• Within two years, every single person on the planet over the age of twelve will have a podcast and every single person over the age of twelve will have guested on every single one of these podcasts at least twice.

Back in 2006, my good friend Jim Brochu wrote a play called Zero Hour. When you went to see it, you spent an hour (actually, an hour and forty-two minutes) with Zero Mostel.

Well, actually, it was Jim playing Zero Mostel, who was more than a little deceased by that time. But Jim knew Zero and he knew a lot about Zero and, of paramount importance, he understood a lot about Zero. A cavalcade of friends and relatives of The Great Zero turned out to see the play, praise the play and remark that it was like being back with the man for too brief a time.

It debuted in July of 2006 — Jim will correct me if I'm wrong — at the Egyptian Arena Theater in Hollywood. Going to see a production by a buddy can be hazardous because, you know, what if you think it stinks? What do you say to them afterwards? I've occasionally resorted to lines like "It was an evening I'll never forget" and "Only you could have done it" — which rarely fool the friend but they can pretend it's a compliment and the friendship is usually saved.

I took Carolyn who knew of my trepidation and I think we were about five minutes into the show when I whispered to her, "We're fine." The play and Jim's performance were way more than fine. At the after-party, I had no trouble telling Jim honestly how much I loved it. I did though have the problem of getting his attention because everyone else in the audience was trying to tell him that. The show won an Ovation Award for World Premiere Play.

He later did Zero Hour other places, mostly in New York, and he changed a few things, all for the better. He no longer does it, partly because he's moved on to other projects and partly because he's lost too much weight. Gloriously though, he's put a video of Zero Hour up on YouTube to share it with the world. It's a mesmerizing play because Mostel was a mesmerizing human being with a mesmerizing life, much of it filled with anger and outrage. When you have the time to watch it start-to-finish, do so and be mesmerized…

As some of you know, my first staff job in television was as a Story Editor on the series, Welcome Back, Kotter. I can't speak for my then-partner Dennis Palumbo but my first day on that job was one of the ten most interesting days of my life and the second day — when we taped the episode this post is about — was a good candidate for the Top Three.

Years ago, I wrote about that day in this article…and in re-reading it, I'm surprised to see that I left out a number of things…like getting briefly trapped in an elevator with Olivia Newton-John and Elliott Gould, crashing into (and almost knocking over) gossip columnist Rona Barrett and three or four other memorable encounters. But the biggie was that Groucho Marx came to the set to tape a cameo appearance that never happened. He was there. Groucho Marx was there.

Recently, the show's star Gabe Kaplan — to whom I have not had occasion to speak this century — was recently on Marc Maron's popular podcast and they talked about that evening along with loads of other fascinating topics. The part about Groucho starts around 12:50 in and if you want to start listening at that point, click this link. If you want to hear the whole podcast from the top, click below…

Gabe's account of how Mr. Marx came to make the appearance on our show in this telling is a little different from the way I told it…and the way I told it is the way I recall Gabe telling it to several of us in 1976. I suspect both accounts are true.

Maron and Kaplan are a little confused about the succession of hosts on The Tonight Show. Jack Paar was not fired. He quit and Johnny Carson was signed to replace him…but Carson still had several months to go on his contract hosting the game show Who Do You Trust? on ABC. So there were several months of fill-in hosts for The Tonight Show between Jack and the start of Johnny. We listed them all here in this post. As you can see, Groucho hosted the week of 8/20/62.

Groucho came to the set to tape a cameo on 10/26/76. We were taping an episode called "Sadie Hawkins Day" which was about one of those girls-invite-the-boys parties that were all the rage for about ten minutes. Since everyone assumes Vinnie Barbarino (John Travolta) has a date, none of the girls ask him and he's left dateless. Once we got the call that Groucho was coming that evening, we had to come up with a quick joke for him to appear in the tag. That's the little minute-or-two of show that comes between the last commercial and the end credits. On the Maron show, Gabe says it was to appear under the closing credits but it was actually for the tag.

The story editors and producers all got together and we wrote a bit giving Groucho, of course, the final line. As I wrote in my article…

Around three o'clock, a call came in to confirm that Groucho would be there, that he would do the cameo walk-on, but that he wouldn't speak. Groucho, we were told, had recently decided never to speak in public again, having decided he was too old.

