Jack Jones was one of my favorite singers. I saw him perform several times in Vegas — twice as Sky Masterson in a production of Guys and Dolls that was parked for a long time at the old Desert Inn. He wasn't altogether convincing as the character when he spoke but nobody ever sung those Frank Loesser songs better. I also saw him and a decent-sized orchestra in the showroom at the Orleans and he was funny, charming and — again — there was that terrific voice.

And yes, at the Orleans he sang the theme from The Love Boat and all his many hit records. But he tackled a wide range of musical styles and told some genuinely funny anecdotes between tunes. He was really a great entertainer. There's a fine overview of his life and career over on his website.

I never met him, never got to tell him what a fan I was of his work…and the only anecdote I ever heard about him is the one about the time he was on with Ed Sullivan, who was famous for his awkward intros and clumsy gaffes.

After you performed on Ed's show, you usually went over and shook hands with him and engaged in a short bit of banter. During that banter moment at an afternoon rehearsal, Ed asked him about his father — Allan Jones, himself a popular entertainer best remembered for his roles in Marx Brothers movies. Ed asked Jack, "Wasn't Allan Jones your father?" Jack replied, "He still is."

It got a laugh from the dress rehearsal audience and the crew so Ed said, "Let's keep that in. When we do the show tonight, I'll ask you the same question and you give me the same answer." Jack said fine, sure, great.

That evening, they're on the air live to all of America. Jack finishes his spot, walks over to Ed ready to say the line and Ed asks him, "Is your father still alive?" I wish Jack Jones were. I'd sure go see him again.

Hey, you like movies where Burt Reynolds drives fast cars and all the women love him? Then you'll love Smokey and the Bandit from 1977…

And if you loved Smokey and the Bandit from 1977, you'll probably love Smokey and the Bandit II from 1980…

And finally, you might even like Smokey and the Bandit III from 1983. This is the one with almost no Burt Reynolds in it…

Gotta admit: I'm still kinda curious if there was any sane reason for Donald Trump to tell that Arnold Palmer story at his speech the other day. Was it really just as basic as this: He says whatever pops into his head and that just popped into his head? If he gave it a moment of thought, he must have known that it would piss some potential voters off. And that it would almost guarantee a comment from Stormy Daniels like this.

The closest thing I can think of to a logical reason — and I'm not suggesting this is logical but he might — is a belief that the worst thing for him is to not attract attention even if some of it is negative.

Ron Ely played Tarzan on TV in a 1966–1968 series and had the title role in the 1975 movie Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze. He was great in both roles and in his many other film appearances which included South Pacific, The Fiend Who Walked the West, The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker, The Night of the Grizzly, Slavers and many more.

He was a frequent guest on TV shows and starred in two others — The Aquanauts and a revival of Sea Hunt. Later in his career, he became a popular TV host for things like the Miss America pageant and the game show, Face the Music. And he really was a great Tarzan on that series, sustaining any number of injuries because he insisted on doing most of his own stunts.

Ron just died at the age of 86.  No cause has been reported but his daughter Kirsten issued this statement…

The world has lost one of the greatest men it has ever known – and I have lost my dad. My father was someone that people called a hero. He was an actor, writer, coach, mentor, family man and leader. He created a powerful wave of positive influence wherever he went. The impact he had on others is something that I have never witnessed in any other person – there was something truly magical about him. This is how the world knew him. I knew him as my dad – and what a heaven sent honor that has been. To me, he hung the moon.

Ron and I met when I was seated next to him on an Edgar Rice Burroughs panel at the 2012 Comic-Con International. I introduced myself and mentioned that I'd had a bad experience with a certain TV producer that I knew Ron had worked with. I was kinda gambling that that would result in an instant bonding but it was like betting that Alaska would go Republican. Ron said, "Well, I hope he didn't screw you over as badly as he screwed me over" and we were instant friends.

I told him (honestly) that I thought he was a great Tarzan…and pretty damn good in everything else I'd seen him do. After the panel, we stood in the hall talking until I had to race off to my next one. I was very glad to have had that brief time with him and I've very sad to think that there can never be another. One of the good guys, indeed.

First of all, thanks to a whole bunch of you who've sent in questions so I no longer have to write about Celebrity Penis Sizes on this blog. (It does occur to me that if any Democratic candidate for president had told that story in a public speech, every single person who has or is about to vote for Donald Trump would say that it alone is reason enough to not vote for the candidate who told it.)

I have two questions here from William Dodson who says that he's from "Lavergne (not Shirley) TN. The first one is…

Is Maggie Thompson of the Comics Buyers Guide still around? I miss that paper.

