Some time ago, I began listing "released jokes" here. These are jokes that have been told so often that they've not only lost their humor value but people should be ashamed to use them. In light of all the publicity lately about our solar system and the reclassification of planets, I need to add another one to the list...
...jokes that flow from the fact that "Uranus" sounds like "your anus."
Please stop. Don't do them any more. Don't even explain or alibi or point out that others do it more than you do. Just stop.
More than two years ago on this site, we wished aloud that someone would rerun old episodes of The Dick Cavett Show. More than four months ago, we told you it was about to happen, at least for a few episodes cut down (alas) from 90 minutes to an hour...and those few start airing this Thursday on Turner Classic Movies.
Actually, the first one (which airs this Thursday and again on Sunday) is not a rerun. It's a new episode with Mel Brooks and of course, TCM will surround its airings with a couple of Mel Brooks movies. But then on September 14, we get an old show with Cavett chatting with Woody Allen. On September 21, it's a show from 1971 with Robert Mitchum and then on September 28, TCM will air Cavett's 1972 interview with Alfred Hitchcock. In October, they're running Cavett shows with Bette Davis, Groucho Marx and a two-parter with Katharine Hepburn.
I was also a big fan of Cavett's late night show and always felt ABC made a huge mistake by cancelling him when they did. No, he wasn't sending Johnny Carson to the unemployment line...but neither did anyone else for 30+ years. Cavett's show finished (usually) a respectable second and turned a profit, which is more than can be said for the shows that occupied that time slot for the next few years after he was booted out of it. Perhaps of greater value was that at a time when his network didn't have the most uplifting schedule, The Dick Cavett Show won awards aplenty and garnered critical acclaim.
In later years, I think a lot of network execs would have been thrilled to have a show that did that well against Johnny...but Cavett was working in an environment where being Numero Uno was all that mattered. That was his loss, ABC's loss and our loss. It's nice to see those shows hauled out of the vaults.
While I've got your attention: Very early tomorrow (Wednesday) morning, TCM is running Zenobia, the 1939 movie that stars Oliver Hardy with Harry Langdon but without Stan Laurel. It's not a great film but Hardy's performance makes it worth watching. This is followed by the three "Topper" movies — Topper, Topper Takes a Trip and Topper Returns, all starring Roland Young as the oft-tormented Cosmo Topper. You could do worse than TiVo the lot of them.
Not to be picky, but there is no "non-conspiracy" theory about 9/11. The official Bush explanation is itself a massive conspiracy theory, involving dozens (or more) of extremist Muslim plotters spread from the U.S. halfway across the world to Afghanistan.
I point this out because some people use the phrase "conspiracy theory" merely as a label for explanations they don't like. This is dangerous to encourage, because it predisposes some people to disregard unpleasant explanations out of hand. And given the truth about the Boston Tea Party, the sinking of the Maine, and the Gulf of Tonkin incident (to list a few), we should keep a healthy skepticism regarding "official" explanations.
You're right. There are real conspiracies in this world and I certainly would never believe anything just because the voices that comprise "the government" at some point in time asserted it. On the other hand, I also don't give extra points to any theory just because it wasn't the official explanation. I think some people do, especially when the official version is of no use to them in their personal campaigns. Anyway, I'll try to be more precise about this in the future.
I received an unusual number of messages relating to the commercial I linked to for the Marx Rock 'em, Sock 'em Robots. Several people informed me that the version that is currently being manufactured is — in the words of one correspondent — "a scaled-down piece of junk lacking the magnificence of the original toy." Others who wrote said similar things but seemed less outraged.
Someone who didn't sign his name tells me that the boy on the left in the commercial is Bobby Buntrock, who played the kid on the TV series, Hazel. Someone who did (David Oakes) calls my attention to the illustration work of Eric Joyner, especially this print.
Jim Kakalios, who bills himself as "Your Friendly Neighborhood Physics Professor" writes the following...
Of course, there's an easy, elegant solution to the problem of an only child wanting to play Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robots...play by mail! You do it just as in chess — each postcard has instructions such as: move red robots left arm two inches forward, etc. Reflexes and timing are de-emphasized and it beomes a true game of strategy! In this way, I became Mid-West regional Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robots champion in 1972 — until the damn judges discovered that I had Crazy Glue-ed my robot's head down in place!
