I'm watching the coverage of the announcement of the new pope…the first American one, no less. I won't pretend I understand all the significance of this. I'm not sure I even understand why so many people are so happy about there being a new pope at all, regardless of his nationality. I mean, it's not like they were going to leave the position unfilled. Still, it's nice to see so many people so excited about someone who stands for peace and love.

I haven't yet seen the inevitable offensive statement from Donald Trump yet but you just know it's coming. Can't wait to see how he makes this all about himself and spins it as something that reflects well on him.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick keeps making public statements that contradict each other or simply don't seem to be accurate. Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post lists a batch of them.

One of my favorite movies is Monty Python's Life of Brian. It's very funny…ah, but is it in any way accurate? This question is answered for us by classicist Honor Cargill-Martin, who is described as an "ancient historian" but she doesn't look that ancient to me. I actually found this video a lot more interesting than I expected…

Here's another episode of The Jimmy Dean Show. This one's from November 7, 1963 and I call your attention to two segments. About eight minutes and twenty seconds in, there's a pretty funny spot with guest star Don Adams, who was then a rather new face on the comedy scene. His straight man is Pat McCormick, who was one of the writers on this series. Then at 22:40, there's the show's weekly visit with Rowlf, the first Muppet to attain any real TV stardom. A lot of folks still think Rowlf was the best character to come out of Jim Henson and his operation…

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is again saying things about vaccines that the overwhelming majority of actual doctors regard as nonsense. Fact-Check.org has one report here and another one here.

Meanwhile, Trump claims to have "close to $9 trillion of investments" coming into this country, He also claims to have secured more such investment in his first two months than Biden did in four years. CBS News does the math on these claims and finds that the numbers don't add up.

The folks at The San Diego Comic-Con Unofficial Blog are kicking off another season of webcasts previewing this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego. If you're reading this before 6:30 PM Pacific Time today (5/6/25), come back at 6:30 to watch them and their guests Gary Sassaman and me. If it's after 6:30 PDT, the box below should be filled with us or it soon will be…

As many of you know, I've been the Voice Director on a lot of cartoon shows. Because of that, Tom Hancock sent me this question…

I was listening to one of Jim Cummings' podcasts. (These are wonderful, BTW) He had on Bill Farmer and Rob Paulsen and they were reminiscing about all the fun that they had recording voices for various shows. They would all be in the studio together recording the scenes and they would end up breaking each other up, laughing and having a wonderful time so much that the recording sessions would go way over time. It was Bill, I think, that said that that was the reason they now only record individually and not as a group. Is this true? I would think that recording in a group would bring a lot of synergy to a session that would show up in the final product. How do you do your voice recordings now? Did you ever do them in a group?

I did 100% all the voice sessions I directed in groups with everyone in the studio together. Once in a while, one actor was absent for a good reason and that person was recorded later. But to the extent possible, we had everyone in a studio, each actor with his or her own microphone and we'd record the cartoon in sequence, stopping for occasional redos or extra takes when necessary. That was how it was usually done in the old days for TV cartoons. For movies, it was more common to bring each actor into the studio and do a session recording that actor's lines, then it would all be edited together.

Things have changed. These days, a voiceover actor — for cartoons or most other gigs — needs a good home studio and must learn the technology necessary to link up with the director online. Some shows still bring the actors in as a group but for the majority of cartoon jobs now, the actor is at home in his or her basement or den or whatever. A lot of them have literally set up their home studios up in closets. They need to get away from the noise of passing cars or birds or gardeners with leaf blowers.

They may all be online at the same time, linked via Zoom or a similar program. They may be linked individually to a director and an engineer (or whoever) and record just their lines with no other actor involved at that moment. There are many variations but it is no longer the norm to have all the actors in the studio at the same time doing the script like a radio play.

Like I said, that was the way I always did it and it was a lot of fun and, I think, it usually resulted in a better voice track. The actors could all learn from each other and you had more organic performing, acting against a co-star who was two feet away instead of in some other zip code or recorded at a different time.

There are advantages to the home recording method, not the least of which is that actor doesn't have to shave and shower and drive half an hour or more and find a parking spot…and he (or she) can from home record for one show at 11 AM and another show at Noon and yet another at 1:00. For some, I'm sure all that outweighs the benefits of group, in-person recordings. I doubt though that anyone who worked under the old method would disagree that something has been lost…a sense of community and camaraderie and maybe the chance to learn from one another.

