Monthly Archives: March 2015

Matt Taibbi has some issues with Hillary Clinton. So do I, though they may not be precisely the same ones. If she is indeed in the nominee…well, I don't see anyone on the horizon of any party I think could do a better job. I wish I did.

A reader of this site, Shmuel Ross, wrote in this morning to suggest I rerun this post from May 6, 2006. In the video, you'll see a gent named Gene Patton who passed away last Monday at the age of 82. Patton was a stagehand who got a few moments of glory in his life thanks to The Gong Show. Here's an obit on him and here's the piece I put up here in 2006…

In 1976, a very odd program appeared on NBC's daytime schedule…and also in prime-time syndication. It was called The Gong Show, and I was never able to dislike it quite as much as my critical faculties told me I should. There was plenty to make one cringe, and I sometimes did…but I still tuned in from time to time with ambiguous feelings I never had with the other shows produced by the Chuck Barris Company. I thought the others — The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, The New Treasure Hunt, et al — showed an underlying contempt for anyone willing to appear on them…and maybe even anyone who tuned in to watch. At times, that seemed true of The Gong Show, as well. But not always, which I guess is what was so intriguing: The occasional joyous moments in the midst of such a shoddy program.

There was a bizarre feeling of fun about the original Gong Show especially since Barris, functioning as host, was willing to be part of the chaos. On Truth or Consequences, which had gone off not long before, contestants were dressed in funny costumes and hit with pies…but Bob Barker, who was the emcee, was always perfectly dressed and coiffed and it was understood that his dignity was not to be punctured in any way. I thought that was tackier than what Barris did on The Gong Show and The Gong Show could get pretty danged tacky.

Still, one time, I accepted an invitation from Gong Show director, John Dorsey, to hang around on tape day. I watched one episode from the booth, marvelling at John's ability to call shots faster and more skillfully than any other director I've ever seen. Then I went down to the floor to watch the next episode being taped…and something happened during it which I still remember with a tiny tingle. It was a regular bit they did involving a stagehand named Gene Patton who'd come on and dance under the name, "Gene Gene the Dancing Machine."

The minute they started playing his music — "Jumpin' at the Woodside," I think the tune's called — the studio positively erupted. Barris started dancing and the panelists jumped up and started dancing…and you could feel how much Gene Gene enjoyed what he was doing. Okay, fine, they're performers. It's part of the act. But the crew also started dancing — people not on screen. The guy operating Camera 1 was operating Camera 1 and dancing at the same time. Grips were dancing, lighting guys were dancing, the members of the band were dancing as much as they could and still play their instruments. And of course, the audience — an odd mix of younger Gong Show fans intermingled with old ladies who couldn't get in to the Hollywood Squares taping down the hall — simply had to leap up and boogie. Some of the show's performers and staffers were a little (shall we say) under the influence of something…but the crew wasn't and the audience wasn't. It was just an honest "high" of excitement.

I've been on many TV stages in my life. I've seen big stars, huge stars — Johnny, Frank, Sammy, Dino, Bob, you name 'em. I've seen great acts and great joy, and if you asked me to name the most thrilling moment I've witnessed in person, I might just opt for the Gong Show electrifying Stage 3 for all of 120 seconds. Maybe it was because it came so totally out of nowhere that it stunned me but everyone, including the stone-cold sober people, was suddenly just so…happy. There was something very, very invigorating and enjoyable about being in the midst of all that sudden happiness, however frivolous it may have been.

Here's a clip from The Gong Show showing Gene Gene doing his dance on another episode. The thing I find funny in it is that you can see everyone getting into the spirit of the moment — Barris, two of the three celebrity panelists (Arte Johnson and Jaye P. Morgan), the band…everyone except the third panelist, a new comic named David Letterman. You can see him decidedly not getting into it…though you can't see much of him because Dorsey seems to have tried to cut around him. I'll bet you the crew and audience were dancing, too…but Dave's just standing there, clapping along to not look like a bad sport, probably wondering how long it would be before he got his own show and didn't have to put himself in any situation he couldn't control. Watch.

Each July at the glorious Comic-Con International in San Diego, we present the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing. And by that, I mean we give out two of them — one to a deceased writer of the past and one to someone who's still around and who can, we hope, show up to accept in person.

