Our cartoon today, kids, is called Betty Boop and Grampy. It was released August 16, 1935 during a time when the Max Fleischer Studio was loading Ms. Boop's cartoons with new and/or guest star characters who might warrant being spun-off on their own. There were a couple of other films with Grampy but he didn't catch on.

The most interesting thing about this cartoon is probably its use of the table top background camera in which a small, three-dimensional model took the place of the usual painted background in some scenes. It was one of Max Fleischer's many inventions and some have suggested, based wholly on speculation, that Grampy's own inventiveness was inspired by Max's tendency to cobble together new devices. Maybe so.

Mae Questel did Betty's voice while Grampy's voice was supplied by someone named Everett Clark, about whom I know absolutely nothing. Jack Mercer — who was best known for playing Popeye — can also be heard in there somewhere. The animation is credited to Dave Tendlar and Charles Hastings but a number of other fine artists worked on it.

The other night, sitting around with some other animation folks, we got to recalling Dave, who passed away in 1993. He was a colorful, affable gent who finished out a long career in cartoons the way a lot of cartoon creators of his era did…working at Hanna-Barbera. He'd been one of the main animators on the classic Popeye shorts and in 1978, when H-B got the rights to produce a TV series of the squint-eyed salt, Dave was excited at the prospect of getting back into the Popeye business. He started warming up and lobbying the art directors to let him design the whole show…and was then crushed when the decision was made to ship the production off to a studio H-B had in Australia. One time after that, I went up to visit another artist whose table was right across from Dave's and I heard him sitting there and sketching, muttering under his breath just like the early Popeye did. Dave had been assigned to a show called Casper and the Space Angels. It starred what was ostensibly the same Casper the Friendly Ghost that Dave had once animated for Famous Studios but he was still moaning, "Why am I drawing this when I should be drawing Popeye?"

He was right. He should have been drawing Popeye. But as you'll see, he did a good job drawing Betty Boop and her eccentric grandfather, too. Have a look…

Several of you have written to tell me that the Federal Anti-Nepotism Act of 1967 would prohibit President Hillary Clinton from choosing her husband as Secretary of State. The law, which I must admit I'd never heard of, is summarized as follows…

A public official is prohibited from employing, appointing, promoting, advancing or advocating for appointment, employment promotion or advancement any relative for a civilian position in the agency in which the public official is serving.

So if I understand this correctly: If Bill Clinton had a different state as his place of legal residence, Hillary could pick him as her running mate and he could become Vice-President…but could not serve in her cabinet. Or the Clintons could get a divorce (thereby making hundreds of past tabloid headlines retroactively accurate) and then he could be Secretary of State. Seems kind of odd to me but I guess someone was worried that Robert Kennedy would become President and put Teddy in the cabinet the same way J.F.K. made Robert his Attorney General.

Anyway, I stand corrected on the technicalities of the matter and I still would be happier with William Jefferson Clinton running our foreign policy than anyone we have now. Maybe President Barack Obama could make him Secretary of State.

Let's see if I can crop and post a photo from my laptop. This was taken today at the WonderCon: Me surrounded by two of my favorite comic book artists. On the left is Nick Cardy, best known for his fine work on Aquaman, Bat Lash and Teen Titans. On the right is Gene Colan, best known for his fine work on Iron Man, Tomb of Dracula and Daredevil. I could list another two dozen credits for each of them but you get the idea. We took this photo during a rare moment today when they weren't besieged by fans wanting autographs, sketches or just to say, "I've always loved your stuff." I've never understood how "stuff" became a term of endearment for work that you love and respect, but that's how people talk to artists…and even how most artists talk to each other. Well, I like the "stuff" these men have produced for comics for many years and as usual, it's always nice to discover that your favorite artists are such nice people, as well. It almost always works out that way but it's still something to be happy about.

First day of the con. Some members of the staff seemed a bit surprised by how many people were in attendance today at what was supposed to be the "non-busy" day. Does this bode ill for tomorrow, which is supposed to be the "busy" day? We shall see, we shall see.

