Category Archives: To Be Filed

The other day here, I was asked about cartoons that were totally voiced by one person and I mentioned Deputy Dawg as an example. Today, my pal Greg Ehrbar has an article on the web about the LP record that came out about the series.

I remember the show with some fondness when it came on in 1962. Then again, I was ten in 1962 and liked a lot of things that I would not like as much when re-viewed at a later age. I still love the early Jay Ward and Hanna-Barbera cartoons I loved then. Deputy Dawg is one of those shows that grew a bit less wonderful as I grew older and upward, though I still like it more than some other faves of my childhood. It had a wicked sense of humor, being funny in ways that few other TV cartoons were.

Some of that probably came from comedian Dayton Allen, who did all the voices in all or most episodes. (I'm told Lionel Wilson — who did do all the voices for Tom Terrific — can be heard in a few episodes.) Allen, who was part of Steve Allen's TV stock company and a cast member on Howdy Doody, passed away in 2004 and here's one paragraph of the piece I wrote about him then…

Dayton more or less retired from performing in the early eighties. Around then, I had occasion to offer him a role in a TV show I was writing and it led to what is easily the most hilarious hour or so I ever spent on the phone. Our casting director was unable to track down an agent for Mr. Allen so I called a friend who furnished me with what turned out to be Dayton's home number. I made the call to him and he politely declined the job, saying that thanks to wise real estate investments, he had plenty of money…and he didn't feel like flying to Los Angeles to be funny. He could be funny in his own toilet, he said. He was sure funny on the phone, and he seemed to enjoy the audience. He kept coming up with anecdotes and jokes, and he kept me on the line for so long that I felt like I should have paid a cover charge. Weak with laughter, I finally begged off…but only when he announced he had to go to the toilet and be funny in there. I'm sure he was…just as I'm sure it was our loss that he decided to retire when he did.

Funny man. And there was another funny man responsible for Deputy Dawg. A gent named Larz Bourne reportedly did all the scripts — all hundred or so of 'em. I say "reportedly" because I have no proof of that and the show credited Tom Morrison for "story direction," a title which has meant different things on different cartoons. But I always heard Larz wrote them all and Larz, whom I knew briefly when we both worked for Hanna-Barbera, said he did. He didn't seem like the kind of guy who'd say that if it wasn't true. When he died in 1993 at the age of 77, the New York Times reported…

Mr. Bourne created Deputy Dawg and other cartoon characters for television and comic books. After studying at the Chicago Professional School of Cartooning, he began cartoon drawing and animation at the Max Fleischer Studio in Miami in 1937. Later he worked for CBS Terrytoons in New York City and Hanna-Barbera Productions in Hollywood, where he retired as a story editor and writer 12 years ago.

For H-B, he wrote on Wacky Races, Dastardly and Muttley in the Their Flying Machines, Scooby Doo, Jabberjaw, Speed Buggy, Hong Kong Phooey and many more. One of his last jobs was story-editing H-B's 1980 Popeye cartoons, which brought his career full-circle (sorta) because he'd started in animation working for Fleischer on Popeye and contributed to other, later incarnations. He was more than a little frustrated that in the Hanna-Barbera version, there were so many restrictions on what Popeye could hit and how much he could move and there were, Larz said, endless debates over whether the sailor could even have his trademark pipe.

Larz was one of those folks who worked in animation and comics his entire life…and he probably made a decent (though not lush) living doing so, then he left behind an impressive and vast body of work but without a whole lot of recognition. Shortly, we will be announcing the recipient of this year's Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing, which seeks to correct a smidgen of that lack of proper recognition. Larz isn't this year's posthumous winner but at some time in the future, he deserves to be. There are so many worthy candidates, it could take decades to get around to them all.

Anyway, if you read Greg's article on Deputy Dawg and watch any of the embedded cartoons, think of Larz Bourne. Those are probably his words and jokes you're hearing there. And it wouldn't surprise me if Dayton based a little of the title character's southern drawl on the way the character's creator talked. I remember thinking that over some of those lunches with Larz.

A&E Network has a TV show called The First 48 which I've watched occasionally. In case you've never seen it, it's a "reality show" that brings us actual footage of police departments investigating murders and usually arresting someone for the crime. The title refers to the premise that the golden time to solve a murder is the first forty-eight hours after the killing…and the real-life cops followed by the show's cameras usually do. But as this article claims, the rush to catch the killer in that amount of time often results in arresting and jailing the wrong person — and when that happens, the producers of the program really don't care.

