One of my many correspondents on this site, Phil Conley, sent me this link with the message, "I don't like auto racing, but…well, just watch."

I don't like auto racing either, but…well, like Phil says. Just watch.

Back in this message, I mentioned a new video processing technique called Live Feed. It can take an old, grainy kinescope of a TV show and transform it so it looks like it's being shot on modern video equipment. I've seen several examples of it in action and it's stunning.

If you watch the Emmy Awards on Sunday night, you'll see a few seconds of it. In the "death montage" I just mentioned, there's some footage of Jan Murray hosting one of his many game shows. This footage was processed by the Live Feed people, who were given a very bad kinescope to enhance. Watch and see what they did to it.

I may have said this last year but I'm glad I don't have the job of preparing the "In Memoriam" montage that runs on the Emmy Awards, especially this year. Someone has to go over a list of who in the history of television has passed on in the preceding twelve months and then decide who to leave out…knowing full well the family of the omitted will be sitting there, disappointed at the slight. Some loved ones have even been known to send in formal protests describing their hurt and/or anger.

Someone also has to decide who's the "biggie" that they'll use to close the montage. Another tough decision.

Want to play? Here's a partial list of folks in the TV business who've died in the last twelve months. I've left out between 20 and 30 people who might have made the rundown in a lean year. I skipped over movie people like Shelley Winters and recording artists like Gene Pitney and just left in those I think have a shot at it because they did a lot of television. There are 38 names here. Tell me which ones you'd leave out.

Don Adams, June Allyson, Lloyd Bochner, Red Buttons, Jean Byron, Hamilton Camp, Franklin Cover, Bob Denver, Robert Donner, Mike Douglas, Ralph Edwards, Tony Franciosa, Curt Gowdy, Skitch Henderson, Barnard Hughes, Don Knotts, Al Lewis, Pat McCormick, Darren McGavin, Pat Morita, Jan Murray, Sheree North, Louis Nye, Buck Owens, Richard Pryor, Lou Rawls, Charles Rocket, Nipsey Russell, Vincent Schiavelli, Wendie Jo Sperber, Maureen Stapleton, Robert Sterling, Harold J. Stone, Amzie Strickland, Jack Warden, Dennis Weaver, Lennie Weinrib and Jack Wild.

Difficult to pick, right? Ah, wait. It gets worse…because I was only listing performers there. The Academy has been making an attempt to also acknowledge the behind-the-scenes people. The list they had to pick from also included producers, directors, writers, composers and many others. There are potentially fifty more contenders in these categories but I'll be nice and only give you 13 more names to consider. You probably have to get at least a few of these in so as to not slight their professions…

Harvey Bullock, Dan Curtis, Marty Farrell, Bud Freeman, Bruce Johnson, Douglas Hines, Jerry Juhl, Gloria Monty, Michael Piller, Rick Rhodes, Richard Snell, Aaron Spelling and Mickey Spillane.

Now, some of those folks aren't all that well known but the Academy would be demeaning itself and its awards to skip over them. Rick Rhodes, for instance, was a composer who received 27 Emmy nominations and six awards. Are you going to not mention his passing on the Emmy telecast? How about Jerry Juhl, who received seven nominations and one statuette for his work with the Muppets? Make-Up Expert Richard Snell, editor Douglas Hines and game show producer Anne-Marie Schmitt all received multiple nominations and awards. Gonna leave them out? (Irony Alert: One of the names that probably will not be included is Marty Farrell…and the irony here is that Marty often wrote the Emmy Awards and in some years, may have had a hand in this decision.)

I am told that Aaron Spelling will be the subject of a separate tribute. The rest will all go into one montage and while I don't know how many people will be in it, there won't be 50. I'm guessing 20…25, tops. Beyond that, I have no predictions other than that I probably left out someone important…and the segment will probably end with Don Knotts. Everyone loved Don and he took home a load of them Emmy thingies (five!) in his career.

