TUESDAY, July 31, 2012

REAL LIFE DRAMA -- Following their tabloid-hammered split and subsequent divorce, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have set sail on the remainder of their lives with Katie returning to the boards on Broadway in "Dead Accounts," and Tom filming another "Mission Impossible."  Interesting script.  His impossible mission is trying to locate the assets he hid during his divorce settlement.

SUSPENDING DISBELIEF -- The producers of Charlie Sheen's new sitcom "Anger Management" had to have a lot of courage to sign him.  It's a little hard to buy Charlie's character as a former major league ball player.  He can't hit, he can't pitch, and he can't field.  On the other hand, he does date bimbos.

 

BOTTOM FEEDING -- To help ease commercial shipping along the draught-striken Mississippi, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredged the bottom to deepen the river.  In the process they dredged up some interesting objects including Tom and Huck's raft still lashed together, the original bell from the Show Boat's wheel house and Madeline Murray O'Hare's inscribed luggage.

 

PET LOVER -- Military forces of the Syrian government have stepped up their attempts to regain control of rebel-held areas in war-torn Aleppo using  massive attacks of artillery, ground forces and airborne assaults on rebel forces by heavily-
armed helicopter gunships.  Asked for her reaction, Michelle Bachman told reporters that she hopes the dog food factory is spared.


TARGET PRACTICE -- Former vice president Dick Cheney shocked GOP operatives by telling ABC's Jonathan Karl that naming Sarah Palin as a vice-presidential candidate "was a mistake" because she was ill-equipped to be president.  John McCain was quick to respond in kind.  "A mistake maybe, but not as bad as shooting a friend in the face."  

THE A-TEAM -- Gene Perret, Jeffrey Barron and Martha Bolton would help staff the Bob Hope specials beginning in the mid-eighties. Gene, who had begun his career submitting jokes to Phyllis Diller while in middle management in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, began contributing to Hope’s monologues in 1969. Later, he and I would travel with Hope to London, Stockholm and Tahiti.  Martha was from Arkansas, was married to a sergeant in the L.A. Police Department and showed up at just the right time. Considerably younger than most of us, she brought a softer, more Norman Rockwellian, Readers Digest sensibility to the material that balanced the edgy, smart-alecky tone the old-timers thrived on and that seemed less and less suitable for a comedian who was, by then, 83. 

Copyright (c) 2012 by Robert L. Mills  All Rights Reserved

SUN, MON, July 29, 30, 2012

THRONE FOR A LOSS -- Queen Elizabeth officially opened the 2012 London Olympics where she formally welcomed the athletes to the UK and wished them well for the duration of the Games.  Unfortunately, when she was handed the Olympic
torch, she became momentarily flustered and accidentally knighted Mitt Romney.

 

LATTER-DAY CHARMER -- After setting back Anglo-American relations with his faint praise of the London Olympics, Mitt Romney flew to Tel Aviv where he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netyanyahu.  Emerging from their high level discussion, Romney told reporters that he was very impressed by Netyanyahu's "chutz-pah."  

BUGGED -- According to a report issued by M.I.T., the two most germ-ridden airports in the nation are New York's JFK and Los Angeles International, primarily because both are gateways to large cities.  Good luck, tourists.  If you survive the bacteria, then you have to face the the muggers and drive-by shooters.

 

MAD MEN -- Starting in 2013, NFL players may be allowed to wear small, tasteful ads stitched to their jerseys.  Taking no chances, the Chicago Bulls have hired a grammar and spelling coach to make sure the guys don't try to wear ads that contain errors of syntax or punctuation or conflict in any way with their tattoos.

 

HOT TOPIC -- According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the hottest man-made substance ever produced is the quark gluon plasma at 7.2 million degrees Fahrenheit.  What good can come from such achievements you might ask.  Well, for one, since the record was set, barbecue mitt technology has been improving by leaps and bounds.

 

Excerpt From THE LAUGH MAKERS

Reaching Critical Mass!

Hope worked hard on his specials, and because he was proud of them, he suffered an acute allergic reaction to television critics who might be less than-
captivated by the end results of our efforts. Now on the leeward leg of a long and iinordinately successful career, he craved acceptance. He had become accustomed to being liked, and criticism of his performances, because it was rare, smarted all the more. By and large, because of his wide popularity and his near icon status, most TV critics had come to treat Hope with kid gloves.  Most, but not all.

