Monthly Archives: October 2001

Over at Animation World Magazine, various folks (including Yours Truly) are polled on their recollections of this year's Comic-Con International. And Sergio and I made the online comic strip, Superosity.

• Election 2002: Rally Time by Molly Ivins, Creators Syndicate
• The Enemy Within by Gore Vidal, The Observer
• The Pot War Boiling by William F. Buckley, Jr.

Just to remind you all: Articles that are recommended on this site are not necessarily articles with which I agree.  I just think they say something important and/or say it well.  (Just find me another site which will link to Vidal and Buckley at the same time.)

Once upon a time, a gent named Alfred Harvey founded the comic book company that bore his name.  Although the firm was later known best for comics like Casper the Friendly Ghost and Richie Rich, they published many books of many kinds.  In 1941, in a book called Pocket Comics, Mr. Harvey launched a very fine adventure strip called The Black Cat.  That's the second issue up there on the left.  The character soon graduated to her own comic, which was published intermittently and in many forms for decades.  Many stories featured superb, Caniff-inspired artwork by Lee Elias.

Although the Harvey company and its best-known properties were later sold to others, a few characters remained in the family.  A few years back, Alan Harvey began publishing, reprinting classic old Black Cat stories and even commissioning a new one by Yours Truly and one of comics' great artists, Murphy Anderson.  If you go to his website, www.blackcatcomics.com, you can read that story on-line and order, for very reasonable prices, some of those comics.  We suggest you do this.

Media alert:  My friend Bob Elisberg informs me that, this Saturday at 5 PM, Turner Classic Movies is presenting a special 40th anniversary broadcast of West Side Story.  Says Bob, "They're promoting it as having new interviews with many of the surviving participants that they'll run before and after the movie."

Who says Broadway is suffering?  The producers of The Producers are going to mark up the price of certain of their best seats, all the way from $100 to $480.  This is, they say, a way to combat scalpers.  Details are here but since it's a New York Times link, you have to register (it's free) and it may expire soon.

A follow-up on our item about the World Trade Center being quietly removed from Conan O'Brien's set: The facade of the New York, New York casino depicts scaled-down versions of the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building and other major Manhattan landmarks.  So do they now have to remove the W.T.C.?  No.  The World Trade Center was never part of the tableau, apparently because the planners felt that the Twin Towers would present certain design problems.  So they just omitted them…and now, the depiction of N.Y. is sadly accurate.

Lastly: This is to inform all that, effective as of last week, I am no longer one of the owners of the restaurant known as Hamptons Hollywood Cafe in the great state of Hollywood.  Nor will I probably be dining there in the future, either.  (It's a long story…)

• Your Money or Your Life by Joe Brancatelli, The Brancatelli Files
• Bush's Wasted Opportunity by Gene Lyons, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
• A True Patriot Can Pose Hard Questions by Robert Scheer, Los Angeles Times
• The Gary Conditization Of The Terror Story by Arianna Huffington
• In Search of a Security Level by William F. Buckley, Jr.
• House Stimulus Plan: This is Unity? by Matthew Miller, Tribune Media Services
• House Zealots Block Anti-Terror Efforts by Joe Conason, New York Observer

Ignore what I said a few weeks ago here about the new DVD release of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.  This is not the "restored" version (which is not really restored) that was released on Laserdisc a few years ago, though it contains some of the same special features, including trailers and the "Making Of…" documentary.  The version of the film on the DVD is…well, let's run through this again and I hope I get it right…

The film, as released in November of 1963 in selected cities was 192 minutes long.  This includes the overture and entr'acte music.

Around a half-hour was then cut for the nationwide general release.  This version was either 161, 162 or 163 minutes, depending on who was running the stopwatch.  Again, the overture and entr'acte music are included in that total.  (Like the version above, this one was on 70mm film.)

The first 35mm version was then mastered for general theatrical release.  This one was without the orchestra and entr'acte music and lost one or two short scenes, as well.  It clocked in at 154-156 minutes and was the version initially released on home video and used for most TV prints.  Producer-director Stanley Kramer was sometimes quoted as preferring this version, explaining that the studio had pushed for a box office spectacle.

