Monthly Archives: September 2005

PBS has been running, usually during pledge weeks, specials in a series called Broadway's Lost Treasures, which feature musical highlights from Tony Awards broadcasts. The shows are kind of fun, though I really wish whoever is releasing these would instead put out DVDs of the complete Tony shows, including the awards and the numbers which aren't special enough to be considered "Lost Treasures." I have some old Tony shows and some of them are terrific…especially the 1971 edition. It was the 25th anniversary of the Tony Awards so they had 25 great musical performances on their stage: Zero Mostel, Robert Preston, Yul Brynner, Gwen Verdon, Angela Lansbury, Paul Lynde, Robert Morse, Alfred Drake, Richard Kiley, Ray Walston, etc., all doing their show-stopping numbers from past Broadway triumphs. Somehow, the producers of that Tony broadcast got in all 25 performances, plus they managed to give out the awards — including two to a kid named Steve Sondheim — in two hours. Today in two hours, an award telecast can just about manage to read the rules and open a couple of envelopes.

Each of the Broadway's Lost Treasures shows pulls numbers from different years, including many from that 1971 show. And each has at least a few things to make you very glad you bought the DVDs. Each DVD also includes three or four numbers not included in the version that PBS televises…and of course, you don't have to sit through endless pledge breaks telling you how wonderful it is that PBS doesn't have commercial interruptions. So here are some links to order these fine collections…

• VOLUME ONE features Jerry Orbach doing the big number from 42nd Street, Angela Lansbury doing "The Worst Pies in London" from Sweeney Todd, Robert Preston doing "Trouble" from The Music Man (oddly lip-synced to a pre-record but nice, nonetheless), Zero Mostel doing "If I Were a Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof, and many more. Quite a few of these are from that '71 Tony show I mentioned.
• VOLUME TWO includes Angela Lansbury and Bea Arthur doing "Bosom Buddies" from Mame, Jerry Orbach performing a number from Chicago, Robert Morse with "I Believe In You" from How To Succeed, Richard Kiley dreaming "The Impossible Dream" from Man of La Mancha and a kick-ass rendition of "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat" from the revival of Guys and Dolls. There's other fine stuff, as well.
• VOLUME THREE is where you'll find Kristen Chenoweth doing her number from the revival of You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown, plus the opening number from Ragtime, a real show-stopper from Five Guys Named Moe, Alfred Drake doing "Where Is The Life That Late I Led?" from the original Kiss Me Kate (from the '71 Tony broadcast), medleys by Ethel Merman and Julie Andrews, and other wonderment.

Like I said, I wish they'd just put out the original, unedited Tony ceremonies…and maybe, someday, they will. In the meantime, these are quite watchable and wonderful, and they aren't even that expensive. End of sales pitch.

Frank Rich's weekend column is now up on the New York Times website in the "TimesSelect" area. I'm on the 14-day free trial of the service so I've read it. It's about the Bush administration's propensity for staffing government bureaus with cronies of dubious competence, and also about how anyone who tries to blow a whistle or buck the official line gets demoted or fired. Not one of Mr. Rich's best but worth a read.

What interests me now is whether it will stay "pay-only" or if free links and repostings will appear across the Internet. This last week, the columns of Paul Krugman, Bob Herbert, David Brooks and others in the TimesSelect area have turned up where they could easily be read by those who aren't paying the Times fifty balloons a year. I haven't yet decided if it's worth it to me for the other perks but if all the opinion columns are going to be available to me anyway, that will obviously weigh heavily in my decision.

So I'm watching to see if this Frank Rich column is going to be an exception. Let's see how long before someone finds a way to get it without being a subscriber.

