The PBS series American Experience is currently featuring an episode called "The Lie Detector," all about the invention of that machine and the uses to which it has been put, not always for good. I always knew the device was inadmissible in court because of its dubious accuracy but I hadn't known of some of the damage it has done to justice and human lives.

I had also heard that William Marston — famous in my circle as the creator of Wonder Woman — was one of the "inventors" of the lie detector. According to this documentary, that's probably giving him way too much credit but there's much info on Marston in the show…and yes, they mention Wonder Woman. They also say he did it for DC Comics, which is not exactly true. He did it for a company called All-American Comics which was funded by and later absorbed by DC Comics.

You can probably catch this program on your local PBS channel for the next few days and it also seems to be streaming online from a number of sources.

The fine writer of comic books and other things, Kurt Busiek, has this to add to my piece on why the X-Men comic was almost certainly not an imitation of DC's Doom Patrol…

In addition to the stuff you've pointed out, I can't see where someone thinking the Doom Patrol was a cool idea would decide that the bits to copy were the wheelchair and the name of a group of villains.

The Brotherhood of Evil and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants also debuted the same month, which would make it even harder to swipe, even if either party thought it'd be a good idea. I mean, I can see someone thinking, "Brotherhood of Evil is a great name, I want something like that," and inventing the Monastery of Menace or the Lodge of Licentiousness. But just adding a word to a name the other guy's using is…pretty obvious. Not to mention that everyone involved was more creative than that.

And if Goodman wanted another book like F.F., as he did, Lee and Kirby didn't need to hurry-up and swipe a book that had just come out. Kirby (if not Lee, as well) had been reading pulp S.F. with stories of mutants feared and hated by ordinary people, fighting against worser mutants to save the world (and themselves) in the form of Kuttner's Baldy stories (which featured bald telepaths, even), Van Vogt's Slan, Sturgeon's More Than Human, Shiras's Children of the Atom…they had lots of other material to draw from, and they'd even both done stories about mutants before.

Some people have pointed out that the X-Men's blue-and-yellow costumes and the Doom Patrol's red-and-white costumes have a similar design — but the X-Men had theirs first; the D.P. started out in F.F.-like coveralls.

It doesn't make any sense from the POV of a creator.

It sure doesn't. And something else I might have emphasized is that folks who did comic books back then rarely read what their competitors were doing. Devout comic book fans read everything but don't realize that most comic book creators didn't and probably still don't.

I have no trouble believing that Stan Lee hadn't seen The Fly from the Archie company before the creation of Spider-Man. Heck, an editor at DC Comics almost never read the books supervised by the other editors there, even the ones with whom he shared an office. Publishers looked at their competitors' sales figures and would sometimes order up similar books because of that.

There seems to be an ongoing debate among some historians as to how Martin Goodman at Marvel found out that Justice League of America and before that, Challengers of the Unknown were selling well for DC. There was this fabled golf game between Goodman and Jack Liebowitz at DC in which the latter supposedly bragged about the numbers, prompting Goodman to race back to his office and tell Stan Lee he wanted a super-hero team book.

That golf game almost certainly never occurred. Goodman never said it did and Liebowitz said it didn't. What I think happened was that someone asked Stan how they came to start Fantastic Four and he said something like, "Oh, Martin found out DC had this book that was selling well. He probably had lunch with Jack Liebowitz or played golf with him or something," and the part about playing golf became enshrined in Marvel history. The simpler explanation is that the sales figures were no secret. Anyone who cared could find them out…and DC and Marvel then had the same distributor which made it even easier.

Here's what Goodman's company would put out when he saw the numbers on Pine Comics' Dennis the Menace comic and Harvey's Casper the Friendly Ghost…

He did not find out they were hits by playing golf with anyone. And that kind of thing came from someone looking at sales reports, not someone looking at a competitor's comic book and saying, "Hey, that's a great idea for a comic! Let's steal that!" There might be an exception somewhere in history but that would be rare.

And to some extent, what was happening here was not theft of an idea but an attempt to confuse buyers into purchasing your knock-off instead of the other company's real thing. It was like all those records in the sixties that hoped the customers would think they were buying The Beatles when it was actually The Beetles or The Fab Four. Anyway, thanks, Kurt.

A company called FilmRise Television has put every episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show up on YouTube. I'm assuming they have the legal right to do this so look at this page and select the one (or more) you want to watch. Here's one of my favorites — especially the ending…

• Kevin McCarthy is losing ground. Now, he doesn't have enough votes to send out for pizza.

• They're just starting Vote #10 for Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. You still have time to get a bet down.

• I wanted to watch as the House votes to elect its new Speaker but every time I tune over to C-Span, they're just showing reruns.