And each year, I solicit suggestions here of folks you think are deserving. Now, I should point out that we are not desperate for nominations. Last year alone, we received so many good ones that we could probably give out this trophy for nearly a decade, just drawing from that list. If you proposed someone in the past, you need not resubmit that name. Everyone who has been proposed in the past and has not won is reconsidered each year. My notes show me we've had around 200 people submitted for consideration since we started this. That breaks down to — well, let me do the math here…

Okay, got it. It's roughly 199 men and 1 woman. We recognize that for a long time, the industry was not exactly wide open for women writers. Few applied, fewer got in and there's not much we can do about that now. However, there have been very fine, important female writers of comics and if you want to think of names that our judges should consider, you might want to think in that direction. And then if you do have a name — male or female — that might not have been mentioned in the past, send it to me. Before you do though, read this…

1. This is an award for a body of work as a comic book writer. Every year, a couple of folks nominate their favorite artist. Sometimes, they don't get that "writer" part and sometimes, they argue that their nominee qualifies because their favorite artist was in the field so long, he must have written an issue of something at some time so we can give him this trophy. No, no and no. A body of work as a comic book writer. Why is that so difficult to understand?
2. Bill Finger in his lifetime received almost no credit for his work and nowhere near a respectable share of the revenue it generated. This award is for a writer who has received insufficient reward for his or her splendid body of work. It can be insufficient in terms of recognition or insufficient in terms of legal tender or it can, of course, be both. But this is not just an award for writing good comic books.
3. And it's for writing comic books, not comic strips. We stretch that definition far enough to include MAD but that's about as far as we'll stretch it.
4. To date, this award has gone to Arnold Drake, Alvin Schwartz, George Gladir, Larry Lieber, Frank Jacobs, Gary Friedrich, Del Connell, Steve Skeates, Don Rosa, Jerry Siegel, Harvey Kurtzman, Gardner Fox, Archie Goodwin, John Broome, Otto Binder, Bob Haney, Frank Doyle, Steve Gerber, Robert Kanigher, Bill Mantlo and Jack Mendelsohn. Those folks are therefore ineligible. You cannot win twice.

Got a name to be worthy of consideration? My address is on this page. Any reasonable suggestion will be placed before our Blue Ribbon Judging Committee for contemplation. The selections will be announced some time in May and the presentations will be done at the Eisner Awards ceremony, which are usually Friday evening at Comic-Con.

Barack Obama was on Jimmy Kimmel's TV show last week. I didn't watch it for fear Jimmy Kimmel would be on it but I have a question. It was a big issue that day in Los Angeles that this street would be blockaded and this one would be detoured and traffic would get backed up to Lompoc on this boulevard, etc. It always is when Obama comes to town.

Now, I'm old enough to remember John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush all coming to Los Angeles to do TV shows and appear at fund-raisers and luncheons and dinners. Reagan never seemed to do anything else. I don't remember much panic about streets being blocked. There was some when Johnson or Nixon appeared at some hotel to make a speech but that was largely because there were thousands of people outside protesting The War. It feels like the minute Obama lands at LAX, the L.A.P.D. shuts down Wilshire Boulevard in both directions, no matter where he's going.

I absolutely understand protecting the president, even the presidents I haven't liked. I'm puzzling on why this is now such a problem.

One possibility — and it may be more than one of what I'm about to suggest — is that traffic just gets worse and worse in this town even when no president is near…so it's worse and worse when one is. Another is that perhaps Obama, who is hated by his haters more than most Chief Execs have been hated by their haters, requires more rigorous Secret Servicing.

Still another is that it's really no different. Those who want to dump on him are just blowing the norm all out of proportion, making him seem like someone who if he wants to go be on a late night show, doesn't give a damn about all the Angelenos he inconveniences. I once sat in a jam on Olympic Boulevard for at least 45 minutes because George W. Bush was speaking at the Century Plaza Hotel.

It barely made the news…which makes me think of another possibility. This has always happened but thanks to the Internet and everyone's smartphone alerting them and apps like Waze, we're hearing more about roads being blocked off.

The thing is: We block off streets in this city all the time…and for just about anyone or anything. There's a much-traveled section of Hollywood Boulevard between Highland and Orange that is probably blocked two or three times a week. If there's a big event at the Chinese Theater or at the Hollywood and Highland shopping center, that stretch is blocked off. If Jimmy Kimmel, who tapes across the street, is doing a stunt or concert, that stretch is blocked off. That area and more than 25 additional miles of major Los Angeles streets were blocked off this morning for the L.A. Marathon.

And if I'm shooting a major motion picture or a TV show and I feel I need to have streets around your home blocked off, they will almost certainly be blocked off and if it inconveniences you, too damn bad. We've closed freeways because someone wanted to shoot a car chase on one.

