Yep, twenty years. And when I did that first post, I had no idea I'd be doing it twenty days later, let alone twenty years.

Yes, I still enjoy it. It's nice to be able to write something every day that doesn't have to pass muster with some editor or producer to fill some publishing or production need. I can just write whatever's on my mind at the moment. That's assuming anything is, which obviously is not always the case. Still, it adheres to the old saying that I just made up: If you write for money, it's important to sometimes write something that's not for money. Intentionally.

I like being in touch with 99% of those I hear from and the 1% can be easily ignored. And I like writing mostly for myself in such an unencumbered manner. I'm glad some of you seem to like reading what I write mostly for myself.

Earlier this year, I did some webcasting, mainly because it's fun to play with a new toy. I started it because of The Pandemic and I ended it because of The Election and for a few more reasons I'll discuss here one of these days. I may or may not start it up again but for now, the videos I did make are available over in this section.

In there, there's one where I interviewed my best buddy Sergio Aragonés and one where Sergio interviewed me. After the latter, a few other friends suggested they'd like to quiz me from their different POVs about different aspects of my silly existence and I said yes. When I was trying to figure out what to do on this blog the day it turned twenty, Shelly Goldstein said, "Why don't we do that thing where I interview you?" and I said yes. I say yes a lot. And then I remembered I promised Scott Shaw! that he could do that thing where he interviewed me first so we did that, too.

So posted here and nowhere else, we have two interviews — Scott interrogating me and then Shelly interrogating me, each for a little under 90 minutes. These were recorded last Tuesday and I don't expect anyone to watch all of both of them and certainly not on the same day. But they'll be posted for a while so watch them when you have absolutely nothing better to do. Or don't watch them. I won't be offended.

The one with Scott focuses more on cartoon and comics. The one with Shelly is more about TV and comedy writing in general…but there's a lot of overlap. You may notice a few sloppy edits in the Shelly one because it ran long and I chopped it down by excising about twelve minutes that I thought were more expendable than everything else or because I caught myself saying things I'd said earlier to Scott.

I guess I should write something about writing a blog for twenty years. As you might expect, it's a bothersome chore once in a while…a lot like having a pet. I like feeding cats but I don't always like having to feed the cat now. You kind of have to approach a blog with that attitude of "If I'm going to do this, I'm going to really do it."

Over the two decades, I've had a lot of friends decide they were going to try it and they'd put up one or two posts, then write me and ask me to post the link and to direct some of my readers their way. I usually write them back and say something like, "Let me know when you have twenty posts up and I will" and thereafter, I never hear from 90% of them about that. Some things in this world are just fun for two weeks or until they become an obligation.

A few other tips that I know but haven't always followed myself…

• Understand that there are parts of your life that no one could possibly care about. And yes, I know I've often violated that rule.
• There should be a reason why you post anything autobiographical.  "Because I think someone will laugh at it" or "Because I think someone will learn something from it" are perfectly good reasons. Just because it happened to you is not.
• Before you finalize a post, give it an extra read, asking yourself the question, "How will someone misinterpret this?" This is especially important if you're trying to be funny. It's possible to write something like "I think Donald Trump has been a terrible president" and to then receive an e-mail saying, "I know you were being sarcastic but I think he really has been a terrible president."
• You're not CNN or MSNBC or Fox News.  Your readers are not coming to your blog to get the latest news that gets covered on outlets like those. They might be coming to you for your insights or comments on those stories. They might also be coming for the kind of news that doesn't get covered there. I named this blog what I named it because I figured I'd be posting a lot of the kind of stuff, like obits or developments from the worlds of comics and animation that would never make the New York Times. Since I started in 2000, mainstream news has become more likely to cover, say, the passing of a guy who drew The Hulk or Aquaman or worked on Sleeping Beauty or other bulletins from those worlds. But I figure I have something to say about such matters that won't be in the Times.
• Last two points: Don't let your blog become a place that plugs a lot of things, including your own. I post sparingly about what I have out that you can purchase because I think such selling is unbecoming when done to excess.
• And you can get easily inundated, as I have been at times, by folks you know well, folks you know a little and a fair amount of total strangers asking you to post a press release and photos and artwork and Your Highest Recommendation of their latest project. Often, they'll address you like they think that's how it works: They submit it and you're required to post it…and promptly.

Thank you for however long you've been reading this blog even if this is your first (and perhaps last) time.  I could, I suppose, write this kind of stuff just for myself and that would be that.  It would certainly pay better.  But it's more fun to do when there's an audience out there.

So I'll close with a reminder that tips are gratefully accepted at this link and that I also make a smidgen of loot (without it costing you anything) when you buy at Amazon via this link.  Following this post, you should see Scott Shaw! interviewing me, followed by Shelly Goldstein interviewing me.  And later today or maybe tomorrow, I'll be posting the Mel Tormé story that is easily the most widely-read thing I've ever written.

