Monday, February 20, 2006

Border Incident

Over on Tom Spurgeon's fine site, The Comics Reporter, I explained (in this letter) about a bordered cover format that Marvel tried out in 1971. Tom asked about it, I answered...and I also explained about a cover border format that Mad Magazine test-marketed in the seventies. Folks are now writing me, asking where they can see an example of this Mad experiment so I thought I'd post the above.

Someone at Mad got the idea that it might boost sales to establish a decorative border format on their covers. Someone else, I guess, wasn't convinced this was a wise idea...so several issues were printed both ways. Some percentage of the press run had the yellow border on the cover, the rest didn't, and sales were charted. After a while, the bordered covers went away, never to be seen again. Which should give you some idea of how the test turned out.

• Posted at 10:47 PM · LINK

Where Walt Slept

One part of Disneyland that most people have never seen is the apartment built for Walt's private use. But you can take an online tour of it here.

• Posted at 9:20 AM · LINK

Remember Velvel

It's now been nine days since ventriloquist Rickie Layne died. The New York Sun ran a nice, detailed obit last Thursday but otherwise, I haven't seen a word anywhere on the 'net about it, apart from what I posted here last Tuesday. I assume the obituaries will be along sooner or later but I don't think this is how news reporting is supposed to work.

• Posted at 8:58 AM · LINK

Public Pythonvision

This Wednesday evening, PBS stations around the country are debuting Monty Python's Personal Best, a series of six one-hour specials composed of classic sketches from the original BBC Monty Python's Flying Circus. When I first heard about these, I thought it was just another way of repackaging that old material and therefore something I could miss. I love Python but I have the complete run on DVD and...well, let's just say there are some things I love but have seen too many times.

Turns out though that these specials may be worth catching. According to this article on the Python website, "Each show features a rich collection of Monty Python clips as well as new sketch material written and performed by the indvidual Pythons." Each of the five surviving performers hosts his own show and apparently they did actually pick their favorite sketches, not necessarily featuring themselves. (The Fish-Slapping Dance, which is just Palin and Cleese, is in all six shows.) They all pitched in to handle the episode spotlighting their late comrade, Graham Chapman, which is nice. But I have the feeling you could get a more entertaining show if they all just sat around and told anecdotes about him.

PBS is going to start rerunning the original Python episodes in April for the benefit, I guess, of those who love Python but not enough to buy the DVDs. It was back in 1974, of course, that PBS originally introduced Python to America...though not everywhere. For some reason, our local PBS affiliate, KCET, didn't start running them until the following year...so for a time, Monty Python had a special kind of cult following in this town. A small group of us knew their work from the records, from our trips to other cities and from the movie, And Now For Something Completely Different, which opened and closed in L.A. without a lot of attention long before KCET broadcast Python across Southern California. When they did come along though, they were an immediate hit. Almost right away, if you said "Nudge, nudge" in any public place, there'd be someone around who got the reference.

A KCET exec told me back in the seventies that Python was the third-best thing to ever happen to PBS fundraising. Reminding parents to support Sesame Street was the number one money-getter and second was to rerun the 1973 production of Steambath, which had Valerie Perrine naked for about ten seconds. Python got people to give cash, in part because Terry Jones taped a number of brilliant little pitches that KCET would run as part of their pledge breaks. They had Jones tied to a chair, looking like he'd been worked over by a couple of gorillas, pleading with us to donate or he'd endure further punishment. The exec told me that every time they ran them, they got a lot of pledges but they also got a few calls from people saying it was shameful that someone was beating up that nice man with the British accent. "We figure that's our target audience," he said. "The kind of viewer who really needs educational television."

• Posted at 1:19 AM · LINK

February 21, 2006 • Current • February 19, 2006