So study the list. You still have time to place a small wager.

Want to listen to another interview with Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón talking about their graphic novel journalism version of The 9/11 Report? There's an audio segment with them over on the National Public Radio website at this link. The segment runs a little under eight minutes. Thank you, Quinton Buckley, for telling me about it.

Bob Harris offers another bit of insight on Bush's press conference the other day. Harris peeks at the man's notes.

As I mentioned here, I was appalled by George W. Bush's August 21 press conference. I don't think the guy's a very good president and I think almost every policy he's pursuing is exacerbating, not easing, the problems it was intended to solve. But this time, I was really stunned by his demeanor, his inability to defend his positions via coherent sentences and above all, his leaden attempts to josh with the press corps and to avoid serious answers via lighthearted faux friendliness. I kept waiting for at least one reporter to get up and say, "I don't mind the folksy banter, Mr. President, but I would like a real response to my question."

I think the Democrats are missing a bet (and there's a clause that's about as rare on the Internet as porn) by not opening up a website and just posting, without comment, videos of everything this man says and does. Let me show you what I mean.

Here's a link to the White House record of that press conference. There's a written transcript but it doesn't capture the panic in Bush's eyes or the desperation with which he tries to sell the Same Old Lines to a nation that has long since decided it ain't buying. You'll have to watch the video, which is also available on that page.

And while I'm at it: Am I the only one who can't get the videos on the C-Span site to play? I'm pretty good at navigating websites and I even understand the technologies involved in embedded and streaming video clips. I've now learned how to capture just about any clip and download it to my hard disk for posterity…but I can't even get the C-Span videos to open, and I've attacked them with three different browsers. I know C-Span operates on a budget of about eleven dollars a week, and that's including gas and electricity. But you'd think they could do better than to hire the guy who ran Joe Lieberman's website. Yeesh.

Here's a follow-up on this item about the new graphic novel interpretation of The 9/11 Report. Yesterday, Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón appeared on a five-minute Today Show segment, interviewed by NBC newsman David Gregory. Gregory introduced them as having created Casper the Friendly Ghost and Richie Rich (which they didn't) and challenged them a little with the notion that their depiction of what happened on 9/11 is offensive to some who lost loved ones on that day. I thought Sid and Ernie did a good job of rebutting that idea. (By the way, I haven't seen Ernie in a while. When did he turn into Christopher Walken?) A shorter version of the segment also ran last night on NBC Nightly News.

What's that? You want a link to the online video of The Today Show? Well, let's see if we can do this for you. I think this will connect you to it, at least for a day or two. I don't know how long they keep these up.

We pause now for a commercial interruption. The Flintstones, who you'd think would know better, are still selling Winston cigarettes. Alan Reed is the voice of Fred, Mel Blanc is Barney Rubble and the little bird, and the voice on the record is Paul Frees in what I suspect is the first time he was ever connected with a Hanna-Barbera product. We'll be right back after this message…

The issue at hand (again) is the plan by Cartoon Network's British wing to cut many (not all) scenes of tobacco use out of classic cartoons. Over on Cartoon Brew, Amid Amidi asks the musical question, "If somebody tried to censor parts of a Picasso painting or a James Joyce story, there would be an uproar beyond belief. Animation, however, still doesn't merit similar consideration as Art, which is why the works of animation masters can be freely tinkered with and destroyed. When, if ever, will that change?"

