Here's a video from 1984. As Johnny Carson drives into his parking space at NBC Burbank, he's greeted by Regis Philbin and a camera crew shooting a segment for Regis's show. Johnny must have known about this and agreed to it but he doesn't look all that delighted with the segment. Thanks to Kabir Bhatia for letting me know about this…

I pay as little attention as I can these days to what Donald Trump is saying or doing — more than I'd like but not as much as I might. One thing I do look at is the occasional time (maybe twice a year) when he says something about improving the health care system in this country. While running for office, he promised the greatest, most super-terrific, efficient and affordable health insurance plan ever and since he got the job, he's done as much about it as you and I have. Maybe less.

Aware that he might have to answer for that in debates or elsewhere — for some odd reason, health and hospitalization are on some folks' minds these days — he just came up with a proposal which he says will lower the costs of prescriptions. I am skeptical that Donald J. Trump ever wants to do anything that would cut even a teensy but into the income of large companies…so I'm skeptical about that.

Kevin Drum takes a look at the four elements of Trump's plan and finds — surprise, surprise — that they probably wouldn't amount to much of anything. Because in politics today, if you can say you've done something, you really don't need to actually do it.

Actually, you can set any kind of Digital Video Recorder you have. You can even be old-fashioned and tune-in when what I'm recommending is actually broadcast.

Tomorrow evening, July 28, Turner Classic Movies favors us with a Carl Reiner Film Festival — Enter Laughing, All of Me, The Comic, Where's Poppa? and Oh, God! Five pretty good films…and Carl had nothing to do with it but the movie just before these five is The Apartment, which is one of those movies I simply feel the urge to watch every so often.

The day after, they're running the 1960 Sex Kittens Go to College with Mamie Van Doren, Martin Milner, Louis Nye, Tuesday Weld and a few other folks who amazingly still had careers after appearing in Sex Kittens Go to College. Its director, Albert Zugsmith, was formerly the lawyer who represented Jerry Siegel in his 1947 case against DC Comics over the ownership of Superman. Bob Kane called Zugsmith "the worst lawyer in the world" and the man was almost as good at making movies.

I've decided to just pretend I was at the Comic-Con in San Diego all weekend and that it was such a great convention, they decided to extend it indefinitely. So I"m still in San Diego and I'm hosting eight panels today to go with the 37 I've hosted since last Thursday.

If I went back to my Real Reality (as opposed to that Alternate one), I'd be at home in Los Angeles right now, just like I was all last week, with all sorts of deadlines to meet and not a whole lotta time to be blogging here today. Also, I decided that thanks to an attentive, competent government, COVID-19 didn't spread much in this country in my Alternate Reality and has already been truly contained…which is why we could have that great convention.

I know, I know. You can only live so long in an Alternate Reality because eventually, your Real One needs attention or things can get really, really bad in it.

But maybe I can enjoy this one a bit longer. I'm due at the convention center right now to interview one of my favorite cartoonists — Elzie Segar, the creator of Popeye. Yes, I know that in Your Reality and my Real One, he passed away in 1938. But this is my Alternate Reality and I can have anyone in it I like. And later today, I'm hosting a Jack Kirby Panel with our special guest, Jack Kirby. I miss that guy.

Here's something fun. The Disney folks have this stage production, Tangled: The Musical, based on the feature film. I believe that as with most Disney musicals, they have a couple of different versions of it with different running times. This is a well-shot video of the hour-long version that is performed on Disney cruise ships. Take a look…

A great interview with my favorite singer, Audra McDonald. Thanks to my old pal Bruce Reznick for the link.

I didn't organize or host this panel. The Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center, which does such good work of preserving and indexing Jack's work, asked me to be on it. So here you have four guys who love Jack and his work talking for an hour about him…

I awoke this morning in an Alternate Reality…and as I've learned, you have to be careful with those Alternate Realities. They can be very pleasant places to be when your Real Reality isn't comfortable or when your mind is playing "What If?" on you. Trouble is, it's easy to confuse the two and no matter how good that Alternate Reality may feel at the time, you ultimately have to live in your Real one and make the proper decisions as to what to say and do in it. I have seen a lot of people make the wrong choices in their Real Reality because they thought they were still in their Alternate one.

This morning's Alternate Reality found me in a hotel room in San Diego, awaking to think, "Last day of Comic-Con." I looked at my bedside iPhone, which was actually located in the Real Reality but existed in the other one as well, and I thought, "Wow. The convention went by in an eye-blink" and since it was 8:30, I had ninety minutes to get up, clean myself, get dressed, get something to eat and hustle over to the convention center to host the Jack Kirby Tribute Panel at 10 AM…

And then I remembered I didn't have to do that, I wasn't in San Diego, I did this year's Jack Kirby Tribute Panel weeks ago and they put it online last Friday…and the convention wasn't ending today any more than it started last Wednesday evening. That's a nice thing about Alternate Realities. You can call them off at any time. I didn't have to get up just then.

And in that Alternate Reality, today doesn't have to be the last day of the con. I can extend it as long as I want. Maybe I'll keep it going until this f'ing pandemic is really and truly over and we can all head down to San Diego for real. Comic-Con International 2021 is scheduled to start 359 days from today.

The virtual, online version of it seems to have been about as successful as such a thing could be. As I can't write here too often, the folks who run Comic-Con are really sharp and good at what they do.

