Monthly Archives: February 2002

And check out: Joshua Micah Marshall's explanation of "astroturf" political campaigning…not to be confused with genuine "grass roots" campaigning.

We highly recommend Michael Kinsley's column today on Slate and in various newspapers.  And stick with it until the end.

Above is the cover to what I think is the only Marx Brothers-related book that is not present in my library.  It's a paperback that was published in England in 1946 to tie in with the release of one of their weaker features.  This and other Marxian rarities can be viewed over at the Marx-Out-of-Print Page, which is chock-full of hard-to-find writings about the brothers.  They have a mess of them, including a couple of eminently non-vital articles that I wrote for bad money in the seventies.  Vastly more interesting are things like a repro of an issue of Life with photos of Harpo and his friends.  There's a picture there of George S. Kaufman in a hammock that I think is the only time I've ever seen him in a pose that could be described as "casual."  Anyway, if you're interested in the Brothers Marx, hustle over to that website and browse around for a while.  It's not often I see Groucho/Harpo/Chico stuff I've never seen before so there's probably something there that'll be new to you.

The first three comic book companies that published Groo went bankrupt and one of them experienced a flood that wiped out their offices.  The fourth has had some legal messiness while the fifth and current American publisher (Dark Horse) is still oddly functioning and healthy.  This has disappointed some folks who cottoned to the notion that the book was some sort of publishing jinx.  Such people will be gratified to know that The Malaysian Sun — a newspaper that was reprinting Groo in, you guessed it, Malaysia — just announced that it was floundering and would be laying off two-thirds of its staff.  We're all so proud.

The Museum of Television and Radio in Los Angeles is having its annual William S. Paley Festival — two weeks during which they "salute" TV shows with special evenings featuring clips and special guests.  Years ago when I started attending these, they were all about Your Show of Shows and M*A*S*H and other shows that were ranked as undeniable classics.  More recently, someone at the museum seems to have decided that withstanding any test of time greater than about eight weeks is asking too much.  This time, they're saluting The Bernie Mac Show, Curb Your Enthusiasm and several others that seem a tad too recent for any kind of historical overview.  (A notable exception: March 6, they're covering the TV work of Fred Allen.)  Tonight's seminar was devoted to Martin Short, a spotlight which might strike some as a bit premature.

But if someone thought that, the lengthy package of clips that opened the evening would have convinced them it was well warranted.  It commenced with a 1976 clip for an obscure Canadian variety show, jumped to The Associates, then to SCTV and Saturday Night Live.  This was all followed by several specials, TV-movies and short-lived series, wrapping up with the current Primetime Glick.  Throughout, one saw Mr. Short in a stunning array of very funny characters.  You forget how much he's done and how good most of it has been.

The clips were followed by a chat with Short, including questions from the audience.  He probably struck everyone present — the place was packed — as very funny, surprisingly modest and uncommonly in-touch with whatever reality exists in show business.  At one point, asked about what it's like to hang out with the likes of Steve Martin and the SCTV alumni, he replied, "When we're all together, it's just like it is when you're with your friends, except that my friends are incredibly wealthy."  He declined to speak ill of anyone, despite a few attempts by audience members to extract such tales.  (The gent sitting in front of me identified himself as the father of a recent Saturday Night Live cast member and seemed eager for negative stories about Lorne Michaels.  Short said simply that he had none.)  Having seen a few folks at past M.T.&R. seminars go on and on about angst and turmoil and idiots at the network, it was somehow refreshing to listen to someone who's pretty — but not insufferably — happy with what he's done and how he did it.

One other quotable thing: Short was asked about all the rumors that he was going to play the Leo Bloom role in the musical of The Producers.  He said there had been talk but that he'd never received an offer.

The William S. Paley Festival continues through March 12 with events held up at the Directors Guild Theater on Sunset Boulevard.  Many of the evenings are sold out but tickets are available for some.  The whole schedule can be found over at www.mtr.org.