And in case you're interested, this is Post #28,600 on this blog.

Back in this post, we touted you onto a new video release of Tex Avery Screwball Classics, Volume 2 and suggested you advance order it.  Well, I got my copy today and it's quite wonderful. If you're interested in who did the voices on it, our pal Keith Scott identifies most of 'em in this article.

Ann Reinking, who died a few days ago at the age of 71, was a great actress and a greater dancer. And maybe the best number she did that was ever captured on camera was this one from All That Jazz, a film directed, choreographed and lived by Bob Fosse. It's so full of personality and love…

A lot of folks on the web this morning seem to be panicked at second-hand reports that Donald Trump says he will not vacate the White House just because they swear in Joe Biden. None of these folks believe Trump's a man of his word. He never built 10% of the wall he said he was going to build. He never figured out how he was going to get Mexico to pay for any part of it. He never delivered the better, cheaper health plan he said he'd unveil just weeks after he took office…and so on. Why are people who don't trust this man to do what he says he's going to do so worried about him doing what he says he's going to do? Even if he actually said it?

Remember the running tally I was keeping of friends I'd lost because of their hysterical support of Trump? I may have to start one for ex-friends who still insist that the coronavirus is mostly hype and wearing a mask is a sign of weakness and/or being stupid enough to believe "authorities" who made it all up.

Getting back to friends I lost because of Trump: One of them called the other day to ask if we could be friends again. He says he never thought D.J.T. was an honest man. He just liked the idea of the country going where Trump claimed he wanted to take it. Eventually, the movement got a bit too skinheaded for him, plus there were other issues. Our friendship has not fully resumed but I think it's back and on supervised probation.

There's some awful, destructive weather out there and more is forecast. A lot of us are waiting for The Trump Issue to go away and for The Pandemic Issue to go away. And one way we'll know when they have is that someone in power will mention the words "Climate Change" once more.

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I completed my Christmas shopping weeks ago with about ten minutes on Amazon, half of that spent ordering things for me. I only had a few folks to buy for and most of 'em were the kind of friends where we exchange gifts whenever we feel like it. I like gifting when it doesn't feel the least bit obligatory.

And I'm hoping this New Year's Eve will be the safest and sanest ever because everyone will stay home and not go out. But you just know there will be lots of super-spreader celebrations. Someone needs to design an emoji that shakes its head in despair and makes an expression that says, "I can't believe how stupid some people can be."

Tune in this site tomorrow for our big 20th Anniversary Celebration. If you have a colorful paper hat around, feel free to wear it! Noisemakers are also permitted as long as you make all the noise where you are and don't put it in an MP3 and send it to me.

The folks at Politifact have selected their Lie of the Year…

I will probably make some enemies when I say this but say it I must: I like Drew Carey hosting The Price is Right as much as or more than I ever liked Bob Barker, who did it for several centuries. I've never been a steady watcher but then again, it doesn't vary that much from day to day. The Plinko chips may fall into different slots, the Showcase Showdown wheel may land on different amounts, The last three digits on the Lucky 7 game may not be a sure thing if you guess "five" for all of them…

…but it's pretty much the same show during any particular period when you watch it. I think that's one thing people like about it. It's always surprising in the expected manner.

What I like about it is how fast it moves and how every episode is technical miracle of rolling games and prizes in, rolling games and prizes off, moving cameras into position to shoot them and the contestants, having the models be exactly where the models need to be…and so forth.

I may have said this before on this blog but if The Price is Right as it currently is had never existed…and if you went to a network and pitched it the way it is…and if they understood what you were proposing to do on that stage in each episode…they would have told you it was impossible. You couldn't make the show popular enough to pay for giving away so much in cash and prizes each episode and you certainly couldn't shoot that hour-long episode in less than about six hours.

But somehow they do it and every year the prizes get bigger and the pace gets faster. I know viewers complain that Mr. Carey doesn't spend much time talking to the contestants before he gives them the chance to win up to $100,000 playing Pay the Rent. He doesn't but that's one of the things I like about him. Also, he doesn't think he — and not the games — is the star of the show.

I've been thinking about this as I've lately watched The Price is Right Channel, which can be viewed on Pluto TV. They also have a Deal or No Deal Channel, a Star Trek Channel, a Cops Channel, an Addams Family Channel, a CSI: Channel and dozens of others including one that just shows episodes of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles…and it's all free! Cowabunga!

The Price is Right Channel is currently running episodes of that show from late 1982 so you can watch folks go orgasmic at winning a brand-new $6100 Chevy and you can get frustrated trying to guess the cost of a hair dryer back then. This was a good period for the show. Bob Barker was still dying his hair (he stopped in '87) and he'd just started pushing having your pet spayed or neutered and objecting to fur coats on the program.