Here's a question I received from Jeff Wagner but also occasionally from other people. Oh, wait. First, let me put one of these here…

Okay. Now, here's what Jeff (and others) wanted to ask…

In 1963, DC Comics brought out a new super-hero team called The Doom Patrol in a comic called My Greatest Adventure. Shortly after, Marvel brought out the X-Men. The two comics had a lot of similarities. I've seen many people discuss whether one was a rip-off of the other. What do you think?

I think it's pretty close to impossible. Yes, there are similarities. The Doom Patrol was about a wheelchair-using genius gathering together a number of "freaks" with great powers to try and stop other "freaks" with great powers from wreaking havoc on the world, particularly a band called The Brotherhood of Evil. The X-Men was about a wheelchair-using genius gathering together a number of "mutants" with great powers to try and stop other "mutants" with great powers from wreaking havoc on the world, particularly a band called The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

There were a few other parallels. Both comics had as a theme that the freaks/mutants felt like outcasts from society and there was a sense that they were bound together by the problems they had from being different. The Doom Patrol was billed as "The World's Strangest Heroes" and the X-Men were billed as "The Strangest Super-Heroes of All!"

In both groups, the heroes bickered a lot…but that was becoming pretty standard in super-hero groups at the time thanks to the success of Fantastic Four.  In fact, writer Bob Haney, who was one of the creators of The Doom Patrol, told me and others that one of the ideas behind that comic was to give DC a super-hero group with the dynamic of the Fantastic Four, which was selling quite well for Marvel.  And X-Men was reportedly started because Marvel publisher Martin Goodman had, for the same reason, asked for another super-team like the Fantastic Four. So there's one clear explanation for some similarities — both creative teams had the same goal: Imitating to some extent the F.F.

"Brotherhood of Evil" was also a phrase then turning up in the news, sometimes to describe organized crime; at other times to describe any alliance of Communist nations. In 1959, not long before, author Frederic Sondem Jr. published Brotherhood of Evil, a book about the Mafia.

I have seen several possible scenarios of theft floated over the years. One is that the team which came out second (The X-Men) was assembled after its creators — Stan Lee and Jack Kirby — saw the first story of the Doom Patrol on the newsstands and decided to copy it. The problem with that scenario is that My Greatest Adventure #80 which introduced The Doom Patrol went on sale April 18, 1963 and X-Men #1 went on sale July 2, 1963.

That's a gap of 75 days. This process got simpler in later years due to technological advances but in '63, it generally took at least 75 days — often more — to take a comic book from inception to on-sale. That was why letter pages didn't feature letters about the previous issue. More often, it was the issue from three or four months before.

Could Stan Lee and Jack Kirby have seen that first Doom Patrol story on the stands and whipped up the first issue of X-Men quickly enough to have had it hit newsstands on 7/2/63?  I'm skeptical.

This was a first issue and those always take longer than books where all the characters are designed and named and everyone has agreed on what they'll be like and how they'll function and what color their outfits should be.  Kirby was fast but even he had to cogitate a little before putting pencil to paper and on a new book, there would have to be a few meetings with Stan and maybe preliminary sketches.

Stan was pretty fast too but there were a lot of steps necessary to put out any issue of any comic book then — not just writing and penciling but also inking, lettering, coloring, editorial work, sending it over to the Comics Code for approval, etc. Then it had to go to the engravers to be photographed and then color guides were sent off to the engravers where the color separations were done by hand…and that might take a week or two.

Then film was made of the separations…then printing plates were made…then the comic was printed…then it was bound…then it was shipped all across the nation. This was in a time before FedEx or Dropbox or computers. Some of this trafficking was done via U.S. Mail. Also, the printers and engravers often charged extra for a "rush" job.

Why go through all that if you're going to be second on the newsstand no matter what you do?

Some people trying to make the case for theft have said, "Well, maybe someone visited the printer and saw what the other company was working on before it came out." The problem with that speculation is that, first of all, it's just speculation. Secondly, comic book writers, artists and editors almost never visited their printers…and besides, DC and Marvel had different printers then.

"Well then, maybe someone from one company's editorial offices visited the other company's office and saw or heard something." Slightly more possible but no one can name a single person who might have done that. Stan and Jack certainly never dropped by the DC offices during that period. I can't think of anyone who was then working for both companies.

Copying a competitor's book as soon as it came out strikes me as a "crime" that no one would have wanted to commit. People in this industry have imitated others' hits but they usually wait until those books are proven hits before they do. It was probably a good six months before any reliable sales figures on My Greatest Adventure #80 were known. No one even started tallying them until the issue went off-sale…in this case, two months later.

