Here's a live feed which, 24/7, shows you part of Times Square in New York. During most daylight hours, you can play a rousing game of "How Many Guys in Elmo Costumes Can I Spot?" The other day, I saw five, all cautiously keeping away from each other…

60 Minutes broadcast a profile this evening of John Oliver…

And here's the little extra segment they did just for the Internet…

Here's a John Mulaney special from some time ago. I linked to one excerpt from this before but it's worth watching again…

Kevin Drum, apparently blogging from a hospital bed, presents a not-meant-to-be-complete list of ways in which Elon Musk is benefiting from the work he's doing, allegedly on behalf of the people of the United States. Looks like it's good for him and he doesn't care if it's good for us. Everyone who voted for Trump would be screaming if these things were being done by an unelected ally of President Kamala Harris.

Yes, I know I said I wasn't going to post a lot of this kind of thing but you knew I wouldn't be able to resist.

Rob Morley wrote to ask…

I love the Superman cartoons that were produced by the Max Fleischer Studios (and later by Famous Studios) in the 1940s. I see a number of different DVDs and Blu-rays of them for sale and don't know which one to buy. Which one do you recommend?

Rob Morley is only one of many who have sent me this question and my answer is that I don't recommend any of them. I was going to get around to writing an explanation of why but I noticed that my pal Jerry Beck just wrote about this on Facebook. Jerry knows more about this kind of thing than I do, probably more than anyone. Here's what he had to say…

These films have never been properly restored — period. Some of the boneheaded decisions made by who ever has been in charge of remastering these for home video sale — not to defend them, but to help explain them — have been to "scotch tape" previous edits and screw ups instead of doing a proper search for master film elements.

It seems that when whoever syndicated them to television back in the 50s and 60s (apparently Motion Pictures For Television, Inc — the company that had the syndication rights for the George Reeves Superman TV show) cut the beginnings and ends (mainly to remove the Paramount logo) and replaced them with the origin (from the first cartoon) at the beginning, and the Famous ("mightier than a roaring hurricane," etc.) descriptor at the end. In doing so — they lopped off the sound track elements as well… so "whoever" at Warners simply replaced the silence with a "one size fits all" Paramount tag. George Feltenstein is dying to do the Superman cartoons — hopefully he'll get the chance soon…

George Feltenstein is a historian and producer for the Warner Archives and a gent with a stellar reputation among those who demand that classic films be properly restored and preserved. So I guess my recommendation is to wait until The Powers That Are permit George to produce a definitive set of those fine cartoons. I'm not sure if purchasing the flawed sets now makes that more likely or less likely. Whoever can commit the funds for someone like Mr. Feltenstein to work his magic might say, "Let's do it! There's obviously a lot of interest in these cartoons" or they might say, "There's no point in us doing that now. Everyone who cares about them has already bought them!"

They really are great cartoons, made back in the day when Superman was unique; when he was really the only hero in contemporary popular fiction who could fly, lift Chryslers, burst through brick walls, repel alien invaders, etc. Just in the world of DC Comics today — never mind Marvel and other outfits — there are now thousands of characters who can do all that. Once upon a time, he was special.

So now the man is claiming that his approval rating is at 71% or at least 69% and no one can find such a poll except maybe around Sean Hannity's dinner table. No one can even find a poll where Trump's approval rating is as high as his disapproval rating. The Huffington Post has more on this but what I'd love to know is if he's saying this because he actually believes it. Are aides telling him what he wants to hear?

The New York Times gives us a look at some of the Saturday Night Live memorabilia that Lorne Michaels sent to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas. Interesting bits of history.

I've decided to feature some of what I think are great stand-up comedy specials here for the next few I-don't-know-how-many days. This one, which was brought to my attention by my pal Paul Harris, is a recent one by Dana Gould. All or most of the specials I'll feature have some moments that might offend the easily-offended…though I question the value system of anyone who's offended by a comedy routine and not by what's happening in Washington, D.C. these days.

