Yearly Archives: 2003

An upcoming TV-Movie tells the story of George W. Bush on the morning of 9/11 and from all reports, it depicts him as heroic, tough, determined, etc. At one point, it supposedly has him yelling, "If some tinhorn terrorist wants me, tell him to come and get me. I'll be at home…waiting for the bastard." And with that, Bush makes the decision to head back to the White House from Florida. I'm not sure there's one human being on the planet who believes that really happened but that's what they're saying is in the film.

I'm always reticent to critique a movie I haven't seen yet but I sure don't have a good feeling about this one. It's being produced and written by a gentleman named Lionel Chetwynd who some in the TV business still haven't forgiven for his conduct during the 1985 Writers Guild strike. Basically — to condense a long, tortured tale — the '85 strike was about payments to writers for shows and movies that were released on the then-new medium of videocassettes. The Guild had earlier won a very nice deal on this format and the studios wanted to roll it back and lower the formula by which you'd be paid if a show or film you wrote was sold on tape. Mr. Chetwynd was the very vocal leader of a group that called themselves the "Union Blues" and the Blues' position was that a strike on this issue could not possibly be cost-effective; that home video would never be an important source of income and that most writers would never see serious money from tape sales. Still, they insisted, the studios were prepared to keep us out on strike forever if we didn't give in.

The Blues' argument didn't make a lot of sense but then most arguments don't in the imperfect institution we call the Writers Guild of America. In this case, it set everyone to fighting…and then some of our leaders did a spectacular job of muddying the issues and making us look rudderless. We had a short strike that collapsed in great rancor, the producers got what they wanted…and hindsight has certainly proven that the Guild was bonehead stupid to give in as easily as it did. I don't blame Chetwynd completely for this — a lot of people believed what he believed — but I had a few arguments with him in the lobby of strike meetings, and one post-strike encounter in the offices of Orion Pictures. He sure impressed me as being willing to believe whatever he thought would put the most money into his pocket that week.

If the Bush film, which is called DC 9/11, is what current leaks say it is, I doubt even Bush supporters will want to defend it. One bit of evidence that suggests G.W.B. wasn't a heroic man of action that day is this video which is now available on the Internet. It's on a website called The Memory Hole which digs up old news stories and footage that history might otherwise forget.

In the video, Bush is reading a story to children in a Florida classroom. I don't know why that alone is not sufficiently embarrassing. Didn't the man have anything more important to do that day? I think all our presidents waste way too much time and effort on ceremonial matters and silly photo-ops. Anyway, in the tape Chief of Staff Andrew Card gives Bush the news that America is under attack and Bush immediately snaps into action…and does nothing. Let's see how far the Chetwynd version goes to preempting this portrait of our Chief Exec.

One suspects the White House is breathing a sigh of relief today, now that the Supreme Court has struck down anti-sodomy laws. The last thing Mr. Bush needed was to be accused of ushering in a new era of sexual repression.

There will be jokes about this for days in the late night monologues. I haven't figured out any myself but I have the punch line to one: "…and Clarence Thomas dissented but admitted that he likes to watch." Let's tune in Jay, Dave, Conan, Jon, etc. and see how the first part of that one will go.

A lot of folks liked this article that I posted about Redd Foxx. Some of them may enjoy visiting this website that his estate has set up to recall his incredible career. Whatever he was, he was one of a kind.

Watching the hoary programs that Game Show Network broadcasts in the wee small hours, I'm struck by all sorts of realizations. One is that adults in the fifties and early sixties actually thought rock-and-roll music was an annoying fad that would be gone before long. The panelists on What's My Line? (GSN is currently airing shows from 1958) are forever making little parental mutterings about how what "the kids today" listen to isn't really music. The other night, Bennett Cerf congratulated a priest who was moonlighting as a disc jockey for never playing rock-and-roll.

Last week, the panel and host gave short shrift to Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who came on as contestants — and not even celebrity contestants or anonymous contestants. They signed in under their own names even though by then, they'd had a number of hit records. (In case anyone reading this is unaware, Leiber and Stoller were for years the all-time champs when it came to writing Top Ten songs. The list includes "Charlie Brown," "Searchin'," "Ruby Baby," "I Keep Forgetting," "Love Potion No.9," "Neighborhood," "Poison Ivy," "Some Cats Know," "Framed," "Fools Fall In Love," "Love Me," "Riot In Cell Block No. 9," "I Who Have Nothing," "Spanish Harlem," "Stand By Me," "Kansas City," "Smokey Joe's Cafe," "That Is Rock n Roll," "Bossa Nova Baby," "Saved," "Trouble," "Pearl's A Singer," "Young Blood," "Don't," "I'm A Woman," "You Ain't Saying It," "Loving You," "Is That All There Is?," "Yakety Yak," "On Broadway," "Jailhouse Rock," "Little Egypt" and "Hound Dog.")