In a world with no COVID-19 pandemic, I would have enjoyed the hell out of a real Comic-Con this year. In reality, I was so glad not to have to leave my house the last few days. The stress level outside is off the graph and even in here, there are too many things to think about which I try not to spend too much time thinking about.

And now if you'll excuse me, I have to get down to Room 6A for the 11:30 Cartoon Voices II Panel and…Oh, wait. No, I don't. I can stay here and work on a script or I can even go back to bed. In Real Reality.

I only have one first-hand observation about Regis Philbin and it isn't much of one. I was at a Hollywood-type benefit maybe ten years ago. There were lots of folks around who looked like Someone and they may or may not have been. Regis was definitely Someone and he was meeting everyone who wanted to meet him, shaking hands with everyone who wanted to shake hands with him and posing for photos with anyone who wanted a photo with one of the most-seen people in the history of television.

What struck me was that he acted like someone doing a real, real good impression of Regis Philbin but maybe taking it a little too far over the top. If this had been a sketch with Dana Carvey playing him and you were directing, you'd tell him, "Dana, pull it back a little bit. You're exaggerating him a little too much." It was kind of like Regis doing Regis doing Regis.

I remembered him back when he was the announcer on the late night show Joey Bishop did challenging Johnny Carson for a time. Mr. Philbin then seemed bland and ill at ease. You wondered why, of all the people in show business who could announce Joey's show and get some laughs on the couch, they picked this guy. But over the years, he morphed into a great host and a great guest and someone that audiences genuinely loved.

I was introduced to him and he acted like it was a big deal for both of us to be meeting, which was the way he treated every single other person there. Because you have to say something friendly to a person you meet in this circumstance, I complimented him on a recent guest appearance on David Letterman's show and said, "It's easy to see Dave loves you."

He replied, sounding more and more like the Dana Carvey imitation, "That's because I'm always available! Someone cancels, it's 'Call Regis!' and I'm there like a trained cocker spaniel! But you know what they say…showing up is 90% of everything! I may not be the funniest guy on TV but I'm really good at showing up."

That he was. For a time there, it felt like anytime anyone on any channel turned on a TV camera, Regis showed up. He not only showed up, he had something interesting to say and he wasn't afraid if it made him the butt of some joke, just so long as it was interesting. Television already misses him.

Featuring Laraine Newman, Misty Lee, Dee Bradley Baker and Bill Farmer…

Featuring John Morrow and Alex Ross…

It never ceases to amaze me how things I did as a child or teen — things which back then might have seemed silly or frivolous or an enormous waste of time — later became a part of my career and livelihood. The first time Hanna-Barbera put cartoons out on home video, eons ago in the era of Beta, I was paid actual money to advise on which cartoons from their early shows (Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw, Yogi Bear, etc.) should be on the first release.

I did it from memory. The fee wasn't majestic but I actually did make money because I'd watched those cartoons at ages 7-10. I could and did call my parents and tell them I'd made sitting in front of our one TV as a kid pay off. Here's another example.

As we all know, none of us are at Comic-Con International at the moment because there ain't no Comic-Con International. If it were on, I'd be in San Diego right now. I'd have done two or three panels this morning to add to the nine I did yesterday and I'd now be over at the Abrams booth signing copies of this…

It'll be out next month and you can pre-order a copy of it here but they would have had copies available at Comic-Con. It's a boxed set reprinting the teensy-tiny Marvel Mini-Books of the sixties with an explanatory introduction by me, including the tale of what I had to go through to collect all six of them. It took a lot and it's another one of those things I did as a youth that somehow later turned into actual employment.

I talk about how hard ut was to collect all six of then on the Abrams ComicArt panel which goes "live" at 1 PM today on YouTube. It's not really live. We recorded it a few weeks ago so you can watch it at any time after 1 PM today on the Comic-Con website and once I can, I'll embed it below…

Okay, be honest. How many of you would have gotten this right?

In a normal year, I would have hosted three panels at Comic-Con by now.

This morning, I went searching for news that had nothing to do with The Pandemic. Amazingly, there is some…like the Washington Redskins are no longer the Washington Redskins. They're now the Washington Football Team and I'm not entirely certain they're that, either. A new name will be chosen shortly and I don't know who came up with it but someone online suggested the D.C. Comics. Not bad.

This does not seem to be Derek Chauvin's year…

In addition to murder charges relating to the killing of George Floyd, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is now facing felony tax charges. Chauvin and his estranged wife were each charged with nine counts of aiding and abetting false or fraudulent tax returns and failing to file returns.

I have zero sympathy for the guy but you have to wonder what's going on in the mind of someone who has caused, directly or indirectly, so much destruction. He managed to simultaneously enrage an amazing array of odd bedfellows: Black people for obvious reasons, white folks who side with them, other police officers because of the anger and policy changes he triggered, police supporters who found his actions so indefensible, etc.

He's probably sitting in his cell, wondering how things could get any worse for him (as they will) and trying to figure out how of all the police officers who've "accidentally" killed black people, he somehow got nailed for it and is being held accountable.

And now if you'll excuse me, I have to go not host a 1 PM panel.

One of these days, Comedy Central (or someone) is going to find the right spot where Jordan Klepper can be just as funny as Jordan Klepper can be…