In the midst about all the debate over whether Mel Gibson is anti-Semitic — or whether he just becomes that way when drunk — everyone seems to be forgetting one very important fact: The man was arrested for and has admitted to drunk-driving.
Being a racist swine is bad. Getting behind the wheel of a car when you're intoxicated isn't all that much better.
This is one of my admitted areas of prejudice. I've had several close friends killed by drunk drivers and I have very little sympathy for anyone who does drive while under the influence. If I were making the laws, a first offense would carry a mandatory prison sentence of a year and permanent loss of license, a second offense would be five years...and then three strikes and you're out. This was at least Mr. Gibson's second offense and some reports suggest he'd been stopped several other times.
I doubt he will ever convince much of the population that he isn't a Jew-hater but everyone can make up their own mind about that. What I'd like is for a judge to toss his Lethal Weapon ass behind bars in spite of the army of high-priced lawyers Gibson is able to hire and in spite of the fact that he will doubtlessly emerge from Rehab "totally cured" of his drinking problems and very contrite. He may even come up with some important film project that will celebrate Zionism, qualify as Community Service and give those already inclined to overlook his bigotry an excuse to say, "He's suffered enough." None of that will change the fact that doing 80 on Pacific Coast Highway while full of tequila, he could easily have killed somebody.
We probably won't see him do hard time. This is California and he is, after all, a celebrity. But I hope people remember: Thinking that Jews are the cause of all wars is not against the law. Driving with a blood alcohol content of 0.12 is. There's no excuse for either.
You are surely familiar with William Shatner's immortal video interpretation of Elton John's "Rocket Man." If by some chance you aren't, you can watch it here...and I'd suggest five or ten viewings to get its every nuance burned well into your frontal lobes.
Then watch this version by Chris Elliott and marvel at the guts involved in doing a parody of something most viewers had never seen...
I recently bought one of these for my mother and we're both very happy with it. It's the Uniden EZI996 900 MHz Cordless Phone for the Visually or Hearing Impaired — a one-line telephone that's perfect for someone who has trouble hearing or reading the buttons. The ringer and the handset volume can be cranked up to high levels and both the base and handset have a light that will flash when the phone rings or when a voicemail message is waiting. The thing has pretty good sound, too. You can read more about it or even order one here.
If you have TimesSelect, go read Frank Rich. If you don't, you'll have to settle for me quoting his first two paragraphs...although if you do a little searching on the 'net, you should have no trouble finding someone quoting the whole thing.
As America fell into the quagmire of Vietnam, the comedian Milton Berle joked that the fastest way to end the war would be to put it on the last-place network, ABC, where it was certain to be canceled. Berle's gallows humor lives on in the quagmire in Iraq. Americans want this war canceled too, and first- and last-place networks alike are more than happy to oblige.
CNN will surely remind us today that it is Day 19 of the Israel-Hezbollah war — now branded as Crisis in the Middle East — but you won't catch anyone saying it's Day 1,229 of the war in Iraq. On the Big Three networks evening newscasts, the time devoted to Iraq has fallen 60 percent between 2003 and this spring, as clocked by the television monitor, the Tyndall Report. On Thursday, Brian Williams of NBC read aloud a "shame on you" e-mail complaint from the parents of two military sons anguished that his broadcast had so little news about the war. This is happening even as the casualties in Iraq, averaging more than 100 a day, easily surpass those in Israel and Lebanon combined.
This one runs a bit over five minutes and it's improperly squeezed and a little out-of-sync. Still, it'll please folks who are fans of surprise cameo guest appearances. If you're one, take the time to click on the arrow.
The clip is from The Dean Martin Show and it features Petula Clark. I always thought Ms. Clark was a terrific performer and there was a period there when Dino's producers obviously felt the same way. She was on so often, I suspect they were pushing her for her own series. If they were, no network took the hint.
So enjoy the parade of celebrities...and let's give a shout out to one of them. Dom DeLuise has been in poor health lately and we sure hope he gets better. A very nice, funny man.
Lewis Black is doing a one night performance out in Thousand Oaks on August 20 at the Fred Kavli Center. It's a very nice theater but it's pretty big. I wanted to get a batch of friends together and go but not if we were going to have to sit in the back row of the ninth balcony up where the air is thin.
Well, it turns out all the good seats were snatched up about eleven seconds after they went on sale. Since then, the only tix available for purchase have been way overpriced or way up in the stratosphere, usually the latter. In fact, even the overpriced good seats seem to have disappeared.
I just browsed a bunch of online ticket agencies and discovered, much to my amazement, that most of the seats they're offering are in Row H in the balcony. That is the absolute last row they have at the Kavli. Any farther back and you have to sit in the attic. For these, they're asking $175 (plus various fees) per seat. Which is especially outrageous when you go over to the Ticketmaster site and notice that they still have seats in Row D of that same balcony for the printed price of $47.50 plus fees.
What can we learn from this? That there are a lot of people on the Internet who are too dense to comparison-shop a bit? Does someone actually go to a ticket broker and pay four hundred smackers for a pair of seats without checking the main source first? Or is the broker just assuming that by mid-August, the $47.50 tickets will be long gone and he'll get the inflated price?
Row D of the balcony is still too far from Mr. Black to suit me. I think from now on when I see him, it'll be in Las Vegas. He's playing a number of dates there in the next few months and they all have good seats available...at a top price of $60 each.
Among the habits I've broken over the years is a curiosity that once led me to try almost every new non-taco fast food chain outlet I encountered. I'm not sure why I did this as long as I did. Apart from In-n-Out Burger and Koo Koo Roo, I never found much that was that interesting or even that different. The burgers and fries were never significantly better than McDonald's and often notably worse...and I can't recall sampling or even seeing many items on any menu that caused me to say, "Wow, I have to come back here for that." At best, I'd come away from a visit thinking something like, "Okay...if I'm ever stuck somewhere and the only option is a Wendy's, I can survive." Eventually, I got over even that reason.
If I were still doing that, I'd probably make (the pun is unavoidable) a bee-line for Jollibee, a popular fast food chain from the Phillipines which is now arriving on our shores. There are eleven of them sprinkled across California with other states to follow...and every time I drive by the one at Beverly Boulevard and Vermont, I'm curious — not about how I might like the food but about how my homeland will. Some of the food is pretty standard for a place like this but you also have your Palabok Fiesta, which is a serving of high quality bihon noodles topped with a special pork-shrimp sauce, garnished with pork strips, shrimps, toasted garlic, flaked smoked fish, pork cracklings and sliced eggs. That doesn't sound bad to me but, you know, it's not exactly a Big Mac. And a lot of Americans are scared off by something that feels a little foreign to them.
Which may not matter to the Jollibee people. They're opening primarily in neighborhoods that have a high Filipino population and apparently think they can make a go of it, just on that demographic. I'm just wondering to what extent, if any, they fantasize about luring a wider audience into their drive-thrus. The company website seems to have no such wish-dream. They even say, "Jollibee has grown to be so well loved that every time a new store is opened, especially overseas, Filipinos form long queues to the store without fail. It is not just a place where they feel at home; it is a stronghold of heritage, a monument of Filipino victory." So maybe they don't even want a lot of non-Filipinos coming in, diluting that sense of Filipino victory...or maybe they'd regard it as a greater victory if we did all flock to our neighborhood Jollibee.
I honestly don't know, nor do I know if a wider audience will go to a Filipino fast food stand or if they'll regard it as an alien presence. Obviously, everyone accepts a Chinese restaurant or a Japanese restaurant or even a traditional Filipino eatery without any issues...but there's something about the "fast food" format that may seem invasive to some people, especially since a Jollibee outlet looks like your basic American burger/fries establishment. I'd like to think a chain like this could be accepted and could thrive and could even blur a few of the sillier ethnic divisions. I just wonder if some people can bring themselves to patronize a stronghold of Filipino heritage. The fries will have to be pretty damn good.
Jacob Weisberg on why it's ridiculous to prohibit Internet-based gambling. I'm not sure any restrictions that are ever placed on adults gambling have a reason other than that those who are already in that business don't want the competition.
I've been plugging a one-man show that's currently running in Hollywood...and which has been, I'm informed, extended through August 27. It's called Zero Hour and it was written by my old pal Jim Brochu, who's also the one man in the cast. He plays Zero Mostel, discoursing for two hours about art, acting, marriage, Judaism and many other topics. A big subject is the blacklist, which torpedoed the careers of Mostel and some of his closest friends.
So here we have about three minutes of that section of the play. If it makes you want to go see it, all the info you need can be found on this page. (And here's a tip: You may be able to score cheaper tix on this page.)
Beginning this week, if you live in the 310 area code and you dial another number in the 310 area code, you have to dial the area code along with the number. This applies if, for example, you have a TiVo that makes its daily phone call that way...or if you have a modem that calls a dial-up connection in the same area. Pay attention to this stuff.
I had a great time at the Comic-Con International in San Diego but there were, of course, a few unpleasant moments. There was an encounter with an inebriated person that I wish had not occurred. I also had a painful chat with an Industry Legend who is, to put it nicely, not as sharp as he once was, either mentally or in his auditory capabilities. He engaged me in one of those awkward conversations we sometimes have with the elderly where we have to pretend they're making more sense than they are. I was hurrying off to a panel and it was quite uncomfy to terminate the discussion in a polite manner, especially when I had to say everything about ten times in order for him to hear what I was saying.
One of my jobs as a panel moderator — perhaps the most important — is to get the panel started. This is sometimes difficult because when a panel ends, fans rush the dais to get autographs from the panelists. We usually allow as much of this as time permits but at some point, I have to declare an end to it and shoo the fans away so the panelists can depart and make way for the next panel. Then the members of the next panel enter and begin to take their seats, whereupon autograph-seekers pounce on them to get signatures in the interval before that event begins. So again, I have to play Bad Guy and call a halt to the signing so I can start the program.
Five or six times during the con, this meant getting strict with folks who seemed to feel that the phrase, "No more autographs now" did not apply to them. I stopped one lady from getting a Spider-Man comic signed by John Romita and she launched into a sob story; something about how she had to leave but her little brother who was very ill had his heart set on a Romita autograph and it might even instill in him the will to live. I was going to tell her I promised my grandmother on her death bed that I would never make 400 people wait around longer than necessary for a Johnny Romita panel to start...but before I could, the woman said something nasty to me and stormed out.
John thanked me for being the villain and said, "I never know how to say no to these people. I'm grateful they care enough to ask for my autograph but sometimes, they make things so inconvenient for everyone else. And as he was saying this, someone ran up with a stack of Daredevil comics they wanted signed and said, "While you're just sitting there talking..."
Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska has long struck me as one of those folks who's just way too dense to be in the Senate. There are smart people in that body whose politics I think are just plain wrong but there are also Senators (and Congressfolks and governors and presidents...) who seem to lack a certain minimum number of I.Q. points. They leave you wondering how they got elected and about the ineptness of the person(s) who couldn't beat them.
Stevens is in charge of regulation of this thing you're utilizing right this moment...this "Internet." And on several occasions, he has displayed a shocking ignorance about this entity he helps regulate. Jon Stewart has been especially happy to exploit this ignorance for material. Here's a YouTube clip of Stewart doing just that.
