It was easy today to not pay a whole lot of attention to the Trump Trial as Stormy Daniels testified. Every time I turned on the news to hear the newscasters repeat what was being said in that courtroom, I said to myself, "The jury has to listen to that but I don't" and turned it off.

The witness on the stand just before her was an executive from the publishing firm that issued Donald Trump's books. He had to testify that they were indeed books written by (or at least approved by) Donald Trump because Trump and his legal team refused to stipulate that this was so.

If you know of the wonderful Susan Buckner, you know her because of her role as Patty Simcox in the movie Grease and for appearances on a wide variety of TV shows and a few films in the seventies. I know her as that lovely lady I met on a TV show I wrote in 1978. She was brimming with talent and beauty and she could sing and act…and I was one of her many friends who was stunned when one day, she decided to give that up and opt instead for a marriage and a family. We kept in touch and she never seemed to have regretted that decision.

I took the above photo of her in my old apartment around '79. This was when she was still acting and wherever we went, she somehow got recognized as the girl in Grease, even though (as you can see) she looked nothing like the character in real life. Thirty-some-odd years later, she was in town, we got together and I took her to the Magic Castle for an evening. Among the many bars at the Castle, there's one that is sometimes — and don't ask me why — referred to as "The Golddiggers Bar," referencing the troupe of young ladies who used to sing n' dance in that group on The Dean Martin Show.

Susan had been one of the Golddiggers. Actually, she was a lot of different things. She had been one of the Krofftettes, the swim/dance troupe that did water ballet on Sid & Marty Krofft's Brady Bunch Variety Hour. She was Miss Washington in whatever beauty pageant it was that crowned a Miss Washington at the time. She was in other groups. That night at the Castle, she wanted to visit the Golddiggers Bar because…well, just because. I escorted her there, we ordered non-alcoholic beverages and the bartender said to her, "Hey, you were the girl with the glasses in Grease, weren't you?" It was the most amazing feat I ever saw at the Castle.

She was a lot more than any of her credits. She was truly charming and funny and lovely and I don't have anything else to say here right now. I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around the idea that she's gone. If there's an Afterlife, I'm sure someone there is asking her if she was the girl in Grease.

I have a real busy day today and it ain't helping that Stormy Daniels is testifying in the Trump Trial. I have no idea what that adds or doesn't add to those proceedings but it sure is fun watching newsfolks on TV relaying the latest details of her testimony and paraphrasing all sorts of things that are apparently being said in that courtroom.

One thing that makes me think Trump will lose badly is that he keeps posting and saying things like "THEY HAVE NO CASE – This according to virtually all Legal Scholars & Experts." Well, maybe the experts on Newsmax. With Trump, "Everyone says" is the greatest tell that he knows it's not true, as in "All legal scholars, both sides, wanted, and in fact demanded that Roe v. Wade be overturned." He's never right about unanimity or even near-unanimity.

As I try to look away from the trial and focus on work, I won't be posting much here today but I do have something for you. In this recent post, I wrote about the day in 1994 when I recorded Arnold Stang in New York for a Garfield cartoon. After that, I took the limo that our producer had let me hire to Kennedy Airport in New York and I flew to Orlando, Florida. In '95, I wrote an article about what transpired in Orlando at Walt Disney World. I've never put it up on this blog but I just did and you can read it here. See if you can solve the mystery of the missing luggage before I do.

Here's one of my favorite scenes from one of my not-favorite movies. The movie was The Seven Little Foys (1955) which was not among the best of Bob Hope's films. But there's this one part of the film where Hope (playing Eddie Foy) and Jimmy Cagney (slipping back into the role of George M. Cohan) have a dance-off at the Friar's Club. They both worked hard on the scene and it was especially hard for Cagney who, it is said, was suffering from knee problems at the time and in some pain. He sure doesn't show it and according to John McCabe's book on the actor…

When Jack Rose, The Seven Little Foys producer, first approached Jim about his salary for the job, he refused payment, not only as a favor to Hope but as a contribution to the memory of Eddie Foy. "When I was a starving actor, I could always get a free meal and a friendly welcome at the Foys. You don't forget things like that."

Watch it. It's not long and it'll remind you that Hope was quite a hoofer and so was Mr. Cagney…

Richard Baron wrote to ask me…

Carmine Infantino was the primary artist of the 1952 series for The Phantom Stranger. Based on a conversation I had once with Sy Barry, a major inker on the series, he had a special fondness for the character. Curiously, or not, shortly after Infantino moved into management, the character was given his own book. I don't think this was a coincidence. Do you know anything about this?

