This is an upgraded rerun of a video link I posted here in December of 2014. Someone has taken the video and greatly enhanced its picture quality, plus they've added a fake (but convincing) soundtrack to it. Enjoy…

The legendary Time for Beany puppet show went on the air in 1949 and ended in 1955. My mother told me she watched it when she was pregnant with me — I was born in '52 — which led me to a strange theory. You know those stories of how an expectant mother will listen to great music hoping it will somehow seep into her womb and inspire the fetus to become the next Mozart? Well, if there's anything to that theory, I figure that listening to that show — which on and before my birthday starred Daws Butler and Stan Freberg — put me on the course of my silly career.

My mother says I watched the show every day after I was born but I have no memories of it. So maybe I didn't watch it. Maybe it was just on and I was in the room where it was on.

I do however have a very vivid memory of being taken to a fast food restaurant themed around the show. There were several and the one we went to was not the one in the film embedded below. We went to one on Washington Boulevard in Culver City next to a large automotive dealership where my father was pricing used cars. He priced and then he, my mother and I went over to Beany's and dined. That, I remember.

When I met Bob Clampett, who'd produced the TV show, I asked him about the restaurants. He couldn't place for me the precise year the last one closed but he recalled that a couple of them outlived the series by a year or two. He told me they were a rotten deal from his end. He'd gotten involved with some people he wished he'd turned down…and though he said the places were gorgeous and had pretty decent chow, they never made money, at least for him.

This is an eight-minute home movie taken at one that was located in Long Beach, California. From the video, we can see it was next door to the Circle Drive-In Movie and further research tells us the Circle was located at 1633 Ximeno. If you click this link, Google Maps will gladly show you what's there today. The drive-in opened in April of 1951 and closed in January of 1985. The marquee in the video tells us it was showing Assignment: Paris (which opened in September of '52) and Golden Hawk (released in October).

I don't think anyone in this film is anyone famous but the architecture is great and you might enjoy just looking at the cars — and at the 1952 price of a burger, fries and a shake…

Speaking of The Music Man, as I seem to often be doing here lately: If you ever read Meredith Willson's autobiographical account of the birth of that show, you know that it went though many changes. In the final show, Marion the Librarian had a younger brother who was ashamed of his lisp. In earlier drafts, the brother was confined to a wheelchair, referred to (indelicately) by Willson in his book as "the spastic boy." In this article, Amanda Morris examines early drafts and writes about what Willson planned at one point and why he changed his mind.

Here's a Christmas memory which for some reason first ran on this blog on June 4, 2015…

Arthur W. Upfield (1890–1964) was an Australian writer of mystery and suspense novels, best known for books featuring his creation, Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte of the Queensland Police Force. His works were highly acclaimed and popular, but nothing in this article should be taken as my personal recommendation of them since I've never read one. My mother though read several and enjoyed them greatly…which brings us to a tale from Christmas of 1963.

At the time, I was avidly collecting comic books, primarily from two sources. One was just buying them new. Comics then came out on Tuesdays and Thursdays and were sold in drug stores, supermarkets and dedicated newsstands. It was an absolute "must" of my life to hit such establishments on those days, preferably at about the time the employees were unbundling that day's shipment and putting them in the rack.

The other source was used bookstores, of which there were then many. I believe at some point it was an "easy entry" business, meaning it didn't cost much to start one. You just needed a rented store, a lot of shelves and a ton of old books. I'd hit these establishments up often and buy old comic books, which were then a nickel each and, in most shops, six for a quarter. There are comics I bought that way and still own that are now worth mucho dinero.

My father usually drove me to these stores and every once in a while, my mother would come along and buy herself an Upfield novel. They usually had a lot of them and she'd buy one or two to read.

My mother was different from me in many ways and this was one. I would have bought them all. That is, I would have bought copies of every Upfield book I saw but did not yet own and then I would have just read them at my leisure. I'm not sure I can explain why she didn't do that. It wasn't the money. Used, the books only sold for one or two dimes each.