A few years ago, a fake "restored" version was released on Laserdisc and VHS, and run occasionally on Turner-owned TV networks.  This one incorporated deleted footage (i.e., footage that was never in any theatrical release) and came in at 186 minutes.  Some of the added material consisted of alternate takes for scenes that were cut after Version #1.  Other scenes were ones that Kramer himself cut before the film's debut.  Whatever, it was generally misunderstood to be a version in which someone had re-inserted all the material that had ever been excised.  Not so.  Almost none of the new footage was ever in the above two versions and many, many scenes were absent in any form, including a choice one involving a split-screen phone call between Spencer Tracy and Buster Keaton.

The new DVD features, on one side, a good print of the 154-156 minute version.  Flip the disc over and, among the special features you'll find is a whole mess — an hour or so — of deleted scenes.  They are not in sequence and some of the picture quality varies.  I haven't waded through them all yet but it would seem to be everything they could find, as of the DVD's mastering.  (A rumor I cannot corroborate says that even more lost footage has since become un-lost.)

Video and audio quality are quite good, so I would say that this DVD does the film justice and is the best-possible product that could be issued at this time.

I still love this movie but I do not disagree strenuously with the criticisms that my pal Andy Ihnatko voices in his review of the DVD.  It hasn't been posted yet but it should turn up any day on Aaron Barnhart's splendid site, TV Barn, which you oughta be visiting anyway.

A rare West coast exhibit of the works of Al Hirschfeld opened last evening at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills.  It's free, it's there through 1/20/02 and you can get the hours (and a sneak peek at a few choice items) by clicking on this link.  If you're in New York and want to glimpse Hirschfeld originals, you can o.d. at the Margo Feiden Gallery, which is on Madison Avenue between 62nd and 63rd Streets…plus, Mr. Hirschfeld has been so prolific that there are a number of theaters and libraries around Manhattan with semi-permanent exhibits.  Indeed, it is not at all difficult if you're on that island to get a glimpse of originals by the one and only Al Hirschfeld.  But an exhibit in Los Angeles is a rare treat and for Mr. Hirschfeld, age 97, to take the train out to appear at last night's opening is even rarer.

A packed house — the theater seats 1,012 — enjoyed film clips and listened intently as Robert Osborne conducted a warm, informative interview with the world's greatest celebrity-renderer.  (It's a little difficult to hang a more specific job description than "artist" on what Hirschfeld does.  He doesn't cotton to the term "caricaturist," while "cartoonist" seems woefully inadequate.)

One drawing that is not included in the new exhibit is the above rendering of the operator of this website, the original to which is huge and on my wall.  In 1992, a TV producer for whom I'd worked arranged as a "thank-you" present for me to meet and sit for a caricature by the esteemed Mr. Hirschfeld.  The drawing, complete with three NINAs secreted in my hair, turned out to be the second-best part of the gift.  To spend an afternoon with the man was even better.

I arrived at his home precisely at 1 PM, as instructed, with photos I could leave for his later reference.  It turned out there had been a miscommunication — he thought it was 2:00 and was out — but that was okay.  I spent a lovely hour chatting with Dolly, his wife of more than 50 years, and a former actress whose career dated back to D.W. Griffith.  (Dolly has since passed away and Al has remarried.)

When Mr. Hirschfeld arrived, apologizing profusely and needlessly, he led me up four floors of stairs (it felt like nine) to the studio where he draws in his trusty barber's chair.  There I sat, self-consciously, as he did a few sketches of my puss.  Having spent much of his life drawing in dark theaters, he never once glanced at the pad of paper, but I did.  The roughs, in dark pencil, were dead-on as caricatures but decidedly more angular and exaggerated than his familiar style.  I asked and he explained that they were only for him — he almost never allows his roughs to be seen — and that, when he does the finished work, he "pretties up" his subjects.  "People would kill me," he explained, "if I drew them in print the way I draw them in my quick studies."

