Wishing all a happy new year! This Blogmeister has two takes on the first day of 2026: happy to be here and good riddance, 2025! Rang in the new year this morning by watching musical sketches concocted for Saturday Night Live by John Mulaney and Colin Jost. Do we love Kenan Thompson and Kate McKinnon as singing lobsters? Yes.
Following the Diner Lobster extravaganza: the Subway Churro sketch. Again, the performances by the Saturday Night Live cast, especially Cecily Strong and the aforementioned Kenan Thompson, are stellar. Watching this creates a strong impression that John Mulaney yearned to star in West Side Story.
The last John Mulaney mini-musical was the Airport Sushi at LaGuardia sketch. Is Mulaney an avid fan of musical theater first, comedy writer/actor/comic second? Very likely the answer to that question is an emphatic YES.
Looks like the new year will be kind to incurable animation buffs. The restoration of Ed Graham's funny, unique, clever and unusual mid-1960's Saturday morning cartoon series Linus The Lionhearted (featuring excellent voice work by Sheldon Leonard, Carl Reiner, Ruth Buzzi, Jonathan Winters and more) is progressing nicely. Tommy Stathes' latest Cartoon Roots Blu-ray is now available.
While 2025 was a lousy year, at least animation fans could cheer up somewhat thanks to the long-awaited release of classic cartoons to Blu-ray on Looney Tunes Collector's Vault volume 1, released last June. Volume 2 of the Looney Tunes Collector's Vault Blu-ray series will be released in March.
Looney Tunes Collector's Vault volume 2 is quite a treasure trove of classic cartoon goodness, as was volume 1.
Been many moons since this blogger has seen the Bill Hanna & Joe Barbera Tom & Jerry cartoons, so it will be fun to revisit them.
The debut of the series, Puss Gets The Boot (1939) reflects the deliberate, Disney-esque Rudy Ising school of cartoonmaking rather than the fastier, brassier and slapsticky approach that dominates the subsequent Hanna-Barbera and Tex Avery MGM cartoons.
In our view, the series hit its peak in the mid-to-late 1940's.
Here are a bunch of clips from Tom & Jerry cartoons. While tending to be partial to Avery's MGM cartoons over the Tom & Jerry series, must admit to laughing loudly and often during this compilation.
Author, animation historian and restoration expert Thad Komorowski has reviewed volume 1 and volume 2 and volume 3 of the Tom & Jerry: The Golden Era series in detail.
The gang at Way Too Lazy To Write A Blog extend big time thanks, kudos, bravos and huzzahs to everyone involved in these restorations and shall now make an earnest effort to find a modicum of optimism to begin the new year!
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