Monthly Archives: April 2016

Here's an article about Gary Johnson, who will probably wind up being the nominee of the Libertarian Party. I feel a kinship to Mr. Johnson because of one thing we share: I'm not going to be the next President of the United States either.

I am glad we have a Libertarian Party because I side with them on many issues. Four years ago though, I listened to a very long speech on CSPAN by Mr. Johnson outlining his entire platform. I liked much of what he said but felt there was a great disconnect with the reality of America's then-current problems. He even sounded like a guy who knew he was never going to have to put any of his positions into practice. I sometimes feel the party is like a dog chasing a car. If he ever caught it, he wouldn't know what to do with it.

In the article, Johnson suggests people take this online political test to see where their true values and opinions lie. He says most people will discover that though they may not know it, they're Libertarians. I only got 73% with him whereas I had 98% with Bernie Sanders and 96% with Hillary Clinton…so you can see why I don't care that much which Democrat wins. In case you care, I got 41% concurrence with Donald Trump…though for the life of me, I can't imagine how anyone could pretend to know where Trump stands on most issues. I got 57% with John Kasich and 19% with Ted Cruz. The 19% number surprised me by having two digits and no decimal point between them.

Hey, here's another Martin and Lewis film and it also has Eddie Mayehoff in it. This is The Stooge, a film Dean and Jerry made in early 1951 though it wasn't released until December 31, 1952. In-between, they made two other movies — Sailor Beware and Jumping Jacks — which were released ahead of The Stooge.

Why the delay? Reportedly, it had to do with the plot which cast Dean as an egomaniacal entertainer who splits up with his partner, who was played by Richard Erdman. (Richard Erdman, by the way, made his first movie in 1944 and he's still a working actor. How's that for a long career?) Dino's character doesn't do so well as a solo partner so he takes on a stooge in his act — a kid played by Jerry who is a lovable screw-up and comic foil and his participation in the act catapults it to great success. Dean's character doesn't appreciate what Jerry's character is contributing and treats him like dirt…but Jerry's character is so good-natured and sweet that he puts up with it.

Finally — SPOILER ALERT! — Dean's character — still determined to be thought of as a solo performer — dump's Jerry's character and, of course, the act bombs and Jerry's character comes to his rescue.

Jerry Lewis later said on many occasions that this was his favorite Martin-Lewis movie. Gee, I wonder why.

Anyway, when the film was completed, Paramount execs got worried that having Dean treat Jerry like that on the screen would harm the team's popularity so they shelved the film. There is some dispute among historians as to whether there was a real chance it would never be released or if they always decided to just hold it until the team got better established. (It would have been their third starring vehicle instead of their fifth. This is not counting the two My Friend Irma films in which they had supporting roles.)

It was pretty successful and a lot of folks agreed with Jerry. Here it is if you want to see how you feel about it…

Josh Marshall takes us back to the days of the Clinton Impeachment and reminds us that many of the Republicans expressing moral outrage at Bill's behavior were secretly doing the same thing…or worse.

This is one of the things about politics that makes me most cynical; that for so many politicians, moral outrage is not something you feel. It's something you express because you think it will help you politically. This applies to practitioners on both sides of the aisle…and it seems at times like the more sanctimonious a public figure is, the more likely it is that he or she is practicing the opposite of what is preached.

The Boston Globe shows us what its front page might look like a year from now if Donald Trump is elected president. It's a PDF file but your computer should know how to handle those.

The MeTV website recently posted this item about a so-called "lost" episode of the original Star Trek TV series, one that would have guest-starred Milton Berle. "Lost" may be overstating it since it was never filmed. What it was was a script that was commissioned from writer Norman Spinrad and then abandoned. I would guess that at least 90% of all scripted TV shows that commission individual scripts have a couple of those per season.

Several of you have written to ask what, if anything, I know about it. I don't know a thing about it and am a little puzzled as to how it might have come about. If Star Trek had been on the air a season or two earlier, the explanation would be simple. Berle was a huge star on NBC in his variety series which debuted in 1948 as The Texaco Star Theater. It was such a success that in 1951, they signed him to an unprecedented deal which they called a "lifetime contract."

