Another rerun, this time from October 22, 2012. In this time of COVID, I don't have any Tales from Costco because I get home delivery from them. I visited one Costco early in the COVID era to stock up on the necessities of life (toilet paper and paper towels, of course) and one since because I had a coupon to use up that could only be used for in-person shopping. But otherwise, Costco is no longer a place I go. It's a place I order from. I feel a sense of loss because home delivery doesn't give me anecdotes like this one. Or free samples…

It's been a while since I did one of these and not because I haven't been to a Costco. I just didn't find any interesting stories there while I was purchasing my five-year-supply of dental floss and my ten-year-supply of chicken wire. (By the way, someone wrote me that next time I was in Costco, I should pick up a lifetime supply of cole slaw. I already have that. For me, a lifetime supply of cole slaw is no cole slaw. I keep mine right next to my lifetime supply of no candy corn.)

So yesterday, I was driving back from San Diego and I needed to stop for lunch and gas. I arbitrarily got off the 5 in San Clemente, which is a good place to look for such things, and I guess my instincts secretly picked the off-ramp. Without consciously choosing to do so, I wound up driving past Sonny's, which is one of my favorite Italian restaurants. If you're ever in or passing San Clemente and you want a good, cheap place for a plate of pasta, try Sonny's.

I didn't, yesterday. Just wasn't in the mood for Eye-talian so I kept going, browsing San Clemente in search of lunch and petrol. Before long, I found them in the same place: The Costco in San Clemente. Spotted it. Noticed a Pollo Loco next door. Figured I could dine at Pollo Loco, then gas up at Costco. And hey, while I was there, I could pop into Costco for that most futile of goals, "just a few items." I decided to do Costco first, then the Pollo Loco. As it turned out, I dined so well on free samples at Costco, Pollo Loco was unnecessary.

So lunch was free. Of course, I did spend $300+ on cat food, electronics stuff and cleaning supplies while I was there. But lunch was free.

One of the snacks on which I snacked was the combined sampling of two products Costco sells: King's Hawaiian Sweet Rolls and a heat-and-eat package of shredded beef cooked in Jack Daniel's barbecue sauce. A nice, friendly lady at the end of an aisle was heating the beef in a small microwave, then scooping the meat onto rolls to make mini-sliders we could try. "They make their sauce with real Jack Daniel's Whiskey," she announced. "But the cooking process burns off all the alcohol."

As I helped myself to a sample, I said, "Good…because I'm driving." But the truth is there's about as much chance of me ingesting alcohol as there is of me feasting on cole slaw and candy corn. Less, even. I've actually tried cole slaw and candy corn. As I turned to continue with my Costcoing, an older woman customer asked me, "Is that true? About the alcohol burning off? Because I shouldn't have any of that if it doesn't."

I told her I was pretty sure it was safe and pointed to an eight-year-old who was not being restricted from helping himself to a sample. This woman was probably seventy and she said, "You were being cautious because you're driving…"

"That was just me being silly," I explained. "But even if there was alcohol in there, the portion size is too small to get a mosquito tipsy."

"That's good to know," she said. "I haven't had a drink in almost thirty years. What it did to me…I couldn't ever go through that again. Maybe someone like you can handle it…"

"Well actually, ma'am, I've got you beat. I haven't had a drink in sixty years and seven months."

"Really? How old are you?"

I said, "Sixty years and seven months. I've never had a drink in my entire life."

"Really? Not even beer? Or wine?"

I said, "Not even beer or wine. About thirty-five years ago, I had a Nyquil. I gather that's kind of like Jack Daniel's for people with bad colds."

"Never had a drink," she muttered to herself. And as she was muttering, my eyes fell on her shopping cart which was full of Grand Prix cigarettes. Maybe a dozen cartons of them.

"So you didn't have to quit because you never started," she exclaimed. "I wish I'd taken after you."

I had to get back on the road but there are times you'd hate yourself if you didn't say something. I said, "What you should really do is not take after my mother. Have you got two minutes for me to tell you about her?"

Here's another one of those videos of old Los Angeles where someone has enhanced the image and added a fake audio track. I like these, especially ones like this in which I recognize a lot of the scenery. This footage was shot in 1960 or not long after and there's a lot of driving around in areas where my parents used to drive around with me in the back seat. The last third or so may be of special interest to some because it was shot at Disneyland…

I mentioned Sid Caesar and Howard Morris in today's rerun article. That's as good a reason as any to rerun a link to a sketch you've almost certainly seen before…and certainly cannot see too often. This is the "This is Your Story" sketch, a take-off on the then-popular series, "This is Your Life."

