Since I said I wasn't sure who I was going to vote for in the Democratic primary, a number of different e-mailers sent me off to read this article by Chris Durang. It makes a pretty strong case for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton and darn near convinces me.
I think I picked an interesting week to poll the readers of this site as to who they thought would be the Democratic nominee for the post of Prez. Early on, Hillary Clinton took an early lead and for several days, Obama was around 31% and Edwards was around 16%. But even before he announced he was getting out of the race, the numbers for Edwards dropped into the single digits and Obama began picking up what I'd guess was most of that support plus some from each of the other choices. For what it's worth, I selected Hillary when this poll went up but if I had to make a prediction today, I'd probably flip a quarter...or maybe pick Obama. It feels that close to me.
I'm not even sure who I'm going to vote for in the Democratic Primary next week. A couple of the candidates who are on the ballot but out of the race probably reflect my views better than either Clinton or Obama but I don't see the point of a "symbolic" vote for them. No one ever notices how many votes the withdrawn candidates get so the symbolism doesn't register anywhere that matters.
I know a lot of folks keep coming to this site to see if there's any news on the strike...so for you people: There's no news on the strike. At least nothing I've heard. The rumor mill says they're still having informal talks. That's probably true. At least, we'd probably hear if it wasn't. The rumor mill further says those talks are going well. That may be one of those news items based on nothing. In any case, there's no indication as to when those talks might turn into real negotiations, which would presumably be a matter of formalizing the terms.
Meanwhile, officials of the Screen Actors Guild are criticizing what they know of the Directors Guild settlement and asserting that they will not allow it to become a template for their own, upcoming negotiations. One might infer they're saying that now because they know that the WGA reps are accepting a large chunk of the DGA deal, at least as a rough model even if some of the terms and numbers change. And one might be dead wrong to infer that. We don't know. The DGA deal has, probably unfortunately, become the AMPTP's starting point for bargaining. Any union (not just WGA or SAG) is going to have to do a certain amount of pushback against it.
When will we hear something? Your guess is as good as anyone's. I still think an immediate goal is to make enough progress in the next week or so that the WGA will feel comfortable about granting a waiver that will allow the Academy Awards to have a real writing staff. I'd certainly trust our leadership to make that determination and to trade that off if they feel they're making genuine gains. Still, the fact that one or both sides wants to make a deal ASAP doesn't mean that's going to happen. So sit tight.
I can't resist stealing the following blog post by Josh Patashnik...
The final question at the GOP debate tonight asked the candidates whether they believe Ronald Reagan would have endorsed them. Within the span of four minutes, they told the audience that Ronald Reagan wouldn't have supported a candidate who changed his position on key Republican issues, wouldn't have supported amnesty for illegal immigrants, would have reduced the size of government, and would have reverted to the gold standard. The jury's out on whether these men are qualified to be president, but they sure aren't qualified to teach eleventh grade American history.
I've long felt it was a toss-up as to whether Republicans were more or less mired in the myth of Reagan than Democrats were in the fantasy of John F. Kennedy and Camelot. Lately, the McCain campaign has been trotting out photos of their candidate with The Great Communicator. This whole campaign may turn out to be a duel between those photos and the ones the Democrats will be wielding that show McCain hugging George W.
As I've mentioned, I'm now teaching Humor Writing once a week for the graduate students program down at U.S.C. For yesterday's lesson, I brought in a pile of Henny Youngman jokes and had the members of the class — most of whom had never heard of Mr. Youngman — read them aloud. Then we discussed which jokes we liked and why and the kind of rhythms and structure that made most of them work.
A few minutes ago, having Youngman on the brain tonight, I decided to see if I could link to a clip of him performing. I found this one, which is from the mid-eighties when his delivery was slower than it had once been and his reception was bigger. What interests me about it is that we discussed most of these jokes in our lesson.
In case you want to know more about The King of the One-Liners, I wrote this piece about him some time ago. Or you can just click below and enjoy some of Henny Youngman's greatest hits.
This is a blanket "thank you" to all the folks who wrote in with suggestions and/or offers of help with my computer virus problem. Lucky me, I had two at once. From what I can tell, the first one somehow managed to bypass and then disable my virus program. It should not have been able to do this — it's an old, known virus that the software is supposed to protect me from — but it did and that opened the door for the second. Both infected my main computer and the first one got onto my main computer, my secondary computer, two external Maxtor harddrives and three SanDisk cruzer flashdrives. Quite an ambitious little fellow, I'd say.
Cleaning involved my regular virus program, an online virus scan and two other virus programs which I downloaded and ran in trial mode. Collectively, they identified both viruses — albeit under an array of different names — and removed the one that was only on one computer. Getting rid of the other was a little harder. I had to go in and manually kill processes, delete hidden files, delete registry entries and restore a few files from a recent backup. All four pieces of anti-virus software I used claimed they could remove this second virus but for some reason, none of them could. Still, they gave me the info that enabled me to research the virus and then figure out how to do the manual scrub job.
End of story? Unfortunately, no. I got the virus off my main computer but not before it nuked something in the boot sequence. I'm pretty sure all the data's there...I just can't get to it. To deal with this, I took the easy way: Shipped it over to my computer guy and told him to build me a new computer, boot the old one off another drive and then transfer my data over. I was about due for a new P.C., anyway. It should be here by the weekend.
But thanks to all who offered help. A couple of you suggested I chuck the Windows systems and defect to the World of Mac, where viruses are pretty much non-existent. True...but I think I have too much invested in this software in terms of knowledge, money and emotion to start cross-dressing now. And you'd better all be glad I feel this way because if I ever did switch to a Mac, someone would surely invent a killer virus for them...a bad one that would nuke your data, destroy your system and tell everyone you went to high school with that you wet the bed.
One of these days when some entertainment company wises up and starts The Obscure Sitcom Network (or whatever they'll call it), they're going to make a hot tub full o' money. What they need to do is to dig out all those comedy shows which ran a few seasons but never had much of a life in syndication...shows like Occasional Wife and Hank and I'm Dickens, He's Fenster and It's About Time and The Queen and I and Ensign O'Toole and My Living Doll and Camp Runamuck and He and She and Car 54, Where Are You? and Julia and I'm sure anyone reading this site can name twenty more. Don't bother sending me your picks.
A show I'd like to see again is The Good Guys, which starred Herb Edelman and Bob Denver and which ran on CBS from September 25, 1968 to January 23, 1970. It was about two lifelong friends — Bert Gramus (Edelman) who ran a diner and Rufus Butterworth (Denver) who drove a taxicab. At arm's length, it was a slapsticky, broad show but I recall it being quite witty underneath its pie-in-the-face veneer. I also liked its theme song which went through different arrangements and several sets of lyrics during the show's two year run. Here's the show's opening and closing...and like I said, I wish someone would put this one back on the air or out on DVD or something.
Here's another opportunity to vote in our poll which closes tomorrow night. If you've already voted and would like to change, you can do that.
It's been interesting to watch over the last week as John Edwards has dropped about thirteen points, Barack Obama has gained about thirteen points and Hillary Clinton has stayed about the same. Make of that what you will.
Over on his site, Michael Barrier has posted something that interests me greatly...and if you're interested in how to write comic books or even animation, it should interest you. As you may have seen me pontificate many a time, there are many ways to write a comic book script. This is because there are many different kinds of comic books and many different kinds of people who write and draw them with many different modes of talent and expertise. It has long amazed me how many people who work in the field or so aspire learn one way and thereafter believe it is the only way. In some cases, it's not that they think it's the best way. They literally think it's the only way.
Well, one way is for the writer to just sketch the whole thing out on typing paper, doing simple drawings and writing in the copy. I would guess that a solid majority of "funny animal" comics — and maybe even a majority of those about similarly "funny humans" — have been done that way. It was especially prevalent in years past at any company where most of the writers were gagmen or animators who were moonlighting or escaping from jobs at a cartoon studio, and some even wrote adventure or other non-funny comics this way. (Somewhere here, I have a copy of Don R. Christensen's sketched script for a Magnus, Robot Fighter.) Still, I have met experienced comic book writers and editors who deal exclusively in typed scripts and are stunned when they see one executed in this manner. They act like they spotted a unicorn.
Sketched scripts also confuse fans and historians, who think that the guy who did the script did layouts or breakdowns and is therefore deserving of co-credit for the resultant artwork. Well, maybe he is and maybe he isn't. This is a more subjective call that can vary not only from job to job but from panel to panel. As you'll see on the example before us on Barrier's site, the artist sometimes followed what the writer did and sometimes didn't. In such jobs, the artist nearly always has the freedom to just take the idea of each panel and stage the action however he or she may prefer.
What Mike has posted is a twelve-page Porky Pig script for a 1948 issue of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. The script was written by one of my mentors and early employers, Chase Craig, who was an editor for several centuries at Western Publishing, the company that produced these comics. It was drawn (and also lettered, by the way) by Roger Armstrong, who was one of Western's best artists and one of Chase's favorites. The two men had a very odd, occasionally contentious relationship and working with both of them in the seventies, I kept finding myself in the middle of squabbles. Through them all however, Chase's admiration for Roger's drawing was undiminished.
As you can see, most of the changes Roger made were a matter of flipping the action from left to right or vice-versa, and probably for the better. I've seen examples where the artist stayed closer to the sketched versions and also where he changed almost every panel; also, cases where the sketched script was more or less detailed. For the record, I don't think "sketched" scripts warrant the writer receiving partial art credit except maybe in cases like with Harvey Kurtzman or Jack Kirby, where as writer (or plotter usually in Jack's case) he roughed things out on the final drawing paper. I believe this despite the fact that as you can see, Roger got a lot of his ideas for poses and attitudes from what Chase drew.
I guess this raises the question of whether a better comic book results if it's written by someone who sketches out the story, as opposed to someone who types. My experience at Western Publishing (and with Chase and Roger) suggests that no one who was doing comics in that era thought it mattered to the end product; that the determination was made wholly on the comfort of the writer. Some guys couldn't type or preferred not to so they sketched. Some couldn't sketch or preferred not to so they typed. Some (including Chase Craig) could go either way so they just worked in whatever manner they felt like using at that moment.
Some writers even drew because they thought it was more fun to draw. One of the main writers for Western for many years, a gent named John Brady, not only sketched out his scripts but partially colored them with colored pencils. I once asked Chase why Mr. Brady wasted his time doing that since it was so meaningless, since no one involved in the coloring of the printed comic would ever see what he did. His answer was along the lines of, "He just likes doing it. I guess it helps him create. Some guys have to be wearing a certain shirt or facing north or drinking lemonade in order to work. John needs to use his colored pencils." Chase didn't care one bit if a writer sketched or typed and didn't think it mattered to the final product, especially when the artist was going to be someone he respected as much as he respected Roger Armstrong.
From 1967 through 1971, Frito's Corn Chips were sold on television by an animated spokeshombre called The Frito Bandito. The character was created by the ad agency of Foote, Cone & Belding, and the early spots were directed or at least supervised by the great Tex Avery. Mel Blanc provided the voice and the commercials were apparently quite effective at selling corn chips...at first.
Then the protests started, with the National Mexican-American Anti-Defamation Committee and other groups complaining about the ethnic stereotype. They were right, of course, that television was then not offering much in the way of Hispanic characters or role models. If there'd been a few who were actual human beings, the corn chip bandit might not have been so offensive to some. Worse, "Frito Bandito" became a racial slur in many circles and a lot of people, not just minorities, came to find the character offensive. When sales on the product went into decline, the Frito-Lay people retired their mascot, replacing him at first with a group of cowboys called The Muncha Bunch. They later gave way to W.C. Frito, a W.C. Fields soundalike who also didn't catch on.
I really don't know how I feel about all this or even how much it matters. But you've probably heard of The Frito Bandito so I thought you'd like to see him...
Back from picketing. It was WGA-SAG Solidarity Day today on the front lines at Fox, which meant I not only saw a lot of writer friends but actor friends, as well.
A few correspondents have asked exactly why it is we picket. There are a couple of reasons, one being that it's traditional. The other labor unions in town expect it of us, and if we didn't picket, everyone would be saying, "Those spoiled writers think they're too good to picket" or maybe "The writers aren't really behind their guild's strike. They don't care enough to come out and picket." We also picket for the news value, to keep the story in the headlines and to remind everyone that we're still out, that we still don't have anything close to an acceptable offer for our services.
There were a lot of news cameras out there today. For a time, I was picketing behind a gent who had the letters "WGA" shaved into the back of his head, and three separate camera crews practically mowed me down, trying to get some footage of that. Also, there was some woman there...I have no idea who she is and neither did any of the folks with whom I was then picketing. But she's apparently a regular on some popular series and she was surrounded by cameras and microphones and from what I could hear, she was saying all the right things. (The "buzz" on the line, for what it's worth, is that the Screen Actors Guild hates the DGA deal even more than most writers, and that they're determined to accept nothing even remotely in the same ballpark.)
And I guess we also picket for ourselves. None of us like being on strike but there's some wonderful camaraderie and mutual reassurance that happens there, marching with folks who are solidly on your side. I have never believed a syllable of those rumors that the Guild was divided on this issue, that there were gaggles of top screenwriters and show runners poised to break the strike and flee the Guild. Those tales are absolute Bandini, through and through. But if I ever did believe them for a second, a visit to a picket line like today's would calm any concerns.
It was actually quite pleasant, especially since I did something that was, for me, rather smart. The last time I went over to picket Fox, I drove around for half an hour, unable to find a parking space in the same zip code. Today, I was shrewder.
Fox is on Pico Boulevard. So is one of my favorite restaurants. I went and parked on the street near the restaurant, went in and had a bowl of Turkey Rice Soup...then I jumped on the #7 Pico bus and let it take me about two-thirds of a mile to the picketing. When I was done, I hopped the same bus going the other way and let it take me to my car. Total cost? $1.50 for the bus (75 cents each way) and four bucks for the soup. I actually didn't have to have the soup in order for the plan to work but I thought it was a nice touch.
Isn't it early to write Giuliani out of the race? My understanding is that he's had a poor showing at least in part because his campaign is focused on the states with the most delegates to the convention, and where he expects to be able to do well (like New York state).
Now, it's still entirely possible that, in spite of not being mathematically eliminated, his profile will simply have slipped low enough (or that the people will assume that the numbers he's gotten are the best he can do in the states the have held their caucuses and primaries) that he won't do well even where he is trying; but, in all fairness, the real test of the strategy has not yet arrived.
I admit to being a bit curious; I'm not sure what the minimum number of states one can take and still win the nomination (or, for that matter, the presidency) is. I'm not so fond of this strategy, as it allows for the practical disenfranchisement of any number of smaller states (from Alaska and Hawaii to Rhode Island and Maine, at a guess). After all, what the American people really don't need is more reasons to feel disenfranchised or divided.
Giuliani has yet to win a primary and yes, he's pinned his strategy on big states like Florida and New York. But at the moment, he's running a distant third in Florida and may even come in fourth. In New York, the most recent USA Today/Gallup poll has McCain at 42% in that state and Giuliani at 24%. Now admittedly, the polls have not been that accurate in these primaries but they'd have to be a lot wronger than they've been for Rudy to take either state, and he probably needs both. (Also admittedly, there was a point where it looked like McCain was running for naught but Giuliani doesn't have time to make that kind of turnaround.)
Technically, I believe anyone can still win. As I understand it, if no one clinches a majority of the delegates before the convention — possible, not probable — and no one wins on the first ballot, Al Gore and Jeb Bush could sweep into their respective conventions and be nominated and we could have the 2000 election all over again. I don't think that's going to happen, just as I don't think Rudy is going to be the nominee. Not with his past showing in primaries, not with his poll numbers in the upcoming ones, and not with so many prominent G.O.P. leaders clearly opposed to him. My guess is he does so poorly in Florida that he pulls out then, rather than endure the humiliation of having his home state knock him out completely.
There have been 468 issues of Mad Magazine. That's a staggering number. Why, as the editors themselves would tell you, that must represent more than a hundred jokes.
Mike Slaubaugh, over at this site, tracks things like who's been in how many issues. At the moment, Al Jaffee has been in the most with 437 issues and my partner Sergio Aragonés is first runner-up with 410. Al and Sergio, by the way, will both be Guests of Honor at this year's Comic-Con International and I'll doubtlessly be hosting a panel with the both of them, plus a few other longtime Mad contributors.
Ah, but what about consecutive appearances in the magazine? What about that? Mike tracks that over on this page where we see that at the moment, writer Dick DeBartolo has been in 384 consecutive issues (103-present) while Sergio has been in 375 consecutive issues (112-present). Try as he may, my amigo has been unable to pull into the lead. Every time he gets something in the magazine, so does Dick, probably for no other reason than to deny Sergio the lead. (We recently wrote about The DeBartolo Streak here...and I guess I shouldn't call it The DeBartolo Streak because that conjures up a very unpleasant mental image.)
Last night, I raised Sergio's hopes for naught. I haven't seen the current issue yet but Dave Mackey e-mailed me to say that Dick D. didn't seem to have an article in it. True, Dick is a Creative Consultant for the magazine but we don't count that. Besides, being a Creative Consultant for Mad is like being a Campaign Adviser for Fred Thompson. There seemed to be no actual article by DeBartolo in the issue but Sergio is in it. It says on the cover, "Not Assembled by Mexicans" but it doesn't say that one didn't write or draw a couple of pages and a batch of skinny cartoons in the margins.
I called Sergio and told him that instead of being nine issues behind Dick, he was now only eight. He was gleeful and I could hear him turning cartwheels and doing a Russian dance in celebration.
Later today though, I must dash those hopes I raised. This morn, Dave wrote me to note that on Dick DeBartolo's website, he says that in the latest issue — the one of which we speak — he "...wrote the bios of The Whitest Kids U' Know." Damn. Sorry, Sergio. But take consolation in the fact that most people think you have the better mustache.
Don't you feel smart? Rudy Giuliani has spent more than $30 million dollars trying to become President of the United States. You've spent nothing and you have almost the same chance that he does.
Say what you will about Alan Keyes but he's only spent about ten grand to not have a prayer in this race.
In April of 2005, Lewis Black was the guest performer at the Radio and TV Correspondents Dinner in Washington, DC. Here's a few minutes of Mr. Black attempting to be funny with Dick Cheney seated about two yards away. Talk about a tough room.
I don't know why I'm mentioning this but the other night, Jay Leno had a segment on his show called "Doctors Tell Doctor Jokes." He brought out a number of actual doctors and they told doctor jokes. The first doctor who came out to tell a doctor joke was a gastroenterologist named Dr. Carey Strom who happens to be my gastroenterologist. I am pleased to report that he is better at performing an endoscopy than he is at telling a joke.
Fred Kaplan says that the only way our Army is able to keep its recruiting numbers up is by lowering its standards. Pretty soon, you'll be able to get into the Army if your I.Q. is higher than your inseam measure. Just as long as you aren't gay.
Scott Dunbier calls my attention to what may be the last chapter in the saga of Gary Coleman's pants.
On January 17, the auction ended with a winning bid of $400,000 placed by an eBay member named dfwgixxer. There were actually two bids for that price but dfwgixxer got his or her in first. Several other bidders went well into the six figure amounts.
So now, what did we think the odds were that anyone would actually pay $400, let alone a thousand times that amount for a pair of Mr. Coleman's old sweatpants? I'd say about the same as the chances of a grassroots "Mike Gravel for President" movement cinching the nomination for him.
It doesn't come as a huge surprise but on January 24, the pants seller posted the following negative feedback for dfwgixxer...
Scammer!!! NEVER RESPONDED!!! RISKY EBAYER!!! NON-BUYER!!!
What's funny, of course, is that the seller expected a response. Also, that despite this, dfwgixxer still has a 99.2% positive feedback score...and especially that eBay, which previously declared all six and seven figure bids "bogus bids" and cancelled them allowed this one to get to 400 grand. Like maybe that might be a real offer.
One of the best DVD sets you could possibly spend your cash on is the collection of Robert Klein's HBO Specials. He appears so infrequently these days that you forget how good he was and is, and how a whole generation of stand-up comedians learned so much of what they did from the guy.
You won't see it in this clip, which is of the "I Can't Stop My Leg" musical numbers which became a required part of this later specials...but this stuff's fun to watch, too. And you can order the whole DVD set for a bargain (I think) price by clicking here.
And one more stage appearance by Tony Curtis! (I hadn't meant for this to become a topic on the blog, honest. But if we're going to talk about it at all, let's exhaust the topic.) B. Baker writes to tell me...
Since you mention it, the actor's ill-fated stint in Simon's I Ought To Be In Pictures wasn't actually Tony Curtis' first attempt to crack B'way. In the early '70s, Curtis opened in Detroit in an odd Broadway-bound comedy first called Turtlenecks and later re-titled One Night Stand. The play, by Bruce Jay Friedman and Jacques Levy, was in a considerable state of flux during its Detroit run. The reviews were not kind, but to be fair, Mr. Curtis wasn't seen as the show's principal problem — the show's basic structure and lack of laughs were judged as faulty. The show, which also featured William Devane and the always welcome Sammy Smith, was closed by producer David Merrick in Philadelphia a month later before reaching NY; I'm not sure Curtis was still with the play by then.
You're probably always asking for trouble when you title a play One Night Stand.
I actually like Tony Curtis quite a bit. I saw him in the Neil Simon play before his meltdown and he was quite good in it. So was Dinah Manoff, who played his daughter. (I've always liked her, too. My first week on Welcome Back, Kotter, she had a very brief role — one or two lines — and she showed enough talent that there was talk of bringing her character back. They didn't but it was astounding that anyone noticed her at all, given how small her role was.)