So, as Mr. Carson might have said, "How...dumb...is Ted Stevens?" This dumb. He's "considering" going on (more likely, angling to appear on) Stewart's show and defend his comments.
Quick rule of thumb: It's darn near impossible to beat a clever comedian in his own ball park. It's his audience, his equipment, his director, his schedule, his everything. On neutral ground, Ted Stevens would have a hard time not being sliced 'n' diced by a quick-witted guy who knows how to work a crowd the way Jon Stewart knows how to work a crowd. When you also give the comedian Home Court Advantage, it's like challenging The Flash to a potato race. You not only cannot win, you cannot not suffer a humiliating defeat. This also applies to cases where someone thinks they're going to go on with Colbert or Letterman and show that they're just as fast and funny. Can't be done.
Based on that news article, The Daily Show will doubtlessly extend an invite to Senator Stevens. Will he accept it? If he does, I think that's grounds for impeachment or recall — whatever it is they do to Senators — right there. On the grounds of Extreme Stupidity or at least some kind of death wish.
For years, one of the best-kept secrets in Las Vegas was a guy named Bob Anderson — a singing impressionist who played all the hotels with uncanny carbons of Dean, Frank, Sammy and (the part I liked best) several performers who no one else does. I mean, how often do you hear someone mimic Mel Tormé? Or The Righteous Brothers? Or Otis Redding? He had an amazing act full of such folks...and he still has that act, though he now does it more commonly in Branson, Missouri. Since I never get to Branson, it's my loss.
Our link today is to a little promotional film for Mr. Anderson. It runs a bit over eight minutes and it doesn't get into the impressions until the mid-point...and with all due respect to whoever assembled this, I think he's better than some of the examples here. But still, as you'll see, he's pretty darn good. Maybe one of these days, someone in Vegas will have the brains to lay a big, long-term contract on the guy and I can go see him again when I travel there. In the meantime, this will have to suffice...
We know plenty about the movies of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy but very little about their wildly-successful tours of Europe. Crowds turned out in Elvis/Beatles numbers and the performances they gave were packed.
Some of this is covered very well in a half-hour radio special on BBC4 by film historian Glenn Mitchell, who managed to find many "lost" recordings of Stan and Ollie. You can hear it for the next few days at this link. Don't delay.
Clips from my Comic-Con panels — all of them unauthorized and most of them very much out-of-sync — are turning up on YouTube. But I thought it was worth linking to this one. It runs a minute and a half and it's from Sunday's Cartoon Voice Panel. Bob Bergen is the current voice of Porky Pig and many of the Warner Brothers characters. I asked him about one experience he had doing the voice of Luke Skywalker for a Star Wars radio program.
I asked yesterday about what was omitted via a bad edit during Keith Olbermann's Tonight Show appearance the other night. My spies tell me it was an explanation of Bill O'Reilly's defense of Nazi killers during World War II...essentially the same story told on the page to which I linked.
Why was it cut? That, they can't tell me. Maybe for time.
I guess I should mention that it's official: The Dungeons and Dragons cartoon show, which I worked on back in my misspent youth, is coming to DVD shortly. On or about November 7, it's coming out from the Ink and Paint company — a "complete" set which will include all 27 episodes plus a "making of" documentary and a number of special features. I'll put up an Amazon link as soon as that's possible.
I've received (actual count:) 569 e-mails since I left for the San Diego Con. I've answered about fifty of them. I won't get to them all but if yours warrants reply and you haven't received one yet, that's why. I also have a looming deadline to contend with...and it's kinda warm. Plus, my dishwasher is broken. You can't expect me to answer e-mail when my dishwasher is broken.
Our daily Video Links will resume in a day or two.
Last night, Jay Leno had Keith Olbermann on his show. The main topic was Olbermann's ongoing feud with Bill O'Reilly.
At one point, Olbermann mentioned how O'Reilly keeps "defending" some Nazi killers from World War II (this page explains what that's all about). Then suddenly there was a bad edit and Leno was asking him if he'd ever met O'Reilly.
What with doing ninety-seven panels, I didn't have a lot of opportunity in San Diego to take photos. But you kinda have to make the time to snap a giant figure of Batman made completely out of Lego blocks.
Back in February, I broke the sad news that The Old Spaghetti Factory in Hollywood was soon to be demolished. Here's a flashback to that item. My pal Corey Klemow writes...
Went to eat at Spaghetti Factory tonight and asked the server when they were closing. She said they were going to close at the end of this month, but they struck a deal that will allow them to remain open for two more years. More opportunities for garlic butter and for spumoni, yay!
And more opportunities for me to get up there for one more meal. I don't eat spaghetti these days but it might be back on my menu within two years. Nice of them to keep the place open for me.
I posted a message the other day about Global Warming here, figuring that — given past response to any current events comment here — I'd receive a few hundred agreements and arguments. Perhaps because much of this blog's readership was standing in lines at the San Diego Convention Center, I received a grand total of one message. It's from Roger Taylor and here it is, along with my response...
In response to your comment about the high temperatures we've been having, are you going to tell me that if we have some record cold days we will be plunging into an ice age? This planet is always changing and also always "fixing itself." Let's not forget how Greenland got its name (hint: it wasn't because humans were making it warm).
Money spent on preventing "Global Warming" would be much better spent elsewhere: feeding hungry people, disease research, security from people who want to murder and maim as many people as possible under the guise of their "religion"...
The premise of the Global Warming theory is that what is happening is making our weather more extreme — more droughts, more floods, wetter storms, bigger snowstorms, etc. So record cold days would be more evidence that Global Warming is occurring, not less. ("Global Warming" is probably an unfortunate popular name for what should be called something like "Extreme Climate Change." The popular name allows people to dismiss a perfectly valid theory, overwhelmingly supported in the scientific community, every time it snows.)
Yes, the planet is always changing and repairing itself. If Global Warming is occurring, it will doubtlessly correct itself, perhaps in a few thousand years. The threat is not that the planet will be irreparably damaged but that an awful lot of people will suffer and die before the correction takes place.
In other words, Roger: I think you're completely misrepresenting the theory you're arguing against.
And you seem to have missed my point, which I'll restate here because repeating myself is ever so much easier than thinking of new things to post on this blog. It's that I hope people like you are right. I hope Global Warming is a myth. I hope that before I die, we can all have a good laugh about it and file it away with Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster and Bill O'Reilly's integrity. But if someone comes up with evidence of a possible problem that might cause millions of people to die, you don't wait until the case is airtight. We invaded Iraq because Saddam's pending nuclear arsenal seemed probable (or at least possible) and we couldn't take the chance. There's way too much evidence of the kind of thing Mr. Gore is talking about to not take action as if it's definite. The potential loss if all those scientists are right is just too great.
Okay now, I have something really important to post about so I'm going to go on to the next item...
I never met Jack Warden. I have no neat anecdotes about Jack Warden. But I did want to say that I never saw him not be wonderful in whatever he did...especially his dual role in Used Cars. Greatest dying scene in the history of movies. I hope his real exit wasn't as tumultuous.
Amtrak ran a bit late but the train was way more comfy than flying...and given how long in advance airlines want you to check in now, not that much longer. Hey, how about driving? Nope, no way, forget about it. The older I get, the less I like to drive anywhere and especially long trips. So the train was jes' fine for us.
What to say? I liked the Hyatt a lot more than Heidi MacDonald but she's basically right about everything else. The big story was, of course, the teeming mass of humanity (I'm being a bit loose with the language here) that descended — or in some cases, tried to descend — on the convention center. A tip for next year's con: Register in advance or don't go.
And by the way: I'm not sure that there isn't some convention rule against this but if there isn't, I'm going to throw out a free idea by which someone could make themselves a ton o' money: Sell bottles of water cheaper than the convention center vendors. Your basic 16.9 ounce bottle of Crystal Geyser drinking H2O (those little bottles that all say they're filled by someone named "CG Roxane") sell for about 25 cents each at the market near me and they're even cheaper at Costco. Those are retail prices but even if you paid that, you could sell them for $1.25 each and make a tidy profit, even after paying for your table and a couple of tubs of ice. The concessions at the convention center were getting $2.50 for a bottle of water...and it was even worse than that.
You get in line, wait five or ten minutes and finally, when you reach the front, you say, "Two bottles of water, please." And you figure they're going to hand you, for your five dollars, two of the 16.9 ounce bottles they have on display. Logical, right?
Only they don't do that. They hand you two twelve ounce bottles of Dasani...which, first of all, isn't as good a drinking water (purified as opposed to natural spring). And secondly, instead of getting 16.9 ounces for your $2.50, you're getting twelve ounces. For two and a half bucks, they can't give you the slightly larger size which costs them maybe two cents more? Plus, of course, it's sort of misleading advertising...and you'll usually go along with it because you're thirsty and tired and you need to be somewhere for a panel and you don't really want to spend another ten minutes in line to see if the next vendor over has larger bottles. (Based on my unscientific survey, they did not.) In a hall where one could find plenty of rip-offs, this was the rip-offiest.
Hmm...I think I just complained about that for more paragraphs than it's worth. But that's sometimes the kind of guy I am.
This year's Comic-Con International is a thing of the past. Some thoughts in no particular order...
A tip I should have given you was to wander way, way, way down to the end of the hall that included the area known as Artists' Alley. Lots of talented creators — including some real veterans — were there, most selling published art and sketches. It was the part of the con that most felt like a COMIC BOOK convention.
Some woman was heard incessantly on a very loud, piercing public address system, making unnecessary announcements and scolding people who did naughty things like pulling a wheeled suitcase through the hall. (John Romita, a legendary comic artist in his seventies, told me he was admonished twice for this.) I know the lady was only doing her job but ten more of those announcements and I think someone would have formed a posse to hunt her down.
Stop complaining that the food that's available in the convention center sucks. It's supposed to suck so you'll go out instead and patronize the local merchants. It's only there for people who really, really can't get away and have to be satisfied with sucky food.
Why is it I couldn't locate the ten or twelve people with whom I had to talk business but I couldn't take twelve steps without running into Len Wein?
The surgeon who performed my Gastric Bypass Surgery has a long waiting list and is in no need of more patients. But if he ever is, he could find plenty of candidates by setting up a booth at the con.
Shopping carts. We need shopping carts. And one of those services like they have in some malls where when you're done shopping, you take all your purchases to them and they deliver everything to your home for you.
I attended the first San Diego Con in 1970. There were fewer people there that year than I saw lined up yesterday to get into the DC display area.
There were some great panels and presentations at the convention...and I'm not just talking about the twelve I was on. If I hadn't done them, I could have found way more than twelve I wanted to attend.
It's always nice when I get to meet a veteran comic artist I've never met before but whose work I've always admired. Everett Raymond Kinstler is a charming, classy gentleman.
Please, people...and this isn't just about parties at comic conventions. It applies to all parties everywhere. If people are going to be standing around talking, we don't need music. We really don't. You can never hear it and it always makes it harder to hear the folks you want to chat with. I especially feel sorry for live musicians, sitting or standing there, playing their hearts out...and no one can hear what they're doing well enough to enjoy it.
Kyle Baker is brilliant. Everyone should buy his books.
There were lots of other brilliant creators in that hall. I'll try to mention some more of them in the coming days.
