Hey, I have two links for you to good articles about Dick Cavett. First, a huge fan of Cavett's named David Laurell wrote about his interview with the man. Then Lyle E. Davis interviewed him. Two interesting perspectives on the same guy.
Here's a good interview with Stan and Hunter Freberg. Bet you didn't know Stan not only has a Grammy Award but that he's the one who came up with the name for that trophy.
You can order their new CD, Songs in the Key of Freberghere...and you should. Very clever stuff from very clever people. (That, by the way, is not an Amazon link. It's more expensive on Amazon so I'm not linking you there even though I get a commission on Amazon links.)
So Wisconsin has a budget crisis and the only way to deal with it, says the governor, is to take away the right of public employees to collectively bargain. Why do I have the feeling that's an excuse to do what he wanted to do anyway, not a reason? Ezra Klein has more.
Kliph Nesteroff scores again, this time with a good interview with comedy legend Bill Dana. In the conversation, Bill spends a lot of time taking credit for the careers of others and the creation of much fine material. As far as I can tell, he's right. He especially made his friend Don Adams into a popular and successful comedian...not that Adams' own talents didn't play a major role in that. I suspect Jose Jiminez made Bill most of his fortune but the character also made people think of Bill just as a performer and to overlook his fine work as a writer and producer. He's one of the good guys and I'm sorry he's not more active today in the TV business.
Brian Jay Jones, who's writing an authorized biography of Jim Henson, writes to give me a little more history on the clip I embedded earlier today of the formative years of Cookie Monster...
In 1966, Jim Henson was approached by General Foods about producing ads for a new snack called Wheels, Crowns and Shells. (They were shaped chips, and probably tasted something like corn chips or Bugles, I'm guessing.) Anyway, as part of Jim's "campaign concept," he drew up a series of characters related to each snack in the box — including a character who would do anything to steal the wheel-shaped snacks from the box. That became "The Wheel Stealer" — and the same puppet was used in the IBM films, the Munchos commercial, and the sketch you see here, then eventually morphed into Cookie Monster (when the snacks were released, by the way, they were changed to Wheels, Flutes and Crowns).
Incidentally, this bit was performed on Sullivan on October 8, 1967 — and in his "Red Book" (a sort of professional diary) Jim called the sketch "Monster Eats Machine." Which, I guess, is an obvious title, really.
Yeah, I do remember a period when The Muppets were appearing a lot on Mr. Sullivan's show and others like it, and I had a friend who was into puppets but not necessarily theirs. He said, "Every bit ends with someone eating everything or blowing up." This routine must have really annoyed him because it involved both. Thanks, Brian. Looking forward to the book.
As many of you know and as few of you care, I'm involved with The Garfield Show, an animated series that is seen in darn near every country on this planet...and in the U.S. on Cartoon Network. My title is Supervising Producer but I don't get to supervise any producers. Mostly, I write episodes and direct the voices. We do these shows in "seasons," each of which contain 26 half-hour episodes. What Cartoon Network has been running since the show joined its lineup in October of '09 is Season One, which they've shown over and over and over and over and over. During December, they also ran a special Christmas episode which we produced for Season Two.
Commencing Monday, February 28, they'll be running the rest of Season Two. We have been warned that the time slot might vary during the next month or three but it will usually air twice a day, Monday through Friday. I have no idea if they'll go all the way through Season Two before they run any of the Season One episodes again or if they'll sprinkle them in or what they'll do. You know as much about that kind of thing as I do.
Production on Season Two was completed a while ago and we start recording Season Three next month. I hope you'll tune in because we're having a great time doing these and it's fun to share that.
I felt I should write something at greater length about Joanne Siegel (widow of Jerry) who left us the other day...but I may have said most of it when I said she had courage and strength as well as beauty and charm. She was fiercely protective of Jerry and of their daughter Laura. She was also grateful to those who loved Jerry and Joe and were supportive of them.
