I hear from a lot of folks who want to write cartoons. It's a much tougher job than some imagine but if you can find the right work situation — i.e., the right folks to work with on the right project — it can be very rewarding and not just in a monetary sense.

But you've got to know what you're doing and one who does — and he has the awards to prove it — is my pal Brooks Wachtel. Brooks has written over a hundred hours of cartoons and, lucky you, he teaches Animation Writing class at UCLA Extension. According to the UCLA catalogue, it's a ten week course, focused on writing animation and television and the web, taking students though the entire process from springboard to outline to first draft to polish.

The next class starts shortly — and by that I mean that if you wanna take it, you only have a few days to sign up. Here's where you find out more and enroll. And not only will you get the safe expertise of a guy who's written a lot of popular programs but Brooks also brings in others in the field to offer their expertise and experience. One of them this semester might even be me.

It was probably destined that Dean Martin impersonator Tom Stevens would team up with Jerry Lewis impersonator Tony Lewis. They tour a lot — mostly in Australia, sometimes here in America — and bill themselves as the best Martin and Lewis impersonators working today.  I'm not sure they have a lot of competition for that honor at the moment but here they are. Judge for yourself…

Somewhere between 36% and 40% of Americans still tell pollsters they approve of the job Donald Trump is doing as Chief Exec. I have friends who gasp audibly at those numbers and ask, "What stupid, corrupt thing does that man have to do to lose those supporters?" and my theory is this: They don't approve of him. They can't be pleased that their guy utters/tweets so many stupid statements they must defend and has so many scandals closing in on him. I think it's that they just prefer him to any visible alternative. They approve of most of the agenda they think they're getting and see Trump as a hero for wresting control of the country away from people they abhor like Obama and Hillary.

But I'll bet most of them would rather have someone else giving them that agenda. They loved Trump when he was the guy slapping everyone else around…but now every morning, he's the one getting slapped, often by those close to him. It's getting harder and harder to argue that he's not unstable and that there's no evidence out there of criminal activity. Here are some articles worth reading…

• If you still believe Trump is honest and knows what he's doing, note that you disagree with an awful lot of folks who work closely with him. William Saletan explains.
• Republicans feel they have to come up with some kind of health insurance guarantee for people with pre-existing conditions. It polls way too well to not do that. But every single thing that would make that work is something they said was evil when it was part of Obamacare. So what's their solution? Guarantee that people with pre-existing conditions will be able to buy health insurance. Just don't guarantee that they'll be able to afford it. Jonathan Chait explains.
• Christian Right leaders love to lecture people about morality. They're very quick to condemn people who do not fit their standard for decency…unless, of course, that person might give them a fifth vote on the Supreme Court. Ed Kilgore has the story.
• A man named Ed Whelan runs the Ethics & Public Policy Center, a right-wing organization that now seems to have no ethics and at least one incredibly stupid policy. In his zeal to defend Brett Kavanaugh, Whelan floated a baseless theory that someone else had tried to rape Christine Ford — and with close to zero evidence, accused that someone else by name. Absolutely no one is buying the theory and Whelan has retracted it and apologized…but it's still one of the sleaziest and dumbest attacks ever attempted in politics. Rod Dreher will tell you more about it.
• Some supporters of Mr. Kavanaugh are arguing that even if he did drunkenly try to rape a woman when he was 17, he was a teenager and that mistake shouldn't be held against him for the rest of his life. That might be a valid subject for debate and I'm not sure which side I'd be on.  But those making it now are ignoring two points, one being that denying it now under oath (as Kavanaugh has) involves committing the current-day crime of perjury. Should a man who has just committed perjury be placed on the highest court in the land? Secondly, those making this argument are mostly of the mind that a 17-year-old who attempts to commit rape should be forgiven but a 17-year-old who commits the non-violent crime of selling drugs should go straight to friggin' prison for 20+ years and rot there. At least one Kavanaugh supporter — the author of this article — calls out the hypocrisy in holding both views.
• Hey, remember how Trump was going to get North Korea to denuclearize just because the two of them were buddies? As Fred Kaplan notes, that doesn't seem to be happening but we may be in for Trump trying to claim credit for making it happen when it doesn't. That's kind of Trump's style: You don't have to actually do the right thing for Puerto Rico if you can convince your supporters that you did.

Trump might get a bit of a break this coming week when most eyes will be on the sentencing hearing that may result in Bill Cosby wearing an orange "Hello, Friend!" shirt behind bars  and recording an album called To Spider, My Fellow Inmate, Whom I Slept With. But hey, that may be a good time for the White House to release some bad news they can no longer contain or to fire someone Donald wants out.

