The late Richard Sherman was a delightful man who, alone and with his brother, wrote delightful songs, mainly within the awesome purview of Disney — Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book, many rides at the Magic Kingdom, etc. For a number of years, I always seemed to be at parties where he was present and there always seemed to be a piano and he always seemed to be willing, maybe even eager to serenade the guests. He would perform selections from his vast and vaunted repertoire and the number of tunes he was willing to perform varied between two and All of Them. No matter how many he favored us with, everyone present loved every note he played, every word he sang.

Right above this paragraph, I just put a photo from one of those parties. This one was at Leonard Maltin's house and left to right, we have Ian Whitcomb (the British pop star), Richard Sherman, me and Stan Freberg. If you don't know who Stan Freberg was, you have no business reading this blog.

At such parties — including this one, I think — one of the songs Richard performed was "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" from Mary Poppins. If you recall the movie, there's a point in it where Julie Andrews has to pronounce that word backwards. This is not easy to do. Here are some folks making valiant attempts…

At the parties of which I write, Richard would perform the song and in the middle of it, he would call on someone he knew to say the word in reverse. For some reason, it's pretty easy to say it forwards but tough to say it backwards if you don't know the secret, which is to not try to pronounce it backwards. I actually found the secret of pretending to say it backwards on the Internet and I apologize if me putting this word in this post is causing your screen to format oddly. WordPress is bad at hyphenation, especially of words it doesn't know.

As viewers of Mary Poppins know, "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" is a word that's… that's… well, it's supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. And there's a song about it. And in that song, Mary Poppins says that you could also say it backward, and does so. But how she does so is different between the film and stage versions.

In the recent stage musical, which opened in 2004 in London, and in 2006 on Broadway, Mary does what you might expect: she pronounces the word the way one would if its spelling were reversed. The backward version is suoicodilaipxecitsiligarfilacrepus.

In the 1964 film, however, only the syllables are reversed, with the exception of the first/last syllable. So, super-cali-fragil-istic-expi-ali-docious becomes docious-ali-expi-istic-fragil-cali-rupus. Our guess is that "rupus" was used instead of "super" because it sounded better.

The word does not appear in any of the Mary Poppins books by P.L. Travers.

So one day at the Magic Castle, I ran into Richard and we got to talking. It turned out that the following evening, we were both going to be at a party and Richard expected he would be asked to perform and, of course, he would. Among the songs he would perform was you-know-what. He asked me if I could say it backwards. I said, "No, can you?" And he did. He pronounced it the way Julie Andrews did and then he told me to learn it before the party. He said, "I'm going to call on you at the party to say it backwards and you'd better be prepared."

But he didn't tell me the secret way to do it…so I went home and tried to learn it and unfortunately, I am very, very bad at foreign languages and this, of course, was the most foreign of foreign languages — so foreign as to be non-existent. I might not have even been able to become proficient in saying it the Julie Andrews way but I sure couldn't learn to really say it backwards. I didn't have a video of the movie to study just then.

I gave it my best, which in this case wasn't very good, and at the party, Richard performed the song and at the proper point, he stopped playing, pointed to me in the audience and shouted out, "Mark Evanier, say it backwards!" And I just stammered and fumbled and I don't know what the heck came out of me but it was not a word — not even a made-up word — backwards or forwards or inside-out or sideways or whatever. It was just awful and everyone laughed at my ineptness. My pal Will Ryan, who happened to be standing near me, stepped up and did it properly.

I was shamed.

I thought of immediately leaving the party, going directly home and getting into bed — or maybe under it — and never leaving for the rest of my life. A few caring people assured me that wasn't necessary but I felt great guilt until I learned the syllable trick. Every so often, I brush up on it in case the ghost of Richard Sherman ever turns up and gives me another shot at it. I know that's not likely but I want to be prepared anyway.

What made me recall this story is that I came across the video below. It features Cantor Azi Schwartz, who was among the vocalists in this video I posted here for Hanukkah. Mr. Schwartz doesn't pronounce any of the words backwards. He instead sings the entire song — from right to left…

Actually, I'm not sure this is news but Comic-Con International has again extended its deal or contract or agreement or whatever you call it to remain in San Diego and convene at the San Diego Convention Center. The reason this may not be news is that I keep telling you they ain't moving. They're now committed there through 2027. And the reason I don't think they'll go elsewhere is that I can't imagine the movers 'n' shakers of San Diego being so all-fired stupid as to let this convention get away from them. They may talk tough and other cities may make it sound like they're going to steal the con away from them but I'm willing to bet serious money — someone else's, not mine of course — that the convention will stay where it is.

