From the E-Mailbag…

B. Monte read what I wrote about how Jonathan Winters didn't appear that often with Johnny Carson even though those appearances always went well…

I can think of one reason that might explain why Johnny didn't have Jonathan on more often.

You have written about how Johnny tightly controlled the show and that almost every impromptu story and surprise stunt was pre-approved. While the Winters segments were very entertaining, I can imagine that Carson had a love/hate relationship with having Winters on the show — they were great segments, but Johnny had no control over what would happen (and had no chance of regaining control).

I dunno. Johnny had Rodney Dangerfield on as often as he could get him and Rodney was pretty much on auto-pilot. If you watched Rodney on talk shows, he came out with a list in his head of the jokes he wanted to tell and the order he was going to tell them. A host could knock him off his script by trying to get him to not go straight on to the next one. All Johnny would do was to interject a quick question like, "Have you seen your doctor lately?" and Rodney would say, since the doctor jokes came later, "I'm going to the doctor later" and plunge right into the next joke on the list.

Other hosts tried to actually participate in Rodney's "act" and to actually interview him. It killed his rhythm. And Johnny did the same thing in that clip with Jonathan: just laid back and let the guest soar. He also did it when Robin Williams was on and he let guests like Charles Grodin control the conversation if the audience was laughing.

One of the things Carson learned from Jack Benny — one of the things that kept Johnny on the air for so long — was the principle that if the audience is laughing and it's your show, it doesn't matter who's getting the laughs. Benny let Don Wilson get the laughs. He let Dennis Day get the laughs. He let Mary Livingstone, Mel Blanc, Frank Nelson and all the others — and especially Rochester — get the laughs. Johnny loved it when a Don Rickles or a Mel Brooks got on a roll.

And you can see how delighted he was with Jonathan in that clip. I'm wondering if Jonathan didn't resent what The Tonight Show paid and turned down requests to come on the program…and only accepted them every so often when he felt the need to remind the industry that he was still around and still funny.

Then again, the guy loved to perform. I once saw him do 20 minutes for customers in a Honeybaked Ham shop on Riverside Drive. So like I said…I dunno.

From the E-Mailbag…

My friend Randy West is a great announcer, especially for game shows. A few years ago, he authored a book on another great announcer of game shows, the legendary Johnny Olson. Randy read what I wrote about Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel and sent me a note excerpting that book…

Frank Nelson recalled in 1980, "It was not until 1933 that any transcontinental shows emanated from Hollywood. The first of these was called Hollywood on the Air. I announced the show and also worked as an actor. Sometimes when a star scheduled to appear failed to show up, I did the star's part, too. The show ran 1933 and part of 1934."

Nelson remembered that NBC's first outpost in the film capitol was only a single office on the RKO movie back lot, and that radio work was performed in the immense motion picture sound stages before NBC built any broadcasting studios on the west coast. Nelson recalled, "The first sponsored transcontinental show out of here was an original Marx Brothers show." That program was Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel, a madcap comedy set in a disreputable law firm…

Interesting to note…and there's lots more of interest in Randy's fine book, Johnny Olson: A Voice in Time. You can order a copy (and find out all about Randy) over on his website. [Warning: It makes noise when you go to it.]

COL053

Frank Nelson

by Mark Evanier

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 12/1/95
Comics Buyer's Guide

Long before my time — and, perhaps, yours — there was a thing called radio. I don't mean "radio" like the thing that broadcasts Howard Stern, baseball, Top 40 countdowns, Rush Limbaugh, easy listening and news. I mean "radio" like the thing that broadcast The Lone Ranger, The Shadow, Amos and Andy, Henry Aldrich and Duffy's Tavern. Radio used to feature all of them plus many other wonderful comedy shows and dramas.

If you polled radio buffs as to which was the best show ever done, I'd be very surprised if The Jack Benny Program didn't place in the top three. It was one of the top shows for many years and, even today, when you can listen to some of the most popular shows of the day and wonder what anyone liked about them, it holds up. It really was a very funny show.

One of the reasons, of course, was Jack Benny…a wonderful man and, as we shall see, a very brave one. Another was his writing staff, widely hailed as the best in radio. And still another was his supporting cast which included Don Wilson, Dennis Day, Sheldon Leonard, Mel Blanc, Benny Rubin, Phil Harris, Mary Livingstone and the very funny, gravel-throated Eddie "Rochester" Anderson.

All of the supporting players had funny lines on the Benny show. So did the guest stars. Everyone had funny lines on the Benny show except, usually, Benny. Jack always let everyone else have the joke; his job was to react to them and, usually, be the butt of everyone else's comments.

Benny didn't care if he got the laugh or the other guy got the laugh. He knew that if the show was funny, he'd be a hit, even if the audiences did spend most of their time laughing at what Dennis Day or Don Wilson said.

Most comics, past or present, would never have done that. Comedians who are stars of shows — especially if their name is part of the title — have been known to go through scripts, circle every funny line that isn't theirs and say, "Give those to me or cut them…this is my show." And it does not a lick of good to point to Jack Benny and to note that no comedian was ever more successful.


Of all the wonderful characters who frequented the show — some every week, others now and then — my favorite was Frank Nelson. Nelson's character never had a name and he never had a steady job. He would just pop up wherever the storyline took Jack Benny that week. If the plot called for Jack to go to a department store, Frank Nelson worked in the department store. If the plot called for Jack to go get his driver's license renewed, Frank Nelson was the guy behind the counter giving the eye exam. One time, the story had Jack dreaming of being a condemned criminal walking the last mile. The executioner turned out to be…well, you've got the idea by now.

The best part of every Frank Nelson appearance was the "reveal." Benny would approach a clerk whose back was turned. Jack would say "Excuse me" and the man would whirl around and be revealed as Frank Nelson. And the audience — this is the Benny TV show I'm talking about now, obviously — would get hysterical in anticipation of what was to come. They were rarely disappointed.

On radio, Nelson couldn't spin around and be revealed so he was, instead, identified by his signature line…he'd say, with a huge, phony smile, "Yesssssssss?" He said it on TV, too. And in movies. And almost anywhere else people hired him.


As an actor, Nelson worked a lot and not just for Benny. Last evening, watching Nick at Nite, I caught him on an old I Love Lucy. The night before, while playing with my TV satellite dish, I caught a few moments on Showtime of what must have been one of his last roles. It was a film called Malibu Bikini Shop and Nelson — wearing a leisure suit and a dreadful hairpiece — actually managed to steal the scene I caught from a bevy of beauty queens, each wearing a swimsuit crocheted out of a ration of dental floss.

