With the Cold War over, the two spies of MAD magazine's "Spy Vs. Spy" have taken to selling Mountain Dew. Over at the website for that beverage, you can currently view their first commercial. You'll want to click on the menu of commercials on the right and select "Helicopter." As a CGI concoction, it's quite unlike the style of their creator, Antonio Prohias, or even his successor, Peter Kuper. But I think it works.

As the saying goes, you may not have known the name but you sure knew the voice. Danny Dark was one of the most-heard announcers in the business, including long tours of duty as the NBC promo guy and the voice of Budweiser Beer. He started his career in radio at KICK in Springfield, MO and moved on to other stations across the land, finally settling at KLAC in Los Angeles. Radio & Records magazine says he was heard on more award-winning commercials than any announcer in broadcast history and I can believe it. But Danny, who died Sunday at the age of 65, may have been proudest of one of his acting roles. He was the voice of Superman on the Super Friends cartoon show…and he was a darn good Superman.

I'll be posting my panel schedule in a few days but here are a few more teasers. First off, the Chuck McCann spotlight (which I talked about here) has moved to 1:00…still on Friday, July 23. Always consult your schedule for last minute changes.

The day before, on Thursday, I'll be hosting a spotlight interview with Mike Royer at 1:00. Mike is best known to you for all the years he spent inking Jack Kirby and assisting Russ Manning on Tarzan and Magnus, Robot Fighter and other great comics. But he's done a lot more than that and, having known the guy since 1969, I'm in a good position to dig info out of him. His is a classic story of a young man wanting to get into comics, putting his mind and talents towards that goal, and succeeding beyond all expectations. I learned an awful lot from Mike about what it means to be a professional…which is not to say I've always been able to apply it. But I'll get him to talk about that kind of stuff and it should make for an entertaining and informative chat.

At 2:30 — we're still doing Thursday here — I'll be moderating the annual Golden Age Panel, which we've decided to rename the Golden and Silver Age Panel. I have never been sure where the Golden Age of Comics leaves off and the Silver Age begins, but some of our panelists have clearly been of the latter era, so it's about time we made the change. I'll post the list of participants here as soon as I confirm one more, but this is always a very special event.

It will be followed at 4:00 by the traditional Sergio and Mark Show, where the folks who bring you Groo the Wanderer tell you what they're up to. We should have a very exciting announcement to make at this panel…and no, it isn't that we're discontinuing the silly comic. (There will be more Groo early next year, but that has nothing to do with the announcement.)

I'm doing four panels on Friday, four more on Saturday and a measly two on Sunday. I'll tell you about them in a day or so.

I seem to have inspired a number of bloggers to write about their colonscopy experiences. The best one so far is Bill Sherman. What happened to him did not happen to me, I am pleased to say.

In the last two hours, six people have e-mailed me that my colonoscopy report has convinced them it's time to stop putting it off and go have one. And two have written to say that they already had them scheduled but that what I wrote has made them feel less apprehensive about the whole thing. So I'm glad I posted what I posted, and I want other webloggers to know that. We may not be able to unseat presidents with this odd form of communication but we can still do some amount of good.

Against a small part of my ever-diminishing Better Judgment, I've decided to tell you what I did this morning. I had a colonoscopy. This is a procedure that is recommended when you hit age 50 (I'm two years late) wherein a doctor puts a teensy-weensy camera where the sun don't shine and looks around for polyps, tumors and other assorted speed bumps. I got a clean bill of health and I have to tell all my friends: If you've been putting this off because it sounds scary or painful, don't. Much easier than it sounds.

I have lived a somewhat doctor-free life. I told my anesthesiologist that he was only the second anesthesiologist of my life, the first having knocked me out when I was nine and suddenly needed to be appendix-free. That was the last time I ever found myself on a rolling hospital bed before this morning, so it all felt very odd to me — but not terribly unpleasant. Fasting yesterday and chug-a-lugging laxatives was the worst of it. This A.M., I reported to a "surgery center" in Beverly Hills, waited half an hour, filled out thousands of forms, put on one of those humiliating gowns that never quite closes in the back, got in the bed…and that was about it. My second-ever anesthesiologist put me to sleep and the next thing I knew, a pretty nurse was telling me my ride was there and I could get dressed and go. The whole thing took less than ninety minutes but it seemed like ninety seconds and the closest thing to pain occurred when they stuck in the needle for the intravenous drip.

On his last Showtime special, Robert Klein sang a very funny song called "Colonoscopy," which I could not get out of my head all morning. The main line goes, "When I turned 53 / A colonoscopy / Opened up a whole new world to me." I didn't have a whole new world open up this morning but at least I put one concern — the pun is unavoidable, I'm afraid — behind me.

