Tuesday, May 31, 2005

No More Mystery

As a longtime wallower in Watergate, I've waited a long time to read something like this...

The Washington Post today confirmed that W. Mark Felt, a former number-two official at the FBI, was "Deep Throat," the secretive source who provided information that helped unravel the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s and contributed to the resignation of president Richard M. Nixon.

When I get some time (ha!), I'm going to haul out the several dozen books I have in which wise, educated men explained their expert deductions that D.T. couldn't have been Felt or anyone in the F.B.I., or even that there was no such informant. It's amazing how you can go so far down the wrong trail.

And I guess we'll hear people fuming that an FBI agent leaked to reporters, or even doubting the revelation. The funny thing is that if my reading of the various Watergate tomes is correct, Deep Throat wasn't that big a factor in the bringdown of Richard Nixon. He got a lot of things wrong and often served as a "second source," back when reporters used to care about such things. He did have a lot to do with keeping Woodward and Bernstein on the case, and with bolstering the Post's confidence in sticking with the story...but I think Nixon would have fallen even without those secret meetings in parking garages.

I assume this all means that Bernstein and Woodward are free to talk at length about all the parts of the story that they previously had to stonewall. I'll be interested in reading and hearing what they have to say.

• Posted at 2:50 PM · LINK

Throat Article

Here's a link to the Vanity Fair article revealing Mark Felt as Deep Throat. It's an Adobe PDF file and I suspect it will not be online for long.

• Posted at 10:22 AM · LINK

Throat Warbler

So far, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein have no comment, but it's being reported that Mark Felt has confessed to being their legendary source, Deep Throat. As I mentioned here, here, here and many other places, I always felt he was the guy. Assuming this revelation doesn't get shot down, it will be interesting to look back on all the books and essays by learned men who studied the evidence and came to the firm conclusion either that it was someone else, or that Deep Throat was a composite or figment. A lot of people guessed Felt but a lot more made stirring deductions that it couldn't be him.

• Posted at 9:30 AM · LINK

John Albano

While in Scottsdale, I heard that comic book writer John Albano had recently passed away. I'm afraid I have no details, nor do I have enough info about John to write any sort of decent obit here. I know that he worked extensively for DC in the seventies, most notably on the western strip, Jonah Hex, which he created. And I know he later went on to do a lot of work for Archie Comics...but that's about it. If anyone out there can furnish some info, please get in touch with me.

• Posted at 9:04 AM · LINK

Monday, May 30, 2005

Arizona Report

So after the funeral for Howie on Friday, I headed for the airport, hooked up with my friend Carolyn and we flew to Phoenix. In Phoenix, I rented a Ford Escape and drove us to Scottsdale, Arizona and to the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess resort, therein. Whyfore I do this? For the Reuben Awards weekend, which is an annual conclave of the National Cartoonists Society. That's right: The place was full of cartoonists. They were everywhere. Sunday afternoon, Carolyn was wandering the grounds and she noticed a man sitting outside a Tapas Bar, inking a comic strip. She recognized the strip as one of her favorites, Strange Brew, which meant that the man had to be John Deering. She told him how much she liked his work and he chatted with her as he kept on inking, even though the strip had to get to FedEx, and he had to get to the airport in under two hours. She admired his competence and confidence about making these deadlines, as well as the beauty of his brushwork. It was a whole weekend of encounters of that sort. I kept saluting every time I passed Mort Walker.

Scottsdale is a lovely city...a little hot but you can see why people want to live here. I wish we'd had time to see more of the place.

Among the folks I enjoyed chatting with this weekend were Roger Armstrong, Tom Batiuk, Craig Boldman, Chris Browne, Daryl Cagle, Lucy Shelton Caswell, Jack Davis, Jose Delbo, Greg Evans, Chad Frye, Mort Gerberg, Stephanie Gladden, John M. Miller, Stan Goldberg, Steve Greenberg, R.C. "Bob" Harvey, Bunny Hoest, Bill Janocha, Bucky Jones, Mell Lazarus, Steve McGarry, Michael McParlane, Nick Meglin, Frank Pauer, Dan Piraro, Tom Richmond, Jerry Robinson, Arnold Roth, Jean Schulz, Frank Springer, Jerry Van Amerongen, Sam Viviano, Mort Walker, Greg Walker, Brian Walker, Bob Weber, Bill Wilson, Gahan Wilson and Irwin Hasen. And I left out a lot of names.

Saturday evening, they had the big Reuben Awards Dinner, which is kind of like the cartoonist equivalent of the Oscars. For this, I had to rent a tuxedo even though I already own two. Alas, one is too big and one is too small and it didn't work to mix 'n' match the pants and coat. In case you ever need to rent a tux to wear in another city, I can now tell you how to do it in two words: Men's Wearhouse. The chain rents formal wear in most (not all) of its outlets and if you go into one that does, they can measure you and let you try one on for fit, and pick a style and color from their catalog...and then you can pick up the tux at some other Men's Wearhouse in some other town. It worked very well, although if you ever do it, I would advise not making the one mistake I made, which was needing to rent a tux during prom season. The store where I went for my fitting was full of teenage boys asking if they had any with pants that cut off at mid-calf length, and cufflinks you can wear in your nose. Apart from that, it was fine.

In case you're interested in who won what at the awards, Tom Spurgeon has the list. Dan Piraro, who draws Bizarro, was the Master of Ceremonies and he did a fine job of it.

Sunday evening, I conducted a demonstration of Quick Draw!, the cartoon improv game we play at conventions. The competitors were Sergio Aragonés, Scott Shaw! and Dan Piraro...and at one point, at Sergio's suggestion, I got Jack Davis up to knock out an instant drawing. I don't know that there's a more loved and admired man in the whole field of cartooning than Jack.

This was followed by the Sergio Roast, a tribute to the man who is called by many (I think me and two other guys) "the fastest cartoonist alive." The tone for the proceedings was set by the superb caricature seen above, executed by Mad Magazine artist Tom Richmond. It ain't easy drawing likenesses in The House of Drucker but Tom does a superb job.

Sergio was quite moved by the insults, most of which rapidly segued into outpourings of affection and respect from his colleagues, including Mell Lazarus (creator of Miss Peach and Momma) and Mad's former editor, Nick Meglin.

And that's pretty much my report. I'm still a little weary from my travels. I'll try to write more in the next few days.

• Posted at 11:57 PM · LINK

Sunday, May 29, 2005

Stolen From Another Website...

This is from Andrew Sullivan's blog. Couldn't resist.

It's a Bush administration meme. If you screw up, you get promoted, as long as you're a team player. If you really screw up, you get a Medal of Freedom. If you screw up to such an extent that it cannot be ignored, then you find a couple of low-level grunts to scapegoat. If you get something right, but Cheney got it wrong, you're fired. Is this really a way to win a war?

• Posted at 1:25 PM · LINK

Saturday, May 28, 2005

Goodbye, Uncle Goopy

Yesterday morn, a batch of people who knew and loved Howard Morris gathered to say bye-bye to...Howard Morris. Among the many who were present, I spotted Carl Reiner, Aaron Rubin, Andy Griffith, Betty Lynn, Shelley Berman, Gary Owens, Robert Clary, Ronnie Schell, Johnny Dark, June Foray, Jim MacGeorge, Janet Waldo and Charlie Adler. That's a very incomplete list. Those who might have expected a sad, downbeat event were put right from the beginning when Howie's son David chose to lead off by showing the "This Is Your Story" sketch from Your Show of Shows, which should still be viewable on your computer providing you have Real Player installed and you click here. The rabbi then had to admit to the problem of following what many think is the funniest sketch in the history of television. (The rabbi, who was more than up to the task, was Jerome Cutler, who was a stand-up comedian and TV producer before he turned to the rabbinate. There's a saying in the comedy business that you have to find "the right guy for the room," and he sure was.)

Of the many touching speeches, none meant more than one by Carl Reiner, who first met Howie in the days before World War II (that's how far back they go) and who admitted that a large part of both their careers came from one recommending the other for acting or directing gigs. Reiner pointed out that in the sketch that opened the service — the one you clickers just watched — nothing really was written for the performers, especially Howie. The brilliance all came from them taking the premise and running with it, and most of the funniest bits were more-or-less ad-libbed on the live telecast. In fact, Reiner noted, since it was live, he didn't even see the sketch until a few decades later. He went to see Ten From Your Show of Shows — a theatrical compilation released in 1973 — and said (approximately), "I kept hearing this woman with an annoying, high-pitched laugh filling the theater with her sound until finally, I realized that woman was me." He sat there and howled with laughter, he said. Mostly at Howie Morris.

Following the service in the chapel, many of us motored up to a remote corner of Hillside Memorial Park and watched as a coffin that seemed way too big to contain H. Morris was inserted into a wall that looked like a big filing cabinet of deceased Jews. They put him up high so, when we go to pay our respects, he can look down on us for a change.

That's about all I've got. It was tough turning loose of Howie but I think some of us have now done it. I still can't shake the yearning to hug Uncle Goopy one more time but that's okay. You don't want to turn loose of everything.

• Posted at 5:01 PM · LINK

Thursday, May 26, 2005

How I Spent Last Night

Last evening, the San Fernando Valley Chapter of The American Diabetes Association presented the Shirley Kayne Community Service Award to broadcasting legend Gary Owens. I know because my friend Carolyn and I were there to see it, attending a very nice dinner filled with folks from the A.D.A. (mostly doctors) and Gary's friends (mostly comedians). Among the latter were Jonathan Winters, Stan Freberg, Thom Sharp, Fred Willard, Shelley Berman, and Mr. Owens' Laugh-In constituents — Jo Anne Worley, Arte Johnson, Jack Riley, Alan Sues, Henry Gibson and George Schlatter. The stuffed chicken breast we were served seemed a little questionable but since the place was full of doctors, I figured it was safe to eat.

Mr. Winters was introduced and interviewed as a famous doctor, and it was wonderful to see him Jonathan in his natural habitat: Winging it, making up odd and brilliant answers to questions with no idea where he's going. It doesn't get any better than that.

I'm not exactly certain what Gary did to merit this award but I have no doubt he did plenty. Gary has always been so generous with his time it's hard to believe how many hours per week he spends in front of a microphone doing his radio show, recording promo announcements, voicing cartoons, etc. Still, whenever anyone calls with a worthy cause (or even an unworthy one), he's there. A fine, giving gentleman.

Speaking of honors: I forgot to mention that last Friday, some of the same folks gathered for a luncheon as the Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters staged a delightful salute of Joanne Worley. The dais included Hal Kanter, Peter Marshall, Tom Kennedy, Alan Sues, Billy Barnes, Mitzi McCall & Charlie Brill, Henry Gibson, Gary Owens, Jackie Joseph, George Schlatter, Fred Willard and Marcia Wallace, and in the audience one could spot Ruth Buzzi, Lily Tomlin, June Foray, Sally Struthers and many other familiar folks. I made a mental note at the time to remember certain funny lines so I could quote them here...and if I'd written this on Friday, I'd probably have remembered them long enough to do this.