He also used his old radio skills and penchant for overacting to do occasional work in radio commercials and animated cartoons. One of his latter jobs was in one of the prime-time Garfield cartoon specials, back before I began working on the cat.

Jim Davis, creator of Garfield, had written and was voice-directing the special and he had included a role for a clerk who was written as a Frank Nelson type. The character first appeared, as Frank always did, intoning, "Yessssssss?" The Casting Director, assuming prematurely that the guy who did that bit on radio must be deceased, booked voice actor Hal Smith for the role. (Most folks recall Hal in his role of Otis the Town Drunk on the old Andy Griffith Show but his main line of work for years was animated cartoon voiceovers.)

Hal arrived at the recording session and Jim explained to him what the role involved, how he'd be imitating that old radio actor, Frank Nelson.

"Why didn't you hire that old radio actor, Frank Nelson?" Smith asked.

"He's dead," Jim said, for that is what he'd been told.

"Gee," Hal said. "That's shocking…especially considering we had lunch together, half an hour ago."

Jim instantly had Hal call Frank and then reapportioned the other roles in the script so that Hal had other parts to play. About a half hour later, an elderly figure shuffled into the studio. Seeing him at a distance arriving, Jim whispered to an associate, "I think I was right."

But it was just a joke because, as it turned out, Frank only looked bad at a distance. Up close — and, more importantly, at the microphone — he was his old self. Everyone was quite pleased with his performance.


It must have been a few months later that I wrote a CBS Storybreak…an animated special called The Roquefort Gang, based on a kids' book of the same name. The plotline called for the title characters (they were mice) to battle a snotty, sarcastic cat. This was a few years before Jim Davis and I got together and I wound up writing the Garfield cartoons for much of a decade. At the time, my main concern was how to do this fat, snide pussycat character without him coming off as a road show Garfield.

One key was to think of (and write according to) a different voice. I don't know what made me think of Frank Nelson but, once I did, everything fell into place and the script wrote effortlessly. Then came the meeting to plan out the voice casting.

Usually, for a special like this, you spend a day at a recording studio, having a number of voice actors read for each of the lead roles. Each actor is recorded reading some audition copy a few times until the director decides the applicant is as good as he's going to get. Then the best "takes" are transferred to audio cassettes and whoever's in charge can listen to them and decide which voice they want for each role. Once this decision is reached, those selected are hired and everyone goes into a studio and the voice track is recorded, very much like an old radio show, with each actor at a microphone, reading his or her script out loud.

In an office at CBS, the show's producer and I huddled to decide what actors to audition for each role. But when it came to the cat, I said, "The cat is Frank Nelson." (I knew the guy was alive, even if Jim Davis's Casting Director didn't. I'd even obtained Nelson's agent's phone number.)

The producer started to put Frank Nelson's name on the audition list. I said, "No, no…I want to just give him the role. Let's not make him audition."

"We have to have him audition," the producer said. "What if we get him into the studio and he's wrong for the role?"

"He's not wrong for the role," I said. "Trust me. I wrote it with him in mind." I even pointed out the cat's first line. It was — you're way ahead of me — "Yesssssss?"

A friendly (sort of) argument followed. The producer argued that, if we hired Nelson without an audition and then didn't like him, it would cost about a thousand dollars to replace him. I said, "Just hire him. I'm sure about this."

The producer wasn't budging so, finally, I gave in. Frank Nelson was booked to come in and read for the part of the cat. There were seven roles to cast this way and we set up audition times for around thirty actors to read, many for more than one role.


It was one of the hottest days in L.A. history and, as is usual for auditions, we were running way behind. Still, it was an exciting day: There are dozens of wonderfully-talented actors and actresses in Hollywood who do cartoon voices and we had some of the best coming in to try out.

The producer and I ran the auditions at the recording studio. I'd go out to the lobby, where we usually had a half-dozen auditioners waiting, and call for the next person like a nurse telling someone in the waiting room that the doctor was ready to see them. I'd explain the role to the actor, we'd put them in the booth at the microphone, give them a chance to read the script aloud a few times to "warm up" and then we'd roll tape.

I will never, as long as I live, forget summoning Frank Nelson. He was sitting in the recording studio's lobby, absently paging through a magazine older than he was, surrounded by young actors who didn't know who he was. I stepped into the lobby and said, "Mr. Nelson?"

And he turned towards me — so help me — and went, "Yessssss?" Just like on the Benny show.

I broke into laughter and the other auditioners — the younger actors sitting in chairs around him — suddenly recognized him and they all broke into applause. I have never seen another actor get applause from his peers in the waiting room.

I escorted Mr. Nelson into the recording studio, explained the role ("Try to sound like Frank Nelson") and then I walked him into the booth and put him in front of the microphone.

The producer was sitting in the next room, next to the engineer. As I returned to his side, we could hear Frank Nelson over the speakers, reading the audition script aloud, warming up. We weren't rolling tape yet but, even warming up, it was obvious that Nelson was perfect for the role.

The producer turned to me, sheepish enough to be carved up for lamb chops. "You were right. We shouldn't have wasted his time bringing him in here. Let's just give him the role." (Of course I was right. Do you think I'd be telling you this story if I'd been wrong?)

It then became my mission to get Nelson out of the studio as fast as possible. If he stayed around and read more, there was at least the slim chance that the producer would have second thoughts or heard something he didn't like. I didn't want to risk that happening.

When an actor is in the booth, you talk to them via a microphone set-up called a talkback. I pushed the talkback button and interrupted Nelson's warm-up. He was expecting me to say we were about to roll tape on his reading but instead, I said, "Mr. Nelson, we're sorry we brought you in here and wasted your time. You're perfect for this role and we want you to play it. We'll be in touch with your agent. Thank you."

Or, at least, that's what I thought I'd said. A sour look came over him, then he shuffled out of the booth and out of our studio. He sure didn't look like an actor who had just gotten a job.

It was about two minutes later that it suddenly hit me: He thinks we dumped him.

Sometimes, a rude director will make a snap decision and cut off an actor, dismissing him without letting him finish the audition. Nelson either hadn't heard me well or I'd misspoken. Whatever, he thought we had decided he was so lousy that, though we'd dragged him in here on this 101-degree day, we weren't even letting him try out.