Earlier today, I discussed this with my pal Steve Stoliar, who was Groucho's personal secretary the last few years of the comedian's life. This meant that he had to deal with the infamous Erin Fleming who was controlling Groucho's life at the time. Steve is puzzled by something. Until almost the day Groucho died, Erin steadfastly refused to give up on the concept that he was still 100% Groucho and could sing and dance and perform…and appear on shows that she hoped to produce.

I don't know who made that 3:00 call to our producers. Steve can't think of anyone who could have made it if it wasn't Erin but Erin wasn't going to ever say Groucho couldn't talk and certainly not that he would never talk in public again. Maybe our producer didn't describe the call accurately…but no matter what was said, it was clear when Groucho arrived that even our little bit was beyond his abilities that evening.

In later books and articles about the Groucho/Erin relationship, it was alleged that she sometimes kept Groucho in a drugged state to make him more obedient…or something. That did not occur to me that evening on the Kotter set but in hindsight, maybe that was why he seemed so out-of-it. Don't ask me to explain why, if she was selling Groucho so hard for new projects, she would drug him when he was going to make what could have been a highly-watched appearance on a hit TV show.

On the Maron show, Gabe says that Groucho did not tape the cameo because Erin had suddenly demanded $10,000 for him to perform. I never heard that at the time. Maybe it's so. Stoliar says Erin — or Groucho being coached by Erin — did sometimes demand that amount when people wanted him to appear. I just think that no matter how much we'd paid him that evening, we never could have gotten a performance out of that man that we would have wanted to broadcast on network TV.

Gabe doesn't say in the interview what the joke was. I think I remember it…

The last scene of that episode took place at the high school dance. Gabe's wife Julie, played by Marcia Strassman, was there as a chaperone. We go to the last commercial break, then come back to the dance for the tag…

A lot of students are dancing or milling in the background. Julie is there. Gabe comes up and is acting a little flirty with his wife and I think there was a line about how this was his first chance to "get lucky" at a high school dance. She says something inviting like, "What do you have in mind?" Whereupon Gabe goes into his Groucho impression and says, "Well, you're a very lovely lady and I'd like to go to Miami and Tampa with ya." ("Tampa" as in "tamper"…I didn't write this.)

The crowd of students parts and there's Groucho. I remember a discussion with the director, Bob LaHendro, on how long and loud the audience reaction would be to the sudden, surprise appearance of Groucho Marx. This was us assuming the audience — which always contained a lot of younger folks — would instantly recognize the man. Based on Groucho's appearance that evening and the response when he did walk out in front of the audience, that was probably an erroneous assumption.

But as we planned it, Groucho would get this tremendous ovation even if we had to dub it in. Then he'd say in response to Gabe's joke, "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard." Then Julie would say to Gabe, "I think I'd prefer the genuine article tonight" and she'd take Groucho by the arm and lead him off, leaving a stunned Mr. Kotter standing there.

That probably sounds silly here and now but I think it would have gotten a huge reaction if we'd done it. But we didn't/couldn't do it.

Groucho posed for photos with the cast, then left. As I mentioned, a key factor in him showing up at all was Erin Fleming trying to talk her way into an acting job on Kotter — which, of course, also never happened. She did a lot of things like that.

One other thing I should mention: If you listen to the entire podcast — which is pretty good, especially if you're interested in the comedy business in the sixties and seventies — you'll hear Kaplan say some unflattering things about our executive producer, Jimmie Komack. I was only there for most of one season and during a lot of it, Komack was staying far away from Gabe and the show because the two men weren't getting along.

When they were together, there was a lot of arguing and disagreement and it struck me that Gabe was always right and Jimmie was always wrong. There may have been exceptions to this but I don't recall any. Gabe had become the de facto showrunner of the series he starred in, as occasionally happens in television, and the guy knew what he was doing. I don't say that about everyone I ever worked with. For instance, I've never said that about Jimmie Komack.

Here to amaze you once again is my buddy Charlie Frye, the Simone Biles of juggling. In fact, he kinda looks like her, don'tcha think?

A number of folks have sent me links to this article about the Citizen app and/or this article and/or this article.  I was raising questions about its accuracy or usefulness.  These articles raise questions about its integrity.

I'm trying to decide how much use (if any) this app is to my life besides occasionally warning me a road is closed. If and when I dope that out, maybe I can weigh it against the negatives and decide if I want to have this thing on my phone. I'm leaning — but not very far yet — to no.