• Posted at 9:54 AM · LINK

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Siegel, Drake to Receive First Bill Finger Award

Here's a press release that was just issued...

Jerry Siegel and Arnold Drake have been chosen as the first recipients of the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing. They were chosen by a blue-ribbon committee chaired by Jerry Robinson. The committee decided to give two awards, to honor both a deceased and a living writer who exemplify the award's criteria.

Jerry Siegel was, of course, the co-creator (with Joe Shuster) of Superman and Superboy and wrote the Superman comic books and comic strip from the character's first appearance in 1938 up through the late 1940s. He also co-created The Spectre (with Bernard Baily) for DC. After leaving DC (in a well-publicized dispute) in 1948, he continued to write comic books for a variety of companies and served as the comics art director at Ziff-Davis in the 1950s. He returned to DC in 1958, where he wrote uncredited Superman and other scripts through 1964. He died in 1996.

"There is a poetic sense of rightness that Jerry Siegel, co-creator of Superman, and Bill Finger, the unsung hero and writer of Batman, be symbolically united after three quarters of a century after their iconic characters' debuts," says Robinson. "Although both men led tragic lives, by launching the superhero genre and the Golden Age of comics, they left legacies that have enriched our culture."

Arnold Drake's comics writing career spanned the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. His credits include Doom Patrol (creator), Deadman (creator), Batman, Superman, Plastic Man, X-Men, Captain Marvel, Star Trek, Twilight Zone, Mighty Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Bullwinkle and Rocky, Stanley and His Monster (creator), Little Lulu, Space Ranger, House of Mystery, and Dark Shadows. His It Rhymes with Lust, with art by Matt Baker and Ray Osrin, published by St. John Publishing in 1950, was one of the very first graphic novels.

"Like Finger and Siegel, Drake is a consummate professional writer," says Robinson. "As the author of hundreds of stories from the Silver Age to the present, his credits demonstrate an amazing versatility, ranging from the superhero and adventure such as Doom Patrol to the wry humor of Little Lulu."

The other members of the Finger Awards jury were comics writer and historian Mark Evanier, cartoonist/screenwriter/playwright Jules Feiffer, comics writer/editor Denny O'Neil, and comics writer/editor/historian Roy Thomas.

The awards will be presented during the Eisner Awards ceremony at this summer's Comic-Con International: San Diego. Joanne Siegel will be present to accept the award for her late husband. Arnold Drake will be on hand to receive his award.

The Finger Award falls under the auspices of Comic-Con International and is administered by Jackie Estrada. The 2005 awards are being underwritten by DC Comics; sponsorship will be open to other companies in future years.

So that's who we picked. Like it says, Arnold Drake will be at the convention to accept his award, and we're going to take the opportunity to get him on a few panels. Matter of fact, we should have a terrific crop of veteran writers and artists for the "historical" programming items this year. I'm presently slated to moderate fourteen (!) panels, most of them about comic book history, and they're all goodies. I'll have a full list of them up in a week or two.

• Posted at 12:51 AM · LINK

Creator Credits

The Activision gaming people are staging a contest to tie-in with the release of the upcoming Fantastic Four movie — they're giving away a copy of Fantastic Four #1 autographed by Jack Kirby. You can enter here, or at least take note of the odd fact that their site seems to credit Jack as sole creator. I've seen Stan Lee get sole credit for these characters on many, many occasions but I can't recall seeing Jack mentioned like that unless it was done by a close friend or associate, which I'm assuming is not the case here.

The proper credit, of course, is that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created the Fantastic Four. And as I've just written for an article in an upcoming deluxe reprinting of F.F. #1, all indications are that it was a true collaboration and not a case of Stan writing and Jack only drawing. Sure hope the movie credits both.

• Posted at 12:02 AM · LINK

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

More Morris

Here's the New York Times obit of Howard Morris. In it, you'll note, Mel Brooks tells the story of how he went along when Howie went down to the Hudson River to scatter the ashes of his recently-cremated father. It was a very funny tale when either of them told it...but the Times doesn't mention that Mel used the situation in his movie, Life Stinks, in which Howie had a nice role. In the film, it was the ashes of Howie's character that were being scattered. I have a feeling we're going to hear this anecdote at the funeral on Friday.

Howie, by the way, was in the just-mentioned "Ann-Margrock" episode of The Flintstones. He provided the voice of her agent.

• Posted at 10:52 PM · LINK

How I Spent This Afternoon

Later this year — in time for Christmas, I believe — Warner Home Video will be bringing out the fourth season of The Flintstones on DVD. Today, my friends and fellow writers Earl Kress and Paul Dini recorded a commentary track for two of the episodes on it — "Ann-Margrock Presents" and "Little Bamm-Bamm." The second of these was the one that introduced the Rubbles' very strong adopted son into the series. The first of these was the season opener, guest-starring Ann-Margret, who was then quite a hot movie star, Bye Bye Birdie having come out a few months before. In case you're interested in the chronology here, Bye Bye Birdie came out in April of '63. The voice track for that Flintstones episode was recorded June 28 and then it aired September 19, which is a stunning lack of lead time — less than three months for a job that usually would have taken four or five.

It doesn't look it. By the standards of TV animation of the day, it looks pretty good, with some rather ambitious animation in the musical numbers.

So how did Ann-Margret wind up in a Hanna-Barbera cartoon? One assumes it had something to do with the fine film director, George Sidney. Mr. Sidney had a long history with H-B, going back to when Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera were directing Tom & Jerry cartoons for MGM. Sidney was directing the film Anchors Aweigh for that studio and someone came up with the idea of having its star, Gene Kelly, dance with an animated Mickey Mouse. Mr. Disney wasn't interested in the project so Sidney wound up going to MGM's division and having Bill and Joe and their unit supply the animation. Legend has it that after they thought they were finished, someone noticed that Kelly had done his part of the dancing on a shiny floor so when the images were composited, he had a reflection and his dance partner, Jerry, did not....so the animators had to go back and animate Jerry's reflection, too.

Sidney stayed in touch with Hanna and Barbera. When they started their own studio in the late fifties in partnership with Columbia Pictures, he was an investor and later a company officer. At the same time, he was directing movies for Columbia...like Bye Bye Birdie. If you watch the film some time, see how many "product placements" there are for Hanna-Barbera merchandise.

He was also interested in the career of Ann-Margret. He didn't exactly discover her — several others could claim that honor, including George Burns — but he got much of the credit for promoting her stardom. When Bye Bye Birdie was first previewed, it did not have the opening and closing in which A-M sang the title song. In fact, there was no title song. Sidney decided the movie needed more Ann-Margret so he put up his own money to have the composers of the Broadway show write a title song, and to film his new star performing it. Later, he directed two of her bigger films — Viva Las Vegas (with Elvis) and The Swinger.

He had a pretty good career with loads of acclaimed hit films. But for some of us, his greatest achievement will be that he was almost certainly responsible for Ann-Margrock. If you've never seen the episode, pick up the DVD set later this year. And make sure you enjoy the scintillating commentary tracks.

• Posted at 10:30 PM · LINK

An Essay for Kirby Fans

Michael Chabon writes about one of Jack Kirby's greatest creations, the beautiful but very strong Big Barda. And he's right that Jack modelled her fighting spirit (and protective qualities) on Mrs. Jack Kirby, better known as Rosalind. But the visual was inspired by the 1970 Playboy appearance of singer-actress Lainie Kazan.

• Posted at 12:17 PM · LINK

Today's (Brief) Political Rant

Yesterday, a group of Senators assembled what everyone is describing as a "compromise" regarding the filibustering of judicial nominees. I have no particular opinion about this compromise, or about what might have happened if they hadn't reached this compromise.

What amuses me is browsing websites of various political stripes. Some on both sides are angry, some are doing victory dances...and almost none of them seem to grasp the concept that in a "compromise," neither side gets everything it wants.

• Posted at 9:14 AM · LINK

More Morris

The Los Angeles Times [gotta register] has a good obit on Howie Morris. As it says in there, the funeral is Friday morning at 11 AM over at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City.

• Posted at 8:45 AM · LINK

Another Flawed Howie Obit

The Associated Press has moved another obit of Howard Morris, this one by veteran entertainment writer, Bob Thomas. It's much better than the others but I am amazed Thomas made the following mistake...

He joined the cast of "Your Show of Shows" a year after it debuted in 1950, often playing the ambitious little guy whose grandiose plans go awry. The 90-minute show, with scripts written by such luminaries as Mel Brooks, Neil Simon and Woody Allen, was one of the most heralded of television's Golden Era.

Woody Allen did not write for Your Show of Shows. Neither did Larry Gelbart, who is often credited with that program by people who should know better. Your Show of Shows was written by Mel Tolkin, Mel Brooks, Lucille Kallen, Neil Simon and Danny Simon, with Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner and sometimes Howie as unofficial, uncredited writers.

After Your Show of Shows, Mr. Caesar starred in a show called Caesar's Hour, which was followed by one called Sid Caesar Invites You, which was followed by a raft of specials. Gelbart started on Caesar's Hour. Allen didn't start until the specials. I have heard that Mr. Allen is embarrassed to be wrongly credited in this regard since his contribution to the Caesar oeuvre was pretty minor and in no way comparable to the work of the Mels, the Simons and Ms. Kallen.

• Posted at 1:55 AM · LINK

GSN Watch

This is for those of you who tape or TiVo the Black and White Overnight bloc on Game Show Network. This morning, they bumped their usual parlay of To Tell the Truth and What's My Line? for a one-night Frank Gorshin tribute, consisting of one Password and one I've Got a Secret. Tomorrow, I am told, they go back to To Tell the Truth and What's My Line?

However, for some reason, most of the online guides have Password and Secret replacing those two shows for the whole week, or even for two weeks. My TiVo's program listings have Password and Secret every night and I think that's wrong. So I've set it to record whatever's on in that time slot.

GSN has an odd policy on pre-emptions. They've been running the primetime What's My Line? in sequence but Saturday, they dropped in an episode of the syndicated What's My Line? as a part of a rather limp "Salute to Star Wars." (The mystery guest was James Earl Jones.) You would assume that the next day, they would run the primetime episode they otherwise would have run on Saturday but no. They just skipped it. They're presumably skipping another rerun (an episode with Charlton Heston) to run the Frank Gorshin tribute. This means that the early Wednesday morning rerun should be one with Bea Lillie, and the Thursday A.M. entry will still be the one with Jerry Lewis and Walt Disney. I don't understand why they do this but they do this.

• Posted at 12:48 AM · LINK

Monday, May 23, 2005

Thurl Ravenscroft, R.I.P.

Jesus Christ, it's been a bad week or two for voice people.