I sprinted out of the studio, out of the building and scanned the street up and down. No sign of Frank Nelson.

Well, he couldn't have gotten far. I ran around the side of the building to a small parking lot in the rear. There, just getting into a Chrysler Imperial, I found Mr. Nelson and I rushed up to him.

"I'm sorry if I didn't make it clear. You have the role. We want to hire you. You are so perfect for this role and so good that we were just embarrassed we asked you to audition."

He smiled and thanked me. He'd assumed exactly what I feared he'd assumed. We chatted for a few minutes and he asked me, confidentially, what his agent could ask for in terms of money.

Usually, these specials paid union scale, which most folks consider decent pay for a cartoon voiceover job. Few actors ever get more. I remembered the embarrassed look on our producer's face and told Nelson, "Try for double scale. I'll see that you get it." (Well, it wasn't my money…)

Talk of double scale delighted him…not so much for the cash, I'm sure, as the prestige. And he got it.


A week later, our casting selects gathered in the same studio to record the show. We had some terrific voice actors in that session.

During a break, the actors got to talking and Frank mentioned something that is always a sore point with voice actors.

"On the way over," he said, "I heard a radio commercial and someone was doing me…imitating my voice. Not very well, I might add." He did an impression of someone doing a bad Frank Nelson imitation. We all laughed but Frank didn't find the matter funny. Nor would you if you made your living with your voice and someone had just made some money imitating you.

"I'm around," he said. "I'm available…they could have called me." All the other actors nodded in sympathy. "And what burns me," Nelson continued, "is that some actor didn't say no. They asked him to imitate me and he didn't have the professional courtesy to suggest they hire me instead." He told the story about Hal Smith phoning him and said Hal had acted as a pro.

All present agreed with Mr. Nelson. But as he told the story, I noticed one of our other voice actors — a very fine mimic — getting smaller and smaller, quieter and quieter. And I realized why.

I wandered over to him and whispered, "What's it worth to you for me not to tell Frank who the actor was in that commercial?"

"I'll bear you a child," he whispered back to me…and I could see he felt awful over what he'd done.

That evening, he called me to get Frank Nelson's phone number. He'd decided to call him, confess, apologize and offer to give his fee for the commercial to Frank or the charity of his choice.

He called…and Nelson was very gracious about it, even admiring of the guts it took to own up to the deed. The offer of the fee was declined. Mr. Nelson settled instead for a promise that the impressionist would never do it again.

As far as I know, the actor never has replicated another voice artist's sound since then. And even after Nelson passed away a few years later and it might have been okay, the actor declined all bookings to do "a Frank Nelson type." It just made him uncomfortable, he said. I think it speaks well of him that it did.

Today's Video Link

Here's an amazing effort. Animation director Chuck Jones used to dismiss TV cartoons as "illustrated radio." Well, this is illustrated radio. A fellow named Wayne Wilson took the 1949 Christmas episode of the radio show, My Favorite Husband starring Lucille Ball and used it as the soundtrack for this cartoon. It runs a little over 25 minutes and it's up on YouTube in three parts. I've configured a window below which should play them one after the other. If you don't feel like watching the whole thing, jump to the start of Part Three when the great Frank Nelson (subject of this article I wrote) puts in an appearance. Nicely done, indeed…

VIDEO MISSING

Today's Video Link

Yesterday, we had a commercial for Beany & Cecil toys from Mattel. Today, we have a clip that has three of them but the third one's a repeat so you don't have to watch it.

The first one features a voiceover that is either by Frank Nelson or by someone doing a darn good impression of him. I think it's Frank and I call your attention to this article that I wrote about him. In this commercial, you get to hear a little more of the voices that Daws Butler, as mentioned, did for these toys. (As several of you noted, not only does his Beany sound like his Elroy Jetson but his Cecil sounds a lot like his Quick Draw McGraw.)

Then the second commercial is all animated and features Irv Shoemaker, who did the voices of Cecil and Dishonest John on the cartoon show. A nice little ad.

And then the third spot is the same one as yesterday and you can skip it. Here we go…

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Today's Video Link

You'll recognize this commercial for Tootsie Roll Pops. It's been running on television, off and on, since its debut in 1969. They've recut it and reanimated parts of it and it was even redone in CGI…but this seems to be the full, original, minute-long version.

Here's the rundown on the voices. The little boy is Buddy Foster, who was the older brother of Jodie Foster. The cow is Frank Nelson, who you may recall as the man on The Jack Benny Program who always said, "Yesssss?" The fox is Paul Frees, who was the voice of everything while he was alive. The turtle is Ralph James, an actor who is probably best known today for voicing Orson, the commander of Mork on Mork & Mindy. The owl is the great ventriloquist, Paul Winchell, and the announcer at the end is Herschel Bernardi. Mr. Bernardi, of course, was starring in a TV series called Arnie around the time this was done, and was best known as the voice of Charlie the Tuna.

And while we're at it, here's the 30-second CGI version. Does anyone not like the original better?

Today's Video Links

Today, we have a ton of links for you but you'll have to hurry. Over on Google Video, a number of the clips that ordinarily cost a buck or two per download are free "today only." You can, for example, watch eight half-hours of Rocky and Bullwinkle. You can enjoy the adventures of Roger Ramjet, Felix the Cat or The Mighty Hercules.

The non-animated section includes a couple hundred episodes of The Charlie Rose Show. You might enjoy the interview with Stephen Sondheim or the chat with Dick Cavett or the conversation with Jay Leno or the hour with Donald Rumsfeld. In fact, if you scroll through the list of Charlie Rose episodes, you're bound to find a couple you'd like to watch.

I don't know how they're defining "today" so I don't know how long you'll be able to access all this stuff for free. I do know that you probably won't be able to watch it all today but some of you may figure out that you can use KeepVid to download the clips for later viewing. Copy the URL of the clip you crave into the appropriate window and you'll be able to save it to your harddisk as an FLV file. (You'll need an FLV player but there are plenty of free ones around…like this one, for instance.)

(Quick tip: If it doesn't work, go to the URL you pasted in and delete whatever search terms may have been appended to the web address. They usually start with an ampersand. Delete the ampersand and everything to the right of it and see if that works. And if it doesn't, just remember that Google Video has done free days before and may well do them again.)