Elvis had recorded that last one two years earlier but the What's My Line? panel didn't recognize the songwriters' names and treated them like kids working at a burger stand. John Daly even said — thinking he was being nice, I guess — "Well, maybe someday you'll do something serious." Ouch.

Maybe Mr. Daly can be forgiven. No one then could have imagined that Leiber and Stoller — and others of their profession — were doing work that would endure if not forever then certainly through several generations. Recently when I saw a local production of Smokey Joe's Cafe — a revue of Leiber-Stoller material that ran on Broadway for five years — an entire auditorium of adults knew every word to many of the tunes. The fellow who runs the theater came out to introduce the show. To demonstrate the impact of Leiber and Stoller's work, he yelled out, "Yakety Yak" and the whole audience instantly responded with, "Don't talk back!" Bet you couldn't do that with anything John Daly ever thought of.

Another artist profiled in my book Mad Art is the guy who's presently doing Spy Vs. Spy. Peter Kuper draws in a style quite unlike the late Antonio Prohias. Well, to be accurate, Peter doesn't draw the strip. He sprays it. His unique "look" is achieved by sketching the design and then cutting a stencil through which he'll spritz good, old-fashioned spray paint. The technique is visually arresting and as the work you'll see on his website will attest, it has many fascinating applications above and beyond what he does in the pages of MAD Magazine. I really like his work and so will you.

That's the address of the new official website that Joe Bevilacqua and Lorie Kellogg have erected in tribute to one of the all-time greatest actors — and I don't just mean cartoon voice actors. Daws Butler was also a very fine actor, period. That he plied his trade voicing Huckleberry Hound (seen above), Quick Draw McGraw, Snagglepuss, Augie Doggie, Snooper, Blabber, Cap'n Crunch, Hokey Wolf (also seen above), Elroy Jetson and so many more — including the smarter-than-average bruin at left — was a happy fact for the cartoon field. As I've written many times, he was one of the nicest men I've ever met and, for those who were privileged to take classes with him, a wonderful teacher.

So I'm delighted that Joe and Lorie have expanded their collection of Daws facts and curios into a standalone website, and that Ben Ohmart and Joe have compiled a new book of Butler scripts. He was the best.

On or about Friday, I should be posting here the schedule of panels I'll be moderating at this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego. (Click here for info on how to be among the 70,000+ to attend) This year, I'm moderating ten, which is down from my previous high of twelve…but I'll also be appearing on one other.

Right now, I'll just tell you that there will be "spotlights" (one on one interviews) with Larry Lieber, Sal Buscema and Stan Goldberg. There will be the Annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel with all three of those gents plus some others. There will be the annual Golden Age Panel on Saturday (looks like that'll be Paul Norris, Harry Lampert, Mart Nodell, Irwin Hasen, Howie Post, Murphy Anderson and Julius Schwartz). There will be a panel on Seduction of the Innocent, the deathless book by Dr. Fredric Wertham, and we'll be showing some video footage of Doc Wertham that has been unseen since 1967. There will be a panel on my work with Sergio Aragonés and another on the history of Dell and Gold Key Comics.

And I especially want to plug two events. On Friday afternoon, I'll be presiding over "Quick Draw," which was a smash hit last year. Basically, we get four of the funniest, fastest cartoonists in the business and with the help of the audience, I throw challenges at them which they have to meet with rapid-fire sketching. If you've seen us do this, you know what a wonderful thing it can be.

And then late Saturday afternoon, we have the Cartoon Voice Panel to end all Cartoon Voice Panels — one of the greatest arrays of top folks who speak for your favorite animated characters. They'll be performing scripts and taking your questions, and it oughta be wonderful.

More info in 48 hours. Or maybe a little after that.

Just cleaned up some sloppy phrasing on the item (two back) entitled "Dem Weapons."

My pal Nat Gertler has a weblog devoted to his observations about television. Check out Nat's TV.

Here's Josh Marshall on the evidence (circumstantial but damning) that the White House knew, when G.W.B. mentioned the Nigerian Uranium connection in his State of the Union Address, that those reports were phony. And over here on his weblog, Marshall makes the case that the thinking in or around the Oval Office went roughly like this: We aren't sure Saddam has these weapons but he might, so to get America behind the war effort, we'd better fib and say we're absolutely sure that danger is imminent.

Something like that.

