Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Lord of the Booth

I haven't mentioned it lately here but the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation's Archive of American Television continues to produce (and post to the web) important oral histories of the TV business.

They've just posted something I wish I had time to watch soon. It's a four hour (four hour!) interview with Don Pardo. Don is best known as the announcer on Saturday Night Live (and before that on the original Jeopardy!) but he's been a professional for over sixty years, doing just about every kind of show on which one can announce. That has to be a fascinating conversation.

• Posted at 6:30 PM · LINK

A Modest Proposal

Okay, here's how we pay off the national debt. We charge people who appear on television $100 for every time they say "At the end of the day..." and $200 for every time they make reference to throwing someone under a bus.

Based on watching election coverage the other night, we could balance the budget in about nine hours.

• Posted at 6:00 PM · LINK

High Over Hollywood

Dave Malkoff, a reporter for the local CBS News in Los Angeles, just did a story on the skyscraper that's going up at the corner of Hollywood and Vine. He took some stunning photos from the top of it and they're available for viewing here. Make sure you take a look at the very large 25.6 Megapixel 180º panoramic view of Hollywood.

• Posted at 2:39 AM · LINK

Age-Old Question

You can view this image larger by clicking here.

Before I can begin to explain the picture above, you need to go read this post from February of last year.

All done? Fine. If you actually read it, then you know that as a small tot, I made my TV debut on a local Los Angeles TV show called Bill Stulla's Parlor Party. I remembered how much I disliked it but I was unable to place exactly how old I was at the time...two, three, older? You can ignore all the sterling detective work that I did in that post because most of it was wrong. I appeared on the show on March 1, 1955, one day shy of my third birthday.

And above, we have incontrovertible evidence. I've recently been having my hard-working assistant Tyler scan all the old family photos my mother could find and in one box, I came across my "passport to the Castle of Dreams" for that traumatic day. (On the back of it, in my mother's handwriting, there's a list of relatives and neighbors I'm supposed to say hello to. As I recall, I mentioned not a one of them. By the way, the Castle of Dreams was a really badly-painted scene flat.)

That's about all I have to say about this. Just thought I'd finish the story and share this nifty little relic.

• Posted at 1:26 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Here's another one of those "soundies" that features a bouncy little tune and charming retro ambience...though maybe not the most enlightened attitude about women...

• Posted at 1:25 AM · LINK