I was watching a late-50's To Tell the Truth on the Game Show Network the other night and an interesting exchange went by, almost without notice.  Panelist Johnny Carson was about to interrogate the three contestants, each of whom was claiming to be an experienced lumberjack.  The host of the show, as usual back then, was Bud Collyer, better known to comic book fans as the voice of Superman on radio and early animation.  Here's how the dialogue went…

CARSON: I know almost nothing about lumberjacking.  Number Two, is it true that Smokey the Bear's a Communist?

(Big laugh over the audience, during which the host makes this comment:)

COLLYER: Don't let him plead the Fifth, Johnny.

Why this is interesting to me: During the blacklist period of the fifties, when performers were going unhired strictly due to unproven allegations about their politics and some were being hauled before Congressional committees, Bud Collyer was a staunch supporter of the practice.  That is to say, he approved whole-heartedly, urged it on, and headed up factions in the actors' union that sought to block any condemnation of Red Channels or other instruments of blacklisting.  He thought those who wouldn't inform on their friends and who took the Fifth Amendment instead were traitors — or, at least, that's how it sometimes gets reported.  Others, either because they were his friends or because they just don't want to believe the man who played Superman would have done such a thing, have claimed that, yes, Collyer was pro-blacklist, but he wasn't hysterical.  He had, they say, a deep, humane fear of Communists making inroads into the entertainment industry and believed that the cause was right, even if some of the tactics employed to ferret them out were wrong.

I never knew what, if anything, to think of Mr. Collyer.  But now, here he is on a show done when blacklisting was on the decline but still being defended, making that remark.  Gotta make you wonder.

For that matter, To Tell the Truth was an interesting — and, given its name, ironic — venue for folks on both sides of the blacklisting issue to come together.  The show's producer, Mark Goodson, was one of the few strong opponents of blacklisting in the management side of the industry.  He not only fought it, he often booked as panelists, personalities like Orson Bean and John Henry Faulk who were being refused work elsewhere.  Those two men had, in fact, been part of a slate of candidates within the performers' union that ran on an anti-blacklist platform and succeeded (in a landslide) in ousting Collyer's faction from office.  Still, on the game show, Collyer was by all accounts a gentleman and a professional.  He'd welcome them, introduce them, play the game…and then scurry off to a union meeting to argue that such people should be barred from ever working again.

Game Show Network is also rerunning vintage episodes of another of Goodson's shows, I've Got A Secret, which had its own battles with blacklisting (and another ironic title).  In this case, the firing was demanded of panelist Henry Morgan for, as usual, rather vague, unproven allegations that were in no way against the law.  Someone said he'd gone to the wrong meetings or hung out with the wrong crowd.  Whatever, the sponsors wanted Morgan removed, and Goodson refused.  He got the show's host, Garry Moore — something of an American icon — to join in a strong statement denouncing the blacklist.  In this case, the blacklisters retreated and Morgan retained his seat on the Secret panel.  Would that more producers and performers had had the guts of Mssrs. Goodson and Moore.

• The War Begins by William Kristol, Weekly Standard
• Killing Bin Laden Won't Do by William F. Buckley, Jr.
• Should We Blame Clinton? by Jacob Weisberg, Slate
• Stars Banned From The Zone from E! Online
• Terror Unanswered by William Saletan, Slate
• Bush To Bin Laden by Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times
• Sesame Street Bert Joins Bin Laden on Posters by Bernhard Warner, Reuters
• Want To Know Why We Are No Safer In The Skies Today Than We Were 30 Days Ago? Two Words: Tom DeLay by Joe Brancatelli, The Brancatelli Files
• Life's Odds and Sept. 11 by David Plotz, Slate

The management of this site reminds you that one need not agree with all or any of an article to recommend that you read it.

On Sunday afternoon (10/7), my friend Carolyn and I dropped by the Hollywood Collectors Show, an event held around thrice a year at the Beverly Garland Holiday Inn in Studio City.  The hotel, by the way, is named for the wonderful character actress, Beverly Garland, who is best known for her long-running role on the TV show, My Three Sons.  She was among the many celebrities who were there, selling autographed photos and memorabilia.

