If you'd like to see an interview with Roger Ebert back in his healthier days — i.e., when he could talk — the Archive of American Television has posted its 90-minute one-on-one with him to Google Video. This link will tell you how to get to it.
As we surmised, the author of the letter in the previous item knew it was a joke. See here. I'm just wondering if the editor of the newspaper that published it did.
I'm trying to decide if this is a joke. I mean, this letter actually appeared in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, which is a real newspaper. But I'm trying to decide if (a) the author was kidding and (b) if so, if the newspaper editor who selected it for publication realized that. I'm leaning towards (a) yes and (b) no. Here's the letter...
Daylight exacerbates warning
You may have noticed that March of this year was particularly hot. As a matter of fact, I understand that it was the hottest March since the beginning of the last century. All of the trees were fully leafed out and legions of bugs and snakes were crawling around during a time in Arkansas when, on a normal year, we might see a snowflake or two.
This should come as no surprise to any reasonable person. As you know, Daylight Saving Time started almost a month early this year. You would think that members of Congress would have considered the warming effect that an extra hour of daylight would have on our climate. Or did they?
Perhaps this is another plot by a liberal Congress to make us believe that global warming is a real threat. Perhaps next time there should be serious studies performed before Congress passes laws with such far-reaching effects.
CONNIE M. MESKIMEN
Hot Springs
One piece of additional information which may help you decide who's kidding who (or is it whom?): A quick search reveals that Connie M. Meskimen is a practicing bankruptcy attorney.
Remember: If you're interested in animation or animation history, you'll want to tune in Stu's Show today on Shokus Internet Radio when he hosts animation experts Jerry Beck and Keith Scott. 4 PM on the West Coast, 7 PM on the East Coast. Details are here.
I have a couple of boxes in the next room labelled "Mad imitations," meaning magazines that attempted to replicate the success of (and usually, most of the contents of) Mad Magazine. There have been an awful lot of them, most of which lasted three or less issues. I probably have at least a dozen that ran a grand total of one issue. Even back when Mad was up to a circulation over 2.6 million, the knock-offs couldn't muster enough sales to stick around for long.
Unless you count National Lampoon — and I sure wouldn't — only two managed to stick around for any length of time. Sick lasted for twenty years, though the last five or so were kind of rough...lots of reprints and then it was sold to Charlton, the rock bottom of the business, for its last hurrah. Cracked began in 1958 and published regularly until around 2000 when its issuance became erratic...then it stopped altogether. Soon, it was sold to new owners who revamped it, started publishing again — and quickly stopped. So the batting average for Mad simulations is pretty low. It's probably been just a few years shy of a half-century since anyone started one that ever showed a profit.
Which brings us to the latest in the long, grand tradition. The first issue of Gag! came out in 2004. Did you know about it? I didn't. Another first issue has just been issued but I don't think it's on conventional newsstands. It seems to be sold in comic shops and at the magazine's website. I haven't seen a copy yet so this is not a recommendation...but I'm somehow impressed with the sheer fact that anyone is trying it again. One of these days, it's going to work.
When rehearsals started for the original Broadway production of My Fair Lady, Julie Andrews was awful, at least in the portions where Liza was the unscrubbed flower girl. She was reportedly able to play the later scenes where Ms. Doolittle has become a refined lady of apparent breeding but she just couldn't master the character in the early scenes. It was so bad that her co-star, Rex Harrison, threatened to stop coming to rehearsal. He didn't see why he should waste his time rehearsing with an actress who obviously had to be fired and replaced.
In a "last chance" desperation move, director Moss Hart gave everyone but Julie a few days off from rehearsal and went into an intense, one-on-one tutoring session with her. It was brutal, it was exhausting...but it worked. Hart pasted the role on her, doing the opposite of what Henry Higgins did in the play — turning the gentlewoman into a street urchin. In some accounts, Hart's spouse, Kitty Carlisle, assisted in the marathon lessons that enabled her not only to play the part but to make it one of the stage's most memorable performances.
Here's concert footage of Julie Andrews performing a number of that show and telling a small, funnier version of that story. It runs five minutes.
April 26, 2007
