Fred Kaplan explains — in pretty simple terms — why George W. Bush's new strategy for Iraq cannot work. Let me know if you see an article anywhere that explains otherwise.

Hasn't been a good couple of weeks for those who made the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons. First, Joe Barbera leaves us and now, this morning, Iwao Takamoto has died at the age of 81. And come to think of it, Ed Benedict — who was responsible for the design of so many early H-B shows, died last August. (And Alex Toth, who was the main designer of their adventure shows, passed away last May.)

In a sense, Iwao took Ed's place at H-B. Iwao (pronounced "E-whoa") was born in 1925 in Los Angeles to parents who had immigrated from Japan. His family spent much of World War II in an internment camp, an experience that he only spoke about later on rare occasions. When he did, he admitted one — and only one — upside: It was in that camp that he met some men who were professional art directors and they encouraged him in his drawing. Around 1945, not long after his family's release and aided by the encouragement of the men he'd met in the camp, he easily secured employment at the Disney Studios. There, he worked primarily as an assistant animator to Milt Kahl on all the great animated features of the day, including Peter Pan, 101 Dalmatians, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. He is often credited with the main design of Lady in Lady and the Tramp.

Some time between 1960 and 1962 — accounts differ — he left Disney and joined Hanna-Barbera, where he quickly became one of their key designers. He had at least a supervisory role, if not an active design responsibility, for most of their shows from the mid-sixties on. His most notable credit came with the designs he did for the characters in Scooby Doo, perhaps the most popular cartoon series ever created for daytime television. He held various titles at the studio that all fell under the general heading of "Art Director."

Iwao was a quiet, soft-spoken man who was generally well-respected in the business, both as an artist and as a gentleman. I had the honor of working with him on a few projects and I found him to be very serious about his work and motivated by a great love of the form. It's sad that even before we finish saying goodbye to Joe, we have to lose yet another fine man who was very much a part of that studio.

Yesterday, I had a nice one hour chat with the folks at Fanboy Radio, a weekly podcast about comics.

Well, actually, it didn't start out so well. They phoned me at the appointed hour and placed me on "hold" to await my introduction…and somehow, I got dropped. I'm sitting here waiting to go on the air and suddenly I hear that annoying lady saying, "If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and try again…"

So I logged into the Internet site for Fanboy Radio to listen to the program. Got on just in time to hear them introduce Mark Evanier…who was not on the line. First time I ever missed an entrance.

But it all got corrected and we talked for the rest of the hour. You can hear or download the show in MP3 at this link.

Very few topics bring hits and e-mail to this site like a mention of Soupy Sales. Until I classed up and stopped posting them (i.e., when I ran out), photos of Julie Newmar in skimpy clothing was the big draw. But now it's Soupy. Every time I mention him, I hear from folks who were kids in Detroit (1953-1958), Los Angeles (1959-1962) or New York (1964-1967) and have never lost their affection for him and his shows.

As I tried to convey in this article, Soupy's show just exuded fun. It was fun to watch and I used to wish I was one of the people on the crew. You heard them laughing off-camera, especially when Soupy was in trouble and attempting to ad-lib his way out of some bit that wasn't working. As we mentioned when we recently linked to a Soupy clip, he was not only a very clever, likeable man but a very brave one, as well. His show was half improvised (some days, well more than half) and he did it without a huge cast or budget. Much of the time, it was just him out there, thinking of entertaining things to say and do. I never missed his show and was heartbroken when he left the Los Angeles airwaves.

Today is Soupy's 81st birthday. I don't think he's on the web but maybe White Fang or Black Tooth have Internet access and will let him know that a lot of us are wishing him well…today and every day.

Got a good one for you today, though it's a little long. It's a whole half hour of Time for Beany, the puppet show produced by the late, great Bob Clampett. The show originally starred Daws Butler and Stan Freberg but they had left by the time this episode was produced, which I'm guessing is late 1954 or early 1955. The cast in this one consisted of Walker Edmiston (as Beany and Clowny), Irv Shoemaker (as Cecil), Jim MacGeorge (as Cap'n Huffenpuff and the announcer) and I'm assuming that's Bill Oberlin in the gorilla suit. On the animated version produced a few years later, Shoemaker did the voices of Cecil and Dishonest John while MacGeorge voiced Beany and Huffenpuff.