This presumed that he would die at age 73 since it actually paid him to be exclusive to the network for thirty years…or until 1981. (He actually made it to age 93.) Berle sometimes claimed that the deal was for a million dollars a year but other sources say it was $200,000 — which was still a lot of money at the time.

In '51, TV was new and no one really imagined that the appeal of a weekly TV star might not be as enduring as the career of some weekly radio stars had been. In a lot less time than anyone imagined, the public tired of Berle's antics and his show was canceled in 1956. Thereafter, he was kind of "free talent" for NBC since they had to pay him anyway. He was assigned to different ventures, including a series he hosted called Jackpot Bowling, which was just what you'd expect from the title. When that was canceled, they kept giving him one-shot guest appearances but less and less of them each year.

The long periods of being off the air drove Berle crazy. He did movies (including It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World) and played Vegas and appeared in plays but he was a compulsive performer and had been since he first went on the stage at age five. He got seriously depressed when he went for any stretch of time without working and especially without working in front of an audience. The contract allowed him to make a limited number of appearances per year on other networks but not, for his satisfaction, enough. Whenever he found himself not being recognized sufficiently in public, he called his agents and begged them to find some way to get him back on TV in a series.

ABC was open to the idea of a new Berle show but NBC, which had him under that contract, wasn't. Finally though, what was then called the Peacock Network agreed (in late '65) to a reduced contract that paid him less — reportedly $120,000 per year instead of the old amount — and allowed him to appear wherever he wanted. ABC immediately offered him a five-year deal which essentially worked like this: He'd host their show The Hollywood Palace a number of times and if the ratings hit a specified level, he'd get a weekly variety series. If not or if it was canceled, they'd guarantee him a specified number of on-air appearances for the balance of the contract. His ratings at the Palace were strong enough that on Friday night, September 9, 1966, The Milton Berle Show debuted on ABC but it only lasted until 1/6/67, after which point ABC was now forced to find shows to put him in.

Norman Spinrad being asked to write an episode of Star Trek guesting Berle would have made sense in 1965 when NBC was still looking to place him in shows. But Star Trek debuted on Thursday night, September 8, 1966 — the day before Berle's new series. Star Trek, as we all know, ran for three seasons. Spinrad wrote one produced episode ("The Doomsday Machine") which aired in October of '67 in the show's second season. According to his telling, he was then asked to quickly write the episode for Berle…but this almost surely was when Berle was under contract to ABC. In October of '67. they had him playing Louie the Lilac, a guest villain on Batman. Why would anyone be trying to find him a spot on an NBC show then?

I can think of one answer and this is in the category of Wild Guesses. Star Trek was produced by Desilu Productions, which was then still largely owned by Lucille Ball. Legend has it that when NBC wanted to cancel the show after one season, Lucy had a lot to do with convincing the network to keep it on. Maybe Berle, panicked by his recent cancellation and contractually allowed to make some appearances not on ABC, went to her and begged her to get him something on one of her shows…and Lucy called Star Trek producer Gene Roddenberry and asked him to at least try to find a spot on his television show for Mr. Television.

Is that what happened? I dunno. Like I said, it's a Wild Guess. I just can't imagine NBC, which had probably gotten sick of finding places to use Berle, trying to inject him into Star Trek. Finding places for him was ABC's problem by then. Berle loved working in drag. I wonder if they ever considered having him replace Marlo Thomas as That Girl.

The acclaimed cellist Steven Isserlis is not only expert on his instrument but he knows all about Harpo Marx. There's a half-hour audio documentary over the BBC Radio website that you can listen to now and for the next seventeen days. I think it's a credit to the incredible, vivid imagery of Harpo that you can listen to audio clips from Marx Brothers films, as you will if you go over there, and still laugh at Harpo even when you can't see him. Go try it and see if you don't agree. And thanks to my buddy Greg Ehrbar for letting me know about this.

