One evening at a San Diego Comic-Con — this is maybe 10-15 years ago — I was having my usual great time when I ran into someone I've known for a long time though I wouldn't use the word "friend." "Acquaintance," maybe. He was deep into his umpteenth cocktail and announcing what a not-very-good time he was having at the con. The reason, which he expressed loudly to all within earshot, was how lousy the bars were: Too crowded, too noisy, too expensive and too full of idiot bartenders who didn't know how to pour a proper Vodka Gimlet.

I think it's okay to write about our brief encounter now. There's a decent chance he didn't remember it the next day, let alone this many years later.

As some of you know, I don't drink alcohol. Never have and probably never will. I have no problem if you do as long as you (a) don't have a problem that I don't and (b) don't allow your drinking to affect my life. This goes for any kind of intoxicant or any kind of smoking. Do whatever you want. Just don't do it around me. (Regarding a, it's amazing how many people who do drink think you're faulting them if you don't.  Or trying to make out like you're better than they are.  Or something.)

This guy that Saturday evening at the con was a great example of someone who viewed the gathering — and probably everything else in his life — through the prism of his own needs and desires.  He was like the artist I once heard complain that the con "sucked" because no publisher there offered him work…or the writer who said the con was "f*cked" (he put a "u" in place of the asterisk) because not enough fans there wanted his autograph.

It might also be worth noting that within walking distance of the convention center — even walking as unsteadily as he was walking that evening — there were probably more than a hundred bartenders on duty.  Even as drunk as this guy was, he couldn't possibly have tested the skills of all or even most of them.

As I've probably said too often on this blog, Comic-Con is a great place to visit if — and this is a Big If for some people — you can find the mini-con you want within the dozens that take place in and around that convention center.  If you want to learn more about comic book history, for example, you have to comb the Program Schedule and find those events.  They won't come to you.

(One of my few complaints about the con — and I've probably said this too often, too — has to do with people who want to see more panels about comic book history and then don't show up for the ones that are offered.  Conventions do not program for empty seats.)

I'm thinking about this today because I'm prepping the schedule of panels I'll be moderating at this year's Comic-Con starting in 49 days.  At the moment, I'm up to 13 and will probably add at least two more.  You may think that number is too high but I'm still recovering from a broken ankle and right now, it represents 13-15 opportunities for me to sit down for an hour.  I'll tell you about the panels when the time comes but right now, I'll just say that the Saturday Cartoon Voices Panel and the Sunday Cartoon Voices Panel have the two strongest lineups of actors I think I've ever had.

But let's get back to that drunk fellow outside the convention center some years ago. He was mad because he couldn't find a drink made the way he wanted his drinks made.

He was ranting and complaining and making an Industrial Strength Ass of himself and it was all about "ME, ME, ME" — or to put it more accurately, "HIM, HIM, HIM."  He'd driven all the way to San Diego and spent beaucoup bucks for a hotel room.  The convention organizers therefore had some moral obligation to hold the event where there were bartenders who could mix his favorite beverage…and no, I have no idea how they could make sure of that.  He was a living, walking (barely) example of someone who goes through life doing everything to make sure he is never satisfied and so has grievances aplenty about which to bitch.

I am not in any way an employee or staff member of Comic-Con International.  I'm just a guy who's there all the time…but he wasn't the first person to mistake me for the con's Complaint Department and he began ranting in my direction.  I forget exactly what he said but I'm quite sure he was rude and insulting and he vowed to never in a million-billion years, attend that &%#@!!! convention again.  He said it in one of those "they'll be sorry" ways like the con would suffer greatly from his absence.

Somehow, it hasn't.  Somehow, it's sold out every year since, usually in about the time it takes to takes to microwave a Hot Pocket®.  And what prompted me to tell this story is that last night, I got my annual e-mail from him saying that he couldn't get a badge for this year's Comic-Con International and is there any way I can help him get in?  I cut-and-pasted last year's reply and sent back my usual "Gee, I'm sorry but…" message.

