I may just repost this every month or so. The world of original comic art collecting needs a big, neon CAVEAT EMPTOR sign flashing in the faces of all buyers. There's an awful lot of stuff on the market — and in online auctions, especially — that is either innocently misidentified or deviously forged. Right now over at America's Marketplace (eBay to you), someone is selling a page from the Hulk story in Tales to Astonish #73 (the panel above is from that story) and they say it was pencilled by Jack Kirby and inked by Bob Powell.
No, it wasn't. The printed credits on that issue say that Jack did layouts, not pencils. Layouts are substantially less, as evidenced by the fact that Jack received 25% of the rate he'd get if he just drew the page in pencil. Then the published credits say "Art by Bob Powell," suggesting he pencilled and inked...and even that's not right because the art was actually roughed out by Kirby, pencilled by Powell and inked by Mike Esposito.
This one's an easy, blameless misidentification. Others aren't so innocent. There are a couple of artists whose work is habitually faked...and usually not even that well. Be especially wary of unpublished sketches, especially if they aren't signed to anyone. Charles Schulz never had much of a reason to sit down and do a great finished drawing of Snoopy in a classic pose unless it was a gift to somebody. He usually also managed to spell his own last name right.
So be skeptical and remember that just because someone sells original art doesn't mean they have the slightest ability to discern who actually did it. Some have good eyes for this kind of thing but some don't. And the ones in the "don't" category often have very strong motives to believe that a given piece of art is real and that it's by the guy whose work goes for the high price.
Jonathan Alter explains why the recent Congressional revision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is a destruction of the Fourth Amendment to that thing we used to call the U.S. Constitution. Everyone involved with this new legislation oughta be ashamed of themselves but especially the Democrats who knew exactly what it was and voted for it anyway.
I've never heard a bad story about Merv Griffin. I mean, I'm sure they're out there. You don't do that many shows and make that much money without having someone decide you screwed them over about something. It's just that Merv projected such a jolly, friendly image that I think the folks with the negative tales never got a lot of traction out of them. Or maybe everyone was just too busy spreading the stories of Merv and an array of "poolboys."
Merv was a humble guy on all fronts but two. He disparaged his own careers as a band singer and as an actor. He took pride in his years as an interviewer and talk show host, and he bragged nicely about his business acumen as a producer and entrepreneur. The Griffin talk shows are largely forgotten but in their day, they were phenomenal successes.
Well, two of them were. His first one — a daytime affair for NBC — was a quick failure. When the network signed Johnny Carson to take over The Tonight Show, they simultaneously signed Griffin for daytime to have him in the "on deck" position in case Carson failed. Instead, Merv failed...but that deal gave his production company some committments to produce daytime game shows and led to Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. Those are two of the most profitable TV shows ever produced so Merv probably didn't have lasting regrets over doing that daytime talk show...especially since it led to his later, nighttime ones.
From the afternoon program, he went to a syndicated show for Group W. Local stations slotted it wherever they thought it would be most effective but most had it on in the evenings as an alternative to the network prime-time line-ups. It was a good show with good guests and it was quite successful. Merv might never had left it had CBS not come to him waving megabucks. In '69, that network decided to try a late night show to compete with Mr. Carson and they went after Merv. As the story is told, Griffin was quite happy with his Group W show so he told CBS, "I'll only do it if you pay me double whatever Johnny's making." CBS, to Merv's surprise, agreed.
Unfortunately, it wasn't just a matter of competing with Carson. There was also Joey Bishop on ABC and when they lost Griffin, Group W replaced his show with a David Frost program. Four competing talk shows carved the audience too thin and Merv did not get a large-enough slice. This obit by Bob Thomas says he went back to Group W but I think that's wrong. I think it was Metromedia. Whoever syndicated it, the new/old Merv Griffin Show was even more successful than any before it. It was like every time Merv was cancelled, he made more money. And then he made more money and more money and more money.