I just don't get why it's such a big deal when President Obama comes to town. You'd think Democrats would be glad to have him in our fair city and Republicans would be pleased that for some period of time, he wasn't doing anything in Washington.

I put this up here on 6/17/06. It's about one of a long string of clueless folks I've encountered in drug stores. Fortunately, this woman was not the pharmacist…

Most of the Sav-on drug stores which dot Southern California (and elsewhere) are all turning into CVS Pharmacies. The parent company of the latter purchased the former and I don't think they've gotten as far as changing the signs outside but legally, the change was official a few days ago.

Yesterday afternoon, I went into a store that said Sav-on on the outside and Sav-on all over the insides. I'm guessing that if you went around the store and counted, you'd find the name "Sav-on" at least a thousand times. Over the pharmacy, for instance, there was a huge, six-foot sign that said "Sav-On 24-Hour Pharmacy." Absolutely nothing else had changed except that taped to all the cash registers were little paper signs that said, "This is now a CVS Pharmacy," and then under that in smaller type, the signs explained that if you pay by check, you have to make the check payable to the new name, not the old.

Ahead of me in the one checkout line was a woman, perhaps seventy, who was utterly confused by all this. She had purchased a tube of Vagisil (I think it was) which her doctor told her to get at Sav-on. She'd found it on the shelf and carried it to the register…where she'd discovered, much to her horror, that she was not in a Sav-on. I had to stand and wait through about ten minutes of conversation, the last part of which went roughly like this…

LADY: Why does it say Sav-on if this is a CBS Pharmacy?

CLERK: CVS Pharmacy, ma'am. And it used to be a Sav-on but now it's a CVS Pharmacy.

LADY: Well then, I can't buy this here. My doctor told me to buy it at a Sav-on.

CLERK: This is the exact same store it always was.

LADY: If it's the exact same store, why isn't it a Sav-on?

CLERK: Because Sav-on was sold. And anyway, you can't buy it at a Sav-on. There are no more Sav-ons. They're all CVS now.

LADY: (getting panicked) But my doctor said I needed this and I had to buy it at a Sav-on…

At this point, I decide that if I'm ever going to make it out of this store, I'm going to need to step in and clear things up.

ME: Excuse me. Your doctor doesn't care where you purchase this item. It's the medicine that's important, not where you buy it. This is the exact same product they sold here when this was officially a Sav-on.

LADY: Then you think it would be safe to buy it here?

ME: Absolutely. For all intents and purposes, this is still a Sav-on.

LADY: Well, in that case, I'll buy it here. Thank you. [to Clerk:] I'm going to need to write a check.

CLERK: Certainly. Please make it out to "CVS Pharmacy."

LADY: But this man said this was still a Sav-on!

At this point, I gave up and went to another register. In a Walgreens.

Mark is taking the day off from blogging so he can get some work done and get some sleep done. I may repost an old article here later…or I may not. If I don't and you have a hankering to read one, check out our Archives. As soon as I post this, there will be 21,311 posts on this site. There must be one or two you haven't read before.

(Oh, and if you do, do me a favor: Sometimes, for no reason I can discern, images on older messages get disconnected and there's a blank space where a picture oughta be. Let me know if you spot one. I am not fixing external links which no longer work or videos which no longer play but I do fix missing pictures.)

Tomorrow on this site, we will discuss the mystery of who didn't get into that opening number of the '86 Emmy Awards and I'll be musing as to why it suddenly creates such traffic dysfunction when a president comes to Los Angeles. Be well.

Earlier today, I told you about Irwin Hasen. In the video below, you get to see a little of him…and if I'd said that in front of Irwin, he would have said, "And there's only a little of me to see!" A few years ago, filmmaker Dan Makara made a documentary about Irwin. I haven't seen it but I want to.

By the way: In my little obit, I forget to mention that last year at Comic-Con, Irwin was inducted into the Eisner Hall of Fame. And you'd think I'd have remembered that.  Since he couldn't be there, the guy he asked to accept for him was me.

Here's the trailer to the film about Irwin. The whole thing is a long film about a short subject…

One of the more hysterical political accusations that's employed in this country occurs whenever anyone wants to try anything shy of the total annihilation of an opponent. It's the Neville Chamberlain analogy. As Simon Maloy notes, that's because to some people, every enemy is Hitler.

