Monthly Archives: September 2018

In the running as this week's Stupidest Donald Trump Statement, we have "I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place." In other words, if she didn't report it then, it didn't happen.

Mr. Trump knows well (of course) that somewhere between 75% and 95% of rapes and attempted rapes are not reported at the time or ever. That plus his wealth and legal staff made him feel free to brag about grabbing women by the pussy, kissing them whether they want to be kissed or not, walking in on them when they're changing clothes, etc. The #MeToo movement constantly reminds us that a lot of men feel they can get away with that shit, and especially if they're wealthy and powerful. Sad to say, they are usually correct…though these days, probably not as much as they were ten or twenty years ago.

The Republicans who are eager to nail down that fifth Conservative seat on the Highest Court have a pretty clear motive to discredit Bret Kavanaugh's accuser. You do get the feeling that some of them would settle for absolutely anyone, no matter what heinous thing he's done, as long as he'll vote the right way. But I wonder how many of the folks attacking Dr. Ford have the extra added motive of believing that women who speak up about such deeds need to be slapped down and punished, lest others become inspired to not suffer in silence.

Anyway, that's this week's Stupidest Donald Trump Statement as of this moment. There are still a lot of hours to go in Friday so don't be surprised it he tops it before Midnight. It's one of the few things he's really good at.

It has arrived. Hardly worth the wait.

This has been Where in the World is Mark's Package?, a public service of this blog.  Check back often for the latest update on where the hell Mark's Other Packages are at any given moment.

On the occasion of what would have been June Foray's 101st birthday, our pal Greg Ehrbar remembers some of the fine work she did on kids' records.

And a happy 10th birthday to Samudra the Elephant!

My friend Shelly Goldstein posted this on Facebook…

Guy said to me today, re: Kavanaugh, "Sure, a serial rapist is a problem. But if it's just one, what's the big deal?"

Apparently, this person lives in a world where everyone is entitled to one free rape. There are two possible problems here and he may have one or both. One is that some people just don't think that rape — or even attempted, unsuccessful rape — is that big a deal. I hope I don't have to elaborate on why that's appallingly wrong.

The presence of the second problem could be determined by asking the question, "Would you feel the same way if the Senate was being asked to confirm a Supreme Court nominee who'd probably vote the other way?" Not many things depress me more about politics these days than most folks' willingness to rewrite the rules based on what will help their side. You know: Barack Obama was a congenital liar because he once said he'd be campaigning in all 57 states but Donald Trump is not a dishonorable or untrustworthy human being for saying…well, any of about eighteen things a day.

I'm genuinely dismayed by how so many people reshape reality to win — or at least, not concede — a political point. They all seem to turn into the unfaithful husband who — when caught in bed with another woman — tries asking, "What woman?" That may be the most lasting damage that Trump guy does to this country. He has shown politicians that as long as your base gets what it wants (or thinks it's getting that), they don't care what positions you reverse, what fibs you tell or what laws you corrupt…and a lot of them kinda like it if in the process, you're a little nasty to your — and therefore, their opposition.

We love Laura Benanti and just her intros are reason enough to watch this look at what's coming to Broadway in the coming months. Yes, I know I just said I don't like trailers for upcoming movies but this kind of preview doesn't bother me…

If one of the job requirements for being President of the United States is to speak eloquently and reassuringly in times of tragedy, Donald Trump fails that one more than any of the other job requirements. "This is a tough hurricane, one of the wettest we've ever seen from the standpoint of water" is, honest to God, a line I'd write for Groo the Wanderer to say.

Even if I were a U.S. Senator, I wouldn't have to trouble myself with deciding whether to vote no on Brett Kavanaugh because of the accusation of attempted rape. I would have already decided to vote no on him for so many more inarguable reasons.

Whenever rape is in the news, we get a lot of clumsy, insensitive comments about it from males who don't seem to get what that is. Someone needs to teach a lot of them — especially men of the older, white variety — that it's not about making love without the other party's full consent. It's an act of violence and if it's about anything, it's about power and a fair amount of "I don't give a shit if someone else is harmed as long as I get what I want." The whole premise of human civilization is to not do that in any form.

Every time I see Trump now, the main thought in my mind is that it's never going to get better for him. If he's dreaming of a day when he is not under investigation and there isn't a daily scandal and a majority of the country loves him as a grand, dignified leader, we really should be invoking the 25th Amendment — the part about what we do when the president is batshit crazy.

When last we heard, it was on its way to San Francisco but apparently it changed its mind and went to Salt Lake City, Utah instead. I guess it didn't like Salt Lake City because 94 minutes after its arrival, it was on another plane, this time to Los Angeles (again!) I hope they gave it time in Salt Lake City to walk around a bit, use the restroom and maybe get one of those little personal-size Pizza Hut pizzas, without which no stopover in an airport is complete.

This has been Where in the World is Mark's Package?, a public service of this blog.  Check back often for the latest update on where the hell Mark's Package is at any given moment.

