Here's this again…

At the risk of coming off like the Ebenezer Scrooge of a different holiday, I have to say: I've never liked Halloween. For one thing, I'm not a big fan of horror movies or of people making themselves up to look disfigured or like rotting corpses. One time when I was in the company of Ray Bradbury at a convention, someone shambled past us looking like they just rose up from a grave and Ray said something about how people parade about like that to celebrate life by mocking death. Maybe to some folks it's a celebration of life but to me, it's just ugly.

I've also never been comfy with the idea of kids going door-to-door to take candy from strangers. Hey, what could possibly go wrong with that? I did it a few years when I was but a child, not so much because I wanted to but because it seemed to be expected of me. I felt silly in the costume and when we went to neighbors' homes and they remarked how cute we were…well, I never liked to be cute in that way. People talk to you like you're a puppy dog. The man two houses down…before he gave me my treat, I thought he was going to tell me to roll over and beg for it.

When I got home, I had a bag of "goodies" I didn't want to eat. In my neighborhood, you got a lot of licorice and Mounds bars and Jordan Almonds, none of which I liked even before I found out I was allergic to them. I would say that a good two-thirds of the candy I hauled home on a Halloween Eve went right into the trash can and I felt bad about that. Some nice neighbor had paid good money for it, after all.

And some of it, of course, was candy corn — the cole slaw of sugary treats. Absolutely no one likes candy corn. Don't write to me and tell me you do because I'll just have to write back and call you a liar. No one likes candy corn. No one, do you hear me?

I wonder if anyone's ever done any polling to find out what percentage of Halloween candy that is purchased and handed-out is ever eaten. And I wonder how many kids would rather not dress up or disfigure themselves for an evening if anyone told them they had a choice. Where I live, they seem to have decided against trick-or-treating. In earlier versions of this essay, I used to say, "Each year, I stock up and no one comes. For a while there, I wound up eating a couple big sacks of leftover candy myself every year." But I haven't had anyone at my door for three or four years now so I don't bother.

So I didn't like the dress-up part and I didn't like the trick-or-treating part. There were guys in my class at school who invited me to go along on Halloween when they threw eggs at people and overturned folks' trash cans and redecorated homes with toilet paper…and I never much liked pranks. One year the day after Thanksgiving, two friends of mine were laughing and bragging how they'd trashed some old lady's yard and I thought, "That's not funny. It's just being an a-hole."

Over the years, as I've told friends how I feel, I've been amazed how many agree with me. In a world where people now feel more free to say that which does not seem "politically correct," I feel less afraid to own up to my dislike of Halloween. About the only thing I ever liked about it was the second-best Charlie Brown special.

So that's why I'll be home for Halloween and not up in West Hollywood wearing my Mike Johnson costume. I'm fine with every other holiday. Just not this one. I do not believe there is a War on Christmas in this country. That's just something the Fox News folks dreamed up because they believe their audience needs to be kept in a perpetual state of outrage about something. But if there's ever a War on Halloween, I'm enlisting. And bringing the eggs.

Desi Lydic "Foxsplains" Obama's Cheesecake Factory joke. As the clips in this video show, no one on the Trump side seems to understand what it meant but they know Obama said it so they have to come up with some sort of outrage…

I was a big fan of a sitcom called The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis which ran four seasons on CBS — from 1959 to 1963. When I found the first episode (i.e., the pilot) online, I decided to post it here so maybe some of you would watch it, like it and seek out other episodes. Then I watched it and had second thoughts because I realized I was a big fan of what it became after the early episodes.

The first episode doesn't have the crisp, fast-and-funny dialog style that the show developed. It doesn't have some of the great supporting characters of later episodes like the ones played by Steve Franken, Sheila James and the youthful Warren Beatty. It does have Bob Denver as TV's idea of a beatnik in 1959, Maynard G. Krebs. Denver became a wonderful part of the show but not so much in the first episode.

And in that pilot, Dobie is a pretty whiny, obnoxious guy with a pathetic attitude about finding a girl friend. The one he lusts after in the first episode was Thalia Meninger, played by the lovely Tuesday Weld, who for some reason is seen in softer focus in her close-ups. I decided the first episode didn't at all represent what I liked about the show and I shouldn't post it here…

…and then I decided to post it with the above disclaimers. You still might enjoy it. And it contains a few folks you saw often on sixties' TV like Herbert Anderson, who went on to play the father of Dennis the Menace, and Stanley Adams who somehow got cast in at least one episode of every show, it seemed. (He played the realtor who sold Rob and Laura Petrie their New Rochelle home in the episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show that I saw filmed.)