Hotels in San Diego must all be fabulous. At the Quick Draw! panel, looking for a "pet peeve" to use as the basis of a cartooning challenge, I asked anyone in the audience who had poor accomodations to raise their hands. In a room of several thousand people, no one did.
Remind me to tell you about the gorgeous, stunningly-built super-heroine parading through the hall...who I think was a guy.
Lastly: I'm weary, I'm tired of fighting my way through crowds, my feet hurt, I spent way too much money...and I can't wait 'til next year. If you weren't there this time, you might want to block out July 26-29 on your calendar. And start looking for a hotel room now.
I managed to avoid the main hall for most of yesterday...my reward for doing all those panels upstairs. But reports of people jammed together like (make up your own analogy) were common. Reportedly, the convention closed off registration at 1:00 PM and radio stations began telling folks not to bother showing up if they didn't have advance registration.
Apart from the crush, everyone seems to be having a very good time. The only unpleasantness I've witnessed in 3+ days here stems from people who are hired to direct traffic (foot traffic within the convention center, the automotive kind outside) and somehow turn into screaming, power-mad maniacs. You could almost forgive them if they actually seemed competent at controlling that traffic but the ones who yell the loudest are the ones who are making the problem worse, not better, especially at the intersections outside the con. Something about donning an orange vest seems to drain civility and I.Q. points from a man's mind.
I was very happy with my panels yesterday even though the most memorable part of the Golden/Silver Age gathering was probably Irwin Hasen, the artist responsible for Wildcat and Dondi, telling of how a gangster once got him a prostitute. Talk about your Secrets Behind the Comics.
Got a business-type meeting at ten so this will have to do for now. Stay cool, everyone.
What a day Saturday! Highs were between 108 and 115 in most valley locations. Woodland Hills (formerly known as the Canoga Park/Pierce College site) reached 119 degrees...an all-time record since records began there in 1949. After a preliminary look at weather records...it appears that this may be the highest temperature ever recorded at an official observation site in Los Angeles County.
Amazingly, after abnormalities like this and Katrina, I still get "form" e-mails from Conservative friends telling me that there couldn't possibly be such a thing as Global Warming because Al Gore says there is, and Al Gore's the guy who said he invented the Internet and was the model for the hero in Love Story. That and a few quotes from scientists on the Exxon payroll seem to be the entire counter-argument, at least in my mail.
One of the things that really annoys me about politics these days — to the point of my doubting the moral integrity of those who pull this scam — is this rush to spin everything an opponent says as a lie, even if you have to misquote them a little to do so. And worse is when they make the leap to "And if he lied about this, we can presume everything else he says is wrong." I don't even believe that about Bush and Cheney and, God knows, many of their public utterances could be easily classified as falsehoods.
Supposedly, we had to invade Iraq if there was even a 1% chance that terrorists had Weapons of Mass Destruction. That's setting the bar pretty low but if we buy that, we have to take the threat of Global Warming seriously if there's even a 1% chance that it's valid. And does anyone think there isn't even a 1% chance of that? If so, I bet they weren't in Woodland Hills yesterday.
Alas, I have awakened too late to do much con blogging this morn. Have to scurry over to the convention center, machete my way through the masses and keep business appointments and do panels. Friday didn't seem as crowded as some feared but I've got a hundred bucks that says today more than makes up for it. As usual, I was happy with all my panels yesterday...but especially with the annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel. Wait'll you see the transcript of this one in The Jack Kirby Collector.
Had a nice talk last night with Frank Miller. The biggest news out of the convention so far, I guess, is that Frank's signed to direct a forthcoming movie based on Will Eisner's The Spirit. I knew about this weeks ago but the announcement was embargoed, as they say, 'til now. Can't think of anyone better for the job.
Also, it was announced yesterday that the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon series, on which I worked eons ago will be coming out — all three seasons in one high-quality DVD set plus extras — in November. This is another one of those things I've known about for some time (and so did you if you read between the lines here) but was not allowed to announce. (One thing I learned and didn't know is that Garfield and Friends reruns are returning to TV. They join the Boomerang schedule in November.)
Have to get going. I'll try to write more tomorrow.
Be afraid. Be very afraid. The Wednesday evening "Preview Night" was four times as crowded as last year's sneak peek at the main exhibit hall. It's usually a low-key, lightly-attended time to prowl the venue without elbowing your way through teeming hordes. It could have passed for Thursday afternoon...and Thursday afternoon could have passed for Friday. If today looks like Saturday, then Saturday will be tens of thousands of people all standing around, packed together like a Kellogg's Variety Pak, inching their way up the aisles at the speed of glaciers.
So there you have my first "Boy, is this place crowded" wisecrack. There will be more to come.
A friend used to always ask me, "What's the mood of the convention?" Near as I can figure, the mood of this one is summarized by the phrase, "Well, here we are back at the San Diego Con." The event itself seems to be more important (and certainly more impressive) than anything being exhibited here. But one of the problems with covering this mega-gathering is that it's really about forty conventions in one. The anime fans are excited about guests and announcements that are meaningless to me...and this morning in the hotel elevator, a lady was all aglow at the prospect that today, at a panel, she will meet...
...well, I'm not sure. It's some actor I've never heard of who's on a TV series I've never watched. This may well be the high point of her year but I'm as disinterested in her passions as she probably is in mine. Which is kind of an awkward way to make the point that once you get to the convention center here, you pretty much have to find the parts of the convention that matter to you. If you do, I think you can have a very good time.
Spent yesterday talking to a batch of people and doing three panels that went quite well. The usual stuff.
This morning, I hiked over to the Ralphs market on 1st Street to stock up on provisions and found its aisles full of con-goers. I felt out of place without my badge on. The Ralphs (they spell it without the apostrophe) has actually become part of the con, and I think if you got shut out of the main hall, you could experience a lot of the con — at least, meet some interesting people — by hanging out near the bottled water section of the market. Two years ago, I received a very nice job offer near the deli case. It's also not as crowded as the convention center, plus they have fresh, hot barbecued chickens.
Don't expect a lot of posting today. It's Getting Ready for Comic-Con International Day! I'll do what I can to report from the con...which generally means a lot of posts about "Boy, was that place crowded" and "All my panels went well," plus lists of some of the people I talked to. But hey, that's what passes for a convention report.
If you attend, try to go to some of my panels...and if you see me walking around, say howdy. If I look like I'm terribly busy, that's probably an act to make people think I'm terribly busy.
If you don't attend, please don't write and ask me how you can obtain a tape of that great panel you missed. I can't help you with this. Sorry.
Oh...one more tip. If you live to the north of San Diego and you're considering going down there for a day or two, consider the train. The Amtrak station in San Diego is not far from the convention center and taking the choo-choo saves you having to find a place to park. It also saves you having to pay for gas, which may be its greatest appeal.
Before he hosted his unreal "reality" show, Jerry Springer dealt in the even tawdrier world of politics. He was elected to the Cincinnati city council in 1971, then forced to resign in 1974 when the police broke up a massage parlor ring and unearthed a check he had written to a young lady engaged in a very old profession. I'm not sure if Springer was more humiliated by the revelation that he'd been to a prostitute or by the fact that he was dumb enough to pay by check. Either way, he did an apology tour that impressed voters enough that he won back his seat in 1975. Later, there was an opening for Mayor and the City Council appointed him to serve in that post for a year.
In 1982, he ran for governor of Ohio and came in third. That was the end of his political aspirations. He went into broadcasting and soon became a top-rated news anchor and commentaor, which led to the job he holds today. Our video link today is a commercial he did for his gubernatorial run. His opponents were either hammering him with the old prostitution scandal or about to, and Springer made this ad to try and deal with that problem and perhaps turn it into a positive. It didn't work but it was nice try.
The Comic-Con International commences Thursday in San Diego. Somewhere between (this is a guess on my part) 110,000 and 125,000 fans and creators of comics, animation, fantasy films and television and video games will be descending on the convention center. Roughly (this is another guess) 500 will be wandering about in some sort of costume, in some cases because some exhibitor has paid them to dress that way to promote a product. There will also be 7,000 video reports and news stories that will make it look like half the people there are dressed like Vampirella or Klingons to live out some sort of personal fantasy.
I attended my first comic convention in New York in 1970 and later that same year, attended the first comic convention in San Diego. I'm among the handful of folks who've been to every San Diego gathering. Shortly after one of them in the seventies, my aunt saw a TV news report on the con and asked me, "What did you go dressed as?" It took me a minute to figure out the question but when I did, I told her, "Myself. I dressed like I always dress...shirt, jeans, shoes..."
"But I thought you had to dress like Superman or Batman to get in," she said.
I explained to her the reality of the situation...but later, I saw the same TV news segment she saw and I could sure understand why she thought what she thought. Since then, a majority of the press coverage I've seen has at least exaggerated the number of people who wander the aisles in super-hero costumes. It's getting to the point where I'm thinking of wearing my Hawkwoman suit to the convention. If you can't beat 'em...
Today, we link to the opening of The Alvin Show, a 1961 prime time cartoon series starring Alvin, Simon and Theodore (aka The Chipmunks). The show is rarely seen these days, which is a shame because it was a pretty clever show with some very nice graphics by the folks at Format Films, a company that mainly did commercials. Each half hour featured an "adventure" of the three helium-voiced rodents, plus two short cartoons which were built around their pre-existing recordings. Those records, made by and starring Ross Bagdasarian (aka David Seville) were quite wonderful and they seem to have inspired the animators to match their energy and fun.
Each episode also featured a cartoon lecture by the eminent genius, Clyde Crashcup, voiced by Shepard Menkin. As a kid, I recall being bored by Crashcup but I saw some recently and thought they were pretty funny.
Someone oughta put the 26 episodes of The Alvin Show out on DVD. Until they do, you'll have to settle for the opening, which I think has one of the jazziest theme songs in TV history.
Here's another in the never-ending series of articles about the sexuality of some super-hero, in this case Batwoman. This essay is rather funny but for the most part, I have little interest in any of these pieces that don't address the matter as what it usually is: A marketing gimmick. And I think the author is fundamentally correct or darn close when she says that in comics these days, if not in life, "You are either a midriff-bearing, gum-snapping, engagement ring-chasing girly girl or you are a probable lesbian."
Of course, it's not much better for men in comics: You can either be a tortured hero or a tortured villain...or sometimes, both. Or I guess you can be gay, too. So maybe they do have a few more options.
I'm not sure I ever made it all the way through a Mickey Spillane novel. I liked his no-nonsense talk whenever I saw him interviewed and I admired the success of this one-time comic book writer. But I think I got to I, The Jury a couple of decades too late. By that point, he'd been imitated and parodied to the point where it all seemed hokey to me...and of course, what was titillating and shocking when the book was first published in 1947 was almost Disney fare by the late sixties. Still, it was easy to see why he'd sold umpteen zillion copies of it and subsequent novels and why he'd spawned a legion of mimics, striving to achieve the two-fisted reality that came so naturally to Spillane.
I don't have any personal anecdotes. Only met the man once — at a San Diego Comic-Con International — and the conversation was brief and unremarkable. I think I advised him on good places to eat around the convention center and told him it was an honor to meet him. Which it was. He was a giant in his genre and one of the most-imitated writers of his century. Here's a link to an obit.
