Hey, let's watch a famous sketch from the famous TV series, Your Show of Shows. Here are Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner and Howie Morris…

If you are a fan of old Warner Brothers cartoons, listen to this report. Don't ask. Just listen…

• If enough of us on Twitter talked about trending, trending would be trending.

I do want to get off the subject of the Slapgate/Will Smith matter but — and this is on me — my brain keeps going back to it…and not because I care mightily about the slapper or the slappee or anyone who makes more money in a month than some people make in a decade. There are absolutely more important issues in the news and even more important (to me) topics in my life.

But the incident probably touches most of us in some way, not just because we saw it as it happened or can't avoid seeing replays everywhere we look. Some of us have or have had issues in our lives with someone who thinks violence is a fitting response to someone saying something they don't like. Or with someone who thinks he or she is so important that normal laws of common decency or legal statutes don't apply to them. Or of someone getting outraged at something we said. Or of someone saying something that made us want to hit them. Or of some personal moment or issue that was, to us, reflected in Will Smith laying a hand on Chris Rock.

I wasn't sure what had me thinking so much about it and then somewhere on YouTube, I came across a clip of Ricky Gervais — the noted expert at having people get pissed off by jokes — and he said these words: "Just because you're offended doesn't mean you're right."

And I suddenly realized what there was I wanted to say/write about this…

In this world, there's Being Right and there's Being Right and there's sometimes even Being Right. I'm talking about Being Right in one sense but not in another. In particular, you can be right from a by-the-rules standpoint and wrong from a strategic standpoint. Back in high school, there was one time a teacher of mine taught us some history that was just plain wrong — in a factual sense, not a political sense.

I tried correcting him politely but he didn't listen. He wasn't a bad teacher or a bad person. He was just the kind of human being who'd rather admit to a capital crime than a simple mistake…and for some adolescent reason that I hope I've long since outgrown, I felt a desperate need to "win" on this issue. So I went to the library and Xeroxed some references that proved I was right and I enclosed them in a letter I wrote to the principal…

…and there were two results. One was that the teacher was scolded somehow by his employer and he had to issue a correction and an apology to all his students, which he clearly did not like doing. The principal even came to the class I was in to hear him do it and, through gritted teeth, "thank" me for setting him straight.

That was one result. The other was that…well, I was going to say he made my life a living hell for the rest of that semester but that would be overstating the situation somewhat. Let's just say it was less pleasant in there, mostly towards me but also towards other students. I wasn't the only one who noticed the difference.

I came to regret what I'd done. Actions, as we all know, have consequences and they also have unforeseen, ancillary ones. I was right but like I said, there's Being Right and there's Being Right. I perhaps could have handled it in a manner that wouldn't have triggered those ancillary consequences. I could also have said nothing. It wasn't that important. The erroneous info would have been quickly forgotten and the rest of that term would have been more comfortable for all.

This is not a precise analogy to the Smith/Rock incident because, among other obvious reasons, I don't think Will Smith was right in any way to smack Chris Rock. I don't think anyone is ever right to resort to violence over words, especially words that were spoken without malice. But let's say Smith was on some level right to do what he did. There are people who seem to think so, most apparently people who've had a burr over smartass comedians.

So what did Smith achieve? Well, an awful lot of folks there think he's a maniac or that he has anger issues…and you don't have to venture far on the 'net to find some pretty insulting theories people have about him and his marriage and his wife. That would be the wife he was trying to protect from hurtful words. And every professional comedian who thinks of him- or herself as edgy and unafraid — which would be, like, 90% of them — is saying or writing the worst kind of material about the Smith-Pinkett marriage.

You hit one comedian, you hit them all. And most of them will hit back. You also have folks like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar saying things like, "With a single petulant blow, he advocated violence, diminished women, insulted the entertainment industry, and perpetuated stereotypes about the Black community."

That can't feel good.

Just as it can't feel good to have people saying, as many are, that his career is over. I don't believe that for a minute. There's a rumor around that that evening, he also won the Best Actor award and careers don't end when you do that even when you distract from that little accomplishment. Still, given his past earning power, to lose just one starring movie role because some studio doesn't want to gamble on him or some director doesn't want to work with him costs him what? Twenty million dollars? Thirty?

And here's an article headlined "Apple TV is Sitting on a $120 Mil Will Smith Movie For Fall Plus Investors in his Company May Be Holding a $60 Mil Bag." Slapping Chris Rock is turning out to be pretty damned expensive.

Like I said, I don't think he was right in any way, shape or form to take a swing at Chris Rock. But given the results, it's not hard to feel that even if he had been right, he would still have been wrong.

I will now try not to think much more about this and therefore feel I have to write about it again. Hey, isn't Frank Ferrante's PBS show terrific?

