hmm.. interesting.  Although then I have 2 additional questions:
1. Per @dmitchell's point, what if the superclass introduces a `__init__` method, but with a different method signature?  This call would then fail, right?  Would changing it to the following work:  `__init__(*args, **kwargs)`?
2. Per @cpennington's point, aah.. that makes sense.  But isn't the convention to have the call to `__init__` be done at the top of the method?