Monthly Archives: October 2008

I was out but managed to catch most of the debate on radio. From the sound of what I caught, it didn't sound like I missed much. These guys didn't do three debates. They did one debate three times. I'll be surprised if public reaction is much different.

Still, it sounded to me like McCain lost more points than usual for being cranky and for trying to convince us in every other sentence that Obama wants to raise taxes. I'm a little fuzzy on just what Mr. Maverick is claiming here. Obama says he would only raise taxes on about 5% of Americans…so is McCain claiming that that's a lie and that Obama would really raise them on everyone or almost everyone? Or is that claim here that raising taxes for anyone, even if it's only the wealthiest 5%, is wrong or dangerous? If the latter, I wish he'd say that.

Also, I think any time anyone says, "This is the wrong time to raise taxes," they should be required to tell us when the right time might be. If they can't, they oughta be honest and just say, "There is never a good time to raise taxes."

In any case, it won't make a difference in this election. Most of the 95% take Obama at face value when he says that their taxes will not increase…or at least, they believe him as much as they believe any politician who ever says that. The other 5% probably weren't going to vote for him anyway.

McCain lost more points when the two men were asked to explain why each running mate would make a good President. Obama expained why Joe Biden was qualified. McCain explained why Sarah Palin was a good role model for women, a good governor for Alaska and a good mother for her kids…but not why she was qualified for the Presidency. And he just sounded whiny complaining about attack ads against him, especially considering what his side has put on the air. When he said Obama has spent more money than he has on negative ads, I was waiting for Obama to say, "Only because you've run out of money."

The only real news seemed to be the discussion about ACORN, which was incoherent on the part of both men, and the exchange about William Ayers. McCain said he didn't care about it but that Obama had a responsibility to explain the nature of the relationship. Obama offered something that won't satisfy his detractors. Nothing short of a confession of treason and a concealed radical agenda will satify them. But it'll probably do it for anyone who might vote Obama-Biden, and there are already more than enough of them. Obama also won points for not itemizing some of the sleazy folks who McCain has palled around with over the years.

I'll also add that I thought Bob Schieffer did a much better moderating job than anyone else has. This one almost sounded like a debate at times.

Big Loser? McCain, because he's running out of time to change the game and nothing tonight did. Big Winner? Joe the Plumber, whoever he is. My friend Shelly Goldstein called to wonder who we'll see playing Joe the Plumber on Saturday Night Live this weekend. She's thinking John Goodman.

TV legend Jack Narz passed this morning at the age of 85 after suffering two massive strokes in the last three weeks. Narz was a fixture of early television, primarily as a game show host but also as an announcer and actor. His career went back to the first episode of the Superman TV series (the George Reeves one) where he served as narrator, and to the early science-fiction TV series, Space Patrol. He achieved greater fame as the on-camera announcer of the early situation comedy, Life with Elizabeth (1952) starring Betty White.

But it was the game shows for which he was best known, starting with Dotto in 1958. Dotto was an enormously popular series, broadcast in daytime and nighttime versions, up until the revelation that it was rigged. The famed Quiz Show Scandals pretty much started with this disclosure and Dotto was hastily axed. But the outrage did not touch Narz, who soon rebounded as the host of Top Dollar, followed shortly by Video Village and Seven Keys. Among the others shows he hosted were Concentration and Now You See It. He also worked as an announcer, panelist and/or producer on a dozen more shows, mostly for the Goodson-Todman company. (It was apparently a family thing. His brother, Tom Kennedy, also hosted a pretty impressive list of game shows over the years.)

Narz was extremely active in charitable causes over the years. I met him maybe a half-dozen times and he was a delightful source of anecdotes and information on television. He knew everyone. He'd worked with everyone. He seemed to get along well with everyone. A lot of folks will be very sad to hear that we've lost him.

