James Arnold Taylor is one of the most in-demand voiceover actors working these days and one of his frequent gigs is as the voice of Fred Flintstone. In this video, he lets us peek in as he records a few lines for a commercial in his home studios. Back when Fred was voiced by Alan Reed or Henry Corden, those gents had to drive to a studio somewhere to record their lines and the director would usually be there, along with any other actors. These days, a lot of voice work is done this way in a home studio.

When I'm voice directing a whole show, I always try to gather the performers all in the same studio at the same time so they can see other and feel connected to each other and react to each other. It has been my experience that most actors prefer it that way…or would if there wasn't the possibility that in the time it takes to do one job that way, they could do five jobs the way James does the one in this video. Five jobs are almost always more lucrative than one job. But I'm talking here about longer episodes with more than a few lines. For a few lines, the way it's done here is fine…and often, the client prefers it this way so their director can do his or her job by phone and not have to fly to where the talent is.

James is a pro and as you'll see, he isn't hurrying to end this session so he can move on to something else. He's making sure the client has what they need. And finally, note also that he's doing most of Fred's gestures, throwing his whole body into the effort. It's not about the imitating. It's about acting…

Often on this blog, I plug the appearances of my pal Frank Ferrante, who tours America with his show in which he portrays Julius Henry Marx, otherwise known as Groucho. One reason I do this is that every time he appears somewhere, I get at least one message like this one from my pal Roger Stern, who is one of the better comic book writer-editors around…

Friday, October 5th, Carmela and I — and our friend Jeff Hetzel — piled into my car and drove for three and half hours to reach Fredonia, New York. There we sat in the front row of the Fredonia Opera House, where we enjoyed — most thoroughly — An Evening with Groucho. It was everything you said and more.

I knew from your past blog postings that Frank Ferrante would first come on stage as himself and start the show by talking about Mr. Marx. But watching him apply the greasepaint and transform into Groucho before my eyes was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen.

For the next couple of hours, he looked like Groucho, he talked and sang like Groucho, and he moved like Groucho in his prime. The height of the stage in the Opera House necessitated feats of Marxian acrobatics as he scrambled down — and back up again — for the half-dozen or so times he came down into the house to interact with the audience. (During the intermission, Carmela overheard one of the Fredonian college students seated in the row behind us say, "I'm exhausted just watching him do that!")

And the audience interaction was just part of the improvisation. Groucho — for he truly was Groucho at that point — had some amazing interactions with his pianist Alex Rybeck.

At one point, Groucho leapt onto the Baby Grand Piano that Alex was playing, and it turned out that someone had neglected to lock the piano's wheels. There ensued an hilarious tug-of-war with the piano between Groucho and Alex, that ended with the piano far to the back of the stage. Groucho then stood to one side and grinned to the audience, "Let's see how long it takes him to wrestle it back into place."

Another time, Groucho was finishing a lovely rendition of "Everyone Says I Love You," which was supposed to end with Alex blowing on a duck call. Except that Alex had inadvertently gotten the duck call turned around, so that nothing came out. Groucho stopped, looked at his accompanist and sighed, "There were just three times when you have to be funny." Then, as Alex looked at the duck call, Groucho continued, "It has only two ends. You had a fifty-fifty chance of getting it right." (When we spoke with Alex after the show, he confirmed that both bits had been unplanned.)

Let's see…there was comedy, singing, dancing, improvisation…oh, and something I hadn't expected, pathos. There was love and affection in his voice when Groucho talked about his brothers. There was a moment of regret, when he spoke of how he had never finished school. By the end of the evening, we truly felt as though we'd met Groucho Marx. He never dropped character until the very end, when, again as Frank, he related a story of meeting George Fenneman.

And meeting Frank afterwards was just as wonderful. He stuck around in the lobby to autograph programs and photos, and graciously posed for pictures until the last of the audience had gone home. We also had an opportunity to chat with Alex, who was equally gracious, and deeply touched that we wanted his autograph, as well as Frank's. We, of course, tendered our thanks to Frank for a great evening and told him that "Mark had sent us." Carmela asked Frank about what his workout routine must be, to which he replied, "I think you just saw it."