These days, to be a fan of either the Democrats or the Republicans is to have to cringe every once in a while and pretend that the folks on "your side" didn't really say or do what they actually said or did. It's that way with late night hosts, though at least there you don't absolutely have to like only one. I like both Jay Leno and David Letterman but there are large chunks of their shows that I can't watch, especially when it feels like the well-paid star is phoning it in, not trying very hard. I still like Leno's opening monologue and those moments when he seems to be honestly having a good time with a guest that he likes. I still like Letterman's little desk ramblings, especially when they feel like he cares about the topic and isn't just being cranky about something because he needs material for the show. I can't stand either when it feels like they're going through the motions of interviews that don't interest them, or when the show's humor is based on the premise that if you put amateurs and stupid people on camera, they'll make fools of themselves and we can laugh at them. A lot of the comedy on both shows is not that far removed from back on Truth or Consequences when Bob Barker would get people out of the audience, dress them in old-fashioned bathing suits and spray them down with seltzer.

I have mixed feelings about Mr. Leno's current stunt, which is to have his guests and "surprise" walk-on celebrities all autograph a Harley-Davidson which is being auctioned for charity. They did this twice before — once after 9/11 and once for the big Tsunami Relief effort. The first time, they raised $360,000 and the second took in $800,100. Maybe it's starting to ring a little hollow since the current auction isn't doing as well. As of right now, with five days left in the bidding, they're only at $70,200 and there hasn't been a bid in three days. It will surely go higher but will it hit the million bucks Jay keeps saying they hope it'll bring? Maybe…but that might involve somebody at NBC hustling some big corporate bidder in order to make sure they aren't embarrassed by falling short of their stated goal.

The mixed feelings I have are…well, the "up" side is that money will be raised and that Tonight Show viewers are not being allowed to forget that it's needed. The slight cringe emerges when I think that many of the folks signing Jay's Harley could do a lot more for the Red Cross by opening their wallets and donating even 1% of what they made off their last movie or TV series.

Now, we don't know that some of them haven't. In fact, I'll bet some of them have. But the on-screen example is a little tacky: "We need to do everything we can for those poor flood victims so I'm going to go on national TV and sign my name." Is there a lesser gesture you can make and still get applause?

Leave aside that the whole campaign probably does a lot for ratings of The Tonight Show, which remain high even as all else on NBC is crumbling. Leave aside also that some stars probably have Public Relations Specialists who love this kind of thing because it costs nothing yet enhances the star's image as a great human being. Let's just focus on the implication that you're "doing something" if the cost to you, in either money or effort, is so minimal. Charity efforts cannot work off of that mindset.

I'm not questioning anyone's sincerity, especially Jay Leno's. I've been around Jay in the "comedy club" circuit for several decades and met him casually a few times, and he seems to be one of the most honest, generous people in show business. Nor am I suggesting that the stars writing their names on his chopper are just there because it's good for their image and that it's all they're doing. I'm sure they care and I'd be very surprised if some of them haven't written large checks. Checks of all sizes, but especially big ones, are what groups like the Red Cross and the Salvation Army and my pet charity, Operation USA, really need at the moment.

What they don't need is multi-millionaires setting the example, even if unintended, of doing the absolute minimum…and only when there's some personal glory attached. Some rich people are quite generous but don't want their giving publicized either because they don't want to seem to be exploiting the donation for publicity or simply because they don't want a line of others hitting them up for cash. But if there are a lot of wealthy and famous folks sending 2% or 3% of their annual incomes to relief efforts, maybe that fact ought to be publicized without naming names. It might make some less wealthy people feel better about donating 5% or 10% of their paychecks to help people in need. That's the kind of effort that deserves applause…not David Spade coming on to plug his new series and sign an autograph.

Good morning. In 1970, when Company opened on Broadway, the lead role of Bobby-Baby was played by Dean Jones. Mr. Jones, it is said, did not like the show he was in. He was going through some personal problems at the time and Company touched upon themes that exacerbated those problems. He was also having trouble with the role itself, feeling that Bobby was too much the observer and it was difficult to find his emotional throughline. In tryouts and previews, he was struggling and cranky and the producers decided that part of his problem was that he was afraid the show was going to be a hit. If it was, he'd be trapped playing a part he didn't like for a year. So they went to him and said, in effect, "Look, we can't replace you now but if you'll just relax and give us an opening night performance, we'll find a replacement as soon as possible after that." Jones agreed.

