It's been a hundred years since Mr. Laurel began making movies with Mr. Hardy. Here's a short segment from British television taking note of their anniversary…

Guess what Jon Stewart’s talking about on tonight’s Daily Show…

I'm kinda busy today so it's a good time to introduce a new feature here on the blog.  Every so often, I'm going to bring you something FROM THE VAULT, which is not a vault at all.  It's a section of my computer's hard disk holding stuff I wrote a long, long time ago but which has never appeared on this blog before.  The opinions expressed in these pieces may not coincide with my opinions today…and, knowing me as I do, they may not even coincide with the opinions I had the day after I wrote them.  This is a piece I wrote for The Comics Buyers Guide, in this case, for the issue dated December 26, 1987…

It's about me going to elementary school classrooms to teach students about cartooning. I don't believe I've done it during this century…or if I did, it was still a long, long time ago. Here's what was on my mind the last time I did this — or close to the last time…

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Yesterday, I did something I haven't done in a long time. No, not bathe. I do that every six months, whether I need to or not. What I haven't done in around ten years is to go to a school and instruct kids on the fine art of cartooning. The first time I ever did this was 1970. It's frightening to think that the kids I then taught how to draw Mickey Mouse are now old enough to be senior animators at Disney.

Since then, I've paid about thirty visits to classrooms, usually in elementary schools, often in downscale neighborhoods. I go in, talk to the kids about cartoons, draw some characters for them, and then take them step-by-step through the mechanics of drawing Charlie Brown, Mickey Mouse and a few others of simple construction. It is always educational, as much for me as for the pupils. Here are some of the things I've learned doing this…

1. Kids really, really like cartoons. Back when I was ten, back when I was physically my present mental age, I liked cartoons a lot more than anyone else in my class. Today, if the school I visited yesterday is representative — and I think/hope it is — children all like cartoons as much as I did then.

2. They really, really are fascinated by how cartoons are made. They genuinely want to know how it's possible to take a pencil and a piece of blank paper and make Yosemite Sam appear.

Before my first visit, I assumed they'd welcome my appearance just because, hey, it's more fun to hear about cartoons than about Long Division. Wrong. Every single classroom I've dropped in on has been abuzz with anticipation that they were going to meet one of those magical people who makes cartoons happen and learn The Secret. Or, at least, some of The Secret.

3. I drew well enough. Though I've made a few bucks at the board, Mort Drucker does not tremble at the competition. In fact, ever since I got involved in comics, I've been surrounded by people who could draw better with their wrong hands than I can with my right. I apprenticed with Jack Kirby and I work with Sergio Aragonés, Dan Spiegle, Steve Rude, Dave Stevens, Will Meugniot, Scott Shaw! and others in their league. After hanging around those folks, it's tough to even walk into an art supply shop, let alone think of yourself as an illustrator.

Still, it front of a gang of pre-adolescents, it's different. When it comes to whipping out a fast Wile E. Coyote in marker on a big pad of newsprint, Chuck Jones in his prime could not be more impressive.

4. I shouldn't try to explain what I do. When I first visited a schoolroom, I was writing funny animal comics for Gold Key, and occasionally pencilling a cover or laying out a story. Later on, I became a guy who wrote cartoons for television and occasionally did a smidgen of the drawing. But just try and explain to a roomful of 11-year-olds what a script is or a rough layout, or how a storyboard works. My lessons used to bog down in long, incomprehensible explications of what I did, and no one ever understood. So I learned to just say, "Yes, I draw the cartoons" and get on to the important stuff.

5. All cartoons are current. The Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons have been effectively outta-production since the mid-sixties. The classic WB cartoons were made in the decades before that. The best Popeyes date back to the thirties.

All of these are wonderful but ancient history to those of us who follow the industry and art form. The current shows are the ones recently or presently in production…Superman, Pinky and the Brain, 101 Dalmatians, Men in Black, Channel Umptee-3, Life With Louie, etc.. But kids see both new and old cartoons on the same television sets, often on the same channels, so they're all new, all now. Kids neither know nor care that a good Yogi Bear cartoon is pushing forty.

