It's been a while since we had a number here from the Masters of Harmony but here they are — with their rendition of a song from the musical Wicked….

• Elon Musk hasn't had control of Twitter for 24 hours and I already feel myself being turned into a bot.

The fine folks who run Comic-Con International in San Diego have put up a page explaining all about Open Registration for next year's con. Open Registration takes place the morning of Saturday, November 5 and the convention itself is July 20-23 of 2023 with a Preview Night on July 19th. If you wish to attend, make sure you have a Member I.D. and make sure you read the page in advance.

No, not everyone will get the memberships they seek. There's a limit to how many people can fit into that convention center and there are a lot more people who would like to be in there for the con. This is one of those sad facts of life.

If you can't get into the con or can't wait for it, remember there is WonderCon Anaheim, which runs from March 24 to March 26 at the Anaheim Convention Center. Some call this "Comic-Con Lite," as it is run by the same skilled organization…and it isn't that "Lite." There's plenty to see, plenty to do. One friend of mine once said, "When I go to Comic-Con in San Diego, I only get to experience a very small fraction of what's there. WonderCon is way bigger than that fraction."

WonderCon is also a lot easier to get into. You'll be able to purchase badges for it very soon. [NOTE: When I first posted this message a few hours ago, I said they were already on sale. They aren't. I got confused between part of the website that's been updated for 2023 and part that is still about the WonderCon earlier this year. Sorry.]

I'm in one of my intermittent "don't pay much attention to politics" moods. I've long since cast my mid-term ballot so I feel justified in tossing away the zillion-and-six ads I get in the mail telling me I need to save mankind by voting certain ways in certain categories. And I'm really tired of all the Internet Clickbait that tells me my side will win, my side will lose, America as we know it is doomed, etc.

When I was much younger, I stopped following sports because I really didn't want to care that much whether the Dodgers won. It seemed to me that my friends who did got really, really depressed when the Dodgers lost…and the joy when they won was too hollow to make up for the periods of depression when they didn't. Obviously, who wins what elected offices and which propositions pass stand to affect real life more than any sporting event ever could but I feel just as ineffectual to change the outcome. I cast my ballot. I donated to a few causes. I've done all I can.

So what else do I have to talk about this morning? I got my flu shot the other day. That's a major event in this exciting life of mine.

A fellow I know casually is mad at me because he sent me a text message and I didn't respond to it within an "acceptable period of time." That was his term and I think it means about fifteen minutes. I was napping when it arrived…a possibility that doesn't seem to have occurred to him. I also could have been someplace with no cell service, my phone could be broken or outta power or missing, I could have been in an important meeting, I could have been in the middle of a session with my Physical Therapist or some doctor, I could have been dealing with some crisis, I could have been speaking to a large audience or even a small one that deserved my undivided attention, I could have been out in the pool, I could have been in the shower, I could have been dealing with illness…

There are many, many reasons I didn't reply to his message as quickly as he expected but he leaped immediately to the assumption I was deliberately avoiding him. I wasn't…but I think I will in the future.

It's November 24, 1978 and a kid from Indiana named David Letterman — who I'd seen emceeing shows at the Comedy Store — makes his first appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. It worked rather well for him…

From Aaron Currier came this…

So I'm sure with the end credits on shows (and movies as well), just about everyone is contractually obligated to have their names on the credits, rightfully so I think. But what about the speed? When they are designed to just flash by in an instant making someone need to pause to see their name, or even the older shows when they speed the credits up fast, am I right to assume that the producers are only legally/contractually obligated to have the names in the credits but don't have to legally make sure the credits are legible? You would imagine that they would have to make the credits actually readable since the whole point of credits is to, well, give people credit which hard to do when flashing by fast. Obviously they are in the clear as long as they have the credits, not mattering how fast they run them, fulfilling what little legal obligation they have.

No, not everyone has a contractual credit. Some credits are contractual but some are just customary…and on most shows, it's not "just about everyone" who gets credit at all. I've never worked on a show where everyone who could have received screen credit got screen credit. Often, you have the situation where, for example, four people are handling wardrobe or three are doing makeup and/or hair…and only the head of each department gets credited.