These two-day events, run by Ray and Sharon Court, give stars — past and present — a chance to meet their fans and to make a few bucks writing their names on eight-by-tens.  Sometimes, it's more than a few bucks.  Rumor has it that the all-time grosses are racked up whenever Don Knotts is at a table, signing Barney Fife photos at ten bucks a pop.  He was advertised for all weekend but, due to poor health, only showed for one day.  Still, one of the guests with a nearby table, estimated that Mr. Knotts signed perhaps a thousand signatures on Saturday.  You do the math.

(The unofficial runner-up for the longest line is said to be Charlton Heston, who wasn't among the guests this time.  Apparently, the way to generate crowds at this thing is to have at least one bullet in your pocket.)

Besides Knotts, others who were signing one day or both this time included Hugh O'Brian, Ed Asner, Gennifer Flowers, Buddy Hackett, Edd "Kookie" Byrnes, David Carradine, Howard Morris and many others.  Joey Heatherton, Stella Stevens and Carol Lynley were all there.  If in the sixties, you were male and unaroused by any of the three, you were automatically declared gay.  There were also a couple of former members of "Our Gang," a number of one-time Mouseketeers, a few Playboy Playmates …and the main reason I went: Soupy Sales.  The Soupman was selling 'n' signing his newly-released autobiography, Soupy Sez, written with Charles Salzberg.

Mr. Sales seemed tired and in poor health so I didn't attempt much of a conversation; just bought a book and got it signed.  I was outside, paging through it when I discovered that I'd written a chunk of it.  Soupy's co-author, Mr. Salzberg, e-mailed me some time ago and secured permission to quote the article I penned about Soupy (this one) and I'd plumb forgotten.  But despite me, it's a pretty good book…one that will delight anyone who names Soupy and his menagerie as among their childhood playmates.

These Hollywood Collectors Shows (and similar events around the country) leave me with mixed feelings, I have to say.  On the one hand, I think it's terrific that actors who wish to avail themselves of the opportunity have a venue where they can make a few bucks off their autographs.  A lot of those in the hall receive scant (often, no) residuals from their old TV and movie appearances and have had their willingness to sign autographs exploited by dealers.  I like the fact that if, for example, you always admired Edd "Kookie" Byrnes, you can go up to him at one of these shows, tell him that, shake his mitt and buy a signed pic or autobiography with every nickel going to him.  Against this is the fact that it's a little sad, at least with some guests, that this is all that remains of their stardom.

What causes me to side (mainly) with the happier thought is a melancholy memory from one of the Courts' shows, a few years back.  It involved the late comedian Pat Paulsen who, at the time of course, was not a late comedian.  Alas, he then knew he was about to become one.  He'd been diagnosed with something terminal — the big "C," I believe — and was out on a crusade to accrue cash to leave his family.  Pat was a very sweet, very funny man who had managed to not rack up much of a fortune during his years on television — though I suspect his last minute putsch for dollars was less a matter of needing cash than of needing something constructive to do.  Whatever, for his last few months, he was appearing everywhere he could, performing and signing, making whatever money he could make.

Colleagues were abetting him.  Ruth Buzzi was sitting with him that day, dolled up in the Gladys Ormphby outfit she wore on Laugh-In, signing and posing for photos, with and without him, all proceeds going to Pat.  A few other stars lent their celebrity to the effort while autograph dealers, aware that the supply of Paulsen autographs was soon to be finite, were stocking up, buying multiples from him.  It was sad…but it would have been even sadder if Pat hadn't had that outlet.

Navigating the ballroom at these events presents certain challenges of etiquette: You don't want to make eye contact with folks whose wares you have no interest in purchasing.  But you also don't want to act like you don't know who they are or don't care that they're there.  I don't collect autographs, at least not on eight-by-tens, though I've purchased a few at these shows, just so I had the chance to chat with the star or slip a few bucks to someone who seemed to really need the money.

