Yearly Archives: 2003

The topic of Jerry Lewis movie theaters has died down on this weblog but this e-mail from Mike Durrett was too good not to share…

As a professional projectionist, I actually worked in two former Jerry Lewis Cinemas in Atlanta, shortly after they changed hands and names. The cartridge projection system is news to me and I never saw or heard any evidence of such special equipment in place for those theatres. Because of the heavy expense of projectors, it's doubtful any other machines than the ones I ran ever occupied those booths. (Simplex projectors were on the premises and not the Italian machines advertised in Jerry Lewis Cinemas materials.)

(There was a continuous loop system commercially available in the 1980s, but it took an extremely experienced and dedicated projectionist to make it operate flawlessly.)

At the time, state-of-the-art film projection often involved two projectors with (sometimes) automatic changing of the reels. A two-hour film could be loaded onto two big 6000' reels, but rewinding and rethreading was necessitated for each show.

In the early '70s, there was a projection automation system available which showed a reel, switched to projector #2, and then the finished film automatically ran backwards (offscreen) through projector #1 in real time and stopped at the beginning, ready for the next show. All this while projector #2 was onscreen and all, supposedly, without projectionist intervention. One of the JL's I worked in was equipped with this system, the Eprad SWORD, as I recall. It was truly frightening, but would be a selling point to novices thinking about buying into the movie exhibition business.

You said: "I still don't believe any theater would book a genuine hardcore sex film with a Jerry Lewis movie." Yes, it is doubtful, but I am reminded of being sent by my Union to work a porno theatre in 1970. The movies were garbage, but between each and every show they played a Woody Woodpecker cartoon. Very odd and make your own joke. To me, the cartoons were more peculiar than had they also been double featuring a Jerry Lewis comedy.

It is possible Which Way to the Front? and Deep Throat played in the same theatre on the same day, but the family film probably ran only in the afternoon and adult fare at night with separate tickets required. That's a standard practice which small movie marquees don't usually differentiate, so it might appear there was a double feature, but wasn't.

Several years ago, a drive-in theatre we frequent played Disney's Tarzan and "The General's Daughter" together. In 1970, The General's Daughter certainly would have been rated X for its explicit content. So strange things do happen at the movies.

Yes, it's theoretically possible the Jerry Lewis movie and Deep Throat played on the same bill. But I don't believe it, and I certainly don't believe Jerry drove by a theater in the Valley and saw such a marquee. Apart from the facts that Which Way to the Front? was an old film by the time Deep Throat finished its initial and exclusive engagements, and that such a pairing would have been so odd that I'd have heard of it at the time, I just find the whole story too hokey. So I stand by my opinion that it never happened in L.A. and probably never happened anywhere, and that's the last time I'm going to reassert this.

My understanding is that there were a number of unsuccessful attempts in the late sixties and through the seventies to establish movie theater franchises that would use automated systems so they could dispense with projectionists. There was an article I read around '72 about "McDonald's-style theaters" that could be run with the same kind of untrained, minimum wage help that was the staple of most fast food enterprises. The Jerry Lewis effort was the most prominent one but I also recall, for instance, a company that was trying to get people to invest in opening "baby-sitter" theaters in shopping malls. The theater would seat 20-30 kids, and parents could drop the kiddos off at them while shopping at the Nordstrom. A person with probably-minimal nurse training would be in attendance, just in case, and would keep an eye on the kids while they watched Filmation cartoons of The Groovy Ghoulies and Fat Albert. I don't know if anyone ever actually invested in opening one of these places but I remember the sales pitch because I thought it was a prudent move to have medical aid standing by when someone was watching Filmation cartoons.

Anyway, Mike, thanks for the info. I don't know why I find this topic so interesting. But as my websites attest, a lot of odd topics interest me.

I'm not all that big on storming the castle of Congress with protests — and not because I can't find plenty to protest but because I don't think it does a lot of good. I believe elected officials do pretty much what they want to do. When it corresponds to the polls, they announce they are listening to the voice of The People. And when it isn't what the polls say most of us want, they take credit for not being "poll-driven" and for being too courageous to let a little thing like the opinions of their constituents affect them.

The recent F.C.C. decision that will allow media conglomerates to get bigger is a perfect example of really not giving a damn about The People. I've tried to look at it from every possible interpretation, groping for the silver lining within. I cannot fathom any way by which we as a nation will be better-off because the likes of Rupert Murdoch, Disney, ClearChannel and Time-Warner will be able to get larger and to drive more independents out of the already-squeezed TV-radio market. The excuse that the Internet and other new technologies will compensate by providing alternative forums is a pretty feeble rationale. This ruling was passed because a small group of men in Washington thought it would help their own political and perhaps financial interests.