And when the numbers did come in on My Greatest Adventure #80, they weren't very impressive. DC waited six issues before they had gathered sufficient sales data to warrant changing the name of the comic to Doom Patrol. It lasted a few years but it was never a top seller.

One other thing. This is not evidence but I worked with both Stan and Jack, and I knew Arnold Drake and, to a lesser degree, Bob Haney. They all struck me as the kind of folks who, if they were working on a new idea and found out a competitor was coming out with something similar, would change their plans. I can imagine them inventing something like someone else's success at the insistence of their publisher. Stan certainly had in the past complied with his publisher's directives to ape what was selling for others…but, again, that's something that happens when a comic is a proven moneymaker over some period of time.

Again: Why go through all that if you're going to be second on the newsstand no matter what you do? You might as well wait and see how their book fares before you start whipping up something similar.  Theirs could, after all, flop and you might then decide you didn't want to go that route.

When I first discussed the matter with Arnold Drake, he was immediately dismissive of the idea that X-Men had in any way copied his Doom Patrol. Many years later when X-Men was one of the hottest comics ever, he began suggesting that maybe there was a bit of plagiarism there…but even he couldn't explain how it could have been on the stands so soon after his.

Arnold was a lovely man and a fine writer. He was booted out of DC about time the original Doom Patrol comic was canceled and immediately went over to Marvel where he began writing — wait for it — X-Men. I was sorry when we lost him and even sorrier that he didn't live to see the Doom Patrol turned into a rather popular — and surprisingly faithful to his concept — TV series. He would have been very proud and a little wealthier.

As for Stan and Jack, both men said they never saw the Doom Patrol — before or after they started the X-Men. And when you think about it, did they really need to imitate a comic book that was kind of an imitation of what they were already doing?

Let's watch two champions. On May 9 of 1973, Johnny Carson welcomed one of the world's great athletes, Pelé, to The Tonight Show. Pelé, as I'm sure you've read, recently passed away, causing mass mourning in Brazil. His coffin was carried through the streets on top of a fire engine, with huge crowds turning out to pay their respects.

His appearance on Johnny's show was an interesting spot because Pelé spoke almost no English and Johnny decided — and I'd love to know why — to attempt the spot without an interpreter. He also did something that few (if any) current talk show hosts would attempt — a physical demonstration of some soccer moves.

Most hosts today would avoid it. It couldn't be written in advance. Too much improvisation would be involved. The host might look stupid and inept. But it was never dull when Johnny tried something like that…

WonderCon will be held March 24-26 at the Anaheim Convention Center. They're just starting to announce their guests and, lo and behold, I am one of them. For reasons we all understand, I have not been to a WonderCon since 2019 and I'm hoping no disease prevents this one from taking place or me being there for it.

It's always been a great convention if you can deal with the Disneyland traffic, which is rarely as bad as I expect. A lot of folks plan a trip that includes both WonderCon and Disneyland. The proximity to Disneyland is also nice in that there are plenty of places to stay and plenty of great places to dine.

Badges are still available for WonderCon. If you can't get in to Comic-Con in San Diego, this is a good alternative. It's run by the same folks and features many of the same panels and exhibitors. It also usually has one of the most impressive turnouts of cosplayers if that's a selling point for you.

In fact, badges are not only available, the 3-Day ones are on sale until January 8. So if you want to go for all three days, you want to order in the next four days. Consider doing this.

Imagine for a second that it's 1972 and you're up in your aunt's attic and you find a copy of Superman #1 in great condition. Imagine that, perhaps unwisely, you decide to run right out and sell it for quick cash. If you'd held onto it, today it would probably be worth more than your aunt's whole house but back then, you're thinking, "Wow! I might be able to get $200 for this!" and that sounds appealing.

There is no eBay and you're not going to go to a comic book convention — of which there are few — and buy a table to sell one comic book.  There is a thing called but The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide which would tell you how much loot you might be able to get for it but in '72, Mr. Overstreet's guide is new and neither well-known nor particularly consulted or trusted yet.

Your most likely option if you want to liquidate your "find" for quick cash? Go to a comic book shop to try and sell it, which means you encounter the big question of "What's this thing worth?"

Many, many years ago, I had some unpleasant encounters with a gent who ran a small shop that sold old comic books.  I honestly do not recall his name so I'll call him Mr. Understreet but a better name might have been Mr. Underprincipled or Mr. Underhanded.  He was a shark, a liar, a con-man, a cheater, a man not to be trusted…but you probably wouldn't pick up on that upon first meeting.  The guy could come across as cheery and sincere and Your Best Friend Forever.

And he loved cheating people. Just loved it. Someone (not me) said of him, "He'd rather make $100 dishonestly than $200 honestly." In a moment, we'll discuss why but let's get to his modus operandi.

