I've been swamped the last week or two with legal matters, medical matters and deadlines such that I haven't been following the news as faithfully as I often do. This is not always bad because there's certainly such a thing as following the news too closely. There are a number of things I'll never understand even if I pay close attention…and no, I'm not asking any of you to explain because I'm not sure anyone can.

I will never understand someone like Eric Swalwell, who was a rising star in the Democratic Party and who stood a real good chance of becoming the next Governor of California, and why he did what he did. His public career exploded practically overnight and he withdrew from that race and Congress and will probably never be seen again in any significant capacity. And what I don't understand is the "How the hell did you think you could get away with that?" aspect. There's the obvious immorality of certain actions involving women but there's also the real, real bad judgment call to think he couldn't/wouldn't end up like Anthony Weiner. I thought the guy was smarter than that.

Speaking of The Dick Van Dyke Show — as I often am on this blog — I posted links to watch my Ten Favorite Episodes here a while back and talking about it the other day inspired my friend Shelly Goldstein to pick out her Ten Faves list and to invent a few extra categories.  Here's what Shelly thinks. Her list is not in order of preference, but in order of when they aired starting with Season 1…

1. It May Look Like a Walnut
2. I'm No Henry Walden
3. That's My Boy
4. Big Max Calvada
5. October Eve
6. The Impractical Joker
7. Baby Fat
8. 100 Terrible Hours
9. Coast-to-Coast Big Mouth
10. The Gunslinger

SPECIAL MENTION – EPISODE THAT FEATURES THE BRITISH INVASION
The Redcoats Are Coming (Hey! I love Chad & Jeremy speaking Liverpudlian)

SPECIAL MENTIONS FEATURING BUDDY & SALLY

1. The Life & Love of Joe Coogan (Rose's single best line delivery in the entire series: "Where's this tall, good-looking, charming PRIEST you wanted me to meet?!?!?!?!")
2. Buddy Sorrell, Man & Boy
3. Romance, Roses & Rye Bread (I love when the show made fun of 1960s avant-garde off-Broadway theatre)

SPECIAL MENTIONS – "LET'S PUT ON A SHOW" EPISODES

1. Too Many Stars – Ann Morgan Guilbert's "Sentimental Love Song" steals the show
2. The Sam Pomerantz Scandals
3. The Secret Life of Buddy & Sally

So that's Shelly's list. Please don't send me yours. And she inspired me to post links to ten more of my favorite episodes. So you can see my Top Twenty over on this section of this blog.. Happy viewing.

Nick Offerman on The Daily Show…

I guess the thinking is "What are they going to do?  Fire me?"

Some time back here, I selected my ten favorite episodes of my favorite TV program, The Dick Van Dyke Show.  I posted the list with links so you could watch all ten.  Lately, I've received emails asking why I took that page down.  I didn't take it down.  It's right here where it's always been.  I just need to post more links so you can find it.

UPDATE: I just moved it to this address. You'll see why.

If you have a subscription to Slate, you can read the latest Fred Kaplan column on what's going on with Trump, his war and international affairs. If you don't have a subscription to Slate, I'll give you a one-line summary of what Fred wrote: Nothing is going right for this man who got us into a war and doesn't have a clue how to get out of it.

That's me in the center flanked by two men who were very important to my life…and to the lives of a lot of folks my age. The man on the left is Marty Krofft, who passed away November of 2023 at the age of 86. The man to the right of me is his brother, Sid Krofft, who passed away last Friday at the age of 96. Together, those two men created some of the most unconventional and popular entertainment vehicles in television, motion pictures and live performing.

I wrote about Marty then. I need to write about Sid now. Consult the Marty obit for a very partial list of what these men gave us.

If you never met Sid Krofft, I'm sorry. You would have loved him because everyone did. A sweeter, more fascinating person you'll never find. You'll also never find anyone who had a more interesting life, starting with the fact that as a kid, he actually, honestly, for-real ran away from home to join the circus. He had a puppet act and over the years, it grew from a kid's puppet act to the puppet act of its day.

