Saturday, September 2, 2006

The Hole Story

The things I do for you people. The other day, I bought a roll of "five flavor" Lifesavers candy...the first roll I've bought in (I'm guessing) 46 years. They were a nickel the last time I purchased one. Now, they're 69 cents and the rolls are just as hard to open as they were then, and I think the Lifesavers themselves are slightly smaller.

Orange does, indeed, seem to be back and the other four flavors are pineapple, raspberry, cherry and watermelon. This is not to suggest they all taste like the corresponding fruits. As one reader of this site, Rob Staeger, wrote me when we were discussing Hostess Orange Cupcakes, "When I was in college, my friends and I realized that they didn't taste like oranges at all. We came to the only logical conclusion: They tasted like the color orange, not the fruit." (The above photo does not seem to be of the current flavor line-up.)

So how do Orange Lifesavers taste these days? I'm afraid I'm not the one to ask. Ever since my Gastric Bypass Surgery, my sweet tooth has gone sour. One of the unexpected changes in my body is that I've lost about 80% of my taste for sugar and/or high fructose corn syrup, especially the latter. Things taste sweet but it's a joyless sweet. Recently, just as an experiment, I tried a few of my favorite cookies and I'm sure they still taste the same to most folks...but it was just a mild pleasure to me, barely worth the effort.

This does not displease me. Losing the fun of sugar is not a bad trade-off for dropping all that poundage. In fact, I'm not sure that a lack of fondness for sugar isn't a very good thing in itself. It's certainly not something I would have imagined I could ever have...but I gave up Pepsi-Cola and other sugary, bubbly soft drinks back in February with surprising ease. In fact, I'll tell you when I did it. It was those four days when I was hospitalized for Cellulitis. I drank no soda in the hospital and didn't miss it. I already knew I'd probably be having the Gastric Bypass Surgery before the year was out, and that it required the abandonment of carbonated beverages and caffeine. So I decided to see if I could keep the soda abstinence going and I haven't popped a pop-top on a pop since.

Which really amazes me. Once upon a time, I went through a six-pack per day and got severe headaches when I tried to withdraw. I didn't think I could give up Pepsi any more than I could give up exhaling. Guess I don't know me as well as I thought I did.

Since the surgery, I can and do eat sugar but it has to be in moderation. If I ingest too much, I am liable to endure an attack they call "dumping." Symptoms include such fun things as bloating, nausea, diarrhea, dizziness, weakness, sweating, and rapid heartbeat. I have never experienced this but I have read articles (like this one) from people who have and it sounds like one of those experiences you don't need to ever experience.

But I wasn't afraid to try a Lifesaver. One Lifesaver only contains 10 calories and 2 grams of sugar and I guess it momentarily reminded me of being a kid and getting my bi-annual (birthday and Christmas) gift of Lifesavers from Uncle Nate. 46 years from now, I'll have to try another one. Hope they still have the orange then.

• Posted at 8:50 PM · LINK

Chilled Chopper

Over on his weblog, my buddy Earl Kress mentions one of my favorite Hanna-Barbera characters...Chopper the Bulldog from the Yakky Doodle cartoons. It got me to wondering how many people know that Chopper was sorta, kinda inspired by the great western actor, Chill Wills.

In 1961 when the Yogi Bear show was in production (with the Yakky cartoons as a segment), Mr. Wills was in the news, at least in Hollywood. The year before, he'd had a showy role in the John Wayne movie, The Alamo, and there was talk of him winning an Academy Award for his performance. Much of this talk came from Chill Wills, who took out a series of costly ads in the Hollywood trade papers, first to tout himself for a nomination and then, after he was nominated, to ask people to vote for him.

In later years, it would become fairly standard to see the pages of Variety and Hollywood Reporter crammed with ads urging members of the Academy to vote this way or that way. At the time though, it wasn't such a well-established industry custom...and even later when it was, the ads would usually not be so personal. Today, there will be pages aplenty suggesting you vote for Nicolas Cage but those pleas are not purchased by Nicolas Cage or signed by him.

The Wills ads struck many as excessive and offensive. In one, he said that the producers of The Alamo were praying as hard for Chill Wills to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar as the defenders of the actual Alamo had prayed for their lives before battle. Others were worse, though late in the campaign he seems to have realized he was alienating voters and toned it down. After the balloting closed, he took out a full pager that said, "Win, lose or draw, you're all my cousins." This prompted a response ad from Groucho Marx who wrote, "Dear Chill Wills...Am happy to be your cousin but I voted for Sal Mineo." When the envelope was opened, it turned out that most people had voted for their cousin, Peter Ustinov, for his role in Spartacus, and it became industry legend that Chill had put a chill on his own chances with his trade ads. (Twelve years later, the same would be said of the campaign mounted on behalf of Diana Ross for her performance in Lady Sings the Blues.)

