Category Archives: Uncategorized

A good interview with our pal, the eminently foldable Al Jaffee. Read Part One. Then read Part Two. Then read Part Three.

Fox News did a stunning bit of misleading editing the other day. It's so blatant that I can't believe someone did this intentionally, thinking it wouldn't be noticed. Take a look.

General Mills is now issuing a number of its cereals in "retro" packaging, using designs from bygone days. They're not available everywhere (I hear some Target stores have 'em) but they might be if they boost sales. In some locales, both are on shelves and I'd be interested to hear which ones buyers prefer. Above we see the old Trix box that is now available and next to it, I've put one of the recent box designs. I don't think the new one — with the rabbit looking like he's on a massive sugar rush — is that much worse. It might even look pretty good if it didn't have the clutter of those extra selling points.

One can also purchase Lucky Charms, Honey Nut Cheerios, Wheaties, Golden Grahams, Kix and Cocoa Puffs in vintage packaging. Some of those aren't that old but it's still an interesting experiment. I hope there's no one dumb enough to think that if you buy cereal in an old-looking box, the contents might be stale…but there probably is.

This morning, I linked to a Stan Laurel interview conducted by, as I put it, "someone named Arthur B. Friedman." Bruce Reznick and Michael Kelley both e-mailed to let me know who Arthur B. Friedman was. He was, as you can read here, a professor at U.C.L.A. and the curator of its Television Archives. I apologize for giving the man the shortest of shrift. I spent a good deal of time poking around those archives when I attended that school in the early seventies. I may well have even spoken with him then.

Over on Huffington Post, an interesting combination of folks mourn the loss of actor-activist Ron Silver. There are tributes from Alec Baldwin, Frank Luntz, Ben Stiller and Paul Begala. If you hit Liberal and Conservative sites, you'll find more of the same on both. That sure speaks well of the man.

Everyone's up in arms that the folks who ran/run AIG, the failing insurance giant, are to receive huge, contractual bonuses totalling in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Barack Obama says he will use every legal avenue possible to get out of paying those bonuses and other prominent politicians are proclaiming similar thoughts. I, of course, have the solution.

No one on this planet is better at figuring out how to avoid paying money that is contractually guaranteed than insurance company execs. Let's hire the folks who run AIG to come up with a way to get out of paying the bonuses to the folks who run AIG. Or if for some reason they don't want to do that, let's hire the staff at some other big insurance company to find a loophole.

I had a friend who parked his car on the street one night and came back in the morning to find it had been totalled by someone who had crashed into it and then fled the scene. My friend's insurance company refused to pay off the claim because, they insisted, the wreckage was more than eighteen inches from the curb, suggesting my friend had not parked his vehicle in a legal manner. My friend argued that he had, and that the collision had moved his parked car away from the curb. The insurance company said, in effect, "Prove it." I think he finally got some money out of them but not the full amount specified in his policy.

The guy at his insurance company who handled that case? He could come up with a way to not pay those bonuses to the AIG guys. Let's get him.

You get the feeling Dick Cheney is daring us to prosecute him for war crimes?

Monday on The Colbert Report, my friend Neil Gaiman is the guest. It'll be a lot like Jim Cramer on The Daily Show but with a British accent and more financial know-how.

Okay, I know what you've all been waiting for: Mark's report on the Creamy Tomato Soup at Souplantation. I had a disappointing bowl of the stuff last Monday but vowed to try, try again. On Thursday, I lunched there with my pals Vince Waldron and Dan Castellaneta and the soup was much better. Then last evening, Carolyn and I went there for dinner and it was terrific. So I'm writing Monday's soup off as an aberration…and will be back many times before March is over.

20 Tools and Technologies That Have Changed the Way We Cook. It's not a bad list but they left out the telephone you use to have Chinese Food delivered.

