I want to compliment you on your casting ability. I just spent some time Googling and Yahooing and trying to figure out where on the net the notion of Tina Fey as Sarah Palin originated. It seems to have been on your blog, real time watching her being introduced for the first time by John S. McCain.
Thanks but if I was first, that may just have been because I'm a pretty fast typist. It had to have occurred to everyone the first time they laid eyes on the Governor of Alaska. Too bad McLean Stevenson isn't around to play Joe Biden.
Here's another one of those "may be of interest to someone" items. As we all know, a moment of TV history was made on the 1976 Jerry Lewis Telethon when Dean Martin made a surprise appearance, courtesy of Frank Sinatra. You've all seen the video. It's pretty clear that Jerry was surprised...but who else (besides Frank and Dino) knew about this in advance?
On November 30, 2005, Jerry appeared on Larry King Live and said several times that everyone on his staff knew but him. Here's an excerpt from the conversation...
KING: You said everyone knew but you, right?
LEWIS: Everybody in my staff, the crew, the production people, everyone knew but me.
Pretty straightforward, right? But in October of 2000, Lewis was interviewed for the Archive of American Television. The interview is
online (here's Part One) and they've posted portions of the transcript. Here's one thing Mr. Lewis had to say during the interrogation...
Frank worked it out. He worked it out so that everyone in that studio, every member of my staff — nobody knew Dean was coming on. The only one that knew it was Ed McMahon. So I could never have heard about it. It was such a total surprise.
Actually, I'm not all that interested in who knew. Years ago, I asked Artie Forrest, who usually produces and directs the telethon, about it. I can't recall if Artie directed that particular one or not but he said, approximately, "Everyone who had to know knew and probably a lot of other people." There had to be some planning because the telethon is on a tight schedule with cutaways and certain hours where it's only seen in portions of the country. Sinatra, assuming he was the main driving force in all of this, would have to make certain that Dean was properly smuggled into the building and that he came out at the moment of maximum tune-in and impact. Most likely, everyone on the staff heard well in advance that a surprise guest was coming out at the specified time and many knew who it was. Jerry may even have known Frank was planning something.
What intrigues me is why Jerry has two different versions. What difference would it make if the crew did or didn't know about it? It doesn't make Jerry look any better or worse either way. No one is saying, "Boy, Jerry, it was dumb of you not to know Dean would be walking out there. Even the stagehands knew." No one is saying that. I guess it makes Sinatra look a bit cleverer if he'd managed to even keep it from the crew but so what? This kind of thing is why it's so hard sometimes to nail down history. People change their stories even after they've told them in front of millions of people.
The blog is hiccupping lately. I post something once and it shows up multiple times. It occasionally takes a while for me to be able to delete the extras. Do not panic. No need to write me. We will all get through this.
Assuming no miracle occurs in the next few days, it looks like Washington Mutual's going to need one of those massive, expensive-to-us bailouts. Hey, but at least the fundamentals of our economy are strong.
This goes far beyond Democratic or Republican irresponsibility. The G.O.P. has been the aggressor in pushing this idea that we should let companies pursue every possible profit angle. If they succeed, great...they keep all the money. If they fail, even if the execs make out like bandits, we pick up the tab. That's not the Free Market enterprise some make it out to be, and most Democrats have been complicit at every opportunity. Airline deregulation, which has been a long-term disaster in every possible way, was a Jimmy Carter crusade.
I think we should be a lot madder about this than we'll probably be. When it comes right down to it, most people will probably care more about lipstick on pigs.
A lot of folks loved the "surprise" ending to the last installment of Newhart, the sitcom Bob Newhart did after he did The Bob Newhart Show. Here's the last nine minutes of that historic episode of Newhart. Unfortunately, this clip does not end, as the original telecast of it did, with the theme music from The Bob Newhart Show.
And here's a brief interview with Bob explaining how they kept it a secret. There are those who dispute that the idea originated with Newhart's wife but I don't want to get into that.
The government is considering bailouts of the NBC prime-time schedule, the San Diego Padres, Madonna's acting career and my stomach after a bad tuna sandwich that I had from a Subway shop yesterday.
So now the U.S. government owns 79.9% of American International Group, one of the largest international insurance and financial services organizations in the world. Hey, what's that term we use when other countries do this kind of thing?
Oh, right. Communism. Well, that always works so well.
But don't despair. At least the C.E.O. of A.I.G. got a $47 million dollar severance package back in July. I mean, you have to reward a guy who does such a fine job steering his company. And I was glad to see that so many investors did well the last few days by selling the stock short. They made about $40 billion which doubled the price we (you and me, folks) paid for this failing insurance firm we now own.
Several years ago, I wrote a joke that Bush was doing such a bad job with the economy, his only hope was to burn the country down and try to collect on the insurance. Now we can't even do that because we're the insurance company...
September 18, 2008