Sometimes when I was heading off to prowl old book shops, she'd say, "Hey, if you see any Upfield books I don't have, please buy one for me." She gave me a list of those she owned, which was about eight of the books the man had published. That gave me an idea for her Christmas present that year. I decided I would get her The Complete Arthur W. Upfield Library, meaning one copy of every one of his books she didn't have. These are all paperbacks we're talking about so they weren't expensive but there was the challenge of getting them all…and I had about three weeks.

I walked up to my favorite bookstore up on Pico Boulevard which sold used books but could also order new ones for you. The proprietor had a reference volume that showed me the names of all the books Mr. Upfield had published. Some were on his shelves. Some others were still in print so I had him place orders for those. When I left, I had ten of those books either in my mitts or on their way to me. Over the next few days, I hit three other shops I frequented and found six more of them. Then a sweep of three stores downtown near MacArthur Park yielded only one more.

I had let my father in on my mission, of which he highly approved, and swore him to secrecy. He drove me to some of those stores where I bought old comics and then I got him to drive me to two stores I never visited because they didn't carry comics. Fortunately, each of those deprived bookstores did have some Upfield books.

Christmas Day that year fell on a Wednesday. I remembered that and I just looked it up to check and I was right. So my deadline was Tuesday and when I awoke Tuesday morning, I had procured all but one of the books. I suppose my mother would have been just as delighted by a Christmas gift of The Complete Arthur W. Upfield Library (minus one) with an I.O.U. but I was determined to find the last one that day. Oddly enough, it was one of the more recent ones. Earlier Upfield books were still in print but not this one, the name of which I do not now recall.

I had one last store to search — a place called Yesterday's Books down on Western Avenue. It was a big, frightening place with books filling three floors of a structure that should have been condemned long before I or Mr. Upfield were born. Their inventory was largely unsorted and as I entered, I had the feeling that the book I needed was definitely in there somewhere. The formidable challenge was to find it.

I had given myself an arbitrary time limit there of 45 minutes. That was how long it would be before my father came back to pick me up. I asked the proprietor where books by Arthur W. Upfield might be and was disheartened by his reply: "Almost anywhere." I could search all I wanted but he was not going to be of any help whatsoever.

So I searched and I searched and I did find numerous Upfield books but not the one I needed. Fifteen minutes went by…thirty…I could hear the seconds ticking away on me. Every time I came across the wrong Upfield book, it bolstered my certainty that the right one was hiding somewhere on the premises. But could I find it in time?

Forty-two minutes after I began searching, I moved a stack of dusty volumes and there under it, deliberately hiding from me, I saw what I saw: The missing Upfield book. Feelings of triumph and joy overwhelmed me as I grabbed it up —

— only to find it was not the book. Just the cover. The insides had come loose and were nowhere to be found. Damn.

I was about to admit defeat when it suddenly dawned on me that I didn't have to do that. Why surrender when you can lie?

Well, maybe not lie but buy myself some time. I remembered where in the store I'd last come across an Upfield book that I already had. I took it and the loose cover to the cash register and asked the guy how much for the both of them. He just charged me for the complete book and threw the cover in for nothing. In the car, I proudly informed my father I had found the last book in my quest. No point in letting him in on the fraud I was about to perpetrate.

Once home, I got some glue and a knife and performed surgery. I removed the cover from the whole book and glued the loose cover onto it. What I wound up with looked just like a real copy of the last book I needed to complete The Complete Arthur W. Upfield Library…as long as you didn't open it.

Then I gift-wrapped the entire pile and stuck it under the tree. Every so often that evening, I'd catch a glimpse of the present and I'd have an ominous flash-forward: My mother would open it up, love the present I'd so ambitiously assembled for her…but say, "Hey, there's something odd about this one book…"

The next morning, she was thrilled with what I'd gotten her. Beaming with joy, she went over to a bookcase in the living room, rearranged a few things so as to clear space and placed her Upfield collection there, spines out, all lined up and looking very official.

Since the stand-in book was one of the later ones, I said to her, "If I were you, I'd start at the beginning and read them all in sequence, including the ones I already read." She said that sounded like a peachy idea and I breathed a sigh of relief. That meant I had several months before she got to it — several months to find a real copy and make the switch. Three or four weeks later, on a hunt for comic books I didn't have in a store in Santa Monica, I found a real copy and swapped it in. "She'll never know," I thought to myself.

