Monthly Archives: August 2012

Bai Yun, a panda at the San Diego Zoo, gave birth to her sixth cub on July 29. We finally have some video of the baby…

Here's a long but interesting essay by Sam Ennis and Anthony Resnick about Freedom of Speech as it relates to the Chick-Fil-A matter and beyond. A lot of people think the First Amendment guarantees them (a) the right to say something and be heard and (b) the right to say it and not have anyone suppress their speech by disagreeing with it.

My friend Roger says that Sarah Palin was fighting for the principle of Free Speech in this incident. Y'know, you're not really standing on principle until you defend the right of the other side to be heard. When you fight on behalf of your team, you're really just fighting on behalf of your team. When you fight on behalf of the opposing team, that's when you're standing on principle.

This is another one of those things I don't understand. In fact, it's several.

"Papa" John Schnatter, CEO of Papa John's Pizzas, is a Mitt Romney supporter and fundraiser. Okay, fine. If I were that rich, I might look more favorably on Romney but I hope I wouldn't. Anyway, Schnatter says that if "Obamacare" is not repealed, its requirement that his firm provide an affordable health care plan for his employees will kick his prices up around 15 cents a pie or an average of 25 cents per order. This is supposed to frighten us into voting for Romney, the man who vows to repeal "Obamacare" on Day One of his administration even though he probably doesn't have the power to do that.

First, doesn't that requirement — affordable health care — only apply to firms with 50 full-time employees? How many Papa John's Pizzerias have 50 full-time employees? I'm no expert on this but I was always under the impression that those sad-looking teens who show up at your door with your order were part-timers, working mostly when demand was highest. And how many people might there be back at the Papa John's restaurant making pizzas? But let's leave that aside and assume that, yes, the price of a pizza will have to go up fifteen cents or so to pay for those employees' health insurance.

Uh, what exactly is the problem here?

I'm just thinking what a colossal asshole a person would have to be to say, "No, I'd rather see another human being go without health insurance than pay fifteen cents extra once in a while for a pizza."

We pay higher prices all the time for things we buy and we will again for our Papa John's pizza. The cost of real estate will go up. The price of cheese, tomatoes, beef and other ingredients will rise. What they have to pay for advertising…or for the gas in the delivery vehicles…or for the gas that powers their ovens…or even what they pay their employees at all…this will all rise and that will up the cost of a pizza. It may also go up because Mr. Schnatter and his Board of Directors raise their salaries.

So this time it goes up a little so that some guy can afford to take his sick kid to the doctor. Why should that bother anyone who thinks of themselves as belonging to the human race?

I was going to write, "If it bothers you, deduct fifteen cents from the tip and you'll be even on the deal. I suspect the delivery guys won't be too upset about that." But it occurs to me that the kind of person who'd have a problem with paying fifteen cents extra for a pizza for that reason is probably the kind of person who doesn't tip.

In one of his usual "straight from the source" scoops, Matt Drudge has been saying that some unknown person is saying Barack Obama has been saying Mitt Romney intends to pick David Petraeus as his running mate. Fred Kaplan is saying such a selection is absurd.

The lovely Carolyn Kelly found this online. It was not made for English-speaking folks but that doesn't matter. You'll understand what it's all about and you should watch it, especially if you put in a lot of hours per week at a computer…

And I just noticed that Drew Friedman has also posted a history of the Broadway musical, Minnie's Boys, based on the lives of the Brothers Marx. I never saw this show in its original version, nor have I seen any of its occasional revivals. I do recall Arthur Marx laying the blame for its failure largely on Shelley Winters and, by extension, the producer who wanted to replace her but said he just couldn't afford to pay her off and then pay the price of anyone else who'd be better. Reading all that has been written about it, I suspect more went wrong than just her.

Drew Friedman, who draws for MAD magazine, tells the story of the first time he visited that publication's offices.

Sorry to have abandoned you like that without even a soup can of warning. I spent the last two days in a recording studio pretending to direct a cast of talented actors for the fourth season of The Garfield Show, and I spent several days before that writing scripts so they'd have something to read. Above is a photo from yesterday's session and I'll tell you who all these folks are…

Front row, left to right: Audrey Wasilewski, Laura Summer, Stan Freberg, Julie Payne, Jason Marsden, Laraine Newman.  Back row, also left to right: Gregg Berger, me, Wally Wingert, Frank Welker.  In the Monday session, we had some of these people plus guests Susan Silo, Bill Farmer and Joe Alaskey.

This was taken during a break that was also a Surprise Birthday Party for Mr. Freberg, who turned 86 yesterday.  We had cake and balloons and the joy of bringing a smile to Stan's face.  I still feel my sense of humor is on loan from him and that I need to thank him for it periodically.  Then after the party, we went back to work and recorded another cartoon.  On most recording dates, we work from 10 AM to 2 PM and do either two 11-minute cartoons or half of one of our 55-minute specials.  This week, we were doing 11-minute cartoons.

(This paragraph is to save me answering any number of e-mails: We're recording shows for Season Four.  Season Three has aired in other countries but not America.  Cartoon Network here is again running shows from Seasons One and Two on occasion, and I'm told a deal to have them broadcast Season Three is imminent, though I have no idea when they'd commence.  I may not find out before they start turning up in my TiVo listings.)

These sessions are enormous fun for any number of reasons.  Just being with these funny, talented people is the dominant reason but there's also the fun of being there as words on paper turn into acting.  There's a lot of magic happening at those microphones and we have a cast that is utterly non-competitive.  Everyone supports everyone else and no one feels the slightest resentment when someone else scores big with something.  As in the comic book field, I love to see people I consider extremely gifted be in awe of the gifts of others.  Frank will do something amazing and I'll see Gregg shake his head in admiration.  Then two minutes later, it'll be Frank shaking his head at something Gregg has done.  There's also that wonderful sense of "we're making something" in the room.

I went without much sleep the last four or five days so when I got home from the session yesterday, my assistant Darcie and I did all the post-recording paperwork and then I decided to lie down for ten minutes.  I woke up three hours later but it was, as they say, a Good Tired.

Boy, that's a shocker. 68 years old. With a new musical (The Nutty Professor) just opened.

I can't recall ever hearing a bad word about Marvin Hamlisch, not even from Theater People who can be enormously bitchy and quick to pounce on anyone's failings or failures. I don't recall that he had any failures that seemed to be due to his failings. He had shows that didn't fly but no one seemed to feel those were due to Mr. Hamlisch not doing his job properly. He was the guy who wrote the tunes for A Chorus Line, after all. And so many other fine works.

The first time I saw him or heard his name was when he was Groucho's pianist for those sad one-Marx shows near the end of the comedian's career. At one point during the L.A. one, Groucho suddenly went off-script and, apparently to give himself a brief rest, he turned to his pianist and asked Marvin to do his Johnny Mathis impression for the audience. Hamlisch was clearly thrown by that and he muttered something about how "They didn't come to hear me." But sensing Groucho needed the Time Out, he pressed ahead and it was a pretty decent impression, as I recall. We all felt for that kid on stage at the piano. We didn't imagine then that Marvin Hamlisch would go on to become Marvin Hamlisch. But we should be grateful that he did.

All this talk about the Olympics (I think they're going on) made me want to watch this again. And if I'm going to watch it again, you might as well watch it again…

Kevin Drum explains this whole silly charge that the Obama folks are trying to suppress or undermine or do something to the military vote in Ohio. Quick explanation: No, they're not but the Romney camp has figured out a way to sell what they are proposing as an anti-military move.