You needn't write me to report that something screwy has happened with one of my other sites, oldlarestaurants.com. I know about the problem with all the comments not showing up. They're there. I can see them but you can't.

This is, like every damned thing in the news, way beyond my expertise to fix. Folks who know a lot more about the website's software than I do — which could mean anyone — are trying to make things right. If they succeed, I may ask if they can do something about the wildfires, the pandemic or the White House.

I watched as much of the first night of the Republican Convention as I watched of the first night of the Democratic one: Just about nothing. But I saw enough in quick clips to know that I am not the G.O.P.'s target audience. This event is not about trying to convince people who think Trump is a dangerous, criminal, inept, lying Chief Exec that they've got the guy all wrong. It's about convincing those who are inclined to like him for one or more reasons to stay the course, spread the word, donate money, don't give up, get out the vote, etc. The Democratic affair was pretty much about the same things.

As is so often the case, we seem to be in one of those Too Much News periods. We have hurricanes, wildfires, another seemingly unwarranted police shooting of a black guy, big companies going under and/or shedding jobs, an asteroid heading our way, a new flavor of Chicken McNuggets, various new folks testing positive for COVID-19, various glimmers of a vaccine, Jerry Falwell Jr. confirming he's just as big a hypocrite as we all knew he was, et al. Perhaps it will inspire you to read what Jerry Seinfeld wrote about how he won't give up on New York…or just about anything else.

And I know you'll enjoy watching my pal Mike Peters talk with me this evening…unless you're a Trump supporter. He's a political cartoonist (with a Pulitzer Prize, no less) and while I'm going to try to talk mostly about cartooning, some political stuff is bound to creep in…though I'm not sure he can be nastier to Trump than he was to Bill Clinton. You can watch it on the very page you're looking at now…

The Politifact folks fact-checked some (not all) of Donald Trump's speech tonight. As usual, he said a lot of things that are not true and, as usual, many of his supporters prefer to believe his claims instead of the truth.

When Steve Allen founded and hosted The Tonight Show, it was simply called Tonight. Very little footage from that show remains but here's twelve amazing minutes — a live remote with Steverino in New York chatting with the team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis out in Hollywood. This is reportedly from November 11, 1955..and in case you're curious, Dino and Jerry dissolved their partnership and made their final appearance together on July 25, 1956…so about eight and a half months later…

• The official Republican platform for this year mentions no issues at all. It just says that they totally and completely support every single thing done by the guy with the 55% Disapproval Rating. Sounds like a winning strategy to me.

Abraham Riesman delves into the history of the 1966 Broadway show, It's a Bird…It's a Plane…It's Superman, and into a recent attempt to revise and revive it. The show did not last long in New York in '66 but it does get revived now and then, probably to the sheer commercial appeal of putting Superman on stage.

I didn't see the original version but I've seen several local productions and I don't think it's a very good show. The storyline puts Superman through a psychiatric crisis which doesn't make a lot of sense and isn't something we want to see Our Hero experience. It also has the problem that the plot doesn't go anywhere. At the end of the Li'l Abner musical, Abner and Daisy Mae get married. At the end of the Annie musical, Little Orphan Annie gets a good home.

At the end of It's a Bird…It's a Plane…It's Superman, everything is exactly as it was when things started. Name me a successful play where that's the case. (I'm not saying there isn't one but you'll probably have to think for quite a while.)

Several folks sent me links to this article and asked me why I thought DC Comics had placed so many restrictions on the original version — like no Lex Luthor — and seems so uncooperative with the recent revival/revision. I cannot explain the workings of DC Comics for the last few years and, insofar as I can tell, neither can anyone who worked at the company.

In the sixties? I dunno. I only met longtime Superman editor Mort Weisinger once — very briefly and (amazingly) on his very last day of being the editor of the Superman comics. Everyone I've ever met who worked with him said he had a reason for everything he did and that reason was usually to bolster the power of Mort Weisinger. My guess is that if they'd hired him to work on the musical, he would have been more cooperative…but that's just a guess. Anyway, it's a good article even if we don't understand why some of the things that happened happened.

• Kellyanne Conway leaving her job with Trump. Husband George stepping down from his job trying to defeat Trump. I have the feeling Randy Rainbow will be working late tonight.

165 days of barely leaving my house…and I'm not sure we're even near the halfway mark in this. The big hardship on me is not directly on me. It's watching and listening to what all this sickness and shutdown is doing to others. I'm used to staying home and writing all day. This, as many of us including mobsters say, is the life we choose. But no one chooses viruses, deaths, financial collapse, massive unemployment, businesses closing…

Gee, I wish I'd bought stock in Zoom.

It's pretty danged hot in California lately, especially in portions of it that are on fire. I'm nowhere near those portions so I guess I shouldn't complain about the heat…or anything. Lydia and Murphy don't like it and if I were covered in fur, I wouldn't either. Lydia has found a place behind the garage that I guess is as comfy as any. When she hears me on the back porch, she sprints out from there, I feed her and she heads back to, I suppose, sleep. I think Murphy has her own such spot some distance away. When the sun goes down, she's out on the back porch demanding vittles which I obediently supply.

