Groucho Marx hosted the original You Bet Your Life quiz show for fourteen seasons, starting on radio and moving into television. Since he stopped, there probably hasn't been a week when someone in the game show profession didn't say to someone else, "Hey, how about if we revive You Bet Your Life with…" and then they mention the name of some prominent comedian who is not and never will be Groucho Marx. Even in my very brief brushes with that kind of programming, I've heard talk of that at least a half-dozen times.

Usually, all it is is talk but they revived the show in 1980 with Buddy Hackett and in 1992 with Bill Cosby and reportedly in both cases, everyone knew the first week that it wouldn't last long. In 2021, it was revived yet again, this time with Jay Leno. His lasted longer than Hackett's or Cosby's and some reports say it might have lasted longer if not for the Writers Guild strike of 2023.

What I didn't know until recently is that in '88 between the Hackett version and the Cosby, there was a pilot done for You Bet Your Life starring Richard Dawson. I always liked Dawson on other shows but I don't think you'll have to watch much of this one to see why it didn't sell…

So let's see…The New York Times lists some of the bullshit things Elon Musk has claimed about cutting government spending.

Fact Check.org discusses the latest real stupid things Robert Kennedy Jr. is advocating about Bird Flu that stand to make a lot of people and animals sick or dead.

And as Snopes points out, Trump really did say that really noxious thing about January 6 rioters maybe deserving compensation for being unjustly arrested. He's really out to rewrite history and turn those people into heroic martyrs.

I had a great time at the opening day of WonderCon today…but then I always have a great time at WonderCons.  Lots of people to see.  Lots of stuff to buy.  Just being around so many people enjoying themselves is not without its value.  And I'm too tired to write much more than that right now.  I will, soon.

Steve Benen over on The Maddow Blog points out how Donald Trump's spin on the Group Chat scandal is not being believed…not even by Donald Trump. And Benen lists some of the many times Trump has dismissed legitimate investigations as "witch hunts."

When it came time to find someone to replace Bob Barker as host of The Price is Right, the folks in charge auditioned a number of different possible choices…and then the job went to Drew Carey, who I believe hadn't even auditioned. Some friends of mine are shocked that I think Drew Carey does a better job than Barker did, at least in Barker's last decade or so on the job.

Someone has made up a little mashup/melange/montage of clips from the auditioners' unaired auditions. One of them is Mike Richards, the fellow who was producing Jeopardy!, selected himself to emcee the show after Alex Trebek died and then was replaced after one week. I am reminded of the old Jackie Vernon joke about the man that people would look at and say, "What a personality that guy needs!"

My thanks to my friend Stu Shostak, who told me about this. Stu is one of those people who disagrees with me about Bob versus Drew but he's entitled to his opinion, wrong though it may be.

About a dozen people have written this week to ask me if the panels I'm doing at WonderCon will be recorded, streamed, put on You Tube, made available for sale, etc. The answer — and this goes for Comic-Con, about which folks ask the same — is generally a no. Some people who attend the panels bring along video or at least audio recording devices and if they ask and receive permission from all the panelists, I'm fine with it…sometimes.

Some don't ask but record anyway and I sometimes stop them for that reason. Some years ago, some outfit video-recorded a couple of my panels without asking and not only put them up on YouTube but added in an opening title that made it look like they'd produced the panels or something. I wrote them a note and while I never heard back from them, those videos soon were not to be found on YouTube. I also was once approached by a satellite radio company that asked permission to record and broadcast the audio from a few panels. I said yes if they'd give me a free subscription to their channel. They said yes, took down my contact info, recorded the panels, broadcast the panels…and never gave me my free subscription.

I'm of two minds on the subject. I think a lot of the panels are wonderful and they contain important history…but I also think that if they became routinely available online, an awful lot of the folks who now show up for them in person would not show up for them in person. As I've said before here, conventions do not program for empty seats. There are many cons that have zero interest in panels about the history of the comics because they've seen zero evidence that such programming has any impact on how many people buy badges. I think they're wrong but if more people attended panels that aren't basically infomercials for current product, there'd be more of them.

So basically, the answer is that most panels aren't recorded because no one is interested in expending the effort…and if someone was and they put them online, I'm not sure that would be a good thing.

WonderCon Anaheim starts tomorrow and the last I heard, they still have badges available. If they don't, it will probably say so here and if they do, that page will tell you how to get one or more. Here for the last time is the schedule of panels on which you'll find me. I've had to make one panelist substitution…

WRITING FOR ANIMATION
Friday, March 28 from 3:30PM to 4:30PM in Room 213AB
Did you ever want to write cartoons? Or just want to know how it's done? Well, here's a panel for you! Some folks who've written some of your favorite shows will fill you in on what they do, how they do it, and how they got to do it -— plus they'll answer your questions about the art of creating scripts for animation. Brynne Chandler (Disney's Gargoyles), Paul Dini (Batman: The Animated Series), and John Semper (Spider-Man: The Animated Series) are hosted by moderator Mark Evanier (The Garfield Show).