This creates a strange time warp. While I was sketching Bugs Bunny one day in an inner-city classroom, I was startled to hear a 9-year-old boy begin doing an impression of Jerry Colonna. (Who's Jerry Colonna? Jerry Colonna was a wonderful character actor and comedian, most prominent back in the forties, most often found in and around the company of Bob Hope. Mr. Colonna died in 1986…but Bugs used to imitate him and spout his catch-phrases, so kids today do likewise, without having the foggiest notion who Jerry was, or even what most of those jokes mean.)

6. Kids really, really like cartoons. Yes, I know this is a repeat but it bears repeating. In my line of work, I encounter a lot of folks whose livelihoods involve the care and feeding of classic characters in animation or comic books. I'm not sure they all understand how important those characters are for non-financial reasons. They're part of peoples' lives, part of their childhoods…in some cases, part of Americana.

When I worked for Hanna-Barbera, I had some bloody battles with a couple of execs, all of them now long gone, to whom Scooby Doo was just a property to be exploited for its maximum, immediate profit potential. I wish I could have dragged those guys along to any of the classrooms I've visited. Maybe, just maybe, they could have glommed onto the notion that with great characters come great responsibilities.

The classroom yesterday would have been the perfect place to demonstrate this. I walked in the door with my big pad of paper and my big Sharpie markers and was immediately mobbed. "Are you the cartoon guy?" twenty eager youths asked eagerly. Their teacher had briefed them that I worked on the Garfield cartoon show, so a dozen Garfield books were immediately thrust at me for autographs. I had nothing to do with anything in those books but some now bear my signature.

I set up my equipment as more students filed in. The teacher had told them all to sit quietly until everyone was there, but they couldn't wait. I was assaulted — I believe that's an appropriate word — with questions:

"Do you do the voice of Garfield?" (No, a man named Lorenzo Music does.)

"How did you learn to draw?" (Lots and lots and lots of practice.)

"Do you get paid for doing cartoons?" (Yes, amazingly.)

"Can you draw our teacher?" (I can but it's dangerous.)

When all were present, I launched into a little routine I've developed in which I attempt to de-mystify the process of drawing. I draw a bunch of circles and ovals and then show how putting them all in the proper place creates the face of Mickey Mouse. Then I turn another circle into Charlie Brown and yet another into Garfield, and so on.

The kids all have paper and pencils and I take them through the steps of drawing these characters. This usually results in a certain delighted squeal of joy and elated cries of, "Look what I did!" I don't know that anyone in the room will ever venture seriously into the realm of cartooning, but I think it's worthwhile to impress upon them the following three points…

1. You can draw. You may not draw well but you can draw. Anyone can draw.

2. You should enjoy drawing. Some kids view everything they do, especially activities connected with school, as chores. You should draw when you want to draw and what you want to draw. And lastly —

3. If you want to draw better, you have to practice. And practice and practice and practice. And then you practice some more.

And as always, when you teach something, you learn a little about it for yourself. Yesterday, I learned, first and foremost, that I was hopelessly out of practice. At one point, I started drawing Barney Rubble but all the kids shouted out, "It's George Jetson!" I stopped, looking at the half-finished sketch, and decided they were right and I was wrong. So I went ahead and added George Jetson's hair and made a mental post-it that I need to brush up on my Barney. (I also need to learn to draw Spawn. He was the most-requested character I've never tried to draw.)

But I also learned something else. It happened after I left, reached my car, then realized I'd forgotten something and had to go back.

Class had let out but a few kids were straggling, including one who has maybe ten — a boy who'd eagerly aped my every drawing, proudly displaying each sketch for my critique and approval. His name may have been Gary (let's say it was) and if I had to bet on the student most likely to stick with cartooning, I'd have picked him.

