Don Messick was an amazing talent…a guy who could sound like ten different people in a cartoon and carry on conversations with himself. I had the pleasure of working with him a few times and he was a joy. He got it right on every take and there wasn't much he couldn't do.

This isn't the greatest interview of him. I think that's Bill Tush, who was usually pretty good at this kind of thing but he didn't seem to know what to ask Don. Nevertheless, I think you can get the idea of how the voices just came out of him like magic.

I wrote a cartoon special once where we needed to find two voices — a cat and a dog who were very much opposites and who'd be bickering for most of the show. Dozens of actors auditioned for each of the parts. They were recorded and the voices were numbered so that when the folks who made the final selections listened to the tapes, they had no idea who was who. Looking for the perfect contrast, they finally settled on the 9th guy who'd auditioned for the cat and the 14th guy who'd auditioned for the dog.

And when someone went to look up the actors' names and book them, they discovered that both of them were Don Messick.

The Vice-President at the network didn't believe that both of those voices came out of the same guy. They were so totally different. Finally, they decided — don't ask me why — to not hire Don to do either. Here's a few minutes of conversation with this lovely man…

That's right: It's 287 days until Comic-Con International convenes in San Diego. Time to start planning for it again. I haven't even bought what I won't be giving out this Halloween to trick-or-treaters because none of them ever show up at my house but here we are in early October, looking ahead to the Brigadoon of my life, Comic-Con International. This will be a very special Comic-Con because it's #50. It'll be the fiftieth they've had down there and the fiftieth I've attended.

And yes, I still enjoy them very much — last year, maybe more than ever. There was a brief period in their history when I felt the fun diminishing and I started thinking of skipping every other year or just going for a day…but that mindset reversed itself before I missed a year. At some point in the next 286 days, I'll write a blog post explaining about my brief disenchantment. For now, I'll just tell you it had everything to do with me and nothing to do with the convention itself. Once I performed an Attitude Adjustment on myself, the joy came roaring back, bigger than ever.

So now some of you need to begin thinking about next year's because Returning Registration happens on Saturday, October 13. This is for folks who were there for the 2018 con (the one you haven't unpacked from yet) and who were general attendees — not professionals, not volunteers, not press, etc. On 10/13, you have a chance to become a general attendee in 2019. Read all about it here. Later on, those of you who weren't there this past year will get your shot.

By the way: The 2019 Comic-Con International runs July 18-21 with a Preview Night on July 17. I do not know why there's a Preview Night and they don't just say the thing opens at 6 PM on the 17th but there's probably a very good reason for that.

I smiled when I saw on the convention website what I suppose is the first of several logos they'll be using for the 50th con. The one above is a slight modification of one that was designed by my old pal and collaborator, John Pound — a popular cartoonist who was involved in the early days of the convention. Somewhere in my house, I'm pretty sure I have my 1980 badge with that logo. The con went through several names before becoming Comic-Con International. To this day, a lot of people still refer to it that way or as S.D.C.C.

If you can't wait 287 days, by the way, the same skilled-at-convention-staging folks put on WonderCon in Anaheim and in 2019, it'll run March 29-31 with no Preview Night. It's not as big as the San Diego affair but it's more than big enough to keep you busy for three days…and tickets will be easier to procure whenever they go on sale. I don't yet know when that will be so keep an eye on this page. Last year, they began hawking them just before Thanksgiving.|

My New Standard Disclaimer: Despite what some people seem to think, I do not work for Comic-Con International so sending me your pleas for badges, lodging, exhibitor space or programming slots will not do you a bit of good. These usually come from people who do not grasp the concept of planning ahead and reading the con website until it's too late. Also, direct any complaints you may have to the convention staff and not to me. Matter of fact, you can direct them to anyone at all as long as it isn't me.  Thank you.

• Mitch McConnell, who was proud of the endless delay and obstruction of Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court, is furious about (in his own words), the "endless delay and obstruction" of Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court.