Those who are guaranteed credit either negotiate for it or their union does. Not everyone on any show is in a union and some unions don't demand credit…or credit for everyone. Also keep in mind that not everyone who works on a show works full-time. Let's say you have an episode of a show where there's a big party scene full of beautiful people. For that filming date, they might bring in a few extra makeup people just for the morning. Those people will not get credit.

Not even everyone seen on camera gets credit. Extras don't. Dancers rarely do. Most musicians don't. Some actors with two or three lines don't.

There may be writers who contributed to the script but didn't contribute enough to warrant credit under Writers Guild rules. The Guild has a whole manual full of rules to determine this kind of thing and if you're interested, you can download it from this page. There are movies where ten or twenty writers had input but only three or less received credit. My name has not been on some of the things I've done — sometimes by my choice, sometimes because my contribution wasn't large enough.

A contractual credit for anyone might include specifications of prominence. The director must have a single title card that displays his or her name and no one else's. The writing credit must be the same size and prominence as the director credit. The Directors Guild contract says, I believe, that if the credits are at the front of the show or movie, the director's must come last. If they're at the end of the movie, the director's must come first. If the director credit comes last, the writing credit must come just before that; vice-versa if it's at the end. There are also rules for when a voiceover can be heard during a writing or directing credit and when it cannot.

This is all very complicated but it is governed by rules. As far as I know though, there are no rules that anyone's credit must be onscreen for X seconds; only that it cannot be onscreen for less than everyone else's. And I'm talking here about contractual credits. The producers can do just about anything they like with credits that aren't contractual. Most credits for animation, by the way, are non-contractual.

As for why credits now run as swiftly as they do and are so small: I am reminded of a producer I met with maybe ten years ago. We were discussing a writing job that I wound up not doing. When we first met about it, he said to me, "I want my writers to imagine that every single person watching the show is sitting there with the remote control in their hands, ready to switch channels if they feel even momentarily bored." That is not an uncommon worry.

Networks came to the conclusion — and I have no idea how much evidence there was for this — that they were losing too many viewers to other channels during station breaks and credit rolls. So the policy is that if my show airs directly after yours, they want to not give the viewers time to even think about changing stations when your show is over. They began compressing the credits and doing tricks like popping up a little box showing a preview of my show while yours was still finishing. They want to get viewers watching my show a.s.a.p.

It has been suggested that all the networks get together and agree that they will all slow down credits so no one has an advantage. It might be very hard to get them all to agree to this…and frankly, they aren't just worried about viewers switching to another channel. They're worried viewers will go play videogames, or play some show they have recorded on their DVRs or watch something that's streaming or whatever. We live in a time when viewers have never had so many options.

Perhaps if the Writers Guild and the Directors Guild and the Screen Actors Guild and a few others all demanded it, something might change…but I'm skeptical they'd even rally around the issue. I don't hear a lot of dissatisfaction with the way credits are compressed these days.

Hey, wanna see a Betty Boop cartoon you've probably never seen before? Buzzy Boop at the Concert — one of only two cartoons the Max Fleischer Studio made featuring Betty's niece Buzzy — has been a "lost" film for a very long time. But a print recently was found in Russia and the UCLA Film & Television Archive has done that voodoo that they do so well and restored it to something approximating (maybe even bettering) its original glory.

The film was released September 16, 1938. Margie Hines did the voices of Betty and Buzzy, and I think all the grunts and gasps of the pianist are from Jack Mercer. Just who did the voice of the big diva lady is a good question. If you'd like to read more about how this cartoon returned from the dead, our pal Jerry Beck has all the info here. Enjoy…

Jeff Howard writes to ask…

Maybe you can help me out with something. Like you, I like to read the end credits on TV shows I watch, especially on old shows where you sometimes see names you recognize from other, later programs. On a lot of old shows when I see them, the end credits have weird spacing on them. The names at the top of a title card and either centered or flush left whereas the names at the bottom of the card are all indented to the right. Was there a reason they did this?

