Monthly Archives: December 2007

In case you're keeping score, Letterman's producers have moved Donald Trump from the Wednesday show to Friday, displacing Tracy Morgan. (Friday's show, by the way, will be taped on Wednesday.) I should also mention that Thursday night's show will have a musical number from Young Frankenstein.

We love most of the comic book style fonts that our friends over at Comicraft make and offer to the public, and you'll even see a few of them in evidence on this site. If you've been thinking of ordering any of them, tomorrow is the day. In honor of the New Year, all fonts are $20.08 — including some that ordinarily sell for $19.00. Forget those and buy the more expensive ones cheap by clicking on this link tomorrow. We don't make a buck off this. We just like to tell you about bargains.

Mike Huckabee had a press conference this morning that has even his devout supporters scratching their heads, wondering what the hell he was thinking. It's like the guy had just decided to remake Skidoo, only odder.

Basically, he announced that his reps had prepared an attack ad slamming Mitt Romney but that he [Huckabee] wasn't going to use it. And then, just to show that he'd made something he didn't want America to see, he then ran it for reporters.

The commercial accuses Romney of being dishonest, a comment that Huckabee and his crew have made in other ways in other venues. So he said it and he stands by it and he clearly wants that message out there…but he's electing not to use the ad because he doesn't want that kind of commercial (the kind he made, the one that's all over the Internet by now) to represent him. Or something like that.

I'm tempted to write out the question that I'd like to see Jay Leno put to the man when he has him in the guest chair on Wednesday. But I can't. There's a strike on.

So…is Bill Maher going back to work without his writers? The HBO site says that all new episodes of Real Time begin on January 11, and Maher is listed on the CBS site as David Letterman's first guest this Thursday, which suggests the man has something to plug.

Robin Williams is Dave's first guest on the Wednesday night return. He may or may not be followed by Donald Trump, who wanted to appear because he has a new show to plug and also because a week ago when he was booked for that night, he thought he'd be able to cross a picket line on the way in. He always enjoys that. Anyway, the CBS website says Williams and Trump will be the guests, followed by musical guest Shooter Jennings. A piece in the N.Y. Times said that Trump will move to another night.

Letterman's first guest on Friday night is listed as Tracy Morgan. Maher and Morgan are both entertaining guys but I would have expected bigger names for this "return" week. Leno, meanwhile, has Mike Huckabee on Wednesday night. Which I guess means Huckabee is writing off the union vote.

No word yet on who else Leno will have on or who'll be crossing picket lines to guest with O'Brien and Kimmel. The shows are keeping the names secret as long as possible to prevent the guests from being pressured and perhaps backing out. Massive protests are planned for outside the studios. If you ever really wanted to hobnob with stars, you might want to go to NBC Burbank on Wednesday and join the picketing.

Tom Lehrer stopped performing long ago…but in 1998, he sat down at the piano again as part of a gala tribute to producer Cameron Mackintosh. Here is a video of his performance and if you like it, thank Robert Spina. He told me about it…

One of the weirdest movies ever made will be on your TV shortly…that is, if you get Turner Classic Movies. I do want to make clear that though I write a lot about this film, I am not (repeat: NOT) telling you that Skidoo is a great movie and that you will admire the brilliant filmmaking skills on display. This is a movie to make your jaw hang open in astonishment and to cause you to mumble, "What the hell were they thinking?" Or maybe "What the hell were they smoking?"

There are a lot of such movies around but it's rare that you see one with so many familiar faces, including those of Jackie Gleason, half the cast of the Batman TV show, and Groucho Marx in his final screen appearance. I guess Groucho figured that after you've played God, anything else is anti-climactic.

I will suggest that this film has redeeming features, above and beyond its sheer camp value. Friends and I have had some spirited, enlightening discussions about what the movie business was going through in 1968, with studios and filmmakers floundering about, trying to grab onto a youth market that wasn't warming to the same old, same old. It also says something — the "what" is highly arguable but there's something — about the way the country was changing and leaving some people (Otto Preminger, obviously among them) behind.

Anyway, I suggest you watch or tape or TiVo. But I have to warn you that this is not Gone with the Wind. Then again, it also isn't The Gong Show Movie, either. (It has long amused me that those two movies appear, one after the other, in Leonard Maltin's movie guide.)