The script for this one was written by Lloyd Turner, a fascinating gent who started his professional career as a gagman for Warner Brothers cartoons and ended it writing situation comedies including All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Mork & Mindy. He was also one of the more prolific writers of Dell funny animal comics in the fifties and early sixties. The one time I met and spoke with him, he didn't seem to think much of his years on Time for Beany but I think that, despite the meager production values, the shows hold up pretty well…

Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, writes an interesting essay about torture. He says that there's no real evidence that it's effective in gaining useful information and I suspect he's right. But I also think there are some people who, for reasons I won't pretend to fully understand, just plain like the idea of their government torturing people who are either the enemy or who kinda look like the enemy.

George W. Bush has said he would not change his Iraq policies even if the only support he had came from his wife and his dog.

He's getting darned close to that. He's losing Utah.

When I posted the video link last night, I knew that when I woke up, someone would have sent me more info on its original airdate. Jon Delfin tracked down some info that says it's from 1984, which seems about right to me given the way Soupy looks. Alan Kupperberg also says 1984.

Also in the morning mail, Ray Arthur reminds me that tomorrow will be the 81st birthday of the pie-encrusted Mr. Soupy Sales. He asks if I have an address to which folks can send cards and if I have any updated info on Soupy's health. I have a current address for the man but don't think I should be posting it on the 'net or giving it out to strangers. You'll have to settle for me reporting what Chuck McCann told me; that he'd seen Soupy on a recent trip east and that Soupy seemed more like his old self than he has in years. Good to hear and we all wish him well in his 81st year and beyond. (And before anyone asks about an address for Chuck: Wait. I'll be helping him put together his own website and announcing it here when it's open for business.)

Oh, is this going to make some of you so happy…mainly those of you who grew up watching TV in New York in the sixties. It's an interview conducted by Stewart Klein and he's chatting with three veterans of kids' shows on WNEW…Fred Scott, Sandy Becker and Soupy Sales. I don't know how long ago this was done but Mr. Klein passed away in 1999 so it's at least that old.

The whole chat runs around 26 minutes and it's been cut into three parts and posted to YouTube. Here's a direct link to Part One, here's a link to Part Two and one more click will get you to Part Three. And now I'm going to embed the first part below and thank Marc Thorner for letting me know about these videos.

In October of '02, 77 United States Senators voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq. ABC News recently asked them if they'd vote differently, based on what they know now. Here's what they said.

Chevy Chase (of all people) remembers Gerald R. Ford.

It's my favorite bandleader, Spike Jones. He and the City Slickers recorded their biggest hit, "Cocktails for Two," in 1944 and sold billions of copies, much to the ambivalence of songwriter Sam Coslow. He penned the tune and got a royalty for every copy sold…but he hated what Spike and the Slickers did to his tune. I don't know when this little music video was done but it's a pantomime to the original record with many of the same performers.

Again? Yes, again. I'll be the guest on Fanboy Radio this coming Sunday at 4 PM Pacific Time, 6 PM Central Time and 7 PM Eastern Time. What will we be talking about? Beats the heck outta me, other than that it'll probably be My Life in Comics. Over on their webpage, you can find out how to listen live and how to download a podcast later and even how to call in during the show and ask some vital, can't-live-without-the-answer question. That's Fanboy Radio, The Voice of Comics. Give a listen.

Is the idea behind this "troop surge" that George W. Bush, despite the advice of everyone he's said he trusts, honestly thinks 20,000 more U.S. soldiers will really make a difference? Or is it that he's hoping the newly-Democratic Congress will stop him and then he can say, "I could have won the war if not for those craven Democrats"?