In the meantime, here's yet another McDonald's commercial. This one is only interesting because it features the great comedy actor Frank Nelson. I was fortunate to work with Mr. Nelson a year or two before he left us and I wrote that story up and posted it here. He's the guy in the conductor outfit in this spot…

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From the E-Mailbag…

I have a lot of mail with questions flowing from my seven-part Batman article and I'll get to as many of them as I can over the next few days. Ken Barrett wrote to ask…

I'm intrigued by your tale of spending time with Bob Kane while he was drinking vodka and telling you his version of history. I understand that for many years, he supplied Batman art to DC and it was actually done by Sheldon Moldoff. That stopped at some time. Did he tell you how and when it had stopped? And how long did you know him? What was your relationship with him like?

He only told me a little of it but I learned the rest from a number of folks including Moldoff, Julius Schwartz and Nelson Bridwell.

I used to roughly estimate when I had my first two meetings with Bob Kane but the other day, it dawned on me that I could figure it out. He invited a bunch of members of our local comic book club up to his apartment and we all brought along comics for him to autograph. For some reason, I brought along a copy of the latest issue of Batman, which was #204. It contained what I'm fairly sure was the first Batman story ever to have actual script and art credits for the men who actually did those tasks instead of a faux Bob Kane signature…

You'll notice that "Story by Frank Robbins" and "Art by Irv Novick & Joe Giella" are crammed in oddly and the lettering is not by the person who did the rest of the lettering on that story.  From that, I conclude that the story was finished before its editor, Julie Schwartz — or someone at the office — realized, "Hey! Since we bought out Kane, we can start putting real credits on here like we do on all our other comics!" And the names were added at the last minute.

What had happened was that Kane's contract with them was expiring and DC wasn't about to give him the same terms again. At the time, they were in the process of selling the company and as I understand it, they needed a better release than they had from Kane that said DC owned Batman and he didn't. He got a lot of money from them…or what seemed like a lot of money at the time and probably looked like a bargain in later years.

Batman #204 came out on June 6, 1968 so our visit with Kane — when I was there as part of a group — would have been shortly after, probably the following Sunday, perhaps a week later. I vividly recall showing Kane that issue and noting for him that the comic now carried credits. I'd been puzzled why it didn't when almost all other DCs — especially those edited by Schwartz — did.

And I vividly recall the odd expression on Mr. Kane's face when he first laid eyes on a Batman comic book that credited Frank Robbins, Irv Novick and Joe Giella but not Bob Kane. He was not surprised. He knew it was coming because the new contract he'd signed months earlier had allowed them to do that…but it was still a jarring moment for him to actually see it in print.

Incidentally: The last six months or so of Kane supplying pencil art to DC occurred without the services of Sheldon Moldoff. Stories under the "Bob Kane" signature were ghosted by several men — Chic Stone, Frank Springer, Gil Kane and possibly Joe Certa. Schwartz's records (he kept good records) showed that Bob Kane was paid for the pencils on those stories so one might assume those men were paid by Bob. And one might be wrong.

I never asked Gil and I never met Joe Certa but Stone and Springer told me they were paid by DC. Shelly Moldoff's memory was that he drew all of the Batman stories Kane was obligated to supply until one day, Bob told him it was all over, so long, farewell…and Schwartz didn't recall.

So (I'm guessing here) Kane let Moldoff go prematurely, then realized more stories needed to be ghosted so DC selected and paid those ghosts. And maybe something was worked out where Kane reimbursed DC for what those men were paid or it was deducted from Kane's checks or something and that this "interim ghosting" went on until Kane's new deal was finalized and signed. You probably aren't as interested in this kind of thing as I am.

Bob Kane and Friend

My second visit with Bob Kane was about two weeks after the first one. It was on that visit that he gave me a very nice (I think) piece of art that he actually drew himself. I wrote about that here. Thereafter, I saw him here and there, off and on, and he sometimes remembered who I was and sometimes didn't.

One evening in the eighties, I hosted him, his wife, Julie Schwartz and a couple of comic-book-writing friends for an evening at the Magic Castle. Bob was chatty and he talked a lot, mainly about himself. He kept worrying aloud that people around us would find out who he was and pester him for autographs and sketches. At no point did he notice that sitting two tables from us — totally unpestered by anyone — was Johnny Carson.

I last saw Bob…well, I last saw him in 1998 but he was dead at the time. I was one of four people from the comic book field who attended his funeral, the other three being Paul Smith, Mike Barr and Stan Lee. One of these days, I should write about that afternoon. Before the ceremony, Stan took me aside and said, "They're expecting me to say a few words. Tell me what to say." I did and later as we both stood graveside, he was bored and he began telling me stories about Steve Ditko. I kept saying, "Shouldn't we be talking about Bob?"

My last memory of Robert "Bob" Kane was that after the services, as his friends filed past the open coffin, several of them shoved little toy Batmobiles and Batman action figures in there with him. If you ever met the man, you'd understand why that was not at all inappropriate.

Oh, Henry!

Hank Henry (1906–1981) was one of the last working comedians who started in and largely stayed in the realm of burlesque. At one point, he was reportedly teamed, Abbott & Costello style, with the handsome, popular straightman, Robert Alda. Robert's son Alan later became quite well known as an actor. Henry also shared stages with the real Abbott and Costello as well as Jackie Gleason, Phil Silvers, Red Buttons and many more.

As burlesque died its inevitable death, those who didn't graduate to the Gleason-Silvers level settled in one of the few places where their art form continued to thrive: Las Vegas. For years, Hank Henry was a superstar there — and only there — in revues, mostly at the old Silver Slipper casino. Some press clippings from the sixties call him the longest-running headliner in town…a position now shared by Penn & Teller.

When Hank Henry held the title, it was an honest but tough way to make a buck. Six nights a week (occasionally, seven) they'd do shows…sometimes four a night. And the four might well be spaced at 9 PM, 11 PM, 1 AM and at 2:30 AM. That's right: I said 2:30 AM. These days, very little entertainment is offered in Vegas or anywhere after Midnight but Hank Henry would be onstage at the Silver Slipper with a batch of stooges and semi-naked women until like four in the morning…with often, no cover charge, no minimum and free admission.