Like many comic shops in those pre-eBay days, he had a mail order catalog he put out every so often. But he also had a fake one he printed to show suckers like you. It had very low prices. You'd walk in with your Superman #1 and he'd offer you $50 for it. You'd gulp and say, "I heard these went for hundreds."

He'd tell you, first of all, that's a lot of phony hype in the press. "Don't believe everything you read." That always sounds like sage advice about everything and in fact, some of the early news stories about the rising value of old comic books were bogus…stories planted by folks trying to drive up the prices of their inventories.

He'd also say, "Once in while, one of these goes for $200 but it's got to be in Absolute Mint Condition," and no matter what shape your Superman #1 was in, he'd tell you it was Good (at best!) and show you some flaw — a wrinkle, a smudge, a tiny tear — that indicated that. He'd also remind you that he was an expert in this field and you weren't.

And then Mr. Understreet would haul out his phony list and show you that he sold copies of Superman #1 in Good condition for $75.

He didn't. He never sold anything for the prices on that list. He didn't even have most of the stuff on that list. It was just to deceive guys like you who walked in with rare comics. He apparently got a lot of them back then.

So he'd tell you, "Look, I shouldn't do this but I know a guy who really wants one of these. I can probably get a hundred out of him for this one so I'll give you sixty dollars cash for it, final offer." You'd take it and then he'd sell the comic for $500…or more.

And he'd just love doing this. It was not solely a matter of the profit. It was that feeling of power and how smart he was to make a chump out of you. I know this because a few times, he couldn't resist bragging about how he'd taken advantage of some jerk and I'd see his eyes flash, not about the money but about how damned clever he was.

He felt like he had a super-power. Anyone could buy an old comic for what it actually was worth. He had the ability to buy it for a lot less and put one over on some chump.

So what became of this guy? Beats me. His shop is long gone. I don't think it even made it into the nineties, let alone this century. Before I wrote this, I called a friend who had some dealings with him way back then…and my friend also didn't remember the guy's name. He said, "I always referred to him as 'That Prick,'" which is one of the nicer things I heard the guy called.

My friend added, "I don't know what happened to him either. I kinda hope he got beaten to death in an alley by some of the customers he screwed over."

That's one possible outcome and I'm not saying it didn't happen. But being a nicer person than my friend, I'd like to think Mr. Overpriced is still alive. The punishment I have in mind for him is that at some point, he stopped thinking how smart he was to turn a $440 profit on a copy of Superman #1 or maybe $550 on a Batman #1. If he was really smart, he would have waited until he could have sold them for six or even seven figures.

Hey, remember the Bee Gees? They were around for an awful long time and they sold an awful lot of records. I had a number of their tunes on my mixtape but I don't recall ever knowing very much about them. Other kids at my high school seemed to know (and care) a lot about this Gibb brother or that Gibb brother but if I told you a lot about them here, it would just be stuff I cribbed from their Wikipedia page.

And by the way, around the first of every year, I send a donation to Wikipedia which, for all its false info, is still one of the most valuable tools you can find on the Internet. I just sent them my annual contribution. Won't you join me?

Getting back to the Bee Gees: This is "Words," as they performed it on The Ed Sullivan Show on March 17, 1968. It was high on the charts at the time and I liked it enough to record it off the radio, put it on my mixtape and later actually purchase it and other Bee Gees tunes on some sort of "Greatest Hits" record…

Several folks are writing me about the deal Neil Simon made that gave Paramount the right to do damn near anything they wanted with The Odd Couple and, as I understand it, almost damn near anything they wanted with Barefoot in the Park, as well. They turned them both into sitcoms in 1970 and Barefoot didn't last long. But The Odd Couple keeps coming back in different forms — once even as a Saturday morning cartoon show where Felix was a cat and Oscar was a dog. Honest.

Like most people who write things that audiences are (at least theoretically) supposed to laugh at, I've long admired the hell out of Neil Simon and would even if he'd only written about a fifth of the plays and screenplays he gave us. There was a period though when he always seemed to be complaining in every interview about the injustice of him not receiving money for The Odd Couple sitcom — the version with these guys, of course…

It bothered me, I suppose, because I know plenty of writers who have been outright swindled, cheated and otherwise screwed out of money for things they authored and Mr. Simon kept trying to portray himself as one of those. First off, it's not like the man wound up living on the street. Secondly, it wasn't like the people he made the deal with simply didn't pay him what the deal called for. He accepted an offer he later regretted, which is not the same thing. Most of us do that at one time or another. Some people I've met do it every single time they make a transaction larger than the purchase of an Egg McMuffin.