During a political campaign against any member of Congress, candidates and their supporters are fond of describing the opponent as either "The Most Liberal Member of Congress" or "The Most Conservative." Neither is usually true but, hey, when you run for office, you're allowed to make up just about any crap to describe the person you're running against. If you're interested in a non-partisan ranking (non-partisan in that the folks doing the scoring have no particular ax in need of grinding), here you go. Check out the voting records of the previous Congress and the previous make-up of the Senate. Needless to say, despite claims to the contrary, Barack Obama did not have the most Liberal voting record. He was thirteenth.

I've set my TiVo to record Will Ferrell's show tonight. It's a live telecast of the play he's been doing on Broadway, You're Welcome, America: A Final Night with George W. Bush. I've heard nothing but good things about it and since it was a limited run — closing tomorrow, I think — this is the one chance most of us will have to experience it.

I'll watch but I can't say I'm looking forward to it. Though I think Bush was a terrible and destructive prez, I haven't found lampoons of his personal style and bad speaking manner particularly funny. They more often evoke shock in me — our country (sort of) put this man in the White House, for Pete's sake — than laughter. There are times I even feel sorry for the guy being ridiculed like that. I know this is a contradiction and I'm not sure I can explain it…but I think the man is more deserving of criminal prosecution than of being depicted as Goober Pyle.

We warned you four-day passes for this year's Comic-Con International would soon be gone. They're gone.

Those who wish to attend multiple days will now begin scarfing up all the one-day passes. Watch 'em disappear, especially for Saturday. This thing is going to sell out faster than a newly-elected member of Congress.

In the meantime: The convention's hotel reservation service opens up at 9 AM PDT on Thursday, March 19. If past years are any indication, there will be a rush and many will not get what they seek, at least immediately. More rooms may become available later. A lot of folks have been there 'n' done that in years past so they've already booked accommodations via other sources.

Yes, I know it's a pain. If only they'd make the convention less interesting and less exciting, it might be easier to attend. (Actually, the hotel situation should get better next year as there'll be a lot more rooms available…or so I'm told. As for the admission limits, the convention center is expanding over the next few years so more bodies will be able to fit inside…though I'll bet the con still sells out by April 1, no matter how big the place is.)

Please do not write me and ask if I can get you into the con and/or help you secure a hotel reservation. I'm a Guest of Honor, not the Wizard of Friggin' Oz.

Here's one tip. The Amtrak Pacific Surfliner goes down the coast of California. For some reason, all the maps at the Amtrak site make it look like it travels on the water but trust me, I've ridden it. It's a very nice train and it runs on dry land. Anyway, the end o' the line is in San Diego at the station located at 1050 Kettner Boulevard. This is (I just Mapquested) .68 miles from the Convention Center. You could easily hike it or, being wiser, take one of those teenager-powered pedal-cabs and save your feet for all the walking you'll do once you get inside the con.

If you live anywhere near the Surfliner's other stops, it's not insane to consider coming to the con for one day. Come early, go home on a late train. It's a very pleasant ride and you don't have the hassle and expense of a hotel in San Diego.

Or if you want to attend more than one day, see if you can't book a motel in one of the cities in which the Surfliner pauses as it surfs…say, San Clemente or Solano Beach. Last year, some friends got this idea from me and they said it didn't take that much longer to commute to the con from San Clemente via train than it would have to get there from the only hotels they could have booked in S.D. by the time they started trying. It's an idea to consider but remember: Amtrak trains sell out, too.

Have I mentioned I'm going to Calgary? April 25 and 26, I'm a guest at the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo in that fine (I assume) city, and my partner Sergio Aragonés is also tagging along. If you don't like either of us, there will be plenty of other interesting guests in attendance. More details as they become available.

The Disney folks have launched D23, a site that will be of interest to the serious Disney fan, so full is it of historical articles and goodies. You need to $ub$cribe to enjoy all that it has to offer but there are some freebees for those who don't. One is that each day, they feature one early installment of the Mickey Mouse newspaper strip, the Donald Duck newspaper strip and the Scamp newspaper strip, starting from Day One of each. They're on this page…and I think you have to go there each day to see them because there doesn't seem to be an archive feature, at least for non-subscribers.