From a 1984 episode of Entertainment Tonight, here's Leonard Maltin reporting on the enduring popularity of Rocky and Bullwinkle, complete with interviews with Bill Scott and June Foray, and them staging a mock recording session for the camera.

Bill was, of course, more than the voice of Bullwinkle and other key characters in the Jay Ward cartoons. He was Jay's co-producer and head writer…and much of the wonderful humorous style of those shows was Bill's humor. At the time this Entertainment Tonight segment was done, Bill was a little frustrated that plans for more projects of the Moose and Squirrel kept falling through…which was due more to business problems than the network interference he complains about. Not that the then-current pressure to launder cartoons and make them "socially redeeming" was not a formidable obstacle.

Still, he had hopes. Shortly after the time this was taped, Bill and I and a brilliant actor named Frank Welker began working on a Dudley Do-Right project. It was humming along nicely until late '85 when Bill passed away.

Happily, June is still around to bask in the love that so many of us have for those films. Her autobiography, which Earl Kress and I are assisting her with, should be out in '08.

Here's a few minutes of Bill and June from 1984…

I mentioned in the previous post that I didn't recall Tumbleweeds ever appearing in any Los Angeles newspaper…and I didn't. Apparently, it was in the L.A. Times for several years. I don't think I read it there. I think I discovered it in the paperback collections.

This may sound odd but I used to be a voracious fan of newspapers…and a great fan of newspaper strips. But for some reason, I never really liked reading newspaper strips in newspapers. My affection for certain strips is based almost wholly on getting them in collections. This probably has something to do with having been reared in the era of television (I was born in '52) and reading so many comic books…getting my entertainment in larger, immediate increments instead of a tiny piece at a time.

I was going to write that this impatience can only be more intense for a generation that has always had the Internet available to it…but maybe not. Maybe, just as they can get used to checking their favorite websites every morning, folks are becoming more accepting of serialization…not that they'll ever go back to paper newspapers. But I wonder if "these kids today" are more or less likely than I was/am to enjoy following something day to day, as opposed to getting it all in one lump.

Can't let today end without waving goodbye to Tumbleweeds, the long-running newspaper strip which made its final appearance in today's funny pages. The western-themed feature made its debut in 1965 and now its creator, Tom K. Ryan, is retiring and taking his characters with him. I don't recall it ever appearing in any Los Angeles newspapers. I discovered it in the seventies via its paperback reprints, of which there have been more than twenty volumes over the years. It was a pretty funny little strip and once you got enchanted with Ryan's townspeople and Indians, impossible to resist. A lot of folks are going to miss it.

There is much to say about the supposed Pie Face game from Hasbro that was the subject of this morning's Video Link. Here's a couple of examples from the flurry of messages I've received, starting with this one from my pal Marvin Silbermintz, who has nothing better to do at the moment since he's a writer for Jay Leno. Before that, he was a game designer for Ideal Toys and he offers what he calls an educated guess…

I think it was actually manufactured. The product in the commercial doesn't seem to be a hand-made prototype:

The yellow base is made of two pieces, glued together at the very visible seam. So they actually made a mold, which is very expensive and not done unless the item will go into production. (Unless…..it was a cheap vacuum-formed mold that forms a sheet of plastic into the shape you want. That's a small possibility.)

The yellow base also seems to have inset screw-holes, which a modelmaker wouldn't have bothered to drill.

The red hand has a hole in the center, presumably to accommodate a 'pin' on the dish that guides the factory worker who glues them together.

The artwork on the board has a copyright notice below the name 'PIE FACE' — a detail that would be left out if it was just a prototype.

I can't see the box clearly, but it seems to have lots of detail, and cover art that was more than a magic marker sketch. More evidence that it was actually produced.

Toy companies as big as Hasbro expected about half of their new items to fail. So this could have been a real stinker that sounded great during the brainstorming sessions, but bombed. These items were shipped back to the manufacturer (it's not like the book business) who would sell them to junk stores. (Sometimes a deal was made with the original purchaser to sell them off at a very low price.)