A lot of folks think the at-home recordings started because of COVID…and of course, for a time, it was safer to do things that way. It would be more correct, I believe, to say that the industry was already moving in that direction before COVID but the epidemic caused it to become more of an immediate necessity. Suddenly, everyone had to get home studios and learn how to use them properly.

I didn't hear the podcast you mention but I doubt Bill Farmer said the change was because group sessions were running long. I think it was a matter of the technology becoming better and cheaper for home studios and for some producers to decide it was more efficient for their needs. One of these days, I'll probably voice-direct a cartoon show that way and I'll have more to say about its pros and cons.

Fact-Check.org tackles Trump's premise that when there's good financial news, he gets all the credit and when there's bad financial news, Joe Biden gets all the blame. Needless to say, this is a skewed viewpoint.

Trump says the U.S. doesn't do much business with Canada. Daniel Dale of CNN says Canada is the largest customer for U.S. goods.

Lastly: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says that the Defense Department's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is spraying the sky with jet fuel chemicals. Politifact says that's a Pants On Fire Lie — their highest rating for awesome fibbing.

Looks like Randy Rainbow. Sounds like Randy Rainbow. Sings like Randy Rainbow. Must be Randy Rainbow…

Dave Marron wrote to ask…

What do you think Mr. Hanna and Mr. Barbera would've thought about the updating (sexual and otherwise) of the Scoobies?

Ordinarily, I'm leery of questions that involve mind-reading, especially mind-reading of the deceased. But in this case, I talked to Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera enough about this topic when I was working at their studio that I'm fairly confident of my response. Both men knew I was a huge fan of their early work and I was frequently involved in talks about reviving and revamping those old properties.

With one category of exception, I think they'd have disliked what some have since done to classic Hanna-Barbera properties. It wouldn't be just a matter of deciding that this character was going to suddenly be gay or that one was going to be somehow deformed. It would mainly be a matter of thinking there was nothing wrong with the old version — or at least nothing wrong that couldn't be fixed with some fresh minds and fresh ideas applied to tried, tested and true formats. I know Mr. B. privately hated almost every new variation on Yogi Bear, The Flintstones and other characters of that era.

But there was that single exception: In their eyes, you could do just about anything to any past H-B property if the alternative was not selling new product.

Some who witnessed this attitude thought it was a matter of putting the making of money ahead of anything else but I really don't think it was that…or at least not just that. Bill and Joe took enormous — and by "enormous," I mean something like the scale of The Great Grape Ape — pride in building a company of that size, keeping it up and running and providing jobs and financial security for so many creative people, including people in their own age bracket.

When I worked there, I was often in my office after hours, after most folks had gone home for the day. Working for H-B was usually my "moonlighting" job, meaning that I'd work all day for the Kroffts or Dick Clark or someone else and then go to the H-B studios and do work there while the janitors were starting to tidy-up. Several times, Bill Hanna — who came to work early and left late — would wander the halls, sometimes with a drink in hand, and stop in for a chat.

We'd get to talking about the latest show-in-trouble in the building — there was always at least one — and Bill would say something like, "I know you think we shouldn't sell so many shows but you're not the one who has to go tell [NAME OF VETERAN ARTIST] that we have to lay him off. He's got a family to support." I did understand that but I also thought there were ways around that.

By the time I worked for them, Hanna and Barbera no longer owned Hanna-Barbera. They'd taken what I guess felt to them at the time like All The Money In The World and sold the company, staying on to run it but now required to somewhat appease new owners with no particular pride or affection for what had gone before. And to hear either Joe or Bill tell it, the new owners really only cared about being the biggest studio in town, occupying as many hours per week of network real estate as possible. When I was in charge of the H-B comic book division, I dealt directly with some of those folks and I don't think that characterization was wrong.

I'm not saying the money didn't matter to Bill and Joe; just that the studio had reached a certain size and so many people were dependent on it for their incomes that maintaining that size seemed vital. I sometimes heard both men speak fondly of the days when the place was smaller…but even then, selling that next show or getting that next deal was often a matter of livelihood-or-death for their people. So if some buyer was insisting on turning Yogi Bear into a cross-dressing moose, Yogi was going to wind up with antlers and dressed like Mrs. Doubtfire.