We spoke very little of cartooning and indeed, his studio was largely devoid of the kind of books, paraphernalia and even art supplies I have seen in every other cartoonist's work space I've visited.  One section was taken up with antique shadow puppets; another, with theatre books and memorabilia.  Apart from the barber chair and drawing table, the only clues as to the occupation of the resident were a small shelf of pens, pencils and bottles of ink, and a large pile of the oversized illustration boards on which he likes to work.  Having been informed I was versed in comic and cartooning lore, he offered that he was utterly naïve about the field.  He knew of Charles Schulz, Jim Davis, Garry Trudeau, a handful of political cartoonists…and absolutely no one else then drawing funny pictures for a living.  This was said, I thought, with a sense of distance.  People often asked him about others who output line drawings, particularly of celebrities, but he simply didn't feel he had anything in common with them.

Most of the afternoon, we spent discussing theatre and the then-recent "Rodney King" rioting in Los Angeles.  The former was what I wanted to talk about and he indulged me with some first-hand anecdotes about George S. Kaufman and Frank Loesser.  The latter was what interested him.  He said he'd read all the newspaper coverage but didn't trust what they said and wanted the impressions of someone who actually lived in Los Angeles — an interesting request from a man who had then been on the payroll of The New York Times for close to seventy years.

I allowed myself a few geeky, fan-type questions, one of which was, "Is there any one actor who was especially fun or challenging to draw?"  His answer on both counts — and I'm sure it was an answer he'd given before to an oft-asked query — was Zero Mostel.  "It was always a challenge to try to draw someone who was, as a person, more exaggerated than what I do."  A few years later, I got a very similar answer when I put the same question to Mort Drucker, considered by many to be the best caricaturist of another generation.  (Mr. Hirschfeld said that folks kept mentioning the name of Drucker to him, but he was unfamiliar with the man's work.)

Mainly, I just found Al Hirschfeld to be a charming, delightful gent.  Last night, at the Academy, 1000+ people found that out, as well.  It's nice to see a man honored like that at what I'd like to think is the mid-point of his career.

By the way: If you are interested in purchasing signed lithographs or originals by Mr. Hirschfeld, you can contact his agents, the Margo Feiden Gallery at — you're way ahead of me — www.alhirschfeld.com.  There are also some wonderful pieces available for viewing on that site if you just want to Windows™-shop.

Like many folks who live in L.A., I am good at spotting celebrities as I go about my daily routine.  For some reason, I go through periods when I seem to run into the same ones over and over, and I occasionally find myself observing their public "performances."  For instance, years ago, wherever I went, there was Rip Taylor.  I saw him so many times in so many places, I figured it had to be some kind of franchise deal — you know, like Starbuck's or Mrs. Field's.  Somewhere, a company was telling people that for a modest investment, they could open their very own Rip Taylor.

I once eavesdropped on, and was impressed by, the way he handled an awkward situation with some tourists who sort of recognized him.  A couple from Dubuque (or wherever) began gushing over how much they loved him on TV and simply had to have his autograph…but as the lady fished out paper and something for him to write with, she said something that made it clear they both thought he was Paul Lynde.

Mr. Taylor did not show any sign of reaction, nor did he embarrass them by correcting their error directly.  He knew that once he signed, the issue would be unavoidable so he made like he hadn't heard what she'd said and then told them, "Thank you for not yelling my name out and attracting attention.  Sometimes people see me and they yell, 'It's Rip Taylor,' and everyone looks and it's embarrassing."  You could see the tourists' expressions change as they realized this was not Paul Lynde, and both made the too-obvious gesture of saying, "Thank you, Mr. Taylor," hoping he hadn't noticed their mistake.  But of course, he had…and he'd spared them a moment of humiliation.

Lately, I am unable to do any marketing without encountering Robert Klein and I am delighted to report that he is as funny and charming in the produce section of Gelson's as he is on stage.  He's currently doing the Bob Patterson show, which neither I nor most of America is watching.  Matter of fact, I suspect more people are seeing him in the market, where he jokes with other shoppers, greets folks who approach him with some tenuous connection ("My sister-in-law was the Production Assistant on your third HBO special") and makes no effort to either disguise who he is nor attract undue attention.  Nothing I overheard was quotable, even when he was behind me in the checkout line, paging through some tabloid and registering shock, if not at the headlines than at the fact that folks pay good money to read them.  Still, I have seen long-running TV shows that I thought were less entertaining than watching Robert Klein buy groceries.  I think it's a series.

