Sunday, March 12, 2006

Stern Update

Yesterday, I posted that the name of Howard Stern had mysteriously disappeared from David Letterman's guest list for Monday night. Earlier today, I posted that I was told that Stern would be on.

What seems to have happened here is that the CBS website had Vin Diesel up as the main guest for Monday. This was wrong or outdated, but it caused several Internet sources to think that a change had been made and they adjusted their listings accordingly. But nothing had changed. The website was just wrong.

The CBS website has now been updated to reflect that Mr. Stern is on with Letterman on Monday night. So apparently, he was never off. It was just a false alarm.

• Posted at 9:05 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

Over at the Chicago Tribune, they have a nice profile on "local boy" Tom Dreesen. Tom's a great stand-up comedian and one of the nicest, most ethical guys I've ever encountered in the business. You'll have to register to read the article, which was pointed out to me by Bruce Reznick.

• Posted at 8:56 PM · LINK

Briefly Noted...

I am hearing from one source that Howard Stern will be on with Letterman tomorrow night. His name has vanished from some online program listings but that may not be accurate.

• Posted at 10:43 AM · LINK

The Boys on DVD

I mentioned these before (back here) but we now have cover art and Amazon links for two forthcoming DVDs collecting Laurel and Hardy movies. As Laurel and Hardy movies are just about my favorite things on film, I'm quite happy about this and want to see them do well so there'll be more releases. Neither of these sets really includes their finest efforts and we'd sure like to see those make it to good DVD releases soon.

Coming out in May: TCM Archives - The Laurel and Hardy Collection, a set that includes The Devil's Brother, Bonnie Scotland and some extras, including trailers, excerpts from other features, a documentary on short films, and commentary tracks by Leonard Maltin and Dick Bann. The Devil's Brother is the best thing on either of these DVD sets...a very fine period comedy with our heroes getting involved with a dashing highwayman.

And coming out any day now: The Laurel and Hardy Giftset, a collection that includes Great Guns, Jitterbugs and The Big Noise, plus trailers, some short promotional films, and commentary tracks by Randy Skretvedt. I'm not sure why this is a "giftset" and the three films are from the later, declining period of Stan and Ollie when they made films for Twentieth-Century Fox. But even weak Laurel and Hardy is better than no Laurel and Hardy so I'm getting this one, too. (There will be a Volume Two later this year with their other three films for Fox — The Dancing Masters, The Bullfighters and A-Haunting We Will Go. The ones on the first volume are better.)

As usual, Amazon is offering a package deal where you can buy both sets together and save, save, save.

So here's the big question: One of these DVDs is from Warner Home Video. The other is from Fox Home Video. Is it just a coincidence that the designers at both studios picked almost the same type font, out of thousands and thousands of possible choices, for the names of Laurel and Hardy on the two covers? I'm assuming it is since I can't think of any reason for them to have coordinated such a thing...and if they did, the fonts would be exactly the same, wouldn't they?

• Posted at 2:56 AM · LINK

Another Video Link

It's the video that was made for the White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington during Bill Clinton's final year in office. The short was directed by Phil Rosenthal, who was behind Everybody Loves Raymond, and it was intended to answer the question of what the outgoing president was doing all day. As such, it generally pleased both those who liked Clinton and those who enjoyed seeing him go. You probably fall into one of those two categories so you might enjoy it. Runs about six minutes.

• Posted at 1:37 AM · LINK

Unreal Time

The conversation was a bit more interesting on this week's installment of Real Time With Bill Maher — the episode that debuted last Friday night and repeats throughout the week — but I'm still not enjoying it as much as I did last season.

There's a curious exchange with Maher, Larry Miller, Gloria Steinem and Ramesh Ponnuru. Miller, who is more or less pro-Bush, is making the argument that wiretaps are necessary because, you know, we might hear someone planning another terrorist attack and be able to stop it. This is a reasonable point but it's also, insofar as I can tell, not in dispute.

Miller further insists that time might be of the essence and that there might not be time to go before a judge and get a warrant. And for some reason, no one else on the show says, "Larry, haven't you read anything about this? There's a provision in the law that says they don't have to wait for a warrant if there's insufficient time for that. They can wiretap and then apply for the warrant up to 72 hours later." Maher is usually sharp about this kind of thing but he doesn't point that out. He's not the only person muddying the issue, which is not about whether wiretaps might be a useful tool in protecting America. The point of actual contention is whether the president can or should be able to order wiretaps without any supervision by the F.I.S.A. court, either before or after the fact. How about if someone tries debating that?

• Posted at 1:33 AM · LINK

Briefly Noted...

The New York Times has an article up about Alan Moore and his various battles with DC Comics and with the folks who have made (or tried to make) motion pictures out of his graphic novels.

• Posted at 1:14 AM · LINK

A Bone to Pick...

We were talking here recently about product placement in TV shows and movies. This got me to thinking about the first time I was ever conscious of this in a program I watched. Kids' shows of the fifties and sixties were filled with commercials that merged almost seamlessly with content but there were the more blatant crossings of that imaginary dividing line. One occurred a couple times on Quick Draw McGraw. Quick Draw occasionally employed the services of a bloodhound named Snuffles who had a "thing" for dog biscuits. Give him one and he'd hug himself in delight, then literally float up in the air and down to earth, breathing a sigh of ecstatic fulfillment.

And what kind of dog biscuits evoked this reaction from Quick Draw's pooch? Why, Gro-Pup T-Bone Dog Biscuits, of course. Above, you see Snuffles holding a box of them in a Quick Draw McGraw cartoon — and this is not a commercial. This is a frame-grab from a cartoon. Anyone here think it was probably just a coincidence that Gro-Pups were manufactured by the Kellogg's cereal people, and Kellogg's was the sponsor of Quick Draw McGraw? Didn't think so. In fact, in at least one cartoon, the box wasn't a hand-drawn abstract like the above but an actual, pasted-in photo of the real Gro-Pup box. This was shortly before Augie Doggie, another character on the Quick Draw show, began turning up on the Gro-Pup boxes in stores.

I actually noticed this shameless bit of payola when I saw the show at age eight. It did not make me want to run out and buy that brand of dog biscuits, possibly because we didn't have a dog. But I did think it was cheating and I still do.

• Posted at 12:04 AM · LINK