Perhaps most maddening is that it was done on the sly; that they tried to do it with as little attention as possible to minimize objections. The conventional hearing process was by-passed. Even folks who hold ClearChannel stock and stand to get richer are having a tough time rationalizing that one. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Commerce Committee, has scheduled a June 19 vote on a proposal to undo what the F.C.C. has done.

I don't know if messages to your representatives will change the outcome but it is in our national interest for this matter to get as much attention as possible. If Murdoch is going to get his windfall from the government, let it be done in broad daylight and with elected officials voting on the record for it.

There are many ways you can use the Internet to protest. Common Cause provides one of the simplest means of sending a protest by fax or e-mail here. An even better way would be to use that link to get the phone number of your Senators and Congressperson and actually call their office. Some people think this is a difficult process but I have found it's pretty simple. You dial the number, a secretary answers and you say, "Hello. I am represented by Senator [or Congressperson] So-and-So. I would like to urge him/her to vote to undo the F.C.C. giveaway." The person answering the phone will almost certainly know exactly what you're talking about, and probably has a little tally sheet right in front of them. They'll say, "I will record your viewpoint. Thank you for calling," and that's all it takes.

Do it now. Tomorrow, every channel on your dial could be Fox.

At one point in comic history, the largest company by far was Dell, which published and distributed comics that were put together by a company called Western Printing and Lithography. Western later functioned as a publisher of its own comics, mainly under the logotype of Gold Key. If you want to know more about the Dell/Western relationship, I provide a rough explanation of it Comic-Con International in San Diego next month. That's right — the con is next month. Hard to believe, I know…but it is, and as usual I'll be hosting a mess of fun panels and interviews, a list of which should be posted here shortly. In the meantime, I wanted to beat the drum for the panel on Western Printing (aka Western Publishing) and Dell Comics. I worked for that company for a few years and I collected its wares from the moment I could turn the pages of a funnybook. I do not believe in having affection or loyalty to a company, as that is a business entity. Such sentiments are more properly saved for human beings and their immediate creations. But I cannot deny that there's something about the business entities of Western and Dell that summons mostly-positive emotions, both as a long-time reader and past employee. On the panel, I and others who worked for them will attempt to explain why.

I usually agree with John W. Dean's writings but I think he's somewhat off-base with this widely-quoted piece that suggests George W. Bush might be impeached over the whole notion of lying about Weapons of Mass You-Know-What. For one thing, impeachment is as much a political act as a legal one. Bush could get caught robbing a liquor store right now and unless the polls indicated America wanted it, the Democrats wouldn't lift a pinky to remove him from office. Republicans would but Democrats wouldn't.

The article also gets a quote from Paul Wolfowitz wrong, though it isn't Dean's fault. A newspaper misquoted Wolfowitz and Dean is accurately quoting a misquote. On the other hand, it may be Dean's fault that his column hasn't been corrected yet.

The thing that comes to mind here though is a remark I heard John Dean make years ago with regard to Watergate — a subject he knows too well. This is a paraphrase but it was along the lines of, "One of the reasons that it snowballed to a scandal of such epic proportions is that the guys in the White House were desperate not to look like incompetents. To them that was even worse than looking like liars or criminals. And in trying to deny mistakes they'd made, a lot of them did wind up positioning their actions as lying and lawbreaking simply because that was the only other conceivable explanation." Those are my words not his but I think I'm summarizing what he said, and based on what I read about Watergate, it seemed to be true to some extent.

Something of the sort may be true with regard to these supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction. I mean, clearly some bad intelligence reports were "sold" to Congress and the American people. Even if indisputable Weapons of M.D. are eventually located somewhere, clearly we had not pinpointed their locations, as Colin Powell told the U.N. and other White House officials told everyone else. And because no one at the White House is willing to say, "We screwed up. We didn't listen to the right intelligence people and we believed some faulty reports," it's all getting spun as a question of lying.

The same thing as Watergate? Maybe. But I still don't think it's going to lead to the same conclusion.

The awards show, that is. Several shows which didn't receive trophies last Sunday night have nonetheless profited from the ceremony. Here's an article that discusses this.

Richard Lewis is another one of those comedians of whom I say, "If you get the chance to see him live, go." A lot of comics don't show you all that they can do when you see them in a six-minute spot on Letterman. They need time to warm-up and the freedom to ramble a bit without hitting a punch line every twenty-seven seconds. Lewis is a good example. Here's the route to his website.

I should probably just rig up some sort of automatic link to every new article posted at Spinsanity. This piece is an unemotional, factually-supported deconstruction of George W. Bush's claim that "We found the weapons of mass destruction." Go read.

If there's nothing on eBay you want, then this is the item you want to buy. (Thanks, Leonard!)

