In which I finally, after all these years, become a cartoon character...
This is fifteen seconds that a talented gentleman named Alexandre Ramos Mastrella did of a scene from a comic book I did with Sergio. The week we did it, we couldn't think of any interesting characters so we used ourselves.
Bill Clinton was on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart the other night. As we've noted here before, interviews on that show are often edited. This version of their conversation is six minutes longer than what was aired. Even if you don't like Clinton's politics — and I don't like all of them, myself — isn't it nice to remember a time when presidents could speak in complete sentences? The second half of this chat is more interesting than the first.
We haven't done one of these for a while but I thought I'd note (and provide ordering links) for three upcoming DVD collections of the work of very amusing men.
I've always loved Robert Klein and I sure wish he'd do standup again on a more regular basis. He was the guy who showed everyone else how to "perform" on a stage, keeping your oft-repeated lines sounding fresh and making the audience just plain enjoy being with you. With his HBO specials, of which this new release is a collection, he pretty much invented the idea of doing one's standup act on cable TV. So I've ordered Robert Klein: The HBO Specials 1975-2005 and you might want to, as well.
And then, coming out in a week or so, we have a complete collection of the cable specials by the other great standup guy, George Carlin. It's called George Carlin: All My Stuff and it's also, one can be certain, great stuff. At $170.99, however, it seems a bit pricey even though you get fourteen specials on fourteen discs. That's $12.21 per special, whereas the Robert Klein collection gives you eight specials on four discs for $29.99, which works out to $3.74 each. (Both collections feature extras. The Klein one has an interview of him by Alan Colmes. The Carlin one has two long interviews, one of which is 75 minutes.)
The other notable thing about the Robert Klein collection is that it's all pretty much material that hasn't been available on home video...or hasn't been available for quite some time. (I have two of these specials on Beta.) Most of the Carlin material is available on DVD...so if you're a fan of George's specials and have been buying them in that format, you have to buy those specials again to get the full collection plus the extras. We always get annoyed when they do this to us.
Lastly, I know nothing about The Best of Jack Benny, other than that it promises us 41 episodes of his TV show on four discs and that it sells at Amazon for $13.49. One assumes these are old, public domain prints mastered at a very slow speed. Then again, Jack Benny operated at a very slow speed...and it's hard to imagine that in 1,260 minutes of Jack Benny, you won't find thirteen and a half bucks worth of goodies. I've ordered a copy and I'll let you know if there's a catch. There's something poetic about a Jack Benny collection being cheap.
Hey, you think you know the lyrics to the song, "God Bless America"? Apparently not. At the "Values Voters" candidates' debate the other night — a gathering of super-right-wing folks — a choir sang a rewritten version. I don't know if Mr. Berlin would have been outraged at the message inserted into his song but I have a hunch he'd have been apoplectic that it was put there by someone who has no concept of meter or rhyme and who couldn't even do the amateur lyricist's trick of just counting syllables.
One can just imagine the outrage that this same group would have mustered if anyone else had changed so much as a note of that song. Here's a link to the lyrics and a video.
And let us have a moment of noise in memory of the great artist of pantomime, Marcel Marceau, who has left us at the age of 84. (Better get used to that joke...you'll be hearing it a lot in the days to come. In fact, we're probably also in for a lot of jokes about him dying because he called for help and no one heard him.) He taught or inspired countless other actors and also folks in related creative fields such as dance, painting and even cartooning. He was, as a friend of mine used to put it, the one mime people loved, not to be confused with all the rest, whom they hated.
Ordinarily here in one of my R.I.P. postings, I would insert some anecdote about meeting the deceased but I never had the pleasure — I assume it would have been a pleasure — of meeting Marceau. I did (I thought) harm one of his performances once as I recounted in an article elsewhere on this site. Here — I'll quote it to you. This occurred around 1965 or so...
...someone gave us tickets to The Red Skelton Show and we went over to CBS Television City, an austere black-and-white building not far from where I now live. We waited in line for what seemed like several weeks before being admitted to the stage and seated in the third row of the studio where they now do The Price is Right and where, decades later, I got to meet and work with Bob "Captain Kangaroo" Keeshan when I wrote for and he hosted CBS Storybreak.
