Wally’s Week

February 23 – March 01 (2026)

RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK

I think it’s hilarious that the Muppets were kept in file cabinets!

As Joe Pendleton and I were working with the puppet platforms last Saturday night, I mentioned that he’d need to take them to his shop to “paint them black.” That started an earworm – and all I kept humming the rest of the night was the Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black.” Great song!

Monday the 23rd – NEGATIVE, CAPTAIN! – The past two weeks have been pretty dull. They mostly consisted of lying around and recovering from the thyroid surgery I had on February 6th. There were ups and there were downs, and I’d hate to have to go through something like this again. But all the details were really pretty boring so I figured I’d place Wally’s Week on hiatus to spare you the mundane details. Now that I’m feeling myself again, I headed over to my box to pick up a package. When I got home I met up with my computer guy Thor, who was tasked with trying to get my expensive, old negative and slide scanner to talk to my computer. For some reason they weren’t communicating and I couldn’t do the work I needed to do on my photo album project during my downtime. At first it looked like it was just a faulty cable. But then it started acting up again. Luckily Thor fixed a workaround and I was back in business. The Epson Perfection V500 scanner is really a marvelous piece of machinery! I scanned some stuff and then rested up. Later I worked on my photo albums some more, recorded a few auditions (now that the pipes are slowly but surely coming back), and took my nightly WOG (walk/jog). I had been taking a rest from those for a few weeks, but as of last Saturday the 21st I started again. It felt great to be back out again! I spent the rest of the night scanning old negatives. FUN!

Tuesday the 24th – AN “EPIC” DAY! – My pal Mark Fullerton dropped over and I drove us down to the Universal Citywalk to get lunch. We had tickets to the 4:00pm IMAX screening of the new Elvis movie “EPIC,” which stands for Elvis Presley In Concert. Cool. As we looked at the lunch options we decided to try Raising Canes. I had never had their food so I was curious. I’ve decided to start on a high protein, low carb, no sugar diet – so eating out has become a bit of a boondoggle. We got our food and got a table outside. I know people love this restaurant, but everything tasted over-salted, and it was distracting. The chicken, the fries (of which I only ate a few), everything was really, really salty! Mark noticed it too and said, “Raising Canes? It’s more like raising blood pressure!” As we walked around the Citywalk to do some shopping and kill some time before the movie, I ran into my old pal, and fellow Voice Actor Tom Kenny. He was on the Citywalk to get tickets for the 7:00pm screening of “EPIC.” He said he was at the premiere in Hollywood and loved it so much he wanted to catch it in IMAX before it left the theatres. FUN! But that wasn’t the WEIRDEST encounter of the day! (More on that later.) I picked up a few new monster items at the Universal store, and we continued to shop around. At 3:30 we headed into the theatre and I got some popcorn and a small soda. But when we got into the IMAX theatre I realized that I bought tickets that were too close to the screen. We would be looking up most of the movie! Since the audience looked like it would be pretty sparse, Mark and I headed to the back row in hopes that we could find some seats that hadn’t been sold. We were back row center, but soon an elderly lady and a younger guy came in. I realized we were probably in their seats. So we moved down a few to let them in. Before the pre-show started I leaned over and said to the lady, “So! Are you ready for Elvis?” She said she had been an Elvis fan since she was a little girl and she couldn’t wait to see the movie.” I asked her if she had ever seen him live. She said she hadn’t. I told her I was lucky enough to catch him a few months before he died in concert in South Dakota. She said, “I’m from South Dakota.” WHAT?! Come to find out she was from Britton, South Dakota, which is about 50 miles from where I grew up in Aberdeen, South Dakota! Of all the weird things! The pre-show started and her companion came back in and sat down with some snacks. The film was nothing short of amazing. The Elvis film that came out a few years ago starring the kid from Nickelodeon left me cold. In fact, I hated it. (Too many reasons to list here.) But in researching that film, director Baz Luhrmann unearthed tons of unseen Elvis concert footage that had been buried for half a century. His team undertook an enormous forensic process and created this new film of Elvis concert and interview footage from the early 70’s. It was absolutely stunning. Especially in Imax! After the movie I introduced myself to the elderly lady and her companion. Her name was Diane and her companion was her son Ryan. She said Ryan has lived in L.A. for about 30 years to get into the industry, and 7 years ago she came to visit him. But during her visit she had a seizure and he told her that she wouldn’t be going back to South Dakota. He said she was going to stay with him so he could care for her. So she’s been living here ever since. When Ryan and I started chatting some more we discovered a common love for monsters, Muppets, “Star Trek,” and more. I gave them my card and I sincerely hope we can keep in touch. What a strange, random happenstance. But then again, things like that seem to happen all the time in my life – almost to the point that I’m not even really surprised by them anymore. I got home and did some more work with the photo albums, and I’m making some great progress. For about a year when my cat Spook had to be moved into the kitchen, I lost momentum. Since my kitchen table is where I do the majority of the work on the photo albums, having Spook living under the table made it impossible to continue my project. But now that he’s gone I’m back at it and more organized than ever. I’m glad I spent so much time unearthing my Day Planners from storage over the Christmas break. While not real specific “diaries” of my life’s events, I seem to be able to glean enough information from them to build a suitable timeline to follow for the photo album’s narrative. They really help out! I took a WOG, and came back inside to do my auditions, and some more scanning. I made some food and watched a totally amazing episode of “The Virginian” before bed.

Wednesday the 25th – RIP ROXY! – Today marked the third anniversary of my dog Roxy’s passing. I still think of her often and miss her every day. She was a one-in-a-quadrillion dog. But I’m so happy for the years we had together. My pal Sam was in town, so we met over at Bob’s Big Boy and we got caught up on all the happenings. I got back home and did my nightly auditions, and did some more work on the photo albums.