Back in April of '07, Jack was a guest on Stu's Show, that great Internet radio show I'm forever plugging on this site. Item before last, I told you to listen in today when Stu Shostak interviews Tom Hatten and Jimmy Weldon at 4 PM Pacific. Now, I'll suggest you TiVo or tape the final Presidential Debate this evening and remain tuned to Shokus Internet Radio. Right after he interviews Hatten and Weldon live, Stu is going to replay his two-hour conversation with Jack Narz. One of the folks you'll hear calling in to praise Mr. Narz is me. (And if you want to watch Obama and McCain duke it out live, then you can hear the Narz interview tomorrow night in the same time slot — 6 PM 'til 8 PM Pacific.)

Hey, wasn't George W. Bush promising to cut our budget deficit in half before this year was over? I somehow have the feeling that ain't gonna happen.

We've lost a couple of legends of local Los Angeles TV lately but fortunately, we still have a couple to have and to hold. Better still, you can hear them interviewed later today and even call in and ask them questions. Stu Shostak's guests on Stu's Show, everyone's favorite weekly Internet radio station, will be Tom Hatten and Jimmy Weldon.

If you grew up in Los Angeles and you're close to my age, no further explanation is necessary. You remember how Tom Hatten hosted the Popeye cartoons on Channel 5 for much of my childhood and how he put his skills as a cartoonist to good use on those programs. He used to sketch the Popeye characters and give little drawing lessons, and if you think that didn't have a lot to do with my interest in cartooning, you're wrong. KTLA used him as a host for many years in many time slots, and he's more recently served as an entertainment reporter for KNX radio. This is in addition to his busy career as an actor…and he's also a classy, smart guy.

Opposite him at times, over on KCOP Channel 13, one could watch cartoons hosted by Jimmy Weldon and his ducky pal, Webster Webfoot. "Uncle" Jimmy was a master of duck talk and he not only spoke for his puppet pal Webster but also for Yakky Doodle, the baby duck on The Yogi Bear Show. He has since become a motivational speaker, flying all over the continent to fire up audiences…but always taking li'l Webster along with him. He's another great guy with a long career in broadcasting and a generation or two of kids who grew up watching him.

If you were/are such a kid, or if you just want to hear about the fine art of kids' show hosting from two masters, tune in Stu's Show today for a live broadcast. It all happens from 4 PM to 6 PM Pacific Time, which is probably 7 PM to 9 PM Eastern Time…and you can figure out the other time zones based on that. To listen in, go to the website of Shokus Internet Radio at the appointed hour and click as directed. This oughta be one of Stu's best episodes…and he's had some pretty good ones lately.

I track electoral votes at several websites but mainly at two. The more Conservative site currently has Obama at 369 electoral votes and the more Liberal one currently has him at 346.

When you're that far above the requisite 270, the details almost don't matter…but the Conservative site is awarding him Missouri, whereas the Liberal one has it at a tie, and North Carolina, whereas the Liberal one has that in the McCain column but weakening there. On the other hand, the Liberal site thinks Obama's ahead in North Dakota, which just feels wrong to me. There are a few other differences — and other sites which have a few blue states colored red or vice-versa…but the point is that Obama could lose every state where he's currently behind or even ahead by less than 3% and he'd still take the White House. This is the man some said was "not electable."

His lead scares me, as it would scare anyone who remembers recent Election Nights when it looked like the Democrat had won it. (Interestingly, as Bush's popularity has gotten down to around the level of cold sores, my friends who insisted he won both times "fair and square" all seem to be volunteering the suspicion that those elections were far from Kosher. It's like they want to absolve the voting public from blame for the outcome.) Since Obama is too hot not to cool down, and since the press loves a horse race, I expect we're in for at least one round of news stories about McCain coming from behind and closing the gap. Whether there's any evidence of it or not.

There are those who only visit this site apparently for news of Lydia, the feral cat I laboriously trapped last year and hauled in for a spaying and a kitty abortion. Lydia continues to be fed night and day on my back porch…one of four felines who've decided I'm running a Hometown Buffet out there with an emphasis on the "all you can eat" tagline.

They work in shifts, appearing out there at all hours to demand more, more, more and to provide inspiration for my current main tasks, which involve writing for a certain famous lasagna-loving pussycat. One of the others even seems to determine to outdo Garfield in the girth category. He's the one who, when I fill the bowl with a can of Friskies, often gives me the "What? No salmon?" look.

