Not long ago here, I recommended an old TV show to you — Harry O, which starred David Janssen in what's probably my favorite detective-type series of all time. Its two seasons are rerunning now on the sorta-new TV channel, MeTV-Plus, Monday through Fridays at 4 PM in my area. Several of you have written me that you've been watching 'em and liking 'em.

Whether you've sampled it or not, I call your attention to the episode rerunning there on Monday the 17th. It's called "Mr. Five and Dime" and it guest stars J. Pat O'Malley, Glynnis O'Connor and Michael Pataki. It's probably my favorite episode of the series in one of those "the plot doesn't make a whole lot of sense but it's awfully fun" kind of ways. Part of the reason is a standout performance by Anthony Zerbe as the long-suffering Police Lieutenant who has to put up with Harry Orwell (Janssen).

But also great in it is Les Lannom (above) in the recurring role of Lester Hodges, a wanna-be detective who hangs around Harry trying to learn from the master. Lannom appeared in a different role in Show 1 of Season 1 and it's obvious someone on the series said, "We've got to use that guy again." They did — several times — and in the next-to-last episode of the second season, they had Lester get involved with a wizened criminologist named Dr. Creighton Fong, played by Keye Luke.

It was a pretty obvious pilot for a spin-off series called Fong and Hodges but it didn't spin off…and that second season was the last season for Harry O so that was also the end of Lester Hodges. A search of Ye Olde Internet suggests that Mr. Lannom had (and still has) a pretty active career guest-starring in other shows and a few movies, and that he's also quite active as a musician, especially playing the bagpipes. I have a very funny mental picture of the expression on Harry Orwell's face if Lester ever walked into his house playing the bagpipes.

Dave Blanchard read this post, then sent me this message and it got me to thinking…

I guess this might be about politics, but really it's about comedy writing.

Yesterday, writing about MAD Magazine, you wrote that "it's one of the reasons I became a writer of comedy." In that light, I wanted to get your take on MAD's approach to political humor, and the current state of political humor among comedians.

Growing up back in the 1970s, the best places to go for political commentary (for me, anyways) was MAD Magazine (and sometimes Johnny Carson's monologues). The basic premise to MAD's political humor, as I distilled it, was that you can't really trust ANY politicians—not liberals, not conservatives, not Democrats, not Republicans. They ALL had their hands in your pockets, they ALL would say anything and do anything to get elected and stay in office, and there really wasn't much difference between either of them since the ideologies they promoted and pretended to espouse were basically a sham. They were in politics for one reason and one reason only: power (synonymous with money).

It was a very cynical take that MAD had then, but hard to argue with. And whenever TV comedians, like Carson, would deliver political commentary, they tended to skewer whoever was in power with an equal brush, poking fun at and exposing the idiocies of both parties.

But somewhere along the way, that kind of universal distrust and mockery of all politicians has gone by the wayside, and we're left with comedians and commentators who deliver their jokes and takes with blinders on, as if the stuff one political party does is ALWAYS outrageous, while the stuff the other party does is just normal stuff, nothing to see here or comment on. MAD would never pass up the opportunity to roast politicians on both sides of the political aisle. Like you, many of today's political comedians say they grew up with MAD, but they seem to have forgotten MAD's basic lesson: Don't take sides — go after all of them!

If nothing else, it seems like comedians are cheating themselves — and their audiences — out of a lot of prime opportunities for laughs. If somebody can't see that there are a tremendous number of knuckleheads on both sides of the political aisle, and that both sides are capable of doing great damage to our country, then I just wonder if the whole idea of "political humor" died an ignoble death years ago.

So anyways, my question: Are there any comedians right now that you think do a great job of lampooning all sides of the political spectrum, in the classic sense of "none of these bozos is working in your best interests so why should you believe anything they say?" I really can't think of anybody who fits that mold.

I don't think MAD's motto, even if some of its staffers said it was, was ever really "Go after all of them!" I think it was more like "Apply the same level of skepticism to all of them." When a Bill Clinton is caught being naughty with an intern or a Donald Trump is caught doing just about anything Donald Trump does, they get a lot of attention from those who mock public figures because the jokes practically write themselves. Many politicians as individuals do little to hang jokes on and MAD never went after anyone if they didn't think they had a good joke.

MAD was also never that political. It couldn't be. For one thing, there was a long lead time in publishing. Political humor today is instantaneous. If a politician says something outrageous or falls off the stage at Noon Eastern Time, comedy writers respond to it such that Seth Meyers is ready two hours later to record something or Stephen Colbert or others are ready by their recording times. And all are doing their monologues after hours of jokes on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. If you wrote something that same day for MAD, it would reach the audience in four or five months. At best.

