I've been trying not to think or read about Trump this weekend and I made it until about 3:30. That's not bad. One thing that I think some of his supporters like about the guy is that he annoys people like me…and they forget that so would a horde of locusts or a lethal pandemic. Eventually, most things that annoy me get around to everyone.
William Saletan writes real good articles by actually reading documents and noting what politicians say and comparing that information to what others write and do and to also apply a bit of common logic to it all. One thing that Trump has going for him with regard to the Mueller Report is that almost no one has read the Mueller Report…and certainly not those who claim it says Our Beloved President is wholly innocent of Obstruction of Justice. In this article, Saletan matches up what Barr says it says with what it actually says. Are you surprised there are some — ahem! — serious differences?
Also: I think it's way too early to say Trump can't win or Trump can't lose. Between now and Election Day, a hundred major (and unpredictable) things will happen that will impact his chances of winning or losing. I suspect we're in for at least a few very public breakdowns that will cause even some of his staunchest supporters to wonder if he really is insane. And I still think there will be a serious challenger for the G.O.P. nomination…someone whose selling point will be "I'll give you the Trump Agenda with a better grasp of how to get things done and less of the hatred and scandal."
That said, if it would please you to hear a lot of reasons why Trump might lose big if the election were held today, read Josh Marshall. And notice all the caveats and cautions about presuming things can't change.
I shall now attempt to get him off my mind until at least Monday. I'd rather it be September or October but I'll settle for Monday.
Here's a few minutes of driving down Sunset Boulevard in 1967 Hollywood. Let's watch it together and then I'll point out a few things I recognize…
Twelve seconds in, we're driving past the Body Shop, a strip joint that's darn near the only thing in this brief video that's still there. I've never set foot inside the place (honest!) but from what I hear, some of the same girls are still working its stage.
44 seconds in, there's the statue of Rocky and Bullwinkle that was unveiled there in 1961. Jay Ward, producer of the Moose and Squirrel's adventures, had a bunch of small offices in this block, some behind others, so you're kind of getting a peek at the Jay Ward Studios. If you enlarge the video and look to the right of the statue, you'll see the sign that tells you that.
At 53 seconds in, there's a restaurant called the Plush Pup. In 1971, it was replaced by the Dudley Do-Right Emporium, a store Jay opened to sell merchandise of his characters. It was shut down in July of 2004 and there's now a taco restaurant there.
Then we come upon Lytton Savings, a now-defunct financial institution which was famous (at least in '67) for exhibits. They had a kind of art gallery on the premises that housed some tourist-luring shows and there was also a spot you'll see to the left of it where they sometimes had a large tent with something interesting.
Okay, I'm going to tell a story here. In 1962 when I was ten, Lytton Savings housed an exhibition about animation and I got my parents to take me to it. There were artifacts and cels from Disney, Hanna-Barbera, Walter Lantz and a disproportionate amount of material from Jay Ward. It was almost half Ward stuff which didn't bother me but it was puzzling. That was before I learned that Mr. Ward's company was about 100 yards away.
Jay Ward often had his crew produce promotional items — posters and booklets and such — that he'd send around Hollywood to members of the press and other opinion makers. A popular one had been a little book of song parodies called Sing Along With Bullwinkle, mostly produced by George Atkins and Allan Burns. So popular was it that it spawned a sequel — Son of Sing Along with Bullwinkle — and the Lytton Savings exhibit had the pages of a copy displayed on one wall.
My parents and I found it hilarious and my mother asked one of the curator-type employees there where one could purchase a copy of the book. A nice lady told her, "I don't think they sell them but the studio is half a block from here. You might pop in and ask if they have an extra copy lying around." We did and they did.
I don't think I can describe how excited it was for me that day to walk with my parents in the front door of an actual cartoon studio…one that made some of my favorite shows. We only saw the lobby but there was neat Bullwinkle art all over it and I was quite thrilled. It was one of the most memorable moments of my childhood and, yes, I still have the copy of Son of Sing Along with Bullwinkle that they gave us that day.
Moving on…
After Lytton Savings, we come to the corner of Sunset and Crescent Heights Boulevard. At about 1:30, we see a lady in a red-and-white dress standing there. For a brief time (like, two weeks) in '69, there was a bit of a local fuss about another lady who hung out (and I mean hung out) approximately where that lady is standing in the video. The woman in 1969 was a hooker…one of several that could be found at that intersection until the local police chased them to some other agency's jurisdiction.
The particularly notable courtesan was a tall, stunning blonde woman who wore a long coat with nothing underneath. As cars drove east on Sunset, she was known to flash their drivers, resulting in a number of collisions. She also created major congestion as some cars circled around the block repeatedly in order to pass her, hoping for an encore performance. Some motorists stopped to negotiate for her services, thereby proving the value of advertising. Others stopped to tip.
