Still on that deadline but here's something I had to put up here. As you all know, master voiceover guy Don LaFontaine passed away the other day. Don had been having a mess of medical troubles since about last November…a lot of ugly stuff involving growths on his lymph nodes and a collapsed lung and something really nasty called Subcutaneous Emphysema — and that isn't even the half of it.

A few weeks ago, he wrote and had circulated a letter within the voiceover community. It described all his problems and his determination to lick them. It also included, down near the end, the following paragraph. I think Don would have wanted it to reach a larger audience…

But the real point of all this is the genesis of the condition. I was a smoker, on and off, for thirty years. I quit nearly twenty years ago, but that crap has a tendency to lie doggo in your system. It finally caught up with me, and as you've just read — it ain't pretty. For those of you who are in the Voice Over business, and you think that smoking is adding some wonderful quality to your instrument — WAKE UP! Quit! Today! Whoever you are — if you smoke — Stop! All you are adding is garbage to your vocal cords, and a nice deep layer of tar and poison on the linings of your lungs.

It's especially significant that Don LaFontaine said this because, and I am quite serious about this, there have been a number of actors who kept on smoking (or even STARTED) because of him. I've heard v.o. actors say they thought it would make them sound more like Don LaFontaine and might therefore get them more work. One of them was my pal Greg Burson, whose obit you read here recently. I don't know how much smoking contributed to Greg's death but it sure didn't help.

Today is the birthday of my longtime friend, Scott Shaw! (That's Scott above at left, me at right.) Scott is a clever and gifted cartoonist, a historian of bizarre comic books and a heckuva nice guy. This year at the Quick Draw! game at Comic-Con, he dazzled the audience with a feat worthy of Ricochet Rabbit. To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Hanna-Barbera — an occasion noted by me and, as far as I can tell, no one else on this planet — I made him draw fifty (50!) Hanna-Barbera characters in a matter of minutes. He did it, like just about everything else he does, with stunning skill. Have a great Scott Day, Scott!

It's not quite time for Cream of Mushroom Soup but we are still battling deadlines here; ergo, not much opportunity to watch the Republican Convention. About all I saw was Huckabee and a little of Palin…not enough of the latter to have an opinion. I liked Huckabee but did not understand his line about how Sarah Palin running for mayor of that town she was mayor of got more votes than Joe Biden got for president. Biden got something like 75,000 votes for president. Even if every single citizen of Palin's town (including minors) had voted for her five times, she wouldn't have gotten 75,000 votes. Anyone have any idea what's up with that?

I started to write a post here today that said that if the G.O.P. wants some privacy for the Palin family, they should stop parading them out for photo-ops and as campaign props. But it seemed kinda obvious so I didn't finish it.

I do hope to finish a post about how I wish people wouldn't spread the silly idea that those who live in Big Cities think everyone who lives in a Small City is a relative of Gomer and Goober Pyle…or Larry the Cable Guy or some other redneck/hick stereotype. I've lived in a Big City all my life and somehow never encountered anyone who had the snottiness towards rural communities that troublemakers like to claim we do. I mean, you do have people in this world who insist that wherever they live is the inarguable single best place on the whole planet to live. You also have folks in so-called blue states who think that a majority (not everyone but a majority) of those who live in red states are foolish to vote as they do, just as you have folks in red states who feel that way about blue states. But apart from that kind of thing, no. I don't think that's a real mindset of any significant group.

So it's back to deadlines with me. I have some prewritten posts to stick up here but I won't be penning anything new for the blog for a day or two. Unless, of course, someone dies…which'll probably (sigh) happen.

One of the most respected names in animation, Bill Melendez, passed away Tuesday at the age of 91. It was not a surprise to those who knew him — he'd been in poor health for several years now — but it still comes as a jolt.

Bill was, of course, known for his work on the Charlie Brown specials, for which he won eight Emmy Awards, 17 nominations and a shelf full of other awards. Even before that gig came into his life, he was a legend in the cartoon business, having animated for Disney, Warner Brothers and other studios, and on a vast amount of acclaimed commercials. As I noted here, Bill animated (and hid his name in) the opening titles for the movie, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World — one of many films he worked on.

Obits like this one can give you more details on his amazing career so I'll just add a personal note. I worked with Bill on a few occasions, including once producing a TV special in which we cast him as an actor…to play an animation director. He was fairly convincing in the role.

I don't know anyone who didn't love Bill, both as a person and as a maker of cartoons. He was delightful, funny and very much dedicated to producing the best possible work. Once again, too damn many of the good guys are dying on us.

I only caught brief excerpts from the speeches at last night's Republican Convention so I don't have much to say about what went on there…but could it possibly be true what some websites are now claiming? That George W. Bush and all the others spoke about John McCain's prisoner-o'-war days and the agony he endured but were careful not to use the "t" word?

I can understand them hiding Cheney (even they don't like Cheney) and configuring Bush's appearance so there'd be no expectation of a standing ovation, either when the tape started or concluded. But to avoid the word "torture" in telling McCain's story? Next thing you'll be telling me is that no one mentioned Afghanistan.

Oh, well. I'll bet America didn't hear the word "values" more than two or three thousand times. That's fast becoming one of those words that suggests one is listening to a snake oil vendor. There's nothing wrong with it, per se…but when it's used, someone is probably trying to say something they don't want to spell out and therefore have to defend. "He shares your values" means "He supports all your prejudices, even the irrational ones, but can't afford to be specific." This may apply to Democrats even more than it does to Republicans but it applies to both.

I'm going to tune in or at least TiVo Sarah Palin's speech. Judging from all the reports, she's apparently going to come onstage and prove she's qualified for the job by killing a moose.

