Tuesday, January 27, 2004

Robert C. Bruce

Here's a belated obit (on account of, I just found out) for Robert C. Bruce, who died August 24, 2003 at the age of 89. Mr. Bruce was a voice actor in many cartoons of the thirties, forties and fifties, most notably as the narrator of silly travelogues and newsreels. You know all those great Looney Tunes like Detouring America and Of Thee I Sting with a serious announcer who sounded like a real travelogue host? Well, that serious announcer was usually Robert C. Bruce. He was an announcer and actor on KFWB, a radio station then owned by Warner Brothers (note the "WB") and housed on the studio lot, not far from where they made Warner Brothers cartoons. He appeared on many shows for the station but the most famous was probably The Grouch Club, which also featured Arthur Q. Bryan, the voice of Elmer Fudd.

Bruce was heard on many radio shows and on what some call the earliest cartoon made for television. It was called NBC Comic Book and it consisted of several radio actors voicing what were very close to still drawings. Later, he had a company that produced TV shows that were not unlike real travelogues and newsreels. In the late sixties, he retired to a home in South Carolina.

Information on Mr. Bruce has generally been a bit elusive, in part because he has often been confused with his father, who had the same name. Robert C. Bruce Sr. was a cinematographer and still photographer whose work included some of the earliest silent travelogues, and he passed away in 1948. The Internet Movie Database has a page that confuses the two men to the extent of saying Robert C. Bruce died in '48 but kept on voicing cartoons until 1959.

That's about all I know about the man. But I sure know that voice and if you like great cartoons, so do you.

• Posted at 10:35 PM · LINK

Schwartz Update

I spoke to Julius Schwartz this evening. This was not easy to do as his hearing is bad, though it is expected to improve. I did manage to make him understand that I'm mailing him a few hundred "Get Well" wishes from his fans on the Internet. He was concerned because he has no way to respond to them but I assured him you didn't expect replies.

You can still send mail to schwartz@newsfromme.com but please...don't ask questions that he'll feel should be answered. And no attachments.

• Posted at 6:22 PM · LINK

Safe Surfing

So far, I've received about 100 e-mail messages infected with the MyDoom virus, (aka W32.Novarg.A@mm) and the address I set up for Julius Schwartz has received about ten. Norton Anti-Virus has been catching them like Willie Mays on a good day, but it's still an annoyance.

Quick prediction: Both Democrats and Republicans are planning major online campaigns in the coming election with weblogs, mass e-mailings, websites, etc. Betcha we'll see some charges that each side has engaged in the planting of viruses and the use of "spyware" (programs that spy on your computer activity). In fact, zealous hackers of both persuasions will probably do exactly that. There will be a George Bush Virus and one for whoever the Democratic nominee is.

• Posted at 5:11 PM · LINK

The Bull With His Own China Shop

That's what they called Jack Paar, who died this morning after a long, lingering illness. I'm just barely too young to recall his version of The Tonight Show and thanks to the lunkhead at NBC who threw out all but a few tapes, I've never had the chance to see more than a few clips. But I do recall the hour-long Friday night program that Paar then did for three years as The Jack Paar Show. It had many wonderful moments and when I heard Paar speak about ten years ago, he remarked that most people confused the two, recalling moments from the latter (probably, better) show as having occurred on The Tonight Show. On both programs, he trotted out fascinating conversationalists, most from a short list of "regulars" that included Oscar Levant, Alexander King, Peter Ustinov, Hans Conreid, Jonathan Winters and Bea Lillie. He also showcased many new comedians and occasionally welcomed a Richard Nixon or Bobby Kennedy to his guest chair.

Before The Tonight Show, Paar was the All-American Fill-In. He hosted quiz shows, panel shows, morning shows, everything. He was the guy they hired when they didn't know whom else to hire. It was an industry joke that every summer, he would turn up as the star of some low-budget summer replacement series, then disappear again at the first sign of Autumn. When NBC tapped him for Tonight, it was almost out of desperation. When Steve Allen gave up The Tonight Show, everyone expected the job to go to Ernie Kovacs, who'd been hosting the show almost as often as Allen. Instead, NBC tried a Godawful mess called Tonight: America After Dark hosted by a tag-team of newspaper columnists. When it flopped, the network tried to get Kovacs back but he was off doing movies, so they went to Paar...but not to host a talk or variety show. The idea then was to fill the 105 minute time slot with three game shows, all hosted by one guy. When it became apparent they couldn't pull the game show idea together in time, they let Paar do a talk show.

That was pretty much how Paar's entire career went: Accidents, mistakes, things being done out of desperation. Somehow, it usually worked.

The Tonight Show under Steve Allen had not been a talk show as we now know them. It had interviews but it also had sketches, stunts, games, lots of music, a stock company of comedy players and even (for a time) a real newscast. Paar usually did a monologue, then either a prepared comedy piece or some sort of demonstration of new products. The rest of the show was conversation with the occasional music number or stand-up act. Both Allen and Paar ignored other antecedents and claimed their version was "the first talk show," leading to a life-long argument that now is sadly moot. Obviously, it all depends on your definition but there's no question that between them, the two shows set the template for all that followed.

Paar was emotional. He engaged in on-air feuds, mostly with newspaper reporters. He cried occasionally on camera. He would sometimes chuck the monologue, sit on the edge of his desk and talk from the heart to America about what was bothering him. And once he even walked off his own show over a silly censorship squabble...an incident which too often is all that people recall of his show.

Paar left television for the most part in '65, then returned in 1975 to do one week a month for ABC late night. The new show didn't work, in part because it was the old show: Paar remained more or less stuck in 1959, trotting out his old regulars (those who'd survived) and telling stories about having Adlai Stevenson on his old show. In later years when he surfaced for the occasional interview, he still hadn't advanced much. He criticized "current talk shows" for eschewing witty guests for dizzy starlets...an odd criticism from one who gave so much air time to a woman named Dody Goodman whose mouth never once connected with her medulla oblongata. He also devoted a lot of TV hours to chatting with Genevieve (a French starlet who didn't speak English well), Reiko (a Japanese lady who didn't speak English well) and the Gabor sisters. I suspect that, like a lot of old TV shows, the Paar Tonight Show is legendary in part because the shows aren't available to be seen and fairly evaluated.

Still, there were more than enough wonderful things to earn Paar his place in television history. It's right there between Steve Allen and Johnny Carson, which puts him in fine company.

• Posted at 3:34 PM · LINK