Yearly Archives: 2015

Al Jaffee on The Comics Code, Fold-Ins and continuing to work at age 94.5. And to clarify: MAD did not change from a 10-cent color comic book to a more expensive slick magazine to escape the Comics Code. It changed because its editor Harvey Kurtzman wanted to get out of comics and into slicks and its publisher, Bill Gaines, was afraid to do MAD without Kurtzman. So he changed the format and escaping the Comics Code became a happy, unintended result…

Jonathan Chait analyzes the Marco Rubio tax proposals and points out that what Rubio wants is a quadruple dose of medicine that has always failed in the past…

The Republican Party's commitment to regressive, debt-financed tax cuts as its central domestic policy goal dates back to the 1970s, when Jack Kemp and William Roth first proposed large-scale income-tax cuts, which became the basis for Ronald Reagan's 1981 program. At the time, there was at least theoretical justification to cut the top rate, which stood at 70 percent. Subsequent events have not been so kind. The Reagan-era recovery benefited from a bounce-back from a Fed-induced recession that crushed the inflation of the 1970s, but it did not see an increase in the underlying growth rate.

Events since then have looked worse and worse for the anti-tax cause. Bill Clinton raised the top tax rate to 39.6 percent and, confounding unanimous conservative predictions that a recession would ensue, enjoyed an economic boom. George W. Bush cut taxes and, in spite of conservative certainty that faster growth would follow, the economy instead grew tepidly before collapsing in a worldwide meltdown after the housing bubble popped. When Obama opposed extending the portion of those tax cuts that applied to income over $250,000, conservatives insisted it would harm growth. Instead, economic growth has accelerated.

In 2012, Mitt Romney promised that, if elected, by the end of his first term he would bring the unemployment rate down to 6 percent. With 15 months left to go, that unemployment rate now stands at 5 percent. The recovery from 2008 may not be as fast as anybody would like, but it is faster than the recovery in any other country that endured the financial crisis. What factual analysis of these events in any way suggests that a return to regressive, debt-financed tax cutting is the tonic the economy needs?

I like Jimmy Fallon and I like James Corden and I find both of their shows generally unwatchable. They're both multi-talented guys who seem to be really enjoying their jobs. Neither one seems to have ever encountered a guest who was not the superest, most-terrific Living Legend that he just can't believe is actually here in person on his couch. Both of them seem to do a lot of bits on their programs that they'd rather not do but someone has told them — perhaps correctly — that this is what America wants to see. And both of them occasionally come up with a goodie that I watch on YouTube, not on their actual shows.

Here's a nice little opening Mr. Corden did not long ago…

Christie Aschwanden explains to us that the whole Keystone Pipeline controversy wasn't about jobs or the economy or the environment…at least to the extent folks claimed it was about one or more of those. It was about politics…and what isn't, these days?

We suddenly have a flurry of reports — a lot of them coming from sources that would not usually be described as hostile — that things Ben Carson has been saying are not so. Well, obviously, a lot of his opinions are pretty wacko but now we're dealing with strictly factual matters and he's being called out for supposed lies.

Are they? Looks that way with some of them…but to be a lot fairer to him than he is to his political opponents, a few of them seem a bit stretched to get called out as lies. And a few of them are things he could have dealt with in a wiser manner saying, "Okay, I guess I phrased that badly," instead of calling reporters liars. I suspect the biggest damage all this is doing to him is making him look very, very thin-skinned and inept at crisis management.

And I do think that if a Democratic opponent had the same seeming gaps in truth, Carson and his supporters would not hesitate at all to say the examples prove the Democrat is a mentally-ill congenital liar who can't be trusted to tell you today's date without lying his or her ass off.

Lately, I've been plugging the very fine book, Woody, written by David Evanier. David is my cousin and he has given the world a fine portrait of one of its great comedians and filmmakers, Woody Allen. No one has ever delved so thoroughly and wisely into the man's life and if you want to buy a copy, here's an Amazon link.

And I often plug the radio shows and interviews of my pal Paul Harris, who I consider to be the best interviewer working today. Here's a link to Paul's site where you can hear many of his conversations.

