Several friends have written to tell me about other comic book conventions that have been held over the Thanksgiving Weekend…and I can't believe I forgot about the many years when I was a Special-Type Guest at Mid-Ohio Con in Columbus, Ohio…a very fine, well-attended gathering that usually gathered on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday after Turkey Day.

And yes, I understand that this Thanksgiving Weekend may be special to some because everyone was masking 'n' isolating on the last Thanksgiving Weekend.  And yes, I don't have kids or much family at all so it may mean less to me than it does to some other folks.  I still don't think the choice of dates is that huge an affront to humanity.

A couple of those criticizing the choice of dates have said things like, "Do they really think they're going to get A-List movie stars and celebrities to attend on that weekend?"  I read that and I couldn't help but think, "Wow…if it will, that's a terrific reason to hold it that weekend."

Another sign of Las Vegas opening up: Penn & Teller will resume doing live shows at the Rio on April 22. They're eliminating all the bits where they bring audience members up on stage…and the article doesn't address it but I assume they won't be hanging out in the lobby after the show for autographs and photos.

I still have no desire to go to Vegas. Or to travel at all.

Since the announcement of Comic-Con Special Edition the other day, I've been receiving e-mails that ask one or both of two questions. I shall do my level best to answer each of those questions…

Question #1: Are you, Mark Evanier, willing to attend an event like this in November? My answer to this is a firm "I dunno." I have found it helpful during the Pandemic to regard all predictions involving time to be wild guesses. The predictions of a few folks — like, say, actual experts on epidemics and immunization — are probably worth a little more than the ones from non-specialists and anyone on cable news or in government…but they're all still guesses about a situation with almost zero precedents.

Sometimes, they've been too optimistic; sometimes, too pessimistic. In the latter category, we seem to have most predictions about how many people would get vaccinations and how long it would take to jab 'em all.

But when will it be safe to gather and with what caveats? Again, a firm "I dunno." It would not surprise me if it seemed reasonably safe by Thanksgiving or even Labor Day. Then again, with all the folks who think mask-wearing is over and it's time to gather in what could turn out to be super-spreader events, it wouldn't surprise me if we were in for another surge of hospitalizations and deaths. So ask me in a few months when I might have a somewhat less-firm "I dunno." I gather that the folks staging this Special Edition still aren't 100% certain they won't have to call it off due to some as-yet-unpredictable worse case scenario.  Which brings us to the other question…

Question #2: Are they outta their minds having this thing on Thanksgiving Weekend? I don't think so but I certainly understand why that's a bad time for a lot of people. They want to spend that holiday time with family, especially since they probably couldn't do that last year. It's an expensive time to travel and it might be especially so in a post-Pandemic America.

The convention proprietors have responded to some immediate objections by issuing the following announcement…

Our decision to hold an in-person event in 2021 was driven by a number of factors. Our primary hope was to be able to gather in-person as a community, something we have not been able to do since early last year. Another was to try to determine how best to effectively and safely produce events in light of current health concerns with the least negative impact on attendees.

As conventions and events have had to cancel their in-person shows or have converted to virtual formats during the pandemic, some have been postponed to later years while others have been rescheduled to the later part of 2021, resulting in a very packed Convention Center calendar. When reviewing dates for an in-person event, it was clear that available meeting and exhibit space would limit our options. Of the dates presented with the fewest restrictions, Friday through Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend seemed to be the best balance of available space and our envisioned event. As longtime fans ourselves, we have attended many conventions over that holiday weekend, opting to spend Thanksgiving day with family and the rest of the weekend with friends and our families of choice. While this is not unusual in the convention trade, we understand this choice is not optimal for everyone.

Comic-Con Special Edition was never intended to be the large gathering reflective of the summer event. As a shorter event, it was our attempt to start slowly and cautiously while at the same time addressing the desire from fans to have an in-person show. There are still many factors that are unknown to us at this time, including space accommodations, travel restrictions, capacity restrictions, and required safety protocols. While open to all and with the hope that we will be able to accommodate fans from all over, we understand that due to potential travel-based restrictions and challenges, Comic-Con Special Edition may be an event attended mostly by fans more easily able to travel to San Diego.

Currently we do not know whether having this event in November is even feasible as we are still in the midst of the pandemic and while we are optimistic about Q4, we have not been privy to any specific information on large gatherings. However, it was our desire to have something in place for our fans who have longed for an in-person event. We truly hope that you will join us for this entry back into the world of in-person celebrations of the community we so love.

