Monthly Archives: January 2021

Here's another one of these "lots of singers and musicians on Zoom" performances. This one is the best song from the movie Dumbo. Go for it!

As you might've read here, last Tuesday I got a COVID-19 vaccination down at Dodger Stadium. Yesterday, vaccinations there were delayed for close to an hour by a group of anti-vaxxers and COVID-deniers who blocked traffic, imploring people to throw away their needless (they believe) masks and/or not kill themselves with a poisonous (they believe) vaccination.

None of the news accounts I read made it clear if all the anti-vaxxers were also COVID-deniers or vice-versa or if this was an amalgam of two groups with slightly-related beliefs. Seems to me it's possible to believe that the vaccination is safe but that it's a cure for no known disease…or to believe The Pandemic is legit but that the vaccination is poison. I suppose the latter group would believe that, yes, COVID-19 could kill you but the alleged vaccine is more likely to kill you. Or something like that.

And I would guess that there were a lot of people who believe both; that there is no real Pandemic — it's all a hoax — and that the two vaccines are dangerous. Maybe they think whoever arranged the hoax — which seems to have fooled like 98% of the doctors and medical personnel in the world — is an excuse to shoot people full of these drugs that will kill them or make them all Bill Gates's mind slaves or something.

If you're dumb enough to believe one nutty conspiracy theory, you're dumb enough to believe the other. And maybe also that Anderson Cooper eats babies.

What I'm wondering is if they convinced a single person of either belief. Did anyone who'd arrived to get Moderna pumped into their veins see these protesters, listen to them or read their leaflets and say, "Turn the car around, Albert. I think these people are right!"? We can assume they pissed-off and inconvenienced a lot of people and I'm not saying that's without some value when you have a cause…but did they stop one single person from getting the vaccine? I'd be surprised.

I haven't linked to a Bill Maher clip in a long time because (a) I haven't watched him that much and (b), I haven't liked a lot of what I've seen there. But I caught this from the other night and I think it's spot-on. It's about Henry Waxman, who was the Congressperson for my district from 1975 until 2015.

He was (and I suppose still is) a Democrat and he won re-election handily each time he ran with, usually, token opposition if any. Even when he did have a serious opponent, he got a pretty nice chunk of the Republican vote. One time, I voted for his opponent, not because I wanted to see Waxman defeated — I knew he wouldn't be — but because that opponent had run a mature, respectful campaign only about genuine issues. When he lost, he was gracious and wished Waxman only the best. I wish we still had elections like that.

As Maher notes, Waxman was never flashy. He never grandstanded, he never demagogued, he never raised rabble and when he made one of his rare appearances on TV, he talked policy, not polemics. I ran into him several times at the now-extinct Souplantation and he was never too busy to talk seriously with a constituent. (I've also met his successor in the job, Ted Lieu. Same deal.)

I see people today of both parties who seem to think the best public servants are those who say the nastiest things about the other party. I hope I never vote for anyone on that basis. I like elected officials who get things done…

If my e-mail is any indication — and it probably isn't — there are a lot of people in this world who loved Supercar.

You know, if you were to recomb Jordan Klepper's hair, put a suit and a mask on him and send him out to walk the Capitol grounds, I bet a lot of supporters of Trump and/or QAnon would think he was Senator Josh Hawley and say interesting things to him and any nearby Daily Show cameras. But I'm thinking maybe you've already thought of this…

Back in 2004 on this blog, I wrote about a favorite TV show of my childhood — Supercar. It was not a cartoon show and it did not feature human beings on camera. It starred marionettes and I liked it a lot, though even at the age of ten, I was quite aware I was watching puppets and that the scripts were written to avoid having them do the jillion and one things that marionettes could not do. Here's some of what I wrote here in '04…

Supercar was the first of the Gerry Anderson "Supermarionation" shows from Great Britain to make it to Los Angeles television…and, as I was later to learn, it was the show that put him and his company on the map. Later, they produced Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds and other shows in which marionettes had exciting adventures, usually piloting incredible machinery throughout the universe. It was about the time Stingray came on that I realized that the creation of every Gerry Anderson show probably began with someone asking the question, "Okay, we need another premise where our characters won't have to walk too much."