This is a little slide show and history on the Horn & Hardart Automats that used to exist in Manhattan. They were great places to eat and even greater places to take a kid. In the summer of 1959 when I was seven, my mother took me to New York City and we had lunch at an Automat. I don't remember where it was but I remember what I ate: A turkey sandwich on white bread, a dish of cooked carrots, a glass of milk and a slice of some very rich cake made with strawberries and whipped cream. I'm still coming down from a sugar rush from that cake.

By the next time I went to New York, which was in 1970, the Automats were close to extinct, though Horn & Hardart's operated a lot of little cafeterias. Our first night in New York, my friend Steve Sherman and I went to one for dinner and I had a quarter of a baked chicken that was swimming in grease with a mound of mashed potatoes. I have no idea how I remember that or why I am telling you.

Here's a few minutes about Automats. In case the piece doesn't make clear, these were not exactly vending machines. There was a wall of these little windows and on the other side of the wall was a kitchen were chefs made the items they would then place into the little windows for your selection…

In the running as this week's Stupidest Donald Trump Statement, we have "I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place." In other words, if she didn't report it then, it didn't happen.

Mr. Trump knows well (of course) that somewhere between 75% and 95% of rapes and attempted rapes are not reported at the time or ever. That plus his wealth and legal staff made him feel free to brag about grabbing women by the pussy, kissing them whether they want to be kissed or not, walking in on them when they're changing clothes, etc. The #MeToo movement constantly reminds us that a lot of men feel they can get away with that shit, and especially if they're wealthy and powerful. Sad to say, they are usually correct…though these days, probably not as much as they were ten or twenty years ago.

The Republicans who are eager to nail down that fifth Conservative seat on the Highest Court have a pretty clear motive to discredit Bret Kavanaugh's accuser. You do get the feeling that some of them would settle for absolutely anyone, no matter what heinous thing he's done, as long as he'll vote the right way. But I wonder how many of the folks attacking Dr. Ford have the extra added motive of believing that women who speak up about such deeds need to be slapped down and punished, lest others become inspired to not suffer in silence.

Anyway, that's this week's Stupidest Donald Trump Statement as of this moment. There are still a lot of hours to go in Friday so don't be surprised it he tops it before Midnight. It's one of the few things he's really good at.

It has arrived. Hardly worth the wait.

This has been Where in the World is Mark's Package?, a public service of this blog.  Check back often for the latest update on where the hell Mark's Other Packages are at any given moment.

On the occasion of what would have been June Foray's 101st birthday, our pal Greg Ehrbar remembers some of the fine work she did on kids' records.

And a happy 10th birthday to Samudra the Elephant!

My friend Shelly Goldstein posted this on Facebook…

Guy said to me today, re: Kavanaugh, "Sure, a serial rapist is a problem. But if it's just one, what's the big deal?"

Apparently, this person lives in a world where everyone is entitled to one free rape. There are two possible problems here and he may have one or both. One is that some people just don't think that rape — or even attempted, unsuccessful rape — is that big a deal. I hope I don't have to elaborate on why that's appallingly wrong.

The presence of the second problem could be determined by asking the question, "Would you feel the same way if the Senate was being asked to confirm a Supreme Court nominee who'd probably vote the other way?" Not many things depress me more about politics these days than most folks' willingness to rewrite the rules based on what will help their side. You know: Barack Obama was a congenital liar because he once said he'd be campaigning in all 57 states but Donald Trump is not a dishonorable or untrustworthy human being for saying…well, any of about eighteen things a day.

I'm genuinely dismayed by how so many people reshape reality to win — or at least, not concede — a political point. They all seem to turn into the unfaithful husband who — when caught in bed with another woman — tries asking, "What woman?" That may be the most lasting damage that Trump guy does to this country. He has shown politicians that as long as your base gets what it wants (or thinks it's getting that), they don't care what positions you reverse, what fibs you tell or what laws you corrupt…and a lot of them kinda like it if in the process, you're a little nasty to your — and therefore, their opposition.

We love Laura Benanti and just her intros are reason enough to watch this look at what's coming to Broadway in the coming months. Yes, I know I just said I don't like trailers for upcoming movies but this kind of preview doesn't bother me…

If one of the job requirements for being President of the United States is to speak eloquently and reassuringly in times of tragedy, Donald Trump fails that one more than any of the other job requirements. "This is a tough hurricane, one of the wettest we've ever seen from the standpoint of water" is, honest to God, a line I'd write for Groo the Wanderer to say.

Even if I were a U.S. Senator, I wouldn't have to trouble myself with deciding whether to vote no on Brett Kavanaugh because of the accusation of attempted rape. I would have already decided to vote no on him for so many more inarguable reasons.

