I've recently been informed that the whole purpose of blogs, beyond the obvious one of hanging your misfortunes, misspellings and malapropisms out for your fellow man to chortle derisively at, is to provide links to things that might conceivably be more interesting than anything you have to offer. And my legal representatives at Shyster-in-the-Box have notified me that I'm way under my quota for the fiscal year. So, here's a few:

Mr. Mike Meets Mr. Bill: In my constant search for bits and pieces pertaining to one of my comedy-writing heroes, Michael O'Donoghue (a man perhaps as well-known for the stuff he wrote that never got produced as for the stuff that did), I happened upon his unbroadcast 1991 pilot for Fox, TV (or, more accurately, about half of it). Sad to say, it's not top-drawer O'Donoghue - as with much of the material he produced in the final years of his life, it's largely lashed together from old material left moldering in his file cabinet, and many of the gags here are rather creaky ("Decapitated" coffee? I'd weep if it weren't for the long steel needles sticking out of my eyes). But I got a kick out of the "Koma" and "Brain Gobblers" bits, the Rutger Hauer scene is a small classic, and there's so little prime O'D accessible in any medium at the moment that I'll take the goods where I can get 'em, even in diluted form.* (Here's a page that gathers together most of the available O'D on the 'Net - some true classics and some, y'know, not-quite-as-true not-nearly-as-classics.) One of the most interesting aspects of TV is that it served as a reunion of sorts of two of the original SNL's most notable black-comic scribes, as the pilot was directed by Walter Williams, the guy responsible for The Mr. Bill Show - if you're a fan of the much-abused hunk of Play-Doh, then you should check out the site from whence this comes, featuring loads of classic material, and not just Señor Guillermo-related either - among others, there's a video he did for the dB's and one of my favorite commercial parodies from SNL's Golden Age. (Windows Media Player required to view all of the above.)

* (Aside to the executors of the O'Donoghue estate - if you're ever looking for someone to compile an anthology of the great man's best work, or just someone you can lock in a room with his files for a week, color me available.)

Lost in the Grooves: A page previewing the book I contributed to is now up, and holy cowshit! Just look at the people I'm gonna be sharing shelf-space with! I mean, Hayden Childs?!? Who'da thunk it!?!

More later...