Irwin Hasen isn't the only long-running newspaper strip artist we lost this week. Harold "Fred" Fredericks, who drew Mandrake the Magician from 1965 until 2013 also passed away. Mr. Fredericks took over as illustrator of Lee Falk's famous wizard when the strip's previous artist, Phil Davis died and slowly made it his own. Though a strip like that can easily be a full-time job, Fredericks occasionally found time to draw comics for Western Publishing (Bullwinkle, Twilight Zone) and Marvel (Defenders of the Earth, G.I. Joe) Also, he created the long-running feature Rebel for Scholastic Scope.

I'm afraid I don't have much to say about Mr. Fredericks other than that he sure did a lot of popular, good-looking comics. I never met him. I'll try and direct you to some websites that have information about him if I come across any.

A very short giant in the world of comics died this morning at 3:15 AM in New York. From 1955 to 1986, Irwin Hasen drew the Dondi newspaper strip. Before that, he was a key artist in the early days of comics, working mostly for DC. He worked on many of their comics in the forties including Green Lantern but is probably best remembered as the co-creator of the character, Wildcat. His work on that feature was singled out by many of his peers (including Alex Toth) as outstanding for its expert storytelling and simplicity.

Irwin was born July 8, 1918 so he was 96 today when we lost him. He grew up in New York, started drawing when he was six and used to joke, "I never stopped and I never grew." (His height topped out at 5'2".) By a lucky coincidence, his family lived across the street from the National Academy of Design and his mother, seeing her son's obsession with art, took him over one day and enrolled him. He was by his own admission not the best artist in the world but no one could beat him when it came to hustling his work to potential buyers. His longtime friend Joe Kubert used to say that if people didn't love his work, they loved Irwin enough to buy some of it. He eventually got to be pretty darn good.

Irwin's earliest work in comic books seems to have been in 1940 for the studio of Harry "A" Chesler, who produced material for a number of publishers. By 1941, he was working for Sheldon Mayer at All-American Comics, a firm which later merged into DC Comics. Apart from a stint in the Army (most of it spent at Fort Dix, running the post newspaper), Irwin did almost all his work for DC until 1952 when — as he told it…

I was told, "You're a nice guy and everything, and we'll give you a couple of covers to do. But we've got Carmine Infantino, we've got Joe Kubert, we've got Alex Toth…" I was not really a comic book artist like these other guys. In the back of my head, for all my life, I'd wanted to do a comic strip in the newspapers. My idols were Roy Crane, who did Wash Tubbs, and Milton Caniff, of course.

Fortunately, not long after that, he was offered the chance to draw Dondi, a strip created and initially written by his friend and fellow cartoonist, Gus Edson. Irwin loved the job and ran with it, becoming the driving force behind its sales and success, and managing it after Edson passed away in 1966.

The above quote from Irwin is from a long interview I conducted with him at the 1999 Comic-Con in San Diego. An abridged version of it is on this site and I urge you to read Part 1 and then Part 2 to spend some time with this remarkable man. I was very fortunate that I was able to, then and at other conventions.

Irwin was funny and Irwin was irrepressible. I had him on several panels and he always arrived with a great funny (and sometimes, not-so-clean) anecdote that he was going to tell in response to whatever question I asked him, regardless of its content. One time, I asked him something innocuous like what kind of brush he used and Irwin spent the next ten minutes telling a roomful of surprised but delighted comic fans how when he was 15, a gangster named Frankie Carbo took a liking to him and paid for him to go to a prostitute and lose his virginity.

He also loved to teach and did a lot of that in the latter day of Dondi and after the strip ended…and he didn't stop drawing then. He kept at it, even creating an autobiographical graphic novel around the time he reached his nineties. As long as his health would allow it, he was a superstar on the convention circuit.

Those who love comics of the forties are no doubt saddened today to hear that our tiny supply of veteran creators from that era has been diminished today. Those who knew Irwin (or just his work) are saddened that there's no more Irwin Hasen. He was an absolute original, a very lovely man and about as dedicated a cartoonist as the business has ever known.

Just noticed that the Season Pass on my TiVo for The Late, Late Show doesn't roll over when James Corden takes over. I had to cancel it out and take a new Season Pass for The Late, Late Show with James Corden. Which I have done. Let's see how long I keep it. At the moment, it's the only late night show I'm set to record every night unless you count The Daily Show and The Nightly Show.

And despite announcements, Corden does not start on Monday, March 23, at least in most time zones. The show goes on at 12:35 AM so the first one really airs on Tuesday, March 24. I seem to be the only person in this country who understands that a "daily" show which starts after Midnight does not air Monday through Friday. It airs Tuesday through Saturday.