Thurl Ravenscroft, best known as the voice of Tony the Tiger in the Kellogg's Frosted Flakes commercials, has died at the age of 91, the cause being reported as prostate cancer. His rich, bass voice was also known to audiences from his many years as a singer, plus you could hear him all over Disneyland. (That's Thurl singing, "Grim, Grinning Ghosts" in the Haunted Mansion, and one of the busts along that ride was fashioned to look like him.) He also sang "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" on the animated TV special, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and appeared on hundreds of records and radio shows and other cartoons over the years.

Thurl was, in a way, the oldest working cartoon voice actor in the business. During the thirties, he was heard on radio as part of several different singing groups that eventually came to be known as The Sportsmen and later, he was in The Mellomen. One of his groups recorded voice tracks for a couple of Warner Brothers cartoons, such as the 1939 Sioux Me. Soon after, he began appearing in shorts for Mr. Disney, such as The Nifty Nineties (1941) and Springtime for Pluto (1944). Walt evidently liked the Ravenscroft sound because not only was he heard throughout the theme parks but he was also a voice in Dumbo, Cinderella, Lady and the Tramp, Alice in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmatians, The Jungle Book, Mary Poppins and many more.

All of this was in addition to Thurl's many, many credits as a studio singer. His most famous hit may have been backing up Rosemary Clooney on "This Old House," but he was also heard in many records for Spike Jones (like "Wyatt Earp Makes Me Burp," a Dr. Demento fave) and The Andrews Sisters and Bing Crosby and even Elvis. He was also called upon often to dub singing voices for other actors. All throughout the 1958 movie of South Pacific, there's a handsome sailor with a rich, deep singing voice. The voice is that of Thurl Ravenscroft. In the seventies, he did a lot of work for arranger Johnny Mann and was featured often as "Pappy" on the TV show, Stand Up and Cheer.

I never had the honor of working with Thurl, as he was semi-retired by the time I was in a position to cast him...but I sure tried. We spoke on the phone a few times and he always politely, and with some expressed regret, declined. He was living in Orange County and even though I offered to send a limo for him, he said that it would be too tiring, plus he was having too much trouble walking. The only times he went out to record, he said, were "doing the tiger" and his many spots for religious groups close to his home. I was disappointed, but it sure was amazing to hear That Voice over the phone, especially when I'd mention one of his old songs and he'd wistfully rattle off a few bars, a cappella.

You can learn a lot about Thurl and even hear some of his songs and commercials over at his website. And here's a link to an obit in The Orange County Register. True to their name, they make you register.

• Posted at 7:51 PM · LINK

Howie in the Papers

The obituaries for Howard Morris are just now appearing in the press. I'm always a little amazed at what gets mentioned in these things and what's left out and what they get wrong and such. The Associated Press obit, for instance, includes this paragraph...

In the 1950s, he joined a comedy sketch group including Carl Reiner and Imogene Coca on several TV variety shows, including "Admiral Broadway Review," "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour."

Yeah, and I think that "comedy sketch group" was headed up by a guy named Sid Caesar, who was the star of those shows. You get the feeling the guy who wrote this piece didn't know who Sid Caesar was, or how those programs have been honored and recognized over the years? Then over here in a piece in The New York Sun, it says...

While his face was less known to later generations, Morris's voice popped up all over the airwaves. He could be heard in cartoons, as Fred Flintstone's boss, Mr. Slate...

Uh, no. As ten seconds over at Google would have shown, John Stephenson played Mr. Slate. Howie played a wide array of non-recurring supporting roles on The Flintstones.

And of course, both leave out darn near everything he did since the mid-sixties, plus things like The Dick Van Dyke Show and all the movies he appeared in and all his stage work. Maybe I'm quibbling but, hey, Howie sure would have bitched about it. One time, we were in the parking lot of Canter's Delicatessen on Fairfax and a man who was walking past noticed Howie and thought he recognized him. "Hey, you're that funny guy on that show," he said. And then the man mimed a short cigarette and said, "Verrrry interesting."

I had to stop Howie from killing him.

• Posted at 6:42 PM · LINK

Jes' Fine

Nice article by Jonathan Yardley in The Washington Post about Walt Kelly's Pogo. You can see some nice samples of said newspaper strip over at The Official Pogo Website.

• Posted at 9:39 AM · LINK

More Morris

I feel like posting some photos and facts about Howard Morris over the next few days. Here's Howie with Howard Duff, Tony Randall and Kim Novak in the 1962 movie, Boys' Night Out. It's one of those not-wonderful movies with a wonderful cast. The main thing it meant to Howie's life, apart from his near-encounter with Ms. Novak, was that it convinced him his future was in Hollywood, not New York, and it prompted him to move out here. He immediately got busy with loads of TV work and animation voiceover jobs. His first Hanna-Barbera gig was playing interplanetary rock star Jet Screamer on an episode of The Jetsons, and he wound up in almost every H-B show for the next few years until the day he told Joe Barbera to perform an anatomically-impossible feat. Maybe I'll tell that story in the next few days.

In the sixties, Howie worked darn near every day, and turned down three jobs for every one he could squeeze in. Working on camera in his first three years in Hollywood, he did episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Ensign O'Toole, The Twilight Zone, Alcoa Premiere and The Dick Van Dyke Show, to name but a few. I'm told his Van Dyke Show ran this morning on TV Land. It's the one where Rob and Laura go to an auction, accidentally buy a painting by "Artanis" and then call in an art expert named Holldecker (Howie) to appraise it. He also directed several episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show, as well as directing and appearing on The Andy Griffith Show.

Howie also directed a number of episodes of Hogan's Heroes. He told me once that he originally got involved with the show when he was asked to audition for the role of Colonel Klink, which at that point was a somewhat different role than it became. The way Howie explained it, they wanted him to play Klink until Werner Klemperer came in to read for a different role. The producers decided to install Klemperer as Klink and Howie wound up directing instead, which he preferred. Now, I can't swear this story is true. At least, I don't think it's the way they recount it in the "official" histories of the show. But it's the way Howie said it was, and the one time I met Werner Klemperer, he seemed to think that's how it happened. He also added that as a director, Howie was invaluable in helping actors who needed to feign a German accent and he said that if you listen to the episodes Howie directed, you can hear some of the actors "doing" a Howard Morris dialect.

And not only that but didja know Howie directed the pilot of Get Smart? And that he was largely responsible for the casting of Ed Platt as The Chief in that series? I told this story back on this page.

I'll post more about Howie in the next few days...and don't think for a moment I'm doing it for your benefit. It's for me. I miss the guy.

• Posted at 12:17 AM · LINK

Sunday, May 22, 2005

Howie at Work

Want to see what a brilliant comic actor Howard Morris was? Got seven minutes? Then go to this page and click where they tell you to click.

And then, if you want to see him in an even funnier sketch, go to this page and click where they tell you to click. This one's eleven minutes but they may be the funniest eleven minutes in the history of TV sketch comedy.

You'll need to have Real Player installed to view them. Navigate through the links where they try to get you to buy the pay version and find where you can download the free one. I know it's a pain but do it for Howie.

• Posted at 1:09 PM · LINK

Howard Morris, R.I.P.

At left is comedian and character actor Howard Morris as a young man. Perhaps it's a picture from when he was on Broadway in Call Me Mister or Finian's Rainbow. Perhaps it's from one of the many TV shows he did with Sid Caesar, starting in 1949 with the Admiral Broadway Revue. Caesar was the greatest, everyone agreed, and Howie was able to match him note for note, dialect for dialect, playing support and sidekick on several programs, including the legendary Your Show of Shows. It could even be a still from one of his early movie appearances...maybe Boys' Night Out, where he co-starred with James Garner, Tony Randall and Kim Novak. How many times did we, his friends, hear the story of how one weekend during the shooting, he chickened out on an invitation to spend quality time with Ms. Novak?

At right is the Howard Morris I knew. Most of us called him "Howie." He was a fiery, funny little man who got mad and married easily, sometimes both at once. He was very proud of a lifetime of acting but very insecure about everything he did...which was amazing because he did so many different things and did them so well.

He was a director of TV shows including The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Hogan's Heroes, Get Smart and Bewitched, and of feature films, including With Six You Get Eggroll, Don't Drink the Water and his favorite, Who's Minding the Mint? (But he actually made the real money helming commercials — hundreds of them, including many of the classics for McDonald's in the sixties. They made one of his many ex-wives very wealthy.)

He was a voiceover actor, speaking for many characters including Jet Screamer and other roles on The Jetsons, Beetle Bailey, Jughead on the Archie shows, Atom Ant, Mr. Peebles on the Magilla Gorilla show, Wade Duck on Garfield and Friends, and hundreds of others. (But he actually made the real money voicing commercials. Remember the little koala who said he hated Qantas Airlines? That was Howie, and the role made another of his many ex-wives very wealthy.)

He was an on-camera actor, with credits ranging from The Nutty Professor with Jerry Lewis to High Anxiety with Mel Brooks and Splash with Tom Hanks. (But the thing everyone remembers is Ernest T. Bass, the rock-tossing misfit on The Andy Griffith Show. Howie was only in five episodes but he made such an impression that everyone thinks he was on it all the time...a lucky circumstance. The last decade or so, Howie's main source of income was signing autographed photos and making personal appearances for fans of that classic series. And no ex-wife got much of that loot.)

Howie was just a gusher of Show Business History and to sit with him was always an amazing experience. He worked with everyone and near as I can tell, always had their respect. He worked with me, off and on for close to two decades, and always had mine. He was a brilliant, spontaneous actor who could read the same line of dialogue ten times and do it a minimum of eleven different ways. On Garfield and Friends, my big insight as a director came when I realized that the less Howie knew about what he was reading, the more likely he was to do something stunning. So I'd explain the script to all the other actors before we rolled tape, and I'd keep Howie largely in the dark. Often, on that first take when he was reading Line 1 without any idea of what he'd find in Line 2, he would do something that neither he nor any other actor could have devised in a thousand attempts.

Howie died yesterday at the age of 85. It was not a surprise — he'd been in poor health for some time — but it still hit me like a stone lobbed through the window of the Mayberry Sheriff's Station by Ernest T. There will be formal obits up in the next few days. I'll link to them and you'll see what else this man did, even beyond what I've mentioned here.

But what they might not tell you is how much we adored this man — "we" being those who were honored to be around him and to work with him. He was not an easy person to know but once you got past that fake abrasive exterior that represented perhaps his finest acting job, you encountered a wonderful interior, filled with passion and compassion and I'm sorry if this all isn't cleverer and pithier, but the more you loved the deceased, the harder these things are to write. I'll post more about Howie when it finally sinks in that I can't call him up for lunch, take him to Canter's and watch as he insults the waitresses, the busboys and everyone dining within earshot...and they all love it, every one of them. If I'd been an actor when he was, I'd have wanted to do everything he did, except I would have gotten married a few less times, and I wouldn't have said no to Kim Novak.

(Quick Aside: I just spoke to his terrific son David, who took such good care of him between and sometimes even during his many marriages. No funeral arrangements have been made yet. I'll let you know when I know something.)