Company opened in New York on April 26, 1970. On May 29, Larry Kert took over the part of Bobby. As Pat O'Neill wrote me this morn…

There was even a rushed second version of the cast album, with Kert replacing Jones. They did it, I recall, by simply dubbing Kert's versions in over Jones's, so that occasionally it sounds like both of them are in there, singing. That version of the cast album is no longer available — only the Jones version — but I heard back when I was in college, when Company was brand new and the musical fans in my circle all thought Kert was a big improvement over Jones. Listening now, I'm not sure.

My understanding is that Kert wasn't recorded until a couple years later when he opened in the London production of Company. The "London cast recording" was not really a recording of the London cast, which included Kert, Elaine Stritch and a few other members of the New York production. Instead, they took the New York recording and dubbed Kert over several of the tracks…so, yes, there are two Bobbys heard in there, with Jones also audible. Most references say that only one number — "Barcelona" — was recorded anew with Kert but I think that's wrong, I believe they also recorded Bobby's big solo, "Being Alive," and that's the number that's included as a bonus track on the CD that's now available of the New York Company company.

The London LP with Kert overdubbing Jones was pressed in a small quantity and is hard to find. I know one Sondheim fan who paid megabucks for one and was very disappointed with what he heard. There was a CD reissue of it that is now out of print, and there are rumors it will soon be reissued again.

Pat was one of the folks who e-mailed the correct answer. The other nine of the first ten were, in no particular order: Christopher McPherson, Richard Gersh, John Schrank, Jon Delfin, Mary Drane, Lee Wilson, "Jovial Jo," Rick Biddle and Michael Diminsky. Thanks to everyone for playing Name That Replacement.

The folks who give out the Tony Awards have just decided to add a new category: "Best Performance by an Actor/Actress Recreating a Role."

The name's a little misleading. A more accurate one would have been "Best Replacement" but I guess they didn't want to call it that. The idea is to have an award for someone who takes over a star part in a Broadway show. For example, when the new production of Fiddler on the Roof opened, a gent named Alfred Molina was playing Tevye. He would not have been eligible for this award, even though one could certainly say he was recreating the role originated by Zero Mostel. But that was in another production long ago, so Molina was instead eligible in the category of "Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical," just as if he was the first-ever Tevye. (He didn't win.)

After a while, Molina left the show and the role was assumed by Harvey Fierstein, which is the kind of thing the award is intended to honor: Taking over and keeping the show running. Fierstein, however, may not be eligible for the statuette since it's for the current season and he started in January of '05. (Broadway seasons run from May to May, a tradition that dates back to the days before theaters were air conditioned and some shows closed during the summer.) A committee will soon decide if he and a few others can get in on the first presentation. So if they were going to be honest, they'd call this new category "Best Peformance by an Actor/Actress Who Replaced Someone in the Last Twelve Months Unless We Make an Exception."

Now, what do we think of this new award? Well, my first thoughts are to note that Tony Awards ceremonies are already too long, don't need another award, and that if this new category endures for a little while, it will probably turn into two and perhaps four categories. Someone's bound to point out that no other acting award lumps men and women together, so they'll break it down to two trophies, one for each sex. Then there will come a season where there's an outstanding replacement in a musical and another in a play and someone will say, "You know, it isn't fair to make them compete. We don't make actors in new musicals and plays compete with each other." Which means we'll wind up with categories for Replacement Actor in a Play, Replacement Actress in a Play, Replacement Actor in a Musical and Replacement Actress in a Musical, even though some years, there won't be enough outstanding contenders to have three nominees in each of the four contests.