I'm not saying Simon wasn't wronged in some way but he was already a pretty wealthy guy when this happened. He had lawyers. He had financial advisers. He was not in such need of income that he was trapped into taking what might not have been the best offer. This one was brokered by Irving "Swifty" Lazar, one of the top agents in the entertainment business at the time…and at that time, the terms probably sounded terrific.

Most writers I know who are wronged don't have a lawyer (or at least a good one), don't have advisers, etc. Someone takes advantage of their neediness and/or lack of business acumen and/or options. Someone may promise them lots of benefits that aren't spelled out in the contract…that is, assuming there even is a contract. Sometimes, the exploiter consciously exploits the fact that it would be difficult for the exploitee to engage an attorney.

I will always love a high percentage of Neil Simon's work, especially from the first two-thirds of his playwriting career. I just feel bad for writers — any creative people, actually — when they do something that reaps rewards and they don't see anything that could be considered a fair share of those rewards. It's hard for me, to drum up much outrage when someone who has made millions and millions expects sympathy because he had a free choice, made a bad decision and therefore did not make even more millions and millions.

Brian Dreger has yet another great question…

I was reading in your archives about how you "developed" a Dungeons & Dragons cartoon, but the actual cartoon was "created" by someone else. Why wouldn't the creator also develop it (and what is the difference)?

It seems to me that, although the idea is obviously important, figuring out just how the show would work (especially since it was based on a game) would be more important than what the creator did in this case (and also a form of "creating" it). I don't understand why someone would create something and then pass it off to someone else (is it like penciling a comic book and then passing it off to an inker…more work can get done faster?).

Also did you already know about the game or did you have to learn about in order to properly develop it? I can understand developing, say, The Odd Couple TV series from The Odd Couple movie…the developing is pretty much "creating" the TV show. I just don't get how a TV show based on a game can be created and then still require someone to "develop" it.

M*A*S*H was a novel written by a doctor named Hiester Richard Hornberger Jr. who wrote under the name, "Richard Hooker." He sold the movie rights to a movie studio and then either (a) he had no interest in being involved in a movie or (b) the studio didn't want him involved in case they wound up changing it a lot or (c) they wanted an experienced screenwriter on the job. I think in this case, it was all three. They hired Ring Lardner Jr. to write the screenplay and later, Larry Gelbart to perform the surgery necessary to make it work as a half-hour TV show.

In the case of The Odd Couple, Neil Simon probably didn't want to soil his hands working in sitcoms and I believe the deal he made with Paramount for the movie rights allowed them to do a TV show without him. He and the studio probably preferred it that way.

What may be confusing you here, Brian, is an assumption that these titles mean the same thing everywhere. They sort of do on a TV show produced under the rules of the Writers Guild. I will way oversimplify and say that if you wrote the pilot for a TV show and it was completely original, you would be entitled to the "created by" credit. If it was based in any way on pre-existing material (a movie, a book, etc.) then the credit would be "developed by."

Example: Gelbart got a "developed by" credit for the M*A*S*H TV series since it was based on pre-existing material. He got a "created by" credit on his later TV series, United States since it was not.

In an animated series not done under WGA jurisdiction — and Dungeons & Dragons was not — there are no such rules. My agent negotiated for my credit on that series. It was appropriate because I did not invent all those characters or the format. There had been several scripts by several different writers before me and CBS had not been willing to commit to the show until I did a bible and pilot script that changed or excised a lot of things that others had put in before me.

The credits on the show look like this. If you watch an episode, you may need a speed-reading course to see what they say…

Kevin's name was bigger than Dennis's and I would assume that was also the result of some lawyer or agent negotiations. I don't think I've ever met Kevin Paul Coates and I really have no idea what he did on the show. It may well have been substantial but it was before my involvement.

Dennis Marks was a friend of mine and a terrific writer but he was largely off the project before I was called in on it. We talked about it but not much. He was busy with another show at the time.

Dennis had worked on the development and pilot script of a show a year or two before that NBC did not pick up called something like Monsters and Magic. It was a show about kids getting trapped in a game like Dungeons & Dragons but without direct reference to that famous and successful game. I never saw any of that development but I was told elements of it had found their way into the Dungeons & Dragons presentation when Marvel's animation studio secured those rights.

I also had never played Dungeons & Dragons but I knew enough about it. I was, after all, not hired to create a game. I was hired to create or modify characters in a standalone context that used some elements of the game.

From my standpoint, I was handed a whole pile of scripts and outlines and bibles and drawings by a whole bunch of folks and I was told, "Turn this into something that CBS will buy…and you have about three days to do it in." And for doing that, I received the fee and the credit that my agent had demanded for my services and he got 10% of that fee.

