Monthly Archives: October 2006

Gourmet Magazine picks its Top 50 restaurants in the United States. I'm not sure I can explain why but I'm proud to say that I've never eaten in one of them. (Well, to be honest, I did have dinner once at Spago, but that was the one in Hollywood which they've since closed down. The one on the list is the new location in Beverly Hills.)

According to this article, the Computer Age is also the age where people forget or never learn how to write in longhand. Luckily, I have some cursive fonts.

The Los Angeles Times runs a much-belated obit on animation designer Ed Benedict.

Speaking of Python, as we were: We've been writing here about Terry Gilliam's October 4 "flash mob" on the streets of New York. Over on this page at Quick Stop Entertainment, you can view or download a few minutes of video of that event. A few of my visitors here would probably appreciate me mentioning that the language is not all "work safe."

As a great many of you are reminding me in e-mail, the original LP pressing of Monty Python's Matching Tie and Handkerchief was what some call a "three-sided record." Side One was perfectly normal but Side Two had two sets of grooves pressed into it with different material. Depending on where you dropped the ol' stylus, you might hear Side 2A or Side 2B. It was a matter of dumb luck which you got and you sometimes had to reset the needle several times to get the bits you hadn't heard before. I don't know this for a fact but I presume the CD pressings have done away with that gimmick and just present the material from both second sides in the normal way.

It was a very clever idea and I seem to recall the Rhino folks putting out a Henny Youngman album that took the idea to greater extremes. One side had a normal performance but the other had four different sets of grooves with four different routines on it. At least, I think it was four. With Henny, it was hard to tell even if you heard them all.

One other thing I wanted to mention, just because all my useless thoughts need to be somewhere on this weblog. We don't think of the Python guys as audio/record comedians but there was a time when some did, at least in Los Angeles. The first few Python records got to L.A. at least a year and a half before the Monty Python's Flying Circus show appeared on the local PBS outlet…and this was a year after the PBS stations in other cities were running them. We had a couple of record shops in Southern California that imported Another Monty Python Record and Monty Python's Previous Record and copies just flew off the shelves. Some were even purchased, taken home and played. I had friends who fell in love with the "Spam" routine and began chanting its tune incessantly, long before they ever actually saw it performed or even knew it had started as a sketch on a TV programme.

There's an old story Steve Allen used to tell about visiting South America in the sixties and being interviewed by professor-types who were studying American media. When Allen mentioned something about Jackie Gleason being a major American comedian, the South Americans were startled and said, "But he's a bandleader!" Gleason's TV work had not made it down there but they had gotten the record albums he did in the late fifties and sixties.

Those records were something of a scam. Gleason couldn't write music and he could lead a band about as well as Professor Harold Hill. He basically just put his name and sometimes his photo on LPs of instrumental love songs arranged and conducted by others. But that was how these Latin Americans first knew of him…so that's what he was to them: A bandleader. According to Allen, Gleason's entire comedy career, Honeymooners and all, was later viewed down there as a bandleader getting into other areas of entertainment…like if Montovani had suddenly put down the baton and started starring in sitcoms.

For a while there, I knew people who thought of Monty Python as a primarily-audio enterprise, not unlike The Goon Show. When the first Python movie debuted in L.A. (still before the TV show did), it was like, "Hey, those guys who make funny records have made a movie." Eventually, that changed. But it always fascinated me that you're so often defined by the first thing you're known for. In comic books, we have guys who both write and draw…but they usually don't start out doing both on their first assignments. They might get their first jobs as artists and if they do and then later start writing also, people say, "Hey, they're letting artists write."

Anyway, that's the useless thought I had that I wanted to share with you here. I'm going back to putting them into my paying work.

Among Broadway buffs, it's not fashionable to admit this but, heck, I have no reputation left to soil. I liked the stage musical version of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. In fact, I liked it a lot and saw it three times — once out here, twice back there. The two Broadway visits were both when it was at the Palace. In 1999, it was scaled down — smaller cast, smaller sets — and moved to its current home at the Lunt-Fontanne. I don't want to see it like that.