Maggie is absolutely still around. She was a Guest o' Honor and panelist at the Comic-Con and I need to call her today as we're working together on the next volume reprinting Walt Kelly's Pogo. She's one of my favorite human beings so she'd better still be around for a long time. Next question..

Just exactly what does the director of cartoon shorts do? As opposed to live action directors. Guys like Chuck Jones and Fred Quimby especially.

Well, first off, Fred Quimby was a producer, not a director. He had very little to do with the content of cartoons that had his name on a title card except to hire folks to make those cartoons.

What a director like Chuck Jones or Tex Avery did back in the days of theatrical animation was basically to be the boss of the entire production. A director then had final say on the story and dialogue and then either designed the characters and storyboard or supervised those who did. He also "cast" the voices and directed the recording of them and approved the music and, well, basically he was the guy in charge.

There are those who would tell you that there is too much of a tendency to treat those men — they were all men — as if they were the sole makers of those cartoons. A few directors either believed that or found it was good for their careers to act like that was the case. I had a brief friendship with one of the great storymen, Michael Maltese, before he died. If he hadn't died, he'd be around today telling you how many of the ideas and characters and gags in cartoons he worked on were his invention, not the director's.

There are many different divisions of work in animation for television today but basically, the word "director" usually denotes the person who works out the timing sheets. He or she may have had nothing to do with the script or the storyboard or the voices. He or she may have had nothing to do with the character design or the coloring or the backgrounds or the final assembly and editing. Or he or she may have done some of that. It varies from studio to studio and even on show to show within the same studio.

I had an unpleasant relationship with a director who only did the timing sheets but who insisted on acting like he was the "auteur" (and I believe he used that noxious, self-obsessive noun) on the cartoons he directed. There are directors who are all that he claimed to be but when you have to produce an episode a week — and you're shipping them off to Korea for animation and you neither go there nor speak their language — you really can't be the sole creative force in the process.

So the answer to your question is that it varies. I worked on cartoon shows where I was the main creative supervisor and I worked on some where I was just one stop along a very long assembly line…and you really can't tell which was which just by looking at the screen credits. Thanks for asking, William.

Today's Double Feature stars a man who at one point in his career could have been voted "Least Likely Actor In Hollywood To Ever Become The Number One Star Of Comedies." Here's Leslie Nielsen as Lieutenant Frank Drebin in two of his highly successful comedies…

First, we have The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear from 1991…

Then we have Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult from 1994 And don't call me Shirley…

I don't have anything in mind to write about here today. Oh, I have plenty to say about the election but even I'm getting tired of reading me writing about that. Someone send me some questions about show business or comics or writing or anything like that.

The last real KMart in the country closed today. For some unknown reason, I followed the demise of that once-strong company in all sorts of articles and analyses and I came to the conclusion that it was done in by two things. One was the rise of Amazon and other companies that have made it way too easy to shop from home. The other was really, really inept management. And I assume all those really, really inept leaders got paid really, really well for doing everything wrong.

I also see that Denny's is closing outlets, which suggests to me there's no real middle ground these days between restaurants you go to because they're cheap and restaurants you go to because they're good. I also wonder to what extent The Pandemic forced a lot of people to learn how to cook at home, making a trip to a place like Denny's less necessary.

On the other hand, In-N-Out Burger is opening new places every day including — soon — its largest-ever location. It's in Las Vegas and it'll be on the top floors (plural) of a new shopping center on The Strip. It will be over 10,000 square feet with 2,500 of that square footage being an outdoor patio seating area. That ain't bad for a place that mainly offers hamburgers and french fries and nobody likes their french fries.

Meanwhile, I see a number of discussions on the Internet as to which famous person had the biggest schlong — Milton Berle, Forrest Tucker or Arnold Palmer. And I have to wonder what the point of that discussion is and how anyone could possibly have any evidence as to the precise measurements of any of them. At most, there may be some people around who caught actual glimpses of one of them…but only one. And someone, quick, give me a new topic before I'm forced to elaborate on this one.

It is our mission here at newsfromme.com to always bring you the most important developments. So…

MILWAUKEE – This morning, the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum unveiled an officially licensed, limited-edition series of The Three Stooges Talking Bobbleheads featuring Moe, Larry, Curly, and Shemp. The unveiling coincides with Curly's birthday, which was on October 22nd, 1903. Each bobblehead is unique in capturing the comedic stylings of the beloved slapstick comedy team. The special edition bobbleheads were produced by the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum, licensed from C3 Entertainment, the company founded by the Three Stooges themselves, Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Joe DeRita.

Bearing their name on the base, each talking Three Stooges bobblehead, which plays a familiar saying at the touch of a button, is unique in capturing the comedic stylings of the beloved slapstick comedy team. Each bobblehead is individually numbered to 2,024, and they are available through the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum's Online Store. The bobbleheads, which are expected to ship in early December, are $35 each or $135 for the set of four plus a flat-rate shipping charge of $8 per order.

