Monthly Archives: September 2009

The other day here, I said that the Washington D.C. Fire Department had issued an estimate of 60,000-70,000 people for the 9/12 rally on the National Mall. A lot of sources were reporting that and it turns out that's wrong, too. The Fire Department says they never issued any sort of estimate.

Apparently, there is no such thing as an official estimate of crowd sizes in Washington, at least from any official department. Some used to issue such estimates but the organizers of events always got mad that the reports were lower than they claimed, and some even sued or threatened to sue. The press issues estimates but reporters don't usually have a lot of experience in this area, or access to data like police or transit reports. And of course, this is America where the media is always a pack of lying, biased weasels whenever they say something you don't want to believe is true.

FreedomWorks, a group which is described as the main organizer of the rally, has halved its original claim from 1.5 million to between 600,000 and 800,000. Some of their followers may believe that, some may stick with the original 1.5 million, and it doesn't matter that even some right-wing press said "tens of thousands." These folks will never believe that Obama isn't a lying, Kenyan-born Nazi who's planning to have his secret army throw political opponents into concentration camps. They might as well believe there were 700,000 of themselves there that day.

I dunno what to expect from Jay Leno's new show, which debuts tonight. I like Jay, both in terms of what I've seen of him onstage and off, though elements of his Tonight Show left me cold. I liked his monologues and when he had on a guest he truly liked, the conversations were a lot of fun to watch. I didn't like his reliance on "correspondents" or on the many bits that were devoted to the premise that there are a lot of really, really stupid people out there.

(For the record, I don't like it when Letterman does that, either — usually in some spot involving Rupert, the clueless deli owner around the corner. To his credit, Dave seems to have cut way back on Rupert lately, but he has resurrected what may just be the most childish recurring stunt ever on a talk show, which is to spray water on unsuspecting pedestrians. When I was eight, a kid down the block used to think the funniest thing in the world was to hide near the lawn sprinkler control and when people walked by, to suddenly turn on the H2O and douse them. It's the exact same bit and it hasn't gotten any cleverer.)

Back to Jay. An awful lot of folks out there seem to be rooting for his new show to fail. Those complaining it's taking work away from writers and actors are, I think, exaggerating the impact. Leno is hiring Writers Guild writers — 22 at last report, and rumor has it that some of them are getting paid quite well. They're also being hired year-round, as opposed to being around for 22 episodes and then sent home, and there will be union actors on the show, as well. That may not yield as many jobs as five nights of CSI-type shows in the same time slots, but it's an awful lot more than most reality and game shows have created. There are hours on prime time TV that employ no WGA writers, one or two AFTRA members as hosts…and that's it. There are also hours that take filming and all the production jobs and dollars to Canada, and Jay's show isn't doing that, either.

You also have people who never liked Jay on The Tonight Show…and I suppose they're not going to like him any more at 10:00. Since he's promising lot of "correspondents" and Jay Walking, I may not, either. But let's give the guy a chance. It is at least an attempt to put comedy on in prime time and how often have we gotten that, lately?

By the way: There's a live streaming webcam on Jay's set. You can tune in at any time and see what's happening there. Right now, a lot of folks seem to be walking around aimlessly. I hope that won't be a regular segment on the program.

So a little while ago, I'm surfing around the web and I glimpse an ad for Fujitsu Scanners. It shows a woman holding a knife and fork and sporting a big, crazed expression…

And then I click over to the website for the Excalibur Hotel in Las Vegas and there's a promotion there for an "all-day-long dining" option at their buffet. It contains this picture…

My, this lady gets around. And yes, I know both photos probably just came from a stock photo service. It was just odd to see them on two unrelated websites in a row. And hey, who's to say she isn't using her Fujitsu Scanner at the Excalibur Buffet?

Last night, I watched one of my favorite TV shows each year — the annual Chabad "To Life" Telethon. It's always fun, especially since they dispensed with Dennis Prager as host. Anyway, this year a featured guest was Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and he was quite hilarious, especially since he (i.e., Robert Smigel, his manipulator) seems to have convinced the rabbis to just go along with him, however bizarre it might be. Sorry you probably missed it but I'm told that a segment from Triumph's POV, as shot by his own camera crew, will be on The Tonight Show in the next few nights. We will watch and if possible, we will embed.

