January 19 – January 25 (2026)

RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK

Carroll Spinney, the Muppet performer responsible for Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, was also a wonderful cartoonist. During my on-line research this past week, I came across this cartoon that Carroll had done that offers a little peak behind the Muppets. Fun!

I love this song. “Smooth” by Carlos Santana and Rob Thomas kicks ass!

Monday the 19th – MLK DAY! – Even though my surgical area (where tooth #31 previously resided) felt much better, I wasn’t going to push it quite yet. I’ll start my WOGs (walk/jogs) again on Tuesday night, just to be safe. That will mark one week since the extraction, so I figure that’ll be safe. I typed out Wally’s Week and got prepared for a session on Tuesday.

Tuesday the 20th – DRESSED VADER! – To start the day I headed to Skylark Studios in Burbank for a quick video game session. Then I headed over to Lowe’s to look at some paneling and get some ideas for a few upgrades I’m making to Planet Wallywood. Since I was in the area, I hit Wendy’s for lunch, and got a dozen delicious classic cream-filled donuts at Krispy Kreme! YUM! Those are my favorites! I headed over to Foam Mart to pick up a few items for my upcoming Herry Monster Muppet replica puppet build. I went to Hobby Lobby and grabbed a few items, and then headed to my box to pick up a package. It contained the fur I bought which will be used for the nose of my new Herry Monster Muppet replica. I’m putting together a fantastic display for this spring’s Monsterpalooza and it will include about a dozen of my Muppet replicas! I got back home and did some work, and then Mike and Alex McGee from Alex In Wonderland came over with the cloak and cape they made for my life-size Darth Vader figure. Amazing! They fit perfectly! But when we got him all dressed we realized that the voice box wasn’t working. There was a disconnected wire somewhere in the array. So I gave a call to Roger my technical guy (he built the array) and he said he’d be coming by on Saturday to fix it. We all headed to Bob’s Big Boy for dinner, and we were joined by my pal Dan Roebuck! Lotsa laughs! Then I went back home to rest and ended up sleeping ALL night!

Wednesday the 21st – AAAAAND WE’RE BACK! – The day began with a few last-minute auditions that needed to be recorded. Then I called my pal Chris Malmin and he agreed to meet me at Paty’s for lunch. I hit the hardware store after lunch to pick up a few things, and then went to Michaels to but a few frames. I got back home to do a little work, and then relaxed for a while. When I got up I recorded my nightly auditions, and then took a WOG. It was the first WOG after my tooth extraction that actually felt good! Everything was healing up nicely! I ate some cereal, scanned some checks for a deposit, and hit the hay!

Thursday the 22nd – FANTASTIC DAY! – Before my thyroid surgery on February 6th, I decided I wanted to have one more pre-op meeting with my surgeon. On the way there I talked to my dad, who had been in the hospital for a few days, and though he sounded a bit tired, he was in good spirits and doing well. Talking to my surgeon really helped, and we all had a lot of laughs. Her medical assistant is a good guy, and we ended up chatting quite a bit about “life” things. He’s only 27 and going to go to medical school in August in Omaha, so I was telling him all about Midwestern life. The surgeon and I were joking around, and I reiterated how important it is that my voice not change at all after the surgery (even though that IS a risk). She said she was aware of that, and in a measure of caution, I was the only surgery she scheduled for the 6th. She intimated that she was a bit nervous about it, but I told her it would be fine. She jokingly said that she told the referring physician (our mutual friend Dr. Jill), “Don’t send me any more Voice Actors!” We all laughed quite a bit about that. To be honest, that meeting really improved my attitude about the upcoming surgery. I’m glad we did it. She explained in detail about how the surgery was going to be done and how the healing process worked. As an information junkie I found that VERY helpful! After the doctor left, her assistant and I were more about “life” things. We got on the subject of male pattern baldness, and I told him exactly how balding works, and what causes it. All the while I’m thinking to myself, “Here’s a kid that’s going into the medical field, and I’m teaching him about baldness!” He’s a great guy and I’m sure I’ll see him again before he leaves for Omaha in the fall. I went to the cleaners to pick up my comforter, and it was starting to sprinkle. There was talk of rain, but I didn’t see anything other than a few sprinkles here and there. I picked up a few packages at my box and then headed home to meet a guy from Julien’s Auctions who would be bringing me my Gonzo puppeteering stool that I recently won at the Jim Henson 70th Anniversary auction. If you remember, it had been damaged by the auction house before I took delivery, so they restored it, and it looked terrific. I drove over to the bank to make a deposit, and then went to CVS to get some photo prints for my photo album project. I picked up a few groceries and then headed home to do some work. I bought a new program that allows you to download videos from social media and YouTube! This will be fun! I need to grab a few videos to cobble together for my display at Monsterpalooza, so this will help immensely! My computer guy Brian got on-line with me and coached me through the utilization of the program. I relaxed for a little bit, and then did some auditions. I took another WOG, and then came back inside to make a salad and watch an episode of “The Virginian.” This episode guest starred the lovely Carol Lynley (best known from “The Poseidon Adventure”) and it brought back fun memories of how she and I used to read together for auditions back in the mid 90’s. We had the same Voice Over agent so I saw her around the office a lot. The episode was fantastic and she was wonderful in the role.

