John Monroe (William Windom) opens with a monologue to the audience upset after his sketch was rejected by his magazine editor Hamilton Greeley (Harold J Stone). He is further exasperated to learn from his daughter Lydia (Lisa Gerritsen) that her school newspaper also turned down one of his cartoons. John: "If those sixth grade neo-hippies had to get out of school and go to work, maybe they'd appreciate more the time and effort that went into that drawing." When a second cartoon is rejected, John accompanies Lydia, who is the school paper's women's sports editor, to the home of 10-year-old editor Charles McGraw (Christopher Shea, who voiced "Linus" in some of the classic Peanuts a.k.a. "Charlie Brown" cartoon specials). When John insists he won a major cartoon award the previous year Charles says of his paper, "I like and the kids in class like it, and I won't publish something I don't honestly believes belongs in it." He then continues to say a line almost verbatim that Hamilton said earlier. Hamilton comes in the next morning to tell John that he has considered it and still isn't going to print it and says, "this time I understand it, and think it isn't funny." When Charles is set to publish John's cartoon, John goes to see the young editor to find why he decided to do so.