Anyway, we wanted to thank *you* for all of your previous stories about Frank, and links to his performances. Once again, sir, we are in your debt.

You most certainly are and we accept all major credit cards.

Hey, I should I mention that Frank does other things besides impersonate Groucho.  January 15 thru March 3 of next year, he'll be in Philadelphia at the historic Walnut Street Theater, directing and starring in a production of the Ken Ludwig farce, Comedy of Tenors. If you're not familiar with the play, it's kind of like Room Service if Room Service had been set in Paris in the thirties, with a lot of On the Twentieth Century thrown in. Get tickets here — and you might also note that Frank will be doing his Groucho show in that theater on February 25.

Then! For years now, when Frank hasn't been Grouchoing, he's been Caesaring. Caesar is another Ferrante characterization, most often seen as the host and star of Teatro ZinZanni. Those of you wondering what the heck Teatro ZinZanni is didn't read this description that appeared on this blog long ago…

Imagine a grand tent inside of which you find a swanky restaurant that serves a gourmet meal as a bevy of wonderful food servers and performers put on a show all around you. There are singers, dancers, comedians, acrobats in the style of (the comparison is unavoidable) Cirque du Soleil and artists whose skills are awesome but utterly unidentifiable. This all transpires not on a faraway stage but up close and personal. The aerial acts are practically over your head in the intimate theater. The dancers are sometimes performing not just near your table but actually on it, skillfully not stepping in the fine soup you have just been served.

This is a fine description but I need to explain more. It is sometimes difficult to tell where the attractive wait staff leaves off and the equally attractive cast takes over. Some of each serve you. Some of each entertain you. The performers roam about in character, chatting you up and entertaining you while you dine. That's when they aren't dancing…or hustling you up out of your seat to dance with them. The show is quite interactive…and did I mention the sensational live five-piece band? The compleat ZinZanni experience runs about three hours. They serve you the first course. They perform for a while. Then they serve you the second course and perform while you eat it…and so on. You leave quite well-fed and, of course, utterly entertained.

At the time I wrote that (10/30/10), there were two outlets of Teatro ZinZanni. There was the one in San Francisco (at which I had just had a great evening) and the one in Seattle. Since then, lease problems forced both to close for a time. The Seattle production reopens in a new location next week and if you want to know all about it, go to this page.

The San Francisco presence is awaiting the construction of its new home and is expected to reopen late next year. In the meantime though, a new branch of Teatro ZinZanni opens April 5 of next year in Chicago with its star/host Caesar, aka Frank! He'll be there for many months and I'm determined to get back there to see him and what I'm sure will be a wonderful show. Here's a link to the webpage for it but there isn't much there yet. Tickets will go on sale about a month from now.  It's one of those things you just have to experience.

The wrist is better, thank you. My orthopedist x-rayed it from every possible angle, found nothing amiss and concluded that it was just a strained muscle and suggested I give it a rest and Advil. I took no Advil (or anything else) and it's been getting better on its own. Another day or three and it'll be fine…and it's already fine enough to resume normal typing.

So many people are saying and writing so much about politics now, I can't find much to say or write that hasn't already been said or written. Trump continues to advance the premise that every single criticism of him is Fake News, mob hysteria and darn close to capital-T Treason. Does anyone believe that he is not the root cause of all this incivility? It's like when Republicans were accusing Obama of being "divisive" because he stubbornly refused to give them everything they wanted.

Speaking of Obama: Next time you hear some non-fan of his insist that the nation "suffered" under him presidency, here's a list of the kind of things that caused all that suffering.

And Trump continues to promise great things despite the fact that there is absolutely nothing looming that is going to make those things happen. The latest — although I haven't looked in an hour or two — is the "revolutionary change" in the prescription drug program that will drastically lower prescription drug prices for seniors. Here's Kevin Drum to explain why there is close to a zero percent chance of this happening.