Michael Barrier explains a little-known chunk of animation history — two Dr. Seuss cartoons made by Warner Brothers at their short-lived New York cartoon studio.

Ken Levine remembers his friend and employer Larry Gelbart.

Ken's right about how good Larry was at getting back to people, returning calls, etc. I did a couple of minor favors for him and every time, he sent me either an appreciative note or an appreciative note and an autographed copy of the script for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. I have at least three of them. I had one more but I gave it to a friend of mine named Mark who also loves the show.

One time, the "favor" was as follows. The Nathan Lane version of Forum was about to open in New York. I was back there that week and Larry arranged for me to get house seats for a performance that had been "sold out" for weeks. Being the co-author, he got great house seats: Second row on the center aisle. Any closer and I'd have had to play a courtesan. Anyway, since I was going to see the production before he did, he asked me — if I had a moment — to drop him an e-mail after and tell him what I thought of it. I sent him a message that evening that just said, "Needs more Jews." Then I followed it up the next day with a more detailed critique.

In the above case, common sense would suggest that he'd done me a much larger favor than I'd done for him. But Larry didn't see it that way. He sent another copy of Forum, wittily inscribed.

Speaking of Forum: It's my favorite musical and the Reprise group is staging in next March up at UCLA. They do a lecture series up there in conjunction with each show, and I'm one of the folks who lectures. We'd been talking about me interviewing Larry there after it opens, and he'd agreed. I can't tell you how much I was looking forward to that.

One other thing. Larry was active on the Internet, especially on the newsgroup, alt.tv.mash where he answered questions and corrected misinfo. His handle was "elsig" and if you want to read some of his messages, this search should locate some threads in which he participated.

If you browse, you may stumble across a particularly poignant exchange. Larry Linville, who played Frank Burns on M*A*S*H, popped in one day to report he was home following cancer surgery…

Feb 25, 1998

Just wanted to say hi and thanks to all those who've sent cards, letters, whatever, since my "grand opening." Thank God Ferret Face wasn't operating! I'm home now, and doing well. My wife says I'm looking good, but what does she
know. Much love and all the best.

Larry "Frank Burns" Linville

It brought the following public reply from the other Larry…

Feb 28, 1998

So good to hear from you, Ferret Face, and to know that your spirit and your good humor are not deserting you in confrontation with cancer.

I know I speak for every in this newsgroup in wishing you the speediest of recoveries.

It's no hardship for any of us to do this. "It's nice to be nice to the nice."

Love,
Larry Gelbart

Mr. Linville passed away a little more than two years after this exchange…and now we've lost Larry G. to cancer, as well. I'll bet you his spirit and good humor never deserted him in his own confrontation, either.

Several folks have written to tell me that the Big Daddy version of the Star Wars theme is more in the style of Duane Eddy than The Ventures. Okay.

The arguing on the political boards this A.M. mainly seems to be about the size of the turnout for yesterday's anti-Obama rally in Washington. A basic rule of such events is that those who believe in the cause of a public protest always wildly exaggerate its size, those who oppose the cause always underestimate it, reporters make wild guesses and the police and other non-partisan authorities usually get it right. But the accurate estimate gets generally ignored because it isn't of much use to anyone.

So today, you have the anti-Obama crowd claiming 1.5 to 2 million, you have the pro-Obama folks saying 20,000 to 30,000 and you have the D.C. fire department saying 60,000 to 70,000. Interestingly, you have the Washington Times (which is a right-wing paper) and the Washington Post (which has been turning into one) both saying, "tens of thousands." Super-statistician Nate Silver explains a little more about the wide disparity in claims…and seems to side with the fire department.

I'm watching (via TiVo) the memorial service for Walter Cronkite that C-Span has been airing. It's a nice gathering of biggies in network news, saying a lot of incisive things about the departed and also about their profession. Presidents Clinton and Obama also spoke. If you'd like to catch it, it airs again tomorrow on C-Span 1 from 3:30 PM to 6:00 PM Eastern Time.

Earlier, I watched Obama's speech about health care in Minneapolis. Quite nice, though he did tell the "fired up" anecdote for about the six hundredth time.

If you have a moment, go watch Craig Ferguson talk about Joe Wilson's little self-promoting outburst. And take a gander at a funny Jay Leno promo that is running now in movie theaters.