In the early 1980s, Hope picked up what would prove to be a persistent and bothersome burr under his creative saddle. The burr’s name was Gail Williams, a television reviewer employed by the entertainment industry trade paper The Hollywood Reporter. She had embarked on what Hope believed to be — judging from his reaction to her reviews — a one-woman crusade to destroy, special-by-special, his television career. This, despite the fact that Williams’s reviews appeared after the shows had aired and couldn’t possibly have affected their ratings. (Hope never allowed pre-screening for the critics for this very reason.)  

Besides, as I’d often point out to him when he’d call in a state of near apoplexy after reading one of Gail’s broadsides, The Hollywood Reporter is strictly an industry publication with virtually no circulation outside of Tinseltown. That made no difference.  "I’m suing them for a million dollars!” he’d scream. After one particularly scathing review, he told me to call the entire staff and have them write anonymous letters to the paper defending him — not unlike Nixon, in the heat of Watergate passion, issuing orders to Haldeman and Erlichman that they would ignore. We did likewise.

While Hope carefully nurtured friendly relationships with most of the major newspaper TV critics across the country — he seldom turned down a request for an interview — he had no control over critics hired by the trade-papers who were not beholden to him. They were free to express their true feelings and Williams did — in spades.

What did Williams write that sent Hope’s blood-pressure into the stratosphere?  Here’s just a sampling:

“. . . Bob ‘dirty old man’ Hope’s latest special was a standard vehicle for the comedian. . . As always, conversations were marred by excessive reliance on cue cards and sketches were broad, featuring Hope in silly costumes, and sophomoric humor.” (Bob Hope’s Spring Fling 1980)

“. . . Hope delivered his monologue with his characteristic expressionless panache.” (Hope For President 1980)

“Everyone read their cue cards reasonably well, and [Loretta] Swit even managed to make her lines sound somewhat spontaneous at points.” (Bob Hope’s All-Star Comedy Christmas Special 1980)

And she was just getting warmed up. By the time the 1982 season rolled around, Williams’ had found the range, and her editorial arrows were beginning to find more and more bull’s eyes. Here are her impressions of that year’s Christmas special:

“Bob Ho-ho-ho-Hope’s Christmas special this year was virtually indistinguishable from any other season’s Hope holiday greeting. The Merriest of the Merry — Bob Hope’s Christmas Show — a Bagful of Comedy (Hope special titles seem to grow larger in direct proportion to diminishing originality) was a hopelessly hackneyed effort, the sort of
inspirationless Yuletide special that brings out the Scrooge in TV critics.”
 

By the 1983 season, it was obvious that there would be no turning back.  With her eyes wide open, Miss Williams had burned her bridges and effectively took herself out of the running for inclusion in Hope’s will:

"Sometimes the cheap extremes to which Hope’s specials stoop are so low, laughs are generated in spite of one’s better instincts, but they are embarrassed chuckles, not hearty guffaws." (Bob Hope’s All-Star Super Bowl Party)

And — tah, dah — the review of 1983’s Bob Hope’s Road to Hollywood that almost gave birth to the $1,000,000 lawsuit:

"Apparently, Bob Hope gives many viewers what they want because his specials frequently still earn high ratings. It’s a mystery why the formula keeps working. Sure, we all respect Hope as an enduring American institution. But it’s not just because he’s a veteran who has entertained millions for many years. It’s also because he acts like an institution.  When he steps down from his pedestal in his specials, Hope can still be funny. But when he virtually stages tributes to himself. . . it’s just a tad embarrassing. Perhaps Hope’s standard bad sport Oscar jokes are more revealing than one realizes — maybe Hope fetes himself because he really does feel unrecognized. . . One only wishes that this prodigiously talented performer would stop resting on his laurels in uninspired, formula specials and take a few chances. . . At his best in films, Hope was disarming.  Now that his specialty is introducing lineups of guest stars
with insincere-sounding suavity — and starring in his own show’s commercials — he’s not nearly as much fun."

My instincts were correct. She wasn’t even mentioned in the will.

Copyright (c) 2012 by Robert L. Mills  All Rights Reserved

FRI, SAT, July 27, 28, 2012

SUPREME GROOM -- North Korean President Kim Jong-un broke with the precedent of secrecy concerning the private sex-lives of the country's Supreme Leaders by announcing the name and status of his 20-something new wife, Ri Sol-ju, a singer and TV personality.   North Koreans were later reminded that Kim and his bride are registered at the nation's most popular on-line retailer, Bed, Bath & Beyond the 38th Parallel.

