Saturday, July 30, 2005

Question of the Day

Hey, I liked his music, too. But is it really a good idea to name a post office after a blind guy?

• Posted at 8:17 PM · LINK

Tow Truck Troubles

Some of you may recall that two years ago, I had an ugly encounter with a predatory tow truck driver. I wrote about it here and this has prompted perhaps a hundred people, angry at similar incidents and scanning the web in search of remedies, to write me. Three or four even turned out to have been victimized by the same company that towed me.

I came to the sad conclusion at the time that nothing could be done about these practices. Apprently, a few things are now being done, as this article details.

• Posted at 7:40 PM · LINK

More on Pat

That's Pat McCormick towering over his friend and occasional partner, Paul Williams, in one of the Smokey and the Bandit movies. I think of him mainly as a writer but Pat did an awful lot of on-camera performing, in part because people just liked having him around.

Among his many attributes was that he always had some great, utterly topical joke. No matter what was in the news, Pat had a line about it, sometimes even in good taste. It was among the reasons for Mr. Carson to keep him on the payroll of The Tonight Show for years, regardless of what he handed in. The other writers on Johnny's staff were held to strict production quotas: You had to produce X number of monologue-worthy jokes each week or you were outta there...but the rule didn't apply to Pat. Rumor has it there were long stretches — months, sometimes — when Pat handed in nothing or at least, nothing useable. It was no secret that his life was a flurry of drink and drugs and women. For a time, he was involved with Johnny's "matinee lady," Carol Wayne, and was deeply affected when she died in a boating accident. Johnny reportedly never pressed Pat for material, telling his staff, "When he turns in something good, it'll be worth it."

You had to admire the speed. One day in 1992, I was driving over to a meeting with an agent. On the phone, I heard the sad news that singer-dancer Ben Vereen was in serious condition after having been struck by a car on a beachfront road just north of Los Angeles.

When I walked into the agent's office, Pat was in the waiting room. He walked up to me and said, "Mark, do you know how to get to Malibu?"

It sounded like a straight line so I said, "No, how?"

Pat said, "You go north on Pacific Coast Highway 'til you hit Ben Vereen..."

• Posted at 6:54 PM · LINK

Quiz Kids

Interested in game shows? Then you may want to attend Game Show Congress 4, a convention which is being held in Glendale, California on August 19-21. They'll have panels and screenings and games and they're presenting lifetime achievement awards to Monty Hall, Tom Kennedy and Jack Narz. Basically, it's a gathering of folks who love quiz programs and such.

Of special note is that on Saturday, my pal Stuart Shostak is hosting a panel discussion of key production members of the original NBC version of Concentration including the show runner and the all time champion contestant of the show. I'm a little busy that weekend but I may try to get out there for that. I always thought that was a great program.

The folks behind this gala weekend are looking to get as many game show fans there as possible, of course. But they also want to make contact with people who've worked in the game show industry who might be interested in being a part of it all. If you are one such person, you might want to contact them through their website.

• Posted at 2:53 PM · LINK

Macho Men

Many of you know Don LaFontaine as the husky, haunting voice of about ten million commercials and movie trailers. Alan Light (thanks, Alan) calls my attention to this funny video clip of Don and several other men who do what he does.

One of the gentlemen there is Mark Elliot, who is often referred to as The Voice of Disney. Most Disney trailers and ads are either done by him or by announcers who are told that's the desired sound. A lot of folks have written to ask who that is. It's Mark Elliot.

• Posted at 2:08 PM · LINK

True Crime Stories

Some of the best moments at the Comic-Con International this year came with the appearance of broadcasting legend Gary Owens on a couple of panels, including a spotlight conducted by Earl Kress and me. And Gary was quite a trouper to do all those things on Saturday because, as some of you may have heard, his not-inexpensive car was stolen that morning from the hotel where he was staying. I am happy to report that the car has been found, scratched and with some of its contents missing, but reasonably intact. The hotel will be paying for the necessary repairs and replacements...so while I wouldn't say it was a happy ending, it's not as bad as it might have been.

This is a leap but I am reminded of an anecdote I might as well post here. My father's car was stolen in the Summer of 1970. In fact — and there's no connection to the event but one reminds me of the other — it occurred on the Saturday of the first San Diego Comic Convention. I came home from the con to hear the news.

Amazingly, police caught the guy who'd done it and he plea-bargained on an understanding that committed him to only two or three months in jail. After he pled guilty on those terms, thinking he'd made a helluva deal, a U.S. attorney stepped in and charged him with stealing government property. My father worked for the Internal Revenue Service and his briefcase, which was full of paperwork, was in the trunk. Though he never even opened the trunk, the thief wound up serving six or seven years more for stealing something he didn't even know he'd stolen. I have a feeling he wasn't too thrilled with the lawyer who'd advised him to take that first plea-bargain.

• Posted at 1:34 PM · LINK

Tom Leaving Again

I miss Tom Snyder on TV and will soon be missing him on the Internet. He's shutting down his website on August 1, he says. Before he goes, you might want to visit and read the recent commentary posts that are still up there. [Thanks to Jay Huber for letting me know. I hadn't been checking in because Tom said he'd injured his wrist and wouldn't be posting for a while.]

• Posted at 9:54 AM · LINK

Pat McCormick, R.I.P.

