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

May 21, 2005 • Current • May 19, 2005