Friday, June 29, 2007

Playing Possum

As we all know, I have a slow but steady parade of possums in my backyard. Every night or two, one of 'em shows up to feast on the cats' leftovers as you can see in the above photo. This article in the L.A. Times tells a lot about these critters.

• Posted at 6:52 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Bullwinkle sells more Cheerios! That's Bill Scott as the voice of the moose and Paul Frees as the narrator.

• Posted at 6:19 PM · LINK

Freberg News

Here's a press release worth quoting here...

NEW YORK, NY (Marketwire - June 29, 2007) — Pioneering radio innovator, satirist and performer Stan Freberg has won the New York Festivals (NYF) 2007 Radio Broadcasting Lifetime Achievement Award.

With an illustrious career, Freberg broke into show business as a teen after winning an audition at the Warner Bros. cartoon studio to do voice-over work and later went on to provide the voices of Walt Disney characters including the Beaver in "Lady and the Tramp." He came to prominence in radio broadcasting with "The Stan Freberg Show" on CBS Radio in 1957, meant as a summer stand-in for the long-running "Jack Benny Show." A visionary program, Freberg used his humor to comment on all aspects of American society of the 1950s. The series only ran for 15 episodes due to the rising prominence of television, a medium he soon entered. Credited as the first person to inject humor into TV spots, Freberg founded his own advertising firm, Freberg, Ltd.* (but not very), where he and his wife Hunter still work today. In the 1990s he produced a daily commentary show titled "Stan Freberg Here." In addition to the NYF Lifetime Achievement Award, Freberg has been honored many times throughout the years, culminating in a Grammy, numerous Emmys, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1995.

Nominated for the prestigious award by New York Festivals Honorary Radio Broadcasting Board of Distinguished Judges and Advisors alongside Freberg were Ray Cordeiro, Ira Glass, Charles Grodin, Paul Holmes, Don Imus and Dick Orkin. The selection of this year's winner was decided by the broadcasting industry at large through an online voting procedure. Previous recipients include Air America's Al Franken (2006) and "The Rest of the Story's" Paul Harvey Jr. (2006).

One could quibble a bit with the facts of that bio but so what? Nice to see that while Mr. Sahl was being honored on this coast, the other guy who pioneered funny records was getting some love back in New York. Wonder if Imus voted for him. Stan used to be kind of nappy-headed.

• Posted at 11:00 AM · LINK

About Last Night

Here's a photo from the event I've been writing about here. In the front row, you have — reading left to right — Shelley Berman, Jonathan Winters, George Carlin, Mort Sahl and Harry Shearer. Behind them, it's Richard Lewis, Jay Leno, Norm Crosby, Hugh Hefner, Ross Shafer, Drew Carey and Albert Brooks. And then way in the back, you have your Kevin Nealon.

Hefner wasn't a performer. He was just there as a friend and patron. Ross Shafer was one of the organizers of the gala. Somehow, Paula Poundstone, Bill Maher and Jack Riley didn't get into this shot...but isn't it a great picture, anyway?

• Posted at 10:37 AM · LINK

Last Night

Okay, here's my report on the Mort Sahl Tribute. A group called The Heartland Comedy Foundation is raising bucks for older comedians who are not well off. I don't know about the financial werewithal of Mr. Sahl but last night, they had a benefit in honor of his 80th birthday and get a load of who performed...

Jonathan Winters	George Carlin	Bill Maher
Shelley Berman	Norm Crosby	Kevin Nealon
Albert Brooks	Jay Leno	Paula Poundstone
Drew Carey	Richard Lewis	Mort Sahl

There were also taped appearances by Woody Allen and Don Rickles, and the whole event was well-hosted by Jack Riley with a brief assist from Harry Shearer. (Larry King had been announced to host but was unable to be there. I don't know if it was a joke or not but folks inside the theater and on stage were saying his no-show was because of something having to do with Paris Hilton's appearance on his show Wednesday night.)

How was the Sahl Tribute? About as wonderful as you'd expect it to be, given the line-up. Everyone was good...everyone. Some of the folks who got on late had a rougher time of it since the audience was getting a bit worn out by then...but everyone did well. (Winters went first, playing a character interviewed by Jack Riley. Mr. Sahl, fittingly, went on last. Everyone else appeared in alphabetical order.)

Best performance? I'd pick Albert Brooks with a speech that I thought was easily the most brilliant ten-or-so minutes of the evening. He came out, seemingly pissed-off because he'd prepared an eloquent eulogy. You see, he'd been told (he said) that Mort was dead. Then he arrived at the show, furious to discover that Mort wasn't dead. In fact, as he said this, Mort was sitting out in the second row, right behind Hefner and the obligatory entourage of stunning ladies. Mr. Brooks went on to explain that unlike the other folks appearing on stage that evening, he didn't have a current stand-up act so the eulogy was all he had...and he proceeded to read it anyway, even taking us through a Mourner's Kaddish. I thought some people in the audience were going to die — literally — laughing.

Classiest performance? Jay Leno. He isn't always at the top of his game on The Tonight Show...and I guess you can't be when you're delivering a fresh, untested monologue every night. But dipping into his club act, he did ten or fifteen minutes of killer stand-up and then — here comes the classy part — he did a wonderful, heartfelt little tribute to Sahl and left the stage in a manner that directed his exit applause to the honoree and not to himself. Very nice indeed.

Most sheer laughs, attained by any possible means? Richard Lewis talking about his penis and also Shaquille O'Neal's. Even people who thought it was tasteless were laughing and laughing hard.

Bravest performance? Paula Poundstone, eschewing prepared material in favor of chatting with a stranger in the front row. I've seen her do this before and she has an unerring eye for picking out someone who'll be obtuse and difficult to converse with...which, of course, makes it very funny. Still, given the line-up she was following, it was gutsy to try it in that room. It turned out very funny and even had a warm ending when she finally extracted the information from the guy that he'd founded the first Mort Sahl fan club back in the fifties.

Biggest ovation, not counting Mort Sahl? George Carlin, in part because he wasn't officially billed and his appearance took a lot of the audience by surprise. He did his "Modern Man" riff, spoke lovingly of Mort Sahl's place in comedy and in assisting his own career, then showed a video clip from a 1962 TV appearance in which he (Carlin) did a fine impression of Mort. The runner-up in the "biggest ovation" category was probably Jonathan Winters.

And lastly, there was Mort himself. He spoke of how moved and touched he was by the whole event but couldn't help veering into a few bits of topical humor. The one I remember best — and this is from memory, not verbatim — went as follows...

One of the big perks of doing what I do is that I get to meet all these guys. I met President [George W.] Bush and we got to talking about drinking. He said, "I don't drink anymore. You see, I was born again!" And I couldn't help think...if you were going to be born again, wouldn't you want to be born as something better than George Bush?"

Sahl stressed the point that he isn't dead or retired; that he's still going to be on stages as long as the public will have him. (Here's an article from the other day on what he's up to lately.) And he brought out his wife, who looks to be about one-fourth his age, and the audience sang "Happy Birthday" to him. It was an event that won't be repeated and for those who were there, won't be forgotten.

• Posted at 3:16 AM · LINK

June 28, 2007 • Current • June 30, 2007