Jan Wagner of The San Diego Union-Tribune was at WonderCon and seems to have enjoyed everything — especially our Cartoon Voices panel.

FactCheck.org discusses how misleading Trump's chart about his tariffs was. And the folks at Snopes explain some of the math in those charts.

Trump is citing a number of economists as being optimistic about his tariffs. According to Glenn Kessler, they don't think so much of it. I'm not seeing many people who do like the plan who seem to know what they're talking about.

More sad news this morning…the passing of actress Elaine Ballace who, I believe I read on Facebook, had been battling pancreatic cancer in recent months. Elaine was not only an actress but also a model and a writer and a producer and a director and an activist for various worthy causes and, much earlier in her life, a championship ice skater — one of those gifted folks who could do anything and everything.

I don't know her age but she was at least 18 in October of 1976 when I went to work on the TV series, Welcome Back, Kotter. On the first Tuesday after my then-partner Dennis Palumbo and I were hired, they taped an episode called "Sadie Hawkins Day" in which Elaine had a bit part. She had already been on the show several times as a classroom extra with no lines and in this one, she was given something to say. (This was the infamous episode for which Groucho Marx came to the set to tape a cameo guest spot but once he arrived, it was decided that he was in no shape to perform. He just had some photos taken with the cast and then departed.)

Elaine's role on Kotter was as Juanita Levine and she was more or less the girl friend of Juan Epstein, the "Sweathog" played by Robert Hegyes. After the main taping was done that Tuesday evening and the audience had been discharged, they were taping pick-ups and I was sitting in the bleachers watching when Elaine came up and introduced herself. She was friendly and funny and cute and before long, we were dating. Here's a photo I took of her in my old apartment next to some badly-painted statues of Laurel and Hardy…

We stayed friends after the dating part of our relationship fell away…but she was still intermittently in my life. I was always running into her at some show biz event or spotting her on some TV show or movie. Mel Brooks used her in some of his films and she always seemed to have about eleven projects going. The last time I ran into her was at the funeral of Marty Krofft last December.

I said a few paragraphs back that she was friendly and funny and cute. I could have added "industrious," "stellar, "full of energy" and other positive adjectives. Just a lovely lady…

So: Trump announces tariffs all over the place and the next thing you know, the Dow Jones Industrial Average drops 1679.39 points and Fox News stops showing the little "How's the stock market doing at the moment?" ticker on their screen.

Here's Paul Krugman explaining just some of what's wrong with the plan. He's a lot nicer than some economists, including the Economist magazine which says of these tariffs, "They will cause economic havoc and take America's trade policies back to the 19th century."

I can't wait to hear how this is all Joe Biden's fault.

Marvel by the Month is a monthly podcast which, each month, takes an interesting look at a month in the history of Marvel Comics. Jamie Wenger, Bryan Stratton and Robb Milne are behind it and in the latest installment, they're looking at October of 1975 when Jack Kirby, who fled to DC Comics in 1970, returned to the house that some would say he built. That "some" includes me and I'm a guest on this installment.

If the embed below doesn't work, try this link. I come in at around the 28-minute mark…

I kinda assume — and maybe I'm wrong — that most folks who stop by to read this blog are also devout fans of The Daily Show. I am but I wasn't watching it very often when Jon Stewart wasn't behind the desk doing segments like this one from last Monday…

But lately, I've been watching episodes when he isn't there, especially the ones hosted by Jordan Klepper, Desi Lydic and Michael Kosta. I haven't been wowed by most of the correspondents they now have doing the faux remote segments and such but the host material has been pretty sharp. Here's a lead segment from this past week hosted by Mr. Kosta. I thought it was very smart and very funny…

Around the 'net, you can find many sites which say that when Carl Reiner and Sheldon Leonard were casting the program that eventually came to be called The Dick Van Dyke Show, it came down to deciding between Johnny Carson and Dick…and of course, Dick won out. I can absolutely believe that in their hunt for just the right guy to play Rob Petrie, either Reiner or Leonard or someone else said, "Hey, how about Johnny Carson?" They probably at some point had a whole list of names.