Raising baby pandas ain't easy…

Some of you have been wondering what's up with one of my favorite producers of musicals in L.A., the Reprise! Theater Company. So was I. First, the word was that they were closing down and would not even be staging the third and final show on their current subscription season, which was to be Grand Hotel with Hal Linden and Sharon Lawrence. Then we heard that that is not so. Now, official word from Reprise! is that Grand Hotel is being delayed. It will not open on October 24 as planned but they're expecting donor funding which will enable them to reschedule and stage the production. Hope so. We need them in this town.

Also: As I mentioned here, my favorite movie It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World will have it's 55th anniversary screening the evening of Wednesday, November 7 at the Arclight Cinerama Dome in Hollywood. That's 55 years to the day since the movie premiered and 55 years to the day since the Cinerama Dome opened. Tickets are disappearing at a brisk clip so if you want to be there, get your seats pronto at this link. Looks like the house is about 75% sold with over a month to go.

If you can't wait 'til then or you can't get to Hollywood that night, the film is being screened this coming Sunday at 5 PM at the Warner Grand Theater. That in San Pedro, a town where several scenes from It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World were filmed. This presentation is the closing event of the San Pedro International Film Festival and details are available here. See how informative this blog can be?

At last, I have something in common with Donald Trump. He said this morning, "I'm not a drinker. I can honestly say I never had a beer in my life." Neither have I. Honest to God, I'm 66 years old and I've never had one. Never had a sip of wine, either. I'm sure I've had traces of both in, for example, beer-battered fried shrimp or French Onion Soup made with wine…but I've never had an actual glass of either or anything harder. I had a NyQuil once when I was around twenty and it did worse things to my system than the ailment it was supposed to soothe.

I'm sure all those things are wonderful to some people, especially if they know when to stop consuming them and can. I have nothing against social drinking. I just don't want to do it.

Friends sometimes ask me why. "Because I just don't want to" is my answer and to me, that oughta be sufficient…but it usually enough isn't for them. "Don't you want to at least try it?" they ask — and my answer is no. I have some very bad mental associations with excessive drinking — friends who took it to self-destructive levels — and non-excessive drinking reminds me of excessive drinking. I know there's a big difference but I can't always shake the association.

Moreover, I don't like trying new foods or beverages. No, let me rephrase that: I don't try new foods or beverages. You get to be like that when you have serious food allergies and even just the wrong hors d'oeuvre at a party can lead to long hours of stomach cramps, painful vomiting and worse. Surely, no matter how bulletproof your tummy may be, you can grasp the concept of "It ain't worth the risk."

Some people don't. I know I've written about this before but you'd be amazed that a lot of folks don't see the difference between "I won't eat that because I might not like it" and "I won't eat that because it could put me in the hospital." A woman once, unasked, cooked asparagus for me. When I told her asparagus did awful, awful things to my system, she asked, "Well, what if I put a sauce on it so it didn't taste like asparagus?"

I get offered beer and wine and harder stuff all the time. At a party at Comic-Con a year before last, a fellow writer walked up to me, thrust an uncapped bottle into my hand and said, "Here — I bought you a Corona." When I returned it to him with a polite "Thanks, but…" explanation, he acted like since he'd paid for it, it was awfully rude and unsporting of me to not chug-a-lug his gift.

But I really have no desire to try beer, especially since about ten years ago when I also gave up all liquids except water. Today, if you handed me a Pepsi-Cola or an apple juice I'd gently decline those also. I've decided my body just runs better that way and you should not think I'm condemning you in the slightest for enjoying something I choose not to put into my system.

Actually, I started this post before Trump's quote because the other day, we saw a Supreme Court nominee testifying of his love for beer and the evidence suggests it was a very big thing in his life, once upon a time. It might still be. Another thing that scared me off alcohol is the way some people seemed to need it so badly.

I can't think of anything I ever put in my body for pleasure that I care about as much as Brett Kavanaugh — and let's be fair, many others — cares about beer. I've made a fuss on this blog over the Classic Creamy Tomato Soup that's occasionally available at Souplantation but over the course of a year, I maybe consume eight bowls of the stuff and I go through no withdrawal symptoms or cravings during the 10-11 months per year it's unavailable. As of today, it's unavailable for an indeterminate time and I'll be fine 'til it's back.

It will be back, won't it? Please tell me it will be back soon. Please.

