Category Archives: Uncategorized

Another week, another plug for Stu's Show, the flagship program on Shokus Internet Radio. Tomorrow, your enthusiastic host Stu Shostak welcomes one of my best buddies, writer Paul Dini. Paul has a long, long list of credits in television and comics, his TV work including both animation (Batman, The Animated Series) and live-action (Lost). In comics, he's one of the main current writers of the Batman character, the creator of the lovely Jingle Belle, and…well, Paul's done a lot of quality stuff. Here's your chance to hear him interviewed about his impressive career and you can even call in and ask questions. Someone ask him about the production of A Christmas Carol that we went to see a couple weeks ago.

Next week at this time, I'll be plugging next week's Stu's Show, which will focus on the world of animation voicing — how it's done, how folks are cast, how to become one of those folks who are cast, etc. I'll be a guest along with vocal legends Gary Owens and Janet Waldo, and writer-actor Earl Kress.

Since I'm getting tired of rephrasing the following each time I write about Stu's radio station, I'm going to crib the rest of this from the last plug I gave him. This is not a podcast. You can't download it and listen to it whenever you want. You have to "tune in" when it's on…which in this case is from 4 PM to 6 PM Pacific Time, 7 PM to 9 PM Eastern. Stu's Show is done live on Wednesday and that's the best time to listen because, among other reasons, you can call in and ask questions. You can hear the show on your own computer by going to the website of Shokus Internet Radio at the appointed hour and clicking where you're told to click. (The show reruns on other days, usually in the same time slot. Check out the site for a full schedule…and while you're there, take note of some of the other fine, free programming.)

I ate a meal last evening with Aaron Barnhart, a friend I made over the Internet around '94, back when the World Wide Web ran on kerosene. At the time, Aaron was just one of those guys on the 'net writing about what interested him, which was primarily late night TV. He started up an e-mail newsletter on the topic and it led to a number of high-profile freelance assignments and his current gig, which is as the TV critic for the Kansas City Star. Not too shabby.

He also operates a fine weblog of TV news which you oughta check out. It's called TV Barn and it's one of the best places to keep up with what's going on in and around the world of television. For that matter, here's an interview with Aaron that you might enjoy.

There's still about a week in which George W. Bush might outdo himself…but here's Jacob Weisberg's list of the Top 25 "Bushisms."

If there's anyone out there who still thinks this man was ever fit to be president, they should watch the press conference he held this morning and the lame, head-in-the-sand answers he gave to obvious questions. Good to know that not finding Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq was a big "disappointment." Apparently, he would have been happier if Saddam had been more dangerous.

I agree with Ken Levine about Woody Allen movies.

When I was a kid, I sometimes went with my Aunt Dot when she did her marketing. This pretty much consisted of pushing the cart and playing the following game, which I could never win. Every time she noted a price increase on something, even if it was only up a penny, I'd have to guess how much the product cost back when she was my age. One time, I think I asked her, "Gee, did they even have money then?"

We'd go to a Safeway about three blocks from her home…and the first thing she'd do was to select something to eat while shopping — a bag of cookies or chips or dried fruit or something. She'd tear the bag open, stuff it in the "baby" seat of the shopping cart, then nibble as she shopped, offering snacks also to me and even to other shoppers she happened to talk with.

That always made me uncomfortable. I had the idea that you're supposed to pay for the food at the market before you open it and eat it. When I mentioned this to my Aunt Dot — a very sweet, nice lady, by the way — she'd dismiss my concerns. Everyone does it, she said, even though I never saw anyone else do it. And she was going to pay for the item along with all her other purchases, as of course she did.

I assumed at first that since she was a grown-up, she must know what she was talking about…always a very bad assumption on my part. I think I was around ten when I began to realize that wasn't always the case; that older didn't mean smarter and neither did being my aunt. One day in the Safeway, a young lady who worked there approached Aunt Dot and asked her very politely to not begin gorging herself on the Triscuits until after they'd been purchased at the check-out counter. With a touch of startled indignance, Aunt Dot replied that she was going to pay for it.

The clerk had a gracious undertone of "Please don't make trouble for me, lady" as she said, "I'm sure you are…but some people don't. Every day, we find opened, half-consumed packages around the store and the boss gets upset with us. You put us in an awkward position because we can't tell who's going to pay and who isn't. If the boss sees you, you're not going to get yelled at. I am."

It was as much how she said it as what she said. Aunt Dot, like I said, was a terribly nice lady and she hadn't realized she'd been making possible trouble for someone. She never did it again and I've never done it. Even if I'm famished, I wait 'til I've paid for an item to dive into it.

I'm telling this story because lately, I've started seeing this a lot in markets…people opening packages, munching on chips or swigging beverages for which they've yet to pay. Is this now becoming customary? Do stores now expect it or tolerate it? This may be a mental block I can/should get over.

The alphabet for Jack Kirby fans.

Here's a portrait of Jeff Sotzing, who is the guy in charge of the video legacy of Johnny Carson…or as Sotzing calls him, "Uncle John." Thanks for the link, Jeff Abraham.

In the spirit of the Laurel and Hardy clip I linked to the other day: Someone snuck a 16mm camera in to a filming of the I Love Lucy show and got a few amazing seconds of color (!) footage. They have the whole story and video links over at this posting on the TV Series Finale site. If you're a fan of old TV shows, you could spend a lot of your life on that site.

Let's imagine it's 1938 and if you're a male, let's imagine you're female. Let us imagine you have considerable artistic ability and you think it might be put to good use working for Mr. Walt Disney on his animated features as, say, an animator. So let us imagine you inquire of Disney Studios, asking about possible job openings. And you know what would have happened? You would have received this form letter in response.

[UPDATE: Thanks to a reader who didn't give his name, I have now upgraded the link to a better quality image.]

Hey, remember that home movie, Disneyland Dreams, we looked at recently? Go read this item that Jerry Beck posted about it. There seems to be a very young Wild and Crazy Guy in it.

Forgot to mention: While I'm in San Francisco for Wondercon, I'll be teaching another class in the artistry and commerce of Animation Voice Acting at the Voice One workshop. It's March 2 at 10 AM. I did one of these last year while I was in that fair city and I guess it went over well enough to do another.

I turned up at a lot of conventions in '08 but I've decided to stick closer to home this year. Right now, I'm only scheduled for the Wondercon (San Francisco, end of February), the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo (Calgary, end of April) and the Comic-Con International (San Diego, late July). There may be others but not many.

If you're going to Wondercon next month, read this. There are still tickets available to see my buddy Frank Ferrante, world's greatest Groucho impersonator, in San Francisco on February 28. If you're around Southern California, you can also catch him at the La Mirada Theatre in — where else? — La Mirada the following weekend. One matinee performance on March 8. His whole schedule is over here and if he's coming your way, go see him. It's as close as you'll ever get to the genuine article.

Back in this message, I revealed that back when I ran my first computer bulletin board, an amazing percentage of users picked DRAGON as their password. Well, our pal Vince Waldron found this list of the 500 most common passwords…and sure enough, DRAGON is #7, beaten out mainly by things like 123456, PASSWORD and 12345678. You might want to check out the whole list and if you're using anything on it as a password anywhere, change it.

Here's the latest on the Al Franken-Norm Coleman game show in Minnesota.

A new flavor of Ben & Jerry's ice cream: Yes Pecan.