And the day in this case is yesterday. Woke up around 8 AM. Did a little work on an issue of Groo and some last minute prep on the day's recording session for The Garfield Show.
Left the house at 9:30 and arrived at the recording studio about 9:45. We recorded two half-hour episodes of the show with a sterling voice cast — regulars Frank Welker, Gregg Berger, Wally Wingert and Jason Marsden, along with guest stars Jack Riley and Grey Delisle. I had to let Wally go at 2:30 so he could scurry out to Burbank and do his announcing work for that night's episode of The Jay Leno Show. The rest of us finished at 3:00.
On the way home, I stopped at a local Petco to buy supplies for the menagerie of strays in my backyard, then scurried home to work more on Groo and climb into fancier clothes. Then at 5 PM, I drove to FedEx to send off Groo pages. Shipping them turned out to be the hard part of the day. 5:30 is the cut-off time for Eastern and International send-offs, and people kept showing up with parcels in those two categories and the counterfolks there (there were two of them, working as fast as they could) would wave them ahead of us.
About 5:27, a burly gent with a huge crate on a dolly marched in and went past all the folks waiting with things to ship. Someone told him to go to the end of the line. Motioning to his package, he yelled out, "My job depends on getting this shipped out today so I don't give a damn about your line. I'm mailing this next." If he'd asked to go ahead of us, I suspect we'd all have said it was okay…but a rather nasty argument broke out, lasting until the clerk was ready to take his box, which she did. The next person in line, when he got to her, complained that since she saw darn well what had happened, she should insist he go to the end. She said, "We're told to take some customers ahead of others if there's danger of missing a cut-off time." Then she added, "If I'd made him go to the end, he's have caused trouble. Who needs trouble?" The debate was still going on when the other clerk was ready to take another customer. I rushed up, had my package processed and got the heck outta there.
Then it was off to the Magic Castle for the evening. Our dinner party consisted of Leonard and Alice Maltin, Gregg and Dora Berger, Earl and Denise Kress, and my friend Carolyn Kelly. Oh, yeah…and I was a part of it. Then we adjourned to the Inner Circle of the Castle, an especially magical place where comedians, cabaret performers and other non-magicians have been known to perform.
For the last two nights, it's been two of my favorite folks…Hunter and Stan Freberg. Stan, as you know, is the great satirist, actor, maker of funny records and commercials and cartoon voice performer. Hunter is his spouse and partner. For 90-some-odd minutes, following an impromptu introduction by me, they told stories of their lives together and tales from Stan's multi-layered career. There were anecdotes about him voicing Warner Brothers cartoons. Some of his commercials were played. He re-created a bit of his first record, "John and Marsha" and sang "Take an Indian to Lunch" from the greatest comedy record ever made (I think), Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America, Volume One.
The crowd loved every minute of it…and by the way, it was nice to see so many readers of this blog there, as well as friends like Paul Dini and Misty Lee, Mark Nelson, Milt Larsen and many others.
Got back here just before Midnight…and that's why I didn't post more yesterday. And why I'm going to bed now. Good night, Internet! See you in the morning.