• The Bi-Partisan Bust by Joe Conason, Salon
• Vengeance: It's Part Of Justice by Joshua Micah Marshall, New York Post
• An Agenda For Victory by Michael Kinsley, Slate
• Pat Robertson: His Liberia Deal by Colbert I. King, Washington Post
• They're Rich, They're Spoiled, They're Supporting Terrorists by Robert Scheer, Los Angeles Times
• Orwell's Example by Gene Lyons, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Also, there was a recent article in Salon entitled "Bin Laden As Lex Luthor" in which writer Gale Holland attempted to view the world's new real super-villain as cut from the same mold as Superman's arch-nemesis. I don't really endorse the analogy (and told her that when she interviewed me for the piece) but, hey. I'll link to any piece that quotes me.

By the way: As I mentioned recently here, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has begun charging for on-line access, which means I can't read my favorite political columnist, Gene Lyons, at least for free. Fortunately, a thriving e-mail network has erupted so someone sends it to me each week…and the website, www.bartcop.com has started posting it regularly. Lyons' column appears Wednesday mornings so it'll probably turn up on Bartcop later that day.

I have no political observations this week. I'm battling a deadline and, even if I weren't, I think I'd be avoiding the news. From what I can tell, we're well into the category of Lotsa Scary Stuff, and the reporters have so much time to fill, they're making it sound like more of a crisis than it is, inflating by hours the six minutes of actual news they have to offer. And the White House may be launching the ground war just in time, insofar as keeping domestic support up and running. If they can't announce some sort of major "win" soon — i.e., we've arrested some major terrorist, bio or otherwise, or killed someone close to Bin Laden — the patience of certain right-wingers will be exhausted. We are long since past the stage where they'd be screaming about incompetence and possible impeachments, were they getting the same level of results from President Gore.

My buddy Earl Kress noticed something interesting on Late Night With Conan O'Brien.  Not long ago, they unveiled a new set which shows a majestic New York skyline.  When the show returned to the air following the 9/11 tragedies, the skyline was draped in funereal cloth as if to suggest a city in mourning…a nice touch, but one that apparently had an additional purpose.  The folds in the cloth caused some segments of the skyline to be totally obscured and, if Earl's deduction is correct, the drape was placed carefully so that the folds covered the World Trade Center.  Its Twin Towers were right in the center of the skyline, situated such that it would have been in the background of every two-shot of Mr. O'Brien and whoever was in the guest chair.  Perhaps this was just a temp measure until they could have the backdrop repainted, or perhaps so they didn't want to immediately show the panorama minus the World Trade Center.  Whatever, the drape has now been lightened so it no longer obscures that area…and you can now see that the skyscrapers have been removed from the tableau.

In the meantime, the late night shows are struggling with what to rerun when they need to do this.  The Tonight Show will be dark next week and they're re-airing shows from earlier this month.  In fact, on 10/22, they're recycling the broadcast of 10/11, which already reran last week in the NBC Overnight slots.  That was a pretty good episode but three times in twelve days?

I really enjoyed The Warren Companion, a new book from TwoMorrows Publishing, edited by Jon B. Cooke and David A. Roach, chronicling the company that brought us Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella, Famous Monsters of Filmland and many other intermittently-wonderful magazines from the sixties and seventies.  (Full Disclosure: I write a column for another TwoMorrows publication, The Jack Kirby Collector.)  Expanded from an issue of Comic Book Artist, this 288-page volume is filled with interviews with Jim Warren himself and many of those who contributed stories and/or artwork to his magazines over the years.  One does suspect that most parties are speaking nicer of one another than they might have, were their employer/employee relationships a more recent memory.

