At the Oceana Apartments, a young man comes to visit: a writer for television, a fan of his work. The young man is polite, overwhelmed. He tries to put the young man at his ease.
They talk about his pictures. He hates to see them broken up by the advertisements on television. He can understand why it is done, but there is no logic to the interruptions beyond the requirements of time slots. The advertisements interrupt scenes and gags. They destroy the rhythm of what he has created with Babe. The distributors have even butchered the longer features to create shorter shows so that all sense is lost. He has written to them, offering to edit the pictures again for television just so the gags will work better. He will do this for free, he tells them. He has time, and it will not take long. He has watched these pictures often enough. He has already reedited them in his mind. He does not want money. What would he do with it?
The distributors do not reply. He is not surprised. He had only hoped that they might respond.
He is not bitter. Never that. Babe would have said it was not worth becoming bitter, and Babe would have been right. But he is sad, sad that they do not care as much as he does.
And then the young man asks if he has read Chaplin’s autobiography.