In case you didn't see last night's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, here's last night's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver in full. It's a 29-minute look at Brett Kavanaugh and the hearings and it makes many solid points I have not seen anywhere…and even manages to be funny at the same time. I am stunned by how good it is, especially given how little time they had to write it, edit the footage, construct the graphics, etc. If you did see it, you'll probably want to watch it again…

Not that anyone's going to listen to a guy like me but I would like to suggest that the battle over Brett Kavanaugh points out a fundamental problem with the way we now select our Supreme Court Justices. It's that only a simple majority vote is required to confirm or reject a nominee. You can do it with 51 votes. You can do it with 50 and a Vice-President breaking the tie.

Before filibusters got eliminated a year or two ago, it took 60. If it still took 60, Brett Kavanaugh would never make it. And before you say, "Who would?", well lots of people have. Barack Obama's two nominees were confirmed 63-37 and 68-31. John Roberts, nominated by George W. Bush, was confirmed 78-22. (That Bush's other nomination, Alito, got in with 58-42 because Democrats declined to use the filibuster that was then possible.) Bill Clinton's two nominees were confirmed 87-9 and 96-3.

George H.W. Bush nominated two men to the High Court. David Souter was confirmed 90-9 while Clarence Thomas got in with 52-48. Guess which of those hearings involved screaming and charges of character assassination.

I submit they should not only reinstate the filibuster but even consider raising the number of necessary votes to 67. Even 60 though would mean that any President who sits down to select a nominee would have to come up with someone who could pass muster with more than a few members of the opposition party. They could still be a little left-leaning or right-leaning but it would get rid of the overt desire to put someone in place who would reliably, always and without exception on any important matter, vote according to the "proper" party line.

That kind of partisan justice is the problem. Even before questions of Kavanaugh's drinking and temperament and alleged molesting were raised, Democrats were opposing him for the same reason Trump and the Heritage Society picked him: Because he'd be that kind of always-vote-one-way judge. Merrick Garland had past support from quite a few Republicans but that didn't matter. They wanted an always-vote-Republican justice and since no Obama nominee was going to be one, they decided to block any Obama nominee.

It's a game that can't help but backfire on both parties eventually, hurting Democrats now and Republicans some time down the road whenever Democrats retake control. That's when they'll get an always-vote-Democratic justice onto the bench and it'll go back and forth until there's no such thing as "settled law" in this country.

We oughta reinstate the filibuster or even go to 67 before that occurs but I expect the chances of that happening are about the same as the chances of me getting nominated to the Highest Court in the Land. Hey, but at least there wouldn't be a big battle then. All the opposition would have to do to defeat me overwhelmingly is give everyone the URL to this blog or tell them I was involved with the birthing of Scrappy Doo. I could be the fastest unanimous vote ever.

I hereby retract my prediction that Brett Kavanaugh will be confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court.  I am not predicting the opposite, either.  I am predicting every weekday in the next week or two will be like Wednesdays on the original Mickey Mouse Club.  On Wednesdays, it was "Anything Can Happen" Day.  And sometimes, it wasn't…because anything can happen on "Anything Can Happen" Day, including it not being "Anything Can Happen" Day…

Actually, I'm afraid it's going to be "Anything Can Happen" Day for as long as Donald Trump is in the White House. We don't know what this one-week F.B.I. investigation will uncover…and am I the only one who blinked a few times when Trump ordered it without denouncing the organization as an evil, treacherous band of Democrats who are out to destroy Donald J. Trump?  When has this man ever accepted the legitimacy of any investigation or report that didn't tell him precisely what he wanted to hear?

But the F.B.I. folks may turn up some game-changer and we may also have a week in which the polls can settle down and reflect the impact of the hearings. I'm amazed how many people who had every political reason to brand Dr. Christine Blasey Ford as a lying opportunist had to concede she was "compelling and credible."  I think some of them did not find Brett Kavanaugh's hysterical rebuttal speech particularly judicial but there still seem to be enough of those who don't care; they just want him seated because, damn it, they're running this country. One of my favorite political writers, Ezra Klein, had this to say…

The feminist philosopher Kate Manne coined the term "himpathy" to describe the "tendency to dismiss the female perspective altogether, to empathize with the powerful man over his less powerful alleged female victim." What Kavanaugh did today was activate the Republican Party's powerful sense of himpathy: His suffering was the question, and Ford's suffering, to say nothing of any further search for the truth, slipped soundlessly beneath the water.