Lastly: The other day here, I linked to a video about the longest non-stop flight offered these days, which goes from Newark to Singapore. I should have known my long-time pal Joe Brancatelli — who knows everything about flying up to and including the shoe sizes of every flight attendant — would have something to contribute. Joe flew on this flight when Singapore Airlines offered it back between between 2004 and 2013. In fact, he's flown it twice, which is two more times than you'll ever find me on it. Here's a report on his first experience and here's a column about his second, which was before they stopped that route for a time.

My favorite current stand-up comedian Lewis Black has announced new tour dates through next April, including Los Angeles on 1/26/19. Check out the list and see if he's appearing near you.

If he is, here's what you want to do and you want to do it, A.S.A.P. See on the list if they have F.U.C.K.U. Tix available. Those are tickets made available for members of his fan club. They're usually in the first ten rows and cheaper than comparable seats if you're not a member of his fan club. They're also available before the regular tickets go on sale. In most cases, they go on sale tomorrow, meaning Friday. So you can get better seats if you join his fan club and order today. This is your final warning.

Sore wrist or not, I have to write something about a delightful gentleman named James Karen who has just left us at the age of 94. Jimmy was an example, as we all wish we could be, of someone who lived life to the fullest. He was that rare kind of actor who never starred in a long-running series but still somehow managed to always be working. To be that, you have to be either a very, very good actor or a very, very great person to be around. He was both. And he and his splendid wife Alba always seemed to be at every party and every event, even when he'd reached an age where you might not expect a man to be so active.

Leonard Maltin has written a piece about him that I can't top so I'll just add this: Jimmy had been everywhere and knew everyone. He had an anecdote — and often not a clean one — from every film or TV show he'd worked on and about every other actor he'd ever shared a stage or scene with. Amazingly, they all seemed to be true, even the ones about Marilyn. I have met seven men who claimed to have slept with Marilyn Monroe. Jimmy was the only one whose story I believed.

I met Jimmy through my longtime friend Jewel Shepard, who shared screen time with him in the "cult classic," Return of the Living Dead. You usually didn't say a lot around him because if you were talking, he wasn't…and he was infinitely more interesting than you could ever be.

One time, Jewel and I went with our pal Frank Ferrante to see Hal Holbrook perform his legendary — and that way-overused adjective is entirely appropriate here — Mark Twain Tonight show. We were delighted to run into Jimmy Karen and Alba, who were there to see their old friend and we got backstage when Hal came into the green room afterwards to greet a select band of admirers.

Frank and I are in the background of this video. You won't see Jewel (except for a half-second in a mirror) because she was smart enough to sense the importance of the moment and capture it on her cellphone, then post it to YouTube. Notice the love and respect between two men who had both been acting all their lives. This will tell you more about James Karen than I can possibly convey and give you some sense of why he was so beloved. Thank you, Jewel…

The Standard & Poor's 500 is down and what is the Trump Administration going to do about it? Why, blame everyone they can except Donald Trump. He says it's sabotage by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow says it's because people out there are afraid Democrats will get some power in the coming election and undo all of Trump's excellent programs.

That's a great way to have it: If stocks are up, it's because of Trump's policies and if they're down, it's because investors are afraid of losing Trump's policies. Nothing can ever possibly happen to the market that proves those policies are wrong. It must be nice to be responsible for so many things that you can never be responsible for.

So I'm operating on about four hours of sleep at the moment. Last night, I was up 'til all hours helping a neighbor with a medical emergency and during it, for no visible reason, my right wrist decided to do one of Dick Cheney's famous enhanced interrogations of the rest of me. Hurts like hell and makes typing difficult.

I have to type in order to address you, my dear followers, and also to finish the script that I was up writing at 2:30 AM when the call came from the neighbor. I'm going to not post anything else here until the wrist's better and/or I finish the script, which I have to do by 3 PM when Sergio comes by to get it, plus I'm seeing my wrist-repairing (I hope) doctor at 1:00. And hell, I may even be self-indulgent enough to take a nap.

