This is another of those Cirque Du Soleil specials featuring beautiful images of people who are more physically fit than you doing things that you can't believe a human being can do. In that sense, they're a lot like most porn. This one's a sing-along, inviting you to sing along with songs you don't know, often in languages you don't speak. So not only will you not be able to do anything the performers do physically, you won't be able to do what the chorus does, either…

I follow a number of people online and often check in with J.P. and Julia, who star on not one but two YouTube channels — this one and this one. Both channels are filled with their adventures, all of which are food-related. For a while lately, they were traveling to exotic locations and doing things like checking out a McDonald's in Vietnam but now they're home and quarantining and what do you do when you're a foodie and you have to stay at home?

That's easy. You open a Five Guys in your apartment…

Sorry I didn't post this yesterday. You have less than 24 hours to watch this, the sequel to Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera. This is Love Never Dies and it fell way short of either the acclaim or the turnout for Phantom. It opened in London in 2010 and went through a couple of post-opening rewrites and other productions without ever venturing to Broadway. Given that Phantom has now played there to mostly-packed houses since January of 1998, you can imagine the meeting in which they decided there was insufficient interest in the follow-up…

I actually feel sorry for supporters of Donald Trump. Each morning, they must awake and wonder what incredibly stupid, destructive thing he's going to say or do that they'll then have to explain with "He didn't mean that" or "He didn't say what's on the video" or "The press is lying about that." I understand they believe that they believe supporting this guy gives them the kind of government they think they want but it's gotta be a lot of work to pretend grandpa has all his marbles.

And notice I'm not doing a very good job of ignoring him.

Hey, why has nobody handed Randy Rainbow a half-hour of prime (not necessarily prime-time) TV acreage? The guy's funny and topical and there are television programs with huge staffs that couldn't have put together that Trump parody video in a week, let alone in — what was it? A day and a half? Rainbow reportedly does them by himself in his Manhattan apartment. And it's not like he could have been working on it for weeks, figuring that sooner or later, Trump would probably start telling people to mainline Lysol…

In a day or so, I'm going to be announcing a couple of online video chats that I'm going to be doing. You will not have to sign up for these. They'll be open to all to watch live and then they'll be archived online so you can watch them at your leisure, not-live. If you'd like to get a jump on these videos, go to my new YouTube page and subscribe. I've put a few things up there that you might enjoy now.

You knew this was coming…you knew this was coming…

Josh Groban performs one of Stephen Sondheim's best songs from Sunday in the Park With George — "Finishing the Hat"…

Tomorrow at 5 PM Pacific Time — which unless Trump has changed it is 8 PM Eastern — our pal Frank Ferrante will be live on Facebook discussing and taking questions about his career impersonating Groucho Marx. Frank is always interesting on this topic. I think you can watch him on this page.

Boy, it's hard to not hear (or hear about) Donald Trump…even here in the fortress. You turn on the TV, there's Trump or someone talking about Trump and showing clips. You go online, same deal. You answer the phone and somebody wants to talk about the guy. I really don't want to write about him here but I'll allow myself this one paragraph stating something that seems to me quite obvious…

His base will not desert him until they have an acceptable alternative. At the moment, they don't. Mike Pence might give them most of the same government they want but Mike Pence won't be throwing out red meat and calling people names and telling all their enemies to screw off. Analysts are noting that once upon a time, George W. Bush was almost as popular with his base but eventually, his incompetence and inability to form coherent thoughts got to them and his approval rating dropped to about the same level as painful rectal itch. True…but they could then look at other prominent Republicans and see plenty of acceptable alternatives. Giving up on "W" didn't mean giving up on their goal of controlling government. I believe a lot of Trump supporters cringe like all of us about what he says and much of what he does. But a mass defection won't occur until they have someone else to defect to. End of Trump paragraph.

Do you see that thing in the above photo? You probably think it's a vitamin caddy…and it is. But during this isolation, it's also become my main way of knowing what day of the week it is. This morning, mine told me that today is Turquoise.

I'm working on the Pogo book today and planning for a special online event that will be happening a week from tomorrow. I'll tell you about it shortly. Stay safe and have a Happy Turquoise.

Twelve Julien Neels wearing three different ties sing the song that every good barbershop quartet should sing, even if there are a dozen singers in it and they're all the same person…

We've been talking about comic actor Hugh Herbert here and guess what! Dick Halsey, a loyal follower of this site, tells me that there's a Hugh Herbert movie on tonight! Well, actually, it's tomorrow morning — at 6 AM on my cable service on Turner Classic Movies. Consult your local listing for your local time.

It's the 1931 film Laugh and Get Rich, which is a good title for a movie and also good advice for life.  How is it as a movie?  Don't ask me.  I've never seen  it.  I doubt you'll get rich watching it but maybe the first part of the title with prove true.  I'm setting my TiVo just in case either is.

Derek Tague has a good question and I have what is probably not a very good answer. First, here's Derek…

Here in the Greater NYC area, there are all sorts of TV ads reminding us that restaurants are going through a rough and crucial time and that it is imperative that we assure their survival by utilizing GrubHub, DoorDash, and other contact-less delivery options.

However, what about comic book shops? All the ones I frequent have been deemed "non-essential" and are, thus, closed. With the cancellation of Free Comic Book Day, the San Diego Comic and Wonder Cons, and other "cross-pollination" events like big Marvel movie releases, how will our favorite mom-and-pop comic vendors expect to survive? Should we be going to their websites en masse and ordering a batch of back issues just to keep them busy? Answer me that, Mister Green Lantern.

