consuming.

When some company approaches the issue of releasing a TV show on DVD, there are many considerations. One, of course, is getting the rights and in some cases, as it was for a time with Get Smart, that ain't easy. There are also shows where the rights can be acquired but there are complications, like a star who doesn't want the old shows released, or wants them edited a certain way. Another problem in some instances is finding good source material when negatives are missing or damaged. If you're syndicating an old show and a few episodes are absent, that may go unnoticed. It won't if someone wants to put out a DVD set that will be advertised as The Complete Whatever…

Lastly, with some shows, it seems appropriate and commercial to include special features like commentary tracks, outtakes and a little "Making of…" featurette. This isn't always easy since old footage may be lost and folks involved in the show's production are often deceased or otherwise unavailable. Everyone I know who produces "bonus material" is frustrated that they weren't able to conduct certain interviews years ago, or that the studio in question won't let them bank interview material now for DVDs that may be released a few years down the line. When my pal Howard Morris died in May, we were all saddened. A couple of different DVD companies were especially upset with themselves that they never got around to interviewing him while they could. (Howie directed the pilot to Get Smart. I don't know if that series will have interviews but if it does, it's a shame they didn't get one with him.)

One thing which amuses me — and I may have mentioned some of this before — is that I can recall when movie and TV studios used to prosecute collectors who had old footage from their shows and movies. A friend of mine in the seventies had the only copy in existence of some outtakes from things that had been filmed at a facility where he worked. He was justifiably paranoid about the FBI swooping down to arrest him or of some lawyer slapping a subpoena in his hand because he had this film. In the era of home video, many of those once classed as pirates have turned out to be valuable resources when the studios are looking to restore old films or find lost material for supplemental features. I don't know what to think of the ethics but I'm amused that they're now grateful that some people saved old film and tape, even though doing that was once considered theft.

The weblog, Comics Should Be Good, is running an occasional series examining rumors from the history of comic books, declaring some true and others as urban legends. It's good stuff and I hope they (or someone) will set up a Snopes-style webpage that specializes in such debunking. I hereby volunteer to participate as much as I can.

In this item, they're puzzling a bit over the story that for a long time, Marvel Comics were distributed by Independent News, which was an arm of DC Comics and which restricted how many comics Marvel (even before it was called Marvel) could publish. This is true, and it even went past limiting the number of titles. Independent also steered them away from subject matters that competed head-on with DC books — or at least, they tried to. Marvel/Atlas publisher Martin Goodman was a pretty feisty guy who spent most of the years of this arrangement pressuring Independent to accept more books from him and to let him publish certain kinds of comics that he thought commercial. He also had hundreds of pages of comic book material he'd paid for but never published, and he wanted to publish westerns and "weird story" comics, for instance, so he could use up some of that inventory.

He was occasionally successful in convincing Independent, which is why, though the initial agreement in 1957 limited him to eight releases per month, he soon began to exceed that limit. In 1961, when he was permitted to publish Fantastic Four #1, he was over the eight-per-month restriction. They also yielded and let him publish some comics in genres that competed more or less with the DC product. When Marvel began to eclipse them in sales, some there regretted that concession.

One small thing that the weblog gets wrong is when they write, "…finally, in 1968, Marvel was a big enough sales success (and DC was in a major sales slump) that they were able to negotiate their way out of the deal entirely, allowing themselves to sign with Curtis Distribution. You may have noticed that 1968 saw the end of Tales of Suspense and Tales of Astonish. That was because finally, Marvel was free to make title decisions fully on their own!" That's almost right except that Marvel's 1968 expansion actually occurred while they were still with Independent.

What happened was that in late '67, Goodman finally won a major point in his ongoing battle with Independent. He wanted to publish more comics than they'd allow him to put out, and he wanted to do things like ghost comics and love comics, which they were then denying him. Finally, he said to them, in effect, "Look…my contract with you is expiring in March of 1969. At that point, you're either going to let me publish what I want or I'm going to find a distributor who will. You and I are both trying to sell our companies so we have a mutual interest in inflating our grosses. Let me expand now and it will give both companies a big boost." Jack Liebowitz, who ran DC and Independent, had previously been worried about allowing Goodman to flood the newsstands with product, fearing it would harm the market and harm DC. But he was then angling to sell DC and Independent to a company called Kinney National Services, and he saw the wisdom of even a temporary jolt to the distributor's fortunes. He also knew that Goodman wasn't bluffing; that he could find a distributor who would let him publish without restriction. Liebowitz wanted to keep Marvel under the Independent umbrella if that was at all possible, so they negotiated a new arrangement. It didn't lift all restrictions right away but it did allow him considerable expansion room, which he used to begin adding more titles.