• Posted at 10:48 AM · LINK

Saturday, May 21, 2005

Loans From Lee

In case you haven't been following the case, a gent named David Rosen is currently on trial in Los Angeles, accused of misleading the Federal Election Commission about the cost of a campaign gala held in Hollywood back in 2000. Rosen was a fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton, and a lot of right-wing folks are hoping that a conviction of Rosen will somehow harm Ms. Clinton's future electoral prospects...and I guess there are left-wing folks who also would not be unhappy if she did not get the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, as well. I suspect both these groups will be disappointed. The prosecutor in the case is after Rosen, not Clinton, and even told the jury in his opening statement, "You will hear no evidence that Hillary Clinton was involved [in the alleged crimes] in any way, shape or form." The other day, the judge in the case indicated he would probably dismiss one of the three remaining charges next Tuesday, and some think he might throw the entire case out of court.

Even if Rosen is convicted of something, I doubt it will impact the future of Hillary Clinton. I don't think very many people in this country desert the candidate of their choice because of fund-raising violations. Most, I'm guessing, believe that everyone who runs for office is at least a little dirty in that regard, and that if you let that influence your ballot, you'll wind up with no one to vote for. People lose elections because their opponents define them as politically extreme, liars, cowards or on the wrong side of issues like abortion, guns or defense. But because one of their aides played fast and loose with campaign finance laws? I don't think so. That's the kind of reason you give for not voting for the person you weren't going to vote for, anyway.

What interests me about the trial is that the fund-raiser in question was arranged by Peter Paul, who was then the head of Stan Lee Media, a firm for which I was working at the time. I never really heard anything about the event while I was there, so I'm following the case as a spectator, albeit one who knew some of the folks involved. Peter has spent a lot of time lately behind bars and may soon be sentenced to his third spell in prison, this time for stock manipulation.

Stan Lee has pretty much avoided any of the legal nastiness that has lately surrounded Mr. Paul. But yesterday, Stan testified in the trial and said that he loaned Peter $225,000 to help put on the event and that he has yet to be repaid a dime of it. If I'd known he was that soft a touch, I'd have hit him up for a couple hundred grand.

Also of possible interest is that it would appear that the whole fund-raising gala cost $1.2 million instead of the $400,000 that was originally reported, and that it netted a whopping $57,820 for Ms. Clinton and another million or so for other Democratic causes — in other words, it brought in a little less than it cost. If so, that makes it a great example of what's wrong with politics in this country. And it kind of gives you a hint as to why Stan Lee Media didn't make any money, either.

• Posted at 6:29 PM · LINK

Friday, May 20, 2005

Henry Corden, R.I.P.

Henry Corden, a veteran character actor best known as the second voice of Fred Flintstone, has died at the age of 85. He had been in poor health for some time, suffering from emphysema (and sometimes from failing vision that made it difficult to read scripts) and many of the recent recordings of Fred were performed by another actor, following Henry's decision to retire. Henry had a long career in front of the camera that started with a small role in the Danny Kaye movie, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and continued with numerous film and TV roles. For a time, he was part of Jack Webb's "stock company" of players on Dragnet, and people often stopped him on the street, recognizing him from his appearances on that show. But it was as a voiceover actor that Henry found his steadiest income, especially in the sixties and beyond.

Hanna-Barbera began using him as, for example, the voice of Paw Rugg on Hillbilly Bears (a segment in the 1965 series, Atom Ant) and playing bit parts on Jonny Quest and The Flintstones. Henry's voice had a natural similarity to that of Alan Reed (who played Fred Flintstone) so Henry became a kind of "back-up" Fred, doing the role on kids' records when Reed was unavailable, and doing the singing voice for Fred here and there because the folks at H-B felt he was a better singer than Reed. When Reed died in 1977, Henry took over the role in all aspects and did it for even longer. (Reed and Corden also shared another interesting role. Both were hired at different times to redub Jackie Gleason for screen appearances. In the TV version of Smokey and the Bandit, for instance, a lot of Gleason's dialogue was looped by Corden to eliminate cuss words. It sounds like Ralph Kramden is imitating Fred Flintstone instead of vice-versa.) And Henry did other roles in animation. He growled for Ookla the Mok on Thundarr the Barbarian, and guested often on Scooby Doo, The Smurfs and many other shows.

Henry was a charming, funny man who was just a joy to be around. I remember him telling me a long story about working with Bud and Lou in Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion. He played an Arab in the film — he played Arabs and sometimes Germans in an amazing percentage of his screen appearances — and apparently Lou kept forgetting that Henry wasn't of Arabian descent. "There would be some Middle Eastern name or word in the script and Costello would ask me, 'Hey, you're from there. How's this pronounced?' And I'd have to keep telling him, 'How the hell should I know? I'm from Montreal!'"

Here's a link to an obit that will tell you more about Henry. I just wanted to tell you how much some of us will miss him.

• Posted at 5:22 PM · LINK

Also From the E-Mailbag...

Jason Czeskleba writes to ask...

On a message board I frequent, news about Mr. Gorshin's death has sparked a debate about whether the Batman TV show saved the Batman comics from cancellation. I'm not a participant in the debate, just an observer, but I'd never heard that claim before and now I'm curious if there's any truth to it. I was always under the impression that the Batman books may have been in danger of cancellation during Jack Schiff's tenure, but had recovered in sales after Julie Schwartz took over. Neither side in this debate I've been watching has been able to cite a definitive source for their claims. So I thought I'd ask you...

That's what I'm here for. Sales on Batman and Detective Comics slipped quite a bit in the 1960-1963 period under editor Jack Schiff and as this was a period when the Superman books were gaining, that was a cause for concern at DC. The numbers I've seen suggest that the bat-books weren't actually close to cancellation — many comics were selling less — but obviously, if sales on any book are dropping and nothing's done, that day will come. To ward it off, they did an editorial swap: Julius Schwartz took over those two books in '64 and Schiff got two of Schwartz's — Mystery in Space and Strange Adventures. The third title Schiff had been editing — World's Finest Comics — was shifted over to Superman editor Mort Weisinger.

Schwartz didn't turn his two books into best sellers but he did reverse the downward sales trend. Later, when the TV show came on, sales shot way up but by then, Batman and Detective were off the Endangered List. So no, the show didn't save the comic. The main effect, apart from a nice cash flow, was that the heat from the ABC series enhanced the value of DC Comics and led to its acquisition by a corporation, Kinney National Services. Nothing in the industry was quite the same after that.

By the way, I picked the above photo to run because it always struck me as funny. It's a good thing those folks are wearing masks because otherwise, someone might be able to recognize them. I have a hunch the one at right might be The Joker but of course, with the mask, who can tell?

• Posted at 12:47 AM · LINK

From the E-Mailbag...

This one's from someone who signs his message "Greg"...

Bill Maher is silly, is not that clever, and in the past has had some flat out offensive things to say. I hope he keeps revealing himself.

We don't go to war, or not go to war based on whether it's popular or not.

We don't have a draft. This president will not have a draft. I'll even predict (or be glad to make a wager!) that the the next administration won't have a draft, either.

Your friend — the one that didn't value the lives of certain people? He had, I'm sure you'd agree, an uncommonly stupid point of view. No one I know that supports what we're doing in the Middle East sees things that way. If anyone does see things that way, that kind of opinion is so ridiculous we shouldn't allow them into the discussion.

Our all-volunteer force has faced shortages before, and we'll be able to deal with it again.

We're going to be in Iraq for years to come, and I hope all of our troops do their jobs over there as best as they can.

This is not the kind of thing that people can really debate but I do find Bill Maher (generally) clever. I don't know which things he's said that you found offensive but I don't think it's possible these days to say anything of substance about important topics without offending someone. Some of the things for which he's been blasted were, I thought, unpleasant to hear but true. Which is not to say I agree with everything the guy says...but you'd be a pretty sorry topical comedian if you never get anyone upset. Either that or you're Mark Russell.

No, we don't enter into a war based on popularity polls but the will of the American people is never irrelevant to the workings of government, nor is it unrelated to the conduct of a war. If and when it's perceived that extending the war in Iraq will cause an elected official to not get re-elected, something will change.

Barring some unexpected world crisis, I don't think we're going to see the draft reinstated...but I suspect we are going to see a number of programs and laws that will pressure young men and women into military service. A friend of mine has been predicting that the Bush administration will soon invoke "ways to raise taxes that they can argue are not technically tax increases." I hope that's not so, and I hope we're not about to see ways they can press people into military service that they can argue do not constitute a draft. But I have the fear we are. We're already seeing soldiers having their tours of duty extended beyond what was planned, even if it keeps them in Iraq past the date they were scheduled to leave the Army. It's not exactly a draft but it is a move towards involuntary service. (Come to think of it, I wonder if the shortfall in recruiting has something to do with that. If I were thinking of signing up, the fact that they can just suddenly extend my tour of duty would make me think twice.)

I agree that we'll probably be able to increase volunteerism and I hope we do it, at least in part, by paying soldiers better, giving them better medical care, etc. It always struck me that we could improve our military by making some very minor cuts in what we spend for hardware (or even just trimming military pork) and diverting that money to the people who actually fly the planes, drive the tanks and so on. Someday, if I get a moment here, I'll tell the story of how, many moons ago, I expressed this view at a political seminar and it prompted an outburst of near-apoplexy on the part of Bob Dornan, who was one of the panelists.

Anyway, you're right: We're going to be in Iraq a long time. I'm pretty confident our troops will do the best job they possibly can. Wish I was as confident about the people giving them their marching orders.

• Posted at 12:36 AM · LINK

Thursday, May 19, 2005

More on Mr. Gorshin

One of the Gorshin obit photos that was moved by press services and featured on many websites today was the one at left from the Batman TV series. It shows Frank as The Riddler, menacing an actress named Susan Silo. As it happened, I had lunch today with Susan and she recalled Frank — as has everyone who knew him — as a gracious, talented man who smoked too much. They worked together a number of times over the years and she was always impressed with his skills. There was something about the guy — the way he commanded audience attention — that just set him apart from a lot of people who think they can do Brando. Some of their working together was in the voiceover category. One thing I should have mentioned about Gorshin was that he occasionally did v.o. work, including animation.

He was pretty good at it, though since his main career often took him out of town, he didn't do a lot in this area. In the last few years, he was one of those called upon to replicate Mel Blanc voices — Foghorn Leghorn in the 1997 short, "Pullet Surprise," for instance. I once asked him if he was ever hired to loop any of the actors he was famous for impersonating in his act — Lancaster or Douglas, perhaps? Frank chuckled and said, "Yeah, I'm in a couple of their movies but I did such a good job, I can't recognize me."

• Posted at 1:38 AM · LINK

Today's Political Rant

Bill Maher's HBO show is on hiatus 'til August but they went out with a terrific "New Rules" segment on the last episode. You can read the whole thing here but let me just post a couple of paragraphs from the middle where it really began to get good...

