Each year, the Animation Writers Caucus of the Writers Guild of America, West presents something they call the Animation Writing Award for lifetime achievement. They've given out eight of these in the past and have just announced that the ninth will be presented to Jules Feiffer. Mr. Feiffer is a cartoonist, a novelist, a screenwriter, a playwright, a former writer of comic books...and he has occasionally dabbled in writing animated cartoons. Anyone here remember Tom Terrific? That was one of his efforts in the medium.
This press release will tell you more about him. Or you can pick up the next issue of the Guild's official magazine, Written By, and read a profile of Feiffer by me.
Okay, Microsoft has just released its new operating system. Here's what I intend to do...
Not upgrade to it now.
Watch experts complain about it and pronounce it a disaster.
Wait as various updates and bug fixes come out.
Six months from now, I'll ask my Computer Expert Friend if it's worth it. He'll probably say yes and I'll probably upgrade then.
But until then, I'm not going to think about it.
You might want to adopt this philosophy. I do it with every major upgrade of an important piece of software and so far, every time I haven't followed this policy, I've regretted it.
Here we go again, people! I will be back on Shokus Internet Radio on Wednesday from 4 PM to 6 PM Pacific. That's 7 PM to 9 PM for those of you who live on that side of the country. And it won't just be me appearing this time on Stu's Show with your genial host, Stuart Shostak. This time, I'm bringing along Earl Kress, a fine writer of many things, cartoons among them. There is no one on this planet who knows more useless information about animation than me...but if anyone comes close, it's Earl.
I'm not sure what we'll be discussing. Probably silly stuff about a lot of old cartoons. If you folks call in and ask good questions, it'll be interesting. You can also call in to answer Stu's trivia questions and snag yourself a free Shokus Video DVD, which is more than Kress and I get out of the deal. Maybe if someone prods me, I can be coerced into announcing the name of the actor who's providing the voice of Garfield the Cat in our upcoming animated projects, taking over for the late Lorenzo Music and the expensive Bill Murray.
You can listen to Shokus Internet Radio on the very same computer that's bringing you this lovely website, assuming it has working speakers and an Internet connection that downloads faster than we can talk. Click here to go to the Shokus site and select an audio browser. And don't wait 'til Earl and I are on to sample this fine station. Here's a link to the schedule.
Here's another story from my visits last week to a hospital's emergency room. I have others beyond this one...
There was a woman, right across from where my mother was being treated, who'd been severely injured. Her name was Lily and I overheard her doctor say something about lacerations and contusions and he also used much more complicated medical nouns that sounded even more painful. Then I heard him mutter something about, "...her husband beating the crap out of her." That kind of thing happens, of course, and we know it happens. Still, it's jarring to see the results of it right in front of you, as done to an actual human being. They weren't attractive.
It was perhaps an hour later that I was sitting on a couch in the hallway outside the emergency room making a cellphone call. A tall, well-dressed man walked up to me, sat down and — completely ignoring the fact that I was in the middle of a conversation — he began asking me if I was ready to accept Jesus Christ as my personal saviour or if I was instead prepared to burn in Hell...those apparently being the only two possible options.
You may know the pitch. It's one of those stories that makes God and Jesus sound like egomaniacal dictators who'll condemn you to torture, no matter how else you've lived your life, if you don't pay proper fealty to their names. Helped the poor? Saved innocent lives? That's nice...but if you haven't taken your loyalty oath, you spend All Eternity in the firepit next to Hitler, Saddam Hussein and the guy who green-lights all those Rob Schneider movies.
I gave him my standard reply when confronted by such people. I tell them that whatever they want to believe is their right, and I'll fight to the death, blah blah blah. But I'm suspicious of a religious sales shpiel that's delivered like someone selling magazine subscriptions. I don't buy cookies from total strangers who approach me with a five-minute prepared speech so I'm certainly not going to change my faith that way. I also threw in, as I sometimes do, that I think it cheapens their message to sell their beliefs almost the exact same way kids in college used to try to sell me marijuana. (There were also people at U.C.L.A. then pushing Jesus. I'll bet the marijuana vendors got a lot more takers.)
