Sunday, February 5, 2006

Myron Waldman, R.I.P.

Animator and animation director Myron Waldman died Saturday morning at the age of 97. His career dated back to working as a cel-painter on Betty Boop and Koko the Clown cartoons in 1930. The eminent cartoon historian, Mr. Jerry Beck, has posted a better obit than I could possibly produce. Go here to read it.

• Posted at 8:13 PM · LINK

Hard-Boiled and Singing

Here's a review of a stage production you can't go and see. In fact, I think the last performance is starting just as I'm posting this report on the matinee I saw this afternoon.

The Reprise! company in Los Angeles does these low-rehearsal, low-budget, high-talent interpretations of great Broadway musicals and they're just now finishing two weeks of City of Angels, a very fine show with a book by Larry Gelbart, lyrics by David Zippel and music by the late (and much-missed) Cy Coleman. For those of you unfamiliar with the show, it's about a writer in the forties who's not unlike Raymond Chandler. They're turning one of his hard-as-nails detective novels into a movie and he's selling out a bit of his soul for Big Bucks, working for an a-hole producer-director who's demanding change after change for no good reason. Anyone who's heard Mr. Gelbart discourse on what know-nothing execs have done to his own work will recognize a large part of the passion in his witty dialogue.

The stage is usually bisected. On one side, we see scenes from the novel as ace gumshoe Stone functions in a film noir environment, with costumes and sets in black-and-white to suggest that kind of world and movie. On the other, we see novelist Stine, who leads a more-or-less full-color existence, battling the idiot producer, cheating on his wife, breaking up with that wife and wrestling with his own rather confused conscience. Most of the actors in the show play at least two roles, one on each side of the stage, and both narratives get quite complicated, especially when one mirrors the other or they outright intersect. Somehow, the storylines resolve each other and the audience goes home very happy. At least, all the folks this afternoon who fled the Super Bowl to see City of Angels up at U.C.L.A. did. Gelbart's words are extremely clever and Zippel's music matches him, pun for pun and double entendre for double entendre. I think he even managed to get some triple and quadruple entendres in there.

Stephen Bogardus was Stine, Burke Moses was Stone and they both were terrific. So was Stuart Pankin, who played the producer who glories in messing with the writer's prose. I'd rave further but it would just make you sorrier you can't go see it. I'd go back and see it again if I could.

• Posted at 7:39 PM · LINK

Sunday Morning (Just Barely)

I've had the time to read up on the situation with the Danish cartoonists and I still don't have anything to write here apart from the obvious. What's more, I haven't seen any other bloggers write anything that I wanted to link to or even pass off as my own observations. Yes, cartoonists everywhere have a right to draw what they want. No, it may not be the smartest thing in the world to publish drawings that are going to get that many people that mad. Those two thoughts are not mutually exclusive.

I won't be watching the Super Bowl today. Carolyn and I are going to a play. You can get real good seats when you go on Super Bowl Sunday.

Sorry to read of the passing of Sonny King, a great entertainer who worked with Jimmy Durante and was a Vegas fixture for many years. He is most often mentioned for the historic achievement of introducing a kid named Jerry Lewis to a singer named Dean Martin. But Sonny, who I saw perform a few times when I first started trekking to Nevada, deserves to be remembered for more than that.

Lastly for now, this reminder: The WonderCon convenes in San Francisco this coming Friday. Unlike last year, when rain made for a messy weekend, the forecast calls for naught but sun, at least through Saturday. So that's a good sign. I'll be moderating a (for me) modest slate of panels and since I went to the trouble of making up the banner, I'm going to post it again...

• Posted at 11:58 AM · LINK