In addition to being in every issue of MAD since 1966, writer Dick DeBartolo has often been busy working on game shows, especially The Match Game. In the late sixties, he was working on that program when its host, Gene Rayburn, filled in for a week for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. That was not Rayburn's first time on the program. When Steve Allen hosted that program, his announcer was Gene Rayburn.

Dick made a brief appearance on one episode that Rayburn hosted. Here it is in its entirety…

How will the Republican contest for the presidential nomination end? Norm Ornstein lists what seem to be all the possibilities — though I can't help think something will happen which no one could have anticipated.

Here's a point of genuine suspense for me: The Republican Convention convenes in Cleveland on Monday, July 18. If everything were to go according to the usual schedule, they would be nominating their presidential and vice-presidential candidates and doing the big acceptance speeches on Thursday, July 21. But nothing in this election has gone according to custom and we may be talking about major floor fights over rules and multiple ballots and some people are even talking about the possibility (which I think is unlikely) of new candidates entering the fray.

I don't care about acceptance speeches and rallying. I can watch them later on my TiVo or YouTube if I watch them at all. But if there's going to be unscripted stuff happening, I wanna watch it live, preferably with a good Internet connection so I can read what everyone is saying and Tweeting. Problem: Comic-Con International starts on Thursday, July 21 and I always go down the day before so I can be there for the Wednesday Preview Night. It's hard to imagine that all the interesting stuff will be over before, say, 11 AM on Wednesday when I would usually start heading South. To me, the three most likely scenarios are, in no particular order…

1. Trump locks up the 1,237 delegates he needs to win on June 8.
2. Trump doesn't get them then but rounds up enough uncommitted delegates before Cleveland.
3. Trump loses on the first ballot and Cruz wins on the second.

I don't believe there will be a Paul Ryan movement; not unless there a lot of credible polls before then that shows Ryan would easily trounce the Democratic nominee…and I'm pretty sure there won't be. I don't believe Trump and Cruz will form a coalition ticket…though I would love to see the two of them mud-wrestle over who'd be at the top of it.

Of the remaining three: If Trump locks it up before the convention, the convention will be one big Donald Infomercial so it'll be of little interest, except maybe to stare with the "Springtime for Hitler" look at any Sarah Palin speech plus whatever Donald says. The other two options suggest lots of floor fights over rules. It's easy to imagine the #StopTrump forces challenging his claims over uncommitted delegates or fighting to not release the ones pledged to Rubio and other fallen candidates. That could all make for a lot of drama and a long convention. You may just hear me yelling at my TV, "Will you people hurry up and get this thing settled? I have to get to Comic-Con!"

We'll watch and link to any interview of Stephen Sondheim. Here's a recent one conducted on the stage of the National Theatre in London. It's all worth watching but the most interesting question to me was the final one in which Mr. Sondheim speaks of the difference between a musical on stage and on screen, and why he thinks West Side Story was not a good movie…

According to this article, there are more than 40,000 Chinese restaurants in the United States. Before you click over there, try to guess which words — besides "Chinese" and "restaurant" — appear most often in their names. (Hint: One of them is not "Izzy's")

Before I forget: Read Ezra Klein on the ways in which he thinks the press is biased for and against Bernie Sanders.

Anyway, for what little anyone may care, I am warming to the idea of Bernie Sanders as the next president of the United States…not that I was ever against that. I'm still unconvinced he can beat Hillary Clinton for the nomination but I used to not have a preference and now I'm starting to have one, modest though it may be. This may sound silly but while I think Clinton and Sanders would both be fine presidents, I could personally get more excited about Sanders as the nominee.

Then again, I'm wary of these polls that say he'd do a better job than she would of defeating Trump or Cruz. I can't believe his personal approval rating wouldn't take a deep nosedive if he secured the nomination and Republicans started in with the ads calling him a Communist with a congenital contempt for the American Way of Life who'd raise your taxes, take away your property and your freedoms, etc.