So here it is, complete with plugs for Shout Factory, which released the whole series on DVD. I got and watched some of them and saw the show get real good throughout the first season, then fall apart in the fourth and final. In my opinion…

So…let's forget about the election in this country for a moment and focus on the recent one in Israel, which could have more than a little impact on this nation. Here's what Fred Kaplan has to say about it…

Israel's election this week was so close that neither of the contending coalitions — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's or the opposition, led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot — may emerge with the majority needed to govern. The question now is this: Does it matter which side ultimately wins?

It depends on the subject. When it comes to whether Israel resumes its war against Iran, the election's outcome will make some difference. As for curbing the violence of Jewish settlers in the West Bank, it might have a little bit of impact. On the war in Gaza, there is no daylight between the coalitions. And on the prospect of settling the broad conflict between Jews and Palestinians, the election uncloaked an aspect of Israeli politics that will likely worsen tensions, regardless of the final vote count.

Read the whole thing. It'll convince you that there won't be peace there for a long time. Unfortunately.

Micki Dee St. James writes to ask…

You may well have answered this before but my memory is not what it once was. Seems to me voice actors are scrupulous about claiming they never steal someone else's voice completely — that would be theft. They always introduce subtle differences.

So Yogi Bear does not have the same voice as Art Carney (I couldn't tell you what the difference is) and Fred Flintstone dies not have the same voice as Jackie Gleason (these do sound audibly distinct to me). Kermit's had several voices, all sort of the same but noticeably different from Jim Henson. He got to use his own voice which seems only fair.

Could you comment on some of the differences between a cartoon voice and the voice it's stealing borrowing and how voice actors fashion these differences?

Well, you're talking about a couple of different situations here. Jim Henson owned Kermit. In fact, he owned the whole danged company before it was sold to Disney. He could and did dictate the terms of what would happen to Kermit after there was no more Jim Henson to perform him. As far as I know, that was done as he directed with others hired to play the character and do their best Jim Henson imitations. There's no ethical squabble there.  There have been disputes over who was doing the imitation but there's no argument that it's wrong to imitate Jim Henson.

I don't know that any recording exists of it but Daws Butler used to demonstrate the difference between Yogi Bear's voice and Art Carney's, Hokey Wolf's and Phil Silvers', the voice of Snagglepuss and Bert Lahr and so on. There were definite differences. The cartoon characters' voices were inspired by the celebrities', not copied.

Bert Lahr did sue but that was because of the commercials Snagglepuss appeared in for Kellogg's Cocoa Krispies.  Lahr's line of work then was doing commercials for Lay's Potato Chips and other products and he didn't like that people thought he was selling Cocoa Krispies. As I understand it, the suit was settled with some money changing hands and the addition of a screen credit for Daws Butler on those spots.  You can see it at the end of this example if you look fast…

When a voice actor says "I would never steal someone else's voice," what he or she probably means is that they wouldn't steal a job by imitating someone. When Lorenzo Music was alive and voicing Garfield, he was very well-paid and we got offers from guys who claimed they could and would imitate Lorenzo for less money. That's the kind of thing no self-respecting voice actor would do.

There are grey areas…cases where it's arguable that someone has a proprietary claim on some voice. Two or three times now I've been asked to weigh in on a specific case. In one matter, the studio decided — as they have the right to — that they wanted a different actor in a role and the new person sounded a little like the old person. It can then be argued as to whether the second actor is imitating the first. But basically, if someone originated a unique voice — or in the instance of Lorenzo, was using his or her natural voice — it's wrong to imitate them as long as they're still around to provide it.

One time, I was walking into a restaurant with a veteran voice actor and I spotted another veteran voice actor also waiting to be seated. Wrongly assuming they had to be friends, I pointed the second guy out to the first guy and some yelling ensued. #1 had been holding out for higher pay on a job and #2 had stepped in and taken the gig and done an imitation of #1. Both men have passed away but to their dying days, you couldn't have them in the same room.