Tuesday, August 25 at 7 PM Pacific Time
A CONVERSATION WITH MIKE PETERS
Mark talks with the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and the creator of the Mother Goose & Grimm comic strip, Mike Peters.

Tuesday, September 1 at 7 PM Pacific Time
A CONVERSATION WITH MAX MAVEN
Mark talks with one of the foremost magicians (and expert on the art form) in the world, Max Maven. Topics will include why people become magicians, why some people believe their own eyes when they shouldn't and what television has done to The Art of Magic.

This is a video from a company that calls itself "America's Test Kitchen." I don't recall America voting to select a test kitchen but maybe it's like Michael Jackson declaring himself "King of Pop." I'd start calling myself "America's Blogger" but I want to wait and see what America does this November. I may not want to associate myself with this country if it does the wrong thing.

For this video, America's Test Kitchen evaluated a number of different pasta sauces that come in a jar and declared most lousy but two, they could recommend. I'm embedding this video because the one they picked as the best is the one I've picked as the best. I'll give you a subtle hint as to the winner…

They show a jar of it in the 24 ounce size and say that it's "almost ten dollars." It ain't cheap and some online sites charge even more than that, which may have something to do with variable supply lines. I ordered a case of it directly from the company website and they charged me $10.00 a jar for the 24 oz. jars (shipping included) which it took them a little over a month to deliver. Meanwhile, my local Ralphs had and still has the 24 oz. size for $8.99 while my Costco has the winning deal — two 28 oz. jars for $13.29.

In case you're too lazy to do the math: 24 ounces for $8.99 is a bit under 37 cents an ounce. 56 ounces for $13.29 is a hair over 23 cents per ounce. And in case you're interested, the price at Amazon has gone up and down like Rudy Giuliani's eyebrows but as I type this, it's $23.95 for two 24 oz. jars, plus if you're not Amazon Prime, there's shipping.

Rao's actually makes eleven different pasta sauces that come in jars. I've tried the Marinara, the Bolognese and the "Sensitive Marinara" Sauce. The last of these was too weak 'n' watery for me but I love the regular Marinara, which I guess you'd call their Insensitive Marinara Sauce. The Bolognese is great but I've only found/obtained it via their website…and it's also a lot greater if you brown some ground beef and add it in.

Here's the video. I have no financial stake of any sort in the company and if I find a better sauce tomorrow, I won't hesitate to recommend it instead. But this is a time when a lot of us are preparing meals at home and I find it really handy to have a lot of this stuff in my cupboard…

I know this is the website that the whole world comes to for news about baby pandas so…

Mei Xiang, the female giant panda housed at the National Zoo in Washington D.C. The 22-year-old panda gave birth to a cub on Friday night. That makes Mei Xiang the oldest giant panda to ever give birth in the United States. She's also the first in the U.S. to give birth after the use of frozen semen. You can just barely make out the new arrival in this footage…

Tomorrow afternoon, I'm hosting a live online YouTube version of The Business of Cartoon Voices, a panel I've been hosting every year at Comic-Con International. For the last umpteen years, my Sunday at that convention has gone as follows. Unless there's a business-type meeting elsewhere, once I get to the convention hall, I go upstairs and stay there until the convention is over.

I start with the 10 AM panel, which is the Annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel in Room 5AB. That ends at 11:15, whereupon I hike down the hall to Room 6A and host the Sunday Cartoon Voices Panel, the second of two such presentations at the con. That's over at 12:45 and by the time I get the panelists out of the room, it's at least 1 PM.

One of the hardest parts of moderating a panel, especially in one of the big rooms, is ending it on time and clearing out so the next panel can begin on time. Audience members rush the stage at the end to meet the panelists up close and personal and to ask for autographs while I try to do two things. I have to get the panelists in a group so photographers — amateur, freelance and shooting for the convention — can snap off some shots. Then I have to get the panelists to physically leave the stage and exit the hall while the stage crew resets for the next event. That is sometimes more difficult than you'd imagine.

I then have an hour before my next panel. The con is nice enough to provide me with an assistant who usually has my lunch waiting but I may have to wolf it down while giving an interview or discussing business. No matter what, I have to get myself down to Room 25ABC, which is quite a schlep, to set up for the Cover Story panel which starts at 2 PM. If you've never seen Cover Story, it's kind of "shop talk" for artists who create covers for comic books. I invite some good ones to participate and we discuss design, color, art supplies, lettering, logos…even how the cover illustration is cropped.

At 3 PM, I get to stay in the same room for The Business of Cartoon Voices. I have a couple of voice actors and an agent or two and we discuss how one goes about getting into the business of speaking for animated characters. This panel evolved out of the Cartoon Voices Panels I've been doing at Comic-Con for a couple of decades. If you've never seen one, six that I've done online since The Pandemic started can be found on this page. They consist of oft-heard Cartoon Voice Actors demonstrating their art (or craft; it's a little of both) and the panels are very funny and fascinating, not because of me.

