Monthly Archives: December 2016

This is an amended version of a post which ran here on 9/18/07. It adds in another video and some other info…

In 1964, Hanna-Barbera produced two cartoon series for the Ideal Toy folks. One was The Magilla Gorilla Show and each half-hour featured a cartoon of Magilla, a cartoon of Ricochet Rabbit and a cartoon of Punkin Puss & Mushmouse. The other series was…well, there's some argument as to what it was called. I remember it always being called The Peter Potamus Show. My friend Earl Kress said it was originally titled Peter Potamus and his Magic Balloon and that it was later changed to The Peter Potamus Show.

Whatever it was called, each 30-minute episode featured a cartoon of Peter Potamus, a cartoon of Yippee, Yappee and Yahooey (aka The Goofy Guards) and a cartoon of Breezly & Sneezly, who were a polar bear and a seal.

Okay, you got all that? Good because this is going to get complicated — and I guess I need to post one of these…

Ideal Toys was going to place the shows on various local stations around the country. Because different kinds of deals would be made here and there, it might be necessary to offer the local station an extra minute of commercial time. Ideal wanted the shows constructed so that one minute in each show could be easily dropped.

To do this, H-B produced two little "curtain call" minutes, one for each series. In each, all the heroes in the show would come out and dance around and say goodbye. When Magilla Gorilla and Peter Potamus debuted in Los Angeles, the same "curtain call" minute for each was aired each week and they were, in some ways, the best minute in each show. Each featured a catchy little tune and better than your average H-B animation. Here's the one from The Peter Potamus Show as it originally appeared…

The shows ran in syndication for one year and then the Ideal deal expired. Soon after, Hanna-Barbera sold the shows to ABC to run on Saturday morning. For reasons unknown though, they decided to switch two segments: Ricochet Rabbit would move from The Magilla Gorilla Show to what was now definitely called The Peter Potamus Show. The Breezly & Sneezly cartoons would move from Peter's show to Magilla's.

This meant that some changes had to be made. For one thing, the Ideal Toys logo had to be taken out of the openings and closings.

The opening to The Magilla Gorilla Show had Ricochet and his sidekick Droopalong in it. I vaguely recall that it was reanimated to replace Ricochet and Droopalong with Breezly and Sneezly but every time I see it now, it has Ricochet and his partner in it…and that's not the syndicated opening because the Ideal plugs have been replaced. So maybe they didn't change that and I just imagined it.

The opening to The Peter Potamus Show didn't have any other characters in it so it could remain unchanged. For some reason though, they dropped the lyrics to the opening and also the closing, leaving a music bed that was not arranged to be heard without lyrics.

But then the "curtain calls" in both shows now had the wrong characters. Again, I have a vague memory that they reanimated that minute in the Magilla Gorilla Show to replace Breezly and Sneezly with Ricochet and Droopalong and again, I might have imagined it. But for the Peter Potamus curtain call, they definitely redid what had to be redone to replace Breezly and Sneezly with Ricochet and Droopalong.

If you watched it just a moment ago you'll recall that in it, Sneezly, being a seal, was balancing Peter on his nose. They took out Sneezly and had Ricochet Rabbit just balance Mr. Potamus on his head. In fact, everywhere Sneezly appeared, they redrew him into Ricochet, and wherever Breezly Bear appeared, they redrew him into Droopalong.

All well and good…but Breezly Bear had also been mentioned in the song and to save a few bucks, H-B decided not to bring in singers and redo the whole tune. So what they did instead was to dub in the voices of some men yelling "Ricochet." They couldn't say "Ricochet Rabbit" because it had to be the same number of syllables as "Breezly Bear." Here's the second version. It wouldn't surprise me if one of those male voices yelling "Ricochet" is Bill Hanna. Anything to save a buck…

Well, I haven't had to write an obit in — what is it? About ten hours? Good. Let's see if I can make it to 2017 without having to do another one.

I keep hearing folks saying that more people they know — as actual friends or just famous people they know of — are dying these days and I wonder if that's so. I mean, every week, someone who's in my address book passes away but I think that's a result of how large my address book is. It's at like 2100 names.

You've all heard someone say that as you get older, more and more of your friends pass away…since the older you are, the older your friends are. Maybe that's so…but as I get older, the list of people I've met gets larger and larger.

