Monthly Archives: December 2007

As predicted here, Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien will be returning to their late night shows even earlier than the theoretical date announced for David Letterman. I just received this press release from NBC…

BURBANK — December 17, 2007 – After two months of repeats, "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" will resume broadcasting all-new episodes beginning Wednesday, January 2, 2008 (11:35 p.m., 12:35 a.m., respectively).

The late night shows suspended production due to the strike by the Writers Guild of America on November 5 and have aired repeats since.

"During the 1988 writers strike, Johnny Carson reluctantly returned to 'The Tonight Show' without his writers after two months. Both Jay and Conan have supported their writers during the first two months of this WGA strike and will continue to support them. However, there are hundreds of people who will be able to return to work as a result of Jay's and Conan's decision," said Rick Ludwin, Executive Vice President, Late Night & Primetime Series.

Guest lineups for the shows will be announced at a later date.

If I were Leno and O'Brien, I think I'd be pissed at that line about it being their decisions. And if I were a celeb that either show wanted to book for the first few weeks back — especially the first night — I think I'd find another way to get on television.

But it's good to know that Jay and Conan will continue to support the WGA strike. I think that means passing out doughnuts to the strikers as they cross their picket lines.

I have a busy day ahead of me. For a guy who's on strike, I sure seem to have a lot to get done. Then tonight, I'm going to try to make it out to the Writers Guild informational meeting out at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, a building I'm always amazed is still in existence. I think the last time I was there was when my mother insisted on us going to a Cat Show around 1967.

So posting here may be light today. To those of you interested in this whole matter of David Letterman's company signing an interim deal to get his shows back into production, I suggest you keep an eye on the details. A lot of press reports over the weekend I think jumped the gun, referring to negotiations 'twixt the WGA and Dave's Worldwide Pants as being in progress, almost concluded or even a done deal. Most of these had as their only source, this article by Bill Carter and Michael Cieply in The New York Times which, as you can see, says nothing of the sort; merely that Letterman was going to seek a deal. To date, I have seen no WGA spokesperson even comment long enough to say "No comment."

There is a valid argument, and I'm not sure which side of it I'm on, as to whether it will help or hurt the strike effort to make such a deal with a relatively small company. The WGA is open, even eager to see major production companies break ranks with the AMPTP and accept our terms but a deal with Letterman might just be a way to help CBS solve a crucial problem it has with two shows, thereby removing an incentive for them to settle with us as a whole. On the other hand, if an interim contract with Dave's outfit would be the first of many, that might get more momentum going in our direction. I really don't know. I just think that the assumption and news reports that it's definitely going to happen are premature. Wait until you see some WGA official quoted before you believe it.

In the meantime, I refer you to another fine piece by my friend Bob Elisberg for a good overview of the strike. The one thing I might quibble with, and this is minor and almost not worth mentioning, is that I don't think the AMPTP wanted this strike, or at least not this particular strike. I think they wanted a strike like we had in '85 where the whole thing collapsed in three weeks and we took a terrible deal and went back to work. The current strike, I don't think they wanted at all. I think someone pulled a Paul Wolfowitz and said the war would pay for itself; that they'd make so much off the rollbacks and lowballs — and establishing the precedent for them with other unions — that it would be worth a few weeks of a writers' walkout. I also think they didn't expect the strike to happen when it did; that they figured we'd work a few months longer, sans contract, thereby enabling them to get more product stockpiled.

None of that, of course, changes the fact that we are where we are. If we absolutely have to be out on strike against the monolith of the giant media conglomerates — and I don't see that we had a lot of choice — I still think we're in a pretty good place. I'll tell you after the meeting tonight if I still think so.

I've made mention on this site several times of a great old burlesque comedian named Irv Benson. Many years ago on a trip to Reno, I dragged a friend of mine — a fine cartoonist named Shary Flenniken, who went along to humor me — to the old Sahara Hotel there to see a show called The Penthouse Pet Revue. It wasn't that I wanted to see Penthouse Pets parading about in the near-nude. It wasn't even that I wanted to see the show's headliners, the singing duo of Sandler and Young. I just wanted to see the comedic interludes, which were provided by the last surviving straight man from the Minsky's days, Dexter Maitland, and his partner, Irv Benson. Even Shary, who was dubious on the way in, had to admit that they were very funny.

