There was a bit of a controversy when cartoonist Mike Peters was invited to deliver the commencement address at Washington University in St. Louis. I don't know why and I wonder if anyone knows why after this fine speech he delivered. This runs 24 minutes and I bet if you start watching, you won't be able to stop. Here's my wonderful friend Mike Peters…

This poll says that in California, 50% of "voters" (I assume they mean "registered voters" oppose the legalization of non-medical marijuana whereas 46% favor it. The headline says, "Most California voters don't support legalizing pot, poll finds" but since the poll has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points, it sounds darn close to a tie to me. Personally, I'm in favor of legalizing it even though I've never used the stuff and am more likely to try bungee-jumping without a cord. I just think that if alcohol's legal, marijuana should be too.

I always remember a guy on the old Joe Pyne Show back in the sixties. They were doing, as they often did, the old "Why is pot illegal when bourbon isn't?" debate and the one anti-pot hardhat type said, "I'm against legalizing marijuana because it's the drug of choice for the kind of people I hate." I thought that was a pretty honest statement…more so than the other folks on that program arguing on his side, insisting that if you start smoking pot on Thanksgiving, you'll be shooting heroin by Christmas.

Frank Oscar Larson took some real nice photos of New York City back in the fifties.

Number two hundred and forty-four in a series…

Years ago, a very funny character actor named Billy DeWolfe used to go on with Johnny Carson and when Johnny asked him how he was, he'd exclaim, "Busy, busy, busy!" in a very funny way. To this day, I hear his reading of those three words in my head all the time. Anyway, I'm sorry I haven't been posting more.

Among the many things that have kept me from doing this is that yesterday, we recorded an hour-long episode of The Garfield Show, the first recording date of our fourth season. We had quite a cast: Frank Welker, Gregg Berger, Wally Wingert, Julie Payne, Stan Freberg, Fred Tatasciore, Phil LaMarr, Laraine Newman and Misty Lee. You want to know how to voice-direct a cartoon show? Hire people like that and stay out of their way.

Then in the evening, I had a lovely dinner organized by my pal Neil Gaiman and his all-seeing, all-knowing assistant Cat Mihos. Also around the table were Drew Johnston (Cat's S.O.), Farley Zeigler (who produced The Artistocrats) and Dave Foley (from Kids in the Hall and NewsRadio). Good folks, good food, a good way to wind down from a day of directing. Thanks, Neil. Maybe I can transition back to regular blogging now…

The legendary Dick Beals — a star of radio, cartoons and more commercials than just about anyone — has died in a Southern California nursing home at the age of 85.

Dick stood 4'7" due to a glandular problem which also gave him his youthful voice. He was playing ten-year-old boys well into his seventies and was often called upon to loop (i.e., dub in the voice of) live-action child actors in movies or on TV programs.

He started in radio dramas in 1949 while attending Michigan State University. Several popular radio programs emanated from Detroit at the time and Dick wound up being heard on all of them but most notably The Lone Ranger, Challenge of the Yukon and The Green Hornet. His later cartoon credits include his being the first voice of Gumby and the first voice of Davey on the Davey & Goliath cartoon series. He was a loyal team member on the Roger Ramjet cartoon show and was heard throughout many Hanna-Barbera shows.

But his main line of work was commercials and he did thousands of them. His best remembered ones were probably the many he did for the Alka-Seltzer people as their mascot, Speedy Alka-Seltzer. Below, I've embedded a film of three of them, all with Buster Keaton. (And by the way: Was there ever a man who looked more like he needed an antacid than Buster Keaton?)

I worked with Dick a few times, the first being on the Richie Rich cartoon show where he voiced Richie's rival, the stuck-up rich kid named Reggie. Dick was always highly professional, showing up for recording sessions in a suit and tie, and carrying an attaché case. No one else ever wears a suit and tie to record cartoon voices and for a while, I didn't quite understand why Dick did. I finally decided it was his way of reminding everyone that he was an adult and not a little boy.

His last few years, he was a much-sought-after guest at Old Time Radio conventions and other such events. He was always surrounded by fans because he sure had a lot of them. I was one too and tonight, we're all sad to learn of his passing.

Rick Newman is writing a series of articles about why the two main guys running for President this year are campaigning on false premises. Here's his piece about how America's economic problems are not exactly the fault of the kind of businessman that Mitt Romney is or was, as the Obama folks are claiming. Here's an article about how Romney is promising budget cuts he cannot possibly deliver. And here he discusses how Romney is painting a false picture in his attempts to demonize China.

I'm afraid Mr. Newman has taken on a very big job for himself here.

Number two hundred and forty-three in a series…

12 Celebrities And Their Stunt Doubles Because People Seem To Enjoy This Sort Of Thing.

Bruce Bartlett explains why Mitt Romney is sounding more and more like he wants America to think of him as the fiscal heir to Bill Clinton.

I took this in a mall food court the other day.  It was in front of a Wetzel's Pretzels…

Michael Kinsley visits China.

Here's a video of Imogene Lynn, a popular big band singer back in the days of big bands and big band singers. She's here with Ray McKinley and his Orchestra but she sang with a lot of them, most notable Artie Shaw and his band. At some point in her career Ms. Lynn stopped singing as herself for the most part and began singing for others. She sang for most of the Riding Hoods who popped up in Tex Avery's MGM cartoons of the forties. She also dubbed a lot of leading ladies in movie musicals who couldn't sing…Leslie Parrish in Li'l Abner, for instance. Here she is singing for herself…

Two readers of this site have reported a glitch where they read the posts on the first page and then when they get to the bottom and click "Older Posts," it takes them back a week. This is not a problem I can fix, especially since it doesn't happen on any of my three computers or my iPad or my iPhone. It may be a bug in WordPress, the software that drives this site. If it is, they'll probably get around to fixing it but there's nothing I can do.

Here's a tip if you're having that problem. You can read posts here by the page or by the post. To go into one-post-to-a-screen-mode, just click on the Subject of any post and you'll go to that post and only that post with links at the bottom so you can read forward or backward. That should avoid the jumping problem and sooner or later, it will go away for you. Sorry.