This has been floating around for a while on the Internet: An ad for The Bela Lugosi Revue, a show at the Silver Slipper starring Mr. Lugosi and Hank Henry plus the usual array of indecently-clad ladies along with Terre Sheehan, "The Girl in the Champagne Glass."  If I'd been her manager, I'd have changed her name to Olive. Sad to say, this was probably not the most embarrassing thing Bela did in his later years when he needed money.

But this post is about Hank Henry, who was one of those comedians people raved about. One of his many fans was Johnny Carson. In the days when Johnny would take two weeks off from The Tonight Show and play Vegas, he could often be found at one of Henry's 1 AM or 2:30 AM shows. Johnny once described him as "Rodney Dangerfield before there was Rodney Dangerfield."

An even better fan was Frank Sinatra who loved Hank, brought the whole Rat Pack to see him and even gave Hank roles in many of his films. You can see Hank Henry, usually playing a not-too-bright mobster in The Joker Is Wild, Pal Joey, Ocean's 11, Sergeants 3, Robin and the 7 Hoods and a few films that didn't star Ol' Blue Eyes.

But the greatest record of Hank Henry's work may be the 1960 movie he starred in, Not Tonite, Henry!, also sometimes spelled as Not Tonight, Henry! Earlier that year, Russ Meyer had released The Immoral Mr. Teas — the first in a wave of "nudie" films and featuring at least one of the same pairs of breasts. N.T.H. was the same kind of film with a slightly higher budget and a slightly wittier script. Note the use of the word "slightly."

It's a stupid film in a stupid genre with a stupid storyline full of stupid reasons for women (probably all strippers or burlesque stars) to be naked and it's about as arousing as watching your electric Ronco Food Dehydrator turn chunks of fresh pineapple into styrofoam. But the sheer "period" inanity of it is amusing and two performers — neither of them naked women — bring some value.

One, of course, is Hank Henry. The guy was funny. If someone had given him a network sitcom with a decent script, he could have been William Bendix or Ozzie Nelson. Throughout the film, he does these long-suffering looks into camera which almost made me think he was asking the audience to take pity on him for being in this movie.

And the other standout is the narrator. The credits say "Narrated by Larry Burrell" and Mr. Burrell was an occasional newsman who often played newsmen or reporters on TV shows. But it's not his voice in the movie, which kind of has two narrators. There's a serious gent who is not Larry Burrell. He in turn introduces the eminent authority on male/female relations, "Dr. Finster," who also is not Larry Burrell.

Paul Frees

Both announcers are Paul Frees. And as Dr. Finster, he babbles on for over an hour in the same voice he would begin using months later as Professor Ludwig Von Drake, occasional host of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color on NBC. If you love Paul Frees and that voice, he's a far greater reason to watch this movie than any stripper with her shirt off. And if you respect the vast voiceover skills of Mr. Frees from cartoons and real movies, you'll be more impressed with how he handles the most fatuous copy he was ever forced — at gunpoint, perhaps — to read into a microphone.

I had always heard about this film and I remember it being plugged in Playboy when I was officially too young to be looking at Playboy. The nekkid women in stills from this movie didn't intrigue me even then — too impersonal, too much like mannequins — but I was curious about Hank Henry. And I certainly didn't know that the narrator sounded like every great historical figure who had been visited by Mr. Peabody and Sherman.

I am not recommending the quality of this movie for there is little. I am also not endorsing the way it depicts women, which is mostly as statues to be admired from afar…and that's about all they're good for in Henry's world. I am not even praising the film transfer of the DVD of it I bought off Amazon. A few minutes in, I was wondering why they hadn't made this movie in color and then I realized they had. The print I was watching was just too faded.

But I bought it because I had a $5 gift certificate for Amazon and I stumbled across this movie which I've been curious about since about age thirteen…and it was $6.98. I figured it was worth two bucks to retire that curiosity forever. I think I more than got my money's worth but if you don't have a $5 gift certificate for Amazon, you might feel otherwise. Here's a link in case you're over eighteen but your sense of humor is still thirteen. At the very least, it's interesting to see a movie that couldn't, shouldn't or wouldn't be made today.

Today's Video Link

This is a scene from the 1944 movie, Hollywood Canteen. The Canteen was a club during war where soldiers could go to eat, drink and be entertained by some pretty big movie and radio stars and they made a movie about it.