Reading between the lines, I think they're saying these were the best dates they could get. That wouldn't surprise me. Groups that want to convene at the San Diego Convention Center have been canceling and postponing events for more than a year now. With the announcement that they expect to begin welcoming such events in August, they're probably deluged with bookings, many of which may be contractual.

It's clear that the Comic-Con folks still don't know how large a convention they'll be able to have there in November. The line about how it "may be an event attended mostly by fans more easily able to travel to San Diego" should not be overlooked. It may indeed be relatively small and may even serve as a kind of test kitchen for how cons will have to adapt for the foreseeable future.

I think some of those complaining that they may not be able to attend are imagining one of those big 130,000-people-and-every-big-superstar festivals that you don't want to miss…and that ain't what this is going to be. It may not even be at all. Wait and see if it's something you would even want to attend before you get angry that you might not be able to attend.

And by the way, there have been big comic conventions on Thanksgiving Weekends. The Creation people used to do a hugely successful one that weekend in Manhattan every year, which I believe was attended mostly by people who could take the subway in for a day, spend money and take the subway home. This may be more like one of those conventions…if it even happens at all.

When The Flintstones debuted on ABC — which it did on September 30, 1960 — it had a different theme song than the one we all know. It was an instrumental called "Rise and Shine." Commencing with Season Three, the whole opening was changed and there was a new song — "Meet the Flintstones" complete with lyrics performed by the Randy Van Horne Singers. When the first two seasons were later rerun anywhere, the old opening was replaced with the new one.

In fact, there was a time when the video of the old one was lost. No one at Hanna-Barbera (or, later on, the Time-Warner beast that had consumed H-B) could locate a decent copy of that video. My old buddy Earl Kress — a guy I miss a lot — finally found one when he was working on a project for the studio. It was on a reel of tape or film that was labeled as containing something else.

The video on which you're about to click will show you that opening followed by a restored audio version of the song sung for a kids' record by the original cast — Alan Reed, Jean Vander Pyl, Mel Blanc and Bea Benaderet.  And then there's a look at some of the original designs for the show by Ed Benedict and — well, it all makes me feel about eight years old again, especially that original opening…

• I like the feeling that the virus is slowing going away and that the end of that tunnel is in sight…but is there any way we can get there but keep the level of traffic that we had in Los Angeles before businesses started reopening?

In December of 2018, we were mourning CBS Television City in Hollywood. It had been sold to a real estate developer who had plans to trim down the part of the operation where television shows are done and to add in lots of retail outlets and a hotel and touristy attractions and such.

Well, that mourning is now looking premature and unwarranted. If this article is true, the plan now is to expand the TV production facilities, going from eight studios to at least fifteen with additional support functions and offices. The new commissary they mention would also be nice since the one that's there hasn't been upgraded since the staff of The Danny Kaye Show was lunching there.

I doubt they'll be allowed to expand as much as they say they want to expand and I suspect they don't really want to. These developments always ask for more than they expect to get…but I like the idea of the place being upgraded as a television production center rather than to become another big shopping center…especially since there already is one on that block.

As I said, I don't know anything about this "Comic-Con Special Edition" that's going to take place in San Diego on Thanksgiving weekend other than the dates, the fact that it's not Comic-Con International and the fact that it'll be in the San Diego Convention Center.

I may be more interested in the San Diego Convention Center than you are. As you know, it's been housing and serving a lot of San Diego's homeless population during the pandemic. That's winding down now and the folks who are there are being relocated…but new tenants are arriving…

The San Diego Convention Center, repurposed as a temporary overflow facility for unaccompanied migrant children, will house girls between the ages of 13 and 17, federal officials said Saturday, hours before the first 500 arrivals were expected to arrive from Texas and Arizona.

The linked article goes on to say that the Convention Center will begin hosting actual conventions in August. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria is quoted as saying, "…what we know right now is there is no use for this facility (until August) and this is a public asset. People in this city own it. It can sit here vacant, doing nothing, or it can do something on behalf of thousands of kids who need it." A convention center in Dallas is housing males of the same age seeking asylum.

Here's what it looks like down there in S.D…

This is about all I know about it at the moment…

COMIC-CON ANNOUNCES DATES
FOR NOVEMBER CONVENTION

The Event Will Be Held At The San Diego
Convention Center Over Thanksgiving Weekend

San Diego Comic Convention today announced dates for their November convention. Comic-Con Special Edition will be held as a three-day event over Thanksgiving weekend, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, November 26-28, 2021 at the San Diego Convention Center. It is our hope that by Fall conditions will permit larger public gatherings.