That is why I may be neglecting you for a while, my friends. All will be better shortly.

I've been to Canada three times in my life — once to Calgary and twice to Victoria. Otherwise, I have never been outside of the Continental United States. Why? Because one of my ideas of hell would be to have to sit on an airplane for more than about six hours. One time when bad weather and tech problems turned a 5.5 hour fight to New York into an 8.5 hour flight, I was ready to just free-fall from the airplane, with or without a parachute.

This video features Scott McCartney, travel writer for The Wall Street Journal, taking the world's longest flight — Newark to Singapore — and giving tips on how to endure the 18+ hour flight. I can't think of anything that could happen in any destination city anywhere that would make me feel that a flight that long was worth it. No combination of money and/or nymphomaniac supermodels would get me on that plane, especially after watching this video…

Matt Yglesias makes a real good point about what's driving our national "debate" (it's more like a slap fight) these days. The so-called "Liberal Press" is bending too far backward to report on — and therefore give weight to — darn near every charge that right-wingers make about left-wingers but the reverse is not true. The New York Times cares way too much when it's accused of being biased towards the left and therefore tries to demonstrate fairness by reporting the right's accusations. Fox News, on the other hand, doesn't care all that much about being accused of being biased towards the right…at least not enough to cover more stories that would disprove that.

John Nesbitt's Passing Parade was a popular series of mini-documentaries that ran in movie theaters back when movie theaters ran shorts. This one — entitled "People on Paper" — features newspaper cartoonists who were famous when the film came out in 1945: H.H. Knerr, Bud Fisher, Fred Lasswell, Frank King, Chester Gould, Dick Calkins, Milton Caniff, Chic Young, Raeburn Van Buren, Ham Fisher, Hal Foster, Harold Gray and Al Capp. There's an impressive list of men who were either really, really good at drawing their comic strips or really, really good at hiring someone good to draw their comic strips…

Kevin Drum gives us a brief rundown of some of the things Donald Trump is lying about in his current stump speeches.

I continue to be curious as to how many of his supporters really believe all this stuff and how many are saying, in effect, "Yeah, yeah…we know he says a lot of shit that isn't true but we love the direction in which he's taking this country so we'll put up with it." I suppose there may also be a middle ground who believes it's just exaggeration and getting ahead of himself: "Yeah, he probably isn't really going to deliver a middle-class tax cut any day now but I just know he'll do it eventually, assuming those evil Democrats don't stop him!" (And we all know how much Democrats hate middle-class tax cuts..)

I doubt there's a way pollsters could separate out the various mindsets. If a pollster asks you about a guy you love, you don't admit to his flaws because you don't want to see his numbers go down even the slightest in any way. But I'd still like to know.

I like watching Alton Brown's cooking show, Good Eats — and I like it for three reasons, two of which may be unique with me. First off, I like the knowledge he presents. He not only tells you to add three anchovies to the recipe, he tells you where the anchovies come from, what kinds of anchovies they are, their names, their kids' names, what they do in their spare time when they're not being anchovies and so on. This is a reason I think every watcher of Good Eats has for watching Good Eats.

Only a few of them probably consciously share my second reason. I like the presentation. The shows were cleverly produced and aren't just one person — clearly more skilled at cooking skills than on-camera presence — explaining how to dice your onions. The guy is entertaining and his shows are always ambitious in production values and spending time and cash on being entertaining. No one will ever hire me to work on a cooking show but if I ever did an instructional show in one of the few areas I know something about, I'd want to do it like Alton Brown.

And the reason I (and maybe, I alone) have for watching Alton Brown is that he frees me from any desire to cook for myself. I suspect he's being subsidized by the restaurants in my area because the more I watch this guy, the more I'm convinced I simply don't have the skills or knowledge to do much more than empty a can of Chef Boyardee spaghetti into a microwave-safe bowl.