There was a period about a decade ago when every week or so, I'd get a call or e-mail from someone who was working on a documentary on the history of Superman. They had been unsuccessful in contacting the Siegels and they wanted me to act as intermediary and arrange an interview. There was one guy in particular who ordered me around like I was his secretary. I don't think he ever actually made the film he claimed to be making and if he talked to others as he talked to me, I can imagine why. Anyway, because of ongoing legal stuff (Joanne lived much of her life with ongoing legal stuff), she was not giving interviews and I don't think I even had her current phone number so I told everyone who called to contact her lawyer — whoever it was at the time — and suggested a paper-type letter instead of a phone call. The demanding guy actually said to me, "I don't do paper mail."
Anyway, Joanne called one day — and this may be the last time we spoke — to apologize to me that I was getting these calls and e-mails. She felt bad about it...and bad that she wasn't able to give all those folks the interviews they wanted. The only one she didn't feel bad about turning down was the annoying guy I told you about. He'd somehow found her number, called and told her when he was coming by with his cameras so she'd better be ready. She told me she'd informed him what he could do with his cameras...and I can believe it. The man's probably still quaking.
She was very proud of the role she'd played in the history of one of the world's great iconic characters and felt a great responsibility to history and also to the memory of her departed hubby. Jerry was always willing to talk, not just about his own work but about the industry he helped establish, the many people he worked with, etc. One time, he was on the phone with someone who wanted to know which comic contained the first appearance of Mr. Mxyzptlk and Jerry didn't know offhand...so while he talked to the caller about other things, he had Joanne call me on the other line and get the information. (As many of you could have told him, it was Superman #30 and the character then called himself Mr. Mxyztplk. I believe he changed it because it sounded too Jewish.)
Answering the question was no big deal. It took thirty seconds and I was pleased to do it for them. To my surprise, a few days later I received an envelope with a Superman poster signed to me by Jerry and a handwritten "thank you" note from Joanne. That was how nice they both were...and how important it was to them to do right by their fans. (I don't mean me. I mean whoever it was who asked Jerry that question.)
I didn't know them as well as I would have liked. Apart from calls to ask research-type questions, I think I only spoke to or saw them (or after Jerry passed, just Joanne) about once every decade. The last time was about two or three weeks before we lost him. You would have loved what good care they took of each other.
Jerry was excited because in a few months, the two of them were being flown to London so he could sign some new Superman litho cel at a Warner Store over there. They'd be going First Class and there was a per diem and an appearance fee...and when Joanne was out of the room making coffee for Jerry, he leaned over and told me why he was so happy about the trip. It was because Joanne deserved a vacation. He was looking forward to it for himself but what he was really looking forward to was how happy it would make Joanne. There were so many years there where he couldn't provide all (or hardly any) of the things he thought she deserved...and now there was this trip which, sadly, they never got to take. But the point was that he was happy about it because she was happy about it. And she felt the same way about him.
And while I'm not a big believer in any afterlife, it sure is nice to think that if we had to lose her, at least they're together again.
Muppet Time! This is labelled as an IBM training video but it's actually a performance on The Ed Sullivan Show from October '67 of material that Mr. Henson and his crew had earlier developed for an IBM in-house project called The Coffee Break Machine. It features an early version of the character who would later lose his teeth — though not his appetite for consuming things — and become famous as Cookie Monster.
The creature went through a number of incarnations. He was originally called The Wheel-Stealer because, I guess, in his first appearance he stole wheels. He was later in a series of commercials for a potato snack called Munchos and in those, he was Arnold the Munching Monster. Eventually, he found his true identity on Sesame Street.
I believe Jim Henson is performing the character here, probably with Frank Oz — who would later become the Cookie Monster we know and love — working at least one of the hands. The voice of the computer is Henson's so he probably pre-taped that. Listen to some of the double-talk from the computer because it's really quite funny, especially the Mome Raths...
February 17, 2011