"Look what I did," he exclaimed as he showed me a sketch of one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — Leonardo, I think. It wasn't a bad drawing at all — not given Gary's age. I've seen worse in print.

I was impressed — all the moreso because I hadn't taught the kids how to draw any Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I had broken Charlie Brown, Mickey Mouse and a few others into easy-to-follow steps for them, but I had given no instruction whatsoever about turtles or ninjas or mutants or even teenagers. Something in the previous hour had inspired Gary (if that was his name) to grab the baton and sprint on ahead.

He walked me back to my car. "What's your favorite cartoon show?" I asked. He fired back a list of darn near everything that's on the Disney Channel, Fox, Kid's WB, Nick and the Cartoon Network.

"What do you like best about cartoons?"

He stopped and thought for a second and then said, "My mom doesn’t like them."

"No," I said. "What is it that you like about them?"

"I like that my mom doesn't like them. My dad doesn't, either. When I put cartoons on, they leave the room or make me go in my room to watch them."

"Is that good?"

"Yeah," he said, as if that explained it. And, in a way, it did.

I suddenly thought back: When I was his age, there were times I liked being alone with my cartoons. There were times I liked watching TV with my folks but, of course, when I did that, we were watching their shows. It was also fun to watch my shows, which were all on at times when my parents couldn't or wouldn't watch.

I'd get up on Saturday morn at 6:00 AM — about the hour I now go to bed — and creep out to the living room and turn on the cartoons. I'd sit up real close and turn the volume knob way down — as low as it would go and I could still hear. I didn't want to wake Mom and Dad, and not just because I was a considerate little cuss.

I didn't want to wake them because this was my time. My shows were on, and the living room was mine for a while. When you spend most of your week living in an adult world, going to a school run by adults, eating what adults want you to eat, reading what adults tell you to read…well, it can be nice to have a little kid time.

That was another great thing about certain comic books back then; they were for us, not for adults. I'd forgotten that aspect of them. So I asked Gary about this favorite comic books…and you know what he named as his favorite comic book? This kid — who loves every cartoon show and who loves the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles enough to force himself to draw them — you know what his favorite comic book is?

He doesn't have one. He's never read a comic book.

As long as I've been around the comic business, I've heard folks talk about trying to get their books more respect and to be more accepted in "real" bookstores like Barnes & Noble and Brentano's. There has never been a panel at a convention where they discussed the future of comics and someone didn't say, "We have to convince people that comics aren't just for kids."

That's a wonderful crusade — one I'm all for. But I'm wondering if maybe, with all this focus on upscale formats and grim-n'-gritty super-heroes, we aren't running the risk of marginalizing ourselves on the other end. Are we so eager to attract the readers over 18 that we're losing the ones under 11?

We say, "We want comics to be displayed like any other kind of book in Barnes & Noble." But the Barnes & Noble near me has a kid's section — a huge kid's section — and I've seen precious few comic shops that did. They simply don't have enough good stuff to put in one. (Usually, if they divide the material up at all, it's to isolate the naked lady stuff…the stuff they can get busted for selling to 14-year-olds.)We would like comics to appeal to all ages. Well, "all ages" would include my new protégé, Gary.

That's a potential comic book reader there but if he goes to the comic shop I stopped in on my way home, he'll find precious little he wants to buy or even can read.They had a small Disney section but it was geared for the adult who collects Carl Barks, not the kid who loves Donald Duck. And if they stocked DC's animation-related titles or Acclaim's new Disney books, they were sure well-hidden amidst the super-hero stuff and all those comics starring women whose thighs are six times the length of their heads.

They did have one of those spinner racks with the header plaque that says, "Hey, Kids! Comics!" but it was filled with books that aim well over Gary's young head. So instead of going out and buying funnybooks, he'll run home and turn on the Fox Kids Network or Nick or Kids WB. Maybe he'll discover comics in a few years when he's older. maybe he won't. It would be nice if those of you who publish and market comic books could discover him first…but you won't find him at any retailers' convention or booksellers seminar. You have to go to a schoolroom. And it helps if you take along Sharpies and a really big pad of paper.