Almost best of all, there was a nice feeling of "family" with Bob, announcer Johnny Olson and the three prize models, Dian, Janice and Holly. This is before Johnny died (which he did in '85) and the three ladies started suing Barker and/or the show. And best of all, Barker hadn't gotten so insufferable about the audience loving him. Most of them did but there were times when he seemed to forget that maybe some of them were so excited to be there because they might be able to win a new Mazda RX-7.

The pace of those old shows seems slow today and the prizes seem less worthy of the hysterics some showed when they got to leave with one. But there's also something charming about them…especially if you can guess the price of a Sunbeam Mixmaster in 1983.

Randy Rainbow is back, this time with some musical savagery of Rudy Giuliani. I can't be the only person who recalls how much respect the then-mayor of New York commanded on 9/11 and in the months after…but who now thinks, "This is what you decided to do with all that trust and good will you'd earned?"

When all the current screaming about the election is over, Mr. Giuliani will have achieved something amazing: People who love Trump and people who loathe Trump will all hate Rudy; the former because he got laughed outta court, even by conservative judges, in his many attempts to overturn Trump's loss; the latter because he behaved the way Rudy Giuliani has behaved. How amazing to go from being the most respected man in America to the least.

Here's Randy…

A couple of times in the past on this blog, I've recommended Mastergate, a "play on words" by the fine comedy writer, Larry Gelbart. Larry decided to try and see if he could top the absurdity of the Iran-Contra hearings with a spoof thereof. The play consists of a series of Congressional hearings. On the spot (or maybe the spit) is a soldier named Major Manley Battle who, not unlike Oliver North, arranges for some U.S. weapons to go someplace they weren't supposed to go — in this case to guerilla forces in Central America, ostensibly to use in filming a war movie. As noted in the L.A. Times noted when the play debuted on Showtime…

"I feel that these kinds of situations are going to be with us forever with government, the military and business being as big as they are," said Gelbart, whose long list of credits includes creator of TV's M*A*S*H and Tony-winning writer of City of Angels. "But first and foremost, Mastergate is a play about the language. It's not for me to discover that politicians are corrupt or full of hot air. It's really about what they and television have done to the way we speak and the way we listen."

The dialogue is amazing…and difficult. Broadway singers have been known to say that the lyrics of Stephen Sondheim are wonderful but very, very challenging for the performer who has to perform them. The speeches, many of them lengthy that Gelbart wrote for Mastergate presented the same challenge to a cast that included James Coburn, Robert Guillaume, Dennis Weaver, Bruno Kirby, Ed Begley Jr., Marcia Strassman, Darren McGavin, Henry Jones, Pat Morita, Tim Reid, Buck Henry, Jerry Ohrbach, Richard Kiley, David Ogden Stiers, Paul Winfield, Ken Howard and Ben Stein.

Why am I mentioning this now? Because its producer, David Jablin, just let me know it's now available to watch on Amazon Prime. I did and it still holds up. Here's a little preview…

The winds have died down, the lights have stopped going on and off, and things appear to be normal here — or at least as normal as they are these days, which is none too normal.

As we all know, the Electoral College today did what it always does and tallied the votes. You'd think that would be the end of it but Trump supporters are still angry and Donald's still raking in donations so on it goes. Today's odd twist was Republicans in certain states electing alternate slates of electors pledged to Donald, submitting their votes to Congress as if the two submissions had some sort of equal weight.

I don't get the legal premise here. The real electoral submission is based on an actual tally of ballots cast by everyone in the state who chose to vote. The alternate submission is a tiny bunch of people saying how they feel the election came out. Maybe I'll get a bunch of my friends together, we'll blow a few bucks on a notary public and submit a report saying that we're feeling pretty sure I won.

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This Friday is the 20th anniversary of this blog. I've been at a loss as to what to do to make that day special here and I finally had a good suggestion. Stop by Friday and see what it is. But don't get your hopes up.

Power's back, internet is back, e-mail is still a bit screwy. If I haven't responded to yours, I might not have received it.

My electricity is out, my internet service is out and my e-mail is letting some messages in and out but not all of them.

The e-mail thing has been a problem for days and my hosting company says, "We know what the problem is but we haven't figured out how to fix it yet."

I assume the other two outages have to do with gusty winds in my area today. Somewhere out there, there's one guy with a pair of pliers and a soldering iron who works part-time for the DWP and part-time for Spectrum Cable and he's trying to fix both.

I'm typing this on my iPhone which is at 68%, wondering when someone will fix something. It's kind of like absolutely everything else this year.

A Sesame Street classic…