The in-person ones used to end with me taking questions from the audience but I stopped doing that some years ago. All the questions seemed to be from folks asking the panelists some version of "How do I get your job?" For reasons of time and mood, that did not seem to be the place to sufficiently answer those questions.

And I'll be honest with you: An awful lot of the questions wound up being from wanna-be voice actors wanting to turn their moment at the microphone into their audition. They'd talk about their careers and what they'd done and they'd start doing voices. Often, they wanted to "work with" (sort of) the panelists. If June Foray was on the panel, at least one audience member would want to do his Bullwinkle impression and have her do Rocky. If Rob Paulsen was on the panel, someone who thought he did a much better impression of The Brain than he did would want Rob to do Pinky so they could have a little exchange.

As a moderator, I always keep an eye on the audience. That's as important as anything else you do when you're hosting something like this. And what I saw when the audience-questioners were trying to make it all about them was members of the audience rolling their eyes, yawning and walking out. It ended those panels on a low note.

At the same time, I had another concern…

Hollywood (and I'm not just using that word in a geographic sense) abounds with wanna-bes…people who dream of careers they may or may not ever attain. It also therefore abounds in people who seek to profit from those dreams. Exploitation seems to materialize in any situation when there are people leaving themselves open to be exploited.

If you're one such person who wants to be a successful, working voice actor, they want to charge you for photos or for coaching or for participating in "showcases." Showcases — which always seem like scams to me — give you the opportunity to pay some serious bucks to perform in front of people who may or may not have the power to hire you to be in a movie or on a TV show. Please read the following paragraph carefully…

There are coaches and photographers and teachers who are honest and good and helpful and you may be able to benefit mightily from their services. Most folks who do make it in the business have studied with good ones. There are also people who will tell you that you have talent and potential, especially if you don't have much of those but do have money. About all they'll do is take that money while moving you no closer to the career you seek. You need to be really, really careful to avoid those in this second category.

I have seen some heartbreaking instances of preying on Aspiring Talent. Often, it takes the form of a parent shelling out cash they can ill-afford to try and give their beloved child the career that the beloved child wants oh so badly. This bothers me and it bothered a great friend of mine named Earl Kress.

Earl passed away in 2011 and I miss him every day. Here is the obit I wrote for him back then and it still makes my eyes damp when I read it. He was a writer but also at times a voice actor. We were introduced by another lovely, talented person I miss a lot…Daws Butler. One of the best voice actors who ever lived.

Earl had co-hosted a few Cartoon Voices Panels with me and we talked a lot about the above two concerns — the Q-and-A segments and what they'd become, and also the predatory gougers of newcomers. He as much as I came up with the idea for the Business of Cartoon Voices panels and he was involved in the first one. I think I wrote here once that those panels were my way to try and lessen the predatory practices. If I said it that way, I was wrong. I should have said our way.

So every year, I don't take questions from the floor at the Cartoon Voice Panels but I do host this seminar. I am very pleased that we have seen audience members — a few, please understand — go from being audience members to being working cartoon voice actors. At least two have even appeared with me on Business of Cartoon Voices Panels to serve as instructors for the kind of folks they used to be.

It's the last program event I do each year in San Diego. It starts at 3 PM and runs 90 minutes…then panelists and audience move out into the corridor and we talk in little groups and one-on-one for at least a half-hour. By the time I get away from that, the convention downstairs has closed so that is how my Comic-Con International always ends. It is always very satisfying for me.

For tomorrow's online version, I've asked two of the best voice actors (and coaches) working today…Debi Derryberry and Bob Bergen. And I've lassoed two of the best agents…Cynthia McLean, who represents some stellar voice actors at SBV Talent, and Paul Doherty who is the "D" in CESD Talent. There are also bad agents in this business and if Cynthia and Paul are too modest to explain why they are among the best, I will.

The panel is live at 4 PM tomorrow. That's Pacific Time so you can figure out what it is in your Time Zone. You can watch it on this site but if you want to ask questions while it's in progress, you'll need to watch it live on YouTube, which you can do via this link. If you miss it or miss part of it, don't fret. It will rerun here and there on demand for a long, long time.

Just think of it as yet another Public Service from newsfromme.tv.

I watched Joe Biden's speech.  I'm a believer that any political speech could benefit by being 25% shorter but that aside, I thought it was a good one.  If nothing else, it probably relieved a fear that some of his supporters have that the Trump folks could make the "Joe has dementia" lie stick.  It was a strong speech and a forceful one and it didn't go overboard in "attack" mode — a mission best left to others. I'm not convinced there are as many Undecided Voters out there as the polls say. I think a lot of those who tell pollsters they're undecided know how they'll vote if they do. They're just undecided if they can bring themselves to vote at all. Maybe.

Earlier today, I watched Barack Obama's speech from the other night. It seemed a bit stiff but he's still a great speaker. I'm probably wrong about this but he looked a bit worried for his country and in his eyes, there was almost a subtext of "I shouldn't have to give this speech. Joe should be twenty points ahead instead of just nine."

For what it's worth, Politifact found little to correct in Biden's speech. Somehow, I have the feeling it won't be that way with Donald's.