It's no longer true but once upon a time, a non-Disney animated feature was like non-Heinz ketchup: Few people knew it existed and even fewer spent money on it. When Gay Purr-ee came out in 1962, it was just such a time. It had star names providing voices — Judy Garland and Robert Goulet, for instance, though the outstanding performance was by professional voice actor Paul Frees. It had a score by Harold Arlen and E.Y. "Yip" Harburg, who'd written the songs for The Wizard of Oz, among many other credits. It had a script by Chuck Jones and his then-wife, and sprightly direction and animation by Abe Levitow and U.P.A. Studios. What it didn't have was much of an audience…a shame because while it's not a great animated feature, it's a good one with some entertaining songs. You can see the film for yourself on a recently-released DVD which can be purchased from Amazon by clicking here. And if you like the score, you'll want to hurry to purchase the CD version of the soundtrack album which Rhino Handmade has just released in a limited edition — meaning, once they're gone, they're gone. It's been manufactured from the original master tapes and includes five "demo" performances of songs by Arlen. Click here to go buy a copy. [Note: This site makes a small cut off purchases from Amazon but not from Rhino Handmade. I'm just recommending the latter because I'm a swell fellow.]

In 1970, I met John Pound at Jack Kirby's house and even then, you could see the talent. Later, we collaborated on a few projects but the real joy has been seeing him blossom into one of our best comic illustrators. Here's the path to his website.

The other day, I got an e-mail from someone I never heard of, telling me about a film festival I have no interest in attending…in another state that I may never visit. Someone got hold of a list of media-connected e-mail addresses (I suppose) and sent this announcement out to everyone on it. I have a pretty decent spam-filtering mechanism in place but of course, a few get through. That one did and I deleted it without comment.

A lot of other people received it and wrote back to the sender to demand that they be removed from whatever list they're on. Fine — except that the entire list, with the e-mail addresses of all the recipients, was embedded in the header of the message. This means that everyone on the list receives every reply to the original message. So if you got it and you wrote to them to demand they not send you any more junk mail, your message is copied to me. So I am now getting spammed by people who are mad at someone else spamming them.

I used to think spam was just a minor annoyance — and to me, it still is. The company that hosts my e-mail address does a certain amount of spam filtering, and a nice piece of software I use called MailWasher Pro gets rid of anything that's recurring. Oddly enough, the spam I'm now receiving from people who are demanding to be removed from the spam list is the hardest kind to filter out.

But from what I see out on Ye Olde Internet, the problem's getting really acute for some people. Someone's going to do something about it and since so much spam comes from other, ungovernable countries, a legislative solution won't help much. The answer is going to have to be technological…something that will allow you to define the names or domains of those from which you want to receive e-mail. Bill Gates and his people could wipe this problem out in a week, and I don't know why they don't do this.

I would hereby like to return various compliments from Elayne Riggs. Her weblog is on a list of sixteen I have bookmarked to check at least once a day. And it's always worth a click.

Over at Slush Factory (a fun, fine site) there's this interview with Gary Glenn, the President of the American Family Association of Michigan. This is the group that's trying to drum up outrage over comic book conventions having porn stars as guests.

And from Jim Guida comes this query…

You have mentioned how the ratings for the Tonys are always pretty low and the article to which you linked compared this year to last. I am curious as to how the Tonys' ratings compare with whatever it is CBS has on regularly in June during that time slot. I don't know how to access that information, but you, with your finger on the pulse of the entertainment world, probably do. If it's not too difficult, could you make the comparison?

Well, the previous week, a rerun of a TV-Movie (John Grisham's A Time to Kill) ranged from a 7 at the outset to a 9 in the final hour. The week before, a parlay of a Becker rerun and another TV-Movie ranged from 5 to 6. Earlier in May, the two-hour finale of Survivor got a 10.7 there. So the Tony rating of 5.4 is not wonderful but it's not a disaster. More to the point, it's probably not far from CBS's best expectation. I mean, you don't expect the Tony Awards to finish in the Top 20 or even to take its time slot…and CBS not only scheduled the show but gave it an extra hour.

Everyone assumes that the networks only care about being Number One. Obviously, they like that but the competition isn't as fierce as it once was. Once upon a time, if your show finished in third place in its time slot, you were probably dead even if (as was sometimes the case) advertisers were still eager to purchase time in your show. Nowadays, advertiser support and critical success can keep a show alive, especially if there's no viable replacement. This is probably the reason they aren't auditioning repacements for David Letterman even though he's been consistently losing to The Tonight Show by at least two points. Sponsors do seem to like to buy commercials on the Tony Awards, and it does a lot to improve the image of a network that broadcasts some pretty undignified programs. So it may be safe for now.

By the way: Another way they sometimes judge the strength of a show is not by how many tune in but on how well the show holds viewers who are tuned to that network. 60 Minutes, which was on before, had a 6.5 rating and the first half-hour of the Tonys had a 6.2, meaning that they held most of the audience of their lead-in. There was very little drop-off in the ratings over the length of the awards show — about what one would expect over a three-hour stretch.

Good article by Christopher Caldwell all about Spam.