I started working for Sid and Marty in the seventies. On the set of the first show I wrote on, there was one of those moments you never forget. We were taping on Stage 6 at the KTLA studios in Hollywood and Jim Henson dropped by the set. I think he was on the lot to tape a guest shot on Dinah Shore's talk show or something of the sort. He came by to say hello to Sid and they talked for a while. I heard none of the conversation but I was standing with one of the Krofft Puppeteers who worked on the show. We watched Sid and Jim chatting and this career puppeteer said to me, "That's history — the most important puppet guy of one generation and the most important puppet guy of the next one." Indeed.

Sid and Marty were important. They knew everyone in the show business of their era — everyone. One day, I asked Sid a question about Liberace. For years, Sid and his puppets were Liberace's opening act. Sid didn't know the answer to my question so he called to his secretary, "Trudy, would you get Liberace on the phone, please?" And maybe thirty seconds later, Trudy said, "Liberace on Line Two, Sid"" I always thought that line said something about the Kroffts: "Liberace on Line Two!"

They knew everyone. They worked with everyone. Everyone owed them one or more favors, which is how they got everyone — well, nearly everyone — to appear on the shows they produced. They were famous for doing things that were original and unique and memorable. When I was a kid, H.R. Pufnstuf was the most unreal thing on Saturday morning, even though everything else was animated and Pufnstuf was live-action. Even Marty would tell you that was mostly because of Sid.

And Sid would have given Marty full credit for the show actually getting made…which in this case, involved going ridiculously overbudget and losing them a fortune. It all worked out because some of the other things they did were ridiculously profitable but that was how they rolled. It was important (usually) to spend whatever they had to spend to do it the way they considered right. The first prime-time special I worked on with them, the network gave them $500,000 to make it and they spent seven.

That was one of the things I loved about working for them. Another was their loyalty to their people.  It was one of those rare outfits in the entertainment where you weren't hired so much as adopted into the family.  They were also loyal to anyone at home who might tune in because it was "a Krofft show," always concerned to not disappoint their fans — and they had a lot of them.  They'd learned directly from Walt Disney to plaster their names on everything they did.

Sid and Marty argued a lot…a lot. Sid had wild ideas — plenty of them — and I don't know how many times I heard Marty, who dealt way more with the money end of things than Sid did — say, "Jesus Christ! Do you know how much that would cost?"  But they never argued over the principle that you needed to spend money to do things right. They did good shows and bad shows but the bad ones were never bad because they skimped on the money.

There was something magical about Sid. He had this way of appearing whenever he was needed and disappearing when he wasn't. You never saw him arrive, you never saw him leave. He was suddenly there to discuss whatever had to be discussed and then, when there was nothing to discuss, he suddenly wasn't there. Believe me: I tried watching him and never quite saw how he did it. I know why he did it. It was his way of coping with the only thing he didn't love about show business: The stress. He avoided it as much as possible, which may be how he outlived his younger brother by ten years.

He also never looked his age. I don't know how many times I had to tell people, "No, Sid is older than Marty!"

There's so much more I could say about these men so this will not be the last post about either. It's just something I felt I had to write now that the years of Krofft Entertainment have finally drawn to a close. Which doesn't mean all those shows won't be rerun over and over and discovered by new generations who will wonder, "Who came up with that?" Usually, it was a lovely, brilliant man named Sid.

Very busy today. There may not be much new content here 'til tomorrow. I shall make it up to you.

