Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Game Show Guy

When I was eight or so, my favorite non-cartoon TV program was a game show on CBS called Video Village, hosted (at first) by a man named Jack Narz. Later, he was the host of — this is by no means a complete list — Seven Keys, Beat the Clock, Concentration and Now You See It. And before he hosted Video Village, he was the emcee of Dotto, which was one of the first game shows to be axed in The Great Quiz Show Scandals of the fifties. Mr. Narz was in no way responsible for the fact that certain outcomes on that show were occasionally manipulated.

I could never stand Beat the Clock...not with him hosting it, not with anyone hosting it. But the other Narz shows were all pretty good and he was a key reason. Unlike a lot of hosts, he hit that perfect note of respect for the game and its contestants, never taking things too seriously but never acting as if his own show was beneath him. He also seemed like a witty, nice man and the few times I've encountered him here and there would seem to bear out that evaluation.

I'll be tuning it tomorrow when he's a live guest on Stu's Show, which is heard from 4 PM to 6 PM Pacific Time on Shokus Internet Radio. Another fine host, Stuart Shostak, will be quizzing the quizmaster about his career — which, by the way, included a brief stint as an announcer on the George Reeves Superman show. Tune in and listen by clicking on this link and selecting an audio browser. You may even hear me calling in to ask a question or three.

• Posted at 8:06 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Several years before they began producing the Popeye cartoons we're talking about here lately, the Max Fleischer studio made this little educational film that explained to movie audiences how the "talking" part of talking pictures was accomplished. I'm not sure audiences of the day understood it but they probably enjoyed the odd characters and odder animation of them. This runs a little less than eleven minutes...

• Posted at 7:04 PM · LINK

Briefly Noted...

Mort Sahl turns eighty next month. A number of celebrations and tributes are planned, and I'm going to try to mention them here...but if you just want to see Mort in more-or-less his natural habitat, he'll be doing a stand-up performance next week. It's the evening of April 12 at the Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach. If you live in Los Angeles, you might want to head on down there. It's not as far from L.A. as it sounds.

The Comedy and Magic Club is a pretty nice room and a great place to take friends, especially friends from outta town. Most Sunday evenings, you can see Jay Leno there doing essentially the same act he does for $90.00 a head in Las Vegas. I'm not sure what tickets cost in Hermosa Beach but they're a lot cheaper, plus he has Jimmy Brogan opening for him. Jimmy is a very funny man.

• Posted at 6:08 PM · LINK

Arf Arf Arf!

That's the cover at left of the forthcoming Popeye DVD release that excites us so. It also, judging from my e-mail, upsets a few folks on account of its announced price tag of $64.92. Even though the set includes sixty great cartoons, lovingly restored and joined by commentary tracks and documentaries and other extras, that sounds steep to some people. One person wrote me, "You don't care about what it costs since you're on the DVD and you're getting paid, plus you'll get a case of them free."

This person is wrong about the last part. There's a little coterie of animation and TV buffs, of which I am a part, who get called upon to help out with these things and who do so out of fannish devotion to the material. I probably have about three dozen friends who have assisted DVD companies in finding footage, researching history, locating interviewees and doing commentary tracks and interviews. Sometimes, one of us is paid for our services. I've never been but sometimes, people are paid...a little. We always get promised free DVDs — one or two, never a case — and I'd say that promise gets honored about half the time. By that time, they don't need us.

This is kind of a sore spot with some of us — make that, "with all of us." You feel stupid buying a DVD you're on, especially because if you do, the free one will arrive the next day. On the other hand, if you don't buy it, the free copy never arrives. I don't know why it works like this but it does.

Back to Popeye. Yeah, $64.92 is kinda steep but keep in mind that's the official price, the one nobody pays. It'll probably be $55 or so when it first comes out, then drop down to around fifty bucks. Secondly, there's a ton of material on this and it all went through a painstaking (I'm sure) restoration process. By comparison, some of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection sets list for the same price and contain 320 minutes of material as opposed to the 550 minutes of content you'll get with the spinach-eater's collection.

While you're at it, save some cash for three more releases which have just been announced in the Walt Disney Treasures series. When I think about how difficult it was to see — forget about "to own copies of" — just to see this stuff years ago, I have to conclude it's the best time ever for animation buffs. The collecting can get expensive...but hey, the work is available and it's not only being restored for us but for all posterity. Very happy news.

• Posted at 2:54 PM · LINK

Up Late Again

Back in this message, I mentioned that friends of mine in Los Angeles were happy to hear that Vito's Pizza, which was once down on Vermont across from L.A. City College, has reopened on La Cienega in West Hollywood. I also said I was going to try it after April 1 and the disappearance of Creamy Tomato Soup at the Souplantation.

Well, yesterday I took Carolyn by for a couple of slices...my second visit, to be honest with you. I went once in March. The verdict? As good as ever. Vito has a little hole in the wall restaurant with fast food ambience...but he also has the best pizza in town. The pasta bologonese is pretty darn good, too. If you're looking for "New York style," here it is...Vito's Pizza.

Note: Vito makes great Italian food but he's not all that great on websites. His may not open in some browsers. If it doesn't open in yours, know that the address is 846 N. La Cienega Boulevard, situated between Melrose and Santa Monica Boulevard. It's in a little strip mall and it doesn't look like much. Here's a PDF file of his menu. By the way, if you do get the website to open, that's a picture of Vito himself in the apron.

I'm going to bed. Good night, Internet. I'll see you in the morning.

• Posted at 3:46 AM · LINK

April 2, 2007 • Current • April 4, 2007