Still, the book does succeed in capturing a lot of what was, at the time, obviously unique to Warren Publishing.  Its monarch was a charismatic, mercurial entrepreneur whose long list of skills did not include going unnoticed.  Through determination and ingenuity — neither of which are intrinsic to most publishers — he built not only an empire but a new format for comics.  Others emulated with much less success, and I suspect the explanation is to be found in this historical overview: Others simply did not work as hard, and throw themselves into pioneering and nurturing a fragile marketplace as did Jim Warren.  Read all about it in this nifty new book.

I have no idea what changes, if any, the bombing will cause in Afghanistan but I am guardedly confident it will play out for the better. What I do fear is that we're in for some rabid domestic squalls over what kind of criticism, if any, constitutes treason. A certain, rather large section of the U.S. is dying to hear that we kicked the asses of those who brought down the World Trade Center and will consider it unpatriotic to suggest that any nugget of U.S. victory is less than total and honorable.

I have a rather cynical, but perhaps not inaccurate view of what drives our public debate and it often comes down to: Watch the Money. For a long time and perhaps still, there was cash to be made and careers to be built on Clinton-bashing. So we got a lot of Clinton-bashing. Those who hated Clinton got lots of attention and those who just mildly disliked him learned to hate him because it did wonders for their bank accounts and fame. Any viewpoint that gets authors on CNN and their books on the Amazon.com "hot 100" is a viewpoint we hear more of and it needn't even be a majority. It just has to be fervent and have buying power.

Right now, those who are eager for John Wayne's America, where the U.S. is always supreme in strength and purpose, are fervent and have buying power. Merchandising of the tragedy (and particularly, of its heroes) has already commenced and what's coming will make the current flag-gouging and tribute events look tasteful by comparison. The same consumers also have, or think they have the moral high ground to bash anyone who might question their vision. Look at how much grief they caused Bill Maher for remarks that should have passed for Fair Comment…and initially did, until a few yahoo radio personalities began misinterpreting them.

I actually think it's a hopeful sign that our government has so demonized Osama Bin Laden and has recently announced a "Most Wanted" list of 22 suspected terrorists. This is not the most logical reason but I'm recalling J. Edgar Hoover's old dictum to his FBI minions that no one should be placed on the "Most Wanted" list unless there was a reasonable expectation that they would be apprehended. And just as J. Edgar didn't want to be caught failing to capture anyone on his list, I don't think those who are controlling the U.S. anti-terrorist efforts want to define the enemy and then fail to defeat it. They must believe they have enough information and access to bring down Bin Laden and to bag most of the 22.

If and when they do, we're going to see a lot of parades and dancing in American streets. We'll probably be told that this proves we need to ban abortions, rescind all laws about gun ownership, investigate the Clintons some more and do away with the Capital Gains tax. And folks who for years have abhorred the concept of "political correctness," as applied to things like smoking and gender discrimination, will be out selling all the right-wing wet dreams as the will of Real Americans. One hopes that some loud voices will remind them that we are all Real Americans…especially those who respect the flag instead of wrapping it around their pet prejudices.

I was watching a late-50's To Tell the Truth on the Game Show Network the other night and an interesting exchange went by, almost without notice.  Panelist Johnny Carson was about to interrogate the three contestants, each of whom was claiming to be an experienced lumberjack.  The host of the show, as usual back then, was Bud Collyer, better known to comic book fans as the voice of Superman on radio and early animation.  Here's how the dialogue went…

CARSON: I know almost nothing about lumberjacking.  Number Two, is it true that Smokey the Bear's a Communist?

(Big laugh over the audience, during which the host makes this comment:)

COLLYER: Don't let him plead the Fifth, Johnny.

Why this is interesting to me: During the blacklist period of the fifties, when performers were going unhired strictly due to unproven allegations about their politics and some were being hauled before Congressional committees, Bud Collyer was a staunch supporter of the practice.  That is to say, he approved whole-heartedly, urged it on, and headed up factions in the actors' union that sought to block any condemnation of Red Channels or other instruments of blacklisting.  He thought those who wouldn't inform on their friends and who took the Fifth Amendment instead were traitors — or, at least, that's how it sometimes gets reported.  Others, either because they were his friends or because they just don't want to believe the man who played Superman would have done such a thing, have claimed that, yes, Collyer was pro-blacklist, but he wasn't hysterical.  He had, they say, a deep, humane fear of Communists making inroads into the entertainment industry and believed that the cause was right, even if some of the tactics employed to ferret them out were wrong.

