Monthly Archives: August 2006

We pause now for a commercial interruption. The Flintstones, who you'd think would know better, are still selling Winston cigarettes. Alan Reed is the voice of Fred, Mel Blanc is Barney Rubble and the little bird, and the voice on the record is Paul Frees in what I suspect is the first time he was ever connected with a Hanna-Barbera product. We'll be right back after this message…

The issue at hand (again) is the plan by Cartoon Network's British wing to cut many (not all) scenes of tobacco use out of classic cartoons. Over on Cartoon Brew, Amid Amidi asks the musical question, "If somebody tried to censor parts of a Picasso painting or a James Joyce story, there would be an uproar beyond belief. Animation, however, still doesn't merit similar consideration as Art, which is why the works of animation masters can be freely tinkered with and destroyed. When, if ever, will that change?"

My heart is in the same place as Amid's but my head — which I pray does not function like George W. Bush's "gut" — has some unfortunate answers. One biggie is that respect for art has to begin with the artist himself demanding (or at least, expecting) some level of respect. Years ago, when word got out that MGM planned to reanimate and redub parts of many Tom & Jerry cartoons to replace the black maid character, a lot of animation buffs were outraged. "Where's the respect?" they howled, and I recall talk of picket lines where we'd all put on the same kind of grotesque stockings that the black maid wore and we'd parade up and down in front of…

Well, I don't know where we'd have paraded. The plan never got that far, which was a shame because I'd have looked damned cute in those stockings. But then we heard that Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera had enthusiastically endorsed the changes and it seemed kind of inane to be picketing Hanna and Barbera for harming the work of Hanna and Barbera. A few years later, I arranged a night of Tex Avery cartoons up at U.C.L.A. with Tex present to answer questions. Several audience members tried to get him to say that he abhored the laundering of cartoons (his or anyone's) for present-day exhibition but Tex simply wouldn't say that. At one point, he suggested that if his cartoons were being shown to young kids — which had not been his intended audience when he made them — maybe they ought to have some of the more "violent" gags excised.

I remember the moment well. It's not every day you hear a hall full of Tex Avery worshippers actually boo Tex Avery.

Now, let me stop and defend those men for a moment: Their point-of-view might not have been mine but it was logical, especially to kids who'd grown up in the Depression era. Their goal was to keep the store open; to have the cartoons on the air and not withering in obscurity. It was important that the films continue to be exhibited and to make money. Maybe Tex's cartoons no longer made money for Tex but it reflected well on him that they made money for someone. He wasn't happy that certain, inexplicable edits were made in some cartoons but given the choice of being unedited and less commercial…or being cleansed and more commercial, Tex would have opted for the latter. Hanna and Barbera weren't proud of all the shows that were produced in their building, but doing Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch was preferable to closing the doors, laying people off and (by the way…) making fewer bucks.

Let me also point out that one aspect of this whole issue has gotten a lot better. I think it's a shame for great cartoons to be exhibited in edited, incomplete form…but back in the eighties and before, that's often all we had. Today, we can go out and buy uncut (usually) and nicely-restored (often) DVDs of what will probably soon be all the major theatrical cartoons ever produced in this country and most of the best done for television. Couldn't do that in 1977. The only version most folks could see of the 1951 Chuck Jones cartoon, Cheese Chasers, was the one CBS ran on Saturday morning. It was missing more than a minute, including its ending, and we worried then that the absent footage was lost and gone forever. That's no longer a concern; not with so many complete copies around on DVD.

So I have a little trouble getting too worked up over Cartoon Network UK cutting smoking scenes. I think it's dumb, especially because there's so little reason to do it at this time. There may never be even a solid financial reason to do it. But the cartoons are or will be around, unexpurgated, on home video…and besides, you don't see Joe Barbera objecting. He made the films now being edited and he's always had the clout to call the biggies at Time-Warner (or whoever owned his old films that week) and say, "Please don't do that to my work." But he never has. I love Joe. I worked with him for years and respect the hell outta him for many, many things…but even when he co-owned the whole studio and his word was the word of God, preserving the basic integrity of that work always took a back seat to marketing considerations. If they could have sold a new Jetsons show by making the characters Mexican, George and Jane would have been sporting sombreros in two seconds. I can't think of too many places in the mainstream American animation industry where that wouldn't have happened.

