Thursday, February 3, 2005

60 Minutes Man

Another comment on the 60 Minutes Wednesday story about Stan Lee. This one's in the Nashville City Paper.

• Posted at 10:58 PM · LINK

John Vernon, R.I.P.

The obits for actor John Vernon, who died last Tuesday, all note how deliciously hateful he was as Dean "Double Secret Probation" Wormer in National Lampoon's Animal House. They also note how he had many, many other roles in movies and TV, both in this country and in his native Canada. But only here will we remind you that he was among the voice actors in the 1966 Marvel Super-Heroes cartoons (the ones that didn't move very much). He played, I believe, Iron Man and Sub-Mariner, as well as The Hulk's nemesis, General Thunderbolt Ross, and other villains. He performed in more recent cartoon shows, as well, including re-creating the role of Ross in the most recent Hulk cartoon series. Not a big part of his long, fruitful career but it oughta be mentioned.

• Posted at 9:42 PM · LINK

Harley Worth It

For a few weeks now on his show, Jay Leno has been having celebrities autograph a new Harley-Davidson motorcycle to be auctioned off on eBay, with all proceeds going to aid Tsunami victims. I dunno if I think this is a nice gesture or a publicity stunt but bidding just closed, and $800,100 is going to help some folks who could really use it. That's not a bad thing. I thought the last minutes of bidding were rather interesting...

That's quite a jump — more than half a million clams — in just a few minutes. One assumes these guys were using "sniping" software to enter rapid bids but still, it had to be quite a frantic contest. Imagine bidding $800,000 at the absolute last second but losing to a guy who simultaneously bid $800,100. I've been known to get nervous when I was bidding five more bucks to try and win an old Freberg record.

I have no idea who "steinerdwm" is but I did a search and noticed that his or her past eBay purchases have mostly been for paintings, the most expensive of which went for $305. So this is probably a bit of an extravagance. It must have been the Dr. Phil signature that made it all seem worth it.

• Posted at 5:41 PM · LINK

Aero Space

If you're in or around Los Angeles, you might be interested in this: Sunday afternoon at 5 PM, the Aero Theater in Santa Monica is running a 70mm print of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. I'm guessing this is the same print that the American Cinematheque group screened at the Egyptian Theater in December of '02. (The American Cinematheque group manages and I think owns the Aero.)

No guests or speeches have been announced...but the night before, the Aero is running Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machine, with director Ken Annikin in attendance. I'd go if I wasn't so burdened with deadlines.

The Aero, in case you don't know, is one of the oldest movie theaters in the Southland that is still operational. For a decade or three there, we kept hearing of plans to close it down and open three new Starbucks on the premises, but then film buffs would howl, common sense would prevail and the place would remain open. Happily, the American Cinematheque acquisition has put an end to that cycle, at least for now. It's a great old theater and beyond its history as a place to see movies, it also has a decent one as a place where movies are shot. Those deadlines prevent me from compiling a long list of them right now, though a scene in Get Shorty comes to mind. So here's a Note 2 Self: Keep an eye on this theater's calendar.

• Posted at 4:12 PM · LINK

More on the 60 Minutes Piece

Cory Strode (here's his weblog) bills himself as "The Best Dressed Man in Comics," which is kind of like claiming to be the most dignified of the Three Stooges. Anyway, he sends an e-mail not unlike several others I've received in the last few hours...

You haven't touched on it yet, but when Stan was on the Late Late Show (which was still worth skipping for the opening 20 minutes of "comedy") he made sure to interrupt the host and say that he always had a co-creator for all of his characters, and that the lawsuit was a breach of contract and not because he was owed money from long ago. He also came off as an amazingly entertaining guest, and his schtick that us comics fans have known about for years worked very well on the show, and I hope that he starts to become a "late night talk show" guest.

Stan is a very charming guy, and I guess I should point out that one of the reasons he has gotten so much more attention than Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko is because he is a good interview and, what's more, he's accessible. It is not fair that Ditko goes so unmentioned, but at least some of that springs from his refusal to speak with reporters, allow himself to be photographed, etc. Tomorrow, if you were assigned to produce a TV news segment on the origins of Spider-Man, Stan would give you plenty of time and he'd give you short, funny on-camera quotes you could use. Ditko would probably hang up on you. That shouldn't make a difference in the reporting but, of course, it does.

Jack Kirby was, in my opinion, the single-most brilliant creative talent ever to work in the comic book business, and I loved him dearly. But just as some people who are great at playing basketball are rotten at playing the clarinet, some folks who are unmatched in writing or drawing are bad at public relations. Unlike Stan, Jack was not a good interview. With strangers, especially strangers with microphones, he tensed up and got easily confused. You could also push certain buttons and get him mad, and when he got mad, he'd get even more confused. Even when he was alive, he wasn't as good as Stan at representing himself, and since he died...well, isn't there some old line about history being written by the survivors?

Stan was good on The Late, Late Show, and I'm glad he mentioned that he worked with artists in creating those characters. I only wish he'd mentioned their names, as he sometimes has in other appearances. I know it may not always seem appropriate but he's been credited so many times as sole creator of those books that a little excess in the other direction wouldn't hurt.