My heart is in the same place as Amid's but my head — which I pray does not function like George W. Bush's "gut" — has some unfortunate answers. One biggie is that respect for art has to begin with the artist himself demanding (or at least, expecting) some level of respect. Years ago, when word got out that MGM planned to reanimate and redub parts of many Tom & Jerry cartoons to replace the black maid character, a lot of animation buffs were outraged. "Where's the respect?" they howled, and I recall talk of picket lines where we'd all put on the same kind of grotesque stockings that the black maid wore and we'd parade up and down in front of…

Well, I don't know where we'd have paraded. The plan never got that far, which was a shame because I'd have looked damned cute in those stockings. But then we heard that Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera had enthusiastically endorsed the changes and it seemed kind of inane to be picketing Hanna and Barbera for harming the work of Hanna and Barbera. A few years later, I arranged a night of Tex Avery cartoons up at U.C.L.A. with Tex present to answer questions. Several audience members tried to get him to say that he abhored the laundering of cartoons (his or anyone's) for present-day exhibition but Tex simply wouldn't say that. At one point, he suggested that if his cartoons were being shown to young kids — which had not been his intended audience when he made them — maybe they ought to have some of the more "violent" gags excised.

I remember the moment well. It's not every day you hear a hall full of Tex Avery worshippers actually boo Tex Avery.

Now, let me stop and defend those men for a moment: Their point-of-view might not have been mine but it was logical, especially to kids who'd grown up in the Depression era. Their goal was to keep the store open; to have the cartoons on the air and not withering in obscurity. It was important that the films continue to be exhibited and to make money. Maybe Tex's cartoons no longer made money for Tex but it reflected well on him that they made money for someone. He wasn't happy that certain, inexplicable edits were made in some cartoons but given the choice of being unedited and less commercial…or being cleansed and more commercial, Tex would have opted for the latter. Hanna and Barbera weren't proud of all the shows that were produced in their building, but doing Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch was preferable to closing the doors, laying people off and (by the way…) making fewer bucks.

Let me also point out that one aspect of this whole issue has gotten a lot better. I think it's a shame for great cartoons to be exhibited in edited, incomplete form…but back in the eighties and before, that's often all we had. Today, we can go out and buy uncut (usually) and nicely-restored (often) DVDs of what will probably soon be all the major theatrical cartoons ever produced in this country and most of the best done for television. Couldn't do that in 1977. The only version most folks could see of the 1951 Chuck Jones cartoon, Cheese Chasers, was the one CBS ran on Saturday morning. It was missing more than a minute, including its ending, and we worried then that the absent footage was lost and gone forever. That's no longer a concern; not with so many complete copies around on DVD.

So I have a little trouble getting too worked up over Cartoon Network UK cutting smoking scenes. I think it's dumb, especially because there's so little reason to do it at this time. There may never be even a solid financial reason to do it. But the cartoons are or will be around, unexpurgated, on home video…and besides, you don't see Joe Barbera objecting. He made the films now being edited and he's always had the clout to call the biggies at Time-Warner (or whoever owned his old films that week) and say, "Please don't do that to my work." But he never has. I love Joe. I worked with him for years and respect the hell outta him for many, many things…but even when he co-owned the whole studio and his word was the word of God, preserving the basic integrity of that work always took a back seat to marketing considerations. If they could have sold a new Jetsons show by making the characters Mexican, George and Jane would have been sporting sombreros in two seconds. I can't think of too many places in the mainstream American animation industry where that wouldn't have happened.

So to answer Amid's pained and admirable query: The reason the works of the animation masters can be tampered with so freely is that the animation masters never objected. Some of them even helped. That the situation is marginally better in live-action movies is because powerful directors, writers and actors and their unions have occasionally insisted on creative rights and creative controls, even if it means foregoing some sources of revenue.

Which brings us to the one thing that will change the practice of chopping up cartoons for new purposes and sensibilities. It will cease when consumers begin demanding the work be treated with more respect. Along the food chain, the only folks with more juice than the people who make the product is the ones who make it profitable. It will stop when customers become more demanding of better restorations and no cleansing of cartoons, ethnic or otherwise. I'm fantasizing of a day when someone high up in Time-Warner turns to someone else at Time-Warner and says, "Ratings [or sales] are way down because of that tampering we did. Have the guys in the vault haul out the negatives and restore everything."
That will happen if the marketplace demands it. Because even the most mercenary, insensitive ruiner of cartoons will give up the practice if there's no money in it.