Or is he maybe just doing it because he can't admit his war has failed, can't continue to Stay the Course and doesn't know what else to do?

That's what I wanna know.

We love Turner Classic Movies. Sure, they run a lot of the same films over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Any time I get the urge to watch Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, I can either go downstairs and get my DVD of it or just turn on TCM where there's around a 1-in-3 chance of it being on. Nevertheless, in those odd moments when it's not, a lot of interesting things are. Every so often, someone at TCM creeps into the metaphorical vaults and hauls out some lost treasure.

Next week, they're running one of the worst movies I ever saw and later in the month, they're making up for it with one of the best…and neither one has been easy to see, lo these many years. One — the bad one — wasn't even easy to see when it was current. It's called Don't Worry, We'll Think of a Title, and it stars half the cast of The Dick Van Dyke Show: Morey Amsterdam, Rose Marie and Richard Deacon. Made around the time that great series was ending, the film was produced and co-written by Mr. Amsterdam, whose Human Joke Machine capabilities weren't working so well that month. On the plus side though, he did manage to arrange surprise cameo appearances by a number of his friends, including Danny Thomas, Milton Berle, Steve Allen, Carl Reiner, Irene Ryan, Forrest Tucker and Moe Howard.

You know the old joke, "This movie wasn't released…it escaped"? This one didn't even escape. As far as I know, it never played most of the major cities in this country. I'm pretty sure it never appeared on any Los Angeles theater screen. I saw it in 1966 when my parents and I were vacationing in Pismo Beach, a nice beachside town which is about 200 miles north of Los Angeles. We had nothing to do one afternoon so we went into town and it was playing on a bargain-priced double-bill with the James Coburn film, What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? One thing I recall that did not bode well for Don't Worry… being a cinema classic: The posters for it that were on display outside were not printed. They were hand-lettered, apparently by some local sign-painting company.

The one time I met Rose Marie, I asked her about the film and from her reaction, I'd obviously touched a very sore spot. She said something about how when it was announced that The Dick Van Dyke Show was shutting down after its fifth season, she turned to Morey and said, "Well, what are we going to do now?" And Morey said not to worry. He had these friends who had financing and he had an idea for a movie…and I'm guessing it did not lead to a new line of work for the two of them, or much cash.

It's an awful movie but like some awful movies, it's enjoyable in a way. The cameo bits are all pretty good, and it's fun just to watch some of those actors — including supporting players like Henry Corden — performing, even when they're trapped in weak material. The plot, which you suffer through waiting for the cameos, has something to do with Morey and Rose Marie, who work in a diner run by Deacon, getting mixed up with spies who are looking for a defecting cosmonaut. I'm suggesting you tape or TiVo the thing but not that you try to watch it all the way through in real time. This is the kind of movie for which they invented the Fast Forward button.

Still, I'm glad I saw it in '66 in Pismo Beach, even though I couldn't skip ahead in that theater. I'm glad I saw it because for many years, my friend Leonard Maltin hadn't. This is close to humanly impossible since Leonard has seen every movie ever made. Name the most obscure Monogram one-reeler travelogue ever made and Leonard's not only seen it, he's written about it in one of his books. For many years, the one thing I could lord over him was that I'd seen this one movie that had eluded him…and it was a movie with a Stooge appearance, no less. And lord it over him, I did…until a few years ago when it inexplicably turned up on the TCM schedule. I caught it in mid-broadcast by accident and immediately phoned Leonard who said, "I'm watching it now and it's everything you said it was…and less." In Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide, he gives it a rating of "BOMB," which isn't fair but it's the lowest rating he has.

Don't Worry, We'll Think of a Title runs on Turner Classic Movies on Wednesday, January 10 at 9:30 AM Eastern Time. Perhaps to make up for it, later in the month they're running one of my favorite good movies, Billy Wilder's The Big Carnival, also known as Ace in the Hole and couple other names. This may be the first time it's been on TV in decades and I'll tell you about it when we get closer to the date. In the meantime — and sad to say — you missed this month's airing of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. It was on yesterday morning.