And there were lots of reasons for it to fail…

• Parents would think it was too messy for their house.
• Parents realized the cost of whipped-cream would soon be more than the cost of the toy.
• Customers like to get everything they need in the box. (Except paper, a pencil, or water.) So why buy it and have to buy whipped cream too? You could have almost the same gameplay with a paper plate and whipped cream.
• The whole thing is just too clumsy. And big — the box looks like it's twice as big as the average action toy. That's extra cost for shipping and storing.

I guess I should be grateful this strike has given me more time for my true passion; Fifties Action Game Reverse Engineering and Retroanalysis.

And that's probably a lot funnier than anything Jay's going to be doing on Wednesday. Your deductions, Sherlock Silbermintz, are spot-on and though many an e-mailer joined me in wondering about this game we couldn't recall ever hearing about, it was real. A likeness of the box is posted above (thank you, Sid) and I have much testimony in e-mail, such as this from John Schwengler…

I seem to remember it from when I was in Grade Two (which would be around '67-'68) — a friend had gotten one for his birthday. Basically, it was a laminated cardboard screen with a clear plastic "bag" in the centre (gee, I wonder if the idea of a kid pressing his face into a plastic bag as he turned the spring, possibly asphyxiating himself may have something to do with it vanishing). If I remember (from the one time we played with it), the pie kept slipping off of the paddle after a couple of turns, it was messy and it turned into a war with the can of spray shaving cream (two cans of cream and a group of seven year olds — we didn't need a game!)

I do know that Hasbro re-released a product under the same name in the early nineties (I thought it was the original!) but it was more of a board and card game with no splat. Too bad.

Gary L. had this to say…

I saw your entry about Pie Face, and I can assure you the game actually did exist, because I owned it! I never saw the commercial you linked to, but I became aware of the game in a more interesting way: it was demonstrated by Johnny Carson, during a Tonight Show segment about new toys!

I was always a huge Soupy Sales fan, and thought this game was my best opportunity to get hit with a pie (as well as all my friends) without getting in any trouble. The game was actually a lot of fun, especially if you played without the protective plastic mask (strictly for cowards).

Alas, my Pie Face game is long gone, but I have seen it show up occasionally on eBay. That game, along with the Eldon Bowl-a-Matic (also a rarity), were probably my two favorite toys of the 60's.

Chris Smigliano remembers it, too…

I remembered those commercials, too, and yep, it existed. When I was a wee first grader in Catholic School, they actually used one of those things during a school fair. I don't think I tried it myself, but I remember someone complaining that there was no cream they could use for the pie. The only option was to be hit in the face with a plain round piece of foam rubber.

Which is always fun. Here's a message from Marc Thorner…

Here is a memory for you. I remember watching an episode of the old Merv Griffin Show when he use to demonstrate the latest gadget and toys for the holiday season. What I remember about this was that he played Pie Face with his cohort, Arthur Treacher. What I remember was that bit was funny in that Mr. Treacher was the one who got pied and that Merv made a big deal out of over doing it with the whipped cream. Man, the crap I do remember…

I think I do vaguely recall Johnny or maybe Merv showing the game. I'm just pretty sure I never saw the commercial and (speaking of remembering crap), I usually remember the commercials better than the shows. I think it's pretty obvious why this one never caught on. Isn't the premise of a pie-in-the-face that the person doesn't want to get hit with a puss full of cream? The game not only made it voluntary but inevitable…plus, of course, all the safety gear really made it sterile and non-spontaneous.

For the record: Soupy Sales used to get whacked with pie shells full of some brand of shaving cream that didn't sting the eyes. Some did but Soupy had found one or two that didn't. The shaving cream clung to the face better than anything edible and it cleaned up much, much easier. When I visited the set of his seventies show, I saw them using a Wet-Vac style vacuum cleaner to effortlessly suck it off Soupy's set and even his chest…and it wiped clean from his face with a towel without even disturbing his make-up that much. I got to lob one of the pies at him in a sketch that involved him being hit with around forty or so of 'em and I swear…two minutes after it was done, there wasn't a trace of shaving cream on the set or Soupy, and he was ready to tape the next spot. Isn't science wonderful?