Thereafter, I'd go to Vegas now and then to see them…usually in the long-running Minsky's Burlesque Revue at the old Hacienda Hotel. I also saw Irv once without Dexter. The Plaza Hotel (then the Union Plaza) had a dreadful, cut-down version of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum which starred Alan Young in the Zero Mostel role. Young was great and so was Benson in the role of the befuddled old man…though Mr. Benson didn't stick particularly to the script and was for some reason telling Liberace jokes in Ancient Rome. I dragged my friend Marv Wolfman to that one. Another time in Vegas, I dragged Len Wein and Marv to the Hacienda to see the Minsky's show there. Even they admitted that watching Maitland and Benson performing ancient routines was as good as or better than the parts of the show involving women with no clothing.

One trip, I got to spend some time with Dexter Maitland who, I'm sad to report, passed away some time ago. I'm not sure when but he must have been close to 100. Irv, I am happy to report, is alive and well and nearing his 94th birthday. Even better is that he is the subject of a forthcoming documentary that I'm sure eager to see. Here's a preview…

I've linked to a couple of Charles Krauthammer columns when I thought he was spectacularly wrong…so in fairness, I'll link to this one where I think he's almost (I'd quibble with a sentence or two) spectacularly right. And I'll add that I think a lot of people are so eager to vote for a person they think shares their religious beliefs that they overlook (a) that the person might not have a clue how to do his elected job or (b) that the person might be feigning his faith to get elected and then pursue a more selfish, sectarian agenda.

Stephen Sondheim discusses the changes necessary to turn Sweeney Todd from a stage play into a movie.

I am hearing now from two sources that the deal between the Writers Guild and David Letterman's Worldwide Pants company — the one that would allow Dave's and Craig Ferguson's shows to resume production — may be a lot more complicated that current press reports indicate. The WGA, for one thing, may still take the position that it's on strike against all of CBS and that it won't allow the network to solve two of its most desperate problems. If all of CBS wanted to sign on to the WGA agreement, that would be one thing. But there's a powerful argument to be made that the networks shouldn't be allowed to get their most critical shows back while still keeping most of the industry shut down, and there may also be complications in the deal from the Letterman side. It may happen…but then again, it may not. No word yet on how it will impact the Leno/O'Brien situation at NBC (or Jimmy Kimmel's at ABC) if Letterman doesn't return soon.

Also, several sources in reporting about the Worldwide Pants situation are saying that Johnny Carson came back to work during the '88 WGA Strike on a similar arrangement. This is from the website of Broadcasting & Cable, an industry trade paper. In an article headlined "Letterman May Follow Johnny Carson and Cut Side Deal," it is stated…

There is precedent for Letterman's move: Johnny Carson returned with his writers thanks to a side deal with the WGA during the 1988 strike. Like Letterman, Carson owned his own show.

Carson did own The Tonight Show while he hosted it but as far as I know, he did not make a deal with the WGA in '88 in order to resume production. My recollection is that he just said "It's time to go back" and he went back and the WGA — because it was Johnny Carson and because they were too busy with other matters — didn't make an issue of it, just as they do not contemplate taking action against Ellen DeGeneres. I could be wrong but I don't think I am. If Carson Productions made an interim WGA deal, it was some time after he returned to the air.

Ezra Klein makes a good point about Hillary Clinton's "negatives," which are a key reason some people think she can't win the Presidency. Yes, she's a polarizing figure. Yes, there are a lot of people out there who really, really hate her. But the way politics works these days, that's going to be true of anyone with a good shot at winning. No matter who gets the nomination, the opposition will be out there — on both sides of the aisle — demonizing and SwiftBoating and giving out reasons to loathe the candidate. I don't particularly think Senator Clinton is anyone's best choice but at least she comes pre-slimed.

Chris W writes with the following question, which has also been asked by others…

Why can't Leno make an interim deal for the Tonight Show (with his writers, for that matter)? In theory, all he'd need to do is have a commitment that he and the writers would be paid retroactively according to whatever deal is reached, wouldn't he? It would be neat (and very funny) if he took the opportunity to go back, and dissed the producers at every opportunity.

They're taking the show away from him anyway, and since guests and entertainment would be sparse, why not? He can show how well he works under pressure, for a show he's going to lose no matter what, a show that NBC (presumably) regards as a jewel in its crown, and would be faced with losing in a way they hadn't considered with the re-runs. He might even have Letterman on as a guest, and just think of how much fun they'd have complaining about NBC. No writers needed, just two funny guys making fun of the suits on a prime network show when it's practically the only game in town. My info comes from your blog, but it certainly looks like Leno (and Letterman) believe in the strike, and aren't going to undermine it for bad reasons.

I don't know if they particularly believe in the strike or just in solidarity with their fellow writers or both. Both men are WGA members, both men receive writing credits on their shows and both men surely consider the verbal ideas they come up with, before and even during a show, to constitute writing contributions. If Leno's going to be back, doing his show without his writing staff and performing any sort of monologue, he's going to have to reconcile what he does with the charge that he is violating his union's picket line. Writing a joke for yourself to tell is still writing.

