Dave Marron wrote to ask…

What do you think Mr. Hanna and Mr. Barbera would've thought about the updating (sexual and otherwise) of the Scoobies?

Ordinarily, I'm leery of questions that involve mind-reading, especially mind-reading of the deceased. But in this case, I talked to Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera enough about this topic when I was working at their studio that I'm fairly confident of my response. Both men knew I was a huge fan of their early work and I was frequently involved in talks about reviving and revamping those old properties.

With one category of exception, I think they'd have disliked what some have since done to classic Hanna-Barbera properties. It wouldn't be just a matter of deciding that this character was going to suddenly be gay or that one was going to be somehow deformed. It would mainly be a matter of thinking there was nothing wrong with the old version — or at least nothing wrong that couldn't be fixed with some fresh minds and fresh ideas applied to tried, tested and true formats. I know Mr. B. privately hated almost every new variation on Yogi Bear, The Flintstones and other characters of that era.

But there was that single exception: In their eyes, you could do just about anything to any past H-B property if the alternative was not selling new product.

Some who witnessed this attitude thought it was a matter of putting the making of money ahead of anything else but I really don't think it was that…or at least not just that. Bill and Joe took enormous — and by "enormous," I mean something like the scale of The Great Grape Ape — pride in building a company of that size, keeping it up and running and providing jobs and financial security for so many creative people, including people in their own age bracket.

When I worked there, I was often in my office after hours, after most folks had gone home for the day. Working for H-B was usually my "moonlighting" job, meaning that I'd work all day for the Kroffts or Dick Clark or someone else and then go to the H-B studios and do work there while the janitors were starting to tidy-up. Several times, Bill Hanna — who came to work early and left late — would wander the halls, sometimes with a drink in hand, and stop in for a chat.

We'd get to talking about the latest show-in-trouble in the building — there was always at least one — and Bill would say something like, "I know you think we shouldn't sell so many shows but you're not the one who has to go tell [NAME OF VETERAN ARTIST] that we have to lay him off. He's got a family to support." I did understand that but I also thought there were ways around that.

By the time I worked for them, Hanna and Barbera no longer owned Hanna-Barbera. They'd taken what I guess felt to them at the time like All The Money In The World and sold the company, staying on to run it but now required to somewhat appease new owners with no particular pride or affection for what had gone before. And to hear either Joe or Bill tell it, the new owners really only cared about being the biggest studio in town, occupying as many hours per week of network real estate as possible. When I was in charge of the H-B comic book division, I dealt directly with some of those folks and I don't think that characterization was wrong.

I'm not saying the money didn't matter to Bill and Joe; just that the studio had reached a certain size and so many people were dependent on it for their incomes that maintaining that size seemed vital. I sometimes heard both men speak fondly of the days when the place was smaller…but even then, selling that next show or getting that next deal was often a matter of livelihood-or-death for their people. So if some buyer was insisting on turning Yogi Bear into a cross-dressing moose, Yogi was going to wind up with antlers and dressed like Mrs. Doubtfire.

Anyway, that's my answer. They probably wouldn't have liked it but they probably wouldn't have stopped it…which is kind of the deal you accept when you sell your business.

Trump continues to make up phony gas prices to claim success in lowering them.

And his special envoy to sort out the Russia-Ukraine War is Steve Witkoff. Mr. Witkoff is now touting a bogus referendum to argue that the people in Crimea and other Russian-seized regions would rather be citizens of Russia.

John Oliver last night — another pretty important takedown of an outrage being perpetrated in our country…

Donald Trump is interviewed on Meet the Press and gets an awful lot of things wrong. You get the idea this man thinks that if anyone tells him something that sounds good, it isn't a lie to repeat it and insist it's so? If anyone ever tells me I'm the best writer in the business, I may try that.

As you may be aware, I had three separate trips to a hospital in the last few weeks — one because of a gallstone attack, one to have my gallbladder removed and one to deal with some unexpected complications from the surgery and/or the tests I had on the first visit. The first visit, I spent four nights at the hospital; the second, I went home the same day; the third, I spent two nights. During all of that, I received wonderful, conscientious and friendly care from absolutely everyone at that hospital.

With one exception: The folks in Food Service. The meals were inedible.