The National Weather Service is still calling for highs near 80° and lows near 70° in San Diego this coming week and Tom Spurgeon's list of convention tips is still better than mine. You can get all sorts of great facts about the con including parking and shuttle info over at the convention website. You can also read the Programming Guide but really, all you need to know is when my panels are. Here's one more plug for that list...
Greg Ip and Deborah Solomon in The Wall Street Journal explain what's going on with the American economy. Short summary: Tax revenues are up largely because the wealthiest Americans are making more than ever and therefore paying more in taxes. The non-wealthiest Americans aren't doing so well.
The video isn't perfect on it but you might enjoy this clip. It's from the 1976 Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Telethon at the Sahara Hotel in Vegas. Frank Sinatra is appearing and he decides to reunite Mr. Lewis with his former partner. It's a historic moment in show business even though Jerry is somewhat lost as to what to say, Dean doesn't seem sure where he is and Frank doesn't know enough to clear out because the moment is not about him.
Less than five minutes ago, I shot the above photo. It's the smallest possum I've ever seen out on my back porch partaking of the cat food I leave out for the local menagerie. Earlier this evening, I fed a stray cat and based on the water spots on the ground and all the food that's been dumped out of the dish, I suspect that a raccoon has been there, too. Fortunately, the others left something for this little guy.
You can see more of the creatures that visit my back porch over in this section which I keep meaning to update. Soon, very soon.
My buddy Aaron Barnhart, who covers television for the Kansas City Star, was also present for the last performance of the live What's My Line? show. He files this account in his blog, complete with pictures.
Here's another great classic commercial...the Alka-Seltzer "spicy meatball" commercial. Legend has it that it wasn't terribly successful in terms of selling the product but given how much attention it attracted, I'm not sure I believe that. Legend also has it that it was pulled from the air due to protests from Italian anti-defamation groups and I find that somewhat easier to accept. Anyway, it was created by the legendary advertising king, Joe Sedelmaier, who did many well-remembered campaigns.
The lead actor is a gent named Jack Somack, who had a rather fascinating acting career...fascinating because it began late in life. Mr. Somack was a chemical engineer who in 1967, at age 48, decided he'd gotten into the wrong line of work and that he wanted to be an actor. He began studying and auditioning, mingling with wanna-be actors half his age, and he managed to get some stage roles. It was when he landed this commercial in '69 that he first began to make a living as a performer and he remained one, working quite often for the rest of his life.
I don't know who played his wife but the stage manager is the wonderful Ronny Graham, a very funny man who left us way too soon.
William Kristol writes what may be the definitive "neo-con" position paper on the various conflicts in the Middle East. I don't see much that I agree with except maybe on a "wouldn't it be nice if...?" basis but it's worth a read to understand a mindset that is driving much of U.S. foreign policy.
Today marks fifty days since I had Gastric Bypass surgery and there's 57 pounds less of me. That's about as fast as you can lower your weight without amputating an appendage or two.
Reaction from others has been fascinating. There have been people who haven't noticed and others who've stared at me like I was a "What is wrong with this picture?" puzzle. My barber commented that my hair was uncommonly long and shaggy...and then, a minute or so later, he added, "Say, have you lost weight?" A couple of salespeople who used to know me on sight have balked at saying hello, like they aren't sure it's still the same guy. Mostly though, friends are surprised and encouraging, and many are curious about the process. Here are some things I find myself saying over and over...
I feel great. I have occasional moments of fatigue...though less often than when I was packing 340+ in poundage. For the most part, I have more energy and a greater ease in getting around and doing things. Aches that I had long ago accepted as old age and permanent are now gone.
I eat very little...less than I ever imagined a human being could ingest and survive. I try to down two protein drinks a day and to have one or two appetizer-sized meals. In a restaurant, I consume about a third of a normal portion, then take the rest home and make two more meals out of the balance. I'm not supposed to do this but I've had days when I got busy and one protein shake was my entire consumption.
I'm never hungry except, every now and then, in an intellectual sense. I need to explain this. Food is no longer a particular joy for me and some of my once-favorite meals (especially those high in carbs) are simply less pleasing to my post-surgical palate. But I see them and I remember the old pleasure of eating them...and I have to remind myself that that just doesn't work anymore. So do I miss the fun of eating something that tastes really, really good? A little. But losing the weight is well worth losing that gratification. I'm told my taste buds will eventually rebound somewhat but even if they don't, it's a great trade-off.
I do miss undiluted fruit juice. I'm one of those people who's never cared for coffee, tea or wine. My body doesn't like milk. I won't drink beverages that contain artificial sweeteners. And last February, I gave up carbonated sodas, which you have to do if you have this procedure. So before the surgery, the list of liquids I could imbibe was pretty much down to water and juices. Post-surgery, I'm supposed to avoid anything with high sugar content so that eliminates most of the juices, at least in unexpurgated form. Just to break the monotony of H2O, I drink them heavily watered-down and I've formulated my own lemonade that's high in lemon, low in sugar. It isn't wonderful but it's my big thirst-quencher. If a magic genie gave me the chance to eat or drink anything I used to eat or drink, I'd go for a big glass of real, full-strength, pulp-free orange juice. The weight loss is still a great trade-off but that's what I miss.
I have experienced almost no pain from the surgery. I have an occasional twinge in one of my shoulder blades which my personal doctor and the surgeon agree was a physical response to the operation. I thought at first it was a side effect from my new posture but apparently not. When you're on the table and someone's cutting into you, there are these little muscular traumas that can occur in the oddest places and that's where I had mine — in that shoulder blade. They both said it would soon disappear and, sure enough, it's going away. So are the incisions on my stomach, which now look like cat scratches. (One of the entry-points — the smallest one — is called the "liver retractor" incision since all it's for is to insert a laparoscopic tool that moves your liver to one side during surgery. Mine is just about invisible now, which is fine. I have no further plans that involve having my liver retracted.)
Clothing is a constant concern. I'm giving away dozens of 3X shirts since they now hang like caftans on my carcass. I have a lot of shirts and pants I once grew out of and have now grown back down into...but I keep having to try things on, see what fits and file this or that either in the giveaway pile or on my "maybe in a few more weeks" rack. There's little point in shopping since anything that fits me now probably won't in a month, but I may have to. I'm also trying to decide when to take a couple of now-oversized sports coats in to the tailor to see what he can do with them. There's a shiny one we could maybe fill with helium and sell to the Macy's people.
Lastly: I still don't recommend this surgery to everyone. I've been in e-mail contact with someone who had it the same day I did and who's had a lot of problems, probably because she was in worse shape to start with. She doesn't regret doing it but I can see how someone might. If anything I'm writing here makes you think it might be right for you or a loved one, imagine a big "Your mileage may vary" alert flashing on your computer screen. It is not just a weight reduction...it's a complete change of life and with some folks, it may not be for the better, especially if you don't have excellent medical support. It also may not solve the problems you think it will solve. I'm happy that I think I look and feel more like myself than I have in twenty years. Not everyone's life can stand that kind of reversion, to say nothing of all the other modifications.
If you want to follow my numerical progress, here's where I'm posting that data. Please...no wagering. Not unless I get a cut.
Over on BBC Radio 2, there are some documentaries that may be of interest to readers of this site. They're currently running a series called Ain't No Mickey Mouse Music which explores how Mr. Disney and his successors incorporated music into that studio's work. You can listen to Episode Two if you go there right now. And next Tuesday, there's a documentary about Laurel and Hardy that I'm going to try to record. Check out this page for details.
Here's a classic commercial for Parkay Margarine. The man on-screen is Vic Tayback, who is best known for his role on the long-running sitcom, Alice. The voice from the little margarine tub is Michael Bell, who will be among the participants in a Cartoon Voice Panel I'm hosting one week from today (on July 22) at the Comic-Con International in San Diego at 2 PM. Mr. Bell has had an impressive career as an on-camera actor but we don't care about that. We care about his countless voiceover jobs over the years. He was Plastic Man. He was Opus on the Bloom County cartoon special. He was about eight Transformers and four or five G.I. Joes. He was many a Smurf. And as you can hear below, he was a tub of margarine. He'll tell you all about it at the con.
I've written several times on this page (here, for instance) about the local, live re-creation of the old What's My Line? game show. Last evening, the folks behind it did their final show — at least for a while — at the Game Show Congress that's currently in progress at the Hilton out in Burbank. I was there for it and so were quite a few readers of this weblog...and we all had an enormously good time.
Hosting the proceedings — and doing a damn fine job of it, I might add — was J. Keith van Straaten, who kept things rolling along with great, professional expertise. Someone ought to snatch this guy up and give him a televised game show to host because he's really good. Assisting him as prize model, and getting some enormous laughs, was the lovely Teresa Ganzel, Johnny Carson's one-time Matinee Lady.
The four members of the panel were as follows: There was Stuart Shostak, a friend of mine who among his many endeavors does warm-ups for TV tapings. There was Sarah Purcell, who is probably best known for the years when she was a host of Real People on NBC. There was comedian Frank Nicotero, who hosted the game show, Street Smarts. And there was Betsy Palmer.
Ah, yes...Betsy Palmer. The lovely panelist from the original I've Got A Secret. She was beautiful and funny on that show and she's still, at age eighty or thereabouts, both those things. As a game player, she didn't advance the ball very far down field but the audience loved everything she said. A guy behind me was just sitting there, muttering to his companion, "That's Betsy Palmer."
The first contestant was one of the models from the current version of The Price is Right. The panel had to guess (and they didn't) that her "other" job is that she runs a chain of tanning salons. The second contestant was a woman who'd appeared on the original What's My Line? with her then-occupation of Girdle Tester. The third contestant was a gent who played the musical saw...which he did for us after the panel failed to guess his line of work. And then came the Mystery Guest...
It was Shirley Jones, star of The Partridge Family, The Music Man, Elmer Gantry and so many other movies and TV shows. The audience, of course, loved her. They especially loved when the blindfolded Betsy Palmer, having established that the Mystery Guest had done a lot of things over the years, blurted out, "Gee, you're old." The panel failed to guess who it was (Stuart Shostak looked like he wanted to commit Hara-Kiri for having dishonored his expertise in the area of vintage TV) and after they unmasked, J. Keith conducted a great interview with Ms. Jones and her hubby, Marty Ingels.
I wish you could have seen it, especially if you're the kind of person who thinks game shows are dumb or can't be wildly entertaining. It was all real and spontaneous in a way that no current "reality show" ever is. In fact, if you never got to see J. Keith's What's My Line? Live, you missed out on a wonderful bit of theater. I hope they do more someday.
As we mentioned back here, a Hollywood landmark building — the current home of the Old Spaghetti Factory — is soon to be demolished and replaced by a combination of condos and retail outlets. It's not the only one. According to this article, similar fates await the CBS Sunset-Gower TV studio, the Hollywood Palladium and the structure that was once the Earl Carroll Theater and is currently the Hollywood home of Nickelodeon.