So to answer Amid's pained and admirable query: The reason the works of the animation masters can be tampered with so freely is that the animation masters never objected. Some of them even helped. That the situation is marginally better in live-action movies is because powerful directors, writers and actors and their unions have occasionally insisted on creative rights and creative controls, even if it means foregoing some sources of revenue.

Which brings us to the one thing that will change the practice of chopping up cartoons for new purposes and sensibilities. It will cease when consumers begin demanding the work be treated with more respect. Along the food chain, the only folks with more juice than the people who make the product is the ones who make it profitable. It will stop when customers become more demanding of better restorations and no cleansing of cartoons, ethnic or otherwise. I'm fantasizing of a day when someone high up in Time-Warner turns to someone else at Time-Warner and says, "Ratings [or sales] are way down because of that tampering we did. Have the guys in the vault haul out the negatives and restore everything."
That will happen if the marketplace demands it. Because even the most mercenary, insensitive ruiner of cartoons will give up the practice if there's no money in it.

Okay…enough chit-chat. Let's watch Fred and Barney pushing more cancer sticks on the children of America…

Here's Fred Kaplan again (he's been busy), this time discussing the presidential press conference that we talked about here yesterday. Anyone who's wondering why some people don't think highly of George W. Bush — or thinks the concerns about his mental powers are just about verbal gaffes — oughta read this piece. And it isn't even that Bush is wrong about a lot of stuff. It's that he's wrong about a lot of stuff and stubbornly insistent that if he never admits it, that will somehow make him right.

The other day on Scarborough Country on MSNBC, all a Bush defender could offer was to say something like, "I trust Bush's gut." In other words, he may not know what he's doing but he has good instincts. I'm sorry…even if that were true, you don't risk the lives of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of human beings, on someone's "gut." The next time a G.O.P. strategist says something like that, I'd like to see his questioner drag out the old (but not inappropriate) surgeon comparison…

You know: You're going in for open heart surgery. Your surgeon walks in and he stumbles over his words the way Bush does all the time, erring as to where your thyroid is located, just as Bush keeps saying certain countries are adjacent to Syria when they aren't. More than half the people around think he doesn't know what he's doing, and even some who still like him admit to some gruesome mistakes. There are others with different suggestions on how your surgery should go…which other organ, for instance, he really should be removing. Still, he's determined to do it his way and he lectures you about courage and not changing one's mind just because some of the evidence seems to suggest he's making the situation worse.

Do you trust his gut and let him do it his way? Or do you ask for another surgeon?

Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón are two talented and important veterans of the comic book industry. Sid was an editor for years at Harvey Comics, supervising the successful line that starred Casper the Friendly Ghost, Richie Rich, Hot Stuff, Spooky, Sad Sack and so many others. Ernie drew thousands of pages of those comics and also branched out into adventure titles with his work for Warren, Gold Key and DC, and even into editing. In fact, he was briefly my editor at DC and so was Sid at another time and company. I mention that to make the point that these men have first-hand experience dealing with disasters.

Recently, they collaborated on a graphic novel based on The 9/11 Report and it's currently being serialized over on Slate. If you click on this link, it should take you to where you can read the first few chapters. What I've seen there is concise and serious, and the presentation of the material in that format gives it a clarity that has perhaps been missing from other venues. We'll talk more about it when they get more of it online…but you might want to start reading soon. Looks like a fine piece of work.

Fred Kaplan explains why the U.N. Security Council resolution — the one that was supposed to stop the killing in and around Lebanon — is working about as well as a Dell laptop battery. That's not the greatest analogy in the world but you know what I mean.

Director Spike Lee has made a long (four hours and fifteen minutes in length) documentary about the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. It's called When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts and it is, by an amazing coincidence, in four acts. Acts One and Two debuted last night on HBO. Acts Three and Four debut tonight. I TiVoed last night's offering and while I've only had the chance to watch about fifteen minutes of it, it seems like "must" viewing for those of us who want to understand what happened and — more important — what can be learned from the tragedy that might prevent it from being quite so bad the next time. There will be a next time.

If you missed Acts One and Two last night, you might want to hold off on Three and Four just for sequential reasons. A week from tonight, HBO will run all four parts in a row and thereafter, Mr. Lee's effort will be broadcast repeatedly — sometimes, two acts at a time; sometimes, all four. I'm sure it will be depressing and frustrating but I intend to try to clear time to watch it from start to finish. If you're skeptical, wait 'til I make it through and I'll report back on whether I think it's worth your time. Personally, I think Lee should have put the major focus on FEMA and called his project, Do the Wrong Thing.