The interview I did with Paul Harris on his peachy radio show is now on-line if anyone wants to hear it.  It's just us chatting about Chuck Jones for 15 or 20 minutes and here's a link to the page where you can hear it, assuming you have RealAudio installed.  To be honest with you, while I was over at www.HarrisOnline.com hooking up that link, I found a lot of interviews with other folks that were a lot more interesting, including one with Gabe Kaplan about how Groucho Marx almost appeared on Welcome Back, Kotter.  The stories he tells are basically true, although I don't think Groucho ever came to any of the dinner breaks on the show.  If he had, he'd have died a year earlier.  Gabe, however, forgets about the time Groucho did come to appear on a taping and wasn't up to a performance, as detailed in the second half of a two-part article posted here and here.  I also enjoyed the conversations I listened to with Mac King, Bob Newhart, Leonard Maltin and a few others.  Paul's a first-rate interviewer.

In acting lingo, a "cold reading" is when a performer is handed a script and is expected to give a performance with little (usually, no) prep time.  This is an invaluable skill and most actors would be well advised to brush up on it and keep in constant practice.  Alas, in too many cases, a "Cold Reading Workshop" is a rip-off enterprise designed to separate wanna-bes from their cash.  In theory, you pay for the workshop, not for the fact that a casting director will be there to hear you and critique your reading.  In actuality, what it amounts to is that aspiring thespians who have no legit means of getting seen by those who hire are, in essence, paying to audition.

A legit, respectable casting director would never participate in such exploitation.  For one thing, it's illegal to charge someone to audition and, even though they might say the fee is for the class, not the access, that's not how it works out.  For another thing, it's simply wrong.  The casting director is paid to be familiar with the talent pool and ought to be seeing those who come highly recommended, not those who fork over money.  Alas, not all casting directors are perfectly ethical so Cold Reading Workshops have wrung a lot of bucks out of the Stars of Tomorrow and/or the Daily Grill Waiters of Today.

But this stops and it stops now, thanks to a group called DoNotPay.org — a consortium of casting folks who don't like seeing their profession debased, plus actors who…well, the actors' motivation is obvious.  Headed up by casting director Billy DaMota, the group petitioned the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement for the state of California and has gotten them to declare Cold Reading Workshops illegal.  Here's a press release about the decision.

I think this is terrific news.  Such "classes" are not the only way in which up-'n'-coming actors are shaken-down but this one's a biggie.  If you are seeking a career as a performer, you should pay reasonable fees for photos and demos of your work (like tapes or CDs) and you should pay reasonable fees for actual acting classes and for books and tapes that help you hone your skills.  But you should never give Dime One to anyone who says that it'll help you get seen by "the right people."  In this case, "the right people" are "the wrong people."

The operator of this website will be showing his face (and perhaps other body parts) at this year's WonderCon in Oakland, California.  It transpires April 19-21 at the Oakland Marriott City Center and I'll be appearing on a panel with my buen amigo, Sergio Aragonés, celebrating the 20th anniversary of our wandering idiot, Groo.  I'll also be moderating a couple o' panels on comic book history — like I do, ad infinitum, in San Diego — and they'll probably feature Julius Schwartz, Irwin Hasen, John Romita, Creig Flessel and others who make my 30+ years in comics look like a temp job.

The Wondercon is now owned and operated by the group that brings you the Comic-Con International each year in San Diego, so a great con will probably get even better.  For more info, get thee to www.wondercon.com.

Boomerang — the offshoot of Cartoon Network — is running a Chuck Jones Marathon, commencing at 8 AM on Friday, March 1 and running 'til 8 AM the following morn — 24 hours of cartoons.  It's kind of amazing to realize that, even if they don't repeat any during that span, they still won't be airing all that he did for Warner Brothers and MGM.  Chuck directed 207 cartoons for WB and directed (or supervised, with others directing) 34 more for MGM.  So that's 241 cartoons.  During marathons, Cartoon Network seems to manage about seven shorts per hour, so that's 168 films…or about 70%.  Figure in the TV specials, features and other shorts for which Jones was responsible and it's obvious that a solid day of Chuck won't even cover half of the man's incredible lifetime output.

Speaking of animation legends who have left us:  George Singer, whose career in animation spanned nearly 50 years, passed away Feb. 10 at the Motion Picture Hospital in Calabasas, California.  He was 78 years old and may have held the record for working for the greatest number of major animation studios.  His résumé included lengthy stints at Famous Studios in New York, Halas-Bachelor in England and then, in Hollywood, tours of duty at (among others) Warner Brothers, Format Films, Hanna-Barbera, U.P.A., Marvel Productions, San Rio Films, Steve Krantz, DePatie-Freleng and Film Roman.