I am almost happy to report that a brilliant, funny man named Pat McCormick has finally died. For the last seven years, his sad and hopeless condition has broken the hearts of so many of us who loved and admired what was once one of the greatest minds in comedy.

Here is the story, and I'm not sure this has been reported anywhere else on the 'net. In 1998, Pat was scheduled to perform with his friend and sometimes partner, Jack Riley, at a live show Merv Griffin was hosting at the Beverly Hilton hotel. They had a routine called "The Smartest Man in the World" in which Jack acted as straight man, peppering Pat with questions. The show was about to start but Pat had not arrived. Suddenly, from the direction of the garage, everyone heard some sort of explosion and they ran out to see what it was.

Pat had driven his car in and...well, he either suffered a stroke which caused him to crash his car into a concrete wall in the parking lot or he crashed his car into the wall and that triggered the stroke. Either way, it was an awful crash that caused the auto to catch fire. Unreported at the time, for some reason, was that Pat's life was saved by a little old lady. Some tiny woman, reportedly in her sixties or seventies, pulled his 6-foot-7 body out of the flaming car and dragged it to safety.

Sadly, there wasn't much of a life left to save. Pat McCormick, one of the wittiest men ever in show business, never spoke another intelligible word.

Those of us who knew him dutifully trucked out to visit what was left of the man at the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills, and to try not to cry. Most of Pat's shattered bones eventually healed but it was impossible to connect with the human being, such as he was. No matter what you said to him, he'd nod and sometimes giggle a little. You were never sure if he had the slightest idea what you'd said. When I visited, the only thing he did that suggested he might have some brain cells functioning somewhere in there was that he'd point to a guest book on a little music stand and indicate that I should sign it. Once, I wrote — accurately, I think — "To Pat, from whom everyone in the business has stolen..." Me aside, that guest book became a Who's Who of veteran comedians and comedy writers. I recall signing in the first time below the names of Buddy Hackett, Shelley Berman and Jonathan Winters.

Everyone knew Pat not only as a writer (and sometimes performer) of funny material but as a man who was just as colorful and hilarious as any joke he ever authored. A lot of comedy writers are, when you meet them, indistinguishable from guys who sell life insurance for a living. Not Pat. There are hundreds of stories, most of them true, about outrageous Pat McCormick deeds and actions. The ones about him dropping his pants at his mother's funeral or running nude through a Tonight Show taping are among the few that can be told in, as they say, mixed company.

This obit [L.A. Times, registration required] will give you the basics of Pat's career. What it doesn't convey sufficiently is how loved he was by the comedy makers of his generation...and how tragic it was to see that brilliant mind silenced the last seven years, sealed away someplace in a body that the doctors said (correctly) would never get any better. Now that the rest of him is dead, maybe we can put that Pat McCormick out of our minds and remember the real one.

• Posted at 9:14 AM · LINK

Last Call for Neverland

Cathy Rigby is presently on her farewell tour in the musical version of Peter Pan. She's flying all over the nation (here's the website, complete with a tour schedule) and it's been announced that the production will be in New York from November 30 through December 30 at Madison Square Garden. It's not wandering anywhere near where I might easily catch it but if it did, I'd go. I've seen Ms. Rigby three times in the role and I thought she was terrific...yes, even better than Mary Martin was, at least on TV. In fact, I thought the whole new production — though designed as a low-budget "bus-and-truck-tour" venture — was superior to the first and allegedly classic rendition. For one thing, they got rid of the two numbers in the original show that I thought were ridiculous.

One was the "Mysterious Lady" song where Peter Pan disguises himself as a woman and sings opera to entice Captain Hook. It was in the Mary Martin version and even as a kid, I always thought it was silly. You can only ask an audience to accept so much. I was willing to pretend I didn't see the wires that flew the actors about. I could even, just barely, pretend that Mary Martin — who struck me as a very nice grandmother type — was an adolescent lost boy. Where they lost me, even at age eight, was when the lady pretending to be a boy started pretending to be a lady...and Captain Hook, played by an actor who was doing a bad job of pretending to be straight, pretended to be interested in her. (Another nice, more effective aspect of this new production is that Hook is a real villain, instead of the more usual, campy portrayal. I've seen Hooks whose feet touched the stage less than Peter Pan's.)

The other thing they cut which never made any sense to me in the Mary Martin version was the ballet. Apparently, director-choreographer Jerome Robbins was determined to have a ballerina fly and dance in the show and it didn't matter to him that there was no logical place in the plot for it. So even though the magic of Peter Pan is that he can teach kids to fly and take them off to Neverland, Robbins had the maid in the Darlings' nursery (played by a trained ballet dancer) somehow learn to fly on her own and make it to Neverland without Peter's guidance. Then she dances for a bit with these people in bad, clumsy animal costumes and then she flies back home. It's a completely expendable number that stops the plot cold for no good reason, and it isn't even that interesting a dance...the most boring thing I've ever seen in a musical I otherwise like.

Anyway, the Cathy Rigby production cut those numbers and butched-up Hook to better effect...and like I said, I thought she was quite wonderful in the role. So was the whole cast in the last version of it I saw with her, which was a few years back. If you get the opportunity to see her do the role before she turns in her pixie dust, I recommend it. If not, well...there was a DVD but it's out of print and can be expensive to obtain. (The same is true of the Mary Martin version. Here's a link to the Amazon page for it.) If you have kids, take them. But if you don't, don't let that stop you.

• Posted at 12:32 AM · LINK