Playboy interviews Trevor Noah. I currently have 21 unwatched episodes of The Daily Show stacked up on my TiVo. I like the show enough that I want to record every episode but when it comes time to watch something, I apparently don't like it enough to put it ahead of other shows I record.

You aren't gonna see a whole lot o' new Mark on this page today as I have a full plate of things I have to do that are just barely more important than blogging for the masses.

A couple of Bernie Sanders supporters are deluging me with links to articles that insist he will be the nominee because Hillary Clinton will be indicted, tried and either executed or banished to the Phantom Zone for her e-mail handling. Having been told in the past that she was going to prison for Whitewater, going to prison for Filegate, going to prison for her role in Bill's cocaine smuggling ring, going to prison for Travelgate, going to prison for having Vince Foster murdered, going to prison for snatching the Lindbergh Baby and going to prison for a hundred other things that were absolutely certain but for the total lack of any crime or evidence, you can perhaps understand my skepticism.

Maybe someday they'll catch this woman in an actual violation of actual laws but I'm going to wait for that day before I think it's likely. The e-mail scandal seems like yet another nothingburger and not even that serious a matter if it weren't just a Sean Hannity fantasy.

I find myself lately with a lot of public issues feeling that people who say something like that is definite are wrong to think it's so definite. They might just be right just as I might be right if I predict the winner of the Indianapolis 500. But I'm off-base to think I know for sure.

Something I do know for sure: I have an 8:30 meeting so I'm outta here. Back soon, I hope.

The family of cartoonist-editor George Wildman is reporting his passing this morning at the age of 88. Wildman was a native of Connecticut. He served in the Navy during both World War II and the Korean War, then turned his attention to commercial art and cartooning. Eventually, he found his way to Charlton Press, a publisher based in Derby, Connecticut. For them, he drew many comics but most notably Popeye, and he was hired by the firm in 1971 as as Assistant Editor. A few years later, he became the top editor for the company.

Even while serving as editor for Charlton, Wildman was freelancing for other companies, including drawing Popeye comics for Western Publishing Company when they reacquired the rights to publish the comic book adventures of the spinach-eating sailor. Among the other comics he drew were Underdog (for Western), Heathcliff (for Marvel) and Animaniacs (for DC). To his last day, he and his son operated a successful advertising and commercial art studio. In 1982, he won the "Best Cartoonist, Humor Division" award from the National Cartoonists Society.

I only met Mr. Wildman once briefly but he sure seemed like a nice, enthusiastic man. It matched up with descriptions from this colleagues that he was a guy who truly loved cartooning and cartoonists and was proud to be in the business. The business was quite fortunate to have him.

I awoke this morning to a headline on my iPhone: A new poll shows Donald Trump within three points nationally of Hillary Clinton.

We have 169 days until Election Day. We still don't know how the economy will be in five months. We don't know who Donald's running mate will be. We don't know who Hillary's running mate will be. We don't know what kind of international incidents (if any) or terrorist actions (if any) will occur between now and November 7.

We don't know what stupid things the candidates will say between now and then. We know there will be many but we don't know what they'll be or how they'll impact anyone's vote.

We don't know if there will be third party candidates or who they might be. With each passing day, it looks less likely that anyone meaningful will run but it ain't impossible.

We don't know who'll win the debates. We don't even know for sure that there will even be debates. I have a hunch there will be major fights over how many, who'll moderate them, what the rules will be, etc.

We don't know what Opposition Research will uncover about each candidate. I think it is safe to say that before Election Day, Hillary and Donald will each be accusing the other of some heinous, immoral act of wrongdoing that is totally unknown to us (and probably to them) at this time.

My friends who are wildly for Bernie Sanders would probably insist that I toss in here that we don't know for sure that the Democratic nominee won't be Bernie Sanders and they're right. It's pretty unlikely but it's possible.

I could go on — and I probably will when I post more messages like this over the next few months.

Oh — and there will be polls showing Hillary crushing Donald and polls showing Donald crushing Hillary. And then there will be more polls showing Hillary crushing Donald and more polls showing Donald crushing Hillary, followed by more polls showing Hillary crushing Donald and more polls showing Donald crushing Hillary. And accusations that the polls that the accuser doesn't like are rigged or dishonest or just plain inept.

An awful lot of this is advertising and a lot of it is clickbait. The media doesn't get you to visit their website or tune in their channel to see that the polls are unchanged. A lot of it is like those web ads that ask you to vote on whether Hillary should be in prison or Donald should release his income taxes. They don't care about your votes. They care about your clicks.