I love old Hollywood and old buildings but I sometimes find it hard to work up a great sense of loss about such structures. Or at least, I don't have enough to think that my tax dollars should go to keep them intact and/or that the present owners should be pressured to forgo what they think is the most profitable use of their property. That CBS complex has a grand and glorious history...and that's pretty much why it's obsolete. It was built to house radio programs of the kind Jack Benny once did and was later retooled for the needs of early television. For years, the local CBS affiliate did its local shows and news from there but there are no more local shows and they finally decided it wasn't even practical for news any longer and that operation moved out. Part of me would like the place to remain there in perpetuity so that when I drive by with outta-town friends, I can point and say, "See? That's where they did The Burns and Allen Show." But I don't think that's reason enough.
The Nickelodeon Theater is probably even less practical. Just in my lifetime, that building has been a half dozen things, passed from owner to owner like a Christmas fruit cake. I remember when the one-time Earl Carroll Theater was all painted up in psychedelic decor and renamed the Aquarius to house the Los Angeles company of the rock musical, Hair. (The current Nickelodeon decor is even more garish.) It was remodelled back to a more sedate theater after that for musicals like Ain't Misbehavin'. Chevy Chase did his short-lived talk show there and it was the place where anyone who had to produce an awards telecast on a low budget would go.
Or if they were really tight on bucks, they'd go across the street to the Palladium. It opened on September 23, 1940 with a performance by Frank Sinatra and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra...and last time I was in there, it didn't look like it had been cleaned since then. No, that's a cheap joke. But it's fair to say that the day is long past when the Palladium would host events like The Emmy Awards or top-name rock concerts. I think it mostly subsists these days as a location for movie shoots, and if/when it goes away, I won't miss it a whole lot.
There are old buildings and parts of Hollywood that ought to be saved for reasons of heritage and history. But of the four venues named in the above article as soon to be razed, the one I think I'll miss the most is the Old Spaghetti Factory. At least, it's the only one that I might have had a reason to go into...though now that I've pretty much given up pasta, even that's not likely.
From the 1943 movie, Stage Door Canteen, we have six minutes with Edgar Bergen, Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd...with a cameo appearance at the end by Gracie Fields.
Only a few more days 'til many of us head for San Diego and the Comic-Con International. The weather forecast calls for daytime highs around 80° and nighttime lows around 72°. Pack accordingly.
Hey, remember I said that Red Buttons was brilliant performing at Stan Freberg's anniversary party? Well, I think that's the same party Harry Shearer is talking about in this piece.
Last Saturday, I gave a rave review 'n' recommendation to Zero Hour, the new one-man show in which actor-playwright Jim Brochu portrays the late, great Zero Mostel. Now, you might say, "Yeah, sure you praised it, Evanier...but you're a longtime friend of this Brochu guy. How can we trust you on this?" Fair question. And the answer is that you should go read what the Los Angeles Times reviewer had to say about it...which you can do by clicking here.
Our acute shortage of older comedians grows ever worse with the passing of Red Buttons, who died this morning at the age of 87.
If you never got to see Red in person, you missed a wonderful experience. I was fortunate to be present perhaps a half-dozen times at local events — once at a tribute to his former writer, Larry Gelbart; another time at Stan Freberg's anniversary party — when Red got up and launched into a monologue that, as the saying goes, brought the house down. He performed with a devilish twinkle and a spot-on sense of timing, always pausing the precise number of micro-seconds before delivering a punch line. The guy was just plain funny.
For many years, he was a frequent performer at roasts where he employed his "Never got a dinner" routine to great success. He was very fussy about that material. He had piles of lines but he always wanted fresh ones. When I worked with him on a variety show in the seventies, he said he'd do the bit if we, the writing staff, wrote some new material for it. I think we wrote around a hundred jokes to get the five or six he thought were up to his standards...and we didn't mind it at all. Because Red knew what worked for him and you had to admire the devotion to delivering the best possible routine.
Most of the obits (like this one) will probably emphasize Red's 1957 Academy Award for his work in Sayonara — and the man was a very fine actor. I thought he was especially good in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? But there are plenty of great dramatic actors around. We're running out of great old comedians...and at an alarming pace.
An author-friend of mine is writing a book with and about a rather famous celebrity. In discussing his formative years, the celebrity recalled a comic book strip he followed when he was young, and the author-friend has asked me to try and identify it. Here's how the celebrity described his childhood fave...
I've always had, I guess, what most people would think of as the kindest reading of it, a much wider concept of what a family is than most people have. I remember I got busted for reading a comic book. It was my favorite comic book with a flashlight under my blanket, about a group of various orphaned kids who had somehow found each other and all joined together to live on a ranch together and survive and they came under, there was some adult who took over the father figure part and the mother figure, and I remember thinking that that was all how it should be.
The celeb was born in 1941 and lived at home until around 1959 or 1960. His comic book reading years therefore might have been as early as, say, 1948 or as late as the mid-fifties. He recalls the feature in question as one that never earned its own book and appeared instead in an anthology comic or as a back-up strip.
I'm stumped. It doesn't sound like the Simon-Kirby Boys Ranch to me and while I can think of a couple of other candidates, not one of them fits exactly. Anyone else got an idea?
Well, the embedded videos don't seem to be the problem so I've put them back. For reasons I cannot fathom, a number of people are reporting that connecting to this website causes their computer to lock up. Nothing has changed in our configuration so I'm at a loss as to what's causing it. If anyone has an idea of what's causing it, please let me know.
The other day, I stopped in at a small shopping center and made a few purchases at an Office Depot. On my way out, I witnessed a curious scene: A couple in their thirties (I'm guessing) walked up to the door and looked puzzled, like they were not expecting to find an Office Depot there. They looked around, then they asked an employee near the entrance where the Chinese restaurant was. The employee said there was no Chinese restaurant in the shopping center. The couple was even more puzzled but they staggered away and headed back for their car.
I didn't think much of it until earlier today when I was driving by that same shopping center. I chanced to notice that the way the buildings were configured, one of them cast a thick, black shadow across the large Office Depot sign, which was not lit. With a large part of that sign in darkness, it looked roughly like this...
And I thought: I wonder if that couple thought they'd spotted a new restaurant called the Rice Pot.
A number of folks — and I think they're all on Macs — have written to tell me they've been having trouble accessing this page for the last day or three. I haven't changed a thing so I'm guessing it has something to do with the embedded video links. I've just taken a few of them out to see if it makes a difference. If you're a person who was having trouble getting to this page lately and now you can, drop me a note and let me know. And tell me what kind of computer and browser you're using and whether you're having trouble accessing Cartoon Brew. Thanks.
Bob Thompson was one of the great composers and arrangers of fifties pop music and also of commercial jingles. In the sixties, he wrote the music for a fun little record album called That Agency Thing, which was kind of an audio musical about the ad agency business. I gather it was mainly intended as a showpiece for the writing of Alan Alch, who wrote the sketches and lyrics. Mr. Alch was also a noted writer of jingles and TV themes (he composed the theme song for the Chuck Connors show, Branded). Together, they produced this catchy record that utilized the vocal skills of some top voice actors of the sixties — Byron Kane, June Foray, Paul Frees, Howie Morris and Herschel Bernardi. And yes, the mention of Mr. Bernardi in the previous item is what reminded me that I wanted to link to this.
I'm generally against the downloading of record albums on the Internet but since Mr. Thompson's company has put That Agency Thing on his website, I guess it's okay. You can listen to it or download it here.
Also, Bob Bergen (the current voice of Porky Pig) calls my attention to this page where one can listen to many an episode of The Mel Blanc Show, a radio program that Mel did in 1946 and 1947. As Bob notes, it's fascinating to hear so much of Mel flexing his comedy and vocal skills.
Mr. Bergen, by the way, will be a panelist on one of the Cartoon Voice panels I'm hosting at the Comic-Con International in San Diego. We have a good crop of actors who will be demonstrating how they do what they do. If you've never attended one of these, you've missed some of the best panels at the convention. Don't continue to make that mistake.
Here's a classic TV commercial from the late sixties...a spot selling Tootsie Roll Pops. It was originally a minute long but some time in the seventies, the Tootsie Roll people decided it was a darn good commercial and trimmed it from sixty seconds to thirty, which is the version here. I don't know who did the voices of the kid or the turtle but the owl was played by Paul Winchell and the announcer at the end is Herschel Bernardi.
This is an actual obituary that ran the other day in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. They say Mr. Clark wrote this himself and if so, I'm guessing he left the date and cause of death blank for someone else to fill in...
Frederic Arthur (Fred) Clark, who had tired of reading obituaries noting other's courageous battles with this or that disease, wanted it known that he lost his battle as a result of an automobile accident on June 18, 2006. True to Fred's personal style, his final hours were spent joking with medical personnel while he whimpered, cussed, begged for narcotics and bargained with God to look over his wife and kids. He loved his family. His heart beat faster when his wife of 37 years Alice Rennie Clark entered the room and saddened a little when she left. His legacy was the good works performed by his sons, Frederic Arthur Clark III and Andrew Douglas Clark MD, PhD., along with Andy's wife, Sara Morgan Clark. Fred's back straightened and chest puffed out when he heard the Star Spangled Banner and his eyes teared when he heard Amazing Grace. He wouldn't abide self important tight *censored*. Always an interested observer of politics, particularly what the process does to its participants, he was amused by politician's outrage when we lie to them and amazed at what the voters would tolerate. His final wishes were "throw the bums out and don't elect lawyers" (though it seems to make little difference). During his life he excelled at mediocrity. He loved to hear and tell jokes, especially short ones due to his limited attention span. He had a life long love affair with bacon, butter, cigars and bourbon. You always knew what Fred was thinking much to the dismay of his friend and family. His sons said of Fred, "he was often wrong, but never in doubt". When his family was asked what they remembered about Fred, they fondly recalled how Fred never peed in the shower — on purpose. He died at MCV Hospital and sadly was deprived of his final wish which was to be run over by a beer truck on the way to the liquor store to buy booze for a double date to include his wife, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter to crash an ACLU cocktail party. In lieu of flowers, Fred asks that you make a sizable purchase at your local ABC store or Virginia winery (please, nothing French - the *censored*) and get rip roaring drunk at home with someone you love or hope to make love to. Word of caution though, don't go out in public to drink because of the alcohol related laws our elected officials have passed due to their inexplicable terror at the sight of a MADD lobbyist and overwhelming compulsion to meddle in our lives. No funeral or service is planned. However, a party will be held to celebrate Fred's life. It will be held in Midlothian, Va. Email fredsmemory@yahoo.com for more information. Fred's ashes will be fired from his favorite cannon at a private party on the Great Wicomico River where he had a home for 25 years. Additionally, all of Fred's friend (sic) will be asked to gather in a phone booth, to be designated in the future, to have a drink and wonder, "Fred who?"
Matthew Yglesias writes about how Republicans seem obsessed with the concept of the Missile Defense System and won't be dissuaded by little details like...oh, like the fact that there's no reason to believe it can ever work.
In the meantime, Art Buchwald — who went into a hospice to die — has left it just as alive as when he went in.
In the pictures above, the man on the left is Jack Kirby, hailed by many as the most important creative talent ever in the comic book business. The guy on the right is Johnny Carson, who has often been called the biggest star ever in television. What do these men have to do with each other? In 1982, Mr. Carson got confused about something and inadvertently made some slanderous remarks about Mr. Kirby on The Tonight Show. Mr. Kirby was very upset about this and filed a lawsuit against Mr. Carson. It was all settled with an on-air apology followed by an exchange of money.