PBS has a couple of things coming up this week that I haven't seen but which may be of interest to the kind of person who'd come to a site like this…

New Year's Day (the night before in a few cities), they're running Words and Music by Jerry Herman, a new documentary on the man who wrote the scores for Hello, Dolly and Mack & Mabel and La Cage aux Folles and so many others. Further details are available over on this page.

Then on Wednesday, most PBS stations will run the first of four one-hour documentaries entitled Pioneers of Television that explore great old programs of the past. The first is about situation comedies and the second is about late night programming. This webpage will give you more info.

Like I said, I haven't seen any of this. But I will. Keep in mind that some PBS affiliates seem to delight in running the network's programming at the oddest times…or not at all.

There are now more theories about how Benazir Bhutto died than there are about John F. Kennedy. I vote for the one about Bhutto being slain by an army of Cubans hiding on the grassy knoll.

It's been a while since we dug into the ol' Strike Mailbag. Let's start with this one from Bolera, whoever he or she is…

I'm reading on some boards that many WGA members are mad about the settlement with David Letterman's company and may go back to work and break the strike. Do you think that's really going to happen? And in light of that, do you think the deal with Dave was a bad idea?

I don't think that's really going to happen. I mean, there are probably a few guys out there who have been itching all along to cross the picket lines and go back to work, and who've been waiting for some excuse to be outraged and do so. You have that in any union. So far in this strike, I've seen a lot less of that than I did in the four previous WGA strikes where I carried a picket sign. In each of those, we had a band of name writers announcing — and not anonymously — that if the strike wasn't settled in X days or weeks, they were going to return to work and sabotage (or quit) their own union. In '85, we had a large group that said that before the strike, before we'd even gotten the AMPTP's "final" (and terrible) offer.

As far as I know, none of those threats were ever really acted upon. In 1985, the strike did collapse before the dissidents had to make good on theirs. In other years, anyone in that position kept postponing the pulling of the trigger until it became moot. Interestingly, I can think of at least three writers who made such pronouncements in years past and are among the most militant members supporting the current strike.

So far, what I've seen is probably what you've seen: A few anonymous people posting such threats on the Internet…or warning that they know of vast quantities of unnamed showrunners who are convening and agreeing to head back to work any day now. Some of these messages are obviously bogus and I don't necessarily think they're AMPTP plants trying to undermine us. Some may be WGA members who wouldn't actually risk their own careers to take that action but who want to nudge their Guild to make more concessions and end the strike sooner.

We seem, as a Guild, to be very much together on the position that there must be a real share in New Media before a contract will be acceptable. On other issues, there's a majority but not as overwhelming a one. I had a friendly debate the other day with a writer who believes — and I think he's dead wrong about this — that if we only drop the notorious Six Demands, the AMPTP will scurry back to the table and give us everything we want in DVDs and Internet Streaming. Yeah, and if he also loses ten more pounds, Rebecca Romijn will leave her husband and move in with him.

Frankly, observing from afar, I think workable compromises are possible on a couple of those areas…and the ones about Fair Market Value and Distributor's Gross are too important to abandon. Those two are about closing the loopholes that allow studios to agree contractually to pay us a fair share…and then not pay it. Giving those up is like getting someone to agree to give you a share of the profits but granting them the power to define what constitutes profit.

I'd also add that just because you read an anonymous message in which someone says "I'm a WGA member and a staff writer on an NBC series," it doesn't mean the guy who wrote that message doesn't really work in the stockroom at Best Buy. I have an acquaintance who sends me a tirade about once a week — a fellow who occasionally sells a comic book script or two. He's angry that he doesn't sell more. He's furious that he's never gotten a TV job or sold any of the dozens of screenplays he's written. And he's especially livid that we've walked out on jobs that he would do for free, and which I suspect he's now offering to do for almost free. But no one wants his work…which, by the way, I'm not knocking at all. I've never read any of it. It could be brilliant for all I know, and he could just be doing a rotten job of selling it or having bad luck. (I suspect the former and that it's only going to get worse. The more desperate and bitter you seem, the less likely anyone is to even read your scripts or consider hiring you.)