But the real mess came because every reporter and TV news crew came out there…and they succeeded where the police failed. The cops couldn't chase her off but the power of the press did. I'm surprised the strip club two blocks west didn't try the same stunt.
After that, the video repeats but isn't that kind of an interesting three block stretch?
Each year at Comic-Con, they present the Eisner Awards for Best This and That, as voted by highly-professional professionals within the profession. If you are a highly-professional professional within the profession, don't forget to vote before June 14. If you haven't signed up to be a voter, you'll need to sign up and if you are signed up, you can vote. Both those things can be done right this minute at this site.
And while you're there and you get to the category "Best Archival Collection/Project-Strips," please consider picking the first option: "Pogo, vol. 5: Out of This World At Home by Walt Kelly, edited by Mark Evanier and Eric Reynolds (Fantagraphics)" You may be able to figure out why I want you to do this.
…and then I'll stop thinking about the guy for the weekend. He makes it tough, though. At times, I get the feeling some aide tells him, "Mr. President, our monitoring says that Mark Evanier is not thinking about you" and he goes "We can't have that" and he quickly thinks of something to say that will piss me off and he calls an impromptu news conference to say it.
I don't subscribe to his Twitter feed and I even have him blocked, just in case he decides to assert some Executive Privilege to address Americans who don't want to read his silly ramblings. But I just know that after he sends each tweet, he tells that aide, "Make sure someone Evanier reads quotes that."
And every so often, everyone who does Trump jokes — even me — gets a message in some form from someone who says, "Hey, could you lay off those lame attempts at political humor?" Often, those communiques sound like desperate pleas from someone who voted for Trump, still craves some of what he promised to do to/for this country and doesn't want to be reminded that he or she helped put such a horrible human in the White House to further that agenda.
But the interesting thing to me about Trump jokes is that most of them aren't political jokes. They're jokes about his hair, about his girth, about his manners, about his obsession with self-praise, about his rudeness towards anyone who doesn't kiss Trump butt, etc. We were making jokes about all those aspects of him before he was even remotely a candidate for political office…back when he was a staunch pro-choice Democrat. (Since 1987, he has changed his party affiliation five times.)
Most political jokes — about Trump or anyone — are not about the person's politics. Most of the ones about Bill Clinton were about his marital fidelity and lack thereof. Most of the ones about George W. Bush were about his mangling of the English language and him doing things like choking on a pretzel. 90% of the jokes about Joe Biden seem to be about his handsiness or other social faux pas.
You could take an old fat joke about Orson Welles or Kate Smith or Dom DeLuise or someone and switch it to Chris Christie — and people do. That does not make it a political joke. Even jokes about an official's hypocrisy — saying one thing and doing another — you could argue are not really political.
Of course, if you really wanna see Trump get Term #2, I suppose you could look at any joke at the expense of Donald J. and think it's a political joke because it may diminish someone's opinion of the guy and cost him votes. In that case, you shouldn't get mad at the people who make the jokes. You should get mad at your candidate for personal behavior that makes it so easy and irresistible to make the jokes.
President Donald Trump spent most of Thursday in Normandy, France, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day and honor the Americans who fought and died to liberate France from Nazi occupation in World War II. But he didn't let the solemnity of the occasion stop him from talking trash about his political enemies.
Sitting just a few feet away from the thousands of white grave markers at the Normandy American Cemetery, where more than 9,000 American war dead are buried, Trump gave an interview to Fox News's Laura Ingraham in which he insulted former special counsel Robert Mueller and said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — or "Nervous Nancy," as he called her — is "a disaster."
But of course. Donald Trump is always more important than anyone or anything else. He talks about his own greatness and perfection, and he maligns those who dispute or deny that greatness and perfection…and that's about it. Once in a while, it's subtext in a statement ostensibly about something else but it would never occur to Trump to talk about those who had died in service to America except maybe as small talk before proclaiming his own greatness and perfection.
Someday when he's out of office — and yes, I still believe that will happen in our lifetimes — every single person in or around the Trump Administration will write a book about what it was like in there. They will all be negative about him and filled with scandalous revelations because, first of all, that's how you sell a book. And secondly, all those folks will want to distance themselves from his crimes and cruelty and they'll profess, "Of course I knew what a maniac he was but instead of calling me an accomplice, you should thank me for hanging in there and stopping some of his crazier demands from being done."
I will be (that is to say, I am) curious as to how the guy with the Hindenburg Ego dealt with all the TV shows — news and comedy — that call him a liar and a fool and a crook, etc. We know he watches Fox News the way some people watch porn but does he ever catch more than thirty seconds of Colbert or Seth Meyers or SNL or Jon Oliver? And if so, how does he react not just to the jokes but to the way those shows get great tune-in and happy audiences by presuming their audiences hate Trump? He attacks them for attacking him but does he get that audiences are laughing because they agree?
