When I started this post, the subject line said "Saturday Afternoon" but then I had to write obits. I do not like doing this. Let's see if we can tie up some loose ends before Fate requires me to write more…
Bill Mullins identified that clip of Billy Joel and Marlee Matlin on Sesame Street as being from Christmas of 1988. Galen Fott writes in to tell me that the Muppet Wiki says that segment first appeared on episode 2533 of Sesame Street, which first aired on January 18, 1989. Bill's source which he sent me was a newspaper clipping from the previous November saying that the segment had been taped for a Christmas episode. Obviously, it was taped to air around Christmas but got postponed. So Bill wasn't really wrong.
Brent Seguine, who knows an awful lot of Stooge stuff, tells me that the cartoon from that unsold pilot, Three Stooges Scrapbook, is still around for theatrical exhibition, usually paired with the feature flick, The Three Stooges in Orbit. He also tells me it will be included in the forthcoming Three Stooges Blu-ray collection. I think he means this one and I'm puzzled about it. The Amazon listing to which I just linked says it includes among other goodies, "100 treasured Stooges shorts, celebrating 100 years of Columbia Pictures!"
Okay, great…but the Stooges made 190 short subjects for Columbia. This set is currently priced at $230.99 and it's got a lot of other stuff on it but don't let the pricetag lead you to think you're getting all their shorts. (I have a DVD set which has 'em all and I think I paid forty bucks for it. It's outta print now but it does turn up on eBay and in other places for reasonable prices. I don't think I really need to see Shemp in the highest-possible def right now.)
I don't think I'll be writing about the Trump Trial until it reconvenes and maybe not even then. But if you're really curious about what the case is really about in a strict legal sense, I refer you to this article by Dennis Aftergut. He's a former federal prosecutor and he wrote out what he would tell the jury in a summation.
I'll be curious to see what the real closing statement by the prosecution will be…and also what the defense will say besides that everyone whose testimony was damaging to Donald was lying. As I understand it, New York courts are not like most courts elsewhere. Elsewhere, the prosecution presents its closing summary, then it's the defense's turn and then the prosecution gets to rebut. In New York, the defense goes first, then the prosecution speaks and then it goes to the jury. We'll probably hear complaints about that.
If I'd posted this yesterday, I would have reminded you that Comic-Con International convenes in San Diego in two months. Now, I'm reminding you it opens in two months from yesterday. My busted ankle gets less and less busted each day so I plan to be there and host my usual zillion-and-a-half panels. At the moment, my partner Sergio Aragonés is not planning on attending.