That week's Skelton show was "A Concert in Pantomime" starring Red and his guest, the great French mime, Marcel Marceau. The taping began with a twenty-second sequence that merely called for Skelton and Marceau to walk to center stage and shake hands. They walked to center stage, shook hands, the Stage Manager yelled "Cut" and Skelton turned to the audience and said, "Wasn't that good?"
That may not sound like much here but, at the moment, it was hysterical. In fact, the audience was still chuckling as Mssr. Marceau took stage to begin taping several pantomime spots. He was in the middle of the fifth when my mind suddenly decided to be mean to me and replay Skelton's line.
Now, you have to imagine the scene: There is absolute silence in the room. On stage, one of the great artists of the world — the legendary Marcel Marceau — is miming some topic of dread seriousness and unbounded pathos. It was the moment of a baby duckling finding his mother dead from a hunter's rifle or something equally cheery. Not one person in the room is making a sound, but for the few fighting back tears at this moving, dramatic moment...
And I suddenly laughed. Out loud.
I tried not to. I held it in until it was leaking out my nostrils and ears but it escaped. I kept remembering Red Skelton going, "Wasn't that good?" and, finally, I couldn't hold it in any longer. I laughed right in the middle of Marcel Marceau's most dramatic, tragic stage moment.
As laughs go, it wasn't a loud one, actually...but it was loud enough for the illustrious Frenchman to hear. Ever the professional, he did not react to it with his body — but I could see the his eyes nail the third row with the slightest, tiniest gleam of "Who the hell is the idiot laughing at this?"
I looked around, as if I too was wondering who'd laughed. But I know I didn't fool him.
The look was so microscopic, I was the only one who saw it...but see it, I did. I saw it again, weeks later, when the show aired. My laugh wasn't heard and no one else in America saw Marceau throw that look, now past the third row and all the way to my home Zenith, just for me. But I saw it again. And every time since then — when I've seen Marceau on a movie screen or on TV — I've seen him subtly but carefully scanning the third row. Just in case I'm back.
Here's a link to an online obit. The man's achievement is perhaps best measured by the fact that everyone referred to him as "the world's greatest mime"...and almost no one could name a single other contender for that honor.
Here's a clip from Johnny Carson's 1973 anniversary show, which marked eleven whole years of him hosting The Tonight Show. If that seemed impressive at the time, one has to wonder how you describe the fact that he did it for another nineteen or so years after this.
What you'll see when you click is a surprise walk-on by Dean Martin. I suspect that in the entire history of talk shows, there have been less than five cases where a walk-on wasn't planned well in advance and the host didn't know about it. I only recalling it happening once with Johnny. The surprise walker-oner was Danny Thomas, and Mr. Carson did not seem pleased about it. Another time, a minor celeb got out of an audience seat, walked up onto stage and attempted to be a guest. Johnny (understandably) had them stop tape, remove the gent from the premises and then redo the segment to remove all trace of him.
In the following obviously-arranged surprise, note the fine bit of acting by Mr. Carson, making like the guy operating the boom microphone wasn't prepared to have it where Dean would be standing and making planned dialogue, like the "Welcome to the club" line seem ad-lib. (Odd how the band just happened to have Martin's theme song at the ready, isn't it?) Dino made a number of appearances on The Tonight Show — some billed in advance, some not — but after about 1970, his rule was that he would not sit. He figured that if he sat, he'd have to stay longer and he wanted to just come in, make the appearance and get the hell out.
You will also notice one of Johnny Carson's great skills failing him. He was usually very good about ending segments, knowing just when to cut things off so they could go out on a big laugh. Unfortunately, Dino was trying to get off the stage from about thirty seconds after his entrance so Carson had to pay more attention to keeping him there then getting him off, and the ending of spot is sloppy and not the high point. Johnny seems annoyed that Buddy Hackett (who was a billed guest on that episode, scheduled to appear later) walks in. One wonders if one of the producers, realizing Johnny was having trouble ending the spot, signalled Hackett to enter in the hope that it would trigger a big laugh...or if Hackett took it upon himself. No matter. It's still great to see the three of them.
September 24, 2007