So one day in the midst of the voting in '61, Bill Hanna, Joe Barbera and their creative team are working on their newest show. They'd decided to build a cartoon around a little duck character who'd appeared occasionally in their earlier cartoons. He'd been called Itty Bitty Buddy (or Iddy Biddy Buddy) when he'd appeared in earlier H-B cartoons and a slightly different version of the duck had popped up in the Tom & Jerry cartoons that Bill and Joe had directed for MGM. They'd named his newest identity Yakky Doodle Duck and now needed a strong supporting character to play off him. They found a direction for that character when...

Well, if we believe something Barbera once told me — and I'm not saying I do — the phone rang and it was Chill Wills, calling to ask J.B. to vote for him. Joe told me he promised Wills he would, got off the phone and thought, "Gee, what a great voice...and that manner. That's just what our duck needs." Before the day was out, Chopper the Bulldog was born.

Cute story...and maybe it's even true. Or maybe Joe just noticed one of Chill's ads in Variety and that provided the inspiration. A lot of Hanna-Barbera characters started with some reference point to a comedian or character actor — Jimmy Durante for Doggie Daddy, Bert Lahr for Snagglepuss, Joe E. Brown for Peter Potamus, etc. Either way, Chill Wills inspired Chopper.

Since an Academy Award Nominee wasn't about to do voicework for what Hanna-Barbera paid, an actor with a similar vocal quality had to be found. Joe Barbera looked as far as Channel Five on his TV, hiring the local Bozo the Clown, the gravelly-voiced Vance Colvig, Jr. Vance was a second-generation Bozo. His father was Vance "Pinto" Colvig, the first Bozo on records and on local TV. Below is a photo from the 1989 Al Yankovic movie, UHF. That's Vance in the center with the money...and I'm sorry I couldn't find a better photo of him.

(Finding the voice of Yakky Doodle was a little harder. For that, Barbera had to go all the way over to Channel Thirteen...to an afternoon kids' show called Cartooneroony, hosted by "Uncle" Jimmy Weldon and his duck puppet, Webster Webfoot. Weldon did a great duck voice for Webster and it also became the voice of Yakky.)

And that's about all I have to contribute to the subject of Chopper the Bulldog. Yeah, I know: A lot more than you wanted to know. But that's what the Internet is for.

[UPDATE: Jim Engel just sent me an e-mail asking me if the Chopper characterization wasn't based on the Wallace Beery role in the movie, The Champ. He's right and I meant to mention that. But the character started with the Chill Wills voice, the same way The Jetsons started out to be based on The Life of Riley and turned somewhat into Blondie along the way. So I guess I did have more to contribute.]

• Posted at 2:55 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Jerry Lewis is doing his 41st Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon this weekend. The entire network telecast from Las Vegas is 21 and a half hours but some cities only run portions of it and some let their local segments lengthen the broadcast. In Los Angeles, for instance, the entire show will run 23 hours on KCAL Channel 9...I think. My TiVo is somewhat confused because the schedule has the festivities broken into four separate parts. The first and third are called The 2006 Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon while the second and fourth are called The 2006 Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon (Cont'd). If you want to record the whole thing, you need to mark all four sections.

Thanks to my little satellite whatzis, I can also watch on it WGN in Chicago. They're running fifteen hours of it, then they go away for a baseball game. The Pittsburgh Pirates and the Chicago Cubs are currently locked into a life-and-death struggle for last place in the National League Central Division and you don't want to miss that. After they duke it out, the station will cut back to Jer for around two and a half hours.

Wanna know about guests? The following is from a press release...

MDA National Chairman and Telethon star Jerry Lewis, joined by anchor Ed McMahon and co-hosts, Jann Carl, Tom Bergeron, Norm Crosby, Billy Gilman, Larry King, Tony Orlando and Bob Zany. This year's on-air talent includes Celine Dion, Paul Anka, Goo Goo Dolls, Lee Greenwood, Dave Matthews Band, Joshua Bell, Jo Dee Messina, Daddy Yankee, Cheap Trick, Rita Rudner, Neil Patrick Harris, Ray Romano, William Shatner, Donald Trump, Sean Hayes, Lance Burton, Clint Holmes, Louie Anderson, George Wallace, Julie Roberts, Maureen McGovern, George Clinton, Village People, the casts of Phantom of the Opera, Shout, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Color Purple and The Wedding Singer and more.

Not bad...but still a far cry from the days when Sinatra would come on to sing and would bring along his friend, Dean Martin. I linked to a fuzzy and brief clip of that moment here but we now have access to a longer version that includes more of the performances before and after. Here's Part One, which you may or many not want to skip. It's Frank singing before bringing Dino on and it runs a little over eight minutes...

And now, here's Part Two, in which Sinatra brings Dean onto the stage and the audience goes understandably crazy. This part runs a little under ten minutes...

Finally, here's Part Three, which is mostly Dean Martin carrying on for four minutes. I suspect an alien from another planet could watch this and find it hard to believe the man ever made a living as a professional entertainer...but I still enjoy watching Dean even when he's phoning it in from the wrong area code. There will be nothing like this on this year's telethon but there will be Shatner. That's something.

• Posted at 12:30 AM · LINK