But now I get to plug both gents with but a single link. David was recently interviewed on The Paul Harris Show, resulting in an excellent chat about Woody and the new book. You can hear that long (almost 35 minutes!) discussion over on this page. Go and do this.

I watched at least part of every episode of Best Time Ever with Neil Patrick Harris, which is not to say I enjoyed much of what I saw. I was impressed with a lot of the logistics — how they were able to do what they did…though I still don't understand how they incorporated people watching at home, being transmitted via Skype, into a live sing-along in the studio. How is there not a huge delay with Skype?

As I've mentioned before, I don't like prank shows and I don't like some stunt shows…but I do like live shows and Neil Patrick Harris so I had to check it out. I guess I didn't like it but I'm still rooting for it to be picked-up, the premise being that the more they make, the more new things they'll try…and there's a value just in doing things that haven't been done on television before. At least, it's different and a little daring.

I suspect there's a slim chance of Season Two. The first batch haven't performed well in the ratings, especially since they lost their cushy time slot following The Voice. If the producers sell the idea that they've got a lot of new ideas and big events planned and if NBC doesn't have anything too promising in the "on deck" circle, it might get renewed. If it does go away, I hope the industry doesn't take that as a warning to stay away from live TV or shows of unusual formats.

This is the finale of the last show, which impressed the hell out of me with Mr. Harris's performance, the skilled direction and camerawork, and the technical expertise involved. I would guess that 90% of the people in television couldn't do this…and I don't mean that they couldn't do it as well. I mean they couldn't do it at all. What a nightmare of rehearsal and planning this must have been…

So what caused the author of this blog to disappear so suddenly last weekend? Well, as a few of you guessed in e-mail, it had everything to do with my knee…my new knee, the one I had installed last September 28th.

It went rather well, I thought…that operation, I mean. And the recovery, too. There was pain but, you know, you can get philosophical about these things. There would have been pain if I hadn't replaced the knee, too…and that pain would have been getting increasingly worse as opposed to the pain from the new knee, which was lessening each day, well on its way towards a goal of zero discomfort. I was getting around on the new knee with some twinges and some awkwardness but as late as Friday morning, October 30, I was telling someone that it had gone as well as one could expect and that I was real glad I got it done when I did.

Friday afternoon, it started going not as well as one could expect.

Friday afternoon, the knee began hurting and swelling and turning the color of the Pink Panther's junk. I tried icing it and Tylenoling it but by Saturday afternoon, I was in agony and by evening, I was considering gnawing off everything from mid-thigh downward. I thought of going into the hospital emergency room but realized it was Halloween and the place might be a little overpopulated and freaky. The following morning when I did go in, a lady there told me, "If you had come in last night, we'd probably be getting to you about now."

Sunday morn, it took one hour before a doctor saw me and about a fifth of that time for her to say that my whole leg — the knee plus everywhere south of that where the knee drained — was acutely infected. Two surgeons were called in and they aspirated the knee, inserting hypodermic needles to draw out fluid. They filled about eight syringes before they got all that was easily removable.

That fluid is now residing in various petri dishes and incubators around the Southern California area as scientists attempt to identify exactly which strain of bacillus it is. Something is growing in the "broth" as they call it and twice a day, a wizened doctor who's been treating me and who specializes in such matters, phones up the lab to ask if there are any new clues. Last we heard, they were zeroing in on a precise identification but were about 99% certain that the various intravenous antibiotics I've been receiving all week were the right ones to purge the unwelcome visitor from my system. To be 100% sure, they need to know what it is.

The intravenous antibiotics started right after the knee aspirating. They're still going on and will for approximately six more weeks. To make this easier, I've made another new addition to my body — a thing called a PICC Line, the PICC part standing for "Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter. It will remain implanted in my left upper arm until such time as I no longer need it. It's like a semi-permanent intravenous valve which makes it easier for nurses to hook up intravenous feeds and collect blood, and easier for the patient to hook up his own intravenous feed — as I'll be doing until about the time ABC runs A Charlie Brown Christmas this year.