Curtis was great, of course, in Some Like It Hot and films of that calibre. I always thought he showed his worth when he was cast, as he so often was, in something that would have been an utter turkey without him...like Houdini. It's not at its core a very good film but something about Curtis makes it sorta watchable. And I thought he was the best thing in The Great Race, though that isn't a huge compliment. We don't have a lot of that kind of movie star these days.
Several of you have reminded me that Tony Curtis made at least one other stage appearance. In 2002, he toured for a time in Sugar, the musical comedy adaptation of the movie that made him famous, Some Like It Hot. In this case, he didn't play his old role. He played Osgood Fielding III, the role Joe E. Brown had played in the film. As one person wrote me, "He got star billing even though he was only on stage about fifteen minutes." Since the script was already frozen, he only had to learn the role once.
And since we're talking about Tony Curtis, let's mention his memorable performance as Stoney Curtis in an episode of The Flintstones. A pretty good episode, I should say.
Earlier this week, I wrote a post about how the weather forecasters usually do a great job but, regarding the storms that have affected Southern California this past week, they didn't have much of a clue. The above radar map, which is from about fifteen minutes ago, is a good example of how capricious this can be. The red arrow, which I added, shows the approximate direction in which all this weather is moving.
We are presently under a Severe Thunderstorm Watch in Los Angeles — where at the moment, it isn't even drizzling, let alone thunderstorming. We had a lot of rain overnight (a lot for us) but it's been pretty much light showers for most of the day.
That's here. As you can see, there's been a ton of stormy weather moving through Long Beach and into the area just east of L.A. The red dots represent the most intense storms, the orange are close runners-up and the yellow is moderate rain. We have a little cell of possible light showers — indicated by the green — about to move through parts of L.A.
That Severe Thunderstorm Watch isn't wrong. It's just wrong for right this minute in right this area. The folks at the National Weather Service don't predict for your block and even if they did...well, take a look. A couple good gusts of wind and all those warm colored dots could have been over us here at the moment or even down in Oceanside. It's too much a crapshoot out there for them to know precisely where all this weather is going to go. We could still get lightning 'n' thunder later this evening.
People often moan that the forecasts are wrong, ignoring that the forecast was correct for most of the covered area. The N.W.S. and the private meteorologists do get it wrong, of course. They say it's going to rain and then there isn't a storm within a thousand miles of you. But sometimes — most of the time when the forecast seems to be wrong — what's happening is that the forecast is right for the area it covers. It just isn't right for the part of it that you're in at the moment.
We're fans here of the musical based on Al Capp's comic strip Li'l Abner and elsewhere on this site, you'll find articles that I wrote some time ago about that show as it played on Broadway and also as it was turned into a movie. I consider myself a bit of an expert on it, and have briefly been involved in some aborted attempts to revive it. Amazingly, though it was rather successful when it first played The Great White Way, and it's constantly produced around the country, it has yet to have a full-scale Broadway revival. Gypsy is about to have its seven-thousandth (or so it seems) but Abner has been represented on stages only by an endless stream of regional, college and high school productions.
Its popularity in those venues makes sense. It's a very easy show to mount. The costumes are mainly hillbilly garb and you can do most of them just by rummaging through a few closets or thrift shops. The sets can be pretty simple and cartoony. Most of the songs do not require great voices. The dances just have to be energetic. Most of the roles can be filled by college age performers. In fact, with a little make-up (and it doesn't have to be convincing), they can all be filled by college age performers. Also, the cast is very large and can be just about as large as you want it to be.
A large cast is a liability for a professional production where everyone must be paid but, as a director of such shows once explained to me, it's an asset at the Community College level. Since people aren't being paid or aren't being paid much, you might just cram that stage full of as many bodies as you can. It will be impressive and all those performers will get their friends and family to buy tickets.
But it's never been back to Broadway, though there have been talks and even options. One such attempt I know of was some time ago. Elliott Caplin, brother of Al Capp and manager of some of the Capp estate's affairs, helped me with my articles and it led to a casual friendship by telephone. Soon after, he called to see if I'd be interested in helping revise/update the book for a producer who was trying to arrange a new Broadway production. In ways that I did not fully understand and probably never will, Tony Curtis was somehow involved. I'm not sure if he was a producer or what but the effort seemed to revolve around him, which struck me as very odd.
Mr. Curtis was great in many movies but his total experience on the legit stage, as far as I know, was confined to one disastrous experience starring briefly in the debut of Neil Simon's play, You Oughta Be in Pictures. As the story is told, Simon cast Curtis, who'd never done a play before and never had to really memorize any more lines than was necessary for one day's filming of a movie or TV show. With enormous effort and insecurity, he learned the role in the new play for an outta-town tryout in Los Angeles and did well on opening night. Then Mr. Simon began rewriting (as playwrights always do on a new play) and Curtis couldn't unlearn the old lines and learn the new, at least not as rapidly as was necessary. He wound up exploding in the middle of one performance, unleashing a torrent of vulgar ad-libs, then getting dressed and going home at intermission, leaving a puzzled audience in the hands of an understudy who didn't know the lines, either. Ron Leibman eventually took over the lead and played it in New York.
Elliott Caplin told me that Curtis, despite the above — and also the fact that he's not exactly a singer and this is a musical — would appear in the proposed revival of Li'l Abner. I asked, of course, "In what part?" "Well," he said, "That's what they haven't figured out yet." I'm not sure of all that it takes to get a show up and running on Broadway, but I would think that deciding what role your star will play is high on the list. Elliott continued, "I think they're figuring that he'd play a lot of non-singing cameo roles, like the Mayor or the Newscaster." It all sounded quite unlikely so I told Elliott that if the deal did proceed, of course I was interested, but I'd bet him a thousand dollars it would never happen. Being a smart guy, Elliott declined the wager and then passed away before I could even call him for an "I told you so." (A few years later, I met Tony Curtis, asked him about it and he did not seem to ever have heard of Li'l Abner or, for that matter, Broadway.)
Later on, another producer — one with some actual credits in this area — contacted me about participating in a revival. Again, I was interested and again, the deal fell through. This guy couldn't even get together enough funding and elements to obtain an option. In 1998, the Encores group that mounts "staged readings" (actually, stripped-down productions) at New York's City Center did a four-performance revival which I attended and which was quite wonderful. There was some brief talk that it might morph into a full-scale production — the City Center version of Chicago did and is still running — but Abner Yokum wasn't so fortunate.
Opening this week in Los Angeles is another stripped-down production. The Reprise! group, which stages wonderful shows up at U.C.L.A., is doing Li'l Abner with a preview performance on February 5 and a grand opening on the sixth. The show runs through February 17 and stars Eric Martsolf as Abner, Brandi Burkhardt as Daisy Mae, Michael Kostroff as Marryin' Sam, Cathy Rigby as Mammy Yokum (which probably means Mammy will be turning backflips), Robert Towers as Pappy Yokum and Fred Willard (!) as General Bullmoose. Fred Willard is an intriguing choice for that role and I'll bet Kostroff will be superb.
I have nothing to do with this production other than helping its publicists with a little history, but I'll be there and all indicators are that it'll do the show justice. Here's a link to an article with a full cast list and some photos. I believe tickets are becoming scarce but if you'd like to try and score a few, this link should do it. If you'd like to wait until I see the show and post a review, that's of course your right but don't be surprised if the entire run is sold out by then.
Last April, the Bowery Poetry Club in New York had a party to commemorate the birth and life of the great musician and monologist, Lord Buckley (1906-1960). What we have here in two parts is a speech made at that event by The World's Foremost Authority, Professor Irwin Corey. The two parts run about sixteen minutes between them and I'd like to thank Fred Vigeant for telling me this was there.
One of my frequent correspondents would probably like me to warn that some of the language in this video is on the coarse side. Another of my frequent correspondents would probably appreciate being warned that Prof. Corey speaks ill of George W. Bush.
Those of you who are unfamiliar with Irwin Corey might think that the Professor's rambling, disconnected thoughts are because he is 93 years of age. First of all, you're wrong about his age. When this was taped, he was a much younger man of 92. Secondly, he talked this way when he was in his twenties and is only now growing into his act. Here's Part One...
And if you make it all the way through that, you might as well watch the last six minutes...
Rumors during the current Writers Strike have been about as reliable as rumors in past strikes. They're spreading faster, thanks to the increased presence of the Internet, but they're not getting any more reliable. About a third turn out to be true, about a third have some nugget of truth in them, and the rest are utter swamp gas. In show business — and I presume it's like this to some extent in most fields — people don't like to admit that they're out of the loop and don't have the kind of great insider connections that give them instant word on all the secret goings-on. So they pass on and amplify rumors, no matter what the source, and sometimes just make things up.
In the '81 strike (I think it was...they all run together), a writing team I know decided to invent a few rumors and pass them around, just to see what kind of life they'd have. One I recall was that the lead negotiators for both sides had taken the night off, gone to dinner separately...but found themselves by coincidence in the same restaurant, sitting at adjoining tables. This had not happened. The writing team just invented it from the whole cloth and told a few (just a few) people. To their amazement, the tale came back to them from a number of sources, some of whom had added details and embellishments, including a bit of food-throwing by the lead negotiators and even the name of the restaurant where it had allegedly occurred. One person said he'd heard it from someone who was there at the time and had witnessed the whole thing.
It helps to remember that sometimes there's no truth whatsoever in a rumor. Zero. It doesn't come from anyone in a position to know. It also helps to remember that it's not unprecedented for one side to plant a rumor that they think may sway public opinion and put more pressure on the other side.
At the moment, the grapevine has it that informal talks in the WGA Strike are going quite well and that may be so. I mean, this one sounds likely. Informal talks often go well because they're conducted in a friendlier atmosphere. The participants are less worried that they're about to agree to something foolish and permanent. After all, they still have the formal talks to act as a kind of fail-safe stage wherein they can dance away from something agreed-to in the informal chats.
Also, of course, it is not uncommon to use the informal talks to soften up one's opponent, lulling them into the mindset that all is well, that the end is in sight and that the formal talks are just...well, a formality. Then at the last second, you toss in a hand grenade — some small but potent loophole or demand that favors your side — in the hope that the other side is so emotionally committed to this being the end that they won't put up a fuss. A lawyer once told me that he was always wary of what was said on the way out of a negotiation...
You have your briefcase packed and your coat on and your car keys in your hand. You're thinking, "Well, that's finally over" and you're trying to decide where to stop and pick up a pizza on the way home. That's when, ever so casually, the other side mentions, "Don't you worry...we'll draw up all the paperwork and we'll make sure we include that language about revenues from Brazil." Sometimes, you're so weary and eager to get home, you let it slide. And sometimes, you're home and eating pizza with anchovies by the time you realize, "Hey, we never agreed to anything about revenues from Brazil!"
Stuff like that. So when you hear that they have "an agreement in principle" or that "they just have to put it on paper" or "it's for all intents and purposes, a done deal," be wary. At that stage, the agreement could still explode...and sometimes doesn't but should. And maybe the report wasn't even true in the first place.
None of this is meant to suggest that I think we're close to that phase or that the current rumors are surely wrong. I still believe the strike will be over sooner rather than later, and that the studios want to get it over in the next few weeks so they can get some production done before the expiration of the Screen Actors Guild deal at the end of June. But wanting to end one of these and actually doing so are two separate matters, especially if the core member companies of the AMPTP are not precisely on the same page with it all. Do yourself a favor and stay off the emotional roller coaster of getting your hopes up with every unofficial report. We probably have another couple of big "downs" before this one is settled...and the rumors that trigger the "ups" may not even be accurate.
Still battling with computer viruses. That's right: Plural. It looks like the first virus I got knocked out my virus protection software, thereby enabling another one to slip in. I think I've fixed one of my two computers — the one I'm writing this on — but the other one's going to need professional help. And now I'm too far behind to take it in...or even to post much here for a while.
But I thought I oughta put this up. Remember that that is not a poll as to who you'd like to see be the Democratic nominee. This is just a prediction on who you think it'll be...though I threw in Mike Gravel just for laughs. I also put in Someone Else even though it's been some time since I heard anyone suggest that Al Gore or anyone else could still get into the race. Someone Else beat Ron Paul, Fred Thompson and Duncan Hunter in our Republican poll so let's see how he or she does here. This poll will close in one week.
At first, I wasn't too concerned about finding a virus on my main work computer. After all, I have my backup computer. Then I found the virus was also on my backup computer. "Oh, well," I thought. "At least I have both of them backed up to external hard drives." Then I found out that the virus had made my external hard drives inaccessible. At some point in there, I started to get concerned.
I think the data is all there on both computers and both external drives. It's just a matter of getting to it and getting rid of the virus. I think I have it largely off one of the two computers but there's a lot of cleaning to do. You may not hear from me for a little while...
I have what's supposed to be a great virus checker program but somehow, a virus turned it off, infiltrated and did nasty things to my computer. I'm doing repair work and it may be some time before I'm answering e-mail again or posting here.
You have any idea who that is in the photo above? If you guessed "Groucho Marx," you're close but wrong. That's Frank Ferrante, the world's best Groucho replicator as he looks when he's touring with a show in which he channels Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush, bringing him back to life on the stage. I've plugged his performances here in the past and I've received a lot of e-mails from folks who've gone and were grateful for the suggestion. It's a loving, accurate and very funny simulation, and you don't even have to be a Marx Brothers devotee to enjoy it.
Frank is all over the country with this thing. This Saturday night, for instance, he's at the Canyons Performing Arts Center, which is located at 26455 Rockwell Canyon Road in Santa Clarita, California. It's at 8 PM and if you're around, you can call (661) 362-5304 to get tickets.
If you're not around, check out this page at Frank's website to see when he'll be in your neck of the woods. I'm unfortunately committed this Saturday night or I'd drive the 32 miles (I just Mapquested it) to see Frank. Next time he's within a hundred, I'm going.
Letters...we get letters...we get stacks and stacks of letters...like this one from Keith Holt...
I've got a WGA negotiations question because I'm sure you haven't received enough of these yet. I was speaking with a friend recently about the strike, and though we both support the writers fully, he had some issues about how the strike's been handled. Neither of us are WGA members and we get most of our information from friends who are WGA members and writers who blog, like you.
From what he's heard, the writers are asking for a "per click" residual for programming viewed online. Which would mean, based on his friend's interpretation, that every time a program is clicked, even after the viewer pauses it to go to the bathroom or answer the phone or whatever, the writer would get the click residual; sometimes 3 or 4 clicks per episode. The producers contend that the writers should only receive credit for the first click, which doesn't sound unreasonable to me, speaking from my side of the TV set. I hoped to get your input.
On another question, do you know how residuals are divided for TV series box sets? If, for example, let's say a series had three credited writers for each episode of a series, and the series had 100 episodes. The series is released in a box set of 10 dvds with 10 episodes per disk. Is the .04 cents paid out per disk (meaning .40 cents for the entire set)? If so, are the 30 writers who wrote those 10 episodes expected to divide the .04 cents between them? And are the 300 writers for the entire series only receiving .001 cent for each episode they wrote? I could go on and on with different permutations of this, but you get the idea? How does this work?
The joke/true answer to how it works is "Not very well," in that those DVD sets don't pay much money to the writers of the shows. We have a lousy formula for this kind of thing — the result of the kind of crummy deal we're now trying not to repeat — and it doesn't seem to even yield the kind of bad money it was supposed to yield. I would guess that if you polled writers who've had shows released on DVD, 90+% of them would tell you that they haven't even received the meager payments they're contractually guaranteed, let alone anything that seemed fair. Most would also tell you that they didn't even get a free copy of the DVD set containing their work.
But here's a more serious answer to your question: My understanding is that it's all pro-rated. If they put Season 1 out on DVD and you wrote 2 of the 24 episodes then you get one-twelfth of all the money that is collected for writers on that set. The guild's computer works it all out.
As for the click situation, I don't have any direct knowledge but I would imagine that we're trying to link to the way a website is compensated for its advertising on a per-click basis. So however the rules for that works would be the model for how our shares would work. Most of the WGA proposals in New Media are on a "when you get paid, we get paid" basis.
A person who asked to remain nameless sent the following some time ago, before the Golden Globes and before the WGA decided not to picket the Grammy Awards...
I'm a little befuddled as to how the WGA is picking and choosing which awards shows they give a waiver to, or plan not to picket. I understand the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards are high-profile events involving Hollywood that get worldwide coverage (well, the Oscars do). But if they decide to picket the Globes, and the broadcast is cancelled because of it, why do they not do the same for the SAG Awards, which is also broadcast (albeit on lowly cable stations)? And what's up with the Grammy Awards? Why won't they grant a waiver to something that is essentially a music industry showcase? Is it the high-profile aspect of it? Aren't they running the risk of just pissing off the viewing public eventually? (Not that I'd ever watch the Grammys.)
It's all strategizing, trying to pressure those we want to pressure. The Screen Actors Guild has become an inseparable ally in this strike. If and when someone writes a dispassionate history of this strike, they'll need to dwell on that unprecedented and important symbiosis. So of course, we're not going to move against the SAG Awards. At some point, it was presumably determined that the Grammy Awards were far enough removed from the central battle — or maybe that we couldn't have much of an impact on them — and our Guild decided not to make a stand there.
Our next one is also from someone who didn't want their name used...
I'm still fuzzy on what it means that the WGA decided to drop its demands on Animation or what it would have meant if their demands would have been met. Also, didn't your president promise that Reality (or as you type it, "Reality") would be in the next contract? How can he promise that and then take it off the table?
The same way the AMPTP can swear up and down and on a stack of stockholders' reports that they will never give in on certain points and then later, they give in on them. In negotiations, both sides say plenty of things that they must later back away from. In '88, I think the studios gave us at least three separate "final offers," each time vowing that there would never be another offer if we didn't grab the current "final offer." It's a lot like the way even the most honest elected official has to quietly renege on or finesse his way around a campaign promise or two.
But in actuality, I don't believe Patric Verrone did say that our new demands relating to reality (or as I type it, "Reality") would definitely be in the next contract. I think if you find the exact quote — as I can't at the moment — you'll see that he said something like, "Reality will be in the next contract because Reality was in our last contract," and he noted how the WGA does cover many of those shows. What we were after in this negotiation was an increased presence in that area and also, I believe, to knock down some of the ways in which producers hire writers, have them write for low money, and then call them something other than "writer" to try and elude WGA jurisdiction.
Animation is a little different. The WGA represents some animated TV shows and will surely represent more in the future. Some shows and studios are already signed with The Animation Guild, which is Local 839 of IATSE. Those shows and studios, we cannot touch and our proposal (which I quoted here) specifically said it did not apply where an existing collective bargaining agreement was in place. But there are many studios that are not signed with 839 and the WGA has made inroads there.
This is not always possible. There are cartoon studios that are fiercely determined to remain non-union, just as there are live-action movies and TV shows produced outside the jurisdiction of the WGA, DGA, SAG and other labor organizations. But the WGA has made, and I believe will continue to make progress in organizing animated TV shows. Where it hasn't had as much luck has been in the area of animated features. There's language in our Minimum Basic Agreement that defines the WGA jurisdiction for movies as confined to live-action. When the folks behind the Simpsons TV series wanted it to be a WGA show, the head guys over at Fox had to say yes. When the same folks wanted the Simpsons movie to be WGA, Fox was able to say, "Sorry...the Writers Guild MBA says it doesn't cover this kind of thing" and they were able to say no. What the WGA wanted out of this negotiation — the demand that was just dropped — was basically to alter the language that allowed them to say no.
Dropping this demand is disappointing to Animation Writers who, by a margin I'd estimate at better than 96%, want WGA coverage...but it's not a total disaster. One of the things you have to remember is the old "rising tide raises all ships" principle as it applies often to union activity. The presence of a union deal in a marketplace usually improves things at even the non-union houses. They need to stay competitive in order to attract the talent they need and also to keep the union out. I worked briefly for an animation company called Film Roman back when it was keeping 839 out...a feat they accomplished largely by giving their employees darn near everything they would have gotten with a union contract. (It was not until the firm was sold and new management made some cutbacks that the union was able to win representation there.) In the same way, the proximity of WGA deals in animation has forced some studios to treat writers better even on non-WGA shows. As long as the WGA is not abandoning Animation altogether, which it has no intention of doing, it's going to be improving conditions for folks who write cartoons.
We (of course) wish it could do more. But the WGA is at war right now, and settling this war means compromises from both sides. I thought there was a decent shot at not compromising on this but something has to go, and I'm not sure what else I'd have picked to sacrifice. Having talked extensively with Patric about Animation and knowing his determination in that area — which even goes beyond the fact that he works in it — I know it was not a decision made lightly. In past AMPTP/WGA negotiations, when the studios were refusing to even listen to WGA demands, the "Animation Proposal" never even made it onto the table for discussion. This time, it not only did but was serious enough to become a partial obstacle to a deal. That's progress.
Well, 1.1% of you think Fred Thompson will be the Republican nominee and 0.4% went for Duncan Hunter. Both were a point or two higher on our poll before they dropped out of the race.
A little over half of you think it'll be John McCain and you may be right. It sure didn't look that way a month or two ago, and you still have a lot of prominent right-wingers saying he's "not acceptable." Actually, I think most folks in either party will find anyone who they think can win acceptable.