It's always had that lead time. Most political humor is topical, especially these days. It has the shelf life of potato salad.  And like MAD, a good political comedian never goes after anyone unless they think they have a good joke.

It isn't always possible for comedians to go after everyone.  Not everyone gives you good hooks to hang jokes on.  Think of it as if you were writing jokes for one of those old Dean Martin Roasts.  If the "honoree" that week was Jackie Gleason, you could do fat jokes and drinking jokes.  If it was Don Rickles, you could do jokes about him being mean and vicious.  If it was Phyllis Diller, you could mock her appearance.  But what would you write if the subject was Jack Lemmon?

You could do it but it wouldn't be the bonanza of one-liners you'd get if it was some star known for being fat, drunk, promiscuous, cheap, ridiculously wealthy or anything like that. If you had to write jokes for a roast of Dick Van Dyke, you could poke fun at this accent in Mary Poppins…and that's about it.  On the other hand, I'll bet even comedy writers who love Trump and hated Obama would admit that jokes about the latter were difficult to come by but Donald is the gift that keeps on giving to professional joke writers.  As was Bill Clinton.

I also wonder if people these days really want a topical comedian who slams all sides. A lot of the comics who attempt that seem like they don't really have any points of view. They're just saying whatever they think will get a laugh. They also tend to just build on stereotypes: Fat jokes about the fat politicians, old jokes about the old politicians, horny jokes about the ones with sex scandals, etc. I think Jay Leno's one of the best stand-ups of the last few decades but I never felt that his political jokes rose above that level…and he was attempting to never seem like he was on any side. Fortunately for him, he was real good at other topics that he did seem to care about.

The Carol Burnett Show had some of the best sketches in the history of variety programs…but it would sometimes be criticized because cast members — Harvey Korman, especially — had a tendency to "break up" on camera. There was a lot of that in the early days of television when shows were performed live but it fell out of fashion when most shows were pre-recorded as the Burnett Show was.

They'd often get into editing with multiple "takes" of a sketch — one wherein cast members broke character, one where they didn't — and elect to use the former. My old friend Gary Belkin, who wrote for many seasons on the series, thought they way overdid the "break up" scenes.

I don't know how I feel about this. I just watched this video and I still don't know. It's fifteen minutes of clips from the show with the performers trying to stay in character and failing — and some of it's awfully funny…

I've become a big fan of Devin Stone, the "Legal Eagle" of YouTube who explains lawsuits and other legal matters in the news. In his latest post, he brings in an associate — "Spencer" — to explain the case in New York which the Attorney General there, Leitia James, has filed against the Trump family. It's a little over a half-hour but I found it enlightening.

I have friends who believe Trump will never get convicted or pay any serious price for breaking the law. That's what they once said about Al Capone…

Hey, remember these? On March 11 of 2020, I began more-or-less isolating myself so I wouldn't get that "coronavirus" thing that we were all hearing about. In hindsight, I was probably a bit more cautious than I needed to be…but only a bit. And if you're going to err, that's the side to err on.

It wasn't that huge a hardship, at least for a guy like me who works from home and needs to be alone a fair amount of the week. I switched from going to the market or restaurants to having food and supplies delivered and that's worked out so well that I'll keep doing it even when the chances of catching this week's variant are down to zero. My cleaning lady, my assistant and my lady friend all agreed to be super-cautious so as not to infect one another…and when my assistant did get it, she isolated until negative.

I rarely left my house unless you count walks in my neighborhood. That was not that difficult because for a while, there was really nowhere to go. Conventions and live shows were canceled. Restaurants were closed. No one threw parties. Business-type meetings migrated to Zoom or Skype. I actually liked most of the meetings better that way and hope that custom remains in place.

I felt and still feel sorry for those whose lives really were torn asunder by isolation and sorrier for those who got the dread disease. I know many who did but I think I run with a smart crowd. So far — and I hope I don't jinx it by typing this out loud — no one that close to me has died from it or even been hospitalized, as far as I know. That may be because no one close to me ever doubted the necessity to keep a fair distance in certain situations, to mask where appropriate and to get vaccinated. Night before last, I got my fifth shot of Moderna.

You may notice that I have reverted the heading on this blog to me working at my computer, unmasked. This does not mean I think it's over. The Sergio drawing of me masked and gloved may yet return. At the same time, I have a drawing of me tossing away the mask and declaring the Pandemic a thing of the past…and it's not time for that one yet. I'll still mask where and when it's required or requested or even when I think it might be wise or even polite.