But other than that, it's probably long overdue…which makes you wonder why, since shows have had replacement actors since the days of Plautus, this award is just being started now. I have no inside info but I'm well aware that entertainment awards are largely driven by powerful folks who want the categories defined so as to maximize their chance of winning statuettes, usually for financial reasons as much as ego. Spamalot is currently introducing its second-generation cast, The Producers is on its fourth or fifth Bialystock, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is nearing the day when John Lithgow and Norbert Leo Butz will depart, etc. One wonders to what extent the money men behind one or more current productions decided this kind of Tony might help business and how they pressured the governing body to get it up and running.

Trivia Question: Only one time has the Tony committee bent the rules a bit and allowed a replacement actor to be nominated for Best Actor in a Musical, just as if he'd been in the role on Opening Night. The actor did not win. Who was it and what was the show? I'll post the names of the first ten people who've sent in a correct answer by the time I wake up in the morning. Tomorrow, I'll also try to run more discussion about movie musicals that retained the entire score of the Broadway show on which they were based. That's if I can tear myself away from news coverage of Hurricane Rita. (I just tuned in CNN for a few minutes. Would someone please tell Anderson Cooper that it's humanly possible to cover a big storm without standing in the middle of it and looking like he and the cameraman are about to sacrifice their lives, rather than report from inside a building?)

As we know too well, Hurricane Rita is barrelling down on Texas and/or Louisiana. Today, as I went about errands in Los Angeles, I kept hearing snatches of conversation about it…"category four"…"turning to the right"…"highways jammed." It seemed to be all anyone was talking about.

As I was waiting in a restaurant for a "to go" order, the lady behind the counter asked me if I'd heard anything. I told her what little had just been on the radio and she said, "Well, at least this time, the government won't screw up. Bush knows how much trouble he got in last time…plus, this time, it's Texas." As she handed me the food, I tossed a buck in the tip jar and she took it out and put in a little bucket for the Red Cross.

A few minutes later, I was in a dentist's waiting room. A man seated in the chair next to me suddenly announced, "I have family in Houston."

I said, "Let's hope they're not in Houston. Or that they'll be out by nightfall."

"I don't know," he said. "I couldn't reach anyone. I'd like to think that's because they got out. But my brother-in-law, I don't know about him. He's the kind of guy who might think, 'If I stay, maybe I can save the house.'"

"Well," I shrugged. "There's nothing you can do about it now. And they're saying on the news that the main brunt of it probably won't hit Houston."

We both nodded and made hopeful grunts…and just then, the nurse called him in. As he passed me, he said, "You know, I worried about this last night. And then I thought, 'My God, compared to those people in the Gulf Coast, I've got it easy. I just have to go in and have a root canal.'"

Good luck to everyone in the path of Rita. We're thinking of you.

Speaking of Costco, as I just was, my pal Dave Schwartz reports that he found a batch of the new Warner Home Video animation collections at one of their stores for $13.99 each. He says he picked up The Jetsons and Wacky Races, and that they also had Dastardly & Muttley, Penelope Pitstop, Superman and possibly others. Some of these normally go for $32-$35 so that's quite a bargain and I'm guessing that if one Costco has them, others will have them.

And speaking of DVD collections of old Hanna-Barbera cartoons, as I just was, last week I was interviewed on camera for a forthcoming collection of The Scooby Doo-Dynomutt Hour. Also interrogated were Fred Silverman, Iwao Takamoto, Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, and several of the original voices, including Gary Owens. I have no idea when this one will be out (or even when it will be at Costco) but the folks doing the "extras" are really doing a thorough job.

According to Laura Brown over on her weblog, the just-now-being-released Complete Calvin and Hobbes has at least one strip that has been altered for republication. The last two panels of the 11/25/88 strip read as above in the original appearance and in subsequent reprints. Now, the balloons read…

CALVIN: Hmph! I'll bet a good mother would've bought me a comic book and made me feel better instead of shunning me like you.

MOM: Kid, anyone but a good mother would've left you to the wolves long ago.

CALVIN: Yeah, right. Let's see your training certificate.