Thursday the 26th – SUMMER IS BACK?! – The forecast for the next few days calls for the high temperatures to be close to 90! GREAT! I had a follow-up appointment with my surgeon. There’s some talk about having to go back in about six months from now and have another round of surgery, but she said that would be in August or September. I really REALLY do not want to do this again, but such is life. We’ll see how things shake out over the summer and how the test results look. But the good news is…I’ll have all summer free to do fun things and fulfill my obligations. That includes prepping a new exhibit for this spring’s Monsterpalooza, having my daughter Lacey’s family out for a fun week in early June, going to the Laurel and Hardy convention in San Diego, going to my children’s cancer charity Voices Against Cancer, and going to the Connecticon in Hartford, Connecticut in July! Fabulous! I was afraid something may happen that would prevent me from doing some of those things, but it looks like my summer is wide open for fun! I met my pal Chris Malmin for lunch at Paty’s and we enjoyed the amazing weather. As we sat on the patio the great special effects master Rick Baker walked by. I recognized him right off. I said, “Bravo, sir. Big fan of your work.” He was a bit taken aback that somebody recognized him and he offered a kind, “Oh! Thank you!” After lunch I headed to the post office and parked my car. I looked closely at the mural that was painted on the wall directly across from the Post Office’s parking lot, and it showed Native Americans in canoes rowing to the shore. Upon more careful inspection of the art, I realized that the person in the back of the boat bore an uncanny resemblance to Stan Laurel! WEIRD! I got home and chatted with friends about my conversation with the surgeon, and I’m feeling pretty good about everything. I’m serious about staying on my high protein, low carb, and no sugar diet. In fact, the past year or so, sugared things started tasting bad to me. Sugared cereals didn’t taste good, baked goods, candies, and sodas were all too overpowering. I used to love the little Cokes in the glass bottles, but I was getting to the point where I could only drink about half, and then I was over it. So getting off sugar is probably something my body is telling me to do. We’ll see how it works out. There are plenty of excellent sugar-free options for candies by Russell Stover in case I have a craving. I worked some more on the photo albums, slept for a bit, and then got up to do more photo album work. In the middle of the night, when I like to take my WOGs, it was 67 degrees out! LOVELY! I even spent some time in the anti-gravity chair meditating and thinking. I really missed that! I came back inside and cleaned up around the house for the maids appearance on Friday.

Friday the 27th – 1995 IS DONE! – As I was waiting for the maids to arrive I poured through my 1996 Day Planner to extract all of the pertinent information about my goings-on during that year. I put every notable event into a document that I will use to build the narrative for that year in the photo albums. When the maids left I drove the Gray Ghost over to the car wash. I got right in! Hardly anybody was there! The car hadn’t been washed since we got all those heavy rains a few weeks ago…so she was looking grim! While they worked away I walked over to a little Mexican restaurant and had lunch on the patio. I made it back to the car wash just as they were finishing up. Perfect timing! I ran a few errands and then went home to relax. Later I did my nightly auditions and took my WOG. I continued with my photo album work and finished all the way through the end of 1995! Now, on to 1996!

Saturday the 28th – LAYING THE PLATFORMS! – It felt really good to sleep late! When I got up I headed over to CVS to get prints made from the negatives I’ve been scanning. I’m shocked to discover how many prints I’m missing when I inspect my negatives on the light table. But it seems like I may have given those prints away to people when I had them processed back in the day, never figuring I would need them for anything. I came back home and walked over to my stylist Andie’s shop for a touch-up on my color and a trim. When I got back my friends the Pendletons had arrived, just right about the same time my gal Angi arrived! Good timing! We went to Little Toni’s to get dinner, but the wait time was an hour. So we cut our losses and headed to Ernie’s Taco House and got seated right away. They have a much larger seating capacity so they have no trouble seating people on busy nights. Joe Pendleton is helping me create the exhibit for this spring’s Monsterpalooza museum. I’m calling it “Jim Henson: 70 Years of Creatures, Monsters and Misfits.” I’ll have all of my creature and monster Muppet replicas on display and it should look amazing. Jim Henson was responsible for making monsters palatable to younger audiences – and even making them cute and cuddly! Joe built 3 wooden platforms from our specifications, upon which the puppets will be mounted for display. We taped out the available space we’ll have for our booth, and we set everything up to replicate how it will look in the finished exhibit. It was working out VERY well! I brought down each puppet from upstairs and we marked out where their positions would be. Joe will take the platforms back home and paint everything black, and install the wood dowel flanges (the little cup things that will secure the wood dowels to the platforms) to the platforms. The idea is that we’ll do as much work ahead of time so we limit the amount of time we’ll spend setting up the night before the convention. When they left I took a rest for a bit. Then I got up to WOG, and then spent some time outside in the anti-gravity chair. Once again, the weather was unbelievable! I went back inside to continue working on the photo albums. I made a salad and watched an episode of “Fantastic Journey.” My assistant Emily was coming over at 9am to pick up my tax stuff so she could run it over to my accountant, so to kill time I kept working on the photo albums until she got there. After she left I hit the hay!

Sunday the 1st – COMATOSE SUNDAY! – Since I got to bed so late, I slept virtually all day. I did more photo album work and I’m really making headway – I’ve got amazing momentum on this project! I did my auditions and then headed out on my WOG. I’m glad life is slowly but surely getting back to normal.

And how was YOUR week?!!!

PIX FROM THE WEEK