Also, I think news coverage these days in all areas gets more expansive. Bill Everett, the creator of the comic book character The Sub-Mariner and the co-creator of Daredevil died in 1973. There was absolutely no news coverage in the mainstream press and precious little in publications about comics. When Will Eisner, the creator of The Spirit died in 2005, it was a major news story in every major newspaper the day it happened. I think there's been a similar expansion in all areas of The Arts. So maybe there aren't more deaths. Maybe we're just hearing about more of the ones that do occur.

And that's about all the time 'n' space I feel like devoting to this topic right now. No more obits this year, okay?

---

I Shoulda Known Department: I've received lotsa e-mails demanding that I tell the story of how it is that Carrie Fisher and I went skinny-dipping when I was ten years old and she was six. Honest, folks…there's no real intriguing tale there.

Back when I was under the age of about twelve, I kept finding myself playing with girls, more so than with boys. For some reason, if we were in swimsuits, one or more of the girls would often suggest we take off those swimsuits for at least a few minutes. I later tried to figure out why this kept happening. Well, actually I tried to figure out why they didn't do this after I was about twelve. I came to the conclusion that I just happened to meet a lot of girls who were either curious to see what prepubescent male genitalia looked like and/or wanted to kinda dare themselves to be naked in front of a boy, any boy.

Now then. My mother's best friend was the sister of a man named Harry Karl, who ran the nation's largest privately held retail shoe chain, Karl Shoes. From 1960 until 1973, Mr. Karl was married to the wonderful actress Debbie Reynolds, mother of Carrie Fisher. So my mother's friend was related to Carrie. I think that makes her a step-aunt or something of the sort.

My mother's friend lived in a huge mansion with a spectacular swimming pool and we were often there for parties and to use the pool. One afternoon, there was a brunch with several families present including ours and the Karls. A bunch of us kids were in the pool when our adult supervision, who was not very responsible, had to leave us alone for a few minutes. I think it was four girls and me.

One of the other girls (not Carrie) dared us all to take off our swimsuits and we all did and that's really all there is to the story. I'm sorry, for your sake and mine, that there isn't more to it. The girls at the time were sorry there wasn't more to it, too.

---

About five dozen readers of this site e-mailed me in response to my query about how to turn old Wordstar files into new Word files. Some of you were very helpful and I appreciate all the messages. I've suddenly gotten quite busy so I'm putting the whole Wordstar matter on hold until my "to do" list shrinks a bit and a few of you may hear from me then.

I really like the folks who read this blog…all except the guy who keeps writing to tell me that Donald Trump got the biggest landslide victory ever and Barack Obama had the counting rigged to hide that fact. Personally, I think that if Obama was going to go to the trouble to rig the count, he could at least have given us a president most people like.

Just in case you haven't had quite enough obits this year, longtime MAD contributor Don Edwing (aka "Duck" Edwing) died yesterday at the age of 82. A native of Brooklyn, Don began drawing at an early age and entered the ranks of professional cartoonists at the old (for a new cartoonist) age of 26. He sold his first work to MAD two years later and his first work for them appeared in MAD #70, which oddly enough was the first issue I purchased.

He didn't do much for them the last decade or so but did make a cameo appearance in MAD #515 which came out in 2010. So that's a span of 48 years. Not bad.

There were a few decades there where his work appeared in almost every issue, some of it without credit. In addition to the material that had his name on it — some of which he wrote, some of which he drew — he also contributed cover ideas, wrote for Don Martin's cartoons and for "Spy Vs. Spy," and did "punch-up" improving others' contributions. Also, he wrote and/or drew by my count, thirteen MAD paperbacks.

He was a genial, funny man much loved by his peers. MAD artist Tom Richmond has more about the guy and I don't know why he was called "Duck" but he was and that's all there may be to that.

Sorry to hear about the death of Carrie Fisher. Not being much of a Star Wars fan, I admired her more for her other activities, which included some very witty and honest writing. She struck me as an extremely bright woman who was miscast — though I'm sure to great financial advantage — doing the "eye candy" part of Princess Leia's role. Not that she wasn't cute doing it but I used to cringe years later when I came across Internet messages complaining she didn't look like she did in the first movie. It was as if (a) that was all she was good for and (b) she should have had the decency to not age.

I'm sorry I don't have a lot of great personal anecdotes about her but I only met her twice. The first time, we were skinny-dipping together. Don't get too excited about that concept. I was ten years old and she was six.

The next time was around 45 years later. It was at a bachelor party for my friend, Paul Dini. Some entertainment had been arranged — a couple of attractive young women were going to perform burlesque dances in the classic tradition, meaning they had expensive, elaborate costumes and they'd be dancing to prerecorded music and removing very few of their garments.

