STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) – A plan to open a National Cartoon Museum in Manhattan is more than a laughing matter to organizers such as Mort Walker, who created the Beetle Bailey comic strip.

Comics tell the story of the ordinary person – “the Dagwood Bumstead,” Walker said. And cartoons have played a key role in political debates.

Thomas Nast’s satirical cartoons of the 1870s have been credited with helping to bring down the city’s corrupt Tammany Hall political organization.

“I decided these things had to be preserved,” said Walker, whose studio is in Stamford. “I think it’s very exciting.”

The museum, scheduled to open next year in the Empire State Building, will feature one of the largest collections of cartoon art in the world, he said. The 200,000 works span more than 100 years and 50 countries and include the first drawings of Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse, original comic strips of Dick Tracy, comic books, toys, film, CDs and DVDs.

The museum also plans to operate an archive and educational resource center in Stamford that will include memorabilia and other materials for students, teachers and the general public.

Organizers are trying to raise up to $8 million to open the museum, but so far have about $3 million in pledges, Walker said.

“I’m so confident that I mortgaged my home to pay all the expenses so far,” he said.

The museum is expected to benefit from the 3.5 million visitors to the Empire State Building annually, supporters said. The museum has leased three newly renovated floors in the skyscraper, said Stephen Kiviat, the museum’s director.

Walker opened the museum in Greenwich, Conn., in 1974. It was moved to Rye Brook, N.Y., and then to Boca Raton, Fla., where it closed in 2002 due to financial troubles.

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On the Net:

http://www.cartoon.org

http://www.mortwalker.com/

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SHARON, Pa. (AP) – The shuttered Vocal Group Hall of Fame is getting a new home – and a restaurant and piano bar.

The hall’s foundation has purchased a restaurant in downtown Sharon, the group said in a statement. The remodeled building will display memorabilia from the more than 90 groups inducted into the hall, a list that includes The Andrews Sisters, the Four Tops and the Beach Boys.

Officials hope to open the building this fall. The foundation will also use the building as a banquet hall for community events.

“It’s a commitment that anchors everything,” Vocal Group Hall of Fame Foundation President and CEO Bob Crosby said in a statement Friday.

Located in the small town of Sharon on the Pennsylvania-Ohio border, the hall was founded by Tony Butala, a founding member of The Lettermen, with help from businessman James E. Winner Jr.

Inductees were chosen from among groups having a minimum of three-part harmony, 20 years in the music business and a hit song.

But few people were willing to pay to tour the museum in Sharon, about 65 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. Winner pulled out in 2001, financial wrangling over the hall ended in lawsuits, and it eventually closed.

Butala, who had moved away from the area, plans to move back to Sharon to oversee the development of the new site.

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On the Net:

http://www.vghf.org/

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WACO, Texas (AP) – Michael Martin Murphey, famous for singing about a pony named “Wildfire,” will soon switch the focus of that song to benefit those devastated by recent fires across the Texas Panhandle.

The benefit concert will be held April 15 at the Globe-News Center for the Performing Arts in Amarillo. Murphey will team up with other performing artists and the Texas Farm Bureau to help families hit hardest by the fires.

“Hearing about the devastation and how these fires swept through to change the lives of numerous families in the Panhandle area really touched my heart,” Murphey said in a story in the Amarillo Globe-News.

Performers set to participate in the concert include country singers Red Steagall and R.J. Vandygriff and classical pianist John Bayless, a Panhandle native. The Amarillo Symphony Orchestra will back up Murphey.

Texas Forest Service officials said the Panhandle fires killed 11 people and claimed nearly 1 million acres of land.

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On the Net:

http://www.michaelmartinmurphey.com/

AP-ES-03-28-06 1337EST