David Letterman gave an interview to Rolling Stone which is not yet online and which probably will only be excerpted, not available in full, on their site when it is up. In it, he expressed bafflement at Mr. Leno's exit over at NBC, suggested it would be great to have Jay guest on Late Show, and hinted that his days of doing that show may be coming to an end. I suspect the latter is overstated; that CBS will let Dave stay right where he is as long as he wants, and that gig won't end until he wants it to. That might change if some superstar potential replacement emerged but for now, I think that's just Letterman being Letterman. He talked like that his last years at NBC, too.

This is an old message but I feel the need to repost it every once in a while…

There are rumors swirling that McCain may dump Sarah Palin as his running mate. I don't believe them. She could admit to having killed a nun when she was younger and he wouldn't throw her off the ticket…and it isn't just because the "Republican base" loves her. It's because that base doesn't like a leader who ever admits he was wrong. Amidst the dwindling hordes that defend George W. Bush, there's a strong sense that never admitting a mistake is just as good as never making one.

I don't see Democrats (usually) doing the same thing. In fact, among Democrats, it's a sign of reasonableness to back down on positions even when you think you're right. In any case, John McCain can't come out and admit he made the wrong pick without telling the world he's bad at making important decisions. To get rid of Palin now would mean engineering some way in which she withdraws from the ticket over McCain's regrets. Few would believe that and even the ones who did would think less of McCain's executive prowess, calling it a mess of his own making.

By the way: Some Republicans are trying to play the revelations about Palin's pregnant daughter as Democratic dirty politicking. Actually, the news appears to have come out because The Enquirer got wind of it and was about to publish. It's sleazy but that's what that paper does, and they do it to everyone — on a non-partisan basis. (Has anyone noticed they've run a couple of stories about the pending divorce of Laura and George W. Bush? These will probably turn out to be just as true as the stories 8-10 years ago about the pending divorce of Hillary and Bill Clinton.)

Never mind Iraq, the economy, Big Oil, health insurance, Iran, Korea, Bin Laden, global warming or any of those other unimportant matters. I want to know what the candidates plan to do about stores that put out their Halloween merchandise on September 2.

Sheldon Keller passed away Monday at the age of 85. The cause of death was complications from Alzheimer's.

Sheldon was a great comedy writer. He was great on the paper and he was great to just talk with. You think I've got a lot of funny show business anecdotes? You didn't know Sheldon. Let me tell you a couple of other things about Sheldon that don't seem to be in the online obits…

At one point early in his career, he was half of an unsuccessful comedy team with Allan Sherman. Later, when Sherman became creator-producer of the game show, I've Got A Secret, Sheldon was the first contestant on the program. His secret was "I'm wearing a girdle."

Sheldon wrote for almost every major entertainer of his day: Sinatra, Hope, Lucy, Bing, Danny Kaye, you name 'em. He wrote for The Dick Van Dyke Show and for M*A*S*H — two pretty good credits and there were plenty of others.  He was one of the legendary few who wrote for Caesar's Hour, starring Sid Caesar in the show he did after Your Show of Shows.  The other writers on that program included Larry Gelbart, Neil Simon and many others who, like Sheldon, went on to distinguish themselves.

He co-wrote (with Gelbart) a film called Movie Movie, which may be the funniest flick you can't currently buy on DVD. He also wrote songs, including some for Movie Movie. And he was a great musician, playing in several "celebrity" bands.

But mainly I should just tell you what a delightful, funny man he was. Always sad to lose one of those.

I'm swamped for the next few days with deadlines and such. I keep trying to write something about the whole Sarah Palin situation but I can't keep up with the revelations. (Now it turns out that her husband was a member of that group that wanted their state to secede? Nice vetting, John.) Anyway, I can't keep up with the news, and wiser folks are saying all the things I think to say. There was an interesting column the other day from Michael Kinsley that made some pretty obvious arguments against McCain. In the middle of it, Kinsley wrote the following, which I hadn't really thought of before…

The whole "experience" debate is silly. Under our system of government, there is only one job that gives you both executive and foreign policy experience, and that's the one McCain and Obama are running for. Nevertheless, it's a hardy perennial: If your opponent is a governor, you accuse him of lacking foreign policy experience. If he or she is a member of Congress, you say this person has never run anything. And if, by any chance, your opponent has done both, you say that he or she is a "professional politician." When Republicans aren't complaining about someone's lack of experience, they are calling for term limits.

I think that's all true. "Experience" has become just another topic you twist to justify why your guy is better than their guy. And if you can't find any conceivable way to argue that your guy has more, you argue that his lack of being mired in the old ways is a plus.

Still, I wish Obama had more. I don't think experience is everything but I also don't think it's nothing. Kinsley's right that very few people approach the presidency with all the necessary experience but I do wish Obama was a two or three term Senator, just as folks inclined to vote for McCain must wish he wasn't 72 or didn't have all that past nastiness with divorces and the Keating Five. I also wish Obama had never crossed paths with a couple of past associates, not because I think he did anything wrong or shares any of their views, but because it would be nice if his detractors didn't have that to work with.

Ultimately, you pick your guy in spite of certain shortcomings and you argue that his don't matter and that the other guy's disqualify him from the job. One of the fun things about the Palin nomination is how it's forcing advocates of both tickets to modify or at least rephrase some of their assertions about what's important. I can't wait to see how everyone's position changes a little with the next discovery about Governor Palin and her family. And hey, aren't we about due for Joe Biden to say something really amazing? By Election Day, there may be no Talking Points left standing…