They were inedible in two ways, actually, one having to do with my numerous food allergies. There are certain things I just can't eat…which are actually dangerous for me to eat. When I was in my teens, we hadn't quite figured out the full list of what I shouldn't put in my mouth and I also hadn't yet overcome a timidity I had about saying, "I can't eat this!" Or if I did say that, the person serving me the food I shouldn't eat would say something like, "Don't be silly. Asparagus never hurt anyone" and I'd be cowed — in one instance, ordered by a teacher — into taking a few bites.  I would pay dearly for not refusing.

I had to learn to say no. I also had to develop a good sense of "I'm not sure about this but my instincts are telling me not to risk it." I think before I did, I was rushed to some hospital on five separate occasions because of food you may well eat every day with no ill effects. In my recent hospital stays, I ran the risk of being rushed to the hospital I was already in because of what they fed me. (That's some awkward sentence construction there but you know what I'm trying to say…)

So they'd send up someone with a tray of things I couldn't eat and I'd get on the phone to Food Services and explain what I could and couldn't eat.  Then, an hour later, someone would come by with another tray containing many of the things I'd told them I couldn't eat because of my allergies.

Or sometimes, they'd surprise me and there would be meals I should have able to eat but I couldn't for the other reason: The putative show was terrible. I mean so awful I'd take one bite and have something in my mouth that caused all my senses to go all DefCon 1 with a synthesized voice blaring, "DO NOT SWALLOW! THIS IS NOT FOOD! REPEAT: DO NOT SWALLOW! THIS IS NOT FOOD!" It was like I'd foolishly taken a bite of an old rubber insole that was passing for baked chicken.

I can't tell you how bad the food was in this place. The doctoring was first-class but the meals were — well, to coin a technical term…shit.

There was also a third class of "food" sometimes on those trays. It was what I called Suspicious Food. I only took photos of one example but one will do. It was the little container of Dole Diced Pears in 100% Fruit Juice…

The "Dole" part caught me off guard. It's a big company, a reputable company, a company whose name we associate with things that taste good like Dole Canned Pineapple and Dole Whip Frozen Treats, right? Then I looked closer…

"Product of China?"  "Best by October 31, 2025?"  As this was served to me, I had CNN on and I heard someone expressing outrage that President Donald J. Trump has slapped a 145% tariff on imports from China and all I could think was "That's not high enough!"

All my life, I've been hearing that one of the healthiest things a person can eat is fresh fruit.  And now there I was in a complex that is only about health and I was being served the unfreshest fruit possible.

I ate very little during my two multi-day stays in that place. At one point, a lady friend who came by to see me brought be a plate of chicken and rice from a small local chain called Zankou Chicken that serves tasty rotisseried fowl. One of my doctors who dropped in to see me saw the little styrofoam container and asked, "What's that?"

I opened it up, showed it to him and said, "This, in case you've never seen it in all your years interning at this hospital, is food."

He gave it a sniff and made a note to look into this new medical breakthrough. I just might be on to something.

Nathan Lane receives the 2024 Sondheim Award which honors those who have made important contributions to the performance and preservation of the works of Mr. S. Sondheim…

My favorite Southern California restaurateur, Robert J. "Bob" Morris died peacefully at his home on April 13, 2025. Morris was kind of a "Johnny Appleseed" of restaurants, opening them and then moving on to open others. The places he left behind him — which included the original Gladstone's, The Jetty, RJ's the Rib Joint (in Beverly Hills) and the Malibu Sea Lion were always great when he was managing them…not as great when he was no longer the guy in charge. Several of them closed once he was no longer involved.

A Bob Morris restaurant was usually one of the most comfortable places you could dine — with sawdust on the floors, barrels of free peanuts, the widest-imaginable selection of beers, huge portions of everything and the best damned clam chowder you ever ate in your life. Usually for dessert, there were sundaes and slices of cake which could serve six. At RJ's — my favorite of his many businesses — my date and I would order one slice of his addictive chocolate cake, stuff ourselves, then pass the remainder around to strangers at adjoining tables to enjoy.

His official obit says "Throughout his storied career, Morris developed and operated over 25 restaurants, redefining the California beach dining experience and mentoring countless restaurateurs along the way." That is quite true. His last restaurant, which survives him just as it survived the recent too-damn-close fires in Malibu, is the Paradise Cove Beach Cafe. It is nearly impossible for me to get to it now because of road closures but once Pacific Coast Highway is back the way it was, I'm going there and I'll toast Bob with a bowl of his clam chowder. I only knew the man a little but I could see he did everything first-rate.