When people talk about influential stand-up comedians, not nearly enough recognition goes to Robert Klein.  Here's a special he did for cable in 1984, back when very few comedians were venturing into that marketplace…

Here's something I could probably figure out if I spent some time on it but I'm busy today so maybe one of you can help. Last night, Jon Stewart did an extraordinary Daily Show in two acts. Act One was him commenting on the Trump verdict. Act Two was an interview with former Republican congressman Ken Buck. I'm embedding the YouTube versions of these two segments here.

If you didn't catch the show, I recommend taking the time to watch these two segments and if you did watch the show, you might want to watch them again.  Furthermore, if you only have time to watch one of 'em, I suggest you watch the second. It was a fascinating conversation, the kind that Mr. Stewart does so well and no one else does at all: Two people who respect each other having a conversation with no talking points, no obvious questions, no insults — just two men discussing topics on which they differ with no histrionics. [SPOILER ALERT: They find out they don't differ as much as at least one of them thought going in.]

These versions are shorter than what aired last night on Comedy Central. For the first segment, they edited down the intro and Jon's throw to commercial and on YouTube, it runs 18:01. For the second segment, they trimmed Jon introducing his guest and the throw to commercial and it runs 24:24. That's 42 minutes and 25 seconds total.  I didn't notice if either YouTube video contained content I didn't see last night…

…but watching them both still doesn't give you the entire show. It doesn't include the commercials and an additional 2-3 minute segment Stewart did with Ronny Chieng, who's hosting the rest of the week. I watched the show live last night and saw the whole thing…I think.

This morning, I decided to watch the show again and I turned on my Roku TV on which I get Comedy Central shows via the streaming service You Tube TV. It gave me my choice of three versions…

• A 36 minute one that literally cuts off during the Ken Buck interview…
• A 46 minute one that seems to have the entire show I saw last night but I'm not sure or…
• A one-hour and one-minute version that I don't have time to watch today and it won't allow me to fast-forward through to see what's in it.

I don't get this.  I don't get this at all.  Why are there three versions of this show?  And even if you don't have the answer, make sure you watch what I've embedded above, especially the second segment.

Devin "Legal Eagle" Stone covers the verdict in the Trump Hush Money Trial, though most of the heavy lifting is done by his associate, Liz Dye. Even if you think you understand what happened here, you might want to watch it all laid out in linear fashion. And there's a commercial in there for the same company that sponsored the last Randy Rainbow video…

I have a number of folks writing to me to try and identify the actors seen along with William Daniels in the opening number from 1776 that I posted last night.

Ben Franklin was obviously not Howard DaSilva, who originated the role. In case any of you don't know the story, DaSilva suffered a minor heart attack a few days before opening and refused to go to a hospital. He had been a blacklisted actor and apparently that underscored his desire to make it to opening night playing one of our nation's Founding Fathers.

He played the last few previews, performed on opening night and then, after the curtain went down, got into an ambulance and finally went to the hospital. His understudy, Rex Everhart, played the role until DaSilva returned and it's Everhart, not DaSilva, playing Franklin on the cast album. (DaSilva did do the movie and he's on the soundtrack album of that.)

Anyway, that's not DaSilva in the clip so it might be Everhart. (Interesting aside: The original production of 1776 ran from 1969 to 1972. I saw it twice during its 1997-1998 revival. The first time, Franklin was played by Pat Hingle. The second time, it was David Huddleston. And the understudy in the role, who I didn't see, was Rex Everhart who probably needed less "old man" makeup by then.)

And I should point out that Benjamin Franklin is not in opening number in the show when you see the entire production. He makes his entrance shortly after. They just stuck him in there for Mr. Sullivan's program.

Based on a little research and a lot of e-mails from readers of this blog, I believe the others in the clip include Roy Poole as Stephen Hopkins, Ronald Holgate as Richard Henry Lee, Ralston Hill as Mr. Thomson, Emory Bass as Judge Wilson and William Duell as McNair. By this point in the run, Ken Howard — who had originated the role of Thomas Jefferson — had left to star in the play Child's Play and Clifford Davis — the original Edward Rutledge — had left to star in the short-lived production of Tennessee Williams' play, Camino Real. Jefferson here is probably played by David Cryer and Rutledge is certainly being played by John Cullum, who went on to play the part in the movie.