Regarding his chance to getting the nomination: He did a surprise cameo on Stephen Colbert's show last Friday night and bragged how well he and his team have been doing winning state caucuses. That's true — he has been doing better than Clinton in states that hold caucuses. But unmentioned was that there aren't many caucuses left and that the polls show her with big leads in most of the remaining states. I wish this were not so and if he does lose the nomination, I hope it's not by so wide a margin that people say it proves something about being "too liberal" even for Democrats, which would mean really "too liberal" for this country.

While we're talking Bernie, here's a microscopic, unimportant thing that made me like Senator Sanders a bit more. I noticed on Colbert — and you may already have noticed this — that he wasn't wearing an American flag lapel pin. He apparently never does.

Most folks seeking the presidency do, at least most of the time, lest they open themselves to abuse from people with very low I.Q.s who think that to not wear one means you hate your country, wish it would fall to the Commies, pray the terrorists win, etc. Apparently, if those are your goals, it is impossible for you to mask them by pinning on a little $2.95 replica of Old Glory.

Since Socialist Sanders is a bit more vulnerable to such attacks than your average presidential aspirant, you'd think he'd make the teensy gesture of slapping one on just to shut off that one line of attack. Even Barack Obama did that at times but as you can see, Sanders has instead a gold, round lapel pin. I looked at a number of recent photos online of him and he always seemed to have it on. What the heck is it? A bit of Googling gave me the answer: It's the badge which identifies him as a U.S. Senator to security when he enters the Capitol building in Washington.

I'm not sure I can explain why but that feels more genuine than any politician making the decision — probably in consultation with handlers — to wear a flag pin. It even makes me feel like Bernie never gave a thought to what adornment on his lapel might help his candidacy…and that he only owns the one suit.

Nate Silver thinks Donald Trump is going to have a hard time winning the 1,237 delegates he needs to have locked down if he's going to arrive at the Republican convention with the nomination sewed up like a package of Trump Steaks. As I understand it, the theory here is that he'll fall short after all the remaining primaries and caucuses but he might be able to make up the deficit by persuading — which I guess includes bribing — uncommitted delegates to support him. Even then, he might have to battle a floor fight over rule changes that could still deny him victory on the first ballot.

If it goes to a second ballot, it's a brand-new ball game. There will be delegates there pledged to vote for Trump on the first ballot who will then be able to vote for their real choice on the second. Some are saying there will be more Trump delegates there who really prefer Cruz or someone else than there will be non-Trump delegates who will switch to Donald at that point.

Some are also saying it'll wind up being None of the Above; that plans are being laid to slide Paul Ryan or someone else in. Such plans may well be under discussion but I doubt that's going to happen. The party might be able to endure all the Trump supporters feeling they'd been cheated…or all the Cruz supporters feeling they'd been cheated. But I doubt it could survive alienating both at the same time.

That is, unless they nominate someone who is universally adored. Obama didn't take my suggestion that he nominate Bob Newhart to the Supreme Court. I fear I'd be wasting my time to suggest Republicans bypass Trump and Cruz and all the other names mentioned and instead give the nomination to Dick Van Dyke.

But it would work and it would bind the nation together. Hillary and Bernie would probably drop out of the race before they'd run against the guy. Everybody loves him. No one could vote against him. And when President Van Dyke goes to deliver the State of the Union address, he could trip over an ottoman on his way to the lectern. Wouldn't that be infinitely better than any other option either party has at the moment?

O.J. Simpson was acquitted of that infamous double murder in October of 1995. His personal fortune before the murders was estimated between 8 and 11 million. By the time the trial was over and he was released, he was reportedly over one million dollars in debt…but very confident he could get it all back and more.

Dozens of cash-making plans were announced. He was going to write a book. He was going to produce a movie about his ordeal as a wrongly-accused man. He was going to host a TV show that would spotlight innocent people who had been arrested for crimes they did not commit and clear their names. He was going to sit for a Pay-Per-View interview with Larry King in which he would answer questions that would convince the world he was innocent. (That last one was the real scam. Hitler could sit for a twenty-hour Larry King interview and probably never be trapped into admitting he had anything to do with World War II.)