 

MITTMANIA -- Mitt Romney, stopping off in London on the first lap on his international tour, caught flack from Olympic officials as well as PM David Cameron after he expressed doubts that the Brits would carry off the games without a hitch.  No doubt compounding his gaffe was his unwillingness to explain why he had one of Queen Elizabeth's beloved corgis strapped to the roof of his rental car.

 

FOSSIL REPORT -- Currently enjoying a surge in the advertiser-coveted 18 to 49 age group, late night hosts Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have re-upped with their employer Viacom for two more years.  Former LN top dogs Leno and Letterman have literally been left in the dust.   So far have they toppled, last week a woman was arrested for trying to sneak OUT of Letterman's house.

 

DIGITALIS -- Hospital emergency rooms nationwide were swamped by hordes of Twitterites seeking treatment after Twitter went down for over two hours citing technical problems.  The patients were suffering from what doctors call "Twitdrawal," whose symptoms include tapping one's index finger uncontrollably on the nearest firm surface.  Thankfully, each limited their wailing to 140 groans or less.

THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT -- Say what you will about Charlie Sheen's meltdown that cost him his "Two and a Half Men" gig, but the clean and sober version has donated $1 million to the USO to build an entertainment facility near Baltimore.  And not just the building.  Veterans who qualify for admission are assigned two bimbo "goddesses" paid for by Charlie.
 








NOW BOOKING ENGAGEMENTS FOR THE FALL!  This show is the perfect addition to your next seminar, workshop or convention.  Stories and video clips that will wow your audience like only show business nostalgia can -- and with rates that fit your budget.  For details and a complete rundown (including clips used) and list of topics from baseball to the military to the NFL from which you choose, write to:  TheLaughMakers@GMail.com  


Copyright (c) 2012 by Robert L. Mills  All Rights Reserved

THURSDAY, July 26, 2012

SCRAP STATUE -- Shocking some Penn State students who were hoping for a slap on the wrist, the NCAA came down hard on Penn's Athletic department assessing $73 million in fines, a four-year ban on bowl games, and stripping Paterno of credit for any wins after 1997.  And if that weren't enough, they ruled that Pete Rose should never be allowed to coach Penn State baseball.

 

THAT'S THE WAY IT IS -- Faced with declining viewership numbers and spiraling costs, CBS has admitted that they recently gave serious consideration to combining their news operation with CNN's, but abandoned the proposal after terms couldn't be reached.  Seems that Anderson Cooper and Leslie Stahl just couldn't agree on who would get the larger dressing room.

 

WELL SEASONED -- Revealed in a recent survey of happily married women who were asked if they would ever consider cheating on their spouses, a majority said "yes," but only with one man:  David Beckham.  In a similar poll of married men, most said "yes," if the woman was Posh Spice... or any of the other Spices... or, for that matter, any woman named after a condiment.

 

HERE I DON'T COME -- Once known as "The Golden State," California is now producing a mother lode of cities declaring bankruptcy, including San Bernardino, Stockton, and Mammoth Lakes.  Population growth has leveled off, too, with more people fleeing the state than arriving.  And upscale areas are not immune.   At Laguna Beach, surfers have been spotted trying to catch OUTWARD waves.

 

DECISIONS, DECISIONS -- Realizing that there's still time to right a major wrong, his short-sited decision to drop out of a Boston high school after only one year, actor Mark Wahlberg has re-enrolled.  When asked by reporters his plans for the future after he receives his diploma, he confessed that he's torn between Harvard or a good trade school.

L to R:  Gene Perret, Si Jacobs, the author, Barney McNulty, Bob Hope, Hal Kanter

FINAL BOW -- In the summer of 1998, Hope attended a party celebrating Barney McNulty’s seventy-fifth birthday at a church hall in North Hollywood.  Scores of Barney’s friends and colleagues stopped by, including Angela Lansbury, with whom he had worked on Murder, She Wrote. Hundreds of photos that he had taken over the years were tacked on bulletin boards.  The event would turn out to be the last time most of us would see Hope. He now had assistance twenty-four-seven and looked all of his ninety-five years. After about an hour and a half, he was helped into a van and waved feebly out the window as it drove off. Barney ran alongside.  “Thanks for coming, boss!”

For more behind-the-scenes photos, click here... 

Copyright (c) 2012 by Robert L. Mills  All Rights Reserved

WEDNESDAY, July 25, 2012

THE TEMPLE OF MEDICARE -- As Indiana Jones, he's guided us on adventures seeking the Lost Ark and the Temples of Doom and Crystal Skull.  Hard to believe that the archeologist, Stetson cocked at a jaunty angle and whip close-at-hand behind his back, just celebrated his seventieth birthday.  If you think Harrison Ford looks young for his age, Callista Flockhart says that naked, he looks every year of it. 