Yes. You're referring to a show where a blank space was created in the lower left of one of those title cards like this…

That was because when the show was first run on network television, it was linked to a particular sponsor and the sponsor wanted to display its product on the show for which they were paying. So on the original prints they made up for exhibition, they'd put an image of their product on the lower left of the title card and then the credits would be formatted around that image like this…

Later on when the show was rerun and that sponsor was no longer funding the enterprise, they would use prints that didn't display the sponsor's product.  Sometimes, they'd leave the space blank as with the image above. Sometimes, they'd replace it with an image relevant to the show…

These images, in case you haven't figured it out by now, are from The Dick Van Dyke Show and some of the prints of the show have that smiling image of Dick where a sponsor's product used to be.  On others, they'd leave it blank. What they usually wouldn't do (because it cost money) was to go back and redo the credits to fit the whole area.

These days, you don't see anything like this because, first of all, sponsors rarely sponsor an entire show. And second of all, most channels want the credits done so fast and so small, there's no time to read them, let alone see a product displayed along with the names.

A lady I know who works on the new Press Your Luck told me she had to record an episode on her DVR, freeze-frame the half-a-second her credit was on the screen, take a photo of the image and enlarge it so her father could see his daughter's name on the screen. It was impossible for him to see it while watching the actual show. I wish all the networks would get together and agree to make all credits legible.

On Saturday, October 15, the folks who run Comic-Con International in San Diego had what they call Returning Registration, offering a portion of the admissions for their 2023 event. Returning Registration was open to anyone who'd been a paid attendee of Comic-Con 2022 and/or Comic-Con Special Edition 2021. A lot of folks got online that morning. Some (not all) were able to purchase admissions to the '23 con which will be held July 19 to July 23 with a Preview Night on Wednesday, July 18

On Saturday, November 5, commencing at 9 AM Pacific Time, they will have what they call Open Registration. This is open to absolutely everyone who has a Member I.D. number. Another big batch of admissions will be available…and before someone asks, I have no idea how many, nor do I have any idea how many people will be vying for them. All I know is that some folks will get what they want and some will not.

The helpful folks over at The San Diego Comic-Con Unofficial Blog have prepared this visual guide to explain the process including how to get one of them Member I.D. numbers. If you want to be among those who attend the 2023 Comic-Con, study what they tell you here.

One of those "don't use my name" folks wrote to ask me…

I know you often speak to aspiring writers and voice actors. What are the three most important pieces of advice you give to them than applies to all of them?

Hmm. If you ask me this next week, I might give you a slightly different answer but the three things that occur to me at the moment are as follows — and these are not necessarily in order of importance…

One: Have an attainable goal. I don't buy into this "You can achieve whatever dream you have if you try hard enough" stuff. I think that's a false, dangerous approach to take. If you decide "I want to pitch for the Dodgers and I will be satisfied with nothing else," you're setting yourself up for probable failure. Even if you're good enough to pitch for the Dodgers — and you just might not be — there's a very small number of people who can ever attain that dream. I always tell students that they need to find that sweet spot between idealism and pragmatism.

Two: Be there and be there on time. You can't win if you don't show up and participate. That will (not "may" — will) involve occasional failures before you get to the occasional successes. Every accomplished gymnast has landed on their ass hundreds, if not thousands of times…and they show up. I know several people who I think have destroyed not just careers but important aspects of their lives by always being late for things. Many of them think that's not a problem if they have a good excuse but being late puts everyone around you in a dysfunctional situation even when you have a good excuse. So be there and be there on time.

Three: It's not enough to think you know what you want. You have to understand why you want it…and sometimes, that leads to you realizing you don't want what you thought you wanted. Perhaps you want just one aspect of it. I know a guy who thought he wanted to be an actor…but through a series of events, he came to realize that he really didn't want to do all the hard work that's necessary to succeed as an actor. What he really wanted was to be famous. Once he'd discovered that, he realized (a) that there were better ways to achieve that, and (b) that there were downsides to being famous. And realizing all that caused him to decide that (c) he really didn't want to be actor or famous. Today, he's really happy that he didn't pursue either of those goals. But he wasted many years of his life before he got on track.