Anyway, I'd wager that this guy — or others like him — are writing some of those messages, trying to gin up a little Schadenfreude. Look it up if you don't know the word. There's a lot of it in our profession. Some are probably nurturing the fantasy that not only will the strike collapse but that the producers will all say, "Let's never hire any of those people again. Let's find all our writers from now on by checking out the stockroom at Best Buy."

The deal with Letterman's company has probably put a very small dent in WGA solidarity for some while at the same time heartening a much larger number of members. If it's followed in the next week or two by other such interim contracts — especially if there are some significant independent movie companies in there — it'll be seen as a brilliant strategic move. Even now, most WGA members are not unhappy to see someone going back to work, especially since it's Dave's crew, which has been as supportive and loyal as anyone on the picket lines. I was leery of it at first but the more I think about it, the more I think it was a good gamble.

Our next question is from Shel Weisman…

So Letterman's writers go back to work and Craig Ferguson's do, as well. Does this mean no picket lines around the places they tape their shows? Doesn't Ferguson tape at the main CBS studio?

Well, it definitely means no picketing of the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York where Letterman does his show. In the case of Mr. Ferguson, he does tape at CBS Television City at Beverly and Fairfax, and that would ordinarily present a problem: How do we picket CBS, which we're still on strike against, without picketing Craig Ferguson? As it happens, the WGA decided two weeks ago to stop picketing that CBS facility, which is where I picket, and to move those picket teams over to Paramount. Picketing will continue at the CBS lot in the Valley.

I wondered at the time why we were abandoning Beverly/Fairfax since that's a very visible, important place to demonstrate. Maybe it was because they anticipated this deal. We have some pretty sharp folks strategizing so it wouldn't surprise me.

From "Dina B" comes this query…

So how do you think Leno without writers will fare against Dave with writers? I like both guys and would like to see the WGA show do better but fear that America long ago decided it liked Jay over Dave and that that's how it will go.

I don't know what'll happen because it's so unprecedented. A lot of it will depend on guests. Can Jay and his staff get enough interesting people to cross the picket line and come on? Will all the Big Names stampede to Letterman? Or if Jay's show is a disaster, will more people enjoy watching the train wreck over there? I have no idea. The first few nights both shows are back, the ratings probably won't be indicative of anything other than which way the Curiosity Factor is playing out. After a bit, some sort of trend will set in and I'm guessing it'll be a stronger Letterman show and a weaker Leno one, even if Dave does not retake the lead.

Jay Leno's a very nice, hard-working fellow who in the past has demonstrated an uncanny willingness to extend himself to help others and to do what's right. I think he got some very unfair, undeserved slams during the Tonight Show Wars, painted as a guy who elbowed the King aside and seized the throne away from its rightful heir. That was nonsense. He's always been one of the good guys and he's also a much better ad-libber than a lot of people think.

Unfortunately for him, he'll be hampered not only by the guest problem but by this lovely Catch-22: The funnier his show is and the more he does what he does best, which is monologue-style jokes, the more he's going to be accused of scabbing and employing scabs. I don't think a lot of folks resent him going back. He does have a perfectly valid, legal contractual obligation as a performer. He does have a staff (a very fine staff) that was about to be laid off. He did, at considerable personal expense, shut down for two months rather than to rush back on like Ellen DeGeneres. He has demonstrated his support for the strike and says he will continue to do so.

But if he goes out there and does a bad show, he's going to get hammered for that. And if he does a good one, he's going to get slammed for violating the rules of a strike he professes to support…and all of that effort is going to bolster a franchise that he's being forced to leave, anyway. So he's in a tough position, which is not to suggest I feel particularly sorry for the guy. I never feel that sorry for the career travails of anyone who makes that kind of money.

And our last question this time is from Billy Batson, who I'm guessing is not the kid who turns into Captain Marvel, but is actually someone who just likes those comic books…

I don't understand how the WGA can fight for jurisdiction over Animation from the studios. Isn't that some other union's job? Or isn't it up to the people who write Animation to decide what union they want to have represent them?