Does this all sound ghastly? Well, you haven't heard the worst part yet. On Monday, the surgeon who so deftly installed my new knee took me back into the operating room — a cleaner one than last time, one hopes — and opened the knee up again along the old incision. They cleaned everything in there, replaced some parts of the new knee, then closed me up. I am now trying to recuperate from the damage done by this grand reopening…but as I keep reminding myself, it had to be done.

So that's why I abandoned you, dear followers. I have a few more weeks of recovery but I'm out of that hospital where blogging was awkward and a non-constructive distraction. I will soon catch up on e-mail and deadlines and promised postings and such. And lest anything I've written here worry my friends, let me assure them that I will be fine. This was caught in plenty o' time and is totally treatable. Just view it as a real annoying, painful thing to happen to anyone — and doubly so when the anyone is you.

This is from March of 2010 and it's still a pet peeve…

One of my long-standing pet peeves is what I call Plans Without Action. I could cite many examples but I'm thinking now of a producer I worked for years ago who liked to chair big staff meetings with everyone crowded around the conference table. We'd have a problem — say, too much money being spent on donuts. And we'd argue about the problem, discuss various ways of tackling the problem, propose and debate various solutions, etc. These meetings would always go on for much, much longer than the dilemma deserved…to the point where I'd always suggest we needed a staff meeting to discuss how to cut down on staff meetings. But at some point, having figured out a number of constructive ways to solve The Great Donut Spending Crisis, we'd adjourn…

…and then no one would do anything.

No one would get around to doing anything we'd discussed. None of the solutions would be implemented. The show would continue to spend just as much on donuts as it ever had. But somehow, everyone would feel good that they'd put in some hours and energy on the problem. And if I or someone said, "Hey, this problem still exists," the response would be, "Hey, we had a three-hour meeting and came up with a number of good solutions."

Somehow, that felt better…made folks feel like they weren't so helpless in the face of the problem, I guess. But I used to argue that having the meeting and not acting on its recommendations was basically the same thing as never doing anything. In some ways, it was worse. It's a lot quicker and easier to just do nothing than to have a three-hour meeting and then do nothing. I also think that having the meeting created the illusion that something was being done…and sometimes, such illusions get in the way of actual problem-solving.

I'm starting to feel that way when someone says, "The government needs to spend less" and then doesn't specify what should be cut. Fine. The government needs to spend less. We all agree. And the air should be cleaner and unemployment should be lower and all the good-tasting foods shouldn't be high in calories. But to me, saying the government needs to spend less is a Plan Without Action. It feels like doing something but isn't.

I keep reading articles and op-eds where folks say the beast has gotten too large. It's immense and it's growing larger and any day now, it's going to step on us all and grind us into oblivion. And then they either offer no way to make the beast smaller or, at most, suggest trimming its toenails.

Sometimes, when you offer a minuscule solution to a huge dilemma, you're off to a good start and, hey, you gotta start somewhere. But sometimes, the minuscule solution is another one of those "Let's pretend we're solving the problem" things.

I have no solution to any of these challenges like cutting government spending. Hey, I'm doing well if I can cut what I spend on computer equipment by a few bucks a week. That's okay because, you know, I write cartoons and comic books and TV shows. Dealing with the national deficit is not up to me, which is great because I'm never going to do anything that will solve that crisis or anything of the sort. The one thing I'll say in my defense is that at least I'm honest enough to admit it.

More and more as I get older, I believe that pretending (or even intending) to do something and not doing anything is usually the same thing as not doing anything…or maybe even less. And about all we onlookers can do is to be able to tell the difference and not get them confused. And if we can do that, maybe we can spark someone into actually doing something.

I am still a day or three from returning to full-speed blogging so here's another rerun so you won't have wasted one entire click to come to this page. Here is what I did one day in February of 2010…

Friday afternoon, I did something I haven't done for around ten years. No, not shower…though I did that in the morning before the other thing. At the request of a friend, I went to an elementary school and talked to kids about cartoons. I showed them an episode of The Garfield Show and then I gave drawing lessons, teaching them how to draw Charlie Brown, Garfield, Scooby Doo, Bart Simpson, Spongebob Squarepants and an original character that we all created together. The kids, who were all around eight years of age, did quite well and some showed promise. It would not surprise me one bit if twenty years from now, some professional cartoonist came up to me at a convention and said, "Hey, were you the guy who came to my third grade class in 2010 and taught everyone how to draw Charlie Brown?"