Various sources online will tell you the sketch appeared on Your Show of Shows on April 3, 1954. It went largely unseen again until 1973 when it was used to close Ten From Your Show of Shows, a theatrical compilation film. It was thereafter played in many places including the memorial service for Howie Morris after he left is in 2005. It opened the ceremony and everyone howled with laughter throughout, including the man sitting in front of me, Carl Reiner…

Because of a looming deadline, I stand to not have very much blogging time this weekend so I thought I'd repeat an article that appeared here on February 17, 2014. This was not long after the passing of one of television's greatest comic talents, Sid Caesar. What follows got a lot of mail and a lot of links and attention then so maybe you'll enjoy it now. Or maybe you'll do what I might do and just click away and find a website with new content today…

Today, I want to start with two similar anecdotes that one hears in or about Hollywood. Both deal with the not-uncommon situation where someone who is older and accomplished has to audition for someone who is young and perhaps not well-informed about the person who is there to try out for a job.

In one, the older/accomplished person is the great director, Billy Wilder. In it, Wilder has come in to talk to a much younger studio executive about perhaps directing a project. The much younger studio exec says, "Thank you for coming in, Mr. Wilder. I'm afraid I'm not familiar with your work. Could you give me a brief rundown of what you've done?"

To which Mr. Wilder replies, "You first."

In the other, the older/accomplished person is the actress Shelley Winters and the much younger person is a casting director. The casting director asks pretty much the same question of Ms. Winters —

— and Ms. Winters, who has had these auditions before and is sick of them — reaches into an enormous purse she's carrying and hauls out the Academy Award she received for The Diary of Anne Frank and the Academy Award she received for A Patch of Blue. She slams them down on the casting director's desk and says, "That's what I've done!"

I can't say for sure that either of these stories is true but they are widely-told and widely-believed.  I've also heard a version in which it was Wilder who brought his Oscars to the meeting and when asked what he'd done, brought out his for The Apartment, Sunset Boulevard and The Lost Weekend, plus his Irving Thalberg Award.  In any case, that question is asked of veterans too often. Show Business is all about selling yourself and if you're around for any length of time, you will eventually be selling yourself to people who are much younger and don't know who the hell you are. A lot of older folks have a chip of massive proportions on their shoulders over this.

In 1983, I was auditioning voice actors for a cartoon special I'd written and would be voice-directing. In fact, it was my first voice-directing job. I had written all the major roles with specific actors in mind and would have been happy to just cast them without forcing them and a host of others to traipse into a studio in Burbank on a very hot day to audition. But the network insisted I read and record at least three actors, including my first choices, for each part. One of the actors I knew I wanted was Howard Morris so we called him in.

You know Howard Morris. That's because if you come to this weblog, you're a well-read, intelligent human being. Alas, in 1983, Howie was 64 years old and hadn't been appearing on television or in movies with any regularity. He felt he was spending his life auditioning for a stream of folks too young to have seen Your Show of Shows or any of the other fine things he'd done.

I had met Howie before, most recently when I was eleven years old. That day in '83, I was 31 but I probably looked 11 to him. He was, as I would learn, a wonderful, sweet man but he had a temper — a bad one at times. A lot of things pissed him off and a biggie was, as he put it, "auditioning for teenagers." A man of great accomplishments, it drove him crazy that the whole question of whether he worked — whether he got to do what he loved and what paid his bills — was in the hands of children who were too often unaware of those accomplishments.

So when I said to him, "Mr. Morris, it's an honor to have you here," he fixed me with a confrontational stare and tone and said, "Oh, yeah? You have no idea who the fuck I am."

Ah, but we were even: He had no idea who the fuck I was, either. He didn't know he was there to read for a guy who'd written the part with him in mind because I was so very familiar with his work.

He also didn't know he was there to read for a guy with a great memory and an obsession with the entertainment industry, comic books and cartoons included. That has been one of the Secret Weapons of my career. The first time I met Jack Kirby, he was impressed with how much I knew about the comic book field. When I went to work for Sid and Marty Krofft, they too were startled by the history (some would call it trivia) I could come up with about them and the folks with whom they worked. Marty found it especially useful when we were courting guest stars to appear on our shows. One time, he introduced me to Jerry Lewis and said, "Mark here knows every single thing you've ever done." I didn't but I knew enough to more than flatter Jer.