And I'm not traveling far and not by plane. When will I abandon that policy? I dunno. I'll decide when there's somewhere farther than San Diego I want to go. At the moment, I don't even want to go to the Ralphs Market if I can help it and not because of COVID. I'm just enjoying not having to go to the Ralphs Market as often.

Next year's Comic-Con International in San Diego is July 20-23. That means that Preview Night — which is Wednesday, July 19 — is a mere 280 days from today. Each year when we get close to the convention dates, I get e-mails and phone calls from people who suddenly started thinking about attending and are surprised to find out that they're a couple hundred days late in thinking about that. There's one guy — you know who you are, fella — who makes the same mistake year after year after year.

If you want to attend, you need to plan ahead. Let me say that again in all caps and boldface: PLAN AHEAD! And if you are a returning attendee, meaning that you paid for and attended Comic-Con 2022 and/or Comic-Con Special Edition 2021, you can dive into the pool to try and purchase and memberships for 2023 for up to three people (yourself probably being one of them) this coming Saturday morning, October 15. Read how to do it on this page and don't wait until Saturday to read it.

Memberships of other sorts will be available at later dates and I'll try to alert you about that but don't count on me. Follow the convention on Facebook and/or Twitter for announcements. In fact, if I were you, I'd make frequent checks of the convention website. You can have a wonderful time at Comic-Con but it takes a little work to get yourself there.

• Today is the best possible day to not be Alex Jones. So far.

Ken Scudder wants to know something…

Big fan of pretty much everything you've done except your ill-considered attacks on cole slaw.

Stupid question, so I thought to ask you. Back when comic covers were more than just pin-ups having nothing to do with the story, more often than not they had word balloons. Many of these were variations on "Superman, you've got to save xxx" and Superman just sitting on his Kryptonian ass ignoring it. My stupid question — who wrote those word balloons? Dumb follow-up — how was this coordinated with the cover artist?

I thank you for your time and attention to this highly trivial matter.

Most of the time, covers started out with a sketch that may or may not have been by the person who did the finished art. During the time Carmine Infantino was in an executive position at DC Comics, he did most of these sketches, often consulting with the book's editor, and Carmine approved and fiddled with those he didn't do. At Marvel during the same period, Stan Lee had approval and the sketches were worked up by a number of folks but mostly Marie Severin or John Romita, everyone working under Stan's supervision and final OK.

If the cover sketch incorporated word balloons or cover blurbs, they were usually planned as part of the layout…so whoever suggested the scene might also suggest the text. These were more or less committee decisions. I sat in once on a cover conference with Infantino and with Julius Schwartz, who was the editor of the book in question. Schwartz suggested a couple of different wordings until they hit on one Infantino liked.

Carmine moved from being an artist for DC into an executive position by suggesting a reason that the management there could believe as to why Marvel was increasing its market share and DC's was declining. They would never accept the premise that maybe the Marvel books were better but they could accept that maybe Marvel's covers were more exciting. Most of the DC editors at the time designed their own covers and these men were not for the most part, artists. They came up with covers with intriguing (they hoped) plot twists but not interesting visuals.

Look at the Superman covers from this period and you'll see an awful lot that show The Man of Steel standing around…and you don't know what's intriguing about the situation depicted unless you read the word balloons. Infantino argued successfully that covers should be designed by artists who could make the visuals exciting…and he got himself a job.

Once a cover was drawn, both Stan and Carmine liked to fiddle with it. This is less true of the folks who've been in charge of covers since then. But sometimes, they'd order changes — some trivial, some major — to an almost-final cover and that often included rewriting the cover copy to make it punchier. Almost anyone in the office could have pitched in on this.

The last few decades though, there is a sense that the purchase of a certain comic book is no longer an impulse buy. A kid is no longer studying at a comic book rack in a 7-Eleven store or market, trying to decide if he'll spend his pocket change on a comic book or a candy bar. So there's less tendency to try and hook a browser with a situation that causes them to think, "I need to buy this and find out how Batman survives what's happening to him on the cover." That kind of cover usually meant expository word balloons.

So we now have less words on covers. We also have artists submitting their own rough sketches and then doing finished art for covers they initially conceived. Most of them tend not to suggest a lot of cover copy.

• The job I want is the one where you work for either political party taking every single thing anyone in the opposition party does and explaining why it's shredding The Constitution, destroying the economy and dooming us all to an unavoidable painful demise. Probably pays great.