The point is that I did not get the credit because some Higher Authority had looked over the whole project and assessed what each contributor had done and decided to award me that credit. I got it because my agent negotiated it. There was no governing body or rulebook as there is when the Writers Guild decides the credit on a script under its jurisdiction.

There has never been any such body or rulebook for credits in comic books or most animation. Leon Schlesinger, who owned the cartoon studio but did not write or draw, was often credited as the creator of Bugs Bunny. Others who worked for the studio could just say "I created Bugs Bunny" (and many did) because there was no formal, official credit established…

…and when one is on a property in animation or comics, it's often a contractual matter that may or may not reflect reality. Bob Kane negotiated a "created by" credit on Batman and any character added to the Batman comics. The contract was amended a few years ago so Bill Finger could be included but before that, if you'd created a new master villain for the Caped Crusader to fight, DC Comics was contractually obligated to say it was "Created by Bob Kane."

The lack of any rules or arbiters in comics has caused all manner of anger and frustration and certain folks being denied credit and/or compensation for what they did. It's why at one point, Martin Goodman — then the Publisher at what we now know as Marvel Comics — was the "creator" of Captain America. No one believes that. No one ever believed that…but there was nothing to stop it. It's why Stan Lee could, until there were legal settlements that stopped it, sometimes be billed as — or bill himself as — sole creator of properties that he, at best, co-created.

It is sometimes confusing and even when there is a system in place to determine credit, the system isn't perfect. But what you need to remember is that such credits do not magically appear, nor are they handed down on stone tablets. There are reasons for them and sometimes, those reasons differ depending on how the determination is being made and who's doing it.

A lot of you wrote in that you enjoyed the Norma Geli video of the live countdown to fireworks in Las Vegas. And some of you figured out as I did why it at first seemed like the pyrotechnics had been canceled and then they came bursting forth in all their "Ooh!" and "Ahhh!" glory. The fireworks started right on time but the countdown was early. The folks watching for it where Norma was were counting down based on the big electronic sign in front of the Park MGM hotel and it was about a minute fast.

So was the big sign in front of the MGM Grand. Another Vegas YouTuber, "Jaycation," was in front of the Excalibur and the folks there were looking at the big sign there and it was also early. You can see that in this video at about the sixteen minute mark. The MGM company also owns Mandalay Bay, The Mirage, the Luxor, Excalibur and New York, New York. So maybe they all rang in the new year a minute early.

There were lots of great fireworks displays ringing in the new year…in Dubai, Hong Kong, Sydney, Dallas, Rio de Janeiro, Toronto, Paris and many other cities. Every dog in the world must have been hiding under a bed somewhere.

This is an article I wrote in Las Vegas starting the last day of 1996 and the latter portion is about how a lady to whom I haven't spoken in a good twenty years and I spent the night before. It ran in the Comics Buyer's Guide. a much-missed publication, in their issue for 1/31/97.

Much has changed since that night and you might not get all the topical references. Most notably, they were blowing up the Hacienda Hotel that evening to make room for a mega-resort tentatively called "The Paradise Project" or "Project Paradise." The mega-resort was built but it was called by neither name.  It's the Mandalay Bay and it's still quite a wonderful place to be.

I don't know what year it is where you are, but where I am right this minute, it's 1996. But not for long. In about six hours, it will be 1997 and we can all say goodbye to the old year, make resolutions we'll keep until at least noon tomorrow, and commence writing the wrong date on all our checks.

Ah, 1996…the fifteenth year of O.J. Simpson trials. Or was it the sixteenth? Time flies when you're having fun. 1996 was the year when I was afraid to go to funerals for fear that everyone, the deceased included, would start doing the Macarena. 1996 was the year when I caught the flu and turned so many weird colors, people were mistaking me for Dennis Rodman's hair. 1996 was the year when all the laborers in California, collectively, made less money than Mike Ovitz got in severance pay from Disney.

1996 was the year when even people who hated Bob Dole got sick of jokes about him being old and mean. Or should have. 1996 was the year when even people who hated Bill Clinton got sick of jokes about him being tubby and horny. Or should have.

In comics, 1996 was the year when you could buy a share of stock in Marvel for less than the price of a copy of Iron Man. 1996 was the year when no one was quite sure what happened between Rob Liefeld and Image, but they were sure happy about it. 1996 was the year when the caliber of people in San Diego's convention hall actually went down after the comic fans left and the politicians arrived.

What a year, what a year.

I also don't know where you are but, uncharacteristically, I know where I am. I'm in Las Vegas where tonight, an estimated half a million people will converge on The Strip for what promises to be the biggest crowd in this town since Sinatra's entourage clashed with a meeting of Elvis impersonators.