That's three. I think they're good advice and they apply to everyone — especially the one about being on time. People who are late for everything usually don't realize what they're doing to their lives…and the lives of those around them.

Carl Cafarelli is a gentleman who writes me from time to time, occasionally about comics but more often about popular music — a topic on which he seems to be rather well-versed. He just wrote this to me…

It's worth noting that the COVID-benefit reunion of That Thing You Do! participants was prompted in large part by the death of the title song's author Adam Schlesinger. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson were among the first famous people reported to have contracted the disease in the early days of the pandemic; Schlesinger was among the first celebrities killed by COVID.

Schlesinger's death devastated our rockin' pop community. He was well-respected and well-liked for his work with Fountains Of Wayne, Ivy, Tinted Windows, for his production of the Monkees' 2016 album Good Times!, and for "That Thing You Do!," the title song from what some of my peers and I consider our all-time favorite movie.

I don't want to get into the habit of sending you links to my blog — I do indeed recognize that you have more important things to do — but this is what I wrote when Adam died. It was part of a blog series (and potential book) called The Greatest Record Ever Made!, dedicated to the notion that an infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns.

This one hurt.

Thank you for this, Carl. I didn't know much about Mr. Schlesinger but based on what's in my e-mailbox at the moment, you aren't the only person who felt a great sense of loss when he went away. I'm going to read more of your blog posts and see what else is there. Others may want to join me.

Remember when talk shows used to book guests who could do more than talk or maybe sing? Once upon a time, Johnny Carson booked guests like The Passing Zone — not to be confused with The Twilight Zone. Here's their first appearance on his show, which was on 9/7/90…

A number of you have written me about That Thing You Do, 50% (so far) to tell me you prefer the original version to the extended version; 50% (so far) to tell me you prefer the extended version to the original. Fine. This is high on my list of Things That Aren't Worth Arguing About.

John Trumbull (who's in the first camp) told me something that fans of this movie might like to know. At one point during the worst of COVID, the four guys who played The Wonders — plus a few guest stars — did an online Watch Party to raise dough for COVID relief. You watch the movie on your own DVD or Blu-ray or whatever in sync with them and you have a nice commentary track. You can watch it here.

By the way: If you watch the movie again, there's a guy onscreen for a few seconds playing a plate-spinner who precedes The Wonders' appearance on Hollywood Showcase. That's my buddy Charlie Frye, the magician-juggler whose videos I often feature on this site. And the announcer in that sequence is Bob Ridgely, a wonderfully-funny man I've mentioned on this site. Bob was the voice of Thundarr the Barbarian on that animated series, and was on other cartoons, as well. He was also featured in a lot of Mel Brooks movies. He was the Karloff-like hangman in Blazing Saddles, for instance. Like I said…a very funny man. His funeral was one of the funniest events I've ever attended. People just got up and told Ridgely stories.

Daniel Bonner wrote to ask:

I recall reading that Jack Kirby's Forever People was inspired by/influenced by/a tribute to the shootings at Kent State. Discuss, please.

Not "inspired by." The Kent State Shootings were on May 4, 1970. Jack had already written and drawn the first issue of Forever People not long before that…I would guess about a month before.

"Influenced by?" I don't think so. Jack thought the shootings were one of the most shameful acts ever committed by any government, American or otherwise…but Forever People was inspired by a bigger picture. Jack was acutely aware in the late sixties that "his" generation was slowly stepping (or being shoved) aside by a new generation. It was that way everywhere, including in comic books with the influx of folks like Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Gerry Conway, me and so many others.