There were other plans as well but most fell through and the rest fizzled out financially. The problem seemed to be that no one wanted to be in business with O.J. Simpson. Finally, a home video company made a deal with him to do a VHS tape called O.J. Simpson: The Interview. Various prominent newspeople were approached to be the interrogator but, rumor had it, everyone turned it down. Finally, Ross Becker agreed to accept the assignment.

Ross Becker has been in TV news since 1975, moving from station to station around the country, occasionally moving into management for a time. I recall him doing excellent work on KCBS in Los Angeles in the early eighties and popping up later at KCOP and KNBC. He's currently an anchor and reporter for KUSI in San Diego.

I further recall reading that when Becker agreed to do the Simpson interview, he had very little time to research the case and prep. If Simpson ever thought his producers had engaged a pushover who'd be easy to snow, he was in for a disappointing surprise. Becker was informed, ready and quite unwilling to be a stooge. No, he didn't trap O.J. into a Perry Mason-style confession but he did make him sweat a lot and hastily ad-lib a lot of clumsy answers for questions he obviously didn't expect. Simpson blamed, of course, everyone: Lying witnesses, racist cops, dishonest lab technicians, scumbag reporters, etc. — and especially anyone who was ever around Faye Resnick. I thought Becker did as expert a job was anyone could have.

The gentleman who produced the tape appeared on Larry King Live to promote it before its release. I remember him saying, in effect, "I don't know if Simpson did it or not but I felt he deserved a chance to tell his story and I knew we would make a ton of money off it." There was an exchange that went something like this…

KING: You're putting this out even though 75% of the country thinks O.J. should be in prison.

PRODUCER: Hey, I'll settle for the kind of sales we can get from 25% of the country.

He fearlessly predicted it would sell in the zillions but it was later reported as a colossal failure. I don't recall the precise numbers that circulated at the time but it was something like they expected to sell two or three million copies and they sold around 39,000. It was a pretty monumental disparity and it had to have been one of the worst moments of the whole matter for Simpson: The realization that his wealth was never coming back and that there was absolutely no market out there for him or his story.

Several folks have posted the entire video to YouTube so you cam watch it without paying Simpson a dime. The interview runs about 90 minutes and it's then followed by an hour of Simpson taking viewers on a tour of his home on Rockingham and explaining more of his side of the case. I've never made it through the whole thing but one friend of mine who did said, "He comes off as so arrogant and contemptuous of Nicole and everyone else that even if he didn't commit the murders, I still hate him."

Since the whole thing's about two hours and 35 minutes, you will not watch all of it. I doubt you'll make it through twenty minutes. But you might want to pick out one section and watch for a bit just so you can see what true naked lying looks like. Almost any section at random will do fine…

Jonathan Chait on why Ted Cruz would be a terrible, terrible president.

The one good thing I can think of if he were the Republican nominee is this: Right-wing folks have always believed that they lose presidential elections because their party nominates squishy, insufficiently-conservative candidates; that if they ever gave America the chance to vote for a True Conservative (as defined by the right-wingiest fringe), enough voters would flock to the polls to not only elect that person but to prove that's the way most of this country wants this country run from now on. Having Cruz there to pull a Barry Goldwater would forever snuff that fantasy.

Of course, the trade-off for that is that many of us would have months of wondering, "But what if by some fluke, he does get elected?" What if suddenly, there was a new 9/11-style terrorist attack and a lot of scared Americans rushed to vote for the candidate most likely to nuke the rest of the world? What if someone suddenly found a Snapchat video of the Democratic nominee sexually molesting farm animals at a Nazi Bund Meeting? What if…?

Well, we can all think of something that's unlikely but not utterly impossible.

Frankly, forced to make a pick, I'd rather have Trump. We know Cruz will do everything wrong. Trump, because no one can be sure just what he'll do, might at least do a few things right.

• Okay, so the G.O.P. is counting on Ted Cruz to save them from Donald Trump. Yeah, but who's going to save them from Ted Cruz?