When I put this up a week ago, I said that I thought four of them had a shot at it. I meant Giuliani, Huckabee, McCain and Romney, of course. Just since then, everyone in the press seems to have given up on Giuliani, and Huckabee ain't looking so possible, either. I don't know which of the other guys is going to make it but I'm thinking Romney at the moment. Maybe I'll put this poll up again in a month and see what kind of results we get then.
In the meantime, here are the final numbers. I'll have the Democratic version up in a day or so.
Wondering why we're in the war we're in? Pondering how Iraq happened? A group called The Center for Public Integrity has set up an ambitious web catalog of false statements made by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice and other top administration officials. There are, by the Center's count, more than 935 such remarks that got us there and kept us there. Here's a link to it.
If it's Wednesday, you still have time to vote in our poll, predicting who the Republican nominee will be. And if you've already voted, you can go back and change your vote. Several folks who picked Duncan Hunter or Fred Thompson have done just that.
Click here to go there. And remember...no electioneering within 100 yards of the polling place!
Ezra Klein on why the 1994 Clinton plan for Universal Health Care failed...and why a new one might not. I suspect a big reason is that in 1994, health care in this country was merely way, way overpriced...and now it's worse.
A Marty Feldman sketch from one of his shows on British TV. You may remember this one because he also did it on The Flip Wilson Show...with Howard Cosell (of all people) playing the other guy at the end. I wish more of Mr. Feldman's work was available on DVD.
The WGA has taken Animation and "Reality" off the table in the current negotiations. That's unfortunate for a number of reasons, though I can't say it comes as a huge surprise. I hope we got or get something meaningful in exchange. I don't think it's just face-saving rhetoric when our leaders say that organizing efforts in those areas will continue anyway. We were making progress there before this negotiation and I can't see any reason why that would change now. It'll just take longer.
Having stated how much faith and respect I have regarding our leadership, I must say that I'm bothered by statements like this latest one from WGAW president Patrick Verrone and WGAE president Michael Winship...
We ask that all members exercise restraint in their public statements during this critical period.
I guess I understand why they said that. It could make things more congenial and productive in the bargaining...but it's so contrary to so much of what this Guild stands for. More importantly, everyone must know that the leadership of the WGA could no more get its members to withhold their opinions than Nick Counter could force Rupert Murdoch to come over and paint my garage.
The folks who run the Oscar ceremony probably won't see it this way but they oughta hope that the Writers Guild strike — either because it's on or recently settled — makes their TV ceremony interesting. Because the nominations sure won't.
This is not a complaint about those nominations. I didn't see most of the films and have no reason to think the selections aren't reasonable. It's just that how much will America care whether Best Actor goes to Johnny Depp or Daniel Day-Lewis or one of the other guys? Some awards have a lot of emotion and passion behind them...or just curiosity as to what So-and-so may do if he or she wins or doesn't win. Remember the year George C. Scott was nominated and told them to stuff it? Remember when Roman Polanski was up for Best Director? There was even some interest last year as to whether Martin Scorcese would finally, for God's sake, get an Academy Award...and there's usually one Cinderella story that will be thrillingly completed if some gifted newcomer wins.
I don't see anything like that in the list of this year's nominees. There might be a little passion for or against Michael Moore to win again for Best Documentary...but even some of the people who loathe his very jowls were impressed with Sicko, and he might feel it was appropriate if he wins to deliver an acceptance speech about that topic and not the Iraq War. So it doesn't look like there's a lot of backstage drama in the nominations. It's just a list of good films and people who did outstanding work.
In the meantime, let's speculate on what's going to happen with the Oscars, which are about a month away...
This is a guess based on no inside info whatsoever. Various CEOs are now meeting "informally" with WGA reps, trying to iron out some matters before they sit down for formal bargaining. I'm thinking maybe the studios will make some gesture of good will or good faith towards the Guild — grant them some deal point, agree to certain ground rules for negotiating, something of the sort — in exchange for which they'll expect a show of good faith from the WGA: Grant the Oscars a waiver and get the Screen Actors Guild to encourage its members to participate. I'll further guess that if the concession by the producers is of sufficient weight, the WGA will agree.
If they can't get that done, the Academy has two choices: Barge on ahead or postpone the Oscars. They may have to make that decision pretty soon. The later they announce a postponement, the messier it'll be for everyone.
I received a vituperative e-mail yesterday from an acquaintance in the WGA who seems to be hysterical at the thought they we might not grab the DGA deal and end the strike, ASAP. As near as I can tell, he's mainly upset at my suggestion that we actually see the terms of the DGA deal before we embrace it. And of course, it might be nice if someone actually offered it to us before anyone said, "Yes, yes, we'll take it!"
Some will, of course. I'm not sure it will be anywhere near a majority of the Guild.
There seems to be a rumor making the rounds that a band of high-profile screenwriters and TV show runners are writing letters or signing petitions or otherwise circling to demand that our Guild accept anything even remotely akin to the terms the DGA has negotiated. Never mind the other, writer-oriented issues that some think are pretty darned important. They — whoever "they" are — insist we grab what the directors are getting. Insofar as I can tell, that alleged pressure group is not yet massing, or at least is not quite the tsunami that some are claiming. The rumor seem to come from the same place as the one from late November that a band of high-profile screenwriters and TV show runners were vowing to all go Financial Core and quit the Guild if the strike wasn't resolved by Christmas. That rumor was pure moonshine and this one may be, too.
I feel certain it's at least exaggerated. The top writers are all people who've lived through messy, nasty negotiations in their own careers. They've learned that you can't get what you're worth by being (or at least, looking) too desperate to take whatever the studios are willing to pay. At the very least, they've learned that you have to have your agent or lawyer look long and hard at the terms before you assume they're acceptable. You don't commit based on a rough summary of your own offer, let alone someone else's.
Which is not to say the DGA deal doesn't get us closer to a resolution of our strike. Even taking its summary at face value, one can see some good things. It's good that the AMPTP has dropped its insistence on never basing any formula on Distributors Gross. Some of the numbers are higher than they said they'd ever offer...and that's always a positive, even if the numbers still aren't high enough. Things are at least moving in the right direction. Best of all, the DGA offer provides a context for us to get back into bargaining and it provides a structure for some aspects of what we need.
Personally, I think we need something we can live with for a long time. My outraged correspondent thinks we should take whatever the studios offer with regard to New Media and then, if we later realize it's too low, we can adjust the numbers upward in some future contract negotiation. That'll happen when hogs take wing. If we start on the hind tit of that marketplace, that's where we'll stay. To get the numbers up once they're established will require a strike that will make the current one look like a station break. One of the things I'd like to think we're striking for is to not have the AMPTP think that every three years, they can get us to swallow a lousy deal. If they think that, guess what we'll be doing in three years.
So I'm sticking with my radical suggestion that we actually look at the offer, get its numbers crunched by crunchers we trust, and then decide if it gives us what we deserve. If it positions us as non-participants in the future of the entertainment industry, that's where we'll stay for a long, long time.
Allison Silberberg tells the history of how Martin Luther King Day became a real holiday. This is quite a story...and be sure you click on some of the links which will take you to newspaper articles of the time. Thanks to Kerry Frey for a great suggestion.
I just read a couple of posts on other weblogs about Dr. Martin Luther King and it occurred to me that I've never mentioned him on this site; that his past birthdays have gone unnoted here. I decided I should write something but after pummelling and slapping my brain, I've been unable to come up with anything that didn't sound obvious or self-serving. I certainly didn't want to write one of those annoying (even when sincere) screeds where the person likens his own current crusade for whatever to Dr. King, hoping that a little of M.L.K.'s stature will rub off. We ought to all respect the Civil Rights movement in this country, and Dr. King's role in it, enough to not exploit it for our own little causes.
But I also couldn't figure out what to write here if I didn't do that...because the principles of human respect for which Dr. King fought, marched and died are now so obvious and so accepted. Even a lot of the people who still trample on those principles or commit acts of racism seem to realize that's what they're doing and do it anyway. Martin Luther King and his followers raised the bar on what constitutes simple decency in our society today.
Wish I had something profound to say about any of this but it's all been said...mostly by Dr. King, himself. I'm glad we got this holiday to underscore his importance and I still think the people who tried to oppose it should be ashamed of themselves.
I'm embedding this because so many of my friends — including one George W. Bush supporter (!) — have e-mailed me the link to it. And also because it's pretty funny.
Back when he used to be on Saturday Night Live, they described A. Whitney Brown as "One of the great pontificators of our time." He's still at it, explaining here why he became a John Edwards supporter and here why he's giving up on the guy. Thanks, Robert Spina, for telling me these were up.
I didn't see it mentioned in any of the obits for Suzanne Pleshette but there was one more note of sadness about her passing. A week from Thursday, on what would have been her 71st birthday, she was to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. No word yet on whether the unveiling ceremony will be postponed but apparently she'd been ill for some time, undergoing chemotherapy treatments, and her friends were really pulling for her to make it to that day.
It's not a surprise since he told me he was considering it. Still, I'm sorry to see Roger Price announce that he's retiring as the promoter of Mid-Ohio Con, which has been held guess where for several decades. I've been to more than a half-dozen of them — including the last two — and I always had a great time. Having been to many comic book conventions in my day, I know a good one from a bad one, and I also know how hard it is to put on a good one. Roger put on one of the best. He's hoping to find someone else to take it over and carry on the tradition and I hope he does. Just on sheer momentum, there are still a lot of good Mid-Ohio Cons to be convened if only someone will step in.
This is a short one...about a minute. Our pal Floyd Norman accepts his award at the Disney Legends ceremony last October. Floyd is a very clever writer and cartoonist who worked at Disney (with occasional forays elsewhere) from 1956 on, and he's lately been getting recognition for his fine work.
If you're interested in cartoon history, keep an eye on Floyd's columns for Jim Hill Media. Here's a page listing them all.
This will just be of interest to those of you who live in Southern California...
I've been monitoring the discussion forums where the forecasters discuss their forecasts and how much confidence they have in them. They're saying all sorts of different things about the week ahead but what they should say if they're being honest is...
It's going to be mostly cloudy all week and at some points, it will rain somewhere. But we really don't have a clue where or when.
We have pretty good meteorologists these days and most of the time, they do a much better job of predicting the climate than people think. But every so often, a storm comes along that's just determined to do whatever it wants and to not follow any script. And that's what we've got bearing down on us.
Here's another chance to vote in our poll or even to change your answer. This runs until Wednesday night.
Remember, the question here is not who you'd like to see get the Republican nomination for president. We're merely asking you for a prediction as to who will be the nominee. Imagine that you'll win a huge sum of money if you guess right and then click the candidate of your choice.
Those of you who are following the WGA/AMPTP battle closely may want to take a look at this. It's a summary of the deal that David Letterman's Worldwide Pants company agreed to. Slate posted it and they called it a "waiver" but that term is at least arguable. A waiver is not a contract. It's an agreement to let work proceed without a contract. This is a contract. Now admittedly, there's a Favored Nations clause in there. It says...
If the successor to the 2004 AMPTP MBA contains different terms and conditions, those terms and conditions shall be applicable to this Agreement.
In other words, when the WGA makes a deal with the AMPTP, this document goes in the wastebasket and the final AMPTP contract is controlling. However, this is a contract and its terms are in force until the other document gets signed. That's not the same thing as a waiver.
That quibble aside, let's take a look at one key clause in it — the one about Animation...
Modify definition of "Theatrical Motion Picture" to expand coverage of the MBA to all theatrical animation except to the extent already covered under a collective bargaining agreement with another labor organization currently in effect.
When you hear that the AMPTP is demanding that the WGA drop its demands with regard to Animation, this is what they don't want to have happen. They don't want to modify that language. In their press release on the matter, the AMPTP wrote — and this is cut-'n'-pasted right from their website —
The WGA seeks to obtain, once again by top-down organizing tactics, jurisdiction over animation writers who traditionally fall under IATSE's jurisdiction, and to deprive those writers of their free choice to elect union coverage under the voting system administered by the National Labor Relations Board. The AMPTP has asked the WGA to withdraw this demand.
As you can see, the part about writers who "traditionally fall under IATSE's jurisdiction" is kind of a Red Herring. Our demands specifically exclude work that is already covered by another union. Depending on how you interpret their statement, what the AMPTP boys might be saying is that they think the WGA has no business trying to represent any cartoon writers because that's "traditionally" the domain of IATSE. But of course, the WGA does represent cartoon writers on some TV shows and has even represented them on a movie or two...and officials of The Animation Guild have said many times that they have no problem with the WGA organizing writers who are not covered by IATSE.
So that's a bogus objection. The parts about "top-down organizing tactics" and free choice are also phony. No labor organization can claim jurisdiction over a body of workers without a free election "under the voting system administered by the National Labor Relations Board." All we're asking for is the right to go in and have those elections without the AMPTP blocking them. The WGA cannot get coverage at a studio if the writers do not choose them via a free choice.
I believe this is a totally reasonable request or demand or whatever you want to call it on our part. I'm afraid that it's going to get forgotten about in the weeks to come, especially if our bargaining has to resume with the DGA deal as the template. This matter was not discussed in the DGA talks. It's surely not mentioned in the DGA settlement. I'm certain our reps will to bring it up in the bargaining sessions but it's not an issue that seems to directly and immediately affect most WGA members, all of whom (naturally) are eager to get a deal they find acceptable. Our negotiators may not get very far with it if the message coming from the membership is "If the rest of the offer's okay, forget about Animation." Or even if we don't drum up a little noise to say it still matters to some of us.
One hopes all members will remember that this does affect them. One of the reasons that the WGA does not have jurisdiction over more "reality" shows these days is that it long neglected the area of variety shows because very few of us were writing variety shows. Back in the eighties, I was one and our needs did not get addressed as much as the needs relating to sitcoms and hour dramatic shows and screenwriting. Where there were contract abuses that needed to be handled, the Guild's sometimes-limited resources went mainly towards cleaning up matters in those areas because that was where most of our members earned their bucks.
There was a writer then who was quite angry about this...a lovely gent and a friend of mine named Gary Belkin. One of the many reasons I'm sorry Gary passed away is that he didn't get to live to say "I told you so." Gary worked a lot in variety and in the "reality" shows of the eighties, which were done under the same contract provisions as variety. He kept pointing out how studios were misinterpreting and even violating contract provisions and how not enough was being done to police this area. When we went into negotiations for new contracts, Gary would lobby for new contract provisions to strengthen contract language and reduce abuse on the kind of shows he wrote. This was never done. To the extent the Guild could make gains, it was felt it had to make them in the areas where more of our members worked. I can understand that (so could Gary) but it was short-sighted.
Mistreatment of writers in one category, even a small category, can eventually rebound against all. If Gary had gotten his way, I'm not sure we still wouldn't see "reality" shows displacing many sitcoms and hour dramatic shows, strike or no strike...but I'll bet a lot more of those "reality" shows would be employing WGA writers working under a WGA contract. Moreover, the overall definition of professional writing — its value, its dignity — gets cheapened when we let writers get trampled. I don't write soap operas and probably never will but even leaving aside principle and just operating out of sheer self-interest, I think it's wrong to not support and protect the soap writers.
Obviously, I have some self-interest in seeing the WGA expand its coverage of Animation. But I would hope that writers who never expect to write cartoons would remember that they have a stake in that game, too.
So here's what I don't get. After John McCain's win in the South Carolina primary, I go to website after website and see him being touted as "the new front runner."
Then I go to a site that lists current delegate counts and I see that McCain currently has 38 delegates and Mitt Romney has 66.
Don't you have to be in the lead to be the front runner? Or is Scalia deciding elections again?
I know it's not a majority viewpoint but I always thought the best thing on I Love Lucy was Desi Arnaz. I never loved Lucy as much as some people but Desi always seemed so interesting and funny to me. Go figure.
Our clip today should give you some idea of what he was doing for a living before that show. He had a band that performed an act very much like what's in this film, which was a short subject he made some time in the forties. (The copyright date on the end says 1949 but I think that's just when this print was made.) At one point, Desi got a number of prints of this short and when he was touring, he or his representatives would contact movie theaters in cities he was about to play and offer them a deal: They could run the short for nothing if they also showed a slide or posted a poster announcing where he'd be performing in their town the following week. A very clever Cuban.
This is a Castle Film, meaning (in this case) a copy made to be sold on 16mm film for home viewing. The opening title, which the Castle Films people obviously made, spells his name "Desi Arnez," which is a pretty common misspelling. One whole season of I Love Lucy had in its closing credits, a music credit for "Wilbur Hatch conducting the Desi Arnez Orchestra." Someone erred but Desi, as producer, decided not to pay the money to have it corrected. As far as I know, he never spelled it that way.
If you ever get a chance to read Desi's autobiography, give it a look. It was pretty good, though others who worked on I Love Lucy had some different recollections. The book was called A Book and in it, Desi made the point of insisting that he'd written it without a ghost writer. Shortly after it came out, I met a gentleman named Marvin Moss, who was Desi's agent. I told him I was impressed by how well-written the book was and that I found it hard to believe that Desi hadn't employed a ghost writer. Mr. Moss said, "I swear to you he didn't." When I registered surprise, he added, "It's true. Desi didn't know he had a ghost writer. He dictated it all into a book and when he got back the manuscript, he thought that's what he'd said."
Jonathan Handel has another analysis of the DGA deal. Again, let us keep in mind that he's looking at a summary rather than at the actual contract. There are several provisions in the summary that could turn out to be a lot better or a lot worse depending on the details. In any case, Mr. Handel is, unlike moi, a real lawyer and a guy whose job is to read contracts and look for ways in which his client stands to get screwed. So give his assessment more attention than you give mine. And don't make your mind up until you hear from somebody who's actually seen the deal.
Also, see Bob Elisberg. He's not a lawyer and he hasn't seen the actual deal, either. But most of his comments strike me as pretty sound except that I'm not as confident as he is that the WGA would have accepted these terms a month ago.
...for a commercial. Amazon is having some sort of sale on pre-ordered books where you get another 5% off if you order now. If I understand it correctly, this means that you will be charged no more than that price when the order ships and you may even be charged less. Amazon has this "lowest price" guarantee. If you order something and the price goes down before the item ships, you will receive the lowest price.
I'm not sure what this means if you've already ordered a not-yet-released book like, say, Kirby: King of Comics, which they're saying will be out February 1 but won't. Their policy states, "Whenever you pre-order a book, CD, video, DVD, software, or video game, the price we charge when we ship it to you will be the lowest price offered by Amazon.com between the time you place your order and the release date." But they actually haven't dropped the price of my book. It's still (at this moment) at $26.40, which is where it's been for some time. So you may need to cancel your order and reorder to get the discount. This is if it matters to you to save another $1.32.
If you order right now, you'll get the 5% discount, which would bring the price to $25.08. This is an interesting amount because it's a few pennies over the $25 minimum order you need to place to qualify for Free Super Shipping. If you're ordering only my book, that's good news. (If they gave you a 6% discount, it would wind up costing you more because you'd have to pay for shipping.)
About the publication date: I'm being told I'll have a few copies in a week or two and I'll let you know when I have one. I'm also told there'll be copies at the Wondercon in San Francisco, which is February 22-24. I would guess Amazon will have a supply to ship around then or maybe within a week. The books are being printed overseas so some of this depends on how fast the crates make it through Customs. (By the way, I will be soon be announcing the list of panels I'll be hosting at Wondercon. One will be a panel about Mr. Kirby and his work.)
Here's a cute little ad for the book. If you click on it, magical things will happen.
A campaign is already being mounted by some members of the WGA to urge the Negotiating Committee and Board of Directors to hurry up and accept something similar to the deal that has been announced by the DGA. This worries me because as I mentioned, I'm not sure we fully know or understand the DGA deal yet.
It also worries me because based on what we do know about it, I don't believe the DGA deal is all that great. If it's better than I think, terrific! But let's make sure it is before we start telling the studios that it's good enough for us. That kinda undermines our negotiating position if we want to better some aspect of it. We also need to address some areas that are of concern to members of the Writers Guild and which didn't come up in the DGA negotiations.
Jonathan Tasini has an interesting analysis of the DGA deal as explained in the summary. Keep in mind that he hasn't seen all the terms of the contract, either.
Some of the obits for Allan Melvin, who died last Thursday of cancer, are missing the whole point of Allan Melvin. They say that Sam, the butcher from The Brady Bunch, has died and then mention all the other stuff in a kind of "Oh, and he was also in these other things" manner. The point of Allan Melvin is not that he was on The Brady Bunch. It was that he was in everything.
He was a regular on the Sgt. Bilko series (aka You'll Never Get Rich and The Phil Silvers Show). He was a semi-regular on The Dick Van Dyke Show and All in the Family. To have been a part of one series of that stature would be impressive. To have been on all three? Amazing. That's in addition to the fact that he was the "go-to" guy time and again for the producers of The Andy Griffith Show, Gomer Pyle USMC, The Joey Bishop Show and so many others. That's all in addition to The Brady Bunch.
In an amazing number of these, he played a soldier — a typecasting that dated back at least to his role on Broadway in Stalag 17. I always liked to think of all those soldiers as the same guy changing his name and rank as he moved from camp to camp and decade to decade. (There was a nice in-joke once on Dick Van Dyke, where Melvin played a buddy while Rob Petrie was in the Army. In one episode, everyone was confined to the base while a crime was investigated. At the end, Melvin's character tells Rob that they caught the culprit...some soldier named Henshaw. Henshaw was, of course, the name of the soldier Melvin had played for five years on the Bilko series.)