But I have trouble believing it ever came down to a choice between Dick or Johnny, Johnny or Dick. In various places, Mr. Van Dyke, Mr. Reiner and Mr. Leonard may have said it did but I don't believe it was that close a contest. Why? Because in December of 1960 when they were casting the pilot and in January of '61 when they filmed it, Johnny Carson was not available. He was hosting the game show Who Do You Trust? on ABC's daytime schedule…and you don't film a pilot with a star who is not under contract to appear in your series if a network orders a batch of episodes.

No network would ever even consider a pilot for The Joe Blow Show if the producers didn't have a contract that ensured they could deliver Joe Blow…and not just one season but for several should his show be a hit.

Now, I suppose it's theoretically possible that Carson's current contract to host the game show was coming to an end around that time and it's possible he was willing to take the gamble that the sitcom pilot would sell even though at no point in his career did he show the slightest interest in starring in a situation comedy…

…but I really doubt that. Most bios of Johnny say that after failing on any number of previous TV projects, he was delighted to have a hit with Who Do You Trust? He reportedly turned down several seemingly-better offers to leave it, including saying no to the first offers he got to host The Tonight Show.

And when he finally did decide to take the Tonight Show offer, the producer of the game show, Don Fedderson, refused to let Johnny out of his contract. That's why after Jack Paar left Tonight, they had six months of guest hosts until Carson's contract finally expired and he could take over. I just don't see any real possibility that he could have been a serious contender for the lead in Carl Reiner's situation comedy. Does anyone think that? No matter what anyone says?

I woke up this morning and almost my first thought was "I bet there will be fact-checks I can link to about Trump's speech yesterday on his tariffs." And sure enough, here's Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post and Daniel Dale of CNN covering a lot of the same ground.

Here's another video of those gents who go out and rescue seals who've become entangled in fishing lines or nets or other encumbrances. It makes me very happy to see that there are people who do this. Here again is the link to donate…

That's a photo that I took of Patty Maloney outside the studio where we were taping some TV show I wrote in the seventies…and if Patty was here, she'd say, "And it's actual size!"

Patty was 3 feet, 11 inches tall and weighed about the same as one of my shoes. I don't remember which TV program we were doing at the time but it was certainly for Sid and Marty Krofft's company. Patty was a regular Krofft cast member, appearing in many of their shows, though you often didn't know it. For them and for other producers, she was often inside some full-body costume.

For example, she once played portrayed a robot waitress named Tina on the series, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. But one time when I was on the set of that show, she was in the costume of the regular male robot, Twiki, because the actor who usually did that role, Felix Silla, was out sick. Mr. Silla was the same height so when you see him credited for any job where you couldn't see who was in the suit, it was sometimes Patty — and vice-versa.

Patty also stunt-doubled for children and was often cast where you could see it was her and she acted with her voice instead of just her compact frame.  She also did voices for cartoons from time to time.

Often, including twice on shows I worked on, she was cast as Billy Barty's spouse or lady friend. There was an episode of the sitcom, Phyllis starring Cloris Leachman. Forgive the possible height-shaming but it was a very funny episode. Phyllis's daughter Bess was dating a boy of normal height and it made Phyllis uneasy that the boy's parents were…well, the heights of Mr. Barty and Ms. Maloney, who played them. In one scene, Phyllis poured out her worries to the character played by Richard Schaal, who wasn't the brightest character on TV and it went something like this…

LEACHMAN: I don't know what to do. Beth wants to date a boy whose parents are midgets.

SCHAAL: Well, I hope she finds one.

LEACHMAN: No, no. Beth is dating a boy whose parents are midgets.

SCHAAL: Well then, problem solved!