This year's, in case you haven't marked your calendar, runs July 24-27 with a Preview Night on the 23rd.

Speaking of such things: If you can't wait for Comic-Con (or can't get badges), it's only 72 days until WonderCon starts at the Anaheim Convention Center. It's March 28, 29 and 30…and no, that is not Easter Weekend. Easter falls on April 20th this year.

Run by the same folks who run Comic-Con, WonderCon is a great event…smaller than Comic-Con but with more than enough to see, hear and purchase. I will be there hosting panels. My partner Sergio Aragonés will not be in attendance but he's doing fine.

Three-day badges for WonderCon have been available for a while. Single-day badges go on sale tomorrow. All the info you need is here. A good time will be had by all.

My, a lot of Petula Clark fans read this blog. A number of you wrote to tell me that Ms. Clark had recorded a new version of "Downtown" in 2019 with a group called the Saw Doctors. I not only knew about it, I put it up on this site at the time.

And a lot of you wrote to remind me that Allan Sherman once recorded a parody of "Downtown" and that while in junior high school, I wrote my own parody of it and he threatened to take legal action over it. Believe me — I could never forget that but I've told that story three times on this blog. Here was its most recent appearance.

And a couple of you wrote to tell me — and this, I didn't know — that in 2013, Petula recorded a new, slower and sadder version of the song. I don't care for it as much, perhaps because I'm so used to the original tempo…but if you want to hear it, here it is…

After I listened to that, I had an urgent need to listen to the song the way I always heard it except when Allan Sherman was singing it. Fortunately, a few of you told me that two years ago, a new "mix" of the original song was released. That, I didn't know and here it is. This one, I like…

It's stunning that a simple song like this has had such a long life. It doesn't even really convey a message of any import and even when it first came out, downtown in most cities was the last place you'd go if you were alone and life was making you lonely. Downtown in most cities is not the best place to be. Still, there was something about the song…and the arrangement…and the way she sang it that made this record an all-time classic.

A few years ago, as I mentioned, Shelly Goldstein and I went to see Ms. Clark perform. She sang all her hits and she had a lot of them…but it was an especially thrilling moment for everyone present when she got to this one. My hands still hurt from applauding.

This will mostly be of interest to readers of this site who were involved with the Southern California comic book or punk rock communities. Alison Buckles Hennessey — known to most as just Alison Buckles — was found dead in her apartment last Sunday, apparently due to the leukemia she had been battling for quite a while. She was, I believe, 67 years old and she was an artist and sculptor and a notable figure in the local "punker" world. She worked in art galleries and comic book shops and was a fixture of comic book and s-f conventions in this part of the state in the seventies. She even worked as my assistant for a few months back in the eighties.

I wish I could tell you more about her but I hadn't seen her since…well, maybe the turn of the century. But others did and they're arranging a memorial service. She was a colorful, creative lady who brightened up any room she entered and was well-liked and loved by those who were fortunate enough to know her.

In 1964, British composer Tony Hatch and singer Petula Clark gave the world "Downtown" and it instantly became one of the most popular records anywhere at any time. She recorded it in English…

She recorded it in Italian…

She recorded it in French…

She recorded it in German…

And in the countries for which she didn't record it, many others did. It really was an amazingly popular song — amazing because it was so simple. In 2018, my friend Shelly Goldstein and I went to see Ms. Clark in concert and she sang it — and all her hits — and it was also amazing that she still sounded pretty much like she did when they first came out. Could I possibly have made a mixtape without this song?

Our friend Gary Sassaman does a real nice video series about comic books that meant a lot to him when he was younger. I like it because, among other reasons, the same comics meant a lot to me when I was younger. Here's what Gary's working on for this year…

Good obit about our pal Michael Schlesinger in Hollywood Reporter. And you can watch a number of his film criticism reports on this page at Trailers From Hell.

That's the Big Town Market. It was located at the corner of Pico Boulevard and La Cienega in the eastern part of West Los Angeles but it's no longer there. Twenty…probably more like thirty years ago, it and the "dime store" (that's what we called them even though nothing there was a dime) next door were replaced by a building that now houses a Chase Bank, an Autozone and a big retail space that's been unleased for quite some time. For a while in my teen years, I was a frequent patron of the Big Town Market even though I don't think I ever bought anything edible there.