But I really enjoyed the original, full-scale version. I felt sorry for the actors who had to wear what looked like pretty uncomfortable costumes and there were a few moments when the schmaltz factor was a bit too high…but for the most part, I thought it was a terrific presentation that did not get the recognition it deserved. Within the theatrical community, which thrives on snobbishness the way a chocoholic lives for Ghirardelli, there was an initial recoil: It was Disney, it was a cartoon, it was a Broadway entry that seemed to be the work of way too many outsiders without Broadway pedigree, etc. Eventually, the throng overcame its prejudices in time to embrace The Lion King…but I thought Beauty and the Beast was the better of the two shows. I'm not sure it still is but it was.

As I mentioned back here, Donny Osmond has joined the New York production for a nine-week stint. So far, he doesn't seem to be upping the grosses one bit, which may mean the show (which opened in '94) is simply running out of people who want to go see it. Odds are that it will close soon and I'm hoping someone at Disney will see the wisdom in bringing it back soon…but only in the full, higher budget version.

Our video today is a five minute promo for the show. I may be wrong but I think this is for a British touring company that is currently offering the reduced version all around the U.K. Still, I think it may give you some idea of the magic that's possible when the show is done right. Just imagine more people on stage, bigger and better sets, and a little more personality in the performances.

John Lahr reviews the new Broadway production of A Chorus Line, which he loved. His review has some interesting observations about what the show originally meant and what it might mean now. And check out what he says at the end about the money involved in this reincarnation of a hit show.

Tom Engelhardt says the Bush administration has been fighting a war on the English language. And so far, the language seems to be losing.

My pal Marc Wielage, who favored us the other day with a good video recommendation, has a good buying suggestion. EMI International, he notes, is reissuing many of the old Monty Python CDs but with bonus, hitherto-unincluded tracks. Yes, I know it's all part of the W.W.C.T.G.Y.T.B.N.C.O.S.Y.A.O (the World Wide Conspiracy To Get You To Buy New Copies Of Stuff You Already Own) but hey, it's Monty Python. You love Monty Python. You'll buy the CDs again to get the new material. You might not like it but you'll do it. I know you.

The trick, Marc points out, is to make sure you get the October, 2006 editions of these CDs. Here are Amazon links to what I believe are the correct versions…but check before you order, just to make sure.

• Monty Python's Previous Record
• Monty Python's Matching Tie and Handkerchief
• Monty Python Live at Drury Lane
• Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album
• Monty Python's Life of Brian
• Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail
• Another Monty Python Record CD

Some of these seem to be in short supply at Amazon but with more on the way, and the last two haven't yet been released. But they all may be of interest to you. As Marc notes in his message, "Unfortunately, the reissues all cost about $22 each but, to paraphrase Python, 'every CD is sacred.'" Indeed.

Let me see if I have this straight. The position of the Democratic party is that the actions of George W. Bush have turned Iraq into an unsolvable problem. It's so far broken that nothing we do there now can possibly work.

Meanwhile, the mounting position of the Republican party is that due to the past efforts of Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, North Korea has become an unsolvable problem. Nothing that the Bush administration could have done or might do in the future can possibly work.

Sure gives an American hope for the future, doesn't it?

The other day here, I mentioned the Jerry Lewis Restaurant that existed for a brief time on Sunset Boulevard, about a half-mile from Dino's Lodge, a restaurant allegedly owned by his former partner, Dean Martin. I have no idea where I heard or read it but I'm under the impression that Dino's involvement in his place was pretty limited; that someone approached him with a deal to put his face and name on the place in exchange for a piece of the action and free meals, and he agreed. I also heard or read somewhere that Jerry opened his restaurant out of some sense of competition with his former partner…but maybe that was just some gossip columnist's take on what was more of a business decision.

In any case, Dean's eatery lasted a lot longer, owing to a better location and, reportedly, edible cuisine. There was also the fact that, leaving aside the merits of the two men as entertainers, Dean Martin's name suggested a classy evening of good Italian food and wine, whereas Jerry's implied an evening of food being thrown at you by loud waiters and having the entire top lip of the water glass wedged into your mouth.