Lydia is the most grateful of the pack. In fact, the other day, she even left me a tip. It was a dead lizard. I gave her the same expression I've received from waiters when I leave anything under 20% and they look at me like I just left them a dead lizard.

Tomorrow night, I'll be participating in a panel at the University of Southern California entitled "Comedy and Politics." We're apparently going to discuss if there's a difference or how to tell the difference or something of the sort. Anyway, admission is free and the details are on this page.

And I've been added to the stellar guest list of The National, a fine comic book convention that takes place in New York, New York from November 14 through November 16. I'll be signing my book on Jack Kirby and I'll be hosting a number of panels, including one on Mr. Kirby.

But the biggest news is that later today, I'm going over to Costco to stock up on toilet paper, paper towels, Kleenex, ink for my printer, Heinz Ketchup and probably other stuff, plus I'm going to get some caffeine-free Diet Pepsi for my mother and Swiffer Mop refills to make my Cleaning Lady happy. I see they're also giving flu shots at Costco but unfortunately, they only have them in the 20-gallon size which lasts you until the year 2044. That's a little big for a flu shot, don't you think?

Kinda busy with a script that has to get finished before I can sleep, eat, breathe or even blog. New stuff will be here before long, including the answer to my question a week or so ago about Southwest Airlines. Back soon.

The following is a rerun. It's a warning I've posted here before and I'm going to post it every few months because this kind of thing is still victimizing people who purchase animation cels…

Every so often, you see some dealer selling "color model sheet" cels from old Hanna-Barbera cartoons or other TV productions. Sometimes, they claim these were used in the production process. Sometimes, this is implied. Sometimes, it's even true.

But about 95% of the time when you see a hand-painted, full-color model sheet cel, what it means is this: Some person who may never have worked for that studio or even in the industry got hold of a Xerox copy of a black-and-white model sheet. Then they had this line art Xeroxed or otherwise copied onto a cel. Then they painted it themselves. Usually, this was all done a decade or two after the cartoon show in question ceased production.

The dealer now selling this cel may not have done this. He may have acquired the piece from someone who recently manufactured it…or from someone who acquired it from someone who recently manufactured it. But the point is that most of these pieces were not produced in or for the studio. If I had a set of the right cel paints here, I could whip up one that was just as "authentic."

There's a lot of fake cartoon and comic art out there. eBay always seems to have at least one "original Charles Schulz drawing" up for bids that the Six Blind Men of Hindustan could spot as bogus. Common sense should tell you which ones would be the easiest to fake and among the easiest would be shaky sketches of Snoopy done in Flair pen, and alleged cels that anyone could have painted. They're not all fake but a lot of them are. Be wary.

I've voted. A few weeks ago, it looked like I might have to direct something on Election Day…and since my polling place is inconvenient enough during non-peak hours, I applied to vote by mail. My ballot is now marked and sent and I can report that Barack Obama will get at least one vote in the great state of California. It wouldn't surprise me if there were others.

I was reminded of how little my vote in that particular contest mattered when I was in Ohio last week. The state is "in play" so you couldn't turn on a TV or walk past one without seeing a McCain or Obama ad, usually a negative one. For the record, if I was even vaguely in the Undecided column, none of the attack ads would have budged my vote in the direction of the person doing the attacking. They all would have made me think less of the attacker.

So here's what we do next election to get our guy, whoever he is, elected. We form one of those 527 groups and we run attack ads…against the candidate we want to see win.

We make them outrageous and full of provable lies. We tell America that he's Osama bin Laden in a clever plastic disguise and that he molests small farm animals and embezzles money from orphanages and in his spare time, he's personally responsible for sending every piece of spam you ever got in your e-mailbox. We slam our guy so many ways that the opposition to him looks like a bunch of lying sleazeballs who deserve to be repudiated…and voters flock to him as a result.

I'll bet it would work. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if the Obama people had the same idea this year.