Comic-Con Special Edition will be the first in-person convention produced by the organization since Comic-Con 2019, and the first since the onset of the global pandemic COVID-19. The Fall event will allow the organization to highlight all the great elements that make Comic-Con such a popular event each year, as well as generate much needed revenue not only for the organization but also for local businesses and the community.

"While we have been able to pivot from in-person gatherings to limited online events, the loss of revenue has had an acute impact on the organization as it has with many small businesses, necessitating reduced work schedules and reduction in pay for employees, among other issues," said David Glanzer, spokesperson for the nonprofit organization. "Hopefully this event will shore up our financial reserves and mark a slow return to larger in-person gatherings in 2022."

As details are still being finalized, badge cost, attendance capacity, and related information will be forthcoming.

This is not Comic-Con International. It's Comic-Con Special Edition, a different convention produced by the same organization, just as they also produce WonderCon. More details to come.

Hope you enjoyed one or more of the panels I hosted for WonderCon@Home and posted here earlier today. They'll be on this website indefinitely so you can watch 'em all when you have time.

I've received a few e-mails from folks who like watching panels like these — not just ones I host — and wish all conventions would share their programming online this way. I expect that day will come but not for a while.

It complicates things a lot. It's pretty easy to just get all the panel participants and those who want to see the panel to schlep up to Room 16A (or wherever) at 3 PM (or whenever) and just do a panel. To put one online, you have to have a camera crew and set up audio and run wires and deal with what happens when attention goes to a screen and make sure there's a good Internet connection, which they don't always have in these places. Someone has to "direct" in some manner.

Wait. There's more. If you show clips from TV shows or movies, there are copyright issues involved with putting the panel online. And some convention centers and hotels have union contracts that mean that union personnel has to be brought in to do much of this.

It all gets very complicated and I'm not saying it can't be done or even that it won't be done…but it won't be the norm for a while.

And there's another matter that concerns me. To explain it, I have to quote something I've posted on this blog before. It's about a guy who approached me one year at Comic-Con in San Diego to bitch that too much of the programming was about things other than comic books and there especially wasn't enough about the history of the art form…

[He] was upset that so much of the Comic-Con wasn't about comics and he felt, I guess, that I'd concur and would rush off to do something about it…maybe throw Robert Downey Jr out of the hall or something. Instead, I told him about that great panel we did on the Golden Age of Batman with Jerry Robinson, Sheldon Moldoff and Lew Schwartz. If you're interested in the history of comics, it doesn't get any more historical than that. I then said to this fellow who was complaining about the con not being about that kind of thing, "I didn't see you there."

And so help me, he replied, "I couldn't be there. I had to get in line to see the 24 panel with Kiefer Sutherland."

I love doing panels about the history of comics. I love watching them and I love hosting them and I wish there were more of them. And you know why there aren't more of them at conventions? Well, part of it is that a lot of cons don't invite and pay for the kind of folks who would be interviewed for such panels but it's the same question: Why don't they invite more of those folks and why don't they have more panels with them?

And the answer is very simple. It's that comic conventions do not program for empty seats. The above anecdote is about a guy who said he wanted to see such panels but apparently didn't want that enough to show up in the panel room for one. I'm afraid there are a lot of people who are like him. They say they care about comic book history but they don't show up to fill the seats, which is the only meaningful way you encourage conventions to invite more folks of historical significance and to have such panels.

I know there are a lot of these people because they keep saying to me, "Gee, I really wanted to catch that. Did anyone record it?" Sometimes, they say, "I'll have to catch that on YouTube" and they're startled when I tell them it won't be on YouTube because it wasn't recorded…or wasn't recorded for that purpose.

Thousands of years ago when I last went to an actual comic convention, one fellow got somewhat irked when I told him the panel he wanted to see — but had something better to do while it was taking place — would not be available online. He said, "That's important history. Someone should have recorded it." To which I said, "Yes, and someone should have shown up for it." Because like I said, they don't program for empty seats.

