The picture above is of Bob Newhart.  Because of his success in situation comedies, we forget that this man was once one of the all-time great stand-up comedians.  As a refresher, let's all purchase Something Like This…, a 2-CD collection from Rhino Records which includes darn near every great Newhart monologue that ever made it onto records including my favorite — the one about Sir Walter Raleigh trying to explain to his employers what he has found in The New World.  And while you're at it, Rhino has just released a DVD of The Rutles: All You Need is Cash, complete with commentary by Eric Idle, alternate scenes, photos, the works.  Good stuff.

Anyone here see David Copperfield's special last Tuesday evening? The "sexy," much-advertised feat — and the only part of the show done live — involved Mr. Copperfield standing in the center of a tornado of fire. It was, to me, the least-interesting segment of what was otherwise a superb hour of magic. (In some other countries, the show ran two hours. I'm hoping that's the version they'll put out on tape and DVD here.) Copperfield is a terrific showman. Some of his routines are, at heart, fairly elementary magic…but he dresses them up with new contexts, state-of-the-art misdirection and a superb command of the stage, and makes them seem fresh and exciting.

At the same time, many of his tricks are essentially new inventions, the result of an ingenuity (and budget) that few other magicians have. I'm a bit uncomfy with a few things he does…like, there's no trick photography, they tell us, but there are a number of moments where it looks to me like judicious tape editing made a good trick even more spectacular than it was in person. And, while almost all purveyors of "big" stage magic employ an audience plant or two, I think Copperfield's exceeded his lifetime quota. But these quibbles did not prevent me from loving his show, and I hope you saw it. (You probably didn't. Apparently, the tornado of fire didn't entice the kind of audience a show like this deserves.)

Speaking of low ratings: Last Saturday's XFL broadcast got a 1.5, which was even lower than their previous all-time low. My friend at NBC — the guy who, when they had a 2.9, said they couldn't get any lower — e-mails me that it's "common knowledge" around the building that the network is getting out as soon as humanly possible. Anyone surprised? I didn't think so.

One thing you can say for World War II: A lot of great comics came out of it.  One was Blackhawk and, after I update my website, I have to finish the foreword for DC Comics' upcoming Blackhawk Archives, which will reprint the first 17 episodes of that superb strip from Military Comics.  Another great strip — this one, appearing first in army papers but later in comic books — was George Baker's Sad Sack, who managed to worm his way into the national consciousness and stay there, long after the war was over.  If you're not familiar with its heritage, my pal Alan Harvey, who now owns said Sack, has set up a website which includes samples of Baker's whimsical work.  It's at www.sadsack.net and it's well worth a visit.

Congress is currently discussing abolishing — or, at least, reducing — the so-called "Death Tax."  It's actually an Estate Tax but its foes find it's easier to drum up opposition if they call it a "Death Tax."  They also argue, apparently wrongly, that it amounts to double-taxation.  If you've been led to believe it does, you need to read this piece by Michael Kinsley…which I suspect will be largely ignored by folks who don't want to deal with what it says and don't want to forego the "double-taxation" argument against the Death/Estate Tax.

While you're over at Slate, Jacob Weisberg — who shares with Mickey Kaus the record for the most correct predictions about what the Florida recounts would yield — has a nice "what we know, as of now" piece.  Since all parties are determined to spin every bit of data to their purpose, it's vital for us to keep track of what we really know, as opposed to what we want to know and — more importantly, what we don't.  Here's a link to that article.

Yesterday marked one year since my longtime chum, Scott Shaw!, began his Oddball Comics page over at Comic Book Resources.  For 52 weeks, Monday through Friday, he has favored us with examples of some of the most bizarre comics ever published — like that Rifleman one above — accompanied by witty and informative annotation, which in turn has sparked interesting chatter on the allied Message Board.

In celebration of this grand achievement, he's invited a batch of friends, commencing with the proprietor of this here website, to pen guest entries.  If you'd like to read what I handed in — a discussion of the funnybook seen above right, which was drawn by the great Curt Swan, perhaps under duress, and which is as oddball as any comic ever published — click on this link.  And the latest edition of Oddball Comics (which, today only, is the same page) can be accessed by clicking here.  Go there even when I don't have a guest column up.

On the political front, I have come to enjoy my daily visit to www.kausfiles.com, a site operated by Mickey Kaus. His longer pieces usually run over on Slate but, almost every day, he updates his "Hit Parade" column with links to articles currently available on-line, along with his comments on those articles. I don't agree with him on everything…maybe not even on most things. But even when I disagree, I respect his logic, his ability to get to the core of an issue, and his willingness to criticize folks all across the political spectrum. In these days when pundits insist that everyone on their side is without flaws and everyone on the other side is without brains or morals, it's nice to follow a guy who can fire in all directions. Read him for a week or two and see if he doesn't cause you to reassess at least one thing you believe. (He's changed my mind about the McCain-Feingold bill, though not necessarily to his precise position…)

I do, however, recommend clicking here and reading Michael Kinsley's article on the McCain-Feingold campaign reform movement.