Most of us remember how Johnny Carson would often do a "desk bit" called Carnac the Magnificent — and that character's name was spelled a whole heap o' different ways…Carnac, Carnak, Karnac, Karnak and even a few other spellings. I'm pretty sure I saw a couple different ones on NBC press releases and such.

I'm going with Carnac because that's how they spell it on the output of the company Johnny set up to handle the release and merchandising of his reruns.

The second video below is one of the best Carnac spots of the many they did. But before you watch it, watch the video link above it — a short interview below of Johnny's sidekick, Ed McMahon, recalling one joke in particular. He recalls the laugh following it as lasting "…for a minute…I know a minute…it could have been two minutes, a minute-and-a-half…we just couldn't go on."

You often hear people say things like, "The standing ovation I got…it must have lasted five solid minutes." And then if you check, it turns out to be forty seconds. I know you don't check such things but occasionally, I do. Ed got darned close on this one. According to my stopwatch, the laugh on the Carnac joke in question ran a hair under 52 seconds. That's still an awful long time for a joke this short…

• I kind of sympathize with the Senate Republicans who voted against having a bipartisan committee determine who was responsible for the January 6 insurrection. For years, I've opposed investigations to determine who wrote Pink Lady and Jeff.

I'm seeing a couple of news items like this today…

Bill Cosby, the alleged serial date rapist currently serving a three-to-10-year sentence for drugging and sexually assaulting a former Temple University employee at his home in 2004, has been denied parole by the Pennsylvania Parole Board, according to a letter obtained by CNN on Friday.

Isn't the correct term here "the convicted serial date rapist"?

Costco is bringing back free samples in a week or two.

I have actually been buying from Costco more than ever since The Pandemic began and it's become so much a part of my life that the pace will probably continue. But apart from one in-person expedition, it's all been delivery.

Once a week — on a day my cleaning lady comes — I have them deliver two of their rotisserie chickens…one for me, one for her. She cuts up the one for me and it feeds me for two or three days, then the leftovers are chopped fine for Lydia the Cat. I eat well. Lydia eats well.

Two chickens runs me $12.42. Then I also have them bring me a two-pack of Rao's Marinara Sauce since I use about two jars of it a week. That's presently $13.42 so that gets me to $25.84. I then need less than ten bucks worth of purchases to get me over the $35 mark to qualify for free delivery and it's real easy to scale that hurdle. Sometimes, I overshoot it by a lot.

So I've figured out how to make Costco work for me in stay-at-home mode. I just haven't figured out how to make the delivery include some of those free samples.

About a month ago, a friend suggested and I installed an app called Citizen on my iPhone. In case you haven't heard of it, here's what it does. It monitors things like police calls and 911 calls and it shows you where there are things like fires or "police activity" or reports of cars being stolen or home break-ins within an X-mile radius of your location. Right now, for instance, it's alerting me to "Report of Man With Gun" 3.3 miles from my home.

Many of the reports aren't from scanners. Anyone with the Citizen app on their phone can report an incident and even take photos or video of it that will appear on the little on-screen map of all who have that location within their radius. One such Citizen-using citizen is shooting live video of an overturned car 3.2 miles away in another direction. And one of the many things I've learned from Citizen is how many traffic accidents result in overturned cars. It shows me a lot of fender-benders or worse…but it seems like at least once a day, there's an overturned car within a few miles of me.

Like I said, I've had it about a month and I don't know how I feel about it. To some extent, it's like the way you can't avoid looking when you drive past a car collision or a fire. But if you have it on your phone, it keeps showing you these things whether you want to know about them or not. I turned off the array of weird sound effects it emits — like helicopter sounds when there's a helicopter anywhere in that radius — and that's helped make it less of a distraction.

But it's still a distraction just being there. Also, it's one thing to be aware that there is crime in your area. It's another to be alerted to every report of robbery or violence or someone armed with something and to be told exactly how close it was to you.

I am aware that many such reports turn out to be exaggerations — or just plain nothing — but Citizen never tells you when that's the case. A well-meaning neighbor once reported a suspicious-looking person entering my house and when the police arrived, I had to prove it was me. That "Man With Gun" 3.3 miles from me might be a false alarm and "Police Activity in Your Area" might be a bunch of cops converging on McDonald's for their new Crispy Chicken Sandwich…but Citizen ain't gonna tell me that.