Here's Tony Nominee Jasmine Amy Rogers, who has the title role in Boop! The Musical. She's recording a song from the show…well, probably pretending to record a song from the show for this video.

The way they usually make these is to record the song and then have the performer(s) lip-sync to the track a few different times as a camera crew shoots from a few different angles. The gent you see at the console there is David Foster, who wrote the score for the show and in this video, he might even be pretending to be supervising the recording.

I think this is a pretty snappy showtune, especially the lyrics by Susan Birkenhead…

Trump has bragged to having made "200 deals" on trade and tariffs in a recent interview but as Rolling Stone notes, when pressed for details, two members of his cabinet couldn't name a single country that has agreed to one.

And Steve Benen of The Maddow Blog explains the basic lameness of Trump's attempts to blame the Biden Administration for every bit of bad financial news.

The Tony nominations were announced yesterday and as someone who hasn't set foot in New York since 2018, I don't have any particular faves or rooting interest. But — my lower extremities permitting — I expect to be back there before 2025 is out and among the shows I'm curious to see is Boop! The Musical. It got mixed reviews from official-type critics but, so far, unanimous raves from everyone I know who's seen it. Admittedly, that sampling may include people a bit more cartoon-oriented than most…

…but what I'm saying is that I hope it's still running late this year if/when I get back there. Looking at online reports on its grosses, it doesn't seem to be doing huge numbers — a fact which may be attributable to the sudden flurry of new musicals that have recently opened. Its producers were probably hoping/praying for a Tony nomination for Best Musical but it wasn't among the five so designated.

Betty's show was nominated for costumes and choreography but those aren't the categories that typically drive patrons to the box office. One that does though is Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical and there, they scored. Jasmine Amy Rogers, who plays Ms. Boop, was nominated. That's the good news. The bad news is that also nominated is Audra McDonald in Gypsy and there are those who will scream "Fix!" louder than Donald Trump if Audra doesn't receive her seven millionth Tony — or however many she has.

I'm not saying who should win. I haven't been in a Broadway theater since '18, remember? This just bolsters my feelings of how flawed this kind of award competition is. Theoretically, they're to recognize excellence but if there's a lot of excellence one year, one instance gets recognized…and if there's none, one will probably be recognized anyway. I think the Tonys do have a provision for "No Award" if the nominators feel nothing is worthy but they don't allow for multiple honorees. Maybe they need a category called "Best Performance by Someone Who Isn't Audra McDonald."

Some folks who were at Boop! The Musical yesterday after the nominations were announced shot this video of the Curtain Calls. Stay until the end…

Attorney General Pam Bondi is claiming that in the first hundred days of this new Trump regime, agents have seized so many illegal fentanyl shipments that they've saved more than 75% of the U.S. population from a fentanyl-related death. I dunno about you but if any fentanyl came anywhere near me, I'd certainly be a dead man by now. Snopes explains.

I woke up this morning wanting to write more about the gala opening night of the new Jack Kirby Exhibit at the Skirball Cultural Center here in Los Angeles. I'm still feeling a warm glow from just setting foot in the place…being surrounded by all that Jack Kirby artwork, all those memories of that wonderful man, all those people who had some connection to him or at least his work. After spending so much of the previous few weeks in a hospital, it was an exciting contrast…and maybe the best medicine I could have had.

I can't guarantee it will have the same effect on you that it had on me…but it should enrich you in some way. As I've mentioned, the exhibition will be there until March 1 of next year and you can get all the info on it you need on this page.

The only negatives for me that evening had to do with how crowded it was and how many people there I knew but didn't get to talk to…or didn't get to talk to long enough. The grandson of Jack's one-time partner Joe Simon was there but we didn't have nearly enough time. Fortunately, Jesse Simon came by to visit yesterday for several hours…and though we still didn't have enough time, we had a few hours and there was no music playing to talk over.

(This is not particularly a criticism of the Skirball Center — I now love that place even more than I did before — but as I edge up on living for three-quarters of a century, I have still not been at any party or public gathering where the playing of records accomplished anything besides making it more difficult for people who wanted to talk with each other to talk with each other.)

At the opening, I also talked with some of Jack's grandkids but not nearly enough with Jillian Kirby, who among the many things she has done to tell the world about her grandpappy has been to run the Kirby for Heroes campaign. It's raised awesome amounts of dough for good causes. Jillian, if you're reading this, let's get together one of these days so I can tell you more about what a great man your grandfather was…and your father is, as well.