Forty or forty-five years later, we were having dinner one night. My father was gone by then and my mother and I didn't talk too much about the past because it sometimes caused her to miss him a little too much. But that evening, she started remembering fond moments from past holidays and I decided it was time to unburden my secret and to confess my little bit of chicanery involving her Upfield books.

"I had found all but one," I explained to her, "and time was running out…"

She finished my sentence: "…so you somehow made a fake book with the right cover but the wrong insides. Then later, you found a copy of the real book and secretly switched them on the shelf."

I was startled…truly startled. I asked her "How did you know?" but all she'd do was smile and tell me, "I knew."

I never could lie to my mother.

Here's another video of Hugh Jackman's curtain speech at last Thursday night's performance of The Music Man on Broadway…

In the cast of most Broadway shows, there are people who work as understudies, standbys and swings. The precise distinctions between those job descriptions are a bit arguable but basically, they're folks who go on when some cast member is ill or otherwise unavailable. Often, they go on and play large roles with very little prep and rehearsal. And obviously, in The Time of COVID, they are sometimes very necessary.

Recently, a lady high up in the Broadway community made some unfortunate remarks in an interview in Hollywood Reporter that seemed disparaging to the folks who fill those vital positions. She quickly issued a full and apologetic retraction. And then last Thursday night, there was a stunning example of how brave and heroic those who work as swings can be.

As you may know, a revival of The Music Man starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster is now in previews at the Winter Garden Theater in New York. Delayed 'til now by you-know-what, it's probably the show that has the most excitement and attention around it. Thursday evening, they had their fourth preview performance…without Sutton Foster, who tested positive for that thing that way too many people are testing positive for.

Her role as Marion Paroo — the female lead in the show with many songs and many dances — is being covered by a swing named Kathy Voytko, who also covers seven other smaller roles in the production. They're in previews so there hasn't been time to give her proper rehearsals but nevertheless, she went on that evening. As part of the curtain calls at the end of the performance, Hugh Jackman made this speech. This is a cell phone video shot from the audience so you might want to enlarge it as much as you can and turn up the volume a notch…

The Music Man canceled its performance for today and its matinee for tomorrow. At the moment, they plan to resume with the 8 PM show tomorrow evening but we'll see if that happens and, if so, who's playing Marion the Librarian.

This kind of thing is happening all over Broadway and no one has any idea how bad it will get or if it will lead to another total shutdown. But I thought you'd like to hear about this and see the video…and isn't Hugh Jackman one of the classiest human beings to ever have a star on his dressing room door? He's probably humble enough to not have a star on that door.

And here's our favorite video to post each Christmas…

My three favorite animated Christmas specials are — in no particular order — Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Chuck Jones version, natch) and A Charlie Brown Christmas.  They're in no particular order because I don't have a favorite among them. Each year, I try to peek in on all of them.

It's not a necessity. Christmas is still Christmas without any or all of them but I like to re-watch them from time to time and this time of year seems like the appropriate time. My fondness for them probably has as much to do with when I first saw them as it does with their actual content. I know I watched each one the first time it ever ran on network television and many years thereafter.

This year, I see a lot of folks online complaining that they were hard to find on TV. They weren't on CBS, NBC or ABC. One or two were on Peacock, one or two were on Apple TV, one or two were on TBS, one or two were on Amazon Prime and I think Charlie Brown was also on some PBS stations. You had to look around but if you did, they weren't hard to find. So here's what I don't get…

If they're that important to you, why don't you own them? I have DVDs of all three. Why don't you?

They aren't expensive. Right this minute, a DVD of Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol is $7.99 and a Blu-ray is $19.39. A DVD of How the Grinch Stole Christmas is $13.99 and a Blu-ray is $8.99. And a DVD of A Charlie Brown Christmas is $12.81 and a Blu-ray is $11.99.  So you can pick them all up on DVD for $35 or on Blu-ray for a bit over $40.  You can probably find them for less without using my Amazon links…and more power to you if you can.  I can live without the commissions.

Now, you might be saying, "Why should I pay that much when I can stream them for a couple of bucks or occasionally watch them for free?"  Easy answer: So you have them.  I'm assuming you still have a DVD player or a Blu-ray machine.  You probably have lots of movies you love on discs that play on them.  Just because streaming is the future doesn't mean it has to be your future.