We ended the day in much the same place we started: his word against hers. But even as everyone agreed Ford's word was credible, it didn't matter. There was still Kavanaugh's word. And it appeared, for Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, that that was enough. She was 100 percent sure and he was 100 percent sure, but it was his 100 percent sure that mattered.

I think Klein wrote that before the one-week investigation entered the picture but he still may be right. Read the whole article if you have time.

What will happen will happen, as things that will happen have a tendency to do. I do think though that both witnesses accomplished something. Kavanaugh pretty well buried the notion that Supreme Court Justices have to be at least a little apolitical. With other Liberal or Conservative justices, there was always the slight chance that they'd find the evidence in some matter of consequence so compelling and inarguable that they would break with "their side" and if only this once, be a swing voter. Kavanaugh made it pretty clear that he's not above partisanship. If he's seated, he will ignore the merits of any case and just vote for the Republican side and against whatever Democrats want. That probably delights some voters who, of course, will howl with outrage whenever there's a Liberal nominee who'll be that blatant about it.

And getting back to Dr. Ford, didn't she do a remarkable job? Testifying in something like that has to be terrifying and there's the danger that one errant word…one misphrased line will explode your whole position. A lawyer who advised me before I gave a deposition once told me I had to consider every syllable before I said it. This is a rough approximation…

I once had a client who said on the stand under oath, "Sam and I met for coffee…" and he didn't literally mean they had coffee. He meant they met somewhere to talk and there might have been refreshments of any kind. But the moment he said "coffee," the opposing lawyer pounced. Before my client could have corrected himself, the lawyer was announcing that Sam did not drink coffee and would swear to that under oath. In fact, Sam's entire family would testify under oath that Sam never drank coffee so my client had been caught in a lie. That it was immaterial to the case didn't matter. The lawyer was saying, "How can we trust a witness who would lie about something as basic as whether a man drank coffee?" It didn't completely destroy my client's credibility but it got him so flustered that the rest of his testimony was halting, unnatural and way too cautious. He no longer appeared to be speaking from the heart and that harmed his credibility.

Dr. Ford didn't make any of that kind of boo-boo. She appeared before a panel of powerful men who were eager to find some way to brand her a liar…and even folks on Fox News wound up saying she was believable. I'm not sure I could do that if you grilled me on whether it's true I hate cole slaw. Just about everyone believed her.

So if Bret Kavanaugh gets benched the way he wants to be, he will be the Justice who probably was drunk for much of his young adulthood and who thought rape was kind of male privilege and who lies repeatedly about it and probably everything. Once upon a time, I'd have though someone like that could never rise to a position of power in this country but now I think they can. In fact, someone has quite recently. Apart from the drunk part, that describes the guy in the White House.

So I'm in my friendly neighborhood you-know-where and I'm waiting in line to pick up a prescription. Ahead of me is a Very Confused Lady (who shall henceforth be known as the V.C.L.) and she is being served by a Very Patient Pharmacy Associate (henceforth, the V.P.P.A.). The V.C.L. picked up a prescription the day before, took it home and found herself unable to get the friggin' cap off the friggin' container of the friggin' pills. In desperation, she has brought it back to the C.V.S.

The V.P.P.A. takes the container and with darn near no effort, pops the lid off. A small child could have done it and so could a small gerbil or marmoset. "These are our new caps," the V.P.P.A. explains. "They're Easy Open." In an instructional way, she takes the lid off again, puts it back on again, takes the lid off again, puts it back on again, takes the lid off again, puts it back on again, takes the lid off again, puts it back on again, takes the lid off again, puts it back on again, and hands it to the V.C.L.

The V.C.L. holds the vial and attempts to do what the V.P.P.A. just did.  This time, the cap not only comes off easily, it comes off so easily that the V.C.L. is startled and she accidentally dumps all the pills on the floor.