Didn't even notice this before. Also over at Animation World Network, there's also an article about the Comic-Con International and it even quotes me. In fact, there's a photo there of me with Lou Scheimer, the gent who co-owned and operated the Filmation cartoon studio. Some of you have asked me to post a picture so you could see what my weight loss has done to me. I'll let you go look at that one if you promise not to peek at my hair, which lately seems to be doing a kind of David Ben-Gurion thing with a Larry Fine flourish.

Before there was Dick Cheney, Elmer J. Fudd held the title of World's Most Famously Inept Hunter. Mr. Fudd was in that select (pre-Simpsons) group of cartoon characters who managed to become immortal without being either a super-hero or an animal. There were many reasons for this but the main one was probably Arthur Q. Bryan, who originated and performed the addictive Fudd voice. Over at Animation World Network, Martin "Dr. Toon" Goodman provides a much-needed historical overview of Bryan and of Fudd…the man and the myth. Go read it and then come back here and I'll try to clarify the matter of Elmer Fudd's other voices.

Back so soon? Okay, fine. After Bryan died in 1959, Mel Blanc became the main voice of Elmer Fudd. Dr. Toon cites the oft-repeated story that Mel had to be convinced to take on the role because Mel didn't like doing impressions of others. I don't think that last part is quite true. Mel did lots of impressions throughout his cartoon career, including Lou Costello in A Tale of Two Kitties and radio actor Kenny Delmar in every single Foghorn Leghorn cartoon.

In fact, well before Bryan's death, Mel did a few Elmer lines in the 1950 Daffy Duck extravaganza, The Scarlet Pumpernickel. He also occasionally picked up a line in a cartoon where Fudd was otherwise voiced by Bryan. (Best example: In What's Opera, Doc?, when Elmer yells "SMOG!," that's Mel. Tapes were recently found of Bryan recording the same line so apparently director Chuck Jones wasn't happy with how Bryan did it and had Blanc redo it at a later session.) Bryan was commuting a lot to New York during the fifties, appearing on TV shows that emanated from the East Coast, so he was not always available.

That was presumably why Bryan did not do Elmer's voice in the 1958 Pre-Hysterical Hare. The role was played by comedian-impressionist Dave Barry, and you can read about Mr. Barry here. As you'll see there, Barry told me he also did Elmer in a couple of kids' records. Elmer is in a couple of the WB records produced for Capitol in the fifties but they all seem to be Bryan. In one though — "The Bugs Bunny Easter Song" — Bryan does Fudd's voice and Bugs Bunny is voiced by Barry.

As Goodman notes, Bryan's last performance as the Mighty Elmer was in the 1960 Person to Bunny. There was apparently some talk among the creative folks of just abandoning the character after that but Warner Brothers quickly vetoed that notion. For obvious reasons, they didn't care for the precedent of losing a valuable merchandisable property just because someone had died. What would happen when Mel went?

They not only insisted Fudd continue but that he be uncharacteristically featured in some cartoons. So Elmer lived to appear next on The Bugs Bunny Show, which was produced in 1960 for ABC Television, and in some Kool-Aid commercials that ran initially in that program. In these, he was occasionally voiced by Blanc but mainly by Hal Smith, who's best known today for his role as Otis the Town Drunk on The Andy Griffith Show. Smith also played Elmer in the two theatrical cartoons in which Elmer was starred. These were the 1960 Doggone People and the 1961 What's My Lion? (Blanc's in both and the latter also features Herb Vigran, who I mentioned in the previous item here.) and then Mel seems to have had the role to himself until his death in '89.

Some history books say Daws Butler did Elmer's voice after Bryan died…and Daws also said so, too. To date though, no one seems to have figured out where this performance might have appeared. Daws was an honest guy with a good memory so the logical conclusion is that he recorded a soundtrack for something, perhaps for Pre-Hysterical Hare, and it was discarded.

And that's pretty much all I have to add about Elmer Fudd…especially since I just noticed it's 2:30 in the A.M., which is no time for an allegedly grown man to be posting Fudd history on the Internet. Sweet dweams, my fwiends.