I haven't had a Spike Jones clip here for a while. For those of you who came in late, Spike Jones was a brilliant musician in Hollywood who turned his gaze from playing on serious hit records to making silly, raucous ones. This number is from his TV show in 1957 and it's a spoof on Perry Como, who was one of the top singing stars on television. Gil Bernal, who played saxophone in Spike's band, does a decent impression of Mr. Como.

The little guy on the left who stole Moe Howard's hair-do is Freddy Morgan, a comic and banjo player who was with Spike for a long time. The little guy on the right is Mousie Garner who — speaking of Moe Howard — was kind of an auxiliary stand-by member of The Three Stooges. I wrote about him here when he left us. Here they all are, decimating a song that was made famous by the great Fats Waller…

'Twas a long day today, much of it spent on the Disney Studios lot out in Burbank.  And guess whose office I was in for part of that time?  Walt's.  It's been completely restored to just about the way it was on the day he went to that big Magic Kingdom in the sky. I can't really describe the sensation of being there, in that room next to the piano where Richard and Robert Sherman first demonstrated most of the songs for Mary Poppins and other Disney fare.  I know that in the future when I read about the doings at the studio, it's going to help a lot with the pictures I form in my mind.

It was also interesting that such an imaginative man had what, on balance, was a pretty ordinary office.  You kind of think of Walt sitting in an office in the middle of a fairy tale castle or the Pirates of the Caribbean…or Wonderland with the White Rabbit sprinting through.  I think I learned something but it may have to rattle around in my brain for a while before I know quite what it is.

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A lot of readers of this site send me movie trailers — most recently for the forthcoming Stan & Ollie movie or for the coming-this-Christmas Mary Poppins Returns. I appreciate the favor but I don't think I'll be watching them. More and more, I like to not see a movie before I see a movie.

The less I know going in, the more I'm able to involve myself in a film…and I've had some I thought were ruined for me because — between trailers, clips on talk shows and "first look" featurettes — I felt like I was seeing a movie for the second time, the first time I saw it. If I know I'll be going to see a given movie, I even avoid reviews until after.

I notice a lot of people online reviewing these and other movies after only seeing the trailer and that bothers me. Your opinion of a movie may be very valid or it may be way off the mark…but I think it's just slightly-educated guesswork — and maybe not even that — until you actually (say it with me now:) "See…the…movie." Being around film buffs much of my life, I've found few things indicate an oversized, underprincipled student of the cinema more than, as had been said to me, "I can just glance at the script or check out the trailer and I know exactly what the movie is going to be like." In my experience, such folks are correct about two less times per day than a stopped clock.

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Among the more occasional 'n' obscure topics on this blog is a movie that I actually sat through in full before deciding it was not very good — a film called Don't Worry, We'll Think of a Title. It came out in 1966 and disappeared with nary a trace. Who was in it? Well, lots of great cameo guests but the leads were Morey Amsterdam, Rose Marie and Richard Deacon. Morey was the brains behind the project and I wrote about it here.

Why am I bringing this up now? Because writer-comedian Ramsey Ess has written a new article about it. He thinks about as highly of the film as I do…and we both think the same thing about it that Rose Marie did.

Pretty busy this morning.  I'll post something later when I can.  But hey, if you're in the L.A. area, there are still a few good seats available to see my fave musical group, Big Daddy, this Saturday night at Vitello's out in Studio City.  If you've never heard these guys, search for some of their videos on this site.  It'll make you want to go.

I'll be back here later with…something.

Saturday morning, September 17, 1988: The first episode of Garfield and Friends makes its debut on CBS.  I was the writer of the show — and this confuses some people. I was not the Story Editor of the show. Most cartoon shows have a Story Editor and he or she will hire the writers, supervise their work and, when necessary, rewrite their scripts. There was no such person on this program. I was just hired to write all the episodes and later, they also made me Voice Director and Co-Producer. plus I even wrote lyrics for some of the songs — and there was one whole song I wrote all by myself. That ain't easy when you can't read music or play any musical instrument. They also eventually let me hire a friend of mine to help with some of the scripts for a while.

The initial deal was for two seasons of thirteen half-hour episodes each but before we got anywhere near Season Two, CBS was so happy with the ratings that they wanted to up the show to an hour.  So for Seasons 2-7, it was an hour.  Ultimately, we did 121 half-hours and that's a lot of lasagna jokes.

Around 73 of those half-hours went into syndication and did real, real well. We were in the midst of negotiating the fees for an eighth year on CBS when the Biz Affairs guys there decided that since we were making so many bucks off the syndication, we should charge them a lot less for further Saturday morning episodes. We decided not to do that, the show ceased to be — and before long, so did cartoon shows on CBS Saturday mornings. I am not suggesting we caused that to happen but I'd think twice before I messed with that cat.

All 121 half-hours were issued on DVD and rerun in many venues and recently, a lotta bucks were spent to remaster them all in hi-def and they'll be appearing somewhere. We redid the closings of every episode and fixed a number of errors in the voice credits.

It was the most fun I'd ever had working in animation. You hear a lot about nitwitted network interference and insane Standards and Practices demands…and goodness knows, I had plenty of both when I worked for other studios. There was none of that on Garfield and Friends. None.