Alan Menken performs a ten-minute medley of songs to which he contributed the music.  You may know some of these lyrics better than he does but he's still an amazing talent…

The other day here, I linked to a chunk of an interview that Jon Stewart did for his AppleTV show, The Problem with Jon Stewart. (I like this show, by the way. The only problem I have with The Problem with Jon Stewart is that it's on AppleTV where a lot of folks who oughta see it won't.)

In the episode, Stewart interviewed Leslie Rutledge, the Attorney General of Arkansas about a law that state has enacted that bans gender-affirming medical care for minors. In the excerpt to which I linked, Ms. Rutledge did a pretty awful job of defending the reasoning behind this law. If you watch the whole episode — which you can do here for free — she did an even worse job.

Among other evasions and disingenuous replies, she claimed to not remember which medical experts and organizations had testified about the wisdom of this law when the state held hearings. It sounded like there had to be a lot of them to cause Arkansas to disregard the recommendations of the American Medical Association, The American Association of Pediatrics, The Endocrine Society and others. She said the experts they relied on are listed in the reports on those hearings.

She further said, "We had plenty of people come and testify before the legislature" and that "For all of those physicians, all of those experts, every single one of them, there's an expert that says, 'We don't need to allow children to be able to take those medications…'" Well, Alejandra Caraballo — a Clinical Instructor at Harvard Law School's Cyberlaw Clinic — looked up those reports and she says there were but four "experts."

One, according to Caraballo, is a former plastic surgeon who now runs a Botox clinic and who "never worked with trans patients and has no experience treating gender dysphoria." The others, if we believe Caraballo's findings, sound like they have little to no experience with patients with gender dysphoria but lots of experience opposing gender reassignment. In other words, the "expert" witnesses were selected to present one point of view and there weren't even very many of them. Caraballo tweets about all this in a thread starting here.

Thanks to my pal Bob Elisberg for letting me know about this. I expected it would be a small, lopsided group but I didn't think it would be that small or that lopsided.

I regret to report that, first of all, Angela Lansbury has died at the age of 96. Secondly, and of vastly less significance, I don't have a personal story about Ms. Lansbury. Never met her. Didn't even see her perform as often as I would have liked. She was always a class act and very, very good in whatever she did. And while it's sad to lose her…my God, what a life. What a career. And was there anyone anywhere who didn't adore her?

From Frank Balkin, I have this…

Hi, Mark — as always I've been enjoying newsfromme.com. I enjoyed your recent columns about onscreen credits — here's one that's always confused me, maybe you'll have some insight on. On the Orson Welles film Touch of Evil, there's an odd title that says "Guest-starring Marlene Dietrich, Zsa Zsa Gabor." How do you have a guest star, or two, in a standalone film, not a series?

I would imagine the answer is the same answer Jonathan Harris gave when folks asked him — as everyone did — why on the Lost in Space TV show, he was billed every week as "Special Guest Star." He said, "My agent got it for me, probably in lieu of better money."

Someone else whose e-mail I can't find wrote to ask me why TV shows these days have so many producer credits, way more than they used to. There are two reasons, one being that if the program wins an Emmy for "Best Show" of its kind and you were important on it, you might not get a statuette unless you had the word "producer" in your credit.  (I have a story to tell about this, one of these days.)

The other is simply money and the studio's desire to pay out as little of it as possible. The agent asks that his client be paid $25,000. The studio counters with "How about $17,500 and a special credit?" Special credits are easy to give as long as they (a) don't go counter to any rules in any union's contract and (b) don't inspire everyone else to demand one.

And they cost nothing.  An agent and a guy in Business Affairs negotiate the wording of that credit, caring little about what it actually suggests. It's just a deal point to them. Agents love to go back to their clients and say, "Hey, I got you a credit that no one else is getting!"  And the guy in Business Affairs loves to go back to his boss and say, "They were demanding $25,000 but I got them down to seventeen-point-five!"

I would guess that's what happened on Touch of Evil. In negotiations, either Marlene or Zsa Zsa got a credit ("in lieu of more money," as Jonathan Harris said) that sounded good to them…and the other one demanded the same special credit. If that isn't the answer then I can't imagine what it would be.

• If you're a blogger and you think you're putting up a great blog, just remember that you'd get a thousand times more hits if you were teaching how to make pizza or you were a cute young lady doing bikini try-ons.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Ancient Internet Custom that only I follow: When the blogger is known to post every day or almost every day…and there comes a day when he or she is so busy that they may be posting little or nothing…the blogger posts a photo of a can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup? Why Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup? Because Bean with Bacon would be silly.

I have stuff due that needs to be written. I may pop back in with something but I may not. Life can be so uncertain at times.