HANNA-BARBERA HISTORY
Friday, March 28 from 4:30PM to 5:30PM in Room 213AB
Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera were the kings of TV animation for decades, especially on Saturday mornings. Their studio produced countless childhood favorites, including The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Scooby Doo, Yogi Bear, Space Ghost, Top Cat, Quick Draw McGraw, Jonny Quest, The Smurfs, Superfriends, and dozens of others. Come hear all about what went on in the hallowed halls of Hanna-Barbera from writers Mark Evanier and John Semper (who worked at that studio) and animation historians Jerry Beck and Greg Ehrbar.

TALES FROM MY SPINNER RACK (LIVE!)
Saturday, March 29 from 3:00PM to 4:00PM in Room 209
With the new Fantastic Four: First Steps movie coming out in just a few short months, Gary Sassaman (former director of programming and publications, Comic-Con and WonderCon) takes a nostalgic look back at “The World's Greatest Comic Magazine!” in this graphics-filled presentation featuring the “first steps” of the Fantastic Four comic book series by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Joining Sassaman to discuss growing up with the F.F. and Kirby's boundless creativity is WonderCon special guest Mark Evanier (Kirby: King of Comics, Groo the Wanderer), friend and former assistant of the artist.

CARTOON VOICES
Saturday, March 29 from 4:00PM to 5:00PM in Room 207
It wouldn t be WonderCon without one of Mark Evanier's famous panels of folks who supply the voices for your favorite cartoon characters and TV shows. This time, Mark has assembled Kimberly Woods (Archer, X-Men '97), Wally Wingert (Invader Zim, The Garfield Show), Candi Milo (Looney Tunes, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends), Daniel Ross (Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse Mixed-Up Adventures) and a surprise or two!

STAN AND JACK
Saturday, March 29 from 5:00PM to 6:00PM in Room 210
Daniel Fingeroth is the author of A Marvelous Life: The Amazing Story of Stan Lee. Mark Evanier is the author of Kirby, King of Comics. So the authors of the most-read books about Stan Lee and Jack Kirby will discuss both men and what they meant to the comic book industry, the Marvel Age of Comics, and the childhoods of an awful lot of people.

TWO MARKS ANSWER QUESTIONS
Sunday, March 30 from 11:00am to 12:00PM in Room 207
If there's anything (a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g) you 've ever wanted to know about comic books, the characters, the people who created them, the business…anything, this is the panel for you! If writers Mark Waid and Mark Evanier don't know it, no one does. Come armed with questions!

JACK KIRBY TRIBUTE
Sunday, March 30 from 12:00PM to 1:00PM in Room 207
At every WonderCon, we make time to remember the man they call The King of Comics, Jack Kirby. Former Kirby assistant Mark Evanier heads up a dais of folks who knew the man or at least his amazing career. This time out, Mark is joined by two members of Jack's family — Tracy Kirby and Jeremy Kirby — as well as John Morrow (publisher of The Jack Kirby Collector), Rand Hoppe (founding trustee/director of the Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center), Kirby family friend Dave Schwartz, and attorney Paul S. Levine, who has handled legal matters for Jack and his family.

Everything above is subject to change. Usually, they don't but you never know…

As just about everyone knows by now — including the folks scurrying to deny it — a journalist was accidentally added to a group chat among senior Trump administration officials as they were discussing an upcoming U.S. airstrike on Yemen. Trump and some (not all) of his aides insist no war plans were being texted but as Politifact points out that's obviously not so.

Over on the CNN website, Stephen Collinson summarized the way the whole situation looks to a lot of us. You might want to read the whole piece but if you don't have time, here's an excerpt…

Naive and sloppy behavior by top Trump aides could have endangered U.S. pilots. One of the worst intelligence breaches by top officials in years, it raises grave questions about the competence of top officials meant to keep Americans safe.

But the administration's main concern is protecting the president and his team. They are demonizing those who point out their malfeasance and embroidering the wider conspiratorial narrative that Trump is again a victim of a deep state witch hunt.

The obsession with answering a national security scandal with a fiercely political argument is characteristic of a White House that never admits wrongdoing — following one of the core principles of Trump's pre-political life.

It's never the fault of the people who commit the crimes or screw-up badly. It's always a witch hunt and a hoax by those terrible losers.

And here's another video about Jerry Herman…

Turning for a sec to those who come to this blog to learn more about how comic books are created: A commonly-held but erroneous assumption by some is that a comic book story is the work of five separate people — six if you count the editor. There's the person who writes it, the person who pencils the artwork, the person who letters the artwork, the person who inks the artwork and the person who colors the artwork. The sequence in which those five actions are done may vary but a lot of folks think there are five distinguishable stops on the assembly line…and sometimes, that's true.

