Sunday, August 29, 2010

Great Retractions

Just saw this online...

STORY REMOVED: US--Jeremiah Wright-Ark
By Associated Press

The Associated Press has withdrawn its story about Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Wright referred to people who wrongly believe Obama is Muslim as "sycophants," not psychopaths.

A corrected story will be sent shortly.

Sycophants...psychopaths...what's the difference?

• Posted at 2:35 PM · LINK

Thelma

I hadn't realized it when I posted that Charley Chase clip this morning but there's a lot of him on Turner Classic Movies tomorrow. That's because, as Leonard Maltin reminds us, it's Thelma Todd Day on TCM. They're running films she made with Charley, films she made with Laurel and Hardy, films she made with the Marx Brothers, films she made with Zasu Pitts and even films that are wonderful just because the lovely 'n' funny Ms. Todd is in them without some other comedy great on the premises. I share my friend Leonard's admiration for the lady and her work. Here's the schedule. Adjust to fit your timezone and the vagaries of your cable provider. There isn't a bad film on that list.

• Posted at 1:24 PM · LINK

Go Watch It!

Here are some good, short video interviews with Laraine Newman, one of the smartest and best performers I know.

• Posted at 11:00 AM · LINK

Working It Out...

I have decided to just become a shameless shill for the Reprise Theater Company of Los Angeles. For quite some time now, they've been staging short-term revivals of long-running musicals with minimal production values. This season, they're offering us They're Playing Our Song, Gigi and Kiss Me, Kate...and based on past results, I'd say they'll do a fine job with each of them.

They're Playing Our Song (book by Neil Simon, music by Carole Bayer Sager and Marvin Hamlisch) runs September 28 through October 10. The above graphic showing only Jason Alexander as its star was made before they'd finalized his co-star. I don't think it's been announced but it will be Stephanie J. Block, who won much acclaim in the recent Broadway production of 9 to 5. Tickets are now available for that show and for the entire season.

As noted, the show opens September 28, which is a Tuesday. That's the first public performance. The formal opening, with press and V.I.P.s in attendance, is Wednesday, September 29. Then the following Saturday, October 2, the 2 PM matinee will be preceded (from Noon 'til 1 PM) by a lecture/discussion of the history of the show. The Reprise folks have had the wisdom to secure a noted theatrical authority to present this...and, of course, I mean me. I'll tell you more about that when I figure out what's going to happen there but for now, I just thought I'd mention it in case you're pondering when to go see the thing.

• Posted at 10:06 AM · LINK

Today's Political Comment

Steve Benen summarizes a lot of what the whole Glenn Beck rally thing is about. It's about freedom...but not the freedom of gays to marry or Muslims to build community centers or poorer Americans to not be destroyed by medical bills. It's about my freedom to get what I want at the expense of anyone else's freedom.

And oh yeah, let's all be free to watch Glenn Beck's show and buy overpriced gold from his sponsors.

• Posted at 9:27 AM · LINK

Children Will Listen

Hey, here's an idea I had that's working. Every so often, one has to.

The Archive of American Television has recorded hundreds and hundreds of hours of videotaped interviews with important folks from the history of TV. You could sit at your computer the rest of your life practically and watch these videos — all wonderful stuff — but who has the time for that? I don't...so here's what I did...

Step one: I captured most of the ones that interested me to a little folder on my computer. By now, you probably know how to do this...there are about ninety ways. If you're using Mozilla Firefox as your brower, there are several plug-ins that'll do the trick, saving them as FLV files.

Step two: I extracted the audio from them into a separate MP3 file. There are plenty of utilties out there that'll do this, at least for the PC. I used a free one called FLV Extract, which I downloaded from here.

Step three: Then I put some onto my iPhone to listen to like podcasts in my car or when travelling. On the planes to and from Indiana, I heard my pal Lee Goldberg interview Dick Van Dyke. You don't lose that much on these by losing the visual and if I'd waited 'til I had time to watch it, I'd never have gotten around to it.

Most of these interviews are fascinating. There are a few where they just got to the people too late in their lives — the one with Howie Morris is sad because of how much he could no longer remember, though I'm glad they did it. If you're a professional writer (of TV or otherwise) or want to be one, I suggest experiencing the Larry Gelbart conversation in its entirety. It's really a trove of great, important material and moving it to my iPhone for listening is about the only way I'll have a chance to mine enough of it.

• Posted at 9:10 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

This runs about two minutes and you can ignore the first half, which is an overlong title sequence someone made. The second half is a minute from On the Wrong Trek, a 1936 comedy starring the wonderful, underrated comic, Charley Chase. Mr. Chase was working on the Hal Roach lot at the same time as Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy with overlapping crews and much interchange, and many of his films are as wonderful in their own way as theirs were. In this film, Stan and Ollie made a brief silent cameo and here it is in full...

• Posted at 9:04 AM · LINK

In Passing...

Here's the New York Times obit for Gloria Winters of Sky King fame.

• Posted at 8:29 AM · LINK