Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Recommended Reading

Fred Kaplan again. This time, the topic is Barack Obama and his strategy about nuclear weapons.

• Posted at 10:53 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

Christopher Helman explains how it is that you and I pay more in taxes than General Electric and Exxon. Big corporations now have the same rights as ordinary citizens to donate money to political campaigns. Shouldn't they have the same responsibilities as ordinary citizens to pay taxes?

• Posted at 6:14 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

Fred Kaplan on what, if anything, we should do about Hamid Karzai.

• Posted at 3:07 PM · LINK

Eddie Carroll, R.I.P.

A great friend of mine, Eddie Carroll, passed away early this morning at the age of 77. Eddie was best known for his one-man show in which he impersonated (and did justice to) Jack Benny but that was only a small part of what he did. He was a writer — he and his partner Jamie Farr supplemented their acting careers writing cartoons for Hanna-Barbera, for instance. He was a cartoon voice actor, most notably speaking for Jiminy Cricket for the last few decades. He also did non-Benny acting. I was first aware of him when he was a regular on a short-lived variety show that Don Knotts had on NBC.

I later got to know him and as past blog posts here will tell you, thought the world of him, above and beyond his fine Benny simulation. I'd like to write more about him but I'm due to go direct a cartoon voice recording and Eddie, ever the professional, would have insisted I not keep actors waiting. I did though have to get this up here, if only to say what a fine gentleman he was. The last time I saw him was, sadly, at a wake for another friend. Eddie was wearing a cap to hide the effects of recent surgery which, we'd all heard, might only prolong his life a few more months...but he didn't want us to make a fuss about that so we didn't. He can't, however, stop all his friends from missing him greatly. Our condolences and much love to his wonderful wife, Carolyn. Today is their 47th anniversary.

• Posted at 9:10 AM · LINK

Henry Scarpelli, R.I.P.

Longtime comic book artist Henry Scarpelli has died at the age of 79. Scarpelli was best known in the field for his work for the Archie company, including a long stint drawing the Archie newspaper strip, and for occasionally replicating that art style on other companies' comics. In the late sixties, for instance, he drew Swing with Scooter and other DC comics that tried to get that "Archie" look. Working in other styles, he drew many TV and movie adaptations for Dell Comics in the sixties (The Beverly Hillbillies, for one) and even dabbled once in a while in adventure-type comics.

My favorite work of his was the Abbott & Costello comic book which he and writer Steve Skeates launched for Charlton in 1968. It was much funnier than the Hanna-Barbera cartoon show on which it was based and probably funnier than Abbott and Costello, themselves.

Scarpelli was a Korean War vet, a graduate from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and the proud father of actor Glenn Scarpelli. He was well-respected by his peers and was honored for his work by the National Cartoonists Society.

• Posted at 8:53 AM · LINK