Each time Reprise stages a show, its 2 PM Saturday matinees are preceded at Noon by a one-hour free lecture by a noted scholar on the history of the beloved musical in question. You don't even have to attend the show to sit in on the lecture. Heck, the noted scholar doesn't even have to be a noted scholar. Tomorrow and next Saturday, the speaker is me. Something for everyone indeed.

Mark is way behind on things that purport to pay him money. He is putting up the soup can to let you know that there won't be a lot of posts on this blog for the next few days, nor will he be responding to e-mails at his usual pace...which lately has been none too efficient anyway. He will return to you soon. See if you can find something else on the Internet to amuse you while he's busy. It's a big, world-wide web out there. There must be something.

The fact that Morris still has a job says a lot about what our "news" media has become on both the left or right. It's not about telling us what's going on. It's not even about telling us what's going to happen. It's about telling a target audience what it wants to hear.

Their embeddable player is, as you can see below, a little large for its size but I thought I'd give it a try here. This is an 8-minute press conference conducted by Stephen Colbert on October 28, 2007 when he was presented with the key to the city of Columbia, South Carolina...

Tomorrow at 9 AM Pacific, the hotel reservations desk opens up and there'll be a mad crush, folks stampeding for rooms like a pack of pitbulls on a pork roast. I'm told there will be many more spots in many more hotels available than ever...but someone's gonna get shut out, at least for a while until more rooms get added. If you're among those who don't get what you want right away, remember the following: I cannot help you. Writing or calling me is an enormous waste of time. I do not work for the convention. Also remember that while it may look bleak in March, these things have a way of working themselves out before July.

Folks are already writing me to ask what panels I'll be doing down there and when they are. Your guess, as the saying goes, is as good as mine. I usually do a Sergio-Mark panel on Thursday, a Golden Age panel on Thursday or Friday, Quick Draw! and one Cartoon Voice panel on Saturday, another Cartoon Voice panel and a Jack Kirby panel on Sunday...and various "spotlight" panels on other days. But it'll be a month or two before planning commences so right now, that's all I know — and do note the use of the word "usually" in that sentence.

Lastly, I have this joke I do here every year. Around about May, I write, "If you want to find a parking space down there, leave now." I was thinking of moving it up to mid-April this year but the way tickets have been going, I'm thinking I may already have missed the moment.

The GOP's resurrection has not come on the strength of transformative ideas that can actually solve the nation's problems: Republicans continue to peddle warmed-over Bush — from bankruptcy-inducing tax cuts to the privatization of Social Security. Instead, it has been achieved through what one party strategist admits is "tactical small-ball." The GOP game is as simple as it is hypocritical. First: Reject every Democratic proposal — including some of the exact same initiatives that Republicans championed under Bush — while branding the consensus-seeking Obama as a radical leftist. Second: Stoke populist fury over exploding deficits, even though they're the fallout of eight catastrophic years of Republican rule. (President Bush inherited a projected surplus of $5.6 trillion and left behind a forecasted deficit of $3 trillion.) Three: Promise to fix what's wrong with Washington — despite having waged an all-out war to make government appear as broken as possible.

That's it in the nuttiest of nutshells. Read the whole article if you have the time.

You probably think it's St. Patrick's Day and in some senses, it is. But it's also Freberg Day over on Shokus Internet Radio. This afternoon, my friend Stu Shostak is welcoming Stan and Hunter Freberg to Stu's Show, two hours of great conversation heard live from 4 PM to 6 PM Pacific Daylight Time. I often recommend this program to you but I especially recommend it this week.

Stan Freberg is, of course, one of my great heroes and I still can't quite believe he's my pal. I first discovered his brilliant comedy records on the old Soupy Sales Show when Pookie and Hippie would mime to them. I guess I was around nine or ten at the time but I somehow figured out that they were records and my father helped me figure out that they were by someone named Stan Freberg. He took me up to a record store up on Westwood Boulevard — located where Junior's Delicatessen now stands, in case anyone cares. I went up to the clerk at the front and said, "Stan Freberg, please." He directed me to the comedy albums, I bought one and my life changed a little that day. Other folks made funny records, of course...but Stan's were hipper and more memorable. Later, I learned he was also a voice actor in many of the Warner Brothers cartoons I loved; that he'd originated the role of Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent on Time for Beany; that he practically invented the funny commercial...and so much more. He'll probably talk about all those things on Stu's Show today.

His partner/wife of the last nine years, Hunter Freberg, will also be heard...and Stu could easily fill two hours with this amazing lady. She's been a corporate placement exec, a TV host, a lecturer, a producer...and now she and Stan jointly run his career and life. He's madly in love with her...and the feeling is mutual and easy to understand.

Hunter and Stan will be Guests of Honor at WonderCon in San Francisco April 2-4 and if you're there, make sure you stop by and meet them. If you can't...well, you can meet them from afar today on Stu's Show. As I said, it airs live beginning at 4 PM Pacific Time. You can figure out when that is in your time zone. Then go to Shokus Internet Radio and click where they tell you to link.

I'm supposed to be there as co-host...not that I'm needed. And though I'm busy, I'm going to try to make it because, well, it's the Frebergs. If I'm not able to participate, it will still be a great show. Tune in and listen — and if you can't do that tomorrow, it reruns for six days after, usually in the same time slot. Consult that website for more details.

Today was busy but okay. I took time out to lunch with cartoonist Carol Lay at my friendly neighborhood Souplantation. Good cartoonist, good Creamy Tomato Soup. And remember: We're halfway through March, the month when Souplantation (and its sister chain, Sweet Tomatoes) features my fave soup. Go try it if there's one near you...and you can find that out on this page. Also while you're on that page, should you locate an outlet you may be visiting, sign up for this thing they have called Club Veg. It gets you a steady stream of e-mailed discount coupons that will save you a buck or three. I do not own stock in this company.

Hey, if you live in L.A.: The evening of April 12, Jules Feiffer will be appearing at a Writers Bloc event where he'll be interviewed by none other than Carl Reiner. I would imagine someone there will also be selling Mr. Feiffer's new book and he'll be writing his name in copies. Here's how you can be there.

Not long ago, we were all disheartened when Mad magazine was cut from monthly to quarterly. We are therefore heartened to hear that it has now been upped to bi-monthly, which ain't that much less than the eight-per-year status that it enjoyed for much of its past existence. The new issue, by the way, is very funny. I do not think that the sales decline of Mad is due to its quality. I think it's due to its being a magazine.

Okay. My Time of Day is fleeting. Gotta get back to work. I'll take a break in about an hour and post a great video link.

The folks at Shout Factory are about to release a Tom Lehrer boxed set that contains one CD and one DVD. If you're a Lehrer fan, you may have all or most of what's on the CD, though there appear to be a few obscure recordings on there. The DVD, however, looks like it'll be worth the price all by itself. I don't think any of these performances have ever been available on home video ever. Here's the link to pre-order. If you got one of those $25 credits from Amazon because they couldn't sell you all the Marvel Omnibus books for three dollars, this might be a peachy thing to use some of that money on.