The first dancer was introduced. The door into the room opened and in came…Carrie Fisher and Tracey Ullman? Huh? The male audience was quite puzzled but here's what had happened —

The party was in the back room of a fancy Beverly Hills restaurant. There was no other place for the dancers to change so they had done so in the ladies' room. Ms. Fisher and Ms. Ullman had been dining in the front part of the restaurant and they'd gone to the loo in tandem and seen the performers there, getting into their ornate outfits. They had peppered the young ladies with questions about their wardrobe and artistry and then, fascinated with it all, decided to crash the bachelor party to see the performances. So they were slipping in ahead of the ecdysiasts.

Once in the room, Carrie looked over in my direction, yelled "Mark!" and came running my way with arms extended as if about to engage in some serious hugging. I thought for a split-second, "She recognizes me from when I was ten?"

Then I remembered I was sitting next to Mark Hamill. Oh, yeah. She would know him.

After the show, Mark introduced me to her and we talked a little about skinny-dipping (she kinda remembered it) and for some reason, about a then-recent offer she'd turned down to appear at some fan convention. I remember asking her if she sold her book, Postcards from the Edge, at these events. It's a very good book, by the way.

She said, "Sometimes, but they just buy it for the autograph. I don't think very many of them read it." If you admired her at all, you might want to get a copy and read it — and that probably goes for any of her books. You'll have a lot more reasons to admire her if you do.

Well, if you're doing anything less exciting than going to Hef's in your jammies, you can liven up the segue to 2017 by watching Stu's Show!

That's right…I said watching! Ordinarily, Stu's Show comes to you via Internet Radio (i.e., a podcast) on Wednesdays and it's audio only. Well, New Year's Eve, Stu and his lovely spouse Jeanine are taking over Ronnie Paul's late night TV show that comes out of Fresno, California…with the consent and participation of Ronnie, of course. They're bringing in celebrity* guests, games, prizes, classic TV clips, discussion about the world of entertainment and doing it for six hours!

(*The Truth in Labelling Law requires that I clarify the use of the word "celebrity" by noting that I am one of them. I'll be on via Skype from my home because ain't no way I'm driving to Fresno for this or anything. If you want to catch my segment, I'll be on shortly after Midnight, West Coast time.)

Before they get to me, your hosts will be welcoming, among other folks, Jimmy Garrett from The Lucy Show and other programs, Beverly Washburn from Star Trek and other programs, Jeannie Russell from Dennis the Menace, TV historian Steve Beverly and animation authority Jerry Beck. And it'll all be coming to you live from Fresno!

Where can you see this? Well, if you live in Fresno, it'll be on TV there. If you live anywhere else and have a Roku TV, you may be able to watch it on your Roku TV…and of course, it'll be streaming live on the Internet. One of several online sources will be a window I'll have open on this site and another will be on the Stu's Show website, where you can already find additional details. Check back before then for more information…because let's be honest. You ain't getting a last-minute invite from Hef.

The Associated Press has issued a partial (I'm sure) list of things that Donald Trump criticized Hillary Clinton for doing but has done himself.

This is not new to politics. Increasingly over the last few decades (and probably before), there's been a lot of "When your candidate does this, it's an outrage that proves them unfit for public office but when our candidate does it, it's no big deal." It just wasn't quite this blatant before.

George S. Irving has taken his final bow at the age of 94. I never met Mr. Irving but I admired him from afar. As this obit reminds us, he had a long and glorious career as an actor. It was mostly on the stage but he was also on TV and he seemed to be in the cast of about two-thirds of all the cartoons that recorded voices in New York from the sixties on. If you ever watched Underdog, you'd know his voice.

He basically worked as a professional actor from 1942 until 2015. It's stunning when you can do anything professionally for 73 years. Acting for all that time might not be as difficult as being a goaltender in the National Hockey League for 73 years but it's not all that much easier.

Okay, I'm going to embed one of my favorite videos of the thousands I've posted here. I reposted it last year around this time but it's worth more than an annual viewing. This is Mr. Irving re-creating a number he performed in a 1976 Broadway show that, alas, closed rapidly. It was called So Long, 174th Street but in hindsight, people took to calling it Enter Laughing, which was the name of the novel by Carl Reiner upon which it was based.

All you need to know is the show (and novel and movie) concerned David Kolowitz, a young man in 1938 who dreams of becoming a huge star in Hollywood. Robert Morse played the role on the stage. Mr. Irving played his butler in a fantasy sequence, imagining what that stardom might be like. Here is the late, great George S. Irving being great at 88…

Every office I've called this morning is closed today so I think I will be too after I post this and maybe a video link.