New Rule: The people in America who are most in favor of the Iraq war must now go there and fight it. The Army missed its recruiting goal by 42% last month. More people joined the Michael Jackson Fan Club. "We've done picked all the low-lying Lynndie England fruit." And now we need warm bodies. We need warm bodies like Paula Abdul needs...warm bodies!

Now, I know you're thinking, but, Bill, I already do my part with the "Support Our Troops" magnet I have on my Chevy Tahoe. How much more can one man give? Well, here's an intriguing economic indicator. It's been over a year since they graduated, but neither of the Bush twins has been able to find work. Why don't they sign up? Do they hate America or just freedom in general?

I don't think this is as silly as some might have it. I knew a lot of people who were utterly gung-ho for the Vietnam War until it touched their lives in some way. Before a loved one was drafted, it was the duty of Young Americans to go and fight and maybe die over there. Once there was even the chance that one of those Young Americans might not be a total stranger — maybe even (gasp) a family member — the war was wrong, sending men to maybe die in it was wrong, et cetera, et cetera...

I could absolutely respect a consistent pro-Vietnam War position and at one time, I had one. At least, I was for that war long enough to march for it a couple of times. My position changed...oddly enough, around the time I knew I would not be drafted. Still, after that, I did not think ill of many who were advancing arguments in which I had lost faith. They believed what they believed, regardless of the personal sacrifice that might be involved, and to the extent that there are "good wars" in this world, they flow from that premise. The people I couldn't respect were the ones whose positions seemed to shift solely because they suddenly stood to lose something or someone. There was a lot of talk then about not having reverence for our troops and I felt that a dandy way to not do that was to view them not as real human beings but as expendable drones. The pro-war acquaintance with whom I argued the most after my conversion seemed to think winning that war was worth any amount of lives as long as they were poor, mostly minority, and he didn't know the fallen by name.

Polls suggest that somewhere between 57% and 54% of Americans do not think this war is worth fighting, versus 41% to 44% who think it is. I wonder what that latter number would be if we were to reinstate The Draft and arrange it so that it was a pure lottery with no exemptions, no deferments and no way for Americans to be certain that they or their family members wouldn't have to go. I'm guessing something close to single digits.

• Posted at 1:02 AM · LINK

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Still More Recommended Reading

Two important articles over on Slate. Fred Kaplan tells of a recent U.S. military assault in Iraq where, he says, we did a lot more harm than good. And Jacob Weisberg discusses the Newsweek flap and the Pot/Kettle Factor.

• Posted at 5:13 PM · LINK

Frank Gorshin, R.I.P.

Funny guy, that Frank Gorshin. The first time I saw him perform live was at a Bar Mitzvah reception for a classmate of mine. The classmate was a relative of a gent named Arthur Ellen who was a somewhat famous hypnotist of the day, performing on TV and asserting he could help people become what they wanted to be. Ellen got up at the event to put on a little demonstration and somehow — I never understood how or why — Frank Gorshin appeared on the little platform with him and pre-empted the hypnosis by doing about twenty minutes of impressions for the crowd: Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Marlon Brando, the works.

I subsequently heard Gorshin on some talk show say that he owed a large chunk of his career to Mr. Ellen's therapy, so I guess that was the connection. But one thing hypnosis didn't do for Frank Gorshin was to help him stop smoking. Every time I was around him, he was going from one cigarette to the next. Once at a comic book convention, we were chatting and Frank was smoking. A security guard came by and politely pointed out a No Smoking sign. Frank apologized as if he hadn't seen it, stubbed out the Marlboro and then, the second the guard was gone, out came the pack of cigarettes again. Without even pausing in conversation, maybe not even aware he was doing it, Gorshin lit up another. So I'm not all that surprised that Cause of Death is listed as lung cancer, emphysema and pneumonia. As I mentioned here, reporting on a luncheon where he was honored, everyone was urging him to quit and he said he was trying.

I enjoyed talking with Frank at comic conventions and even interviewing him once or twice in front of audiences. Naturally, everyone was asking him about playing The Riddler on the Batman TV show and some even asked him about the one episode of the original Star Trek in which he appeared. He was polite about it, in large part because he was selling autographed photos from those gigs. But he vastly preferred talking about the other 98% of his career. You could see him light up (as a performer and as a smoker) when, after answering the 93rd question about Batman, one of us would mention something where he didn't wear tights, especially his recent projects. I saw him twice playing Nathan Detroit in a touring company of Guys and Dolls with Jack Jones as Sky Masterson and Maureen McGovern as Adelaide. Apart from the fact that Nathan occasionally lapsed into a Dean Martin impression, Frank was very good...and very glad that I'd seen and praised his performance.

The core of his career was, of course, his stand-up act and I had the pleasure of seeing the whole thing once, and with a full orchestra behind him. It wasn't all impressions. He sang and he told stories and he even did a little dramatic moment — a monologue about an actor learning he's been fired and what it meant to his life. As a mimic, Gorshin had an uncanny way of getting inside Big Stars and capturing their essence, but that was only part of what he did.

My sympathies go out to his family and also to his close friend and agent, Fred Wostbrock, who took very good care of him. Gorshin's final performance will be broadcast on Thursday's episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigations but I'll bet you we see the man in reruns forever.

• Posted at 10:38 AM · LINK

Set the TiVo

Frazetta: Painting With Fire is running many times this week on the Independent Film Channel. This is a documentary on the great painter of fantasy scenes and women with awesome rear ends. Here's what I wrote about it a year ago. If you haven't seen it and you get IFC, this would be a good opportunity.

Several folks have asked me to keep them posted of interesting folks who pop up on the old What's My Line? reruns on GSN. If you taped or TiVoed this morning's episode (i.e., the one running right this moment), you saw Jacques Cousteau and William Bendix. Tomorrow morning, we should have William Holden and the June Taylor Dancers. Friday morning, Claudette Colbert and director George Stevens are Mystery Guests. Then, jumping ahead past less exciting names, next Monday morning is an episode with Bishop Fulton J. Sheen and the two men who wrote My Fair Lady, Gigi and Camelot among other wonders, Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. If I forget, someone should remind me to mention again that next Thursday morning, May 26, there's an episode with Jerry Lewis (newly divorced from Dean) on the panel, and the Mystery Guest is Walt Disney.

Also: Next weekend's "classic" rerun of Saturday Night Live is the show from October 23, 1976 — a second season episode and the first time Steve Martin hosted. It's not a particularly memorable show, sketch-wise, nor is it helped a lot by musical guest Kinky Friedman. The best moments are to be found in a couple of stand-up spots by Mr. Martin that will remind you what he did well back when he did that kind of thing. Legend has it that Lorne Michaels had once resisted booking the guy because he thought his act was too silly...but Martin impressed all and was immediately invited back to host again. He returned to the post just nine shows later and made many memorable appearances thereafter.

The following weekend, the rerun is from May 22, 1982 — one of the Eddie Murphy/Joe Piscopo years — with guest host Olivia Newton-John. The highlight is probably a duet on "Ebony and Ivory" by Stevie Wonder (Murphy) and Frank Sinatra (Piscopo), and Graham Chapman makes a couple of brief, odd appearances in other sketches.

• Posted at 12:36 AM · LINK

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Teacher, Teacher!

The classes sometimes seem a bit overpriced but there are some intriguing lecturers at The Learning Annex. If you're in the Los Angeles area and interested in getting into the writing of animated cartoons, my old buddy Jack Enyart (who's written a lot of them) is conducting a one night lesson on June 1. And on July 28, you can pay $40 to have Stan Lee teach you how to be Stan Lee.

• Posted at 5:21 PM · LINK

Monday, May 16, 2005

Correction to the Correction

Turns out that what I identified as an R. Crumb self portrait over on Tom Spurgeon's site is actually a Crumb drawing of Allen Ginsberg. This is not quite as big an error as Newsweek just owned up to but I was wrong. On the other hand, I don't think it looks very much like any picture I've ever seen of Allen Ginsberg. Then again, the few times I've met Crumb, I was struck by how he looked nothing like the way he drew himself.

• Posted at 11:08 PM · LINK

Correction

Just saw a paper copy of today's Los Angeles Times — yes, they still make them — and there's a different R. Crumb self-portrait accompanying Crumb's little op-ed piece. That is, it's different from the one on Tom Spurgeon's site.

• Posted at 2:16 PM · LINK

Al Kurzrok, R.I.P.

You have to really be into obscure comic book credits to know the name of Al Kurzrok. He worked briefly for Marvel around 1970, mostly as a letterer but he also wrote a few stories for them, including five issues of Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos, a couple of western stories and some other things that never saw print. He also worked for a time for Harvey Comics...and even I'm not all that sure what else, if anything, he did — though I know this obituary gets his comic book credits all wrong. Most interesting is that he left that world behind, went into Psychology and occasionally tapped into his old skills to advance his new career. (I found out about all this via Tom Spurgeon's fine news blog, The Comics Reporter. Tom also has up a drawing of R. Crumb which I guess is the drawing that goes with the L.A. Times article just mentioned.)

• Posted at 11:51 AM · LINK

Crumb on Self Portraits

The L.A. Times website features a short editorial piece by Robert Crumb. [Subscription probably required.] I think the online piece is missing an illustration that presumably appears in the old-fashioned, paper Los Angeles Times.

• Posted at 7:52 AM · LINK

Early Monday Morning

Thanks to all who've written with concern about my mother and myself. She's better now but we spent another long night in the U.C.L.A. Medical Center Emergency Room...and by the way, the doctor part of the place is super-efficient but I've never seen unhealthier food than they have in their vending machines. Talk about drumming up business. You'd think a hospital would have trail mix and fruit and maybe a hard-boiled egg or two but no. It was all Ho-Hos and Ding-Dongs and a kind of cinammon bun so noxious that at 4:30 in the A.M., I watched a famished lady buy a package, take one bite and then shot-put the rest into a dumpster across the room. The vending machines did have microwave popcorn and microwave oatmeal-in-a-cup but as the waiting room had no microwave oven, those didn't seem too healthy, either.

I'm way too far behind on work to write about all we've been through here. When I do, I'll expand on what I think I said earlier about how the doctors and nurses and paramedics have all been terrific but that the non-medical folks and the red tape in the system are insane. They keep making mistakes and then no one seems to have the power or responsibility to fix those mistakes. I'll tell you all about some of them once I finish a script that should have been done long ago. If I can just manage to get a couple more days without having to go to some medical facility and argue with people, it will be.

Here are a few dangling topics and follow-ups...