Oddly enough, no one wrote about the truly sad moment in the saga of the Rock 'em Sock 'em guys. It began when the Blue Bomber got drunk one night on WD-40 and signed that one-sided management contract with Don King. It ended one night behind a Toys R' Us when, bankrupt and reduced to picking up the occasional buck as a sparring partner for a couple of Transformers, the one-time heavyweight champion (plastic division) took his own life by throwing himself in front of a Big Wheels Tricycle. The whole sordid story stands as a sobering example of what happens when robots turn to a life of violence in the ring.
It's a commercial for the Marx Rock 'em, Sock 'em Robots, a toy I never owned. I was 14 when they came out in 1966 so I was a little old for it but I remember a younger kid down the block who was always trying to get me or anyone to "box" with him. I think he sometimes made his mother operate the Blue Bomber and then he'd knock her block off and complain she'd let him win. I wonder if anyone in the toy industry ever did a psychological survey of those who buy toys that can only be played by two or more, contrasted to toys one can play all alone.
The two robots had enormous staying power. After many years out of production, the Red Rocker and Blue Bomber made an amazing comeback. Mattel now manufactures the toy...which looks to me like the exact same design. There can't be a lot of playthings that went away and returned like that, and it's especially amazing in a toy that involved a certain amount of mechanics. You'd think something that came out in '66 would seem technologically ridiculous today...but the fight goes on. Here's one of the TV spots that promoted this epic battle in the first place...
Take a look at this 1996 page from the CNN website. President Bill Clinton is urging Congress to act faster on a package of anti-terrorism bills and the Republicans are balking at expanding presidential powers to wiretap.
Jerry's does a little of his "there's no people like show people" riff, then segues to talking about how he'll be directing The Nutty Professor as a musical for Broadway. He says they're planning on March, year after next, to hit the Great White Way and he brings on Michael Andrew, the "talented young man" who's going to star in the show. Like Robert Goulet before him, Andrew does a Vegasy rendition of a Lerner and Loewe show tune...in this case, "Almost Like Being in Love." Very nice...probably even Broadway caliber. But since Jerry said they're just getting down to the writing of the Nutty Professor musical, I'm a little skeptical about March of '08.
Hour 20 starts with Jerry performing a medley of Al Jolson songs. More shameless pandering to the young.
They come back from an extended local segment for the last ten minutes and Ed McMahon announces the more-or-less final total: $61,013,855. Jerry is emotional, fatigued, overwhelmed, alternately humbled and proud. He sounds, above all, sincere and I can recall a time when he didn't. Something interesting has happened to this telethon in the last decade or so and it's because of Jerry. Back in the seventies, he took a lot of heat for its excesses, its pandering, its promotion of his friends and their careers. But back then, he was just a comedian whose TV shows got cancelled and whose movie career had atrophied. The cause seemed to be promoting Jerry Lewis instead of the other way around.
That was then, this is now. As we've bemoaned on this site before, we're running out of legendary comics. We're going to wake up one morning soon and the Elder Statesman of Comedy will be a Wayans brother.
Benny's gone. Berle is gone and so is George Burns, so is Bob Hope, so is most of a generation of guys who transcended just getting up there and telling jokes. Even Johnny Carson, one generation removed from them, is gone. The other day at lunch, some of us got to naming the great older icons of comedy we have left and I'm afraid it didn't take long: Bob Newhart, Don Rickles, Carl Reiner, Jonathan Winters, Mel Brooks, Sid Caesar, five or six others...and Jerry. And depending on when you discovered his work, he may be the biggie.
There was a time when I couldn't watch this telethon but Jerry's mellowed in many ways. He no longer does things that get reviewed so he rarely launches into his little diatribes against critics. He's triumphed over so many medical problems that just making it out onto stage is a triumph of sorts...plus late fatherhood and his new marriage seem to be agreeing with him...and he's reached legend status. So you have a guy with nothing to prove other than that he can still do it. I hope he keeps proving it for a long time.
September 6, 2006