Allan was also a cartoon voice actor, usually cast in tandem with his close pal, Howie Morris. The two of them did all the male voices on the Beetle Bailey cartoon show and, until Howie got himself fired from Hanna-Barbera, on Magilla Gorilla and Atom Ant and several others. (Melvin was the voice of Magilla.) Howie and Allan also did uncredited voices on the movie, Hey There, It's Yogi Bear, and Melvin was on many H-B shows without him, including The Popeye Show, where he spoke for Bluto.
The first time I met Allan Melvin was an unpleasant experience. It was in the Denny's restaurant over on Sunset Boulevard, across from KTLA Studios. I was doing one of the Krofft shows there and I went to lunch with Lennie Weinrib, who was the voice of H.R. Pufnstuf on that series. Nearby was KTTV Studios where All in the Family taped, and Allan went to lunch that same day with Carroll O'Connor. We all happened to converge on the Denny's at the same moment. I recognized Melvin and assumed, since Lennie had been a recurring player on the Dick Van Dyke Show as well that the two of them had crossed paths. So, finding myself standing between the two of them, I said, "Well, you two must know each other," which caused each to notice the other was there.
Well, it turned out they were acquainted and not in a good way. When the 1969 Pufnstuf feature film was made, Weinrib had been holding out for more money and Melvin wound up doing the voice of the title character replacing Lennie. It had been the cause of much bad blood between them and they'd almost had a slugfest once because Lennie felt Allan had done something unprofessional and Allan felt that all he'd done was take a job that Lennie had quit. Angry words were exchanged that day at the Denny's and we separated the two men and dined in separate rooms. A few days later, I was back there without Lennie and as it turned out, Allan Melvin was having lunch there, as well. He recognized me and came over to apologize for the squabble and tell me (briefly) his side of the dispute. I have no opinion as to who was right or wrong, but Mr. Melvin struck me as a very nice man who was deeply bothered that anyone thought he'd done anything unethical. If he did, I'm sure it was an atypical lapse.
Later, I worked with him on cartoons a few times and it was easy to see why everyone always wanted to hire Allan Melvin. He was a thorough professional, a very good actor and a man with a wonderful, wicked sense of humor. I cannot recall him ever in his long career appearing on TV in an unscripted capacity...say, on a game show or talk show. If he had, he'd have surprised people with how funny he could be out of character and out of uniform. Another one of the good guys gone.
I was a little sleepy last night when I wrote the text to lead into Today's Video Link. I know the difference between Edward Everett Horton and Charlie Ruggles but for some reason, my brain registered the wrong name. That's actually Mr. Horton voicing-over the commercial I said was Mr. Ruggles. Sorry, and thanks to the three million people (give or take 2,999,995) who sent e-mails to berate me.
Also, Anthony Tollin — who knows more about old radio than any mammal who walks the planet, suggests I clarify that while Fred Foy did do the traditional Lone Ranger opening like I said, it's someone else in the body of that commercial.
Fred was not the original announcer on the TV series. He'd only started announcing the radio series in 1948 and was apparently not yet considered a series fixture. The first season TV announcer/narrator was Gerald Mohr, best remembered for starring as Philip Marlowe on radio and the Lone Wolf in movies. (He also voiced Reed Richards and Green Lantern in 1960s Saturday morning cartoons.) Anyone know who announced/narrated the Lone Ranger TV series during the season when John Hart played the title role?
I believe the first network TV season to feature Fred Foy's introduction was Clayton Moore's last, the first and only season filmed in color (after Jack Wrather had purchased the series from George W. Trendle). A decade or two ago, a black & white version was struck off the color opening of that last TV season, and inserted into all the syndicated prints. Before that time, in many of the syndication prints, you'd see my friend John Hart rearing Silver in the opening while Clay Moore rode a different Silver up and later down the hill.
And I should toss in the interesting trivia note that Fred Foy was also Dick Cavett's announcer for most of Cavett's run on ABC. Or was that Charlie Ruggles? (No, it was Foy...)
The New York Times has a profile of WGA President Patric Verrone and David Young, the Guild's Executive Director. For some reason, the author of the piece does not seem to be aware of Mr. Young's title.
For the record, I think Patric Verrone, David Young and the other organizers have done a magnificent job of running the negotiation. I don't think they've made any significant mistakes. What I do think is that the AMPTP was just determined to try and get the WGA to accept a rotten deal and, when they couldn't make that happen, they shoved us aside and went to negotiate with the DGA.
There's an unfortunate tendency in Hollywood — and it's in full flower in the Writers Guild — that when things don't turn out the way we like, people leap to say, "You should have handled things differently." But in this case, I haven't heard anyone suggest anything that the Guild could have done to prevent this strike and the collapse of negotiations. (Well, I suppose we could have just taken a terrible deal...but then we'd have been stuck with a terrible deal and, three years from now, they'd have tried to force an even worse one on us and we'd have had an even worse strike then. When anyone does one of those summaries of how much the WGA gained and lost from this strike, they need to factor in the immutable fact that in show business, taking one poor deal always leads to another poor, usually worse deal.)
That said, I'm troubled by some issues relating to the Jay Leno situation. I've heard a lot about it but I don't think I've heard all sides so I'm reserving final judgment and for now, I'm just being troubled.
Finally, as an aside: The article quotes a number of people, including one Dennis Palumbo, described as a "screenwriter-turned-psychologist." When Mr. Palumbo toiled in the first of those professions, his partner was the author of this weblog and yes, this is quite unusual. All my other collaborators have gotten into gynecology.
Here's a thirteen minute package of old kid-oriented TV commercials...
First up are two spots from the old Space Patrol series. That's game show legend Jack Narz doing the pitch. He's followed by a Howdy Doody spot for Tootsie Pops that I must have seen more often in my childhood than I saw my Uncle Nathan...and I saw Uncle Nathan a lot. "Buffalo" Bob Smith is in this, and he provides the voice of Howdy.
That's followed by a Lone Ranger Cheerios commercial with Clayton Moore behind the mask, and announcer Fred Foy doing the traditional Lone Ranger commercial. Then we have a Mattel spot for their Chatty Cathy dolls and yes, that's June Foray providing the dolls' voices. Then there's another spot for talking dolls of Matty Mattel, Sister Belle and Casper, with June (again) heard as all three dolls. The announcer on this one is Charlie Ruggles Edward Everett Horton, the great character actor who also narrated the Aesop & SonFractured Fairy Tales cartoons for Jay Ward.
Next up is a commercial for the Beany Copter hats (another tie-in for the Beany & Cecil cartoons) and then an ad for Mattel's Dick Tracy toys. Is that a very young Billy Mumy? The announcer in this and a lot of the Mattel ads is Marvin Miller.
Then we have a G.I. Joe commercial and I believe the lead male vocalist is that New York based singer I've never been able to identify who was heard on all those Sandpipers recordings for Golden Records. Whoever he was, he was on the Mighty Mouse record that Andy Kaufman made so famous. This is followed by pretty boring commercials for Lionel Trains, the Remco Fat Cat toy truck and Blippo Choo-Choo. So don't worry if you don't make it to the end. But the first four or five are worthy of your attention...
A number of my fellow WGA members have e-mailed me analyses of the DGA deal. Some of these, particularly in the numbers department, come to quite different interpretations. Others say that some important details (including at least one major gain) were oddly — presumably, innnocently — omitted from the summary that was released.
My conclusion so far? We may not know as much about this deal as we think we do. So while I'm still inclined to think the percentages are disappointing, I'm open to the possibility that the terms may be better than they appear to be from the summary. At least, I hope they are.
One of things e-mailed to me — twenty times so far, thank you — is a positive assessment of the deal by John Wells, a former WGA president and the producer of E.R., West Wing and many other successful shows. I also have some messages from folks who claim Wells has misunderstood some of the details or who offer the inevitable, probably unfair criticism that Wells is letting his producer side do the thinking here, rather than his writer side.
This is one of the occasional conundrums of officer status in the Writers Guild. If you're not a very successful writer, people complain that you may not understand the business and you're lacking a certain stature in the industry that a leader of the WGA oughta have. On the other hand, if you are a very successful writer, you're probably also doing some producing and/or directing, and then you get the complaint that you're not a pure writer and may have other interests at heart. The Wells administration was criticized for not taking a harder line against the studios. (My own feeling was that Wells was the right leader for that period...a period when the mood of the Guild was not conducive to a stronger stand. A lot of people, I know, think the WGA is "strike-happy" but my observation is that it's usually the opposite of that. It's just that every so often, we find ourselves in a position where we don't have any other viable option.)
So about the DGA offer, I dunno. I'm leaning towards pessimism but waiting to learn more, waiting to hear what the numbers crunchers say. Apparently, some of them do not yet have the full text of the deal to study and what they have may not be accurate or complete.
In the meantime, my buddy Bob Elisberg has an article in the L.A. Times to rebut one of their sillier editorials.
No, this time I'm not haranguing you to listen to Shokus Internet Radio. I did an interview a few days ago for Comic Book Talk Radio, mostly about Jack Kirby and my upcoming book on him but also, a little bit, about my other work. You can listen to it in two parts, and both parts can be accessed on this page.
Well, how about an episode of Diver Dan? Any of you remember Diver Dan from when you were a kid? I don't. If it ever ran on Los Angeles television, I managed to miss it. 104 of these were produced in 1960 and they aired in various cities in various formats — sometimes interspersed with cartoons, sometimes as a whole half hour of Diver Dan adventures.
The series was created by a cartoonist named J. Anthony (John) Ferlaine, who drew a comic strip I've never seen called Fish Tales. Ferlaine produced a couple of puppet shows starring characters from his strip and this project eventually morphed into Diver Dan. One of the writers on the show — you'll see his name in the end credits if you last that long — was Joseph Bonaduce, father of Danny Bonaduce.
The outstanding talent on Diver Dan was Allen Swift, who provided all of the puppet voices. Mr. Swift was a legend in kids' TV in and around New York, hosting Popeye cartoons for years as Captain Allen Swift on WPIX in that city. He was also the voice of many characters on Howdy Doody including, at times, the title character and he was heard in about half the cartoon shows ever recorded in Manhattan in the fifties and sixties. (He was a regular on Underdog and King Leonardo, to name two. On Underdog, he voiced Simon Bar Sinister, among other baddies.) He probably made his fortune — and set some kind of industry record — by doing voiceovers for a staggering number of radio and TV commercials...and I think he's still working.
Are you a fan of Allen Swift? Then you might be interested in a lengthy, fascinating interview with him that's been posted to YouTube. I'm not going to embed it because it's four parts, each of which runs a little over twenty minutes. But if you want to see it, here's a link to Part One and you should be able to find your way from there. I haven't watched the whole thing myself yet but I'm guessing that somewhere in there, he makes mention of his son, who is a brilliantly funny actor named Lewis J. Stadlen.
So here's an episode of Diver Dan. It runs about seven minutes. I don't find it all that much fun but I bet I'd have enjoyed it when I was eight.
It's difficult to fully evaluate the DGA settlement with the AMPTP based on the summary that's presently available to us. The fact sheet released so far is a mixture of low numbers coupled with a lot of "Well, what does this mean?" The percentages paid to directors for work downloaded from the 'net are very low and the breakpoint numbers are very high and I can't imagine why they think this will amount to any sort of meaningful financial participation.
It is good that the AMPTP is acknowledging that they must share Internet revenues with the folks who create the programming. Their entire approach to the WGA has been to try to deny that or keep the numbers down to token payments. The terms of the DGA deal, to the extent we know them, seem like a little more recognition that they cannot exclude us (writers, directors, actors and others) from New Media revenues...but the numbers are way below what they should be. The deal still allows the networks to take a show produced for network television — a show which would traditionally pay substantial sums to its writers, actors and director for its rebroadcast — and to instead slap it up on a website, sell advertising and pay us a very low amount of money. And even that's after a "free window" where they can do that without paying anything.
I'm trying to seize upon one good thing about this deal and I may have found it: "Payments for EST [Electronic Sell-Through] will be based on distributor's gross, which is the amount received by the entity responsible for distributing the film or television program on the Internet." One of the six demands that the AMPTP had before they walked out of negotiations with the WGA was for us to drop our demand that payments would be based on distributor's gross. My question then is if there are any other details in the new DGA contract that would enable the studios to fudge the amounts that they report as distributor's gross and whether there's a truly effective way of monitoring payments. The summary assures us that "the companies are now contractually obligated to give us unfettered access to their deals and data." That would be good if true.
Also of some concern is this statement: "Additionally, if the exhibitor or retailer is part of the producer's corporate family, we have improved provisions for challenging any suspect transactions." I'd sure like to see some lawyers check the final language for loopholes before I believe that will arrest a major problem. Corporations like to agree to certain terms with a union, then set up "shell companies" to operate in violation of those terms. If the DGA has secured language that will effectively stop that, good for them.
At the end, it says there's a "Sunset provision" that "Allows both sides to revisit new media when the agreement expires." I'm not sure what that means. It may mean another strike in three years.
All in all, I'm extremely disappointed. I wouldn't hazard a guess at this moment on the mood of the Writers Guild or the Screen Actors Guild. But if I'm given a choice of accepting terms similar to what I fear it all means or remaining on strike, I'll be out on the picket lines until a real offer comes along.
So yesterday, I taught my first class at U.S.C. It's called "Writing Humor: Literary and Dramatic" and it's part of the school's Master of Professional Writing program. (The current semester is not yet listed on the school's website but will be shortly.)
Things began appropriately. I determined the right hour to leave my house and allow sufficient time...then got out to the garage and found my car battery was dead. Someone — I'm not mentioning any names because it might have been me — shut a rear car door on a seat belt so it didn't close all the way. I took a cab to and from U.S.C., musing how it was somehow appropriate that a class in Humor Writing was starting off that way.
After that, things went well. "My students" — there's a phrase I never thought I'd type — seem bright and eager to absorb whatever I can impart to them...though I'm thinking the most useful skill I may be able to impart is how to carry a picket sign.
I had a great cab driver on the way back. In L.A. for some reason, you can't phone a taxi company to pick you up on a street corner. They insist on an address. The way U.S.C. is laid out, there is no easy address where they could find me so I walked three blocks over to Jefferson and Figueroa where the famous car dealership, Felix Chevrolet, is located. I didn't go in. I just used their address when I phoned, then waited next to a big statue of Felix the Cat for a taxi to come get me.
The cab driver was a very old gentleman from Kenya who told me he'd gone off-duty when he heard the radio call that they were looking for someone to pick up outside Felix Chevrolet. "I signed back in to get you," he told me. "I love Felix, always have." As a tiny Kenyan, he said, he had a Felix the Cat shirt that he wore everywhere until it was so ragged that his Mama started insisting he give it up. He refused and refused up until the day it came out of the laundry in tatters. He said that sixty years after the fact, he still suspects sabotage on his mother's part.
I asked him if he'd ever seen a Felix cartoon. He said he didn't think so. I asked him if he'd ever read a Felix comic book. He said he didn't think so. I asked him what it was about Felix that made him so special. He said, "Felix always seems so happy. When things get me down, I just look at him and he makes me feel better." As good a reason as any, I'd say.
Not that many of you are likely to feel otherwise but this new wave of attacks on John McCain's military record is just as shameful and factually-deficient as the one on John Kerry's. I am amazed at the number of people who think that our soldiers are sacred...but only up until the moment when they don't want to see one of them get elected. But then I'm also amazed at the number of folks who accuse anyone who questions the war's leadership of "hating the troops" but don't seem to care a whole lot if those troops are paid badly, don't have proper equipment or medical care, are killed needlessly, etc.
Yesterday, we had a commercial for Beany & Cecil toys from Mattel. Today, we have a clip that has three of them but the third one's a repeat so you don't have to watch it.
The first one features a voiceover that is either by Frank Nelson or by someone doing a darn good impression of him. I think it's Frank and I call your attention to this article that I wrote about him. In this commercial, you get to hear a little more of the voices that Daws Butler, as mentioned, did for these toys. (As several of you noted, not only does his Beany sound like his Elroy Jetson but his Cecil sounds a lot like his Quick Draw McGraw.)
Then the second commercial is all animated and features Irv Shoemaker, who did the voices of Cecil and Dishonest John on the cartoon show. A nice little ad.
And then the third spot is the same one as yesterday and you can skip it. Here we go...
Well, the DGA didn't announce a deal today so we'll put another $50 in the jackpot. I've received a number of e-mails asking what I think this means and what I think it means is that they haven't finalized a deal yet. Speculation beyond that is really flying blind. As I said, I thought predictions that a deal would be announced on Monday were premature but not impossible. Another week is not impossible, either. Heck, it's not even impossible that the DGA won't be able to make a deal at this time. I wouldn't bet on that but you never know.
In the meantime, Jonathan Handel says some of the same things I said here but says them better and with more authority and less optimism.
A reader named D. Radboud, who I assume is not of my country, sends the following in response to this post...
To add some information on the website you linked to in your post, HEMA is an almost 100 year old department store in the Netherlands. I would compare it to Marks & Spencer in the UK. I can't think of a US equivalent just now. This is the kind of place where people buy their household basics, as the site illustrates I guess. The kind of place can buy their own unfashionable underwear and socks without being embarrassed, so to say.
The place is also famous for some specific foodstuffs, in particular its smoked sausage. One story I heard from a Dutch artist, working for the Dutch edition of Mad, was that when Bill Gaines would come over to the Netherlands to discuss business, he would take a special cab ride every day from his hotel to the nearest HEMA to get a hold of one of the sausages. No, these are not health food by a mile.
Which almost goes without saying because Bill Gaines's idea of "health food" was to put organic lettuce on his bacon cheeseburger. Thanks, D. Sounds like Target or K-Mart or Wal-Mart or one of those U.S. chains.
I don't know what I'm doing up at this hour, either. Well, yes, I do...finishing a writing assignment. Oddly enough, my partner Sergio Aragonés is also up. He just e-mailed me the last page of a story we're doing together. When you work with someone long enough, you sometimes find yourself oddly synchronized.
A little more than a hundred of you have voted so far in our little poll. Mitt Romney was way ahead after about fifty votes and now John McCain's pulled into the lead. I realized I neglected to put Alan Keyes in there and it's too late to add him. So I think I'll just look at the total votes for Duncan Hunter and divide by three.
Good night, Internet! See you in the morning. The cleaning lady will be here in five hours.
I'm going to send you a website that may take a minute or so to load...and I'll warn you it may be noisy.
I'm not entirely sure what it sells because it's in another language. Looks like some sort of e-commerce site to me. In any case, it's one of those "you gotta see it" websites. My buddy Daniel Will-Harris sent me to it and now I'm sending you. You'll send other people.
Let's see what kind of pundit prognosticators visit this site. The following poll has nothing to do with who you'd like to see get the G.O.P. nomination either because you think he'd make the best Chief Exec or because you think he'd be the easiest to defeat. Put preference out of your mind, imagine you have serious money riding on this...and vote for the name of the guy you think is most likely to get the nomination.
This poll will be up for one week and then I'll ask the same question about the Democratic field. I'm just curious what the readers of this site will say. If I had to wager, I think I'd have to go eenie-meenie-minie-mo between about four of these choices.
Here's another of those mysteries of life that few people will care about but I happen to be among the few...
In the fifties, when the Time for Beany puppet show debuted, its cast mainly consisted of Daws Butler and Stan Freberg, two great cartoon voice actors. Daws provided the voice of Beany. Stan was Cecil. After several years of this, they left and the show's producer-owner Bob Clampett replaced them with other actors. Beany was done by either Jim MacGeorge or Walker Edmiston (they switched off) and Cecil was done by Irv Shoemaker.
In the sixties, several years after the puppet version had gone off, Beany & Cecil came back in a new animated version that Clampett produced under a deal with Mattel Toys. For this show, MacGeorge provided the voice of Beany and Shoemaker spoke for Cecil. Butler and Freberg were in no way involved. In fact, they and Clampett weren't even on speaking terms.
As part of the show's commerce, Mattel put out dozens of Beany & Cecil playthings, many of which were in the toy company's "chatty" line. These were dolls that talked when you pulled a little ring. Today's clip is for a commercial for Beany and Cecil dolls that talked. But here's what's odd. The voices of both dolls were not recorded by MacGeorge and Shoemaker who were concurrently doing the voices on the cartoon show. The voices of both dolls were recorded by Daws Butler. You can even note how Beany sounds like his Elroy Jetson voice. For Cecil, he approximated the voice that his old partner Stan had done for the puppet show.
Why did Daws do this? There's the mystery and it was one of those things I wondered about when I was a lad. I was able to recognize voice actors and I couldn't figure out why they hired Daws. He certainly wasn't cheaper than the other guys would have been. He surely wasn't picked by Clampett.
When I met Daws, I asked him and he said, "I have no idea. They called me to do it so I went out and did it." I also asked Bob Clampett. Bob was a pretty sharp guy but on this one, he just looked baffled and said, "You know, someone told me that was Daws on those and I never knew how that happened." Both men have since passed away and I don't know of anyone else I could ask...so I guess that's it. Just one of those puzzlements with which we all must live. Here's the commercial...
Bidding on eBay for Gary Coleman's pants (as explained here) is currently over $200,000. As you may recall, back when people were offering $700,000 to $1,500,000, eBay declared all those as "bogus bids" and deleted them. Apparently though, an offer of $200,000+ for a pair of sweatpants signed by an out of work child star does not warrant skepticism.