Not a coincidence in the slightest. Infantino was the first and main artist on the series which came out in '52 and lasted a mere six issues. It was a good comic but not a particularly unique one. Almost every company back then took a stab at some mysterious character in a big hat and cloak who was not unlike The Shadow, wandering about in spooky circumstances, making folks wonder if he was alive or a ghost or what.

In my opinion (for whatever's that worth) it was a pretty good comic.  According to its editor, Julius Schwartz, he and Carmine (and others) were disappointed that the company gave up on it so quickly. It was a bi-monthly and as we've noticed elsewhere, back before the direct sales market emerged for comics, if a book lasted six bi-monthly issues, that meant the decision to cancel was probably made on early sales reports for #2.

I am not the only person who believes that this was a mistake that many comic book publishers in the past made way too often. They all probably talked at great length about trying to attract new readers to the newsstands but then expected those new readers to find a new comic immediately. It was like opening a new restaurant on Monday and deciding on Wednesday to go out of business because customers weren't flocking to your door. And I think DC really made this mistake a lot in the late sixties/early seventies after Infantino was put in command.

But he didn't make that mistake with the Phantom Stranger revival…and it's pretty obvious why Infantino and his crew decided to revive it in 1969.  One was that Infantino and editor Joe Orlando had a belief that super-hero comics were cooling down and the next trend was "weird" comics — ghosts, demons, spirits, etc.  Secondly, they both thought the character deserved another chance…

…and thirdly, they could judiciously use reprinted material from the first series to lower the cost of a new book.  At about the same time, they took old stories from DC's defunct Dobie Gillis comic, did some retouch work and marketed a "new" comic of old material now called Windy & Willy.  They also began cramming books like Strange Adventures and their romance titles with reprints, often altered to look less like reprints. This was when they paid bupkis (nothing) to the writers and artists whose work was reprinted.

Reprints in 32-page comics didn't sit well with readers of the day and most such attempts sold poorly…but the Phantom Stranger book swiftly shifted from partially-new to all-new and the new material was good enough to make the comic a modest hit — for a while. It ran seven years, making it one of the longer-running "new" comics of its day…lasting until (again, in my measly opinion) it had too many reprints stuffed into the package and too many miscast artists.

I am a big fan/supporter of The San Diego Comic-Con Unofficial Blog, a website operated by a couple of enthusiastic folks who love Comic-Con (the one in San Diego) and WonderCon (the one in Anaheim) and make a great effort to help others enjoy those cons as much as they do. Their enterprise is totally unaffiliated with the conventions themselves but it offers valuable information and suggestions to make your con-going experience easier, safer, less expensive and just plain happier.

Should you be considering attending either con, keep an eye on the SDCCBlog. You should also listen to their fine podcasts which commence in May each year. The first one leading up to this year's Comic-Con will be live online tomorrow night, May 7, at 6:30 PM West Coast Time, which of course is 9:30 PM back east. As has become tradition, their first guest of the year will be me. I will post it here but if you can, watch it in real time over on their website.

If you're going through withdrawal due to an absence of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, this may tide you over. HBO has posted all of Season One on YouTube. Here's a link to where you can watch 'em and see what's still relevant and what isn't.

This is about fifteen minutes from a series that ran on TV for three seasons starting in 1971 — Johnny Mann's Stand Up and Cheer. It was a half-hour that helped fill a void that appeared in TV schedules at the time called The Prime Time Access Rule. Rather than explain what that was, I'll cut-n'paste the following from here…

The Prime Time Access Rule, designed to encourage the production of local and independent television programming, went into effect in September 1971. By the mid-1960s the prime viewing hours had been almost completely locked up by newly expanded editions of both local and network news and by a network prime-time schedule that ran from 7:30 to 11:00 pm Eastern Standard Time. The access rule allowed networks to provide programming for only three hours per evening in prime time (four on Sundays), with the intent that this would open 30 minutes per evening to local productions and independently made programming. All three networks relinquished the 7:30–8:00 pm slot, the prime-time segment with the smallest audience, but most local stations elected to air nationally syndicated programming during the time period rather than less-profitable local productions.

At first, a lot of those freed-up time slots were filled with syndicated "barter" shows, meaning that a sponsor paid for the show, took some of its commercial spots for itself and let local stations that aired the show sell the others. Stand Up and Cheer, as you'll see, was made possible by Chevrolet.