I attempted — foolishly, I might add — to live-blog from the convention floor earlier but a wireless Internet connection I tapped into kept cutting out on me and I lost the post I'd composed. It was a list of folks I'd spent time talking to and it included Russ Heath, Gene Colan, Nick Cardy, Al Feldstein, Al Gordon, Trina Robbins, Steve Leialoha, Tom Yeates, Ernie Chan, Tony DeZuniga, Mike Royer, Paul Power and an awful lot of others whose names were in that list the first time I typed it.

I hosted three panels today and was pleasantly surprised at the turnout for all three. That goes double for the first one, which the con billed as "When Historians Clash," a discussion of comic book history between myself and Gerard Jones, author of this fine volume. We discussed a number of things but kept drifting back to a little-known facet of funnybook heritage which Gerry delved into when he wrote his book. It's how many of the early comic book publishers had previous (and sometimes, concurrent but concealed) careers publishing what then passed for pornography. That was part of, or in addition to, what enabled some of them to get their wares distributed…connections with what some might term "organized crime." Once upon a time, magazine distribution was a pretty dirty business and so, by extension, was comic book publishing.

Later, I did a panel with Sergio Aragonés about our work together and then a panel with Al Feldstein about his work on the classic EC comics like The Vault of Horror and Weird Fantasy. Tomorrow, I interview Nick Cardy on one panel, Gene Colan on another and we have a MAD panel with Al and Sergio. If you can make it for any of these, you'll probably enjoy yourself a lot.

No real news on the convention floor…or at least, none that reached my ears. Nice to meet so many of you who read this silly stop on the World Wide Web, and I hope to see more of you tomorrow.

Another Fred Kaplan article…and this one's in the "must-read" category. It's about how the Bush administration has botched (and probably lied a lot about) relationships with another arm of the infamous "Axis of Evil." In this case, it's North Korea that's now more of a threat to us than before George W. and his mob began handling things.

I'm not enthusiastic about Hillary Clinton for President, either as someone who can win or should win. But I'm beginning to think she could get a lot of support, including mine, if she ran on a simple platform: "I'll appoint Bill as my Secretary of State and let him try to put all our foreign relations back the way they were when he was in office." With North Korea, it looks like the Bush team is now trying to close a weapons control deal very much like the one Bill C. put in place. That's the deal they and all their supporters denounced as "too weak" but the current version is weaker, and they're making it after North Korea built its nuclear arsenal, rather than before, like Bill did. Way to go, guys!

Time for another one of the great Superman cartoons produced by the Max Fleischer Studios. We're serving The Arctic Giant, which was the fourth one in the series. It was released February 27, 1942.

One of the credits you'll see on this cartoon is for animator Reuben Grossman. Mr. Grossman later went to work for DC Comics drawing, among other strips, Peter Porkchops and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

You'll also notice a writing credit there for Ted Pierce. Mr. Pierce was, before and after his stint at Fleischer's, a gagman and occasional voice for Warner Brothers cartoons. For example, he did the Bud Abbott imitation in the cartoon, A Tale of Two Kitties. Lured away to the opposite coast for a few years, he worked on the Fleischer Brothers' Gullivers Travels and a few other films. (He is sometimes given the credit/blame for Popeye getting those four nephews in his cartoons.) He also did voice work there. He's in this cartoon in a couple of roles, including (I think) Perry White. Superman and Lois are Bud Collyer and Joan Alexander.

Okay, it's cartoon time!

Almost forgot. While at LAX, I got a call from Jim Amash saying that Joe Sinnott is doing much better and earlier in the day, I got an e-mail from Ken Gale saying that Arnold Drake's condition is much improved. Happy news.

Okay, now I'll post a video link and go to bed. I think it'll be one of those Fleischer Superman cartoons.

So the first thing that happens is that at LAX, the lady who checks your I.D. against your ticket doesn't believe I'm me. She looks at my driver's license, then at my face, then at my license again, then at me, back and forth for quite a while before declaring, "This isn't you."

I said, "It's me. I've lost a hundred pounds since that photo was taken. Probably more than a hundred pounds."

She stares at me and tries to imagine what I'd look like with extra weight. I said, "Here, let me help you." And I puffed up my cheeks and scrunched my jaw downward to try and create some double chins for her. She laughed and said, "I'm sorry…I don't think this is you" and she called another lady over to give a second opinion. The other lady didn't think I was me, either. In fact, she seemed so sure that it raised grave doubts in my mind.