So I told Howie, "I know who the fuck you are. You were on Your Show of Shows with Sid Caesar and then you did Caesar's Hour with him. You were in Finian's Rainbow on Broadway and you directed the pilot for Get Smart and lots of episodes of shows like Hogan's Heroes and The Dick Van Dyke Show. You played Ernest T. Bass on five episodes of The Andy Griffith Show and directed a couple of them, too. You were in The Nutty Professor and you also directed a bunch of movies including Don't Drink the Water, Goin' Coconuts with Donny and Marie, With Six You Get Eggroll with Doris Day and one of my favorites, Who's Minding the Mint? You were the voice of Beetle Bailey on his cartoon series and then you were Jet Screamer on The Jetsons and you were Atom Ant and you were Mr. Peebles, the pet store owner who kept trying to sell Magilla Gorilla and you were the voice of the koala bear in all those Qantas Airlines commercials and you directed most of the McDonaldland commercials and you were the voice of about half the characters in them and can we get on with this audition so I can get you in my show now that I've proven I know who the fuck you are?"

We were friends from that moment on. And he was great on that show and others I used him on. I really loved the guy.

But there was one disadvantage to being around Howie. You had to keep listening to the Shelley Winters anecdote, which he told constantly. I must have heard it from him fifty times. Because he was so mad at having to audition for people who didn't know who the fuck he was.

The last two decades of his life, Howie did not work as much as he wanted to and I suspect that attitude was one of the reasons why. I don't mean the attitude of producers and casting directors who hadn't bothered to familiarize themselves with his résumé. I mean his attitude, as expressed to me when he came in for his audition with me. 95% of the time, that would cause the person with hiring power to think, "Well, this guy would sure be a lot of trouble."

It wasn't just that he was confrontational and occasionally angry. It's that when someone walks in the door clinging to long-ago accomplishments, you wonder if they're capable of turning loose of the past and living in the present. Howie certainly was.  Once he felt he was among friends, he was a pussycat…a very talented pussycat.  Not everyone is.

On one project I worked on for a few days, I found myself writing sketch comedy with a guy who'd been at it since about the time I was born. I started to tell him an idea I had for a skit about two friends and one of them owes the other some money. Before I'd said much more about it than that, he interrupted me and said, "Oh, yeah…the money-owing bit. I did it with George Gobel. I can just write it up."

I knew the routine he was recalling. It was an old burlesque sketch that turned up in a lot of early TV shows and it wasn't at all what I had in mind. But that was all we were going to get out of this guy.  We were not, by the way, writing for George Gobel…or anyone who worked in his style.

There's a difference between bringing experience to a project and bringing a stubborn denial that things change…and should. I know an older writer (meaning: older than me) who had a personal Golden Age in the sixties and seventies writing detective shows like The Name of the Game and Cannon and Barnaby Jones. Every time I run into him, he starts in bitching about how "these damn kids" who are now the producers and show-runners won't hire him to write the cop shows of today.

To him, it's pure Ageism…and I don't doubt there's some of that. There's a lot of Ageism out there. But if he does have a chance to get any work these days, it isn't helped that he so obviously doesn't want to write the current shows. He wants to write Banacek.

The other day when Sid Caesar died, I wrote a piece here about how every time anyone hired him, his natural instinct was to turn whatever he was doing into a sketch from 1957. No one doubted his talent. A lot of producers just doubted he could or would do their show instead of doing his show. Let me give you an amazing example of this. Some of you are going to think I'm making this up…

Sid wrote his autobiography twice. I haven't read the second one but in the first one, which he called Where Have I Been?, you can read the following beginning on page 261 of the original hardcover…

…I was called over to Paramount Studios to meet with two TV producers who had sold ABC a pilot for a new situation-comedy series. I was told they had been associated with Taxi, a series I thought was quite good. Their new show was about a bar and the quaint characters who hung out in it. I was to be one of the quaint characters.

I had read the script, which they sent over in advance, and I didn't like it very much. The role they had in mind for me, in particular, was pure cardboard, strictly one-dimensional. But I saw some promise in it if I could be allowed to add some of my own shtick. So I went over to see the producers.

I expected to be meeting with Jim Brooks or Stan Daniels, two top talents, who, in addition to creating Taxi had previously been involved with The Mary Tyler Moore Show, among others. Instead, I found myself in a room with a couple of twenty-five year olds who seemed to know of me only from a part I had played in the movie Grease in 1977. I soon realized that, like so many of their generation in the industry, their concept of comedy did not go back beyond Gilligan's Island, on which they had been raised as children.

I said, "I have a few ideas to make my part a little more interesting and meaningful." They stared at me coldly and said, "We're perfectly satisfied with the part as we wrote it, Mr. Caesar." I felt my temper rising, but I controlled it. I went through the motions of having an amiable chat with them before I got up and said, "OK. That's it. Thank you. Goodbye." They were startled. Actors don't walk out on the almighty writer-producer when a possible five-year series contract is being dangled in front of them.