These days, some folks might be uncomfortable with that joke but it got a huge laugh. More importantly, both Billy (I worked with him, too) and Patty loved it. They both had great senses of humor and were happy to build their careers around such material.

Patty was just delightful — they both were — and I was sorry to hear a few years ago that she was ill and had lost most of her sight. She passed away on Monday at the age of 89.

Our friend Michael Schlesinger passed away this past January. I refer to Mike as one of the best friends movies ever had because he was an expert on just about all of them and a tireless advocate for treating them right — restoring them, preserving them, making them available, etc. He was often successful in all these goals, plus he made some interesting films himself.

This coming Sunday, April 6th, a couple hundred of his friends (he had a lot) will gather at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica to celebrate that we had him in our lives. I'm the host and there will be guest speakers and film clips and such. The doors open at Noon, we'll start the ceremony around 12:30 and when it's over, we'll take an intermission then present Mike's (and my) favorite movie the way it's supposed to be seen — on a big screen with a big audience.

I'm speaking of course of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, produced and directed by the great Stanley Kramer. That will start on or around 2:00 PM and I'll be introducing it but, even better, so will Stanley's great champion and life-partner, Karen Sharpe-Kramer.

The Aero's a big place so we still have some seats left for the Celebration of Life. Click the box below for more info or if you want to RSVP, write to celebrateschlesinger@gmail.com. and please (pretty please!) tell us how many seats you want and if you're staying for the film. There's no charge if you attend the Celebration and the movie.

And if you can't make it to the Celebration and you just want to see the movie, we're letting the Aero sell tickets for whatever seats we don't fill. You can buy those over on this page.

I think that's everything I need to cover except to remind you that the Aero is a terrific theater but parking in that area can take a little while…so allow extra time. You don't want to miss a moment of what's looking like a wonderful afternoon about a wonderful friend.

Trump is claiming that in two months, there have been more commitments to private investment in this country than there were in the four whole years of "the Sleepy Joe Biden Administration" — and whenever Trump applies that adjective to his predecessor, you just know he's lying. Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post explains why this particular brag is (at best) way premature and (most likely) never going to be true.

Meanwhile, FactCheck.org has this article up on why Trump's claims about Canadian dairy tariffs are misleading…because of course they are.

Every day, ocean creatures become ensnared by nettings, fishing lines, plastic pollution and other seagoing debris that Man discards or forces upon them. Here's some amazing footage of the seal rescue team from Ocean Conservation Namibia going out and doing what they can do to help. If I were a lot younger and physically able to do what the folks in this video do, I might very well go do it. Since I'm not and I can't, I sent them a donation.

Watch this video and if you're similarly motivated, here's where to donate…

WonderCon 2025 is history so I deleted the little unpaid ad I had for it in the right margin of this page. I don't charge for anything you see there, though I get a commission from a few. I know some of you were there for the con. In fact, I greatly enjoyed talking to some readers of this site who I'd never met. I also spent a lot of time seeing chums, hosting panels and showing my friend Gabriella around her first comic-type convention. Three very busy fun days.

Seven was the number of panels I hosted and/or appeared on. Two that I especially enjoyed involved another writer and Yours Truly. On one, Danny Fingeroth (who among his other credits wrote a biography of Stan Lee) and I (biographer of Jack Kirby) discussed those two men. I think some audience members came expecting a knock-down wrestling match but it was a civilized and interesting — some in the audience told me — conversation. On the other, Mark Waid and I just took questions from the audience. Mark expects to be at Comic-Con this July and Danny might be. I'll probably be doing sequels to these panels there with one or both, depending on who's around.

The Cartoon Voices panel was one of the funniest we've done. It consisted of, as seen left to right in the photo above: me, then Candi Milo, Wally Wingert, Daniel Ross and Kimberly Woods.  There was also, at the end of the script reading we did, a surprise appearance by Cookie Monster, who devoured the script and attempted to feast on some Candi.