I just admit that I feel very uninformed to not know that there is a National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum. I intend to visit it the next time I'm in Milwaukee, Wisconsin which — whenever that is — will be the first time I've ever been in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I guess I never had this good a reason to go there before.

Have you ever seen a product that made so much sense before? The Stooges kind of were bobbleheads in real life and these new releases will give us all the chance to feel like one of them. You'll be able to slap Larry and watch his head bounce up and down just like it did in the films. I hope these are successful but that they're soon joined by bobbleheads of Curly Joe DeRita, Joe Besser and Joe "Fake Shemp" Palma.

I'm amazed to read that Bob Yerkes just died at the age of 92. Why is that amazing? Because Bob Yerkes spent his life diving out of windows, dangling by cables, swinging on trapezes, clinging to clock towers, being set on fire, etc. He was not just a stuntman. He was a superstar stuntman, one of the most in-demand guys producers would want to hire when they had a dangerous feat which had to be done. You can read more about him in this New York Times obit but I'll quote just this much here…

Mr. Yerkes (rhymes with "circus") performed stunts in the films The Towering Inferno (1974), Poltergeist (1982), Ghostbusters (1984) and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), as well as on television in Gilligan’s Island, Wonder Woman, Starsky and Hutch and Dukes of Hazzard. He was concussed more times than he could remember.

And that's about 3% of all he did. He also trained a vast array of stuntpeople and professional acrobats. Every trapeze artist I've ever met (about six) trained under and loved Bob Yerkes.

He was one of only two people I've met — the other is Sid Krofft — who actually ran away from home at an early age and joined the circus. I met Bob when I was working on That's Incredible! and he had amazing stories about doubling for just about every action hero-type in show biz, doing things that you or I wouldn't do for any amount of money. I find it amazing that he made it to 92 and that he didn't die from leaping off a burning building or something. The cause of death was pneumonia. He was a fascinating man and probably the closest thing to a real-life super-hero I'll ever encounter.

Here's Rachel Maddow with one of the best "Why you shouldn't vote for Trump" messages I've seen in this election. And we've all seen a lot of them…

And here's Devin "Legal Eagle" Stone with an overview of past Trump criminality and a summary of things Trump says he'll do if he gets back into the White House…

And here's Jake Tapper debunking the claim — made by apparently no one — that ABC conspired to rig the Trump/Harris Debate against Trump…

And here's the latest legal trouble Trump seems to be in…

I know this is a lot of anti-Trump stuff and I'm probably preaching to the choir here. I just think it's amazing that there are so many reasons to vote against this man but some people are still doing it.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is off this week…and when they take a week off, they generously upload an entire past season to YouTube. All of Season 6 (2019) is now online for your viewing pleasure at this link. Enjoy. I know I will.

Here's one of Woody Allen's best early films, Bananas from 1971…

And here's one of the Marx Brothers' poorer later films, A Night in Casablanca from 1946…

What Kevin Drum has to say about Donald Trump's stint working at McDonald's today.  Short excerpt…

It's heartwarming to see Trump serving the little people, sort of like Jesus did. But you will be unsurprised to learn that it was all staged. The store itself was shut down for the day. The cars coming up to the drive-thru window were full of handpicked Trump supporters.

But of course!

I suspect that if enough male voters can get over a sexist reticence to vote for a woman — especially a non-white woman — Kamala will win. Trump sure isn't winning over a lot of folks with his incoherent speeches, his clinging to questionable (at the very least) "facts", his not looking very healthy and canceling appearances or swaying to Village People records when he should be answering questions. Kamala had the guts to sit for an interview on Fox News but Donald won't sit down with any interviewer who won't lob softballs and refrain from fact-checking.

I wonder how many voters realize that if they restricted the voting to folks who've worked for Trump — the kind he described as "the best people" when he hired them — he'd lose in the biggest landslide of all times. Never mind carrying states. He might not even carry a 2017 cabinet meeting.

A little while ago, he was at a McDonald's in Pennsylvania apparently training for his next job. I honestly don't understand why anyone thought this would get him any votes. I guess he's trying to double-down on his claim that Harris was lying to say she'd once worked at such a place but he has zero proof that she didn't…and even if she didn't, who cares? When people lie about what's on their résumés, the sin is to claim you went to some prestigious university when you didn't or you had some important job when you didn't, not "I worked the fryer at a McDonald's forty years ago."

Ah, well. My ballot's in and counted in a state that Kamala can't lose. I shouldn't be thinking about this as much as I am. It's just hard to look away.

Bob and Ray in "The Hobby Hut"…