I never knew what, if anything, to think of Mr. Collyer.  But now, here he is on a show done when blacklisting was on the decline but still being defended, making that remark.  Gotta make you wonder.

For that matter, To Tell the Truth was an interesting — and, given its name, ironic — venue for folks on both sides of the blacklisting issue to come together.  The show's producer, Mark Goodson, was one of the few strong opponents of blacklisting in the management side of the industry.  He not only fought it, he often booked as panelists, personalities like Orson Bean and John Henry Faulk who were being refused work elsewhere.  Those two men had, in fact, been part of a slate of candidates within the performers' union that ran on an anti-blacklist platform and succeeded (in a landslide) in ousting Collyer's faction from office.  Still, on the game show, Collyer was by all accounts a gentleman and a professional.  He'd welcome them, introduce them, play the game…and then scurry off to a union meeting to argue that such people should be barred from ever working again.

Game Show Network is also rerunning vintage episodes of another of Goodson's shows, I've Got A Secret, which had its own battles with blacklisting (and another ironic title).  In this case, the firing was demanded of panelist Henry Morgan for, as usual, rather vague, unproven allegations that were in no way against the law.  Someone said he'd gone to the wrong meetings or hung out with the wrong crowd.  Whatever, the sponsors wanted Morgan removed, and Goodson refused.  He got the show's host, Garry Moore — something of an American icon — to join in a strong statement denouncing the blacklist.  In this case, the blacklisters retreated and Morgan retained his seat on the Secret panel.  Would that more producers and performers had had the guts of Mssrs. Goodson and Moore.

• The War Begins by William Kristol, Weekly Standard
• Killing Bin Laden Won't Do by William F. Buckley, Jr.
• Should We Blame Clinton? by Jacob Weisberg, Slate
• Stars Banned From The Zone from E! Online
• Terror Unanswered by William Saletan, Slate
• Bush To Bin Laden by Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times
• Sesame Street Bert Joins Bin Laden on Posters by Bernhard Warner, Reuters
• Want To Know Why We Are No Safer In The Skies Today Than We Were 30 Days Ago? Two Words: Tom DeLay by Joe Brancatelli, The Brancatelli Files
• Life's Odds and Sept. 11 by David Plotz, Slate

The management of this site reminds you that one need not agree with all or any of an article to recommend that you read it.

On Sunday afternoon (10/7), my friend Carolyn and I dropped by the Hollywood Collectors Show, an event held around thrice a year at the Beverly Garland Holiday Inn in Studio City.  The hotel, by the way, is named for the wonderful character actress, Beverly Garland, who is best known for her long-running role on the TV show, My Three Sons.  She was among the many celebrities who were there, selling autographed photos and memorabilia.

These two-day events, run by Ray and Sharon Court, give stars — past and present — a chance to meet their fans and to make a few bucks writing their names on eight-by-tens.  Sometimes, it's more than a few bucks.  Rumor has it that the all-time grosses are racked up whenever Don Knotts is at a table, signing Barney Fife photos at ten bucks a pop.  He was advertised for all weekend but, due to poor health, only showed for one day.  Still, one of the guests with a nearby table, estimated that Mr. Knotts signed perhaps a thousand signatures on Saturday.  You do the math.

(The unofficial runner-up for the longest line is said to be Charlton Heston, who wasn't among the guests this time.  Apparently, the way to generate crowds at this thing is to have at least one bullet in your pocket.)

Besides Knotts, others who were signing one day or both this time included Hugh O'Brian, Ed Asner, Gennifer Flowers, Buddy Hackett, Edd "Kookie" Byrnes, David Carradine, Howard Morris and many others.  Joey Heatherton, Stella Stevens and Carol Lynley were all there.  If in the sixties, you were male and unaroused by any of the three, you were automatically declared gay.  There were also a couple of former members of "Our Gang," a number of one-time Mouseketeers, a few Playboy Playmates …and the main reason I went: Soupy Sales.  The Soupman was selling 'n' signing his newly-released autobiography, Soupy Sez, written with Charles Salzberg.