Your admission ticket to the place was your uniform and you never knew who you were going to see performing there. The list included Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, Iris Adrian, Fred Allen, June Allyson, Brian Aherne, Don Ameche, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, The Andrews Sisters, Dana Andrews, Eve Arden, Louis Armstrong, Jean Arthur, Fred Astaire, Mary Astor, Roscoe Ates, Lauren Bacall, Lucille Ball, Tallulah Bankhead, Theda Bara, Lynn Bari, Jess Barker, Binnie Barnes, Diana Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Count Basie, Anne Baxter, Warner Baxter, Louise Beavers, Wallace Beery, William Bendix, Constance Bennett, Joan Bennett, Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen, Ingrid Bergman, Milton Berle, Julie Bishop, Mel Blanc, Joan Blondell, Ann Blyth, Humphrey Bogart, Mary Boland, Ray Bolger, Beulah Bondi, William Boyd, Charles Boyer, Clara Bow, Eddie Bracken, El Brendel, Walter Brennan, Fanny Brice, Joe E. Brown, Les Brown, Virginia Bruce, Billie Burke, George Burns & Gracie Allen, Spring Byington, James Cagney, Cab Calloway, Rod Cameron, Eddie Cantor, Judy Canova, Kitty Carlisle, Jack Carson, Adriana Caselotti, Charlie Chaplin, Marguerite Chapman, Cyd Charisse, Charles Coburn, Claudette Colbert, Jerry Colonna, Ronald Colman, Betty Compson, Perry Como, Chester Conklin, Gary Cooper, Joseph Cotten, Noël Coward, James Craig, Bing Crosby, Joan Crawford, George Cukor, Xavier Cugat, Cass Daley, Dorothy Dandridge, Linda Darnell, Harry Davenport, Bette Davis, Dennis Day, Doris Day, Yvonne De Carlo, Gloria DeHaven, Dolores del Río, William Demarest, Olivia de Havilland, Cecil B. DeMille, Andy Devine, Marlene Dietrich, Walt Disney, Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, Irene Dunne, Jimmy Durante, Deanna Durbin, Ann Dvorak, Nelson Eddy, Duke Ellington, Faye Emerson, Dale Evans, Jinx Falkenburg, Glenda Farrell, Alice Faye, Louise Fazenda, Stepin Fetchit, Gracie Fields, Barry Fitzgerald, Ella Fitzgerald, Errol Flynn, Kay Francis, Jane Frazee, Joan Fontaine, Susanna Foster, Eva Gabor, Ava Gardner, Judy Garland, Greer Garson, Lillian Gish, James Gleason, Betty Grable, Cary Grant, Kathryn Grayson, Sydney Greenstreet, Paulette Goddard, Samuel Goldwyn, Benny Goodman, Leo Gorcey, Virginia Grey, Jack Haley, Margaret Hamilton, Phil Harris, Moss Hart, Helen Hayes, Dick Haymes, Susan Hayward, Rita Hayworth, Sonja Henie, Paul Henreid, Katharine Hepburn, Portland Hoffa, Darla Hood, Bob Hope, Hedda Hopper, Lena Horne, Edward Everett Horton, Marsha Hunt, Ruth Hussey, Betty Hutton, Frieda Inescort, Jose Iturbi, Harry James, Gloria Jean, Anne Jeffreys, Allen Jenkins, Van Johnson, Al Jolson, Jennifer Jones, Marcia Mae Jones, Boris Karloff, Danny Kaye, Buster Keaton, Ruby Keeler, Gene Kelly, Evelyn Keyes, Guy Kibbee, Andrea King, Gene Krupa, Kay Kyser, Alan Ladd, Bert Lahr, Elsa Lanchester, Angela Lansbury, Veronica Lake, Hedy Lamarr, Dorothy Lamour, Carole Landis, Frances Langford, Charles Laughton, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, Peter Lawford, Gertrude Lawrence, Peggy Lee, Pinky Lee, Mervyn LeRoy, Vivien Leigh, Joan Leslie, Ted Lewis, Beatrice Lillie, Mary Livingston, Harold Lloyd, June Lockhart, Anita Loos, Peter Lorre, Myrna Loy, Keye Luke, Bela Lugosi, Ida Lupino, Diana Lynn, Marie McDonald, Jeanette MacDonald, Fred MacMurray, Marjorie Main, Irene Manning, Fredric March, The Marx Brothers, Herbert Marshall, Ilona Massey, Victor Mature, Elsa Maxwell, Louis B. Mayer, Hattie McDaniel, Roddy McDowall, Frank McHugh, Victor McLaglen, Butterfly McQueen, Lauritz Melchior, Adolphe Menjou, Una Merkel, Ray Milland, Ann Miller, Glenn Miller, Carmen Miranda, Robert Mitchum, Maria Montez, George Montgomery, Grace Moore, Jackie Moran, Dennis Morgan, Patricia Morison, Paul Muni, Ken Murray, The Nicholas Brothers, Ramon Novarro, Jack Oakie, Margaret O'Brien, Pat O'Brien, Virginia O'Brien, Donald O'Connor, Maureen O'Hara, Oona O'Neill, Maureen O'Sullivan, Merle Oberon, Eugene Pallette, Eleanor Parker, Harriet Parsons, Louella Parsons, John Payne, Gregory Peck, Nat Pendleton, Mary Pickford, Walter Pidgeon, Zasu Pitts, Cole Porter, Dick Powell, Eleanor Powell, Jane Powell, William Powell, Vincent Price, Anthony Quinn, George Raft, Claude Rains, Vera Ralston, Sally Rand, Basil Rathbone, Martha Raye, Donna Reed, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Edward G. Robinson, Ginger Rogers, Roy Rogers, Cesar Romero, Mickey Rooney, Jane Russell, Rosalind Russell, Ann Rutherford, Peggy Ryan, S.Z. Sakall, Olga San Juan, Ann Savage, David O. Selznick, Hazel Scott, Lizabeth Scott, Randolph Scott, Toni Seven, Norma Shearer, Ann Sheridan, Dinah Shore, Sylvia Sidney, Phil Silvers, Ginny Simms, Frank Sinatra, Red Skelton, Alexis Smith, Kate Smith, Ann Sothern, Jo Stafford, Barbara Stanwyck, Craig Stevens, Leopold Stokowski, Lewis Stone, Gloria Swanson, Elizabeth Taylor, Shirley Temple, Danny Thomas, The Three Stooges, Gene Tierney, Lawrence Tibbett, Martha Tilton, Claire Trevor, Sophie Tucker, Lana Turner, Spencer Tracy, Gloria Vanderbilt, Lupe Vélez, Beryl Wallace, Nancy Walker, Ethel Waters, John Wayne, Clifton Webb, Virginia Weidler, Johnny Weissmuller, Orson Welles, Mae West, Bert Wheeler, Alice White, Paul Whiteman, Margaret Whiting, Cornel Wilde, Esther Williams, Warren William, Chill Wills, Marie Wilson, Shelley Winters, Jane Withers, Teresa Wright, Anna May Wong, Constance Worth, Jane Wyman, Ed Wynn, Keenan Wynn, Rudy Vallee, Lupe Vélez, Loretta Young, Robert Young, Darryl F. Zanuck and Vera Zorina. Guess which one of these brought along his horse…

It's Finger Time Again!

We're getting an earlier start this year on the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing…

Each year at Comic-Con International in San Diego, we hand out two of them — one to someone we hope will be with us to accept it and one, posthumously, to someone who left us but is worthy of recognition. The award was founded by the late Jerry Robinson and it recognizes a writer of comics who produced a splendid body of work but who did not receive proper recognition and/or financial reward. At the time Jerry proposed this award, that was all too true of his late friend, Bill Finger.