In any case, I would think the chances of Leno getting Letterman on as a guest, or Dave welcoming Jay onto his stage, aren't much better than the odds of getting Abbott and Costello back together again to perform "Who's on First?"

But to get to your main question: No, Leno can't just make a deal as Letterman is reportedly about to do. The Writers Guild enters into contracts with production companies. Dave's show is produced by his outfit, Worldwide Pants. Worldwide Pants can sign an interim agreement with the WGA that will cover all its shows. Jay's show is produced by NBC. The official position of NBC and its parent company, Universal, is presently that the Writers Guild's demands are outrageous and will destroy the industry and must be seriously reduced before any company with an ounce of sanity could sign onto them. NBC is part of that group that walked out of the negotiations and said it wasn't coming back until we came to our senses.

That is why it is a bit remarkable that CBS (which is also part of that Alliance in the AMPTP) is not forbidding Letterman to make such a deal. They are perhaps even seeing it as a good thing for them in that it will get a couple of their most important shows back into new episodes. During the '88 WGA strike, the networks were pretty firm in not allowing suppliers to make interim deals with the Guild. I would guess that CBS and/or the AMPTP will have a press release out in the next day or so which will try to spin this as follows: Yes, it might not be a disaster for David Letterman's company to sign an interim deal since it doesn't do reality programming, animation, shows with DVD potential, etc., but it would be suicide for any other company to sign the dreaded WGA agreement.

There would even be some truth to the idea that Worldwide Pants would not be impacted as much as, say, Sony or Disney. Still, it's a chip out of the stonewall that the studios have erected. If other chips follow, it might be quite significant.

David Gantz has passed away at the age of 85. A native New Yorker, Gantz was a graduate of the High School of Music and Art, the National Academy of Design and, for some reason, the University of Iowa. Immediately after his schooling, he landed a job with what was then called Timely Comics, drawing and sometimes writing humor comics, including Mighty Mouse and Patsy Walker. (Timely is today known as Marvel.) He worked for an array of companies through the fifties at which time his career segued into magazine cartooning, political cartooning and the writing and/or illustration of books, primarily for children. His political cartoons were especially popular and he received the National Cartoonist Society Newspaper Panel Cartoon Award in 1997 for his feature, Gantz Glances.

One especially delightful creation of Mr. Gantz's was a newspaper strip called Don Q, which ran from 1975 to 1981 and deserved more attention than it received. It was the first, perhaps only comic strip ever syndicated by The New York Times, although it never actually appeared in that paper. (Before that, he'd written and drawn a strip called Dudley D from 1961 to 1964.) Gantz was also the author of Jews in America: A Cartoon History, along with his 75+ other books. A very prolific, talented man.

This is from the episode of I've Got a Secret from July 3, 1957. The panel has to guess a man's secret and his secret is that he invented electronic television. That's because the man is Dr. Philo T. Farnsworth. In addition to TV, he also invented or co-invented the electron microscope, incubators for babies and the system used by Air Traffic Controllers to stop planes from running into one another. An amazing person…and one who somehow managed to not reap many financial rewards for all his brilliance. On this show, as you'll see, all he gets is $80 and a carton of Winston Cigarettes which is about as much as he made off some of his inventions.

A couple of the questions asked by the panelists seem to me to be examples of a practice on some game shows (especially Goodman-Todman game shows) called gambitting. That was when the producers planted innocent questions with the panel that they thought would be funny to an audience that knew what the panelist didn't know. Bill Cullen, for instance, asks Dr. Farnsworth if his invention might be painful when used. I'm pretty sure they didn't tell Cullen what the secret was but it's likely they told him to ask that question in order to get a laugh. In fact, you'll notice they wait until after he asks it to buzz him and end his questioning. This was done a lot on panel shows in the fifties, though it was curtailed around '58 when the quiz show scandals broke. Shows like What's My Line? and I've Got a Secret weren't rigged — and of course, no one won any large sums of cash on them — but the producers were afraid that the public wouldn't understand if it got out that the panelists were being briefed in any way.

Anyway, here's Dr. Farnsworth. This isn't a particularly funny segment but how often do you get to see a genuine American genius? I mean, since I'm not on TV very often.