The auction closes in a day and a half. So you still have time to top that offer.
Here's everything you need to know about the Republican presidential race:
Mike Huckabee won the Iowa caucuses which made him the front runner...
...until John McCain won the New Hampshire primary, which made him the front runner...
...until Mitt Romney won the Michigan primary today, which makes him the front runner. At least until the next primary.
Rudy Giuliani hasn't won a primary yet but the news apparently isn't all bad for him tonight because John McCain didn't win. On Larry King Live, Ari Fleischer — who used to do this kind of spinning in the service of George W. Bush — said, "This is what Rudy needed." Apparently, what Rudy needed was to finish with 3% behind even Ron Paul and Fred Thompson. To be fair, he did beat "Uncommitted" by a point.
I hereby officially predict that a deal between the AMPTP and the Directors Guild will be announced tomorrow. On what do I base this? Simple: I have an extremely busy day tomorrow. I don't have time to deal with a DGA deal tomorrow — all the pieces I'll have to write, all the discussions I'll have to have — which is why there will be one. That's about as sound a basis for a prediction as anything right now.
Actually, I have heard nothing from anyone in a position to know how close to a deal they might be so just sit tight. Either they'll make a deal this week or they won't. I'm going to be very busy next week too, so it could happen then.
Glenn Greenwald has an interesting piece up on "judicial activism" in the court decision to not compel MSNBC to include Dennis Kucinich in this evening's Democratic debate. Basically, Kucinich sued on a "breach of contract" basis and the matter seems to have been settled — he was not included — based on the merits of that specific principle. But a lot of people who wanted him in the debates — either because he's their guy or they think he'd wound the other Democratic candidates or maybe because they just like short people — are charging "judicial activism." That is, as Greenwald notes, something a lot of folks charge any time a court decision does not yield their preferred outcome. I think he's right. The law does not always give us the results we'd like to see and it isn't always (or even often, I suspect) because judges are trying to engineer the results they'd like to see.
I caught a little of that debate, by the way. Tim Russert seemed to be trying hard to get the candidates to bash one another and they refused to do much of that...and even gave Russert a bit of hard time for trying to start trouble. At least in the portion I saw, it didn't seem like any candidate "won." The victory seemed to be for those who want to see the leading Democratic contenders stop firing at one another and to link arms to get one of their own elected. Apart from that, it wasn't of huge interest. In hindsight, the best argument for including Kucinich was that he might have gotten some squabbles going and livened things up. Of course, they could have done that by bringing in Gallagher to smash a watermelon.
Never mind all these polls about who's going to be President of the United States. Let's look at the really important one, the one that tells what you folks thought of the movie, Skidoo. Here are the final totals...
As you can see, almost half (47%) of those who voted did not watch the thing. A hair under 27% of you enjoyed the experience with 4.3% of you calling it a "fine motion picture." A slightly larger amount called it "one of the worst movies I've ever seen" and everyone else was kind of bewildered, which is where I came down on the issue. This poll has a margin of error of ±100% because the movie did, as well.
Since I wronged some of you by encouraging the viewing of this film, I'll suggest some good ones to watch on Turner Classic Movies. Tonight, they're running What's Up, Tiger Lily?, which was the very funny movie for which a team of clever actors redubbed a sixties Japanese spy flick with funny dialogue. Woody Allen was the front man but I hear the voice and wit of my pal (and a frequent patron of this blog), Frank Buxton.
Early Thursday morning, they're running the rarely-seen Taxi!, which was one of Jimmy Cagney's first movies. It's quite melodramatic but Cagney is, of course, electric in the lead. Matter of fact, they're running a number of rare Cagney movies that morning and more later this month.
Lastly, if you like Danny Kaye, you can view or record The Secret Life of Walter Mitty on Friday evening and The Court Jester early Saturday morning. Some or all of these should make up for causing you to watch Skidoo.
Millions of you are writing this morn to point out to me that there's a copyright date on the To Tell the Truth clip with William Gaines. It says 1970. There's also a plug in there for the 1971 Chevy Impala. So apparently Bill was not "telling the truth" when he said that Dick DeBartolo had been writing for Mad for seven years. This should serve as yet another reminder that you can never trust anything a publisher tells you.
From an unknown year: William M. Gaines, publisher of Mad Magazine, appears on To Tell the Truth. My thanks to Kliph Nesteroff for telling me about this.
My only guess as to the year is that at the end, mention is made of Dick DeBartolo, who worked on To Tell the Truth and also wrote for Mad. Gaines says that Dick has been in the magazine for seven years without missing an issue. DeBartolo first appeared in Mad in issue #103, which was dated June, 1966...so if Bill's being accurate, this episode would have been around 1973. (DeBartolo has kept that streak going, by the way. He has now been in Mad every issue since then for a total of 399 consecutive issues over 42 years.)
Dick, by the way, sent me a note I ran here some time ago about this segment on To Tell the Truth. Here it is.
And here's the clip. You may notice that the audio is a little out of sync. So was Bill Gaines.
The rumor that seems to be making the rounds is that the AMPTP and the DGA have already hammered out the main points of a deal and that they're just cleaning up language and addressing some minor points that need to be addressed. This may not be so but it's what people are saying and it at least feels likely. As I said the other day, it's always been unlikely that the DGA wouldn't be able to arrive at a deal. How good a one? And is it something that would work as well for writers and actors as it does for directors? That remains to be seen.
It may be seen quite soon. I suspect the AMPTP has something they think they can prove here; that this whole catastrophic strike wouldn't have happened if the WGA had just behaved like the DGA. I don't believe that for a minute. I think the studios thought they could steamroll over one union at a time starting with us and now that they know they can't, they're looking to make a deal and get their business back but to blame organized labor for their own refusal to negotiate. In any case, it's in their best interest to get a DGA deal done as quickly as possible, preferably while Nikki Finke is on vacation.
Fred Kaplan with comments on George W. Bush's dismissal of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. This is all quite worrisome. Either all our nation's intelligence agencies are wrong or Bush is. Neither situation fills one with confidence about our nation's defense and foreign policies, does it?
If you're following the Presidential Primaries — and I could sure understand if you weren't — you might be interested in this list of when the upcoming ones occur and how many delegates are up for grabs in each. I have no opinions and no projections, other than to say it might be interesting if no one locked up their party's nomination before Convention Time and we had some months of brokering and dickering and dealing to get each low finisher to throw his or her support to someone within striking range. John Edwards might not be able to become the Democratic nominee but he might be able to decide who would be.
I really don't know who I like. No one very much. I'm still nursing the fantasy of other choices getting into the race but it sure doesn't look like that's going to happen.
A number of folks seem to think a deal between the AMPTP and the DGA could be announced as soon as today. That seems too quick to me but I'm sure it's possible. It's not likely that the Directors Guild is raising any issues that take the studios by surprise or which they haven't already mentioned in informal discussions. Anyway, stay tuned on that front.
Here in two parts, we have a little less than twenty minutes of highlights from the 1999 Broadway revival of Annie, Get Your Gun, which starred Bernadette Peters. Carolyn and I saw this shortly after it opened and I believe we took along our pal Rick Scheckman. A guy I know got me tickets and assured me they were "great seats"...and I guess they were if you like being in the front row. That's a little too close to really enjoy the show. On the other hand, we could sit there and marvel at the fact that up close, Ms. Peters looked like she was about 26 years old.
This was a nice, fun production of a show that I usually find rather boring — a couple of great, hummable tunes livening up a story no one much cares about. I am told that as fine as Bernadette was in the role (and she was terrific), the whole show got even better when she was replaced by Reba McEntire. Not that Ms. McEntire is a better stage actress but she was "righter" for the part and gave it an amazing energy...or so they said. I didn't get to see it with her in it. Here's a look at Bernadette's version. The male lead is Tom Wopat...
Someone on eBay is selling a pair of Gary Coleman's pants, autographed by the former star of Diff'rent Strokes and gubernatorial candidate. The other night on his show, Jimmy Kimmel put in a bid and warned viewers, "Don't try to outbid me on this." Well, of course, people are trying. The other day when I checked, the top bid was up to something like a million and a half dollars with many folks bidding six and seven figure amounts. I immediately thought, "Hmm...I may be wrong but I have a hunch some of these aren't legitimate bids."
eBay has since cancelled out all the six and seven figure bids, labelling them as "bogus bids." But the auction is still on and as I write this, the top bid is $33,433.33 with about four and a half days to go. What I find amusing is that someone bid more than $30,000 for a pair of Gary Coleman's old pants and eBay apparently doesn't consider that a "bogus bid." What do we think the cut-off point is where a bid for Gary Coleman's pants is considered bogus? $50,000? $75,000? I was thinking more like ten bucks.
If you want to track this auction, here's a link. See if you can figure out which bid is Kimmel.
The Directors Guild sat down Saturday morn with representatives of the AMPTP to hammer out a renewal of the DGA contract, which expires at the end of July. An eager/nervous industry turns its eyes towards this bargaining, wondering what (if anything) it will mean to the ongoing Writers Strike. I can't imagine that it won't mean a lot and I think most of the possibilities are pretty good insofar as they might lead to a rapid settlement of the WGA dispute.
As I see it, there are four possible scenarios, one of which I'm going to rule out as extremely unlikely. That's the one in which the DGA goes in and just settles for an extremely rotten deal. If that happens, WGA and SAG will be royally screwed as that will be the precedent the AMPTP will argue is reasonable. Which is one of the reasons it's probably not going to happen. Many writer-directors and actor-directors would be furious (so would many director-directors), the DGA would be humiliated and, of course, that guild would have blown one of the best bargaining positions they've ever had. The WGA strike, with SAG marching bravely in lockstep, has empowered labor in this town, albeit for a little while, and put the studios on notice that they can't always get away with stonewalling on lowball offers, which is what they usually like to do.
The studios' wishdream — that they could establish the Internet marketplace without giving a decent share to those who create the material transmitted on the web — has failed. Not gonna happen. Whatever else happens in this strike, that much has been achieved.
So now the AMPTP has two concerns. They have to give up something significant in that area and they want to see how small a share that can be. That's Issue #1 for them. The second concern is that they want to do everything they can to not make the outcome of the Writers Strike look like a "win" for organized labor, thereby inspiring more unions to emulate what has happened. That bodes well for a decent DGA contract. The AMPTP's going to have make a deal with someone and they'd prefer it be the directors so they can say, "See? If you don't go on strike and make unreasonable demands of us, you get a fair deal!" (But of course, the DGA will get more than was offered to us before we went on strike...)
So Scenario #1 — the DGA takes a rotten deal — probably won't happen. Scenario #2 is that the DGA gets a decent deal and that becomes the template for a decent WGA deal. There'd be a lot of blame-shifting and credit-arguing as some tried to pretend the DGA got what it got just by being smarter but that still doesn't sound bad to me. What does sound bad is that the AMPTP would stonewall on all other points. Their position would be "We won't negotiate with the WGA but we will give them the same Internet and home video terms and raise minimums the same percentage." They would then presumably refuse to talk to us about the issues that concern the WGA but not the DGA, including matters like Animation and "Reality" Shows and maybe even the ethical issues such as late payments, free rewrites, the shopping of unacquired scripts and accounting practices. I don't know what kind of resolve there would be in the Guild to abandon all of those concerns if we were able to settle on New Media. I guess it would depend on how good that New Media deal was.
Scenario #2 is quite possible, perhaps even probable. Possible but less probable is what I'll call Scenario #3, which is that the DGA can't make a deal with the AMPTP and winds up either walking out of the talks or getting tossed out like we did. I don't think this would be a disaster either, but for a different reason. The DGA contract isn't up until the end of July so they'd still have plenty of time to come back and make a deal. We'd be back to the AMPTP versus the WGA again but with a key difference: It would be obvious that the WGA wasn't the problem. After all, the DGA — the guild that doesn't strike and which prides itself on speaking the language of Management — couldn't make a deal, either. Unless the studios are really willing to torch their businesses, they'd have to find a way to sit down with the WGA again and begin budging.
Lastly, we have Scenario #4. This is the one that scares me.
Scenario #4 is the one in which the DGA makes a deal that works for them but not for anyone else. As in Scenario #2, the AMPTP says, "Okay, we've made a New Media deal with the DGA and that's it. The WGA and SAG can take the same terms or they can walk picket lines until the world looks level...we ain't discussing any other formulas, any other numbers." But in this case, the deal is something like Internet Revenues based on how many shots you called or how much time you spent in editing. In other words, it's some set-up that would yield decent payments to directors but not to writers or actors. The first deal the DGA made for Pay TV was like that. It paid okay for directors but because of the differences in what we do, it would not have paid nearly as much to writers...and that strike became all about demanding a different formula when the studios insist we accept what the DGA accepted.
I'm not sure if it's possible to devise one of those formulas — works for directors but no one else — for New Media but I'd be very surprised if the AMPTP hasn't had accountants and lawyers trying to craft one. If they manage it and if the DGA takes it, this could be a much longer strike. Let's all think good thoughts that this won't happen.
This is a long (90 second) commercial for the original Broadway production of 42nd Street starring Jerry Orbach and Wanda Richert. It opened in 1980 and has the distinction of being the first Broadway show I saw in the Broadway district.
I was not there, of course, on its legendary opening night. As the first-nighters and critics were standing and giving the show a tremendous ovation at its close, producer David Merrick marched out and in a rather callous manner, announced that its director, Gower Champion, had died that afternoon. It and other things about the show are discussed in this article about the closing of that legendary production and then after you read that, you can watch the commercial...
Ray Arthur sent me to this. It's a brief online survey/game where you enter your positions on key issues and it tells you which of the presidential candidates is closest to your way of thinking. These things are always a bit flawed in that, first of all, you have to answer multiple choice questions in which none of the choices may reflect your view. Also of course, they don't take into account whether you believe the candidate will really do anything about the issue where he or she says the things you want to hear. But it's not a bad little exercise. In my case, all of the Democrats were pretty much tied for my affections, followed by Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and on down. Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee were tied for last place but even there, they matched me on a couple of issues. And nobody matched me on everything.
Wanna see photos of presidential candidates holding a baby? I mean, if you can't hold a baby, you have no business running for the highest office in our land, right? Darren Garnick managed to get her toddler photographed with each of the Oval Office Seekers except for Fred Thompson and Mike Gravel. Frankly, if I had a five month old daughter, I wouldn't hand her to Fred Thompson. He might try to marry her.
Bill Maher came back on the air last evening and closed his broadcast with a brief criticism of the leadership and mood of the Writers Guild strike. I've received a number of e-mails asking me to explain what he was talking about and I'm not being coy or cute when I say I haven't the foggiest. I'm guessing he had a private conversation or perhaps more than one with someone in the WGA leadership that displeased him, and perhaps rightly so. I don't know.
He was complaining about dissent within the Guild being suppressed or treated like treason and I have to say that would be news to me. I've been out on the picket lines and I've been at the public meetings. I haven't seen Bill Maher in any of those places but I've been there. The criticisms I've heard have been pretty mild or vague...nothing really worth stifling if you were on a mission to close down dissident points of view. Even with hindsight at their disposal, the folks who usually leap to say "We should have done something else" seem hard-pressed to say what that something else might have been. At least, that's my sense of it.
But this is the Age of the Internet. It's hard to shut people up, especially if they're writers. If there were a lot of members unhappy with the WGA leadership, there'd be hundreds of weblogs up that expressed that sentiment. Have you seen many? I haven't. I see a few forums here and there laden with anonymous messages, some from people who claim to be WGA members...and — who knows? — some of them may actually be WGA members. But I can't point you to an article or website where a lot of prominent writers are expressing any kind of unhappiness with how the strike has been waged. Members are unhappy but they're unhappy with Nick Counter and the CEOs who have been standing firm on about half an offer than no union could accept. At the same time, they're refusing to meet with us to discuss the other half and maybe improve the part we said wasn't good enough, the part about Internet Moola.
So that's what I have to say about Maher's comments; that I haven't heard whatever he's heard. Before the weekend is out, I'm going to try to write a little piece here about the DGA negotiations and where they might take us. It'll be guardedly optimistic but with a few big ifs in there.
I could never vote for Ron Paul. He's said too many things in the past about race and poor people and about the responsibility (or lack, thereof in his view) of people to care for one another that I find inhumane and even impractical. I also think he's one of those people who calls himself a Strict Constructionalist but that means he's found ways to argue that his prejudices were Thomas Jefferson's prejudices.
That said, I admire the guy for getting up in front of audiences and not telling them what they want to hear and for raising questions that politicians of all stripes would rather not discuss. I think he contributes a lot to the national debate by talking about things like our proper role in world affairs and the proper role of government in our lives. You don't have to agree with someone to be glad he's out there giving his views.
I'm not going to embed it because it's a little over an hour long but I thought I'd tell you about this interview he did up at Google last year. No matter who you're supporting in the coming election, I'd be surprised if you couldn't find something Paul says that you wish your candidate would say. You'll also find plenty of reasons why Dr. Paul isn't going to get the Republican nomination.
There's something comforting when you go to the CNN webpage and the headline is "O.J. SIMPSON BACK IN CUSTODY." It's just so reassuring in this hectic world of ours that some things don't change.
This comfort is partially offset by my bewilderment. There are some people in this world who just seem to wake up each morning and think, "How can I really screw my life up today?"
My favorite example is Mike Tyson on June 28, 1997. Tyson must have felt pretty good that morning. He was out of prison and people were forgetting about the rape conviction that had put him in there. He was losing the image of a psychotic, violent animal and starting to receive lucrative offers for endorsements and merchandising. He was reconciling with some of his children. And that night, he was to receive $30 million for fighting Evander Holyfield, and he stood a good chance of retaking the Heavyweight Championship, which would lead to even more money and glory.
My theory is that he got up that morning, reviewed his life and wondered, "What's the stupidest thing I can do tonight?"
I imagine him sitting there, pondering that question, maybe even calling up some friends to ask for suggestions.
One of them tells him, "Well, maybe if you got caught betting on the fight tonight..."
"No, no," Tyson says. "Then I wouldn't be thought of as a violent psycho. I need to ruin my personal image, as well and I want one thing, one action that will destroy everything good that's happening in my life."
The friend thinks and then says, "Well, this is kind of weird..."
"Go on, go on," Tyson says.
"Well, this just popped into my head but what if during the fight, you bite the other guy's ear off?"
"What?"
"Think about it. First of all, you'd lose the fight right there...plus you'd lose or at least they'd suspend your boxing license. I mean, the one thing you can do, you wouldn't be able to do anymore. You'd forfeit a few million of your purse in fines, all those endorsement deals would go away, everyone think you were criminally insane..."
"That's it! That's the thing," Tyson yells. "It's brilliant! I bite his ear off!"
It's the only possible explanation. And O.J. Simpson must have decided that he hasn't had enough mug shots, hasn't done enough jail time to convince every last person in the world that he's criminally insane. Frankly, I don't think a bail violation's going to do it. I think he's going to have to kill again.
Merv Griffin may not have been the funniest person who ever appeared on television...but he came up with what may be the funniest headstone of all time.
My pal Bob Elisberg wrote such a fine primer on the WGA Strike over at The Huffington Post that I hereby offer to take him back to my favorite barbecue restaurant for ribs.
As I think I mentioned here, I have suddenly turned into an instructor. Beginning in the new semester (which starts next week), I am teaching a course entitled Writing Humor: Literary and Dramatic for the Master of Professional Writing program at the University of Southern California. The class is full and has a wait list so I'm not mentioning that to solicit students; just to tell you why I may not be posting here as much once it commences.
I am also teaching a half-day class in San Francisco on February 25 which is for actors who do or want to do voices for animation. I'll be telling them whatever I know about the craft (most of which I learned from the late/great Daws Butler) and directing students in scenes. This will be at a school/studio called Voice One and I believe there are still some openings. This link will take you to their listing for my class.
I'm also dickering to teach a one-time seminar in Los Angeles which will be called something like Professional Writing: How to Manage a Career. At least, there's a school that thinks I'm somehow qualified for the task and has requested that I do so. Watch this space for an announcement if this one happens.
Hey, you remember Mystery Science Theater 3000, the show that could make a mockery of any movie better than Skidoo. Well, many of the folks behind that wonderful enterprise have reassembled and are now plying their heckling skills in a series of DVD commentary tracks. They're calling the new venture Cinema Titanic and their first release should be out by now. Go to their blog for all the details. We're quite happy about this.
The subject of scabbing during the WGA strike is an emotional sore spot. The New Republic decided that they needed a piece that would address this topic and they asked me to write it. And so I did.
On their home page, by the way, they have its link next to a photo of Stephen Colbert. I did not select this or any photo.
Here's the funniest thing you may find on the 'net for some time: A newspaper ad showing that Paramount Pictures ran Skidoo in Los Angeles "for Academy Award consideration." Actually, I'm a little puzzled about this since all my sources say the movie was released on December 2, 1968, which would have allowed plenty of time to qualify for the Oscars without a special engagement. Perhaps that date is when the special engagement began and the general release came early in '69. Either way, it received no nominations. I wonder why.
This ad was taken with permission from Gabriel Neeb's great webpage, San Diego Cinema. Usually, it features great old movie ads from that area but Gabriel couldn't resist an ad from Los Angeles because of the Skidoo box. The Crest Theater was one of my old hangouts. In fact, it's where I saw the movie Penelope, which we discussed back here.
