It's Fred Kaplan time again, people! I keep hearing Republicans say that the President's wartime policy should just be to give "the generals" whatever they want and let them plan our strategy. The problem with that is that in Afghanistan, "the generals" seems to denote General Stanley McChrystal...and General McChrystal says things like, "There is much in Afghanistan that I do not understand." There's a confidence builder.
Today's Google logo notes the birthday of one of America's great cartoonists, Elzie Crisler Segar (1894-1938). Mr. Segar wrote and drew a comic strip called Thimble Theatre, beginning in 1919 and continuing until his death. By that time, the strip had evolved into a showplace for one of its characters, the one-eyed sailor named Popeye, who popped up in it in '29 and nudged most of the other players aside.
The animated cartoons of the character, which began in 1933, were so popular that they came to define Popeye the Sailor for most people. There are comic strip purists who resent this, arguing that Segar's strip was the greater achievement and that it deserves to be remembered as more than just the spawning ground for the spinach-eater and his pals. They're not wrong except that some of them fail to note that the Popeye cartoons — at least, the first decade or so of them — were pretty darned wonderful, too.
Still, if you've never experienced Segar's strip, you only know a little of what a wonderful character is Popeye. Fantagraphics Books is reprinting the series in wonderful collections and you'd do well to check 'em out. Here's a link to order Volume One and if you fall in love, as I suspect you will, you can easily find your way to the other volumes. There have been four to date, all magnificent.
Ezra Klein makes a point about Health Care Reform that is easily overlooked. In addition to causing people to die and/or go into bankruptcy, our current and inefficient system is also costing people an awful large chunk of their paychecks.
I received copies yesterday of the Italian edition of my book, Kirby: King of Comics. The book is identical to the English-language version except that all of my text has been translated into Italian, as has the dialogue for Jack's story, "Street Code." Also, the entire book is a smaller page size — about 9" by 12". It looks good, though. Kirby art always looks best at the largest possible size but it also holds up to smaller reproduction.
I'm delighted, not so much for the royalties...which I expect will be a plate of rigatoni bolognese or something of equal value. No, I'm just pleased that there's worldwide interest in Jack. His work really does transcend every possible boundary and influence people everywhere.
I expect the book will eventually be published in every language on this planet and I especially can't wait for the Korean edition. I know just the person to do the translation.
Expanding on a topic from yesterday: As several of you have noted, lyrics are often written to a theme song just because someone would like to collect some ASCAP or BMI money. Gene Roddenberry, for instance, wrote obscure lyrics to the theme for the original Star Trek so he could share in that royalty loot. This reportedly displeased Alexander Courage, who penned the tune to which those lyrics were set. Which raises a question I have...
When Johnny Carson took over The Tonight Show in 1961, he adopted as his theme, a newly-written tune cleverly called "Johnny's Theme." The BMI listing says this song was written by Paul Anka and Johnny Carson, and that means that every time that tune was played, Mssrs. Anka and Carson received money. Over the years, that added up to an awful lot of cash. Not only was there $$$ every night when it was played on The Tonight Show, but if it was played elsewhere, there was a pretty high fee for its usage. It was so exorbitant that once on a variety show I worked on, when another writer wrote a Carson parody and wanted to employ the tune, the producer said, "If you want it, you pay for it!" The writer opted to structure the sketch so it excluded Johnny's opening.
The presumption has always been that Mr. Anka wrote the song all by himself. It is, in fact, a close rewrite of an earlier tune he'd written for Annette Funicello called "This Must Be Love." Here...give a listen to a bit of it by clicking on the little audio player I'm about to embed here...
See? Almost the same melody, right? Anyway, as I was saying, the presumption is that Anka wrote "Johnny's Theme" solo but that the deal to get Carson to use it involved giving him half-credit and therefore half of the BMI fees. One suspects Mr. Anka made so much off this arrangement that he didn't mind sharing. But it makes one wonder (or at least, makes me wonder) if either Anka or Carson thought of writing lyrics to the thing. I've seen the published sheet music and there are none on there. Anyone know for sure?
In the meantime: I mentioned yesterday here that the theme song to Mission: Impossible had lyrics. You can hear them in this video as performed by the Kane Triplets. I'm afraid they're not a whole lot better than the lyrics to the Odd Couple theme...
December 7, 2009