Mr. Sales seemed tired and in poor health so I didn't attempt much of a conversation; just bought a book and got it signed.  I was outside, paging through it when I discovered that I'd written a chunk of it.  Soupy's co-author, Mr. Salzberg, e-mailed me some time ago and secured permission to quote the article I penned about Soupy (this one) and I'd plumb forgotten.  But despite me, it's a pretty good book…one that will delight anyone who names Soupy and his menagerie as among their childhood playmates.

These Hollywood Collectors Shows (and similar events around the country) leave me with mixed feelings, I have to say.  On the one hand, I think it's terrific that actors who wish to avail themselves of the opportunity have a venue where they can make a few bucks off their autographs.  A lot of those in the hall receive scant (often, no) residuals from their old TV and movie appearances and have had their willingness to sign autographs exploited by dealers.  I like the fact that if, for example, you always admired Edd "Kookie" Byrnes, you can go up to him at one of these shows, tell him that, shake his mitt and buy a signed pic or autobiography with every nickel going to him.  Against this is the fact that it's a little sad, at least with some guests, that this is all that remains of their stardom.

What causes me to side (mainly) with the happier thought is a melancholy memory from one of the Courts' shows, a few years back.  It involved the late comedian Pat Paulsen who, at the time of course, was not a late comedian.  Alas, he then knew he was about to become one.  He'd been diagnosed with something terminal — the big "C," I believe — and was out on a crusade to accrue cash to leave his family.  Pat was a very sweet, very funny man who had managed to not rack up much of a fortune during his years on television — though I suspect his last minute putsch for dollars was less a matter of needing cash than of needing something constructive to do.  Whatever, for his last few months, he was appearing everywhere he could, performing and signing, making whatever money he could make.

Colleagues were abetting him.  Ruth Buzzi was sitting with him that day, dolled up in the Gladys Ormphby outfit she wore on Laugh-In, signing and posing for photos, with and without him, all proceeds going to Pat.  A few other stars lent their celebrity to the effort while autograph dealers, aware that the supply of Paulsen autographs was soon to be finite, were stocking up, buying multiples from him.  It was sad…but it would have been even sadder if Pat hadn't had that outlet.

Navigating the ballroom at these events presents certain challenges of etiquette: You don't want to make eye contact with folks whose wares you have no interest in purchasing.  But you also don't want to act like you don't know who they are or don't care that they're there.  I don't collect autographs, at least not on eight-by-tens, though I've purchased a few at these shows, just so I had the chance to chat with the star or slip a few bucks to someone who seemed to really need the money.

Many don't.  One guest this time told me she would have preferred to pass out pics gratis but, for two reasons, couldn't.  One was that, when she'd tried that in the past, the autograph dealers grabbed 'em all up and they went directly up on eBay.  The other problem was that the other guests who did need (or just really want) the money got quite angry at her; like she was trying to make them look bad.  So she charged ten bucks a photo, threw in a lot of freebees, and gave everything she collected to the Twin Towers Fund.  Works for her, works for me, works for everyone.  In fact, the more I think about the whole institution, the more I like it.  I wish the room was less shabbier and crowded, and I wish the whole proceedings were a bit more dignified.  But I'm glad someone invented this kind of event and will attend whenever possible.

Two other points: The above-linked article I wrote about Soupy was as much about his sidekick, the late Clyde Adler, a wonderful gent about whom little is known.  This may change.  My article found its way to his widow who sent me a lovely letter — on paper; people still do that — correcting a few minor errors and inviting me to hit her up for additional info on Clyde.  I intend to do this soon.  (Thanks, Ed Golick, for passing it on to her.)

Also, they're not in stores yet but if you want to pre-order a copy of Soupy's autobiography, you can do so at Amazon.Com.  And if you do so by clicking on this link, I make enough money to buy about half a pack of gum.