The decision probably helped both companies. Grosses were up when Liebowitz concluded the deal to sell to Kinney. Goodman soon sold Marvel to an outfit called Perfect Film and Chemical Corporation. The only snag for DC was that since Perfect Film owned a magazine distributor, Marvel moved there when their old distribution contract expired.

Apart from that, the story as reported is true. Marvel was distributed for many years by DC. One of the reasons some comic book writers and artists felt so imprisoned in their jobs, and accepted that they had to tolerate some onerous terms of employment, was that the "competitors" weren't truly competing. DC and Marvel had a number of co-operative business dealings (the Comics Code was another) and there was often a feeling, true or not, that publishers were conspiring to limit pay scales and would sometimes agree not to hire certain individuals away from another company. As Jack Kirby once said, "Any time two publishers have lunch, somewhere a freelancer goes hungry."

As explained in this posting here, a wonderful little show is performed every Wednesday evening up in Hollywood — a fun and faithful resurrection of the great game show, What's My Line? Your host is J. Keith van Straaten (who produces with director Jim Newman). There's a lovely hostess/model, Claudia Dolph, and a terrific live musician, Adam Chester…and everyone really does a superior job of bringing the old program back to life for an hour or so.

I mention it again because I went again: My pal Nat Gertler and I were in the front row, rooting for our friend Len Wein, who shared panelist duties with comediennes Cathy Ladman and Jane Brucker, and comic actor J.P. Manoux. The four of them managed to guess the first two contestants — a lady who makes dog biscuits and another lady who gives flying lessons — but failed to guess a gentleman who juggles while drawing portraits. (They did get the juggling part, and then the gentleman gave a demonstration of his simultaneous skills.)

The Mystery Guest was David Faustino from Married With Children. After a few go-rounds, Mr. Manoux nailed him with the question, "Are you either David Faustino or someone else?"

If you're in or around Los Angeles on a Wednesday evening, you'll have a very good time at this show. Details here.

I don't think I've ever linked to Glenn Hauman's weblog before. And don't think I'm doing so now just because he wrote something nice about me. Even though I am.

Well, not everyone loved Keith Olbermann's little on-air account of his cancer scare. He's being criticized on some of the journalism websites, mostly for the supposed arrogance of talking about his own medical problems on a broadcast that, some feel, should have been all about Peter Jennings. Of perhaps more importance is that, according to accounts like this one, the segment was hated by MSNBC president Rick Kaplan, who felt it was a bad lead-in to the following show, which was the debut of Rita Cosby's new series. I don't know Mr. Kaplan, of course, but it seems to me that Olbermann is about the only thing that network has going for it.

In the meantime, several of you have sent me what you think are direct links to the Olbermann video on the MSNBC website. I thank you for your efforts but none of them worked. For the life of me, I don't understand why a website makes it difficult for someone like me to send someone like you to a specific item.

It makes only a wee bit more sense that the videos on the MSNBC website are, I'm informed by Mike Catron, impregnable to Mac users. Yeah, it's a Microsoft-affiliated site, so PC/Windows would seem to be the format of choice. But they're offering a service on that site and last I heard, there were more than a few people on the planet with that other, aberrant format.

If you're one and you want to see the video, I'll e-mail it to you. It's an ASF file so you'll have to have Windows Media Player for the Mac, which I understand you can download here, and which you might want anyway. The file is a little over 12MB in size and if you'd like me to send it your way, . [NOTE: If that link doesn't work for you, address an e-mail to newsfromme*gmail.com, but replace the asterisk in that address with one of them "at" signs.]

The Keith Olbermann video that I wrote about — six or so minutes of him telling you why it's stupid to smoke — is now online at the MSNBC website. Unfortunately, if there's a way to link directly to the clip, I haven't been able to figure it out so here's what you'll have to do to see it. Go to this page and look for a video clip called "Lung cancer & you." At the moment, it's in a box headed "free video." Well worth a bit of hunting about.