I suppose you could say that his vision of the societal changes were influenced by Kent State but also thousands of other things. We talked a lot about what going on in the world then. I was going to U.C.L.A. during much of the time I worked for Jack and he was always asking me about the mood on campus, what seemed to matter to the students, etc. Jack also had a lot of young people visiting him in his studio along with his own kids.

And lastly, I don't think "tribute" is the right word to apply to Kent State, especially if you had Jack's reaction to it. I remember that he was pretty incensed at a statement that Al Capp made after the shooting; something about how the real "martyrs" at Kent State were the guys who fired the rifles. Jack fumed about that for a few days, then made some comment like, "Capp doesn't say those things because he believes them. He says them because they get attention."

Our second question is from Robert Grover…

I have been re-watching the '67 Fantastic Four Hanna-Barbera show and wondered if you ever discussed it with Jack Kirby. It's a fairly faithful adaptation of the comic, down to taking actual issues and using the characters, plots, some designs even. Knowing how the comic industry worked back then, work for hire, etc, it's extremely doubtful Jack received any sort of compensation for the use of his designs or stories.

Given what I've read of the man that must have been a sore point, but aside from the Captain America movie serial this is one of the first instances of his comic book work being adapted for another medium (yes, the Marvel Super-Heroes preceded it by a year or so, but those were such a bargain basement production by comparison they are best forgotten). Did the Fantastic Four give him any sort of gratification? I hope so. Sure, the cartoon is targeted for a younger audience, but it is recognizable from the source material and he is named in the credits. For a man working largely in isolation seeing your name on TV must have been an ego boost. Thanks in advance for sharing what you know.

We did talk about the show a bit…but only a bit because Jack couldn't stand to see things like that. You're right: He received no compensation from it…and to hear him tell it, some pretty rude responses when he suggested to Marvel management that such a thing might be in order. I don't think he received any gratification or ego boost from it either…just the feeling of being exploited and underpaid. I doubt he watched it much. Long after that show was on and off the air, I mentioned to Jack that Alex Toth had done the main design work on it and that came as news to Jack.

I liked That Thing You Do, the 1996 movie that Tom Hanks wrote, Tom Hanks directed, Tom Hanks wrote some of the songs for, Tom Hanks appeared in and Tom Hanks was probably the guy at the movie theater who made your popcorn and didn't put enough of that phony butter on it. In case you don't remember, it told the story of a short-lived rock band, its one hit record and why they neither stayed together nor recorded another record. Recently, I got to thinking about the film and thought it might be fun to watch again…

…whereupon I learned something that you may already have known. A few years ago, an "extended" version was released of the film restoring quite a bit of footage that didn't make what was, in 1996, the "final cut." The 1996 release was 1 hour and 47 minutes. The new one is 2 hours and 27 minutes. What's been added back in? Mainly scenes and dialogue that deepen what we know about the characters. Some of the lines from the shorter version take on new meaning in light of events that were cut or speeches that were trimmed.

A friend of mine and I watched the extended version last night and we enjoyed it a lot. All the characters are more fleshed-out and the role played by Liv Tyler (Faye) especially benefits from the added-back footage. The story arc where she moves her affections from Jimmy to Guy is more credible because of the new inclusion of earlier exchanges between Faye and Guy. The only major story change from the original release is a new reason why Guy elects to remain in Hollywood when all the other band members don't. It seemed a bit forced to me but it also gave the film a little more sense of closure.

One could argue that some of the restored footage was best left in the cutting room but some of it does make a good film better. If I were teaching filmmaking, I'd assign my students to watch both versions and discuss which scenes they'd put back in and which they'd omit. I'll bet most would opt to add back about half of the resurrected 40 minutes but you'd probably have some interesting discussions about which 20 minutes.

Some folks I've known would tell you shorter is always better…and from a commercial standpoint when That Thing You Do was first exhibited, that's probably so. But the nice thing about a release like this is that length doesn't have to matter, especially when you have your choice of either version.

Both versions are available for streaming on Amazon and there are a couple of different options for Blu-ray and DVD. See here and here and here and here and here and probably other places. And read the fine print to make sure you get the version(s) you want.