Mark Evanier's Blog, page 3
October 11, 2025
Today's Video Link
Here's one of my favorite Monty Python bits. I seem to be the only person on this planet who remembers that once — a long time ago, before most of America knew of Python — this video was used on The Dean Martin Show. As I recall it — and it's been a long time — Dean introduced it on-camera and then the video played with his voice replacing John Cleese's.
Martin's producer Greg Garrison worked a number of deals with British television, some of them involving Marty Feldman and using BBC video of him on American television programs. This bit was funnier with Cleese than it was with Dino…
FACT CHECK: Almost Every Syllable He Utters
Once upon a time, the Republican Party branded a man named Al Gore a "congenital liar" and therefore unfit to be President because he claimed that the main characters in the book Love Story were based on himself and his wife. And it didn't matter one bit that the truth was that (a) Gore hadn't claimed that; he'd claimed correctly that some reporters had said that and (b) the author Erich Segal said that the characters were partially based on the Gores. Today, many who call themselves Republicans are perfectly satisfied with a Chief Exec who claims that…
Babies are given 82 vaccines in a single shot, the doses are the size of two glasses of water, Amish people don't need vaccines and other false "facts" about vaccinations.Every single "Venezuelan drug boat" that he bombs would have killed 25,000 Americans.He's settled seven wars — or eight if you count the Gaza one which seems far from being actually settled."We're going to be reducing the costs of medicines by 100%, 200, 300, 500% and even more than that."The Big, Beautiful Bill he signed into law earlier this year ensures no tax on Social Security.Joe Biden never ever said the U.S. had the strongest military in the world, tried to get rid of "Space Force" and gave $350 billion in aid to Ukraine.He [Trump] raised what member nations contribute to support NATO,25 million migrants entered the country under Biden.He [Trump] authored a book in 2000 that predicted what Osama Bin Laden was going to do.…and many more. Above fact checks can be found here, here and here.
October 10, 2025
My Gastric Bypass – Part 7
This is the seventh (!) in a series of what I can now say with some (but not total) certainty will be an eight-part recounting of the gastric bypass operation that I underwent in 2006. I suggest reading the earlier chapters before you read this one: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and Part 6.
This installment starts with me waiting in a waiting room for the moment they would begin prepping me for Gastric Bypass Surgery. I was waiting there for a long time.
And I just realized I misspelled a word there. I meant to put about twenty-seven Ns in the word "long." It sure felt like forever but finally my name was called — mispronounced but called. I was led to a room where I took off my clothes and put on the first hospital gown I'd worn in many years that was not way too small on me. The Gastric Bypass Division knew their customers.
A few feet from me, being prepped for the same procedure, was a lady we'll call Anna who weighed about the same as I did but she was a foot shorter and ten years older. After being separately gowned, we wound up spending some time on adjoining gurneys — instant friends because of all we had in common. Her end of the conversation called to mind what my Dr. Preston had said about folks who have this kind of operation expecting it will change every single thing in their lives they could hope would change. What Anna hoped would change — immediately, if not sooner — was her marital status.
She wanted it to move A.S.A.P. from Divorced to Wed and I got the feeling one of the reasons she was talking to me was to see if I could be the reason for the changeover. Her divorce, she told me as she seemed to be telling everyone, had been because she'd "let herself go." If she'd kept herself at or about the poundage when she and Bill were married, there'd still be a Bill in her life.
Was all that true? Beats me. But she seemed charming and, particularly if she dropped 100+ pounds, probably a good catch for anyone seeking a mate in her age range. I tend to think that relationships rarely end for only one reason…unless, of course, they only happened for one reason in the first place. I hoped for her sake that Husband #2 came along as swiftly as she seemed to expect.
Our chat was interrupted by hospital officials sweeping in and out with forms we had to sign before we went under our respective knives…though mine and probably hers wouldn't employ knives. It was to be was laparoscopic surgery — tiny, quickly-disappearing scars, not huge forever ones. We did though have to consent to our procedures switching to the old-fashioned, filet-you-open method should our presiding surgeons suddenly deem it a necessity. I heard that when a patient awakens after the surgery, the first thing most of them ask is, "Were they able to do it laparoscopically?"