Johnny Mann was a choral leader, though apparently not much of a singer himself. He specialized in commercial jingles, especially "I.D. Programming" for radio stations — like when you'd hear a chorus sing the name of the station or a disc jockey. Hundreds of such snatches of music were produced by Mr. Mann and whatever vocalists he could assemble for a session and call "The Johnny Mann Singers." He was also the bandleader on Joey Bishop's late night talk show that challenged and failed to unseat Johnny Carson from 196Y to 1969.

He was also the musical director for a lot of Chipmunk projects from the man known variously as David Seville or Ross Bagdasarian. Mann helped with music and sometimes provided the voice that was sped to create Theodore, brother of Alvin. Mann also produced Grammy-winning records and…well, he was pretty active.

His Stand Up and Cheer show starred a bevy of good-looking singers who could dance and energize the screen and some of them were so good, it's remarkable that none of them, as far as I know, went on to any notable stardom. I can only recognize two of them. One is Gayle Crofoot, who went on to be a performer on other variety shows (including a couple I worked on) and a Solid Gold Dancer and a performer on Broadway.

The other, who was a star of sorts before and after this series, was Thurl Ravenscroft…the only age-inappropriate member of Mann's Troupe. If you don't know who Thurl Ravenscroft was, shame on you. You can find out all about him here. I'll bet most people who would come to this blog know who he was, how he was the voice of Tony the Tiger, how he's still heard all over Disneyland, etc. Sometimes referred to as "Pappy" on Stand Up and Cheer, he often got special solos to show off his amazing voice. In the clip below, you'll find a real short non-singing bit with him at 10:25.

The series was super-patriotic and occasionally religious to the point of feeling very plastic and shallow but I kinda enjoyed its energy now and then. Here's the first half of one episode…

Rudy Giuliani has started to fit into the category of People I Shouldn't Feel Sorry For But Somehow I Almost Do. You rarely see someone who was once so respected descend into a steady stream of just making his reputation, his bank account and his legal status worse and worse and worse…

Ever since the word "COVID" entered our lives, I've been enjoying weekly (at least) deliveries from Costco via the Instacart service. As long as my order is over $35 — and how the hell can you get out of a Costco for under $35? — I pay no delivery fee…just a generous tip. It's well worth it to me, especially these days when I'm largely confined to my home.

I get an array of things I need plus, of course, a Costco rotisserie chicken. Last night, I ordered 3 lbs. of bananas, a 24-pack of Sparkling Ice Zero Sugar beverages (they're for company), a cheese, two dozen eggs, some soap and, of course, a Costco rotisserie chicken. I specified delivery between 10 AM today and Noon, which is the earliest window they offer.

At 9:11 this morning, I was notified that my Instacart Shopper had just started shopping. He found all the items I sought except, to my horror, a Costco rotisserie chicken. He refunded that item which prompted me to text him, "No chickens?" He wrote back that they don't have them until 10 AM and sent me, as proof, a photo of the empty Costco Rotisserie Chicken shelves and another photo of this sign…

I wrote back, "So I don't get a chicken because you're shopping earlier than specified?" He wrote back an explanation that the order was sent to him when it was sent to him and he doesn't have the option of not filling it immediately. By this time, he had checked out with my order, sans chicken.

I immediately phoned Instacart Customer Service and they immediately offered to specify that I would never again get that shopper. It took a little while to make them understand that I wasn't complaining about the shopper. I was complaining about the fact that I asked for delivery between 10 AM and Noon, and they assigned a shopper before chickens would be available. I even said the line that is the subject of this post.

It took a little doing but the Customer Service person finally told me she could cancel my order — and even if the shopper is already in his car, he will return it to the store — and they can reschedule my full order so that some shopper (maybe the same one?) will bring me my order — with chicken — by Noon. I asked if the first shopper would be paid in full since it was not his mistake to shop so early. I was assured the first shopper would be paid in full since it was not his mistake to shop so early.

I'm a little skeptical the shopper will be paid in full but that's where the story stands at the moment. I'll insert a little line here and then finish the story after I get my delivery…

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And at 11:23 PM, which is inarguably "by Noon," a different shopper delivered my full order, chicken included. I have no complaints except that I shouldn't have had to make that phone call…and I'd feel better if I was certain that first shopper got paid.

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P.S., ADDED LATER: And at 12:03 PM, the lady from Instacart Customer Service called me back to make sure I'd received my order and was happy with it. Nice.

One of my favorite musical groups in its native habitat…

Maybe the only two things I have in common with Donald Trump — and I sure hope there aren't any more than these — is that we both have funny hair and we both are legally obligated to not talk or write about certain things. My Gag Order is more correctly described as an N.D.A., otherwise known as a Non-Disclosure Agreement. It covers something I wouldn't disclose even if I could. Not at this stage, at least.