It was at the last of these that I worked with him.  He was the first producer of the Garfield and Friends series discussed elsewhere on this site and a fine job he did in that post, indeed.  George was an old-timer who never acted like one.  He'd directed, he'd animated, he'd designed, he'd cut film…and even just before his retirement, he still loved everything about the form.  We didn't always agree on everything but I never doubted for a second that he was a first-rate talent who knew more about making cartoons than anyone else I'll ever have the honor to work with.

Let's have a Happy Fizzies party! No, on second thought, let's save our DNA and stomachs and not have a Happy Fizzies Party!  I just came across these rather old pictures of a product I always felt should have, "Not to be taken internally" stamped on the outside.  Back when I was a kid, a Fizzies drink was fun to make.  You dropped a tablet into a glass of H2O and it bubbled like Alka-Seltzer, turning the water — and if you touched the tablet, your fingers, as well — orange or red or whatever the operative, alleged flavor was.  The fun, however, stopped when the tablet finishing dissolving and you sorta, kinda had to drink the stuff.  That was the part I didn't like.  I'm not sure I ever finished an entire tumbler, even of the "Imitation Orange Flavor" variety…and that was my favorite.  As it turned out, this was a good thing.  Later in life, I was diagnosed as having a very bad reaction to any kind of artificial sweetener.  Had Fizzies been more tasty, I might have ingested more of them and done God-knows-what to my body.  A "Happy Fizzies Party" — as the commercials kept urging us to have — could have been like some sort of 5th grade mutual suicide pact.

That was back when the product contained — as per the package depicted here — sucaryl and saccharin, and we thought those were oh-so-much better for you than nasty ol' sugar or corn syrup sweetener.  Today, they still make Fizzies and the key ingredient is Nutrasweet, which has about the same effect on me as hemlock did on Socrates, only it probably doesn't taste as good.

It's odd that I have such fond memories of something that tasted so awful.  I especially enjoyed the time I took about 20 Fizzies tablets and hid them in the pockets of my friend Sidney Passey's swimming trunks.  Sidney put on the trunks, jumped in the pool and his shorts suddenly began to foam, as a rainbow of colors emanated from his crotch area.  He later thanked me and said it gave him his first erection.  Now, that was a Happy Fizzies Party!

When the planes hit on 9/11, Michael Moore's new book, Stupid White Men, was all printed.  As it was a scathing onslaught on the morals of George W. Bush and his associates, that did not seem like a grand time to release it.  His publisher spoke of pulping the press run and either forgetting the whole matter or, if Moore was amenable to a rewrite, issuing a much toned-down version.  Moore was not amenable and, after much yelling and probably some threats, the book is now out in its original form.

I haven't read it yet but even if it's wildly off-base, inaccurate and foolish, it could do a lot of damage to George W. Bush, his administration and all that his supporters hope he achieves.  Why?  Because, as I write this, Stupid White Men is number one on both the Amazon.Com and Barnes & Noble best seller lists.  As Moore is just beginning a major book tour, it will probably reside on or about the top of the sales charts for a while.

I am not suggesting that anything Moore wrote or that he might say on talk shows will change a lot of minds.  America doesn't work that way.  Still, he may accomplish two things that could cause Bush & Co. a load of grief.  One is that he may make it, if not fashionable then at least not as unconscionable to attack the President.  A lot of folks who might be slamming Bush have been laying low, lest they be accused of treason, and this may give them the courage to speak out.  And the other thing Moore's book may accomplish is to demonstrate that a person can step up to big pay in the fast-paced world of Bush-bashing.

I'm going to show my cynical side here: I think we overlook how much of our public discourse is in the hands of pundits and columnists who have two priorities and, often, the one that advances liberal or conservative causes is not, to them, the more important of the two.  The other is personal fame and fortune.  They say what gets them on TV and makes money.  I don't mean they don't believe what their shpiels — though a few sure seem like they'd renounce every position they hold for the right price.  Arianna Huffington, for instance, seems to have found the competition among attractive conservative women too fierce and decided to stake out her turf in liberal country.

