“And take the Great Fire of London. It's a burning shame the way the possibilities of the conflagration have been neglected. No news value, no highlights, no hot headlines! Just burnt out embers preserved for posterity. But believe me, boy, I have warmed it up. Got it straight from Guy Fawkes before he took the job as

chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department. ‘Twas Iva B. Squint of Squinties Unlimited who thought of it. Competition in the movie world was so keen that newsreel men had to shoot things before they happened to keep ahead of the times. Iva B. Squint got the notion that if he could set London alight he could make a hit by calling it the burning of Rome with Hannibal and Pharoah playing the bagpipes on an elephant in the foreground. So he offered Guy Fawkes half a million dollars and the leading part in The Midnight Follies of 1666 to get it lit up. It went like a house on fire, or at least it would have if Oliver Flick hadn't sneaked in, shot the fire, and, with the help of Helen of Troy, George Washington, Nell Gwynn, Titus Oates, the Dolly sisters, and the Iron Duke, produced it as Hot Babies.