And finally: If you enjoyed that short clip from The Ed Sullivan Show last night, you might enjoy this longer one that I didn't know was on YouTube until everybody told me…

This is short but oh so sweet. It's William Daniels and most (probably) of the original Broadway cast of 1776 performing on The Ed Sullivan Show for October 4, 1970. 1776 opened at the 46th Street Theater (which is now the Richard Rodgers, which is where Hamilton is playing) on March 16, 1969. So it had been running a year and a half before its producers decided to let it be seen on TV. Back then, that probably meant the box office needed a boost.

But it seems to have worked. Soon after this performance, the show moved to the St. James Theater to make room for No, No, Nanette and later, it moved to the Majestic. It played there until it closed on February 13, 1972 after 1,217 performances…which was and still is a pretty good run.

It was playing there when I went to New York in 1970 and I still don't know why the hell I didn't go see it. I did a lot of stupid things when I was young — not to be confused with all the stupid things I've done since I became not young…

Today's Trump Trial Takeaway is by Steve Benen, who says "Donald Trump's criminal conviction is historic, but it's not a crisis — unless Republicans decide to turn it into one."

And we have a bonus link, not about the trial: Bill Pruitt worked on The Apprentice, the show that convinced much of America that Donald Trump was a great businessman and manager.  His non-disclosure agreement has expired so Mr. Pruitt is free to tell what a sham that all was.  But you were probably wise enough to know that at the time, right?

My Roku TV gets a seemingly-infinite number of channels, an annoying percentage of which are running the same shows. There's one I like where, on-demand 24 hours a day, I can select any episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show to watch. This is in addition to the five or six other channels which will show me episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show, though on those channels, I can't pick and choose which ones I want to watch and when. For some reason, no matter when I turn to one of them, they're usually airing "Who and Where Was Antonio Stradivarius?" — not one of my favorite episodes.

And it's also in addition to the several different complete sets of The Dick Van Dyke Show that I own on DVD. I am more likely to run out of food, water and/or oxygen than I am to not be able to watch reruns of The Dick Van Dyke Show. Which is not a bad thing because that's almost a necessity in my life.

A lot of TV shows I watched way-back-when hold little interest for me today and some I look at and wonder, "Why in the name of Bob Denver did I ever like this?" But some hold up, the list including Sgt. Bilko, Car 54, The Bob Newhart Show and a few others. I tried watching a My Favorite Martian recently and it was exactly as I remembered except for the part where I enjoyed it. The Van Dyke shows, if anything, get better.

Lately, I've even been watching some of the ones I didn't care for and I find moments in them that are wonderful. (The ones I don't like mostly have to do with jealousy. A chorus girl kisses Rob causing Laura to fear the marriage is over…or an old boy friend of Laura's pops up and Rob thinks the marriage is over. That marriage seemed way too stable for it to get shaky over a problem so small that it could be introduced, played out and solved within 24 minutes.)

I especially like watching Dick Van Dyke doing…well, just about anything that involved him moving around. Lots of people on TV could be funny using their faces and/or mouths. Dick was also funny using the rest of himself.

Watching these shows today is a little different for me since I met Rose Marie in the later years of her life. I spent a good amount of time with that lady and even gave her a meaty voice role — and directed her! — on an episode of The Garfield Show. It turned out to be her last performance.

Rose was a fascinating and wonderful lady but decades after she'd done The Dick Van Dyke Show, she was still always complaining about how many episodes she wasn't on at all (more than I thought) and how little she had to do in some episodes she was on. The show had so many talented, funny people on it that it couldn't service them all each week. There are shows she's barely in and as I watch them now, I can't help but think, "Boy, she must have been really pissed the week they filmed this."

This is something I witnessed/learned being around older performers of that generation. Most of them wanted to work until their dying day and had trouble coping with the periods when there was no demand for their services.  Once, I was dining at an outdoor restaurant with an older comedian who was still working but not nearly often enough to satisfy him.  A young kid with a handheld camcorder came up and asked him to say a few words for the camera.  I'm not sure the lad had recognized my dining companion.  I think his parents standing nearby had done the recognizing and had sent the boy to get the equivalent of a video autograph.