Featuring Mark Evanier, Sergio Aragonés, Stan Sakai and Tom Luth…

Featuring Mara Junot, Maurice LaMarche, Anna Brisbin and Brock Powell…

Featuring Jonathan Ross and Neil Gaiman…

An acquaintance of mine who doesn't believe in wearing masks, Donald Trump losing elections or — probably — the Earth being round is mad he isn't at the Anaheim Convention Center right now. The Pandemic ain't over (new cases are still being reported) but he thinks there's not only light at the tunnel but us, too. We're there, it's over and why the hell can't he have everything back right this minute?

I like WonderCon as much as he does but I'm glad they went virtual with it and I'm glad the same folks aren't trying to have a real Comic-Con International in July. He thinks they're being too cautious. I think they aren't. If they're erring, at least they're erring on the side of Safety instead of erring on the side of Maybe Killing Grandma.

So I'm at home where, at least, the food's better and when I need to use the toilet, I rarely have to wait in line behind a guy in a Chewbacca suit. And I'm enjoying some of the online panels. The three I did will be on this site before the day is out. We're making the best of it.

In an alternate universe where COVID-19 was stopped at the borders — preferably not our borders — WonderCon 2021 would be convening tomorrow in Anaheim, not far from where Disneyland is (and has been) in full operation. But we can all attend it virtually this weekend from wherever we're sequestered.

Tune in tomorrow and enjoy the many great panels that will be available online including the three of mine that will go online tomorrow. They will also be linked here at some point. You can find the whole schedule posted here. I will, as usual, be cosplaying as Harley Quinn for much of the event…

All of these are tomorrow, Friday, March 26, all times are Pacific and all panels run an hour, give or take a few minutes…

10 AM – The Jack Kirby Tribute Panel
Mark Evanier (Kirby: King of Comics) talks about the man some call "The King of the Comics" with author Neil Gaiman (American Gods) and TV host and mega-Kirby fan Jonathan Ross. They will attempt to discuss what was special about the work of Jack Kirby and why, long after we lost him, he seems to be more popular than ever.

1 PM – Cartoon Voices
Mark Evanier (supervising producer of The Garfield Show) welcomes four of the best actors today supplying the words and sounds of animated superstars and the strange beings who inhabit videogames. They are Maurice LaMarche (Pinky and the Brain), Mara Junot (Mortal Combat 11), Brock Powell (Phineas and Ferb: Candace against the Universe) and Anna Brisbin (Final Fantasy VII Remake). There will be a script reading of a script they've never seen before and plenty of talk about their craft.

5 PM – The Groo Crew
The four guys responsible for the comic book Groo the Wanderer — Sergio Aragonés, Mark Evanier, Stan Sakai and Tom Luth — talk about how and why they create the adventures of the stupidest character in all of comics, and maybe we'll get Sergio to talk about his 55 years with MAD magazine and Stan to discuss new and exciting news about his creation, Usagi Yojimbo.

Dana Carvey was on with Stephen Colbert not last night but the night before. Mr. Carvey did impressions of Dr. Fauci and President Biden — the first good ones I've heard of either gent. When I heard them, I had two thoughts, one being that Saturday Night Live has had a lot of folks who try to do impressions but very few as good as Dana Carvey.

And my second thought it that we're going to see a lot of good Fauci and Biden impressions now…but they won't be done by folks imitating Fauci and Biden. What we'll be hearing is impressions of Dana Carvey doing Fauci and Biden

This is a ten minute excerpt from Colbert's show but I've set it to start playing at the 4:30 mark where the impressions begin. If you want to watch the whole thing, just move the slider all the way to the left…

Our pal Stu Shostak found this on YouTube. It's thirteen minutes of the 1956 Broadway musical The Most Happy Fella as presented that year on Ed Sullivan's show. The Most Happy Fella was a modest hit when it debuted. It ran 676 performances, probably because of its bouncy songs by Frank Loesser (who also penned the book) and a lot of good promotion.

A lot of it was on Ed's show that night — Sunday, October 28, 1956 — and that episode got a whopping tune-in thanks to it also featuring the second appearance of Mr. Elvis Presley. There was also an episode of I Love Lucy that was practically a commercial for The Most Happy Fella…and yes, Lucy and Desi had invested in the musical.

But Most Happy Fella isn't performed much. There was one major attempt to revive it on Broadway in 1979 but it closed in about six weeks, and there've been a few scattered revivals here and there. I've never seen a production of it. A friend of mine who did said it was a lot of great songs, not a lot of great stuff between them.

Here's what may be the best of those great songs as performed by Robert Weede, Jo Sullivan and the Company…