Recently in a nook or cranny of The Internet I have never visited, a person I don't know "revealed" that I had a new job. I put "revealed" in "quotes" because the revelation is not true. It is possible that at some point, it might become true but it also might not. I am in discussions about something and we haven't even reached the stage of discussing exactly how much money I'd be paid if (a) I decide I want the job and (b) they decide I'm the right person for the job. And there might even be a (c), they decide they're going to hire anybody for the job.

I have been a professional writer for…well, this July will make 55 years. That's 55 years of occasional staff jobs and a lot of freelance jobs…and even the staff positions have been the kind where you're never sure how long they'll last. The comic book might not sell. The TV series might not get picked up for another season. The publisher or the network might decide the comic book or TV show might do better with someone who was not me.

This is not in any way a complaint. It's just the reality of the profession I chose of my own free will. Elsewhere on this blog, I think I've written about people who sound like a plumber bitching that he's expected to fix broken toilets. Or, in the immortal words of Superchicken…

When I entered into discussions about this maybe/maybe not job, the folks who'd approached me asked that I DocuSign® a Non-Disclosure Agreement and I did. Why they needed this, I dunno…but as I learned the hard way when I was but a baby writer, it's better not to tell the world you have a new gig until it's absolutely, positively certain. That may not even be when you sign a contract. It may not be until a check clears.

So we've been talking on and off…and not only are they not convinced I'm their guy but I'm not convinced I'm their guy…or that I'd want to be their guy. Someone — on their end, not my end — told someone who told someone who told someone…I have no idea how many someones might be involved here…

…but a someone put it on the 'net and in the last few days, I've received several phone calls (3) and e-mails (9) congratulating me and inquiring, sometimes not so subtly, as to possible opportunities for them in this deal. Then early this A.M., I got an e-mail from one of the folks with whom I'm in discussions asking if I leaked this news which isn't even news yet and may never be. I tracked down the "someone" who posted it and he said he'd take it down and that's where things stand.

If and when anything firm develops, I'll let you know…but these things have a way of never officially ending. The discussions just grow farther and farther apart and vaguer and one day, you realize you haven't had the latest discussion in months so you say, "Well, I guess they changed their mind." When I have some time, I'll tell you a couple of tales about how some offers of the past ended with no one saying no…just no one saying yes.

Hell, I've even had offers where everyone who had to say yes said yes and they still didn't happen.

So what's going on with Trump and all these contempt fine and threats about throwing him behind bars? An associate of the Legal Eagle explains…

I received this question from "Disneyfan94 The Muppets Forever." I don't usually answer questions from people who hide behind handles but I'm going to take the chance that that's this person's real name — Mr. and Mrs. The Muppets Forever had a child and named him or her Disneyfan94. It's probably a very common given name these days. Anyway, here's what he or she wrote…

First off, I'm a huge fan of your blog. I know you worked with Arnold Stang on Garfield and Friends and due to him arriving at the recording studio early, you were able to discuss many aspects of his career including Top Cat. Could you please share some of the stories he told about voicing T.C.?

That was a great day for me. In fact, I spent a great week in New York then, visiting the DC offices, the MAD offices, the Marvel offices, the offices of David Letterman's show, and I think I even had lunch with Joe Simon. And of course, I went to Broadway shows. I took Imogene Coca (yes, the Imogene Coca) to dinner at Sardi's and then to see the musical, Crazy For You. And I took my friend Carol Lay to see Neil Simon's then-latest play, Laughter on the 23rd Floor in which Nathan Lane played Jackie Gleason playing Sid Caesar.

Then on Thursday, I recorded the voice tracks for three cartoons for our show with East Coast talent. It was something I wanted to do and even though it cost a lot of money, our producer was nice enough to indulge me. This is Lee Mendelson I'm talking about…the best producer I ever worked with.

Thursday morn, I checked out of my hotel in New York and was picked up by a limo (paid for by Lee) which took me to a recording studio in New York (paid for by Lee) arriving at 10 AM so I could check and make sure everything would be ready for our first actor to arrive at 11 AM. To my delight, everything was ready and the first actor was already there. The first actor was Arnold Stang. He was sitting there, reading a magazine, looking exactly like Arnold Stang.

We couldn't start until the other actors were in place in the studio we used in Los Angeles.  The two studios would then be linked by some sort of ultra-strong digital phone connection and I could direct everyone at once.  If you saw the finished cartoons, you would never imagine that one of the actors and the director were 2,815 miles away from the other actors and the main recording engineer.