I mean, streaming's great when you want to watch something once and be done with it but you have things you want to watch again and again…films that are precious to you the way certain books are precious to you.  Why not own them?  This way, you'll never be at the mercy of what network is streaming what and how much they're charging and whether you need to sign up for an eleventh new service you won't watch very often to see something you want to see again.

Owning things.  It could catch on big some day.  Why not consider it?

I don't know of any Christmas tunes ever written by Stephen Sondheim but this one always kind of reminds me of the Whos down in Whoville clasping hands and singing without any presents at all…

This is from "AvengerGuy" and it's the last time I will answer or maybe even read an e-mail without something that resembles a real name attached…

I liked and generally agreed with your review of Being the Ricardos but you didn't answer either of two questions that came to mind. Are or were you a fan of I Love Lucy? And did you ever meet Lucille Ball and if so, did she strike you as being like the person depicted in the movie? I guess that's three questions.

I saw every episode (I think) of I Love Lucy and I liked but did not love the show. Truth to tell, I think the onscreen contributions of Desi Arnaz are frequently underpraised. As I got older and rewatched episodes for the umpteenth time, I found myself getting more annoyed than amused when Lucy Ricardo would come up with some nutty scheme to get rich or get on TV or get Ricky a raise and it would screw up everyone's life.

I thought the show was quite well-written and well-acted but it isn't among My Top Ten Favorite Sitcoms of all time…a list that would include The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Larry Sanders Show, The Honeymooners, The Phil Silvers Show (aka Bilko), The Bob Newhart Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Car 54, Where Are You?

And I found Lucy's three subsequent shows — The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy, all mostly unwatchable and unworthy of someone hailed as TV's greatest comedienne. I absolutely respect her career and contributions, and she did do some wonderful things now and then. I'm just not the biggest Lucy fan, which is sometimes awkward because I have several good friends who are.

I met Lucy once briefly, a story I told here. I would not venture an opinion about what she was like based on that brief encounter, especially since I was meeting the 1983 (or so) Lucy in public and you're asking about the 1952 Lucy in private.

It's dangerous and wrong to judge people based on short contacts. I once heard Paul McCartney tell a story about some guy who delivered a pizza (or something) to a place where he and John Lennon were arguing. He said something like, "That delivery guy was in our presence for twenty seconds and the argument was over a minute after he left. But for the rest of his life, he's going to be telling people about how he knows the real Lennon and McCartney and they're constantly yelling at each other."

Lucy was fine and nice during our quick exchanges. During the entire time she was sitting two seats away from me in the theater, I never saw her slap anyone or mistreat a helpless puppy. As I said, some friends of mine adored her, both personally and professionally. That counts for something.

My all-time favorite comic strip is Pogo…and I felt that way before I even met, let alone got involved with its creator's daughter. Walt Kelly was a brilliant writer, a brilliant cartoonist and even a brilliant lyricist on occasion. Every year around Christmas in his strip, his lovely characters would debate the correct lyrics to their favorite carol. Here, set to music and to panels from the strip, are some of the lyrics that someone in Pogo insisted were the proper ones for the immortal holiday tune…

Several folks sent in the same question I got from Brian Fies…

All right, I've loved the series about the New Look Batman, how it impacted you as a young fan and the insights you gained as an adult pro, but you didn't answer the question I waited breathlessly to the end to learn: how do you remember that date? Was the change in logo and art style so momentous that March 26 was etched into your brain like December 7 or September 11? Did you note it in your diary? Are you revealing your hyperthymesia abilities and forming a superhero team with Marilu Henner?

None of the above. I looked it up in the Grand Comics Database.

I have a lot of mail with questions flowing from my seven-part Batman article and I'll get to as many of them as I can over the next few days. Ken Barrett wrote to ask…

I'm intrigued by your tale of spending time with Bob Kane while he was drinking vodka and telling you his version of history. I understand that for many years, he supplied Batman art to DC and it was actually done by Sheldon Moldoff. That stopped at some time. Did he tell you how and when it had stopped? And how long did you know him? What was your relationship with him like?