Whoever you're for, don't believe your candidate is winning or losing based on clickbait or on any one or two polls far in advance of Election Day. At this point in almost every recent presidential election — especially when there was no incumbent in the race — there were polls aplenty saying that the guy who eventually won didn't have a chance.

If you want to believe that your candidate will win, just believe it's because he or she is the superior candidate. If you want to believe that your candidate will lose, just believe it's because there are a lot of idiots who vote in this country. At this stage of the race, those views are probably just as valid as any polling or pundit's analysis.

And here from 24 years ago tonight is the closing of Johnny Carson's last Tonight Show. It's preceded by a montage of backstage scenes from one or more earlier episodes. Hard to believe it's been twenty-four years but it has…

And, speaking of talk shows that are no longer on: Here, from his next-to-last program on May 21, 1992, Johnny Carson delivers his last opening monologue. It's mostly applause…

Sorry I can't embed this video here but it's worth going over to this page to watch. It's a 70+ minute discussion with folks who worked on David Letterman's show(s) and the interrogator is Regis Philbin. Interviewed are Exec Producer Barbara Gaines, Director Jerry Foley, Writers Steve O'Donnell and Steve Young, and Stage Manager Biff Henderson. If you're interested in Dave or just in how talk shows happen, it's worth the time and clicking.

I seem to have let most of today get by me without posting anything. But that's okay because it allowed the Alan Young obit to stay in top position longer.

Speaking of that fine man: Our pal Greg Ehrbar takes us through some of Mr. Young's many audio roles — radio, records and animation. A lot of the animation roles were due to his close friendship with a man named Alan Dinehart. When I worked at Ruby-Spears and Dinehart was the in-house voice director, if you had an adult male role that wasn't a super-hero or a super-villain, Alan D. would cast Alan Y. and no one complained…because Alan Y. was so good.

Hey, I'll bet someone reading this can help me with something: I have a friend who has an antique cell phone — a Nokia 6102i. I believe those came out about the same time Warren G. Harding was running for president and guaranteeing us that there was "no problem" with regard to the size of his penis. Anyway: For reasons that wouldn't interest you, my friend has been saving old voice mails on his phone — messages he's received and wants to keep. Alas, the phone is now full and no more can be saved.

For reasons that also wouldn't interest you, he needs to preserve those pieces of audio. He wants to delete them so more messages can be recorded but he wants to somehow transfer them first so they can exist as MP3 files of WAVs or just about any format. Being an old phone, it has no known capacity to forward saved messages elsewhere…or does it? Or is there some way to record its playback? Or something? If you have an idea, please lemme know.

The Republican Convention, which will apparently be produced this year by Donald Trump to sell Donald Trump, runs July 18-21. The Democratic Convention is July 25-28. If I were in charge of the latter, I'd assemble a squadron of writers and performers from The Daily Show, Saturday Night Live, The Nightly Show and other programs like that and alternate the political speeches with sketches that parodied the preceding convention. With Alec Baldwin as Trump.

A lot of folks reading this probably don't know what a big star Alan Young was. He was big on radio, big on early television, big in movies and even big on the stage. A lot of times when he wasn't on radio, TV or the movie screen, he was appearing in musicals, frequently Showboat. He often played Cap'n Andy across the length and breadth of this country. In the early eighties, I saw him playing the lead in a ghastly Vegas production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. (The production was ghastly. Mr. Young was terrific.)

He was also a prolific cartoon voice actor, most notably speaking for Uncle Scrooge on Duck Tales and other Disney productions. When I was writing for the Ruby-Spears animation studio in the eighties, he was a frequent cast member.

But of course, to most people he was the guy on Mr. Ed. There were a lot of those sitcoms in the sixties where someone was living with a witch or a genie or a Martian or a robot. What made the best of them work was not the gimmick but the comedic chops of the guy who living with the witch or the genie or the Martian…or the talking horse. I thought Mr. Young was the best of them. With anyone else in the part, that would have been a pretty dumb show.

He was real good and the few times I met him, real nice. The last time I encountered him was at an autograph show when he was more-or-less retired and not unhappy about that. "I've worked enough," he said. I asked him what he missed about it. "Not much," he said. I asked him what he didn't miss about it. "Being asked how they made the horse's mouth move like that," he said. And just then, a kid stopped by and asked him how they made the horse's mouth move like that. He gave me an expression that I wish you could have seen. It reminded me what a fine, funny actor he was.