This whole thing with the strike is getting odder and more fraught with possible scenarios. David Letterman's company is going to seek an interim deal with the WGA that would allow its writers to go back to work and therefore, Late Show (and Craig Ferguson's show) to resume. CBS has issued a statement that says — well, here: Read it for yourself…

Regarding David Letterman's company, Worldwide Pants, seeking an interim agreement with the WGA: We respect the intent of Worldwide Pants to serve the interests of its independent production company and its employees by seeking this interim agreement with the WGA. However, this development should not confuse the fact that CBS remains unified with the AMPTP, and committed to working with the member companies to reach a fair and reasonable agreement with the WGA that positions everyone in our industry for success in a rapidly changing marketplace.

Nothing in there about CBS stopping Worldwide Pants from making a deal. That was not the way the network played it in past strikes. In '88, a lot of companies in a position comparable to Letterman's wanted to sign interim deals with the WGA and their networks stopped them. (By the way: I don't know how interim deals will work this time but in the past, they were "favored nations" contracts. The company signs with the WGA on the WGA's terms and then, whenever a deal gets struck with the AMPTP, the company can elect to switch to its terms, which presumably will be more favorable.)

Letterman, of course, doesn't have to worry about some of the "deal killer" issues that are presently said to be an obstacle to a WGA/AMPTP settlement. He doesn't produce any "reality" shows. He doesn't produce any cartoons. Excerpts from his shows do stream on the Internet via the CBS site but that could be curtailed or kept within a window that the WGA would agree was promotional. There are, as yet, no DVDs of old episodes of Dave's show. So it's hard to imagine they won't be able to make a workable interim deal.

Meanwhile, NBC is telling reporters that on Monday, it will announce the return of The Tonight Show and Late Night in new episodes, possibly January 7. (One source told me it may be even sooner than that.) Since those shows are produced by NBC, the network probably can't and won't make interim deals for them so if Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien elect to go back, they'll be crossing picket lines and working without their writing staffs. So far, no one has said for certain that Jay and Conan will do that, which leads me to suspect that's being argued about right now. It certainly puts those guys in an awkward, perhaps dangerous position. Apart from the obvious anger they'll feel from the Hollywood community — look at what's been directed towards Ellen DeGeneres and Carson Daly — there's the question of whether major stars will want to be a part of those shows.

Just taking Leno's situation, it sounds like lose/lose. He'll be out there doing a limited version of his show — hampered by a lack of writers and probably of top name guests — against Letterman with his full show and a lot of good will. If Jay does his usual long monologue, he'll be accused of employing scabs. If he doesn't do it, he'll lose his most valuable segment. His show has already taken a lot of hits from critics and doing it without writers will just give them fresh ammo to go after him again. And of course, he'll be working to save a program that NBC has already arranged to take away from him. About the only thing that may make him happy is not having to pay the staff out of his own pocket…which I thought was kind of a raw deal, the way he was pressured into it. (Hollywood is full of very wealthy people who are not paying their staffs during the strike, and no one faults them for it. And some of those people, unlike Leno, own their shows and are the actual employers.)

But the big question is what Letterman signing an interim deal will do to the strike situation. Will Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert follow? Will other shows? Is it just Dave who has enough clout that his network is not going to do what they've all done in the past and blocked interim deals? If Dave goes back on and starts clobbering Jay, will that add pressure to NBC to push for a quicker settlement? We're in uncharted territory here so it's gonna be interesting.

Fifty years ago yesterday, a new era in the field of animation began. NBC telecast the first episode of the first show produced for television by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera, Ruff & Reddy.

It was not the first cartoon produced for television but it was darn close. More importantly, it was the business role model for all that followed. Bill and Joe showed there was money to be made in TV animation and others followed.

Ruff & Reddy wasn't a great show, especially compared with what followed. Today, the animation looks primitive even by Hanna-Barbera standards and the narrative seems a bit leaden. Still, the show had intriguing stories and colorful characters, as well as the expert voice work of Daws Butler and Don Messick, and I wasn't the only kid hooked from the start. I'm pretty sure I saw that first broadcast, which was hosted by a gentleman named Jimmy Blaine, assisted by two bird puppets, Rhubarb the Parrot and Jose the Toucan. That week and each week for years after, he showed two episodes of a Ruff & Reddy serial along with a vintage theatrical cartoon produced by the Columbia Cartoon Studio (usually, a Fox & Crow short).

I remember the impact on me of new cartoon characters. I was five and a half years old at the time but already, I had a lot of the constantly-repeating Bugs Bunny and Heckle & Jeckle cartoons committed to memory. Ruff the Cat and Reddy the Dog were new friends, so appealing that I didn't notice that they didn't move as smoothly or as much as other animated superstars. Or if I did, I didn't care. The following October, Bill and Joe introduced their second show, which was even better and all-cartoon…Huckleberry Hound. Before long, they were the kings of Childrens' Television.