For no visible reason, I got to thinking today about The Hero, a short-lived 1966 situation comedy that came and went from the NBC schedule in about nine seconds. The series debuted on 9/8/66 and starred Richard Mulligan as an actor who plays a skilled expert western star on TV but is an absolute klutz in real life. It was a Leonard Stern show with something of a Get Smart feel about it but it was gone after sixteen episodes. The video below of the opening titles is all I've seen of it since.
All I remember about it that Mariette Hartley played his wife, that is was the first time I was ever aware of Richard Mulligan…and that I thought he and the show were pretty funny. Assuming episodes of it exist somewhere (which may not be true), I'd be curious to see I still found it pretty funny. There are many shows I laughed at in the sixties but which now cause me to say, "Gee, when I was a teenager, I thought this was a better show." If and when some episodes of The Hero turn up, we'll see if I say that but I sure hope not.
I'm going to lunch in a little while with my friend Ron Friedman. Ron is the guest on this week's episode of Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. It's Ron's second appearance and they had him back because he was so hilarious on his first. What they may not know is that they could get rid of all their other guests and just have Ron on every week and he'd never run out of great stories. Listen to this latest installment here, as well as other places around the 'net.
A number of you have written to ask for more details of how I got my shoulder fixed. It's a long story and for a reason I may or may not be able to explain here some day, I don't want to tell you much more…but I did not go to a practitioner of unusual or unconventional medicine. I'm a big believer in conventional medicine, at least for my body. You're free to make your own choices. But I went to one orthopedist who didn't know how to solve the problem and then I found another orthopedist who did. No matter how we manage or alter healthcare in this country, nothing will change the fact that some doctors are better than others.
A week from tomorrow, Sergio Aragonés and I will be appearing at Heroes Con in Charlotte, North Carolina. In a post here, I mentioned that I won't be at my table much because (a) they have me doing loads of panels and (b) I don't like sitting for long behind a table at a convention. This has caused several folks to write and ask, "Does this mean you won't be doing any signings?" I'll be there occasionally and I'll also sign stuff if you catch me wandering about. But don't bring a lot. Trust me: No one needs my signature on more than about three books, if that many. They're not going to skyrocket in value. I used to think "I'll just sign whatever Sergio signs" but that, of course, is humanly impossible.
Every so often in this world, you hear about a situation that is so messy and convoluted and has so many layers and lies, it's best to say, "I'm not going to pay any attention to this, at least for a while." For me, the matter of alleged elder abuse and swindling of Stan Lee is just such a situation. So everyone can stop asking me about it.
I have decided to become a shameless pimp for Puppet Up!, a show from the Henson Company…the part of it not owned by Disney. The show is live and adult and dirty and mostly improvised and this weekend! That's right: This weekend! They do this every so often (I think, just whenever they feel like it) on the big soundstage of the film studio at Sunset Boulevard and La Brea in Hollywood. That's the studio that, no matter how many times they rename it, people still refer to it as "The Chaplin Lot."
Two shows Saturday evening, one show Sunday afternoon. Some seats are still available for this time and there's no telling when they'll do it again. I go every time and I'll be in the audience for the late show Saturday. Try not to sit in front of me.
Just a few hours from now, our pal Stu Shostak will welcome two of the best voice actors in the world to his Internet TV/Radio program. Keith Scott is the master from Australia, best known in this country as for speaking for Bullwinkle after the urelated Bill Scott passed away. Billy West has been heard on dozens of shows here — most notably and recently, Futurama plus he voiced Bugs Bunny in Space Jam and elsewhere.
If you like hearing voice actors do what they do and talk about how they do it, listen to the audio version of Stu's Show. If you like watching, catch the TV version. A visit to the Stu's Show website will set you up with either. It all starts at 4 PM Pacific Time and it's live, live, live so you can figure out what time it starts where you are.
What appeared to be a sudden, unexpected storm near San Diego last night was not a storm at all. From the Los Angeles Times…
…the massive blob showing up Tuesday evening on the National Weather Service's radar in San Diego County was just a lot of ladybugs. Joe Dandrea, a meteorologist with NWS San Diego, said from the radar, the ladybug bloom appears to be about 80 miles by 80 miles, but the ladybugs aren't in a concentrated mass that size. Rather, they're spread throughout the sky, flying at between 5,000 and 9,000 feet, with the most concentrated mass about 10 miles wide.
Just wait. Before the year is out, it's going to be raining frogs somewhere. Actual frogs falling from the sky.