The Animation Guild, Local 839, has jurisdiction over some Animation Writing. At the moment, it's a majority but it's not exclusive. The WGA has jurisdiction over some, as well. There's a lot that is not covered by either. Obviously, it's a long-range goal for the WGA to cover all of it but that's way in the future, maybe on some other planet. The immediate battleground is those jobs that are completely unrepresented for collective bargaining. We want to give those writers the opportunity to elect, if they wish, to have the WGA represent them. (Full Disclosure: I have occasionally been one such writer.)

That "if they wish" is a key point to remember because the AMPTP is talking like we're asking them to just give us jurisdiction over everyone, regardless of what those writers want. Not so. First off, the writers working at studios signed with 839 are not in play. Nothing in the current negotiations (or probably the next one or the one after that, etc.) will affect their status. Insofar as the rest are concerned, what the WGA is asking for is for the AMPTP to get out of the way and not prevent a standard, garden-variety National Labor Relations Board action wherein those writers would get to vote for WGA representation if that's what they want. The AMPTP knows they will almost all want it.

We're making a completely reasonable demand here: Just let the basic process work. I hope the WGA doesn't get steamrollered into dropping it. I mean, I know that at some point, we're going to have to drop a couple of items on our Wish List that we really, really want and should get. We're expecting the studios to drop a couple of their fondest desires (like, say, to keep all the money from selling our work on the Internet) so we'll have to abandon some things. It would be a shame if this one had to go.

And right now, I have to go. Sorry this was so long. Tune in later today (maybe) for a long discussion of something that really matters: That Pie Face game.

Comedienne Beverly Wines, who went by the single stage name of Pudgy, was found dead of natural causes in her Las Vegas home the day before Christmas. Often described as a cross between Don Rickles and Totie Fields, Pudgy (which was usually written out as Pudgy!, with the exclamation point) got her start waiting tables in her native Chicago. She was a funny, acerbic waitress and more than a few patrons told her she belonged on the stage. She thought so, too…and wound up there, becoming a regular in Chicago night spots, especially the Pump Room.

Her career was intermittent, reportedly by choice. She valued raising a family more than stardom and only accepted performing gigs when she thought they wouldn't interfere. Sometimes, they were Vegas jobs and in 1993, when her kids were old enough, she moved to that town and began a string of long-term engagements, usually as emcee of hotel burlesque revues. I saw her when she hosted Crazy Girls, an otherwise unimpressive girlie show at the Riviera. Audiences came for the promise of nearly-naked women but they wound up clapping the hardest for the mistress of ceremonies who insulted them relentlessly when she wasn't mocking her own chubby appearance. She was fast and she was funny and an amazing percentage of her stream of conscious invective seemed to be ad-libbed on the spot.

I met her after the show and we wound up sitting in the lounge, talking over beverages, until she had to get back for the next performance. She said that it was a constant challenge — two shows nightly, three on weekends — to "win over" an audience that didn't come to see a fully-clad fat lady. She said that about half the time, someone in the audience would yell, "Put it on!" The joke didn't bother her but "they're always so smug, like they were the first person to ever think of that. Sometimes, they aren't even the first person that night to yell it out." At the performance I caught, she left the audience wishing there'd been a little less of the naked women with the bad implants and more of the fully-clad fat lady.

Wish I could remember some of her lines to quote here. Most of them were funnier for their speed and attitude than for anything else so maybe they wouldn't translate. But I do remember thinking she deserved to work much bigger venues than the Crazy Girls Theater at the Riviera.

I occasionally write here about games and toys I remember from my childhood…but I absolutely do not recall ever hearing or seeing this one, even though it allegedly came out in 1968, a year when I watched every danged cartoon show I could. It's called Pie Face and apparently all it did was to enable you to hit yourself in the face with a pie in what looks like the safest, least fun way imaginable. It looks like it was designed by someone who actually could not grasp the basis for humor in the act of being hit with a pie.

A quick Internet search reveals no one writing about owning it or playing it…no antique toy dealers selling it…no eBay auctions of old Pie Face games…nothing. So I'm wondering if it was ever actually produced or if the commercial that is our link today was done for some sort of test marketing that did not yield an actual product. A few people on the 'net are looking for it. No one seems to have it. Is there anyone reading this who is prepared to swear on the good name of Soupy Sales that they actually owned and played Pie Face?

Here. Have a look at this thing and tell me if it looks familiar…