Okay…enough chit-chat. Let's watch Fred and Barney pushing more cancer sticks on the children of America…

Here's Fred Kaplan again (he's been busy), this time discussing the presidential press conference that we talked about here yesterday. Anyone who's wondering why some people don't think highly of George W. Bush — or thinks the concerns about his mental powers are just about verbal gaffes — oughta read this piece. And it isn't even that Bush is wrong about a lot of stuff. It's that he's wrong about a lot of stuff and stubbornly insistent that if he never admits it, that will somehow make him right.

The other day on Scarborough Country on MSNBC, all a Bush defender could offer was to say something like, "I trust Bush's gut." In other words, he may not know what he's doing but he has good instincts. I'm sorry…even if that were true, you don't risk the lives of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of human beings, on someone's "gut." The next time a G.O.P. strategist says something like that, I'd like to see his questioner drag out the old (but not inappropriate) surgeon comparison…

You know: You're going in for open heart surgery. Your surgeon walks in and he stumbles over his words the way Bush does all the time, erring as to where your thyroid is located, just as Bush keeps saying certain countries are adjacent to Syria when they aren't. More than half the people around think he doesn't know what he's doing, and even some who still like him admit to some gruesome mistakes. There are others with different suggestions on how your surgery should go…which other organ, for instance, he really should be removing. Still, he's determined to do it his way and he lectures you about courage and not changing one's mind just because some of the evidence seems to suggest he's making the situation worse.

Do you trust his gut and let him do it his way? Or do you ask for another surgeon?

Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón are two talented and important veterans of the comic book industry. Sid was an editor for years at Harvey Comics, supervising the successful line that starred Casper the Friendly Ghost, Richie Rich, Hot Stuff, Spooky, Sad Sack and so many others. Ernie drew thousands of pages of those comics and also branched out into adventure titles with his work for Warren, Gold Key and DC, and even into editing. In fact, he was briefly my editor at DC and so was Sid at another time and company. I mention that to make the point that these men have first-hand experience dealing with disasters.

Recently, they collaborated on a graphic novel based on The 9/11 Report and it's currently being serialized over on Slate. If you click on this link, it should take you to where you can read the first few chapters. What I've seen there is concise and serious, and the presentation of the material in that format gives it a clarity that has perhaps been missing from other venues. We'll talk more about it when they get more of it online…but you might want to start reading soon. Looks like a fine piece of work.

Fred Kaplan explains why the U.N. Security Council resolution — the one that was supposed to stop the killing in and around Lebanon — is working about as well as a Dell laptop battery. That's not the greatest analogy in the world but you know what I mean.

Director Spike Lee has made a long (four hours and fifteen minutes in length) documentary about the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. It's called When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts and it is, by an amazing coincidence, in four acts. Acts One and Two debuted last night on HBO. Acts Three and Four debut tonight. I TiVoed last night's offering and while I've only had the chance to watch about fifteen minutes of it, it seems like "must" viewing for those of us who want to understand what happened and — more important — what can be learned from the tragedy that might prevent it from being quite so bad the next time. There will be a next time.

If you missed Acts One and Two last night, you might want to hold off on Three and Four just for sequential reasons. A week from tonight, HBO will run all four parts in a row and thereafter, Mr. Lee's effort will be broadcast repeatedly — sometimes, two acts at a time; sometimes, all four. I'm sure it will be depressing and frustrating but I intend to try to clear time to watch it from start to finish. If you're skeptical, wait 'til I make it through and I'll report back on whether I think it's worth your time. Personally, I think Lee should have put the major focus on FEMA and called his project, Do the Wrong Thing.

