Ah, Day 150. I wish I could say we're nearing the end of this or even the halfway mark but I think you just frustrate yourself when you set a mental end-date and then have to keep moving it and moving it. I've usually been a big Advance Planner of Life but I've given that up. Last night, I got a grocery delivery including a lovely roast turkey breast which I expertly carved and Tupperwared. I'm thinking it'll be good for about four days, maybe five before what remains of it goes into the food processor and then to the cat dishes. Murphy is already asking when she can expect to see it there.
That's the kind of Advance Planning I do these days. My calendar is devoid of things like planned trips or theater tickets. There's no theater and I don't plan to travel — at least on a plane — for a very long time. About the only thing that lies ahead is an election which promises to get nutzo crazy in ways we never imagined. Eventually, I think, everything will move towards normality but I have no idea how long it'll take to get close to it. How close we'll get is also another good question.
I can make a very good case for myself that's it's not so bad right now, at least around here. I have things to eat, things to do, friends to talk to — mostly from afar, a select few from anear — as we all wait for some light at the end of the tunnel and I can endure it. I just wish we had some better sense of how long that tunnel is.
Yesterday would have been Birthday #94 for Stan Freberg had we not lost the guy in 2015. Stan was a huge influence on my sense of humor…which at times seems like the most precious thing I own. There was a time in my life where if you'd told me I would become friends and/or co-workers with most of the folks whose work I loved, I would have thought you were banana-wackie. Stan was high on that list. He was high on the lists of many people.
Stan meant so much to many of my friends that they've been bidding in the Heritage Auctions sale of some items from his estate — books, scripts, photos, keepsakes, etc. The last of these auctions is up now and it closes in a few days. Take a peek.
James Curtis wrote me to say…
I think you're wrong about The Joey Bishop Show. If I remember correctly, when the show premiered (Baxter Ward covered it on his 11 PM newscast) the gimmick was that it was live to the east coast and shown by tape delay out here the same night. And Regis' opening line was, "Live! From Hollywood!" At some point they apparently decided the "live" part wasn't doing much for them, and it may well have been seen on a day's delay in New York from then on.
My memory is also that the Carson show was seen on a one-day delay on the West Coast when it was based in New York. The story I remember reading was that it was taped and shown on the East Coast, then the tape was put on a red eye and collected at LAX for showing the following day. That may be why so many of the early Carson shows got erased — they were sent to Burbank and it was cheaper and easier to record Truth or Consequences or maybe Let's Make a Deal over them than to send them back.
I think the reason so many of Johnny Carson's shows got erased was that no one — and that included Mr. Carson — thought, "Hey! There might be some value to those things in the future." Johnny complained mightily that NBC had erased or simply thrown out his tapes but he might have said something before it was too late.
Carson's show was day-and-date (taped the same day it was aired) when it was from New York and when he made his occasional visits to Burbank, it was on a one-day delay. As I wrote on this blog before…
Johnny's show stopped being on a one-day delay whenever it emanated from Hollywood on February 9, 1971. That morning, there was a 6.6 earthquake in the city and Johnny called NBC Mission Control (or someone) and said they had to go "same day" that evening so the show could talk about the quake. Whatever had to be arranged was arranged and Johnny came out that night and started his monologue by announcing, "The God is Dead rally has been canceled," a much-quoted joke that has been credited to Pat McCormick, who was then on his writing staff. Thereafter, the show always aired the day they did it.
Before that, I don't know if they shipped tapes out or what. Someone who reads this will write it and tell me. I think Joey Bishop may have been live to the East Coast for a brief time when he first went on but they stopped. One problem with doing the show that way from Hollywood is that it means doing it at 8:30 PM. A few years before he retired, Johnny announced that they were going to start doing The Tonight Show live. I think he thought it was a stunt that might energize the show a bit in its waning days.
They never did it. And what I heard was that when they started talking to guests and their agents, they discovered it would interfere with a lot of good bookings. A desired guest star could tape a spot on Johnny's show at 5:30 PM and then go off to a premiere or a performance that evening. A lot of folks on Johnny's crew weren't that wild about not getting home from work at 11 PM also. I'm guessing maybe that was why Joey stopped doing it…if indeed he ever did. I don't understand why if they could do it live to the East Coast, they couldn't just replay a tape of that three hours later. But you might be right.