Many don't.  One guest this time told me she would have preferred to pass out pics gratis but, for two reasons, couldn't.  One was that, when she'd tried that in the past, the autograph dealers grabbed 'em all up and they went directly up on eBay.  The other problem was that the other guests who did need (or just really want) the money got quite angry at her; like she was trying to make them look bad.  So she charged ten bucks a photo, threw in a lot of freebees, and gave everything she collected to the Twin Towers Fund.  Works for her, works for me, works for everyone.  In fact, the more I think about the whole institution, the more I like it.  I wish the room was less shabbier and crowded, and I wish the whole proceedings were a bit more dignified.  But I'm glad someone invented this kind of event and will attend whenever possible.

Two other points: The above-linked article I wrote about Soupy was as much about his sidekick, the late Clyde Adler, a wonderful gent about whom little is known.  This may change.  My article found its way to his widow who sent me a lovely letter — on paper; people still do that — correcting a few minor errors and inviting me to hit her up for additional info on Clyde.  I intend to do this soon.  (Thanks, Ed Golick, for passing it on to her.)

Also, they're not in stores yet but if you want to pre-order a copy of Soupy's autobiography, you can do so at Amazon.Com.  And if you do so by clicking on this link, I make enough money to buy about half a pack of gum.

My buddy Dana Gabbard informs me that he saw in a bulletin for the Motion Picture Academy that their recent screening of All That Jazz used a print prepared for a forthcoming DVD release.  No date is yet known.

If you get The Biography Channel on your cable system (or have a satellite dish) check out their programming for later this month.  They're running lots of episodes of Biography about show biz personalities.  I just marked about nine for my TiVo to record.  Listings for the channel can be found here.

I would especially recommend the two-hour Biography Close-Up that reruns on A&E (as opposed to The Biography Channel) October 8 and 9 in the wee small hours of the morning, and later this month in a more humane time slot.  It's all about the making of Sesame Street and if you have the slightest interest in children's TV programming — or Jim Henson and the Muppets — it's a must-see, must-keep.

Dave Mackey operates a terrific website filled with info about great cartoons, over at www.davemackey.com.  One thing he currently has up is a guide to the year-by-year color schemes that were used on those concentric circles that opened and closed all the great Warner Brothers cartoons.  I never realized it but they were color-coded and Dave explains how.  He also just e-mailed me with his solution to the mystery (put forth here) about how, in the MGM cartoon, House of Tomorrow, the narrator briefly changes from Frank Graham to Don Messick and back again…

Don Messick's narration was during the pressure-cooker gag.  The narration makes mention of a specific year: 2050.  Joe Adamson's book , Tex Avery: King of Cartoons, notes that the cartoon described the House of Tomorrow – "Tomorrow" in the original cartoon being noted as 1975. This was the only scene in the whole picture with a hard date reference.

I have a feeling that MGM's sound engineer, Lovell Norman, had the dialogue replaced when the cartoon was packaged as part of CBS's The Tom And Jerry Show in the mid-1960's, thinking that the cartoon's date reference would soon be outdated.  Norman may have had access to enough original sound elements to be able to do a nice, neat patch job, albeit without Frank Graham.  Another less likely possibility was that the line was changed when the cartoon went into local TV syndication in 1977.

That all sounds possible to me but, at least in the print on the Cartoon Network, the editing was not a nice, neat patch job.  It was a pretty sloppy edit, out of style with the other ins-and-outs, which were done via fades.  (The animation in the Messick-narrated segment also seemed a little out-of-style, as if it had been animated by others, but that may just be my imagination.)

But you're probably right that it was done when the show went on CBS (1965, I believe).  And wasn't that the same time that they re-animated and revoiced the episodes that featured the black, stereotyped maid to give her June Foray's Irish accent?

The Los Angeles Times is reporting (here's the link) that the Canadian government is likely to drop tax-shelter financing laws that have made it financially attractive for American studios to shoot TV shows and movies up there.  This would be a boon to Hollywood and could have a major impact on the animation business.  An awful lot of cartoon work that would otherwise have been done in this country — voice work, especially — has gone North.  With so many studios in L.A. closing down or laying off, this would be a great time to not have it be advantageous to cross the border.