Didn't even notice this before. Also over at Animation World Network, there's also an article about the Comic-Con International and it even quotes me. In fact, there's a photo there of me with Lou Scheimer, the gent who co-owned and operated the Filmation cartoon studio. Some of you have asked me to post a picture so you could see what my weight loss has done to me. I'll let you go look at that one if you promise not to peek at my hair, which lately seems to be doing a kind of David Ben-Gurion thing with a Larry Fine flourish.

Before there was Dick Cheney, Elmer J. Fudd held the title of World's Most Famously Inept Hunter. Mr. Fudd was in that select (pre-Simpsons) group of cartoon characters who managed to become immortal without being either a super-hero or an animal. There were many reasons for this but the main one was probably Arthur Q. Bryan, who originated and performed the addictive Fudd voice. Over at Animation World Network, Martin "Dr. Toon" Goodman provides a much-needed historical overview of Bryan and of Fudd…the man and the myth. Go read it and then come back here and I'll try to clarify the matter of Elmer Fudd's other voices.

Back so soon? Okay, fine. After Bryan died in 1959, Mel Blanc became the main voice of Elmer Fudd. Dr. Toon cites the oft-repeated story that Mel had to be convinced to take on the role because Mel didn't like doing impressions of others. I don't think that last part is quite true. Mel did lots of impressions throughout his cartoon career, including Lou Costello in A Tale of Two Kitties and radio actor Kenny Delmar in every single Foghorn Leghorn cartoon.

In fact, well before Bryan's death, Mel did a few Elmer lines in the 1950 Daffy Duck extravaganza, The Scarlet Pumpernickel. He also occasionally picked up a line in a cartoon where Fudd was otherwise voiced by Bryan. (Best example: In What's Opera, Doc?, when Elmer yells "SMOG!," that's Mel. Tapes were recently found of Bryan recording the same line so apparently director Chuck Jones wasn't happy with how Bryan did it and had Blanc redo it at a later session.) Bryan was commuting a lot to New York during the fifties, appearing on TV shows that emanated from the East Coast, so he was not always available.

That was presumably why Bryan did not do Elmer's voice in the 1958 Pre-Hysterical Hare. The role was played by comedian-impressionist Dave Barry, and you can read about Mr. Barry here. As you'll see there, Barry told me he also did Elmer in a couple of kids' records. Elmer is in a couple of the WB records produced for Capitol in the fifties but they all seem to be Bryan. In one though — "The Bugs Bunny Easter Song" — Bryan does Fudd's voice and Bugs Bunny is voiced by Barry.

As Goodman notes, Bryan's last performance as the Mighty Elmer was in the 1960 Person to Bunny. There was apparently some talk among the creative folks of just abandoning the character after that but Warner Brothers quickly vetoed that notion. For obvious reasons, they didn't care for the precedent of losing a valuable merchandisable property just because someone had died. What would happen when Mel went?

They not only insisted Fudd continue but that he be uncharacteristically featured in some cartoons. So Elmer lived to appear next on The Bugs Bunny Show, which was produced in 1960 for ABC Television, and in some Kool-Aid commercials that ran initially in that program. In these, he was occasionally voiced by Blanc but mainly by Hal Smith, who's best known today for his role as Otis the Town Drunk on The Andy Griffith Show. Smith also played Elmer in the two theatrical cartoons in which Elmer was starred. These were the 1960 Doggone People and the 1961 What's My Lion? (Blanc's in both and the latter also features Herb Vigran, who I mentioned in the previous item here.) and then Mel seems to have had the role to himself until his death in '89.

Some history books say Daws Butler did Elmer's voice after Bryan died…and Daws also said so, too. To date though, no one seems to have figured out where this performance might have appeared. Daws was an honest guy with a good memory so the logical conclusion is that he recorded a soundtrack for something, perhaps for Pre-Hysterical Hare, and it was discarded.

And that's pretty much all I have to add about Elmer Fudd…especially since I just noticed it's 2:30 in the A.M., which is no time for an allegedly grown man to be posting Fudd history on the Internet. Sweet dweams, my fwiends.