MEN HAVE NAMED YOU -- A group of archaeologists digging in a cave near Rome stumbled upon what they strongly believe is a skeleton of a young woman they think may have been Michelangelo's model for the Mona Lisa.  In a strangely similar story, Larry King recently joined Ancestry.com and stumbled on documentation indicating that one of his male ancestors was once married to Whistler's Mother.
 

EMBER MEMORIES -- Twenty one people attending a Tony Robbins "Wish Your Way to Success" seminar were severely burned while attempting to walk on hot coals that Tony had assurred them would cause no  harm.  Turns out the stunt was just a ploy to interest the group in Tony's next seminar:  "Wish Your Way to a New Set of Feet."

 

HOWDY SAUDIS -- The Saudi Arabian Olympic Committee in Ryad has announced that two female Saudis have qualified to compete in the London Games, one in judo and the other in track and field.  Turns out they're both the same girl.  Seems she mastered judo while defending herself against coaches who tried to stone her whenever she lost a race. 

MIX 'N' MATCH -- Dr. Howard Stringer, an anthropologist  at London's Natural History Museum, is attempting to substantiate his theory that there was inbreeding between the earliest Homo sapiens with the less-evolved Neanderthal.  Dr. Stringer began his experiments by sending members of the Bar Harbor Yacht Club into biker bars to try to pick up chicks.  

MAKE ROOM FOR TALENT -- Bob Hope and Danny Thomas went back a long way.  They were good friends and Danny heeded Hope's call whenever he was invited to guest on the show.  Hope asked him to help open the Gerald Ford Museum and Library in Grand Rapids, Michigan in October, 1981.  The special would highlight Hope's career as he welcomed more international dignitaries -- including the Reagans and presidents of Mexico, France and Japan -- than he ever had.  Along with Danny (whose talent as a story teller was tailor-made for black-tie events) Hope's guests included Pearl Bailey, Sammy Davis, Jr., Gordon MacCrae, Tony Orlando, Glen Campbell and Mark Russell.  Danny appeared in plenty of Hope sketches, too, including as a senator in a parody of the Iran-Contra hearings and as a Golden Boy along with Hope and lee Majors in a take-off on the "Golden Girls." 

For more backstage photos and commentary from the Bob Hope Show, click here... 

Copyright (c) 2012 by Robert L. Mills  All Rights Reserved

 

TUESDAY, July 24, 2012

JOLLY GOOD SHOW -- For the first time in the 75-year history of the Tour de France, a British subject named Bradley Williams blazed across the finish line first to claim the prestigious yellow jersey.  Organizers had to delay the trophy-presentation ceremony at the Champs-Elysees several hours as they scrambled to find enough French musicians who knew the arrangement to "God Save the Queen."

 

ST. VALENTINES DAY -- The ten-bedroom, football-field-sized waterfront mansion on Florida's Biscayne Bay that was once owned by 1930s mobster Al Capone is up for sale with an asking price of $9.95 million.  Included is a huge recreation room, a private dock, a 10,000 bottle wine cellar, an Olympic size swimming pool and the safe that forced Geraldo Rivera to ad lib for two hours when he failed to find anything in it.      

 

HOT TIP -- If you're betting on the Olympics, double down on Japanese gymnast Kohei Uchimura who has won three consecutive world championships and in 2009 and 2011 copped firsts in four of the six disciplines: floor exercise, pommel horse, rings, vault, parallel bars and horizontal bar.  With a gold in London, he'll be considered the greatest gymnast who ever lived.  And if that weren't enough, his friends say his sushi is to die for.

 

WEST SIDE STORY -- Faced with spiraling casualty counts resulting from ever-escalating gang warfare, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has sought gang control advice from Crips and Bloods-savvy Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.  Nice idea maybe, but isn't that a tad like Penn State asking the pope for advice on how to prevent child sex abuse?

 

NUDE & LEWD -- The film rights to the best-seller "50 Shades of Grey," which has been described by critics as a Western version of the Kama Sutra, have been purchased by Focus Features after a fierce bidding war.  The producers are well aware that they can forget about a PG rating unless they can tone down the shades of grey into more young-adult friendly shades of blue.