Anderson's puppetry wizards had invented ways to make their players' mouths move enough that I could pretend the heroes were speaking, and the strings were visible but not so much that you couldn't ignore them. What they never quite mastered was how to make their cast members walk more than a step or two. Even when hidden from the waist down behind something, that's when they really reminded you they were puppets. (I also noticed early-on that they never walked through doors. They'd "walk" to the open door and stop and then the camera would cut away.)

This limitation led to the early Anderson shows all revolving around vehicles…like Supercar, in which the heroic Mike Mercury flew about for much of each adventure. Mr. Mercury was the test pilot of this incredible contraption that could fly and go underwater and once in a boring while, even zoom across dry land. He and his crew lived and worked out in the Nevada test flats…and just who they worked for was never made clear. Still, they kept testing their invention and the evil Masterspy kept trying to steal it…

Did you ever see an episode of Supercar? You didn't? Well, here's your chance. This is the entire first episode. I don't guarantee you'll like the show but I'll bet you at least like the theme song…

Our favorite marsupial and his Okefenokee buddies star in a new exhibit at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, which is located at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. The exhibition is called "Into the Swamp: The Political and Social Satire of Walt Kelly's Pogo" and it opens tomorrow. The museum has an extensive collection of Walt Kelly's papers and artwork including 75 pieces of Kelly original art that Garry Trudeau of Doonesbury fame donated to the collection last year.

The exhibition is curated by Lucy Shelton Caswell (the Founding Curator of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum) and Jenny E. Robb (who serves as Curator & Associate Professor). The promotional pieces for the show say, among other things…

Walt Kelly's newspaper comic strip Pogo was a platform for political satire and commentary using a motley group of swamp critters. Kelly tackled many of the political issues of the world in which he lived, from the Red Scare to civil rights, the environment, scientific exploration, and consumerism. We celebrate Walt Kelly and his social commentary through the joyous, poignant, and occasionally profound insights and beauty of the alternative universe that is Pogo. Working in the mid-twentieth century, Kelly drew on the legacy of earlier generations of newspaper cartoonists and then became a major influence on his successors.

I agree with all of that and I would add that it was often very, very funny.

Visits are arranged by reservation and all the info you need is over on this page. Wish I could be there but there's this disease thing going around. You may have heard about it…

One of the loveliest and most talented people I know is the lovely and talented Laraine Newman. If you were watching Saturday Night Live when it started, you "discovered" her like I did: As part of that amazing first cast. After that cast moved on, she did some amazing things as an actress in film, on other TV shows, in the improv comedy community and, more recently, doing cartoon voiceovers. I booked her whenever I could for The Garfield Show because no matter what the role, she could do it. She's also worked with just about everyone in show business for whom I have the slightest respect.

Now she's written her autobiography…but you can't read it. That's because it's only available as an audio book on Audible-dot-com. It'll be released in March but you can advance order now. I did. If it's one tenth as interesting as having dinner with Laraine, it'll be nine hours and five minutes of pure fascination.

Another fine performer from kids' television has left us. Actually, Sonny Fox did plenty of TV that wasn't for kids, both as an on-screen personality and a behind-the-scenes producer. Sonny hosted game shows and he was Tom Snyder's producer on Tomorrow for a while and he did dozens of other programs…but he was probably best known as the host of Wonderama, a four-hour Sunday morning series for kids. He did it for 8.5 years while also hosting other shows, including a Saturday series called Just for Fun. He also for a time was the exec in charge of children's programming for NBC.

He was big in New York where all of his shows aired. Intermittently, we'd get some of them out here in Los Angeles for a while so I sure knew who he was. I was later fortunate to encounter Mr. Fox on several occasions and he was charming and funny and you could see why he was so good on television.

The last time I saw him was at Vitello's Restaurant in Studio City and I wrote about it here. I was there taking in a show with Amber and with Leonard and Alice Maltin and we were talking about friend Chuck McCann, who had just died. Suddenly, we noticed that at the table next to us was Sonny Fox and he was talking with his party about Chuck, who'd been on so many of the shows Sonny had hosted and/or produced. We all got to talking and Sonny talked about how lovely and charming and clever and beloved Chuck was. I wish I could remember all the things he said because I could use them all here to describe Sonny Fox.