Friday the 23rd – “CAPTAIN! A NEW UPDATE!” – Since it was a day off for me, I lounged around most of the day and just did some work around the house. I found out about a new software update from the Wand Company, the establishment that made the wonderful new replica tricorder prop that was released mid-last year. This allows you to have the medical screen animation that was seen on Dr. McCoy’s tricorder in the show. Fun! I took my nightly WOG, and then recorded all the auditions that were due on Monday.

Saturday the 24th – YAKETY YAK! – Roger from Blok4 came over at noon and started assessing the Darth Vader figure to see why he wasn’t talking any more. When the helmet came off – A-HA! – there it was! A loose wire. All of the putting on and taking off of the helmet during the process had pulled one of the wires out. He fortified it securely and reattached it, and it worked wonderfully! When he left I did a little work, picked up a few packages at my box, and got lunch at Paty’s. I enjoyed sitting on the patio and getting some sun. I went to the hardware store to pick up a few supplies, and then I hightailed it over to my stylist Andie’s salon to get a touch-up on my color. When I got home I grabbed my saw and cut a wood dowel to the exact size I needed for a “fourth leg” support for the Gonzo stool Because it only has 3 legs, and the stool’s seat is a bit back-heavy, I needed another support back there to keep it from falling over. I’ll be doing a pre-op blood panel on Tuesday in anticipation of my thyroid surgery, so I’m going to do an experiment. I’m going to do a 72 hour “carnivore” diet – where I eat mostly meats, and avoid carbs and all sugars. I just want to see how that affects my blood panel results. Unfortunately, after reading the ingredients on a lot of the food labels, I realized that there’s sugar in EVERYTHING! YIKES! Though I won’t be able to avoid sugar entirely, apparently, I can cut down quite a bit before the blood panel. I napped for a bit and then got up for a WOG. I came back inside to do some work on the computer. I have every Day Planner that I’ve kept since 1987. The only one I’m missing, for some strange reason, is the year 2014. Not sure why that one is missing. But what I like to do is go through the Day Planner and try to decipher my notes. That way I can extract certain “notable events” that I can homogenize down and put in a “cliff notes” document of sorts. But as I typed away I eventually got very tired. I was feeling a bit…”off.” Uh-oh. I hope I wasn’t coming down with a cold. I went upstairs and laid down, and ended up sleeping a lot!

Sunday the 25th – SINUS INFECTION!? – When I woke up my nose was plugged, and I took as much medicine as I could to stave off an oncoming illness. But in the afternoon I looked around and couldn’t find my cell phone. Great. Just what I needed! I remembered talking on it on the way to Paty’s, but that was the last I saw of it. I called Paty’s on my landline and sure enough, I left it there on Saturday afternoon! NUTS! So I got in the car and headed over to Paty’s to grab it. I got a couple of orders of soup while I was there. I got home and ate, and the medicine was taking effect. I was feeling a bit better. Than my pal Dan Roebuck called and invited me to dinner. Though I had already eaten I agreed to join him. Since I was convinced what I had wasn’t contagious (no sore throat, no body aches, no usual cold symptoms) I headed over to meet Dan. When I got back home my pal Bob was waiting for me so I could record a few Voice Tracks for some comedy sketches he wrote for the upcoming Dr. Who convention. We recorded them and chatted for a bit, but by 10pm I was ready for bed! I took some more medicine and hit the hay. I ended up sleeping all night again! WOW!

And how was YOUR week??!! Stay healthy!

PIX FROM THE WEEK

Darth Vader in the house! He’s looking great!

This hawk sits atop the same pole every day right around the same time – roughly 3 in the afternoon. He stays there until the sun goes down. The crows and seagulls are NOT happy to have a predator such as this in their midst, so they try and chase him off. But he sits there unbothered – looking majestic and fierce.