Then again, sometimes Citizen gives me useful information. I was five minutes from leaving my house the other day when I got a report that a major traffic accident had closed off the boulevard I intended to drive on. Good to know. And if you live in a city, there are probably times when you see a copter hovering nearby and you'd like to know what the hell is going on there. Citizen often tells you.

Then again, it sometimes doesn't. Last week, a homeless encampment about six blocks from me went up in flames. I could see the smoke in the distance. I could turn on my TV and see live video from helicopters overhead from local stations. But for some reason, Citizen had nothing about the fire or the choppers. (I think they only report police helicopters.)

And it just told me that a lost dog was found on W. 118th Street, which is 9.8 miles from me. I don't think I needed to know that, especially since I never knew that particular dog was missing.

I keep deciding to take Citizen off my phone, then I keep deciding to leave it on my phone. Usually, when I decide I'm better off without it, a report will suddenly come in that seems useful…so I don't know. If you decide because of this piece to give it a try, I accept no responsibility if you find yourself in the same quandary.

I've never had much interest in gymnastics but I love watching Simone Biles keep setting record after record. And I think I like her even more after watching this video of her latest competition. It helps to remember that even people who are incredibly good at what they do can still miss once in a while…

If you or someone you know has questions about the vaccines for COVID-19, those answers might just be found on this page.

Wanna see the worst play you may ever see in a Major League Baseball game? It's right here.

I used to have this ridiculous problem of spam calls from contractors who wanted to give me free estimates on home repairs. Obviously, my contact info was on some lists that contractors or telemarketers were purchasing and I was sometimes getting ten or more of these a day. These were not robocalls where I answered and found a computer voice on the line. There were human beings there.

Sometimes, they were actual contractors looking for work. Sometimes, they were outta-work people who had no contact with that field until they answered an ad somewhere — some of them, probably on Craig's List — to allegedly make loads of money. They were supplied a list of prospects to cold-call. The way they would supposedly make those huge sums was to get someone like, say, me to say, "Yes, I'd love a free estimate" and then if that led to me spending money with the contractor they represented from afar, they'd get a commission.

A couple of times, I asked the caller if he or she really was a contractor or was directly employed by one…or if they just answered an ad to make this kind of call. A few gave me what seemed to be honest answers and it was usually the latter. I asked one of those folks, "How close have you come to making the kind of dough the ad promised?" and he said, "Well, the ad said I could make $1200 and up a week and so far, I must have made over a thousand calls and I haven't made Dime One." That sounds about right to me.

Those calls abated to be replaced by an endless series of recorded robocall pitches to get a solar installation or to extend my car warranty. And lately I get a lot of calls from people who say they're with a health care company who's "working with Medicare" and one of my doctors — they somehow can't say which one — wants them to send me medical equipment for which they will bill Medicare, not Yours Truly.

And then today, I got my first contractor call in quite a while. A gent who oughta be auditioning the next time they make Popeye cartoons phoned, identified himself as with a home remodeling firm and the exchange went like this…

HIM: I'm calling to see if you're ready for your free home estimate on all the repairs and remodeling you have planned or if you want me to call back in a few weeks.

ME: Can you give me a little more time than that?

HIM: Sure. How much do you need?

ME: Call me around the turn of the century. How about late December, 2099?

And so help me, he sounded like he was writing it down and then he said, "Fine. Expect our call then." I figure by that time, I may need something done around here. Maybe a paint job…

One or two (or twenty or thirty) of you are sick of me posting links to renditions of "Meet the Flintstones" theme. So you'll be happy to know this is the last one for a while. If I come across other wonderful interpretations, I will share.

As with several early Hanna-Barbera TV shows, the original version of the song was performed by The Randy Van Horne Singers, a group formed in the late fifties. In addition to cartoon programs, it was also heard on many commercials and record albums and other places.

The composition of the group changed from time to time — at one point, Marni Nixon was in its ranks — and it disbanded in the early seventies. If Wikipedia is correct — and when, apart from much of the time, is it not? — Mr. Van Horne resurrected it after 2000, died in 2007 and as of 2018, it was led by Alan Wilson, who may be the gent on the far right in the maroon shirt.

This video, which was uploaded to YouTube in 2015, purports to be The Randy Van Horne Singers singing "Meet the Flintstones." I have no idea how many of these singers might have been on the original recording to the tune — perhaps none. Some look barely old enough to have watched the show…