Fred Kaplan says that the biggest loser in next week's election could be…wait for it…Elon Musk. Here's an excerpt from Fred's article…

This is a crucial election for millions of Americans, whether they realize it or not. Elon Musk understands his own stake in the outcome very deeply. It amounts to billions of dollars of his personal wealth and his continued ability to shape government policy, which could boost his fortunes by tens of billions more. That's why he's spending hundreds of millions of dollars. If the Democrats take back Congress, they should also start thinking seriously about whether anyone should be allowed to do this.

One thing I'll never understand — and there are many — is why someone with that kind of money doesn't think, "I can spend half my money on genuine humanitarian causes and go down in history as a Saint while still having every bit of luxury I could ever crave for the rest of my life!" Some rich folks seem almost eager to go down in history as super-villains.

Some of you probably check in with this blog several times a day, waiting for me to feature a group of ukulele players performing the song, "Build Me Up, Buttercup." I never want to disappoint my readers so…

I've become a fan of the Jimmy Awards and you're probably wondering what those are and who the hell is Jimmy? Well, the Jimmy Awards are The National High School Musical Theatre Awards and they've been doled since 2009. The goal is to elevate theatre arts education in schools and reward excellence in student performance. So every year, they put on this one-performance show honoring and showcasing performers from high school productions. A great many of those on that stage soon wind up on Broadway stages.

In these annual shows, they do a lot of medleys where a number of kids perform songs from different shows. The numbers don't fit together and that's kind of the point. Here's an example and I'll link you to some others in the coming days. And, oh yes! You probably want to know who Jimmy is or was. It's a "was." It was James M. Nederlander of the Nederlander Theatrical Company that owns nine Broadway houses and many theaters around the country…

The no-one-saw-it-coming death of Eric Bauza has hit a lot of people, in and outside the animation industry, hard. That's in part because the man was so accessible and friendly. He said yes to every event, every panel, every request for his participation. When I asked him to appear on the Cartoon Voices panel at Comic-Con last July, it was an instant yes and he acted like I was doing him a favor. What he did professionally, he did very well and he was delighted to demonstrate his skills for anyone and everyone.

I'm getting questions about the future of the many characters he voiced in recent years. One was from a reporter who seems to want to sensationalize the matter into an article that could be headlined with the highly clickable question, "Is this the end of Bugs Bunny?" No, no and no. The deaths of Greg Burson and Joe Alaskey, who had those jobs before Eric, didn't harm Bugs for one carrot-chomping second.

More to the point: If the passing of Mel Blanc didn't mean the end of such beloved, highly-merchandisable characters as Bugs and Daffy, the death of any given Blanc imitator won't. I can think of more than a dozen actors who've been Bugs and/or Daffy and/or Porky and/or Tweety and/or all the rest, post-Mel. Unless and until A.I. claims the job — which I sure hope will never happen but probably will — there will always be a job for a soundalike and those who wanna fill the position.

And most likely, none of the human beings involved will be the voice of Bugs Bunny. They'll, at most, be a voice of Bugs Bunny: One of several. Having a deep bench makes it possible for each person put in charge of a Bugs project to select the actor he or she thinks cam give them the Bugs voice they want. It also makes it difficult (if not impossible) for any one of them to demand markedly-above-scale fees. Mel could but he was Mel.

As I must have written here before but am too tired to go find, there was a time years ago when the Warner Brothers Cartoon Studio, such as it was, was run by a lovely, long-suffering film editor named Hal Geer. And if you're wondering why a film editor was in that position, this was a time when the primary Bugs Bunny output was old Bugs Bunny — specials made up by pasting-together vintage clips with a minimum of new footage as the glue. Mel was still alive and his services were necessary for that glue.  He did not come cheap.

Hal, who was always almost about to hire me to script said glue, would invite me to lunch with him at a now-defunct Burbank restaurant called the Kosherama. It was a two-menu eatery — one for Chinese Food, one for Jewish Deli grub, both darn tasty.  Every single time Hal and I met there, the producer Ray Stark was at the next table, sometimes with Neil Simon. They'd be talking about hiring Walter Matthau, who wanted way too much money. Hal would be complaining about how much Mel Blanc commanded.

Me?  I thought Mel was a bargain at any amount. And after all, he was receiving bupkis when Warners monetized "What's Opera, Doc" for the umpteen jillionth time. Upcharging for his new services was how Mel made back the money he wasn't being paid for those reruns.  He was not exactly starving widows and orphans with his demands.