He only told me a little of it but I learned the rest from a number of folks including Moldoff, Julius Schwartz and Nelson Bridwell.

I used to roughly estimate when I had my first two meetings with Bob Kane but the other day, it dawned on me that I could figure it out. He invited a bunch of members of our local comic book club up to his apartment and we all brought along comics for him to autograph. For some reason, I brought along a copy of the latest issue of Batman, which was #204. It contained what I'm fairly sure was the first Batman story ever to have actual script and art credits for the men who actually did those tasks instead of a faux Bob Kane signature…

You'll notice that "Story by Frank Robbins" and "Art by Irv Novick & Joe Giella" are crammed in oddly and the lettering is not by the person who did the rest of the lettering on that story.  From that, I conclude that the story was finished before its editor, Julie Schwartz — or someone at the office — realized, "Hey! Since we bought out Kane, we can start putting real credits on here like we do on all our other comics!" And the names were added at the last minute.

What had happened was that Kane's contract with them was expiring and DC wasn't about to give him the same terms again. At the time, they were in the process of selling the company and as I understand it, they needed a better release than they had from Kane that said DC owned Batman and he didn't. He got a lot of money from them…or what seemed like a lot of money at the time and probably looked like a bargain in later years.

Batman #204 came out on June 6, 1968 so our visit with Kane — when I was there as part of a group — would have been shortly after, probably the following Sunday, perhaps a week later. I vividly recall showing Kane that issue and noting for him that the comic now carried credits. I'd been puzzled why it didn't when almost all other DCs — especially those edited by Schwartz — did.

And I vividly recall the odd expression on Mr. Kane's face when he first laid eyes on a Batman comic book that credited Frank Robbins, Irv Novick and Joe Giella but not Bob Kane. He was not surprised. He knew it was coming because the new contract he'd signed months earlier had allowed them to do that…but it was still a jarring moment for him to actually see it in print.

Incidentally: The last six months or so of Kane supplying pencil art to DC occurred without the services of Sheldon Moldoff. Stories under the "Bob Kane" signature were ghosted by several men — Chic Stone, Frank Springer, Gil Kane and possibly Joe Certa. Schwartz's records (he kept good records) showed that Bob Kane was paid for the pencils on those stories so one might assume those men were paid by Bob. And one might be wrong.

I never asked Gil and I never met Joe Certa but Stone and Springer told me they were paid by DC. Shelly Moldoff's memory was that he drew all of the Batman stories Kane was obligated to supply until one day, Bob told him it was all over, so long, farewell…and Schwartz didn't recall.

So (I'm guessing here) Kane let Moldoff go prematurely, then realized more stories needed to be ghosted so DC selected and paid those ghosts. And maybe something was worked out where Kane reimbursed DC for what those men were paid or it was deducted from Kane's checks or something and that this "interim ghosting" went on until Kane's new deal was finalized and signed. You probably aren't as interested in this kind of thing as I am.

My second visit with Bob Kane was about two weeks after the first one. It was on that visit that he gave me a very nice (I think) piece of art that he actually drew himself. I wrote about that here. Thereafter, I saw him here and there, off and on, and he sometimes remembered who I was and sometimes didn't.

One evening in the eighties, I hosted him, his wife, Julie Schwartz and a couple of comic-book-writing friends for an evening at the Magic Castle. Bob was chatty and he talked a lot, mainly about himself. He kept worrying aloud that people around us would find out who he was and pester him for autographs and sketches. At no point did he notice that sitting two tables from us — totally unpestered by anyone — was Johnny Carson.

I last saw Bob…well, I last saw him in 1998 but he was dead at the time. I was one of four people from the comic book field who attended his funeral, the other three being Paul Smith, Mike Barr and Stan Lee. One of these days, I should write about that afternoon. Before the ceremony, Stan took me aside and said, "They're expecting me to say a few words. Tell me what to say." I did and later as we both stood graveside, he was bored and he began telling me stories about Steve Ditko. I kept saying, "Shouldn't we be talking about Bob?"

My last memory of Robert "Bob" Kane was that after the services, as his friends filed past the open coffin, several of them shoved little toy Batmobiles and Batman action figures in there with him. If you ever met the man, you'd understand why that was not at all inappropriate.