But I figured the concept was so poor it probably never would make it to a series anyway. Besides, even if it did, who would want to be associated with such shit?

And that is why Sid Caesar was not a regular cast member on that unsuccessful piece of shit, Cheers.

I mean, you figured it out, right? It wasn't on ABC. It was NBC. And it wasn't a five-year series, it was eleven, during which it was maybe the most acclaimed situation comedy on the air. But the show he walked out on with such disgust was Cheers.  It went on the air about the time his book came out and it stayed on for a long, honored time.

The producers he met with were almost certainly Glen and Les Charles, who were not twenty-five years old. Glen was 39 and Les was 33. (When Sid Caesar started on Your Show of Shows, he was 28 and Mel Brooks was 24.) By this point, the Charles Brothers had not only produced Taxi — a show he and most of the country thought was "quite good" — but they were also writers for The Bob Newhart Show, the one where Bob played a psychologist. That was a rather fine show, too.

Giving Sid the benefit of every doubt, maybe the pilot script he'd read wasn't as wonderful as the eventual series. The role in question was reportedly Coach and it may at that stage have been somewhat different from what Nicholas Colasanto wound up playing.

Still, Caesar had been around TV long enough to know that scripts — especially pilot scripts — get rewritten and rewritten and rewritten. He'd done the Broadway show Little Me, which Neil Simon rewrote extensively throughout rehearsals and tryouts. Things change as you cast roles and get into rehearsals and the project takes shape. That's why when you consider signing on for a project, you take into account the reputation and talents of the folks you'll be working with. You trust in their ability to fix that which needs to be fixed…especially when they've just done a successful show you thought was "quite good."

(I've only met the Charles Brothers once, by the way, and don't really know them. But they're very bright, nice guys and I'll bet you they knew exactly who Sid Caesar was. Just as I'll bet they didn't learn comedy from watching only Gilligan's Island.)

The tragedy, of course, isn't just that Sid walked out on one very popular, highly-honored series. It's that for the rest of his career, any time some producer said, "Hey, why don't we get Sid Caesar for this role?," someone probably told him about the way Sid had treated the Charles Brothers. Which meant that the producer said, "Well, let's see who else might be available…"  The anecdote not only suggested he'd be difficult to work with but also that he was hopelessly out of touch with what current audiences would like.

And had he been on Cheers, a couple of new generations would have known him and that would surely have translated into offers for other TV shows and for movies. Look at what being known from being on a current series, even as a guest star, has done for Betty White and Jerry Stiller and Shelley Berman and even Sid's old cohorts, Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks. This is on top of the millions and millions of dollars and probable Emmy Award(s) Sid would have had from being on Cheers instead of sitting home, stewing about how there was no place for him on television.

None of this is to suggest that there isn't a lot of Ageism in the entertainment industry…or that there aren't plenty of people in power who don't know a whole lot about the history of their business. But there are know-nothing bosses everywhere in every walk of life. If you try to avoid them all, you'll never get a job…and sometimes, you're wrong about them the way Sid was wrong about the guys who had that show set in a bar.

The world keeps turning and you have two choices: You can turn with it or you can spend your time trying to shove it back in the other direction. Since no one has ever succeeded at that yet, I don't know why people — especially people who could be as brilliant as Sid Caesar — keep trying. Besides, it's so much fun to hop on and go along for the ride, especially when the alternative is being left behind.

Here at newsfromme.com, we like to remember stand-up comics from the past…especially the ones who practiced the nearly-extinct profession of opening for big musical stars in Las Vegas casinos or similar venues. This is Charlie Manna (1920-1971), who had a pretty good career opening for superstar singers. This is him on The Ed Sullivan Show for December 29, 1968. I remember him usually being funnier than this but I'll bet this material killed when he was opening for Tony Bennett or Vic Damone…

If you're looking for incisive commentary (or even my kind) on the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard verdict, look elsewhere. I didn't follow the trial and I'd like to think I'm a better person for that. I do think that a defamation trial involving celebrities is always going to result in the spreading of a lot more defamation — true or otherwise — before a much wider audience.

Not much to add to the public debate about guns. I think some of us need to disabuse ourselves of an understandable but probably futile thought. Each time there's one of these massacres — especially one involving children and even more especially one where no "good guy with a gun" would have prevented it — we think, "Maybe this'll be the one that leads to meaningful gun control." I'm a wee bit less pessimistic than Kevin Drum is in this essay but not by much.