Call time for the West Coast actors — Lorenzo Music, Thom Huge, Gregg Berger and Howard Morris — was 8 AM (L.A. time).  Thus, I had an hour to talk with Arnold about a whole range of things but mostly Top Cat, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and working with Milton Berle.   No, I did not ask him about Berle's genitalia but we did talk about the recording studio — the name of which I don't remember, sorry — where he'd recorded voice tracks for Paramount cartoons like "Herman and Katnip" and many other shows.

The main thing I recall from our Top Cat discussion is the fine line they walked to not echo the Sgt. Bilko show too much.  As you may know, the first episode or two were originally recorded with an actor named Michael O'Shea voicing the title character.  Mr. O'Shea does not seem to have done any produced cartoon voice work for Hanna-Barbera or anyone and many different stories have circulated as to why his voice tracks were dumped and Arnold was hired.

Daws Butler had told me that at one point he was going to be Top Cat's voice.  He recorded either an episode or a demo of some sort using what was essentially the same voice he used for Hokey Wolf.

My great friend, the late Earl Kress and I used to puzzle about another piece of this puzzle.  On Top Cat, H-B used Maurice Gosfield, who'd played Duane Doberman on the Bilko show, to voice Benny the Ball.  Obviously, that was because of the Bilko connection…so why were none of the voices of Top Cat's cronies done by his fellow Bilko cast mates, Allan Melvin or Harvey Lembeck?  Melvin was then doing a lot of voices for H-B and Lembeck, though I don't think he ever received any screen credit there, can be heard voicing minor roles on one or two concurrent H-B shows. (Before anyone asks: Joe E. Ross, who was a semi-regular on Bilko and later did voices for H-B, was filming Car 54, Where Are You? in New York while Top Cat was recording in L.A.)

The answer to all this, I learned from Arnold that day, was that Top Cat vacillated between being too much like Bilko and not enough like Bilko.  "The lawyers couldn't make up their minds," he told me.  "One week, they wanted me to sound more like Phil Silvers and the next week, they wanted me to tone it down."

Apparently, Daws sounded too much like Phil Silvers and Mr. O'Shea didn't sound enough like him.  Arnold was the compromise.  Arnold didn't know anything about Melvin or Lembeck ever being part of the cast but that might have been before his time there.  He was good friends with both of them.  (He also was occasionally recorded separately from the other actors because he was sometimes commuting from New York. At the time, technology did not allow them to be able to record the way we did in '94. Some of Arnold's later voice work for H-B was done that way.)

Arnold was also good friends with Howard Morris, who was in our regular Garfield and Friends cast and was in the studio in Los Angeles that day.  Once we had the L.A. folks online, Howie and Arnold got to talking about all the times — and there were a lot of them — they'd been up for the same parts.  Howie had beaten Arnold out for the title role in the Beetle Bailey cartoons and the voice of the koala in the Qantas Airlines commercials.  Arnold had beaten Howie out for the role of Hysterium in the national touring company of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and a part in the cinema classic, Skidoo. Of Skidoo, Arnold said to Howie, "I should have let you have that one."

I told of other memories of that day in this post.  Before he left, Arnold was nice enough to record an answering machine message for me…

After we finished recording, the limo took me to the airport and I flew down to Orlando, Florida for a Garfield conference.  Many moons ago, I wrote a column about what happened down there.  I've never posted it on this website but in the next few days, I will.  And if I remember anything else Arnold Stang told me that day, I'll post it.  He was a great talent and I'm so glad I got the chance to spend time with him and work with him.  I have worked with no one else in the animation business who would have spent the money that Lee Mendelson spent to make that happen.

In case you haven't seen the announcements, the folks who bring you MeTV, MeTV+ and a whole bunch of other channels will soon be bringing you MeTV Toons, a channel which will run 24/7 cartoons. Many will be from the Warner Bros. library…so a lot of Bugs Bunny, Scooby Doo, Flintstones, Jetsons, etc., but they will be also tapping other toon libraries. Mentioned so far are Rocky and Bullwinkle, Casper, Betty Boop, Speed Racer, Woody Woodpecker and others.

More exciting for some of us is that our friends Jerry Beck and Bob Bergen are involved — Jerry as a consultant and as a producer of new content to run before and in-between classic cartoons, Bob as the signature voice of the channel.

The announcements I've seen say the channel will commence on June 25, 2024.  There will soon be info available on how you can watch it on your TV.  This is all very good news.