From Micki St. James comes this question…

How do you keep up with your peer writers?  I'm curious, for example, of what you think of Marv Wolfman's Dick Grayson, Robin in the Robin 80th Anniversary Super Spectacular. Do you read or skim such contemporary works? Do you ever find yourself cribbing devices from their writing in your own?

You write a lot of funny stuff, does any of it derive from your current reading?

What I write has to do with everything I've seen, everything I've read, everything I've absorbed. Like most writers who would like to believe they have a little integrity, I don't look at someone else's work and think, "Hey, that's good! I'll copy that!" But it's disingenuous to think that my output is wholly unaffected by my input.

I don't keep up with other writers in comics, nor do I evaluate anyone to whom I am in even the vaguest sense a competitor.  Marv Wolfman is one of my best friends and I've read a lot of comics he's written…though not lately. I don't connect all that well with most current comics. I'm not always sure who their target audience is but I know I'm not it, nor do I connect with many of the current depictions of once-favorite characters.

I'm not putting anyone or anything down; just saying too much of it is not for me. I liked much of what Marv wrote long ago and assume I'd like what he's doing now because I've always thought he was a talented guy…but I don't even know who Dick Grayson is anymore. I don't follow the current Batman mythos enough to not be totally lost in it, or even to know if Dick Grayson is still part of it. (Do not write me and try to explain it.)

I'd get up to speed on it if someone offered me what sounded like an interesting project but I've turned down most comic book jobs I've been offered lately. No one has offered me anything in the DC or Marvel universes that grabs me.

But even before I gave up on most current comics, I gave up on having opinions of other writers. I respect doing work that pleases many even when I am not among the many and I applaud anyone who can do it but I have no opinion of the work itself. If I haven't read it, I of course have no opinion but even if I have, I also have no opinion…or if I do, I keep it to myself. There is the question of professional courtesy but there's also this…

In the half-century I've been writing comics and attending conventions, I've heard many of my peers voicing negative opinions of other writers' work and those almost always sound like emotional responses tinged with jealousy or resentment or the kind of personal insecurity where you have to put down your competitors to feel better about yourself. They may not always be that but they always sound like that. I don't want to sound like that.

Understand this: I'm not saying a writer doesn't have the right to criticize or belittle the work of someone who in some sense competes with them. Freedom of speech and all that. I'm just saying that I think that most people who do it look real, real bad doing it. And I'm also saying that I don't really have many opinions of current writers.

Last evening, we had a little test of Zoom conferencing. 25 readers of this site who volunteered were invited to all converge for a Zoom session where I answered questions for about 90 minutes and figured out what I was doing right and some of what I was doing wrong. There was enough of the former that everyone seemed to have a good time. Watch here for an announcement about when I'm going to try this again and how you can score an invite to participate.

Later that evening, a half-hour before Midnight, my Amazon Fresh order was delivered. I said to the guy, "I hope I'm your last stop" and he replied, with no hint of complaining, "Nope. I have four more after you." If this demand keeps up, Jeff Bezos could be a millionaire.

Trying to not watch Trump but it's hard. He's very good at attracting attention but I'm afraid not much else these days. I'm going back to work…

I had to remove the first video link, which was Buddy Hackett on with Johnny Carson. Here's another video link of Buddy Hackett on with Johnny Carson…

Buddy Hackett tells the Gypsy Traveler joke. Watch Johnny do his "walkaway" take…

Here's something none of us would want to do: Teach Gilbert Gottfried to drive — in a Ferrari, no less…

Here's a good one and it may not be online for very long. Back in 2014, I told you here about a wonderful production I went to see of one of my favorite musicals, Li'l Abner. I have seen some pretty mediocre stagings of this show but this one was first-rate…and all the more remarkable because the show, which requires a big cast and big sets, was put on in a 99-seat theater at L.A. City College with a mix of pro actors and students, and not a huge budget.

But there were some stellar performances and a great energy and the whole thing was under the direction of my pal Bruce Kimmel, who shares my love for the show and who had waited a long time for the chance to mount a production of it.