One of the reasons people who like Donald Trump like Donald Trump is that they see him as a "winner" — and he has delivered a lot more for right-wing Republicans than any other G.O.P. Prez of my lifetime. But he sure is losing a lot lately. Candidates he backed in the recent Georgia election went down to mostly crushing defeats…which, of course to Trump, is prima facie proof the vote was rigged. The latest attempt to convict Hillary Clinton (or at least someone close to her) of anything went nowhere, which is where they all seem to go. I'm not suggesting he's outta the game but these setbacks are nice to see.

I continue to prep for Comic-Con International, which convenes down in San Diego in 47 days. We have some great folks lined up for my Cartoon Voices Panels, and there'll be three fine 'n' fast cartoonists for a Quick Draw! game without my amigo Sergio Aragonés, who is skipping the con this year. You'll hear about other panels in due time.

Lastly for now: I am now averaging about three e-mails a week asking me to explain what the deal was with Don Rickles appearing in the Jimmy Olsen comic book when Jack Kirby was writing and drawing it. I have now explained this more times than I've had to spell my last name for people on the phone…and believe me, I have to do that a lot. I told the story here, as you could have found by just searching this site (or even Almighty Google) for "rickles olsen kirby" without the quotes. I'm usually glad to explain things like this but I don't think I should have to do it three times a week. Thank you.

I'm only posting this to satisfy those of you who've been writing in, asking — nay, demanding — "When are you going to show us the opening and closing themes from the Flintstones TV show animated with Lego stop motion animation?" Well, here it is and I hope you're happy…

One of the many things I love about doing this blog is that its readers often pitch in to answer questions that baffle me or add additional info. This morning, I mentioned a man named either Rome Siemen or Rome Siemon who lettered oodles of comic books for Western Publishing's Dell and Gold Key Comics and who has gone largely unsung in comic book history. Several of you snapped into action and did online research. At the moment, I have info I received from Joel Thoreson, Harry McCracken, Judge Magney and Eric Costello. Here's what we now know…

His name at birth was Jerome Emil Siemon and at some point, he lopped off the first two letters of his given name. He was born August 8, 1900 and died on October 6, 1969. He hailed from Moline, Illinois where he worked as an elevator operator and a member of the house orchestra at the LeClaire Hotel, which is still around and now an apartment house. He continued to work in the hotel industry in various capacities while pursuing a cartooning career.

At some point,he relocated to Los Angeles. I'm going to guess that he did that for the same reason as 90% of those who wanted to be cartoonists and moved to L.A. around then: To see if they could get a job with Walt Disney or at least one of his competitors. A lot of folks who wound up working for Western Publishing's Los Angeles office came to town for that reason and often, someone at Disney sent them to Western.

But that's just speculation on my part. All we know is that in the late forties, he was in L.A. and doing work for Western, primarily as a letterer but I believe someone in the Western office recalled him also as an occasional inker. In 1951, he managed to sell a newspaper strip called "Little Moon Folks" to be syndicated by the Associated Press News Press but it and some other cartooning gigs he had didn't last long.

I should explain something here. Western Publishing produced the editorial content for — and handled the printing for — Dell Comics until 1962. Thereafter, Western published its own comic books under the Gold Key logo and Dell set up a new division to produce whatever comics they published. If you need to know more about this, I wrote an article you can read here.

Western operated out of two offices, one in New York and one out here. The "out here" office was originally in downtown L.A. but as the line expanded, they moved into their own building on Santa Monica Boulevard in Beverly Hills on the same block as the local branch of the Friar's Club. Later, when the company downsized a bit, they moved into the Max Factor Building on Hollywood Boulevard, directly across from Grauman's Chinese Theatre. When the company got even smaller, they moved into a building in Burbank right across from the Forest Lawn cemetery…which is where Rome Siemon was buried.

Mr. Siemon probably worked in a staff capacity at the building on Santa Monica Boulevard and went freelance, working from home, when they moved to Hollywood. He eventually became the main letterer of comics produced out of that office which included all the Disney books, the Walter Lantz books, the Edgar Rice Burroughs comics and many others. There were also non-licensed comics produced out of the L.A. office including Magnus, Robot Fighter and Space Family Robinson.

There were a few artists who worked for Western's L.A. office who usually lettered their own work, including Alex Toth, John Carey, Mike Royer and Warren Tufts. Most did not letter their own work and I would venture that in the sixties, about 80% of what came out of that office was lettered by Siemon. The editors I worked for there starting in 1971 spoke glowingly of his skill and reliability, which is not to say they were in any way unhappy with Bill Spicer, who largely took over Siemon's position.

And that's about all I know about Rome Siemon, though it's more than I did when I woke up this morning. A little more info about him can be found here…and again, my thanks to the readers of this blog who did some searching. A guy who did as much work as he did deserves to be a little better known.