Once he passed, there was this group of a dozen-or-more guys filling his shoes, some surprisingly well but never to the total exclusion of the others.  Noting the "too soon" deaths of Burson and Alaskey — both of whose funerals I spoke at — some are now suggesting that if not a curse, voicing Bugs (et al) is such a taxing, demanding job that it has now claimed another victim.  I think that's nutty.  They, like Eric Bauza, died for the same reasons lots of people die before they're 90+.  Those reasons include not taking proper care of one's self.  I don't know that Eric did or didn't but either way, that's a mistake lots of people make, including many doing their dream jobs.

Whether I know you or not, please take good care of yourself.  Find yourself a good physician and see that person whenever something about you doesn't feel right and from time to time, when nothing seems to be wrong.  If you're not going to do this for your own well-being, do it for those who love you and would like to have you in their lives for as long as possible.

When Hal Geer finally got around to making actual offers to me to write those Bugs Bunny cut-and-paste specials, I was too busy to accept.  The job passed on to a pal of mine named Jack Enyart.  I'm not blaming this on working on Bugs specials either but I spoke at Jack's funeral too, many years before he should have been taken from us.

I don't imagine that a lot of people who come to this website are enthusiastically voting Republican in the current election. But just in case there are some of you, Jon Stewart has just made the perfect case why you should not do this…

And if you need further convincing, watch the endless, 24/7 reports posted by Ben Meiselas on The Meidastouch Network and Michael Popok on Legal AF. Those two gents and others on those channels have terrific track records at telling us what's going on…and Mr. Popok's predictions of how court cases will go are uncanny and accurate.

Yeah, it's been confirmed.  Hypertensive Cardiovascular Disease.  Damn. Here's a better photo of him…

Eric Bauza is — and maybe I have to say was — a hugely-talented Canadian voice actor who quickly became one of the most in-demand performers.  He even landed the plum job of speaking for the major Warner Brothers characters like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Tweety. His Facebook page has this message allegedly from his family…

Eric Bauza, Emmy Award-winning voice actor and the modern voice of iconic Looney Tunes characters Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, along with dozens of other beloved cartoon characters, has passed away suddenly. More details to come.

That's all I know. Well, I know he was a hit on the Cartoon Voices panels I recently hosted at Comic-Con, where the above photo was taken.  And I know we talked about grabbing lunch one of these days. I also know he made appearances at some conventions this weekend.

And I know this comes as a shock to everyone who knew him and knew his work and that a lot of people online think this is some kind of hoax. I'd sure be pleased if it turns out to be.

And speaking of Wicked and politics…just after I reposted the video of Wicked cast members urging you to vote in the 2020 election, I stumbled across this — and I can't believe I never saw it before. It's Kristin Chenoweth singing a repurposed song from Wicked to urge voting for Kamala Harris in the last presidential election. How did I miss this?

This is labeled as a special dispatch from the land of Oz but it's also a dispatch from October of 2020 when COVID was still keeping some of us home and when it seemed imperative to vote against the Wicked Witch named Donald Trump. I posted it here on October 7, 2020 and I just like it as a piece of performance art.

It gathers everyone they could find who'd been in a production of Wicked — and no, I'm not sure who "they" are or were. The message is to register to vote and vote early, perhaps by mail and it may be too late to do that if you don't already have a ballot. But just make sure to vote. That's the message. And don't let predictions of a Blue Tsunami make you think it's not necessary to make the effort; that others are already dispatching that Wicked Witch…

I'm getting — and I assume I will continue to get all week — many text messages, e-mails and paper-type flyers warning me of the disaster that will result if this certain candidate wins or that certain proposition does or does not pass. I think my attitude towards these alerts is along the lines of "If it was so vital that I know this before I voted, why didn't you tell me this before I voted?"

None of these dire catastrophes became apparent in the last few days. The ones that warn me away from a certain candidate emphasize that he or she has always been the kind of person I shouldn't vote for.

There was also one phone call in which a recorded message that was obviously an A.I. voice warned me that if California doesn't elect Republicans, Donald Trump will never send us any federal money to help with any disasters in our state. That may be so but doesn't Trump claim if the votes had been counted honestly, he would have carried California in a landslide two years ago? So now he wants to punish all those people who voted for him and maybe even donated to his campaign…do I have that right?

I'm curious to see how many ballots were cast when. It's possible some candidates and propositions already have enough votes that the ballots still to be cast don't matter.