But there are sometimes folks who merge several of those functions. In any of these Jerry Herman docs, you'll hear him talk about creating the words and music of a song as a single act of creativity. He didn't do one and then the other…and neither did Stephen Sondheim or Irving Berlin or a lot of other great composers. Jack Kirby, when he wrote and penciled a comic didn't do one and then the other. I doubt Will Eisner did or Charles Schulz did or Russ Manning did. They could separate the two if they wanted to and maybe some did but most writer-artists wear both hats at the same time.

There's nothing wrong with separating writing from drawing just as there was nothing wrong with Lerner and Loewe or Rodgers and Hammerstein dividing the functions up. Alan Lerner couldn't write music and Frederick Loewe couldn't write lyrics. Put them together and you got My Fair Lady. There have been great writer-artist tag teams in comics too. I'll write more about the dynamics of these pairings one of these days.

Donald Trump is continuing to run against Joe Biden. He's now claiming that under Biden, no one wanted to join the military and now people are flocking to do so, all because of Trump. That ain't true and Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post has the numbers to prove it.

Do you like Jerry Herman music? I do — so I enjoyed this hour of Mr. Herman discussing his career. It includes performances of some of his most acclaimed songs and one of the singers is my pal Jason Graae…

A whole bunch of folks, myself included, grew up on comic books and began writing and/or drawing them in the seventies and eighties. People got into the industry before us, of course, but in those two decades, there was a huge influx of New Talent, some of which offered "new" without much in the "talent" department and some who were good at both. One of the best writers, I thought, was a gent named Mike W. Barr. You may know his work from, among many other books, Camelot 3000, The Maze Agency, Batman and the Outsiders, Batman without the Outsiders, Star Trek and many more.

The last year or two, I'd heard that Mike had some health problems but no one knew — or if they knew, told me — how severe they were. A friend has set up a GoFundMe page for donations because Mike really needs help. If you go to that page and read what he's been through, you'll be horrified. I sure was…so please, if you ever enjoyed a comic book by Mike or even if you didn't, kick in something to help him. Like my subject line says, he's one of the good guys.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is in a lot of trouble. The sloppy way this nation's war plans were accidentally leaked seem pretty indefensible and the few folks who seem to be defending him are the kind who'd be demanding resignation — if not public execution — if a cabinet official of the opposition party had done what he did. As Steve Benen points out, Hegseth has been denying allegations that the White House has already confirmed. The folks over at The Meidas Touch Network list some other claims by Mr. Hegseth that members of his own party are admitting are true.

As an aside: Almost the first thing out of Trump's mouth when he thought they could bully through their denials of what The Atlantic was reporting was that that magazine was failing and almost out of business. That's one of his favorite attacks when he has nothing substantial to say. Someone should make up a list of all the magazines, news sources and TV shows he said were failing…and which were doing fine when he said that.

Los Angeles keeps losing restaurants with a lot of history. The Pacific Dining Car, in business since 1921, burned irrevocably to the ground early the morning of March 20. It was the second or third fire there, depending on which source you believe, since the place closed in 2020 for COVID. The owners were still talking of reopening but now, there's no building on the lot to reopen.

Without evidence, people are suggesting one or more of the fires can be blamed on homeless people who'd been squatting in and around the vacant building. There are a lot of them in that area. I have heard people say the government shouldn't be spending "our" money on those people; that it's their fault they're homeless, they're all on drugs, they won't work, etc.

Even if that's true for some of them — and I would think very few — and even if one doesn't give an f-word about one's fellow human beings, I would think it's just common sense to help the homeless. They can lead to an increase in crime, diseases, fires like this one and all sorts of bad things. If you don't want to help them for their sake, help them for your sake.

The Pacific Dining Car was once a favorite eatery of mine but I hadn't been there in years. I had a very bad experience in one they opened in Santa Monica…the kind of experience that makes you vow never to return. I didn't go back to that one and it soon closed, no doubt because they lost me as an occasional customer. The original one — the one that burned down the other day — remained a wonderful but very expensive place to eat. There are restaurants that seem to assume everyone dining there is on an expense account and doesn't care what the bill is for food and drink. The last time I was there, I was paying and the check should have been printed on the back of an application to take a second mortgage on your house. Just not worth it.

Still, I'm sorry to see it's gone. I'm sorry the Original Pantry is closed too. I'm sorry you can no longer dine at a lot of great places to dine. If they can manage to rebuild the Pacific Dining Car and make it as good as it was, I may just have to take out that second mortgage and go.

Jon Stewart this evening. It's all about Donald Trump's concept of the First Amendment: Free speech for me but not for thee…