By the way: The Daily Show and The Nightly Show only air four nights a week so they aren't daily or nightly. In defiance of its own name, @Midnight on Comedy Central does not air at Midnight in some time zones but it does at least air on Comedy Central.

• Rudy Giuliani says Obama should "say the kinds of things Bill Cosby used to say." Yes and he should also tap dance like Sammy Davis did.

I've received several suggestions as to who the mystery man behind the door was in the Emmy video. None convince me. I don't think it was Bob Barker and that they just put him in later because the dance number was choreographed and the lighting cues and camera moves were all prearranged. They had to have had someone behind each door when it was scheduled to be opened. I also don't think it was Peter Falk and they just moved him later, into Walter Cronkite's bit. The Cronkite/Falk moment was too perfect to have been an accident. And I don't think it was Jimmie Walker about to yell "Dy-no-mite" because he did that in one of the film clips.

I accidentally posted the next-to-final draft of my long reply to Johnny Achziger — who, by the way, is definitely one of the good guys. I have now replaced it with the final draft, which is slightly longer and contains fewer typos.

I got this the other day from Johnny Achziger. Capa-Alpha, by the way, was kind of a fanzine club and I should write about it here someday.

I've known you for some 40 years, we met at least a few times at San Diego Comic Cons back in the '70's, we were in Capa-Alpha together for awhile and we corresponded briefly. It doesn't matter if you remember me or not, but I am an avid reader of your blog. I especially enjoy the stories you post of your childhood, in fact it inspired me to do similar stories of my own childhood on Facebook.

Now and then you make comments about religious people coming to your door and trying to convert you. I assume you mean either Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons as I don't know of any others who go door to door with their religion. Maybe there are others in your area. I became one of Jehovah's Witnesses in 1979 (and I'm not going to preach to you here, so please read on — I'll keep it short), and have gone to 1000's of doors over the past 35 years.

If you want to make comments about such people, feel free (some of them are quite funny), but perhaps I can clarify a couple items (in 25 words or less). We never ask for money (though we may state that we accept donations), we don't believe in instant conversions (nobody becomes a Witness without months of personal study), and we don't tell people that they are going to hell (we don't believe in a literal burning hell), and we only come to your door because we truly believe that Armageddon is coming (believe me, I do not enjoy being cussed at and threatened with deadly violence).

Okay, that was more than 25 words, but I recognize you don't wish to be preached to and I respect that. I'm not asking you to do anything. I just wanted to briefly explain a couple things. I know how annoying it is to be interrupted when you're busy but they're basically good people.

Have a nice day and best wishes for your continued health and, again, I love your blog.

I do remember you, Johnny, and would be pleased to run into you again at a convention…or really anywhere except my doorstep. Part of what I object to here is unsolicited appearances on my property and the expectation that I will interrupt whatever I'm doing (once in a while, it's sleep because I work odd hours) and answer my door and just stand there and listen for as long as it takes to hear a rehearsed sales pitch, usually for a product or service that's of no conceivable interest to me.

I've never liked that and I've gotten less tolerant of it since I've been having trouble with my knees. I'm usually upstairs in my office so I have to trudge down, just in case it's a signature-required delivery or a neighbor with a problem. Years ago, I tried posting "No Solicitor" signs but discovered that people who are selling door-to-door never think those apply to them or they fib and go, "Oh, I didn't see that."

My annoyance applies to those who are peddling religion but it also applies to realtors who want to sell my house for me, Girl Scouts hawking cookies, kids who claim they can get through college if I'll subscribe to magazines which will probably never be delivered, political activists even when I agree with their politics, and vendors of small kitchen appliances. Frankly, I think that if my "product" was along the lines of an acceptance of Jesus Christ, I wouldn't want to trivialize it by selling it via the same business model people are using to sell aluminum siding.

The least annoying, by the way, are the realtors. At least, they leave you free memo pads and occasionally a pot holder with their name on it.

I have had Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses at my door and also a few others. Most of them never get far enough to identify their particular cause. You may be pleased to know I never cuss or threaten. I sometimes tell them that my spiritual life is fine and then I see either great disappointment or disbelief on their faces. It's apparently never occurred to some of them — or perhaps they just don't believe — that anyone could survive in this world without their particular religion. News flash: Billions do.