I used to do this every few months because…well, I usually learn as much as the kids do. It's fascinating to watch them view a cartoon I've written and to see what they laugh at and what holds their attention. Unsurprisingly with kids this age, the physical humor gets more response than funny lines or situations…but some of Garfield's snide comments got immense laughs. More significant, I thought, was not what made them laugh but what held their attention.

The group I spoke to consisted of two separate classes crammed into one classroom. When I was ushered in, the instructors were spending a lot of energy, as they apparently do all day, just getting the kids to stop talking and listen. I have a fairly good memory of my schoolroom when I was that age and I don't recall us having quite that attention-deficit disorder. A generational thing? Too much exposure these days to fast-paced media? I don't know enough about children in and of this age to be able to say. I do know that once I told these kids I wrote the Garfield cartoons, I got the undivided focus of about two-thirds of the room and when I mentioned that I used to write Scooby Doo, I snagged the other third.

Well, why not? If you were that age, wouldn't you rather listen to a guy talk to you about Scooby Doo than about long division?

Another thing that surprised me: I was telling them how when I was their age, I'd watch cartoons on TV or read comic books of the characters I saw on TV…and then I'd teach myself to draw those characters. One of the kids asked me what the first one was — and while I'm not sure it was, I said, "This one." Then I turned to the whiteboard on which I was drawing and began sketching a Yogi Bear…about as well as I did when I was seven, I might add. As I started, I thought, "I wonder if they'll even know who this is." Yogi's not seen on Cartoon Network. He's on Boomerang a lot but I don't know how many homes get that…and there are no comic books.

Well, I needn't have worried. I was halfway through the drawing and everyone was screaming out, "Yogi Bear! Yogi Bear!" He was one of everyone's favorite characters. The clear fave by a wide margin, by the way: Spongebob. After I taught them how to draw Mr. Squarepants, they all wanted lessons on his supporting cast…and were disappointed that I simply don't know those characters. Several of them also do Spongebob impressions, one so well that Tom Kenny's job is in serious jeopardy. Sorry, Tom.

The first time I ever did this was back in '73. I was taking some morning classes at Santa Monica College and I was asked by a young lady who was in one of 'em. Afternoons, she was a student teacher at a nearby elementary school and she thought her students would benefit from a little chalk talk about cartooning. At the time, I wasn't interested in that but I was interested in the young lady. If she'd asked me to play Twister in the fast lane of the Santa Monica Freeway at rush hour, I probably would have.

I got there and watched a little of the class before I began. That's when I was told it was a "problem" class of kids with "learning disabilities" which mostly consisted of not paying attention to anything the teacher said and occasionally hurling items at her or each other. For an instant there, I wondered if playing Freeway Twister might not be preferable…but then I was introduced and when I started talking about cartoons and drawing, I suddenly had rapt attention. The teachers later said they had never seen that much focus. The kids didn't remain silent but like the ones yesterday, all their chatter was suddenly on topic, about the subject being taught.

Apart from the fact that the teaching assistant never did go out with me, the trip couldn't have gone better…a fact for which I deserve zero credit. Anyone who could have drawn the pupils' favorite characters could have done it, and many could have done it a lot better than I did. The point was that that kind of thing reached these kids…who, I'm horrified to realize, could have been the parents of the children I spoke to on Friday. That many years have passed. Still, the reaction was identical and it always is.

So is the moral of the story. The idea is to leave them with a number of thoughts. One is that this is a job. You can actually make a living drawing funny pictures or writing silly stories. Another thought is that you don't have to make it your occupation. There can be joy and satisfaction in just creating for the sake of making something.

Yet another is that whichever way you decide to go with it, it requires practice…lots of practice and dedication. The fourth thought is that it can be well worth it. I'm not sure classrooms ever do a good job of convincing children that things they learn there can have value to them later, possibly because so much of it will not.