On Friday, July 21 at the Comic-Con International in San Diego, I will (as usual) be hosting the annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel. It starts at 2 PM in Room 8 and we'll have members of the Kirby family present, along with four top comic book artists — Neal Adams, George Perez, John Romita and Mike Royer — discussing Jack's work. That alone oughta pack the place. But we'll also take some time to flash back to the Great Kirby/Carson War. I'll be showing videos of both the original Carson statements and of his apology, and we'll be hearing from Paul Levine, the lawyer who represented Jack in that matter. I showed this tape a few years ago at a panel but (a) we didn't have time to tell the entire story and (b) a lot of folks have asked to see it again. So there's yet another reason to attend this fine panel...as if the chance to learn more about Kirby was not reason enough.
Some time ago, I linked to a clip from a 1990 TV special starring Penn and Teller entitled Don't Try This At Home. Today, we have the finale from that special in which Penn drives a truck over Teller...a nice little stunt aided by my pal, Victoria Jackson. It runs about eight minutes. Go for it.
Here's an interesting rumor that's making the rounds of Las Vegas news sites...
As you may know, the Harrah's company owns a lot of hotels in Vegas. In addition to Harrah's, they own the Imperial Palace, the Flamingo, Bally's, Paris, Caesars Palace and the Rio. The Rio is off the Strip but the other hotels are all on Las Vegas Boulevard in a group. Caesars is across the street but Harrah's, the Imperial Palace, the Flamingo (and its companion casino, O'Shea's), Bally's and Paris are all in a line, one right next to the other...with one gap. Right in the middle there is the Barbary Coast, which is owned by Boyd Gaming. The Barbary Coast, located at the choice corner of Las Vegas Blvd. and Flamingo, is the one thing that stops Harrah's from owning this huge, continuous mass of casino land. (They also own several properties right around the corner on Flamingo.)
So the rumor is that a deal is being finalized for a swap: Harrah's would get the Barbary Coast and Boyd would get the Rio plus either a ton of cash or another hotel to be named later. This would be good for Harrah's because they could link all their properties into some kind of mega-megaresort. But it might be even better for Boyd. The Rio is a much bigger hotel than the Barbary Coast...to say nothing of the money or other hotel they'd score in the deal. They could also link the Rio with the hotel next door — the Gold Coast — which they already own. (This map will give you an idea of how the properties are currently distributed.)
As I said, this is a rumor...but it sounds credible. And it could change the whole face of Las Vegas.
GSN is currently running its 2006 World Series of Blackjack, one installment per week. I enjoyed the 2005 competition for reasons explained here but this year's is a lot less interesting. For one thing, the contestants aren't as interesting. For another, the hosts aren't as good. (They keep saying things like, "He really wants to win this one," as if it's news that the players have some interest in not losing.)
There's also a lot of annoying editing and telescoping in each episode. Each game consists of many hands of Blackjack. How many? I'm not sure because they don't tell you and they occasionally skip a hand or two, even though something significant may have happened in one of them. They'll cut to a little background video on a player or the hotel and when they return to the game, the hosts will say something like, "Well, while we were away, Rosie Piggleworm hit a couple of Blackjacks to take over the lead." Can you imagine watching a baseball game where they don't bother to show you the fifth and sixth inning and instead they just tell you that someone hit a Grand Slam to put their team ahead? A very silly way to cover a competition.
But it's worse than that. Two new rules have been added — rules that, as far as I know, exist in no other Blackjack game or tournament anywhere in the world. One is that twice during the game, the dealer deals out something called a "knockout card." When that shows, it means that the player in last place at the end of the following hand is eliminated. That forces some players to abandon the careful strategizing that is the fascinating thing about Tournament Blackjack and just make reckless, all-in bets.
Even worse is that each player gets one "Burger King Power Chip." This is a shameless bit of product placement and almost every time it's mentioned, the host or player works the fast food chain's slogan into the dialogue and says something like, "This would be a good time for him to have it his way with the Burger King Power Chip." When you play your B.K.P.C., you can discard any one card you've been dealt and get a new one in its place...a cute gimmick that, again, doesn't relate to anything one might encounter in a real Blackjack game. (In tonight's match, a player may have lost not because he played Blackjack poorly but because he didn't know how to use his Burger King Power Chip.)
There's still some nice suspense and moments when you can hear the wheels turning as good players compute their bets. But last year, I looked forward to the weekly installments and this year, I don't care much if I forget to set my TiVo. Maybe they'll learn from this before the 2007 games.
News sources say that George W. Bush will cast the first veto of his presidency if the Senate, as expected, passes legislation to expand federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research.
I don't get it. Why doesn't he just sign it and issue a signing statement saying it doesn't count?
Got a good one for you this time. The funniest act I ever saw in Vegas — and maybe the funniest I've seen anywhere — was performed by a man named George Carl. Mr. Carl passed away in 2000 but for the fifty or so years preceding, he could be found on stages around the world doing his pantomime act. Johnny Carson called it "the funniest twenty minutes in show business" and that's about as good an endorsement as you could ever want.
What did Carl do for those twenty minutes? Well, he threw his hat in the air and caught it. He tried to play the harmonica. He struggled with a tray full of musical instruments. But mostly, he got tangled in the microphone cord.
When I saw him in Vegas in the eighties, he had honed this act to such perfection, it was like a fine ballet. He knew how to get a laugh every second he was on stage. In most cases, the rest of the show he was in featured spectacular-looking naked women but even the men in the audience were wishing there was less of the ladies and more of the sad-faced little man who couldn't work a microphone properly.
This clip runs a little more than four minutes and therefore can only give you a brief taste of what he did. Trust me: It got funnier and funnier, especially during his battle with the mike cord as things grew steadily more dysfunctional. He dropped it down his pants, he got the cord between his legs, he wrapped his face in it...he just kept surprising you with his every move. I wish I had a longer sample but you'll have to settle for just this much of the incomparable George Carl. If someone out there has any tape of his entire routine, please let me hear from you.
Next weekend — July 13-16 — the fifth annual Game Show Congress is being held at the Hilton Burbank Airport and Convention Center, which is located across from the airport in Beautiful Downtown Guess Where. This is a yearly gathering of game show buffs and the program includes panel discussions and interviews with folks in that line of work, rare game show screenings, re-creations of classic game shows and a luncheon which will honor Peter Marshall (the "Master of the Hollywood Squares") and Mark Itkin, a top agent with the William Morris Agency who has been responsible for the packaging of many top quiz programs. Among the other celebs who'll be present are Betsy Palmer (from the original I've Got a Secret), Rose Marie and game show hosts Wink Martindale, Tom Kennedy, Monty Hall, Jack Narz and Larry Anderson. For details, go to this website.
One of the big events of the G.S.C. will be an installment of the live version of What's My Line? that I've written about several times...here, for instance. This is the show that takes place every Wednesday evening at the Acme Comedy Theater in Hollywood and it's a clever, loving resurrection of a great program, expertly hosted by J. Keith van Straaten. It's also coming to an end, at least for now. The performance this Wednesday night is the last at the Acme for the foreseeable future. So if you've always wanted to see this — if you have and want to see it again — hurry to the Acme this Wednesday evening. Details are over here.
After that, there's only one more installment of J. Keith's What's My Line? scheduled and it's at the Game Show Congress on Friday, July 14 at 8 PM. They're doing the show for the G.S.C. and have we got a treat for you! Ordinarily, admission is $20 but as a reader of this website, you can get in free. All you have to do is R.S.V.P. Write to Jim Newman (who's done such a fine job producing these shows) at wardenclyffe@eudoramail.com. Tell him you're a devout news from me reader and that you want to attend. Then show up Friday night at the Hilton Burbank, enjoy the show and see if you can guess the Mystery Guest before the panel (which will include the lovely Betsy Palmer).
While I'm at it, I might as well mention that Saturday and Sunday, the Hilton Burbank is also playing host to the Hollywood Collectors Show, where celebs sell autographed photos of themselves. Some of the Game Show Congress stars will be there along with Debbie Reynolds, Mickey Rooney, June Foray, Alan Young, Betty Lynn, Gary Coleman and many, many more. The full current list and more info can be found at this website.
The full programming schedule is up for the Comic-Con International. You can read the Thursday schedule. You can read the Friday schedule. You can read the Saturday schedule. You can read the Sunday schedule.
Or you can just do the smart thing and click below. This will take you to a list of the program items being hosted by Yours Truly, which are the ones you really don't want to miss.
This article in The Sunday Times (the one in London) says that Afghanistan is going poorly and that the Taliban could be making a comeback. Hope they're wrong but I fear they're not.
I don't think I've eaten one since I was about twelve...but for some reason, I got to thinking today about the favorite cookie of my childhood. The Sunshine company put out these things called Toy Cookies, which were like animal crackers but in the shapes of toys. You could eat one shaped like a drum, one shaped like a blimp, one shaped like a watch, one shaped like a truck, etc. That was not particularly the appeal of them. The appeal was that they tasted pretty good, regardless of the shapes. Actually, the only interesting thing about the shapes was that in every box, you always found a few malformed ones and it was fun to guess what they looked like. I once got one that I think started out to be a baby carriage but wound up looking more like a penis. I was afraid to eat it.
When I hit my teens, I abandoned Toy Cookies, not because I no longer liked them but because they seemed like a baby cookie...a very bad reason to switch to Chips Ahoy or Oreos. I don't know when they stopped making them but I recall seeing some more sophisticated packaging in the market, an obvious and apparently unsuccessful attempt to position the product for a slightly older audience. What finally occurred to me — and I wonder if it occurred to the manufacturer — is that the very shapes had gotten out of date. Alphabet blocks? Toy soldiers? By the sixties, those weren't toys to most kids. They should have made the cookies look like Barbie dolls, skateboards and Aurora monster models. (Today, they'd have to look like XBox controls and Star Wars action figures.)
I don't particularly miss Sunshine Toy Cookies. Matter of fact, I've given up all kinds of cookies and don't miss them one bit. But when I came across the above pictures of the old box and bucket packaging, they brought a smile to my face. And I had to share them here, just in case they have the same effect on you.
Conan O'Brien gives a commencement speech at Lincoln Center for the 2006 graduating class of Stuyvesant High School. The video is handheld and shaky but not unwatchable. It runs a little under 17 minutes.
Okay, so I go in to buy gas and I stick my credit card into the little slot in the gas pump. A screen then asks me to enter my zip code and press Enter. I guess this is to confirm that the person using the credit card is either me or a thief who's stolen my credit card and my driver's license.
Tom Richmond has become one of the new star artists of Mad Magazine. You can see why over at his new, redesigned website. You can also read his weblog which I plug here, not because it contains nice mentions of me but because...well, that's reason enough. The new issue of Mad, by the way, contains Tom's well-drawn parody of Superman Returns.
It can be dangerous to go see your friends in plays. I mean, what happens if the whole evening exudes the distinct aroma of fetid mackerel? What do you say to them when you see them after? Do you lie your butt off and say it's Tony Award material? Or do you try to get away with some non-committal statement that they'll (probably) eagerly infer is praise? In the past, I've gone the latter route and tried to get by with lines like...
"It was an evening I'll never forget!"