Whenever rape is in the news, we get a lot of clumsy, insensitive comments about it from males who don't seem to get what that is. Someone needs to teach a lot of them — especially men of the older, white variety — that it's not about making love without the other party's full consent. It's an act of violence and if it's about anything, it's about power and a fair amount of "I don't give a shit if someone else is harmed as long as I get what I want." The whole premise of human civilization is to not do that in any form.

Every time I see Trump now, the main thought in my mind is that it's never going to get better for him. If he's dreaming of a day when he is not under investigation and there isn't a daily scandal and a majority of the country loves him as a grand, dignified leader, we really should be invoking the 25th Amendment — the part about what we do when the president is batshit crazy.

When last we heard, it was on its way to San Francisco but apparently it changed its mind and went to Salt Lake City, Utah instead. I guess it didn't like Salt Lake City because 94 minutes after its arrival, it was on another plane, this time to Los Angeles (again!) I hope they gave it time in Salt Lake City to walk around a bit, use the restroom and maybe get one of those little personal-size Pizza Hut pizzas, without which no stopover in an airport is complete.

This has been Where in the World is Mark's Package?, a public service of this blog.  Check back often for the latest update on where the hell Mark's Package is at any given moment.

I haven't had a Spike Jones clip here for a while. For those of you who came in late, Spike Jones was a brilliant musician in Hollywood who turned his gaze from playing on serious hit records to making silly, raucous ones. This number is from his TV show in 1957 and it's a spoof on Perry Como, who was one of the top singing stars on television. Gil Bernal, who played saxophone in Spike's band, does a decent impression of Mr. Como.

The little guy on the left who stole Moe Howard's hair-do is Freddy Morgan, a comic and banjo player who was with Spike for a long time. The little guy on the right is Mousie Garner who — speaking of Moe Howard — was kind of an auxiliary stand-by member of The Three Stooges. I wrote about him here when he left us. Here they all are, decimating a song that was made famous by the great Fats Waller…

'Twas a long day today, much of it spent on the Disney Studios lot out in Burbank.  And guess whose office I was in for part of that time?  Walt's.  It's been completely restored to just about the way it was on the day he went to that big Magic Kingdom in the sky. I can't really describe the sensation of being there, in that room next to the piano where Richard and Robert Sherman first demonstrated most of the songs for Mary Poppins and other Disney fare.  I know that in the future when I read about the doings at the studio, it's going to help a lot with the pictures I form in my mind.

It was also interesting that such an imaginative man had what, on balance, was a pretty ordinary office.  You kind of think of Walt sitting in an office in the middle of a fairy tale castle or the Pirates of the Caribbean…or Wonderland with the White Rabbit sprinting through.  I think I learned something but it may have to rattle around in my brain for a while before I know quite what it is.

A lot of readers of this site send me movie trailers — most recently for the forthcoming Stan & Ollie movie or for the coming-this-Christmas Mary Poppins Returns. I appreciate the favor but I don't think I'll be watching them. More and more, I like to not see a movie before I see a movie.

The less I know going in, the more I'm able to involve myself in a film…and I've had some I thought were ruined for me because — between trailers, clips on talk shows and "first look" featurettes — I felt like I was seeing a movie for the second time, the first time I saw it. If I know I'll be going to see a given movie, I even avoid reviews until after.

I notice a lot of people online reviewing these and other movies after only seeing the trailer and that bothers me. Your opinion of a movie may be very valid or it may be way off the mark…but I think it's just slightly-educated guesswork — and maybe not even that — until you actually (say it with me now:) "See…the…movie." Being around film buffs much of my life, I've found few things indicate an oversized, underprincipled student of the cinema more than, as had been said to me, "I can just glance at the script or check out the trailer and I know exactly what the movie is going to be like." In my experience, such folks are correct about two less times per day than a stopped clock.

Among the more occasional 'n' obscure topics on this blog is a movie that I actually sat through in full before deciding it was not very good — a film called Don't Worry, We'll Think of a Title. It came out in 1966 and disappeared with nary a trace. Who was in it? Well, lots of great cameo guests but the leads were Morey Amsterdam, Rose Marie and Richard Deacon. Morey was the brains behind the project and I wrote about it here.

Why am I bringing this up now? Because writer-comedian Ramsey Ess has written a new article about it. He thinks about as highly of the film as I do…and we both think the same thing about it that Rose Marie did.

Pretty busy this morning.  I'll post something later when I can.  But hey, if you're in the L.A. area, there are still a few good seats available to see my fave musical group, Big Daddy, this Saturday night at Vitello's out in Studio City.  If you've never heard these guys, search for some of their videos on this site.  It'll make you want to go.

I'll be back here later with…something.