Mr. Finger's name now does appear on his great co-creation Batman but since others do not receive their due recognition, the awards continue. This is the annual announcement that as its Administrator, I am now open to receive nominations and suggestions for the 2020 presentation. Here's what you need to know…

  1. This is an award for a body of work as a comic book writer. Every year, a couple of folks doggedly nominate their favorite artist. One guy steadfastly refuses to understand how we haven't given it to Curt Swan already. It might have something to do with the fact that Mr. Swan, though a brilliant artist. never wrote a comic book in his life. Here, once again in boldface and italics: It's for a body of work as a comic book writer.
  2. "A body of work" is not one or two comics you liked written by someone relatively new to the field. Our judges do not take seriously nominations for someone who's been in comics less than twenty years.
  3. This award is for a writer who has received insufficient reward for his or her splendid body of work. "Reward" can mean insufficient recognition or insufficient financial compensation or it can be, and often is, for both.
  4. And it's for writing comic books, not comic strips or pulps or letters to your grandmother or anything else. We stretch that definition far enough to include MAD but that's about as far as we'll stretch it.
  5. To date, this award has gone to Jerry Siegel, Arnold Drake, Harvey Kurtzman, Alvin Schwartz, Gardner Fox, George Gladir, Archie Goodwin, Larry Lieber, John Broome, Frank Jacobs, Otto Binder, Gary Friedrich, Bob Haney, Del Connell, Frank Doyle, Steve Skeates, Steve Gerber, Don Rosa, Robert Kanigher, Bill Mantlo, Jack Mendelsohn, Don McGregor, John Stanley, Elliot S! Maggin, Richard E. Hughes, William Messner-Loebs, Jack Kirby, Joye Hummel Murchison Kelly, Dorothy Roubicek Woolfolk, Mike Friedrich and E. Nelson Bridwell. Those folks, having already won, cannot win again.
  6. If you have already nominated someone in years past, you need not nominate them again. You can if you want but either way, they will be considered for this year's awards.
  7. If you nominate someone for the posthumous award, it would really help if you also suggest an appropriate person to accept on the honoree's behalf. Ideally, it would be a relative, preferably a spouse, child or grandchild. It could also be a person who worked with the nominee or — last resort — a friend or historian who can speak about them and their work. And if it's not a relative, we would also welcome suggestions as to an appropriate place for the plaque to reside — say, a museum or with someone who was close to the person we would honor.

Here's the address for nominations. They will be accepted until March 15 at which time all reasonable suggestions will be placed before our Blue Ribbon Judging Committee. Their selections will be announced soon after and the presentations will be made at the Eisner Awards ceremony, which is, as it always is, Friday evening at Comic-Con. Thank you…and please stop nominating your favorite artists.

Today's Video Link

Sesame Street characters do impressions of other Sesame Street characters…

Actually, I believe it's Matt Vogel doing an impression of Jerry Nelson as The Count doing impressions of other Sesame Street characters, and David Rudman doing an impression of Frank Oz as the Cookie Monster doing impressions of other Sesame Street characters, and Ryan Dillon doing an impression of Kevin Clash as Elmo doing impressions of other Sesame Street characters, and Leslie Carrara-Rudolph as Abby Cadabby doing impressions of other Sesame Street characters. But you get the idea…

Today's Video Link

Here's a vintage TV commercial…and a bit of a mystery. As you may know, Time for Beany was a wonderful puppet show that went on the air in Los Angeles in 1949. It was one of those rare kids' shows that adults loved just as much as the young'uns did. It aired live on TV in L.A. where it was done and later, kinescopes were syndicated to some other cities around the country.

For the first few years, the puppeteer-performers were the supremely-talented duo of Daws Butler and Stan Freberg. Daws played Beany and Cap'n Huffenpuff. Stan played Cecil and Dishonest John. Both played other supporting characters and every so often, one of them had to play the other's characters…which they could do because they were both great mimics.

Either late in 1952 or early in 1953, their contracts were up and both chose to leave, in part due to disputes with the show's owner and producer, Bob Clampett. There was some amount of bad blood there. They were replaced by Irv Shoemaker, Jim MacGeorge and Walker Edmiston. Shoemaker assumed Freberg's roles. MacGeorge played Cap'n Huffenpuff. Edmiston played Beany for a while, then left to do a new show Clampett had launched, whereupon MacGeorge began playing Beany. The show ended in either late 1954 or early 1955. You following all this? Fine.

In 1959, Clampett made a deal with Mattel Toys under which he would produce a new show with the characters for ABC, this time with animation instead of puppets. The show was originally Matty's Funday Funnies but later, when the cartoons made for it were rerun, it became known as Beany and Cecil. For this show, MacGeorge did the voices of Beany and the Cap'n, Shoemaker was Cecil and Dishonest John, and both did guest characters, as did some other actors.

Concurrent with the animated show, Mattel flooded the market with Beany and Cecil toys. Below is a commercial from back then promoting the talking Beany and Cecil dolls. That's the great Frank ("Yesssss?") Nelson doing the voiceover but who did the voices that came out of the Beany and Cecil dolls? Surprising answer: It was Daws Butler.

He was not the current voice of either character. He was not the voice of Cecil on the puppet show except for occasional emergencies. He was not even on speaking terms with Bob Clampett (although a few years later, I played peacemaker between them.) So why did Mattel hire Daws?

This was a mystery that bugged me since about 1962 when I noticed that the Beany toy sounded a little like Augie Doggie or Elroy Jetson and the Cecil toy sounded a little like Quick Draw McGraw. Daws, of course, was the voice of all those characters.

When I got to know him years later, it was one of the first questions I asked him: Why did they hire you for that? His answer: He didn't know. He told me he got a booking one day to record some lines for Mattel. He showed up at the studio and found out it was Beany and Cecil. "I thought Clampett would have nothing to do with me then," said he.

The best we could come up with, theory-wise, was that Mattel wanted to just pay one person to do both voices and they figured Daws was the most versatile of the guys who'd worked on either version of the show. (When I got to know Bob Clampett, I asked him. He didn't even know Daws had done it.)

So there's the mystery. Here's the commercial…

Street Performers

If you catch this week's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, you'll see a very scary segment about the prevalence of lead (aka poison) not only in so many water supplies but in paint and other places where it's hard to avoid. It includes a nice cameo by three Muppets from Sesame Street — Elmo, Rosita and Oscar the Grouch. The credits on the program list five Muppet performers: Ryan Dillon, Eric Jacobson, Lara Maclean, Carmen Osbahr and Matt Vogel.

Okay, let's see if we can figure this out: Elmo is a one-person Muppet and he's been performed by Ryan Dillon since 2013 when Kevin Clash got in trouble and had to resign. So that's him. The other two Muppets require two operators — one to do the voice, mouth and one hand; the other to do the other hand.

Carmen Osbahr originated Rosita so she's obviously the primary performer there with Lara Maclean doing hand duty. That means Oscar was performed by —

Wait a minute. Not Caroll Spinney?

