Friday, March 25, 2005

SNL Flashbacks

The weekend late night Saturday Night Live reruns have begun jumping around from season to season again. Last week, they had one with Charlton Heston from the 1993-1994 season. This weekend, they hop back to the tenth season, which was the one with Billy Crystal, Martin Short, Christopher Guest and (briefly) Harry Shearer. The scheduled episode is from 11/17/84 with guest host Ed Asner. I seem to vaguely recall that Bill Murray was originally announced to topline that episode but that at the last minute, Mr. Asner appeared. The musical guest was The Kinks and the most memorable sketch was the 60 Minutes parody where Shearer did his uncanny replica of Mike Wallace looking into a potential scandal in the area of novelties and party tricks. Martin Short played a nervous lawyer named Nathan Thurm.

The following weekend, the scheduled rerun is Show #4 from 11/8/75 with Candice Bergen. This was the episode a lot of folks around NBC thought was the first real good one — so much so that some of the network execs wanted to sign Ms. Bergen as permanent star of the series. The show included the first "land shark" sketch and a very funny film by Albert Brooks previewing alleged new NBC shows. Also, Andy Kaufman did his "foreign man" character doing bad impressions. It's probably worth TiVoing just for those three segments.

• Posted at 5:00 PM · LINK

The Two and Only

It's getting to be fun to watch those old The Name's the Same episodes on GSN. It's still a lousy game show and I still wince at some of the phony planted questions. (The other night, the panel had to guess that guest star Joan Alexander was going to display a photo of her new baby. Someone obviously told panelist Audrey Meadows to ask, "Is this something a woman would show off proudly if she'd just gotten engaged?" Ho-ho.) But the program's getting steadily more amusing thanks to the presence of hosts Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding.

For years in this country, every city had a radio station with at least one team of disc jockeys — usually the morning men — doing Bob and Ray. Sometimes, they did actual Bob and Ray material, shamelessly burgled. Other times, they just did funny interviews and soap opera parodies...though it's doubtful that all of them put together were half as funny as the genuine articles. I have about thirty hours of real Bob and Ray radio stuff on CD and it's quite brilliant, in large part thanks to a clever writer named Tom Koch. What Mssrs. Elliott and Goulding did seemed so effortless that a lot of people just assumed they ad-libbed it all. Not so. Most of it came from Mr. Koch, whose byline you may also be familiar with from decades of Mad Magazine. Not long ago, a small but overdue book came out about his career and you can purchase it here.

But to get back to Bob and Ray: Ray is no longer with us, sad to say, but I am reminded by Don Brockway that Bob Elliott will be 82 years old tomorrow. Don further reminds me that loads of vintage Bob and Ray material is available at The Official Bob and Ray Website. Moreover, he says, one can send Bob a Happy Birthday e-mail via that domain. I don't want to post the address exactly because that will cause them to receive a lot of Spam so do this: Address your e-mail to "Bob," then put an "@" sign. Then type "bobandray.com" and you'll have it. Don says all mail sent that way will be forwarded to the Birthday Boy.

I've always loved Bob and Ray. I've always thought they were good but I never realized how good. Not until I saw them actually make The Name's the Same entertaining.

• Posted at 11:15 AM · LINK

Today's Political Rant

Have you noticed that for about the last week or so, no matter what the latest development may be in the Terri Schiavo case, the news stories are usually headlined either,"Judge Denies Request to Reinsert Feeding Tube" or "Terri's Parents Low on Options"? For people who were low on options seven days ago, they sure seem to have found a steady supply.

I may have erred in posting anything here about this sad dispute. It prompted a flood of e-mail, some of it even from people who fully understood my position, which is that I don't fully understand my position. After hearing more about this case than I have about any number of more important issues, I've come hesitantly to a viewpoint which some will think is contradictory but, hey, that's how these things sometimes go.

To some extent, this whole debate has been about process. Terri's parents, the Schindlers, have lost petition after petition, court decision after court decision. They have lost at different levels of government and they have lost before Democratic-appointed judges and Republican-appointed ones. (One of the 11th Circuit Judges who voted against them is William Pryor, who was recently and stubbornly appointed by George W. Bush over fierce Democratic opposition.) Now, our courts are fallible and there should be a multi-level appeals process, especially when a matter of life and death is involved. But our courts also can't work if a perpetually-losing party can keep getting do-overs for all infinity, demanding endless new hearings in new venues, desperately trying to find some judge who'll see it another way. At some point, in the absence of better "new evidence" than the Schindlers seem to have, the appeals process has to end.

So I must be in favor of pulling the plug on Terri, right? Well, no. First off, I don't think it's my decision, nor is it yours. In fact, one of the things that bothers me here is the vast number of people who have injected themselves into a case that should involve the lady's immediate family and the appropriate court...and no one else. Terri Schiavo has not been helped by all these strangers weighing in, since strangers bring with them other issues, unrelated to her actual welfare. They also, as should be obvious by now, bring in a lot of bogus information and needlessly inflammatory rhetoric. What's my vote? I don't think I have a vote. I don't think I should have a vote.

If I did, I'm not sure what I'd do. Against my own logic, something about ending Terri Schiavo's life feels wrong. When those who stand with her parents (including both Bushes) say they believe in compassion and erring on the side of life, they almost convince me. Where they lose me, I guess, is when they try equating this with pure murder and dragging in inadmissible religious arguments. I also don't see them "erring on the side of life" regarding so many other people in this world — many of them, more "alive" than Terri Schiavo will ever be and perhaps a better investment of our limited national compassion. Which is another reason I don't think I should have a vote on Terri's fate. I don't know what it would be. but it would probably be something impractical like, "I vote to feed Terri Schiavo if we don't stop there. Let's pass a law that we feed everyone who's in danger of starving to death."

Three things interest me about this case. One is watching how dysfunctional the public debate has become, littered as it is with grandstand plays, questionable data and people arguing against the positions they press for on non-Terri matters. The most meaningful medical care Ms. Schiavo has received was funded by a large medical malpractice award and by Medicare. Now, we see people who have always opposed large medical malpractice awards and who wish to slash Medicare arguing that everything possible must be done to keep this woman alive.

The second aspect that interests me is the Strange Bedfellows factor. Positions have not divided on a straight Right/Left axis so, for example, you have people who have always loathed Ralph Nader and Jesse Jackson now welcoming their support. This kind of thing is always amusing.

Lastly, we have yet another example of folks who attempt to use a situation for political advantage probably achieving the opposite of their goal. Some of the loudest voices in this argument have come from those who want to roll back or eliminate the "right to die." As a result of their efforts, millions of Americans are scurrying to write Living Wills and to declare inarguably to their mates and friends that they want the plug pulled if they ever get anywhere near Terri Schiavo's condition. I'm specifying that I want my breathing terminated if my continued existence ever becomes a topic on Hannity and Colmes. Once a matter of life and death gets to those forums, there's zero chance of a decision that will focus on what's best for me. Just as we long since passed the stage where the Schiavo case is about what's best for that poor woman in Florida.

• Posted at 10:41 AM · LINK

Comic Book Commentary

An article in the New York Times by Brent Staples raises the old question of how much of the credit Stan Lee deserves for the Marvel Superheroes...but doesn't supply much of an answer. Mine, as you may know, is that the characters should be described as co-creations.

• Posted at 8:10 AM · LINK