I have so much to say about this amazing man I was privileged to know and work with for so many years. Unfortunately, I can’t say it now…but I will when I can.

Here's something I hope I never have to do but if I ever did, I hope I could do it as smoothly as this guy…

Like, I would imagine a lot of you, I've been trying to figure out what's true and what's likely with the Iran War and it's like trying to sculpt the Venus di Milo out of Cool Whip. (Do they still make Cool Whip? Let me go check and see. Yes, they still make Cool Whip. I'll put a photo of it at the top of this article.) A friend of mine says that it helps to assume that anything Donald Trump says is true is not, especially if he's the only one saying it. Even some of the folks who have been known to serve as his personal ventriloquist dummies are declining to go along with some of his claims lately.

I keep thinking about how it ended for Richard Nixon. Late in the Watergate Scandal, when things were crashing down on all sides of Nixon, three prominent Republicans — Senator Barry Goldwater, Senator Hugh Scott, and Representative John Rhodes — went to the White House and informed him that it was over; that he would lose an impeachment vote in Congress; that even they'd be voting against him. Nixon may have been a crook but he was a smart crook. He knew that it would be way less painful to resign rather than battle to the death.

I don't think Donald Trump is that smart — or if he ever was, he ain't lately. As this war is proving, he only knows one strategy: Attack, attack, attack! If three prominent Republicans told him it was time to decamp, he'd throw them out, then go on Truth Social and say they were stupid, fat, and ugly, they were fucking losers whose businesses were all failing, they had low I.Q.s and low energy, and he'd make up some childish nickname for them like we used to do in Third Grade. Then he'd announce he's not only going to run for a third term but a fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth as well.

Anyway, this is just a long and pointless way of me saying I don't know what's going to happen. You don't either and apparently Trump doesn't know what he's going to do tomorrow, let alone how all this is going to end. It might be something no one can imagine. Think how many issues and scandals have just suddenly come out of nowhere with this guy. But in these strange, strange times when so much is so uncertain, isn't it kind of nice to know that they still make Cool Whip? I have no intention of eating any of it, you understand. I'm just somehow comforted that it's still around. I hope we all are for a while.

Live (on a TV show) from Switzerland, it's Voxset with another one of these…

I had a hellish time on the phone the other day trying to get a new HP Office Jet printer to recognize my computer and vice-versa. After exhausting the directions in the manual and online, I called Tech Support and got a cheery A.I. lady who identified herself as A.I. and who was of no help whatsoever. I asked for a human being and she willingly connected me with someone allegedly in India…

…who turned out to be A.I. also but he wouldn't admit it. "He" kept on denying he was a computer and he said it over and over again in the exact same terms and voice. "He" also insinuated that the solution to my problem was to junk my Dell computer and buy the newest HP one.

There was a moment there when I felt like I was in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, trying to get HAL to open the pod bay doors and "he" would say, "I'm sorry, Mark, I'm afraid I can't do that." I forget what I said to trigger it but he put me on hold for quite a while, during which I finally figured out how to connect the printer…and, of course, it had nothing to do with any of the different ways "he" had been trying to instruct me.

When "he" then came back on the line, I told "him" I wanted to complain to a supervisor. I really didn't. I just wanted to see what would happen. "He" insisted "his" supervisor would tell me all the same things but I insisted and "he" finally said a supervisor would contact me within 24 hours and it's now been like 40 and no one has.

At one point (of course), I thought of just boxing the @#&%*@ printer up and shipping it back to where it came from. I even threatened that to that second A.I. assistant thinking (wrongly) that saying that would cause "him" to connect me to a person…but "he" couldn't have cared less. I decided it would inconvenience and penalize me way more than it would harm the Hewlett-Packard people, including any human beings who might now actually be involved with the company. There may not be any.