I have no particular opinion on today's decision in the Disney lawsuit involving Mike Ovitz's severance pay. But if you'd like to read the judge's decision, here it is. It's a PDF file, meaning you'll need some kind of Adobe software like their Reader.

Folks are sending me messages about smoking and about smoking among their friends and relatives. I can't run them all but I thought some of you might enjoy this one from my pal Shelly Goldstein, a fine writer and performer. I met her mother a few times and Shelly is right: Her female parent was an amazing lady.

For all it may be worth, I went through a bit of an emotional breakthrough yesterday.

Watching all of the Jennings-related news was sad because he seemed like a genuinely good guy, was assuredly a superb newsman (something we as a society can ill-afford to lose) and, most of all, because my Mother died of lung cancer.

She was diagnosed in 1983. She died in 2003. She lost her left lung in 1983 and was remarkably healthy until a new tumor was found on her remaining lung in late 2002. As she only had one lung left, surgery wasn't an option. They treated it with chemo, but it had metastisized and…well, that's the ball game.

I heard repeatedly yesterday that survival statistics for lung cancer victims are unbelievably low…Something like 85% of patients die within 5 years (the prognosis my Mother was given in 1984) and 90% die in 10 years.

That my Mother lived 19-1/2 years in not perfect, but remarkably good health put her in the absolute highest percentile of survivors. I always knew my Mother was remarkable — now I have medical stats to prove it.

This was a woman who began smoking — thanks to Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and other glam stars of the golden era — when she was 13. She smoked for just over 50 years. When I was growing up, she smoked something like 5 packs a day. She was always smoking. I adored my Mother and it drove me crazy as a child — especially when driving in the car during sub-sub zero Chicago winters with the windows closed. I have never smoked and, speaking as a very tolerant person, smoking drives me insane. I can't stand it. I can't even type the word of those things people smoke.

Remarkably, soon after my Father died in 1977 (a light smoker who had quit years before and died from a different cancer, melanoma) she quit. Just stopped. No patches, no programs, no hypnosis…just stopped one day. I'm not even sure why.

She told me once that not a day went by that she didn't miss smoking. But she never smoked again. Not even once. This was an amazing woman.

I do not wish anyone to live through experiencing, as a caretaker, the death of a loved one to lung cancer. I can't imagine the pain of actually having to live (and die) with the disease.

Of course we all do stupid things, thinking we can cheat death, or at least hold him off — even if it's "just this once." That's why people drink to excess, that's why people go for the fried foods over the veggies, that why people do drugs, that's why people smoke. The immediate gratification of the unhealthy high is addictive. And whereas the administrative aspect of society tells us, "these things bad!", the real influences (commercials, movies, etc.) tell us, "these things good". It's high school all over again and we know that everyone listens to the popular kids, not the principal.

That's why I find it darkly amusing that smoking has literally brought us all back to high school. Just like back in the day, all the smokers still huddle in doorways outside, while the rest of us are inside in Algebra.

And I am aware that tobacco companies have made their product the most addictive substance on the planet, or at least one of the top three.

Which brings up one of the many lies we, as a society, live. We say we care about our citizens. We say we care about health. There is not many a politician with a breath in his/her body — even if it's hooked up to a respiratory machine — who would dare take on the tobacco lobby and their money.

Profit matters much more than the health of our citizens.

That why there are Coke machines in every junior high in the land.

The societal health costs of smoking are staggering — we ALL pay for smoking-related death. But so what? It's a free country…It's just the smoking that isn't free.

We have come to worship profit in this country. We are a country of divergent religious views (thank God!!) but rather than worry about whether it's appropriate to print, "In God We Trust" on our money…Perhaps we should really be true to ourselves and print, "In Dollars We Trust" on our bibles.

But I digress. This began with my astoshiment yesterday that my glorious, wonderful, funny, remarkable, beautiful Mother had been so blessed by beating the odds of her disease for much longer than she might have. And it ended with my infinite gratitude as having lived a life so blessed by her company for so many years.

Will all this press on Jennings death inspire smokers to quit? Maybe. For a couple of days, at least. I hope so.