I like the way Dana Gould thinks and I like that in this special, he seems to be wearing the same shoes I wear. My footwear of choice is the New Balance 587, a long-discontinued model. When they stopped making them, I hurriedly bought up every pair I could find and I think I now have about eight never-worn pairs in my closet along with the one on my feet. If Mr. Gould is wearing New Balance 587s as he appears to be, he only managed to get them because he doesn't wear the same size I do. I was real thorough…

Elon Musk's beloved Department of Government Efficiency claims they've already saved us tons of money by slashing federal spending here, there and everywhere. But a New York Times analysis says that those claims are "marred with accounting errors, incorrect assumptions, outdated data and other mistakes."

The "incorrect assumptions" part reminds me of a TV production company I once worked for where the owners brought in some kind of Efficiency Expert. With absolutely no knowledge of who did what or how the process worked, he assumed that every job that was done by two people could be done just as well by one. They wound up having to hire back an awful lot of people he laid-off and the inefficiency before the rehiring more than wiped out any savings from the layoffs.

Blogger Kevin Drum, who is usually pretty good at this kind of thing, guesstimates that Musk and DOGE have only saved this country around 0.33% of the total federal budget…and that's assuming everyone who's been fired stays fired. Already, they've had to unfire a lot of people who were fired.

By the way: I often quote Mr. Drum on this blog because I find great wisdom and cool-headed reality on his blog. He's currently blogging from a hospital bed as he continues a long battle against cancer of the bone marrow. That's devotion to duty…and it's probably a doesn't-pay-all-that-well duty.

Our new Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services gave an interview to the friendliest of media figures and, of course, got an awful lot of things wrong. Okay, so maybe he doesn't know much about Health and Human Services. He's loyal to the guy who appointed him and that's gotta count for something.

Yet another sketch from British TV comedy show Sez Les with its star, Les Dawson, and special guest John Cleese…

Both Democrats and Republicans are trying to gain some political yardage by blaming air crashes on a President of the opposite party. Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post points out how absurd this blaming is on both sides.

For no visible reason, Vanity Fair has posted an article about the relationship between Groucho Marx and the controversial lady who largely controlled his life in his last years, Erin Fleming. I have no idea why they saw a need to dredge this story up again and it feels like — and I'm sure this is not the case — this piece was written a decade or two ago and someone at the office found it in the files, realized they never published it and threw it up on the website.

I visited Groucho at his home once during the Erin days and also was present when in her company, he visited the set of a TV show I was writing. Because of those limited interactions, people ask me for my view on the Groucho/Erin situation. My answer is simple: She did some good things for him, she did some bad things to him, and if you want to know more than that, read my pal Steve Stoliar's book. Steve was hired by Erin to assist Groucho and was on the premises for much of those final years. Even before I met him though, I knew he was in a better position than anyone to report on what transpired and had reported it accurately and without self-interest.

I will say that the mercurial Ms. Fleming struck me as one of those people unable to cope with the vagaries of a show business career. To have even a chance at one, you have to grasp and deal with how unpredictable it can be; how you can do everything right (you think) and still not get what you want while someone else doing everything wrong (you think) gets everything you want. The Vanity Fair article more or less charts Erin's slow but certain detachment from reality as she discovers that taking care of an aging comedy legend just might not have been a pathway to fame and/or fortune. Groucho could be pretty unpredictable too.

Somewhere in there, you have to ask yourself what he would have done without her and most speculations along those lines do not lead to better Golden Years for the man. So I dunno. If you want to pursue this line of thought, read Raised Eyebrows by Steve Stoliar. You can buy it on Amazon or save a few bucks and get it autographed by the author over on his webpage. Then you can weigh the good things against the bad and become as maddeningly ambivalent as everyone else is on this matter.

This is a message from my pal Jerry Beck, following up on this post about how the TV networks used to decide what shows to cancel on their Saturday morning schedules, which ones to renew and which ones to revamp. Here's Jerry…

Great answer, Mark — informed as always by your inside knowledge of the industry and your personal role as a producer and writer for that daypart.

My answer about there being "new" programming each year on Saturday morning (the "one season thing") was always based on my observation as a viewer – and being 3000 miles away from the Hollywood cartoon factories. I actually think we are saying the same thing — though you added more insight from your end.