My companion was not only delighted to comply, he let his lunch get cold while he delivered a ten-minute monologue and then asked the kid to interview him.  I wound up jumping in with a few questions because the boy couldn't come up with any…which is what made me think he had no idea who the man he was videoing was.  He finally staggered back to his folks with a 15-20 minute tour de force.

This yearning to perform was not generally because of a yearning or even a need to make money and it often wasn't just a matter of ego. It was usually a matter of wanting to be wanted; of not being allowed to do what you'd done all your life. Some performers settle comfortably into retirement or semi-retirement. Others yell at the TV and ask God and their agents, "How come they didn't have me in for that?"

One older actor I knew got angry at me every time he heard that I was directing a cartoon show and didn't hire him. It was as if a friend of his was throwing a party and deliberately hadn't invited him. Rose was even a bit annoyed with me that after that one episode of The Garfield Show she did, I never had another part I could have given her.

If you ever catch the end credits of one of those Garfield Show episodes, you'll notice that the names of the voice actors are impossible to read. They're on for way too long in way too small a font. I was powerless to stop this…as I explained to Rose when she phoned to complain to me that she couldn't see her name. I remember saying to her, "Hey, my name's on the same card as Voice Director and I can't read mine, either."

If she had seen her name, she would have seen it said "Rose Marie Guy" and would probably have been annoyed that it didn't properly identify her as the performer who was billed simply as "Rose Marie." But that was her legal name — the one the producers made the check out to — and they didn't see a memo I sent telling them the proper way to bill her.

She became Rose Marie Guy when he married a musician named Bobby Guy in 1946. He died in 1964 while she was working on The Dick Van Dyke Show and she was understandably devastated by the loss. In fact, she didn't feel she could go on working and she announced she was quitting. Others involved with the program — mostly director John Rich — convinced her that it would not only be bad for the show if she left but also bad for her. She stayed and was glad she did.

She worked almost her entire time on this planet — from when she was three and billed as "Baby Rose Marie" until the last decade or so of a life that lasted to age 94. Performing was as much a part of her existence as breathing and she didn't cope well with the periods between jobs. When I watch those shows now, I am amazed how good she was and how she scored with every single line they gave her. And I can kinda hear her bitching to Carl Reiner and Sheldon Leonard that they didn't give her more of them.

Since I have nothing to say about the Trump matter that others aren't saying — and saying better — I think I'll just link you to what others are saying. We'll call this feature "T.T.T.T." and it stands for "Today's Trump Trial Takeaway."

Here's today's: Heather Digby Parton has written a piece about Trump's management style and how it's been dooming him in all his recent legal entanglements. It sounds quite on-point to me.

I somehow seem to have written this blog for 23 years, 5 months and 14 days without mentioning the humorist-cartoonist James Thurber very much. I discovered his work when I was about twelve, which was three years after he died and by the time I was sixteen, I think I'd read everything that was then available — which was most of it. It had a significant impact on me, though so many things back then did that I didn't realize it at the time. Years later, when I would occasionally revisit some collection of his work, I'd realize that impact.

Starting as early as the 1942 Henry Fonda film The Male Animal, based on a Broadway play by Thurber and Elliott Nugent, Thurber was on the screen. I suppose the most successful screen adaptation of one of his stories was The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) starring Danny Kaye. People loved that movie although Mr. Thurber reportedly did not.

The short story was adapted into radio plays, various stage productions and a 2013 movie starring Ben Stiller. There have been several stage plays and one other movie — the 1972 The War Between Men and Women starring Jack Lemmon and Jason Robards.

And then you have television. In 1960, Orson Bean — who starred in an awful lot of unsold pilots — starred in one called The Secret Life of James Thurber…

It went nowhere but then in 1969, a new version of the project became a weekly series on NBC for one year — My World and Welcome To It starring William Windom and written mainly by Mel Shavelson and Danny Arnold. I thought it was a terrific show and so did the critics and it also won Emmy Awards for Best Comedy Series and Best Actor. Here's one entire episode…

…but alas, the public didn't love it in sufficient numbers and it had just the one season. It did lead to that film with Jack Lemmon (written by Shavelson and Arnold, directed by Shavelson) and also to a play in which Mr. Windom toured for years. When he died, I wrote the following here about it…

Around 1974, I was taking some courses at Santa Monica College and it was announced that late one weekday afternoon, he would be doing one performance of a new one-man show he was developing called Thurber. It had an interesting price of admission: You had to promise to stay around after and give him a "brutal critique."

