Wednesday, March 24, 2004

Mercenary Message

• Posted at 10:48 PM · LINK

Set the TiVo!

If your satellite or cable company gets The Travel Channel, you might enjoy a silly little show called Fun Food Factories that takes you on tours of the plants that manufacture things like Pez, Charms Blo-pops, Skippy peanut butter, Goldfish crackers, Snapple, Gummi Bears, Marshmallow Peeps and See's Candy. This installment airs again Thursday night at 10 PM (Eastern time) and reruns three hours later and if nothing else, you can count the number of times they mention "High Fructose Corn Syrup."

• Posted at 10:00 PM · LINK

WGA Business

Daniel Petrie Jr., the newly-appointed President of the Writers Guild of America, west has sent out this letter to all members. Its summary of what has occurred appears accurate to me. Its optimistic tone about the negotiations (and presumption that challenges to the Guild's last election will go away) seem a bit too hopeful to me.

• Posted at 7:48 PM · LINK

Today's Political Rant

I don't quite know what to make of this report that Richard Clarke, in August of '02, was telling reporters that Bush had ordered the vigorous pursuit of Osama bin Laden. On the one hand, if you're in his job and not planning to quit soon, that's the kind of thing you have to say, especially in this administration. On the other hand, if you give two differing accounts of something, it's reasonable for folks to wonder which time you were telling the truth and which time you were fibbing. (The frustrating part, of course, is that they'll believe whichever one better serves their purpose.)

I wish the Bush administration had defended itself not by portraying Clarke as some kind of lower life form but by offering up documentation...say, copies of presidential briefings or minutes (even redacted) of meetings. The line of response is too much about Clarke's character and not enough about what anyone actually did or didn't do.

For what it's worth, I don't believe killing or capturing Osama would have done (or will do) much to cripple al-Qaeda. His martyrdom might even embolden them. I also don't think there's much value in finger-pointing with regard to pre-9/11 actions. If someone comes forth with proof that either the Bush or Clinton administrations had hard information of the plot, that would be a different matter. But otherwise, the blame-casting — faulting officials for not foreseeing the unforeseeable — seems to me just a matter of "Gotcha" politics. Yes, of course, we now wish more had been done. I was amazed and maybe even impressed that Clarke did say the following during his testimony today...

I welcome these hearings because it is finally a forum where I can apologize to the victims of 9-11 and their loved ones. Our government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you failed you and I failed you. We tried hard but that doesn't matter because we failed.

That's an extraordinary thing for someone in his position to say. Perhaps he just said it because he thought it would make people more likely to believe his current account, I don't know. But I was somewhat stunned by the moment. If anyone sees an online source of a video clip, let me know. The way he said it...and the silence in the room after he said it...were chilling.

[UPDATE, a few minutes later: Here's a link which may or may not work to the clip on the MSNBC site, and if it does work, you'll have to sit through an ad first. It may not be worth it. The way they shot it and chopped it off at the end, it doesn't have the impact that I felt when I saw it live today. In fact, it sounds like a guy sending out for pizza. Just trust me that it was chilling when presented such that it felt like people were actually listening to the man.]

• Posted at 7:06 PM · LINK

Poll Dancing

A company called The Rasmussen Poll does daily tracking reports for the presidential election. Yesterday, they had Bush at 47% and Kerry at 45%. Today, they have Bush at 44% and Kerry at 47%. They've put out a news release about this dramatic change, and quite a few news or political sites are announcing it and maybe even discussing it.

Okay, but this poll has a margin of error of plus or minus three points. So aren't these guys really unchanged from yesterday?

I think it's way too early to treat the polls with more than distant curiosity. I can't recall a single recent election where the polls in March had any connection to the results in November. But if we are going to look at these things, shouldn't we stop pretending that a shift within the margin of error has any meaning whatsoever?

• Posted at 3:48 PM · LINK

Another Daily Show Clip

Jon Stewart and his crew are still producing the funniest, sharpest political humor I've ever seen on TV. Last week, Dick Cheney gave a self-congratulatory speech about the administration's efforts in Iraq and it wound up sharing a split-screen with the hotel bombing over there. Here's a clip of how The Daily Show presented this.

[UPDATE, a little after 5:00 PM: The folks at Comedy Central have removed from their site every reliable way to link directly to a video clip. I don't understand why they've done this. I mean, you post these clips so people can see them. Wouldn't you want other sites to link to them? Anyway, the above link I jury-rigged will only work with some browsers. Otherwise, go to this page. The particular clip I was referring to is the one entitled "Pre-emption's a Bitch" but while you're over there, you might want to check out any clip from The Daily Show. And if that link doesn't get you there, just give it up and go look at this gallery of Famous Monkeys Through History.]

• Posted at 9:03 AM · LINK

Dialogue With Doggie Daddy

My pal Earl Kress and I had a lovely chat last evening with Doggie Daddy. You remember Doggie Daddy: The Durante-style mutt who faithfully (often, thanklessly) raised his devoted son Augie in some of the funniest and warmest cartoons ever done for television. The late, great Daws Butler was cast as the voice of Augie...and all the other main characters on the 1959 Quick Draw McGraw show. But when it came time to record the adventures of Augie Doggie and his dear ol' Doggie Daddy, Daws decided doing all those segments of a Jimmy Durante impression would turn his throat to sandpaper and recommended another actor he knew. At least, that's the story the way we always heard it. Recently, we tracked down the actor who played D.D. (and many other roles in early Hanna-Barbera cartoons) and his version was a wee bit different. Doug Young was a great performer on radio dramas, which is where he met Daws...maybe doing an episode of The Whistler or Lux Radio Theater. By '59, with radio drama a thing of the past, Young was out of show business. One day, he ran into Daws in a record shop and Daws said, in effect, "You ought to be working in front of a microphone again." So they went into Daws' home studio, put together a new demo tape...and that's how Doug Young became Doggie Daddy. I thought the result was one of the most memorable characterizations ever done for a TV cartoon. It may have started as a Durante knockoff but there was something warm and wonderful about the poppa pooch...so it was kind of thrilling to finally "meet" (albeit via telephone) the man behind the voice.

That's Doug on the right in the photo above. At left is Daws and in the middle is their frequent co-star, Don Messick. If you don't know about the other gents, you can read about Daws here and Don here. Doug was in H-B cartoons for much of the sixties — he was Hokey Wolf's loyal sidekick, Ding-a-Ling, Yippee in "Yippee, Yappee and Yahooey," plus he played tons of supporting roles on The Flintstones and other shows. In '68, he left Hollywood and now does some regional voice work in his home town. (Still sounds like he always did. He kept lapsing into Doggie Daddy muttering, "My son, my son...") He may be visiting Southern California later this year and if so, we're going to try to arrange a little reunion with some of his old friends from the cartoon voice business. He remembers them fondly and the feeling seems to be quite mutual. (A special thanks to another great vocal thespian, Frank Buxton, who put us in touch with Doug.)

• Posted at 12:39 AM · LINK