That's not what I asked. A nurse in the recovery room told me I asked, "Can we send out for pizza?" That sounds like me and I'm sure I meant it as a joke.
What happened from the moment I awoke in that room to the moment I left the hospital is blurry now and it was blurry then. I recall being transported to a wing of the hospital where patients who'd had done what I'd had done stayed, post-bypass, for a few days. Anna was across the hall from me and there were other rooms with oversized patients who'd probably be dwindling in girth in the months that followed.
We were encouraged to get up and walk as soon as we could and it somehow fell to me to be the drill sergeant for this activity. Every ninety minutes or so, I'd go door-to-door in that wing and round up a gang to go hike around our floor. All the other G.B.S. patients there at the time were women, all (still) very large and we were all wearing these huge, unsightly paisley gowns. We must have looked like quite the sideshow, marching about like that. Every time we passed a nurses' station, I'd announce something like, "We're going to all get into one elevator and see if we can make it buzz!" Or "We're making a break for Jerry's Deli across the street!"
Sunday morning, I was told to go home though some in our wing who'd been there as long or longer were not. Anna, for instance, was staying. Phone numbers and e-mail addresses were exchanged but I didn't stay in touch with anyone except Anna. My lovely friend Carolyn picked me up in a taxicab — remember taxicabs — and we drove not to my house but to my mother's.
My mother then was 84 years old, somewhat frail and was hospitalized for one thing or another about every four months. I had made the decision not to tell her of my elective surgery, though I did tell her personal physician. I figured it would just worry her so I made my usual daily phone calls to her every day and didn't mention that I was phoning from a hospital bed. Now that it was over, Carolyn and I went to tell her and she got a little emotional but thanked me for not telling her until I'd been discharged. She asked if there was any way she could help me and I said, "Yes!"
We had a little ritual. Every time I took her home from the hospital, she wouldn't consider herself officially "Home" until I'd cut the hospital's wristband off her wrist. Now, I pulled up my shirt cuff to expose mine, handed her the scissors I always used and asked her to cut mine off me. She laughed and cried and it was the moment I think I remember most vividly from the whole experience.
What I remember second-most-vividly was the weight loss. I'll tell you how that went in what will be our final chapter in this whole saga…unless it isn't.
October 9, 2025
Today's Bonus Video Link
Most folks know of Rocky and Bullwinkle but are unaware that the show on which Moose and Squirrel were first featured was called Rocky and His Friends. It's the form in which I first discovered those characters and the wonderful world of Jay Ward and Bill Scott. The video below is a complete half-hour episode (including commercials) the way the show was when I became an avid watcher.
It went on the air on ABC as of November 19, 1959, airing at 4:30 in the afternoon two days a week. In September of 1961, it made the jump to fringe prime time on NBC, Sunday evenings at 7 PM and this is when Dudley Do-Right became a part of the proceedings. Later on, it was syndicated in several different packages, a few of which incorporated elements of shows produced by a company called Total Television. The Total Television material (like The World of Commander McBragg) was animated by the same animation company in Mexico that animated most of the Ward product. This has caused some confusion in the marketplace as to which were Jay Ward cartoons and which were Total — but this half-hour is all Jay Ward.
You may notice in the end voice credits, there's no mention of Daws Butler. Daws was heard in the Fractured Fairy Tale and also in a commercial that used characters from Ward's Aesop & Son cartoons. Ordinarily, Charles Ruggles supplied the voice of Aesop while Daws did the Son and other roles but in this commercial, he imitated Ruggles and did both parts. At the time, Daws was voicing so many shows for Hanna-Barbera that he decided to have them leave his name off the second season of Rocky and His Friends.