It also probably mattered a lot that for several years, there was a popular TV show called 77 Sunset Strip about a detective agency allegedly at that address, which was supposed to be right next door to Dino's Lodge. The show's teen hearthrob star, Edd "Kookie" Byrnes, parked cars at Dino's and helped the private eyes until some season when he actually joined their ranks. In truth, there was no such address as 77 Sunset Strip. The actual Dino's Lodge, as opposed to the facsimile seen on the detective show, was at 8524 Sunset Boulevard next to the Tiffany Theater. Still, some tourists couldn't resist dining at Dino's when they visited Hollywood. Even if they couldn't hang out with the private investigators, they might get a glimpse of Mr. Martin.

Dino's Lodge closed some time in the seventies and was converted into an office building. It was finally torn down in the mid-eighties. Ironically, about a mile west on Sunset, there's a restaurant that became Dean's unofficial dining establishment in the last years of his life. It's the Hamburger Hamlet at the west end of the Sunset Strip. For a time, he was in there almost every night, often sitting alone but willing to let almost anyone sit and chat. Hundreds of people have tales of enjoying a drink and/or a burger with Dean Martin there — some because they wandered in and spotted him but some because they heard that if you went there, there was a good chance you could visit with Dean Martin. I kept meaning to drop by and see if he was available for conversation but I never got around to it. A friend who did told me he wished he hadn't; that Dean was in sad shape, remembering little about his past and occasionally talking in morose terms about his son, Dean Paul, who died in a 1987 plane crash. Maybe it's better than I never went to see him.

Eugene Robinson thinks the Foley scandal will hip some voters to the phoniness inherent in the Republican party's selling of "values." I doubt it but his take on the situation is interesting.

Chico and Harpo Marx sell Prom Home Permanent kits in an old TV commercial. Hey, it makes sense. When I think of soft, full-bodied hair, I think of a Jewish compulsive gambler impersonating an Italian and another old Jewish guy wearing a curly wig and pretending he can't talk.

We now bring you a link to an article on the state of the Late Night Wars which, thank goodness, do not involve Henry Kissinger. The piece notes — correctly, according to my sources — that NBC is clamoring to keep Jay Leno "in the family" when he turns The Tonight Show over to Conan O'Brien in 2009. I doubt Leno would take an offer to stay in late night on ABC or Fox, but I have no doubt he'll have huge sums of cash dangled at him to do so. (It's funny to imagine him winding up at ABC as a lead-in to Jimmy Kimmel, given how much Kimmel has expressed his contempt for Leno.)

I think the piece overestimates how much of the Leno/O'Brien deal was due to the involved parties wanting to avoid the nastiness of the Leno/Letterman skirmish. Can anyone suggest a similar nasty scenario that might have ensued if Leno had stayed on? I sure can't. What I think they were trying to avoid was a situation where O'Brien went to ABC or Fox or syndication and competed head-on with Dave and Jay. I suspect someone at the time thought Jay's star was starting to fade and that he might not endure against Conan…but now it's two years later, Leno's ratings are rock solid…and NBC has to be more worried about Jay being on a competing network. Leno's history in late night has been littered with prominent industry pundits — at the networks and advertising agencies — predicting his failure. Every single one of those predictions has proven wrong and I see no reason to start betting against him now.

They're probably also worried about the potential embarrassment if Conan's ratings in that slot are significantly below Jay's…which they could well be, especially if Fox, ABC or some other player mounts a serious challenge then and there. It could also hurt Conan if they can't find the right star to go into the 12:35 time slot. Odd that we've heard absolutely nothing about who that might be, other than that it probably won't be Carson Daly. NBC must have some names in consideration by now and they must be quietly making moves to ensure that their candidates don't all become unavailable before then. But even performers who might be on that list haven't leaked to the press that they're up for the gig. During the period before Conan was selected to follow Jay, half the comedians in town were telling anyone who'd spread the word that they had a near-certain lock on the job. I wonder why no one's leaking that to the press now in hopes of making it happen.

Here, as predicted, is Fred Kaplan with an update on the North Korean nuclear situation. As one might expect, there are dire possibilities and not a lot of hopeful scenarios.

And I'd just to like to add that I would feel a bit less despair at this new development if I didn't know that George W. Bush was receiving advice these days from Henry Kissinger. Thank you, Bob Woodward.