Friday, December 29, 2006

Death Watch

I'm watching the news coverage of Saddam Hussein's impending execution, which the cable news folks are covering with a kind of smug excitement. They always like it when they think they've got your attention. Larry King just told us that if they're in the middle of a commercial break and they get word that Saddam has been hanged, they will cut out of that commercial break instantly. This is great because I wouldn't want to be watching an ad for eHarmony.com and miss the precise moment. I mean, there's news that can't wait for thirty seconds.

Much of the discussion is about how it's vital that Hussein be hanged "respectfully" and that his corpse not be mistreated. This is good to know. It's okay to kill a guy but no one wants to see him embarrassed.

What I'm kind of waiting to hear, and I haven't yet, is who benefits from executing him now. I'm not questioning that he deserves the ultimate penalty, whatever that is. I'd just like to hear someone finish a sentence that begins, "This will be help bring peace to Iraq because..." Given the price so many have paid to topple this regime and bring Hussein to trial, it would be nice if we got more out of this than the satisfaction of one less bad man in the world.

• Posted at 6:45 PM · LINK

Today's Bonus Video Link

The other day here, I wrote about Stan Lee appearing on an episode of To Tell the Truth around 1970. Someone posted it to YouTube so — through the courtesy of Anthony Tollin, who told me it was there — I can embed the whole appearance here...

A few years later, Robert Kanigher was a similar guest on To Tell the Truth. Mr. Kanigher was a longtime writer-editor for DC Comics and at the time, Wonder Woman was making a brief comeback as a symbol of feminism. Kanigher had been Wonder Woman's main writer so the game show had him on, along with two other men pretending to be Robert Kanigher...and if I'd gone just by the answers that were given, I'd have picked the wrong guy. Because the real Bob Kanigher got all the questions wrong and the impostors got them all correct. I suspect that wasn't the first time that had happened on that show.

• Posted at 12:00 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

I can't resist linking to more of that Evening at the Pops show with Nathan Lane singing songs that were made famous by Danny Kaye. This is "Lullaby in Ragtime," which Mr. Kaye introduced in the movie, The Five Pennies.

Danny Kaye was wonderful in everything he did on a stage but he was, from all reports, a truly awful person off-stage. Howie Morris, who frequently appeared on Kaye's 1963-1967 CBS variety show, used to practically froth when he told tales of working with the guy. Nevertheless, I fondly remember a night of my childhood — I'm guessing this was around 1960 when I was eight — when my parents and I went to see Mr. Kaye at the Hollywood Bowl. There was this magical man up there who held the rapt attention of 15,000 people...and he just went on and on, topping himself, apparently going way over his scheduled end time and daring Management to come drag him off.

I remember one thing he did. This was a nighttime performance, remember. Out in the audience, it was very dark. He asked everyone to take out a match or a cigarette lighter — this was back when most people carried them — and to light them at the count of three, Then he counted the numbers off and when maybe 10,000 flames suddenly appeared throughout the amphitheater, he began singing, "Happy birthday to you...happy birthday to you..." It got one of the biggest laughs in which I ever participated.

So I always liked Danny Kaye and I was sorry to hear so many unflattering stories about him. I don't doubt they're all valid. I was just sorry to hear them.

On the other hand, I always liked what Gene Wilder says every time I've seen him interviewed about his early career. Someone asks him what he wanted to be when he grew up, long before he grew up. The answer he gives is always, "I wanted to be whatever Danny Kaye was." I heard him say that and then a few days later, I watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and I realized he'd made it. I mean, if they'd made that movie twenty years earlier, who would they have cast in the role Wilder played? Danny Kaye, right?

Anyway, here's Nathan Lane singing another one of Danny Kaye's songs even better than Danny Kaye...

• Posted at 3:32 AM · LINK

December 30, 2006 • Current • December 28, 2006