Yes, I did receive a copy of Rowan Atkinson Live, thank you. Thirty of you offered copies and two just sent them, and I am grateful to you all. By the way, several said, "I bought this and I've never watched it." You should. It's hilarious.
Another thirty or so of you sent suggestions of good dial-up Internet Service Providers. I'm trying AllVantage on a month-to-month basis and so far, all seems to be well. I'll let you know if it ever stops being well.
The release date on the fourth volume of Garfield and Friends on DVD has been moved up to August 30. To answer an oft-emailed query, this is the one that includes the first episode with the Singing Ants ("Picnic Panic") and there are plenty of great guest star voices including Victoria Jackson, James Earl Jones, John Moschitta, Don Knotts, Don Messick, Stan Freberg, Buddy Hackett, Bill Kirchenbauer, Jewel Shepard, Dick Gautier, Paul Winchell, June Foray and Charles Aidman. There will be one more volume of DVDs after this and I have no idea when it'll be out...but it does look like we'll make it through all five volumes without any special features or commentary tracks or anything of the sort. Sorry...but it wasn't up to me.
Yes, I know I still owe you the story about Marty Feldman I promised long ago.
In this posting, I asked for someone to suggest an article that presented a different view of the Iraq War than the one to which I linked. Russ Maheras suggested this one and Buzz Dixon nominated this article. I'd like to suggest that everyone also read The Downing Street Memo, which would probably be Exhibit A in impeachment proceedings if a Democrat had taken us to war on these terms.

Lastly, I owe an awful lot of e-mails to an awful lot of people. If you're one of them, please be patient. I'm back on deadline for now so there won't be a lot of messages getting answered and there won't be a lot of stuff on this page for a while. All this will pass.

• Posted at 1:55 AM · LINK

Friday, May 13, 2005

In the Soup

And here we see a can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup, which is an Internet tradition dating back to the fourth century. It means that the guy who runs the weblog is too swamped with personal matters (say, a not-well mother and a pressing script assignment) to update his website for a little while. But he wants those who visit his site to know that he's thinking of them and that he's not not posting because he's off hammocking and lounging about. He's just too busy to post for a little while. And you're supposed to understand.

• Posted at 11:33 AM · LINK

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Chase: The Aftermath

The "suspect" in the police chase I mentioned earlier has died in the hospital. KABC (and I would guess, other local stations) are replaying the footage up to the moment when the officers opened fire on the guy. In a way, this is a disservice to viewers because the full video clearly showed that the man had a gun, and it would erase any suggestion that the police shot an unarmed man. I also don't think it is a bad thing to advertise the fact that if you have a run-in with police and you're holding a gun, you're quite likely to be shot. That's a lesson more people oughta learn.

We'll probably never know but I'd be fascinated to know what, if anything, a man is thinking in a situation like that. He has dozens of armed policemen after him and helicopters overhead. Does he actually think he can shoot his way out of that and get away? Or hold the police off with one handgun? Some people apparently provoke police shoot-outs as a form of suicide, and perhaps they have a hate on for the police and figure to take a few with them...but this fellow looked like he was really trying to get away. What, if anything, could have been on his mind?

• Posted at 7:47 PM · LINK

Buster Boy

Nice little piece on Buster Keaton by Kenneth Turan over in the L.A. Times Calendar section.

You'll need to register and I'm going to suggest you do. They used to charge for this section so I never linked to articles over there, but it's now free and even if you don't live in Los Angeles, it's a pretty good site for entertainment-oriented articles.

Whenever I suggest registering for some free Internet site, a couple of people write me and say they won't do that because it will result in Spam and their mailbox will get clogged. I've never noticed that to result from signing up with the most prominent newspaper sites but if it worries you, get an alternate e-mail address for sign-ups. Get an account on Hotmail or Gmail or My Way or any of a hundred other sites that will let you sign up for an online mailbox. Use that address to sign-up and only check it when you have to.

• Posted at 7:25 PM · LINK

Cut to the Chase

Just happened on a high-speed pursuit on a local TV station — a "suspect" fleeing from cops through the streets of Wilmington and Long Beach. I'm not sure why he's a "suspect" when we're watching the guy driving at 100 MPH through city streets, endangering people and refusing to stop. What are the chances of this person not being guilty of something?

KABC, Channel 7, covered it all live with two helicopters, one of which was equipped with what they're calling "Air7HD," which is high definition television broadcast from a helicopter. I haven't gotten around to upgrading to high-def yet but when I do, it will not be because I'm eager to see police chases in clearer detail.

When I happen on one of these, I am alternately repulsed by the Gawking Onlooker mentality of watching the spectacle...and unable to turn away. I'm also amused by the usual inability of the local TV newsfolks to ad-lib anything of substance, especially as a chase goes on and on and on, and no one's quite sure where they are or when it all might end. This one seems to have been televised for around forty minutes...and I guess it's nice to know that for that period of time, there wasn't anything more important in the world to report on than one nutjob driving wildly down Pacific Coast Highway.

I also wonder what's on the driver's mind. Has anyone ever debriefed enough of these "suspects" to make a survey? How many of them really think they're going to get away? How many realize they're on television with umpteen choppers tracking them? Are any of them thinking that's it just a big, colorful last moment for them in the spotlight before prison so they might as well put on a little show? Or are they just so incapable of coherent thought that they don't realize how little chance they have of not getting away and how high a chance there is of getting killed? Most importantly, where can I buy a set of spike-strips? I think it would be great to lay them down at the exits to my panels at the San Diego Con. That would sure stop a lot of people from leaving.

At the end of this particular chase, the "suspect" pulled into a fast food store parking lot, bolted from the car with a gun in hand and got shot. An airborne reporter acted like this possibility had never entered anyone's mind and he began telling his cameraguy to "Pull out, pull out"...which the camera operator eventually did. But he sure took his sweet time about it, and it felt deliberate — like the idea here was to show the violence but to act like they were trying not to. Moments after every viewer had seen a man shot on live television, the reporter was apologizing that it had been broadcast and he actually said, with the man lying motionless on the ground, "If you have small children, this might be a good time to have them leave the room." Uh, yeah...so they could miss when the camera finally pulled back enough to not show the body. (When I turned it off, it appeared the shots were not fatal.)

People, we're told, like these televised incidents because they're so "real." I guess that's why it jarred me that it ended on such a phony note. We're watching a man fleeing from the police. They're describing him over and over — because they don't have a whole lot to say — as "desperate" and "armed" and "dangerous." Why is anyone then surprised that there is live gunfire? If it broke out in the middle of the Santa Claus Lane Parade, fine. But if the TV station really doesn't want to show someone getting shot, they can put the thing on a seven-second delay. They can get all the stations in town to agree to it so if viewers channel-hop, no one's outta sync or has any advantage. Personally, I think it's more honest to just show the thing, gunplay and all, and not to pretend it was unintentional. If people complain, remind them: It's a police chase. There are armed police officers and armed criminals. If you watch it, don't be shocked at the ending. That's how these things sometimes turn out, remember?

• Posted at 6:35 PM · LINK

In a World Where Men Have Deep Voices...

If you're interested in a career in voiceover, do yourself a favor. Spend a half hour listening to my buddy Paul Harris interviewing two of the best promo announcers in the business, Don LaFontaine and Joe Cipriano. Paul had them on his radio show the other day and got a lot of good tips out of them. Listen over here.

• Posted at 2:03 AM · LINK

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Happy Garish Day

It's still May 10, at least where I am, so I can wish a Happy Birthday to one of the world's great voices, Gary Owens. Folks who lived in Los Angeles in the sixties probably knew him first as the witty radio personality on KFWB and then on KMPC. Folks outside L.A. probably knew him first as a cartoon voice (Space Ghost and Roger Ramjet, to name two) or as the on-air announcer for Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. He's also had an astounding career as an off-camera announcer, an actor, a TV host, a straight man for folks like Jonathan Winters, an Avon lady, a grilled cheese sandwich, a small carry-on bag, etc. The guy does everything and he does it so well that a prolonged period of unemployment for him is when he finishes one job at 11 AM and doesn't have anything else until after lunch.

I've known Gary since I wrote gags for him in 1970 and in a business full of jealousy and backstabbing, I've yet to hear an unkind word about him from anyone. He's a true gentleman, and I'll be interviewing him and reviewing his past on a spotlight panel at this year's Comic-Con International. For now, I'll just say Happy Birthday, Gary...and may your drelbs all be friendly.

• Posted at 9:31 PM · LINK

Another Public Appeal

Shelly Goldstein (chanteuse extraordinaire) is looking for MP3 files of old commercial jingles from the sixties that were recorded by pop stars of the era. Petula Clark did some. Dusty Springfield did some. Who else did some? More important, do you have MP3 files of them? If so, drop me a line and I'll pass the info on to her. She's also looking for the audio of the commercial with the tag line: "My wife — I think I'll keep her!" Shelly has an actual need for this material.

• Posted at 1:16 AM · LINK

Monday, May 9, 2005

Bullet P.S.

I shoulda mentioned that the new DC logo was designed by Josh Beatman of Brainchild Studios, and that the 70's version was the work of Milton Glaser, who's been responsible for some of the most memorable insignias in the field of graphic arts.

The earlier version went through several incarnations before it became the version I posted in the previous message, but I believe most of them were the work of Ira Schnapp, who was the in-house lettering genius at DC Comics or National Comics or whatever you want to call it. Mr. Schnapp also designed most of the famous logos, including the Superman one we all know and love.

• Posted at 12:46 PM · LINK

The Magic Bullet

As explained in this New York Times article, DC Comics is changing its logotype, effective later this month. Can't say as how I like the new one, which is seen at right in the above illo...but then, it took me at least a decade to get used to the one in the middle, which they introduced in the mid-seventies. I grew up on the one at the left and it will always spell Home to a lot of us, even if we could never quite figure out what it suggested the name of the company was — DC Comics? Superman-DC Comics? Superman-DC-National Comics? For that matter, since "DC" once stood for one of the firm's first publications, Detective Comics, you could say that the company name didn't make sense in most of its forms. It sort of stood for Detective Comics Comics, the way "The La Brea Tar Pits" translates to "The The Tar Tar Pits."

What I suspect is unmentioned in the Times article is the significance of what's unmentioned in the logo: Comics. The word wasn't in the 70's logo either, but it didn't have to be because back then, all it was really used for was comic books. That was the only business DC was in. Today, the entity we think of as DC is the division of Time-Warner that has the primary control of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, et al, and — oh, yeah — they also publish comic books of them and try to develop new properties in other comic books. Eventually, I'd wager, everyone will refer to the company/division as plain ol' DC...and then even that name will probably be deprecated in favor of Time-Warner or even Cartoon Network. (Just try and find the name "Hanna-Barbera" on a current Scooby Doo project.) DC is jazzing up with a new logo but what they're also doing is leaving the old logo, which was synonymous with comic books, behind. I'll bet they didn't even think of putting the word "comics" in this one.

But hey, I can live with it. Just wish the "C" didn't look so much like a "G."

• Posted at 12:39 AM · LINK

Sunday, May 8, 2005

Con Game

Tom Spurgeon offers some fine tips for attending the Comic-Con International in (gulp) sixty-seven days.

• Posted at 10:27 AM · LINK

Up Late With a Script

Which is what I am. Before I pole vault into bed, I'd like to thank all the folks who've written with good thoughts about my mother. She's doing still better, thank you...plus, I seem to be straightening things out with that medical supply outfit.