Right. And it was a good replica but it ain't him. I'm guessing it was Eric Jacobson with Matt Vogel assisting, though it could be the other way around. Eric is a terrific mimic who has taken over most of the Frank Oz roles like Miss Piggy, Grover, Fozzie Bear, Sam the Eagle and Animal. He's also done Cookie Monster occasionally, though David Rudman has been the main Cookie Monster performer for more than a decade. (You can see a photo of me with Eric and David over in this post.) Matt Vogel has taken over most of the Jerry Nelson roles and occasionally worn the Big Bird suit when Mr. Spinney was unavailable, unwell or busy playing Oscar in the same scene.

Is this a passing of the torch moment? Spinney is 82 and has been Oscaring since 1969. Eventually, he has to hand his two signature roles off to others. Has it just happened? One would like to think he's just on vacation or maybe busy filing his taxes…but this is a pretty high-profile appearance. You'd think they'd arrange for him to do it if he could. Anyone know?

And, letting my imagination run away with me: If they had Eric Jacobson available but not Caroll Spinney, why didn't the writers of Last Week Tonight use Cookie Monster or Grover instead of Oscar? Since the subject was lead poisoning, wouldn't there be possibilities there for Cookie Monster to explain he'll eat anything except paint chips or drink the water in Flint, Michigan? Hmmm…

"Odd" Mail

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Walter Matthau and Art Carney in the original.

Several folks have written to tell me that the Metropole Cafe in Times Square was open and operating, apparently as a strip club, into the eighties. I remember passing it there, recognizing it mostly from The Odd Couple…and then one trip, it suddenly wasn't there. I just don't recall which trip that was when it went away.

Regarding the infamous triple-play in The Odd Couple movie, Jerry Wolper sent me this link to a contemporaneous newspaper report on its filming. It was, as you may recall, filmed before a 1967 game at Shea Stadium between the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates and the home team, the New York Mets.

It says that Pirates Roberto Clemente and Maury Wills declined to participate. Clemente does not seem to have liked the idea of being in a movie for the fee each player received, which was $100. Wills apparently bowed out for the same reason.

The batter was indeed Bill Mazeroski and the baserunners were Don Clendenon, Matty Alou and Vern Law. Jack Fisher was the pitcher and Ken Boyer was the third baseman who fielded Mazeroski's hit, stepped on third, then fired the ball to the second baseman who hurled it on to the first baseman. The latter two Mets are unnamed. The whole thing took two takes. The first pitch was too wide for Mazeroski to hit but everything worked during the second throw.

Kim Metzger wrote to ask me if I ever saw Neil Simon's distaff rewrite of The Odd Couple, which turned Felix and Oscar into Florence and Olive. Yes, I did. I saw it here in L.A. in April of '85 at the Ahmanson in a pre-Broadway tryout. Sally Struthers played Florence, Rita Moreno was Olive and Lewis J. Stadlen and Tony Shalhoub played the Costazuela brothers, who replaced the Pigeon sisters.

My recollection is that the Costazuelas — pilots for Iberia Airlines who were on the make — were hilarious but the rest of the play didn't work with women. In the original, Oscar and Felix more or less turned into each other's wives, echoing the fights that had destroyed their respective marriages. In the new version, Olive and Florence did not turn into each others' husbands. They just got on each other's nerves for reasons that seemed forced and scripted. The show went on to New York, opening two months later to tepid reviews and running for eight months, which was probably a lot less than anyone expected. It was produced in a lot of regional and community theaters, which I think is the market for which it was mainly intended.

I also saw Simon's 2002 update of the original work which was called Oscar and Felix, A New Look at the Odd Couple and starred John Larroquette as Oscar and Joe Regalbuto as Felix. I wrote about that here and reading that posting now, I think I was a bit charitable towards it. That version never played Broadway and doesn't seem to have played too many regional theaters, either.  (I can't find a photo from it anywhere.)

oddcouple01
Tony Randall and Jack Klugman in the first sitcom version.

I suspect that both these versions were done because of two factors. One is that Mr. Simon famously sold all rights to The Odd Couple to Paramount Pictures as part of the deal that led to the movie. In later years, he seemed quite bitter about that. In his autobiography, he wrote…

In total, this is what I got: $125,000. Although it didn't become clear to me for some time, this is what I lost. Paramount made a TV series of The Odd Couple starring Tony Randall and Jack Klugman. Those were one of the ancillary rights Paramount got in buying [my company] Ellen Enterprises. I never received one cent from the series. I had my name on every episode but I never saw a dime, a nickel, or a penny. It ran for years and will run in syndication for years and years to come. Not just in America but all over the world. The value of what I had given up for The Odd Couple series was in the millions. Probably a great deal of millions.

This is not to suggest that any of us should have been too upset at the financial condition of the world's most successful playwright but it probably has a lot to do with what has become of the property. Paramount is about to launch its third sitcom version of it…the fourth if you count The Oddball Couple, the 1975 animated version that made them a cat and a dog.  Paul Winchell voiced the dog, whose name was Fleabag.  Frank "Yesssss?" Nelson voiced the cat, Spiffy.  I'm guessing they thought of calling them Oscar and Felix but there were trademark issues with naming a cartoon cat "Felix."

oddballcouple
Fleabag and Spiffy from the cartoon version.

They're making decisions about it to try and maximize their income from an acquisition, which is of course what corporations do. Someone obviously thought there was a lot of money in finding a new way to market the play, kind of like The Muppet Babies was a new way to merchandize Kermit, Fozzie, Miss Piggy and the rest of that gang. At some point, we'll doubtlessly see The Odd Couple remounted with an entire cast under the age of twelve. Instead of a poker game, it'll be Grand Theft Auto and instead of leaving his wife, Felix will be running away from home.

If Mr. Simon had retained ownership, we might not have seen some of those exploitations. I like to think that if he'd made the money off the eighty zillion stage productions of The Odd Couple since he sold the rights, he would probably not have been that eager to see all these revised versions. He might have been satisfied with that dough or he might have okayed the Klugman/Randall sitcom and then felt he'd made enough off the play and had no need to exploit it further. As it was though, he couldn't stop the cartoon or the later sitcoms and I believe he participated in (or even instigated) the female version and the updated one in order to get a piece or two back of what he sold and to protect his play. After he's gone, I'll bet someone at Paramount says, "Hey, let's make a musical out of it!" That might come before the kid's version or CGI feature set in the future or the video game where you and another player battle to clean up or dirty up the apartment and to win green sandwiches and brown sandwiches.