Here they come: More articles I recently found interesting.  I do not agree with with every word of them but yadda, yadda, yadda…

• Press Self-Censorship by Gene Lyons, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
• The First Casualty by Joe Conason, Salon
• Yes, But What? by Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times
• Why Did The Media Delay Its Florida Recount Study? by Eric Boehlert, Salon
• Courage Under Fire by Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal
• Defining Terrorism by Michael Kinsley, Slate
• Why the Bombings Mean That We Must Support My Politics by John Montoya, Adequacy.org

The first link above is to the weekly column of one of my favorite current political commentators, Gene Lyons.  Mr. Lyons is an award-winning journalist who resides in Arkansas and, throughout the Clinton administration, he was generally out in front with predictions and commentaries, including some of the first reports of Ken Starr's goons trampling on the Civil Rights of anyone in the state they thought might be squeezed into giving damaging testimony about the President and First Lady.  That no one ever caved to the pressures and said what Starr's office wanted them to say is amazing.  I'm not sure that, if they'd done some of that stuff to me, I wouldn't have cratered and confessed to carrying Bill Clinton's Communist love child or whatever they wanted to hear.

But, getting back to Gene Lyons:  His columns have not received the attention they deserve because they run exclusively in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, a relatively small paper.  Still, a lot of us have been flocking to their website on Wednesdays to read him…though we no longer do this.  On October 1, the Democrat-Gazette began charging five bucks a month for on-line access…an experiment that will almost certainly flop.  When you can read The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and hundreds of other papers for free, why would you pay for a smaller paper with so little unique content?

Actually, I was almost willing to part with the fiver just to read Lyons but, before it came to that, strangers began to e-mail me his first column of October, and Bartcop (a left-wing, sometimes-wacko site) posted it, as linked above.  In fact, I have now been e-mailed his column five times, all by folks I don't know but who saw me mention on this site that I enjoyed his work.  A whole Gene Lyons Bootleg network has spontaneously erupted and it seems to me that, as a result of his paper making it harder to see his writings, it's now a lot easier.  Given the topic of his first column that was affected this way, it's especially ironic.

The folks at Mezco Toys have brought out a line of terrific Popeye action figures — two different ones of Popeye the Sailor Man, one each of his friends and foes — Bluto, Olive Oyl and Wimpy.  All are well designed as per the best of the Fleischer cartoons.  These are all in the (approx.) 6" size and seem to be most available at Toys R' Us and Tower Video.  There's also a larger, 12" Popeye figure that is only obtainable from Amazon.com, where it goes for twenty bucks plus a special $5.00 shipping surcharge.  If you click here, you will not only be transported to the page where you can order but POVonline (that's us)  will get a tiny cut of the money you spend while you're there.

And, speaking of the Spinach-Eater: My pal Jerry Beck has announced, over on his splendid Cartoon Research website, that Cartoon Network will soon commence a Sunday evening series that will run vintage Popeye shorts, uncut and with their original titles.  That's the good news.  The bad is that it's on at one o'clock in the morning but, hey, that's why God invented the TiVo.  Set yours for the wee hours of Sunday, October 29 (Monday morning, actually) and every week thereafter.  If you don't have a TiVo, they sell them at Amazon.com and the 30-hour model is currently down to a new low price, plus we get our little cut if you go there by clicking here.  End of commercials.

And let's note: Slowly but surely, Cartoon Network is sneaking more and more uncut cartoons onto their schedule.  The Bob Clampett Show, The Tex Avery Show, The Chuck Jones Show, Late Night Black and White and Toon Heads all run unexpurgated films and, since they seem to be garnering no complaints and no sponsor defections, this trend will likely continue.  The latter two shows, by the way, have been running some superb, rarely-seen goodies.

I'm posting this and then I have to go work on the third issue of the forthcoming Groo mini-series, which is subtitled Death and Taxes.  The first part comes out in December, and we hope people will understand that the first two chapters were written and drawn, and the plotline of the whole story was formulated before September 11.  Part Three, which picks up where the second part left off, opens with the citizens of one village demanding that their government go to war and kill the enemy…even though they have no real idea as to who that enemy may be.  Are we timely or what?