As Laura notes, this was presumably done because the original was deemed offensive to adopted kids (and their adopters) and must have been done with the approval of Bill Watterson, who drew the strip and fiercely protected it. Personally, I have no problem with him doing this. It's his strip and his decision and I only note it here for the record, and to wonder if this is the only alteration.

By the by: The Complete Calvin and Hobbes can be ordered from Amazon by clicking here. At the moment, it's $94.50 and it doesn't seem to be eligible for their free shipping plan, even for us Amazon Prime members, though I could be wrong. If you're a member of Costco, they'll let you order one for $86.99 plus shipping costs. At the moment, the cheapest price I see online is that Overstock.com has it for only $85.00 plus only $1.40 in postage, though that may mean sending it by burro or something.

I'm probably going to just wait until the next time I go to Costco after they get them in. I'll just grab one and toss it in my cart next to the fifty gallon drum of Liquid Metamucil and the half-ton box of Pringles…and by the way, if you ever eat that many Pringles, you'll need that much Metamucil. Or maybe I'll wait a few months, by which time the book will probably be quite available at a much lower tab. I'm actually in no hurry to dive into Watterson's strip again. I really liked it when it began but every time I go back and read a batch of them, I find myself mentally lowering it a notch or two on my list of All-Time Great Newspaper Strips. This is the opposite of the way it works for me when I revisit a run of Peanuts or Doonesbury or Pogo or vintage Segar Thimble Theater. Maybe this new collection will reverse the trend.

I've received a lot of entries in our little game of guessing which movie version of a Broadway musical used the entire score from the stage production with no deletions and no additions. The answer I was assuming was My Fair Lady. By the time that one was committed to film, the cast album was one of the best-selling records ever made, and many knew its every note by heart and considered every one sacred. I suspect the producers of the movie were even afraid to change the arrangements very much.

The only two other films anyone suggested were West Side Story and 1776. The latter, when filmed, used the Broadway score exactly but as we all know (or can read about here if we don't), "Cool Conservative Men" was deleted for the movie's general release and has only been restored in recent home video versions.

West Side Story sort of qualifies, depending on how you define the rules. One of the ballet numbers was cut, though strains of it show up as underscore elsewhere in the film. Several songs — including the lyrics for "America" — were rewritten. The list of songs that are sung is the same, though they aren't in the same order.

My pal Tom Hegeman raises an interesting point: "Another question to ask regarding adding new songs to filmed versions of musicals to be eligible for an Oscar — have any of those added songs ever won?" I just looked it up and while a lot of the added-for-the-film tunes were nominated, they don't fare so well on Oscar Night. The very first Academy Award for Best Song went to "The Continental," which was added to the score of The Gay Divorcee, which was the movie version of the musical, The Gay Divorce. That was in 1934. The next time it happened is arguable. In 1941, the Oscar for Best Song went to "The Last Time I Saw Paris," which was written for the movie, Lady Be Good. What makes it arguable is that the movie is almost not an adaptation of the 1924 stage musical of the same name. It uses the name and a few of the songs and that's about it.

After that, the only other example I note on the list was a long time coming: "You Must Love Me," which was written for the 1996 film of Evita. I may have missed one other long ago, but it sure looks like these songs which are added to maybe win an Oscar almost never win Oscars.

Okay, last call: Can anyone think of another movie that adapts a stage musical and does every single song with no tunes cut and no tunes added? I don't know if there is one but if there is, let's figure out what it is.

One of my beliefs about talk/interview shows is that it's nearly impossible to win an argument with the host. He has home court advantage. He sets the agenda. He decides when to change topics, go to a commercial, etc. On radio call-in shows, the host has the extra power to mute the caller's voice without the home audience realizing it. A favorite trick of Mr. Limbaugh when he finds himself in an actual argument is to cut off the other party, then ask him a question. The lack of response is allowed to suggest that the caller couldn't come up with an answer.