It's Thursday and I'm still not a werewolf…at least, any more than I ever am. A couple of folks have written to inform me or link me to articles that tell me that side effects with the Moderna vaccine are more likely with the second dose than with the first. They still seem unlikely and the ones described seem well worth it if it means not getting the whole, nasty illness.

One friend wrote me that they were choosing not to get vaccinated because they don't want to put a strange substance into their body. I've known this person to put some pretty strange things into his mouth, including substances that were supposed to induce strange side effects but I guess he sees a distinction here.

He also wrote, "It's my body and if I want to take the risk, that's my right." I suppose it is but let's remember that it's not your right to infect others and that "herd immunity" — which would mean that this crisis is just about over — is defined thusly…

Herd immunity is achieved when large percentages of a population become immune to a disease and therefore indirectly protect those who do not have immunity. If, for example, four out of five of the people who are exposed to someone with an infectious disease are immune to it, the disease is much less likely to spread.

The fewer folks who get vaccinated, the more the plague will spread and kill more people and keep vast portions of our lives shut down…and the longer it will take to be rid of it. Just because you have the right to do something doesn't mean you should do it.

I wish I had a good anecdote about Cloris Leachman, who died Tuesday at the age of 94. I never met the lady and don't recall any stories about her. Just about everyone who ever worked with her thought she was a fine, gifted performer but you already know that. All I have to offer here is this clip from one of her most memorable performances…

It has now been more than 27 hours since I was injected with the Moderna vaccine. I have experienced absolutely no pain, no queasiness, no side effects and I have not, to the best of my knowledge, turned into a werewolf. There's a full moon tomorrow night so we'll see what, if anything, happens then.

My buddy Jim Newman wrote to say…well, why should I summarize it? You can read it for yourself…

Congratulations on getting the first dose of the vaccine. You end your 'blog post by writing, "it's 100% effective against my physician telling me I'm a friggin' idiot for not getting this done."

This implies (but does not state) that you did not ask your physician first. I'm assuming that you DID ask first. I think that conversation with your doctor is an important part of this story.

In just the past couple of days, I've met a couple of people who seem very doubtful about the vaccine. They did not seem to be anti-vaxxers in general, just anti-this-vax. Based on their gender and their race (which, I know is dangerous to base anything on) they did not seem like they'd subscribe to the current conspiracy theories being put forth about it. I'm talking about the theories from a faction of people who also seem to believe that Mr. Trump put on safety goggles and lit the Bunsen burners in the labs that developed the vaccines. Despite giving him credit for developing it, they want no part of it.

So, I think your journey before Philippe's and Dodger Stadium are important for people to understand.

First off, I should say that I think we give presidents (every one of them) too much credit/blame for things that happened on their watch. And we shouldn't define their "watch" as the precise time period they occupied the Oval Office. The impact — good and bad — of each president's actions or inactions can extend many years after their terms expire. Which is not to say they don't also cause our world to change — again for good or bad — while they're in power.

Yes, my doctor told me to go get vaccinated and when I e-mailed him that I'd secured an appointment, he wrote back a message that just said, "Great."

I like my doctor a lot. He wouldn't be my doctor if I didn't like him a lot. And I'm a big believer in having a doctor I like and trusting him…not blindly but a lot. I'm also really skeptical of medical advice from people, however well-read and intentioned, who have not done that little, insignificant-to-them step of graduating Medical School and securing a license to practice.

No, let me rephrase that: I am really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really skeptical of medical advice from people, however well-read and intentioned, who have not done that little step of graduating Medical School and securing a license to practice. I have had friends who I believe killed themselves or others with Pretend Medical Advice.

It's always been like this and the Internet, while it has made many things oh-so-better has made this worse. No matter what nutty, baseless, unscientific thing you want to believe, you can find someone on the 'net who'll tell you it's the only way to go. Many years ago, I wrote a cartoon on the premise of "If they said it on television, it must be true" — and I even hired the most convincing, sincere person in the world, Gary Owens, to play the announcer. A brief excerpt…

If I were doing that show today, I'd do "If you saw it on the Internet, it must be true."

So around 325 days ago, my doctor warned me about the coronavirus and advised me to stay home, buy masks, not socialize, etc. — excellent advice that most doctors were saying a week or two later — and I've done it and I haven't gotten sick and I'm continuing to listen to this man and I place great trust in what he tells me.