Anyway, that's my answer. They probably wouldn't have liked it but they probably wouldn't have stopped it…which is kind of the deal you accept when you sell your business.

Trump continues to make up phony gas prices to claim success in lowering them.

And his special envoy to sort out the Russia-Ukraine War is Steve Witkoff. Mr. Witkoff is now touting a bogus referendum to argue that the people in Crimea and other Russian-seized regions would rather be citizens of Russia.

John Oliver last night — another pretty important takedown of an outrage being perpetrated in our country…

Donald Trump is interviewed on Meet the Press and gets an awful lot of things wrong. You get the idea this man thinks that if anyone tells him something that sounds good, it isn't a lie to repeat it and insist it's so? If anyone ever tells me I'm the best writer in the business, I may try that.

As you may be aware, I had three separate trips to a hospital in the last few weeks — one because of a gallstone attack, one to have my gallbladder removed and one to deal with some unexpected complications from the surgery and/or the tests I had on the first visit. The first visit, I spent four nights at the hospital; the second, I went home the same day; the third, I spent two nights. During all of that, I received wonderful, conscientious and friendly care from absolutely everyone at that hospital.

With one exception: The folks in Food Service. The meals were inedible.

They were inedible in two ways, actually, one having to do with my numerous food allergies. There are certain things I just can't eat…which are actually dangerous for me to eat. When I was in my teens, we hadn't quite figured out the full list of what I shouldn't put in my mouth and I also hadn't yet overcome a timidity I had about saying, "I can't eat this!" Or if I did say that, the person serving me the food I shouldn't eat would say something like, "Don't be silly. Asparagus never hurt anyone" and I'd be cowed — in one instance, ordered by a teacher — into taking a few bites.  I would pay dearly for not refusing.

I had to learn to say no. I also had to develop a good sense of "I'm not sure about this but my instincts are telling me not to risk it." I think before I did, I was rushed to some hospital on five separate occasions because of food you may well eat every day with no ill effects. In my recent hospital stays, I ran the risk of being rushed to the hospital I was already in because of what they fed me. (That's some awkward sentence construction there but you know what I'm trying to say…)

So they'd send up someone with a tray of things I couldn't eat and I'd get on the phone to Food Services and explain what I could and couldn't eat.  Then, an hour later, someone would come by with another tray containing many of the things I'd told them I couldn't eat because of my allergies.

Or sometimes, they'd surprise me and there would be meals I should have able to eat but I couldn't for the other reason: The putative show was terrible. I mean so awful I'd take one bite and have something in my mouth that caused all my senses to go all DefCon 1 with a synthesized voice blaring, "DO NOT SWALLOW! THIS IS NOT FOOD! REPEAT: DO NOT SWALLOW! THIS IS NOT FOOD!" It was like I'd foolishly taken a bite of an old rubber insole that was passing for baked chicken.

I can't tell you how bad the food was in this place. The doctoring was first-class but the meals were — well, to coin a technical term…shit.

There was also a third class of "food" sometimes on those trays. It was what I called Suspicious Food. I only took photos of one example but one will do. It was the little container of Dole Diced Pears in 100% Fruit Juice…

The "Dole" part caught me off guard. It's a big company, a reputable company, a company whose name we associate with things that taste good like Dole Canned Pineapple and Dole Whip Frozen Treats, right? Then I looked closer…

"Product of China?"  "Best by October 31, 2025?"  As this was served to me, I had CNN on and I heard someone expressing outrage that President Donald J. Trump has slapped a 145% tariff on imports from China and all I could think was "That's not high enough!"

All my life, I've been hearing that one of the healthiest things a person can eat is fresh fruit.  And now there I was in a complex that is only about health and I was being served the unfreshest fruit possible.

I ate very little during my two multi-day stays in that place. At one point, a lady friend who came by to see me brought be a plate of chicken and rice from a small local chain called Zankou Chicken that serves tasty rotisseried fowl. One of my doctors who dropped in to see me saw the little styrofoam container and asked, "What's that?"

I opened it up, showed it to him and said, "This, in case you've never seen it in all your years interning at this hospital, is food."

He gave it a sniff and made a note to look into this new medical breakthrough. I just might be on to something.

Nathan Lane receives the 2024 Sondheim Award which honors those who have made important contributions to the performance and preservation of the works of Mr. S. Sondheim…