Lastly, and this one is not so much a thought as a sensation…but it's just neat to be able to do that. Being able to draw Spongebob is like gaining a super-power. It might be worth investing the effort to learn to do it just so you can do it. I felt that way about drawing when I was a kid and also about magic and ventriloquism and a few other things. Even though I didn't go into those fields, I'm quite sure those interests had a role in getting me to where I am today. My father, who had no real marketable skills and always regretted it, used to say, "It's not that important what you do in the world as long as you can do something!"

Anyway, that's how I spent my Friday. And like I said, I think I learned at least as much as they did. Maybe more.

I don't feel good about leaving this blog devoid of content all day so I'm just back long enough to say hi, to tell you I'll be back full time in a day or three and to plug tomorrow's edition of Stu's Show, on which the topic will be "Archiving the Stars." Once upon a time, Stu worked as a personal assistant to Lucille Ball and he'll be telling what that was all about. Not only that but he'll be joined by Steve Stoliar (who performed similar duties for Groucho Marx), Gary Kaskel (who did likewise for Milton Berle) and Christopher Bay (who still does this for Shelley Berman). By now, you should know how to listen to Stu's Show but if not, all the details are here.

And I'll be back soon to tell you of my latest adventure. Here's a hint: I am not camping out to be first in line to see the new Star Wars movie.

I have to tend to a personal-type matter which will keep me from blogging for a day or three. I'll probably tell you all about it when I return but in the meantime, you'll have to look elsewhere on the web for your Donald Trump insults, attacks on cole slaw and plugs for Frank Ferrante. I'm sure you'll do just fine.

This is an entry to Mark Evanier's list of the twenty top voice actors in American animated cartoons between 1928 and 1968. For more on this list, read this. To see all the listings posted to date, click here.

Most Famous Role: Bullwinkle J. Moose.

Other Notable Roles: Mr. Peabody, Dudley-Do-Right, Fearless Leader, Tom Slick, Super Chicken, George of the Jungle, Gruffi Gummi (on Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears), Moosel (on The Wuzzles) and others.

What He Did Besides Cartoon Voices: Bill was primarily a writer, gagman and producer for animation.  Before he became the main creative talent for Jay Ward Productions, he worked for Warner Brothers animation and U.P.A.

Why He's On This List: Maybe the best-ever acting ensemble in animation was the crew on the Jay Ward shows and Bill was the keystone player.  On the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons, William Conrad was the narrator, then Paul Frees, June Foray and Bill did all the voices, each often expertly playing a half-dozen roles in one short cartoon.  No guest actors were ever needed.

Fun Fact: Bill was credited on-screen as producer and sometimes as a writer on the Jay Ward cartoons but never as a voice talent even though he usually played the star characters.

I'm busy with something today so I may not get back here for a while. If it turns out to be interesting, I'll tell you about it when I do.

As I look at my recent blog postings, I see two contradictory themes. One is that the presidential election is far, far away and that I believe much will change before any of us get near a voting booth. The other theme is me paying a lot of attention to all these current politic matters that I don't think matter much. I'd rather not devote much of my brain to what's going on now but it's like one of those traffic accidents you have to stop and look at. Or better still, it's like one of those high speed chases where (a) the newscasters have no idea what to say so they say nothing over and over, and (b) you're just watching to see who's going to crash and how. Better analogy.

People keep writing to ask me what I think of the new Supergirl show. If and when I get around to watching it, I'll let you know. It seems to be pleasing a lot of people.

I have a folder on my computer with downloaded podcasts — mostly interviews with people in and around show business. The folder is so full, I know I'll never get around to listening to a third of them but in the last week or so, I whittled the "unheard" list down a bit, sampling about a dozen different ones. I came to the conclusion that a good podcast is one that has a good host…and a good host is someone who doesn't need or have any co-hosts. Every one I listened to had at least one unnecessary extra person there, perhaps someone who'd do great as an interviewer on their own.

Whenever you start your own podcast — and sooner or later, we'll all have them — don't have a co-host. You don't need someone else to jump in and divert the conversation from what you're asking about. You don't need all the in-jokes that are only meaningful to you and your buddies. You don't need someone else to talk over you, especially if you have those cheap microphones that make three or more people sound like stock brokers on Wall Street yelling out buy and sell orders. Just you is fine. Or if just you is not fine, maybe you shouldn't have a podcast.

Gotta go. Back soon.