Monday, November 24, 2008

Doody Update

Reader Jim Engel called the company that has released those Howdy Doody DVDs I plugged earlier today. They told him that the episodes on the shorter DVD are all included on the longer one. As I mentioned, Amazon is selling the two on a set so someone's going to be pissed.

• Posted at 11:25 PM · LINK

Behind the Eight Brawl

I suggested back in this message that all the protests over Proposition 8 in California were a waste of time; that all the energy put into marching and yelling would be better diverted into prepping for a battle on the next ballot. I may have underestimated the power of protest. A recent poll by SurveyUSA asked if the demonstrations had changed the minds of many of those who voted for Proposition 8. They concluded not many had switched...

Of the adults who tell SurveyUSA they voted FOR Prop 8, 90% of them told us recent rallies held by "No on Prop 8" Protesters have not changed their minds about the issue. 8% say protesters have changed their minds.

Okay, so 90% are still against the notion of Gay Marriage. But 8% is significant. Proposition 8 passed 6,775,560 to 6,203,012...or a difference of 572,548 votes. If 8% of the "yes" voters have changed their minds, then — someone check my math on this — 542,044.8 voters now wish they'd voted the other way.

Before you get excited about this, remember that the poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3% and there's no data as to whether anyone who voted against Proposition 8 has changed their mind in the other direction. And of course, we don't believe any one poll that far about anything. Still, it bolsters my belief that the next time California voters get asked to vote about letting two people of the same sex be man and man (or wife and wife or however they describe it), it's going to pass and maybe pass by a wide margin. The momentum on this issue has only ever moved in one direction.

• Posted at 10:17 PM · LINK

Big Exit

This is a little macabre but it's also Show Business History. Actor-comedians Albert Brooks and Bob ("Super Dave" Osborne) Einstein are the sons of a comic named Harry Einstein, who was big in radio playing a character named Parkyakarkus. Yes, that's right. Albert Brooks was named Albert Einstein before he changed it.

Sadly, one of the things Pa Einstein is remembered for these days is how he died. Fifty years ago yesterday, he appeared at a Friars Roast for Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in Beverly Hills. He gave what was later reported as a hilarious speech and then, as he returned to his seat, he collapsed from a heart attack and never recovered.

Half the great comics of Hollywood were present that evening and some later said things like, "When I have to go, that's how I'd like to go...with the audience still applauding how funny I'd just been." I've heard about this evening for years, including a too-graphic description from Milton Berle, who was the one who caught Einstein when he fell. (Berle was one of the comedians who said what I just said a lot of funny people said.)

The Los Angeles Times has a blog where they reprint old newspaper pages and headlines. They've posted the page from the morning after here. In case you're interested.

• Posted at 8:39 PM · LINK

Go Read It!

Here's a New York Times article about what went wrong in a box office sense with Young Frankenstein on Broadway. What it all comes down to is the sin of acting like you're a smash hit before you give audiences the chance to decide that.

• Posted at 8:21 PM · LINK

Today's Bonus Video Link

Here's a Howdy Doody P.S. This morn's video link brought an e-mail from celeb interviewer Barry Mitchell, who shares this brief outtake from a 1997 interview he did for ABC News with Buffalo Bob Smith. It captures a lot of Mr. Smith's charm and showmanship...

• Posted at 12:34 PM · LINK

Hollywood Labor News

One point I may not have made clear in yesterday's post about the Screen Actors Guild is that SAG will be asking its members for a Strike Authorization Vote, not a Strike Vote. The difference may turn out to be moot but maybe not. Essentially, the authorization is a show of solidarity, a way of saying, "If you keep refusing to negotiate, we will strike." In theory, if the Strike Authorization Vote is high enough, it will intimidate the AMPTP into improving the offer that's been on the table, largely unchanged, since July.

So before the ballots are due, SAG will make the following argument to its members: If enough of you vote to authorize a strike, that will scare the studios into bettering the deal...and a strike will not be necessary. Friends of mine in SAG seem unsure as to how effective that argument will be. Certainly, the AMPTP will presume that not everyone who votes for the Strike Authorization is willing to carry a picket sign for months or even weeks in lieu of working. But the AMPTP is also aware that any sort of labor stoppage by actors is going to cost the industry an awful lot of money.

The Strike Authorization Vote empowers the negotiators. It gives the SAG Board the ability to call a strike if the bargaining committee recommends it as necessary. Usually, alas, it is.