CRIME SPREE -- Zero Mostel-like Jeffrey Barron was a bachelor who slept all day and wrote for Bob Hope at night. He had his own table at Lowry’s House of Prime Rib; and while with SCTV in Montreal, lived in a hotel for two seasons “... for the room service,” as he explained it. Jeff was a shrewd investor who owned several houses in Beverly Hills, though he lived in a small apartment. One evening, while collecting rent, he was questioned by a couple of Beverly Hills cops.  “What are you doing here,” they demanded.  “I own that house,” Jeff replied.  “Next time take a cab. Nobody walks in Beverly Hills." 

For more backstage photos from the Bob Hope Show, click here... 

Copyright (c) 2012 by Robert L. Mills  All Rights Reserved
 

SUN, MON, July 23, 24, 2012

CONGRESS MATERIAL? -- An important member of the ensemble company responsible for such classics as "Best in Show," "A Mighty Wind" and "Waiting for Guffman," comic actor Fred Willard was arrested at Hollywood's Tiki Porn Theater and charged with exposing himself in public.  He was immediately fired by PBS as the narrator on "Market Warriors."   According to several witnesses, whatever else can be said for Fred's display, it was definitely not best in show.
 

OFFICER KRUPKY'S DELIGHT -- A popular New York Restaurant, the Chipotle Grill on Montague Street near Brooklyn's courthouses, offers uniformed police officers who eat there a 50% discount.  Other restaurants in the area offer a similar discount to the gendarmerie, but the Chipotle remains a law enforcement favorite.  Probably because the chef came up with a unique taco recipe that makes them look like donuts.

 

NACHT WAGNER -- A Nazi-issue sidearm from the estate of Elvis Presley is being offered at auction for a minimum of $100,000.  How did the King acquire the military pistol, you might ask.  Similar story to the one about Nixon giving him a badge to help in the war on drugs.  Hitler reportedly gave
Elvis the Luger for his promise to keep rock 'n' roll out of Germany. 

IV LEAGUE -- Hard to believe that 1960s sand-and-driftwood icon David Hasselhoff is 60.  At a party in his honor, David's formerly bikini-clad co-stars on "Baywatch" gifted him with a lifetime Bingo card at "Baywatch Sunscreen Villas," the series' official retirement/nursing home in Oxnard.

 
 

NEVER WALKING ALONE -- At Broadway's James K. Polk Theater, film and MDA telethon icon Jerry Lewis is directing a musical version of his classic "The Nutty Professor" with a score written by Marvin Hamlisch who was obviously hired to write to Jer's strengths.  All of his lyrics are in French.   






 

Although my first network variety show was The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts, I never got to meet Dean. He just wasn’t in the habit of dropping by the production office in Burbank. We attended the tapeings at the M.G.M. Grand in Las Vegas, but Dean dealt only with our head writer, Harry Crane. Ten years later, when Dean appeared on a special entitled "Bob Hope Salutes the Super Bowl," he sang a parody duet I had co-written on the players’ strike called “Waiting in the Wings.” I finally met him! Good things come to those who wait. 
For more photos from the Bob Hope Show, click here...


EXCERPT From THE LAUGH MAKERS 

OUR MISS BROOKE

Brooke Shields made her fist of fourteen appearances as a guest on the Bob Hope Show in 1981 on a special from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.  She was Hope's favorite guest along with Loni Anderson who appeared on almost as many specials as Brooke. 

Under the watchful eye of her quintessential stage mother, Teri, whom writer Charlie Isaacs once accused of “carrying Brooke’s virginity in her purse,” she arrived lugging some heavy child-star baggage that included a nude scene in a movie called Pretty Baby as well as another au-naturel performance in a picture called The Blue Lagoon.

Hope took an immediate liking to Brooke, and she to him, showering him with the affection one would bestow on a kindly grandfather. Hope may have been a father figure, too, as her parents had been long divorced.  From her first appearance, Hope took Brooke under his wing, teaching her the basics of sketch comedy — timing, delivery, entrances and exits — techniques which seem effortless, but must be learned, nonetheless. 

For her part, Brooke obviously enjoyed performing on the show, was eager to learn and, as would be
expected, improved as time went on playing roles ranging from Becky Thatcher opposite Hope’s Tom
Sawyer (at the World’s Fair in New Orleans where she forgot she was wearing a remote microphone
transmitter, jumped into the Olympic diving pool, and almost demonstrated GE’s “We Bring Good Things to Light” slogan) to a Showboat singer opposite Placido Domingo’s Gaylord Ravenal — “We could make believe...” to Princess Diana.