Everyone has seen this commercial in which The Flintstones sell Winston cigarettes, thereby answering the question of what made cavemen extinct. Obviously, it was lung cancer or some form of respiratory disease. (It may also have had something to do with overeating. Before I had my surgery, my dietician warned me that you should never order a plate of ribs large enough to tip over your car. Wise advice, indeed.)

Not everyone has seen the other commercials the Flintstones did for Winston so let's rectify that. Here's one. Alan Reed does the voice of Fred while the sales guy is performed by character actor Herb Vigran, who occasionally dabbled in cartoon voicing. Most of you will remember Mr. Vigran for his appearances on the George Reeves Superman series and/or from his membership in the Jack Webb stock company on Dragnet. Here we go…

As noted here — and sent to me by many of you, thanks — the British arm of Turner Broadcasting (i.e., Time-Warner) is excising scenes that "glamourize smoking" from vintage shorts. This, they say, is in response to one complaint about scenes in two cartoons.

Let me type that again and boldface two words: This, they say, is in response to one complaint about scenes in two cartoons.

But of course, that can't be true. You don't start chopping up your old cartoons in response to one complaint about two scenes. You do it because someone high in the company says to someone else high in the company, "You know, one of these days, we may have a problem with this." For some reason, when they make these decisions, they like to make it sound like they had no choice in the matter; that they gave in to public pressure, even when that pressure was close to non-existent. It's an excuse to take an action that is probably more economic than idealistic…and to make it sound like an act of social responsibility.

Which brings us to one of the little lies of the animation business. For years, studio heads have wailed about imposed censorship and insisted that their films could be better if only those danged Standards and Practices people would butt out and the pressure groups would back off. In many cases, that's absolutely true.

But it's also true that to protect the future marketability of their wares, some producers are way too willing, even eager to launder their shows and cut out anything that might be controversial. I wish they'd get a little more courageous…or at least consider that it would also be a demonstration of integrity to preserve works of art in their original form. If I were the guy in charge and the issue of cartoon characters smoking came to my attention, I think I'd try to find a more creative solution. And I'd start by waiting until it actually was a problem before I started fixing it at all.

In honor of this silly move, we dedicate today's video link…and probably tomorrow's, as well.

Frank Rich writes that the one big trick in the G.O.P. playbook — the assertion that you'd better vote Republican or terrorists will come by and kill you — ain't working so well anymore.

I can't find a working link to it online yet but anyone who's interested in the future of the world and the Iraq War ought to watch the press conference that George W. Bush held this morning. He was uncommonly flustered and defensive, giving nervous and desperate answers to what were mostly softball queries. I've asked tougher questions on Cartoon Voice panels. Throughout, Bush reminded me of a losing gambler in denial…the kind who says, "If I keep using my system, eventually the cards have to go my way." Well, no, they don't.

Earlier, I quoted the line that suggested we'll be in Iraq as long as he's in office. As a couple of you noted in e-mail, that's the kind of defeatist attitude that Republicans label "doom and gloom" when it comes out of a Democratic mouth. One of those correspondents, Tom Nawrocki, wrote me…

What's amazing about Bush's pledge to stay in Iraq for the remainder of his presidency is that he seems to be ruling out any possibility that we could actually win the war there over the rest of his term. Now I have no idea what it would mean to "win," but I'm surprised (and rather alarmed) that Bush doesn't have any sort of plan to win, either. He seems content to simply fight and fight and fight in perpetuity.

Yeah. It must be tough to still be at least an official supporter of this man. I have a theory that around half of those who claim they support Bush are inwardly revulsed when they have to say that. In any case, backing the guy seems to require that you maintain the jury is still out as to whether there was a connection between Iraq and 9/11…and then along comes Bush, in an appearance like the one this morning, saying that there was no link and no one in his administration ever said there was. Or you'd like to suggest that some reports of ancient, non-working weapons of minor destruction over there are proof that Bush didn't lie, nor was he wrong to say that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction. And then you have Bush sawing the legs off your position, admitting this morning that there were no WMD. All that plus the man's stammering and inability to state his position in clear, declarative sentences must have his believers cringing. He sure isn't making their job easy.