The AMPTP will, of course, say "This is a bad time to strike." During the '88 Writers Guild strike, I was present when the producers' chief negotiator, the aptly-named Nick Counter, said that. I couldn't help asking aloud, "Say, when would be a good time to strike?" Because to the bosses, any time is a terrible time for a strike. They're like Republicans saying, "This is a bad time to raise taxes." When I said what I said, Mr. Counter chuckled. A lot of what these guys say and do is to them, merely a matter of how the game is played and everyone knows it.

The studios will make the point that actors will lose X million dollars a week every week that they strike...and that's usually true to some extent. Strikes are generally only cost-effective when you factor in the loss you suffer if you lose the ability to say no to a really rotten deal. In this case though, SAG is being offered a really rotten deal. There's no way to really crunch the numbers because there's no way of knowing how many weeks of striking will equal what kind of better deal. The stakes are such that even leaving aside future rollbacks if the union collapses, this particular strike may well be cost-effective and to many, necessary.

I hope it doesn't come to a strike because we've had enough economic chaos in this town — blame for which I lay wholly at the feet of Mr. Counter and his minions — but it might. And if it does, I hope SAG has the fellowship and unity of purpose to not inflict a half-assed, half-hearted effort on itself and the industry. That union turned out in droves for the writers when we were out there with the cardboard signs, and I expect we'll all be out there for them. But I still don't have a good feeling about how all this is going to end.

• Posted at 12:30 PM · LINK

Still Forry After All These Years

Forrest J Ackerman is the gent who edited Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. He's a lifelong authority and devotee in the area of horror movies and science-fiction, and is credited with coining the term, "sci-fi." He's been an agent, a writer, an editor, an actor, a lecturer and a professional fan. And for much of the last decade, friends of his have been telling everyone he's about to die.

That has never seemed unlikely. Forry was born a long time ago in 1916 (you do the math) and he's been in and out of hospitals a lot the last ten years. In May of 2002, for example, Locus — the preeminent news source for the science-fiction community — reported he'd had a heart attack and was not expected to recover. He recovered. Seriously, I've lost track of the number of times I've been told or emailed to get my Forry obit ready because the ol' Ackermonster, as some call him, couldn't possibly last out the month. I think he's now outlived at least one person who told me that.

About three weeks ago, an email was circulated that told us all that this was it...it was a matter of days...any minute now. He couldn't possibly make it until his 92nd birthday.

Well, guess what. Today is Forry Ackerman's 92nd birthday and as far as I know, he's still with us. So we wish him a happy one and at the same time, I've decided I'm not falling for this any longer. As far as I'm concerned, he's not going.

• Posted at 1:06 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

This is the opening of an episode of the Howdy Doody series with "Buffalo" Bob Smith doing his usual obvious job of supplying the voice of his puppet star, and the kids in the Peanut Gallery singing the show's theme song without knowing any of the words after the first line. Most of this clip is taken up by a commercial for Kellogg's Rice Krispies...and that's Thurl (Tony the Tiger) Ravenscroft you'll hear as the lead singer of the jingle.

The clip was posted to YouTube by the folks at Mill Creek Entertainment, a video company that's just brought out a 5-DVD set containing 22 hours (!) of Howdy Doody episodes and bonus features. You can order a copy from Amazon by clicking here. If that's too much for you — and by God, it oughta be — they have another set that's a little less than ten hours that sells for less than a third as much. You can order that one by clicking here — and no, I don't know if the episodes it contains are included in the larger set. Amazon doesn't seem to know, either...though they are selling the two sets in a package deal.

I was born a wee bit too late to count Howdy Doody as an obsession of my childhood. By the time I got to it, it seemed like a quaint relic of early television...and a show that catered to devout followers, not to new viewers. I never quite understood the characters or storylines or even if the premise was that the puppet characters lived in the same world as the human ones or were of the same species. But I liked moments in the show and I really liked Buffalo Bob, and friends who are a little older than me tell me I'd have been hooked if I'd started watching a few years earlier. I can see that. When I worked with Bob Keeshan, he told me that there seemed to be a clear dividing line among adults he met, depending on when they were born. Older than a certain age, they wanted to talk to him about his days on Howdy Doody playing Clarabelle the Clown. Younger than that age, they wanted to talk about his years playing Captain Kangaroo. There was, he said, very little overlap even though the shows co-existed for many years.

I was in the Kangaroo Krowd but I did ask him a lot about Howdy Doody, less as an avid viewer than as a student of TV history. Some of the episodes he did before his firing are on the 22 hour set and I may buy it just to see him in action. Anyway, here's a brief visit to Doodyville...

• Posted at 12:57 AM · LINK