It angers me that people smoke. But it angers me more that we still parrot things like, "Just say no" to bad and unhealthy behaviors when it is clear that the profit they make — with a healthy cut to political coffers — is the ultimate word.

Crazy me. I care more about the needs of the coughers than the coffers.

Several people have written me to address my stated view that people have a right to kill themselves, even with cigarettes, if they so choose. Here's one from Ruben Arellano…

I have to disagree when you state a smoker can "decide it's an acceptable trade-off of pleasure versus death and doctor bills, that's their choice". I think the terms "pleasure" and "choice" are misleading here. I can't see that there is any pleasure in smoking, and the choice is mostly removed with the intense addiction that drives most people to continue their "habit." When I see people struggling to light their smokes up in a stinking back alley in the dead of winter, in the rain, I really can't see that is their little pleasure time.

It's just easy for people to do the easy thing, that is continue what their addiction drives them to do. Not many people have the werewithal to make major life changes like that, never mind one that is driven by chemical addiction.

I would go so far as to say it should be entirely illegal for companies to sell tobacco, as they are basically poisoning society for no good benefit except financial gain. I can't think of any other industry that is allowed to do that in such an obvious way. But big tobacco is too much a part of our economies to let that happen.

(sorry, didn't mean for that to turn into a soapbox rant).

To stay on topic about your posting, I think it is fantastic that Olbermann stated what he did, and I find it appalling that more public figures don't do the same.

I'm not the best person to argue that smoking gives some people pleasure. As I said, I've never smoked. It never looked to me like anything that could possibly be pleasant. But other human beings do a lot of things I could say that about. They have parts of their bodies pierced. They ride roller coasters. They bungee-jump. Some people even — and I know this is hard to believe but it's apparently true — pay good money to see The Dukes of Hazzard.

I agree with you that people shouldn't smoke, but I think there's a limit as to how far government should go to protect them from doing what we think they shouldn't do. As inconceivable as it may be to some of us, there are people who enjoy smoking…people who, if you tell them it may shave X years off their lives, will decide that's an acceptable risk. I don't think they should be allowed to do this in a room where their smoke will affect me. I don't think my health costs should go up because of their choice. But I do think they own their bodies and have the right to pollute them. I hope they don't, and I do what I can to dissuade friends from electing that option, but I think it's ultimately an individual choice. I will say that when I encounter a real-life example, such as the one provided us by Mr. Olbermann, I feel less militant about that position. You may yet get me over to your side on this one.

Whatever you do, if you know what's good for you, don't click on this link. Especially if you don't like llamas.

I enjoy watching MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, which I think offers the smartest, most candid news coverage on TV. Lately, I've been disappointed at the number of days that Mr. Olbermann has been "on vacation."

It turns out, Keith has been away having a tumor removed from the roof of his mouth. His show today is mainly about the late Peter Jennings and it's really a remarkable, compassionate report on his deceased colleague. But the most startling moment — one of the most powerful things I've seen on TV in years — comes in the last seven minutes of the show. In it, Olbermann reveals what he's been going through as a result of his own smoking, relates it to the death of Peter Jennings due (largely) to smoking…and tells viewers, basically, what idiots they are for continuing to smoke.

I don't smoke and never have, and I am of two minds about it. On the one hand, I believe it kills people and has killed a number of people close to me. On the other hand, I believe people have a right to kill themselves if they're sane and decide that's what they want. So I guess my position is that they should be warned, lectured and berated — at least a little — about it…and then if they decide it's an acceptable trade-off of pleasure versus death and doctor bills, that's their choice.

This episode of Countdown airs again, beginning a little more than two hours from now across much of the country. If you read this message before it does, you might want to set the TiVo or, at least, catch the last seven minutes. If you know someone who needs an anti-smoking warning, you might want to get them to watch. And if anyone out there notices anywhere on the Internet where this video is posted, please let me know so I can link to it.