I hope you had a nice Christmas. Actually, these days, I find it more realistic to say I hope you didn't have a painful, emotional-in-a-bad-way Christmas. Despite what Andy Williams used to sing, I don't think this is The Most Wonderful Time of the Year for most people. There may be parties for hosting and marshmallows for toasting, but there's also a lot of family problems bubbling to the surface, folks who are depressed because they're alone, others who are depressed because they're not alone, and financial problems because Christmas can be damned expensive.

Hope that wasn't your holiday and that if it was, you're past it for another year. Now you can put your whole attention towards being glad 2016 is almost over and hoping 2017 is better. Given that even my Trump-voting friends think he'll create enormous problems and partisan divides, I ain't all that optimistic.

Last night around 7 PM, I found myself in a restaurant ordering a "to go" order to take to a sick friend. The restaurant was packed and if I'd asked for a table, I might be getting seated right about now. It was so crowded in there that when the hostess said my order would take at least 30 minutes, I told her I'd be back in twenty and was going for a walk.

This was not in the nicest part of town but I felt safe. There were people on the street who looked like they'd be a lot easier and more lucrative to mug than me. One of them approached me and asked if I could spare a buck or two for food. As I fished around in my pocket for some cash, the gentleman said "I hope next year is better," which of course everyone hopes. I said, "It can't help but be," which of course is not true but you say it anyway. I was just handing the guy a few singles when suddenly, one firework exploded in the sky.

Only one. You've all seen those big displays where they fire off dozens and dozens, one right after another, the pace quickening until at last they start overlapping. Well, from some location a mile or so away, someone set off just one of those, followed by no others.

We waited about a minute to see if more would follow and when none did, I said to him, "Guess we'll have to settle for that." He said, "Don't worry. There'll be more fireworks in 2017." I said something about how we could count on that, one way or the other and —

Oh, shit. Steve Stoliar just e-mailed me that George S. Irving has died. Guess I have to post an obit there about him. I think I know what the video link's going to be.

Is there any way we can move up the end of 2016 a few days? It's getting so those montages shouldn't be "Those Who Left Us" but rather "Those We Have Left."

John Swansburg thinks the 1966 animated version of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas was superior to the book on which it was based. I like the special a lot and I think that if you had to turn the book into a cartoon of that length, you couldn't have done a better job of it…but better than the book? I don't think so.

Reportedly, Ted "Dr. Seuss" Geisel wasn't happy with the finished product, even though he participated in the adaptation by writing song lyrics. He was also listed as producer along with director Chuck Jones though that credit could have meant almost any level of involvement. I never met the Good Doctor but folks who did have told of him complaining about all the stuff that was added and how his designs morphed somewhat into Chuck Jones designs.

I think both those things are inevitable when you commit so short a book to a half-hour timeslot and hand creative control to a director as immersed in his own style as Chuck Jones. No matter what Jones did the last few decades of his life, everyone looked a little like Wile E. Coyote.

The resultant special won great accolades and awards and demands for its rerunning every year for a long time. It probably even sold a lot more copies of the book. But better than that book? Like I said: I don't think so.

I posted this here one year ago yesterday. As my Christmas gift to myself, I'm running it here again…

The kid in the above photo is me and I don't care that you don't believe it. It's me. I'm not sure where it was taken — some department store, probably May Company — or how old I was. Seven? Eight? Beats me. But it's me. And is it my imagination or does Santa look like he's telling me not to tell my parents about something he said or did?

I don't have a lot of great Christmas memories left to share here. In fifteen years of blogging and telling tales of my past, I may have exhausted my supply. There weren't that many to begin with.

I do not remember ever seriously believing in Santa or of Christmas being that big a deal around our house. It was a time of love and joy and gifts but with my family, it was always a time of love and joy and gifts. The main features unique to Christmas time were a tree in the living room, a lot of TV specials I had to watch and a certain synchronization of presents.

Our family consisted of me, my mother, my father, my Uncle Nathan, my Aunt Dot and my Uncle Aaron. Nathan and Dot were my father's brother and sister. Aaron was Dot's husband. Nathan never married. One year, my mother's parents came out from Hartford and stayed with us for the holiday season. Then after Grandpa passed away, it was just Grandma one year. After Aaron died, we'd invite Aunt Dot's best friend Sally to join us for Christmas Dinner if she didn't travel out of town to be with other members of her family.