William Saletan lists ten things about Donald Trump that his supporters should have to defend. I don't believe one should have to own or agree with everything done or said by the people you vote for. I'm voting for either Hillary or Bernie and I don't think either is perfect. For example, I think her foreign policy is too militant and his is too non-existent.

But the list of things Trump has said he would so as president is rich in illogical moves, plans that are clearly unconstitutional and even a few policies that we call "war crimes" when anyone but us does them. If a Democratic candidate advocated them, the leading Republicans who are falling in line behind Trump — especially the ones who claim moral high ground like Huckabee and Pence — would be calling that person immoral, evil and someone who must be kept from the White House at all costs.

I've received my by-mail ballot for the California primary. Actually, I've received my second one. The first had a printing error which I noticed and reported and they sent me a replacement…and no, there's no way I can send both in and vote twice.

I started voting by mail a few elections ago when I had last-minute emergencies on two consecutive Election Days that made it very, very difficult to physically get to my polling place. I am not the only Californian who votes this way. In 2014, close to 70% of primary ballots in this state were cast by mail and the number will probably be higher this year. I dunno how rapidly people return them but with eighteen days until June 7, it's possible a majority of ballots have already been marked and dropped in mailboxes. What happens in public henceforth between Hillary and Bernie may not matter in the Golden State. To paraphrase the sweepstakes ads, one of them may already be a winner.

I haven't marked mine yet because I haven't decided on the Clinton/Sanders race. I still like Bernie Sanders more but I'm starting to really dislike the vibe — which I hope is exaggerated by the media — that if we can't have Bernie, it's better for the country to crash and burn. One Sanders supporter who writes me daily — because obviously, as my blog goes, so goes the nation — seems to think it is scientifically impossible that Hillary could be getting more votes without a massive cheating effort.

I don't, nor am I bothered that she's pretty likely to be the nominee. I will admit though that I once thought it was impossible for an old Jew who calls himself a Democratic Socialist to do half as well as Sanders has without cheating. Good for him for proving this country isn't that afraid of someone who's not a Christian, who skews so far to the left and who only seems to own one suit.

If I had to vote today, it would probably be Sanders…but I'm going to wait 'til a week before my envelope has to be there. I'm just wondering how many people are so sick of this election that they immediately marked theirs and tossed it in a mailbox. As I've learned in the past, once you do, it's a lot easier to stop paying attention.

Today, class, we're going to find out how ice cream cones are made. And did you know that sugar cones are much stronger and sturdier than plain ol' waffle cones? I didn't…

J. Flores wrote to ask me…

You often suggest that a person has to love writing to be a writer. I find the process hard but the results rewarding. I was always taught that the most rewarding things in life are not the easiest ones and that you never advance unless you're willing to do the things that don't come easy to you and which may even be painful at times. Comment?

My comment is that I find being a writer is…well, I don't know if I find it easy. Certainly, certain assignments and projects have been anything but easy. But I never felt I was doing something I shouldn't be doing, whereas there have been times doing non-writer things where I have. But you can advance within your chosen profession. You can write better or more challenging things or venture into new areas of writing or new genres…and if you want something that can be painful at times, I can tell you about some writing gigs I've had…

But hey, listen: If you want to devote your life to doing things you don't enjoy, that's your right. I never bought into the idea that suffering and failure were great because they build character. And I sure never understood why anyone would say, "I hate math. I think I'll become an accountant."

Decades ago, I went out for a brief time with an actress who had the worst kind of stage fright — an overpowering kind that involved convulsions and projectile vomiting and shriek-inducing migraines and if you saw someone on the street with these symptoms, you'd call 911. Just awful. The night before she was to tape a short scene on Young and the Restless, she asked if she could sleep over at my place because (a) I live near the studio and (b) maybe I could keep her mind off what she had to do the next day so she could get some sleep. It was not at all a fun, romantic night. It was like taking care of someone who was going to be executed at dawn.

Being on TV and trying to become famous was an obsession with her. We talked about it a lot that night as I tried to lovingly suggest that maybe she'd chosen the wrong path in life. But with her, there was no other goal. If you weren't a star, you weren't anyone. We lost touch not long after that and I haven't spoken to her this century…but she isn't a star and I sometimes wonder if she ever found out it was possible to be happy but largely unknown. A lot of people in this world find that. I'd list some of them but I have no idea who they are.

So that's my comment: If you want to live like that, fine. I'd rather do something I like…and something where I don't spend any time wondering if I've taken the entire wrong approach to my life.