It's very annoying, when one is complaining about poor service, to keep talking to people who have no power to do anything but apologize. I don't need apologies from anonymous folks. I need action to be taken. The other day, in one of the few conversations I've had with someone who might actually be able to solve problems, I went through a laundry list of things that had been done wrong and then said, "You know, I'd be embarrassed to have this much inefficiency in my line of work...and I write cartoons for a living. Nobody dies if I screw up." I think that made a bit of an impression. At least, things got better after that.

Part of my mother's recovery involves treating her for Sleep Apnea, a condition which I also have. Several years ago, I wrote this article about it and now it seems to run in the family. And by the way, if you suffer from this, live in or around the Los Angeles area and have a prescription for the equipment, I would like to recommend my supplier. Home Respiratory Care, which is reachable at (310) 441-4640, came to my rescue when the Big Name Medical Supplier dropped the ball. The folks there are wonderful. I went through two other companies before I found them so I know what "not wonderful" is. The folks at H.R.C. are wonderful.

Thanks also to all who sent suggestions for a new dial-up Internet Connection. I'm trying one out in the next few days and I'll report back here if they turn out to be wonderful, as well.

Several people have written to ask if I'll be moderating my usual dozen-or-so panels at this year's Comic-Con International...an event that commences in (gasp, shudder) sixty-seven days. Yes, of course. Can't tell you what all of them will be yet but there will be the usual Cartoon Voice Panel, this time with some folks who've never been on one before. We'll be playing Quick Draw, and there will be a Golden/Silver Age Panel and a Jack Kirby Tribute Panel and I think I'm going to be hosting a panel on one of the greatest pieces of animation ever done for TV. I'll also be interviewing a number of top veteran comic book creators...and I should be able to give you a list here in a couple of weeks. So don't write and ask me what they'll be and, for the love of Paris Hilton, don't ask me where you can get a hotel room. What do I look like? Travelaxe? (If they can't help you, nobody can.)

Hey, does anyone have a copy they don't want of Rowan Atkinson Live? I'm looking for the stand-up special he did several years ago...the one with the sketch about the schoolmaster who beats students to death and the sketch about the ungracious award accepter and the one where he plays the Devil welcoming people to Hell. It came out on VHS and ran 300,000 times on Comedy Central...but I never got a copy and I'd like to find one and dub it over to DVD. There's a very funny man.

One thought before beddy-bye: Is it my imagination or did the following just happen in this country? George W. Bush ran around saying that we have a Social Security crisis because we will eventually have to reduce benefits by about 20%. So to fix it, he's proposing a new, much more expensive plan that will cut benefits by about 20%.

Is that about what happened? Naw, couldn't have. I must need sleep. G'night.

• Posted at 4:07 AM · LINK

Saturday, May 7, 2005

SNL Watch

Late tonight (or early tomorrow morn, if you're the kind of person who sees a glass as half-full instead of half-empty), NBC is running the fifth episode of Saturday Night Live. It was performed on November 15, 1975 and was guest hosted by Robert Klein. It's not one of the stronger early shows. Klein does two solid stand-up spots and performs his "I Can't Stop My Leg" number with the SNL Band. In addition to that, there are two musical guests — Loudon Wainwright III and ABBA. Wainwright's a great performer — and he's still out there, still touring — but I would guess the main interest here would be ABBA. They sing "S.O.S." early in the show and near the end, they return for "Waterloo."

What's interesting is that Robert Klein is largely disconnected from the episode. He's only in one or two sketches in the whole 90 minutes. The week before, guest host Candice Bergen was well integrated into the proceedings, appearing in bits and playing characters. You'd think Klein — who came out of Second City and who had impeccable credentials as an improv and comedy performer — would have fit neatly in with the Not Ready for Prime Time Players. The second time he hosted — two years later — he did. But the first time, for the most part, he does his turns and they do theirs. The following week, the host was Lily Tomlin and she was in almost every sketch.

Early in the show's existence, NBC really wanted to have a regular host. The execs there knew that Lorne Michaels' idea of a different host each week would never sustain in the long run, and they were just waiting for the right host to emerge. My understanding is that a lot of folks upstairs were assuming it would turn out to be Klein, who really seemed ideal: Strong in stand-up, strong in sketches, and he had that "crossover" appeal, meaning that younger viewers liked him but he didn't alienate the oldsters. Like I said though, the episode was weak. Klein, for some reason, didn't seem to meld with the program and they didn't have him back for a while. On the other hand, they booked Candice Bergen to host again a few weeks later, in part because some of the brass still thought she could be the regular host. Somehow, no one ever got the post — John Goodman, notwithstanding — and the show has done just fine.

I wish NBC was running these in sequence because it would be an easier way to study the show's evolution. Next week, they're running one from later in the first season, hosted by Dyan Cannon — also not a great episode, as I recall.

• Posted at 2:57 PM · LINK

Friday, May 6, 2005

Herb Sargent, R.I.P.

One of the great TV comedy writers, Herb Sargent, died this morning at the age of 81. Mr. Sargent had a long list of credits, some of which are itemized in this obit, but two biggies were That Was the Week That Was and the original Saturday Night Live. When Lorne Michaels assembled his first writing staff, he hired a lot of creative people who'd never written television before...plus one guy who had to show them how it was done. Herb Sargent was that one guy, and he was widely credited with teaching everyone there how to write and sharpen a script.

The last fourteen years, he had served as President of the Writers Guild of America, East. As you may know, WGAe is currently involved in a Tong War with the Writers Guild of America, West. Sargent was at the nexus of that battle and its associated lawsuits, and I'll bet no one has the slightest idea how his passing will impact matters except that, knowing the way WGA squabbles usually go, it'll probably make things worse.

• Posted at 3:57 PM · LINK

How I Spent Last Evening

Took the lovely Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Maltin to see the May edition of Totally Looped, a clever show of improv comedy that is done but once a month up in Hollywood. Here's a report I filed eleven months ago about this fun enterprise. Everything I said then is still true, especially the parts about it being very funny. You can find out about the June performance and all thereafter at the Totally Looped website, which looks a lot like this.

• Posted at 10:28 AM · LINK

Getting the Finger

As announced in this news release, I have agreed to be part of a five-person "jury" (along with Denny O'Neil, Jules Feiffer, Roy Thomas and Jerry Robinson) that will decide on a new trophy — the Bill Finger Award, to be presented at this year's Comic-Con International and every one thereafter. Jerry convinced the necessary folks that it would be a good idea to honor someone for a lifetime contribution to the art/craft (take your pick) of writing comic books. It's also, of course, a good way to remember the late Mr. Finger, who wrote an awful lot of comics that were much better than his financial compensation indicated...plus, we can all make "finger" jokes. I think it's long overdue.

• Posted at 8:44 AM · LINK

Stand a Little Straighter...

If you belonged to the old Merry Marvel Marching Society in the sixties, or if you longed to belong, you might enjoy Terrence Brady's article on that august organization. For those who don't know, the M.M.M.S. was a mail order deal where you could "join" (i.e., buy a membership kit for) the official fan club for Marvel Comics. There was a certain charm to the endeavor, courtesy of Stan Lee, even though the Merry Marvel Marchers never marched anywhere.

Also, fans of that era's Marvel Comics may be interested in Fred Hembeck's current column. In it, I correct him about a 1964 Marvel oddment and prove that there's nothing too trivial for some of us comic buffs.

In other news, Al Nickerson is posting a series of articles about The Creator's Bill of Rights, a 1988 brainstorm by a number of prominent comic book makers. My feeling about it, then as now, is that I agree totally with the goal and overall mission, but not necessarily with the methodology. (And I'm not sure I don't feel the same way about ACTOR, a charity set up to aid veteran comic book creators who are financially struggling.)

• Posted at 12:34 AM · LINK

Thursday, May 5, 2005

Public Appeal

Many moons ago, there was a 78 RPM novelty record performed by Larry Vincent and the Pearl Boys entitled "Sarah Sitting in a Shoeshine Shop." Dr. Demento plays it every other decade but I'm looking for a copy — like, an MP3 file — for a friend. Anyone got one? I need the whole thing, not the 30 second excerpt that floats around the Internet.

• Posted at 11:10 PM · LINK

Lately on Leno

The other night, Jay Leno's musical guest was Bright Eyes, singing a rather amazing song — amazing because it was allowed on network TV, I suppose. "When the President Talks to God" isn't much of a tune. There's very little melody and the ends of most lines feel like they should rhyme but don't. Still, it's kind of startling to hear someone go after George W. Bush that way...and on a show that's sufficiently Establishment that it welcomed the First Lady to its guest chair just a few nights earlier. You can view an online video of the number here.

Someone who did wrote me the following message...

I was amazed that Leno had him on to do that song and I got the feeling that Leno didn't want him there. Jay introduced the song and then you can see him getting up right away like he was walking out on it. Am I imagining something?

Yeah. Neither Leno nor Letterman — nor any current talk show host I can imagine — has on guests they don't want. Once upon a time, Dick Cavett was occasionally forced by ABC (which, in turn, was forced by the Nixon White House) to book certain guests for political messaging. In Cavett's case, it was sometimes a gent named Brent Bozell whose son of the same name, three decades later, is also making a nice living arguing that all news items unfavorable to Conservatives are biased reporting. But no, Bright Eyes would not have been on Leno's show doing that song unless Jay was comfortable with it.

What confused you was that the way the Tonight Show set is constructed, the performing area is way off to one side, so if Jay's behind his desk, he can't see the musical act well, and they can't see that he's watching at all. So he makes a point of always getting up and walking over to just in front of the last guest spot on the couch and standing there during the performance. I've seen him do this every time I've been at a taping. He was getting up to go watch Bright Eyes, not to walk out on him.

• Posted at 2:54 PM · LINK

Fair Warning

If you know what's good for you, don't click on this link.

(If that doesn't work, don't try this one.)

• Posted at 2:53 AM · LINK

Looking for Dial-Up Suggestions

My Internet comes to me via cable from Comcast, and I've had relatively little problem with them. My one big complaint is that for some reason, they don't offer a dial-up number so you can connect to the 'net while on the road. To solve this, I subscribed to a cheap dial-up Internet Service Provider called Access4Less that charged very little and required only a month-to-month contract. Alas, Access4Less is getting out of the dial-up business and handing their accounts over to Earthlink. I received a couple of e-mails (and one robotic phone call) from them informing me that if I did nothing, my month-to-month Access4Less account (for $5.95 per month) would automatically convert to a year-long subscription to Earthlink for $119.40, which they'd bill quickly to my credit card. Ain't that a heckuva bait 'n' switch?

So I've cancelled Access4Less and am looking for something similar. I need a dial-up ISP that I can access from anywhere in the nation but especially from Los Angeles. I'd like the lowest rate and no long-term commitment. I don't care about bells or whistles or parental controls or anything of the sort...just a decent connection.

Anyone have any recommendations?