Has anyone else noticed that the "healthier" fast food is going away? A few years ago, we had an outburst of stands where you could get real, non-fried food with the ease of a McDonald's and at a price not far above Wendy's. We're talking about rotisserie chicken or actual carved turkey plus real, fresh side dishes. There are times when I'm hurrying from meeting to meeting and I have to grab a fast lunch. As I have a long list of food allergies and intolerances, I don't like to experiment. I like to know what I'm going to get, and it often helps me to know of the location of (or to stumble across) a Koo Koo Roo, a Kenny Rogers Roasters or a Boston Market. It's especially beneficial when I'm on unfamiliar turf. Coming across one of those businesses can be a lifesaver.

But the trend is away from them. All six of the Kenny Rogers Roasters restaurants I used to frequent (five in Southern California, one in Las Vegas) have closed. In fact, if I read their website correctly, there's only one left in the continental United States, and it's in Maryland. Many of them have turned into outlets of the Wienerschnitzel chain, which is a perfect example of the kind of place I'm trying to avoid.

Koo Koo Roo, which is a West Coast chain, has downsized considerably, shrinking from more than forty outlets to a mere eighteen. Late in 2003, they were purchased out of bankruptcy by the Fuddrucker's chain, which added burgers and fries to the menus in those stores where the kitchen was large enough to accomodate the extra equipment. Koo Koo Roo was once founded on the principle of avoiding burgers and fries, and now that cuisine seems to be effecting a hostile takeover. Many Koo Koo Roo outlets that once served me well are gone and I fear that more will close or just turn into Fuddrucker's. Some of them are already halfway there.

Another takeover by a burger magnate has occurred with the Boston Market chain, which was acquired by McDonald's a few years ago. Boston Market has been especially useful when I've been on trips to other cities. On my recent visit to Scottsdale, for instance, Carolyn and I were driving to the airport, searching for a place en route that would serve up a quick, edible lunch that wasn't Happy Meal fare. I didn't want a Burger King and I didn't want to gamble on an unknown establishment. When we came across a Boston Market, that was it. Their roast turkey is a pretty good option when one needs to eat and their "sweet garlic rotisserie chicken" is better than it sounds.

So why do I have the feeling Boston Market is not long for this world? Because this probably wasn't a restaurant deal. It was more likely a real estate deal. The success of McDonald's was only in part because of its development of fast, easy ways to prep burgers, fries and McNuggets. A lot of it was due to shrewd real estate acquisitions, anticipating property trends and securing key parcels of land for low prices. Boston Market, to the extent it had any success at all, operated the same way, skillfully figuring out where a fast food place might do well amidst new area development and securing a prime location before someone else could. McDonald's didn't acquire the failing Boston Market business to keep things the same way. They're probably going to use most or all of those valuable locales for the other, new wave chains that McDonald's is nurturing, like Donato's Pizza and the Chipotle Mexican Grills. I can't and don't want to eat at either of those.

Not all that long ago, rotisserie chicken and fresh vegetables was the coming thing in fast food. Now, all the chains that offer that are in trouble and the big success stories are things like Carl's Jr's Six Dollar Western Bacon Cheeseburger, which contains a lovely 1,080 calories, half of them from fat. (My usual entree at Koo Koo Roo — two chicken breasts, original style — contains about a third of that.) We keep reading stories about how overweight and out of shape America is getting. There's as good a benchmark as anything.

Here's a message from Ryan Matney, a reader of this site…

Love your blog as always. I was wondering if you have any interest in seeing the new movie, The Aristocrats by Penn Jillette? More to the point, since you are very knowledgable about comics, performers, and writers, I was wondering if you have any stories or experiences with this joke or know anything of it's history that you care to share? It was new to me when I read about the film. Did you ever hear, say, Paul Winchell or Red Skelton tell it?

There is an internet rumor going around that the film is a hoax and the joke is not in fact a comedian's inside secret but a prank put on film by Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza.

I haven't seen the film but I'd like to. And I'd like to see it with a packed audience, so I guess I'd better hustle out soon. I've just been so swamped lately…

The joke in question is an old joke that has been around for years. It's possible that Mssrs. Jillette and Provenza are exaggerating the extent to which it's infamous among comedians. Like I said, I haven't seen the movie so I'm not sure exactly what is being claimed here. But I have heard the joke a few times over the last few decades…though not from anyone with the status of a Winchell or Skelton. There are actually a number of these "improvisational" jokes where the teller is free to fiddle a lot with the center section and it was probably a brilliant idea to get so many comedians to do their versions of one of them.