We had the annual Jack Kirby Tribute panel and our scheduled one-hour panels on Hanna-Barbera History and How to Write Animation kinda turned into one two-hour panel on how cartoons were made.  Participating along with me were Brynne Chandler, Paul Dini, John Semper and Greg Ehrbar.  I also guested on a panel that Gary Sassaman did on the history of the Fantastic Four and…well, I spent a lot of time talking about Jack Kirby.  As I always do at conventions…happily.

I enjoyed showing my friend Gabriella Muttone around her first-ever convention.  Gabriella is an accomplished model and photographer, and she felt right at home among all the creative types to be found in and around the WonderCon exhibit hall.  There were some remarkable arts 'n' crafts on display and you can't see it in the photo above but she bought a beautiful velvet blouse with a kind of medieval look to it.  You can see some of her photography on her Instagram page but be careful.  There's a video there of her dancing — in my bathroom, no less — to Frank Sinatra's version of the song I wrote about here back in this post. She also took the photo of me in the WonderCon program book…wearing the same hat as in the above photo.

Outside the hall as usual, one could find an amazing array of cosplayers, some of them in costumes that showed great craft and creativity. I like the way those folks seem to be getting away from merely trying to replicate existing characters from comics and movies and are more into original ideas. Then again, there was a Spider-Man there who looked more like the character than any photos I've seen from the movies. At least, he looked the part but when we rode up in the elevator together at the Anaheim Hilton, his spider-sense somehow did not alert him that he'd missed his floor.

My knees and left foot were acting up so I had to get around via wheelchair and Rollator. That's a Rollator in the above photo. In fact, it's the model that I have and it's been enormously handy since I fractured my ankle. I can walk but my balance is still a little off and I can't walk long distances. The advantage of the Rollator — and this is especially helpful wandering around a big convention — is that you always have that seat to sit on. No chairs around when you need to sit down for a sec? Sit on your Rollator.

If you're ever walking poorly or know someone who is, it's better than a walker for most purposes…and they're not as expensive as you might think. If you're still ordering from Amazon, they have 'em for a little over a hundred smackers. Other vendors have 'em for not much more. Caution: If you don't have the coordination to walk without one, you might not have the coordination to put one together. When I bought mine a year ago, I had my plumber do the assembly.

So…that was WonderCon and I can start looking forward to Comic-Con. I'd start packing but first, I have to unpack.

I don't really think Trump is going to run for a third term. I kinda doubt he'll even finish out his second. I just think he says things — and their veracity doesn't matter one bit for his purposes — because he knows they'll thrill members of his hardcore base. Also of course, he has this "I can do anything I damn well want and no one can stop me" attitude about the world. Cut the clip from The Howard Stern Show where Trump says that because he owns beauty pageants, as he did at the time, he can walk into the dressing room when the contestants are naked.

The folks at U.S. News & World Report did a not-too-deep dive into the possibility of a third term happening.

Yesterday, I mentioned the possibility of Trump running as Vice-President to a cutout candidate who'd vow to immediately after taking office, resign and turn the Oval Office over to Donald. Based on my e-mail, I didn't do a good job of indicating that while that could be what Trump means when he says "There are ways of doing it," I don't think it would work — not now, not then even if by the next election, the Supreme Court consists of seven Clarence Thomas clones.

A few of you mentioned another way he might now think he could do it: Congress names him Speaker of the House and then the Republican ticket is two people who'd vow to step down right after taking office. That would, of course, depend on the G.O.P. having control of the House but even then, I don't think that would fly. It just might be one those "ways" he'll pretend makes him eternal.

By the way: This fact check I've linked to today is a strange one from the folks at U.S. News & World Report. At one point in it, they say — and this is actually in there; I cut-and-pasted it…

According to The Associated Press, the 12th Amendment states that "no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States."

What kind of fact-checker fact-checks something like that by taking some other fact-checker's word for it? Did it ever occur to anyone at U.S. News & World Report to go to a better source? Like, say, looking at a copy of the United States Constitution?