I've really been enjoying the reruns of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In that have been running on the Trio satellite channel — though, as is too often the case on cable, they're rerunning episodes they've already rerun, long before they've cycled through all they could run.  The shows hold up pretty well, perhaps because, in trimming to allow more commercials, someone has excised some of the topical references that are now lost to obscurity.  (On the other hand, one of the charms of these reruns is the occasional quote of a then-current commercial or catch-phrase, or jokes about the now-forgotten Everett Dirksen or William Proxmire.  Recently, we hit a week of shows wherein every third joke was about Twiggy's lack of a bustline.)

One of the things that makes the shows work (and this was sadly absent on a Laugh-In knock-off I once worked on — taping in the same studio, no less) was that the cast had a tremendous sense of family and fun.  As a kid, I sometimes went over to NBC to watch them tape Laugh-In and to see this spirit in person…but it clearly bled onto the screens, as well.  With the occasional exception, the performers enjoyed doing the show, especially when performing as themselves or while doing one of Billy Barnes's clever special material numbers.  There have been shows since that fired a lot of jokes at the audience but without much impact.  There have also been shows that looked like the cast was having fun — often, too much to care about entertaining us at home.  But this one was a hit, I suspect, because it found the middle ground.  And also because Goldie Hawn and Judy Carne were so cute.

If you don't get Trio, which is more than likely, there's a big VHS/DVD home video release about to come our way.  (And, by the way, one can also order DVDs of old Johnny Carson highlights over at www.johnnycarson.com.  Johnny probably needs the money because he hasn't worked lately.)

Several folks e-mailed to ask if, in light of the screening of a restored, stereo print of All That Jazz recently (discussed here), they could expect a DVD release soon.  I'm sure one will be along soon enough but, no, I haven't heard it announced.

The Screen Actors Guild is fighting the good fight to prevent laws from being changed that would allow agents to own or have fiduciary interests in the production companies to which they sell talent.  Here's a link to some recent testimony in Washington by the likes of William Daniels, Richard Dreyfuss, Richard Crenna and others who make a compelling case.

Here we go with more articles I recently found interesting.  As always, I do not concur with every word of them but feel that — well, you know…

• Never Trust Anyone Who Says "Afghani" by Timothy Noah, Slate
• Does the Fate of Politically Incorrect Really Matter? by Bob Somerby, The Daily Howler
• Rush to Conform Endangers Liberty by Joe Conason, New York Observer
• Fighting the Forces of Invisibility by Salman Rushdie
• Thugs Make Unreliable Allies by Robert Scheer, Los Angeles Times
• Remember Florida? by Seth Mnookin, Inside.Com
• What Bush Said and When He Said It by Howard Kurtz, Washington Post

I started to write one of my little political insight pieces for this page but I realized that the pieces above by Mssrs. Conason and Somerby said what I wanted to say but, of course, said it far better.  Somerby's piece is especially interesting.  A lot of newspapers reported the remarks of White House press secretary Ari Fleischer commenting on what Bill Maher had said.  Unless I missed it, none of the reports included the simple, relevant points that (a) Fleischer admitted to not having seen or heard the remarks he was criticizing and (b) that he was basing his remarks on a completely inaccurate paraphrase by the person who asked him about the alleged statement.  I expect to be rolling this one out repeatedly in the future to explain my problem with the press these days.

KOMIX is a Disney comic magazine published in Greece.  In theory, it's supposed to focus on "classic" Disney comics and their creators, featuring the works of Carl Barks and his most faithful successors, as well as articles about such folks.  That all makes wonderful sense.  What doesn't is why they have recently purchased the rights to reprint Space Circus, a four-issue mini-series that Sergio Aragonés and I did last year for Dark Horse.  The editors of Komix are attempting to make some sort of "inspired by Barks" connection, I suppose, and the first issue that did this (that's the second, pictured above) had a long article about me which I can't read but which I gather focused on my days writing Disney comics.  It still doesn't seem right to me and seems very, very wrong to some Disney/Barks fans who are understandably irate.  Sergio and I would like them to know we're as puzzled as any of them.

One more correction to my foreword in the just-released Volume 1 of The Blackhawk Archives.  The little bio of me says I've collaborated with Sergio Aragonés on more than "60" issues of Groo the Wanderer.  That should be 160.  And, hey, wasn't this a great time to be bringing out a reprint collection of comics about the days before the U.S. entered World War II?