That's one of the things I don't like about most organized religions — the disrespect of other religions. I am also very suspicious of any order that sends its followers out to recruit and raise money. I'd be more impressed if they sent out their followers to help people in actual need and without proselytizing.

I'm afraid I don't see a whole heap o' difference between asking for donations and saying you accept them. I also don't see much difference between (a) telling people they're going to hell if they don't sign up or (b) warning them that they'd better enlist because Armageddon is coming soon to a planet near you.

You can mock me when it really occurs but I do not believe Armageddon is approaching…or if it is, that the people so prophesizing have any sort of inside track as to when. I think it's just something that religions have learned to say for the same reason that companies that sell Home Security Systems try to convince you that the burglary of your house is inevitable and imminent. The key difference is that some homes do get robbed, whereas the world does not end, no matter how often we are told it's about to.

You say they're good people. I don't doubt that most are and for me, that's part of the problem. It's much easier to slam the door on not-good people. I am less certain that the folks who send them out to go door-to-door are good people.

Johnny, I am not questioning your sincerity or good intentions. But the folks who come to my door on missions are questioning — actually, doubting — that I could possibly have my life and head together without what's in their pamphlets and books.

Three days ago at about this time, a band of them — all dressed as if attending an upper-scale church, of course — rang my bell about this time of day and forced me to trek needlessly downstairs on a knee that's full of cortizone and short on meniscus. The lead pitchman started in asking me if I'd accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior. I interrupted to tell him he wasn't selling Jesus Christ; he was selling his organization's particular marketing of that esteemed figure.

I live in a pretty nice neighborhood but for some reason, we have homeless people sleeping in nearby alleys. They're not hard to find. You just look for the shopping cart full of discards covered with old trash bags and a homeless person is usually sleeping right next to it. I asked the gent on my doorstep why he didn't go try to "save" that guy…because that guy's in a helluva lot more trouble than I am or will probably ever be. Every day is a potential Armageddon for that guy.

My visitor stopped and stammered and didn't know what to say…because I'd knocked him off his memorized speech and he was used to letting it do his thinking for him. So I gave him the answer: "It's because homeless people don't have any money to give you."

Now, I remember you as a bright guy and I'll bet you'd have had an answer. And I'll further bet that some of the doors you knock on are opened by people who are not unhappy to see you…maybe even some who buy what you're selling. The kids pushing the overpriced, bogus magazine subscriptions make a sale every now and then, too.

I used to be much nicer to these people. I thought it would be rude not to listen to the whole dog 'n' pony show before I told them I wasn't interested. Now I figure I'm doing them a favor to cut them off and let them get on to the next house because they absolutely, positively ain't going to make a sale at mine. The reason some (as you say) cuss at you and threaten deadly violence is because though from your point of view, you just bothered them the one time…from their point of view in their neighborhoods, it's an endless parade of salespeople who drag them away from more important matters. Going door-to-door is an ignoble, pestering way to sell what are sometimes scams and sales campaigns that, like those e-mails that tell you you've won millions, hope to luck into the really gullible and desperate. I don't think it speaks well of any cause — again, including political ones I otherwise support — that it chooses to go this route.

As I was typing the last sentence of the above paragraph, my doorbell rang and I thought, "Oh boy! I have a great finish for this piece! I can limp downstairs in pain, have a blunt exchange with some annoying religion vendors, then limp back up here and write how they inconvenienced me. As it turns out, it was my gardener wanting to be paid. But if I'd written this three days ago at this time, I would have had the perfect closer. That's another annoying thing about door-to-door salespeople: They always seem to show up at the most inconvenient moments.

Earlier this A.M., I posted links to two videos from the 1986 Emmy Awards. The first was a musical number in which various TV stars pop out of doors to say their signature lines (i.e., catch phrases) and as I noted, one star didn't get on. A dancer opened the wrong door or the timing was off or something…but one star was glimpsed only for a fraction of a second and wasn't able to say his line.

People are sending me guesses that I'm sure are wrong but what would be right? The moment occurs about 1:42 into the video. You see a smidgen of a slender, dark-haired man who may also be dark-skinned…but maybe not. Anyone got a theory as to who it is? I'm thinking Ricardo Montalban and the line he would have said was "Smiles, smiles, everyone." But I'm not confident of this, especially since they'd already had Hervé Villechaize from Fantasy Island and the rule of this production number seems to be one catch phrase per show. (And if they did have two, I think they'd have put them back-to-back. They did go from Jack Paar to the guy who always introduced Johnny Carson.)

Anyone have a better guess than Montalban?