I've always loved my TiVo but, now that they've upgraded the software, I love it even more.  The new version lets you "prioritize" Season Passes, meaning that you can tell it to record your favorite shows every time they're on but if one is opposite another, the higher-priority one gets recorded.  You can also search its database by actor, director or keyword, and you can tell it to start recording a show 1-10 minutes early (for shows that don't start precisely on the hour).  It's wonderful and, two years from now, it will seem as primitive as a 300 baud modem.  More details at www.tivo.com.

My favorite play and I'm working on a column that will explain why — is A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.  I've seen at least 30 productions of it over the years, ranging from the superb (Phil Silvers as Pseudolus) to the ghastly (a Vegas incarnation that cut songs and added Liberace jokes; it was almost as awful as the movie, which was pretty awful).  This evening, I saw one of the oddest — a presentation of the East West Players, a company of Asian actors who have a lovely theater in Downtown Los Angeles, not far from Little Tokyo.  The program book and dialogue say it's Ancient Rome but the sets, costume and some of the staging are pure Polynesian.  Amazingly, the book by Burt Shevelove & Larry Gelbart, and the songs by Stephen Sondheim all survive the relocation effort.  That is to say, none of what's wrong with it is because all the Roman citizens look like they're about to go and sacrifice someone to a volcano.

The problem is that the cast is wildly variable — some great, some not — and they never come together and capture the proper pace and vaudevillian delivery.  (In fairness, some of this may have been because the star, Gedde Watanabe, best known for E.R., was out and his stand-by was in.)  It's playing at the David Henry Hwang Theater — around the corner from Little Tokyo — through April 15.  If you want more details, here's a link to the website.

I don't necessarily recommend this, especially if you haven't seen a traditional mounting.  But if you know and love the show and can tolerate a weird variation, you might find it, as I did, fascinating.

Ratings for Week 8 of the XFL: They got a 1.8, which was up a hair from the previous week's 1.6.  Given that it was still the lowest rate prime-time show of the week — even below everything on the WB network — I doubt anyone is uncorking the bubbly.  To the surprise of no one, NBC execs seem now to be floating the idea that they will soon bail.

Turner Classic Movies has been running It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World lately, in part as a tribute to its director, the recently deceased Stanley Kramer.  Unfortunately, the version they persist in running is what is often passed off as the "restored" version, but it really isn't.  The original release ran 192 minutes, not counting overture, entr'acte and exit music.  It was then cut to 162 minutes and then 154 minutes.  For years, it was the shortest of these that was shown on TV and released on videotape.  Then, a few years ago, a 186 minute edition was released, first on Laserdisc, then on VHS.

This incarnation incorporates some lost footage that was found…but it is not footage that was in the original release.  It's scenes and trims that Kramer threw away before the film opened…in Los Angeles, at the Pacific Cinerama Dome, which is itself being restored at the moment.  The result is that we now have this "restored" version which includes a lot of scenes that Kramer rightly discarded as boring and needless.  I'm all for restoring lost footage and I love what was done for the Laserdisc of 1776, putting back vital material.

But longer is not always better and, in the case of Mad4 World, it's certainly not more faithful to what the filmmakers had in mind.  The lost footage remains lost and is, sadly, likely to remain that way.  Until and unless it is found, I think they oughta go back to the longest available version which actually ran in a theater.  (You can read an article I have here about my fondness for this film by clicking here.)

In the photo above, the guy on the right is Jackie Kahane.  I assume you recognize the guy on the left.  The last five years of Mr. Presley's life, his opening act was Mr. Kahane, a comedian who also, in his day, opened for the likes of Wayne Newton, Tony Bennett and just about every other singing headliner.

Amazingly, this was a side job for Jackie, whose main income then came from managing comedy writers.  A lot of them were, like Jackie, Canadians…but he also managed American writers and was often urging me to join his stable.  I never did, but I enjoyed lunching with Jackie and hearing colorful (often, unquotable) tales of Elvis and Wayne and Tony and Show Biz in general.  He seemed to do well for his clients…and he also performed a special service for some.  He was a "front."  You see, TV shows produced in Canada like to hire Canadian writers because it qualifies them for special investment credits from the government which can make it a lot easier to produce something.

Sometimes, they'd hire one of Jackie's American writers but Jackie, who retained Canadian citizenship, would be the official writer of record.  As a result, he got screen credit on an awful lot of shows that were actually written by other folks.  (Bizarre, which starred John Byner, was one)  I thought that was kinda sleazy but otherwise, Jackie — who died Monday at the age of 79 — was a class act all the way.

