Friday, December 23, 2005

Chin Ups!

Following up on the item before last: Dr. Winchell called his invention the "Inverted Novelty Mask" and used it on his shows to play several different characters. One was named Oswald and another was named Mr. Goody-Good. And by "invention," I mean he actually held a patent on it. Here it is.

• Posted at 11:29 PM · LINK

Jawdropping Holiday Cheer

The late, great Paul Winchell invented many things ranging from an artificial heart to...well, he had this wonderful gimmick he did on TV where he painted a face of his chin and turned the camera upside-down and if you ever saw it, you know what I'm talking about.

Today, the basic principle of Dr. Winchell's chin person invention is being used to offer joyous holiday tunes on the Internet. Go to this site and enter the name of your favorite carol.

• Posted at 10:59 PM · LINK

Gravy Waltz

I'm a big fan of both The Tonight Show and also its first host, the late Steve Allen...so naturally, I had to get Inventing Late Night: Steve Allen And the Original Tonight Show, a new and well-researched book by Ben Alba. Produced with the cooperation of Allen's estate and most of his surviving co-workers, it's a good look at the history of one of the most important shows (and enduring formats) ever on television. Since most of those shows are lost — no tapes, no kinescopes — a certain amount of the history has gotten lost in the process, and Alba does a good job of digging up as much as anyone probably could.

But the book is really more than a history. It's more of an advocacy brief for the premise that Steve Allen invented not only the late night TV talk show but darn near everything else in the areas of comedy, variety and interview. Others who've worked on such shows, including Jack Paar, Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon, are practically scolded for not sufficiently acknowledging their debt to Allen. The book actually makes a decent case that Allen — or perhaps in some cases, Allen and his staff — were the first to do many things on television, and I suppose one could argue for weeks as to how much of that was merely a matter of being the first to be noticed for bringing to TV, elements familiar from radio and other forms of entertainment. (I always thought Ernie Kovacs got a bit too much credit as a genius and visionary because he thought to do old silent comedy routines in a TV studio.)

Since I agree Allen has probably not gotten as much credit as he deserves, I can forgive a bit of overreaching, especially because Alba does a good job of also crediting those around him, such as writers and directors. The thing that may strike you as you read the book (here's an Amazon link if you'd like to) is how brave Steverino was. No one today would go out in front of so many people with so little preparation...and so little control. Leno and Letterman have dozens of writers to do an hour a night. Allen had two or three to do 115 minutes. Today's talk show host has everything planned in advance, including the alleged surprise walk-ons and screw-ups. Allen often didn't know what his staff had planned for him in the next segment. When your modern-day talk show host ventures into the audience, those audience members have often been pre-screened by the producers and told what to say and what not to say. Allen went out with a hand mike, picked someone at random and performed without a net. Alba's book made me wish I could see more of those shows...and that more shows today were like that.

Over on my sister site, Old TV Tickets, I've posted some tickets from Mr. Allen's Tonight. Tickets to the Paar, Carson and Leno versions will soon follow.

• Posted at 10:07 AM · LINK

December 24, 2005 • Current • December 22, 2005