Why was I a frequent patron when I wasn't buying food? To explain that, I have to explain how we bought comic books in those days.

There were no comic book shops or conventions and certainly no Internet. Comics were distributed like magazines. A store that had rack space for them would get deliveries of the current magazines, usually on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The store took them on a consignment basis, meaning that they put the magazines on display for sale…then they paid for the ones they sold and returned the ones they didn't sell. They could also return the ones that got wrinkled and shaggy from browsers poring through them without purchasing. They could also return the ones they didn't want to display or didn't have room to display.

Let's take Action Comics as an example. It came out monthly so every month, a store would get in X number of copies of the new issue of Action Comics. "X" was determined by the distributor's representative and the store manager taking a look at how many they were selling, how many they were returning and (mainly) how much rack space was available. They generally did not look at how individual titles were selling or whether the store's customers seemed to like super-heroes or talking ducks. The distributor gave them an assortment and the store manager might say, "Give me 20% fewer comics next week" or "I have space on my racks…give me 20% more comic books."

The store would keep the January issue of Action Comics on the rack until one of these things happened..

1. He was sold out of it.
2. The remaining copies became too tattered to sell.
3. The February issue of Action Comics arrived or…
4. The rack was getting too crowded so he'd return some of the comics that had been there for a few weeks to make room for the new arrivals.

Regarding #4: Curious about the process, I asked a few storekeepers how they decided which ones to send back. The unanimous reply was "The ones that look like they've been there for a while"…meaning the ones getting wrinkled and tattered. Comic books then were printed on the cheapest paper possible so they had a tendency to wilt easily in the racks.

This decision was usually made with no regard to the content of the comics or the publisher or anything. The guy who ran the store didn't know one comic from another and they made too little off each comic they sold to bother paying attention to whether their patrons preferred Archie over Casper. But there may have been one exception to this.

I have a theory that one of the reasons Marvel did so well in the sixties — to the point where they had DC sweating — is that some Marvel fans made their presence felt. They actively began asking at stores when the new Marvels would be in or complaining because the store was sold out of Fantastic Four. I don't know if Marvel fans were more plentiful than DC fans but I think they were more loyal. It may also may have had something to do with Marvel doing so many stories continued from one issue to the next.

The arrival of the February issue of Action Comics was, in theory, the time to send back the unsold copies of the January issue.  In truth, most distributors would take back any unsold product at any time.  Also in truth, most comics did not get a full month on the racks.  See #4 above.

And in my theory, when it came time to send back unsold comics because they needed the space for newly-arriving books, some store proprietors were aware they had kids asking about the Marvel books and chose to not send them back. So the Marvels got more time on the racks and therefore, more time to sell.

Now, I know this is getting too deep into the weeds for some of you and you may be wondering what this has to do with Mark going to a supermarket often to not buy any food. I'll get to that in Part 2, which will be up here in the next few days.

And here's another one of those YouTube presentations of a feature film which may be free to watch, may be free to watch with ads, or just plain might not be free at the moment…but that can change. From 1982, it's the movie which caused a helluva lot of people to decide to try to become stand-up comedians. It's Richard Pryor Live On The Sunset Strip. Caution: Contains Language…

This is probably silly and trivial but I'm sure I've posted sillier and more trivial things on this blog. I continue to be amazed that big companies do this. I copied it off the website for Ralphs Market, which is what they call Kroger Markets in what's left of California.

These were on the same page: Your chance to buy four 14.5 ounce cans of Chef Boyardee Spaghetti & Meatballs for five bucks or you can buy the same four cans with a wrapper around them for $1.49 more.  And I'm guessing that if you go into the store, these are right next to each other on the shelf and enough people buy the four-pack for the store to continue to stock them…and those customers think they're getting a bargain.

The last time I pointed this out, the four-pack was $6.29.  By the end of the year, it'll probably be seven bucks.

You may have heard of industrial musicals.  They can be performed live or filmed and they're often produced on big budgets and with major talents involved.  But they're not seen by the general public.  Some company makes them as a sales tool for their products or to teach or energize their employees of…well, there are a lot of purposes.