Randy Rainbow makes a shocking confession.  I for one had no idea…

I posted on Twitter last night a bit of my frustrations with Spectrum, the service from which I get my home phones and cable TV. I was on the phone with them for an hour and twenty minutes trying to get those two things to work properly and for them to turn off the Internet service I discontinued on 3/20 and stop billing me for it.

During that call, I spoke to one guy who couldn't do anything but he was apparently ordered by some computer to try and talk me into switching my Internet service back to them…which he did by offering me slower speeds at a higher price. When I declined to grab for that tempting offer, he switched me over to someone else who couldn't help me with my tech problems but was apparently told by his computer to try and sell me on switching my cell phone service to Spectrum. I finally said to him, "How about if you get my current services working properly before trying to sell me on adding more with your company?"

I finally got to someone in the Retention Department who, after keeping me on hold for seemed like roughly the length of John Oliver's show which I couldn't watch because my HBO service was out, told me he'd arranged for them to turn off the Internet service I'm no longer using and to retroactively stop billing me for it…but I have to call the Billing Department today and make sure they did that.

So I tweeted what I tweeted while on hold and this morning, I found the following addressed to me on Twitter…

• I would like there to be an Internet/Phone/TV provider who makes the following offer: For every 15 minutes their service department keeps you on the phone, including hold time, you get a month of free service. And yes, this is being written while I am on hold with Spectrum.

Having decided not to travel far or get on an airplane until COVID is much less of a concern, I can only follow Broadway from afar, as we did with the revival of The Music Man. I am intrigued that a new musical — Mr. Saturday Night — is currently there in previews with an announcing opening date of April 27.

It's at the Nederlander Theater and it's based, of course, on the 1992 movie which starred Billy Crystal, David Paymer and other folks. The musical version stars Billy Crystal, David Paymer and other folks. The screenplay for the movie, which was by Billy Crystal, Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandell has been adapted for the stage by Billy Crystal, Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandell. The music is by Jason Robert Brown and the lyrics are by Amanda Green. John Rando is directing.

I liked but did not love the movie and one thing that didn't work for me in it was the makeup jobs done to make Mr. Crystal look younger and then older and then younger again and then older again and so forth. David Paymer as his brother actually seemed to regress and age as per the film's timeline but Crystal, to me, just kept looking like Billy Crystal with stuff on his face. I wouldn't imagine that would be a problem with a stage version. When you do Peter Pan on stage, it's okay if the audience can see the wire because they'll pretend they don't. An audience for live theater can pretend Billy Crystal is whatever age the scene says he is…and he is thirty years older now.

The other night, a lady friend and I watched the DVD of the film and we both enjoyed it a lot…for me, more than when I saw it in a theater, way back when. I again thought that David Paymer was the best thing in it. He's usually the best thing in whatever he does…even a cartoon show for which he did voices, directed by me. A lovely man. A very fine actor. And don't for a minute think I had to give him any sort of real direction.

What makes me wonder about the storyline as a musical is that the character Crystal plays — semi-successful-but-not-for-long comedian Buddy Young, Jr. — is not a very nice guy most of the time. His two defining traits are that and a certain lack of self-awareness. As Paymer's character (Young's brother-agent) tells him in the film, he takes every bad break and makes it worse. Most characters in musicals have a certain understanding of what they want and at the end of the show, they get it. Buddy Young's story is mainly one of self-induced failure and blindness to his own self-destructive nature. Still, these are skillful folks making this show. I hope they pull it off and that it runs long enough for me to get back there and see how they did it.

It's The Muppets on The Ed Sullivan Show for November 30, 1969. And I'll bet most of you know exactly how this goes…

• How odd that the word "hot" in "hot chicken sandwich" means the chicken is very spicy whereas the word "hot" in "hot turkey sandwich" means the turkey has gravy all over it. You'd think we could standardize stuff like that.

I forgot to mention that I got my fourth dose of Moderna Vaccine last week. I did not do this because any politician or talk show personality told me or forced me. I did this because my doctor recommended it. I did not feel any of my personal freedoms were being lost any more than I feel that way when my doctor prescribes some medicine for me and I take that medicine.

Too many people have hauled too much irrelevant baggage into the simple decision to get vaccinated or boosted. It's very simple. You get the shot because the evidence is pretty strong that it will lessen your chance of getting The Disease…or if you get The Disease, you will not suffer or risk death as much.

But don't get it on my say-so. I write comic books and cartoons, remember? And don't get it or not get it because some guy on TV or the Internet says to get it or not get it. Ask your doctor. He or she knows more about this kind of thing than you do. And if they don't, get yourself a better doctor.

If you plan on watching Jimmy Kimmel tonight, you might want to TiVo or DVR Jimmy Fallon's show. Or if you plan on watching Jimmy Fallon tonight, you might want to TiVo or DVR Jimmy Kimmel's program.

Derek Teague wrote to ask…

It's wonderful that you are championing the merits of the rarely revived Broadway show, Li'l Abner. However, I'd like to posit this query: do you honestly think that it would ever be deigned to be Broadway revivable given today's political climate?

