...the Stupid Question, in this case, being "Who'll win the Reuben Award?" As every cartoonist alive expected, Al Jaffee won this evening as Cartoonist of the Year. Everyone in the room, I'm told, was very happy. Even Al.
Wiley Miller, who does the comic strip Non Sequitur, went ahead and congratulated Al in today's strip, which was drawn weeks ago. Here's a link that should take you to it, at least for a little while.
Dick Martin, the easy-going half of the comedy team of Rowan and Martin, died Saturday night at the age of 86. He had been ill for some time. In fact, one week ago at breakfast, his friend Gary Owens told me (sadly) that Dick probably didn't have long to live.
Obits like this one can give you the raw details of his life so I'll just add some personal observations. When Dan Rowan and Dick Martin teamed up in 1952, they were another in a long line of such teams that tried to replicate the success of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. There were hundreds of those parlays and most of them played a few night club gigs, then broke up and went into other lines of work. Rowan and Martin weren't only the most successful of that flood, they were darn near the only ones to last more than a few years.
The secret, some said, was that Rowan was a sharp businessman and Martin was genuinely funny and likeable. Dick Martin was, in fact, one of the nicest guys you could ever want to be around, with a loud, contagious laugh. He got along with everyone...and if the stress of any job ever got to him, he sure did a good job of not letting it show. I used to hang out occasionally on the set of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, where it was not uncommon to see Rowan lose his temper and yell. And then along would come Dick Martin, breezing onto the set at the last moment, and the entire mood of the studio would lighten. He had that magic.
It served him well as a comedian and later, after the team split up, it worked for him as director of situation comedies. I got to know him a little when he was doing one of his early directing jobs, helming a short-lived sitcom called The Waverly Wonders. That show shared office space with a show I was writing, and Dick was always coming over to our quarters to chat, tell jokes and just to be sociable. One time, our associate producer greeted him by reeling off about a dozen of the filthiest-possible sex acts — a list, he said, of fantasies he'd had about Dick's wife, Dolly.
There was a pause and then Dick pulled out a pad of paper, began making notes and said — with the precision timing of one-half of a great comedy team — "Hey, I should try some of those." And then he broke into that loud, wonderful laugh of his.
Dick and Dolly were a wonderful couple. She's a former Playboy model who was one of the stars of the legendary movie, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. About fifteen years ago, there was a screening of that picture at UCLA with much of the cast in attendance, along with director Russ Meyer and screenwriter Roger Ebert. I took a cartoonist friend of mine, Carol Lay, and we wound up sitting in front of Dick and Dolly. As much fun as the movie was, it was even better to be eavesdropping on the Martins howling at the intentionally-funny parts of the film and convulsing at the unintentionally-funny moments.
That's what I've thought of ever since when anyone mentioned Dick Martin...the sheer joy that he and Dolly were sharing that afternoon. There's something beautiful about people who can be that happy.
That joy was, I think, the only reason Rowan and Martin were successful on stage. No one around them seemed to have much respect for Rowan as a performer. On Laugh-In, the crew cringed when he'd insist on playing characters and trying to be anything but a straight man. But to all those same folks, Dick Martin could do no wrong. It's sad to lose him and especially sad to lose that wonderful laugh.
Like you, I don't quite understand why Hillary Clinton is staying in the presidential race to the extent of looking foolish and/or too arrogant to face reality. I guess it has something to do with believing she'd be a more "electable" candidate than Obama — a view which is at least supported by some polls. But the idea that she can beat McCain (which may be true) is being undermined by her clinging to the idea that she can beat Obama (which is almost certainly not).
Also (probably) like you, I didn't understand this statement she made the other day. Here, for its one-millionth quoting on the Internet, is the money quote. Reacting to the suggestion that it's time she dropped out of the race, she said..
My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it.
The second part of that statement outraged a lot of people and triggered a wave of calls for her to do the noble thing and quit the race. Most of the calls, it seemed to me, came from folks who already wanted her to drop out. I agree it was a foolish, offensive thing to say...but in a sense, so was the first part of that paragraph.
Yeah, Bill Clinton didn't drop out in May. That was because it was still numerically possible (probable, actually) for him to get the nomination. In fact, I'll bet you that Bill could have pointed to every upcoming primary and uncommitted delegate and told you with reasonable accuracy where he'd get enough votes to secure the nomination. He was always pretty good at counting.
She has every right to stay in the race...and I don't think she's doing as much damage to the party as some people seem to fear/hope. But she sure is making me think less of her wisdom, if not her devotion to certain causes that will not be realized if McCain wins.
Here's the trailer for Kill the Umpire, a 1950 comedy starring William Bendix as a baseball fan who becomes an ump and gets mixed up in all sorts of trouble. The movie was directed by Lloyd Bacon, who went from being a gag man and actor in silent comedies to directing some well-remembered movies like 42nd Street and Knute Rockne, All American. The screenplay was by Frank Tashlin, who went from directing Porky Pig cartoons for Warner Brothers to writing and then directing movies for Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis and others. Kill the Umpire is at about the same level of sophisticated comedy and has a few funny moments. Mostly, it's interesting for William Bendix, who was good in everything he did, including some pretty rotten movies.
This trailer is an ad for a company that sells the movie on DVD but you can see it this weekend on Turner Classic Movies. It runs at 1:15 AM Monday morning on my TV so that's probably 4:15 AM on the East Coast. See if this two minute snippet intrigues you and if so, set the VCR or TiVo.
May 25, 2008