I decided I've had quite enough A Cappella ABBA medleys. So here's an A Cappella Disney medley..,

It's been a hundred years since Mr. Laurel began making movies with Mr. Hardy. Here's a short segment from British television taking note of their anniversary…

Guess what Jon Stewart’s talking about on tonight’s Daily Show…

I'm kinda busy today so it's a good time to introduce a new feature here on the blog.  Every so often, I'm going to bring you something FROM THE VAULT, which is not a vault at all.  It's a section of my computer's hard disk holding stuff I wrote a long, long time ago but which has never appeared on this blog before.  The opinions expressed in these pieces may not coincide with my opinions today…and, knowing me as I do, they may not even coincide with the opinions I had the day after I wrote them.  This is a piece I wrote for The Comics Buyers Guide, in this case, for the issue dated December 26, 1987…

It's about me going to elementary school classrooms to teach students about cartooning. I don't believe I've done it during this century…or if I did, it was still a long, long time ago. Here's what was on my mind the last time I did this — or close to the last time…

---

Yesterday, I did something I haven't done in a long time. No, not bathe. I do that every six months, whether I need to or not. What I haven't done in around ten years is to go to a school and instruct kids on the fine art of cartooning. The first time I ever did this was 1970. It's frightening to think that the kids I then taught how to draw Mickey Mouse are now old enough to be senior animators at Disney.

Since then, I've paid about thirty visits to classrooms, usually in elementary schools, often in downscale neighborhoods. I go in, talk to the kids about cartoons, draw some characters for them, and then take them step-by-step through the mechanics of drawing Charlie Brown, Mickey Mouse and a few others of simple construction. It is always educational, as much for me as for the pupils. Here are some of the things I've learned doing this…

1. Kids really, really like cartoons. Back when I was ten, back when I was physically my present mental age, I liked cartoons a lot more than anyone else in my class. Today, if the school I visited yesterday is representative — and I think/hope it is — children all like cartoons as much as I did then.

2. They really, really are fascinated by how cartoons are made. They genuinely want to know how it's possible to take a pencil and a piece of blank paper and make Yosemite Sam appear.

Before my first visit, I assumed they'd welcome my appearance just because, hey, it's more fun to hear about cartoons than about Long Division. Wrong. Every single classroom I've dropped in on has been abuzz with anticipation that they were going to meet one of those magical people who makes cartoons happen and learn The Secret. Or, at least, some of The Secret.

3. I drew well enough. Though I've made a few bucks at the board, Mort Drucker does not tremble at the competition. In fact, ever since I got involved in comics, I've been surrounded by people who could draw better with their wrong hands than I can with my right. I apprenticed with Jack Kirby and I work with Sergio Aragonés, Dan Spiegle, Steve Rude, Dave Stevens, Will Meugniot, Scott Shaw! and others in their league. After hanging around those folks, it's tough to even walk into an art supply shop, let alone think of yourself as an illustrator.

Still, in front of a gang of pre-adolescents, it's different. When it comes to whipping out a fast Wile E. Coyote in marker on a big pad of newsprint, Chuck Jones in his prime could not be more impressive.

4. I shouldn't try to explain what I do. When I first visited a schoolroom, I was writing funny animal comics for Gold Key, and occasionally pencilling a cover or laying out a story. Later on, I became a guy who wrote cartoons for television and occasionally did a smidgen of the drawing. But just try and explain to a roomful of 11-year-olds what a script is or a rough layout, or how a storyboard works. My lessons used to bog down in long, incomprehensible explications of what I did, and no one ever understood. So I learned to just say, "Yes, I draw the cartoons" and get on to the important stuff.

5. All cartoons are current. The Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons have been effectively outta-production since the mid-sixties. The classic WB cartoons were made in the decades before that. The best Popeyes date back to the thirties.

All of these are wonderful but ancient history to those of us who follow the industry and art form. The current shows are the ones recently or presently in production…Superman, Pinky and the Brain, 101 Dalmatians, Men in Black, Channel Umptee-3, Life With Louie, etc.. But kids see both new and old cartoons on the same television sets, often on the same channels, so they're all new, all now. Kids neither know nor care that a good Yogi Bear cartoon is pushing forty.