The thing that bothers me about all this…well, two things. One of course is that so many people who flew into High Outrage over Bill Clinton's comparatively-minor truth-warpings are ready to spin or ignore any damn thing the Bush Administration says, no matter how poorly it stacks up against the evidence. Perhaps this shouldn't surprise me by now. Maybe we have actually reached the stage in this country where people — at least those actively involved in politics — are emotionally incapable of admitting that "their guy" lied. Democrat or Republican, it doesn't matter; Lying is only something the other team does. (The only exception to this seems to be when it looks like "your guy" is going down anyway. Then it's okay to pile on and try to claim a fragment of Moral High-Ground. You certainly want to call him a liar before he actually admits it.)

The other thing that bothers me is another one of those "pox on both parties" issues. There's some odd variation on the principle of schadenfreude that has to do with wishing ill on your enemies even if it brings harm on the nation and its people. It would be like a Republican (a few years ago) hoping that Clinton's economic plan would bring on massive unemployment because that would help the G.O.P. reclaim the White House. Or it would be like a Democrat (today) hoping that the economic picture will get worse because it will harm Bush's chances in '04. These are pretty sick things to be wishing.

The other day, cruising The Corner (a conservative weblog — and one often worth reading), I came across a post by its ringleader, Jonah Goldberg, on reports that new documents on Iraq's weapons plans have been seized…

Man, oh, Maneshevitz, it would be nice if this leads to huge stockpiles of WMD. But we've been burned on promising stories before, so we'll see.

Beyond the fact that a guy named Goldberg ought to be able to spell "Manischewitz," there's this: Wouldn't the best thing for America and the world be if we didn't find huge stockpiles of Weapons of Mass Destruction but rather, deduced that all the non-war actions (inspections, sanctions, etc.) had worked to eliminate them? I know some folks think those tactics are wimpy and unreliable but isn't the cause of peace and security a little better off if it turns out those methods prove to be more effective than previously thought?

Yes, there's a certain embarrassment for Bush and Company if the weapons aren't there…but most of that embarrassment has already occurred and won't be undone. Clearly, our intelligence — the specifics Powell cited before the U.N., for instance — is already discredited. We clearly didn't know what Hussein had or where he had it…and even if it turns out he had something, few are going to believe that we didn't invade based on faulty evidence. That's assuming we even find something and that anyone besides die-hard Republicans doesn't believe we didn't put it there.

If we do find W.M.D., those folks will celebrate — but only because it will help George W. Bush, not the world. The world is better off if the end of this story is that the sanctions and the inspections and maybe even the 1998 bombing of Iraq are why our guys ain't finding all that stuff that Hans Blix was ridiculed for not being able to find.

My mention that I once sat for Mr. Hirschfeld brought mail. Glenn Hauman, Phil Fried and Shelly Goldstein* all asked that I tell the tale of sitting for The Line King and/or that I post the resultant drawing. I have done this before so I'll refer you all to this posting. There you will be greeted by a portrait of a man with three Ninas in his hair. That is me.

*Chanteuse extraordinaire

As we all know, the Martin Beck Theater in New York has been renamed for the great caricaturist and Nina-hider, Al Hirschfeld. Here's one of the few news reports I can find about the renaming that includes a photo of the new marquee.

It's a lovely gesture for a lovely man. (I had the honor of sitting for Mr. Hirschfeld a few years ago when he sketched me and just to be in his presence for a few hours was a joy.) But why couldn't they have done this when he was still around to see it?

I'm sorry. That's the last time I'm going to whine about this.

Michael Kinsley explains the recent Supreme Court decision on affirmative action. Quick summary: Nothing's changed. Everyone's still double-talking.

Sorry…I'm behind on these. In my recently-released book, Mad Art, I praise many of the "new generation" of artists who have joined The Usual Gang of Idiots in MAD Magazine. One of the most impressive is a gent who is quite worthy to have his caricatures appear alongside those of Jack Davis and Mort Drucker…and that's about the best compliment I can give a guy who draws silly likenesses of people for a living. His name's Tom Richmond and you can see a sample of what he does so well over at his website.

I just read Sidney Blumenthal's book, The Clinton Wars — which like most book titles that are underlined on the Internet can be ordered from Amazon by clicking its name. I may say more about it here later but I have been saved the task of writing a review now since Richard Cohen has written one that summarizes my feelings exactly.

While I'm at it: I'm currently working my way through An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 by Robert Dallek. Portions of it are a little dry, especially as it works its way through bare bones historical details. One thing that does interest me is Dallek's account of Lyndon Johnson accepting the vice-presidential nomination in 1960. All the other books I've ever read have said that L.B.J. was dragged kicking and screaming into the second position on the ticket and they quote various Democratic officials as bracing him and telling him that for the good of country, party and Nixon-defeating, he had to accept what he considered a humiliating offer. Dallek however has Johnson manuevering to be picked, telling a friend that taking the veep slot was the only conceivable route for him ever to become President. I dunno if this is the truth or if the other version is correct — and with Johnson, it was not out of the question for two mutually-exclusive facts to be true — but this intrigued me.