The most interesting episode of the morning did not involve my lower tract. In the waiting room at the Surgery Center, there was a couple that was going through dramatics that would have been considered overacting in the Yiddish Theater. The woman, who was the patient, was in near-hysterics, crying and trembling and saying a lot of sentences that began with, "If I don't make it…" The man was alternately comforting her and snapping at the attendants, asking all sorts of trivial questions and demanding immediate answers. Why couldn't he go into pre-op with her? Why did he have to wait in the waiting room? Why wouldn't he be right outside the operating room? Was the surgeon with whom they had consulted actually going to perform every bit of the procedure himself or would he be sloughing some part of it off on an assistant? Questions like that. Few of the answers he received seemed to reassure him that the folks there at the Surgery Center really knew what they were doing, and at the moment I was called in, he was holding his wife and saying over and over, "Don't worry…I'll be right here every second."

I felt more concerned about them than I was for myself. I said to the attendant who was leading me inside, "The way they're going, he's going to need a doctor, too." The attendant shook her head and said, "She's just in to have a skin cancer removed."

Here's some news to gladden your Sunday: At the end of August, you'll be able to purchase a DVD with all 26 episodes of Fractured Flickers. In case you don't know, this was a riotously funny 1963 TV series produced by Jay Ward and the other folks who brought you Rocky & Bullwinkle. The show was hosted by Hans Conried (aka the voice of Snidely Whiplash) and most of it consisted of vintage silent movies cleverly redubbed into new and funny forms. Bill Scott was the head writer, and the voices were by Scott, June Foray and Paul Frees. There were also silly segments in which Mr. Conried interviewed celebrities of the day, including Rod Serling, Allan Sherman and Bob Newhart. (Scott was a huge Bob Newhart fan and can be heard in many episodes doing his impression of Mr. Newhart.)

If you never saw this show, you have a wonderful treat in store. If you have seen this show, you'll want to click on this link and pre-order it from Amazon.

I watched very little of the various Reagan memorial events…and oddly enough, the fact that I didn't think much of the man or his administration was not the main reason. I have never liked the various trappings of elected office that make our public servants seem more like public monarchs. Inaugural galas feel that way to me, too. The other day on the phone, a friend mentioned — I don't know for sure this is so — that presidents are asked to specify, well in advance, if they want a simple burial or a fancy state funeral. The Reagans, he said, chose the latter. If this is all so, then huzzah for whichever presidents have selected the cheaper option.

One of the many sad things about it all was that so much talk this last week has been devoted not to whatever Reagan may or may not have actually done, but to how Republicans and Democrats were using the death to bolster current presidential campaigns. It's gotten so bad in this country that even when folks claim to be laying that aside for the mourning period, we then discuss how laying that aside might impact the election, and to what extent George Bush's visibility at the services will help or harm his re-election bid.

It was odd watching Reagan detractors stumble through an awkward mine field. A few made what seemed to me like deliberately-rude, attention-getting statements. A few others said some substantive, non-celebratory things…and got blasted as if they'd said they were delighted about Reagan's death. I caught one bizarre exchange on (I think) MSNBC where a gentleman was saying — quite respectfully, I thought — that it's sometimes a blessing when someone who is already "gone" in a mental sense dies and is no longer a burden to his family. He was immediately attacked by some Ann Coulter wanna-be as if he'd taken a dump on the Reagan gravesite. Generally speaking, I was bothered by those who took the occasion of Reagan's death to attack the man's record. I think when someone dies, their loved ones should be granted a window of consideration and not put on the defensive or assaulted at an emotional time. On the other hand, I think it's just as bad for (in this case) Reagan's partisans to think they now have a free pass to spread questionable history…and to think they have a window of opportunity to do so without opposition.

Here's Frank Rich on the differences between George W. Bush and Ronald W. Reagan.

Just saw a commercial for the new Nissan Ultima that makes use of Dean Martin's record, "Ain't That A Kick in the Head?" As we noted here and here, this song has had an amazing afterlife, especially considering it wasn't one of Dino's biggest hits. If you have Windows Media Player installed on your computer (or maybe some other program), you can hear it by clicking here.

One of the funniest human beings I know is a gent named Chuck McCann. If you grew up in New York in the sixties, you probably remember his now-legendary show for kids, which was filled to overflowing with witty, innovative bits. Many of them later showed up on other programs. So did Chuck, who has worked constantly ever since as an actor, comedian and cartoon voice thespian. You know that bird that goes cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs? Well, the guy currently doing that voice is imitating the guy who originated it and performed it for decades, Chuck McCann. Chuck has also been a voice on most of the Disney TV shows and many, many others, and appeared on-camera on hundreds of programs, including some amazing dramatic parts.