I stopped watching Bill O'Reilly some time back because he kept shouting down guests who were coming perilously close to scoring debate points against him instead of actually responding. The other day, he tried bullying Phil Donahue and here, through the courtesy of the folks at crooksandliars.com, is a clip. I don't know if Phil could win a shouting match with Marlo but he did a pretty good job of not letting O'Reilly knock him off-message. The segment runs a little more than eight minutes.

Speaking of the musical version of The Producers: Rumor has it that every song that was in the show was at least filmed for the movie, though I'm wondering if that includes the little ditty that the cast sings at the end following their bows. In any case, rumor further has it that all the songs will be on the CD (which is scheduled to hit stores November 22, a month before the film is released) but that a few of the preview screenings now being done have omitted one or another, just to see if shorter is better. One might assume that if any number is trimmed before release, it will be untrimmed for the DVD release.

It is also being reported that Will Ferrell, who plays Nazi playwright Frank Liebkind, has recorded a longer, more elaborate version of his big (but short in the film) number, "Der Guten Tag Hop-Clop."

There will also be a new song which Mr. Melvin Brooks has written to run under the closing credits. It's called "There's Nothing Like a Show on Broadway." As most of you may know, when a musical is transferred to the screen, there's usually a new song or two. Maybe once upon a time, this was done for creative reasons but the main idea since around the late forties has been to see if they can snag an Academy Award, or at least a nomination for Best Song. Pre-existing songs are not eligible; only ones written directly for the screen.

So that's why in the movie of Guys and Dolls, we got "Pet Me, Poppa" instead of "A Bushel and a Peck." It's why in the film of Music Man, we got "Being in Love" instead of "My White Knight." It's why we got "I Move On" in Chicago and "Let Me Dance For You" and "Surprise, Surprise" in A Chorus Line and about half the songs in "Grease" and "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" and did anyone ever write one of these that was as good as the rest of the score? The only one I can think of that might qualify is "Mean Green Mother from Outer Space" in the movie version of Little Shop of Horrors.

I am told that there is only one case where a Broadway musical was transferred to the screen with its score intact — no songs cut, no songs added. Anyone want to guess what it is? I'm asking because I want to see if it's happened more than once. I can only think of the one.

I turned on the news to see what was up with Hurricane Rita just as another story was breaking: The JetBlue airliner that had to make an emergency landing at LAX with its front landing gear wheels turned sideways…

It all ended well but it was startling to be sitting here, watching it via a perfect helicopter shot, aware that we might be about to see a plane crash live on television. JetBlue makes live DirecTV broadcasts available to its passengers. Apparently, the pilots turned it off for the landing but if they hadn't, those people could have been watching the shot of their own plane's landing gear burning up. It was more suspenseful when it was live, of course, but also when it was preceded by long minutes of the Airbus making its approach.

Nice to see some good news on TV for a change. Hope it isn't too bad for those in the path of Rita.

A somewhat amusing game is currently being played around the blogosphere…and by the way, there's got to be a better name for it than that. "Online community?" "World of weblogs?" Anyway…

Monday, the New York Times put its op-ed columnists behind a subscription wall: Pay or you can't read Maureen Dowd. A lot of webloggers ordinarily wouldn't care about this but it seems to be an irresistible challenge. How do we get for free what the Times now wants to charge us for? They keep finding ways and someone (probably, many someones) at the Times keeps running around, closing off those routes.

Shortly after the wall went up, many bloggers discovered you could read the restricted columns by merely adjusting the wording of the URL. That's the webpage address. The new, subscription-only addresses have the word "select" in them and if a non-subscriber edited it out, it went to the page for free. This revelation spread across the Internet and the trick really did work…for about six hours. Web-watchers at the Times, I'm guessing, were monitoring websites, learned of the loophole and quickly had it closed.

Other webloggers noted that some other newspapers that carried Times columnists in their print editions were posting columns on their free websites. The Times seems to have stepped in and told at least some of those newspapers that they can't do that. This weblog is attempting to track where the columns appear for free but as you'll see if you try some of the links, some (not all) of the articles have disappeared before they were supposed to expire.