I always liked — and I'm not being the least bit facetious here — the Ray Conniff Singers — and their relentless crusade to make every song sound like every other song. Here they are turning two great, oft-played tunes into the same song. If I ever fronted a musical group, it would sound just like this — and so would every tune we played, no matter what it started out to be…
Many of you have written to ask how my left shoulder's doing. It's doing quite well because I took it to an orthopedist who uttered the magic words, "I know what this is." He also knew how to treat it. As you may recall, I was in agonizing pain when I put my left arm into certain positions…which fortunately did not include the position it's in when I'm typing. But if I reached for something on a high shelf, they could hear me shriek in Kathmandu, Nepal. It ain't totally fixed but it's 80% there and getting better with each passing day. Thanks to all who were concerned.
Some person named Sergio Aragonés and I will be among the guests at Heroes Con, next week in Charlotte, North Carolina. It's June 14-16 and we'll be there all three days but you'll rarely find me at my table. When I go to cons, I don't sell things and I don't like to sit at tables…and Heroes Con has tapped me to host eleven (!) panels in three days. So I'll be there. I'll just be in panel rooms most of the time.
And I'm also prepping for Comic-Con International which, as I write this, is an unbelievable 43 days from now. As you may know, I've been to all of them which means that man, woman, child or house pet seems to be asking me, "How has the convention changed over the years?" My new answer is, "They're still once a year, they're still 4 and a half days long…but somehow, there's now around six weeks between them!"
Last night's episode of Jeopardy! set some big record for tune-in as America watched long-winning champ James Holzhauer go down to defeat. The producers of the show are wondering how the information leaked that on this recorded-some-time-ago episode, Mr. Holzhauer lost. I suggest that on the next show they do, they have the Final Jeopardy! answer be "They leaked the information that James Holzhauer lost on the 6/3/19 episode of Jeopardy!" The correct question would, of course, be "Who are the producers of Jeopardy!"?
My longtime buddy Jim Korkis is one of the world's great authorities on All Things Disney. Upon seeing our discussion here about voice guys like Clarence Nash being on salary as opposed to paid by the job, Jim sent me this…
Feel free to use any or all of the following on your blog. Basically, I am just sharing to let you know Nash was on salary not just to do a voice.
On December 2, 1933, Nash became Disney's 125th employee. He was earning the same amount he made working at Adohr Milk for $35 a week as "Whistling Clarence, the Adohr Bird Man." He would drive a miniature open-topped milk wagon pulled by a team of miniature horses. He would go to local schoolyards and assemblies to entertain children with his bird calls and animal sounds as well as giving out treats to promote the milk. He was attired as a standard Adohr milk man.
He had auditioned at the Disney Studio and Walt did indeed want him to do the voice for a girl duck he had in mind for an upcoming cartoon. Ub Iwerks, Walt's former partner, had also heard Nash do his act on the radio and called him in to audition for a new cartoon he was making called The Little Red Hen, based on the children's story of a hen looking for help to plant, harvest and grind her corn.
Nash wisely phoned to ask Walt's permission, but Walt was unavailable. Ironically, Walt also had a version of the same story, titled The Wise Little Hen, in development and was planning to have Nash do the voice of the duck character. Walt told him not to take the job and had him meet with Disney storyman Pinto Colvig (the voice of Goofy but also the guy in charge of voices at the studio) who told him, "Walt told me about your calling about your going over to Iwerks. He said, 'I like that loyalty in that guy, I'm going to put him on the payroll.'"
Nash could not put in enough hours just doing voices to justify that full-time salary, so he often found himself temporarily in side jobs from accepting artist portfolios at the front desk and processing them to being a chauffeur for visiting celebrities. Also, because of his performing background as an "animal impressionist" on the Redpath Chautauqua and Lyceum circuit, he accompanied Walt on many of Walt's early radio show appearances as well as doing additional voices like the bluebird in Song of the South, the meows for little Figaro the kitten in a handful of short cartoons to the earliest voices for Huey, Dewey and Louie.
Walt kept him on salary for several reasons including the fact that Nash didn't seek personal publicity (unlike Pinto Colvig did for his work in Snow White). He was a genuinely nice and well-liked person, he was flexible at doing whatever he was asked and Walt often kept people on salary years past their usefulness because of their early loyalty to him.
Nash's wife's reaction to him being hired to do the voice of a duck was "That's nice but it probably won't last." By the way, Nash's tombstone in the San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills, California, is shared with his wife (who died in 1993) and has a carving of Donald and Daisy Duck holding hands.
How do I know all of this? I grew up in Glendale, California, the home of Nash that I passed every day on my way to school. I got to know him in his later years and he was a natural entertainer who loved making children laugh. Of course, I am also considered a Disney historian with over thirty books written on Disney related topics.
Thanks, Jim. I think I have most of those thirty books and they're must-haves for anyone interested in Walt and the world he built around himself. Here's an Amazon link to order some of those books. All highly recommended.
I really like a couple of these guys who make YouTube videos singing four-part harmony all by themselves. One of them is Sonny Vande Putte and here he favors us with a golden hit from Elton John…