This was the best number in the show. It's "Jubilation T. Cornpone" and it's usually the best number in any production. The gent playing Marryin' Sam is John Massey (who won a Robby award for his work on this show) and the young lady is Sami Staitman, who has since blossomed into a star of much local theater. Kay Cole did the choreography and I really like the whole presentation. I may post another number from it later on but in the meantime, enjoy this one…

In this message, I said that when they did the classic Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons, four people — Bill Scott, June Foray, Paul Frees and William Conrad — did all the voices. This prompted Erik Sansom to write…

I know you're a busy man, but I can't let this pass. Are you not counting Fractured Fairy Tales with the late, great Edward Everett Horton?

No, I was just talking about the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons. The Fractured Fairy Tales cartoons were narrated by Mr. Horton and then the other voices were done in each by some combination of Daws Butler, June Foray, Bill Scott and in just a few, Paul Frees. The late Julie Bennett filled in on three cartoons that were recorded during one session that June Foray missed because she was working with Stan Freberg that evening.

While I'm at it: The Mr. Peabody cartoons all featured Bill Scott, Walter Tetley and some combination of Paul Frees, June Foray or, once in a while, Dorothy Scott, who was Bill's wife. The Dudley Do-Right cartoons were voiced by Frees, Foray, Scott, Hans Conried and then some were narrated by Bill Conrad and some by Paul Frees. The Aesop & Son cartoons had Charlie Ruggles as Narrator and they all had Daws Butler, almost all had Bill Scott and when they needed her, June Foray. All of the cartoon segments on the George of the Jungle show were voiced by Scott, Foray, Butler and Frees.

The point is that most cartoons then didn't hire guest actors except if one of the regulars was unavailable. Over at Hanna-Barbera, a lot of the cartoons on shows like Huckleberry Hound or Quick Draw McGraw were just Daws Butler and Don Messick or Daws Butler and Hal Smith. A few were just Daws Butler. The Augie Doggie cartoons were usually just Doug Young and Daws. If they had a guest star, it was because they really needed a female voice or they had a baby duck in the cartoon. They'd call in a baby duck specialist.

In those days, actors were paid a flat session fee, regardless of how many different characters they voiced. If the cartoon had eight voices in it, two guys would do them all. That was why most actors in cartoons were people like Daws and Paul and June and Don and Mel who could do nine different voices in one film. It's also why very few of those cartoons had female characters in them. Once in a while in a cartoon voices by Daws and Don, one of them would try to do a lady's voice.

So most actors then had to be capable of many voices. Hans Conried, who just basically had the one voice, was a rare exception. Jay Ward thought Conried's contribution was so great it was worth the extra cost, rather than have Paul Frees or Bill Scott play Snidely Whiplash.

Also, Dudley Do-Right was produced for prime-time. On a prime-time cartoon like The Flintstones or The Jetsons, there were higher budgets so you might hire more few one-voice actors like Mr. Conried and you were also likely to have more female roles. Both of those series had two female characters in every episode; thus, at least two voice actresses in every recording session.

In the late sixties, the contract was changed so a session fee covered three roles. If your cartoon had 7-9 characters speaking, you would need to pay three session fees. You could pay one actor to do five and the other to do three. Or you could divide them up between three actors for the same cost. This led to even more female roles in cartoons and to more jobs for the actor who could do one or two voices but couldn't do ten.

In the eighties, it was changed so the session fee covered two roles but you would get a small "bump" for the third role. Then if that actor did a fourth part, they'd be paid another session fee which could also cover a fifth role…and then there'd be that "bump" again for the sixth part. When we cast shows, we often think in multiples of three.

When we did Garfield and Friends, Lorenzo Music played Garfield and Lorenzo, wonderful though he was, only had one voice. It was a great voice but it was one voice. (Actually, there were one or two cartoons where he did a line as someone else but that was rare.) Gregg Berger played Odie and Thom Huge played Jon. Gregg and Thom could each do multiple voices and usually each would do his regular character plus two others. So if we had ten speaking parts, the three of them would cover seven of them. If the three other voices were all male or all female, one person could cover them but I might need two. Of course, we could also pay Gregg or Thom a second session fee to do those three but there was no financial advantage to us; just the convenience of not having to bring in another actor and fill out contracts and such for them.