• Posted at 1:41 PM · LINK

Following Up

Just for fun — not that I expected to get anywhere with it — I phoned the offices of 60 Minutes this morning and attempted to talk to someone about last night's story on Stan Lee, the sole creator of Marvel Comics. The call went about as I expected: I was shunted over to a Viewer Relations department where a lady took my comments in a manner that suggested she was an intern who'd been handed a phone and told, "Be polite to anyone who calls and just make like we care." Given the probable number of nuts and outraged political extremists who must assail the program for not broadcasting their version of reality, I was not surprised. If I were running that operation, I'd probably set it up the same way.

My friends Heidi MacDonald and Tom Spurgeon, the latter a biographer of Mr. Lee, both weigh in with their comments, and I really don't disagree with anything either says, even when they seem to be disagreeing with me. Yes, I think the show may have omitted mention of Kirby or Ditko because they thought the viewers were too dense to comprehend a more complicated scenario. That's part of what I meant about them not wanting to muddy up the narrative with data that despoiled their tidy David/Goliath scenario. And, yes, we may be too quick to absolve Stan of all the blame. My point was that fans will be (and some have been, on last night's message boards) too quick to assume that what he said on the air was all he said in the interviews. From personal experience, I know Stan is sensitive to the charge that he has in any way trampled on the fame and/or fortune of his collaborators. He knows it's wrong and he also knows it makes him look bad. For what it's worth, back when the Biography program was doing its segment on him, he specifically asked its makers to interview me for it because he knew I'd talk at length about Jack Kirby and make the case for his importance. I thought that was both decent of Stan and wise from a strategic angle. If, as was possible, the producers had cut out all references to Kirby, I'd be able to tell the comic art community it was not his fault.

That said, I agree with Tom, who wishes Stan would be more aggressive in acknowledging his collaborators. Heck, I wish everyone in this world would be more aggressive in this regard. I think that when you work with someone, you have a moral obligation — to them, to history, even to yourself — to watch their backs and not usurp their due, even by accident. Credit, as they say, has its greatest value when you're giving it away. Trouble is, interviewers often like to elevate the importance of an interview by elevating the importance of the interviewee. Elayne Riggs made a good point in a comment over on Heidi's site, which was that the subtext of the story last night was 60 Minutes congratulating itself on Stan's victory. They did a story two years ago about how he'd been wronged. Right after that, he filed his lawsuit and now he seems to have been unwronged. The implication there is, "Look at the power of our program!" And of course, a mention of Kirby or Ditko would not advance that boast...might even make it seem like the show missed a key part of the story in their first broadcast. Which, of course, they did.

I would not expect 60 Minutes Wednesday to correct anything, especially not an error of omission. If they do, it'll be one of those quick, parenthetical "Oh, by the way, we should have also mentioned..." statements that have no impact other than to let the reporters claim they've acted in a responsible manner, clarifying the record. My experience over 30+ years of championing the cause of Kirby is that no one ever corrects such stories in a meaningful way. But maybe if we dump on them loud enough, it will cause someone else to not make the same mistake.

• Posted at 9:25 AM · LINK

Gene Splicing

Buzz Dixon informs me that the dancer playing Gene Kelly in that Volkswagen commercial is David Bernal. Here's a page about him and some of his other work.

• Posted at 8:22 AM · LINK

More of the Cat

That there's the cover of Volume 3 of the DVD releases of Garfield and Friends, a cartoon show I wrote and co-produced and voice-directed and, unlike some I've done, actually watched. There will be five of these sets in all and once they've all been issued out, all 121 half-hours of the series will be out there. This one comes out April 19 and you can pre-order it from Amazon by clicking here. What's in it? Well, no one's told me but if I've done the math correctly on this, it should contain episodes with guest voices Jonathan Winters, Marvin Kaplan, Carl Ballantine, Pat Buttram, Rod Roddy, Paul Winchell, Chuck McCann, June Foray and a whole bunch of other fun folks. I'll let you know for sure if and when anyone ever sends me a list.

• Posted at 1:13 AM · LINK

Gene, Gene the Dancing Machine

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this. It's a video (a QuickTime file, by the way) of a new Volkswagen commercial that looks like Gene Kelly doing the famous "Singin' in the Rain" number, only now he's doing modern steps not unlike breakdancing, and he's selling Volkswagens. The ad makers skillfully re-created the original set and found a dancer built like Kelly. As I understand it, he's wearing a Gene Kelly mask in the long shots and then, on the close-ups, they've digitally inserted Mr. Kelly's face.

I guess I find the thing kind of creepy. Once you're conscious of what they've done, it doesn't look like Gene Kelly dancing. It looks like another guy's dancing and the ghost of Gene Kelly is trapped in his body, trying desperately to get out.

From an ethical standpoint, if it's fine with Kelly's widow (she gave permission, presumably for a nice sum of cash), I guess it oughta be fine with us. Still, I can't help but wonder if Mr. Kelly wouldn't be bothered, not by the fact that he's posthumously selling Volkswagens but because someone else's dancing is being represented as his.

• Posted at 12:54 AM · LINK

February 4, 2005 • Current • February 2, 2005