There's a place called The Unofficial Paul Krugman Archive that has posted his first subscription-era column. We'll see how long that practice continues. The big test of the whole system may come this weekend when Frank Rich's column is posted. Will it quickly be available to non-subscribers?

I've gone ahead and subscribed to TimesSelect…or at least, I'm on their 2-week free trial, which will roll over to an annual subscription if I don't cancel in twelve days. A lot of people, I'm guessing, will opt out then and the Times will have a better idea of how successful this new idea will be. I'm not sure yet if I'll be among those sticking around. Access to the New York Times archives is nice, but in two weeks I'll have pulled up and saved a lot of articles. If some of the columnists (especially Rich) are still available for free, then I'm not sure why I'd want to pay the fifty bucks a year.

The Times recently announced massive layoffs. You get the feeling there'll be more after the first two weeks of this new plan?

I couldn't resist running this message I received from Steve Winer. And by the way, the romantic leads in that production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum were John Hansen and Pamela Hall.

I'm one who also saw Phil Silvers in Forum, but I saw him on Broadway. It was truly as memorable an evening as you noted, and I had an interesting near miss after the show. I had seen the show with my father, and after the show we went to Gino's Restaurant for dinner. Gino's was and remains today a beloved Italian restaurant near Bloomingdale's.

Just as we were finishing our meal, a group of cast members from the show, including the young romantic lead whose name escapes me, came in to dine. My father had written extensively for television in the live anthology days of the fifties, and he was friendly with Larry Blyden from that time. We stopped by the table on our way out to compliment the cast and for my father to ask them to send his regards to Blyden. The romantic lead said "You should stay around a while. Phil is going to be coming over." My father, however, decided we should leave. As Charlie Brown would say, "Auggghhh!"

And last year, watching the What's My Line? reruns on the Game Show Network, I heard Phil Silvers mention his regular dining at Gino's — nearly twenty years prior to my experience.

One more note. Wasn't Larry Blyden brilliant in that production? If anybody remembers Blyden at all today, it is probably from the many game shows he hosted. Few know how fine an actor he was (I also saw him be equally great in a New York production of Absurd Person Singular and the original production of The Frogs at Yale).

Blyden was a fine actor. I first came to know his work on a short-lived 1963 TV series called Harry's Girls which has never been rerun to my knowledge, and which I wrote about here. I recently got to see a few episodes of it and it really was as good as I recalled…and Blyden was terrific. The guy could act, sing, tell jokes, dance, direct, do everything. His end was so tragic: He was about to start a new game show for Goodson-Todman so he went on a vacation to Morocco. While there, he went against the advice of some local friends and sped off alone in a jeep to explore nearby villages.

As the story is told, he got into a car accident in some remote little town. The crash should not have been fatal but it occurred where there were no doctors and no telephones and by the time someone found him days later, he was dead…at the age of 49. The game show, which was called Showoffs, went on the air with Bobby Van as its host and disappeared quickly. Mark Goodson was later quoted as saying he thinks that if Blyden had hosted, it would have been a success.

I envy you getting to see him in those other plays. On the other hand, I got to have lunch with Phil Silvers.

As I sorta predicted here, the "new WGA" slate won the Writers Guild election. Here are the details.

Patric Verrone will do a fine job as president. Then again, his opponent — Ted Elliott — would have done a fine job, too. We had some very fine candidates this time, and I don't see that they were disagreeing as much as they seemed to think they were disagreeing. In any event, Patric has an enormous task ahead, just to prep the Guild for the next negotiation, which probably means prepping it for a strike. The current contract expires November 1, 2007.

Patric's slate, all of which was elected, ran on the promise to "organize, organize, organize," meaning to spend record sums to try and get a lot of non-guild writers into the Guild and to get their work areas covered. It would be nice to see them succeed and I'm optimistic that they will.