Then the first lady noticed that the date of birthday on the license was 03-02-52. I'm typing this on March 2 but it happened last night. That's when she said, "Oh, it's your birthday tomorrow. In that case, you can go on through."

A tip to any terrorists who read this site: If you want to get past security with a fake I.D., forget about the photo. Just fly the day before the date of birth on the fake I.D.

Then the flight was running late because it was coming in from Chicago, and the weather there is apparently like the inside of a snow globe. A woman ahead of me at the gate podium was asking why they let a storm in Chicago impact a flight between Los Angeles and San Francisco. This was not a stupid woman. She was trying to ask the gate attendant why the airlines do that…why they don't just have planes that go back and forth within the state so that a LAX/SFO flight is not at the mercy of lake effect snow in Illinois. The gentleman there didn't understand and kept explaining to her how the route is for the plane to come in from Chicago, stop in L.A. and then go on to San Francisco. I could have intervened and cleared up the confusion but I figured we had more than three hours to kill before our fight was taking off. Might as well let them duke it out.

The flight finally did take off. On the plane, I checked out the roster of America's Top Steak Houses in the in-flight magazine, which is really the only reason to ever get on an airplane. They had someplace called III Forks in Texas listed in the top slot, while Peter Luger's in Brooklyn was nowhere on the list. That makes me think the whole thing is as bogus as the 2000 presidential vote totals in Florida and that it was probably another one of those Scalia deals. By the way, I get that the alleged winner is actually named "Three Forks" but they type it in Roman numerals and I can't help thinking that it looks like the place is named "ILL FORKS." Would you eat at a restaurant named that? Of course not, and that's more proof that this list is a fraud. If they keep this up, people will suspect it's all just a group advertising deal and that these places pay to get their names on it.

The flight finally landed and here I am, ready to report on the Wondercon, which opens in about eleven hours. Maybe I'd better post a video link and turn in. Good night.

As you may know, I sometimes direct voices for cartoon shows. Whenever feasible, I try to heed a piece of wisdom that was imparted to me by one Mr. Joseph Barbera. He said, "It's important to audition everyone you can before you hire Frank Welker." Frank is the "workingest" voice actor in the history of mankind. I don't mean he's worked more than Mel Blanc, Daws Butler or Paul Frees. I mean he's worked more than all three of them put together.

Frank does cartoon voices. He does commercials. You've heard him in dozens of movies, including many of the top box office grossers of all time, making creature sounds and barking for dogs and often replacing the vocal tracks of the on-screen actors. Sometimes when you think you're hearing Jack Nicholson or someone like that in one of their movies, you're hearing a line redubbed by Frank. He can sound like anyone or anything.

This is a very tiny taste of what he does. This is two and a half minutes of him making monkey sounds for a Curious George videogame. The weird and amazing thing about him is that he could go seamlessly from doing this to making terrifying dragon shrieks or sounding just like Bill Cosby or Gregory Peck. Once for a show, I asked him to create the sound of living oatmeal that was bubbling in the pot and getting angry at the person cooking it. Without pause to ponder, Frank went immediately to the microphone and made the sound of living oatmeal that was bubbling in the pot and getting angry at the person cooking it. Honest. If I played you the tape with no explanation, you'd hear it and say, "Hey, that sounds like living oatmeal bubbling in the pot and getting angry at the person cooking it." He's that good.

Thanks go out to Augie De Blieck Jr. for telling me about this. Here's Frank getting paid, probably very well, for making monkey sounds. This man, by the way, went to college.

Jacob Weisberg on a new proposal for Universal Health Care in this country. I think its time is coming. It's just a matter of how they'll corrupt and cripple whatever gets enacted.

The Wondercon starts tomorrow in San Francisco, a city that's easy to get to if you don't make the mistake of booking on United Airlines. I've been to quite a few of these and always had a good time. I have no reason to expect this time will be any different. Be there. See my panels. Say hello.

Here's my new theory. My new theory is that in 1924 when George Gershwin composed "Rhapsody in Blue," his friends all told him how wonderful it was and how it would be played forever in concert halls around the world. And George said, "Never mind that. What I want is for people who are stuck on hold for long periods of time on the United Airlines reservations line to have to listen to a real cheesy recording of the same 32 bars of it, over and over and over…"

Which bring us to today's topic: Let's say you have a $108 non-refundable ticket on this airline. Let's say you need to move it to another time because you have sudden meetings and must fly later in the day. Why is it that when you call up and attempt to do this, you have only the following two options?