You're about to see a Kellogg's Raisin Bran commercial starring those famed rockers, Mr. Jinks, Pixie and Dixie. They dress up as The Beatles for it and toss in some "Yeah yeah yeah"s…but whoever wrote the jingle seems to be referencing "California Sun" by The Rivieras. Daws Butler provides the voice of Jinks and Dixie. Don Messick makes sounds for Pixie and the announcer. It might not make you run out and buy bran but it's a fun way to spend a minute…

A quote this morning from George W. Bush…

The strategy is to help the Iraqi people achieve the objectives and dreams, which is a democratic society. That's the strategy. The tactics — now — either you say yes it's important we stay there and get it done or we leave. We're not leaving so long as I'm the president. That would be a huge mistake. It would send an unbelievably, you know, terrible signal to reformers across the region. It would say we've abandoned our desire to change the conditions that create terror.

We're not leaving so long as he's the president. For those of you not near a calendar, that means — in the absence of impeachment — 882 days from now.

It's that time again. Around once a year, either the L.A. Times, the Hollywood Reporter or Variety will run pretty much the same article about the plight of the Animation Writer, a breed that occasionally includes Yours Truly. The pieces can all be summarized pretty much as follows: Writers who work on live-action shows that fall under the Writers Guild minimum basic agreement receive residuals and much better deals, as well as certain important protections such as health insurance and credit arbitration. Most folks who write animation are up the creek, sans paddle. Some of them are covered by no union whatsoever. Others are covered by Local 839 which, we used to say, was worse than no union whatsoever. Under its current leadership, 839 has gotten much better but it's still unable to serve the unique needs of its writer members.

This year, it's the L.A. Times doing the honors and here's the article in question. While generally accurate, I often feel these do our cause more harm than good. As even the reporter admits, there are deals in animation that pay residuals. There have always been such deals here and there, and because of in-roads by the Writers Guild, there are now more than ever before. Still, for some reason, the articles are never headlined with that encouraging development. Instead, we're subjected on this annoying annual basis to the press telling us how Animation Writers don't get residuals…and in some instances, making it true or truer.

Here's a story that illustrates the point. In 1985, I wrote about a half-dozen scripts for CBS Storybreak, a Saturday morning animated anthology on Guess Which Network. I had a little clout there at the time — Dungeons and Dragons was doing well — so my agent said to them, "Either Evanier gets residuals or he doesn't do it." That's what agents are for, after all…to say such things. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. This time, it did. The CBS guys gave in and it was written into my contract that I'd receive — and I quote: "Residuals at Writers Guild scale." Remember that phrase.

The shows I wrote ran. They ran a second time and as per the contract, CBS paid me the same rerun fee they would have paid if the show had been a live-action show produced under the WGA contract. The shows ran a third time and, again, CBS paid what the WGA said you paid a writer for a third run. The shows ran again and again and again…and each time, I received a check. The amounts diminished but they kept on coming, just as we'd agreed.

Around about the time of the tenth runs, one of the articles I'm discussing here ran in Variety. It went on and on about how Animation Writers don't receive residuals and it even quoted a high official in the Writers Guild lamenting that injustice. A staff weasel over at CBS read Variety that day and got an idea. The next time I was due a payment, I instead received a letter from CBS Business Affairs. It cited the article and noted that according to the high official, Writers Guild scale for an animation script was zero. Ergo, no check enclosed for Mark.

My agent at the time was the legendary (to his clients) Stu Robinson. Stu exploded and phoned the weasel, threatening lawsuits and bodily harm. The weasel, being a weasel, gave in and sent me money. The amounts were by now pretty trivial; certainly not worth going to court over. More relevant was that Stu also represented writers and producers on some of the top CBS prime-time shows. So he wasn't the kind of guy it was cost-effective to piss off.

Financial negotiations in show business are largely a matter of precedents. How much they pay you for a job has almost everything to do with how much others have been paid for comparable gigs. If you keep saying, "Animation Writers don't get residuals," you're telling the industry that's the norm, that's standard. In truth, more cartoon scripters than ever are sharing in the ongoing value of the shows they write, and I don't know why the WGA isn't trumpeting that fact from the highest of the Hollywood Hills.

The Times article is, unfortunately, right about the coming war over DVD money. I think this town is heading for The Mother of All Strikes as the guilds demand a better deal for home video and the studios pursue their wish-dream of sharing nuttin' with nobody. Some observers are saying, as the Times piece suggests, that union jurisdiction over cartoon writing could become an issue in upcoming negotiations. Maybe…but it's the smaller war, the one that'll be easier to drop or postpone if the WGA is going to the mat over compensation for DVDs, cable and pay-per-view. Which is why it's even more important than ever that we who write cartoons make it clear that "no residuals" is not a given.