From Bob Pfeffer comes the following question…

I recently picked up a copy of Mickey Mouse #107 which says on the cover, "The NEW Mickey Mouse! New Art! New Adventures!" When I opened it up, I saw what was clearly the artwork of Dan Spiegle. It was not a rush job either, it was top tier Spiegle. But the odd thing was that all the characters and backgrounds were drawn in the usual Spiegle manner in this spy story except the characters of Mickey and Goofy, who were on-model cartoon characters.

Mickey was about half the size of a standard human character. The plot involved a secret agent group called P.I. (Police International) recruiting Mickey to work for them and hunt down bad guys because Mickey was famous for already doing that. It was played straight with Goofy getting a few laugh lines. It was an odd mix, probably trying to ride the wave of popularity of James Bond and other spy based entertainment of the day.

Credits I've found for this issue online say artwork is by Spiegle and Paul Murry. How did that work? Did Spiegle leave blank spaces for the Disney characters and Murry filled them in? Or were the Disney characters drawn and then Spiegle created the rest of the artwork around that? Was the artwork passed back and forth from pencils to inks or did each artist do their work completely and then send the artwork to the other? How did the editor handle this whole situation? Was the comic laid out by the editor so it could be planned who did what?

It looks like this approach continued for the next two issues of Mickey Mouse, but after issue 109, Spiegle was no longer doing Mickey stories. I found the whole issue fascinating to look at and read. I'll need to try and hunt down issues 108 and 109. Any insights into this would be greatly appreciated.

You've come to the right place because back when I was working for Western Publishing, I asked about these issues myself and discussed them with Dan and also with Chase Craig, who was the editor, and Don R. Christensen, who wrote those issues. Here's how it went down…

Sales on the Mickey Mouse comic book were dipping…a little, not a lot. Someone over at Disney, taking note of the then-current James Bond craze, suggested this idea. This was back when Western Publishing was doing the Disney comics under license and the guy over at Disney — whose name no one remembered — had the power to insist that they at least try it.

They tried it. Don wrote the scripts. Dan Spiegle would lay the pages out roughly in pencil. Dan was one of those artists who almost always inked his own work and what he did in the pencil stage was always very rough with no backgrounds so that the editor could okay how the story was being "told" and the letterer could letter in the copy. He did 90% of the drawing in the ink stage.

The letterer on this story, by the way, was a gentleman whose name was either Rome Siemen or Rome Siemon. I was never able to nail down the exact spelling. He was a letterer for Western Publishing's Los Angeles office, lettering thousands of Dell and Gold Key comics from around 1952 until around 1970 when he died (I believe) and was largely succeeded by Bill Spicer. In the entire history of American comic books, there has probably been no one who had so much work published without almost anyone knowing his name.

Either before or after the lettering but probably after, Spiegle's rough pencils would go to Paul Murry. Murry — another unsung talent in comics — was the main artist for Mickey Mouse stories for Western from the late forties until Western stopped producing Disney comics in 1984.

He was, like most of the artists who drew Disney comics for Western including Carl Barks, a man who'd worked for the studio and later found he preferred the lifestyle of working at home, freelancing for Western. He did other comics for the firm, as well. Murry would pencil and ink the figures of Mickey and Goofy, then the pages would go back to Dan Spiegle to be finished.

According to Chase Craig, he didn't think any of this was a good idea. He said no one at Western did…and even before there were any sales figures received on those issues, the whole idea was dropped. Other folks at Disney saw the work in progress and said things like "Are you mad?" and there was a strong outcry from the publishers of Disney comics in other countries.

Don Christensen was pretty sure he wrote at least one more issue that was never published. He wasn't sure whether or not it was even drawn. Spiegle vaguely remembered starting on another story but being stopped before it was completed.

I thought it was kind of interesting as a novelty…and at a time when few comic books were at all experimental — especially something as staid and steeped in tradition as a primal Disney comic. In 1966, the idea everywhere was that every issue should be in the same style as the issue before…and giving any comic book a "new look" was rare. It was something you only did when it was on the verge of being canceled and Mickey Mouse, even when its sales were down a bit back then, was not in any such peril.

I asked Chase if when the sales figures finally came in, they were up or down. He said, "I don't think I even bothered to check. We weren't about to do it again."

The Muppets on The Ed Sullivan Show for February 21, 1971. This is a weird one…

Yesterday, I mentioned how George Carlin once called Tony Randall an asshole.  I probably should have mentioned that I think George Carlin called everyone an asshole at one time or another.  In any case, our pal Douglas McEwan wanted equal time…

I want to counter George Carlin's remark about Tony Randall. I met Tony in 1975 when he guested on a radio show on which I worked. On the air, he talked a lot about fine wines, and about wine in general.