The V.C.L. attempts to scoop the pills up off the dirty floor and into the container but the V.P.P.A. (acting very responsibly) will not allow that.  She insists the V.C.L. wait and she gives the vial to the Head Pharmacist so she can dole out a fresh serving of the pills at — apparently — no cost. Then the V.P.P.A. cleans up the soiled pills and discards them. Then she presents a new container of the pills to the V.C.L. but not before demonstrating three more times how to open it.

The V.C.L. takes the new supply, flips the top off easily and once again accidentally spills them out onto the ground. Wonderful.

By now, the Very Patient Pharmacy Associate has become just the P.A. but she goes to the Head Pharmacist, they have a brief discussion and the following is decided: The Very Clumsy Lady (as she shall henceforth be called) may have one more free refill but that's it. The pharmacy cannot spare any more of whatever medication this is or they may not have enough to fill others' orders before they can get more. If these hit the linoleum, she'll need to take the matter up with her doctor or her insurance company or a Walgreens or anyone else.

It is at this point that a Clever, Handsome Bystander (who henceforth will be known as M.E.) steps up.  He asks and receives permission to make some suggestions and then makes three…

The first is that when the V.C.L. takes the new vial home, she should put a clean towel on her bed and then attempt to open the vial over the towel. Thus, if the pills fall again, they will remain takeable.

The second is that the C.V.S. should also provide her with an empty container with the new style cap so she can practice opening it until she masters the art.

And the third is that if she has one of the old caps around, she puts it on the new container until such time as she does master that art.

Everyone — including the nineteen other customers who have been waiting in line behind M.E. — praises his suggestions and the V.C.L. leaves with a new supply of the pills and an empty practice vial.

M.E. then steps up to the counter to claim his own prescription and as the P.A. rings it up, the Head Pharmacist saunters over and thanks him for his wise input. M.E. says to her, "I guess the new easy open caps aren't as easy as they're supposed to be."

The Head Pharmacist sighs and says, "They would be if only someone could invent some way that people with her problem could take one of those pills before attempting to open the container."

The other day here, I quoted one of the folks involved with the Reprise Theater Company that they were shutting down. I am now delighted to hear that that announcement has been retracted; that Reprise may well finish out its current season and go on. Frankly, I'd like to see it go on forever.

Let's assume the best. And if they do indeed do their next show — Grand Hotel, which is scheduled to open October 24 — let's pack the place and support them. I'll post more about it if and when I hear more.

• You know what this is all about? It's about the GOP's insistence that they run this country and if they want to put a lying, dry-drunk political hack on the Supreme Court, thereby controlling all 3 branches, no one can stop them.

Spend a few minutes watching one of my favorite magicians, the late Don Alan…

I'm not watching all of the hearings and I wonder how anyone could stand to. My guess at this moment — subject to change with the next revelation or maybe the one after or the one after — is that Judge Kavanaugh will squeak by to attain SCOTUS stature but that many of the Republicans who vote to put him there will quietly regret that. They'll look at what the whole mess has done to their standing with women voters and wish their leaders had withdrawn the name. There are probably lots of potential nominees who would deliver the same reliably conservative votes but who don't have tales of drunken misbehavior in their past. Who knows? Some of them might even have vaginas and therefore vote against women's rights with a bit more credibility.

The one thing that I'm fairly certain of is that a lot of old white males out there either don't understand about how rape or even attempted rape…or choose not to understand because then it would be more difficult to not give a damn about the well-being of women. The ones saying things like "Well, if the rape wasn't completed, no crime was committed" are clueless. Even less clued-in are the ones who are suspicious that a woman who later claims that she was attacked didn't immediately rush to the police and swear out a full report. Most rapes are not reported and many of the women who do report them are then put through such hell and character assassination and other pains that it's amazing any of them come forward.

It's getting a little better these days but it's got a long way to go. And trying to shove it back to the Middle Ages are all those who want Brett Kavanaugh on the High Court and are seizing on the non-reporting to try and raise suspicion about the whole claim. I'm trying to decide if I can or should post some stories from past lady friends — most of them, actresses — who were attacked and who felt that reporting what happened would put then through a worse hell than the assault. But I assume that anyone who doesn't understand that is trying real, real hard not to believe that and won't be persuaded by any anecdotes.