When I don't watch Alton Brown for a while, I get this foolish notion to cook something. I don't get ambitious but even when I attempt a simple meal, it ends in disaster. Then I go watch me some Alton Brown and he reminds me I shouldn't even attempt that. Two weeks ago, I made an entire corned beef precisely according to the recipe, taking it off the heat the moment an internal thermometer told me it was done. This is one of the easiest things in the world to prepare but what I wound up with had the texture and taste of an old Artgum eraser. It went immediately into the garbage and I realized that if I'd watched Alton Brown more, I would not have tried that would have therefore saved a lot of time and money.

Brown and his crew served up 14 seasons (249 episodes) of Good Eats, ending in 2012. They rerun incessantly on The Cooking Channel but they don't seem to have all 249 in rotation. Every time I tune in, there's about a 40% chance I'll get the one about how to make French Onion Soup. He's back now making new ones which will debut next year but in the meantime, he's doing something interesting: Thirteen episodes of Good Eats Reloaded.

What these are are episodes from the original Good Eats show which Brown has annotated and updated, correcting errors or inserting segments to talk about that which is outdated. He's found better ways to do some things, there have been technological advances in some areas and he got some things wrong in the first place. That he occasionally made mistakes is comforting in some ways but he doesn't do it often enough to make me think I could ever be a decent cook.

I really like Good Eats Reloaded. How many other TV shows have you ever seen that went back to correct screw-ups? Last week was the first of the thirteen and the episode was about 60% new material. The second one airs tonight on The Cooking Channel — at 6 PM on my TV. It's the "reload" of the episode on cooking pasta. I believe I tried to cook pasta his way and it didn't work. I can't wait to see his new way of cooking pasta which won't work for me either. It's not him, you understand. It's me.

The Sesame Street folks put together this tribute to Caroll Spinney, who's retiring from his roles as Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch. Boy, Jim Henson sure picked the right guy for that job…

Back in the eighties and early nineties, I spent an awful lot of time in Las Vegas.  It seemed like I was there practically every week and on at least two occasions, I flew back to L.A. for some important meeting, then scurried back to the airport and returned to Vegas after only about a one-hour stopover at my house.  I was in Vegas a lot for about seven reasons…

1. I had a lot of hotel comps (i.e., free rooms).
2. I found that I could get a lot of work done if I could get away from the phone.  Nowadays, of course, we all take our phones with us everywhere we go.
3. I was dating a showgirl there.
4. I was…well, not exactly hooked on Card Counting at Blackjack but I'd gotten pretty good at it and if you have that ability, you want to explore it.
5. I had various ways of getting backstage at hotels there and hanging out with Vegas performers.  I love show business and that often felt more to me like it than working on a network TV program.
6. It was raining a lot in Los Angeles and I don't like rain.  When it rains in Vegas and you're inside a big hotel, the rain's impact on you is negligible.
7. And I'm sure I had at least one more but I can't think of it at the moment.

So one time around 1988, I didn't have a free room available but I had a coupon from the Riviera Hotel for three nights @ $22 a night.  As I was arriving on a Friday, that was a tremendous bargain.  You could get a rate like that at many hotels for Sunday through Thursday nights but Friday and Saturday were at least double that, sometimes triple.  I called up and a lady on the phone verified that, indeed, the coupon was valid any night of the week so I booked three nights — Friday, Saturday and Sunday — and my credit card was charged twenty-two bucks plus tax for the first night. CUT TO:

THE FRONT DESK OF THE RIVIERA HOTEL, where a clerk there informed me that that rate was not available on a Friday check-in, which is what I was attempting to do. I showed him the coupon and he agreed it said nothing on it about dates when it was not valid. "That doesn't matter," he said. Their cheapest room, which is all I wanted, was $52 a night and no coupon could overrule that.