Even now, police are closing off Las Vegas Boulevard to all motor vehicles — which should, of course, have no noticeable impact on the taxi situation. At 9 PM, while a huge mob gathers to cheer, 1100 pounds of T.N.T. will be used to implode the Hacienda Hotel. That they've elected to do this tonight of all nights is typical of the excess with which all things in Vegas are done except for payouts. Yeah, like they need this to attract a crowd to the Strip this evening.

No one will miss the Hacienda. Standing down at one edge of The Strip, it was a shabby inn. The one time I stayed there, the room was $14 for the night and, given the ambiance, that seemed high.

I was there that night to meet a wonderful gentleman named Dexter Maitland who was then appearing in a shopworn Minsky's Burlesque revue in the Hacienda showroom. Mr. Maitland was — and, I hope, still is — one of the last surviving veterans of the original Minsky's Burlesque. He billed himself as "the oldest living straight man" in the business, which prompted a friendly note/challenge for the honor from George Burns. (The salutation on George's letter was, "Dear Kid," which was apropos since Maitland, then 89, was a good six years younger than Burns.)

I will have to tell you all about Mr. Maitland another time since, even as I was typing the above, I was informed that I have to go watch the final moments of life for the highly-expendable Hacienda Hotel. My friend here — the same one who, you might recall, forced me to go see a Barry Manilow concert earlier this year — has decided we must not miss this. She once danced in a show at the Hacienda Hotel (not Minsky's) and she often had the fantasy of blowing the place up. Now that someone is making her dream a reality, she has to be there to see it and I, apparently, have no choice but to accompany her. I will report back to you upon our return, by which time it will probably be 1997. See you next year.

---

Okay, it's next year and I'm back. Here is my report…

We leave the room at 6:30 and quickly find that all the good restaurants have lines that extend to Reno and double back. Rather than risk missing the bringdown, we opt for fast food and it's a good thing we do. Walking down the Strip from Harrah's to the Hacienda (about one mile) takes darn close to sixty minutes. The last forty or so are spent inching our way through a crowd massing at Tropicana and Las Vegas Boulevards, right outside the M.G.M. Grand, opposite where a new hotel — New York, New York — is scheduled to open this weekend.

The facade of New York, New York looks like what Manhattan would look like if Chester Gould had designed it and been short on space. There's a scaled-down Empire State Building right near a scaled-down Statue of Liberty, right near a scaled-down Chrysler Building and so on. A roller coaster careens through and around all these edifices, and the insides are said to be themed to replicate the New York experience, which I guess means that none of the dealers speak English and you can get mugged between the roulette tables.

Clark County Police are working the crowd, and I have never seen officers of the law get along so well with drunken revelers. Most of the people love the cops, and at least a couple of rather attractive women seem determined to hug and kiss every man in sight sporting a badge. If it had ever been like this in L.A., Rodney King would never have happened.

This is my first-ever New Year's Eve in Las Vegas, and the town seems to have it down to a science. Earlier today, drinking glasses mysteriously disappeared throughout the town. Even the glass tumblers in my hotel room's bathroom were quietly replaced by plastic ones.

All along the strip, police officers and hotel employees are confiscating glasses, bottles and cans — apparently the cause of no small amounts of damage in years past. Instead, they have thousands of plastic cups, most bearing hotel logos, and will gladly pour your beverage into one for you. Even in the casinos at the high rollers' tables, drinks are being served in plastic.

By 8:00, we've gotten about as close as we're going to get to the Hacienda, packed into a throng between the Luxor hotel and the Tropicana, with a decent view of the condemned casino. My immediate thought is that they don't need the 1100 pounds of explosives; the noise of this crowd could easily reduce the place to rubble.

I can't recall ever seeing so many people in one place at one time. Even standing in the middle of the street, it's enough to give a snail claustrophobia. And every so often, for no visible reason, everyone decides to start screaming. I think of all the people who are massing at that very moment in Times Square — the real one across the country, not the scaled-down one across the street. How I yearn for the relative peace and quiet where they are now.

(And the irony is not lost on me; any minute now, those people in Times Square are going to watch a large ball drop, and we're going to watch a large hotel drop.)

At 8:30, the crowd is screaming to bring the place down, which is a waste of everyone's lungs. Everyone knows it's coming down (or going up; take your pick) at five minutes to nine. Still, it's not like these people have anything better to do just now.

A huge reviewing stand is set up, filled with V.I.P.s, and as I glance about, I'd guess that there are not more than, oh, about five thousand cameras here. The professional TV and movie cameras, of course, make sense. So do the zillion hand-held camcorders, in a way — although if I came to see something like this (and I guess I did), I think I'd rather see it with the naked eye than through a viewfinder. Tape replays from better vantage points will not likely be scarce.