As George Pal's 7 Faces of Dr. Lao is one of my favorite movies, in which Tony plays six characters. (The movie credits him with 7 roles, but the Abominable Snowman is actually played by George Pal's son, Peter Pal), I wanted to talk with him a bit about the movie, of which he was justifiably proud.

In those days, I was a cigarette smoker. (Two days ago was the 33rd anniversary of my last cigarette.) Though I had sense enough not to smoke around Tony, he saw the pack of ciggies in my pocket, and said to me, "You really should stop smoking. It will kill you."

I told Tony, "You talked a lot about booze, excuse me, wine, in your interview. I never touch alcohol, and never drink a drop of it." (This is true. I'm a lifelong non-drinker.) "So tell you what. When I'm lying in a hospital bed dying of lung cancer, I'll see you in the next bed, dying of cirrhosis of the liver, and say 'Hello.'"

Tony looked at me askance for a moment, trying to decide whether to be insulted or not, then he broke out in a loud laugh, grabbed my hand in both of his and shook it as he said, "It's a deal!" Then we talked about Dr. Lao.

So my experience of Tony Randall was of a non-asshole. (And he was right. I now have COPD. I haven't smoked a cigarette in over 3 decades, and they're still going to kill me!)

Oh, I hope not. In the meantime, this is as good a place as any to say something I think I've said here before but should say more often. I've met a lot of famous people. Most have been very nice to me (i.e., not assholes) but I think before or after meeting them, I heard a bad story about 90% of them. Or to put it another way, if I avoided everyone who someone warned me about, I would have missed out on most of the best relationships of my life.

Maybe the derogatory anecdote was a momentary lapse on their part. Maybe there was another side to the story. Maybe the story was utterly false. There was a guy running around for a while on the Internet claiming I'd been rude to him at a comic convention in the United Kingdom, a country I have never visited. We all have moments in our lives which we would not like pointed to as typical of how we behave all the time.

Also, stories tend to get embellished or "improved" as they are passed from mouth to mouth. At one Comic-Con, I moderated a panel on E.C. Comics wherein Al Williamson and Al Feldstein exchanged a few contentious words…just a little friction between two men who later hugged each other. I still sometimes am asked about if it's true one of them took a swing at the other and we had to separate them.

The person who asks me about it heard it from a guy who heard it from a guy who heard it from a guy who heard it from a guy…

I keep remembering other times I saw Tony Randall in person. As I wrote, we never met but at least twice — maybe thrice — I got to sit in the bleachers at a rehearsal of The Odd Couple TV show over at Paramount. I've written here about poaching often in the Burbank studios of NBC, visiting the sets of Laugh-In and The Dean Martin Show and other programs then taping there. I also had an "in" to get on the Paramount lot and I used it a few times.

Klugman and Randall were utter professionals rehearsing, stopping every now and then to discuss lines and blocking and every aspect of their craft. I remember noting the selfless way each criticized, always in a constructive manner, what the other was doing. Sitting in the bleachers as I did, you could feel the mutual respect. I think I learned a lot about acting just sitting there, eavesdropping on those men.

In the meantime, I've heard from a number of people who saw that production of Inherit the Wind in 1996 that I didn't get to see. Some saw George C. Scott playing opposite Tony Randall. Some saw Charles Durning and Tony Randall. Sometimes, Tony Randall was holding the script, sometimes not. I haven't heard yet from anyone who saw Scott and Durning but there must have been some, and not just on opening night when the critics were in the house. I wish I'd seen any of these combinations.

We are now 49 days from the opening of this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego…and yes, unless we all come down with monkeypox, they're going to have one.

This is the time of year when I traditionally make my lame joke about how if you're going and you'll need a parking space, leave now. On a more serious note, I will tell you that if you're going and need lodging, book it now. This link may help. And if you don't, don't write or call me in late June to ask if I know of any available hotel rooms.

Also, don't ask if I can help you get a panel you want to do on the schedule. The schedule is almost set…and yes, I'll be hosting a passel of panels there. Again, we are assuming no monkeypox. It will be posted on the website two weeks before the con and I urge you, if you're attending, to study it and make a list of what you want to attend.

And while you're at it, you might also write down the things you'll try to get into if your first choices are full and also plan where you want to go in the hall and where you want to dine. A little advance planning can make your Comic-Con experience much, much better. You might also want to figure out where you're going to park if you don't leave now.

Since we've been talking here about the play Inherit the Wind here, I'll toss out a trivia question about it. There is a connection between that play and the cartoon show, The Jetsons. Know what it is? If you need the answer, go read this.

