Friday, January 18, 2008

Friday Evening Strike Update

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.

• Posted at 10:05 PM · LINK

Trouser Press

The saga of Gary Coleman's pants continues.

• Posted at 7:07 PM · LINK

me on the radio

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.

• Posted at 2:11 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

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.

• Posted at 12:20 AM · LINK