Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Those Who Can't Do...

This is a little far in advance so I'll try to mention it again closer to the date. Every year when I go to WonderCon in San Francisco, I stop by a fine school/workshop there that teaches the art of voiceover and I conduct a class. The operation is called Voice One and on Monday, April 5, 2010, I'll be teaching a class called Cartoon Connection, all about how to do voices for animation. If you're attending WonderCon and/or reside in the area, you might want to hear whatever it is I have to say about how you should say whatever someone like me tells you to say. Say what?

• Posted at 10:23 PM · LINK

Today's Health Care Post

For what little the opinion of a guy who used to write Daffy Duck comic books may be worth, I've come to think that the current incarnation of the Health Care Reform bill ain't bad and might even turn out to be fairly good. It's probably bad compared to what it should be but it's not bad compared to what the Republicans (and a few red-state Democrats) want it to be...or to doing nothing, which would be pretty much the same thing. This post and this one by Nate Silver did a lot to bring me around to that viewpoint after I listened to Howard Dean yesterday. I also read a few posts which I can't find right now which dangled the following faint hope; that after they get this passed, Democrats could use the reconciliation process to ram through a few more cost-controlling measures.

I wonder if, by the way, Dr. Dean really meant that the bill should be killed...or if that was just his way of firing a warning shot that said, "Don't weaken it any further." He had to know that if this one went down to defeat, it would be a long time — like not in many substantially-shortened lifetimes — before a better one could be enacted. One hates to think what insurance prices would be then...and how far out of reach they'd be for many.

Yes, much of it probably amounts to a huge bailout/giveaway for insurance companies that are already making mega-profits off our unavoidable illnesses. It was kind of a pipe dream that it could be otherwise. They control this game...and since we get sick and have to play it, we play by their rules. Our elected officials simply get too much money from those interests to ever do anything that will stop them from making more money. That's pretty obvious when you note President Obama's reversal on a campaign pledge to allow the reimportation of prescription drugs. It would save the government a lot and it would save you and me even more...maybe even make life-saving medications affordable for some who need them. But that would cut into Pfizer grosses so forget about it. Ain't gonna happen.

(And don't you just love the rationale? "We couldn't guarantee the safety of imported prescription drugs." In this country, we eat imported cheeses. We drink imported wine. We wear imported clothes. We drive imported cars. But we have to be protected from possible danger if our Prilosec, which is made here, came to us via a pharmacy in Canada.)

So yeah, we're getting screwed. But a lot of people who didn't have health insurance before will have it now. You can't ignore that. It may be expensive but even if it is, think about how much we'd willingly spend to prevent another 9/11. On a cost-per-life-saved basis, this may be a lot cheaper.

• Posted at 2:07 PM · LINK

Funny Business

This month marks the fifty year anniversary of Second City, the Chicago-based institution that has output an amazing percentage of America's comedy talent the last few decades. Here's an article on the celebration.

• Posted at 2:17 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

This runs twenty minutes but it's one of my favorite Stan Laurel comedies from the days before he paired off with that Hardy guy. Mr. Laurel had modest success as a solo comic...never quite a star, perhaps because he had no particular personality in his films. Many, like this one, were spoofs of other movies and while the gags were quite good, he didn't really have a defined character and that made him somewhat forgettable to audiences.

Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pride was made in 1925 for an independent producer named Joe Rock. Around 1970, I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Rock briefly and I recall little of our conversation except that he claimed he wanted to use Oliver Hardy in the Stan Laurel films he produced, not as a co-star but as a villain. But Stan, he said, thought Hardy was too good a comic to play a good villain...or something like that. It is said that this film was shot on the Universal lot (where Rock had offices) using many of the same sets and props from the 1920 version made there of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde starring John Barrymore. The Laurel version is a pretty faithful, albeit sillier, telling of the same story.

This was a "lost" film for many years but a print finally turned up in France and someone did a full restoration, including recreating the title cards in English. If you enjoy what you see, I highly recommend that you buy The Stan Laurel Collection, a DVD set put out by the folks at Kino Video. It's full of films like this one. In fact, it contains this one. And then, after you enjoy those, buy The Stan Laurel Collection 2 from the same folks...and then investigate their series on Oliver Hardy's pre-Stan work, as well. Good stuff.

• Posted at 2:11 AM · LINK