What I don't get is the people with little ten-dollar disposal Instamatics and Polaroid Swingers. What kind of Richard Avedon moments do they expect to immortalize on film?

My friend has struck up a conversation with a stranger who seems wise in the science of building demolition. He is a local and he has been present at the implosions in recent years of the Dunes, the Landmark and, most recently and sadly, the Sands. Each of these venerable structures has been razed to make way for a newer and larger "mega-resort," as they call them, the word "hotel" seeming somehow insufficient.

Those three were all Vegas relics but this building is only a little more than twenty years old, having replaced an earlier Hacienda Hotel on the same site. The Circus Circus company — which owns the Circus Circus, the Excalibur, the Luxor and part of the new Monte Carlo — recently added the Hacienda to their holdings, then decided they could do something bigger on the land. They have announced the Paradise Project (tentative name), which is to have a tropical theme, not unlike the Tropicana, which is directly across the boulevard. Thus, they will fill the critical and pressing need for a tropical-themed mega-resort on this side of the street.

Even if the gent we're talking to hadn't told us he was a veteran of these events, we could have guessed. Like a number of folks in the crowd, he has brought along a small mask, such as one wears to avoid germs or pollen. "When the building goes down," he explains to us, "the dust cloud can get pretty ugly." Gee, I sure am glad we came. I so love inhaling plaster.

He has more to say on the subject of hotel annihilation but out here, with people screaming and music coming from half a hundred sources (no two playing the same tune), I only catch about one out of every five fun facts. The T.N.T., he explains, is not what really causes the hotel to crumble; all it does is to ignite drums of jet fuel which have been strategically placed around the structure. There will be a massive fireworks display for ten minutes before the event, then a pause so that the smoke from the fireworks can dissipate. Then a laser light show will illuminate the Hacienda, culminating in a laser-projected countdown…and then, the Main Event (aka "Kablooey!").

By 8:45, the crowd looks close to charging and tearing the place down by hand. It's probably not true, but it amuses me to think that the hundred thousand people who are here all lost money gambling at the Hacienda and have shown up here tonight to gloat.

Finally, just before 8:50, music starts pouring forth from speakers and the crowd goes wild: The show is starting!

They're playing the Mission: Impossible theme but everyone is yelling, "James Bond, James Bond!" Then the fireworks commence.

Wow.

I've never been a big fan of pyrotechnics but these — rocketing off the roof of the Hacienda and from all around it — are so spectacular, you just have to stand there with your mouth open and gape. They come so fast that there isn't even time to "ooh" between them. For six or seven minutes, the fireworks are astounding and relentless and there's no earthly way I or anyone could describe them on paper. You had to be there.

The laser show, if any, is lost in the melee. There is a pause and suddenly, every window of the Hacienda Hotel is filled with flames. Fire is balling up and out of every orifice; it's hard to tell where the fireworks leave off and the T.N.T. begins. The crowd is screaming so loud, you'd think they couldn't be any louder…but when there is visible movement of the building downward, the decibels increase three more notches.

The structure's collapse is not well-lighted. With eyes still stinging from a hundred simultaneous Fourth of July displays, we miss most of it. And, sure enough, as the building goes down, the dust goes up. A huge cloud rises and we all grasp for hankies and Kleenex to breathe through. In a moment, the cloud is gone, much of it settling on us, and a whoop goes up —

— and then comes a gale of laughter. Dimly through the mist, we see that part of the hotel is still standing.

90% of the Hacienda is kitty litter but one side of the building has miraculously remained, stubbornly refusing to join the rest in oblivion. We watch for a few minutes to see if it's going to fall — it looks like it could — but then the crowd disperses, pouring into nearby hotels and off down the Strip where, word is, the Doobie Brothers and Sinbad are performing outside the Mirage. The Hacienda Hotel is history. Most of it, anyway.

---

It takes us another hour to make our way back down the Strip. By 10:00, I decide that I am the only person in the entire 702 area code who is over eighteen, sober and not wearing a funny hat. I keep waiting for someone to tap me on the shoulder and tell me that I am the Designated Driver for the entire state.

By 11:00, we are exhausted, just from elbowing through masses of humanity. But it's New Year's Eve: You can't go to bed on the wrong side of the midnight hour.

1997 arrives pretty much on schedule and people couldn't be happier. We go through this every 365 days, saying good riddance to a bad year and all its pains and problems, assuring ourselves that the new one will be oh-so-much better. No doubt, come 12/31/97, we'll be happy to be rid of that dog of a year and full of hope for 1998, but that's just the way we are — full of optimism, at least for one evening per annum. I enjoyed spending that night in Vegas this time and I'm already thinking of coming back next time.

Who knows? By then, they may be ready to implode Project Paradise.

Happy new year.