The Hope specials kept her acting career afloat during her Princeton University, pre-Andre Agassi period. She made one movie, Brenda Starr, that bombed.  But as often happens in Hollywood, Brooke was stricken by a sudden case of selective amnesia when, in September 1996, she told an interviewer
for the Los Angeles Times while discussing successful guest appearances on Friends, that “[Comedy] is something that I’ve never professionally explored and I’ve never had the opportunity or encouragement.”

There was a logical explanation for her forgetfulness. By the mid-nineties, Hope was considered passé, and generations removed from the then-current TV comedy of Seinfeld or Friends. Also, she downplayed Hope’s name on her resume so as not to detract from the much-publicized debut of her soon-to-debut sitcom Suddenly Susan.

I wrote a letter to the Times — which they printed — pointing out that Brooke had been taught comedy by none other than Bob Hope over many years. My letter was never challenged.
The episode was yet another example of the sometimes ephemeral quality of Hollywood friendships and loyalties.
 

(Excerpted from THE LAUGH MAKERS: A Behind-the-Scenes Tribute to Bob Hope's Incredible Gag
Writers (c) 2009 by Robert L. Mills and published by Bear Manor Media.)

To order the book from Amazon.com or Kindle.com, click here... 




Copyright (c) 2012 by Robert L. Mills  All Rights Reserved

FRI, SAT, July 20, 21, 2012

DETAILS AT ELEVEN -- The Netherlands Legislature is considering a measure that would impose stiff fines on television meteorologists whose weather predictions miss the mark with financial penalties graduated according to the severity of the miss.  The guidelines are technical and indecipherable to the average layman, but in a nutshell, if a guy predicts a major weather front approaching, it better look like it's attached to Lady Gaga coming in and JayLo leaving.
 

EMERGENCY ENTRANCE -- A two-decades-old record was broken this week as Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital knocked Baltimore's Johns Hopkins Hospital out of first place in U.S. News & World Report's annual ratings of the nation's best hospitals.  Hopkins is now second-best after a 21-year reign in the top slot.  Among those failing to make the list at all were Newark's Cedars of Scar Tissue, Atlanta's Our Lady of Perpetual Transfusions and Bob's House of Hematoma's in Palm Beach.

POST-OP -- In a less-positive medical note, Vern Traversie a Native American living on the Cheyenne River Reservation in Sioux Falls, South Dakota has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging that doctors performing open-heart surgery on him carved "KKK" on his chest before suturing him up.  The charge was vigorously denied by his cardiologist at a hastily-called press conference.  Unfortunately, just having emerged from the operating room, he was wearing a face mask with eye
holes.

CLUCK CLUCK --  "WALL STREET LAYS AN EGG!" was the famous Variety headline announcing the stock market crash in 1929.  Faced with declining subscriptions and overwhelming competition from quicker-to-the-scoop Internet sites like Deadline and The Wrap, the iconic gossip sheet, once found in more producers' offices than the casting couch, is on the chopping block with few interested buyers in sight.  All in all, it's shaping up as a replay of the famous headline -- only this time it's "VARIETY LAYS AN EGG!" 
 

FLY CATCHER -- Former U.S. Congressman Anthony Wiener who gained notoriety sex-texting gals candid snap shots of his package and lost his seat after denying that he has a "say cheese" fetish when it comes to his junk, has announced that he'll run for Mayor of New York.  You laugh, but he's already corralled some very high-paying financial supporters:  Fruit-of-the-Loom and Haines men's briefs and Rawlings "Sling Shot" Athletic Straps.

BUCKLE UP -- Barbara Mandrell had everything Hope sought in a guest. She could sing and dance, she had impeccable comic timing and — perhaps most important of all – she was a good sport. She obviously held Hope in high regard but could, at times, seem almost motherly toward him. She had been in a tragic auto accident that had killed another occupant in her car and was a firm believer in seat belts before they became mandatory.  She would refuse to ride in a limo with Hope until he buckled up. Over the years, she played Hope's love interest in sketch-after-sketch -- as hillbilly Cindy Lou who "loves sparkin' so much, she's on her third lip retread" -- to Bonny Sue, girlfriend of "Crazy Nose" Hope, early NFL quarterback -- to a lieutenant commander aboard the USS Lexington who's caught in a torrid affair with an enlisted man -- Hope.  It's no wonder she was a Hope favorite.

Enjoy this issue?  Why not forward it to a friend or loved one?  They'd appreciate it -- and so would we!

Copyright (c) 2012 by Robert L.Mills  All Rights Reserved