For the record, The Colbert Report ended at 11:37:30. What I've decided to do until they stop doing this is to set my TiVo to record the 6:30 AM broadcast. This is not a huge hardship as hardships go. I just don't understand why they do this.
This show airs several times a day and the other airings, insofar as I can tell, all start and end on time. But for the last few weeks, this airing has run from around 11:07 or 11:08 until 11:37. Is the idea to discourage us from setting our TiVos to record Letterman at 11:35?
I mentioned this before and didn't get a lot of response to it...but I can't be the only person who has this problem.
It's a few minutes after 11 PM. I just tuned in to Comedy Central where The Colbert Report is supposed to have just started. The schedule says it's on from 11:00 to 11:30. My TiVo, if I tell it to record this airing of The Colbert Report, records from 11:00 to 11:30. But at this moment, The Daily Show is still going on. Jon Stewart is still interviewing Ricky Gervais. The Colbert Report won't be starting 'til around 11:08, which means it'll end around 11:38. More on this in a few minutes.
That's me at a party just a few months ago, posing with a lovely man named Henry Gibson. I am not quite as large as I seem in this photo. Henry was a very small man (but only physically) and every time I saw him, he seemed to get smaller. Had the shrinking not been due to age and illness, it would have just made him cuter. As it was, he was already a wonderful plaything.
Back when the original Laugh-In was on, I used to go over to NBC, sneak in and watch them tape. Henry was an unflappable pro who was always good, take after take, and you could tell he was much loved by the crew and his fellow cast members. Years later, there was a period in his acting career when he always seemed to be cast as a Nazi or a White Supremacist, and it really was a case of casting against type...because he was the nicest man you could ever want to meet.
In the eighties, I developed a cartoon series for Disney called The Wuzzles (based on a line of toys) and I had to figure out what to do with all these characters. There was one named Eleroo who was half-elephant, half-kangaroo, and since some of the other Wuzzles would be kinda obnoxious, I decided to just make Eleroo the sweetest, most likable character I could. I probably didn't give it a lot of thought — not that I ever give anything a lot of thought — but when I wrote the character breakdown for Eleroo, I wrote, "Let's get someone like Henry Gibson to do his voice. Better still, let's get Henry Gibson."
They got Henry Gibson and he was just a joy. He was such a good actor, crawling into every nuance of every line, wringing every possible drop of personality out of it and adding plenty of his own. Eleroo instantly became the most beloved Wuzzle of all those working on the show, and a script I wrote to spotlight him — it was called "Eleroo's Wishday" — was easily my favorite episode. Because of Henry.
No one disliked the man...or if you did, there was something wrong with you. The above photo was taken when he was telling me about an autobiography he was writing, asking me to jot down some thoughts about that show and mail them to him. I did...and got back a charming, unnecessary "thank you" note. I sure hope he finished the book and that it gets published because I'd like to spend a little more time with Henry Gibson. Here's a link to an obituary. He was 73 and the cause of death, yet again, was cancer.
The Kaiser Family Foundation, which does non-partisan analysis of health care in this country, has a report out on rising costs. Quick summary: The cost of health care is rising a lot faster than the average person's income. But you already knew that.
If the cost of health care continues to rise as fast as it has over the past five years, by 2019, your average American family will be paying $24,180 per year for their policy. If rates continue to rise as rapidly as they have over the past five years, you're looking at $30,803. The current number is $13,375.
So the best case scenario, if nothing's done to change the scenario, is an increase of close to 100% and it could be worse than that. Odds are most family incomes are not going to double in the next ten years.
When folks who resist change say, "I'm afraid that under a new plan, I won't be able to keep my present doctor," Democrats oughta tell them, "Under the old plan, you may not be able to keep your present doctor." You may not be able to keep any doctor...but obviously, even if you do have insurance, a lot of things are going to be different. Benefits are going to be cut. Allowable fees to doctors will be lowered. Many employers will stop offering insurance to their workers and many that continue to make it available will switch to cheaper companies or plans.
Whoever makes up the schedules over at Turner Classic Movies is usually pretty good at "flow." That's what TV programmers call the art of sequencing what they air so that one show leads into another and is likely to retain some of the same audience. But every so often, you kinda wonder what (if anything) they had in mind. Friday night and early Saturday morning, we have the following list of films on TCM...
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! — A Russ Meyer film with tough women running around on a crime spree.
Mudhoney — Another Russ Meyer film with rotten people doing rotten things to each other.
Sons of the Desert — arguably, the best feature with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy
The Outlaws is Coming — not the best feature with the Three Stooges but it does have Adam West in it as the romantic/heroic lead.
...and those are followed by a couple of chapters from a Dick Tracy serial. Go ahead. Explain to me about the flow here.
While we're talking TCM: Sunday morning, they're running A Thousand Clowns, which is one of those great movies that isn't currently out on DVD. And then Monday afternoon/evening, they're airing — in this order — two great Buster Keaton films (Sherlock, Jr. and Steamboat Bill, Jr.), On the Waterfront, then two great Stanley Kubrick films (Dr. Strangelove and 2001: A Space Odyssey). Some real good films there...some good reasons to set the TiVo.
Today, we watch the trailer for the 1959 movie musical, Li'l Abner. Years ago, I researched and wrote about the Broadway show and about the movie version so if you're interested in either, you might want to check out those links. One thing everyone told me was that Al Capp didn't have that much to do with the dramatization of his comic strip. He turns up in this trailer and it was probably one of the few times he was on the set. He was asked to make a cameo appearance in the film but he declined.
I really like this movie...and since from all accounts, it was pretty faithful to the Broadway show (even to the point of employing most of that cast), I probably would have liked it, too. But we have to settle for the film — and this trailer...
September 17, 2009