He's also had a pretty good career in movies. One of his best is one of those films you really should see if you've never seen it. It's called The Projectionist and it runs early the morning of 6/19 on the Sundance Channel.

And I could go on and on listing the guy's credits. The thing that I want to get to is that he's one of the best tellers of anecdotes and funny stories in the world…and you'll have the chance to hear some of them if you attend the Comic-Con International in San Diego this year. Friday afternoon at 2:00 in Room 5AB, I will be interviewing Chuck, and we'll show some clips of his work, too. I do lots of panels at conventions (I'm up to 13 for this year's San Diego gathering) but I will predict here and now that this will be one of the most memorable ever. Why? Because I've known Chuck for more than twenty years and I remember every wonderful, hilarious tale I've heard from him in that time. I'm not letting him out of that room until he tells all my favorites.

Remember the famous story of how Soupy Sales was kicked off TV for telling kids to take money out of their parents' wallets and mail it in? Well, Chuck and Soupy were then doing back-to-back shows on that station and Chuck was the guy who had to go out and apologize for what Soupy did…and what he did got him fired, as well. (What was it? You'll have to attend the panel to find out.)

Remember Turn-On, the 1969 TV show that was cancelled right after its first show aired? Well, Chuck was a member of the cast and the story of how he got word of the cancellation is a show biz classic. (What happened? Come to the panel.)

And he was a friend of Stan Laurel and a founder of the Sons of the Desert, the Laurel and Hardy appreciation society. And he works with Mel Brooks and Tim Conway and hangs around the Playboy Mansion and invents brilliant puppets and…aw, gee. Just take my word for it. I don't hard-sell panels too often but every so often, there's one that I tell everyone, "Do not miss this one, whatever you do." This is one such panel so make sure you're there Friday afternoon.

Some of the other dozen events I'm hosting at the con are pretty terrific, too. I'll spotlight them here in the days to come and post a complete schedule shortly. But I wanted to get an early start on nagging you all to come see Chuck.

Congrats (I assume) to Harlan Ellison who has settled his lawsuit against America On-Line regarding the pirating of his copyrighted work by one or more of its users. Here are some details…not a lot but some.

My pal Tom Hegeman, who is himself a lawyer, sends me this link to an article about some legal issues relating to TiVo and its future plans. Might be worth your time to take a peek.

John Kerry keeps sending me mail. I've never donated money to a politician; to political causes, yes, but most of my giving goes to things like feeding hungry children and disaster relief. Still, I somehow got on some mailing lists that prompt every Democrat (and a few Republicans and Independents) to write to me, over and over, in search of money. I get two or three requests a week from John Kerry alone.

Or at least, they pretend to be from John Kerry. The latest ones are all composed to look like Senator Kerry stopped campaigning long enough to write out a batch of letters and personally mail them to possible supporters. The one I received today really pushes the concept. They've made a font out of what I guess is Kerry's handwriting and the letter was addressed with it. So the intended perception is that Kerry not only wrote the letter but personally hand-wrote the envelope, including his return address.

What's the idea here? Does someone on the Kerry staff think I'm going to get one of these and think the senator from Massachusetts and presumed nominee of the Democratic Party actually sat down at his desk after dinner and said "I'll spend some time with you later, Teresa. I want to drop a note to the guy who wrote the Garfield cartoon show and see if he'll send me a few bucks?" Of course not…so why the pretense? (If by some chance I believed Kerry had actually written this, I'd lose a lot of respect for the guy: Doesn't know how to manage his time…doesn't know how to print out mailing labels or buy a return address stamp. Hey, John! You want to create some jobs in this country? Hire someone to address your envelopes!)

I guess I also resent the ongoing deluge. If I had donated cash to Senator Kerry two months ago, I would look at the twenty-or-so mailings I've received since then and think, "I gave you money! Stop nagging me! And stop using that money to send me more junk mail!"

And this goes for Public Television, too. Several years ago, I accidentally allowed my subscription to KCET to expire. Before I could renew it, I received such an avalanche of envelopes — many of them saying, "We miss you" on the outside — that I decided not to re-up. If they ever go three weeks without writing me again, I might consider it.

I got the date wrong in the previous item. The strip in question actually ran on Wednesday, June 9, making Trudeau's bit of precognition all the more amazing.

On the other hand, I'm getting reports that the strip, as it ran in most newspapers that day, actually had slightly different copy in it. In the panel I posted, the kid is saying either, "Dad, someone has to!" or "Dad, somebody has to!" with no mention of Tenet. So apparently Trudeau wrote it that way and shipped it off…then a change was made in strips to be posted on the Internet (and maybe in some papers). So maybe he wasn't quite as prescient as it seems.