If you go over to Gabriel's page, you'll see the whole listing for the Loews chain that week. Oliver is premiering at the Beverly. I took my girl friend of the time there (her name was Lynne) to see that movie a few weeks later. We went to dinner that evening at what was then my favorite Chinese restaurant, a place called Wan-Q, which I wrote about over on this page. Wan-Q is long gone but my current favorite Chinese restaurant, Fu's Palace, is in its old building. The Beverly Theater (which you can see here) closed in 1977 and was converted into a bank and a jewelry store. It was recently demolished along with most of that block.
After the movie, Lynne and I walked down to a Wil Wright's ice cream parlor that was on Beverly, a block south of Wilshire. (I wrote about Wil Wright's here and just above it on that page, there's a photo that shows a bit of the Beverly Theater.) Wil Wright's is also long gone and I don't know why I'm telling you all this. Old movie theater ads tend to send my memory into overdrive.
Johnny Grant was "The Honorary Mayor of Hollywood" and did he ever preside. Every luncheon, every parade, every ribbon-cutting, every charitable event...there was Johnny Grant. He was most visible acting as host each time they unveiled a new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The photo above shows Johnny getting whacked in the face with a pie by Soupy Sales when they unveiled Soupy's.
Before all that, Mr. Grant was a radio personality and a TV host and a newsman and a staunch supporter of America's military men and women, organizing U.S.O. tours and other services to aid our soldiers. (He was an actor, too. One role you may have seen him in was in the Bing Crosby-Danny Kaye movie, White Christmas. Grant played the Ed Sullivan-like TV host.) Those of us who were watching TV in Los Angeles in the fifties and sixties saw him constantly.
I won't attempt a full bio here but I will direct you to this page of his website. Take a sec and read about the man's life, which was quite extraordinary. And here's a link to the L.A. Times obit. I spoke to him a few times at various events and always admired his niceness and his never-ending supply of energy. It won't be the same without him.
From a 1965 episode of Hollywood Palace: Frank Sinatra introduces the King of Insult Comedy — at least before Don Rickles broke through — Jack E. Leonard. Fat Jack, as they called him for obvious reasons, was one of those performers who never had much in the way of material but he had the attitude and style to "sell" just about anything. This clip is a good example of him getting away with comedic murder, blustering his way through a monologue that obviously didn't get a lot from the studio audience and was heavily "sweetened" with fake laughs in the editing room. Still, I always found him fun to watch. See if you do...
I think the Hillary appeal has always been somewhat about her mix of toughness and sympathy for her. Let's not forget, and I'll be brutal, the reason she's a US Senator, the reason she's a candidate for President, the reason she may be a front runner, is that her husband messed around. That's how she got to be a Senator from New York. We keep forgetting it. She didn't win it on her merit, she won because everybody felt, "My God, this woman stood up under humiliation, right?" That's what happened! That's how it happened.
Over dinner this evening, my 85-year-old mother said to me...
Did you hear that thing Chris Matthews said about Hillary Clinton? If I'd had him here, I would have slapped him.
I don't think she'd actually do that but I can understand why she feels that way.
One word you're hearing a lot during the current Hollywood strike is "residuals." We writers usually get paid when our work is reused...sometimes not a lot but something. I co-wrote one Love Boat back in the seventies and about once every other year, I get money because it aired again in Botswana or somewhere. The last payment was under two dollars, which is probably less than it cost them to process the check. Sometimes, the amounts are more formidable and there are writers who will gladly tell you of the time their house was about to be foreclosed or their kid needed emergency medical treatement...and a residual check arrived at the perfect time to prevent personal financial disaster.
I get occasional questions here from folks who work in industries that don't operate that way, asking about why we get residuals; why someone gets paid again when they didn't do additional work. So a while ago here, I wrote this response which has received so many hits that I wish I got residuals for that. Take a look if you missed it.
But it needs a P.S. and this is it. I received the following message the other day from a prominent writer of TV, books, comics and other stuff...
What's the reasonable answer to give to some jackass who tries to diminish the importance of residuals by wanting to know why lighting guys, sound guys, and various other technicians aren't equally entitled?
Well, part of the reasonable answer is that many of them do. They just don't get them directly. There are many Hollywood unions that have negotiated residuals deals. It's just that unlike the Writers Guild and Screen Actors Guild, the check doesn't go directly to the individual. It goes to the union's health and/or pension plan. A lot of technicians pay low dues and get health insurance because of these residuals.
The Directors Guild is currently mounting a little crusade to remind everyone, including its own members, that all its members benefit from residuals even if they do not receive checks in the mail like my bi-annual Love Boat largesse. The DGA, as you may know, is full of directors but it also has among its membership, assistant directors, stage managers, and production associates in television, and directors, assistant directors, unit production managers, and technical coordinators. Directors receive WGA/SAG style residual checks directly. The others generally do not but they receive them in other ways. Recently, Gil Cates (President of the DGA) was interviewed and he explained...
Over the last ten years, residuals to our below-the-line members and to the Basic Pension Plan amount to more than 1/2 billion dollars. In addition, in 2006, over $44 million in residual benefits were paid directly into the DGA Basic Pension Plan by the companies. This represents 71% of all the funds contributed into our Basic Pension Plan benefiting all members. In other words, even if a member never works on a project that generates residuals in their entire career, when that member retires and become eligible to receive a pension, they will share in the benefits created by the residuals that go into the Basic Pension Plan every year.
I am told — and it certainly is no coincidence — that stats like these have been mentioned a lot recently in the Directors Guild's magazine and in various mailings to members. There could be a big residuals battle looming for the DGA in their new contract and they obviously wanted to prepare their rank 'n' file for that war.
There are, of course, those in Hollywood who do not get residuals in any way, shape or form...just as there are those in Hollywood who are not paid well, period. Some people are in that category, perhaps because they have no union or a weak union. It's difficult — in some cases, impossible — to negotiate residuals all by yourself. If you want to know why some professions aren't "entitled" to residuals, the answer is pretty much the same as the answer as to why some professions are paid so much less than others. They just are...because so few in their job description have had the leverage to demand more and set some precedents. Unfortunately in show business, you don't get something because you deserve it. You get it because you have the clout to get it.
From a 1965 episode of The Dean Martin Show, three great male vocalists — Dino, Vic Damone and Allan Sherman — a sing a mess of song snippets by Mr. Sherman. About half of these were on Sherman's records but quite a few were from his nightclub act and were never recorded anywhere else. Good stuff.
This afternoon on Shokus Internet Radio — at 4 PM my time, which is 7 PM back East — Stuart Shostak will be interviewing Tom Lester, one of the stars of Green Acres. Tom is a heckuva nice, funny guy and he's had an amazing career which you'll enjoy hearing all about. Give a listen. Shokus Internet Radio is now easier to listen to than ever before. Just go to their site, click on the link that says "Enter Site" and you're there. Try it right now and see how simple it is.
I can't find a link to an online report yet but at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, our friends at TiVo have announced the next new feature that will be implemented on their boxes, perhaps as soon as March. It will be the ability to download a video podcast or other streaming video from the Internet on your computer and then transfer it almost effortlessly to your TiVo, thereby enabling you to watch the show on your TV.
This is where the technology is heading for everyone and it goes to the core of the current labor unrest in Hollywood. If NBC rebroadcasts an old episode of The Office (to pick one show at random) on their old-fashioned teevee network, they have to pay the director, writer(s) and actor(s) some nice residual payments directly and there are also residual payments to various unions that go into those unions' health and/or pension plans. These amounts are not crippling. NBC will still make an awful lot of money with that Office rerun.
But they don't even want to pay that share if they can get away with it. They'll be able to collect even more money (they think) by making that episode available for Internet download, either for a fee or for a free, advertising-supported viewing. You can download it that way and watch it on the same TV...and they're hoping to establish from the get-go that residuals in that situation will be either non-existent or, if they have to share, mere token payments to a few guilds.
This strike is about a lot of things but mainly it's about that.
Those of us who have TiVo boxes have seen, many a time, the colorful little bit of animation when the TiVo first starts up or reboots. The TiVo mascot — who looks a lot like us after we've been watching TV all night — dances and prances about a little world of circuitry and design. On the new TiVo boxes for HD, there's a new bit of animation and it looks like this...
Somewhere, about a third of the way down on this page, you will find a very wise and perceptive review of my impending (like, already at the printers) book on Jack Kirby. And should you be moved to order this book, you can do so on this page.
Here are some observations and thoughts from my trip to Las Vegas...
As always, one of the best shows in town is just talking with your cabbie. They're all great. As noted in this article, I used to ask every taxi driver I had to tell me his Redd Foxx story. Back in the eighties, every cab driver had a Redd Foxx story, some of them even tellable in mixed company. Alas, back in the nineties I had to give up that line of inquiry. Too many "Who's Redd Foxx?"es in reply. My favored question now is what convention that comes to town brings the best tippers and which one brings the worst? Consensus reply: The World of Concrete — a construction supplies convention that I believe is in Vegas this week — is hands down the best. No one could explain why but apparently selling cement makes a man party hearty and tip big. The worst? Jewelers.
I rode the Vegas Monorail because...well, maybe because it may not be there much longer. The 3.9 mile line was opened in 2004 by taking a free train that used to run just between Bally's and the MGM Grand and expanding it. It's no longer free and it now reaches all the way to the Sahara, raising a question similar to the old "What if they gave a war and nobody came?" This one is "What if they built a monorail and nobody rode it?" The route is of so little benefit to most folks that the project has been losing a small fortune every week since it opened. Expansion plans, some of which have sounded like they might make the system more useful, get announced but do not happen. It seemed like a pleasant ride to me but it didn't take me anywhere I really wanted to go. I rode it just to ride it. I monorailed from Bally's to the Sahara, then caught a cab at the Sahara to take me to my hotel. My hotel, like most, is nowhere near anywhere the monorail goes.
This was my first Vegas trip since Gastric Bypass Surgery and eating was a little odd. Everything available to me was either way too much food or not enough. Friday night, I went to a place that serves a prime rib dinner with soup, rolls, baked potato, corn and a nice-sized piece of meat for $6.99. By the time I'd finished the soup, I barely had room for the meat so I left about two-thirds of it and most of the tater. With no refrigerator in my hotel room, there didn't seem to be anything else I could do. Saturday, I went to a $7.77 buffet and barely consumed $2.22 worth. The lady who clears the dishes looked at mine, then said in partial English and with an uncanny guess at my heritage, "Jew no like our food?"
So what's the deal with all the Michael Jackson records? As you roam Vegas, you always hear popular records of the seventies and eighties. It's the old Wayne Newton theory: "People are most comfortable when they're hearing a song they know well." (Wayne sings almost nothing in his show that most of the audience won't recognize.) Okay, so that's the premise but I still want to know: What's the deal with all the Michael Jackson records? Whoever's programming the Muzak must really love The King of Pop. Does hearing "Billie Jean," as I must have at least five times in four days, make people more prone to gamble? Or is this just to scare underage kids out of the casino?
Before Spamalot, I wandered around the Wynn, which wasn't yet open for business the last time I was in Las Vegas. Lovely hotel. Confusing layout. Expensive, pretentious stores. I was in the gift shop buying a souvenir for my mother when a couple came in looking for a candy bar. The man just wanted a Hershey's Anything or a bag of M's or a Snickers...but everything on the candy rack had a French name and a six dollar price tag. I heard his wife say to him, "Just ask them if they have Milky Ways somewhere." And then I heard the man reply, "No, I'd be embarrassed" and he dragged her on outta there.
Shortly after, still roaming the Wynn, I paused to watch a bit of Blackjack, picking a table at random. A lady playing by herself had about two thousand dollars in chips out and the dealer dealt her a soft 15. The dealer had a three showing. The lady scratched her head and squirmed and pondered and finally she turned to me and asked, "How should I play this?" Hey, lady: If you're playing two thousand a hand, you should know how to play it. The answer was to hit but I decided not to get involved. So she decided to stand on it and she won. If she'd hit, she would have lost. Didn't even thank for me for not telling her the right thing to do.
As I think I've mentioned here, ticket prices for Vegas shows have soared. It's not inflation, or at least not primarily inflation. It's that an awful lot of shows have learned that you can raise your prices these days without losing enough customers that your grosses drop. So they raise their prices. But at the same time, a "low end" play has emerged. There are a few booths around the city that sell tickets, like the TKTS operation on Broadway, for half price. A few are reduced by lesser amounts but about two thirds of the shows in Vegas are available at significant discounts if you're prepared to go to one of these booths. You have to go after 11 AM for shows that night and you may not get your first choice...but for example, this morning they had Penn & Teller, David Copperfield, a couple of the Cirque du Soleil shows and The Producers for 25%-50% off. Worth checking out if you're in town. Here's a link.
Lastly, this morning I browsed a few of the downtown souvenir shops and was greatly disappointed that the quality of Vegas souvenir items has risen slightly. If it had risen a lot, that would be great because some of those products would now be good enough to purchase and display proudly. It used to be that they were all so schlocky that you could buy a plastic Elvis Dog Toy or a cheesy Vegas Showgirl t-shirt with fake breasts and give it as a gag or display it for friends to mock. Now, the level falls uncomfortably between those extremes: Nothing was good enough to buy, nothing was bad enough to laugh at. I'll bet sales are down because of it. They really need to work at improving their product...or just undoing the recent improvements.
Another Broadway commercial! This is for Victor/Victoria, which came to New York in '95 and starred Julie Andrews, Michael Nouri and Tony Roberts. And doesn't that sound a little like Tony Roberts doing the voiceover? A rather nice vehicle for Ms. Andrews...and also for Rachel York, who stole the show in the role of the gangster's lady friend.
This is me in a cab on my way home from the airport. The flight landed right on time and amazingly, my suitcase was on it. Southwest, you have partially redeemed yourself. I may use that travel voucher yet.
Let the record show that at 12:34 PM, I took what may have been a last look at my suitcase, wished it Godspeed and handed it over to a skycap for Southwest Airlines. With the slight voice tremor of a parent surrendering a child for adoption, I told him to "Take good care of it, please" and handed him a tip. Then without looking back, I headed bravely for the C-Gates.
And note that I made sure to tip the guy. If my suitcase doesn't make it to Los Angeles, I'm going to find that skycap and get my dime back.
My flight takes off at (allegedly) 2:20 and gets in at 3:25. You might want to check back later and see what time, if any, my bag arrives. I'm sure you have nothing better to do today.
I'm still in Vegas but unlike what happens in Vegas, I'm not going to stay in Vegas. Later today, I'm going to give Southwest Airlines yet another chance to lose my luggage.
Last night, I was wandering through a downtown casino, ably resisting the urge to resume a Blackjack habit I gave up years ago. (Quit while I was ahead and am determined to stay that way the rest of my life.) This was about 2 AM and I strolled near the Sports Book, where ordinarily one sees banks of TV monitors showing football games, horse races, jai alai tournaments from South America, stuff like that. The desk was closed but for some reason, every screen in the place was on and tuned to a replay of the Republican Debate.
About eight people were sitting there, not wagering. Two were asleep. One was eating a McDonald's McSomething. One was yelling at someone on a cell phone. (It's against the law to use a cell phone in a Sports Book area but maybe that's only when it's open for betting.) One was reading and the other three were watching the debate with minimal interest. A cocktail waitress who could have stunt-doubled Rhea Pearlman asked me if I wanted something. Fred Thompson was on the screen so I said, "Is there still time to get a bet down on him?"
She said, "To be President? Don't waste your money, hon. If it were me, I'd bet against all those guys. And all those damn Democrats, too."
Smartest thing I've heard about this election so far.
According to our indisputably accurate poll, 3.6% of you (currently) thought Skidoo was a fine motion picture and 20.9% found it so bizarre as to be enjoyable. If you haven't voted yet, there's still time.
In the meantime, here's about as strong a defense of it as you're likely to find.
Last Thanksgiving, I had a very good time watching the National Touring Company of Spamalot at a theater in Columbus, Ohio. In fact, looking back at what I posted that evening, I don't think I was quite lavish enough with the praise, both for that troupe and for the show itself, cleverly (at times, brilliantly) adapted by Eric Idle and John DuPrez from You-Know-What. The show was funny from start to end and there was that wonderful energy you sometimes get in the theater when the whole audience is loving what's on the stage and laughing not only non-stop but in unison.
Last evening, I went to see the Las Vegas production of Spamalot, which is at the new Wynn hotel in its Grail Theater, built (well, extensively refurbished) especially for this show. If I'd seen this production and not the other, I'd be sitting here now writing a blog post about the colossal disappointment that is Spamalot; of how Idle and DuPrez only managed to turn one of the funniest movies ever done into a mildly, intermittently entertaining musical. Obviously, that's not the case. It was hilarious in Columbus, Ohio and I'll bet it's wonderful in New York. So why was it so diminished here?
It wasn't because the show's been trimmed a bit. One song — "All for One" — is out, as is most of "Run Away" and a few choruses of others. The whole back-and-forth with the guards guarding Herbert is cut and the Knights Who Say "Ni" had their part reduced, which must have pissed them off. A few scenes have been reordered, and some lines and lyrics have been changed, including all the references to Act One and Act Two, since they also removed the Intermission. But I didn't particularly mind any of the omissions and one — a big trim in "All Alone" — actually made the song funnier.
Some of what went wrong was that theater. It's cold and dank and those of us with mezzanine seats were viewing the action as if from one of those helicopter rides over the Strip. But a greater problem was the production, itself. I'd say about half the cast was fine...as good as the folks I saw in Ohio, one or two maybe even better. But the other half sure wasn't. The show is larger than life so the actors have to be, and some of them just lacked the personality and flair, which slowed the whole momentum and, I suspect, handicapped the strong performers. In one scene, I thought to myself, "This is what Spamalot will be like when they release the rights to perform it at the Community College level." (Seinfeld star John O'Hurley opened the production here and that's him in the photo above playing King Arthur. He's not in the show these days, though I heard a Wynn employee tell someone that they'd heard he's coming back.)
The other problem, I'm almost embarrassed to suggest, was the audience. They didn't seem very into it even though they seemed to be familiar with Python and the movie. In Columbus, there was a huge roar of recognition when The Knights Who Say "Ni" or the French Taunter or the Black Knight appeared. Here...nothing. Or at best, a slight giggle as if to say, "Oh, this part." There was applause and a bit of cheering at the end but nothing like I witnessed in Ohio.
I've written here in the past about attempts that have been made to mount full Broadway imports (or even original musicals) in Las Vegas. They haven't had too good a track record and I've suggested, first of all, that some of the wrong shows have been brought in — like Avenue Q, which flopped in (I think) the same showroom that Spamalot now occupies. I still think Avenue Q didn't belong in Vegas and certainly not in an auditorium that size. I've also suggested that the trimming which is usually done has hurt some of these shows.
Last time I discussed this, someone — I'm outta town and laptopping it so I don't have the message here — wrote to suggest that I was overlooking the biggest problem. Vegas, he said, is just not a theater town. There are too many other things to do, and good theatergoing requires the committment of an evening in both time and attention. You can't just squeeze a play in among the eighteen other activities you want to accomplish before it's time to leave. I didn't think there was anything to that when I read his message...but now I'm not sure.
I still recommend you see Spamalot. Just don't see it in Vegas.
Still, the trip wasn't a total loss. I had ten minutes to kill before it was time to truck into the theater so I sat down at a Video Poker machine — first time I've played one for money in...must be fifteen, eighteen years. I resolved not to lose more than ten bucks and third hand in, I hit a straight flush...and went into Spamalot somewhat happier than I was on the way out.
Today, we're embedding a video with two commercials for stage productions of Fiddler on the Roof — one with Zero Mostel, one with Topol. I think the Mostel one is from a revival production he did at the Shubert in Los Angeles in the early seventies. The Topol one, I'm guessing, is the New York revival he did around the end of 1990. L'chaim!
The late Del Close was one of the giants of improvisational comedy and a kind of theater (and thinking) that are all too rare in the world today. Recently, he was one of four inductees into the Hall of Fame for alumni of Manhattan High School. This article makes a few factual errors but is worth a peek. There's a reference in there, by the way, to another inductee named Inger Stensland. Ms. Stensland later became quite well known under her professional name of Inger Stevens.
And what you really might enjoy watching — and I'm afraid the audio isn't very good at it, nor is the picture — is the video on this page of Bill Murray, speaking at the induction ceremony...which, to give it the seriousness it so richly deserves, took place at half-time of a basketball game. Thanks to Kim "Howard" Johnson for the links.
The big news on the strike front this weekend seems to be that the WGA will be signing one of those interim agreements with United Artists, an independent movie producer which has been re-formed with the clout of Tom Cruise as its primary asset. That will put a few writers back to work but the larger significance is that it's another gain in the p.r. battle. It shows the Guild is ready to make a deal and that an important producer has no trouble accepting the terms that the AMPTP finds so unthinkable. That was the big plus of the Letterman deal.
Many phone calls are probably occurring even as you read this, with AMPTP bigwigs applying pressure on other independents not to follow suit. They will undoubtedly succeed in many cases, and it's stunning that they didn't stop Cruise's company. As Larry Gelbart once said, "An independent producer is someone who's dependent on everyone." You can fund your own movies in this town, especially if you're Tom Cruise and investors will line up to thrust cash upon you. Getting those films distributed properly is another matter, and that's when you often must rely on the kindness not of strangers but of majors. If I had a well-financed independent film company, I'd probably be getting a call or two from the top guys at the Big Studios saying, "You're not going to sign that WGA contract, right?" And I'd probably be replying with some less obvious version of "Well, what are you going to do for me if I don't?" Or maybe, nervously, "What are you going to do to me if I do?"