I only had a few brief encounters with the man. One of my more surreal evenings in the theater occurred when I went to see Dick Shawn's one man show in the early eighties. The play itself was bizarre (and brilliant) enough but my date and I were seated next to Merv and his date, Eva Gabor. During the first act, Eva sat next to me and obviously didn't understand one word of Shawn's odd stream of onstage consciousness. After intermission, they switched seats...and I sat next to a man who laughed harder than I've ever seen a human being laugh. And during the few moments when he wasn't convulsed, he was whispering to me and everyone around him, "Isn't this marvelous?" He sounded just like Rick Moranis doing Merv Griffin, except more unctuous.
After the play, Shawn did an extended chat with the audience that included introducing many celebrities in the audience. He pointed out Merv, who stood to great applause. Shawn asked him who he'd brought as his date and Merv got a huge laugh by gesturing absent-mindedly to me. I stood up, started to embrace him...and then acted hurt when he corrected himself and introduced Eva. On the way out, people were telling my lady friend, "He's better off with you" and I kept saying, "Yeah, but do you know how much money Merv has?"
I also saw Merv in action a few times when I was backstage at his talk show, accompanying some friend who was doing stand-up on the show. Merv had on almost every successful stand-up of that era and he often had them before Johnny. But there was something about the reps of the two shows that caused comedians to rarely mention their appearances with Merv. Even when they'd done his show before they did Carson, they'd refer to The Tonight Show as their television debuts.
The last time I saw Merv in person was when he tried to serve me soup. It was in Griff's, a buffet restaurant he operated in the Beverly Hilton, a hotel he owned. The diners were amazed (but the staff was not) to see Merv going around, suggesting everyone try the Pumpkin Soup that was, he said, his personal recipe. My lady friend — a different lady friend from the one who'd stolen me away from him at the play — told him it was delicious but that I couldn't have any due to a food allergy. Merv started calling for the servers to find some other kind of soup to bring me. I didn't particularly want soup — the buffet was so bountiful you didn't need soup — but that was Merv's first instinct: A customer wasn't getting everything possible and something had to be done. I managed to convince him it was quite okay that I didn't have soup...and I didn't mention that he'd once thrown me over for Eva Gabor.
In 1954, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy made their one-and-only real TV appearance, quite against their will. They were "surprised" (Laurel later said, "horrified") on the series, This Is Your Life. Each week, some unsuspecting celebrity would be pounced upon by host Ralph Edwards and dragged into his stage for a little surprise party/biography done on live television. The subject's family and friends would be in on the plot and would help arrange it...and the celeb would have to go along with it. Sid Caesar and his crew once famously parodied all this in what I think is either the funniest sketch ever done on television or darn close to it. In fact, before I go any further, let me embed that sketch. This window should play it and then move on to other things but you can stop it after the part you want to see...
Now then. The night This Is Your Life did Laurel and Hardy, the "surprise" was done at a hotel behind the El Capitan Theater, which is where the TV show was done. Then Edwards went to a commercial, during which Stan and Ollie were expected to walk from the hotel to the stage of the El Capitan. When the show resumed after the commercial, they hadn't arrived and Edwards was forced to nervously ad-lib and fill time until they showed.
Laurel was not happy about making his TV debut in this manner. He was a meticulous rehearser who didn't like appearing unprepared before all of America. He also resented something else. At the time, he and Hardy were very much available to make movies and no one was offering them any opportunities. Yet here he was, being tricked into making an appearance for either no money or scale pay. He was gracious during the half-hour telecast but you could tell he wasn't overjoyed. This plus the delay in their arrival led to the assumption by some that the delay was because Stan and Ollie were refusing to participate and had to be talked into going through with it. This is apparently not so. It was merely a long walk to the stage and the This Is Your Life people had misfigured the time.
Anyway, as you might imagine, our video link today is to a video of that show. It's not the greatest picture quality but you probably won't watch the whole thing, anyway...
August 13, 2007