Here's a filmed one that runs a little over a half hour and it stars Stubby Kaye, who presumably was paid well for his participation.  It was made for the Bell Telephone folks to push the idea that florists can network over the phone to get flowers delivered to customers.  I don't know much more about it than you will after you watch it if you watch it. Thanks to several different folks who sent me links to this…

Here are five more pretty-good (I think) movies that are currently free to watch on YouTube. As with all of these, they may suddenly not be free or may not be free without ads but right now, they're free. Someone has classified them as adult in some undefined way so YouTube will not allow me to embed them but if you click on the hyperlinked name of any of these movies, you should be able to watch it — at the moment, free and without ads…

I always really liked Billy Wilder's 1960 movie with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, The Apartment.

And I always liked another film made the same year, Inherit the Wind, starring Spencer Tracy and Fredric March. Hard to believe this film was directed by the same man who, just three years later, directed Tracy in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

And also from 1960: The Magnificent Seven. If you know, you know.

And moving up more than a few years, here's the Director's Cut of Mr. Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Warning: Don't watch this if you're seated next to Abe Vigoda. Here's why and yes, I know Abe Vigoda has passed-away but with him, it was hard to tell.

And I can't embed it but if you're in a Christmasy mood, you might enjoy one of the most-imitated movies ever made, Die Hard.

I have a question from the Netherlands — from Theo van Amelsvoort…

A few posts ago you mentioned that you received a free link to see the SNL movie. I was always under the impression that the companies who wanted to promote their movie for awards would send out free DVDs to people eligible to vote. And that voters would get dozens of DVDs. Do they still do that? Or do some do and others via a link to view online? Do you have a preference?

Yes, they used to do that…and I would get tons of them each year, way too many to possibly view. I got them as a member of the Writers Guild. I got them as a member of the Television Academy. I got them as a member of ASIFA, the Animation Society, which I don't think I belong to anymore. I got an awful lot of them…and a lot of them had these dire threats to prosecute the hell out of me if I didn't destroy them after one viewing. It was like: "You didn't ask for this but since we sent it to you, you're obligated to follow our instructions as how to handle them or we'll put you behind bars!"

But that was before most of us were hooked-up for streaming services and being able to watch stuff on the Internet on our TV sets and such. It was also before someone realized what a tremendous waste of money and time and resources it was, to say nothing of the environmental impact, to send out zillions of unsolicited DVDs. (And before that, they used to send out VHS tapes.) Some of them came in very elaborate, expensive packaging.

So I think some of the studios got together and switched to sending out links with passwords to watch their offerings online…and I think pretty much everyone else fell in line. I only got about ten "For Your Consideration" DVDs this year. One of them was Anora and a lady friend and I were halfway-through watching it when all my electricity went out a few nights ago.

Thus, the answer to your question is: Yes, they used to do that…and no, they don't do it very much anymore. I do however get a number of copies of the screenplays to read, as well as some links to read them online.

It's hard to get my mind off the fires. They're still raging, still very far from me, still likely to continue for some time. I'm saddened for the folks whose homes and even lives have been destroyed. I'm angry at the political types trying to blame this on their opponents. (Politifact and FactCheck.org both have good summaries of lies being told.)

What little I've seen of the news has spent way too much time focusing on the celebrities whose homes burned. Then again, I don't see what's achieved by interviewing anyone, famous or not, at one of the worst moments of their lives. I remember a local disaster when I was young — I think it was when the Baldwin Hills Dam burst and flooded local neighborhoods. It was not as big a catastrophe as the current one but just as painful to the people who were affected.

One of the local TV stations that was covering it all had its News Director (or someone in charge) taking phone calls live. My mother called up, got on the air and asked, "What good does it do to shove a camera into the face of someone who's just lost their home? Aren't these people entitled to a little privacy at an hour like this?" The News Director (or whoever it was) said, "You obviously have no idea what news is," then he punched a button to disconnect her call.

I remember her standing there, holding the phone handset in her hand and saying, mainly to herself, "Well, now I know what it's about on your channel."

I feel bad for all the people affected including those who are or will experience collateral damage. The guy who cleans my pool stopped by this morning to do his duty here and then he asked if I could pay my next few bills in advance because he's lost a third of his clients. Some of those whose homes were destroyed owed him for past services and he can't bring himself to send them bills for what they owe him. It's not a huge amount of money compared to most losses but he needs it to pay his rent, buy groceries, etc.

Meanwhile, we're all checking on our friends, breathing barbecued air and getting very frustrated that there's no instant cure to stop the devastation. I'm going to try to work on assignments and when I do post here, it'll mostly be things unrelated to the fires, just to get my mind off these horrid events. Maybe some of it will help you do likewise.