Since Sally was going to bring me a present, I felt I should get her one…and I never knew what to get for her. All she seemed to want was that I address her as "Aunt Sally" and you couldn't wrap that and put it beneath the tree. I think I usually gave her candy but the real gift was that I'd make the card out to "Aunt Sally." The rest of us were real good at taking the gift-selecting burden off each other by hinting with a minimum of subtlety as to what we wanted.

So we usually had six or less people at the table…and then as people died, it went down to five and then four…and at some point, it seemed a bit depressing to have much of a celebration at Christmas. It just reminded those of us who were left of those of us who were not.

At any given assemblage around the table, at least one person was Jewish and one was Catholic — and then you had me who had never been Bar Mitzvahed but identified as more-or-less Jewish but really had a foot in both camps. Early in my childhood, there had been a bit of polite, respectful debate about the co-existence of the two faiths in one family and then there had been that ghastly mistake of enrolling me in a Sunday Hebrew school. But the religious situation was never that serious nor was it divisive. There didn't seem to be any point to it.

One reason I find the whole current "War on Christmas" thing so phony is that each year I intermingled with people of different religions and there was never an issue. Not for one second did anyone attach any significance to wishing someone "Season's Greetings" instead of "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Hanukkah" instead of some other preferred form.

Not just in our house but throughout the neighborhood and at school, one good wish was as innocent and friendly as another. No hidden meanings or schemes to demean any faith were inferred or assumed. "Happy Holidays" meant "I hope your holidays (whatever they may be) are happy for you." It's amazing that some people have become convinced that that innocent little pleasantry could ever mean something menacing.

I've always felt that way about religious preference or even bigotry. Just let everyone be whatever they want to be and respect it. I feel the same way about racial prejudice or about prejudice over sexual orientation. If you just respect that others are what they are, it works out fine. It only becomes a war if you somehow feel threatened and choose to start one.

Getting back to the photo up top: I've been staring at it, trying to figure out what was on my mind when it was taken. This is a guess but I think it's a good one.

I never really believed in Santa…or if I did, I didn't believe the guy in the red suit at the May Company was the real Santa because — you know — he'd be too busy just before Christmas to sit around a department store all day. Besides, I was well aware there was a Santa down the street at Bullock's Department Store and another one over in Beverly Hills at Robinson's and what about that Santa outside on Wilshire Boulevard near Rodeo Drive who was out there all day ringing a bell for some charity and posing for photos?

So if I did ever believe there was a real Santa Claus — and I don't recall that I did — I'd figured out that I couldn't meet him or sit on his lap. The guy at May Company was some outta-work actor or someone they'd hire to impersonate The Man Himself to draw customers into their store. At that age, thinking like that is not cynicism. It's figuring out the world around you and all the fibs — some of them, no doubt well meant — that you need to overcome if you're ever going to grow up.

By the time this photo was taken, I knew there was no Santa. So I'm thinking I was pressured by some relative with the camera to get in the line to sit on the impostor's lap…and what was on my mind was probably something like this: "What am I supposed to do here? Pretend this guy is the real Santa, meaning that I go along with a fraud? Tell him my list of stuff I want this year? Or maybe I should rip that fake beard off him and expose him as the fake he is?"

I'm pretty sure I didn't do that last thing. I probably went along with the hoax just to get it over with.

Or knowing me, I may have climbed up on his knee and whispered to him, "I'll make a deal with you, fella. If you'll pull some strings to get me that Sneaky Pete Magic Set I want, I won't blow the whistle and tell all the kids in line that you're just an office temp in a fake beard!"

And history does show that one year, I did get my own Sneaky Pete Magic Set. So maybe this is the year that I learned that while racial or religious prejudice doesn't work, blackmail sometimes does. Have a Merry Whatever.

One of the things you learn very quickly working in television is how remarkable the stage crews usually are. The first time I wrote a big-budget prime-time variety special, the entire set (which was enormous and complex) had to be loaded-in and set-up overnight and I decided I had to see how that was done. I went to Canter's Delicatessen, bought a sack of sandwiches, and went over to the stage to spend much of the night watching the crew work.

It was amazing, absolutely amazing. The only thing I have seen since that's been in any way comparable has been a few times at Comic-Con International in San Diego when I stayed in the main hall after closing and watched all those booths and exhibits come down. It was like watching Disneyland be disassembled and moved elsewhere right before my eyes.

On the variety show stage, I saw physical feats that would not have been outta place at Cirque Du Soleil, only performed by grips and technicians in t-shirts and jeans. I was sitting on a little platform, talking with anyone who stopped by for a free sandwich. And all the time I was thinking, "This is more entertaining than the show's going to be!"