This creates a strange time warp. While I was sketching Bugs Bunny one day in an inner-city classroom, I was startled to hear a 9-year-old boy begin doing an impression of Jerry Colonna. (Who's Jerry Colonna? Jerry Colonna was a wonderful character actor and comedian, most prominent back in the forties, most often found in and around the company of Bob Hope. Mr. Colonna died in 1986…but Bugs used to imitate him and spout his catch-phrases, so kids today do likewise, without having the foggiest notion who Jerry was, or even what most of those jokes mean.)

6. Kids really, really like cartoons. Yes, I know this is a repeat but it bears repeating. In my line of work, I encounter a lot of folks whose livelihoods involve the care and feeding of classic characters in animation or comic books. I'm not sure they all understand how important those characters are for non-financial reasons. They're part of peoples' lives, part of their childhoods…in some cases, part of Americana.

When I worked for Hanna-Barbera, I had some bloody battles with a couple of execs, all of them now long gone, to whom Scooby Doo was just a property to be exploited for its maximum, immediate profit potential. I wish I could have dragged those guys along to any of the classrooms I've visited. Maybe, just maybe, they could have glommed onto the notion that with great characters come great responsibilities.

The classroom yesterday would have been the perfect place to demonstrate this. I walked in the door with my big pad of paper and my big Sharpie markers and was immediately mobbed. "Are you the cartoon guy?" twenty eager youths asked eagerly. Their teacher had briefed them that I worked on the Garfield cartoon show, so a dozen Garfield books were immediately thrust at me for autographs. I had nothing to do with anything in those books but some now bear my signature.

I set up my equipment as more students filed in. The teacher had told them all to sit quietly until everyone was there, but they couldn't wait. I was assaulted — I believe that's an appropriate word — with questions:

"Do you do the voice of Garfield?" (No, a man named Lorenzo Music does.)

"How did you learn to draw?" (Lots and lots and lots of practice.)

"Do you get paid for doing cartoons?" (Yes, amazingly.)

"Can you draw our teacher?" (I can but it's dangerous.)

When all were present, I launched into a little routine I've developed in which I attempt to de-mystify the process of drawing. I draw a bunch of circles and ovals and then show how putting them all in the proper place creates the face of Mickey Mouse. Then I turn another circle into Charlie Brown and yet another into Garfield, and so on.

The kids all have paper and pencils and I take them through the steps of drawing these characters. This usually results in a certain delighted squeal of joy and elated cries of, "Look what I did!" I don't know that anyone in the room will ever venture seriously into the realm of cartooning, but I think it's worthwhile to impress upon them the following three points…

1. You can draw. You may not draw well but you can draw. Anyone can draw.

2. You should enjoy drawing. Some kids view everything they do, especially activities connected with school, as chores. You should draw when you want to draw and what you want to draw. And lastly —

3. If you want to draw better, you have to practice. And practice and practice and practice. And then you practice some more.

And as always, when you teach something, you learn a little about it for yourself. Yesterday, I learned, first and foremost, that I was hopelessly out of practice. At one point, I started drawing Barney Rubble but all the kids shouted out, "It's George Jetson!" I stopped, looking at the half-finished sketch, and decided they were right and I was wrong. So I went ahead and added George Jetson's hair and made a mental post-it that I need to brush up on my Barney. (I also need to learn to draw Spawn. He was the most-requested character I've never tried to draw.)

But I also learned something else. It happened after I left, reached my car, then realized I'd forgotten something and had to go back.

Class had let out but a few kids were straggling, including one who has maybe ten — a boy who'd eagerly aped my every drawing, proudly displaying each sketch for my critique and approval. His name may have been Gary (let's say it was) and if I had to bet on the student most likely to stick with cartooning, I'd have picked him.

"Look what I did," he exclaimed as he showed me a sketch of one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — Leonardo, I think. It wasn't a bad drawing at all — not given Gary's age. I've seen worse in print.

I was impressed — all the moreso because I hadn't taught the kids how to draw any Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I had broken Charlie Brown, Mickey Mouse and a few others into easy-to-follow steps for them, but I had given no instruction whatsoever about turtles or ninjas or mutants or even teenagers. Something in the previous hour had inspired Gary (if that was his name) to grab the baton and sprint on ahead.