• Posted at 12:04 AM · LINK

Wednesday, May 4, 2005

Wednesday Evening

Mom's a lot better and things are returning to normal, thank you. It's been a couple of rough days, and I thank those of you who sent encouraging messages, especially those that said, "No need to respond." I don't know how in one week, I could slip three weeks behind on everything I'm doing, but I somehow managed.

I continue to battle many bureaucracies to make sure she has the treatment and equipment she needs...and the last few days, this has required an ungodly number of phone calls, waiting on "hold" and then finding out that I have waited 15+ minutes for a call which ultimately connects with the wrong person. By this, I mean that someone says, "You'll have to speak to Mr. Jones in our Glendale office about that. I'll transfer you." And then they transfer me and I wait and wait and wait, only to eventually have my call answered by Ms. Smith in the Van Nuys office who has nothing to do with my issue. Twice, I have been given phone numbers to call, only to have the numbers turn out to be of the non-working variety. In both cases, this meant starting all over with dialing the main number. (I've learned to ask people if they can give a direct number to get back to them in case we're disconnected or I am wrongly routed. In most cases, they cannot.)

I've also encountered bizarre applications of the principles of medical confidentiality. At the hospital where my mother stayed for several days, the medical personnel will tell me absolutely anything I want to know about her condition, medication, treatment, etc., merely because I call up and say I'm her son. The accounting people, however, will not tell me how much her co-payments will be because they can only release that information to the patient.

What I've had to do in the last week has not been impossible but it's been very time-consuming and annoying. I keep wondering about patients who don't have someone else to make these calls. A person could not recover from a serious illness and spend hours on the phone straightening out mistakes and omissions. It is possible to get good health care in this country but too often, it involves someone staying on top of the situation and making certain that what's supposed to be done is done when it's supposed to be done. The doctors and nurses have all been wonderful but the folks who juggle schedules and push papers are either less than competent or they've been plugged into a dysfunctional system. Today on the phone, a nice lady told me that someone had wrongly cancelled a certain appointment. Her computer did not allow her to uncancel it, nor could it tell us who had cancelled it and/or who had the power to reinstate it. It took me around 20 minutes (19 of them on "hold") to locate that person and practically threaten them into overriding procedure and making things right.

Hey, here's a cute little story I have to share with you: Very early Thursday morning, I was in the Emergency Room at U.C.L.A. Medical Center with my mother...and I must say, she received superb treatment. Everyone was nice and efficient and, well, if you absolutely have to be in such a place, that's the place.

My mother was on a gurney surrounded by one of those flimsy curtains they have in hospitals. Next to us, there was another gurney with another woman on it, and I could not help but overhear what was transpiring over there. The lady, who was maybe sixty, had been brought in with some sort of balance problem — an inner ear disorder, I believe I heard the doctor say. Whatever it was, she could not stand without falling. She had fallen twenty-four times in as many hours, and was clinging to that gurney for precious life.

The doctor — same one who treated my mother — was a charming, authoritative man. He looked like Pernell Roberts, sans toup and spoke like Ricardo Montalban, sans accent. Having treated her and decreed that the problem was gone, he asked her to stand. She was too scared to do this. "I'll fall over," she said.

He assured her she would not. A male intern came over and the doctor promised that they'd stand on either side of her and prevent her from falling. She refused. He promised her there was no way she could fall. She said no, she couldn't. The doctor told her she couldn't stay there on that gurney forever. She didn't answer. She just clutched the side of the gurney and held on, tight and trembling.

Calmly, and with a disarming friendly manner, he engaged her in conversation. Where was she from? What did she do? Did she have any hobbies? Two minutes into this chat, she happened to mention that she'd once been a champion ballroom dancer.

The doctor brightened. "Oh, it's been so long since I've danced with someone who really knows how. Would you dance with me?"

The woman looked at him (I assume — I was just listening) like he was nuts. "D-dance with you? Here?"

He said, "Why not? Just a few steps. Do it for me...please."

I don't know if it was because he was so charming or because he was a doctor but, sure enough, the woman slowly turned loose of the gurney and allowed him to help her to her feet. Within moments, I could see them dancing around the small amount of open space in the Emergency Room. There was no music, of course, but the doctor hummed and they waltzed about for maybe a minute. Just as I was about to ask if I could cut in, the doctor stepped lightly away from her, leaving her standing there...on her feet, in full possession of her balance. If you'd seen the expression on this woman's face — tears of joy as she realized she was not falling — you'd have witnessed one big reason why people become doctors.

I have to get back to work. On my breaks, I'm catching up on websites I routinely read so I'll probably post some links here tonight.

• Posted at 10:10 PM · LINK

Tuesday, May 3, 2005

Tuesday Afternoon

And another round of apologies for not posting anything here lately. I'm dealing with an unhealthy mother and an even less healthy company that is supposed to provide certain home health services for her. Or at least, I was dealing with them, which meant endless hours (hours, plural) on the phone, being placed for long periods on "hold" before I could reach what, nine times out of ten turned out to be the wrong person. And don't you just love hearing over and over again, a cheery voice telling you, "We know your time is important so someone will be with you as soon as possible"? They play classical music while you're waiting and I think in the last few days, I've heard the combined works of Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Mozart, Handel, Hayden and P.D.Q. Bach.

It's amazing, simply amazing, that a major company has their phones configured so that it takes 38 minutes just to reach a human being. That's how long my first call to them took...and the person I finally did reach was of no help whatsoever.

Even more amazing is that this is a firm that supplies medical supplies to people who need them to survive. You wouldn't tolerate this service from an outfit that delivers pizza...and oxygen is almost as vital. After a day or so of receiving endless apologies but no change in behavior, I think I've blown off the Big Name health services provider (which shall remain nameless) and moved its responsibilities to a small, three-person outfit where the three people answer their phones and one of them is coming over later with the equipment. True, my mother's health insurance won't pay for the small outfit — I will — but at least she's going to get what the doctors say she needs.

Past experience has shown me that when I post something like this, I get a lot of e-mails from people who say, "Oh, how true," and they tell me the story of the lousy service they received last October. Please, since I'm so far behind on everything, save those tales for another time. I don't think we should be entertaining one another with them. I think we should be sending them where they might do some good. I've been complaining — loudly and forcefully — to various execs at the company in question, plus I'm talking to a lady with something called the Joint Commission of Accreditation of Health Care Organizations. (I don't guarantee I got that name right.) She phoned me because a doctor-friend I called for advice phoned her, and she said that one of the reasons companies can get away with such shoddy service is that there's so little downside for them. Folks like us simply don't complain enough. I intend to do my share.

I'll be back in a day or so. Just as soon as I get things straightened out.

• Posted at 1:39 PM · LINK

Sunday, May 1, 2005

Sunday Afternoon

Didn't post anything yesterday and this may be it for today. Briefly, I'm inundated with other matters, which also explains why so many e-mails are languishing in the "To Be Answered" folder. My apologies. I made time for the obit of Zeke Zekley because...well, he was Zeke Zekley. Other affaires d' blog have to wait.

It may be a few days before I'm back to regular posting. When I am, I'll comment on reports that Stan Lee's settled his lawsuit with Marvel. I'll tell a little story about when I worked with the late Mason Adams. I'll answer some questions I've received about the Writers Guilds lawsuits and respond to some comments about my piece on Al Franken's past and why it may not matter.

In the meantime, here's a link to Frank Rich's weekend column, here's one to a piece that says Arnold Schwarzenegger is becoming as unpopular as the guy he replaced...and here's one to a piece on the ruination of Cookie Monster. That's right: I typed Cookie Monster...one of the greatest TV stars of all time. Or at least, he used to be.

Lastly, here's a link to something rather amazing. Go read Kevin Drum about how the U.S. military issued a report last week that was full of redactions...but put it out in a PDF format which allows anyone with Adobe Reader (which is, like, 85% of all Internet travellers) to read the redactions. Drum doesn't seem to know if the redactions are of important data but you've got to figure it this way: If they are, then whoever censored this document then released it is a chowderhead. And if they aren't, then whoever censored this document is restricting our access to information that we have every right to know...and is a chowderhead. The latter possibility reminds me of Jack Anderson's old claim that of all the information in Washington that is marked "Classified" or "Top Secret," 75% is withheld for no reason whatsoever, and another 20% is so designated because someone's trying to hide the fact that they screwed up and/or broke the law.

• Posted at 1:56 PM · LINK

June 1, 2005 • Current • April 1, 2005

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Recommended Reading

• Posted at 9:59 PM · LINK

No More Mystery

• Posted at 2:50 PM · LINK

Throat Article

• Posted at 10:22 AM · LINK

Throat Warbler

• Posted at 9:30 AM · LINK

John Albano

• Posted at 9:04 AM · LINK

Monday, May 30, 2005

Arizona Report

• Posted at 11:57 PM · LINK

Sunday, May 29, 2005

Stolen From Another Website...

• Posted at 1:25 PM · LINK

Saturday, May 28, 2005

Goodbye, Uncle Goopy

• Posted at 5:01 PM · LINK

Thursday, May 26, 2005

How I Spent Last Night

• Posted at 9:54 AM · LINK

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Recommended Reading

• Posted at 10:21 AM · LINK

Siegel, Drake to Receive First Bill Finger Award

• Posted at 12:51 AM · LINK

Creator Credits

• Posted at 12:02 AM · LINK

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Recommended Reading

• Posted at 11:02 PM · LINK

More Morris

• Posted at 10:52 PM · LINK

How I Spent This Afternoon

• Posted at 10:30 PM · LINK

An Essay for Kirby Fans

• Posted at 12:17 PM · LINK

Today's (Brief) Political Rant

• Posted at 9:14 AM · LINK

More Morris

• Posted at 8:45 AM · LINK

Another Flawed Howie Obit

• Posted at 1:55 AM · LINK

GSN Watch

• Posted at 12:48 AM · LINK

Monday, May 23, 2005

Thurl Ravenscroft, R.I.P.

• Posted at 7:51 PM · LINK

Howie in the Papers

• Posted at 6:42 PM · LINK

Jes' Fine

• Posted at 9:39 AM · LINK

More Morris

• Posted at 12:17 AM · LINK

Sunday, May 22, 2005

Howie at Work

• Posted at 1:09 PM · LINK

Howard Morris, R.I.P.

• Posted at 10:48 AM · LINK

Recommended Reading

• Posted at 1:10 AM · LINK

Saturday, May 21, 2005

Recommended Reading

• Posted at 10:21 PM · LINK

Loans From Lee

• Posted at 6:29 PM · LINK

Friday, May 20, 2005

Henry Corden, R.I.P.

• Posted at 5:22 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

• Posted at 10:09 AM · LINK

Also From the E-Mailbag...

• Posted at 12:47 AM · LINK

From the E-Mailbag...

• Posted at 12:36 AM · LINK

Thursday, May 19, 2005

More on Mr. Gorshin

• Posted at 1:38 AM · LINK