I went. He came out at the beginning and told everyone he wasn't kidding about the "brutal" part. He said, approximately, "This is a show I intend to tour with and to try and take to Broadway. The critics will not be pushovers and the bookers will be even worse. I'd rather hear what's wrong with it from young, smart people like you now than from them then. Just be honest with me. I've been an actor for years. I can take it."

He then did the show, partly from book and partly from memory. It was assembled from the writings of you-know-who and he spoke as the man. For what little my opinion is ever worth, it seemed to me it could be a great show but that he was about 60% of the way there with it. The beginning was a lot funnier than the end and the biography stuff — Thurber talking about his life — kept getting lost in the readings of his stories, some of which were suggested as more autobiographical than they probably were intended by their maker. But Mr. Windom was an absolute pro.

When it came time for Brutal Critiques, they weren't all that brutal. Mine started silly. I got up and said, "I don't like your pants and I think you need to lose ten pounds and grow a mustache." Then I gave my serious view…and this was back when I was writing Road Runner comic books, rather than material for actors to perform. I remember discussing my comments with him and wondering: If and when I did start to write for people instead of comic book characters, would every actor be as rational and mature as William Windom? He was smart, he was introspective and he really, really cared about input. In the TV shows I later worked on, I rarely encountered that kind of give-and-take and candid, constructive suggestion. But then I never got to work with William Windom.

I wish I had and I also wish I'd seen the finished play instead of just a work-in-progress. Because if I haven't made it clear here, I really, really liked James Thurber. Here's a snippet of Windom as the great writer…

The reason I haven't written anything for this page today is that every time I try to, my fingers want to type about Trump's conviction and my brain tells me, "You have nothing to say that a skillion other people aren't saying." And for once, my brain is right. So if you want to read about the topic, go read what the skillion other people are saying.

I am prepping panels this week for Comic-Con International which, as I post this, is 54 days away. I'll be hosting most of my usual panels including Quick Draw!, which for the third year in a row will be without the mighty pen of Sergio Aragonés. And I have some really amazing folks lined-up for the Cartoon Voices panels and some never-before-done panels you'll enjoy. That's about all I can say right now and I think it's astounding that I could even say that much without mentioning you-know-who.

I'll be back here when I think of something to write about that isn't about…you know.

The show may be great but I'm already bothered by the hype…

I feel like I should write something here about today's verdict but I'm having a hard time figuring out what. You already know how you feel about it and if you follow this blog, you probably have a pretty good idea how I feel about it. And since every last person with a soapbox on the Internet is writing about it, you have plenty of opinions and conjectures to read. So I think I'll just predict that we will soon look back on this as a very good day for our country.

Nothing will ever convince the kind of Trump Supporter that Jordan Klepper is good at finding at rallies but the doubts have to be building in the minds of a lot of folks who might have voted for Donald in November. They may be doubts about the man's sanity or his honesty or even his competence to win. The thing the Trump supporters I know liked the most about him was his ability to win. And now he's been losing a lot lately and the losses are just getting bigger and bigger.

George Conway, who has become one of my favorite pundits on the subject of Trump — and whose every prediction so far has been proven out — thinks Donald Trump will die in prison. Kevin Drum, who's long been one of my favorite pundits on a wide range of subjects, thinks there's no way Donald winds up behind bars. I have no idea where I think Trump will go except that it will fall under the general heading of "Down."

Well, there you are.

I just heard a talking head on TV theorizing how the jury is leaning based on what they're having for lunch.

No, I take that back: He was theorizing based on rumors of what they're having for lunch. In case it tells you anything about how I'm leaning, I'm going to be having a beef dip sandwich on an onion roll and some potato salad.

I'm also going to turn off the TV. I may have to sequester myself until the real jury returns a real verdict. If they order in KFC, that probably means Trump is going to skate.