No, I mean even the pundits who earnestly hold the convictions they voice have learned that it's good business to be relentless and even to exaggerate those convictions.  It sure works for Talk Radio hosts.  (And I dunno…if you found that espousing some opinion made you rich and famous and caused audiences to cheer you, might you not tend to become more convinced of it?)

Early in the Clinton Administration, several publishers and pundits discovered that there was moola to be made from attacks on Bill and Hillary.  Even when Clinton had his 78% approval rating, the remaining 22% of America was willing to shell out serious coin for books that said Slick Willy had been running drugs and having people murdered while he was busily boffing trollops in the Lincoln bedroom.  There was — and in some circles, still is — a hatred out there that liked to hear that William Jefferson Clinton was the Anti-Christ, and some didn't even seem to care if the charges were dubious or disproven.  I was genuinely disappointed when Peggy Noonan — someone I'd kinda admired — wrote her anti-Hillary screed.  It was kind of like, "I don't have anything of substance to say about Hillary Clinton but I can't miss this chance to get a book on the Best Seller list."

Michael Moore may or may not have anything of substance to say about the current Oval Office occupant.  That may not matter.  What does matter is that Michael Moore is atop the Best Seller list.  If he's there a while, a lot of someones will decide — if they haven't, already — that Bush-hating may be even more lucrative than Clinton-hating.  And of course, the books don't even have to be true.  They just have to be vaguely credible to those who already hate the guy.  Clinton was vulnerable because of all the rumors of his womanizing and sleazy business deals.  Bush is vulnerable because of all the rumors of his drug use and sleazier business dealings.  The latter may make excellent fodder for further best sellers as more corporations go the way of Enron and the public loathing for the Ken Lays of the world intensifies.  Whether it's valid or not — and nowhere here am I suggesting it is or isn't — it will not be hard to whip up volumes that portray our current Prez (and even his father and Veep) as having habitually made millions off business deals where everyone else got screwed.

I said here before that I didn't think Enron would directly hurt Bush.  I don't believe anyone will ever draw a connection of the "smoking gun" variety between him and any illegal actions.  On the other hand, he will never shake the association with corporate rape.  And Moore's book will spawn others…because he's proving that there's money in proclaiming the scandals of the Bush Administration.  And the buying public always gets what it wants…

One more thought about Chuck Jones: One would have expected the tributes and regrets that are now filling the animation-oriented sectors of the Internet.  What is even more amazing — and indicative of his influence — is the mourning taking place in forums that have nothing to do with cartoons or comics.  On political chat boards, sports newsgroups, discussion groups of all subjects, one finds an outpouring of respect and people outside the cartoon community writing of their sense of loss.  I suspect those of us who thought of Chuck just for what he did for animation vastly underestimated his impact on American popular culture.  He left his fingerprints on an entire generation or three…

One of the nation's most popular radio personalities, Paul Harris, broadcasts his popular program out of St. Louis on "The Big 550, KTRS."  His glorious tradition of interviewing the best and the brightest ends on Monday, 2/25, when the operator of this website joins him for a chat about the legacy of Chuck Jones.  It oughta happen around 1:30 in the afternoon, Central Time.  You can find out more about Mr. Harris's program at www.HarrisOnline.com.  (There's a link there to listen online but I never have much luck with those…)

Maybe I'm dense…no, no "maybe."  I am dense.  But that's not the reason I don't understand something rather basic about Internet Behavior.  The other day on a public discussion board, my name came up.  Someone forwarded me a message posted there where a person wrote, "I'd ask Mark Evanier but I don't know his e-mail address."

How can someone not find my e-mail address?  Even if it didn't dawn on them to try www.evanier.com (which forwards to this site, which has an e-mail link on every page), we have these things on the Internet called Search Engines.  I just went to ten of them, typed in "Evanier" and every one linked me to this site in under five seconds and three of them yielded my e-mail address instantly.  In the time it took that person to type that he didn't know my e-mail address, he could have found my e-mail address six times.

It's not just info about me.  All the time on public boards and newsgroups, I see questions that could be answered in under 30 seconds with a quick trip to www.google.com or any of several other popular Search Engines. The Internet is a terrific resource for looking up info.  I continue to be amazed at what I can find on-line and often with very little burrowing.  But you do have to look, at least a little.  It's not enough to just post questions and hope someone will tell you the answers.