The clips below are from last week's Saturday Night Live and we're going to do this in sequence. The first is the cold opening with Alec Baldwin in what is turning out to be the role of his career, playing You-Know-Who. As it ends and the prerecorded opening rolls, the crew has a tad under two minutes to pull off a big reset on live television with rows of audience members in their way. That's in the second video. If you think there's not much talent working on that show this season, you're wrong…

Someone who just signs themselves as "Jimi" wrote the following to me…

I have to disagree with your tweet. This is the Christmas season. Most of us celebrate Christmas and think it's the most wonderful time of the year and we don't like this war that's being waged on our faith. Why should anyone be made to feel bad for saying "Merry Christmas?" Why should anyone be discouraged from wishing someone a Merry Christmas?

I don't think anyone really is. But imagine for a moment that you were giving a speech, addressing an audience that was mainly males but contained a few females. Would you say, "Men, I'm here to speak to you today"? No, you'd say "ladies and gentlemen" or something else that would acknowledge the women's presence. It's just being polite.

When stores ask their employees to wish customers "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings" or anything like that, that's all they're doing…trying to be inclusive and to not make an issue of who celebrates Christmas and who doesn't because (a) why even take the time to guess? and (b) you'll often be wrong. They're also extending the good wishes to include New Year's Day at the same time. That's all it is…a positive sentiment that skirts the issue of whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Something Else or None of the Above.

You ask why anyone should be made to feel bad for saying "Merry Christmas." Why should anyone be made to feel like they have a devious agenda for wishing you a happy holiday season? Maybe it's just the year-end way of saying, "Have a nice day" or "Good luck" — with no strings or even ribbons attached.

• Very few things dumber this season than assuming someone wishing you "Happy Holidays" is implying anything about the Christian faith.

A bit over two years ago here, I linked to this article by Richard Zoglin which was headlined, "New Book Reveals Johnny Carson's Least Favorite Tonight Show Guest: Bob Hope." As I noted, the headline did not exactly reflect the article but the piece did say that Johnny didn't like having Bob on his program.

I've been watching the Carson reruns on Antenna TV and they seem to run a disproportionate number with Hope as a guest. (I just looked and another one is on tonight. The other guests are Liv Ullman and our friend we lost two months ago, Kevin Meaney.) I'm guessing the frequency of reruns with Ol' Ski-Nose is because whoever picks the reruns tries to avoid shows with a lot of music so as to not have to pay clearance fees. Ergo, you get a great many with comedians. They run an awful lot with Buddy Hackett and George Carlin, too.

I don't doubt what the sources told Zoglin but I have to say that watching those shows now, I don't see it. Johnny fawns a lot more over Hope than necessary and accommodates more plugging than he allowed most other guests. Hope usually showed up with some decent prepared material and often a few funny out-takes from the upcoming special he was there to promote. And Johnny was always primed to cue some anecdote about Hope's career that Bob would rattle off to the audience's delight.

They were usually pretty good segments and if Johnny really resented Hope coming on to do an infomerical for his special, he never did anything to stop it. I was at a taping once when Hope was a guest and after Johnny finished his show, he stayed around and helped (and heckled) as Hope used the Carson audience to tape the monologue for the upcoming special he was plugging. Johnny didn't have to do that.

The one place where those episodes now seem awkward is when Bob drifted into the political stuff. Then again, with hindsight, about 90% of what everyone said in public about Vietnam in the seventies now looks pretty naïve.

I'll watch the rerun that's on tonight with the same curiosity I have for all of Hope's appearances: Did Johnny really dislike this guy as much as some of his associates now say? Because he sure doesn't show it and there were times when you sensed that Mr. Carson didn't like a guest and they wouldn't be back. There was one on a few weeks ago with Milton Berle where I could practically read Carson's mind. He was thinking, "This is the last time he'll be on this show…and I have to make sure that when I'm that age, I don't embarrass myself like that."

Donald Trump seems to tweet in a two-stage manner. He sends something out into the world via Twitter, then his aides scurry about and tell us what he really meant. Recently, he tweeted about how the U.S. needs to expand its nuclear capability…and that made folks uneasy because I don't think even his most fervent supporters are all that comfy with the concept of Trump being able to start a nuclear war. He might send missiles off to punish Rockettes who won't dance for him.

So here's Fred Kaplan trying to figure out not what Trump's staff says he meant but what the man really meant. And Fred thinks it may not be as bad as some thought at first.