Anyway, here's the format in which I first met some of my favorite characters in my favorite cartoons…
Today's Video Link
I may put a few of these up today to make up for a paucity of them here recently. This is the episode of the game show I've Got a Secret for March 25, 1963 which someone just posted to YouTube — and by "just," I mean less than a half-hour before I noticed it there. I have not seen this since — and these are real numbers — it aired 62 years, 6 months and 14 days ago when I was 11 years and 23 days old.
Nevertheless, the moment I saw that composer Meredith Willson was the celebrity guest, I instantly remembered what his "secret" was and I remembered the name of Mr. Somerstein who played such an important role in it. I also remembered that Mssrs. Willson and Somerstein came back on a later episode and did a kind of sequel to the stunt on this one.
I enjoy a lot of the reruns of this series, probably to a large part because I recall them as a kid. Garry Moore was a great host and the panelists were all terrific, especially Bill Cullen, who they usually had go last because he so often guessed the secret. In fact, I've seen episodes where I believe Cullen figured out the secret-to-be-guessed right away but played dumb so as to get some laughs and/or not ruin the playing of the game or have the show, which was broadcast live, run short. If you watch the whole episode, you'll see him guess the second secret the minute it's his turn.
If you do want to watch the whole episode, either click here and it will play on your screen or watch the embed below which I've configured to start with the Meredith Willson spot late in the show, then move the slider back to the beginning. There's nothing earth-shattering here; just a good example of a kind of game show that they don't make any more, where you were watching people being playful and clever instead of watching someone try to win a million dollars and a Porsche…
October 8, 2025
More Mark is Out Plugging His Book!
Wednesday Morning
Thanks to all who sent Best Book Birthday Wishes yesterday to note the release of one of my favorite things I've ever done. If you're a follower of this blog, you know how rare it is me to "plug" something with which I was involved. I save it for things like this.
A long list of folks deserve credit for this book existing and being as good as I'd like to believe it is. They're listed in the Acknowledgements but I'll also list them here when I can. Right now, I just want to thank the people who've written to me…and, I guess, those who've purchased it too. I'll be back later (time permitting) to say more.
October 6, 2025
Mark is Out Plugging His New Book!
Over on Comic Book Resources, Brian Cronin and I have a brief chat at why Peanuts has been part of our lives so long that there had to be a seventy-fifth anniversary edition.
Attention, CVS Pharmacy!
I dearly appreciate your ongoing concern for my health but I got my flu shot at my doctor’s office. I don’t need a text message every twenty minutes reminding me that you have them available. Thank you.
Mushroom Soup Monday
Consider this a Head's Up! that the coming week will, like the last few days here, have a few less posts than usual. The long ones like the saga of my 2006 Gastric Bypass Surgery take longer to write and I'm also immersed in publicity stuff for my new book.
It may already be obtainable from a vendor you patronize and if you pre-ordered from Amazon, your copy is probably on a truck somewhere at this very minute.
Speaking of what I was speaking about in the first paragraph above, a reader named Trevor wrote to ask…
My question is about writing the many multi-part blog entries you have featured on the site over the decades. Do you tend to do them individually as you go along? Tell the whole story/ies in a longer writing burst and then break it up? I'm curious as to your process for all of this.
It's not much of a process. I just write one chapter ahead of myself. When Part Four is almost ready to post. I post Part Three. Some of the fun of having your own blog is trapping yourself by choice.
Writing comic books, especially "Marvel Method" if you know what that is, I always hated it when I had to do my end of the first part of a multi-issue storyline and have it go off on the assembly line to publication before I was sure what was happening in subsequent issues. Once, I even had to write the dialogue for pages 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 11 (etc.) before I was sure what was happening on pages 1, 4, 5, 7, 10 (etc.).
But at least when I'm recounting a true story that happened to me, I know where it's going so I can take it as a challenge to post Part Six while I'm writing Part Eight. Which is what I'm doing at the moment.
Mark Evanier's Blog
- Mark Evanier's profile
- 47 followers