I pointed out that the hotel had already charged me for the first night to "guarantee" my room and they'd charged me $22. There was no disagreement that they'd done that but he explained that only guaranteed my room. If I wanted to actually inhabit my room and sleep in it, I would have to give them $30 more for the first night and $52 for Saturday night. That struck me as a very odd definition of the phrase "guaranteed" with regard to a room reservation. And then, to add insult to my financial injury, I'd have to pay $52 for Sunday night since at the Riviera then, your rate was based on when you checked in. "If you want," he said, "you can check out on Sunday and then immediately check back in and we can give you the $22 rate."

I argued. Managers got involved. The line of suitcase-toting folks behind me grew longer and more impatient and I always feel guilty when I'm keeping people waiting. That put more pressure on me…but oddly enough not among those who worked the front desk. They didn't care how the hell long the line got.

Finally, negotiations hit one of those "take-it-or-leave-it" moments: I could stay there Sunday night for $22 — and stay in the same room without checking out and in, and they acted like they were giving me a great, generous concession in conceding that much. If I wanted to stay there Friday and Saturday night, it would be $82 more, plus taxes. End of dickering.

I said, "If I go somewhere else, you'll refund my $22 deposit, of course." The manager said, "We're not authorized to do that, sir. We can credit it to your room payment if you stay but the reservation clearly states that such fees are non-refundable." If I wanted my twenty-two smackers back, I had to take that up with someone else — the Senior Vice-President of Price Gouging, I believe. Whoever it was, he'd already left for the weekend and might not be back 'til Monday or even Tuesday.

This must have taken a half-hour and finally, I reached a peek of pique. I don't get angry very often and to make that happen, you usually have to harm someone I care about. But I got riled over all this and suddenly found myself telling them I wouldn't be staying in their crummy excuse for a hotel then or ever, and my lawyer would be talking to them about the $22 deposit. And with that, I grabbed my rolling suitcase in one hand and my laptop case in the other and I stormed out and headed directly to…

…well, nowhere. I had gone too far to reverse course when I realized I had nowhere to go.

The Desert Inn was next door so I shlepped my luggage and laptop over there, which took a helluva lot of shlepping.  Exhausted, I waited twenty minutes in a long line at that front desk only to be told that the only available rooms were $200 and up. That was per night. Then I located a pay phone and began calling around.

Another half-hour later, much of it spent on hold, the best deal I'd found was a room at the off-strip Palace Station. The price for three nights? $178. I also penalized myself in other ways: The effort of dragging my gear around, the exasperation, the waste of about two hours of my trip, etc.  The Palace Station was also not near the Riviera, nor was it near certain places I planned to go and could have walked to from Riviera.  So if you're keeping a running tally of how much more it cost me to not just take what the Riviera wanted, add on another $20-$30 in cab fares…and don't forget all these amounts are before taxes.

But I sure showed that Riviera Hotel, didn't I?

No, not really.  Not in the slightest then.  I'm sure they didn't lose any business. If the hotel next door was getting $200+ for rooms, we can assume someone else snatched up the $52 room I walked out on. The Riv also kept my $22 deposit. I wasted still another half-hour on the phone the following Tuesday (it's always a half-hour with these people) trying to get that back and the best they'd do was issue it to me as credit be used the next time I stayed at the Riviera. Like I was ever going back there.

Bottom line: I didn't hurt the Riviera one bit.  I hurt myself.  I would have been so much better off paying the Riviera the $104…and no, it was not fair.  Show me where it ever says life is always fair.

What I did accomplish though was to teach myself a fine lesson.  Sometimes, you can't win.  No matter how clever or reasonable or unreasonable you are, you have limited options and none of them are great.  All you can do is to pick the one that's the least rotten…the one that does the last amount of damage to you. I try to remember that to this day.

But before I end this: I don't want to leave you with the impression that I didn't get the last laugh on the Riviera Hotel.  I can't tell you how I did it because I may need to use this technique again some day when another hotel foolishly wrongs me.  But thanks to a series of events that I personally set in motion, the morning of June 14th, 2016, the Riviera Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip was imploded and it's now gone forever.  And yes, it took thirty years but that's the beauty of it.  They never expected it.