"Only you could have done this!"
"You made such interesting choices!"
"Words are inadequate to describe what I'm feeling at the moment!"
(My favorite:) "Of all the evenings I've spent in the theater, this was certainly one of them!"
Fortunately, I needed no such dodges last night when I saw my pal Jim Brochu in his new one-man play, Zero Hour. Jim knew the late, great Zero Mostel and has now managed to magically — don't ask me how — turn himself into the guy. The play takes the form of a long interview with Zero, conducted in 1977, just before he was to begin rehearsals for a play called The Merchant. Unmentioned in Jim's text is that Mostel was stricken during those rehearsals and never got to open in that play.
During the two-or-so hours Zero discusses his life, his capricious stardom, the tragedy of blacklisting, the near-tragedy of a bus accident that almost cost him his leg, his marriage, his fatherhood, his major roles, his painting and most of all, his anger. The play is at times very, very funny and — at times — very, very sad. Best of all, Jim captures the basic absurdity of the way the man thought, rambling from topic to topic, going from non sequitur to non sequitur and having them somehow flow logically from one to the next. It's probably as close as you could ever come to spending time with the genuine article. Jim even re-creates Mostel's testimony before the Senate subcommittee and throws in a few choruses of "If I Were a Rich Man."
Should you be in or around Hollywood through mid-August, I suggest you go. It plays at the Egyptian Arena Theater, which is an annex to the famous Egyptian Theater movie palace up on Hollywood Boulevard. Details can be found here. And if you're not in this area, just wait. I have a feeling Jim is going to be doing this all over America before he's through.
A few days ago, I did a little redesign on the non-weblog pages here, adding in a few new sections and deleting others. There are some new listings scattered through the latter pages of Great Los Angeles Restaurants That Ain't There No More and I forget what else I changed. But there are some updates if you care to go looking for them.
One new section I added is for those of you who are interested in the progress of my weight loss since Gastric Bypass Surgery. A running total can be found over on this page.
Over here in the weblog section, the big news is that a few of our video links no longer link. The YouTube people have done a major purge of video clips that...well, some sites are reporting that they've removed items that seem to violate copyright but based on my quick survey, it looks like they've yanked clips based mainly on whether powerful corporations were threatening to take legal action. In some cases, the removed material was public domain footage and I'm guessing it got swept up in a stampede of litigation threats over some of the non-p.d. films. Unlike some bloggers, I don't have a huge problem with this. YouTube is under no obligation to host anything and some other site will surely pick up the traffic. In fact, a lot of the stuff they've deleted is freely available on Google Video or over at The Internet Archive.
I also need to apologize — yet again! — for being so far behind on mail. I get more than I can possibly answer here and have had to just confine myself to the ones that most seem to require responses...and not even all of them. I wish it could be otherwise.
From Dave Sikula comes an identification of the clip in the previous posting...
In re, the Gene Kelly/Woody Allen clip, based on the poster for Half a Sixpence (which ran from April 25, 1965 to July 16, 1966) in Shubert Alley, I'm guessing we're looking at a bit of Gene Kelly: New York, New York, which according to this site and the IMDb, aired on February 14, 1966 with Julie Andrews as the other guest star. "This is not available on video, however, if you visit New York City or Los Angeles you can view it at the Museum of Television and Radio." Weird to see the two of them together. Good catch.
I'm not entirely sure where this is from. It seems to be a sketch from a Gene Kelly TV special of some sort with Woody Allen as a guest. I'm guessing 1968. Anyway, it's a little less than four minutes so give it a look...
...before this year's Comic-Con International kicks off in San Diego. In case you're interested, the long-range projections of the National Weather Service suggest mostly clear skies with highs around 75° and nighttime lows around 65°.
The convention folks have posted the schedules for Thursday Programming and Friday Programming with the other two days to be posted this weekend. But you don't care about that stuff. You care about the programs I'm hosting. Here's that schedule...
Notice that this year, we're doing not one but two big Cartoon Voice Actor panels — one on Saturday, one on Sunday. These are always a highlight of the con so you might want to make sure you catch one...or both. And of course, there'll be the annual Quick Draw! competition and the annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel and the Golden/Silver Age Panel and...well, just read the list. A lot of fun events. Hope to see you at some of them.
So one night on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, they had the Reverend Al Sharpton booked as a guest. This is in the early days of that fine program. They booked Sharpton but apparently no one told Sharpton. If he'd known, he'd have been there. No force in this universe can keep Al Sharpton from a TV camera. But there was a screw-up somewhere and when it came time to roll tape, he was nowhere to be found. So what did The Daily Show do? Click today's video link and see for yourself. (The beginning of the clip is washed out in green but it'll clear up in a sec.)
Let's all go peruse a good article from 2002 about the late Jan Murray. It starts with a small error when the writer says he watched Murray host Treasure Hunt in 1964. That show went off the air in 1959. But after that, it's well worth a read.
Here's a piece from the Washington Times about how Congressfolks feel about their appearances on The Colbert Report. What's odd about the response is that (a) some of the ones who've been made to look ridiculous seem pleased with the response and (b) this is the first time I can recall disagreeing with anything Barney Frank said.
Enron überthief Kenneth Lay died this morning. Matt Drudge, with his usual flair for accuracy, briefly had it up as a suicide, then switched to a heart attack.
Obviously, anyone's death is a tragedy. Obviously also, it's hard to get too emotional about Mr. Lay, who swindled so many people out of their retirement funds, health insurance and old age money. There's some sort of irony in there having to do with him not needing retirement funds now but I don't have time to phrase it properly.
When I read of the news this morning, I thought I'd post something here about how we're going to have to put up with conspiracy theories that someone — say, George W. Bush — had him murdered so he wouldn't rat on them. But I didn't get around to posting until now and I see they've already started. Let's hope this one doesn't reach Vince Foster proportions.
I haven't gotten around to seeing the Broadway show, Avenue Q...but everyone I know who's seen it says it's wonderful. Here's a number from the 2004 Tony Awards telecast that would seem to bear this out...
Here's a link to the L.A. Times obit on Jan Murray. Amazingly, it makes no mention of all the fine work he did over the years hosting the Chabad Telethon. It also makes some factually-awry statements like, "In 1965 he moved to Los Angeles and found work in films and on TV series such as The Lucy Show and Car 54, Where Are You?" About twenty seconds of Googling would have told this reporter that Car 54 was produced in New York from 1961 to 1963. Oh, well.
One of the best things I've seen on or around Broadway was the revival of 1776 that the Roundabout company mounted in 1997. In fact, I saw it twice: Once with its original star, Brent Spiner, as John Adams and later with his replacement, Michael McCormick, in that role. Today's clip from the Tony Awards ceremony broadcast in '98 features Mr. McCormick.
I had a great time both visits...though I have to say I've never loved the score for 1776. It really is that rarest kind of musical — the kind where the book is better than the songs. The composer, Sherman Edwards, was not a facile tunesmith. He had co-written a few pop songs that were performed by Elvis Presley. His most lasting hit was probably "See You in September," as recorded by The Happenings. 1776, which took him many years to write and more years to sell, was his only musical.
I've seen 1776 three or four other times and always enjoyed it. Somehow, the book by Peter Stone does an amazing job of making you forget that you know how the story turns out. Halfway through at intermission, you're saying, "Those poor saps...they'll never get that Declaration of Independence signed." When they do, there is always a burst of giddy, joyous applause from the audience. It's one of my favorite moments in any musical...and there hasn't been a song in over twenty minutes.
So here, in honor of the Fourth of July, is the opening number from 1776. Wish I could show you the whole thing.
This article by Trudy Rubin makes some strong points about what both Democrats and Republicans are doing wrong with regard to the Iraq situation. Well worth a read.
Our national shortage of Old Jewish Comedians worsens with news that Jan Murray has passed away at the age of 89. Mr. Murray had been in poor health for some time — too ill to even host the annual Chabad Telethon for many years.
But when he did, he was wonderful at it. If you never saw him preside over that ritual, you missed some truly great television. Every twenty minutes or so — more often as they near the conclusion — they go to the tote board to see how much money has been pledged and when they do, all the men on stage link hands and dance in celebration. When their number included Murray, it was hilarious to watch as he'd get wearier and wearier throughout the show. I think he was in his early eighties the last time he did it...and he did it with an attitude of, "Oh, no! I have to dance again." I'm confident some people were calling up to donate money just so they'd do another tote and see if they could kill Jan Murray.
Well, I hope you're happy, people. You finally got your wish.
And I write that with only admiration for his performances. Murray played his mounting fatigue for every bit of comedy he could wring out of it and he was very funny. Others have hosted the telethon since he retired and they've all been terrible. It's never been the same since he left it. (This year's is September 10 and Shelley Berman will be taking a spin at filling Jan Murray's dancing shoes. If anybody can...)
Most of Jan Murray's career in television was spent hosting game shows. Over at the magnificent (but not updated often enough) site, Old TV Tickets, you can read about his stint on Treasure Hunt...and the first time I met him, back when I was seven years old and he impressed the heck out of me. You can also read about a later, less successful show he hosted called The Jan Murray Show (aka Charge Account).
I only met him twice after our 1959 encounter in the halls of NBC. Once was at the Friar's Club and once was on the set of the Chabad Telethon. Both times, he struck me as the same guy I'd met as a kid: Funny, polite, charming and very much in control. I don't think I ever saw him actually do anything you'd call an act...but when I think of Jan Murray, I think of a guy who sure knew how to work an audience. And whose career was a matter of dancing 'til he dropped...which, sadly, he just did.
From the 1990 Tony Awards, here are Brent Barrett and Michael Jeter performing "We'll Take a Glass Together" from the musical, Grand Hotel. I didn't care much for the show but this number was worth the price of admission.
Brent Barrett was last seen in the movie of The Producers, playing a member of Roger DeBris's in-house staff, and he's currently in Las Vegas in the version of Phantom of the Opera being offered there. Michael Jeter's story is a lot sadder. Later in this same award show, he won the Tony for Best Actor in a Musical...for a role in which he played a dying bookkeeper. I'm sorry no one seems to have his acceptance speech online because it was quite emotional with him saying, "If you've got a problem with alcohol and drugs and think you can't stop, I stand here as living proof to the contrary." He said it in a modest way but with such impact that I couldn't help but think it must have affected some people who needed to hear things like that.
The Tony brought him attention and seems to have led to his regular role on the TV series, Evening Shade. He won an Emmy for that show and later went on to a recurring role on Sesame Street and several choice movie roles. But in 1997, he again jolted people with his candor when he announced he was gay and HIV-positive. He died in 2003, shortly after completing his scenes for the film, The Polar Express. In hindsight, knowing all that he endured, the exuberant dance he does as the terminally-ill bookkeeper, out for a last "fling" seems especially bittersweet.
Here is the long-awaited follow-up to this message which I posted two weeks ago...
As you may remember, they had just opened the long-awaited cafeteria at Westwood Elementary School. Foolishly — I was young at the time, remember — I'd assumed the cafeteria would be like other cafeterias that I visited with my parents...places where you had some selection as to what you'd eat. Not so with the one at my school. There was one meal each day, take it or leave it — and if you took it, you had to eat it.