But others will follow...how many, we don't know. Pressure is building against the AMPTP in other ways, as well. The Golden Globe Awards have never been so important in this industry as they are when it looks like they're not going to happen. To the studios, the show represents a means of promoting product and they don't like the idea of that being denied to them. More significantly, they don't like the idea of the unions banding together and being effectual, and the Golden Globes are being scuttled by a joint action of the WGA and the Screen Actors Guild.
One of the many reasons I don't think the Writers Strike will last six more months is that allowing that would effectively merge our strike with SAG's contract negotiation, not only now but in future years if both contracts wind up being renewed at the same time. Here's the worst possible nightmare for whoever will be in Nick Counter's place three years from now: It's July of 2011 and the contracts for the Writers Guild, the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild are all expiring simultaneously. If ever all of labor in Hollywood could link arms and shut the business down until there are major increases, that would be the time. Even now, with SAG's deal expiring seven months after ours, the proximity is a problem for the studios, especially since the actors' demands so closely mirror the ones we have and which the AMPTP is refusing to discuss. From the producer point-of-view, driving WGA and SAG even closer together is whatever the opposite is of a "divide and conquer" strategy. ("Unite and surrender?")
The fiasco of the Golden Globe Awards — nominees and presenters refusing to appear — is reminding the producers that they may own the building but if they don't have us, all they have is a worthless building. The AMPTP has done a lot of things that in hindsight do not seem to have been in their own best interests...but here they're looking at the pilot for a combined WGA-SAG strike. You've gotta think they won't let this one go to series.
In late night news: Leno and the WGA are sparring over what Jay can and cannot do on the air. I caught a little of his monologue on Friday night and it sure sounded written...and not entirely by him. I like Jay as a performer and I've long had a high opinion of him as a decent, ethical guy. But the rules say he can't employ writers and they may say — I'm still a bit fuzzy on this — that he can't even write for himself. I'll be most disappointed if when all is said and done, the conclusion is that Leno broke the rules.
One kinda-clever thing he has done: This week, he and Jimmy Kimmel will exchange guest appearances...two guys in the same, writerless, semi-guestless boat bailing out one another. That's a smart/generous move on Jay's part since it'll do more for Kimmel than vice-versa. It's also kinda surprising since Mr. Kimmel has made no secret of his intense dislike of Mr. Leno. War creates the oddest of alliances.
Lastly: I'm going to be back on the picket line next week at some point. I think we are picketing CBS Television City after all, but we're ending each day's hiking at 1 PM. I'm guessing that's our way of picketing the soap operas and other shows that tape in the morning but not picketing Craig Ferguson, who tapes much later in the day.
This is a short TV commercial for the 1994 Broadway revival/revisal of Damn Yankees, which I saw and liked a lot, and which I guess didn't do as much business as its backers had hoped, even after they brought in Jerry Lewis to play Applegate. (This commercial is from before then. That's Victor Garber you'll see playing that role in the ad.)
I saw the pre-Lewis version twice and then was there for Jerry's opening night...plus, I have since seen two non-Broadway productions that incorporated many of the changes made for the '94 mounting. Part of me wishes they'd leave old shows in their original state and part of me has to admit that, in this case and a few others, they probably improved things at least for a modern audience. I did not catch the recent L.A. version directed by Jason Alexander which took things further, using a mostly-black cast and turning the Washington Senators into the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Which reminds me. Not all that long ago, there was an announcement that a new filmed version of Damn Yankees was soon to go before the cameras with Billy Crystal portraying The Devil. You may recall me suggesting that Christopher Walken would have been a more interesting choice. Well, whatever happened to that? Anyone?
As we all know, The Price is Right has been running on CBS since about ten minutes after Philo Farnsworth invented television. I think they're now keeping it on the air because of some obscure clause in the AFTRA contract that says that at all times, Drew Carey must have two series.
What you may not know is that there's a version that is not televised. Fremantle, the company that owns the venerable prize dispenser, has a "live" Price is Right show that plays around the country, sometimes in more than one city at a time. One current outpost, and it's been there for a while, is at Bally's Hotel in Las Vegas. Audience members can buy tickets (about fifty bucks a head) to watch one of their favorite programs, approximately recreated on stage, and they can win prizes.
At the moment, it's hosted by Todd Newton, who seems to be the emcee of about half the new game shows done these days. The announcer is Randy West, who has announced and/or handled warm-ups on dozens of shows, including Deal or No Deal and the televised Price is Right.
I've followed Randy's career for years. He's a terrific announcer in the tradition of the late Johnny Olson and Rod Roddy...a tradition that sadly is excluded from most game shows these days. Randy and I have some mutual friends and have exchanged the occasional e-mail...so last night, I went over to Bally's, met him in person finally, and was his guest for the show there. It's not something I would have otherwise attended — I can walk from my home to where the real Price is Right is taped and get in free — but I was curious as to how they refashioned the program for the venue, and I wanted to see Randy work.
Boy, he's good. I know about voiceover and warm-up work (here's an article I wrote several years ago about audience warm-ups) and it ain't as easy as it seems, especially when a real pro does it. Randy is a real pro. Todd Newton is very good, too. He keeps it moving but puts contestants at ease and — most important — makes sure they know how to play the games they're up there to play.
Even though Randy arranged for my ticket and I was ineligible for prizes, I still had to stand in line and get the little pricetag nametag to wear on my chest. The line was fascinating. I got to talking with a couple from Wisconsin who never missed The Price is Right on the telly and were tingling at the very thought of seeing it in person. The possibility of being called to "Come on down" and play was too chilling to even contemplate. Also chatted with a family from Michigan and a few others who all admitted that it was a long-nurtured dream to see the TV show in person...and I got to wondering why that seemed so unreachable to them. Granted, all I'd have to do to get to a taping is walk about nine blocks and wait in line a few hours...and of course, since it's right there, I never have. But it was humanly possible for these people to get to Las Vegas and buy tickets. Why did it seem so inconceivable to them that they could go the extra miles to Los Angeles and get tickets to the real thing?
The excitement along the line was quite real and maybe even a bit contagious — this, even though they all knew they weren't about to see The Price is Right the way they really wanted to see it, which was with Bob Barker. It has been said that everyone loves Bob Barker except every single person who ever worked with him. A book is rumored for later this year that will itemize some of the reasons for the latter sentiment. I doubt it will make any difference to these folks. They all love Bob, they cheered him in clips that were shown throughout the proceedings and applauded when Todd or Randy invoked his name, always with great reverence. My sense is that they aren't particularly fond of the new host, Drew Carey, but only because he has committed the unpardonable sin of not being Bob Barker. That seemed to be the one complaint about Todd Newton, as well. Not much he can do about that at this stage of his life.
That aside, they loved Todd and Randy and also two stunning young ladies who ably filled the shoes and bikinis of Janice, Holly, Dian and other Barker's Beauties. They even accepted the reality of smaller prizes and necessary modifications in their favorite game show. To maximize the number of folks who get to play, each round starts with four players, chosen by a random draw, being called down to Contestants Row to bid on an item. One wins and comes up on stage to play a bigger pricing game. The others get Price is Right t-shirts and get to slink back to their seats, rather than stick around and bid in the next round. Other prizes are given out for no apparent reason...and it seemed like about a seventh of the showroom left with something, even if it was only points for Bally's slot card club.
All the games are exact facsimiles of popular ones from the TV show. The first lady up on stage played The Race Game and won it, first time out. Someone else played Hole-In-One and hit the ball right into the cup. An older man who'd barely seen the TV show did a spectacular wipeout on the Mountain Climber game. Apparently in Iowa, toasters cost $120.
The two most exciting rounds — exciting in that the audience was thrilled just to see these games live and in person — were The Big Wheel and Plinko. The ovation when the Plinko Board was revealed was about the same as when Jerry Lewis was doing his telethon in 1976 and Dean Martin walked out on stage. Maybe a little bigger.
On TV, contestants spin the wheel to determine which of them gets to be in the Showcase Game at the end. Here, it's a standalone game played for money. The audience was ecstatic as one of their own not only earned himself $250 by winning the Big Wheel game but got a bonus hundred for making the wheel stop on One Dollar. Then he got a bonus spin which offered a thousand dollars more if the wheel landed on the One Dollar, $500 if it landed on either of the two adjoining spaces. He won the $500. The gent who got to play Plinko took home $900. They were the two big winners of the night.
The way the Showcase Game works here is that, first of all, there's only one showcase. It consisted of five items, two of which were a trip to Mexico and a new car. Two ladies chosen at random from the audience got to compete and each wrote down their estimate of the total price of the showcase. The one who bid closer to the actual retail price without going over would win just the trip to Mexico...but if she was within $100, she'd win the whole showcase, car included. Randy told me that had happened a day or two earlier but at the performance I attended, both contestants way overbid and limped back to their seats with Price is Right t-shirts.
Despite the disappointing ending, the audience seemed to have a very good time...even those who won zip. Right after, just outside the showroom, Todd, Randy and the two prize models posed for photos with audience members who wanted a momento. One lady who'd won nothing inside was telling Todd that she watches him every day on Whammy!, and that the snapshot with him was better than if she'd won the car. Todd didn't seem to believe her but he told her thanks.
Like I said, this is not something I would have gone to see on my own, especially if it meant purchasing a ticket. (I'm not going to see the afternoon Game Show Spectacular over at the Vegas Hilton, which brings audience members up to play various rounds from defunct TV shows. Bob Eubanks, Chuck Woolery and Jamie Farr rotate as its host.) Still, I was impressed with how well the Price is Right folks replicated and modified that program, and I enjoyed seeing people enjoy it so. If I were running Las Vegas, I think I'd get rid of all those roulette wheels and craps tables, and just put in a lot of Plinko games. That's what the public seems to want.
Let's try another one of these, this time about the movie, Skidoo. I'm going to leave this poll up for a week on the assumption that some of you may be taping/TiVoing the film and won't get around to watching it for a bit.
Pick the statement below that most closely summarizes your feelings about Otto Preminger's oddest creation. Yes, I know your precise sentiments may not be among the options I've provided but select the one that comes closest. As Donald Rumsfeld might say, you vote with the choices you have, not the choices you wish you had.
Here's someone named Todd Vegas covering the implosion of the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas last March. I'm not sure why I find the demolition of these places so interesting. (As recounted here, I was present for the bringdown of the old Hacienda Hotel.) Some of it may be because of the curious mindset that insists on preceding these events with rather spectacular and expensive fireworks displays. It's a great show...but why? Who stands to profit from attracting a crowd at 2 AM to watch a building blow up?
I'm not asking this to be sarcastic. I'm genuinely curious. It was decided to drop the Stardust. Okay, no quarrel. It was a dump and a half. But why did someone spend many, many thousands of dollars on fireworks? How did the developers of what's going on that piece of land a few years from now benefit from that expenditure?
Not only that but let's say they had a great reason to get a huge crowd out there to witness the big kaboom and to get maximum attention. In which case, I'm still wondering: Why the fireworks? Did someone say to someone else, "You know, just blowing up a hotel isn't enough. It needs something else to make it special!"?
Just one more thing in this world I don't understand. Here's the clip...
I am told that the rumor about the Top Screenwriters who were pledging to force the WGA to accept whatever the hell the DGA gets...that report has been exposed as a hoax. Like I said: Do not believe any story of that sort that doesn't have names attached and some confirmation from those names. And even then, it could be bogus or a bluff.
And to clarify: I think Jay Leno ought to do whatever is humanly possible to comply with WGA strike rules. I'm not 100% certain what that is, what he can do to fulfill his contractual responsibility as a performer on The Tonight Show and not be in violation of his union's rules. But whatever it is, that's what he ought to do. It's a little difficult for any of us to say what that is from afar and, as I was trying to explain, the line of demarcation between Jay writing and Jay ad-libbing can get a bit smokey. It's one of those "glad I don't have to figure that one out" problems.
Lots of e-mails asking me about this situation where the WGA is saying that Jay Leno is not allowed under its rules to do his monologue and he's saying he got permission and they're saying he didn't and NBC is saying he doesn't need permission, yadda yadda yadda. Nikki Finke, your one-stop shopping link for Strike News, has all the back-and-forth. I don't know much about it that isn't there.
I do know that there can be a murky area in which it's hard to distinguish which words a performer speaks on air are "written." A lot of what is uttered on talk shows is arguable and some of the best hosts are quite facile at taking what someone writes and then paraphrasing or turning it into an approximate ad-lib. If a performer knows what he's going to say before he goes out on stage, is he writing for himself? If he actually writes it down, has someone put key words (or even the whole thing) on cue-cards and then he goes out and says roughly what he'd say if it wasn't on the cards...is that writing? Leno can write all he wants for his stand-up act. If he uses some of those jokes on The Tonight Show, is he writing?
Sort of, sometimes...but you can see where this can get messy. If I ever felt sorry for people in his income bracket, I'd feel sorry for the guy now. He's always been an honorable man and that seems to be the consensus of those who've had a lot more contact with him than I have. Because he's a writer-performer and only one of those professions is on strike, he's caught in an awkward position. He ought to do what the WGA says is Kosher but that may be at odds with what he feels he must do to keep his ratings up.
They weren't so wonderful last night. He beat Letterman but not by a wide margin...this, despite the fact that NBC had a powerhouse prime-time line-up with all new shows, whereas CBS had all reruns. Someone's got to be a little worried and it ain't Dave.
Ms. Finke has also posted the rumor that a bunch of "A-List" Screenwriters and possibly top TV Showrunners as well are going to press the WGA to accept whatever deal the DGA makes. I find it hard to believe that someone could become a wealthy writer in this town if they were willing to accept someone else's deal before it was even negotiated. You don't do that if you're writing a movie and the other guy is writing a similar movie. You especially don't do that when the other guy's deal may involve cash points (i.e., ways of figuring how much he gets paid) that don't apply to you.
The DGA has sometimes been very clever about agreeing to some deal that puts money in the pocket of the guy who directs a film or TV show but doesn't yield revenue to anyone else who takes those terms. It would be like if we were both negotiating to write comic books and you said, "I'll take whatever deal Evanier makes." And then I made a deal where the writer works for free but gets a huge cash bonus if he's had Gastric Bypass Surgery in the last two years, is Jewish but has a last name people think is French, and once got punched in the arm by Jack LaLanne. (I was going to add in "...keeps having his luggage lost by Southwest Airlines but that could apply to just about anybody.)
In any case, here's a general rule of thumb: Don't put much stock in any rumor that involved unnamed people. It may turn out to be true but most of them don't.
From the 1992 Broadway revival of Guys and Dolls, here's Faith Prince as Miss Adelaide with the Hot Box Dancers. They're doing "A Bushel and a Peck," which was one of the best songs in the show and which was replaced with an inferior tune in the movie version.
It's on tonight...and I really hope I haven't oversold this thing and that none of you feel any obligation to sit through it. Skidoo is the movie of which Jackie Gleason, its star, once said: "The picture turned out to be the greatest meatball that was ever made!" He did not mean that as a compliment even though he probably loved meatballs.
John M. Miller reminds me that they have a lot of info and downloads of Skidoo over at the Turner Classic Movies website. Here's the link...but if you haven't seen the film, I'd suggest going there after your first viewing. You'll enjoy it ever so much more if you don't know what's coming...and yes, I'm using the word "enjoy" in the broadest sense.
Years ago, I was going to write a book called something like Fascinating Movies, and my definition was not that they were necessarily good or bad. It would have contained some of each...a concept which seemed to baffle a company that thought they wanted to publish it but couldn't grasp that I wouldn't just be writing about movies that were fun to watch because they were such utter disasters. I think some films just transcend being thought of as good or bad. The sheer fact that they were made and that they exist is far more significant than whether you can have a good time watching them or why you might enjoy the ones in the Hindenburg category. In some upcoming post, I'll try to list some of the ones I'd cover if I were writing that book today. In the meantime, here's our last posting of the banner for perhaps the most transcendent of them all...
Someone from Southwest Airlines woke me up at 8 AM this morning to tell me they were still looking for my suitcase. She hung up before I could tell her that I'd found my suitcase last night. In fact, I have a copy here of their final report that says I'd found my suitcase. They will probably lose others while they're busy searching for mine.
In a Vegas hotel room and yes, I have my suitcase. It came in on the next plane with no explanation. So did about a half-dozen pieces of luggage for others who were on my flight. A nice gentleman at the Southwest Your-Baggage-Is-Lost-And-We-Don't-Know-Where-The-Hell-It-Is Department apologized profusely and gave each of us a voucher for $50 off on future air travel. Unfortunately, you have to use it on Southwest.
This was a sudden trip...my first to the town in something like six years. I used to come here twice a month on average but things change. The town has changed, too...old hotels gone, new ones in their places. I've changed, too. Since my gastric bypass surgery, going to the buffets will not be cost-effective. The only things that haven't changed are that people drink, people smoke, people gamble and Southwest loses your luggage.
There will be more Vegas Blogging to come. And other things.
I used to write for a comedian who told me one of the "perks" of appearing on talk shows. It was that every time he had some medium-to-small annoyance in his life, he could look on the bright side of it by thinking, "Good panel." That meant it could be material for his next appearance with Johnny, Merv, Mike or whoever. Little by little, I have come to feel that way about blogging.
I, unlike my suitcase, am in Las Vegas — at the airport, in fact. Where my suitcase is, God may know but Southwest Airlines hasn't the foggiest. I got there on time, checked in an hour before takeoff, even watched the security folks scan my bag and put it on the little conveyor belt...
...and that was the last anyone's seen of it. It might be on the next flight in from LAX, which is what I'm waiting here to see. Or it might still be on the plane I just got off, which has already continued on to Texas. Other, more horrible possibilities have also occurred to me.
Years ago, when I was coming to this town quite often, I gave up flying Southwest because this kept happening. I thought something might have changed but I guess not.
I have about twenty minutes before the next flight arrives. So what can I do in the meantime? I can blog about it.
I posted these about half an hour ago but the "technical difficulties" of which I write made them somehow go away.
Last night's ratings: Leno had a 5.3/12, Letterman had a 4.3/10 and Nightline had a 3.0/6. More viewers tuned in than usual but that's about the spread that those shows had before the strike. I suspect a lot of people are surprised that Jay did as well as he did and that Dave ain't all that happy this morning. He might become happy in the weeks to come if he can book better guests than Jay and/or if Leno's monologue segment collapses on him. Jay is under a lot of pressure to generate that thing every night and it won't be easier with all the talk that's building about how even writing for himself is a violation of WGA strike rules. I'm not certain if it is, or if it's an issue the Guild wants to press at the moment.
Tonight, I'm betting the numbers look a lot like they did, pre-strike. There's a lot less curiosity tune-in, people wondering "What will he do?" But this could change over the weeks. I still think the strike will be over sooner than the dire forecasts are predicting but we certainly have a number of weeks ahead of us and NBC ain't gonna break and make an interim contract any time soon.
In other news: Conan had a 2.5/8, Ferguson had a 1.9/6 and Kimmel had a 1.4/4. Those are more or less pre-strike numbers, though Kimmel's is a bit lower than the norm.
But none of these are the numbers you care about. You want to know the final tally in our Utterly Unscientific Poll in which thousands of you voted. Here are those numbers and I'll leave you to decide for yourself what they indicate. Me, I'm leaning towards, "Not much...but isn't it fun to vote like this?"
We're having a little trouble here at the old weblog with some postings appearing twice or even three times. I am not repeating myself. I am not repeating myself. It will be fixed. It will be fixed.
As a loyal WGA member, I wish I could report that Jay Leno's first broadcast without his writers was a total disaster. I thought his segment with Mike Huckabee was pretty lame but then politicians on talk shows usually bother me. The venue is not conducive to asking them hard questions and it's annoying to see these guys (all these guys) given the chance to present themselves as good-natured, witty chaps and not have to answer for the slimier things they've said or done.
But I thought what came before that — Jay's monologue and an unscripted Q-and-A with the audience — was entertaining enough. Leno has always been a much better ad-libber than his critics think he is and he has a great rapport with the people out front. His monologue was pretty standard Leno so I can believe he wrote it himself. I'm not as sure though that it wasn't a violation of WGA rules.
I was a lot less impressed with Conan O'Brien's show...and I say that as someone who usually likes Conan. The absence of real comedy material was felt on Leno's show but it was really felt on O'Brien's. Maybe he'll fall into a rhythm but it just seemed like he wasn't sure what he was there to do...play off the absence of written material or move past it. He and Bob Saget didn't seem to have much to say to one another after they got past the strike talk.
Letterman was Letterman. I like the guy but I don't always like his show, especially when it feels like I've seen it before. I was surprised at how totally he fell back into the old ennui and even Robin Williams couldn't do much the change the energy level. (The problem with Williams as a guest on any talk show is that he does what he does and the host could go out for a sandwich while he does it.) I really wish Dave could get back to that time when you tuned him in wondering, "What's he going to do tonight?" Maybe I set myself up for disappointment by thinking he'd seize on this opportunity to do something he hadn't done a hundred times before.
Craig Ferguson is being TiVoed at this very moment but I probably won't watch him until tomorrow.
All in all, nothing really changed much so I'm inclined to think the ratings won't, at least after a day or two. If Letterman can get substantially better guests now that Jay's being picketed and he isn't, that might give The Late Show an advantage. But pretty much everything I think has made a majority of viewers pick Jay over Dave is still intact. I'll be surprised if the numbers show much switchover.