The man realized he was not about to make a sale so he apologized, told me he'd pray for me to someday see the light and departed. You may have already guessed where this story is going.
An hour later, I was back in the E.R., waiting outside my mother's cubicle while a nurse inside tended to one of those matters that is best done with the son out of the room. Suddenly, I saw the well-dressed man wandering about in the ward and he wasn't wearing one of the Security Badges that we all had to wear in there. One of the nurses spotted him, too. She pointed and yelled with great alarm, "He shouldn't be in here!" A security guard hurried over and after a brief quarrel, the religious pitchman was escorted out.
I assumed it was because he'd been going around asking the sick and injured if they're ready to accept Jesus Christ, which would be annoying enough. But then someone explained to me that he was the husband who beat the crap out of Lily. I don't know if there is an Afterlife but if there is, I'm betting I fare better in it than he does.
Here's kind of a neat triple feature. Three different women have starred on Broadway in what some would call the "Mary Martin" version of the musical, Peter Pan...one being, of course, Mary Martin. It was written for her, rendering obsolete a previous Peter Pan musical and a couple of non-musical versions. Because it's so famous, people think it must have been a long-running Broadway smash but in fact, Ms. Martin only did it in New York for a few months — October of '54 through February of '55. She did tour with it for years but it's mainly known because she performed it three times on television — in 1955, 1956 and 1960. The first two were live. The third was produced on tape and was subsequently rebroadcast on a number of occasions.
I remember liking the TV version, though with reservations. Even as a kid, I thought Mary Martin didn't look like a lost boy who could fly. I thought she looked like someone's very sweet grandmother on a wire. There's a limit to how much you, as an audience member, can pretend and go along with someone or something on screen that isn't convincing and she came perilously close to my limit when I was a lad. And though I didn't know what "gay" was then, I later realized that's what I always thought Captain Hook, as played by Cyril Ritchard, was in that production. His feet touched the floor even less than hers. In the number where Hook lusts after a mysterious lady who is actually Peter Pan singing soprano, I lost all track of who was the boy and who was the girl...and I think they did, too.
Anyway, here's "I'm Flying" as Mary Martin and Company performed it for the 1960 videotaping. I have a suspicion that when this tape was released on home video, someone went in and digitally "painted out" some of the flying wires. At least, I remember them as being quite obvious when I saw them on my home set at age eight, even though we got lousy reception. With or without them, it's a pretty good number...
In September of '79, the show was revived with Sandy Duncan in the lead. She did it for a year and a half on Broadway, vastly exceeding Ms. Martin's run, then toured it for a year or two. I saw this production out here and thought it was outstanding. By then, her Cap'n Hook was Christopher Hewett, better known as Roger DeBris and/or Mr. Belvedere. Hewett managed to not play it as campy as Ritchard and I thought the story worked better with the villain acting like he wanted to kill Pan rather than to style his hair. I linked to the following clip once before but here it is again...the same number, only as performed by Ms. Duncan and Friends. This was taped for the TV show, Omnibus...
In the late eighties, former Olympic gymnast Cathy Rigby began a long stint touring America with a bus-'n'-truck version that played everywhere, including four separate runs in Broadway houses, usually when one had a few months open around Christmas time. She's retired from the role now, which is a shame because I thought she was about as good as anyone could be in the part. Fortunately, her production was videotaped for cable and released to home video. Both the VHS and DVD versions seem to be outta-print but they're not scarce if you hunt around on eBay or at some merchants. Since I never saw the Mary Martin version live, I'm hesitant to say I liked Cathy Rigby better but the fact that I'd consider saying that should tell you something.
This is the Rigby version of...yes, the same number as the other two. Here's how they did "I'm Flying" on the 1991 Tony Awards — a bit abbreviated for the telecast and not as polished as it is on the home video version. It has the addition of Pan swooping out over the audience, which Rigby did each performance as her curtain call "bow" at the end of the show. Sandy Duncan did that in her production, too. I don't care how jaded and sophisticated you are. It's a truly thrilling theatrical moment. If I ever do a one-man show on Broadway, I'll either close by doing that or smashing a watermelon. Maybe both at the same time.
January 30, 2007