Once all of today's social critics do some digging and learn that Abner's creator Al Capp was a right-wing crank, during a late-1960s zeitgeist when it was not politically expedient to be such, there would be nary a chance that a "new Li'l Abner for the twenty-first century" might survive out-of-town try-outs. At least, Mr. Capp was a wooden-legged amputee — that might count for something.

Answer me that, Mister Green Lantern.

Here's an absolutely accurate answer to your question: I don't know. My first thought is just that "today's political climate" (to use your term) is just "today's political climate." It might not be tomorrow's or that of the year after. I wouldn't bet money on anyone's ability to predict that. I would also think that since he personally was not going to profit from a revival — him being dead and all — Capp's personal politics and misdeeds wouldn't be a factor…only what was on the stage.

When I was briefly involved in discussions of revising its book for a new production, no one was thinking of setting the show in the present day. It had to be period, had to be set back in the fifties with a looming Red Scare. Maybe being period and so gosh-darned cartoony would give it some insulation. Current events might well render it more or less relevant to our time.

I find the issue of What Offends People to be very inconsistent and unpredictable. For a long period of what some would call "wokeness," the news that Bill Cosby was probably raping women didn't seem to arouse a lot of outrage. Then one day, it suddenly did. I look at routines by guys like Dave Chappelle or Jim Jefferies or any wildly-successful comic in their category and I don't get why people are upset about these four jokes and not hundreds of others told from the same stages by the same performers.

But I'll stick with my answer: I don't know. At the moment, I would think the foremost obstacle to a revival of Li'l Abner is financial. No one is coming forth to put up the millions of dollars it would take to do it for the same reasons no one did it in the sixties, the seventies, the eighties, etc. It just didn't seem like as sound an investment opportunity as the three-hundredth Broadway revival of Gypsy or the six-thousandth Fiddler on the Roof.

One of these years (decades?) when there's someone with the interest and power to put together the deal to remount Li'l Abner, we can take a look and see what the political climate is then. If you and I had gone to see an early preview of The Book of Mormon, we might have worried about protests at the depiction of black people and the ridiculing of an entire, not-insignificant religion. And that show could not have been a much bigger hit than it was and still is.

You can find some fun things on YouTube if you do a little diggin' and searchin'. I love the musical of Al Capp's newspaper strip Li'l Abner and especially the number, "Jubilation T. Cornpone," performed by Stubby Kaye in the original Broadway production and in the movie.

There has been no Broadway production of Li'l Abner other than the original. It's never been revived, though there have been several attempts that never got off the ground. I was briefly tapped a few times by folks who were making those attempts and wanted to have me update the script but those attempts never reached the stage where I started updating.

One of the many factors that worked against its resurrection on The Great White Way is that it requires a large (and therefore, expensive) cast. It can be as large as you like but I would think you'd need at least thirty bodies up on that stage to do it as right as you'd have to for Broadway. Part of my mission, had I been truly engaged to revise, would have been to try and pare that number down a bit.

But the show is revived a lot around the country, especially in venues where the actors aren't paid. I had a telephone friendship with Al Capp's brother Elliott and I think he was the one who pointed out two reasons why colleges and community theaters loved to do the show. One was that in such productions, you want as many people in the cast as possible. The bigger your cast, the more friends and relatives there are to buy tickets. You can put a hundred of any age, shape or size in the cast.

The other reason is that it's a damn cheap show to costume. Right now, if you were cast in a production as a citizen of Dogpatch, I'll bet you could whip up a fine outfit from those old clothes in the back of your closet — the ones you keep meaning to throw away. I've seen it staged with most of the cast barefoot and in rags.

So I came across this video of the "Jubilation T. Cornpone" number from a 2014 mounting of the show at the Eureka Theatre in San Francisco with (apparently) an all-children cast. Mammy and Pappy Yokum, as you'll see, look about eight years old. The gent playing Marryin' Sam who carries the piece is named Tosh Harris Santiago and he looks a bit older than the others but still a kid.

A lot of these videos make me cringe and dive for the STOP button but I thought this was rather well done, given the lack of experience and budget. Take a look — and notice how the "the bigger your cast, the more tickets you'll probably sell" strategy was apparently being employed…

When I watch videos like this, I always think, "At least one person on the stage went on to an actual performing career." And realizing that this is from 2014 and all those kids are a lot older now, I did a search for Tosh Harris Santiago. Sure enough, I found a couple of videos of a seasoned performer by that name singing and dancing. I'm assuming the guy in this number from In the Heights is the same Todd Harris Santiago. I'm also assuming we're going to see more of this man. He's real good…

• A huge peer-reviewed study shows that Intervectin is absolutely useless against COVID. I don't understand. If you can't get sound health advice from Joe Rogan, who can you trust? Oh, if only there around a million people in this country who seriously study medicine…