This is a 10-and-a-half minute segment from the 60 Minutes show from September of '87...a piece on Mad Magazine. The main point of interest is the chance for those who never met him to get a look at William M. Gaines, the colorful publisher of that publication.
Gaines died in 1992 and this was one of the last interviews he did. The three men you'll see with him in his office are Nick Meglin and John Ficarra, who were then the magazine's editors (Ficarra still holds that job) and its editorial consultant, Dick DeBartolo. You also get to see a bit of the old Mad offices over at 485 MADison Avenue. There's no mention of the magazine's first editor and founder, Harvey Kurtzman, or of Al Feldstein who took over from Kurtzman and ran the mag for 29 years during which it became the best-selling humor publication in the history of mankind.
The piece dwells a lot on the fact that Mad did not merchandize much or sell advertising at all — two policies that have changed since Gaines passed away. In the interest of accuracy, it should be noted that while Bill's stated reasons for declining those dollars were true, there was also probably another, unstated reason. Gaines was a compulsive who had a dread fear of his magazine getting any larger. He liked keeping it small and simple so he could manage it by himself. He didn't like dealing with new people and ran in fear from any suggestion — and there were many — that might have meant increasing the size of the operation, its staff, its financial complexity, etc. When the subject of selling ads in Mad came up, Gaines had what you might call his "principled" reasons for refusing, and perhaps they were reason enough. But he also was horrified at the idea of just dealing with advertisers and of upgrading Mad's printing and adding more color, which is what those advertisers would have wanted.
And there was another thing: Mad had been pretty successful in the late sixties and early seventies. He'd gotten very wealthy off a magazine without ads so he didn't want to tamper with the package. By '87, sales were in serious decline but it was still profitable enough, and Mad remained a sacred untouchable within the Time-Warner company that owned it. Sales were nosediving at the time of his death and that trend continued. Some members of the Mad crew believe that if Bill had lived, he would have gone to the better-printed format — including paid ads — that is the current Mad package. (I'm of two minds on this. I sure wish Mad had had that kind of printing in the days when Wally Wood and Jack Davis were drawing for them and Mort Drucker was in every issue instead of every fourth or fifth issue. If it had meant paging through some ads to get to that, I'm not sure I wouldn't have made the trade-off.)
Gaines was an interesting man. He ran Mad in a way that was consistent with his personal quirks even when it cost him a lot of money. It was a generally-benevolent dictatorship and some of his people tolerated certain business practices that they would not have accepted elsewhere...because they loved Bill. Here are a few minutes with the man and his magazine...
Ralph Nader says that John Edwards stands out from all the other Democratic contenders. Is this the same Ralph Nader who in 2000 said he couldn't see a bit of difference between Al Gore and George W. Bush?
Skidoo, a movie of mind-boggling inanity, is on Turner Classic Movies this weekend. Let's clarify when.
When I made the below banner, I gave the date as January 4, which is Friday. The truth is that its official airtime is 11 PM on Friday night on the West Coast, 2 AM on Saturday morning on the East Coast. So it's technically January 5 in some time zones.
So...is Mike Huckabee trying to appear uncommonly clueless? This is in this morning's New York Times (not the Wall Street Journal)...
Former Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas today professed his support for the striking television writers union just a few hours before he was expected to board a plane to for a taping of the Jay Leno show where he will face a vocal picket line of striking writers.
Mr. Leno's program is returning to the air for the first time since a long hiatus for the strike. Speaking to reporters, Mr. Huckabee said he was unaware that he would be crossing picket lines and believed that he the program had reached a special agreement with the union.
Although crossing picket lines might not be unusual for most Republican candidates, Mr. Huckabee has waged an unusual populist campaign on economic issues, stressing his empathy with the anxieties of working people. On Wednesday, he said he identified with the striking television workers as an author himself and believed they deserved a share of the proceeds from the sale of their work.
...and then it goes on from there (link) to list some of his other recent inconsistencies.
So what's the deal here? I could maybe, possibly buy that Huckabee didn't know the show hadn't reached (or even tried for) a special arrangement with the Writers Guild. I mean, that suggests a pretty shoddy grasp of current events but it's possible. But do we think no one on the guy's staff knew? Go Google "Leno AND strike" and see how many hits you get that impart that little nugget of information. I mean, it isn't a secret. Don't you think that when Huckabee made the decision to leave Iowa, where the all-important caucuses are tomorrow, and fly to Burbank to do a TV show, someone said, "Uh, governor, you know you'll be crossing a picket line, right?"
This matters to me for the obvious reason that it's my union on strike here. But I also agree with those who say we don't demand/expect enough from our elected officials, especially our President, in terms of experience and smarts and just knowing what's going on around them. An awful lot of voters seem to think that if the candidate seems like a nice guy — someone you could have a beer with — or someone who'd go to your church and go often, that's enough. He can surround himself with people who know all the stuff he doesn't. I got an e-mail last night from a friend making the case for Barack Obama that way. Yeah, he may be a little inexperienced but that doesn't matter...
Gee, if experience doesn't matter when you run for President, where does it matter? I've worked for comic book editors who wouldn't let me write a story for them if I didn't have sufficient credits.
I have never bought the "I didn't know" defense from any President. Didn't buy it when Ronald Reagan said it about trading arms for hostages. Didn't buy it when Bill Clinton said he didn't know about all those fund-raising violations. It's theoretically possible they didn't know but they should have. Either way, it's not an appealing trait for someone who can do so much damage if he makes the wrong decision.
It sounds to me like Huckabee is trying to have it both ways. The other day, he showed that attack ad on Romney to reporters but said he woudn't run it. So he got its message out but tried to claim some moral high ground for not disseminating it. Today, he's going to cross a union's picket line to get some teevee time but claim it was because he didn't know there would be a picket line from a union he says he supports. It's like Tom Snyder used to say: "It isn't what they do sometimes...it's how dumb they apparently think we are."
Ah, now we know the reason I couldn't find that Garfield article in the New York Times article. Because the piece was actually in the Wall Street Journal. Here it is — from June 1, 1993...
Cartoon cat Garfield is not only lazy and a glutton; it seems he has also been trying to cheat on his Nielsen ratings.
During the past three years, CBS has repeated seven times an episode of the Saturday morning animated program "Garfield and Friends," in which the cat opens the show saying, "Hi everyone, and a special welcome to Nielsen families."
The several-second greeting seems innocuous enough, particularly to Nielsen-naive kiddies who probably don't understand the reference to the ratings service, Nielsen Media Research. Innocuous or not, however, it's strictly forbidden as far as Nielsen is concerned, because of the potential it has to distort the television ratings.
In theory, the gimmick makes it more likely that viewers will remember to punch in with the Nielsen "peoplemeter" or to record their viewing of the cartoon in Nielsen's paper diaries.
CBS says it didn't know about the greeting. The felonious feline got away with the trick until Saturday, May 22, when a sharp-eyed viewer from rival NBC (presumably an adult) noticed the message and immediately protested to Nielsen, which then told CBS to desist.
A spokesman for Nielsen said there is no way to gauge whether the gimmick affected the ratings of the 9 a.m. program, which is top-rated among the two-to-11-year-old set. The show goes into its sixth season in the fall.
The ratings company won't take any action against CBS other than sending a letter to all of its clients notifying them of the situation. But a
spokesman says, "Maybe we ought to string them up by their paws."
Lee Mendelson, "Garfield" executive producer, calls the greeting "an innocent joke," and says it never would have been included had the
producers, United Media/Mendelson Productions and Film Roman & Claws Inc., known it was a problem.
Mr. Mendelson says he's mystified by the brouhaha. "Of all the problems in the world, I wouldn't put this at the top of the list," he says.
I'm pretty sure the article got the quote wrong. Garfield said, "...all you lovely Nielsen families." It also erred on the name of Jim Davis's company, which is Paws, Inc. And I do recall being told that Nielsen had agreed to drop that week's ratings out when they averaged the season, thereby voiding that week...which didn't affect the numbers at all. But the reporter was right on one thing I forgot: NBC didn't complain until the seventh time this episode had been run.
No one got the least bit mad at me, by the way. The reaction at CBS was bewilderment because even though it may technically be against some obscure Nielsen rule, that kind of joke does pop up from time to time on shows and no one ever complains. We had a not-dissimilar line in another episode and no one noticed or objected.
Thanks to the many readers of this site who took the time to go look for the piece and forward me copies. The first five were Vern Morrison, Bill Stiteler, Roger Green, Eric Newsom and someone whose handle is Proquest.
About this time in every presidential election, some prominent journalist writes pretty much the same article about how the Iowa Caucuses are a sham masquerading as a real primary, and how the outcome doesn't even begin to reflect what Iowans think, let alone any significant block of voters in this nation. This year, Christopher Hitchens takes a stab at that article. No one, insofar as I can tell, disputes his thesis or the facts supporting it. But no one does anything to change the set-up, either.
As a few of you know and even fewer of you care, I wrote the Garfield and Friends cartoon show for something like eight years. I forget exactly how long. Anyway, it was a lot of lasagna jokes.
During the show's life on CBS, it had three different openings and three theme songs. I cannot explain the third one, which was an odd rap thing that no one associated with the show liked and which didn't last long. The first one though went like this...
That animation was done, by the way, by a gifted artist named Kevin Petrilak. The song was written by Desiree Goyette, who was also the voice of Nermal on the show, and that's mostly Desiree's fine singing voice you're hearing. I came up with the idea of having Garfield say a different line at the end of the main title each week, which was easy to do since his mouth didn't move. I wrote dozens and dozens of those, a couple of which got us into trouble. One week, I had him say, "And a special hello to all you wonderful Nielsen families out there." Apparently, you're not supposed to do that. NBC accused us of trying to rig the ratings (I am not making this up) and there was actually an article in The New York Times about how the Nielsen company had decided to void the Saturday morning ratings for the week because of it. (I can't find my copy, either on paper or in the online N.Y. Times archives. If someone here has Nexis/Lexis or some other service that can track it down, I'd love to get the text of that article.)
A year or so later, NBC got out of the business of programming animation on Saturday morning. The first AM this was effective, the end line to our opening was Garfield saying, "Don't bother watching NBC, kids! There are no cartoons there!" There were more complaints from the Peacock Network but nothing they could do to us. Besides, it was true.
Anyway, that was our first opening and I liked it. I've decided, however, that I like it even better in Spanish...
This link will take you to the first of the three new pages. You might want to browse back through the earlier pages if you haven't read them or even if you have. I've entered a few revisions and new observations and illustrations on some of those pages.
Something else I should mention: The premise of Great Los Angeles Restaurants That Ain't There No More is for me to write about restaurants that I went to and which I have some anecdote or comment about. Got that, people? These are places I went to. Me! Still, every week a couple of people write me and say that I left out some place they used to dine...and then they mention some restaurant I never went to, sometimes an eatery I never even heard of. And they act like I've committed some sort of egregious factual error by not discoursing extensively about that place they thought had the best burritos in town.
I'm sorry I never went to your favorite restaurant. Blame my parents. When I was young, I usually ate where they took me.
Comedy writer-producer-actor Bill Idelson died last night. He had been hospitalized for some time after a bad fall and that's all I know about his health problems. What I do know is that he was a successful and creative man who worked behind (and sometimes, in front of) the camera on some fine TV shows including The Twilight Zone, The Andy Griffith Show, Love American Style, The Odd Couple, The Bob Newhart Show, M*A*S*H and Gomer Pyle, USMC. He was also a writer on The Dick Van Dyke Show, and occasionally played the role of Sally's bland boy friend, Herman Glimcher.
In an earlier life, Bill was a child actor, appearing often on radio, in movies and on early television. His big radio credit was the Vic and Sade series, on which he played the role of Rush Gook.
The last decade or two, he was primarily a teacher, running a successful writing workshop that graduated many top professional writers. He also authored several books about his life and work, one of which — Writing for Dough — I often recommend to people who are curious about television writing in the fifties and sixties. He was one of the good guys and he leaves behind a fine legacy of good writing and good writers.
David Brooks on why Mitt Romney can't possibly win in '08. I suspect that if you do a little web-surfing, you can find a reasoned argument for each of the candidates, Democratic or Republican, telling why that person has no chance of winning. But this one strikes me as a pretty solid case.
Brooks, by the way, is the man soon to be known as the New York Times Conservative columnist who's occasionally correct. That's what they'll be calling him after William Kristol's new column begins appearing in the paper. You just know that hiring came about because someone said, "We need a new right-winger...who should we get?" And someone else said, "I dunno. Let's see if we can find someone who's never been right with one single prediction about American foreign policy!"
Also: I should mention, in light of some e-mail I'm receiving, that I am not opposed to Barack Obama. I'm not particularly for him either, or for anyone. I figure I've got plenty of time to decide which person I will reluctantly back and then have to cringe as they often disappoint me. Why start that process now?
If you haven't set the TiVo or VCR yet, this would be a good time to do it. It's on Turner Classic Movies at 2 AM Eastern time on Friday night/Saturday morning...but your local cable company (if that's how you get your signal) may time-shift. So consult whatever you consult to make certain when something is on.
Reza Aslan writes of the challenges that await our next President and in so doing makes an interesting case against Barack Obama. He makes no case for any particular candidate but the argument would seem to lead one towards Clinton...Bill, not Hillary. I don't see anyone on either party's ballots who seems to know anything about these rather serious issues, let alone how to solve them. Joe Biden, maybe — but Joe Biden has about as much chance of being elected President as Michael Vick. I don't want to have to vote for Hillary and hope that she turns a lot of her job over to her hubby but it may come to that.
I guess what I'm wondering here is: Are the candidates not talking more seriously about what to do in Iran because they really don't know? Or is it that they expect America will elect its next leader based on matters like abortion and guns and immigration and maybe how tough they sound when they mention Iraq or how religious they seem to be? And then we'll hope that whoever sounds good to us on those fronts can figure out what to actually do about the Middle East?
I spent last night home alone, writing and coughing and trying to stop a small cold from going big on me. I never like to go anywhere on New Year's Eve for two reasons. One is that back when I used to party-hop, I was not impressed with the merriment at any of the parties. I'm sure there are many fine, memorable ones out there but the ones I attended all seemed forced and ritualistic. It was like people were working backwards from the premise that since it was New Year's Eve, they were having a good time, whether they actually were or not. It took me a while — and a couple of less-than-glorious experiences — to decide I was happier staying home, especially with the right person. She would have been here last night but for my increasingly sore throat.
She not only missed out on my germs but also on a fine example of my other reason for not going out on New Year's Eve. Around 11:10, as I was sitting here writing something for DC Comics, I heard the horrendous sound of a Drunk Driver. I mean, it was just the sound of squealing brakes and car hitting car but you knew it was a Drunk Driver. I grabbed up a cordless phone and sprinted outside.
The D.D. was already long gone. He'd been driving a white Toyota or maybe it was an Acura. It could even have been a Honda Something. It all happened that fast. He'd been doing about sixty, well over the limit, and had attempted to pass a silver-colored Chevy on the left, which on this street meant crossing the center divider, moving briefly into the opposite lane. You shouldn't do that anywhere but you especially shouldn't do it here, where there's a curve ahead and you don't have a long view of oncoming traffic. Apparently, he saw headlights coming and rushed to swerve back into his lane, sideswiping the Chevy and sending it crashing into a black Buick that was stopped at an intersection, waiting to cross the street that the drunk and the Chevy were driving on.
Damage to the Chevy was minor — "about equal to my deductible," the guy said, and he was shaken-up but not hurt. What really upset him was that an older man and woman in the Buick were hurt to the point of needing paramedics. I called and the 911 lady had to ask me to be very honest with her as to how great the injuries were...because emergency services were being taxed by call after call at the moment, some of them quite serious but some not. I told her the situation did not seem life-threatening but "I'm not a doctor...I write Daffy Duck comic books." (I often say that even though I haven't written Daffy Duck comic books since 1973. It's a good way to tell people not to put too much stock in what I say if it's a situation where I don't think they should.)
The dispatcher chuckled, asked me if I was on strike and then said someone would be here as soon as possible. It took a little less than an hour before police and an ambulance arrived, almost simultaneously but from opposite directions. They took the folks in the Buick off in the ambulance, noting that it was a tight fit: "These are built for one but it'll take forever to get another one here." The Chevy drove off under its own power and as I look outside this morning, I see that the Buick is gone, probably via tow truck.
Three things I remember...
One is a nice, overworked policeman realizing that no one could give him any sort of description of the other driver. I didn't see him. The people in the Buick never saw him. There were no witnesses around. And the guy in the Chevy only caught a fast glimpse of him in a rear-view mirror. Still, we all took it for granted that he was inebriated. And when the Chevy driver said, "It's a shame he got away," the cop said, "There's a good chance he didn't. We've had a lot of crashes tonight. He could have been the guy who just wrapped his car around a utility pole up on Melrose."
Second thing I remember: The folks in the Buick were pretty upset. Above and beyond the fact that he probably had a broken arm and she had a bad pain in one leg, there was that "We didn't need this now" factor. '07 had been a hellish year for them with personal and financial problems. The man is fighting to keep a job at a company that may not remain in business, struggling to make payments on a home they may not be able to afford even if he doesn't lose that employment. They were out celebrating that an ogre of a year was finally departing...and now here, it had taken one last shot at them.
And then there was this moment: I wasn't wearing a watch. Standing out there in the street, waiting for assistance, none of us knew precisely what time it was. Suddenly, there was an eruption of cheers and a horn or two from the surrounding homes...and far off in the distance, something that may have been a gunshot or fireworks. Which meant it was 12:00. The man in the Buick was still in a lot of pain but he made the effort to lean over, kiss his wife and tell her convincingly and will great assurance, "2008 will be a lot better." Two minutes later, help arrived.
"2008 will be a lot better." For them, it almost has to be. But I sure hope it is for all of us.
I don't place a lot of stock in Internet Polls but hey, let's try one. I configured this one partly as a test to see if I can embed one of these. If it turns out I can, I may find a use for them on this site.
The question here is which of the main two late night talk shows — Leno's or Letterman's — you're more interested in watching on Wednesday night when they return from two months off the air due to the strike. This is not a question over who you generally like better — Jay or Dave, nor are we asking which show you figure to watch more often after Wednesday. We're just asking which interests you more...seeing Dave return with writers and say what he has to say about the strike, or watching Jay return without writers and say whatever he's going to say. Vote now then check back later and see how the numbers are lining up.
In honor of January Uno, we have a three-for-one special for you. From The Today Show of last October 31, here's much of the cast of Young Frankenstein performing three numbers from the show out of context on a makeshift stage in the middle of the street, dancing and moving their mouths to a pre-recorded track. They did the same performance at the Macy's Parade (though with worse lip-sync) and as I mentioned, there will be a number on Mr. Letterman's show on Thursday evening.
I'm curious as to why they've been doing all this so early in the life of what everyone assumed would be a long, long-running show. Broadway shows often arrange appearances like this when they're not selling tickets at a brisk clip...but this show opened with tremendous fanfare and promotion on November 8...and there they were, more than a week before that, getting everyone up and into costume very early in the morning. This was before any reviews, remember. Usually, you don't start showing the world your best numbers until after you've opened...and then, only when you need to drive people to the box office because the reviews and word-of-mouth aren't doing that.
Could this show not be performing up to expectations? Even before it opened, could its producers have been looking at a disappointing advance sale and figuring they had to do something? In light of the mixed (in some cases, negative) notices, could Young Frankenstein not be doing so well? I went to look up the grosses to see how ticket sales have been and — well, here's a surprise — Young Frankenstein is the only show on Broadway that is not reporting its grosses to the press. This is very rare.
Before we leap to any conclusions: According to this article, it's a decision that was made some time before the show opened. So maybe they had a principled reason for doing it...or maybe they took a look at those advance sales, got worried and decided to keep mum about how they were doing. Or maybe they decided to keep mum unless sales were outstanding. Or...
Well, it's all just speculation. It could also be doing fine. A check of the TKTS website shows that it was one of the few shows that didn't have half-price tickets available there last week. Les Miserables and Cyrano DeBergerac, which each reported selling 95% of their seats that week were on the TKTS board but Young Frankenstein wasn't. (A theory I like is that maybe they're hiding the grosses because they financed the whole thing by selling 12,000% of the show to little old ladies.)
Anyway, here are the three numbers. Both feature Roger Bart as Dr. Frankenstein, Sutton Foster in the Teri Garr role and Christopher Fitzgerald following in the footsteps of Marty Feldman. (They were all quite good when I saw the show, especially Fitzgerald. I hope my partner Sergio doesn't kill him.) This first scene is a slightly-abbreviated version of the Act One closer. Doc Frankenstein has created another of those monsters that his family likes to create and the angry villagers are swarming the castle, wondering it it's so. Igor (pronounced "Eye-gore") tries to start a dance craze to divert their attention...
And then here's "Roll in the Hay" from earlier in Act One, which introduces the Inga character. On stage, there were some visual effects that made this a much more effective number but you may enjoy it in this form...
Lastly, here comes "Together Again for the First Time," which is the number Dr. Frankenstein and Igor/Eyegore perform when first they meet. I liked this song a lot. In fact, despite the disappointing moment here and there, I liked the entire show a lot. I still recommend it, by the way, no matter how it looks when performed outdoors in Rockefeller Center early in the morning with traffic going by in the background as sleepy actors try to lip-sync and the director and cameraguys struggle to cover a production number that they obviously didn't see much of in advance...
February 1, 2008
