Regaring the current dust-up between David Letterman and Sarah Palin the first point I'd make is that to some extent, both are probably exploiting it to bolster their popularity with their respective audiences. One of the reasons I don't think Governor Palin is ever going to go on to higher office — or to even be in serious contention for higher office — is that she's really good at firing up the Hannity/Rush crowd and really bad at winning the respect of anyone else. In fact, to some extent, her appeal to the Hannity/Rush crowd seems based on how much she's mocked and (according to her spin) underestimated by anyone outside the fringe right.
Dave was right to semi-apologize for the jokes in question. They were easy, sleazy jokes, quite unworthy of him, and he should have just said so and moved on. Instead, he milked it for a seven-minute desk spot. That's not a way to dial this thing down. It's an invite to keep it up and running.
There's an old saying that in politics, it can be great to be the target of an outrage. It gives you an opening to hurl mud but to do so from a position of self-defense so you can say, "He started it!" No doubt Ms. Palin was bothered by Letterman's jests but I also think she and her spouse are deliberately misinterpreting them as being about their 14-year-old, as opposed to their pregnant-outta-wedlock daughter, so they have more to be incensed about. It's like Obama's awkward remark about putting lipstick on a pig. No one with an I.Q. over 9 thought he was trying to say "Sarah Palin is a pig" but it was probably a good campaign strategy to try and put him on the defensive as if he had. Politicians in this country and their staffs spend a lot of time studying their opponents' words and trying to find an interpretation other than what was intended.
I will admit that I come to this from the standpoint of someone who (a) makes his living writing comedy and thinks most complaints about bad taste humor are from folks who are way too thin-skinned and/or trying to spin it to their advantage, and (b) has a pretty low opinion of Sarah Palin, especially as someone who levels with the public. I also (c) think that when you keep trotting out your kids as props to boost your candidacy or sell your social agenda, you're culpable to some degree when folks fire back at you and your children get caught in the crossfire.
Mainly though, (d) I've been around David Letterman enough to know he has a spotless reputation as a gentleman with the ladies. Like I said, I didn't think much of the material under discussion but for sheer tastelessness, the hands-down winner in this spat is a comment from a Palin spokesperson who said, "It would be wise to keep Willow [Palin's 14-year-old daughter] away from David Letterman" — a comment Palin stood by this morning in an interview with Matt Lauer. So we make the jump from Dave making a joke about one daughter to...well, you know, Dave just might try to molest her younger sister. That's a bit of a leap. Palin's the one trying to make this about statutory rape.
Palin declined Letterman's offer to go on his show because, she said, she didn't want to boost his ratings. She's right that she would have, and that might be reason enough to decline. I suspect however she said no because two things would happen if she did go on. One would be that Letterman would make a humble apology and she'd look bad if she didn't accept it...and then she'd lose this as an issue to flog. "Her people" like the idea that she's a foe of those liberal East Coast showbiz types and will cheer her for her stance. And also if she went on Dave's show, she'd be annhililated. He's sharper than anyone who's ever been in his guest chair and when you give him the Home Court Advantage of being able to set the agenda and play to an audience full of Dave fans, he's unbeatable.
For another, not dissimilar view of this whole brouhaha, read Kate Harding. I read her after I wrote the above and she makes some good points about this, too.
I somehow forgot to mention here how great The Colbert Report was this past week...but if you were watching, you already know that. It was a huge deal for Stephen Colbert to haul his whole show over to Iraq but it was worth it. Very funny, clever shows...especially the first two. I especially appreciated the way he connected with the troops without altering his basic act. What with shaving his head and taping remotes in which he experienced some of what they experience, he showed he was willing to play their game, not just to expect them to play audience to his. And yet he still managed to be the same Stephen Colbert with his all-knowing cluelessness. If you missed his broadcasts, do yourself a favor. Go over to this website and watch 'em.
Last night in the Late Night Ratings, Letterman had a 3.5 and O'Brien had a 3.0. By contrast on the same night last year, Letterman had a 2.8 and Leno had a 3.8.