But here's the thing I really don't get: Why, if you're going to program an A.I. assistant and have it deny it's not an actual human being, do you replicate some guy in India? He sounded like one in name and voice and he even said he was in India. There are smart technicians there but there are also smart technicians here and I would think you'd best appease frustrated callers by connecting them to a voice that at least seems to be in their country. Does India now have such a monopoly on this kind of thing that someone figured that I'd prefer that? Or did A.I. figure that? It's a rhetorical question. Please don't try to answer it.

I just thought I'd tell you what I went through. And now if you'll forgive me, I still need to figure out how to get those damned pod bay doors open.

The Daily Show, like John Oliver, often picks the most unfortunate weeks to be on hiatus. But here we have 17.5 minutes of recent Daily Show reporting on the War with Iran. I wish so much of this stuff wasn't still timely…

I hadn't planned on posting a series of a cappella ABBA medleys but I came across one I liked and then another and then I began searching for them and…well, if I see an online video I like, my natural instinct is to share it with whosoever checks out this blog. If you don't like 'em, just skip over 'em. We have more coming and this one is from Perpetuum Jazzile…

Fred Kaplan points out that when Donald Trump rants about NATO, it's obvious he has no idea what NATO is or what it's supposed to do and not do.

I met Fred some years ago in New York after linking to I-don't-know-how-many of his articles. One thing I told him was that I was fascinated and impressed by how many times what he was doing was simply correcting people who hadn't read the documents they were talking about. Fred is a fine writer but he's also a very good reader. Others out there argue about budgets and treaties and other paperwork from the standpoint of what they wish the documents said or what they guess the documents said. Fred reads them and then provides links so you can too.

I would like to thank an amazing number of people — including friends I didn't know I had — for spreading the word about the burglary at my home and for empathy and other commendable responses. And I guess I should apologize, though you all seem to understand this, that I cannot answer all your questions at this time.

There will be a slightly-updated list issued shortly.

I really like these. The one features Peter Hollens and Bailey Pelkman…

For about twenty years with occasional "recesses," I went almost everywhere and did almost everything with a wonderful lady named Carolyn Kelly. She was smart. She was lovely in the way she looked and the way she looked at life. She had a smile that could light up a film noir movie projected on a black screen. I still miss that smile and all that went with it.

She died nine years ago today following a very ugly year of regular doctors and nurses, palliative doctors and nurses, hospice doctors and nurses, and some attempts at "alternative cures" that cured absolutely nothing in the slightest but cost a lot of hope and money.

The "recesses" (as I'm calling them) in our relationship lasted all different durations — hours, days, weeks, even months — but we couldn't quit each other until cancer did it for us. There are times when I feel like I lost her last week, times when it seems like longer ago than it was and — once in a while — times when it feels like I never lost her and we just haven't talked today. And this is odd, I know: Every so often, I tell someone a joke or anecdote and when they laugh, I "hear," not in a literal sense, the laughter of Carolyn when I told her the same story. She always laughed in the right places.

The good memories are, alas, sometimes drowned out briefly by the bad ones. I'm not referring to the fights we had that caused those "recesses." I'm referring to the hell she went through that last year. As I think I mentioned before here, I had always heard — and I knew about them before I saw All That Jazz — about the five stages of grief articulated by a doctor named Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. They are: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. What I didn't know about them but found out the last year of Carolyn's life is that they aren't always sequential. A person could go through all of them every day, over and over, in any order. Which she did for a little less than eleven months.

But until she slipped into that final coma, I could still hear her laugh every time we were together and I could see that smile. I still can from time to time. I've had other women in my life since then and if you want to know what my "type" is, they all have great smiles and they all laugh in the right places. Still, I will never lose the memories of Carolyn laughing and smiling in the right places. It all comes back to me just when I need it. In fact, I've been hearing and seeing it it all the time I've been writing this blog post.

My apologies for not posting something here earlier today. As if I didn't have enough things to deal wtth, my computer broke — this is being typed on my laptop — and my printer died and I had an urgent deadline on a script and you don't really need to hear any of this. I'll do better tomorrow.