Wednesday, June 22, 2005

MP3 Recorder Recommendation?

Someone here will have a suggestion. I need to record some interviews, and I also want to audio-record the panels I'll be moderating at this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego. (By the way, one panel has fallen through so I'm down from 15 to 14. I have no idea what I'm going to do with all that free time since there's nothing to see at the con and no one interesting to talk to.)

I want to find a small MP3 recorder with a great built-in microphone for this purpose...something that records to either a hard drive or a Compact Flash card. I have MP3 players that will record but I don't like the results I've gotten with them. Anyone have a nomination?

• Posted at 10:36 AM · LINK

Labor Pains

The national executive committee of the Screen Actors Guild has voted to reject the recent deal negotiated for voicing video games, so you can ignore most of this item. Here's the latest news. This sounds like a major rift in the union that will lead to much yelling and little solidarity.

In other Hollywood labor news, the Writers Guild is making a major effort to organize the folks who write reality shows. Actually, there's an aspect of this story that's not being mentioned, which is that writers on reality shows were routinely covered by the WGA, once upon a time. I worked on a reality show in the eighties that was fully covered by the Guild. What happened over the years was that reality show producers started to realize they could avoid paying WGA rates for writers by not calling the people who were writing their shows "writers." They began calling them "segment producers" or "researchers" or some other title but still expecting these folks to create a script.

A lot of writers protested to the WGA. Some turned down such work because they didn't want to write without getting full guild benefits and protection and, of course, a writing credit. Others, for economic necessity, took those jobs but went to the Guild and said, "Can't you do something about this?" The problem was that the Guild didn't address it when it was a matter of two or three shows. The WGA covers a field of different writers doing different kinds of writing, and there's a kind of short-sighted democracy that causes it to ignore the issues that don't immediately impact the majority of members. Most WGA members do sitcoms, one-hour dramatic series or features, so those are the areas that receive most of the attention, and the needs of the game show writers and soap opera writers and variety show writers (and so on) get neglected. The reality show scam wasn't addressed for a long time because it didn't affect a lot of people...and now that it does, it's a more difficult problem to handle. One of these days, if and when variety shows make a big comeback, we're going to be in similar trouble. For over a quarter-century, variety show writers have been pointing out abusive employment practices in their area but since there have been so few of them, their grievances never became a high priority. Someday, when rectifying them will be more difficult, they'll be a major issue.

• Posted at 9:26 AM · LINK

Correction

Mark miscalculated. The episode of To Tell the Truth with Baby LeRoy doesn't air on GSN until Wednesday morning. Sorry.

• Posted at 9:00 AM · LINK

Game Show Moments

The episode of What's My Line? which ran this morning (just now) on GSN had a bit of history to it. It was from 5/26/57 and had Errol Flynn, of all people, on the panel. A few hours before the live broadcast, host John Daly learned that the Mystery Guest would be Mike Wallace, who was then gaining a reputation as a hard-hitting TV interviewer. Mr. Daly had some sort of personal dislike of Mr. Wallace or maybe it was a feud between newsmen who also hosted game shows. Whatever the reason, Daly announced that if Wallace set foot on their stage that evening, he [Daly] would not. He could not be dissuaded from this ultimatum so the producers of What's My Line? cancelled out Wallace and hurriedly replaced him with Sammy Davis, who was then appearing at a New York nightclub.

The next day, a story appeared in one of the New York newspapers detailing the switch. Daly was embarrassed and angered by the leak and though the account was unsigned, he was certain it was the handiwork of What's My Line? panelist (and newswoman) Dorothy Kilgallen. He didn't speak to her, except as necessary for his on-camera hosting responsibilities, for months after.

By the by: If you're following GSN's late night reruns, you might like to know that the What's My Line? broadcast tomorrow morning will have Mystery Guest Eddie Cantor (plus his daughter). Thursday morning's has Johnny Ray. Friday morning's has Peggy Lee. Saturday morning's should be Gene Kelly. And Sunday morning is Sal Mineo.

The reruns of To Tell the Truth which air just before What's My Line? have had some interesting folks, too. The one yesterday had Barbara Hammer, who was identified as a "fur model turned comedy writer." Ms. Hammer wrote for Danny Thomas, Ray Bolger, Pinky Lee and others, but her big credit was that she was a writer for Mr. Magoo cartoons, including one Oscar winner. She was credited on at least six U.P.A. cartoons from 1954 and 1955 and, given her background, I'm assuming she's the same Barbara Hammer who wrote an unsuccessful TV sitcom pilot in 1962 called His Model Wife, all about a model turned homemaker.

Question to anyone who knows: The classic 1962 animated TV special, Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, was written by someone named Barbara Chain. Ms. Chain also was credited as a writer on the 1950 Crusader Rabbit cartoons and on the 1965 Three Stooges cartoons, and it sorta sounds like Barbara Chain and Barbara Hammer might be the same person. The Internet Movie Database credits Barbara Chain also with work on the 1970 series, Villa Allegre, and the 1985 animated series, MASK, but I'm thinking this may be a different Barbara Chain. In fact, I feel like I met the Barbara Chain who worked on MASK, and she wasn't born when Crusader Rabbit was on. Or maybe I'm confusing her with Barbara Hambly, who wrote on MASK and later went on to become a top writer of fantasy books and comics. Anyway, my question is whether anyone can sort out all these Barbaras and tell us which of them, if any, might qualify for the title of first female animation writer.

If I've figured correctly, tomorrow morning's To Tell the Truth should feature a spot with Melvin Purvis, the G-Man who nabbed many famous gangsters, including John Dillinger. It's from 9/24/57. And next Monday, one of the subjects is the grown-up actor who'd once worked under the name of Baby LeRoy, getting kicked and hassled by W.C. Fields.

• Posted at 2:14 AM · LINK