Gary Sassaman, who was so interesting recently on the podcast of the San Diego-Comic Con Unofficial Blog, sent the following…

I did, in fact, see that production of Inherit the Wind on Broadway in 1996. As I remember it, I must have seen it while it was still in Previews. I think I was there in early March, and I remember flying in from Pittsburgh into an ice storm in NYC, which made getting around very dicey. The night I saw it, Tony Randall was in for George C. Scott, but I seem to recall it was because Scott was embroiled in a scandal for harassing his personal assistant (which, of course, they didn't mention on stage). I did a search, and sure enough, Scott was sued in May 1996. Maybe I'm combining the two stories and Scott was out because he was ill, which was reported at the time. The show closed in May, either because of his ongoing illness or the lawsuit.

I remember Randall coming out and announcing he'd be playing the Clarence Darrow part ("Henry Drummond") and to please be gentle with him, since he didn't know the part that well, but I don't remember him having a copy of the script with him. I thought he was wonderful, as was Durning and I really enjoyed this production of the play, which was always one of my favorite movies.

On a side note, I worked with a very attractive anchor/reporter when I was a graphic designer for KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh. At one point, she had her own half-hour afternoon talk show on another Pittsburgh channel and she had Tony Randall as a guest one day. The host was also an actress who appeared in local productions (I saw her in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf as Martha) and she asked Randall how he stays so calm and collected on talk shows. He replied, "Well, I imagine the host is naked…and right now I'm having a wonderful time!"

I never met Tony Randall but I always liked him as a performer, even (maybe especially) when he was nagging people to stop smoking. I do remember though that the first time I met George Carlin, he said to a group of us, "I just did The Mike Douglas Show and I learned why Tony Randall is always so convincing playing an asshole."

It was sadly ironic that smoking largely destroyed the voice of Randall's close friend, on and off screen, Jack Klugman. I saw the two of them on stage twice, once before Klugman's voice began failing him due to throat cancer. In 1975, the year they stopped being The Odd Couple on TV, they did a tour of the original Neil Simon play and I saw it at the Shubert here in Los Angeles.

I believe my pal Ken Levine saw it and has said good things about it on his blog. We must have seen it on different nights since it was pretty weak the night I went. The sound in the Shubert was terrible and the two stars seemed to be on auto-pilot, just running the lines without a lot of performance behind them.

Then in 1997, the National Actors Theatre — the same group that stiffed me on those Inherit the Wind tickets — mounted a production of The Sunshine Boys on Broadway with Klugman as Willie Clark (the Walter Matthau part, if you remember the movie) and Randall as Al Lewis (the George Burns role).

It was terrible. By now, Klugman's voice was raw and raspy…and I'm sorry. No matter how gifted a comic actor is, nothing sounds funny when every sentence sounds like the speaker is in acute pain. The reviews said it almost enhanced his performance and maybe it did on opening night when the critics came. By the time I saw the show, it was just sad and too distracting.  Some people left at intermission.

Randall wasn't much better, delivering his lines with a thick Jewish accent that sounded neither real nor like Tony Randall. It's a testament to how good those two men were in the other things they did that I wrote those two plays off as aberrations in otherwise successful, award-worthy careers.

Turning to George C. Scott, I went and looked up his New York Times obit and found this in it…

In 1996, he was on Broadway again in a revival of Inherit the Wind as a lawyer based on Clarence Darrow. It was the kind of flamboyant role that should have been the capstone of his career. But he became ill during rehearsal and the opening was postponed. When the play finally opened, Mr. Scott received favorable notices and was nominated for a Tony Award, an honor that had eluded him. Because of illness, he missed several performances. Once he left the stage in the middle of the show and was replaced by Tony Randall, who produced the play through his National Actors Theater. Subsequently, it was disclosed that Mr. Scott had an aortic aneurysm.

Further clouding his triumphant year, an actress who had been his personal assistant accused him of sexual harassment. Early in May he left Inherit the Wind and went to California for medical treatment.

That production of Inherit the Wind did its last performance on May 12, 1996 so maybe my friend was wrong when he said I'd just missed seeing George C. Scott's last stage performance. I only saw Scott on stage once…

In 1978, he starred in Larry Gelbart's Sly Fox, at the Shubert out here…with audio much better than they had when Klugman and Randall did The Odd Couple on that stage. Scott was wonderful in it and so was the supporting cast — Jack Gilford, Trish Van Devere, Gretchen Wyler, Jeffrey Tambor and Hector Elizondo.

Scott was one of the greatest actors of his generation and I'm glad I got to see him at least once. I still wish though I'd seen him in Inherit the Wind…and not just because I wanted to get what I paid for.