He walked me back to my car. "What's your favorite cartoon show?" I asked. He fired back a list of darn near everything that's on the Disney Channel, Fox, Kid's WB, Nick and the Cartoon Network.

"What do you like best about cartoons?"

He stopped and thought for a second and then said, "My mom doesn’t like them."

"No," I said. "What is it that you like about them?"

"I like that my mom doesn't like them. My dad doesn't, either. When I put cartoons on, they leave the room or make me go in my room to watch them."

"Is that good?"

"Yeah," he said, as if that explained it. And, in a way, it did.

I suddenly thought back: When I was his age, there were times I liked being alone with my cartoons. There were times I liked watching TV with my folks but, of course, when I did that, we were watching their shows. It was also fun to watch my shows, which were all on at times when my parents couldn't or wouldn't watch.

I'd get up on Saturday morn at 6:00 AM — about the hour I now go to bed — and creep out to the living room and turn on the cartoons. I'd sit up real close and turn the volume knob way down — as low as it would go and I could still hear. I didn't want to wake Mom and Dad, and not just because I was a considerate little cuss.

I didn't want to wake them because this was my time. My shows were on, and the living room was mine for a while. When you spend most of your week living in an adult world, going to a school run by adults, eating what adults want you to eat, reading what adults tell you to read…well, it can be nice to have a little kid time.

That was another great thing about certain comic books back then; they were for us, not for adults. I'd forgotten that aspect of them. So I asked Gary about this favorite comic books…and you know what he named as his favorite comic book? This kid — who loves every cartoon show and who loves the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles enough to force himself to draw them — you know what his favorite comic book is?

He doesn't have one. He's never read a comic book.

As long as I've been around the comic business, I've heard folks talk about trying to get their books more respect and to be more accepted in "real" bookstores like Barnes & Noble and Brentano's. There has never been a panel at a convention where they discussed the future of comics and someone didn't say, "We have to convince people that comics aren't just for kids."

That's a wonderful crusade — one I'm all for. But I'm wondering if maybe, with all this focus on upscale formats and grim-n'-gritty super-heroes, we aren't running the risk of marginalizing ourselves on the other end. Are we so eager to attract the readers over 18 that we're losing the ones under 11?

We say, "We want comics to be displayed like any other kind of book in Barnes & Noble." But the Barnes & Noble near me has a kid's section — a huge kid's section — and I've seen precious few comic shops that did. They simply don't have enough good stuff to put in one. (Usually, if they divide the material up at all, it's to isolate the naked lady stuff…the stuff they can get busted for selling to 14-year-olds.)We would like comics to appeal to all ages. Well, "all ages" would include my new protégé, Gary.

That's a potential comic book reader there but if he goes to the comic shop I stopped in on my way home, he'll find precious little he wants to buy or even can read.They had a small Disney section but it was geared for the adult who collects Carl Barks, not the kid who loves Donald Duck. And if they stocked DC's animation-related titles or Acclaim's new Disney books, they were sure well-hidden amidst the super-hero stuff and all those comics starring women whose thighs are six times the length of their heads.

They did have one of those spinner racks with the header plaque that says, "Hey, Kids! Comics!" but it was filled with books that aim well over Gary's young head. So instead of going out and buying funnybooks, he'll run home and turn on the Fox Kids Network or Nick or Kids WB. Maybe he'll discover comics in a few years when he's older. maybe he won't. It would be nice if those of you who publish and market comic books could discover him first…but you won't find him at any retailers' convention or booksellers seminar. You have to go to a schoolroom. And it helps if you take along Sharpies and a really big pad of paper.

I have so much to say about this amazing man I was privileged to know and work with for so many years. Unfortunately, I can’t say it now…but I will when I can.

Here's something I hope I never have to do but if I ever did, I hope I could do it as smoothly as this guy…