And of course, every so often, I might decide a certain role should be played by a one-voice actor because that person was so perfect. Among the actors we had on who fit into that category were Gary Owens, Marvin Kaplan, Buddy Hackett, James Earl Jones, Don Knotts, Shelley Berman, Dick Beals and Arnold Stang.

We paid our actors very well on that show. The producer agreed to do so but I promised him that I wouldn't hire more actors than absolutely needed for each episode. Whenever we had a bit part in the show that could be male or female — a store clerk or a food server or a newsperson, for example — what would determine if that character was male or female was how many other roles the actors of each gender were otherwise doing in the cartoon. It was a lot simpler in the old days where a director could just bring in Daws Butler and June Foray and they could play everyone.

It's Monday and the only reason I know that is that John Oliver was on last night…and wonderful, as usual. But one day's pretty much like another here in isolation, especially since I'm watching very little live TV and have no appointments. I am supposed to get a delivery tonight from Amazon Fresh and I guess they've got everyone working overtime because it's scheduled for between 10 PM and Midnight.

I wish I had something interesting to write about here. Actually, it's kind of interesting that I have nothing interesting to write about here.

Watching a musical performance one time, a friend of mine turned to me and whispered, "This is the show-businessiest number I've ever seen." She didn't mean that as a positive comment or a negative one; just a recognition of how what was before us was all about show business and nothing else. It wasn't even trying to be anything else. The folks who staged it just wanted to give us, as Mr. Fosse once did, the old "razzle-dazzle."

I thought of that comment as I was watching this number from Liza Minnelli's 1992 show at Radio City Music Hall. Very show-businessy…

And then this next video is what I believe followed it…

I've been experimenting with Zoom conferencing software lately and I'm going to try to set up some online conferences where readers of this website can log in and ask me questions and I may have some interesting friends in the conferences, too. Over the next week or so, I'll be doing some little test conferences with a limited number of participants. If you'd like to be invited into one, drop me a note at this address (and only that address) and tell me.

Depending on how many of these I do and how many volunteers I have, you may or may not get an invite. Don't feel slighted if you don't. If I start doing these more seriously, everyone will have a chance to participate…but first, I have to decide if I want to do these more seriously. In the tests, we'll mostly be talking about the kinds of entertainment I write about on this blog and I'm in the mood these days to steer clear of politics.

You'll need to have Zoom software on your computer and a free account with them. You'll also need a webcam that will show your face and a microphone that will transmit your voice and you'll have to know how to do make this stuff work. Zoom is pretty easy to operate as a participant in an online meeting and you may not need a tutorial but if you do, there are about ninety of them on YouTube, all of which will tell you a lot more than you need to know. I'm not sure yet when the first test conference will be but it will be in the coming week.

A lot of folks online are worried that one casualty of The Pandemic could be the U.S. post office. Everyone's preoccupied with masks and gloves and hand sanitizer and TOILET PAPER and getting their groceries and with the prospect of vote-by-mail looming, this might be a good time for those who have always hated the institution to do it in or seize control of it or something.

It is true that by some measures the U.S. Postal Service loses money but that's only by some measures…and that's with the folks in Congress who want to see it eliminated or privatized doing everything they can to make it lose money. I think that given what it costs to mail a letter, the U.S.P.S. does an extraordinary job. People who are not computer-savvy (there are plenty of such people) rely on it to communicate, pay their bills, etc.

Want to do something to keep it around? Buy a lot of stamps. You'll use them eventually and they won't be any cheaper in the future.

I have a whole mailbox full of messages about the shortages of toilet paper. Many of them point to or repeat the wisdom of this article.

In my garage is, as usual, enough to last me for a few months. I've placed an order that Amazon claims they're going to fill for one more package with which I can supply a few rolls to each of my friends who seems to be desperate for a few rolls. I am now done with this topic.

Just got my Instacart order and yes, I got eggs — non-organic instead of organic but in these times, we all have to make sacrifices.

They were out of the frozen pizza I like and I got a few other second choices. They also cut my order for bottled water down from eight gallons to two. And the frozen chicken breasts they delivered say "Best if used by March 25" on them so I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that. But I got most of what I ordered.