And now here's me to say that, first of all, I know very little about the business of comic book retailers. I respect the folks who run successful shops and I do not undervalue them as, it seems to me, many in the publishing end of the industry do. But I'm largely naïve about the math involved except to know that it all comes down to math…as most businesses do.

It seems to me the answer to your question — Should we be going to their websites en masse and ordering a batch of back issues just to keep them busy? — is "Of course! How could buying stuff from them not give them a better chance of riding out the famine?"

I'm sure any sales they can get will be most appreciated…and if you have the cash and they don't charge an add-on fee for gift certificates, buy a batch of gift certificates or put money "on account" for future purchases. I did that once for a local store owner who had a temporary cash flow problem.

As long as the stores are in "shutdown" mode, this is about all anyone can do: Buy stuff remotely and support any online benefits that may be announced. Once our Long National Nightmare is over and we all emerge from our private fortresses of solitude, stores can do signings and sales and special events and in-store benefits and try to make up some of that lost revenue. There are problems in this world that can only be solved by throwing money at them and this sure looks like one of those to me.

Yesterday here, we got to talking about comic actor Hugh Herbert who made a brief appearance on a Spike Jones TV show. That's Mr. Herbert you see above left and as I mentioned, replicas of him turned up in many cartoons. There he is above right as the King in Mr. Disney's 1938 Mother Goose Goes Hollywood. His trademark "hoo hoo" sound was evident in the early Daffy Duck and some say he inspired Curly of The Three Stooges, who was also something of a cartoon.

Back in the seventies when I was writing comic books of Bugs Bunny and Daffy and Woody Woodpecker and such, I occasionally was asked to do little appearances in classrooms, mostly for kids under the age of eleven, to teach them a little about cartoons and about how to draw. I did it because it was educational…for me. And also, I liked those rare times when I was in a crowded room and felt like I was probably the best artist there.

One thing that intrigued me was that as I drew Bugs and other Warner Brothers superstars, the kids would call out lines from their favorite cartoons…and without having the slightest notion of who the people were, they'd be doing impressions of Jerry Colonna, Hugh Herbert or other stars of the day who had their likenesses and catch phrases "borrowed" for Looney Tunes. I actually heard a seven-year-old kid doing Hugh Herbert at a time when a lot of adults didn't know or had forgotten.

Speaking of the Stooges as I was, Mr. Herbert spent the last nine or ten years of his life starring in short comedies for Columbia Pictures, working with the same folks who made the Stooges shorts there. They also employed a lot of the same sets and gags and actors. This one is Get Along, Little Zombie and the black guy, Dudley Dickerson, was in a number of Stooges shorts playing, as black folks did in those days, a wide array of servants and pullman porters.

He was pretty funny with whatever they gave him even if he had to do those now-cringe-inducing Amos & Andy readings and always looked terrified of something. He pretty much steals the short from Herbert but Hugh has enough to do that you should be able to see why he was a popular performer…

I'm not posting much these days about the virus or politics because I figure you're already getting way more than you need of such content anywhere else you look. But I thought I should note that in a time of unprecedented amounts of erroneous information — some of it potentially deadly — Politifact is doing a great job of telling you what to believe and what not to believe.

Some of what they tell you not to believe are things you'd like to believe but you're man enough (or woman enough) (or a little of each) to handle that, right? You don't want to be one of those people who — to use one of my own oft-quoted lines — thinks that never admitting you're wrong is the same thing as always being right.

Here's an article to show anyone who claims that most Americans want to see stay-at-home orders lifted right away.

Oh, goodie. An earthquake. Just what we needed this morning. It was just after Midnight. I was on the phone with Stu Shostak. I felt it where I was. He didn't feel it where he was. Amber was much closer to the epicenter of it than I was but she slept right through it.

I have much writing to do today plus a couple of business-type online conferences. We will look back on the 2020 Quarantine and say, "That's when video conferencing became a way of life and displaced a fair amount of in-person meetings forever."

I haven't posted any Cat News here lately. That's because the two of them just lay around in the yard all day and eat and sleep and don't do anything interesting. Don't these animals know I have a blog to fill? Anyway, here's a photo I took the other day of Lydia, who has now been in my backyard (literally) longer than a bush I had my gardener plant and which is now taller than my gardener…

And here's one of Murphy, whose gender is still unknown and who is still practicing Extreme Social Distancing, remaining at least ten feet from me, even when she or he is famished and I'm putting out food. He or she does this, even when there's a locked glass door between us because you can never be too careful around me. I'd stay that far from me if I could.

Lydia now kinda asks for food for the both of them, pacing back and forth on the porch until I get the hint and break out the Friskies. She takes a bite or two, then leaves the rest of it for Murphy who's there and devouring, just as soon as there's no sign of me. It is not easy getting these pictures of Murphy…

Many of you are asking when I'll be doing another one of those video conferences. It will be soon, it will be via a different format and it will guest star my best friend — who has been known to look at me with the exact same expression that Murphy has above — Sergio Aragonés. You do not need to write in for an invite for this one. Just stay tuned to this blog for the details. Evanier out.

Many of you remember the situation comedy Green Acres, which was on CBS from 1965 to 1971. It was a "rural" show but much funnier and hipper than most of them. For instance, often odd things would happen with the producer, writer and director credits. Someone compiled these examples…