But didn't get to talk to my longtime pal William Stout. Barely got to talk to my longertime pal Scott Shaw! Didn't get to talk to lots of folks who I heard were there but didn't see them. And didn't get enough time to stare at all that magnificent Jack Kirby artwork. Fortunately, it will still he there when I return.

There was a time in this world when Ruth Buzzi was on everything…and I'll spell that word out for you: E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. Because she was funny on everything. But I don't have to tell you that. What I have to tell you is that I had the pleasure of knowing and working with her a little and she was one of the nicest people I ever met in a business where not everyone is as nice as you wish they could be.

She was. I think I first saw her in the years I was occasionally hanging around on the set of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, watching them tape. Bewildered cameo guest stars would wander onto that set, not quite sure why their agent had booked them into what seemed like an environment of madness. Ruth was often the welcoming committee, greeting them, making them feel welcome and getting them acclimated to that odd world.

I saw her at just about every fundraiser for every good cause, helping raise cash. One thing I will never forget, I wrote about back in a post about autograph shows, which were not as prevalent as they are these days…

It involved the late comedian Pat Paulsen who, at the time of course, was not a late comedian.  Alas, he then knew he was about to become one.  He'd been diagnosed with something terminal — the big "C," I believe — and was out on a crusade to accrue cash to leave his family.  Pat was a very sweet, very funny man who had managed to not rack up much of a fortune during his years on television — though I suspect his last minute putsch for dollars was less a matter of needing cash than of needing something constructive to do.  Whatever, for his last few months, he was appearing everywhere he could, performing and signing, making whatever money he could make.

Colleagues were abetting him.  Ruth Buzzi was sitting with him that day, dolled up in the Gladys Ormphby outfit she wore on Laugh-In, signing and posing for photos, with and without him, all proceeds going to Pat.

She did a lot of things like that. A very nice woman and, as I can't say often enough here, a very funny one. I got to voice-direct her once for an animated feature that I'm not sure was ever released but she was very, very good in it. She was very, very good in everything. Sorry to hear this morning that she left us at the age of 88. Here's a good overview of her amazing career.

From The Jack Paar Program for December 18th, 1964 — a big break for a new act…

Despite just being released from the hospital, I knew I couldn't miss the gala event this evening at the Skirball Cultural Center here in Los Angeles. It was the opening of two new exhibitions — Jack Kirby: Heroes and Humanities and Away in the Catskills: Summers, Sour Cream, and Dirty Dancing. Guess which one I was there to see.

John Morrow — who publishes The Jack Kirby Collector and the other fine publications from TwoMorrows Publishing — flew in from North Carolina just for the event. He was nice enough to pick me up along with my lovely friend Gabrielle Muttone and drive us to the Skirball Center. I was using my Rollator because my balance is not great, my legs get tired when I stand too long and a Rollator gives you the opportunity to sit whenever you like, regardless if there's an empty chair nearby. Actually, there were quite a few folks there on Rollators.

It's a terrific exhibit and I need to go back at least once to enjoy all its terrificness and yes, I know that's not a word. Call DOGE and have me fired for not doing my job properly.

The halls at the Skirball have many original pages and covers from Jack's long, amazing career and there are photos and a running next in the captions and…well, it will not disappoint anyone interested in the man's work. The exhibit will be there until March 1, 2026 and you can find out everything about visiting it on this page.

The place was mobbed and, interestingly, a lot of folks there came not knowing much or anything about Jack Kirby. They were loyal Skirball members who attend everything there and seek to broaden their knowledge by exposing themselves to whatever the Skirball thinks is worth hanging on its walls. I found myself in a fascinating conversation with a couple who didn't really know who Jack was when they walked in. They were mightily impressed with what they saw and had become on-the-spot Kirby fans. They also seemed unable to grasp the concept that I or anyone could have possibly known someone who created such mind-boggling artwork.

But of course there were people there who knew Jack — or knew of him — or knew each other. Among the many I encountered were Mike Royer, Rand Hoppe, Tom Kraft, Lisa Kirby, Jeremy Kirby, Tracy Kirby, Jillian Kirby, Tom Kenny, Jerry Beck, Scott Shaw!, Paul S. Levine, Dave Schwartz, Paul Power, Frank Balkin and many more. It was really a lovely evening and if you can get yourself to the Skirball in the next year, you'll have a very good time. You may even see me there again having another very good time.