Friday, September 18, 2009

WGA News

John Wells was elected president of the Writers Guild of America, West. He received 1,191 votes and his opponent, Elias Davis, received 1,066. The more significant number may be that 2,348 ballots were cast, which is high for a WGA election. Member involvement is a big issue and that number suggests a high level of member involvement.

I voted for Elias but as I said here, I don't think John will do a bad job. The outcome does not surprise me. The main thing Elias did wrong was picking up the endorsement of Larry Gelbart. Larry was a brilliant writer and a dear man but I can't recall him ever backing a winner in a WGA election.

Tom Schulman was elected vice-president and David N. Weiss will be secretary-treasurer. Elected to the Board of Directors were Patric M. Verrone, Howard A. Rodman, Dan Wilcox, Linda Burstyn, Billy Ray, Steven Schwartz, Chip Johannessen, Carleton Eastlake and Ian Deitchman. Full details are here.

• Posted at 4:54 PM · LINK

Happy June Foray Day!

Today is the mumble mumble birthday of the First Lady of Cartoon Voicing, the legendary June Foray! I just got off the phone with her and it's amazing. The woman can still sound like a ten-year-old boy. Maybe that's what keeps her working and thriving and just persevering.

We love June dearly — and by "we," I mean everyone who ever loved animation and Rocky & Bullwinkle and funny records and memorable commercials and Tweety's owner Granny and...well, the list is very long. Helping her with her autobiography, Earl Kress and I were continually amazed at how much she's done. We knew it was a huge body of work and we thought we knew all of it. But even we were stunned, and not just at the quantity. The quality is also amazing, as is the span. Do you realize she started doing Rocky the Flying Squirrel fifty years ago? That's half a bloomin' century!

So a Happy June Foray Day to you all...but especially to June Foray. Just the best.

• Posted at 4:28 PM · LINK

Today's Health Care Rant

I don't pretend to understand all the math of the Max Baucus health care draft...but jeez. So far, all the movers 'n' shakers in this debate who strike me as really caring about fixing the problem loathe it. It would help some folks but not all and its monetary projections are utterly unrealistic and some people would be a lot worse off and the only thing it would seem to have going for it is that some Republicans could get behind it, but of course the only one who will is Olympia Snowe and even she's not guaranteed. Most of all, it seems to come from that mindset that the only way to fix health care in this country is to make sure the insurance companies make even more money off a good system than they do off a bad one.

I have nothing against corporate profits. The heart of this nation's economy depends on businesses being able to amass moola. But when human lives are concerned, couldn't that be close to an equal consideration? It doesn't even have to be more vital than making sure some corporations have their best year ever. Couldn't it just be, you know, almost as important?

• Posted at 10:05 AM · LINK

The Funnybook Biz

When it was announced that Paul Levitz is stepping down or aside or wherever he's stepping from the high command of DC Comics, I explained why the change was potentially bad for the folks who write and draw comics. Now, prominent retailer Brian Hibbs is along to explain why it's potentially bad for those who sell them.

• Posted at 9:52 AM · LINK

Scrappy Days - The Conclusion

Welcome to the sixth and last chapter of my ongoing account of how I helped introduce the character of Scrappy Doo into Saturday morning TV and animation history. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get around to this but, well, a lot of things seemed more important. Like sleeping once in a while.

You have two choices. You can read Part Six below or you can go over to this section of the website where I've reproduced all six parts in sequence. Take your pick. If you want to stay right here, Part Six starts now...

There finally came a day when no more revisions could be done to my script, the one that introduced Scrappy Doo. The show was behind schedule and production had to accelerate or they wouldn't make air dates. (That was not an unusual situation, by the way. During my days at Hanna-Barbera — and I gather this was constant — every show was always behind schedule. If a producer or story editor might verge on getting ahead of schedule, Bill Hanna would immediately adjust the schedule to put them behind. There was an ongoing fear that if a show wasn't behind schedule, someone might not work as rapidly as possible.)

Busy with other projects, I only wrote one other episode of Scooby Doo that season — it was called "Demon of the Dugout" and was about a ghost baseball player. Others wrote the other eleven episodes that were produced and the animation was farmed out to a subcontractor who did, in everyone's opinion, a less than inspired job. Years later, when the vast Scooby Doo library was programmed on Cartoon Network, execs would decide to omit for a time, the seasons with poorer animation. The first season with Scrappy was one of those. The theory was that kids would eventually tire of seeing the same episodes over and over...so when the poorly animated shows were finally reintroduced into the mix, audiences would be more forgiving of the poor production values.

I'm not sure that's logical. Scooby never, even in his best years, had very good animation. The appeal of the show was always, I thought, in the easy-to-watch energy of the characters, especially Scooby and Shaggy, and also in a certain cumulative effect. I don't think you could ever be much of a fan of Scooby Doo if you watch the occasional episode. No one episode is particularly memorable and some of them are quite silly and contrived, even by Scooby Doo standards. But watch enough of them and...I dunno. Maybe it's your senses atrophying. Maybe the characters become so much a part of your family that you'll forgive them anything. All I know is a lot of people really love Scooby...

...but not, these days, his nephew Scrappy. I'll get to that in a moment.

Scrappy did exactly what he was supposed to do: He got Scooby Doo renewed for another season. I don't think he was a good addition to the format and the fact that he could talk, while his Uncle Scooby sorta couldn't, tore the already-frail "reality," to use that word in the loosest-possible manner. Then again, the underlying premise of "there's no such thing as ghosts" was shredded somewhat during the seasons that the show had guest stars and so Scooby was teaming up with Speed Buggy (a talking car) and Jeannie (a genie). Later, of course, they gave up altogether on the notion that the supernatural did not exist and had Scooby and Shaggy chased by real werewolves and mummies and space aliens.