I don't think he or any doctor is infallible…and certainly, with something as new to the world as this particular virus, Science has had to learn as it goes along and we all have to keep updating what we know. But I'm pretty sure that at any given time, he knows more than I do. He explained to me the problems with distribution of the vaccine, which are many. He told me he doesn't know when his office will be getting a supply, nor does he know how much they'll get and which of the two vaccines it will be. And he told me to get one — either Pfizer or Moderna — by any means I could.

For those of you who dwell in Los Angeles, I found my appointment via this website. At the moment, there are very few appointments open but I secured mine ten days ago because my doctor — this is my primary care physician I've been talking about here — directed me to it. Actually, I also got e-mails about it from my gastroenterologist and a few other specialists who've bettered my body.

So that's how I got my appointment and I decided, as they say in Hamilton, "I am not throwin' away my shot." So many folks have already have been inoculated only trivial, outlier reports of side effects that I was convinced it was safe…or if it wasn't, I was at least safer with it than without it. I cannot testify that its effectiveness is everything they say it is but I believe "they" — the overwhelming majority of the medical community — are right way more often than the minority and the Pretend Doctors.

One very unfortunate condition in this country — and the rise of Trump made this worse but did not invent this — is the intermingling of political opinion with science. Just because Trump said it doesn't make it true. Doesn't make it false either. Too many people were in denial about this disease early on because politicians they liked were in denial about it…and some of both are still stubbornly refusing to admit it's as bad as it is. I can't change those minds but I could go get vaccinated. I'm so sure that it's the right thing to do that I'm going to double-down and do it again in four weeks.

My pal Paul Harris, who is now retired from roughly the same business Larry King was in, has a good essay up about Mr. King. What bothered Paul about the man's broadcasting was the same thing that sometimes bothered me about it: When he'd hand his widely-heard or widely-watched forum over to some charlatan or phony psychic. I believe, by the way, that the term "phony psychic" is redundant.

Occasionally, King would challenge their claims but not often enough for me. And as Paul reminds us, there was that time when "The Iron Horse of Broadcasting" (as many called him) turned his CNN show into a series of infomercials for Ross Perot's presidential candidacy. I've written before about this moment…

A day or two before the presidential election of 1992, independent candidate Ross Perot went on Larry King Live, the TV program which was largely responsible for him even being on the ballot. King asked him the obvious question: "How do you think you're going to do on Tuesday?"

I haven't been able to find a video or transcript online but I remember his answer quite vividly. It struck me as especially stunning since Perot's appeal to voters — the only real reason he was a major candidate who'd been included in the debates — was that he was a straight-talking, atypical politician. And what this straight-talking, atypical politician said was that he was going to carry every state and win 100% of all 538 electoral votes. All of them.

I remember the look of shock on Mr. King's face and he muttered something about how no one in history had ever done that, to which Perot replied with dead seriousness that he'd be the first. I don't recall if King then pointed out that at that moment, not one single pollster was showing Perot as being even close to winning one state, let alone every one. And indeed on Election Day, Perot won as many as I did. Or you did. Or Donald Duck did. Zero.

I wonder to this day: Was that what he really believed or was it something he thought he should say? It had to be one or the other and neither is flattering to the man.

If I'd been Larry King on that show, I would have been thinking: I shouldn't have given this man as much air time as I did. And by the way, I don't think I ever want to be "The Iron Horse" of anything.

Meanwhile, my one-time writing partner Dennis Palumbo has written a piece that's well worth reading. Dennis is still a writer but also a psychotherapist and he wrote a piece about how some of his patients are coping with the downtime caused by The Pandemic. For the record, I am not one of Dennis's patients nor have we spoken lately except for the video chat we did. I would fall into the "optimistic" category of those he discusses but really, my writing career ain't changed much during the lockdown.

I enjoy watching old panel shows like I've Got a Secret, What's My Line? and To Tell the Truth. I find them entertaining and every so often, they give you a little peek at history.

Here's an I've Got a Secret from August 28, 1952. The Celebrity Guest was Gloria Swanson and she was the third of four contestants that evening. Her spot wasn't all that interesting and the first two were pretty unremarkable so I've set this video to start playing just before Contestant #4

You can move the slider back and watch the whole show if you like but if you're a fan of the musical Gypsy, you might like to see that last contestant. It's the real Mama Rose…