Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Over on the Wizard Site...

An interview with me about working on The Spirit, following distantly and humbly in the large footsteps of Will Eisner.

• Posted at 7:42 PM · LINK

Remembering Ollie

Floyd Norman has some nice words (and photos) up about Ollie Johnston. For that matter, there are several short posts on Floyd's blog that are worth browsing. Go read 'em all.

Meanwhile, Cartoon Brew has thoughts about Ollie from Brad Bird and John Canemaker, as well as a good obit released by the Disney Studio.

• Posted at 7:02 PM · LINK

No Comment

Reading this news article, the following sentence kinda leaped off the screen at me...

While the pope and Bush differ on such major issues on the Iraq war, capital punishment and the U.S. embargo against Cuba, they do find common ground in opposing abortion, gay marriage and embryonic stem cell research.

• Posted at 3:07 PM · LINK

Lydia News

"I haven't seen a word about Lydia on your site in days, Mark, and I'm worried. Please, please reassure me she is all right. I have come to care about that little cat in a way I do not care about some members of my own family." So writes Jennifer Wahl, whose e-mail was but one of many that's shown up in my e-mailbox the last day or so. Here, as they say, is the latest...

I just spoke to the vet's office and they say Lydia is resting comfortably after the surgery, which was performed last evening. She is already eating which, they say, is an excellent sign. She was pregnant. She is no longer pregnant, nor can she get that way again. She has had all her shots and is now in fine shape, but I'm going to board her there for another day of post-op, just in case, and also because I'm too busy to get out there and pick her up today. Tomorrow, I will bring her home and return her to a backyard which has not seemed the same without her. My house sitter will pay special attention to her while I'm away in the wilds of Manhattan.

And that, pretty much, is that. We can now turn our attention to getting certain members of Jennifer Wahl's family spayed so perhaps she can care a little about them.

Thanks again to all who have sent suggestions, encouragements and especially donations. I didn't start telling this story so you folks would pay the cost of fixing Lydia but that's how it turned out.

• Posted at 10:22 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

As I've mentioned here elsewhere, I used to like to go hang out on Stage 1 at NBC Burbank when a certain Mr. Carson was doing this thing he used to do called The Tonight Show. There was a little area of standing room right behind where Fred DeCordova and the other producers and staff members sat or congregated during the taping, about two yards from the edge of the guest couch. If you looked even vaguely like you belonged on the lot, and if Johnny hadn't had a bevy of recent death threats, you could loiter there during the taping and enjoy the proceedings. I probably watched all or part of a dozen Carson shows from there and there was a true feeling of magic in the room.

I was there when this clip was taped, and it's a shame the camera wasn't on Mr. Carson because I have never seen a human being laugh so hard in my life. Everyone was convulsed with laughter but Johnny looked like he was going to need paramedics to come in and give him oxygen.

The comedian is Charlie Callas, who I can't recall seeing on TV the last few years, not even on the Jerry Lewis Telethon, where he was once a regular. His website has not been updated in four or five years but his Internet Movie Database listing says he was in a Larry the Cable Guy special in '07 and that he's in a horror movie spoof currently in production.

Right after Callas did this bit on Johnny's show and they went to commercial, Carson told him how hilarious he thought it was. At that moment, Exec Producer Fred DeCordova hurried up to the desk and informed Johnny that NBC Standards and Practices was "concerned" about the routine and wanted to discuss perhaps editing the tape or doing an audience cutaway during parts of it. From where I stood, you could see steam emanating from Johnny's ears and he said, very firmly, that it was staying in and there would be no cutaways and that, by God, was that. End of discussion. DeCordova, fulfilling his role as Good Cop, returned to our area and told a worried-looking lady, "I tried." The Standards folks at NBC were occasionally able to overrule Johnny but I gather that this was one of many times they decided the battle wasn't worth the headache.

Here's one very funny minute of Charlie Callas...

• Posted at 12:56 AM · LINK

Talk of the Town

If I understand the deal correctly, The New Yorker is inviting a different cartoonist to blog for a month at a time on the magazine's website. The current cartoonist is one of my favorites, Charlie Barsotti. When, oh when will someone put together a collection of a brilliant newspaper strip he did for around four years called Sally Bananas?

• Posted at 12:53 AM · LINK