This all first occurred to me the year CBS put on Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space (in 1972). I didn’t think about it that much at the time, other than "why would they change the series format so drastically?" The following years brought forth the likes of a re-titled The Think-Pink Panther Show (1975), and the expanded Tarzan and the Super 7 (1978), as well as various Saturday renewals (though each year under a new name) of The Flintstones, Scooby Doo, Superfriends and The Archies.

Bottom line: Putting a new title on a popular series made sense for Saturday morning marketing — especially in those annual centerspread advertisements in Marvel, DC, Archie and Harvey comic books. There were a few exceptions to the rule — a popular show was occasionally renewed for a second season under its original name, but usually with a smaller order of new episodes (six?) for that second year. Star Trek: The Animated Series is one of those that comes to mind.

Of course, Garfield and Friends was a major exception to everything I said here.

I probably need to explain why Garfield and Friends was a major exception before I get a ton of e-mails asking me why and how it was. That show went into production with a two-season guarantee, which was very rare for Saturday morning. They ordered two seasons of thirteen episodes each and they also gave us more lead time than a new series usually got. Our producers could make this deal for a number of reasons, the main one being the extraordinary popularity of the character in his prime-time specials, the sale of his books and other merchandise…and the fact that Jim Davis and Lee Mendelson (two of our exec producers) said in effect, "Either we get this deal or we don't do the show."

Most cartoon studios couldn't say that — or if they did, they were bluffing. I don't think Hanna-Barbera ever said to an offer, "No, that's not enough money to do the show properly" or "No, that idea you want us to animate is a terrible idea for show."

When you had a studio that was set up to produce one or more weekly shows, you had this massive overhead of a building and a business and all the people you have on staff, many of whom have contracts and can't be laid-off if you don't sell a show or two one year. More than once, a studio was in the position that if they didn't sell X number of shows — sometimes even just one — they'd have to close down. It would be like trying to maintain a big restaurant when you don't have a single customer for a year.

But Jim and Lee had no studio. They had a relationship with Film Roman which was then a small operation doing mostly prime-time specials including the Garfield specials. Film Roman could have easily survived if the show didn't sell or didn't sell that year. When it did, they expanded their operation, hiring on new people and eventually moving to a larger building in order to produce it. It also mattered that Lee Mendelson had that long, mutually-prosperous relationship with CBS over the Peanuts specials and other prime-time productions.

So they got the deal and they gave me a two-year contract to do the twenty-six half-hours. When we went on the air, the ratings were so strong and the show reran so well that CBS came back and said, "Can we make it an hour?" So the second season, instead of being thirteen half-hours was thirteen hours…and as we were finishing those, they gave us an order for Season #3 and shortly after that, for #4. No one ever came to us and asked, "Can we freshen this by putting it into outer space or adding in Baby Garfield or anything?" We wound up producing 121 half-hours of what was basically the same, unfreshened series…and it could have gone on for longer but with the annual raises built into the contracts, it got too expensive for the network. And there were a few other reasons.

Thanks for the message, Jerry, and I'll tell everyone reading this that, first of all, you'll be appearing on March 8 here in Los Angeles on a program called "The Genius of Jay Ward: Rocky, Bullwinkle, Rarities and More." It's free and it's in connection with U.C.L.A. and ASIFA and details about it can be found here.

And I'll also tell them that you'll be at WonderCon Anaheim and that one of the many things you'll be doing there is appearing on a panel on the history of Hanna-Barbera with our friend Greg Ehrbar and me. That'll be on Friday right after a panel I'm hosting on "How to Write for Animation." I'll be posting a schedule of all the panels I'm doing there when we get closer to the convention.

And lastly, I'll also tell everyone that Jerry and I are part of the committee that is arranging for a memorial/celebration of life for our dear friend Mike Schlesinger who left us on January 9. We think we have a time and place for it and will be announcing it soon. It should be a great event all about a great guy.

Another sketch from British TV comedy show Sez Les with its star, Les Dawson, and special guest John Cleese…