I post this every year, partly because I love it and partly because I get mail from people asking if I'm going to post that neat little cartoon animated to The Drifters singing "White Christmas." Here's that neat little cartoon animated to The Drifters singing "White Christmas"…

This is the last part of this tale. If you want to read it from the beginning, go to this page and you'll have no trouble finding your way from chapter to chapter.

---

So we're finally back where we started. It's Thursday, March 26, 1964 and I'm 12 years and 26 days old as I walk up to Pico Drug, the store with the most glorious comic book rack in my area. I'm there to purchase the new comic books that were placed on sale earlier that day. One of them should be the new issue of Detective Comics, which always features one story of Batman and Robin, followed by one story of John Jones, Manhunter from Mars.

The rack shows the top fourth-or-so of each comic's cover — the title of the magazine known as the logo. It always looks the same on Detective Comics and on the issue I bought a month ago, it looked like this…

I have a moment of genuine surprise when I find the new Detective Comics as the logo — largely unchanged since the comic began twenty-seven years and 326 issues ago — now looks like this…

That logo screams "Something is different" in a way I will never see another logo proclaim. Designed (as I will later learn) by DC logomaster Ira Schnapp, it just electrifies. When you're twelve, you electrify easily. I study it for a long moment before I pull the comic out of the rack so I can gaze upon the entire cover.

It's Batman…but not like any Batman I have ever seen. Batman and Robin are not drawn by the guy(s) who did previous issues. They're drawn by the guy(s) who draw The Flash. The change is especially arresting if you do what I do when I get home with it. I lay the issue next to the previous issue. Stare and compare, stare and compare…

In addition to the different art style, the cover proclaims that the comic now features — "starting in this issue" — the adventures of The Elongated Man. John Jones, Manhunter From Mars is gone. (His strip, slightly retooled, would soon resurface in House of Mystery, now edited by Jack Schiff.)

Inside, there is a good, solid Batman story with no space aliens or interplanetary zoos. It isn't the Batman I'd been reading for a few years now but in many ways, it's more Batman than the last few years of Batman stories have been. I like it very much but it will take some getting-used-to.

The bat-insignia on Batman's chest now has a yellow circle behind it. I had noticed that in the most recent issue of World's Finest Comics, which went on sale two weeks earlier. I didn't know what it meant then but now I do. All part of the change.

And now, stepping back to present-day, I would add this: I didn't know what the change in Batman meant in 1964 but now I do. The most immediate impact was that sales went up…not a huge amount but enough to stop all talk about the Batman comics being in trouble. And then less than two years later, the Batman TV show with Adam West went on ABC Television and that's when sales did go up a huge amount.

Looking back on the change on 3/26/64, I have two thoughts that prompted me to write this long, serialized essay. One is that I wanted to convey to you how monumental and exciting the change was that day…and how important it was to the continuing existence of that great character.

And the other thought is this: It can never happen again. Tomorrow, if DC Comics and whoever's running it this week decides that henceforth, Batman and Robin should be talking kangaroos, it will not have the same impact. Why? Because there's no one art style or one approach to Batman that prevails. Every writer and artist who gets within ten blocks of DC Comics has their own "take" on Batman — what he looks like and who he is behind that mask. I recall twenty years ago sitting in a hotel lobby at a convention with five or six guys who were then writing various Batman comics for DC and they were all talking about their approach to the character…

…and it seemed very clear to me that none of them were talking about the same guy.

I don't read a lot of Batman comics these days but when I do, I don't see that any two writers writing about the same guy or very few artists drawing the same guy. I'm not saying that some of those comics aren't interesting or exciting; just that to me, it's like there are eighteen different men named Bruce Wayne — some of them quite sane and some of them far from it — running around in about fifteen different costumes that all incorporate some of the same elements in different ways.

There absolutely is room for different interpretations. In times past, some companies and editors were too insistent that everyone draw the same way; when it all had to be homogenized down and someone would retouch work if it was too unlike what others were doing. Creativity was suppressed in service of conformity. I'm not saying to do that.

I'm just saying that DC could never do a story that changed the "norm" of Batman because these days, there is no "norm" of Batman.