1. Cancel the $108 ticket and use it instead on a later date for some other United Airlines flight, providing you do so within one year and pay the $100 change fee. This means that if by some chance you want to go somewhere during the next year and a flight on United represents your best ticket option, you can use that ticket and apply what's left, which would be eight dollars. But actually, it's worse than that because you can't really do that kind of rebooking through their website. You have to call up and book through a human being and when you do that now, they charge you an extra $15 service fee. So to use a ticket you paid for in the past costs seven dollars more than to throw it away and start from scratch.
2. You can have the lady on the phone find you a later flight…but the cheapest flight she has available for the same date is $709. Of course, she can apply the $108 you've already paid to that but she also has to charge you the $100 change fee and the $15 service fee.

Two pretty crummy options, wouldn't you say? That's why instead you should opt for…

3. Just throw those tickets away. They said "non-refundable" and they're just that. The money's gone and all this talk about fees for changing and rebooking is gobbledygook designed to fool people into thinking they're getting some of their cash back in some way. Wrong. Instead, you should jump on the Internet and hit the travel sites where you'll find plenty of new reservations available on almost any airline (including United, should you have some reason to still consider flying them) for — in this case — $258. Which is not as good as $108 but a whole lot better than $709 plus additional fees.

Guess what I've been dealing with for the last hour. I may not be able to stomach Gershwin for years to come.

This is a Wheaties commercial that dates from 1954 or thereabouts. It features a gentleman named Bil Baird who may have been the most famous puppeteer in America before Jim Henson usurped the title. The Bil Baird Marionettes turned up in a wide array of TV shows, movies, Broadway shows and commercials. In the late fifties, he did a couple of TV specials with Art Carney that I remember as being quite entertaining.

His star puppet, seen in this spot, was a lion who is here referred to as Champy but I think he had other names at other times. I don't know who did the character's voice but he does sound a lot like Tony the Tiger, doesn't he? This is about the same time Thurl Ravenscroft began doing Tony's voice and that character clicked into place, selling tons of Sugar Frosted Flakes for Kellogg's. One wonders if Tony came first and the Wheaties people thought the big cat was working and that they should bring in Baird and his character for its similarity…or was it the other way around? It could also be a coincidence, I suppose, but it wouldn't surprise me if one inspired the other.

Here's the commercial. It starts a bit slow but stick with it, at least until you hear the rabbit chorus and the recipe for serving Wheaties with ice cream…

Sam Fox is George W. Bush's nominee to serve as the new ambassador to Belgium. Mr. Fox got this nomination the way a lot of people get such nominations. He was a big donor to the campaigns of the Republican party…and let's stipulate up top that Democrats do that kind of thing too, whenever they're in a position to reward those who give cash to their electioneering.

Yesterday in his confirmation hearing, Mr. Fox was grilled by Senator John Kerry about why he'd donated $50,000 to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The exchange was quite extraordinary for a couple of reasons, one being the pathetic quality of Fox's reponses. He went out of his way to praise Kerry as an honest veteran who'd earned his medals and shown great heroism…in other words, the exact opposite of what was claimed by those commercials he helped put on the air. Asked why he gave money to the cause, Mr. Fox mumbled something about how one side engages in dirty politics so the other side has to, and then claimed he gave to so many charitable causes that he really didn't know who'd asked him to donate in this instance.

It was a pretty pathetic defense. I'm not sure what the Ambassador to Belgium is called upon to do but I don't think Fox demonstrated he's up to the task. This site has a video clip of the exchange and it runs a little less than seventeen minutes.

A couple of other folks have blabbed this on websites so I might as well mention it…

The New York Comic Con last weekend seems to have been rough on veteran comic book creators. The great writer Arnold Drake appeared there, went home and was then hospitalized with pneumonia. The great artist Joe Sinnott appeared there, went home and was then hospitalized with a heart attack. Both, I hear, are on the mend and we expect full recoveries and quick returns to their respective homes. I'll let you know if I hear anything else and in the meantime, you might want to direct your good thoughts in their direction.