We had some wonderful artists and directors working on this show and this is far from a complete list: Mitch Schauer, Karl Toerge, Scott Shaw!, Gary Conrad, Floyd Norman, John Sparey, Bill Riling, Ron Myrick, Art Roman, Dave Brain, Lin Larsen, Norman Quebedeau, Tom Tataranowicz, Bob Givens, Cliff Voorhees…and boy, am I leaving a lot of people out.

We had some wonderful producers: George Singer, Bob Curtis, Bob Nesler, Vince Davis and — running the whole Film Roman animation studio — Phil Roman.

We had a wonderful regular cast: Lorenzo Music, Thom Huge, Gregg Berger, Frank Welker, Howie Morris, Julie Payne, Desiree Goyette and Gary Owens.

We had wonderful guest voices: Stan Freberg, Neil Ross, June Foray, Chuck McCann, Don Knotts, Paul Winchell, Don Messick, Carl Ballantine, Lennie Weinrib, Julie Bennett, Marvin Kaplan, Will Ryan, James Earl Jones, Victoria Jackson, Larry Storch, Robin Leach, Jeff Altman, Bill Kirchenbauer, Thom Sharp, Tress MacNeille, Greg Burson, Pat Buttram, Greg Berg, George Foreman (yes, the George Foreman), Chick Hearn, Buddy Hackett, John Moschitta, Louise DuArt, Jewel Shepard, Charles Aidman, Susan Silo, Dick Gautier, Bill Saluga, Eddie Lawrence, Imogene Coca, Kevin Meaney and the list goes on and on.

It was a joy — not that the subsequent series, The Garfield Show — hasn't been. But this was Garfield and Friends and I want to especially acknowledge the trust, wisdom and creative contributions of the creator of Garfield, Jim Davis, and of the best and most honest producer I ever worked for in animation, Lee Mendelson. And perhaps most of all, I should acknowledge Judy Price, who was running the Saturday morn schedule for CBS then and who said to me after I moonwalked off a proposed Michael Jackson Saturday morn cartoon, "Would you like to work on Garfield instead?"

I believe all those people and many unnamed ones deserve great thanks and recognition. What I don't believe is that we went on the air thirty years ago. It's not possible, I tell ya. It's just not possible.

On its way to San Francisco now…or so says the USPS Tracking App. I hope it's getting Frequent Flyer mileage.

This has been Where in the World is Mark's Package?, a public service of this blog.  Check back often for the latest update on where the hell Mark's Package is at any given moment.

Like you and all but two or three people in this world, I have no idea how much truth there is to the claims of Christine Blasey Ford that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh tried to violate her many years ago. I do have an idea that if all we have here is "He Said/She Said," it won't matter. Heck, some right-wingers want that fifth seat on the Supreme Court so badly that it might not stop Kavanaugh's confirmation if he admits it and shows home movies of the attempted rape.

We have reached the stage in this country where some partisans are convinced The Other Side is out to destroy mankind so anything done to stop them is for The Greater Good. Political assassins do not generally think murder is a moral action. They just think it's a lesser and necessary evil than allowing whoever they kill to remain alive and in power.

Apparently, Ms. Ford will testify as will Judge Kavanaugh. It will not be pleasant for either but especially not for Ms. Ford. My cynical side suspects that at least one of her interrogators will feel he has to make it so rough on her that no one else will come forth to corroborate her tale or to tell of a matching encounter with the nominee. For that matter, there are some men out there who feel any woman who comes forth to tell such a story about any man needs to be punished as an example for others.

I absolutely believe there are false claims of sexual impropriety. There are proven, confessed instances of false rape charges and false witnessing in murder cases. Why would there not be false accusations of attempted rape or lesser forms of abuse? Still, it is important that all such charges be investigated and that there not be a climate where women — or even men who have been similarly mistreated by people of greater power — are afraid to say so.

I absolutely do not believe that not coming forward at the time means that a claim is bogus. As I've mentioned, I've had lady friends in the acting profession who suffered close encounters; who found themselves in a room with men of great wealth and power and lawyerly support who had their dicks out, figuratively or literally. One came over here one time in near-hysterics to tell of being in a limo an hour earlier with a very, very, very big star who unzipped and pulled out his very, very, very small member.

She rejected any suggestion of calling in the law. It would be her word against his and he had zillions of bucks, lawyers who could and would probe her past, major studios who would reflexively side with him…and all she had was a story that would be dismissed as her pulling some sort of blackmail or publicity-seeking scheme. She also had a certainty that if she reported such a thing, she'd never get another audition in this town. She was sure it would be way more damaging and painful to her to report the crime than to not report it. The whole point of the #MeToo movement is to make it not as painful.

That particular lady is not around anymore and neither is that very, very, very big star. But we can all certainly imagine a later time when she felt she had to say something…like if other women were telling similar tales to confirm a pattern of such misbehavior a la Cosby or the man was about to get a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. I'm not saying Ms. Ford is surely telling the truth; just that the fact that she didn't tell it then doesn't mean it didn't happen.