Thursday, May 10, 2007

Three Unrelated Points

If I may, I'd like to make Three Unrelated Points. That is, they're unrelated to each other. They may be related to something...

1. Obviously, I am grossly disappointed in John McCain. Do not however assume that because I haven't expressed as much that I have any particular fondness for any other candidate. So far, I don't like anyone very much and am really tired of e-mails from people who assume that because I don't like their guy that I must think the candidate they like least is flawless. I've gotten this so often that I actually went back and did a search on my own blog to make sure I hadn't, in a moment of madness, written something like, "I think Hillary Clinton can solve every problem the world has in twenty minutes and bake a cherry pie at the same time." I hadn't...and for good reason.
2. Recently in a market, I spotted and purchased Tyson Frozen Flat Iron Steaks and attempted to cook one at home. I did this because I had forgotten a prevailing rule of my life: Never assume that food named after an inanimate object won't resemble that inanimate object in taste and texture. I formulated this rule the first time I ate in a Straw Hat Pizza Parlor.
3. Like you, I get a lot of Spam for pornography and sex sites. Actually, I manage to trap about 99% of it before it reaches me but I do get that 1% and about once a month, I take a quick peek in the filter folder to make sure it didn't gobble up something I would have wanted. I know that the Porn Spammers intentionally spell words wrong because they think it'll get their messages past some Spam Monitors...but I prefer to think that these guys are just so illiterate that they can't spell their own body parts correctly.

This has been the latest edition of Three Unrelated Points. Tune in one of these days for another exciting installment of Three Unrelated Points.

• Posted at 3:48 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Here's a clip from the Garfield and Friends series that needs a bit of explanation. If you ever saw the show when it was on CBS, you may recall that we had episodes of Garfield and we had episodes of a cartoon that was called, in this country, U.S. Acres. In other countries, it was called Orson's Farm. These cartoons ran 6-7 minutes in length. We also had little short cartoon gags that were called "quickies" that ran an average of thirty seconds each. In an hour-long episode of Garfield and Friends, we had four of the longer Garfield cartoons, two of the longer U.S. Acres/Orson's Farm cartoons and some Garfield quickies and some U.S. Acres/Orson's Farm quickies. (We also, for a time, had a segment called "Screaming With Binky" but never mind that now.)

One week, I wrote a Garfield cartoon called The Attack of the Mutant Guppies, which was all about giant, radioactive guppies that lived in the sewers. The cartoon ended with the monsters apparently being swept out to sea. This was then followed by a U.S. Acres/Orson's Farm quickie in which...well, here. See for yourself. Here are the last few seconds of the Garfield episode, followed by the U.S. Acres/Orson's Farm quickie...

See? The Garfield cartoon is continued, sort of, into the Orson's Farm quickie. I thought that was kind of funny. If it was though, it was only funny when that Orson's Farm quickie immediately followed that Garfield cartoon. You have no idea how hard it was to keep them together. The folks editing the shows kept calling to say, "Hey, the show's running a little long. Can we move that U.S. Acres quickie to another show?" And I kept telling them no, they couldn't. I think when the hour was first delivered to the network, they had the quickie before the Garfield cartoon and someone at CBS figured out the problem and made them go back and change it. When the show went into syndication, a number of elements had to be juggled around or trimmed to fit the syndication format and that quickie disappeared. So when the "Guppies" cartoon airs now, it airs without its punch line.

Along the way, I got a lot of people mad at me there because I'd made things too complicated. We also had a complaint from someone over at the studio that made The Muppet Babies because we'd mentioned their show. I still don't know why that bothered them.

• Posted at 10:09 AM · LINK

Smoke From a Distant Fire

Here's how the Griffith Park Fire looked from downtown. Via time lapse video.

• Posted at 10:01 AM · LINK

Mann Alive!

We reported here that the Mann National Theater in Westwood was closing down...and it did. Now, we're reporting that the theater is about to reopen, though not as a Mann. The chain's lease on the building has expired and the National will begin showing films again as a private concern. No word on whether the owners expect to keep it going on that basis or if they're just looking to generate some cash while looking for a buyer for the land.

• Posted at 9:54 AM · LINK

Get Well, Irwin Hasen!

I don't imagine he has Internet access in the hospital but who knows? They just stuck a pacemaker into the legendary comic artist — the guy who gave us the Dondi newspaper strip and some great Golden Age comic book feature, Wildcat. Maybe they embedded a Broadband connection in the guy while they were at it and he can log in on himself and read this.

So, just in case: Get healthy, Irwin. Of all the people we've met in comics and interviewed at conventions, you're one of our favorites. Here's the partial text of one convention conversation with you. We need you around so we can do more of these.

[CORRECTION: Irwin did not receive a pacemaker. He's being treated for a stroke but did not receive a pacemaker.]

• Posted at 8:47 AM · LINK