Sunday, January 30, 2005

100 Candles

Well, I'm not sure how many were actually on the cake, but that's how many veteran character actor Charles Lane should have blown out at his party earlier this evening. Lane, who turned 100 last Wednesday, was toasted by friends and other Hollywood professionals in what my friend Stuart Shostak reports was a very big event. Here's some of what he wrote to me...

Mr. Lane is one of the nicest, most gracious people I have ever met. I was expecting a carbon copy of the characters he's played over the years, but he's just like Gale Gordon — very much the opposite, and with an incredible memory, to boot! He didn't miss a beat all day long and was very entertaining, too. I didn't get to spend all that much time talking with him, but after I told him who I was, he thanked me for all the films I gave the party committee to use for the clip reels, and he's looking forward to seeing the shows in their entirety...if he can figure out how to work his DVD player. I asked him if his VCR still flashes "12:00, 12:00, 12:00", and he joked back that he didn't know how to get it to do that!

I'm sorry I wasn't there. Stuart sent other photos that included shots of guests Shirley Mitchell, Cara Williams, Johnny Grant, Peggy Rea, Jay Sandrich, Bill Asher, Jimmy Garrett and Candy Moore (who played Lucille Ball's kids on The Lucy Show, which featured Charles Lane), William Schallert and others. Here's a shot of Mr. Lane thanking the attendees at the end...

Stuart supplied film clips out of his massive collection of vintage television shows, many of which can be ordered from his company, Shokus Video. I have been ordering from him since the days when everything he sold was on Beta, so that should give you some idea of his reliability. A glance through his catalog will show you that he has a lot of great old TV programs that you'll want to purchase. His reels of old commercials are special treasures and if you order anything at all from him, do yourself a favor and add a couple of them to your shopping cart. Thanks, Stuart, for the report and pics.

• Posted at 11:15 PM · LINK

The Kirby Side

As you all know, Stan Lee recently won (though Marvel is appealing) a lawsuit that says he is entitled to millions of bucks for the motion pictures being made of Marvel characters. In this article, the nephew and daughter of Jack Kirby note that neither Kirby nor his estate have ever received any sort of real money from characters he co-created with Stan. I'll write more about this in a day or so.

• Posted at 11:07 PM · LINK

Phil De Guere, R.I.P.

It doesn't seem to have made the press reports yet but writer-director-producer Phil De Guere passed away last week from cancer. He was best known for his work on the shows Simon and Simon, Max Headroom, and the 1985 revival of The Twilight Zone. In fact, he can be heard on the commentary track of the recently-released Twilight Zone DVDs. Comic fans will also recall that he wrote and directed the 1978 TV-Movie of Dr. Strange.

I did not know Phil well, but I could see he was well-liked and respected by the folks he worked with. Let's hope we've gotten the deaths of all the real good, talented people who are going to die this year out of the way in January.

• Posted at 10:38 PM · LINK

Dave Barry

Dave Barry (no relation to the humor columnist of the same name) was one of the great stand-up comedians and also a terrific cartoon voice actor. Among many other roles, he's the guy who did Humphrey Bogart so well in the Bugs Bunny cartoons that people always try to tell me it really was Bogey. No, it wasn't.

For a guy who did The Ed Sullivan Show and other top programs so many times, Dave Barry is amazingly forgotten. His Internet Movie Database listing has a tiny fraction of his on-camera and voiceover credits, frustrating many folks (including cartoon voice buffs) who are interested in him. I was privileged to meet Mr. Barry on two occasions, and to see what was probably his last Vegas engagement, which was at the old Mint Hotel, just before it closed in 1988...so I get occasional questions about him. I also get a lot of hits on this page where I posted an obit for him back in 2001. Jerry Beck, over at Cartoon Brew, recently responded to a reader inquiry by digging up these old photos of the man. Art Binninger recently discovered that Barry played himself (a nightclub comedian) in a fourth season episode of the Barbara Eden sitcom, I Dream of Jeannie, and he clicked off the above screen grab. That's Dave, sporting one of the toupees that he used to admit to and joke about in his act.

TV Land airs I Dream of Jeannie in sequence and they're currently up to around episode #53. They run five a week so if they don't change the schedule around, they should get to #111, which is the one with Dave Barry, around the end of April. I'll try to remember to alert you when it gets close, because I can't think of anywhere else you can see Barry at work these days. He was a pretty funny fellow and deserves a little remembrance.

• Posted at 10:06 PM · LINK

Cream of the Crop

As you may have heard, a couple of DVD consumers have filed a class-action lawsuit against MGM's home video division and they're inviting others to join them. The assertion is that MGM is marketing "widescreen" versions of their movies that do not really show the entire, wide frame. Instead, they claim, MGM is taking the standard non-widescreen images, chopping off the tops and bottoms, and passing this off as a widescreen presentation. What these guys are alleging struck me as unfounded but I didn't fully realize why until I read this article.

• Posted at 9:30 PM · LINK

Down, Not Out

William Messner-Loebs is a very talented comic book writer-artist. I barely know him but when I read articles like this one, I simultaneously wince in sympathy and smile in admiration of his courage. Talk about having your share of bad luck and several other folks' shares, as well. The industry and the comic art community need to do something for this guy.

• Posted at 9:15 PM · LINK

Busy, Busy, Busy...

I have had a sudden avalanche of e-mails, just at a time when I'm struggling to finish a script...plus, of course, I have to get ready for the big day tomorrow. So if you sent me something in the last week or so and I haven't responded, my apologies. I am not usually that rude. When things clear up, I will try to catch up.

• Posted at 8:53 PM · LINK

Set the TiVo

This week on 60 Minutes Wednesday: A report on Stan Lee and his lawsuit against Marvel Comics. Hope someone fact-checks the documents.

• Posted at 7:21 PM · LINK

Comix Commentary

Tom Spurgeon decides he likes comic books more than graphic novels. There's something to be said for this view.