One of the best voice actors working today — cartoons, announcing, and he even does on-camera at times — is Gregg Berger, not to be confused (though he often is) with Greg Berg or Greg Burson.  One of my goals in cartoon voice-directing is to someday do a session with those three guys, plus Bob Bergen and Corey Burton, just to confuse the hell outta whoever has to make out the SAG contracts. In the meantime, Gregg BERGER has set up a wonderful website with on-line samples of his exquisite voice work.  It's at www.greggberger.com.  If, like many visitors to this site, you're wondering about a career making funny and not-so-funny voices before a microphone, you may want to visit and hear what a top-grade voice demo sounds like.

I thought Steve Martin was the best Oscar host in many years…better even than Billy Crystal.  I always liked Crystal but felt that when he hosted, the show — which oughta be about the awards and their recipients — was a bit too much about Billy Crystal.  Martin was funny, unobtrusive and managed to treat the event with the limited seriousness it deserves.  And I find the response to him interesting.  Today's Variety review is a rave, whereas the guy at the Hollywood Reporter was apparently watching a different Academy Awards broadcast, on which Martin bombed big-time.  Reaction across the Internet — not that that's ever indicative of anything — seems generally positive, though one finds the usual unwarranted assumption about comedy material.  It's the old, naïve audience belief that the jokes which flopped were all because of the lousy writers, whereas the jokes that succeeded were all a matter of, in this case, Steve Martin being brilliant.  I still think the odds are against there being a Writers Guild strike in May (or, at least, a long one) but if there is one, maybe it'll remind America that there's a reason that writers get paid all that money.

I haven't seen a copy yet in person but I'm told that The Groo Kingdom, our latest collection of old Groo stories, is now in book shops.  If you're collecting these, you'll want to race right out and purchase at least one copy.  If you're not collecting these…well, we all do dumb things in our lives.  You'll wise up someday.  Some day, you'll suddenly have a moment of revelation and you'll say to yourself, "How could I have been so foolish?  How could I have gone through life, thinking I was happy, ignoring the massive void in my soul that was created by my failure to collect all those wonderful Groo paperback books and put money in the pockets of Mark and Sergio?  What a dolt I was.  If only I could go back in time and rectify this tragic error on my part!"  Don't let this happen to you.  There's still time to redeem yourself.  Rush out.  Buy books in mass quantity.  If you want to really save your self-esteem, you can read them but this is not necessary.  We'll settle for you just buying them.

I'm not sure what, if anything, I want to write about Bill Hanna, who died — not unexpectedly — this morning.  Like many who will read this, I was reared on Hanna-Barbera cartoons and loved at least the early ones — Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw, Yogi Bear, The Flintstones — dearly.  And before that, he and partner Joe produced and directed millions of Tom & Jerry theatrical cartoons, most of which compare favorably to any animation ever done.  My feelings about the man are more varied when I look at the latter half of his career.  He became the "production" half of the team: For the most part, it was Joe Barbera who sold the shows and supervised — sometimes from afar, sometimes not — the creative end, such as it was.

Hanna was in charge of getting the episodes made on time and on budget.  Way too often, there wasn't enough of either to do the job properly.  Most of my personal encounters with Bill when I worked there were of the kind that prompted many a staff artist to caricature him yelling, "Faster!  Cheaper!  Faster!  Cheaper!"

But there is one evening that sticks in my mind.  I was toiling way after hours on the Richie Rich show and figured I was alone in the building.  I wasn't, as I discovered when Mr. Hanna came into my office.  (He and Joe both worked very hard, even long after each had a bank account that made Richie look like a pauper.)  He wanted to put a script into production before I thought it was ready and, when we argued — politely — he said that if he didn't send something to the studio in Korea by a certain date, dozens of artists over there would get laid off, and he might even have to cut a few working there at the H-B Studio.  He got to talking about how proud he was of all the employment he and Joe had provided for people, and how they'd kept the animation industry up and functioning when theatricals died out.  As a Depression-era child, that was very important to him.

Historians of the future will view and assess the incredible body of work that bears the co-credit of William Hanna.  My guess is they'll find it wildly variable, including some of the best and worst animation of its day.  But I hope they'll also give a little weight to the staggering number of people who bought homes and groceries for 30-some-odd years working for Bill.  And I hope they'll give him some credit for an entire generation of us who got into writing and/or drawing because, back when we were small, we loved watching The Flintstones.

Whenever we write about Las Vegas here, we caution you about trying too hard to save money in that city, as it can lead to extreme discomfort and/or ptomaine.  However, if you're egregiously cheap — or if you just want to browse a rather funny travel guide — check out Las Vegas on 25 Cents a Day.  It's brutally honest, and one of the few websites that has ever made me laugh out loud.