So that doesn't look good for Conan O'Brien but it's not as bad as it seems. He's doing much better with the coveted younger demographic...the one that advertisers pay the megabucks to reach. So what we may be in for here is that Dave will wind up with the more popular show while Conan will wind up with the more profitable one. Given that NBC seems willing to settle for that at 10 PM in prime time, that might mean Conan will hang in there for a while. I do not think, as some are speculating, that meetings are currently being held at NBC to figure out how to dump the Irish kid with the funny hair and get the guy with the chin back in control of The Tonight Show.
Hey, last night Dave had Regis Philbin on and introduced him by saying Regis now holds the Guinness Book of World Records title for the most number of hours logged in front of a TV camera. I assume that's true, in which case he would have taken the title away from the previous leader in that category. Wanna guess who that was? Mull that one over and then click here to get the answer.
Broadway seems to be doing well. Usually each year, a day or two after the Tony Awards, several shows announce they'll be closing. It generally means that ticket sales were lousy before the awards but they held on, hoping in vain that exposure on the telecast would spark a boost at the box office.
This year, only the revival of Guys & Dolls seems to be throwing in the terrycloth. It ends this weekend but its producers have announced that it will live on in a national tour being planned for 2010-2011. Unless they go out and lasso a few incredible stars — which they did not do for Broadway — I doubt this will happen. You don't mount a tour for a show that received tepid reviews and only lasted 113 performances in New York.
I didn't see this production and kinda wish I had. It's often said in the theater that Guys & Dolls is a bulletproof show; that no matter what you do with it, it always works. This incarnation apparently didn't. It might have been interesting to see it and try to figure out why.
My pal Leonard Maltin has been busily assembling a collection I've wanted to see on DVD for some time: The Zorro series produced by the Disney Studios from 1957 to 1959. Actually, it'll be two collections, each a six disc set covering one of the two seasons. There were 39 half-hour episodes in each season, and then four hour-long episodes were produced for the main Disney TV show, Walt Disney Presents. All of these will be included in the two boxed sets, which are scheduled to come out in November of this year.
I haven't seen these shows in a very long time but I remember liking them tremendously. They were lavishly produced with elaborate stunt work. It is said Mr. Disney spent a lot more than any other producer of the day spent on a half-hour series and I can believe that. It was smartly written and well-cast, with Guy Williams properly dashing as the title character and Henry Calvin stealing scenes as the bumbling Sgt. Garcia. I can't wait to see if it's all as good as I remember. If they're even half as good, I'm going to enjoy them a lot.
I think I'm also going to enjoy the special features that are being assembled, including interviews and rare footage. I'm among those interviewed but my participation and relevance is marginal. They asked me in to describe a precious childhood memory...seeing Zorro and Guy Williams appearing live at a Disney event at the Hollywood Bowl. I think I was six at the time and as they say in Gigi, I remember it well.
And hey, here's a bit of the kind of trivia that folks who come to this site will enjoy. What does Zorro have in common with Yogi Bear?
Give up? Whenever Don "Zorro" Diego sang on the show, his singing voice was dubbed by a gentleman named Bill Lee. Mr. Lee was an illustrious studio singer of the day, heard in hundreds of commercials and records and in most of the Disney films produced back then. (He was one of the vocalists in the Zorro theme song.) He also provided the singing voice of Yogi in Hey There, It's Yogi Bear.
Anyway, the special features on the DVDs will tell you a lot more important info than that. I'm looking forward to them and will post an Amazon link when we get closer to their issuance.
We are approaching the deadline to vote in the Eisner Comics Industry Awards. If you work in the field, either creating comics or selling 'em, you're probably eligible to vote for the best work done in the previous year. This you can do online here. The deadline is Monday.
By the way: I'm up for two of them, a fact I don't think I've mentioned here. Sergio and I were nominated in the category of Best Limited Series for Groo: Hell on Earth. And my Kirby: King of Comics is up for Best Comics-Related Book. If you didn't like either, you'll probably find plenty of worthy nominations to vote for.
June 13, 2009