When I'm around cartoon buffs and the topic turns to Hanna-Barbera, I hear two distinct reactions, sometimes from the same folks. One is negative, especially from those who began watching cartoons when the H-B output consisted of things like Scooby Doo and The Smurfs and Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch. The other is positive, fixing on how many people loved the shows and how many animation folks bought homes and fed their families thanks to Bill and Joe. Some called them the guys who saved the animation business when theatrical animation was dying out. There's some truth to all of that but it's especially positive to those of us who remember those early Hanna-Barbera shows and discovered them when they firsy debuted…starting with Ruff & Reddy.

Here's the opening of the show…

We're hearing that David Letterman's company will attempt to make an interim deal with the Writers Guild to get his show back on the air. This could be interesting. In past strikes, the network hasn't allowed a supplier to make such contracts. Moreover, Leno and O'Brien couldn't do it as easily because their shows are produced not by their own companies but by NBC. Stay tuned.

Not a whole lot to talk about today. The Writers Guild has announced an informational meeting out at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on Monday evening. This figures since I have another event I was looking forward to that evening and now must choose between them.

The Guild is about to try an end-run around the AMPTP, seeking to get companies to negotiate with us on an individual basis. I will be surprised if this yields anything in the way of results and I suspect we're doing it more for the p.r. value — hey, we're trying to make a deal here — than with any optimism than Universal or Sony or anyone will break ranks. This will probably be discussed at the Monday evening meeting but I wouldn't expect any real major announcements there. What I would expect is a couple of angry members (we always have angry members) getting up and arguing over what, if anything, we should do to get the negotiations going again. Personally, I think anything we give up to get the AMPTP back to the table is setting a suicidal precedent. It's telling them they can get us to give up things we care about just by refusing to negotiate if we don't.

I don't sense that there's a lot of sentiment in the Guild to go that route and start abandoning demands. But one thing I've learned about the WGA is that there's always dissent…about everything. It sometimes is very loud and it almost always gets publicity far in excess of its actual strength. The Guild has a tendency, because it's so firmly committed to Free Speech, to sometimes afford too much dignity and attention to complaints and contrary views. There's nothing wrong with fifty people expressing an opinion opposed to our leadership but they oughta be treated as fifty people, not as a meaningful faction in a union with 10,000+ members.

My pet peeve in the area of Member Complaints would best be described by example. All I have to do is re-create a conversation I witnessed during the 1988 strike between an angry WGA member and a man named Brian Walton, who was our Executive Director and chief negotiator. It was during a period when the AMPTP had walked away from the bargaining table (they like to do that) and was making noises like they were never coming back. The angry member told Walton that the strike was being egregiously mishandled and Walton asked him, "What would you do differently?" The exchange then went almost exactly like this…

MEMBER: I would get in there and negotiate with them.

WALTON: They're refusing to negotiate with us.

MEMBER: Well then, you have to make them negotiate with us.

WALTON: And just how are we supposed to do that?

MEMBER: You sit down with them. You establish a dialogue.

WALTON: Sit down with who? The people who are refusing to talk to us?

MEMBER: Whoever you have to talk to to get a dialogue going.

WALTON: We've been trying since Day One to have a dialogue with these people. They give us their terms and then they throw us out.

MEMBER: That's because you didn't get a dialogue going with them. My agent told me that if he'd been representing the Guild, he would have established a dialogue and that would have segued into a negotiation where he could have gotten us everything we want.

WALTON: When your agent negotiates for you, does he get you everything you want?

MEMBER: No, but then he doesn't have the clout of representing the whole Writers Guild.

As a general rule, you can't make even a great deal in this town without some agent telling you, "I could have gotten you more."

Meanwhile, the AMPTP is hammering our current Executive Director, David Young, selling the idea that he's the problem, especially because he's never negotiated this kind of deal before. It's more or less a fact of life that anyone we send into negotiations is either going to be attacked for inexperience or, if he has experience in this area, attacked for what he's done in the past. If the AMPTP weren't attacking our chief negotiator, I'd figure he wasn't doing a very good job for us.

I understand we're going to have the regular picketing schedule on Monday. Then Tuesday, whoever pickets is going to be waving signs outside AMPTP headquarters. Then after that, there'll be no picketing until 1/7/08. So I think I'll try to get some in Monday or Tuesday…and now that I'm in the mood, I'm leaning towards going to the meeting on Monday evening.

Kevin Drum makes what seems to me like a sound observation as to why so many Conservatives are lining up against Mike Huckabee when he would seem in so many ways to be their ideal candidate.