In his second season, Scrappy got a new voice. Here's how that happened.

You may recall that H-B went through half the Screen Actors Guild before they settled on Lennie Weinrib as his voice. Lennie was a brilliant, talented performer and a good friend of mine. I just loved the guy...but I have to admit he could be difficult to work with. Around the time he was voicing Scrappy Doo, he became very difficult. Some things occurred in his personal life that upset him greatly and while he always tried to conduct himself as a professional, he didn't — by his own later admission — succeed. In particular, he wasn't getting along with Gordon Hunt, who was then directing the voice sessions for Hanna-Barbera.

Gordon was (and still is) an absolute pro. A lot of what I know about how to direct actors and work with them, I learned by watching Gordon in action. One of the few actors he couldn't handle — maybe the only one — was Lennie. When it came time to start production on Scrappy's second season, Lennie informed H-B that he wouldn't or maybe couldn't play Scrappy for another year if it meant working with Gordon. Not unless they gave him a lot more money.

Bill Hanna was a giant in the world of animation and a very good man in many respects. He had, however, this fierce allergy to paying anyone a lot more money. He wasn't even that comfortable with paying someone a little more money. He decided that the solution was to bring in a new voice director...someone who could get along with Lennie. He called Lennie and asked him who he'd like in that position. Lennie suggested me.

Before the afternoon was out, I was in Mr. Hanna's office being offered the job. I said, "Sure, if I'm not stepping on Gordon Hunt's toes." Mr. Hanna assured me Gordon would be thrilled to have me take over that one show. I went down to Gordon's office and asked him. He confirmed what Mr. Hanna said. When I got home, Lennie called and thanked me for taking the job. Everyone was happy...for about the next eighteen hours.

The very next day, Hanna realized that (a) they would have to pay me and (b) they couldn't deduct that amount from Gordon Hunt's weekly salary as the studio's Voice Director. And then Lennie's agent called up and said, "We're delighted that you're getting Lennie a director he can work with. But you know, he still wants a lot more money." And that was how Don Messick — who'd been the voice of Scrappy in the first place until they decided he wasn't right, you may recall — became Scrappy again.

Losing the gig was another blow to Lennie, though far from the biggest. Larger problems persisted in his life and a few years later, he decided he needed to change that life. He sold his jade green Rolls Royce and his mansion in Hancock Park and spent the rest of his life in peace and love with a newly-started family in Chile. That's right: Chile. He used to phone me at least once a week to chat and tell jokes, and he was obviously very happy there. He passed away in 2006.

Most of his last few years, he spent on the Internet, which he loved. Once in a while though, he'd Google his name and that would lead him to some website or message board where he'd read the rantings of some Scrappy-Loather. He'd send me links and I'd follow them to read how Scrappy had "ruined" the Scooby Doo series. I never quite understood the sentiment being voiced so long after Scrappy had done this alleged damage, and coming — as it often seemed — from people who weren't that wild about the show before Scooby's little nephew joined the team. Others seem to view the pre-Scrappy series as animation that compared favorably with Fantasia...but suddenly when this one character was added, it abruptly turned into a Saturday morning cartoon show.

I don't know why some people hate him so. I don't see that the show was any better the season before...and as I've explained here, his presence got the network to order another season. My read is that the folks who don't like Scrappy are few in number but loud in voice. When I watch one of those 1979 episodes, I can't possibly dislike Scrappy...because he makes me think of Lennie.

This is probably all I remember about the birthing of Scrappy Doo. I did not create him, as some report. He did not destroy the show, as others claim. He was born during a time at that studio when characters were treated a bit too much as a commodity and in that context, he served his purpose. And every now and then, I come across someone — usually someone a lot younger than I am — who absolutely loves Scrappy to pieces. That's great. I don't share the sentiment but I'm glad to have had a hand in giving those folks something they like.

• Posted at 2:10 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

I used to be a big wallower in Watergate, devouring every book ever written on the scandal that brought down the Nixon presidency and eagerly pouncing on each new revelation. It's been a while since we had many in which to wallow...but we do seem to get one new Watergate revelation every decade or so.

For some time now, we've been teased about the biggie. Technicians keep popping up to say that "new technology" might make it possible to restore the audio in the infamous 18.5 minute gap in the Nixon tape where he and Bob Haldeman first discussed the break-in at the Watergate Hotel. I'm not holding my breath. But we may have a new breakthrough on the second biggest mystery: What exactly were the Watergate burglars seeking that night?

Conventional wisdom has generally been that they either had no specific goal — just trying to see if they could find any dirt to use against Democrats — or were trying to see if Democratic Chairman Larry O'Brien had info on financial improprieties between Richard Nixon and Howard Hughes. There were some shenanigans there and Nixon was known to be concerned that O'Brien, who'd worked for Hughes, had certain information about their dealings.

Those theories were just that — theories based on speculation. Now, John Dean is claiming to have uncovered documentary evidence of the specific mission. It had to do with the fact that Nixon's Justice Department was being accused of having settled a high-profile anti-trust case against the I.T.T. Corporation in exchange for a bribe. Says Dean, Nixon had received a tip about a supposed kickback scheme involving the Democratic Convention. He wanted to ferret out dirt about that so he could use it to counter accusations about the I.T.T. case.

That's what Mr. Dean says and he claims to have solid documentation to prove it. He discussed it last night on Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Here's that segment...

• Posted at 12:02 AM · LINK

September 19, 2009 • Current • September 17, 2009