Students were deputized to police the lunchroom and hover around the trash cans...and if someone didn't finish their lima beans or their Spanish rice, they were sent back to the table to clean the plate. This was among my worst nightmares: Being forced to eat that which my instincts told me I shouldn't eat. All my life, I had problems with certain foods. I later found out from doctor-type people that it was a complex array of food allergies and intolerances but even at the time, I knew that if I ate raw tomato or lettuce, for instance, I was in for stomach cramps, pains, upchucking and other unpleasantness.
A great lie that was told to kids back then — and is probably still told to some — is that you always had to eat everything put in front of you. No, you most assuredly don't. Some foods don't agree with some stomaches and it's foolish to regard Not Wasting Food as more critical than your own health. It also, of course, isn't good for one's weight to approach every meal with the idea that you have to stuff every scrap they give you down your throat. If early on, I'd gotten in the habit of stopping when I felt I'd had enough, I might not have had to recently undergo Gastric Bypass Surgery.
I love cafeterias — the kind where you can see the food and then decide what to eat. There are no surprises...no finding out that the sandwich — automatically and without warning — comes with cole slaw on it or that the fried chicken is unexpectedly battered in shredded coconut or that the veal parmesan includes a gratuitious, offending layer of eggplant. You can even usually see if the portion size is more than you want to swallow. I also have always favored cafeterias because in every "real" one I've ever been in, there's a person standing there who'll carve slices of fresh, just-out-of-an-oven turkey for you, right off the bird. This may be my favorite meal in the world and when I heard my school was opening a cafeteria, I thought, "Oh boy! I can have sandwich of real, just-cooked turkey every day for lunch." It was a shock to learn that I could not.
I recall the horrifying sequence of events with a shudder. They announced on a Friday that the new cafeteria would begin serving lunch on Monday, and many students cheered the end of hauling in mom-made peanut butter-and-jelly concoctions. I told my mother not to bother filling my trusty lunch box (which may then have been the model seen in the above picture). I would henceforth be dining at the school cafeteria, which I imagined looking like the Ontra, the cafeteria in Beverly Hills that my parents and I frequented. Monday morn, I felt almost naked, walking to school without a lunch pail.
Then, around 10 AM, the vice-principal came in and read a little memo about the cafeteria, hailing its creation and telling us all how to line up for it and how to behave and to do a lot of the same things advised in this film. Everything sounded fine until she got to the part that said that the meal today would be Chicken Tostadas. I waited to hear the other options but there weren't any. It was Chicken Tostada or go hungry. Furthermore, she told us about the monitors who'd make sure you didn't leave the cafeteria until you had completely consumed every last bit of your Chicken Tostada.
I wasn't sure exactly what a Chicken Tostada was but I had the chilling sense it meant trouble. During a break, I turned to the classroom dictionary, looked up "tostada" and read that it was "a tortilla fried until crisp, garnished with fillings including shredded lettuce, salsa and other things Mark can't eat." At least, I think it said something like that. I also looked up "cafeteria" and found the definition, "A self-service restaurant in which food is displayed on counters, allowing a choice from among different selections." For a moment, I thought of chasing the vice-principal down the hall and showing her proof that, according to the Webster's people, my school had the whole concept of a cafeteria wrong...but I had the feeling it wouldn't do a whole lot of good.
I went without lunch that day...and don't think that was easy. During lunch period, they expected to see you dining either in the cafeteria or at our assigned lunch benches, and I couldn't show up at the latter, sans food without facing embarrassing questions and probably even more embarrassing explanations...so I hid out in the Boys' Room until the bell rang that said we could go out and play Dodgeball. The next morn, you could find me carrying my once-again-trusty lunch box to school.
Interestingly, the new cafeteria was a flop. Most of my friends tried it. Few of them liked it. I got the feeling that the only ones eating there were those with mothers who didn't want to bother making sandwiches in the morning. Those poor kids had to go in and eat the Chicken Tostada, which was a weekly feature and which was disliked even by kids who could and did eat Chicken Tostadas in other restaurants.
One day, the vice-principal came around to each class for a brief discussion as to how they could get more pupils to patronize the new, expensive-to-build cafeteria. What struck me about the dialogue was that she more or less ruled out "the food is bad" as a reason. When someone suggested this, she launched into a little speech about how it was necessary to keep prices down so that every student could afford to eat there...and for what they charged, that was the best food that could be offered. With that off the table (so to speak), she pressed us for other reasons. What if we staggered the times different classes were dismissed for lunch so the lines at the cafeteria would be shorter? What if the plastic silverware was at the end of the line instead of the beginning? The one comment no one was allowed to make was that the food stunk, and I could see that that was the only thing on everyone's mind.
Finally, I raised my hand and made a little speech, ever so politely, about how I didn't understand why a place that served only one meal was called a "cafeteria." I read the definition and suggested that maybe, just maybe, our cafeteria could offer a choice. Maybe?
The other students actually applauded. I had found a way to skirt the ban on suggesting the quality of the food was the problem. The vice-principal listened and said, "Hmm...that might be worth looking into," and I wondered why a grown-up needed a ten-year-old boy to suggest to her that maybe the reason no one was buying the product was that they didn't like the product. I mean, I'd figured that out a few years earlier when my friend Johanna and I had run a lemonade stand with neither repeat business nor enough sugar in the lemonade.
But I'll say this for the vice-principal: She took my suggestion, looked into it and — sure enough — the cafeteria began experimenting with offering a choice of entrees. For instance, the first day they did this, you could have your choice of the Chicken Tostada or the Beef Tostada. I went for the peanut butter-and-jelly on white and so did almost everyone else.
For the next few days, I'm going to link to some clips of musical numbers from past Tony Awards telecasts. This one, from the 1990 awards, is a medley of three numbers from City of Angels, a fine show written by Larry Gelbart with songs by David Zippel and Cy Coleman.
For those of you who don't know the show: It's the story of a mystery novelist turned screenwriter who's trying to cope with what Hollywood does to people in his line of work. The stage is bisected and some scenes take place on the left side in full color as the screenwriter battles a crazed producer as well as his own conscience, trying to write the script. Other scenes take place on the right side in muted colors (to approximate black-and-white) and these are moments from the screenplay in progress. Most actors in the show play dual roles — one in the story on the left and one in the story on the right. In this medley, the first number is a duet for two women — the screenwriter's wife (Kay McClelland) is on your left, whereas the scene at right takes place in the office of the detective hero of the novel and movie, with his secretary (Randy Graff) lamenting the boss's propensity for ignoring her. The second number in the medley is an argument between the screenwriter (Gregg Edelman) and the private eye character he invented (James Naughton)...and this segues into an abbreviated version of the show's finale. It's a wonderful musical and if you ever get a chance to see more of it than this, do.
The L.A. Times has a good obit on Lennie Weinrib. It has a few mistakes in it — these things always do — but it's nice that he made it into the papers.
Amazingly, it is but nineteen days until this year's Comic-Con International commences in San Diego...eighteen days if you're attending Preview Night. Where does my year go?
In a day or three, I'll be posting a list of the program items I'll be moderating. They include two Cartoon Voice panels, the traditional Quick Draw! and Jack Kirby Tribute panels, a panel with Sergio, the Golden/Silver Age Panel, spotlights on several great veteran comic book creators and several others you'll want to attend. Check back here for all the details of where you'll want to be.
I have a Convention Guide that I wrote that's full of tips...but mine is bupkis compared to what Tom Spurgeon has come up with. You can read mine but make sure you read his. I agree with just about everything he says.
If you need more info on the con — and you probably do — click on the banner above. The con website is well-designed and very useful. I often find myself answering questions from folks who could have found out what they wanted to know by spending a few minutes over there.
As a special favor to you all, I'll forgo my usual joke about how if you want to get a parking space there, you'd better leave now. But it's true.
Sorry to read this morning of the death of Ross Tompkins, a great piano player and a fixture of The Tonight Show (Carson version) for over twenty years. Ross was a frequent performer in Los Angeles jazz clubs, often working in tandem with his pal, Jack Sheldon. He was much admired by his fellow musicians and after you heard him play, you knew why.
Over in The Washington Post, they have a nice overview of the war. No, not that unimportant one in Iraq. This is an article about the war between DC Comics and Marvel.
A number of things that might make you want to set the old TiVo or, if you're still living in the Stone Age, your VCR...
The SciFi Network is running a Twilight Zone marathon this weekend. Sunday morn at 9 AM (6 AM on some systems), they're running "The Miniature," which is the one with Robert Duvall and a nice performance by our pal, Lennie Weinrib.
Turner Classic Movies sometimes goes through periods when its programming favors the same well-known (and quite available) features over and over. Then for a time, they veer into true and rare classics. July seems to be one of the latter times. Early Monday morning, for instance, they're running The Better 'Ole, a 1926 silent starring Sydney Chaplin that I've always wanted to see. Right after, they're running an early talkie — The Chief starring Ed Wynn, followed by Alibi Ike with Joe E. Brown.
And still later that day, here's a clever bit of scheduling by TCM: The Wizard of Oz (starring Judy Garland) followed by The Wiz (starring Diana Ross) followed by The Wizard of Oz (the 1925 version starring Larry Semon and Oliver Hardy) followed by The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (the 1910 version starring Bebe Daniels). All of this is preceded by that "Making of..." documentary on the Garland version, hosted by Angela Lansbury.
TCM has also acquired another nice library of short subjects to add to their already huge one, and they're dropping a lot of rare films in to fill gaps between features. Unfortunately, their online schedules don't tell you when some of these treasures will be appearing. The next week or so, they'll be running a number of entries in a series called "The Boy Friends" that was produced on the Hal Roach lot between 1930 and 1932, starring a couple of kids who'd grown too old to still be appearing in Roach's "Our Gang" comedies. One of these shorts — The Knockout — will reportedly run on Monday morning at 10:35 AM (Eastern) but there's nowhere on the TCM website that gives you that information, or tells you when the others are scheduled. Happy hunting.
Late tonight in the overnight slot, NBC is rerunning the episode of Saturday Night Live originally broadcast October 9, 1982 with host Ron Howard, musical guest The Clash and special variety-type performer Harry Anderson. This is from the season where the cast included Eddie Murphy, Mary Gross, Tim Kazurinsky, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Brad Hall, Joe Piscopo, Robin Duke and Gary Kroeger. Not, as I recall, a great episode but it has its historical value.
GSN is bringing reruns of Beat the Clock back to its late night black-and-white hour which, if it weren't the worst game show ever done, would be good news. Fortunately, we still have the vintage What's My Line? episodes. The one that should air tonight (i.e., early tomorrow morning) has Steve Allen making his nine millionth appearance as a Mystery Guest. Sunday night, it's Phyllis Diller. Monday night's show, the first of two Mystery Guests is Brian Epstein, the man who "managed" The Beatles, and the second Mystery Guest is Tony Bennett. Tuesday night, one of the contestants is Craig Breedlove, who then held the world's land speed record, and the big Mystery Guest is James Garner.
Lastly: Today and tomorrow, C-Span 2 is running a number of panels that were taped at the recent L.A. Times Festival of Books. Consult this schedule for more info but I'm told by Gordon Kent (who was there for it) that the interview with Gore Vidal is especially good. It airs tonight at 8:05 PM West Coast time.
August 1, 2006