One other no-show was toilet paper. I actually have enough of it to last me a month or two, even after giving a few rolls to needy friends. I always have a little stockpile because if you've got the room to store it, it's a dumb thing to run out of. But a couple of folks I know are getting desperate to have another roll or two on hand and I figured if I was fortunate enough to score a package, I could put some minds and sphincters at ease by saying, "Come over. I'll leave a couple of rolls on my porch for you." One person I know would have been here in a nano-second.

But the stuff is still in short supply and hoarders are the only conceivable reason. I mean, is it possible that Americans are now using five times as much of it as the norm? The news plays havoc with your digestion but not that much. I see that a lot of the T.P. that Amazon still has in stock is the overpriced "gag" kind imprinted with the faces of Trump, Biden, Bernie, etc. Is there a stupider, more sophomoric joke gift than that?

Getting back to frozen pizza: I know some folks think it's an abomination and that fresh is the only way to go but frozen has two advantages. One is when you just want the equivalent of a slice or two and it's 1 AM. The other is when you're living in isolation — as (ahem!) some of us are — and you only ever want a slice or two. If it was during business hours and I had three friends here, I'd get a fabulous one from Vito's. If I were to order one today when they open, I'd either wind up eating the whole thing myself or throwing much of it away. I'm not sure which would be more painful.

I tried all the personal-sized ones at the local markets and the best one for me was Red Baron. If you bite into one expecting restaurant-quality, you'll be disappointed but it's that way with all frozen pizzas. And I have had pizza fresh from pizzerias, including a couple times in New York, that I liked less than Red Baron from my microwave. Maybe you have better brands in the markets near you.

And speaking of frozen pizzas: You may remember Dave Portnoy, the Internet zillionaire who founded Barstool Sports, and who's been doing daily pizza reviews on YouTube since Lou Malnati was in high school. I linked to a video or two of his long ago and I still check in when he reviews a place I might conceivably be near some day. While self-quarantined in his fancy New York flat, he's taken to reviewing frozen pizzas and this somehow led to companies sending him pizzas to review which somehow led to companies that make other things and his fans sending him stuff.

And this has all led to some of the weirdest videos ever posted on the Internet. He gets so much stuff that it has led to him doing live "unboxing videos" where he just opens the gifts for — I am not exaggerating — over three hours. Why is this interesting? Well, for one thing, you can usually count on him physically injuring himself and/or destroying a large part of his apartment. People send him a lot of weapons which he tests out. They send him food which he samples. One time, someone sent him an ax and he used it to open the next carton which turned out to be full of wine bottles that he shattered.

It's all really strange and that's about all I'll say. I'm not recommending them and I'm not not recommending them. You can decide for yourself. But if you like watching chaos and occasional self-destruction by a very wealthy guy, his videos are posted on the YouTube channels of Barstool Sports and One Bite Pizza Reviews. He wasn't wild about Red Baron pizza, by the way.

Stephen Sondheim has eight Tony Awards, more than any other composer who ever composed. One was a Lifetime Achievement Award. The other seven were for six of his shows. His first two were for Company back when they gave out one Tony for lyrics and one for the music and he did both. After that, there was just a Tony for "Best Score" so he got one each for Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods and Passion.

A lot of folks think his best score was Sunday in the Park with George but the year he was up for that one, the Tony went to Jerry Herman for La Cage aux Folles. Mr. Herman's acceptance speech, which is included in the clip package below, was interpreted by many as a dig at Mr. Sondheim.

You can see all of his wins (and his one loss) in this collection of excerpts from each year's ceremony…

A few days back, I linked to this video and Steve Bacher wrote me to say…

This is the second time you've posted a video from Alton Brown explaining the difference between baking soda and baking powder and the second time he's made the same mistake of saying "baking soda contains baking powder" instead of "baking powder contains baking soda." No wonder his audience is confused.

Hey, if you can't trust Alton Brown, who can you trust? And in other news: Our friends over at The San Diego Comic-Con Unofficial Blog are running a WonderCon-themed Scavenger Hunt. This may be the only time you can win a prize because you follow this blog. So commence scavenging.