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Due to an increased volume of unwanted e-mail, the info@davemackey.com emailbox HAS BEEN DISABLED. Anyone that legitimately corresponds on this address will be diverted to a new, unpublished address. For general inquiries, please see below.

Also, anyone wishing to crack this security please note:

• I do not have a mortgage on my home
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In short, please leave me alone and go spam somebody else. Thank you.

Animation Updates Elsewhere On The Web

Scrappyland, the latest website offering of my longtime friend Harry McCracken (who by day is editor-in-chief of PC World and brother of novelist Elizabeth McCracken), is now open for business. The site celebrates the now-unfortunately-obscure character of Columbia cartoons in the 1930's, whose exploits were delinated by such cartoon talents as Dick Huemer, Art Davis, Sid Marcus, Ben Harrison and Manny Gould.

Also, we note the change in url for Charles Brubaker's DePatie-Freleng Website, which is in the process of being redesigned and expanded. There is some overlap in what I do and what he does, but he does it so much better. The filmography on both our sites is now dangerously close to complete, as regards theatrical cartoons. We are missing the credits from five "Blue Racer" cartoons. We both have gotten the credits for all of the "Dogfather" cartoons and I've now got them up on my 1970's DFE list.

Confession: if there's one thing I'd like to see again from DFE's archives, it would have to be the wonderfully obscure "The Oddball Couple", an authorized refry of Neil Simon's "Odd Couple" concept featuring a neat cat (Frank Nelson) and a sloppy dog (Paul Winchell), which ran for a couple of seasons on ABC beginning in the fall of 1975. The series has been seldom seen since its brief network run; it was never syndicated. Someone's got it somewhere. But where?

One Singular Sensation, One More Time

Mark Evanier weighs in on the impending return of "A Chorus Line" to Broadway. Sure, it's a little early to get excited about - the revival doesn't officially open until September of 2006 - but it is definitely something to get excited about when one of Broadway's landmark shows returns.

Years ago, I was involved in a production of "A Chorus Line" as part of one of the best pits I ever had the pleasure of playing in. Most of the brass section was imported from the Brass Tacks Orchestra lineup at the time. The Broadway return of the show will most likely put an embargo on local community productions, so hopefully I'll get the chance to play this show once again. (If this production runs as long as the original does, I will be in my sixties once it hits the community boards again. Yikes.)

Happy 35th Birthday To...

I want to wish a happy 35th birthday today to two institutions I'm happy to have had at least some association with over the years.

Long before being the fictitious "sideways" school in the books of Louis Sachar, I was one of the first students at the Wayside School in New Jersey when it opened its doors on January 5, 1970. It was a wonderfully modern school plant that's still in existence today and hopefully they did something nice to mark the date. (Hopefully not opening the time capsule buried in the cornerstone and reading the embarrassingly bad poetry inside.)

While we were getting used to our new school, our moms at home (except maybe for my mother, who wouldn't budge from CBS soaps for anything) got their first glimpse of Pine Valley, as ABC premiered a new soap opera entitled "All My Children." The show nominally featured Ruth Warrick, who had been featured in films such as "Citizen Kane", as the matriarch of a family of interesting characters. (Note: Ruth Warrick made her final AMC appearance on the anniversary show; she died on January 15.) Buried somewhere in the melange of people populating any soap was a true daytime original - the vixenish, scheming, and eventually much-married Erica Kane, played to the hilt by Susan Lucci. AMC continues today and Lucci is still there, lovely as ever after 35 years. For a brief time, I was an active AMC viewer and participant on the Usenet discussion groups devoted to the show, and for a time maintained the show's cast listing, tracking the show's regular and semi-regular cast. (On at least three occasions, I noted an actor named Patrick Page in the cast - not knowing that eventually he would marry our beloved Paige Davis in later years.)

So happy birthday to both the Wayside School and AMC!