Tuesday, September 23, 2003

Recommended Reading

Joshua Micah Marshall on the problems the White House is having in dealing with the United Nations.

• Posted at 10:24 PM · LINK

There She Goes...

Each year, ratings for the Miss America Pageant get worse and worse. Last Saturday's set a new low which will stand until next year's...that is, if any network is even willing to run it next year.

There are a lot of reasons for the decline of what was once a significant event, many of them having to do with the pageant's antiquated, vapid concepts of what qualities are admirable in a woman. One I'd like to underscore is that the Miss America promoters have been beaten at their own game. Once upon a time, it was a unique way to create an artificial celebrity who could be sent out to cut ribbons at mall openings and endorse products. Today, "reality television" provides a series of extreme ways to make a nobody into a somebody, and they have to do a lot more than walk down a runway with good posture. They have to eat slugs or live in exile or dangle over sharks or marry someone on TV or, in some cases, demonstrate actual talent. Becoming Miss America looks like nothing.

I don't know anything about the company that runs the Miss America pageant but I have a hunch what's going on in their offices this week. They're having conferences and saying things like, "We have to find a way to make the pageant relevant." They're looking at tapes of Fear Factor and Joe Millionaire and wondering if there's anything they can adapt from those shows without puncturing the merchandising veneer of their manufactured celebrity. There probably isn't but before the Miss America pageant becomes too unimportant to even be televised on a network, I'll bet they institute some real stupid changes to the format. Furthermore, I'll bet they don't work, either. The problem is like the old Groucho Marx joke about not wanting to belong to any club that would have him as a member. If you honestly summed up the traits and skills that a woman ought to have to be worthy of the mantle of "Miss America," they would include not entering that kind of contest.

• Posted at 8:30 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

Here's Part Two of Timothy Noah's piece on why the folks talking about Hillary Clinton running for president are almost all Republicans.

• Posted at 6:32 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

Jonathan Chait on why some people (himself, included) hate George W. Bush.

• Posted at 5:09 PM · LINK

The Turkey Episode

As it happens, the WKRP in Cincinnati episode about the turkeys is scheduled to air this coming Sunday morning, September 28 at 12:30 AM on TV Land. To some, that will be late Saturday night. Consult your local listing to make sure and set the TiVo. And thanks to Brent Seguine, Steve Billnitzer and others who alerted me.

• Posted at 11:13 AM · LINK

The Latest

With its usual flair for accuracy, The New York Post is referring to Peter Paul, who never had anything to do with Spider-Man in any capacity, as "The Spidey Swindler." Paul, by the way, has entered a plea of Not Guilty.

• Posted at 2:12 AM · LINK

Two Raccoons Using My Swimming Pool

• Posted at 1:59 AM · LINK

Another Damned Obit...

Gordon Jump, who died the other day at age 71, was the kind of actor I really like: A guy who worked constantly. He is best remembered for playing the befuddled boss at radio station WKRP in Cincinnati and for succeeding Jesse White as the lonely Maytag repairman. But take a gander at this list of credits over at the Internet Movie Database. The guy was on everything...and that list isn't even close to complete. For example, it omits two pilot-specials he appeared on in 1976-1977 that attempted to turn the Archie comic books into an odd cross of a variety show and a situation comedy. Audrey Landers played Betty, Hillary Thompson played Veronica, Derrell Maury played Jughead and there's a bizarre story about who played the title role of Archie Andrews. (I'll tell it here tomorrow unless I forget.) I was working for the company that produced the shows and while I wasn't assigned to the project, I was the only person on the premises who knew the comics and for some reason, that made the producers think my opinion was worth something. They kept calling me in and asking, "Does this guy look like Moose? Would this actor make a good Dilton Doily?" (I just recalled who played Moose's girl friend, Midge. It was Sue Blu, who has since become one of the top voice directors in the cartoon business.)

One afternoon, they called me in to watch a very nervous actor read some lines as either Archie's father or Mr. Weatherbee. I forget which one it was. I immediately recognized Gordon Jump from an episode of Harry O I'd seen the night before and told him he'd been very good in it. He said, "Well, I'll see what I can do to lower your opinion of me" and everyone in the room laughed. He then proceeded to read the scene with the lady casting director playing Archie...and you could see that all the producers and execs in the room immediately said to themselves, "This is the guy." After he left, they all verbalized their agreement and that was it...except that when the casting concluded a few days later, they still had one role unfilled. Someone suggested that since Jump was so good in the part for which he'd auditioned, he could probably handle this other one. So he was switched from playing Mr. Andrews to Mr. Weatherbee or vice-versa. Whatever it was, no one apparently told Gordon. He showed up for the first day of rehearsal with the wrong part all memorized.

This did not throw him one bit because he was every inch the professional. In fact, the screw-up seemed right in keeping with the kinds of characters he usually played. He took a copy of the script, went off into a corner by himself for fifteen minutes, and came back in the correct role. In his last few years when he taught an acting workshop, he often told that story. Someone who took the course told me that. She also told me it was the best "how to audition" class she ever encountered. Given how often Gordon Jump auditioned and got the job, that's not surprising.

One other thing I should mention: Gordon Jump spoke what was, to me, one of the all-time funniest lines in the history of TV situation comedies. It was, "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." If you don't know the episode, you can read about it here or, better still, watch for that installment of WKRP. If you do know the episode, you're laughing right this minute.

• Posted at 1:53 AM · LINK